WorldFailure

Religious extremists terrorise Israeli town
27 December, 2011

Ultra-Orthodox on rampage in Beit Shemesh, 3 TV crews attacked



TEL AVIV - "They called me shameless, brazen. They even spat at me". Naama Margulis, a skinny, bespectacled girl approaching her eight birthday, tells the television cameras that she has become afraid to travel the 300 metres that separate her hom in Beit Shemesh (west of Jerusalem) from her school.

In family horror, some Canadians see culture clash
By Charmaine Noronha
December 26, 2011


This picture provided by the Frontenac County Court via The Canadian Press, on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011, shows Rona Amir Mohammad, left, and Sahar Shafia. (AP Photo/Frontenac County Court via The Canadian Press)

TORONTO—On a summer morning in 2009, in canal locks east of Toronto, police made a grisly discovery: In a submerged Nissan car were the bodies of three teenage sisters and a 52-year-old woman.

A joyride gone tragically wrong, claimed the father, Mohammad Shafia, 58, who reported the disappearance. An "honor killing," prosecutors allege. A murder trial is under way, heating up a national debate about how to better absorb immigrants into the Canadian cultural mainstream.

PIP implants sold to Dutch firm under new name
26 December 2011


Plastic surgeon Denis Boucq displays a silicone gel breast implant manufactured by French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) in a clinic in Nice December 26, 2011. REUTERS-Eric Gaillard

(Reuters) - Potentially dangerous breast implants made by a now-defunct French company were sold to about 1,000 Dutch women under a different name, a Dutch health official said on Monday, broadening a scandal that could affect some 300,000 women worldwide.

Dutch health authority spokeswoman Diane Bouhuijs said a Dutch company had bought implants made by France's Poly Implant Prothese, which went bankrupt in 2010 after French health authorities shut its doors and is now under investigation. The Dutch firm sold them in the Netherlands rebranded as "M-implants". "We estimate that some 1,000 women in the Netherlands have those implants. We have advised them to consult their physician," Bouhuijs said. She declined to disclose the name of the Dutch company.

Outcry grows as Cairo violence enters fifth day
20 December 2011


Egyptians inspect manuscripts at the Institute of Egypt in central Cairo, on December 19, after the world-famous centre caught fire during deadly clashes between security forces and protesters.

AFP - Clashes between Egyptian security forces and protesters demanding an end to military rule entered a fifth day on Tuesday, as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced the beating of women as a "disgrace."

Riot police and protesters hurled stones at each other, and police fired shots to disperse demonstrators through the night and into the morning, witnesses said, in violence that has left at least 12 people dead since Friday.

The ruling military council on Monday denied it had given orders to use force against protesters but admitted that troops had beaten a veiled woman after having ripped her clothes to reveal her bra, sparking nationwide outrage. Footage circulating on social networking sites showed army troops beating protesters, sometimes leaving their bodies motionless on the ground, but it is the beating of women that has enraged the country. "The forces that violate the honour (of women)," read a headline in the independent daily Al-Tahrir above a picture of a soldier grabbing a female protester by her hair as another raised a club over her.


An Egyptian protester holds a sketch reading "(Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein) Tantawi, get your dogs off me" and depicting the widespread picture of a veiled woman whose clothes were ripped and was beaten by military police last week, during a demonstration at Tahrir Square in Cairo.

An impassioned Clinton on Monday accused post-revolution Egypt of failing its women as she denounced the stripping and beating of the female protester as "shocking." In unusually strong language, the US secretary of state accused Egypt's new leaders of mistreatment of women both on the street and in politics since the revolt nearly a year ago that overthrew veteran leader Hosni Mubarak. "This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonours the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform, and is not worthy of a great people," Clinton said in a speech at Georgetown University.

On Monday, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that took over in February denied it had given orders to use force against protesters and said a plot had been uncovered to burn down parliament. SCAF General Adel Emara, interrupting a live news conference, said he had "received a call now to say that a plot was uncovered today to burn parliament and there are now large crowds in Tahrir Square ready to implement the plan."

AFP correspondents in Tahrir said that at the time of Emara's statements there were no signs of tension either in the square or in surrounding streets, where a historic building containing national archives was destroyed and protesters were trying to save any surviving documents. Emara said the army "does not use force against protesters" but qualified those in Tahrir as "people seeking to destroy the state... not the honourable people of the January 25 revolution."


A protester shows a spent bullet casing during a demonstration at Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The picture and YouTube footage that sent shockwaves across the country and beyond shows the woman sprawled on the ground, helmeted troops towering over her. One is seen kicking her, and later she appears unconscious, her stomach bared and her bra showing. "Yes, this happened. But you have to look at the circumstances around (the incident)," Emara told reporters. "We are investigating it, we have nothing to hide."

