Athens, Greece - General Strike - 23 Feb, 2011

Greek police clash with anti-austerity protesters

By Renee Maltezou, Reuters

Greek police clashed with protesters on Wednesday as around 100,000 workers, pensioners and students marched to parliament to protest austerity policies aimed at helping Greece cope with a huge debt crisis.

Riot police fired scores of rounds of teargas and flash bombs at protesters hurling petrol bombs, choking the main Syndagma Square with smoke and sending crowds of striking protesters running for cover.

The 24-hour strike by public and private sector employees grounded flights, closed schools and paralysed public transport in the first nationwide walkout against cost cuts this year.

In the biggest march since December 2008 riots brought the country to a standstill for weeks according to police sources and eyewitness, 100,000 Greeks marched through the streets of Athens chanting "We are not paying" and "No sacrifice for plutocracy". Police officialy put the figure at 32,000. ...

Global elites behind protests and unrest?

Clashes spread through the Middle East and North Africa as anti-government protests impact Libya, Bahrain, Iran, Algeria, Iraq and Yemen and continue in Egypt.

Hundreds are taking to the streets throughout the region demanding better governance and an end to corruption.
General anti-government protests have now taken root in Libya. While in Bahrain, a key base for US military operations in the region faces its third straight day of unrest. Thousands also took to the streets of Iran, calling for government reforms.

Protests and labor marches have continued throughout Egypt as the country's military government works quickly to propose constitutional changes and call elections.

Meanwhile hundreds of Iraqi's took to the streets of Fallujah calling for better government services. And the government of Yemen has now sent thousands of police into the streets to confront anti-government activists entering their sixth day of protests.

Author and activist Adrian Salbuchi said we have to look at the people of these nations and the change they are calling for, and at the interests of certain global power structures.

"We have to think in terms of a global power structure that operates inside the United States mainly, but is not a part of the United States even and definitely does not going in favor of the national interest of the United States," he said. "We have to stop thinking in terms of binary, black and white."

Salbuchi argued the US is not the only moving part; there is a bigger system at play. International organizations and groups make up a larger structure of interest and control.

"Above the United States, above the White house and the State Department, we have to think in terms of the global planning being carried out by the global power elite, particularly the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group," he said.

US President Barack Obama said his, "Hope and expectation is we're going to continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative government."

Salbuchi contended it is no shock the US would like to see regime change in Iran, or that they would like to see stability restored in Bahrain. However, it doesn't matter because the US and its governing bodies are not in control.

"We are seeing on a planetary basis, on a worldwide basis, how the global power elite is closing the stage of globalization that has been on for the last 20 years and they are moving on to formal world government," he argued. "The United States has to become weekend in relative terms, just globalization required the demise of the former Soviet Union."

The rise of protests and unrest across the region are the doings of these global elites and are part of their plan to secure future world governance. He argued turmoil in the Middle East opens opportunities for taking advantage of change at a global level. It is in the long term interest, he claimed, that unrest take hold in the region.

Information provided by rt.com http://www.rt.com

'Gawd Bless America': UFOs? Psychics? Documentary Debunks the Paranormal

Ki Mae Huessner reports for ABC News:

... Among his purchases: several trips to UFO-friendly Roswell, N.M., countless books on extraterrestrials, nearly a decade's worth of sessions with a personal psychic and even a special helmet that supposedly prevents aliens from reading his mind.

But Tessina, a Los Angeles man, said he's a believer no more.

After a mind-bending, life-changing journey with independent filmmaker Blake Freeman, Tessina said he's "reformed" and won't pay peddlers of the paranormal any longer.

"I was into sci-fi as a child and young man and I guess it just evolved from that. I let it rule my life," he said. "Blake told me, 'You screwed up for a while, but now let's go see if we can straighten you out.'


"He showed me the error of my ways, so to speak."

In 2008, the thirtysomething Freeman and the then-sixtysomething Tessina went off on a cross-country adventure to interview so-called experts on alien abductions, ghost hunting, crop circles, psychic healing and more ? all in an effort to expose the truth behind their wild, other-worldly claims.

Documentary in the Same Vein as 'Borat,' 'Religulous'

The result is "Gawd Bless America," a documentary opening in theaters March 4, that blends "Borat"-like antics with "Religulous"-like irreverence to reach, Freeman said, something "real." ...

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