A state police officer in New Mexico is being sued after he allegedly tasered a child in a school playground for no reason other than he refused to clean the cop’s patrol car. The boy’s legal guardian, Rachel Higgins, claims that Officer Chris Webb shot the boy, referred to as “R.D.”, with a 50,000 volt stun gun while visiting on a “career day” at Tularosa New Mexico Intermediate School on May 4.
The complaint notes that the officer approached a group of boys and asked which of them wanted to clean his car. When R.D. said he had no desire to clean the patrol vehicle, Officer Webb is claimed to have stated “‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’” He then pointed his taser at the boy, according to the report, and fired two barbs directly into the 10-year old’s chest, electrifying him and causing him to blackout.
Webb then extracted the barbs from the child’s chest, leaving scarring ” that look like cigarette burns”. “Instead of calling emergency medical personnel, Officer Webb pulled out the barbs and took the boy to the school principal’s office,” the complaint states. The complaint claims that the boy has suffered mental trauma and night terrors and is now afraid of going to sleep at night for fear he will not wake up again.
Recently, political pressure has been brought to bear against a trades unionist for attempting to express his views about the events of 9/11, on Australia's publicly funded broadcaster, the ABC. This video redresses the balance, and makes it clear that Australia's prime minister is either ignorant, beyond belief, or she is putting the interests of nuclear, Apartheid Israel ahead of Australia's.
Polish experts have found traces of explosives on the wreckage of the presidential plane that crashed in Smolensk in April 2010, killing President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others, reports Rzeczpospolita. The experts have been investigating the wreckage of Tu-154M for the last month, after Polish prosecutors expressed doubts regarding the Russian specialists' analysis of the pyrotechnics.
The analysis delivered by the Russians did not meet some procedural requirements, the newspaper reports, which is why a team of Polish experts – including specialists from the Central Forensic Laboratory and the Central Bureau of Investigation – was sent to Smolensk to carry out its own detailed investigation.
Using the most technically advanced equipment, they found some significant traces of explosives both inside the aircraft and on its wings. Devices detected traces of TNT and nitroglycerine also on 30 seats.
Facebook is now apparently censoring political posts which violate its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” as hate speech, after the social networking giant threatened to close radio host Alex Jones’ account over an image of Osama Bin Laden with the words “Al-CIA-da” written underneath.
Attempting to login to Alex Jones’ Facebook account, which has over 321,000 subscribers, Infowars staff were met with a message from Facebook denying access to the account until it was acknowledged that Facebook’s terms had been violated.
“We removed content you posted,” stated the message, underneath which was a black and white image of Osama Bin Laden with the words “Al-CIA-da” emblazoned across it. Facebook removed the image because it “violates Facebook’s Statement of RIghts and Responsibilities.”
A secondary screen then warned that other infringing images should be removed if the account was to remain in good standing.
Since the image is not copyrighted, according to Facebook’s terms of agreement one can only assume that it was removed because it represented an example of “hate speech,” yet the picture was merely a commentary on the admitted fact that Osama Bin Laden was aided by the CIA during the cold war and that Al-Qaeda terrorists are now being supported by the Central Intelligence Agency in Syria and Libya.
Facebook advertises and poses as a public commons yet, much like Google-owned You Tube, routinely censors political content on flimsy pretexts.
Authorities in east China ordered a security crackdown Sunday after thousands of locals clashed with police during a protest at the construction of a chemical plant.
In the latest environmental unrest to erupt in China, police at Ningbo city in Zhejiang province fired tear gas Saturday night after six days of demonstrations over the project, online reports said.
"In recent days some unreasonable activities such as illegal gatherings and rioting have occurred, seriously impairing the normal work and life of the people and severely impacting overall development and stability," said a statement on the website of Ningbo's Zhenhai district government.
At an emergency meeting late Saturday local Communist Party officials insisted that the chemical plant project had not been formally approved and agreed to listen to the protesters' demands, the statement said. The government also ordered police to "maintain stability in accordance with law", rhetoric that often signals a heavy-handed crackdown.
