''Protests reflect deep divisions in Anaheim''

From LATimes

''In a city best known for Disneyland, the Angels and the Ducks, the fatal police shootings of two Latino men over the weekend have uncorked days of furious, sometimes violent protests.

The unrest has exposed long-simmering divisions in Anaheim between the glitz of Disney and professional sports and the struggles in some of the less prosperous Latino neighborhoods in Orange County's largest city.''

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''Anaheim Erupts: Anti-Police Demonstrators Riot''

From LAWeekly

''After the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots this spring, many Angelenos looked back and marveled at how things have changed for the better and how much farther away from that precipice of chaos we've traveled.

Well, in Orange County, the sense that police are an occupying force in a minority community that sometimes feels oppressed by a mostly white local government has come to a head this week.

What started as clashes, rubber bullets and snarling dogs unleashed on families turned into a full-on riot last night''

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UK: ''Riots - The Aftershock'' - BBC Documentary

From BBC ''Radio 1's Gemma Cairney investigates how last year's UK riots changed the lives of those who got caught up in them. Over nine months the film follows three young people who were arrested on those anarchic nights in August 2011, as well as some of the young victims of the riots. With intimate access, we find out how their lives changed as they went through the court process or, for some, the prison system as each began the challenge of building a new life after the riots.''

U.K.: "Prison riots warning as budget cuts hit 'volatile' jails"

read more from the telegraph...

"The Prison Officers Association (POA) has written to ministers to say the safety both of officers and inmates is being put at risk as the population behind bars reaches “unsustainable” levels.

The number being held in jails in England and Wales has increased by almost 4,000 in the past year to 87,393 this week.

The figure is expected to continue to rise next year, potentially requiring some prisoners to be held in police cells."

'Supercomputer Predicts Revolution'

from singularity hub........

"A new type of software has been shown to predict revolutions by mining news reports around the world. Retrospectively mining the news for the past 30 years the software indicates points at which the likelihood for a revolution is high. When put to the test – bingo! – the software showed spikes just before the recent Egyptian and Libyan upheavals. It was also able to sift through world news to retrospectively pinpoint Osama Bin Ladin’s location to within 200 km. In the emerging science of ‘culturomics’ that tracks cultural trends through the written word, the software was the first to demonstrate that news coverage can be used to predict future events"..............READ MORE

'Mayor Bloomberg predicts riots in the streets if economy doesn't create more jobs'

from nydailynews.........

"Mayor Bloomberg warned Friday there would be riots in the streets if Washington doesn't get serious about generating jobs.

"We have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs," Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show. 

"That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here"..............READ MORE

'Are food prices approaching a violent tipping point?'

from the guardian......

"Seeking simple explanations for the Arab spring uprisings that have swept through Tunisia, Egypt and now Libya, is clearly foolish amidst entangled issues of social injustice, poverty, unemployment and water stress. But asking "why precisely now?" is less daft, and a provocative new study proposes an answer: soaring food prices.

Furthermore, it suggests there is a specific food price level above which riots and unrest become far more likely. That figure is 210 on the UN FAO's price index: the index is currently at 234, due to the most recent spike in prices which started in the middle of 2010.

Lastly, the researchers argue that current underlying food price trends - excluding the spikes - mean the index will be permanently over the 210 threshold within a year or two. The paper concludes: "The current [food price] problem transcends the specific national political crises to represent a global concern about vulnerable populations and social order." Big trouble, in other words"...........READ MORE

'China cracks down in Xinjiang following ethnic violence'

from the guardian........

"Chinese security forces have launched a two-month "strike hard" crackdown against violence, terrorism and radical Islam following renewed ethnic violence in the restive western region of Xinjiang, the regional government has announced.

The campaign, which began on 11 August and will last until 15 October, includes around-the-clock patrols of troublespots, identity checks and street searches of people and vehicles, according to a notice posted on the regional government's website"............READ MORE

'Communist China sends anti-terror unit to restive Xinjiang'

from afp.........

