kokolaunch's Blog: 06/05/17

Rihanna claps back at fat shamers with epic meme...

The singer has added some weight and quite a few fans and non-fans have had a thing or two to say about it.

Trump lashes out at London Mayor Sadiq Khan, again

London (CNN)US President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Monday, a day after attacking his handling of the weekend's terror.

Trump, writing on Twitter Monday, said: "Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his 'no reason to be alarmed' statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!"

It is the second day that Trump has twisted the mayor's words. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Khan said there was "no cause for alarm" when referring to a visible increase in police activity on the streets of London.

MORE: Trump criticized for tweet about London Mayor after attack

Trump appeared to misconstrue the statement on Sunday when he tweeted: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!"

Khan's spokesman repeated his response of a day earlier: "Nothing has changed since yesterday. The Mayor is focused on dealing with Saturday's horrific and cowardly attack and working with the police, the emergency services and the Government to keep London safe."

Prime Minister Theresa May came to Khan's defense, saying he was doing a "good job" and that they were working together closely in the wake of the weekend attack.

MORE: Fear, love, and defiance after night of terror

"I think Sadiq Khan is doing a good job and it's wrong to say anything else - he's doing a good job," May told reporters after a general election campaign speech.

May declined to directly criticize Trump for his tweet, which has prompted a fierce backlash in Britain.

Asked what it would take for her to publicly criticize the US President, May suggested that she "was not afraid" to speak out when Trump "gets things wrong."

"I've been very clear, I've been very happy to say when I think President Trump is wrong -- to have taken America out of the climate change agreement, the Paris agreement," May said. "So I'm not afraid to say when I think President Trump is getting things wrong."

After Trump's first attack on Khan, the acting US ambassador to the UK, Lewis Lukens, notably singled out the London Mayor for praise.

"I commend the strong leadership of the @MayorofLondon as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack," read a tweet from the US' London embassy attributed to Lukens.

Anti-Trump protester: 'Is this my last free birthday?'

More than 200 anti-Trump protesters are facing felony charges that could land some in prison for 70 to 80 years.

On Inauguration Day, more than 230 people were arrested during anti-Trump protests [Reuters/Bryan Woolston]

when Olivia Alsip travelled to the capital to protest against the inauguration of right-wing US President Donald Trump, she didn't imagine she would end the day behind bars and later face up to 80 years in prison.

Thousands of people journeyed from across the US to Washington, DC, to protest on the first day of Trump's presidency, January 20.

During the swearing-in, Alsip was among the more than 230 protesters arrested when officers from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) blocked off a large area and hauled off nearly everyone.

"I am wondering if my 24th birthday next week will be my last as a free person," she says by telephone from Chicago. "I've never in my life had such a painful and stressful experience. There are no words to convey the severity of this."

"Our experience in police custody [that day] was totally dehumanising. We were kettled, treated like animals and denied basic human rights and dignity," she recollects. "People were forced to urinate on the streets and denied water and food."

The arrests came after Black Bloc anarchists and anti-fascists clashed with police. Officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters.

Anti-Trump chants were occasionally drowned out by the thuds of sound grenades and smoke bombs.

Left behind was broken glass from the windows of cafes, restaurants and banks. Declarations of resistance marked the walls and pavements: "Make racists afraid again," and "F*ck Trump".

Images of a limousine in flames later made it onto television screens and the front pages of news websites around the world.

On January 21, most of the 230 protesters and bystanders arrested the day before were charged with felony rioting, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $25,000 fine.

But on April 27, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment which added additional charges for some 212 defendants, three of whom had not previously been charged.

With new felony charges including urging to riot, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property, many of the defendants are facing up to 80 years in prison. Many other defendants, among them journalists, are facing more than 70 years.

A handful of defendants have made deals with the authorities and entered guilty pleas in exchange for significantly shorter sentences.

But more than 130 of them have joined a 'Points of Unity' agreement, a collective pledge to reject any potential plea deals and reject cooperation with the prosecutors that comes at the expense of their co-defendants.

Last Friday, 21 defendants filed motions (PDF) to have their cases dismissed.

Replying to Al Jazeera by email, MPD spokesperson Rachel Reid said: "the arrests on Inauguration Day is the subject of pending litigation and... the MPD has no comment".