Pro-independence parties are now at the helm in Spain's Basque Country, while elections in Catalonia could bring about even more separatist forces to the forefront.
WeAreChange cover's the Holy Land 5 foundation speech by Noor Elashi. Noor is the daughter of Ghassan Elashi who is currently facing 65 years in jail for his involvement with the Holy Land 5 foundation. Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States until the Bush administration shut it down three months after 9/11. After a decade of raids, arrests and trials, the Holy Land Five received sentences ranging from 15 to 65 years. To find out more go to freedomtogive.com
Rates of suicide and depression are on the rise in Spain as the unemployment figures there hit a record high as Europe struggles to contain its debt crisis. New figures show that one-in-four Spanish workers are now without a job. Only Greece has a higher unemployment rate in the European Union (EU).
But as austerity measures bite, there is growing concern that the cuts are taking a more worrying toll. Health groups say there has been a sharp rise in mental health problems at the same time that welfare services are being cut back.
And the Red Cross says a growing number of Europeans are now relying on food aid. Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull visited a charity-run soup kitchen in a hard-hit suburb of Madrid where hunger is a very real symptom of Spain's economic crisis. "Not long ago mainly poor immigrants sat down to lunch at these tables. Now an equal number of Spaniards does as well," he says.
Two Tibetan cousins set fire to themselves in their village to protest Chinese rule, bringing the total number of self-immolations this week to seven, the highest since the protests began last year, a rights group said on Saturday.
The London-based group Free Tibet said cousins Tsepo, 20, and Tenzin, 25, called for independence for Tibet as they set themselves on fire on Thursday in front of a government building in their village in Biru county north of Lhasa, Tibet's main city.
Tsepo reportedly died and Tenzin's condition was unknown after he was taken away by authorities, Free Tibet said.
Dozens of ethnic Tibetans have set themselves on fire in heavily Tibetan regions since March 2011 to protest what activists say is Beijing's heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader.
Despite the U.S. political landscape seemingly ready for new political forces - many Americans still don't realize they have a bigger choice than just two candidates.
The government of Burma should take immediate steps to stop sectarian violence against the Rohingya Muslim population in Arakan State, in western Burma, and ensure protection and aid to both Rohingyas and Arakanese in the state, Human Rights Watch said today. New satellite imagery obtained by Human Rights Watch shows extensive destruction of homes and other property in a predominantly Rohingya Muslim area of the coastal town of Kyauk Pyu – one of several areas of new violence and displacement.
Human Rights Watch identified 811 destroyed structures on the eastern coastal edge of Kyauk Pyu following arson attacks reportedly conducted on October 24, 2012, less than 24 hours before the satellite images were captured. The area of destruction measures 35 acres and includes 633 buildings and 178 houseboats and floating barges adjacent on the water, all of which were razed. There are no indications of fire damage to the immediate west and east of this zone of destruction. Media accounts and local officials said that many Rohingya in the town fled by sea toward Sittwe, the capital of Arakan State, 200 kilometers to the north. Violence renewed between Arakan Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims on October 21 and continued all week in at least five townships: Minbya, Mrak-U, Myebon, Rathedaung, and Kyauk Pyu. This was the first time violence had reached Kyauk Pyu and most of these other parts of the state since the sectarian violence and related abuses by state security forces against the Rohingya began in early June. The Rohingya have suffered the brunt of the violence.
A senior Greek police officer has claimed that the far-right Golden Dawn party has infiltrated the police at various levels. He has laid the blame on consecutive governments and the leadership of the police force for turning a blind eye to what he describes as "pockets of fascism".
Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, the officer said the Greek state had been fully aware of the activities of Golden Dawn for several years, with the National Intelligence Service and other security agencies monitoring it closely. The officer claimed police chiefs had had the opportunity to isolate and remove these small "pockets of fascism" in the force but decided not to. The state, he said, wanted to keep the fascist elements "in reserve" and use them for its own purposes.