"China has deployed an elite police counter-terrorism unit to the restive northwest region of Xinjiang after a series of deadly attacks there, state media reported Saturday.

The Snow Leopard Commando unit is expected to carry out "anti-terrorist missions" in Kashgar and Hotan, which were hit by the recent violence, the China Daily newspaper quoted a spokesman for the region's police force as saying.

The unit is an elite counter-terrorism group under the People's Armed Force whose responsibilities include riot control and bomb disposal as well as reacting to hijacks"............READ MORE

Photo Essay: "Student Protests in Chile"

amazing photos.........from the atlantic.........

"For the past several months, students, teachers, and their supporters in Chile have been staging chaotic demonstrations against their government. Their goal is to transform the country's education system. In particular, they're seeking a referendum to significantly increase the funding and quality of public schools. Students have engaged in multiple forms of protest, from hunger strikes and sit-ins to marches and pillow fights. Smaller groups of protesters have engaged riot police directly, hurling stones and firebombs. Chilean authorities have responded by banning demonstrations, pushing protesters back with water cannons, and offering education proposals that have been rejected. Students in the tens of thousands -- with popular backing across Chile -- continue to march without official permission, and public sentiment against president Sebastian Piñera continues to grow. Collected here are some scenes from the streets of Chile over the past few months. [38 photos]".............VIEW PICS HERE

'Burning cars fan the flames of Chile’s student protests'

protests and riots breaking out EVERYWHERE.......from santiagotimes.......

"Like the many marches that came before, Tuesday’s march featured continued incidents of violence and chaos, with two cars set on fire near downtown Paseo Bulnes and assorted reports of looting in downtown businesses.

Chilean police reacted with the use of tear gas and “guanaco” water cannons to disperse crowds. The number of arrests  is so far undetermined.

Organizers from the Student Confederations of Chile (Confech) estimated that 100,000 people turned out for the protest, while Chile’s Carabinero police force said that only 60,000 participated.

Camila Vallejo, president of the Student Federation of the Universidad de Chile, called the violence “appalling” after having pleaded with her followers on Twitter to maintain pacifism throughout the march"............PICS AND TEXT HERE

London riots: the underclass lashes out

from the telegraph......

"London's rioters are the products of a crumbling nation, and an indifferent political class that has turned its back on them"

"This is the most arcane of uprisings and the most modern. Its participants, marshalled by Twitter, are protagonists in a sinister flipside to the Arab Spring. The Tottenham summer, featuring children as young as seven, is an assault not on a regime of tyranny but on the established order of a benign democracy. One question now hangs over London’s battle-torn high streets. How could this ever happen?

Among several obvious answers, one is a failure of policing. The evidence so far points to more ignominy for the rudderless Met, as doubts emerge over whether Mark Duggan, whose death inspired the initial riots, fired at police. The stonewalling of Mr Duggan’s family precipitated the crisis, and the absence of officers to intervene in an orgy of looting led to a breakdown of order suggestive of the lawless badlands of a failing state".

So blame unemployment and the cuts. It is true that Tottenham is among London’s poorest boroughs, with 10,000 people claiming jobseeker’s allowance and 54 applicants chasing every registered job vacancy. In other affected boroughs, such as Hackney, youth clubs are closing. Unwise as such pruning may be, it would be facile to suggest that homes and businesses have been laid waste for want of ping-pong tournaments and skateboard parks.

The real causes are more insidious. It is no coincidence that the worst violence London has seen in many decades takes place against the backdrop of a global economy poised for freefall. The causes of recession set out by J K Galbraith in his book, The Great Crash 1929, were as follows: bad income distribution, a business sector engaged in “corporate larceny”, a weak banking structure and an import/export imbalance"..............READ MORE

Photo Essay: London Riots

from daily mail......VIEW PICS HERE

Photo Essay: 'Tottenham hit by riots and looting'

"A peaceful protest against a fatal police shooting descended into mayhem in north London on Saturday night"


from the guardian..........VIEW HERE

'Six policemen hurt in latest Northern Ireland riots'

from metro.com.......

