"Rally held to protest Spotlight series" by Brian MacQuarrie Globe Staff August 02, 2016
About 150 people from across Massachusetts marched outside The Boston Globe on Monday to protest a Spotlight series on the dismantling of the state’s mental health system and the sometimes tragic consequences.
Waving placards and chanting slogans, protesters said that the multipart series — titled “The Desperate and the Dead” — has contributed to the impression that mental illness is often linked to violence.
“Most mentally ill people are not violent people,” said Sarah Ahern, a 44-year-old woman from Greenfield who said she has suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression.
Twelve people were arrested on trespassing charges, police said. Globe security said the protesters sat down, blocked the front entrance, and refused to leave.
The Globe has published two installments of the ongoing series since June.
Spotlight Team editor Scott Allen, who met with several protesters outside the Globe building, said the series demonstrates great empathy for those with mental illness while chronicling sweeping changes that have left many of the most vulnerable — and potentially violent — without adequate care and supervision.
“We documented 139 victims of homicide at the hands of people with mental illness in Massachusetts, which is not a small number,” Allen said of the Spotlight investigation, which looked at murders dating back to 2005.
“But regardless of the absolute number, many of them were preventable deaths,” Allen said. “The key point is that, with a better mental health care system, some of these lives could have been saved.”
Yeah, I saw the series and decided to skip it because I'm seeing through the illusion of altruism claimed by the pre$$.
Who believes a lying, agenda-pushing pre$$ anymore anyway?
Or do you like the program of corporate liberalism espoused by the Globe? The kind that puts an arm around your shoulder as it stabs a knife into your back.
One of the major conclusions of the series is that Massachusetts failed to develop a broad, effective system to care for the mentally ill after closing state psychiatric hospitals, many of which were viewed as antiquated and inhumane.
The Spotlight Team found that, since 2005, more than 10 percent of Massachusetts homicides in which a suspect was identified were allegedly committed by people who had a history of mental illness or clear symptoms.
The protesters, many of whom said they have received psychiatric treatment, said the series overstated the connection between mental illness and violence.
I'm sure that was the intention. They traffic in fear, and what better way than to get everyone to go down to the health clinics that work hand-in-hand with the government for a mental screen? Everybody needs to get one, and only crazy people will argue against it!
“That’s all people walked away with,” said Justin Brown, one of the organizers of the protest. “It demonizes us in much the same way as when Donald Trump says there are murderers coming across the border.”
That's a crazy analogy!
Globe editor Brian McGrory, who also met with the demonstrators, said, “We heard their perspective quite clearly, and it was important for us that we did. The bottom line, though, is that we want what they want, which is vastly better care for those with mental illness. That’s what this series is about.”
Two buses brought the protesters to the Globe, where they called out the names of hundreds of mentally ill victims, some of whom died while in restraints. The protesters placed flowers for the victims on the ground.
They chanted, “No more lies,” and carried signs that read “Fear mongering does not heal,” and “Stop scapegoating me!”
I've been chanting that for ten years and the thing is still loaded with 'em.
Many protesters acknowledged that they had not read the entire series, and one marcher said she had joined the demonstration primarily as a way to criticize the state’s mental health system, which she described as understaffed and underfunded.
I'm reading less and less of the Globe.
Why waste my time with agenda-pushing and attention-diverting slop?
“There is no system,” said Joanne Grady of Duxbury. “It’s broken.”
Sure is!
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Yeah, this ain't workin' no more:
"Interfaith program teaches students to foster peace, calm conflict" by Mina Corpuz Globe Correspondent August 08, 2016
Can't read anymore "peace" promotion from a lying war paper, sorry.
Not only that, but the self-serving invocation of religion is a bit more than ironic coming from the Jewi$h War Pre$$.
NEWTON — Omri, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy, has traveled thousands of miles from Jerusalem every summer for the past four years to learn more about his Muslim faith, cope with conflict, and become a leader.
As members of the interfaith group Kids4Peace, Omri and other students met with US government leaders and others in Washington, D.C., to get a clearer picture of how to find solutions to the conflicts in the Middle East before returning to the Boston area to reflect on their experience.
They are asking the wrong people!!!!!!
“It’s opened up how to communicate with people from other cultures,” he said.
Jewish, Muslim, and Christian students from Boston and the Middle East make up Kids4Peace, a nonprofit that infuses religion with social action.