The officer said he believed that Golden Dawn members could be used against the Greek left, which has led popular street protests against the government and austerity measures imposed by the EU. He expressed his belief that neo-fascist groups may already have acted as agents provocateurs during demonstrations across the country, to provoke clashes between demonstrators and the police or even between demonstrators themselves.
US Republicans so far have referred to legitimate rape, forcible rape, easy rape, honest rape, emergency rape, enjoyable rape and now gift-from-God rape. Check out this unbelievable Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart for all of the direct quotes from Republicans on this issue. They're not saying all of this because they just keep slipping up with words. They're stating whole theories on rape. That's not misspeaking; that's accidentally telling us what you really think.
A high-ranking Dutch official, who's retiring this week, is being honored for his work. But human rights advocates say Dutch Justice Ministry Secretary-General Joris Demmink doesn't deserve praise; he deserves prison.
Demmink is being accused of raping two teenage boys, now men, during a visit to Turkey in 1990s. One of them recently shared his story on Capitol Hill. Much like a court room, witnesses at an Oct. 4 Helsinki Commission briefing presented their testimonies to a Capitol Hill audience. But Demmink, the man they've accused, has yet to stand trial.
"I was afraid to say no, and I was very young and very innocent," one victim testified, describing the emotional scars from childhood. His identity is being protected because he barely survived an assassination attempt. That attack followed his allegations against what's been called "the Dutch Super Elite."
A New York City police officer who allegedly planned to kidnap, cook and eat as many 100 women has been arrested following a joint NYPD and FBI investigation.
Gilberto Valle III, of Forest Hills, Queens, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, according to a federal criminal complaint, as well was using the National Crime Information Center database to access unauthorized data.
The complaint alleges that Valle, 28, exchanged electronic messages with an unnamed coconspirator "about kidnapping, cooking and eating body parts of [Victim 1]."
The complaint alleges that in addition to conspiring to kidnap "Victim 1," he had discussed plans to "kidnap, rape, torture, kill, cook and eat body parts of a number of women." He had allegedly created computer files pertaining to "at least 100 women and containing at least one photograph of each woman." According to the complaint, he used law enforcement databases to conduct surveillance on potential victims.
WikiLeaks has begun releasing the 'Detainee Policies': more than 100 classified or otherwise restricted files from the United States Department of Defense covering the rules and procedures for detainees in U.S. military custody. Over the next month, WikiLeaks will release in chronological order the United States' military detention policies followed for more than a decade.
The documents include the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of detention camps in Iraq and Cuba, interrogation manuals and Fragmentary Orders (FRAGOs) of changes to detainee policies and procedures. A number of the 'Detainee Policies' relate to Camp Bucca in Iraq, but there are also Department of Defense-wide policies and documents relating to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and European U.S. Army Prison facilities. [read the full press release here]
Recent reports about the sexual preferences of Jimmy Savile have not only thrown up allegations of paedophilia but have also hinted that he engaged in other sexual paraphilias such as necrophilia (having sex with corpses).
Paraphilias (from the Greek and translating as “beyond usual or typical love”) are uncommon types of sexual expression and often more commonly described as sexual deviations, sexual perversions or disorders of sexual preference. Many of these behaviours may appear bizarre and/or socially unacceptable, and represent the extreme end of the sexual continuum.
A couple of news reports on Savile allege that he made unaccompanied visits to mortuaries (such as the one at Stoke Mandeville) and that he spoke publicly to the media about his “fascination” with dead bodies.
The British government's support for US drone operations over Pakistan may involve acts of assisting murder or even war crimes, the high court heard on Tuesday. In the first serious legal challenge in the English courts to the drones campaign, lawyers for a young Pakistani man whose father was killed by a strike from an unmanned aircraft are seeking to have the sharing of UK locational intelligence declared unlawful.
Noor Khan, 27, is said to live in constant fear of a repeat of the attack in North Waziristan in March last year that killed more than 40 other people, who are said to have gathered to discuss a local mining dispute. The British government has declined to state whether or not its signals intelligence agency GCHQ passes information in support of the CIA drone operations over Pakistan, although the court heard that media reports suggest that it does.
