Apocalyptic Church

news.sky.com

Many parts of Bangkok are ablaze after the Thai army smashed the Red Shirts’ protest and ordered a curfew across the capital.

Protesters set fire to the offices of a Channel 3 TV station in Bangkok, trapping 100 people inside.

Other parts of the city have been burning with fires at the Stock Exchange, several banks, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Electricity Authority, and the upmarket Central World shopping mall, one of the biggest shopping centres in southeast Asia.

The Foreign Office is now advising against all travel to Bangkok in view of the “highly uncertain” security situation.

In a statement it said: “We judge that the risk to the safety of British nationals has increased and have amended our travel advice accordingly.”
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telegraph.co.uk

Protesters angry at Ireland’s multi-billion efforts to bail out its banks have tried to storm the entrance of the Irish parliament and several have been injured in scuffles with police.

Police say officers staffing the wrought-iron gates drew batons and forced back several dozen protesters. They said the protesters’ injuries were minor and none were arrested.

Tens of billions’ worth of dud property loans are being transferred from five Irish banks to a new government-run “bad bank.” The government also has bought multi-billion stakes in Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland.

Gardai said one officer received a minor facial injury during the scuffle.
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news.yahoo.com

ATHENS, Greece – Riots over harsh new austerity measures left three bank workers dead and engulfed the streets of Athens on Wednesday, as angry protesters tried to storm parliament, hurled Molotov cocktails at police and torched buildings. Police responded with barrages of tear gas.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in a nationwide strike to protest new taxes and government spending cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund and other European nations before heavily indebted Greece gets a euro110 billion ($141 billion) loan package to keep it from defaulting.

The three bank workers — a man and two women — died after demonstrators set their bank on fire along the main demonstration route in central Athens. As their colleagues sobbed in the street, five other bank workers were rescued from the balcony of the burning building.
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telegraph.co.uk

Greek protesters have clashed with riot police in Athens as anger about financial reform boils over.

Several hundred protesters waving red flags and wearing red bandannas confronted the police in the Greek capital on Saturday morning.

Two petrol bombs were hurled at the police lines, and armed police fired tear gas to dispel the crowd. Angry protesters set fire to rubbish cans and two television broadcast vans.

“No to the IMF’s junta!” protesters chanted, referring to the military dictatorship which ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

“Hands off our rights! IMF and EU Commission out!,” the protesters shouted as they marched to parliament.
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news.yahoo.com

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai troops fired live rounds and rubber bullets at charging anti-government protesters in a chaotic clash that killed a soldier and wounded 18 people on a congested highway in Bangkok’s suburbs on Wednesday.

The troops had formed a roadblock to stop about 2,000 “red shirt” protesters who left their main protest site in central Bangkok’s shopping district on pickup trucks and motorbikes in defiance of a state of emergency and despite repeated warnings.

About 100 protesters had moved ahead of the main convoy, charging at security forces, who at first used batons and shields to push them back, witnesses said. Some red shirts hurled stones, shot metal balls from sling-shots and launched fireworks at the soldiers.

Troops fired back with rubber bullets followed by live rounds, at first in the air and then narrowly over protesters’ heads, as onlookers dashed for cover in cars and buses in the traffic-choked area 40 km (25 miles) north of central Bangkok, Reuters photographers and witnesses said.
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news.yahoo.com

The Red Shirt protesters contend that Thai Prime Minister Abhisit came to power illegitimately.

BANGKOK – Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in Bangkok on Wednesday, handing the army broad powers to restore order after anti-government protesters broke into Parliament, forcing some lawmakers to flee by helicopter.

Other lawmakers scaled the compound’s walls to escape the most chaotic protest in several weeks of demonstrations by a group demanding Abhisit dissolve the government and call elections within 15 days. He has offered to do so by the end of the year.

“The government has tried its best to enforce the law, but violations of the law have increased,” Abhisit said in a televised statement that interrupted regular programming. “Our main goal is to bring the country back to normal and make our law sacred once again.” He did not spell out how the emergency decree will be applied.

The government already had placed Bangkok under the strict Internal Security Act.
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news.yahoo.com

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Anti-government unrest rocked the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday as thousands of protesters stormed the main government building, set fire to the prosecutor’s office and looted state TV headquarters. At least 17 people were killed and at least 180 wounded in clashes, the government said.

The opposition took over state television and announced that it was negotiating with the president and demanding he step down. Government officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the claim.

The eruption of violence shattered the relative stability of this mountainous former Soviet nation, which houses a U.S. military base that is a key supply center in the fight against the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan.