"The crowd threw missiles and petrol bombs, before the riot worsened and a bus was hijacked and driven into a police car, leaving five officers with injuries.

Police used water cannons and fired baton rounds at the rioters as they battled to restore order.

It is believed loyalists were largely responsible for the trouble, as it flared up after they blocked a number of roads in response to a dispute about the erection of flags in the town.

The unrest in Ballyclare was over by 2:30am this morning, but there were further disturbances in Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey and Magherafelt.

A number of vehicles were burned out in Carrickfergus and missiles were thrown at police in Magherafelt after they tried to re-open a road that had been blocked by a bonfire.

There have been a number of outbreaks of serious disorder in Belfast in recent weeks, with one incident seeing a press photographer shot in the leg"...............READ MORE

'UN warns of food riots in developing world as drought pushes up prices'

"European dry spell and commodities speculation combine to push up average cereal costs by 71% to record levels"

from the guardian....

"Food prices are expected to hit new highs in the coming weeks, tightening the squeeze on UK households and potentially triggering further unrest in developing countries unless there is heavy rainfall across drought-affected Europe, the United Nations has warned.

The average global price of cereals jumped by 71% to a new record in the year to April, more than three times higher than a decade ago, according to latest UN figures, prompting its Food and Agriculture Organisation to warn that Europe faces a pivotal few weeks"...............LINK

'The Arab spring was triggered in Tunisia when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after claiming he was slapped by policewoman Fedia Hamdi. But as Elizabeth Day discovers, revolutions create their own myths'

from the guardian........


"It is a phrase I will hear again and again, in varying forms across Tunisia. Some will call Mohamed Bouazizi "the drop that tipped over the vase"; others will insist that his death "lit the touchpaper" for the Arab spring revolts. But listen closely and there is also a growing murmur of dissent among those who believe that Mohamed was not a political hero but a media creation, manufactured by a myth-making machine that swung into action in the immediate aftermath of his death.


I had gone to Tunisia with Observer photographer Andy Hall expecting to tell the story of a nation unified behind an ordinary man who provoked an extraordinary set of events across North Africa and the Middle East. Instead, to our astonishment, we discovered a tale of bitter feuding and division in his hometown of Sidi Bouzid, where the truth of what happened is disputed by rival factions and where the once-glorious memory of Mohamed Bouazizi is picked over like carrion in the streets.


"His mother is the only winner of this revolution," says Hania Bouazizi, a cousin of the family and Manoubia's former neighbour. "Life is still hard for the majority of Tunisians, but she has banked thousands of dinars. She became so greedy, so haughty – she'd go into supermarkets and say, 'Don't you know who I am? I'm the mother of the martyr Mohamed.' She became narcissistic and wanted to take everything for herself… That's the real story."..............LINK

'How the Fed triggered the Arab Spring uprisings in two easy graphs'

from the telegraph.uk...

"It is possible to join the dots between the Fed’s second phase of quantitative easing and the revolutions in the Middle East"......view the graph here

"One curious aspect of recent events in the Middle East and North Africa is how unwilling most commentators have been to join the dots between the Federal Reserve’s second phase of quantitative easing and these revolutions. I’m less queasy. Of course, all revolutions have many causes, and I don’t mean to belittle the achievements of brave non-violent protesters, desperate self-immolators, or saloon-car rifle-wielders. But, as a trigger and driver of these events, the Fed seems very clearly to have achieved more in the Arab world in six months than the Pentagon achieved in decades".

"The Oil-Food Price Shock"

"When future historians attempt to trace the origins of the current turmoil in the Middle East, they will find that one of the earliest of the many explosions of rage occurred in Algeria and was triggered by the rising price of food. On January 5, young protesters in Algiers, Oran and other major cities blocked roads, attacked police stations and burned stores in demonstrations against soaring food prices. Other concerns—high unemployment, pervasive corruption, lack of housing—also aroused their ire, but food costs provided the original impulse"..........From internationviewpoint....read more here: