Protesters and police clash in eastern Panama
Border police in riot gear launched tear gas and fired rubber-coated metal balls to disperse balaclava-wearing protesters firing rocks from slingshots and throwing Molotov cocktails.
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Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Thousands rally in Georgia capital to reinforce demands for new parliamentary elections
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the Georgian capital on Saturday to reinforce their demand for new parliamentary elections. Last year's decision by the ruling Georgian Dream party to halt Georgia's bid to join the European Union continues to spark protests across the country.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
Granderson: Eliminating national holidays is a promising idea. Start with the racist ones
Believe it or not, France has had a form of social security since the 1600s, and its modern system began in earnest in 1910, when the world's life expectancy was just 32 years old. Today the average human makes it to 75 and for the French, it's 83, among the highest in Europe. Great news for French people, bad news for their pensions. Because people are living longer, the math to fund pensions in France is no longer mathing, and now the country's debt is nearly 114% of its GDP. Remember it was just a couple of years ago when protesters set parts of Paris on fire because President Emmanuel Macron proposed raising the age of legal retirement from 62 to 64. Well, now Prime Minister Francois Bayrou has proposed eliminating two national holidays, in an attempt to address the country's debt. Read more: Granderson: Where's the music that meets this moment? Black artists are stepping up In 2023, before Paris was burning, roughly 50,000 people in Denmark gathered outside of Parliament to express their anger over ditching one of the country's national holidays. The roots of Great Prayer Day date all the way back to the 1600s. Eliminating it — with the hopes of increasing production and tax revenue — brought together the unions, opposing political parties and churches in a rare trifecta. That explains why a number of schools and businesses closed for the holiday in 2024 in defiance of the official change. This week, Bayrou proposed eliminating France's Easter Monday and Victory Day holidays, the latter marking the defeat of Nazi Germany. In a Reuters poll, 70% of respondents didn't like the idea, so we'll see if Paris starts burning again. Or maybe citizens will take a cue from the Danes and just not work on those days, even if the government decides to continue business as usual. Here at home, President Trump has also floated the idea of eliminating one of the national holidays. However, because he floated the idea on Juneteenth — via a social media post about 'too many non-working holidays' — I'm going to assume tax revenue wasn't the sole motivation for his comments that day. You know, given his crusade against corporate and government diversity efforts; his refusal to apologize for calling for the death penalty for five innocent boys of color; and his approval of Alligator Alcatraz. However, while I find myself at odds with the president's 2025 remarks about the holiday, I do agree with what he said about Juneteenth when he was president in 2020: 'It's actually an important event, an important time.' Indeed. While the institution of slavery enabled this country to quickly become a global power, studies show the largest economic gains in the history of the country came from slavery's ending — otherwise known as Juneteenth. Two economists have found that the economic payoff from freeing enslaved people was 'bigger than the introduction of railroads, by some estimates, and worth 7 to 60 years of technological innovation in the latter half of the 19th century,' according to the University of Chicago. Why? Because the final calculations revealed the cost to enslave people for centuries was far greater than the economic benefit of their freedom. In 1492, when Christopher Columbus 'discovered America,' civilizations had been thriving on this land for millennia. The colonizers introduced slavery to these shores two years before the first 'Thanksgiving' in 1621. That was more than 50 years before King Louis XIV started France's first pension; 60 years before King Christian V approved Great Prayer Day; and 157 years before the 13 colonies declared independence from Britain on July 4, 1776. Of all the national holidays around the Western world, it would appear Juneteenth is among the most significant historically. Yet it gained federal recognition just four years ago, and it remains vulnerable. The transatlantic slave trade transformed the global economy, but the numbers show it was Juneteenth that lifted America to the top. Which tells you the president's hint at its elimination has little to do with our greatness and everything to do with the worldview of an elected official who was endorsed by the newspaper of the Ku Klux Klan. If it does get to the point where we — like France and Denmark — end up seriously considering cutting a holiday, my vote is for Thanksgiving. The retail industry treats it like a speed bump between Halloween and Christmas, and when history retells its origins, it's not a holiday worth protesting to keep. YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Washington Post
16 hours ago
- Washington Post
Dozens arrested around the UK at protests to support proscribed group Palestine Action
LONDON — British police arrested dozens of people for supporting a banned Palestinian rights organization on Saturday as protests over the government's decision to outlaw the group continued for a third weekend. Waving placards reading 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,' demonstrators gathered in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Londonderry and Truro.