American Radical is the probing, definitive documentary about American academic Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israel and US Mid-East policy, and author of five provocative books including, "The Holocaust Industry", Finkelstein has been steadfast at the center of many intractable controversies, including his recent denial of tenure at DePaul University. Called a lunatic and disgusting self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity and nationhood. From Beirut to Kyoto, the filmmakers follow Finkelstein around the world as he attempts to negotiate a voice among both supporters and critics, providing an intimate portrait of the man behind the controversy while giving equal time to both his critics and supporters.
The United Nations is calling for more surveillance of Internet users, saying it would help to investigate and prosecute terrorists. A 148-page report (PDF) released today titled "The Use of the Internet for Terrorist Purposes" warns that terrorists are using social networks and other sharing sites including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Dropbox, to spread "propaganda."
"Potential terrorists use advanced communications technology often involving the Internet to reach a worldwide audience with relative anonymity and at a low cost," said Yury Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The report, released at a conference in Vienna convened by UNODC, concludes that "one of the major problems confronting all law enforcement agencies is the lack of an internationally agreed framework for retention of data held by ISPs."
More than two-thirds of Israeli Jews say that 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank should be denied the right to vote if the area was annexed by Israel, in effect endorsing an apartheid state, according to an opinion poll reported in Haaretz. Three out of four are in favour of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and 58% believe Israel already practises apartheid against Palestinians, the poll found.
A third want Arab citizens within Israel to be banned from voting in elections to the country's parliament. Almost six out of 10 say Jews should be given preference to Arabs in government jobs, 49% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs, 42% would not want to live in the same building as Arabs and the same number do not want their children going to school with Arabs.
A commentary by Gideon Levy, which accompanied the results of the poll, described the findings as disturbing. "Israelis themselves … are openly, shamelessly and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists," he wrote. "It's good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but perhaps because of it. If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don't apply."
A 20-year-old African American woman has been set on fire with the letters KKK written on her car. Louisiana authorities are now investigating the possibility of a hate crime. The incident occurred on Sunday night when Sharmeka Moffitt was attacked by three men in Civitan Park Winnsboro, Louisiana. The victim managed to call police, telling them she had been attacked and burned by unidentified men in white hoodies.
The woman is now in a critical condition at LSU Medical Center in Shreveport. The victims mother told a local news channel that on "both of her arms, there are third degree burns, down her chest and legs- first degree. Basically her arms are real bad." Surgery has been scheduled for Tuesday.
Police have also confirmed that the racial slur, “KKK”, was spray painted on Moffitt’s vehicle. The FBI have also been brought into the case to investigate the connection between a hate crime and speculation that the victim was wearing an Obama-campaign t-shirt at the time of the attack, a rumor that her mother denied.
This short Canadian documentary looks at the initial theories behind the effectiveness of fluoride and where it originated. It goes on to show the lack of science behind the use of Fluoride and reveals Fluoride as a toxic waste substance that is being pumped into our drinking water. The documentary will conclude by delivering the "hard to swallow truth" of fluoride which pertains to why it is actually used.
The Dark Days of Jailing Journalists and Criminalizing Dissent
Turkish authorities are engaging in widespread criminal prosecution and jailing of journalists, and are applying other forms of severe pressure to promote self-censorship in the press, a CPJ analysis shows. CPJ has found highly repressive laws, particularly in the penal code and anti-terror law; a criminal procedure code that greatly favors the state; and a harsh anti-press tone set at the highest levels of government. Turkey’s press freedom situation has reached a crisis point.
A team of Italian scientists has been found guilty of manslaughter for failing to warn citizens of a huge earthquake in 2009. The team, along with a government official, were jailed for six years in a trial which has infuriated the global scientific community. Historic buildings cracked and crumbled in the 6.3 magnitude quake in which 309 died and thousands were left homeless in the town of L'Aquila in central Italy. But the following year there was another aftershock.
