LONDON (Dispatches) – British pro-Palestinian activists have held rallies across the UK, with protesters calling for closure of Zionist weapons factories there. Activists protesting outside an Israeli arms factory in Leicester issued a 30-day eviction notice before they take public action, rejecting the regime’s bloody crimes against the oppressed Palestinian people. The Palestine Action activists handed a notice on Saturday under the authority of The Court (of Public Opinion) to Leicester’s Israeli arms factory, UAV Tactical Systems owned by Elbit Systems, which is Israel’s largest arms firm. The group posted a video on its Twitter account showing a notice that provides 30 days before the site will be met by mass action on May 1st if it is not vacated, as the people of Leicester and groups and individuals from across Britain convene to force the Israeli weapons factory to close. The site, jointly owned by the Zionist regime’s biggest weapons company Elbit Systems and by France’s Thales, manufactures drones for the British military based upon Israel’s Hermes drones, and also exports arms in large volumes directly to Israel. Behind locked doors, the drones that are assembled by Elbit have been tested on the captive population of the besieged Gaza Strip.

 

***

WASHINGTON (Al Jazeera) – While pushing for a ban on TikTok over claims that China uses the popular app to spy on Americans, the U.S. government itself spies on the world by using tech companies that effectively control the global internet, said a report published on the English news website of Al Jazeera. The U.S. government allows its intelligence agencies to “carry out warrantless spying” on foreigners’ emails, phones and other online communications, said the report. Compared with other countries, Washington has the advantage of having jurisdiction over the small number of companies that effectively run the modern internet, including Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, it said. “It is a case of ‘rules for thee but not for me,’” Asher Wolf, a tech researcher and privacy advocate based in Australia, was quoted as saying. The U.S. targeted 232,432 “non-U.S. persons” for surveillance in 2021, when the most recent year for which data is available, the report said. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) estimates that the U.S. government has collected more than 1 billion communications per year since 2011, according to the report.

 

***

SOFIA (AP) – Bulgarians cast their ballots in the fifth general election in two years on Sunday, hoping to end political instability and help overcome the economic woes fuelled by the war in Ukraine. Polling stations opened at 7am local time (04:00 GMT) on Sunday. Initial exit poll results will be announced after polls close at 8 pm (17:00 GMT) and preliminary results are expected on Monday. Turnout is expected to be low due to voters’ apathy and disillusionment with politicians, who have failed to form stable governments and deliver governance in one of the poorest and most corrupt European Union member states. Russian war of its western neighbor has deepened the political crisis that has engulfed Bulgaria since 2020, the worst instability since the fall of communism. The nation of 6.5 million people is a member of the EU and NATO, but also has close historical and cultural ties with Russia.

 

***

KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) – Protesters faced off outside a historic monastery in the Ukrainian capital after the home of a leading clergyman was raided by the security services. Metropolitan Pavlo of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of links with Moscow despite renouncing them, was called in for questioning on charges of inciting religious hatred. The SBU security service said Pavlo is suspected of “justifying and denying the Russian army against Ukraine and of glorifying its members”. The SBU said it had raided the home of Pavlo, who was later taken to court for a hearing to decide whether or not he should be detained, an AFP reporter saw. The hearing was initially adjourned as Pavlo complained of health issues but later resumed, with the court ordering a 60-day house arrest. He will have to wear an electronic surveillance device and “refrain from communicating with witnesses” as the inquiry continues, it said.

 

***

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Many Republicans in the U.S. Congress have responded to Donald Trump’s looming Tuesday arraignment by characterizing the criminal justice system as corrupt, in accusations that parallel their earlier broadsides against the nation’s elections after the former president’s 2020 defeat. Trump and his allies in the House of Representatives and Senate have used rhetoric that echoed his claims of widespread election fraud in the build-up to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. Critics warn that the present partisan rhetoric could shake public trust in courts by undermining the institutional legitimacy of the criminal justice system. “Trump’s indictment is the culmination of six years of the Democrats weaponizing law enforcement to target and persecute their political enemies. Dictatorships operate like this – the U.S. is supposed to be different,” tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz, a hard-line Republican who voted to overturn 2020 election results.