The US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia failed to respond to Al Jazeera's requests for a comment.

'Innocent until proven guilty is a falsehood'

For Alsip, the ever-present weight of the charges has already taken a toll on her life. "I'm pretty shocked by the impact it's had on my personal life," she explains.

"It seems that innocent until proven guilty is a falsehood - all the way from the prosecution and police to the people who had previously supported me in my activism. It's hanging over my head the entire time, which makes it really challenging. It hinders your ability to plan your life."

More challenging still, she must travel from Chicago to the capital for each court hearing between now and her trial date in March. She says the legal and travel costs are placing an immense burden on the defendants.

"Most of us don't have a whole lot of money," she says, adding that she refuses to take a plea deal.

"Generally we are fighting the rich because we are economically or politically disadvantaged and don't have a lot of capital."

She adds of protesting Trump's far-right policies: "Communities like ours cannot [be silent]. It's a matter of life and death for some of us. The status quo is extermination and to be ostracised. If there is a time during my life when we need protest most, it's now."

Taylor, one of the defendants, spoke to Al Jazeera under a pseudonym due to fear of "harassment by the alt-right" on social media, explaining that several defendants have had their names, addresses and places of employment posted online.

Speaking to Al Jazeera by email, Taylor says the charges aimed at "stifling resistance".

"I was arrested when the police kettled the crowd," Taylor says, explaining that many protesters and bystanders were disoriented by pepper spray and stun grenades.

"The MPD closed off an entire city block and arrested everyone within that block. There was no order to disperse and no warning," Taylor recalls.

"It is no coincidence that this repression coincides with the first visible manifestation of resistance to Trump's regime."

Taylor's accusations that the police failed to give warnings were echoed in a report (PDF) published by the DC Mayor's Office of Police Complaints.

It concluded that "less than lethal weapons were used indiscriminately and without adequate warnings in certain instances".

Activists and defendants say the unusually harsh charges are designed to stifle protest [Adrees Latif/Reuters]

Sam Menefee-Libey of the DC Legal Posse, an activist group that supports the defendants, describes the charges as "specious" and a "blatantly politicised" effort to deflect attention from the police's "brutal force" on January 20.

"Folks know that the carceral state is a defining fact of political life for communities of colour and the left for decades, and this is also a notable escalation of that," he argues, adding that the prosecution of the defendants will set a precedent for further crackdowns on dissent.

"I don't understand why people aren't treating this as more than 200 canaries in a coal mine," he says, calling for broader solidarity with the defendants.

"Thousands of people put themselves on the line while engaging in direct political action on Inauguration Day. Many of them were met with horrible police violence, and it deserves more attention."

Restricting protests

As protests flourish in cities and towns across the US, at least 18 states are now considering 30-plus bills designed to curb protests by introducing increasingly severe penalties for demonstrators.

Earlier this month, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill that will increase penalties against activists who trespass on property with a "critical infrastructure facility".

Another bill in Missouri will prohibit protesters from wearing masks or disguises during demonstrations, while proposed legislation in several states - Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Iowa - will impose harsher punishment on people who block traffic or trespass.

Rights groups have denounced the bills. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed to challenge anti-protest bills in state legislatures.

Deeming the proposals as unconstitutional, the ACLU says it "will fight in statehouses against any bill that violates the First Amendment, and for any that become law, we're hopeful the courts will see these bills for what they are: unlawful infringements on our right to speak".

The United Nations warned in March that 16 such bills, if passed, will violate international human rights law and have a "chilling effect" on protesters. The bills would strip "the voices of the most marginalised, who often find the right to assemble the only alternative to express their opinions".

Police are accused of indiscriminate use of tear gas and pepper spray during the Inauguration Day event [Adrees Latif/Reuters]

Nick Zerwas, a Republican state representative in Minnesota, coauthored one of the bills introduced recently in his state legislature. It aims to impose a harsher punishment for protesters who block freeways, access to airports or access to public trains.

"It's already against the law to block a freeway or access to airport already, or a commuter train," says Zerwas, speaking to Al Jazeera by telephone.

Explaining that the punishment would increase from misdemeanour to gross misdemeanour for those offences, he adds: "I think the criticisms are just misdirected. You don't have a first amendment to pull your car perpendicular in the freeway in the middle of a protest, for instance."

