HOLLYWOOD, February 24, 2007 - Military Families Speak Out presented Congressman and presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich with a Peace Award this Saturday. Kucinich (D) Ohio, was presented the award at a peace vigil held at Hollywood & Vine. Kucinich has been one of congress’ most outspoken opponents to the Bush regime’s war in Iraq. He continues to call for the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq and the sending in of UN peacekeepers. He has also called for the formation of a US Department of Peace. Full Report: Kucinich Accepts PEACE Award...Military Families Speak Out!

LOS ANGELES, February 21, 2007 - An estimated 2,000 people attended a campaign rally for Barack Obama this Tuesday. The Senator spoke for about 30 minutes. Although brief and short on details, he did however say that the war in Iraq never should have been authorized and that the war has made the world less safe. He touched on the problem of global warming and suggested a national program of developing alternative forms of energy to fossil fuels.

He also spoke of a jobs and education program for people currently incarcerated in the prison system. He mentioned the rebuilding of New Orleans. He also proposed a national health care insurance program. The crowd was very enthusiastic, Cheering often and almost on cue.
Video and report: VIDEO: Barack Obama Rally 2-20-07 | | Photos: PHOTOS: Obama Rally | | Barack Obama Visits LA

Friends of the Southwest Museum Coalition recently presented three alternative plans for preserving the facility as a complete museum with additional uses. The Autry National Center, which owns the property, wants to change its use to a cultural center and scale down the exhibition of the Southwest Museum Collection to just a fraction of space, with much of the collection relocated to a yet-to-be-built building in Griffith Park.
Full report with photos: Update on the Southwest Museum by Ross Plesset

SANTA BARBARA February 15, 2007 - Nearly 1,500 UCSB students, staff, faculty members, and local residents participated in a powerful and transformative strike against war on February 15th. The day culminated with a mass sit-in on Highway 217, the main freeway leading to campus, that blocked traffic for roughly two hours and a lock-down of the campus administration building, Cheadle Hall. From the Newswire: UCSB Students Rise Up, Strike Against War by Will | | UCSB Anti-War protest by JS | | Video: UCSB Students Block Freeway

HOLLYWOOD, 11 February 2007--Yesterday at 10:45 a.m., ANSWER-LA led a small crew of fifteen, with banners, signs, and a blaring loudspeaker packed in a shopping cart, south down Argyle and across Hollywood Boulevard into a sea of forty minutemen. Half an hour later, the minutemen, amassed from across southern California, retreated to join their fellows on the southeast corner, pushed back by the growing crowd of protesters.
Full reports with photos: Minutemen Stumble, ANSWER Steps Up by Leslie Radford | |
Minutemen in Tinseltown by Cliff Olin | | Anti-Immigrant Minutemen Defeated in Hollywood by ANSWER Coalition-LA
Photos: minutemen | | more minutemen All by go vegan | | Minutemen in Hollywood by Marcus

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, appearing at the Los Angeles City Hall’s lawn for a Black History month awards ceremony on Friday, February 9th --was shouted down for the second time in recent weeks by Skid Row protestors with the Los Angeles Community Action Network, LACAN. The shouting of “No justice no peace; stop racist police,” rang out; and entirely prevented Villaraigosa from being heard by onlookers –even as local television stations stood by, and attempted to film Villaraigosa without including the crowd of about 40 very fired-up demonstrators.
Full report: Villaraigosa Shouted Down at Black History Event By L.A.'s Rising Homeless Protesters by Unhoused

The grassroots resistance in Haiti called for international solidarity on or about February 7. Activists on four different continents participated. Here in Southern California, over 30 people demonstrated in front of the Brazilian Consulate in Beverly Hills. (Brazil is heading the UN “peacekeeping” mission in Haiti.) Story and photos: Report: International Day in Solidarity with Haiti (Los Angeles) by Ross Plesset

MAYWOOD, February 7, 2007 - Dozens of Maywood residents and their supporters convened in Maywood City Hall Tuesday night and presented the city council with horrific testimony of beatings, bribery, intimidation, and sexual assault at the hands of Maywood Police officers. One after another residents and visitors described incidents of police violence against the people of the City Maywood. Full Story: Maywood Residents Confront Police Brutality

Also in Long Beach: Everyday Police Intimidation in Long Beach by CopWatch LB

LOS ANGELES - El día 29 de Enero se llevo a cabo una protesta en contra del ex- presidente Fox en la Ciudad de Los Ángeles. Fox fue invitado para recibir un reconocimiento por su mandato. El evento tuvo lugar en el Music Center en el corazón de Los Ángeles, pero las protestas no se hicieron esperar. Mas de un centenar de oponentes llegaron hasta dicho sitio a protestar.
Mas: Protestan contra Fox y apoyo a Oaxaca by sandra.unasirena

AUDIO: audio de antiFox manifa / audio of protest against Fox by schock

Murder Charges Against Former Black Panthers Based on Confessions Extracted by Torture. Eight former Black Panthers were arrested January 23rd in California, New York and Florida on charges related to the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Similar charges were thrown out after it was revealed that police used torture to extract confessions when some of these same men were arrested in New Orleans in 1973.
Read more: LA Mobilizes Defense of Former Black Panthers

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, 27 January 2007 - It was just another skirmish in the two-year war on migrants. Sixty minutemen, from San Diego Minutemen and Save Our State, tried to run day laborers out of San Juan Capistrano, but they were held at bay by thirty or so determined day laborers and their supporters.
Full report: The Homeland War by Leslie Radford

