Roger Stone to Donald Trump: bring in martial law if you lose election

THAT WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG FROM BANNON'S ADMIRATION OF LENIN'S BOLSHEVIK COUP TO STONE'S NIXONIAN FANTASY OF COPS IN THE STREETS

Trump meanwhile promises to ‘put down’ leftwing protests and says US Marshals killing Portland suspect was ‘retribution’  ASSASSINATION IS A BETTER WORD

Roger Stone in 2019. The long-time Trump ally has said the president should refuse to give up power should he lose November’s election. Photograph: Sam Corum/EPA

Martin Pengelly

@MartinPengelly

Sun 13 Sep 2020 

Roger Stone, whose 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress and witness tampering in the Russia investigation was commuted by Donald Trump, has said Trump should seize total power and jail prominent figures including Bill and Hillary Clinton and Mark Zuckerberg if he loses to Joe Biden in November.

The long-time Republican strategist and dirty trickster, who has a tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back, lied about contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 election regarding emails hacked from Democratic party accounts.

In turn, special counsel Robert Mueller and the Senate intelligence committee suspected Trump lied when he said he could not recall discussing the leaks with Stone.

Trump uses Fox News interview to accuse Biden of taking drugs

Read more

Stone did not turn on Trump and had his sentence reduced on the recommendation of attorney general William Barr. But he still faced prison before Trump acted. His conviction stands.

Both men were in Nevada on Saturday, Trump holding campaign events while Stone sought to raise money for himself. He outlined his advice to Trump should he lose in a call to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s Infowars online show, on Thursday.

Citing widely debunked claims of fraud around early voting, absentee balloting and voting by mail, Stone said Trump should consider invoking the Insurrection Act and arresting the Clintons, former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Tim Cook of Apple and “anybody else who can be proven to be involved in illegal activity”.

Stone also said: “The ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state. They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if that turns out to be the provable case. Send federal marshals to the Clark county board of elections, Mr President!”

Nevada has not gone to a Republican since 2004 but is shaping up to be a crucial contest this year. Biden leads there, but polls have tightened.

Trump’s own rhetoric was not far removed from that of the man he spared prison. The president continued on Saturday to make unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud. He and his campaign have also consistently claimed without evidence that “antifa”, or anti-fascist, activists represent a deadly threat to suburban voters that will be unleashed should Biden win.

Commenting on a Daily Beast report about leftwing activist groups planning what to do “if the election ends without a clear outcome or with a Biden win that Trump refuses to recognize”, Stone told Jones the website should be shut down.

“If the Daily Beast is involved in provably seditious and illegal activities,” he said, “their entire staff can be taken into custody and their office can be shut down. They wanna play war, this is war.”

Stone also advocated “forming an election day operation using the FBI, federal marshals and Republican state officials across the country to be prepared to file legal objections [to results] and if necessary to physically stand in the way of criminal activity”.

In an interview broadcast on Saturday night, Trump told Fox News he would happily “put down” any leftwing protests.

“We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that,” he told Jeannine Pirro.

“We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that if we want. Look, it’s called insurrection. We just send in and we, we do it very easy. I mean, it’s very easy. I’d rather not do that, because there’s no reason for it, but if we had to, we’d do that and put it down within minutes, within minutes.”

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to use federal troops to enforce federal law. Last used in 1992, it was much discussed this summer, amid protests over racism and police brutality arising from the killing of George Floyd by officers in Minneapolis.

Ultimately Trump chose simply to send federal agents to confront protesters, most prominently in Portland, Oregon, a move which proved hugely controversial.

In his interview with Fox News, Trump discussed an incident in the city in which US Marshals shot dead a suspect in the killing of a member of a rightwing group.

“There has to be retribution when you have crime like this,” Trump said.

He also said protests such as those in Portland would lead to “a backlash” from the political right, “the likes of which you haven’t seen in many, many years”.