Charges were brought against six government scientists and an official for not sufficiently warning people of the risks of another seismic event. The seven accused had been part of the region's Major Risks Committee which had met on March 31, six days before the earthquake. They issued a statement designed to reassure residents after studying tremors in the area, while stressing it was impossible to say when another event may occur.
The Revelation Of The Pyramids takes an in depth look into one of the seven wonders of the world, the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Mystery has surrounded these epic structures for centuries with theories varying from the scientific to the bizarre. However with over thirty-seven years of in depth research taking in sites from China, Peru, Mexico and Egypt, one scientist has as at last managed first to understand and then to reveal what lies behind this greatest of archaeological mysteries: a message of paramount importance for all mankind, through time and space.
The atrocity of a young girl in Pakistan being shot in the head by a Taliban has been featured widely in the news. There are similar atrocities in the Middle East, but somehow these don't make it to the news.
Doctors operating the only brain-scanning machine at an Egyptian hospital near Gaza have been almost overwhelmed by the number of Palestinian children arriving with bullet wounds to the head.
Since Tony Blair's New Labour government came to power in 1997, the UK civil liberties landscape has changed dramatically. ASBOs were introduced by Section 1 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and first used in 1999. The right to remain silent is no longer universal. Our right to privacy, free from interception of communications has been severely curtailed. The ability to travel without surveillance (or those details of our journeys being retained) has disappeared. Indeed, as Henry Porter (the Observer journalist famous for his recent email clash with Tony Blair over the paring down of civil liberties) reveals in this unsettling film, our movements are being watched, and recorded, more than ever before.
“Gilo is an inseparable part of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is an inseparable part of Israel,” Liberman (Yisrael Beytenu) said in a statement. ”These automatic condemnations indicate a lack of a basic understanding of the reality in the region. These condemnations contribute nothing to the advancement of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. They only encourage the Palestinian side to stick to its refusal to negotiate and continue its anti-Israeli activities in the international arena,” Liberman stated. “The EU should focus on the problems that are surfacing between different nations on European soil. After these issues are successfully resolved, we will gladly hear any suggestions,” he said.
A church run by a controversial multi-millionaire African preacher has been accused of ‘cynical exploitation’ after its British branch received £16.7 million in donations from followers who were told that God would give them riches in return. Followers are ferried in double-decker shuttle buses to the church, handed slips inviting them to make debit card payments, and are even told obeying the ministry’s teachings will make them immune from illness.
Today’s Mail on Sunday revelations about the Winners’ Chapel movement have prompted the Charity Commission to review the charitable status of the church – one of the fastest-growing in the UK. Winners’ Chapel is part of a worldwide empire of evangelical ministries run by Nigeria’s wealthiest preacher David Oyedepo, who has an estimated £93 million fortune, a fleet of private jets and a Rolls-Royce Phantom.
The bullet, fired at point-blank range, struck just above the back of the left eye, went down through the side of her jaw, damaging the skull and the jaw joint on the left side, went through the neck and lodged in the tissues above the shoulder blade. Shock waves from the bullet shattered the thinnest bone of the skull and fragments were driven into the brain.
"The bullet grazed the edge of her brain," Rosser said. "Certainly if you're talking a couple of inches more central, then it's almost certainly an unsurvivable injury." Doctors say she has memory but they have not talked to her about the shooting. "From a lot of work we have done with our military casualties we know that reminding people of traumatic events at this stage increases the potential for psychological problems later, so we wouldn't do that," Rosser said.
"She is keen that people share the details. She is also keen that I thank people for their support and their interest. She is obviously aware of the amount of support and interest this has generated around the world. She is keen to thank people for that," Rosser said.
Malala was shot along with two classmates as they made their way home from school in north-west Pakistan, in what the foreign secretary, William Hague, described as a "barbaric attack".
AFP reports soldiers already on board The Estelle ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists seeking to break Israeli blockade on Gaza; CNN reports ships surround vessel; IDF yet to release statement.
A ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists looking to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza has "come under attack" after being approached by the navy, AFP quoted a spokeswoman of the Estelle ship as saying on Saturday.