LOS ANGELES, January 27, 2007 – Estimates ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 people demonstrated against the continuing US war on the people of Iraq today. A protest was held today outside the Los Angeles offices of the Democratic Party. Protesters demanded that the newly elected Democratic controlled congress stop funding for the war in Iraq and begin the process of bringing all the troops home now. Protesters then marched through downtown to the Federal Building for a second rally featuring speakers Cindy Sheehan, Ron Kovic, Nativo Lopez and others. The event was peaceful, no arrests or incidents of police violence have been reported. From the Newswire:

PHOTOS: Los Angeles January 27 Action Coalition Rally & March by Brandon Bradley | | L.A.'s Jan. 27th antiwar march by Geronimo | | 3000 March Downtown to Stop the War! & More From L.A. J27 by Hugh Stegman | | Anti-War March (1-27-07) by Next Move | | Anti War Protest in LA by Marcus | | ANSWER Coalition photos from Jan 27 Anti-War Protest - On to March 17 in LA! by Bethany Malmgren

AUDIO: Ron Kovics and Cindy Sheehan - audio by schock

VIDEO: VIDEO: Military Families Speak Out at Anti-war Rally & Short interview with a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War by A | | Stop the War, Video & L.A. Marched! 12.27.07 by df | | Anti-War Protest in Downtown Los Angeles, 1-27-07 by True DeLuxe Design

Kenya Indymedia is now providing coverage from the 2007 World Social Forum in Narobi, Kenya. Several Independent Media Center members are now in Narobi to support an Indymedia convergence during the seventh annual World Social Forum which runs January 20-25th. Media activists from Africa and around the world will be reporting in the World Social Forum, providing hands-on media production workshops, building two low-power radio stations in Kenya, and creating dialogue and cooperative production across borders. An internet web streaming station is now up and running at radio.Africa-web.org

UPDATE: Kenya Indymedia Radio Station Robbed by Armed Gunmen.
Everyone is safe, but lots of equipment was stolen including a laptop from a French indymedia activist with a lot of data. Three indymedia women were told to lie on the floor while the robbers took what they could carry and then locked them in the studio. Luckily they were found within the half hour by a Kenya IMC member. Full Story by Ida from Kenya, IMC

Since last August, Skid Row's homeless people have undergone the largest mass arrests of homeless people in L.A. history; hundreds of homeless people each month now have faced multiple daily raids of police demanding warrant checks, searches and property confiscation --as waves of 50 new LAPD officers brought to the area have swept through for daily beatings and arrests of homeless people --in order to now clear downtown for the newest wave of luxury loft developers.
Full report: Rally to End Skid Row Sweeps NOW! by unhoused

UPDATE: At the first of what organizers say will now be weekly Saturday rallies in front of the LAPD’s Central Division headquarters, a Skid Row rally on Saturday, organized by a homeless man, saw the largest public turnout yet for a public demand to end L.A’s massive new push to criminalize all this city’s homeless people. Activists are calling on the community to help set up a base-camp on Skid Row to halt, immediately now, the police attacks.
Full report: Activists Call for Downtown Base Camp to End Sweeps at Saturday Rally on Skid Row by unhoused

Photos and video: LAPD harass homeless on skid row EVERY DAY by Copwatch

The 2007 Martin Luther King Parade celebrated the great civil rights leader and included calls to "honor MLK" by ending the "racist war" in Iraq along with other U.S. aggression. Guests included Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Mother Love. From the Newswire:

FULL REPORT WITH PHOTOS: ANSWER Anti-War Contingent at MLK Day Parade by Ian Thompson || Photos: Peace Activists at MLK Parade || VIDEOS: LAPD Orders ANSWER to Leave MLK Parade

NEW: Youth snatched up by LAPD at MLK parade by Copwatch

January 11, 2007: Vigils throughout the L.A. area protested Bush's planned troop increase in Iraq. Large turn-outs have been reported at many locations: there was an estimated 300 people at Wilshire and Western, about 100 in Westwood, over 250 in Santa Monica, 75 in Mar Vista, 40 in Highland Park, and 100 in South Pasadena.

From the Newswire: CodePINK Says NO to Escalation! | | More Photos from Westwood Protest | | PHOTOs: Anti-war Protest in Mar Vista | | Highland Park Protests Increased U.S. Aggression | | ANSWER Protest at Wilshire & Western Draws Over 300| | Santa Monica Came Out to Protest Surge

NEW VIDEO: Studio City "SAY NO TO ESCALATION!" VIDEO by Neighborsteve

JANUARY 10, 2007 - The US government prepares to escalate the war in Iraq at a time when public opposition to the war is now at 70%. In addition, polls of US troops show that less than half of the troops continue to support the war. A number of organizations such as Military Families Speak Out are getting the word out about a growing GI resistance movement of soldiers in Iraq that are joining the call to end the war and bring all the troops home now.

From the Newswire: Military Families Speak Out – An interview with Lisa Cantu | | 24-Hour Vigil Pics, Military Families Speak Out! | | 24 Hour Vigil Commemorating 3,000

VIDEO: Why War? Military Families Speak Out! by df

PASADENA, January 2, 2007 –A small group of anti-war activists were able to get their message out at the New Year’s Day parade in Pasadena today. Peace activists succeeded in hanging a large banner which read “STOP WARS” along the parade route. Also at another location a large sign reading “IMPEACH” was raised and clearly seen on a live TV broadcast of the parade. Demonstrators were also able to march following at the end of the parade for the full length of the parade route. The response from parade goers was mostly positive. From the Newswire Report: Peace Action at Rose Parade | | Stop Wars: More Activism at the Rose Parade | | Dennis Kucinich Bannner Carried At Rose Parade