Nov 30 2011
Eyewitness Report: Occupy Los Angeles Raided, Tent City Dismantled
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Occupy LA’s two month long tent city outside City Hall has been dismantled by LAPD after a raid that began last night a few minutes past midnight. About 1,400 police officers, some in riot gear, flooded the steps of City Hall and arrested about 200 protesters who were prepared to hold the camp, some of whom were new arrivals. There were no reports of violence. However, the Associated Press is reporting that “[b]eanbags fired from shotguns were used to subdue the final three protesters in a makeshift tree house.” Accompanying the police was a bomb squad and a Hazmat team. However, no illegal substances, drugs, or weapons were found anywhere on the camp. As of 5 am this morning, the park in front of City Hall, renamed Solidarity Park, is empty. Meanwhile, …
The 17th Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is in its third day in Durban, South Africa, with 15,000 delegates from over 190 countries at the negotiating table. Yesterday the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization announced the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the past 15 years. This year extreme weather has beset all areas of the globe, with floods and mass starvation due to drought leaving tens of thousands dead and many more displaced. The US was hit by a record number of tornadoes, harsh blizzards, killer heat waves and weeks-long forest fires. 2011 is currently on track to tie for the 10th hottest year, adding pressure on the international community to take action before an global rise in temperature reaches 2 degrees …
New federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine went into effect last month, reducing the disparity in sentencing between crack and powdered cocaine from 100 – 1 down to 18-1. Mandatory federal sentencing for individuals caught with small amounts of crack cocaine were eliminated. The disparity swelled prison ranks with a disproportionately high numbers of people of color, and was not proved to be effective. Long jail sentences for non-violent offenders has been shown to be detrimental to the individual and to the communities from which the person is taken and then returned, often traumatized and destitute. The US remains the world leader in jail population with 2.4 million Americans behind bars in federal and state facilities, costing taxpayers $68 billion a year. Our bursting prisons are packed with drug addicts but, according …
The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents. 
It has been more than 24 hours since the deadline for Occupy LA activists to vacate their tent city in front of City Hall. A standoff with LAPD officers early on Monday morning that resulted in the police leaving, energized the movement. Some protesters filed a federal injunction yesterday based on a violation of their civil rights. The injunction names LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, and the city of Los Angeles, and has requested a court order to stop the eviction of the encampment that housed nearly 500 tents at its peak, and is now down to about 300. According to Reuters, last night was more subdued than Sunday night, and “[s]mall clusters of officers stood by casually at various intersections on the fringes of the park, with no …
The Pakistani government has decided to permanently cut off NATO’s supply route for its Afghanistan war effort after US air strikes killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers near the border over the weekend. It is not yet clear what the move will do to the American war effort – nearly half of all war supplies for the almost 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan go through Pakistan. The US’s South Asian ally has also given US troops a 2 week deadline to vacate a base used by the CIA to launch unmanned drone strikes in the North West Frontier Province. A third potential casualty of the attacks is Pakistan’s threat to suspend its role in talks between the US, Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Pakistani militant groups. The US strikes in question were aimed …
Voters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are casting their ballots for a second day today after chaos and violence marred the polls yesterday. The DRC’s election officials extended voting after widespread complaints of irregularities and poor access to the polls. Congolese are voting in Presidential and Parliamentary elections. At least 5 people were killed yesterday following at least as many deaths in election related violence in the days leading up to the vote. The front runners for president used inflammatory language in the days before the election and encouraged supporters not to accept defeat, raising tensions between political and ethnic groups. President Joseph Kabila is expected to beat opponent Etienne Tshisekedi. Kabila set off alarm bells within the international human rights community when he insulted the …