The comments came as human rights groups and dissidents slammed retired army general Abdelmoneim Kato -- an adviser to the military -- for saying some in Tahrir were "street kids who deserve to be thrown into Hitler's incinerators." Presidential hopeful and former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said such statements showed "a deranged and criminal state of mind." The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information denounced Kato's comments, saying they "incite hatred and justify violence against citizens."


Mourners carry the body of a protester killed in recent clashes with security forces during his funeral in Omar Makrm mosque at Cairo's Tahrir Square.

A group of newly elected members of parliament on Monday announced a sit-in outside the Cairo Supreme Court, demanding an immediate end to the violence against protesters and an investigation.

The violence drew international criticism. UN leader Ban Ki-moon accused Egyptian security forces of using "excessive" violence against protesters. Ban is "very concerned by the resurgence of violence," said his spokesman Martin Nesirky. Clinton urged "Egyptian security forces to respect and protect the universal rights of all Egyptians." British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the violence was "inconsistent with the democratic process in which Egypt is now engaged." And rights watchdog Amnesty International urged arms suppliers to halt transfers to Egyptian forces. "It can no longer be considered acceptable to supply the Egyptian army with the types of weaponry, munitions and other equipment that are being used to help carry out the brutal acts we have seen used against protesters," said Amnesty's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.



Source: France24.

Corruption forces fourth Ugandan minister to step down
14 December 2011


Kabakumba Matsiko

Kampala - Uganda's minister of the presidency resigned Wednesday following allegations that she stole government-owned radio transmission equipment and installed it at her private radio station.

The resignation of Kabakumba Matsiko, whose main task was to run the capital and assist the president, comes just two months after three other ministers resigned over corruption allegations. President Yoweri Museveni, who was reelected this year in a vote the opposition says was rigged, has seen his administration repeatedly beset with scandals.

WikiLeaks warns of "surveillance state" through phone monitoring
1 December 2011


Julian Assange

London - Leading Western countries are exporting 'mass surveillance systems' around the world by selling programmes which facilitate the interception of mobile phones and computers, according to WikiLeaks.

'The reality is, intelligence contractors are selling right now to countries across the world mass surveillance systems for all those products,' said Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing website, in London. The interception, although lawful, was leading towards a 'totalitarian surveillance state,' he said.

D’oh! Oil industry lobbyists punked by enviro activist
By Zachary Roth
20 December 2011


An API rally against climate change legislation, 2009. AP Photo/Al Grillo

The oil industry spends millions each year to shape its image and shift the public debate in its favor.

But amid growing concern over climate change -- and over the industry's clout in Washington -- it can sometimes find itself losing control of its message pretty quickly.

WikiLeaks soldier Manning had gender issues: Defense
18 December 2011


Protesters carry signs in front of Fort Meade, in support of US soldier Bradley Manning, who is facing a pre-trial hearing inside the base for being the source of a leak of classified documents to Wikileaks.

AFP - Bradley Manning struggled with gender issues and emotional problems while deployed in Iraq, his lawyers said, as the US soldier accused of a massive intelligence breach spent his 24th birthday in court.

In cross-examination of US Army investigators and one of Manning's former superior officers, the defense team sought to establish that he was suffering from mental health problems and that his commanders failed to take action or revoke his security clearance. Manning is accused of downloading 260,000 US diplomatic cables, videos of US air strikes and US military reports from Afghanistan and Iraq while serving as a low-ranking intelligence analyst in Iraq and providing them to WikiLeaks.

Manning's sexual orientation is raised in hearing
17 December 2011
By PAULINE JELINEK and DAVID DISHNEAU


Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, right, is escorted into a courthouse in Fort Meade, Md., Saturday, Dec. 17, 2011.

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - The young Army intelligence specialist accused of passing government secrets spent his 24th birthday in court Saturday as his lawyers argued his status as a gay soldier before the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" played an important role in his actions.

Lawyers for Pfc. Bradley Manning began laying out a defense to show that his struggles as a gay soldier in an environment hostile to homosexuality contributed to mental and emotional problems that should have barred him from having access to sensitive material. Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive items to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, including Iraq and Afghanistan war logs, State Department cables and a military video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Iraq that killed 11 men, including a Reuters news photographer and his driver.

Bradley Manning appears in court to answer Wikileaks charges

With his small frame draped in the digitalised fatigues of the US Army and his eyes blinking slowly behind thick glasses the man accused of the largest intelligence leak in American history appeared in court.


Bradley Manning (L) is escorted by a military official to vehicles that will return him to a jail cell Photo: AFP/GETTY

By Raf Sanchez
16 December 2011

Amid a cloak of intense security and fevered interest Private Bradley Manning, one day short of his 24th birthday, stood before a military tribunal to answer charges of passing secret material to WikiLeaks – an act prosecutors say endangered the security of the world's only superpower. Asked if he had seen the long list of charges which, if proved, could condemn him to a lifetime in prison, Private Manning nodded his headed and quickly and quietly said: "Yes, sir."