"The Estelle is now under attack -- I have just had a message from them by phone," AFP quoted Victoria Strand, a Stockholm-based spokeswoman for the Ship to Gaza Sweden campaign as saying.
Palestinian activists told CNN Israeli ships have surrounded the vessel. The IDF have yet to comment on the report. The report follows the failure of diplomatic efforts to stop the ship, after Israel’s United Nations envoy Ron Prosor wrote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon this week asking for international intervention to “stop the provocation” of a small ship sailing to Gaza.
He goes on to invoke the bible and morality and the end of days a few more times before suddenly appearing to lose his train of thought. And then something pretty amazing happens.
China is a country where the rule of law is selective and often unjust. One source of injustice is the 50-year-old system known as "laodong jiaoyang," or re-education through labor. Under this system, tens of thousands of offenders are imprisoned in China without trial.
The "re-education through labor" system dates back to the 1950s when the newly established communist regime swept up "counter-revolutionaries" and "class enemies" to maintain order. Today it empowers police to jail accused offenders -- from petty thieves and prostitutes to drug abusers -- for up to four years without a judicial hearing.
Though the practice is supposedly meant for only minor offenders, critics of the system say it is often used as a tool to persecute government critics, including intellectuals, human rights activists and followers of banned spiritual groups like the Falun Gong, and is a major source of human rights violations.
Rowan Atkinson is demanding a change in the law to halt the ‘creeping culture of censoriousness’ (in the UK) which has seen the arrest of a Christian preacher, a critic of Scientology and even a student making a joke.
The Blackadder and Mr Bean star criticised the ‘new intolerance’ behind controversial legislation which outlaws ‘insulting words and behaviour’. Launching a fight for part of the Public Order Act to be repealed, he said it was having a ‘chilling effect on free expression and free protest’. He went on: ‘The clear problem of the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism, ridicule, sarcasm, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy, can be interpreted as insult.’
Campaigners say the Public Order Act is being abused by over-zealous police and prosecutors. Section 5 of the 1986 Act outlaws threatening, abusive and insulting words or behaviour, but what constitutes ‘insulting’ is unclear and has resulted in a string of controversial arrests.
A 16-year-old boy was arrested under the legislation for peacefully holding a placard reading ‘Scientology is a dangerous cult’, on the grounds that it might insult followers of the movement. Gay rights campaigners from the group Outrage! were arrested under the Act when they protested against the Islamist fundamentalist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which was calling for the killing of gays, Jews and unchaste women.
Some 5,000 women have been raped this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu as a new rebellion has sown fresh unrest in the conflict-prone region, a local hospital said Thursday. "The number of rapes has risen dramatically: we have registered around 5,000 women raped since the start of the year in North Kivu. It's very dramatic," said Justin Paluku, an obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, the provincial capital.
Renewed instability has engulfed the region since a group of soldiers mutinied from the army in April and began battling their former colleagues and sowing terror in the east. The group, the M23, was formed by former fighters in an ethnic Tutsi rebel group that was integrated into the army under a 2009 peace deal whose terms the mutineers claim were never fully implemented.
Its members have been raping women and girls, abducting young men and boys to fight with them, and carrying out summary executions, including the killing of young recruits who tried to escape, according to the United Nations and rights groups.
A BUNGLING policeman tasered a blind man in the street after mistaking his white stick – for a Samurai SWORD. He struck Colin Farmer, 61, in the back with the 50,000-volt stun gun before handcuffing him. The shocked man had been on his way to his local pub to meet friends. Cops had earlier received reports of a man roaming Chorley town centre, Lancs, armed with a sword. A patrolman spotted stoke victim Mr Farmer shuffling down the street with his white stick and wrongly assumed he was the swordsman.
He said: “The whole thing was like being trapped in a nightmare. “I didn’t even know the police were there. I heard this man shouting. I thought they were shouting at some people. I certainly didn’t know they were police - and I certainly didn’t know they were shouting at me. I thought I was going to be attacked by some hooligans. The next thing they fired a Taser at me, though I didn’t know it was a taser at the time.
