permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
> Arina Pittman wrote:
> > Please send your blessings and prayers to those on the streets and on the
> > plaza
> > http://news.inq7.net/world/index.php?index=1&story_id=70465

Here's a recent news update:

CNN.com - Police club demonstrators in Belarus - Mar 25, 2006
<http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/25/belarus.protest.ap/index.html>

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- Black-clad riot police clubbed demonstrators as government opponents marched Saturday in defiance 
of a show of force by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko that has drawn U.S. and European Union sanctions.

A week into protests set off by the disputed election that handed Lukashenko a third term, opposition leader Alexander 
Milinkevich told a crowd of thousands that momentum is growing to bring democracy to Belarus.

"We are starting work against dictatorship, and this work will sooner or later 
bear its fruit," he said.

But Milinkevich also urged a monthlong recess in protests, apparently hoping to calm tensions and gain time to build 
opposition forces, which have fallen far short of the huge outpourings that peacefully overturned governments in Ukraine 
and Georgia. (Watch how police have reacted with violence to peaceful protests -- :58)

The day of confrontation and wildly swinging emotions left two big questions for the former Soviet republic of 10 
million people, characterized in the West as Europe's last dictatorship: How much dissent are the authorities willing to 
allow and how much support does the opposition have?

Milinkevich spoke at an impromptu rally in a park after hundreds of police blocked protesters from gathering on the 
central square that had been the focus of anti-Lukashenko demonstrations until riot squads swept in before dawn Friday 
and arrested dozens of people.