Daily Report

Arson attack sparks nationwide Roma protest in Czech Republic

On April 18, an eight-member Romani family living in the small Moravian village of Vitkov was attacked in their home with Molotov cocktails, which completely destroyed the house. Someone reportedly turned off the water to the building before setting it on fire. The parents of a two-year-old girl and the girl herself were severely injured; while the girl remains in hospital, her parents have since been released. On May 3 they both attended a local demonstration by the Roma community against rising neo-Nazism in the Czech Republic. Demonstrations took place in 11 other locations nationwide and were attended by 3 000 people. Such a unified gathering of the Roma community has not taken place since 1989.

Google is evil

Google appears to have eliminated the foreign country news page links from the bottom of the Google News page. World War 4 Report depends on these links intimately for our work. How are we supposed to access those pages now? How are we supposed to do a search for Mexican, Colombian, Pakistani, etc. news sources? Who's brilliant idea was this? Why can't anyone just leave well enough alone? Haven't they ever heard "If ain't broke, don't fix it"? Or is it some conspiracy to limit bloggers and researchers to the dumbed-down American media?

Regional protests, pirates rock Yemen

A Yemeni man was killed and four others injured when a bomb exploded May 3 among protesters in the south. Authorities said the bomb appeared to have been carried by a protester and it exploded accidentally during the clashes in the southern town of Dali. A day earlier, five soldiers and two civilians were killed in the southern town of Radfan after local tribesmen clashed with soldiers attempting to set up checkpoints in the area. The US Embassy urgently appealed for dialogue as regional protests shake the nation. (AP, May 4)

Study sees harsh limit for carbon emissions to prevent global disaster

To prevent Earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, several teams of researchers say that cumulative carbon emissions must be limited to no more than 1 trillion metric tons. The findings, released April 30 in the journal Nature, are daunting because human activity has already exhausted more than half that allotment since the Industrial Revolution began. Human activity will likely emit the rest of that budget in just a few decades, even if emissions are held at the current rate. The two-degree limit comes from the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a target to reduce the impacts of climate change.

Iran bombs Iraqi Kurdistan

Iran launched a cross-border air attack on Kurdish rebel positions in Iraq May 2—the first time Tehran has used aircraft against Kurdish guerillas. Kurdish border guards claim that Iranian helicopters began shelling three Kurdish villages—Kani Saif, Jomarasi and Kara Sozi—in the remote Panjwin district of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region at 1:30 AM local time. The attacks continued for over an hour. The aircraft reportedly did not enter Iraq and there were no reports of casualties.

May Day marches turn violent in Europe

Police in Germany's capital Berlin arrested nearly 300 at the city's May Day march, with riot police battling hundreds of protesters deep into the night. According to authorities, militants attacked police with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails. Riot police responded with tear gas and pepper spray. 237 officers were reported injured. There were also riots reported in Germany's second city Hamburg. (Radio Netherlands, May 2)

May Day: Juárez workers defy flu curfew

Despite the cancellation of the official May Day parade as a measure to combat the spread of "Swine Flu," some 200 workers marched on Ciudad Juárez's central Avenida 16 de Septiembre, chanting "Este día no es de influenza; es de lucha y de protesta" (This isn't a day of flu; it's a day of struggle and protest). At the city's Plaza de Armas, they burned three piñatas representing the educational, economic and labor reforms of Mexico's federal government.

Iran: many beaten, arrested at May Day rallies

A May Day rally in Tehran, organized by independent Iranian labor organizations, was attacked by security and intelligence forces, with many beaten and arrested. Security forces did not allow some 2,000 people who had come to the city's Laleh Park for the rally to gather, dispersing them with tear gas and baton charges. Violence and arrests are also reported from the city of Sanandaj, where a May Day rally was similarly attacked by police.

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