Is the 'Mozart Effect' real? New analysis indicates that music can help epilepsy

by European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A new comprehensive analysis on the effect of Mozart's music on epilepsy has confirmed that listening to his piano music can reduce the frequency of epilepsy attacks. The results of this comprehensive meta-analysis (a study of studies), which may overturn current skepticism about the effect, are presented at the ECNP congress after recent publication in a peer-reviewed journal.


The idea that listening to Mozart may have beneficial effects on mental health arose from early findings in the 1990s. There have been several studies since, but many involved small numbers of people, or have been of variable quality, leading to mixed evidence overall. This has meant that the 'Mozart Effect' has been treated with some skepticism by many clinicians. Now two Italian Researchers, Dr. Gianluca Sesso and Dr. Federico Sicca from the University of Pisa have conducted a systematic review of works related to the effect of Mozart's music on epilepsy.

Working according to accepted standard methods for analyzing clinical treatment, they looked at 147 published research articles, which they then evaluated according to such things are relevance and quality of the research. This allowed them to select 12 pieces of research which they gathered into 9 separate groups, representing the best available science on the effect of Mozart's music on epilepsy.

They found that listening to Mozart, especially on a daily basis, led to a significant reduction in epileptic seizures, and also to a reduced frequency of abnormal brain activities in epileptic patients (called interictal epileptiform discharges, which are commonly seen in epileptic patients). These effects occurred after a single listening session and were maintained after a prolonged period of treatment.

Gianluca Sesso said "This isn't the first such review of the effect of Mozart's music on epilepsy, but there has been a flow of new research in the last few years, so it was time to stand back and look at the overall picture. The design of the studies varies, for example some people look at a single listening session, others at daily listening sessions, so it's not easy to form a conclusion.

Epilepsy is surprisingly common, affecting just under 1 person in a hundred worldwide. This means that it has significant social and personal costs. Mostly it's treated by drugs, but these drugs don't work in around 30% of patients, so we need to be open to other therapies: the important thing is that these therapies can be tested and shown to work, and this is what we have shown here".

The meta-analysis indicates that a period of listening to Mozart can give an average reduction in epileptic seizures ranging from between 31% to 66%, but this varies from person to person and according to the music stimulus used. The original studies on the Mozart Effect used the sonata for 2 pianos, K448, and this has remained the music most used in studies. The K545 piano sonata has also been shown to have an effect.

Dr. Sesso said, "All cultures have music, so it obviously fulfills some psychological need. The mechanisms of the Mozart Effect are poorly understood. Obviously other music may have similar effects, but it may be that Mozart's sonatas have distinctive rhythmic structures which are particularly suited to working on epilepsy. This may involve several brain systems, but this would need to be proven.

This is a review of research, and not original research. One thing it shows is that we need more consistent studies into the effect of music on the mind"

Commenting, Dr. Vesta Steibliene, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, and member of the ECNP Abstract and Poster Committee commented, "There is growing interest in non-invasive brain stimulation techniques in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. This review revealed that Mozart music could be an effective non-invasive method of neurostimulation, reducing the frequency of epileptic seizures, even in hard to treat patients. However, in order to use this method in clinical settings, the exact mechanism of the Mozart music effect on the brain regions should be better understood".

Dr. Steibliene was not involved in this work.


Explore further  

Epileptic patients listening to Mozart composition suffered fewer seizures: study

More information: Here are links to excerpts from the Mozart piano sonatas mentioned in the article:

K448 for 2 pianos, (pianists Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu) open.spotify.com/embed/album/0 … fMutJIKcohWLEZ3UhAux

K545 sonata (pianist, Lang Lang) open.spotify.com/embed/album/2 … 6Cg49cL6PtyDODubUzGY


Conference Abstract: Safe and sound: meta-analysing the Mozart effect on epilepsy

Provided by European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

 

Volcanic ash may have a bigger impact on the climate than we thought

by University of Colorado at Boulder

A plume of ash and dust rises from Pavlof Volcano on the Alaskan Peninsula in 2013. Credit: NASA

When volcanos erupt, these geologic monsters produce tremendous clouds of ash and dust—plumes that can blacken the sky, shut down air traffic and reach heights of roughly 25 miles above Earth's surface.

