‘Black Lives Matter’ protests have resumed across the US with protesters demonstrating over the recent police killings of two African Americans.

On Tuesday, 37-year-old Alton Sterling was fatally shot by police in the southeastern city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and  32-year-old Philando Castile was shot dead Wednesday by a police officer near St. Paul, Minnesota. On Saturday, protesters held demonstrations in Baton Rouge and some of them were arrested by police in riot gear.

The protesters marched along the right lane of Airline Highway until police blocked all six lanes of traffic and began walking toward the demonstrators. They were chanting, “black power” and “no justice, no peace, no racist police.”

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NATO leaders have agreed to deploy thousands of troops in Poland and the Baltic states in a bid to strengthen the 28-nation alliance’s eastern borders in Europe against Russia. The Western military alliance announced on Friday that it will move four battalions totaling up to 4,000 troops to northeastern Europe on a rotating basis to display its readiness to support Eastern European member states against the so-called Russian aggression.

“These battalions will be robust and they will be multinational. They make clear that an attack on one ally will be considered an attack on the whole alliance,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during a press conference after the first working session of a two-day summit in the Polish capital Warsaw on Friday.

Stoltenberg said the plan is justified under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that if an “armed attack against one or more” NATO member states is launched “in Europe or North America,” it “shall be considered an attack against them all,” and all members will have to take the necessary actions to assist the invaded ally.

The UK will send 500 troops for a battalion based in Estonia, while Germany and Canada will lead two more battalions in Lithuania and Latvia, respectively. US President Barack Obama said at the summit that under the plan, his country would deploy an armored brigade of 1,000 troopers as the fourth battalion in Poland next year “to enhance our forward presence in Central and Eastern Europe.”

“In other words, Poland will be seeing an increase in NATO and American personnel and in the most modern military equipment,” Obama said.

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A human rights attorney says US investigations into police killing of two African-Americans in Louisiana and Minnesota recently will not lead to the administration of justice.  A video that shows the aftermath of police shooting can be investigated as a federal crime, but the investigation “will not ensure there is going to be justice for the victim,” human rights attorney from New York Roger Wareham told Press TV.

Two graphic videos shot in the US states of Louisiana and Minnesota shocked the American nation this week which showed the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile in the hands of US police officers. “In an almost all those cases the officer who killed an unarmed black civilian does not even get indicted, much less prosecuted, much less convicted or even go to jail,” Wareham said.

He said African Americans are the constant victim of a system in which the law enforcement or white vigilantes can kill black people with impunity and without any sort of retribution and accountability. “So, there is a culture of white supremacy, there is an attitude that says you can do anything to a black or brown person, because you will not be punished for it,” he added. Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of the US Department of Defense, said the police officer who killed Philando Castile should be held accountable

It is “because the act is tragic and a video record proves that the victim was unarmed, but he was shot four times,” Korb said. The use of excessive force by US law enforcement forces has become the focus of national debate, particularly over high-profile killings of African Americans by mainly white officers during the last several years. Police in the United States killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans.

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The sister of a British soldier killed in the Iraq war has called former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair the world’s “worst terrorist” after hearing the Chilcot inquiry report into the UK role in the 2003 Iraq invasion. “There is one terrorist that the world needs to be aware of and his name is Tony Blair, the world’s worst terrorist,” said Sarah O’Connor, the sister of Bob O’Connor who died in Iraq in 2005, at a press conference called by some of the dead soldiers’ families.

“When he (Blair) gave his evidence, it was definitely the Tony Blair show. He thinks he’s the puppet master pulling the strings,” she said. She made clear that her family, along with a number of other families, would take legal action against Blair. O’Connor said terrorists killed my brother, but “in that sentence of terrorists, I include Mr Blair.” The Chilcot inquiry report said that military action was “not a last resort” and that the UK chose to go to war before the peaceful options had been exhausted.

The father of another soldier killed in the war said that Blair tried to write his own Iraq war report that was “completely” different from Chilcot report as he tried to defend his decision for the Iraq invasion during a press conference. Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew died in the Iraqi city of Basra in 2005, said he was “amazed” while listening to Blair’s statement that was a response to Chilcot report released earlier on Wednesday.

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