Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but the world isn’t a very peaceful place right now. It’s pretty hard to keep up with all the revolutions, protests and social conflicts going on in it. This column will aim to round up each week’s chaos so at the very least I get to say “I told you so” when your society collapses and you find yourself fighting it out for the last can of baked beans at Lidl.
Teenage Riot: Montreal - Trailer
For one hundred days, students in Quebec have been protesting against proposed tuition hikes by Premier Jean Charest, the leader of an allegedly corrupt provincial government with widespread mafia links. And just like the rest of the dis-empowered youth of the world–they’re getting absolutely nowhere. The government has rejected all student proposals forcing radical groups into the streets. On May 1st VICE took to the streets to see what the fuss was about. The day was just the beginning of what has now become commonplace in Montreal: riots, masked protesters and vast marches. Not long after Victoriaville was turned into a temporary warzone after student protesters clashed with riot squads, fringe anarchists smoke bombed the Metro system and the Quebec government implemented a draconian anti-protest law called Bill 78, a move that’s more Soviet than Canadian. Now the movement has attracted the attention of the vigilante hacker union Anononymous and things seem destined to get worse before they get better.
The trailer for the latest in our Teenage Riot series, Teenage Riot: Montreal is here.
Keep your eyes peeled here for the full-length coming soon. Special thanks to White Lung and the nice folks at Deranged Records for the soundtrack.
Interviewing a “target killer” in Karachi was probably the scariest thing I’ve done in my 17 years at VICE. His gun sat between my feet in the backseat of our car as we drove in circles around his neighborhood. After our chat about killing people for a living, I felt like vomiting for three hours. I’ve been around my share of guns and violence, but sitting next to someone who has murdered 35 people (for between $550 and $1,100 per head) made me feel not so good.
Read more about our time in Karachi, Pakistan here.
Photos From Catastrophe Day In The West Bank
Catastrophe Day isn’t exactly a Mardi Gras of glee and happiness .
Read the story of Catastrophe Day and see the rest of the photos here.
Yovani Solìs Embalms Ex-Presidents, Midget Wrestlers, And Victims Of The Narco Wars
Read about our time with him here.
Quango - Frankie Says “Chillax”
How many of you lost your job today? Chillax, guys! D-Cam’s gonna tackle it as soon he’s finished playing dollies.
Read this week’s Quango here.
On the 15th of May 2011, the Indignados movement was born through a number of protests that at the time took over Spain and which were followed by a year of non-stop economic problems, controversial labour law changes, drastic government spending cuts in health and education and a national strike that culminated in major riots in Barcelona. This weekend protesters gathered at Plaza Catalunya once again in view of the movement’s one year anniversary. It was a birthday party we could not miss.
Watch the film here
Paparazzi never get a clear view of Rebekah Brooks. The former News of the World and Sun editor tends to just be a blur of orange whisking by them in her fancy SUV. So, on the morning of May 11, 2012, we dressed up a ginger girl we know and “identity hacked” David Cameron’s crush outside the Leveson Inquiry. It was fun!
Watch the film here
The Police Federation – basically a trade union for cops – have announced that they will hold a rally to “highlight the unprecedented attack on policing by this government and the consequences these cuts will have on public safety”. If you think about it, thousands of police storm-trooping through the streets of Central London makes perfect sense. Just because they’ve spent a lot of time clubbing anti-cuts protesters to within an inch of their lives over the past year or so, doesn’t mean they can’t be pissed off about austerity too.
But while the police are no strangers to protests, they are new to doing the complaining. With that in mind, let’s lay down a few ground rules – rules being to your average policeman what cocaine is to an estate agent who keeps dreaming about prospective tenants turning up to a viewing to find him with his head in the oven.
Read the full article here
I SPENT THE WEEKEND GETTING ATTACKED BY SOLDIERS IN CAIRO
At times the soldiers were just a few metres away, on the other side of the coiled barbed wire. Each side was pounding rocks against the shields of the other, the deafening clatter of their impacts filling the air. Over it all hung the swaying arc of a water cannon, making a rainbow on one side of the fighting.
Read the full article here
QUANGO - AUSTERITY IS SO LAST SEASON
Three elections. A whole world of fresh misery for David Cameron. When your consolation prize after a local election rout, the potential unravelling of the Euro fiscal pact and the end of austerity as the dominant mode of economic fashion is that the man best positioned to replace you has been triumphantly re-elected, it’s not been a week to break out the Bollinger.
Read the full article here
I SPENT MY WEEKEND GETTING ATTACKED BY SOLDIERS IN CAIRO
There are always some women at the front line of these things, but not that many, and they generally have to put up with a lot of hassle, as men try to “protect” and grope them (or both). All the women, activists and journalists, who go into these environments deserve extra respect. This woman was super cool. Men kept trying to stop her going to the front to throw stones, but she wasn’t having any of it.
Read the full article here
JUST ANOTHER MAY DAY IN BOLIVIA
No one threatened to kill themselves with dynamite, but the march was relatively routine: Morales increased the minimum wage, a teachers’ union accused him of demagoguery and he “reclaimed” a Spanish electricity company (the second Spanish energy company to be reclaimed by Latin Americans in the past few weeks).
In the aftermath, factory workers began discussing an indefinite strike next week. The doctors have been on strike since I arrived last month, which in its turn, prompted the sex workers to go on hunger strike in an attempt to stop them.
See more photos here
FIGHTING DIRTY WITH THE MOBS IN CAIRO
I woke up in Cairo on Wednesday morning to the news that five people had died in clashes outside the Defence Ministry during the night. Part of me felt guilty: As someone who’s regularly documented the goings on in Egypt since last year, I should have been there. There has been a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry here in Cairo for a few days now, and each night some clashes have erupted. On Tuesday night one person died. There haven’t been enough journalists there to cover it.
Read the full article here
MAKING FRIENDS IN LONDON ON MAY DAY 2012
As our liveblog may have made you aware, yesterday was the day that the proles of the world celebrated International Workers’ Day, or May Day, as it’s come to be more popularly known. I arrived for London’s May Day march at Clerkenwell Green at about midday, expecting to find my comrades united and ready for revolution.
What I found was the proletariat of Turkey, and they weren’t unite
Read the full article here