A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that such volcanic ash may also have a larger influence on the planet's climate than scientists previously suspected.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Communications, examines the eruption of Mount Kelut (or Kelud) on the Indonesian island of Java in 2014. Drawing on real-world observations of this event and advanced computer simulations, the team discovered that volcanic ash seems to be prone to loitering—remaining in the air for months or even longer after a major eruption.

"What we found for this eruption is that the volcanic ash can persist for a long time," said Yunqian Zhu, lead author of the new study and a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.

Lingering ash

The discovery began with a chance observation: Members of the research team had been flying an unmanned aircraft near the site of the Mount Kelut eruption—an event that covered large portions of Java in ash and drove people from their homes. In the process, the aircraft spotted something that shouldn't have been there.

"They saw some large particles floating around in the atmosphere a month after the eruption," Zhu said. "It looked like ash."

Ash covers rooftops in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in the wake of the 2014 eruption of Mount Kelut Credit: CC photo via Wikimedia Commons

She explained that scientists have long known that volcanic eruptions can take a toll on the planet's climate. These events blast huge amounts of sulfur-rich particles high into Earth's atmosphere where they can block sunlight from reaching the ground.

Researchers haven't thought, however, that ash could play much of a role in that cooling effect. These chunks of rocky debris, scientists reasoned, are so heavy that most of them likely fall out of volcanic clouds not long after an eruption.

Zhu's team wanted to find out why that wasn't the case with Kelut. Drawing on aircraft and satellite observations of the unfolding disaster, the group discovered that the volcano's plume seemed to be rife with small and lightweight particles of ash—tiny particles that were likely capable of floating in the air for long periods of time, much like dandelion fluff.

"Researchers have assumed that ash is similar to volcanic glass," Zhu said. "But what we've found is that these floating ones have a density that's more like pumice."

Disappearing molecules

Study coauthor Brian Toon added that these pumice-like particles also seem to shift the chemistry of the entire volcanic plume.

Toon, a professor in LASP and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at CU Boulder, explained that erupting volcanos spew out a large amount of sulfur dioxide. Many researchers previously assumed that those molecules interact with others in the air and convert into sulfuric acid—a series of chemical reactions that, theoretically, could take weeks to complete. Observations of real-life eruptions, however, suggest that it happens a lot faster than that.

NASA's unmanned Global Hawk aircraft, which observed ash lingering in the air after the eruption. Credit: NASA/Dryden/Carla Thomas

"There has been a puzzle of why these reactions occur so fast," Toon said.

He and his colleagues think they've discovered the answer: Those molecules of sulfur dioxide seem to stick to the particles of ash floating in the air. In the process, they may undergo chemical reactions on the surface of the ash itself—potentially pulling around 43% more sulfur dioxide out of the air.

Ash, in other words, may hasten the transformation of volcanic gasses in the atmosphere.

Just what the impact of those clouds of ash are on the climate isn't clear. Long-lasting particles in the atmosphere could, theoretically, darken and even help to cool the planet after an eruption. Floating ash might also blow all the way from sites like Kelut to the planet's poles. There, it could kickstart chemical reactions that would damage Earth's all-important ozone layer.

But the researchers say that one thing is clear: When a volcano blows, it may be time to pay a lot more attention to all that ash and its true impact on Earth's climate.

"I think we've discovered something important here," Toon said. "It's subtle, but it could make a big difference."

Volcanic emissions can cause changes in the atmosphere over a long time

---

More information: Yunqian Zhu et al. Persisting volcanic ash particles impact stratospheric SO2 lifetime and aerosol optical properties, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18352-5

Journal information: Nature Communications 

Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder

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Infection higher in hospital cleaners than ICU staff: report

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Intensive care medics were significantly less likely to have been infected with COVID-19 than cleaners and other healthcare workers in departments deemed lower risk, according to a study of several British hospitals at the peak of the pandemic.


The research also found that people of black, Asian and minority ethnicity were nearly twice as likely to have been infected as white colleagues.

