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WSQT Direct Action Radio 88.1 FM in DC
1: Code Pink hurls shoes at GW Bush effigy in front of White House.
Audio coverage of Dec 17 protest(at White House) in solidarity with Muntazar al-Zaida, demanding his release and an end to the war against Iraq.
2: WSQT Iraq Update Dec 18-New hope is born in Baghdad
Journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi threw his shoes at George Bush during a Bagdad press conference over the weekend. He has been tortured, but his courage and sacrifice have given birth to new hope in Occupied Iraq!
On Wednesday, motorists in Bagdad rose in revolt against the routine closures of the July 14th bridge for occupation convoys. Here's what one observer had to say:
Around 12:30 p.m. several vehicles loaded with Iraqi soldiers accompanying two or three buses stopped in mid square and tried to close it (like every day) but drivers refused to obey. We are tired of closed roads.
The horns of tens of cars were loud. Angry drivers yelled at soldiers. Not even when the soldiers brandished their rifles at the cars would the drivers stop. There were shots in the air, but the vehicles continued on. The military saw, for the first time I think, mass anger for blocking roads.
I have been in this square almost every day for the last four years, on the way to one official function or another, and nothing like this has ever happened. This time, the soldiers were forced to park their vehicles in a way that allowed civilian cars to pass.
There was news Wednesday from Fallujah of students demonstrating, demanding the release of Muntathar al Zaidi, the journalist who threw the shoe at President Bush. The students waved their shoes and threw stones at American soldiers. Things escalated and soldiers started to shoot, witnesses said. One student was injured.
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INSERT Al-Jazeera audio with protests and sound from protests
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On Tuesday, in Iraq's northern city of Mosul, hundreds of protestors gathered outside the building of the city university carrying banners and chanted slogans, demanding release of the reporter and describing him as a national hero.
In Nassriyah city, the capital of Dhi Qar province in southern Iraq, dozens of people from local civil organizations of the Zaidiya tribe, where the reporter's family belongs, demonstrated in central city and also demanded the release of Zaidi.
Several more demonstrations took the streets in Salahudin, Hilla and Fallujah.
On Monday, thousands of supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rallied in the Sadr City neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, where Zaidi's family live, burned American flags to protest against Bush and demanded the release of Zaidi.
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Meanwhile the war continued:
BAGHDAD, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- At least six people were killed and some 18 others wounded in car bomb and roadside bomb explosions in central Baghdad on Wednesday, an Interior Ministry source said.
The incident occurred when a booby-trapped car detonated in the morning near a traffic police headquarters near the al-Nahdha parking lot in central Baghdad on the east side of Tigris River, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Minutes later, a roadside bomb went off when security forces and civilians gathered to examine the first blast, the source said.
A total of at least six people were killed and more than 18 others wounded, the source said.
Policemen and civilians were among the killed and wounded people, the source said, adding that the toll could rise as ambulances and civilian cars were transferring victims to several nearby hospitals.
The powerful blast also caused damages to several civilian cars, he added.
What makes George Bush think he or Obama can win a war against the massive opposition of the Iraq people? Mr Obama, it's time to pull the plug and bring the troops home on Jan 21!
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