National Post

Of the 6,375 killed in Syria since March, 431 were children and 713 were soldiers who refused to fire on their own people. Our graphics team takes a look

Putin accuses U.S. of inciting Russian protests: Clinton gave ‘a signal’
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of stirring up protests against his 12-year rule and said foreign countries were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence Russian elections.

In his first public remarks about daily demonstrations over allegations that Sunday’s election was slanted to favour his ruling party, Putin said U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had encouraged Kremlin opponents by criticizing the vote.

“She set the tone for some opposition activists, gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work,” Putin told supporters as he laid out plans for his campaign to return to the presidency in a March election. (Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters)

Britain has warned of “serious consequences” after angry mobs stormed the UK embassy compound in Tehran. Scores of protesters smashed windows, hurled petrol bombs, trashed offices and burned the British flag during a rally to protest against sanctions imposed by the UK. One man waved a framed picture of Queen Elizabeth.

Iraq war veteran suffers life-threatening injuries after being struck in the head at Occupy Oakland protest

Doctors in Oakland, California, struggled on Wednesday to save the life of an Iraq war veteran became a rallying cry for the Occupy Wall Street movement after he was badly wounded in clashes between protesters and police.

Scott Olsen, 24, a former U.S. Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired on Tuesday by police trying to prevent protesters from reclaiming a public square, protest organizers said. (Photo: REUTERS/Jay Finneburgh) Read more

In Greece, no one can hear you whistle. A commuter walks next to immobilized taxis during a protest near the Athens International airport, July 18, 2011. Greek taxi drivers blocked roads to Athens’ airport and main harbour on Monday, holding up thousands of tourists at the start of a two-day protest against plans to liberalize their trade. John Kolesidis/REUTERS. To see more of today’s best photos, click here.

Greeks rage against austerity while EU argues
Striking Greeks raged against a new wave of austerity on Wednesday after eurozone finance ministers failed to agree how to make private creditors contribute to a second bailout for their indebted country.

As workers staged a national strike, thousands of protesters — some chanting “Thieves, traitors! Where did the money go” — massed at parliament to try to prevent lawmakers enacting more tax hikes, spending cuts and sell-offs of state property.

Photo: Protestors fight with riot police during massive clashes at the central Athens Syntagma square on June 15, 2011. (LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP/Getty Images)

A town under siege
The Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour was almost empty Thursday, said witnesses, and refugees were fleeing across the Turkish border as government troops prepared a crackdown.

UN silent in protecting Syrians from government
Peter Goodspeed: While diplomats dither over the correct way to admonish the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, the Internet has been filled with pictures of corpses, mutilated teenage torture victims and panicked crowds seeking shelter from snipers. But the United Nations Security Council, which authorized military action against Libya in March to defend its citizens from their government, has remained silent.

‘Virginity tests’ done, general says
An Egyptian general said the military conducted forced “virginity tests” on female protesters in March, actions that have outraged Egyptian activists who called for demonstrations to condemn the incident.

“The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine,” the general, who did not want to be named, told CNN.

“We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place.

“These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square, and we found in the tents Molotov cocktails and [drugs],” he said.

Amnesty International had previously called on the government to investigate accusations that the army tortured and abused women arrested in the protests. (Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images)

Photos of the day, April 14, 2011 
A supporter of Uganda’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) leader Kizza Besigye falls as he is attacked by a military policeman during riots in the Kasangati suburb of the capital Kampala, April 14, 2011. Ugandan police fired teargas to disperse a crowd that gathered after the opposition leader was prevented from taking part in a second round of protests over rising fuel and food prices, witnesses said. (James Akena/Reuters)

PJ Harvey heralds the return of the protest song
“Don’t you remember when you were young / How you wanted to set the world on fire?” sings Tim McIlrath on Endgame, the new album by punk band Rise Against. It sounds like a rallying cry for a generation of rockers who have been led to believe, by bling-addled hedonists and smug reality-TV judges, that popular music can’t be revolutionary.

But revolutionary-minded music can certainly be popular: Endgame hit No. 1 last month in Canada, and No. 2 in the U.S.; Lupe Fiasco’s Lasers (No. 1 in the U.S. last month), finds the rapper railing against Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Barack Obama; Green Day’s new live album, Awesome as F**k, opens with a three-song tirade against apathy and fundamentalist religion; and this year’s most critically acclaimed and widely discussed album thus far is P.J. Harvey’s war-song opus, Let England Shake.

Are we witnessing a new golden era of protest music, to accompany the global rise of protest movements? In North Africa, protest hip hop has been something of a soundtrack to revolution. But in the West, it’s unclear how much newly penned songs — even popular ones — can serve as catalyst for change. According to Dorian Lynskey, author of 33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, “We’ve lost faith in the idea that rock stars might be revolutionaries.” Nonetheless, he says, there’s a “wide hunger” for politically engaged music, “as long as it’s clever.”

Illustration by Kagan McLeod

Photos of the day, March 29, 2011
A worker in the non-profit sector, which includes nurses and social workers, throws his shoes onto the steps of the stock exchange building, during a protest in Brussels, March 29, 2011. The non-profit sector, numbering some 450,000 people, is complaining about the absence of a new working agreement, partly the result of Belgium lacking a fully fledged government. (REUTERS/Thierry Roge)

Photos: Tyler Anderson nominated for Photojournalist of the Year
National Post photographer, Tyler Anderson, has been nominated for Photojournalist of the Year by The News Photographers Association of Canada. Over 1400 images and projects from across Canada were entered in this year’s competition. Click through for more of Tyler’s photos.

Post staffers nominated for awards
The National Post earned three National Newspaper Awards nods and two nominations from The News Photographers Association of Canada on Monday, including one for the top honour of Photojournalist of the Year.

A man fires his gun into the air as people celebrate on an army armoured vehicle in the eastern Libyan town of Shahat, February 24, 2011. (Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

U.S. has little to gain from intervention in Libya
Matt Gurney: It is highly unlikely that any of Libya’s neighbours, many facing possible unrest of their own, would welcome Western forces deployed to help topple Muammar Gaddafi, even as the situation in Libya deteriorates.