It follows several studies suggesting race, income and allocation of personal protective equipment (PPE) create biases in the burden of infections.

Researchers said the results could be because those working in intensive therapy units (ITU) were prioritised for the highest level of masks and other equipment.

"We presumed intensive care workers would be at highest risk... But workers in ITU are relatively well protected compared with other areas," said lead author Alex Richter, a professor of immunology at the University of Birmingham.

In the study, published in the journal Thorax, researchers tested more than 500 staff at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs several hospitals and employs more than 20,000 staff.

All the staff were at work in late April, when cases were peaking around a month after the UK went into lockdown.

At this time the trust was admitting five patients with serious COVID-19 infection every hour, but capacity to perform tests for infection was severely constrained even for healthcare workers.

Researchers offered to give staff who had no symptoms two different tests—one to see if they were currently infected and the other to test for antibodies indicating that they had previously had the virus.

Nearly 2.5 percent—13 out of 545—staff tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infection.

Researchers also took blood samples from 516 staff and found that 24 percent of them had antibodies for the virus. This compares to six percent generally in the Midlands region of England at the time.

Ten out of 29 cleaners involved in the study—or 34.5 percent—had antibodies suggesting a previous infection.

The rates were similar for clinicians working in acute medicine and general internal medicine—33 percent and 30 percent respectively—while staff working in intensive care had the lowest rates (15 percent, or nine out of 61 participants).

The authors said it was not clear from their observational study whether the higher rates of infection among some staff "arises from a greater risk of exposure to the virus, or a greater risk of infection if exposed".

"Regardless of the cause, this finding demands urgent further investigation, particularly in view of the ethnic disparities in the outcome from COVID-19," they said.

Protecting staff

A slew of studies in the general population have highlighted how people from minority backgrounds in Britain and the United States are disproportionately more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts.

Last month a study published in The Lancet Public Health journal found that frontline health workers were more than three times more likely to test positive for the virus than the general population early in the pandemic, with the rate rising to five times for ethnic minority medical staff.

Commenting on the study in Thorax, Tim Cook, an anaesthesia professor at the University of Bristol, said it adds to research suggesting those working in intensive care were at lower risk than staff in other parts of a hospital.

He said the availability and type of PPE could be a factor as well as familiarity with more rigorous precautions for sterility and infection prevention in emergency rooms.

He added that recent studies suggested patients were more infectious at the beginning of their illness, so may be less likely to spread the virus by the time that they are treated in intensive care.

"Those caring for the patients earlier in their illness may be more at risk and this has implications for managing all patient-facing staff on the wards," he added.


Explore furtherHospital COVID-19 risk lowest among intensive care staff
More information: SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and asymptomatic viral carriage in healthcare workers: a cross-sectional study, Thorax (2020). DOI: 10.1136/thoraxjnl-2020-215414
Journal information: Thorax , The Lancet Public Health

US democratic indicators plummet amid racial justice protests and pandemic

by University of Rochester

Placed in a longer-term context, the experts' ratings of US democratic performance have fallen the furthest since Bright Line Watch's inception in 2017 for the following five items: the judiciary can limit the executive, protests are tolerated, agencies do not punish, the constitution limits the executive, and the legislature can limit the executive. Credit: Bright Line Watch

The health of democracy in the United States has reached its lowest point since an academic watchdog group of political scientists began tracking its performance in 2017.


Results of the August 2020 survey from Bright Line Watch—a political science research project of faculty at the University of Rochester, the University of Chicago, and Dartmouth College—show a small but perceptible drop in the experts' rating of the overall quality of US democracy.

During the first two years of Bright Line Watch expert surveys, from February 2017 to March 2019, average scores were generally in the high 60s on a 0-100 scale, with a decline in the period before the 2018 midterm elections and then an uptick afterward in March 2019. Since then, however, three consecutive expert surveys have shown successive declines, driving ratings of US democracy to a new low of 61 on the Bright Line Watch scale in their latest survey.

While there are a few bright spots in the latest report, the overall picture is cause for consternation, notes Gretchen Helmke, professor of political science at the University of Rochester.