Growing confrontations

The crackdown on protests comes at a moment of growing confrontations between anti-fascists and other leftists on the one hand, and activists from the alt-right and other hardline Trump supporters on the other.

Matthew Whitley, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC), argues that there is a "clear bias" in the treatment of left-wing protesters and pro-Trump demonstrators, among them far-right hardliners.

Whitley pointed to the case of a 34-year-old member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a left-wing union, who was shot by a Trump supporter outside a speech by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos in January.

Anti-Trump protests have continued steadily since the mass demonstrations on Inauguration Day [Adrees Latif/Reuters]

"The strange reality now is that we have a president in power who is supported by white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the far-right," he argues, pointing out that although far-right activists have been arrested, they have not experienced the kind of mass arrests faced by anti-Trump protesters on Inauguration Day.

"The fact that Trump is supported by these groups inevitably has to have an impact - he's not going to oversee a harsh crackdown on his own supporters."

Arguing that the charges against her and other protesters are politicised, Olivia Alsip alludes to an incident that took place the day before her arrest. John Joseph Boswell, a millionaire who travelled to the capital to celebrate Trump's inauguration, was arrested after sexually assaulting a maid in his hotel room.

Although he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour sexual abuse charge, Boswell was given a suspended sentence of 10 days in jail, a $50 fine and six months of probation.

"If the government cared about people's suffering they'd be working with us and engaging oppressed communities. But private property is more important to the government and society at large than human lives," Alsip concludes.

"I'm looking at spending more than three times my age in prison for going to a protest. No human being should be in a cage that long, especially not for trying to live."

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_

Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates

The latest news after Arab Gulf countries cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and suspended Doha-bound flights.

The latest developments since three Gulf Arab states cut ties with Qatar on Monday morning:

10:40pm - Kuwait calls for restraint

Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah has called Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and "urged him for restraint and not to take any measure that could escalate" the situation in the Gulf, according to the state-run KUNA news agency.

8:30pm - Turkey is seeking to resolve Gulf spat

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is "actively involved" in efforts to resolve the diplomatic spat between Qatar and its neighbours, according to Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.

8pm - US military has "no plans" for change

The US military's Central Command says it has "no plans to change our posture in Qatar" amid a Gulf diplomatic crisis. Major Adrian J T Rankine-Galloway said in a statement that US military aircraft continue to fly missions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria from Qatar's Al-Udeid air base.

7:30pm - Egypt airspace to close on Tuesday morning

Egypt's ministry of civil aviation has announced that the country's airspace will be closed to Qatari flights starting Tuesday 04:00GMT.

6:30pm - Israel praises anti-Qatar moves

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's defence minister, has praised the measures against Qatar, saying "there is no doubt that this opens very many possibilities of cooperation in the struggle against terror".

6:25pm - Saudi shuts Al Jazeera office

Saudi Arabia has shut down Al Jazeera Media Network's local office, according to Saudi state media

5:40pm - No Qatari vessels allowed in Saudi ports

The Saudi Ports Authority has notified shipping agents not to receive vessels carrying Qatari flags or ships that are owned by Qatari companies or individuals.

5:10pm - Egypt suspends air and sea links

Egypt's foreign ministry said in a statement the country was suspending air and sea links to Qatar, citing national security.

4:40pm - Turkey expresses 'sorrow'

Turkey is ready to help however it can to bring the disputes to a manageable level, said Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu speaking at a joint press conference in Ankara.

Cavusoglu also said: "Turkey sees the unity and solitary among Gulf states as our own unity".

4pm - Iran's food 'can reach in 12 hours'

Food shipments sent from Iran can reach Qatar in 12 hours, said Reza Nourani, chairman of the union of exporters of agricultural products.

3:30pm - UAE port to turn away Qatar-bound vessels

UAE's Port of Fujairah says all vessels flying the flag of Qatar or destined for Qatar will not be allowed to call at the port.

3:30pm - Iran calls for dialogue

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi was quoted on the ministry's website as calling for a "clear and explicit dialogue" among the feuding nations. Iran says rising tensions among its Arab Gulf neighbours threaten the interests of everyone in the region.

3:15pm - Maldives cuts ties with Qatar

Decision made because of the Maldives "firm opposition to activities that encourage terrorism and extremism".