Furious over government corruption and a recent hike in power prices, demonstrators looted the state television and radio building. Elite police opened fire to drive crowds back from government headquarters. Protesters marched toward the Interior Ministry in the capital, Bishkek, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene, before changing direction and attacking a national security building nearby. They were repelled by security forces.
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news.yahoo.com

MOSCOW – Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow’s subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102, officials said.

The head of Russia’s main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s.

The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency.

A second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later.
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news.yahoo.com

JERUSALEM – Hundreds of Palestinians in east Jerusalem set tires and garbage bins ablaze on Tuesday and hurled rocks at Israeli riot police, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. The heaviest clashes in months broke out as an American envoy abruptly canceled a visit, deepening a U.S.-Israeli diplomatic feud.

The violence spread from Arab neighborhood to Arab neighborhood across the eastern side of the volatile city. Angered by plans for more Jewish housing in predominantly Arab east Jerusalem and unsubstantiated rumors surrounding the rededication of an Old City synagogue, Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces throughout the day.

In one incident, youths hoisted a giant Palestinian flag and shouted, “We shall die and Palestine shall live.”

Thousands of police, including anti-riot units…
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news.yahoo.com

BANGKOK – Thai protesters seeking a change of government turned to shock tactics Tuesday, pouring gallons of their own blood into a glistening puddle at the gate of the prime minister’s office.

The dramatic gesture, repeated in front of the headquarters of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiava’s Democrat Party, grabbed attention but put the “Red Shirt” protest movement no closer to its goal of forcing new elections.

More than 100,000 demonstrators from all over the country gathered in Bangkok on Sunday, vowing to keep up their protest until victory. But Abhisit has rejected their demands to dissolve Parliament, saying only that he will listen to the protesters’ point of view and leaving the situation in a stalemate.
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news.yahoo.com

ATHENS, Greece – Street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as tens of thousands demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government’s austerity measures.

Hundreds of masked and hooded youths punched and kicked motorcycle police, knocking several off their bikes, as riot police responded with volleys of tear gas and stun grenades.

The violence spread after the end of the march to a nearby square, where police faced off with stone-throwing anarchists and suffocating clouds of tear gas sent patrons scurrying from open-air cafes.
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news.yahoo.com

WASHINGTON – A gunman coolly drew a weapon from his pocket and opened fire at the subway entrance to the Pentagon complex Thursday evening, wounding two police officers before being shot and critically wounded, officials said.

The two officers suffered grazing wounds and were being treated in a hospital, said Richard Keevill, chief of Pentagon police. Authorities had no motive for the shooting.

The suspect, believed to be a U.S. citizen, walked up to a security checkpoint at the Pentagon in an apparent attempt to get inside the massively fortified Defense Department headquarters, at about 6:40 p.m. “He just reached in his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting” at point-blank range, Keevill said. “He walked up very cool. He had no real emotion on his face.” The Pentagon officers returned fire with semiautomatic weapons.
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news.yahoo.com

ATHENS, Greece – Police fired tear gas and clashed with demonstrators in Athens after some 50,000 people finished a peaceful march against cutbacks intended to fix the country’s debt crisis.

The violence lasted about 30 minutes, when scores of youths hurled rocks, red paint and plastic bottles near parliament. Police said at least two people were detained, while several storefronts were vandalized.

Windows were smashed at the Finance Ministry’s General Accounting Office, which has been accused by the European Union of slipshod statistics-keeping that made the financial crisis worse.
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news.yahoo.com

CAIRO – It’s something Egyptians rely on daily: the “ambooba,” the steel canister of government-subsidized cooking and heating gas, hooked to the stove or water heater in the cramped homes of nearly everyone in this country’s large population of poor.

So in recent weeks, when the amboobas stopped coming, the angry outcry spread fast.

A winter shortage has sent authorities scrambling to find a solution and has once again fueled criticism that the government of this key Mideast U.S. ally is unable to deal with the problems of its people. For many, it raises memories of acute shortages of cheap subsidized bread in 2008 that raised similar frustration and anger.
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news.yahoo.com

LOS ANGELES – Officers armed with beanbag guns stood by as hundreds of protesters chanted, marched and even took over a building Thursday on the UCLA campus, where University of California regents were scheduled to vote on a 32 percent student fee increase.

The UC Board of Regents is considering boosting undergraduate fees — the equivalent of tuition — by $2,500 next year. The average annual fee for a full-time undergraduate would jump to about $10,300 — three times the cost only a decade ago.

For a second day, the proposal drew demonstrators to the University of California, Los Angeles. Some came from other UC campuses and stayed overnight in a tent city.
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