Since February 2017, the nonpartisan group of political scientists, which includes Helmke and Mitchell Sanders '97 (Ph.D.) of Meliora Research, has been surveying the American public, as well as colleagues in academia, in an effort to gauge the relative well-being of the nation's democracy.

"It is concerning that there has been so much erosion across the board on so many principles," says Helmke. "We have been seeing growing gaps for a while between how important a principle is and how it is performing, particularly in areas related to institutional limits on the government and accountability. But the latest survey showed us just how much ground has been lost since March."

In one way or another, COVID-19 has touched billions of lives around the globe and cast a pall over US politics. To date, more than 185,000 people have died in the US alone. Campaigns for the presidency, Congress, and other public offices are taking place in a largely virtual medium. At the same time, since Memorial Day, when George Floyd died while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers, protests over Floyd's death and the government's response to the protests have highlighted challenges to democratic governance. The survey was completed before the police shooting of Jacob Blake on August 23 in Kenosha, Wisconsin.


In its 11th survey of experts, the academic watchdog group asked political scientists across the country how US democracy fared during the pandemic.

The 776 responding experts, polled between July 27 and August 17, see the overall quality of US democracy continuing on its downward trend, reaching the lowest point since Bright Line Watch began its surveys in early 2017.

Key findings of Bright Line Watch's August 2020 survey
Performance declines since March 2020 are greatest for protections of free speech, toleration of peaceful protest, and protection from political violence.
Experts see considerable declines since 2017 in the performance of democratic principles concerning limits on government power and accountability for its misuse.
Experts are concerned about the state of American elections. Although relatively few express significant concerns about fraud, the majority does not believe that elections are free from foreign influence. Two-thirds of the experts do not think that citizens have an equal opportunity to vote, or that all votes have equal impact.
The gap between expert assessments of the importance of numerous principles and performance on those principles has widened. In the past, importance and performance ratings were highly correlated; experts perceived stronger performance for more important principles. That relationship has weakened.

Performance on democratic principles

Bright Line Watch asked experts to gauge how well the US "fully meets," "mostly meets," "partly meets," or "does not meet" standards for 28 democratic principles.

Overall, experts rate the US as performing well on questions related to rights and freedoms—such as political parties, opinions, and speech. They rate the US as performing poorly on dimensions associated with civility and behavior—such as patriotism, compromise, and facts, and electoral dysfunction—such as biased districts, campaign contributions, and inequality of votes. Experts express more mixed judgments on items involving accountability of officeholders and institutions.

"The most alarming findings, though not particularly surprising, are the steep declines in government protection for peaceful protest and the prevention of political violence," says Helmke. "This is really a new and quite worrisome trend, and, of course, our polling for this survey took place even before the events in Kenosha."

Specifically, since March, experts perceive substantial declines in government protection for peaceful protests (-31 percentage points), prevention of political violence (-16.7 percentage points), and protections for free speech (-12.4 percentage points). According to Bright Line Watch, those decreases can be attributed to the administration's responses to protests and demonstrations, including the use of nonlethal weapons against protestors and the deployment of federal agents in Portland and Washington, DC.

Expert ratings also declined for the principles that government statistics and data not be influenced by political considerations(-14.3 percentage points), that investigations of public officials remain free of political interference (-10.9 percentage points), and that voter participation in elections is generally high (-9 percentage points).

The only significant improvement in performance is on the principle that the judiciary can effectively limit the executive, which rose from 44 percent to 58 percent of experts saying that the US "mostly" or "fully" meets this standard. This increase might reflect recent Supreme Court decisions that prevented President Trump from blocking the release of his financial records and overturned his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to the Bright Line Watch team.

The long view

When placed in a longer-term context, the experts' ratings of US democratic performance have fallen the furthest since Bright Line Watch's inception in 2017 for the following five items:
Government protects individuals' right to engage in peaceful protest
Executive authority cannot be expanded beyond constitutional limits
The legislature is able to effectively limit executive power
The judiciary is able to effectively limit executive power
Government agencies are not used to monitor, attack, or punish political opponents


Explore furtherPerception of US democracy tanks after Trump impeachment
Provided by University of Rochester

 

About 10 thousand women march across Minsk in peaceful protest

2020.09.12 

Simultaneously with the beginning of the action, arrests began on the Freedom square.

