Archive - Apr 15, 2009

• Georgians still demanding President Saakashvili step down
• Prominent Kashmiri separatist runs for seat in India’s Parliament
• ICE deports legal residents for petty crimes
• The military is still getting the biggest chunk of your tax dollar
• Activists target their representative on Tax Day
• Gazan women hit particularly hard by Israel’s recent attack

• Taliban militant attack again despite declaration of Sharia law in parts of Pakistan
• Afghan women attacked for protesting controversial marriage bill
• London Police crowd control policies examine after G20 problems
• Germany bans all GMO corn
• Student protesters disrupt anti-immigrant talk at UNC
• Consumer goods prices fill for first time in 50 years
• Obama names “Border Czar”

More than 700 million registered voters are preparing to head to the polls in India tomorrow – and self-determination groups are still debating whether to participate in an election which will appoint a new prime minister and parliamentarians. In the past, Kashmir separatist groups have issued election boycotts because representation in India’s Parliament could be interpreted as acknowledging New Delhi’s supremacy over Kashmir. But in a shake-up this year, a prominent Kashmiri separatist is running for a seat in parliament, to represent his home town of Baramulla, which borders Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. As Shahnawaz Khak reports, the candidate, Sajjad Ghani Lone says his decision to run isn’t a change in ideology, rather a change in strategy.

Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets of Tbilisi, demanding the resignation of their president, Mikheil Saakashvili. Numbers have dwindled since more than 50,000 demonstrated last Thursday, but Jacob Resneck reports that protesters and the political opposition insist they are in it for the long haul.

The United States deports most immigrants for minor offences, and one in five of those deported were in the country legally – either as lawful permanent residents, or in some cases as refugees. That’s according to a new report issued by Human Rights Watch, the group that was finally given access to the numbers after a two-and-a-half year-long battle with the federal government to release information under the Freedom of Information Act. HRW also found some egregious deficiencies in the data that the government keeps on people who are deported. Aura Bogado speaks with David Fathi, Director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch about the report.

The last-minute tradition of people around the country rushing to file their taxes before tonight’s midnight deadline hasn’t changed this year. What is a little different includes people taking to the streets in what they bill “Tea Parties”, which they compare to the Boston Tea Parties’ opposition to British rule. Today’s tea partiers are mostly conservatives and libertarians, protesting Wall Street’s bail out. But there is also another group of protesters out today, much smaller in numbers, and with a diminished profile, who are boycotting Tax Day because of military spending. As FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports, the military still gets the largest chunk of your tax dollar.

As we just heard, some people are using Tax Day as a means of protest or to send a message. FSRN's Chuck Rosina is in Medford, Massachusetts, where one group of activists is targeting their representative’s office today.