“This policeman knelt on me and dragged my arms round my back and handcuffed me so tight I’ve had bruises since.” He was taken to Chorley Hospital for treatment and later released. Mr Farmer, who has suffered two strokes, added: “I walk at a snail’s pace. They could have walked past me, driven past me in the van, or said drop your weapon. It’s a sad excuse. They wouldn’t even stop when I said I’m blind. I was absolutely terrified. I thought any second I’m going to have another stroke and this one will kill me.”
Romney's secrecy in business is detailed, and revealed; as well as his role as a drug money launderer for GHW Bush; his connection, through Bush, to CIA death squads in Central America; his role in 9-11; in the murder of US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens; and the significance of his endorsement of and by Cheney.
Guardian to challenge Grieve's ruling that release of 27 letters 'could damage prince's ability to perform duties as king'. The British government has blocked the disclosure of a set of confidential letters written by Prince Charles to ministers.
Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, issued a veto that puts an absolute block on the publication of 27 letters between the prince and ministers over a seven-month period. Grieve said the letters contained the "particularly frank" and "most deeply held personal views and beliefs" of the prince. The decision comes after seven government departments lost a long-running freedom of information tribunal over the disclosure of the letters.
The veto overrides last month's ruling by the tribunal that the public had a right to know how the prince sought to change government policy.
Think today's dairy goat farming is benign and mostly small-scale? Think again. Watch our film to find out more. Through a series of ground-breaking undercover investigations Viva! has shone a light on the rapidly expanding goat's dairy industry in the UK -- including farms that supply the UK's biggest supermarkets.
With anti-austerity protests across Europe resulting in civil unrest on the streets of Athens and Madrid, Switzerland -- the European country famed for its neutrality -- is taking unusual precautions.
It launched the military exercise “Stabilo Due” in September to respond to the current instability in Europe and to test the speed at which its army can be dispatched. The country is not a member of the union or among the 17 countries that share the euro.
Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag reported recently that the exercise centered around a risk map created in 2010, where army staff detailed the threat of internal unrest between warring factions as well as the possibility of refugees from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal.
“Independent Catalonia? Over my dead body and those of many other soldiers.” It was with these words that on August 31, retired infantry lieutenant-colonel Francisco Alaman Castro referred to the possibility of an independent Catalonia. And he added: “We will not make it easy. Although the lion seems to be sleeping, they have no interest in provoking it too much, because it has already given enough proof of its ferocity over the centuries. These plebs are not up to much, if we know how to confront them.”
In the current verbiage that some politicians have adopted, these statements are not the only ones that we might call “undemocratic,” “putschist” and “anti-system.” After the demonstration on September 11, the UPyD spokesperson, Rosa Díez, called on the government to suspend the autonomy of Catalonia if the region used money from central government aid “to finance its secession.” Not to be outdone, the MEP (representing the Popular Party, in power in Madrid) and vice-president of the European Parliament, Alejo Vidal Quadras, requested that a brigadier-general, preferably from the Civil Guard, take charge of the “Mossos de Esquadra” to curb the independence process.
The El Mundo newspaper, in its editorial of September 27, demanded from the government “a penal response to the challenge launched by Artur Mas” who has called for a referendum on self-determination in Catalonia. El Mundo urged the government to amend the Criminal Code to “punish by imprisonment any call for an illegal referendum.” And for good measure, the extremist “Reconversion,” platform, whose leaders are Alejo Vidal Quadras and José Antonio Ortega Lara, demanded that if such a referendum were to be held the government place Catalonia under tutelage, on the basis of articles 161.2 and 155.1 and 2 of the Constitution.
And that’s not all. The Spanish Military Association (AME), composed of former members of the army, has threatened Catalan president Artur Mas with a Council of War and has warned those who promote “the breaking-up of Spain” that they will have to answer before a military court on charges of “high treason”. Nothing more than that! It speaks volumes about the present situation when a conservative politician such as Artur Mas, enmeshed to the marrow of his bones with the powers of finance, especially with the La Caixa and Aberti banks, who is leader of a party as un-subversive as the CiU elicits such reactions. What will happen then when it comes to someone on the left, who is opposed to the interests of the employers and is a sincere defender of the right to self-determination?