Women’s March. September 12, Minsk. Photo: Belsat.eu

After the Women’s March was over, the security forces detained the participants and bystanders.

The store on Independence Avenue welcomes the participants of the peaceful Women’s March. Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

Women’s March in Minsk. September 12, 2020. Photo: Alyaksandr Vasyukovich / Vot-tak

The participants in the march drove the journalists of the Russian channel RT, who worked also for the Belarusian State Television, to the other side of the road.

The Independence Avenue. Only public transport was running. Women’s March, September 12, Minsk. Photo: Belsat.eu

The girls stopped the public transport so that everyone could move together, and then thanked the drivers. Women’s March, Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

Viasna reports about almost 30 people detained today in Minsk.

The girls stopped the public transport so that everyone could move together, and then thanked the drivers. Women’s March, Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

One of the main slogans of the women’s march today was “Where is our Masha?”

Women’s march in Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.euAmong the detained are Belsat journalists Katsyaryna Andreyeva and Maksim Kalitouski, who were broadcasting live. They wore vests with the words “Press”. Andreyeva wrote on her Facebook: “Maks Kalitouski and I have been detained, during the arrest they threatened to handcuff me. We are in the Kastrychnitski district police department. They’ve seized the camera and phone, if we do not give it back, we can be charged with article 23.4,”. Come here everyone, especially a lawyer.”

Women’s march to Freedom Square. The girl tore off the mask from the security officer, he hit her. Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

Women’s march at the Freedom Square. Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

Women’s march at the Freedom Square. Minsk, September 12. Photo: Belsat.eu

Tags: action elections elections-2020 March picket pol

Belarus police arrest dozens of protesters at anti-Lukashenko rally

Issued on: 12/09/2020 -
  

Law enforcement officers block demonstrators during a women's rally against police brutality following protests to reject the presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, September 12, 2020. via REUTERS - TUT.BY

Belarus police detained dozens of protesters on Saturday as thousands of people gathered in the capital Minsk demanding the release of a jailed opposition leader, the latest in a wave of mass protests following a disputed election.

Maria Kolesnikova, 38, has emerged as a key opposition figure after others were either jailed or forced out of the country, including Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya who challenged President Alexander Lukashenko in the presidential election.

Protesters say the Aug. 9 election was rigged to hand Lukashenko a phoney landslide win and that Tsikhanouskaya - who has since fled to Lithuania - was the real winner. Lukashenko, who has been in power for 26 years, denies this and has said foreign powers are behind the protests.

At least 5,000 protesters, many of them women, gathered in central Minsk on Saturday, chanting "Go away!" in reference to Lukashenko, and "Masha" - a common alternative for Maria - in support of Kolesnikova, a Reuters witness said.

"Sveta is my president, Masha is my queen," read one of the slogans held up in the crowd.

Police starting detaining people shortly after the protests started at 1200 GMT, putting at least 40 into police vans in the first hour of the rally alone, according to the witness.

Kolesnikova was driven to the Ukrainian border earlier last week after being seen snatched off the streets of Minsk and into a van by masked men.

According to two allies who were with her, she prevented being expelled from Belarus by tearing her passport up into small pieces and throwing it out of a car window. She is now detained in Minsk, and faces a potential long prison term over accusations of trying to seize power illegally.

Tsikhanouskaya,who stood against Lukashenko in place of her better-known husband who was detained before election, called on Saturday for the police to stop cracking down on dissent.

"Violence you are putting on women is disgraceful," she said in a statement. "Anyone who commits a crime against peaceful protesters will be called to answer."

(REUTERS)

  

Belarus: Women attacked and detained as protests persist

Demonstrations against the embattled regime of Alexander Lukashenko have continued in Minsk despite ongoing repression. Female protesters were kettled and attacked by masked men not wearing insignias.


