An anti-austerity demonstration that drew tens of thousands of people from across Spain to central Madrid has turned violent, leaving 88 injured and 29 arrested as protesters clashed with security forces. On Saturday, some protesters sought to break through a police barrier and make their way toward the nearby headquarters of the ruling conservative Popular Party. Riot police then attacked the protesters,... 

Low-income fast-food employees and their supporters in the United States held rallies in at least 30 cities on Tuesday against “wage-theft” by McDonalds and other major fast-food restaurants. American fast-food workers, who’ve been pushing for living wages of around $15 an hour since late 2012, are now shifting their attention to the issue of wage theft by the US restaurant industry. Protesters... 

Protesters demonstrating against the administration of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro have clashed with police in the capital, Caracas. Demonstrators, many of them hooded, threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police officers and clogged up streets in busy areas of the city with makeshift barricades on Saturday. In response, police used tear gas and riot vehicles to disperse the angry mob. President... 

Crimea has declared independence from Ukraine and formally applied to join Russia, following a referendum in which Crimeans overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation. The Crimean Supreme Council passed the decree on Monday after all the 85 lawmakers present in the 100-seat assembly voted in support of seceding from Ukraine. “The Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of... 

Image from NO McDonalds in The Dandenong Ranges Facebook page. The Australian state of Victoria’s parliament passed a bill giving police power to suppress protests, including ordering a rally to move on based on a suspicion that it may turn violent. Opponents call the powers excessive and undemocratic. The Summary Offences and Sentencing Amendment Bill passed through the upper house of the Victorian... 

Thousands of teachers and government workers have taken to the streets of Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, calling for a pay rise. Members of the Argentine Workers Federation, the South American country’s largest trade union, marched on Wednesday outside the Casa Rosada Government House at Plaza de Mayo square in central Buenos Aires. The protesters urged the government to double the... 

Australia has announced plans to buy a fleet of giant US drones to help patrol the nation’s borders, monitoring energy infrastructure and attempts to enter the country illegally. On Thursday, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Triton Unmanned Aerial Vehicles would be based in the southern city of Adelaide, AFP reported. “These aircraft will patrol Australia’s vast ocean... 

Jordanian lawyers protest outside the Justice Ministry on March 12, 2014. Jordan says Israel was fully responsible for the fatal shooting of a Palestinian-Jordanian judge at the country’s border crossing with the occupied West Bank. In a Tuesday address to the parliament, Jordan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour called the shooting a hideous crime, for which Israel was “completely responsible”. “Jordan... 

Participants in the “We Are Together” rally and concert to support the residents of the Crimea, at Vasilyevsky Slope, Moscow on March 7, 2014. Over 65,000 people gathered on Friday for a demonstration in central Moscow to support residents of Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The mostly Russian-speaking region has become a major stumbling block in Moscow-Kiev relations. The ‘We... 

Former presidential advisor says “soft corruption” will lead to domestic disorder. Pollster and former presidential advisor Pat Caddell warns that the rise of “soft oppression” and corruption in the United States will facilitate a violent Kiev-style uprising in the streets of America. “What we’re seeing in the world… in Kiev… is American values at work. These people and the rest of... 

Exiled Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng says that Beijing should prepare for a Ukrainian-style uprising provoked by the Communist country’s hardening crackdown on human rights. “It is possible for the Chinese to have a similar revolution to the one in Ukraine. It could happen any time,” Chen told AFP. Guangcheng, who lives in New York after miraculously escaping house arrest in China in 2012,... 

The question of how much the Ukrainian revolution was a grass roots effort versus being driven by external influences will be put to the test by a demand from some Ukrainian citizens that a right to bear arms be included in the country’s new constitution. Citing how riot police used force to crush dissent during the recent uprising, the Ukrainian Gun Owner’s Association has announced that it... 

Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Crimea are resisting the western banker takeover of their country by installing a Russian Mayor in the town of Sevastopol as part of an emerging revolt against the US-backed coup d’état that saw the overthrow of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych. “Sevastopol’s city council handed power to Aleksei Chaliy, a Russian citizen, during an extraordinary... 

Who’s in charge? Certainly not the bought-and-paid-for-moderates that Washington and the EU hoped to install as the new government of Ukraine. The agreement that the Washington and EU supported opposition concluded with President Yanukovich to end the crisis did not last an hour. Even the former boxing champion, Vitaly Klitschko, who was riding high as an opposition leader until a few hours ago... 

A resident in a polluted city in northern China has become the first person in the country to launch a case against the local government over high levels of pollution. He is also seeking compensation for those affected by the smog. The local environmental authorities should “perform their duties to control air pollution according to the law,” believes Li Guixin, a resident in Shijiazhuang,...