Shocking video shows the moment a New York police officer launches into a sustained beating of a shirtless man in the basement of a Jewish youth centre. Two officers were called to the basement of the Aliya Institute youth centre in Brooklyn by volunteer security guard Zlamy Trappler, who found the man sleeping in the centre's lounge.
But the security officer now 'regrets making the call' after witnessing the beating of the man, identified as a man called Ehud Halevi, who sources say was allowed to stay at the centre. The video appears to show the unidentified male officer launch a swinging right-hook punch at the man, which is followed by a two minute 'beating' in which the female officer uses a pepper spray and a truncheon against Halevi, who cowers on the sofa.
A Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban because she campaigned for the right of young females to an education is en route to the UK for specialist treatment.
Malala Yousafzai, 14, was shot in the head last Tuesday in an attack that prompted widespread revulsion, in Pakistan and abroad. It also raised fresh questions about the state's ability to tackle militancy. Malala's life was saved by neurosurgeons in a Pakistani military hospital and she has since been in intensive care.
Doctors have recommended she be transferred to a UK centre "which has the capability to provide integrated care to children who have sustained severe injury", a Pakistani military spokesman said. The flight left Rawalpindi on Monday morning. She is travelling with an army intensive care assistant on a specially equipped air ambulance leased from the UAE and will be treated at an NHS hospital in the UK.
The Roman Catholic Bishop of Springfield, Illinois, is warning that the Democratic Party has endorsed “intrinsic evils” and consequently, voters who back Democratic candidates have put their eternal salvation at risk. In the Catholic Times, the official newspaper of the Springfield diocese, Bishop Thomas John Paprocki uses the manufactured controversy about mentioning “God” in the Democratic Platform to argue that the Democrats are hostile to faith, and went on to attack Democrats for endorsing gay rights and opposing the criminalization of abortion. He said those two planks demonstrate that the Democrats “explicitly endorse intrinsic evils,” while noting that he has “read the Republican Party Platform and there is nothing in it that supports or promotes an intrinsic evil or a serious sin.”
Morocco is seeing an alarming rise in the number of babies abandoned by single mothers, activists said on Saturday, blaming social prejudice and outdated legislation for the problem. "According to the information we have gathered, from people who take care of abandoned children born outside marriage, the numbers are getting much worse," said Omar Kindi, organiser of a conference on violence and discrimination against single mothers and children.
Aicha Echanne, another speaker at the Casablanca conference, said the "mentality of society" and the lack of support for single mothers, who are often aggressively treated by officials, were driving factors behind new-born children being abandoned. "We need to shake Moroccan society, and to put pressure on the state, on parliament, to bring about change," said Echanne, who heads the Association of Women's Solidarity. "From 1990 to 2009, 23,000 babies were buried in cemeteries in Casablanca (Morocco's largest city). That gives you an idea that our children are being thrown away. They get eaten by dogs or are buried.
Psalm 137 (Greek numbering: Psalm 136) is one of the best known of the Biblical psalms. Its opening lines, "By the rivers of Babylon..." (Septuagint: "By the waters of Babylon...") have been set to music on several occasions.
The psalm is a hymn expressing the yearnings of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The rivers of Babylon are the Euphrates river, its tributaries, and the Tigris river. In its whole form, the psalm reflects the yearning for Jerusalem as well as hatred for the Holy City's enemies with sometimes violent imagery. Rabbinical sources attributed the poem to the prophet Jeremiah, and the Septuagint version of the psalm bears the superscription: "For David. By Jeremias, in the Captivity."
The early lines of the poem are very well known, as they describe the sadness of the Israelites, asked to "sing the Lord's song in a foreign land". This they refuse to do, leaving their harps hanging on trees. The poem then turns into self-exhortation to remember Jerusalem. It ends with violent fantasies of revenge, telling a "Daughter of Babylon" of the delight of "he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (New International Version).
