enjoy Rioters target gay pride march

Rioters target gay pride march

A gay rights activist flashes a victory sign during a rally in Belgrade. About 5 000 Serbian police clashed with anti-gay protesters on Sunday, leading to arrests and many injuries as Belgrade hosted its first gay rights rally in nearly a decade.
Belgrade - Riot police in Serbia clashed with hundreds of far-right supporters who tried to disrupt a gay pride march in downtown Belgrade on Sunday. More than a dozen people were injured, officials said.

Thousands of police officers sealed off the streets in the capital where the march took place, repeatedly clashing at several locations with rioters who were trying to burst through security cordons.

The protesters, chanting “death to homosexuals”, hurled bricks, stones, glass bottles and firecrackers at riot police. Several parked cars and shop windows were damaged and at least one police vehicle was set on fire.

Hospital officials said at least 18 people, about half of them police officers, were injured. Police said several rioters were arrested.

Sunday's march is viewed as a major test for Serbia's government, which has launched pro-Western reforms and pledged to protect human rights as it seeks European Union membership.

Right-wing groups broke up a pride march in 2001 and forced the cancellation of last year's event.

Vincent Degert, the head of the EU mission in Serbia, addressed around 1 000 gay activists and their supporters who gathered at a park in downtown Belgrade which was surrounded by riot police, including armoured vehicles.

“We are here to celebrate this very important day to celebrate the values of tolerance, freedom of expression and assembly,” Degert told the crowd waving rainbow flags.

The brief 15-minute march ended without violence, with the participants heading into a downtown hall for a party. Some chanted, “We have succeeded.”

Hospital officials said a group of young men attacked the headquarters of a women's human rights organisation early on Sunday, injuring one activist. The “Women in Black” organisation said the men were looking for gays.

The US Embassy in Belgrade said there was a high potential for violence before, during and after the march and strongly recommended that its personnel avoid the downtown area for the day. The same right-wing group set the embassy on fire during riots in 2008 to protest US support for Kosovo's independence.

Right-wing groups say the gay events are contrary to Serbian family and religious values. Most of the rioters on Sunday were young football fans whose groups have been infiltrated by neo-Nazi and other extremist organisations. - Sapa-AP
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Excited At least 53 dead as car bombs target Iraq police

At least 53 dead as car bombs target Iraq police


AFP – An injured child is carried by her mother following a car bomb in a residential neighbourhood in the
BAGHDAD (AFP) – More than a dozen apparently coordinated car bombs targeting Iraqi police and other attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda killed 53 people on Wednesday, just days before the US military ends its combat mission.
The trail of bloodshed started in the capital Baghdad before stretching to the north and south of the country, hitting 10 cities and towns in quick succession in tactics that bore the hallmark of the jihadist network.
Some 250 people were also wounded, security officials said, as a total of 14 car bombs wrought havoc for police and soldiers whose ability to protect the country is under close scrutiny as US forces have drawn down.
In the deadliest attack, a car bomb at a passport office in Kut, southeast of Baghdad, killed 20 people, including 15 police, and wounded 90 others, most of them police, Lieutenant Ali Hussein told AFP.
In Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle at a police station in the northeastern suburb of Qahira, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more, security and medical officials said.
The attack in the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighbourhood took place at around 8 am (0500 GMT), according to an interior ministry official who gave the toll. "The victims included policemen and civilians," he said.
A doctor at Medical City Hospital said they had received the bodies of two women, two children and two police officers, and that 44 other people were receiving treatment.
A spike in unrest over the past two months has triggered concern that Iraqi forces are not yet ready to handle security on their own, especially with no new government formed in Baghdad since a March 7 general election.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Wednesday's attacks on Al-Qaeda and remnants of the Baath party of now executed dictator Saddam Hussein, who he said wanted "to shake people's confidence in the security forces."
"They (the security forces) are ready to bear the responsibility after US (combat) forces withdraw at the end of August," Maliki said in a statement.
The US army announced on Tuesday that troop levels were below 50,000 in line with President Barack Obama's directives as part of a "responsible drawdown" of troops, seven years on from the invasion which ousted Saddam.
The reduction has raised fears that Qaeda-linked insurgents will step up their attacks.
A separate car bomb in Baghdad killed two police and wounded seven civilians in the city centre, while two other police were shot dead in Al-Amel, a southern district, the interior ministry official said.
In the north of the country, a car bomb in the ethnically divided, oil hub of Kirkuk killed one person and wounded 11, said Colonel Adel Zain al-Abideen, the city's acting chief of police.
In Iraq's main northern city of Mosul, a car bomb killed four civilians and gunmen killed a lieutenant colonel at a police checkpoint.
In Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded as a police patrol passed, killing three civilians. When troops arrived to investigate, a second bomb exploded, wounding six soldiers.
In western Iraq, three people, two of them police, were killed and 16 wounded in two car bombs, one of them at a police checkpoint in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, a security official said.

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