3:10pm - Egypt recalls ambassador

Egypt's foreign ministry says it has given the Qatari ambassador in Cairo 48 hours to leave the country and has ordered its own envoy in Doha to return home, also within two days.

2:50pm - Libya's Haftar cuts ties with Qatar

The faction led by Khalifa Haftar, one of three rival governments in Libya, announced it is cutting ties with Qatar.

Haftar's foreign minister accuses Qatar of "harbouring terrorism".

2pm - Saudi closes border with Qatar

Saudi Transport authority confirms immediate border closure with Qatar by land and by sea.

1:30pm - Saudi border line up

Reports of trucks being lined up across the border in Saudi Arabia unable to enter Qatar.

1:20pm - Updates from FIFA

Football's world governing body says it remains in "regular contact with Qatar".

FIFA issued a short statement saying it has spoken with "the Qatar 2022 Local Organizing Committee and the Supreme Committee for Delivery Legacy handling matters relating to the 2022 FIFA World Cup".

It said: "We have no further comments for the time being".

1:15pm - Air Arabia flights suspended from Tuesday

Air Arabia, a low-cost airline based in the United Arab Emirates, said it is suspending flights to Qatar along with other Emirati airlines over a growing diplomatic crisis.

Air Arabia says its flights will be suspended from Tuesday "until further notice".

EXPLAINED: How diplomatic rift affects air travel

12:10pm - Saudia flights suspended from Monday

Saudi Arabian Airlines says it is suspending flights to the Qatari capital, Doha.

The airline, also known as Saudia, posted on Twitter that it would be halting flights from Monday morning, without elaborating.

11:05am - FlyDubai flights cancelled from Tuesday

Dubai's budget carrier FlyDubai says it has canceled its flights to Qatar amid a diplomatic dispute between it and other Arab countries.

The carrier said on Monday that, starting Tuesday, all flights would be suspended. It offered no other details.

FlyDubai's decision follows that of Emirates and Etihad in canceling flights to Doha.

10:45am - Yemen cuts ties with Qatar

Yemen's internationally recognised government has cut relations with Qatar and says it supports the decision by the Saudi-led coalition to end Qatar's participation in the war on the Houthis in Yemen. Qatar has been part of the coalition since March 2015.

The government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi says it severed ties with Qatar in part over is support of extremist groups in Yemen "in contradiction with the goals announced by the countries supporting the legitimate government".

10:20am - Emirates flights cancelled from Tuesday

The Dubai-based airline Emirates says it is suspending flights to Qatar amid a growing diplomatic rift.

Emirates said on its website on Monday flights would be suspended until further notice starting Tuesday.

10am - US urges GCC unity

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Sydney: "It is important that the GCC remain a unified [front]".

Tillerson does not expect the rift "to have any significant impact, if any impact at all, on the unified fight against terrorism".

Qatar hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East.

9:55am - Qatar's official reaction

Qatar says there is "no legitimate justification" for four Arab nations to cut diplomatic ties.

Qatar also says the decision is a "violation of its sovereignty", vowing to its citizens it will not affect them.

READ: Qatar's reaction in full

8:35am - Etihad suspends flights from Tuesday

Abu Dhabi-based airline Etihad said it is suspending flights to Qatar from June 6 "until further notice".

Etihad said its last flights would leave early Tuesday morning.

Etihad gave no reason for the decision. It is the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates.

6:10am - UAE, Egypt cut ties with Qatar

The United Arab Emirates and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.

Both the UAE and Egypt made the announcement on their state-run news agencies within minutes of each other.

6am - Saudi cuts ties with Qatar

Saudi Arabia says it is cutting diplomatic ties to Qatar and it has pulled all Qatari troops from the ongoing war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia made the announcement via its state-run Saudi Press Agency early on Monday. It appeared to be timed in concert with an earlier announcement by Bahrain similarly cutting ties.

The dispute between Qatar and the Gulf's Arab countries escalated recently over a hack of Qatar's state-run news agency. It has spiraled since.

5:50am - Bahrain cuts ties with Qatar

Bahrain says it is cutting diplomatic ties to Qatar amid a deepening rift between Gulf Arab nations.

Bahrain's Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement early on Monday saying it would withdraw its diplomatic mission from the Qatari capital of Doha within 48 hours and that all Qatari diplomats should leave Bahrain within the same period.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies