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Libya's eastern-based government cuts diplomatic relations with Qatar The Jerusalem Post The government, which sits in the eastern city of Bayda, has little authority within Libya. It is appointed by a parliament that also sits in the east and is aligned with powerful military commander Khalifa Haftar. They have spurned a UN-backed ... and more »

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Libya's eastern-based government cuts diplomatic relations with Qatar - The Jerusalem Post

Smoke is seen rising from the Brigade Qaqaa headquarters, a former Libyan Army camp known as Camp 7 April, behind members of the Libya Shield, following clashes between rival militias at the Sawani road district in Tripoli, August 24, 2014. REUTERS/Stringer (LIBYA Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)

Heavy clashes erupted between two militias in the city of Al-Zawiya in northwestern Libya Saturday night, according to sources from the city.

The clashes broke out after two members of one militia were killed by gunfire in front of Olympi Cafe in the city by the other militia fighters.

According to local sources the two killed men were Islam Jamoum and Suhail Ben Kora.

The two militias were later engaged in clashes using heavy and medium weapons in the streets of the city centre.

The Al-Zawiya Hospital had to evacuate the patients fearing they could be shot by the ongoing random gunfire and fighting in the city.

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Militias clash in Al-Zawiya city in Libya, two killed - Libyan Express

Amara McLaughlin, CP24.com Published Saturday, June 3, 2017 11:15PM EDT Last Updated Saturday, June 3, 2017 11:19PM EDT

Black Lives Matter Toronto, the advocacy group responsible for barring uniformed Toronto Police Service officers from marching in Canadas largest Pride parade, wont be participating this year either to ensure their presence is felt through the parade in other organizations.

A number of us are involved in a variety of organizations, and for us its important to participate in Pride fully, said co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto Rodney Diverlus. Part of that is ensuring that our presence is felt through the parade.

Black Lives Matter Toronto didnt register by the May 20 deadline for this years parade, a move guaranteeing the controversial group cant take part in the June 25 march.

We see Pride as an opportunity to attend various events and we see Pride as an opportunity to highlight anti-blackness where it arises, Diverlus told CP24.

He added their decision to not participate ensures the black queer and transgender communities have a presence in other affiliated groups, such as the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention the organization provides outreach, prevention and support services for people from Torontos African, Caribbean and black communities who are affected by or at risk of contracting HIV.

Black Lives Matter Toronto stalls Pride parade

Black Lives Matter Torontos history with Pride Toronto is fraught with controversy.

Black Lives Matter, which was given the status of honoured group at last years Pride, brought the Toronto parade to a half-hour standstill when it launched a demonstration to hold Pride accountable for its anti-blackness.

The parade didnt re-start until after Pride Torontos former executive director Mathieu Chantelois agreed to sign a list of the groups demands.

According to Diverlus, Pride Toronto has historically recanted on its promises and commitments to the black LGBTQ community.

The group said in a news release that Pride Toronto showed little honour to black queer/trans communities, and other marginalized communites. Over the years, Pride has threatened the existence of black spaces at Pride that have existed for years

The list of demands included a commitment to increasing representation among Pride Toronto staff, alongside banning police floats.

Pride Toronto community bans uniformed police from parade

At Pride Torontos annual general meeting in January, the Pride community voted to remove uniformed officers and police floats from future parades.

Pride Torontos executive director Olivia Nuamah clarified the agreement saying LGBTQ officers and their allies will be able to march in the parade, without their weapons, uniforms and vehicles.

Look at the broader issue

Although the rainbow Pride flag was raised in a historic first atop Toronto police headquarters to kick off Pride Month, the controversy over police participation and anti-blackness in Pride is far from over, Diverlus said.

In this action specifically, were talking about anti-blackness within Pride. That was the conversation and a year later we still feel as if part of that conversation is still missing, he explained. People are still fixating on whether or not individual police officers are invited or not, but we actually have to look at the broader issue.

The broader issue here is that Pride has to be more inclusive towards queer and transgender black communities.

While Pride Toronto has accepted Black Lives Matters demands, the group still sees room for improvement, including addressing anti-blackness at a variety of levels.

My participation in Pride will include talking about these issues, Diverlus said. It will include making sure that were moving beyond just fixating on one demand.

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Black Lives Matter missed Pride parade deadline to ensure representation in other groups - CP24 Toronto's Breaking News

A Black Lives Matter protest in Seattle (Jason Redmon/AFP/Getty Images)

The Journal of Political Philosophy has come under fire for its June issue, which dedicates more than 60 pages to a three-author symposium on the Black Lives Matter movement and does not include any actual black voices.

The journal has since apologized for not including the work of black philosophers, but as Inside Higher Ed reports, the incident has drawn attention to the fact that the journal has a poor record of including black scholars and, prior to the symposium issue, did little to include scholarship on issues of race.

Two scholars in African-American studies have circulated open letters criticizing the journal for erasing the experience of black people while covering an issue such as the Movement for Black Lives.

Christopher Lebron, an assistant professor of African-American studies and philosophy at Yale University, wrote: The idea black lives matter is an ethical demand calling for an end to the erasure of black lives and presence by systems of racist power anchored in a history of white supremacy. In our current moment, both the idea and the movement are aligned against the notion that black experiences are irrelevant or negligible for organizing our collective view of civil society.

Lebron continued: Try to imagine my distaste when it was brought to my attention that your journal published a philosophical symposium on black lives matter with not one philosopher of color represented, without one philosopher of color to convey her or his contextualized sense of a movement that is urgently and justifiably about context. It certainly cannot be said there was no one to ask. I should know. I just published a book on the philosophical foundations of black lives matter.

Lebron went so far as to research the publication history of the journal and found that The Journal of Political Philosophy has not published a single article on the philosophy of race: voting, elections, immigration, global markets and animals have gotten their time in the journals sun. But as black Americans, and the philosophers who study racial inequalitya political philosophical problemhave directly engaged one of our eras most sinister moral and political quandaries, the journal has failed to represent race in its pages. Maybe more damning, so far as I can tell, not one black philosopher has seen her or his work appear in the pages of your respected journal, on race or any other topic.

Melvin L. Rogers, who is the Scott Waugh Chair in the Division of the Social Sciences and associate professor of political science and African-American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote in his letter, It is profoundly troubling that a symposium named in honor of the movement effectively performs the invisibility and devaluation of black life via the exclusion of scholars of color that the movement would otherwise challenge.

Rogers continued, This is especially upsetting because there are a number of political theorists and philosophers of color positioned to easily say something meaningful about the movement and its connection to substantive normative issues.

The editors of the journal responded to both letters with the following apology:

We, the editors, sincerely apologize for the oversight in not including a black author in a symposium explicitly entitled Black Lives Matter. We accept the point eloquently and forcefully made by our colleagues that this is an especially grave oversight in light of the specific focus of Black Lives Matter on the extent to which African-Americans have been erased and marginalized from public life.

They have also vowed to meet and discuss how the symposium was planned in order to consider the lessons learned from what happened, and invite two black scholars to join the editorial board, which, although it has nonwhite people, does not contain any blacks.

The journal also vows to work harder to encourage work from philosophers and political theorists of color as we have done with women and young scholars in the past, and we will revise our editorial guidelines to reflect this commitment.

Read more at Inside Higher Ed.

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Journal Publishes 'Black Lives Matter' Issue Without Any Black Writers - The Root

Although it wont march as an official group later this month, Black Lives Matter Toronto is satisfied with the changes Pride has made over the past year.

Theres been clear and visible progress, says Rodney Diverlus, the 27-year-old co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto.

During the 2016 parade, Pride Toronto agreed to a list of nine demands after Black Lives Matter halted the march for half an hour. The demands were later endorsed in a vote by Pride Torontos membership.

While most of the public and political focus has been on the demand to remove police floats from the parade, the eight other requests mostly focused on increasing diversity and grassroots participation throughout Pride month.

The hype around the police demand has erased all of the work, all of the thought and all the energy put around the other eight demands, Diverlus told Metro.

The spirit of some of those demands came from a general feeling in the community that Pride was evolving into a corporate, non-community-driven event.

He held up the reinstatement of the Black Queer Youth and South Asian community stages as well as increased funding for Blockorama as signs of success.

Pride Toronto spokesperson Ryan Connelly also pointed to the organizations increased focus on community stages and diversity among Pride Toronto staff while acknowledging there is room for improvement.

I think weve made very good strides, Connelly told Metro.

Were never going to get it all in one shot, but what is important to note is we will make our best effort as soon as issues are raised.

Despite these improvements, Black Lives Matter wont officially march in this years Pride parade on June 25. The group did not apply by the May 20 deadline.

Diverlus called it a tactical decision.

If you know the work we do, applying for permits and registering on a deadline is not really our MO, he said, adding that safety is a concern for the organization.

You should expect BLM to do what we do, which is not fill out an application and let you know where were going to be.

Black Lives Matter Torontos demands from 2016:

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Black Lives Matter applauds 'clear and visible progress' by Pride Toronto - MetroNews Canada