23 Polish Antimilitarist Activists Violently Arrested From Krzysztof Krol 23 Polish antimilitarist activists were violently arrested on Sunday (30/03/2008) at a private flat of one of them morning after coming back from a demonstration after-party in Slupsk in nothern Poland. On Saturday (29/03/2008) noon a demonstration against the plans of locating up to ten silo-based long-range missile defence interceptors in Poland took place in Slupsk, a city in northern Poland. The military base where the shield would be placed is located near this city. Around 500 people took part in a peaceful march in the city centre, after that around 50 people came to the military base and tried to come inside but were stopped by the police. Nobody was arrested, one person got a fine for using swearwords and drinking beer. At night a techno party organized by anti-war activists was organized at one of the local pubs in Slupsk. The activists came back to their flat and around 6 a.m. cops raided their house and arrested the people inside, aged 18 to 35. The police used heavy violence, beating up the activists with batons and using pepper spray. One of the activists had his arm broken and later managed to run away from the hospital. After an immediate reaction of other activists, lawyers and media cops gave their official version of the event which says that the activists were arrested for „violating the night silence”, some of them are charged with an physical assault and verbal insult of a police officer. First activists were released after 12 hours of interrogation, cops claimed that the activists were drunk and had to sober up before they were questioned. So far (Sunday, 10 p.m.), around 10 people are out, 9 who are charged are still detained and they are said to leave the arrest tomorrow (Monday, 31/03/2008) by 3 p.m. The cops had no legal warrant to come inside the flat. It is not common to send a dozen or so cops to silence people at night, so the argument about them being too loud is clearly a lie.

The Police & Abahlali baseMjondolo A List of Key Incidents of Police Harassment Suffered by Abahlali baseMjondolo (2005-2007) - compiled by Stephanie Lynch and Zodwa Nsibande

CISPES Accused of Being Foreign “Agent” of Leftist Political Party Contact: Burke Stansbury, CISPES – 202 521 2510 ext. 205; burke at cispes.org Central American Solidarity Activists Dispute Department of Justice Order, Denounce Possible Repeat of Illegal Harassment Grassroots Group Accused of Being Foreign "Agent" of Leftist Political Party in Lead-up to Contentious Salvadoran Presidential Elections Washington DC: The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), illegally targeted in the 1980's by the largest FBI

British Prime Minister Blair Takes Job at Yale New Haven, Conn. -- Yale University is pleased to announce the appointment of Prime Minister Tony Blair as the WalMart Fellow Official Greeter for the next academic year.

South American Anarchists and Anti-Militarists Say NO to War * The threat of armed conflict involving the governments of Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela has mobilized anarchists and anti-militarists across the continent, in words and in action, to repudiate what would be a monstrous aggression by state powers against our peoples. Below there are two documents that call for struggle against this evil. __Declaration of Latin American antimilitarists: We don’t need another war__

Venezuela 2008: A Libertarian Proposal for the Current Situation * The Collective Editorship of El Libertario, www.nodo50.org/ellibertario, expounds its vision of which path to follow in the current situation in Venezuela, summed up in the slogan, “Against the (B)oligarchy, demagoguery and corruption: Autonomous struggle of the underdogs!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-holtzman/cheney-impeachment-cour... Cheney Impeachment: Courageous, But Not Surprising Elizabeth Holtzman For the first time since the Bush administration took office, three members of the House Judiciary Committee, Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), are calling for hearings on the impeachment of Vice President Richard Cheney.

Here is my own offer for ending the conflict (originally written almost 3 months ago, right after shmanapolis): Fellow Leftists...

The American economy is in shambles, with a spiraling debt crisis, a vanishing industrial base, and a plummeting dollar. And, as the debacle of the occupation of Iraq continues to demonstrate, the US is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the rest of the world under its hegemonic thumb through military intervention. Giovanni Arrighi's new book, Adam Smith in Beijing, situates this global decline of US power within the context of a epochal shift in the world-system away from North American dominance and towards Asia. Is China the real winner of the "War on Terror"?

The South African State Moves Againts Shackdweller

Abahlali baseMjondolo

Today the KwaZulu-Natal Elimination & Prevention of Re-emergence of Slums Bill will be tabled in the provincial parliament. Abahlali baseMjondolo have discussed this Bill very carefully in many meetings. We have heard Housing MEC Mike Mabuyakulu say that we must not worry because it is aimed at slumlords and shack farming. We have heard Ranjith Purshotum from the Legal Resources Centre say that “Instead of saying that people will be evicted from slums after permanent accommodation is secured, we have a situation where people are being removed from a slum, and sent to another slum. Only this time it is a government-approved slum and is called a transit area. This is the twisted logic of the drafters of the legislation”. We have heard Marie Huchzermeyer from Wits University say that this Bill uses the language of apartheid, is anti-poor and is in direct contradiction with the national housing policy Breaking New Ground. Lawyers have told us that this Bill is unconstitutional.

It is very clear to us that this Bill is an attempt to mount a legal attack on the poor. Already the poor, shack dwellers and street traders, are under illegal and violent attack by Municipalities. This Bill is an attempt to legalize the attacks on the poor. We know about Operation Murambatsvina. Last year one of our members visited Harare and last week we hosted two people from Harare. This Bill is an attempt to legalize a KZN Operation Murambatsvina before the World Cup in 2010. We will fight it all the way.