On Saturday, 23 January 2021, protest rallies against the arbitrary arrest and unfounded, politically motivated prosecution of Aleksei Navalny, a prominent anti-corruption activist and Vladimir Putin’s critic, erupted across Russia and continued for 10 days. Authorities described the protests as “illegal”, citing the country’s unduly restrictive legislation on assemblies, and responded by prosecuting individuals they perceived responsible for encouraging the protests. The Investigative Committee arrested 12 prominent activists in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. The Committee claimed the activists had violated COVID-19 related sanitary rules simply for calling for the protests, which in their view amounted to a crime. Russian authorities must stop denying and violating the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, and must not use COVID-19 related restrictions to jail and silence their critics. All those detained solely for calling for, organizing, or participating in peaceful protests must be immediately released.

• Stephanie, an administrative worker, 49, was killed as she walked into the lobby
• The knifeman is believed to be a Tunisian national who moved to France in 2009
• The savage attack took place in the leafy Paris commune of Rambouillet
• France’s counter-terrorism unit has taken over the investigation into the killing 

Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters defended her call for protesters to “get more confrontational” if former police officer Derek Chauvin was not found guilty in the death of George Floyd.

“I have been an activist participating in the civil rights movement and I have dealt with the issue of police abuse for many decades,” Waters wrote Thursday in a Los Angeles Times op-ed. Waters survived a censure resolution introduced by Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy in a party-line vote.

As President Biden convenes a major climate summit, we speak with two leading climate activists from Africa about the “climate debt” rich countries owe the Global South and the major emissions cuts still needed in order to avert the worst effects of the planetary emergency. “Given the scale of the crisis right now, the only thing that is going to get us out of it is not going to be baby steps in the right direction,” says Kumi Naidoo, special adviser for the Green Economy Coalition’s Social Contract Initiative, as well as the former head of Greenpeace International. “It’s going to be big, bold, courageous, structural and systemic change to every aspect of society.” We also speak with Dipti Bhatnagar, international program coordinator for Climate Justice and Energy at Friends of the Earth International, who says that while new pledges by the U.S. to cut emissions are “going in the right direction,” it’s still not enough. “We’re calling on the U.S. to do its fair share of emissions reductions, and what that means is four times of what the U.S. has put on the table.”

Reality television star Caitlin Jenner announced Friday she is running for governor of California as a Republican challenger to Democratic Gov Gavin Newsom. In a statement posted […]

Continue reading Caitlyn Jenner files to run for governor, done with one-party rule: This is not Gavin Newsom’s California …