Belarusian riot police on Saturday violently detained several dozen women demonstrators, as President Alexander Lukashenko's regime continued to resort to violence against its own people to cling to power.

Clashes broke out in Minsk's Freedom Square as men in blackface masks and green uniforms without insignia shoved and kettled the women protesters, as was visible in footage broadcast by Belsat TV channel and Tut.by, a Belarusian independent outlet.
Confrontation with authorities

Some protesters pushed back and tried to unmask the uniformed men.

Another video showed riot police officers roughly throwing the women into police vans. The Viasna rights group said at least 45 people were detained.

Unprecedented demonstrations have erupted in recent weeks after the president defeated opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and won re-election with 80% of the vote on August 9. 

Tsikhanouskaya's supporters dispute the result, and the candidate is currently in exile in Lithuania.
Lukashenko told to 'Go away!'

Reuters reported that many of the 5,000 protesters present on Saturday chanted "Go away!" in reference to Lukashenko, and "Masha" — a common alternative for Maria — in support of opposition activist, Maria Kolesnikova.

The 38-year-old is one of several of Lukashenko's opponents who have been jailed or detained over recent weeks.

Kolesnikova was detained after she resisted forced expulsion from the country by ripping up her passport.

Read more: Maria Kolesnikova, musician and Lukashenko opponent

On Saturday, Kolesnikova was moved to a new location northeast of the Belarusian capital. The opposition wrote on Twitter that they had not been told the reason for the move.

Belarus opposition politician remains in police custody

Kolesnikova is a close ally of Tsikhanouskaya and the pair are members of the 7-person Coordination Council, which the election candidate set up to demand new elections in the ex-Soviet nation of 9.5 million people.

bk/mm (dpa, Reuters, AFP)


Belarus: dozens of peaceful female protesters thrown into vans by riot police
Rally in Minsk against disputed re-election of Lukashenko was attended by thousands

Police officers block protesters during an opposition rally in Minsk on Saturday protesting against the presidential election results. Photograph: Misha Friedman/AP


Agence France-Presse in Minsk
Sat 12 Sep 2020

Belarusian riot police detained several dozen women demonstrators and threw them into vans, as thousands took to the streets of the capital to protest against police violence and electoral fraud.

Before a massive protest expected on Sunday, columns of female protesters gathered in central Minsk for a peaceful women’s protest. Some beat saucepans with ladles and others chanted “Bring back our Masha”, referring to opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova by her diminutive name.

Kolesnikova, 38, was jailed this week after she resisted forced expulsion by ripping up her passport.

Opposition activist Nina Baginskaya, 73, tries to remove the mask of a riot police officer during a rally in Minsk on 12 September. Photograph: TUT.BY/AFP/Getty Images

But scuffles broke out in Freedom Square in central Minsk as men in black masks sought to detain some women protesters and they pushed back, footage broadcast by Belsat TV channel and Tut.by, a Belarusian independent outlet, showed.

Another video showed riot police officers roughly throwing female protesters into police vans.

The Viasna rights group said 30 protesters had been detained.

The spokeswoman for the interior ministry, Olga Chemodanova, told AFP that “women had been detained” but could not say how many or provide other details.

Belsat, a Warsaw-based opposition television channel, said on Telegram that two of its journalists covering the protest had also been detained.

Unprecedented demonstrations broke out in Belarus after strongman Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state for 26 years, claimed to have defeated opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya and won re-election with 80% of the vote on 9 August.

On Monday, Lukashenko is to hold talks with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in Sochi, with the two due to discuss plans to further integrate their countries.

Europe

Masked Men Detain Female Protesters in Belarus
By VOA News
September 12, 2020 

An elderly woman rips the mask off a police officer during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 12, 2020.


Thousands of Belarusians demonstrated Saturday in Minsk to demand the release of opposition leader Maria Kolesnikova, who was jailed this week after she resisted expulsion from the country.

