UC Berkeley Student Protest Cartoons

UC Berkeley students threaten to sue over Ann Coulter visit

Students at the University of California at Berkeley who invited conservative commentator Ann Coulter to speak on campus are threatening to sue the university if it does not find a proper time and venue for her to speak next week.
Harmeet Dhillon, who represents the Berkeley College Republicans, said in letters sent Friday to UC Berkeley’s Interim Vice Chancellor Stephen Sutton and chief attorney Christopher Patti that if Coulter is not allowed to give a speech on campus on April 27 she will file a lawsuit in federal court because the university is violating the students’ constitutional right to free speech.
"It is a sad day indeed when the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, is morphing before our eyes into the cemetery of free speech on college campuses," Dhillon wrote.
School officials told the Berkeley College Republicans on Tuesday, and the nonpartisan Bridge USA which coordinated the event, that it was being cancelled due to security concerns.
Chancellor Nicholas B. Dirks said that police have "very specific intelligence regarding threats that could pose a grave danger to the speaker," her audience and protesters if the event goes ahead next Thursday.
Officials offered an afternoon event on May 2, when they can offer an "appropriate, protectable venue" but Coulter rejected it, saying she is not available that day. She also tweeted, "THERE ARE NO CLASSES AT BERKELEY THE WEEK OF MAY 2." The period is known as Dead Week, when students are studying for final exams.
"You cannot impose arbitrary and harassing restrictions on the exercise of a constitutional right," Coulter told "Hannity" on Thursday night. "None of this has to do with security."
It is the latest skirmish in a free-speech fight involving conservative voices on college campuses across the country, including at Berkeley. In February, masked rioters at the school smashed windows, set fires, and shut down an appearance by former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos. Last week, the Berkeley College Republicans said threats of violence forced them to cancel a speech by writer David Horowitz. Writer Charles Murray's appearance at Middlebury saw riots last month, and Heather Mac Donald's speech at Claremont McKenna College was streamed online earlier this month after protesters blocked the door to the venue.
Berkeley has been the site of clashes between far-right and far-left protesters, most recently at a rally last weekend called in support of President Donald Trump in downtown Berkeley.

French presidential election: Voters take to the polls under heightened security

French voters began to flood the polls Sunday under heightened security to kick-off the start of a tense first-round poll that has been seen as a test for the spread of populism around the world.
Security around the more than 60,000 polling stations was tightened up in wake of the deadly shooting on the Champs-Elysses on Thursday, which left one police officer and a gunman dead. The government mobilized more than 50,000 police and gendarmes to protect the polling places and an additional 7,000 soldiers were on patrol.
It is the first time in recent memory that a presidential election, in which 47 million people are eligible to vote, taking place during a state of emergency, which was put in place after the Paris attacks of November 2015.
The vote "is really important, mainly because we really need a change in this country with all the difficulties we are facing and terrorism," said Paris resident Alain Richaud, who was waiting to cast his vote.
Opinion polls point to a tight race among the four top contenders vying to get into the May 7 presidential runoff that will decide who becomes France's next head of state.
Polls suggest far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron, an independent centrist and former economy minister, were in the lead. But conservative Francois Fillon, a former prime minister, appeared to be closing the gap, as was far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.
France's 10 percent unemployment, its lackluster economy and security issues topped concerns for the 47 million eligible voters.
Hard-line right-winger Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who rails against Europe, was the first of the presidential candidates to vote Sunday morning in his constituency in the leafy Paris suburbs. Far-left candidate Nathalie Arthaud cast her ballot soon after in the Paris suburb of Pantin.
Fillon will vote in Paris, but his wife — who's been handed preliminary charges for her role in the fake jobs scandal that rocked her husband's campaign — voted 250 155 miles away near their 14th century manor house in Sarthe.
If Le Pen or Melenchon win a spot in the summer’s runoff, it will be seen as a victory for the rising wave of populism reflected by the votes for Donald Trump and Brexit.
Macron and Fillon are committed to European unity and would reform labor rules.
Political campaigning was banned from midnight Friday hours ahead of polls opening in France's far-flung overseas territories such as Guadeloupe, French Polynesia and French Guiana, which all voted a day early Saturday.

Kim Jong Un party paradise: North Korean dictator's resort revealed as his people starve

These aerial pictures show Kim Jong Un’s party island– dubbed ‘North Korea’s Ibiza’ – where the nuke-loving dictator entertains his cronies and plots world domination just like a James Bond villain.
The sprawling resort comprises of luxury villas dotted around Kim’s giant private palace on a wooded estate on the east coast of the hermit nation.
GAS STATIONS IN NORTH KOREA'S MAIN CITY RESTRICT SERVICES, SPECULATION THAT CHINA IS REDUCING SUPPLY
As millions of North Koreans starve, the despot’s guests – members of the nation’s political elite – dine on the finest imported food like lobsters, scallops and French cheeses and wash it down with bottles of champagne, fine wines, whisky and brandy.
Former Chicago Bulls basketball star Dennis Rodman – who has struck up a bizarre friendship with the dictator – was a guest at the private retreat.
Rodman, who experts claim has had more contact with the tyrant than any other American, talked about the party resort comparing it to Spanish island Ibiza.He said: “It’s like going to Hawaii or Ibiza, but he’s the only one that lives there.
“He’s got 50 to 60 people around him all the time – just normal people, drinking cocktails and laughing the whole time.
“If you drink a bottle of tequila, it’s the best tequila.
“Everything you want, he has the best.”
Guests of Kim are given rooms decorated with imported antique furniture, paintings and tapestries.
His seaside party pad – close to the port of Wonson – has its own marina and secluded bays patrolled 24 hours a day by heavily armed troops.

North Korea threatens to strike US aircraft carrier to show 'military's force'

North Korea threatened Sunday to sink a U.S. aircraft carrier to demonstrate its military prowess as two Japanese navy ship joined a U.S. strike group for exercises in the Philippine Sea.
“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a U.S. nuclear powered aircraft carrier with a single strike," according to North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party’s newspaper, the Rodong Sinmum.
The paper also likened the USS Carl Vinson to a “gross animal” and said a strike on the carrier would be “an actual example to show our military’s force.”
President Trump ordered the USS Carl Vinson to sail to waters off the Korean Peninsula in response to the rising tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests and threats to attack the U.S. and its allies. Vice President Pence said Saturday that group would arrive “within days.”
The Vinson and two other U.S. warships were joined by two Japanese destroyers as they continued their journey north in the western Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. The U.S. group also includes a guided-missile cruiser and a guided-missile destroyer.
The aircraft carrier had canceled a scheduled visit to Australia to divert toward North Korea in a show of force, though it still conducted a curtailed training exercise with Australia before doing so.
The Navy called the exercise "routine" and said it is designed to improve combined maritime response and defense capabilities, as well as joint maneuvering proficiency.
The Vinson group has conducted three previous bilateral exercises with the Japanese navy since leaving San Diego on Jan. 5 for a western Pacific deployment. The most recent one was in March.
Analysts believe that North Korea could be gearing up for its sixth nuclear test in wake of a failed missile launch and ahead of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, which takes place Tuesday.
North Korea conducted two of its five nuclear tests last year and is believed to be working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles that could reach the mainland U.S.