More updates

From NYC IndyMedia

12:05  Still no reports of mass arrests outside RNC.

11:44 Order to disperse now given at 30th St. and 8th Ave. At 7th Ave and 29th people are agressively heckling Republican delegates and not (yet) being arrested for it.

11:35  The march has reunited; the 11:35 dispersal order was never given and Smaller group of people are moving north again. There is also a band that really rocks.

11:10 The Union Sq. March has now been penned near 30th, police are threatening arrests at 11:35 if people dont leave. Balloons are now falling onto President Bush and Republican delegates. Police have called for the sound machine.

10:52 Police are throning the length of 8th ave up to at least 20th St., but so far have a “hands-off” approach despite their massive numbers. We’re hearing 1-5000 protesters

10:49 Two activists have just been pulled from the floor of the Garden after disrupting Bush’s speech.

10:31 There is now a very large group moving out of Union Sq. Several thousand people have taken the street from Union Sq. Moving west but hoping to go north toward the Garden.

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Listen to ANSWER and UfPJ rally news live

“Everything is ok, but things are a little tense,” said one person on the scene.

Police are driving motorcycles into the crowds, etc. 

http://radio.socialtechnology.net/listen.html

More IndyMedia news

10:18 The crowd moving north on 5th Ave from Union Sq. stretches about 12 blocks. Police report 500-1000. <Yeah, right..>

At the same time, the ANSWER rally has turned into a march and is going south along 8th ave

9:39. The protest pens are opening up again near MSG; second and first pen combining. Police still there, protests more happy at ability to move.

9:35. Report from the ANSWER rally: police are driving motorcycles into protest pens.

Police are penning in 8th Avenue, with protestors inside. Many police there. Very tense.

It should be emphasized that the rally has been completely peaceful and ANSWER has a permit. Yet police apparently want to clear the streets before Bush speaks.

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ANSWER rally at Madison Square Garden is three blocks long

And people are still coming in! This from an organizer who is there.

Updates: From NYC IndyMedia newswire on their homepage.

9:27 ANSWER Rally, 29th & 8th: Looking down from second floor. 5-6000 people penned in by police barricades. Police putting helmets & gloves on and lining up in formation. Cops may try to clear streets before Bush’s speech starts.

9:22  Multiple protest pens near MSG. Police out at the protest pens are letting people out of the front pen but are not letting them back in. Chanting going on: “let them in.”

9:08 Report from Rally at 8th and 30th reporter “said it was the angriest crowd he’s seen so far and very hard to join the protest.” Police are threatening to pull the ANSWER sound system.

8:49  We’re hearing that there are 4 blocks full near Madison Sq. Garden at the ANSWER rally. Police are giving protesters trying to get back in the protest the run-around. A speaker is shouting to the crowd.

8:49  We’re hearing that there are 4 blocks full near Madison Sq. Garden at the ANSWER rally. Police are giving protesters trying to get back in the protest the run-around. A speaker is shouting to the crowd.

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Protester release extraordinarily slow; NLG “wonders why”

Reports from 100 Center Street note that protesters picked during the previous days events are being released very, very slowly. A reporter with Michigan IMC says that most protesters have been in jail for approx. 40-48 hours, since Tuesday night.

According to a representative with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG): “They’re obviously holding people for over the 24 hour limt. Its now the day Bush is in town for the RNC, and we’re wondering why the New York court system would contunue to hold people this long.”

Guantanamo On the Hudson: detained RNC protesters describe prison conditions

Hundreds of people yesterday protested the conditions under which those arrested are being held before going to court saying the site was contaminated with oil and asbestos.

Last night, a judge ordered protesters who had been held for 24-hours released with desk appearance tickets if they were not charged with serious crimes. Before midnight, some protesters started emerging from 100 Centre St. around the block from our firehouse studio. Some 200 supporters greeted them with cheers and offered food and medical treatment. Despite the judge’s orders, a large number of protesters remain imprisoned.

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Company plundered, ex-CEO faces $1.5 Billion lawsuit, Richard Perle involved

Conrad Black plundered his former company, Hollinger International, the then owner of the Daily Telegraph, on a vast scale, according to a 500-page report published Tuesday. The document, the result of a yearlong internal investigation, embellishes an earlier $1.25 billion lawsuit against Lord Black and other former executives of the company, accusing them of extraordinary greed.

The report also singles out a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, Richard Perle, who sat on the Hollinger International board, for particular criticism.

Yes, it’s that Richard Perle, AKA “The Prince of Darkness”

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“Alcohol is believed to be a contributing factor”

1) A Georgia man who drove home with a friend’s headless body after a truck accident then went to bed while the remains dangled out the window faces charges including vehicular homicide and drunk driving

2) A man caught having sex with a blow-up doll in a busy public shopping arcade had to be physically parted from his rubber lover and escorted away, said police in Stuttgart Wednesday.

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Chavez

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez can work towards better ties with the US by avoiding inflammatory rhetoric, the US State Department has said.
Maybe the State Department could aid in this process by not overtly financing and supporting coup attempts against Chavez, and by not whining when the referendum vote was pronounced clean by Jimmy Carter.

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Justice Dept. admits possible “criminal misconduct” in terror conviction

The Justice Department conceded Wednesday that in its zeal to win convictions in a terrorism case in Detroit last year, prosecutors engaged in “a pattern of mistakes and oversights” that may constitute criminal misconduct.

The filing details a wide range of misdeeds, while offering a rare glimpse inside the government’s war on terrorism. It includes allegations that the main prosecutor in the case — Richard G. Convertino — disregarded dissenting views from experts and suppressed or withheld evidence that might have been helpful to the defense.

J. Edgar Hoover would be proud of Convertino. The question is, will Convertino be prosecuted?

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