Video broadcast by Polish-funded satellite TV channel Belsat and independent outlet Tut.by showed masked Belarusian riot police violently detaining at least 40 women who were thrown into vans as scuffles erupted in the city’s central Freedom Square.

A woman wears a T-shirt with a sign of an old Belarusian flag during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 12, 2020.

Saturday’s protests were a precursor to a massive women’s rally expected on Sunday to protest police violence and allegations of electoral fraud. Some of the women protesters chanted “Bring back our Masha,” referring to Kolesnikova, while others beat saucepans.

Kolesnikova, who has been in a Minsk jail since Monday, has been accused of undermining national security as part of a criminal investigation against leaders of the Coordination Council, which was formed last month to negotiate a transition of power after President Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in office.

Opposition parties, the United States and the European Union allege the August 9 election was rigged.

Lukashenko, who denies the voting was fraudulent, accuses council members and activists of colluding with Western nations to try to create a parallel government.

Thousands of people have been detained over five weeks of protests triggered by the contested August 9 election. At least three people have been killed and hundreds hurt as police have aggressively dispersed peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, clubs and stun grenades.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said the U.S. and other countries are considering bringing sanctions against "those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus."

QANON COVIDIDIOTS 

Protests against virus restrictions in Germany, Poland


Issued on: 12/09/2020 - 

Around 8,000 people marched in Munich, according to police Christof STACHE AFP



Munich (Germany) (AFP)

Several thousand people protested in German cities on Saturday against measures imposed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, while hundreds marched in the Polish capital Warsaw.

Some 8,000 people marched in the southern German city of Munich, according to a police estimate, most of them ignoring a city ordinance requiring the wearing of masks.

At least a thousand turned out in Hanover, central Germany and there was another demonstration in the western city of Wiesbaden.


Tens of thousands turned out for similar demonstrations last month in Berlin.

The movement is made up of a number of different groups, from self-declared "free thinkers" to anti-vaccine campaigners, conspiracy theorists and far-right activists.

Although clashes marred the last protest in Berlin late in August there have been no reports of trouble so far on Saturday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement on Saturday that she understood why some people had a problem with the restrictions being imposed. She acknowledged that people were free to criticise government policy in peaceful protests.

And in what appeared to be a response to some protesters' claims of being censured, she pointed out that many people envied Germany for the freedom accorded people to publicly disagree and demonstrate.

In the Polish capital Warsaw meanwhile, several hundred people joined a similar protest that marched through the city centre.

Others placards denounced the Microsoft billionaire turned philanthropist Bill Gates -- the target of conspiracy theories about the virus -- opposed any new lockdown, or called for the resignation of the government.

© 2020 AFP

Dalai Lama calls for unified global action on climate change



Issued on: 12/09/2020 - 

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (pictured 1996) said in a video message to a virtual G7 meeting that people have more of a sense of shared interest in saving the planet David HANCOCK AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama called on world leaders Saturday to join forces in fighting climate change.

"Now we should pay more attention about global warming," the exiled leader said in a video message to a virtual meeting of Group of Seven parliamentary leaders.

The session was hosted by the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, a longstanding advocate for the Himalayan region.

National leaders have been meeting less frequently with the Dalai Lama due to pressure from China.

In his video address, the Dalai Lama said people today have more of a sense of shared interest in saving the planet.

"If you look (at) past history, too much emphasis individual nation, individual religion, including color," the 85-year-old Buddhist leader said, according to a statement from the International Campaign for Tibet.

"So it creates a lot of problem. Basically, you see, they are selfish, self-centered attitudes," the 1989 Nobel peace laureate said.

Climate change is affecting some of the world's least powerful people, the Dalai Lama added.

"Due to global warming, too much rain some area. Some area dry. So these people suffer,” the Dalai Lama said. "Particularly like in Africa and some area in India and China also."

The impact along economic lines is also imbalanced, he added.

"The rich people, big hotel, not much serious sort of feeling,” the Dalai Lama said. “But poor people, they really face serious problem."

Saturday's meeting brought Pelosi together with counterparts from Britain, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

© 2020 AFP