Aaaah!
See: "nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence"
As if they needed any more.
And they are a TAX EXEMPT, too!
Peggy Stevens, a founder of Kids4Peace Boston, said the program spans six years. Starting in 6th grade, students head to Camp Merrowvista in New Hampshire each summer to learn how to become peace leaders, she said.
Well, you will need to go to some other country and see some other leadership.
This is disgusting. It's insulation, indoctrination, brainwashing, propaganda, take your pick, of the kids.
Older students work on service projects and eventually take on roles as counselors to lead and mentor younger students, Stevens said. In all, 22 students participated, she said.
Kids4Peace students gathered at Temple Beth Avodah in Newton Sunday afternoon to discuss what they had learned and celebrate with family and friends. The group allowed the students to be interviewed on the condition that only first names were used.
Rabbi Keith Stern introduced the students, saying their advocacy gives him hope.
“Every day I read the news and it breaks my heart,” he said. “I thought of the three main Western religions and how they have a prayer for peace. It’s a beautiful prayer, but peace takes will and commitment. It’s about love and respect.”
Half the students donned turquoise shirts, and the others wore light blue ones. The Arabic, Hebrew, and English words for “Peace” were printed across the front.
Shayan, 15, of Needham told the crowd about a negative experience with racial profiling. His family, who are Muslim, was stopped at the airport while returning from a vacation, and a transportation agent yelled at his father for accusing him of being a racist.
“I want to end that narrative for every 8-year-old who has to learn the definition of racism after a family trip,” he said.
Yasmine, 16, from Lexington, said she also hoped to inspire social change. “I don’t believe in extremism and terrorism,” she said. “Where is that empathy? . . . I am proud of my Muslim identity and my advocacy for peace.”
As the celebration came to an end, about 40 students took the stage together and sang the camp song “We Can See That Peace is Coming,” with verses in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. They put their arms around each other and ended with smiles on their faces, singing “Lean on Me.”
Yup, Kumbaya, Globe!
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And speaking of crazy ideas:
"Protesters call for abolishing prison systems" by Felicia Gans Globe Correspondent August 07, 2016
Beatrice Codianni, 67, who spent 15 years for racketeering in the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Conn., was one of more than 100 people who marched Sunday from Copley Square to Hynes Convention Center, where the American Correctional Association is hosting its annual conference this week.
The message of the march: Imagine a world without prisons.
SIGH!Look, I know we have a lot of the wrong people inn there while the elite war criminal scum, looters, and pedophiles are walking around free; however, what are we going to do with all the murders, rapists, and robbers?
I'm not a big advocate of state authority, but I'm not an anarchist either -- although that is starting to look better and better every day under this government and its ma$$ media mouthpieces.
Jason Lydon, national director for Black and Pink, one of the groups that organized the march, said the protest was intended to challenge the philosophy behind prisons.
Yeah let's waste time.
Good luck with it all. I'd like to change some other philosophies, ones with a more realistic intent or at least a moral high ground.
This cause is obviously controlled opposition nonsense meant to divert. Otherwise, it wouldn't make the paper!
Organizers preached for community collaboration and freedom for all, contending that prisons harm inmates more than help them.
When did the world become a utopia?
In an e-mailed statement on Sunday, correctional association president Mary L. Livers acknowledged the need for improvement within the country’s prison systems and said its leaders have gathered this weekend with that specific goal in mind. She emphasized that productive and safe correctional systems are among their top priorities.
Many protesters, including 61-year-old Susan Ringler, said the American prison systems create and strengthen social and economic racism within the country.
Oh, I see. It's the same old race division being advanced again. That's why it is getting coverage.
“We need to be less punitive and more [into] reforming,” said Ringler, a Cambridge resident. “We’re spending an extraordinary amount of money just messing up people’s lives.”
Oh, I agree. Government's sentencing priorities are all backwards, but then again, they aren't going to charge or sentence themselves.
The coalition of protesters — including the groups Black and Pink, the City School, Families for Justice as Healing, and the Young Abolitionists — faulted the correctional association for putting “a veneer of credibility and professionalism on rampant human rights abuses in prisons across the United States,” organizers wrote in a statement.
They cited the suicide of a 43-year-old man at Bridgewater State Hospital in April, a homicide at the same facility in 2009, and the videotaping of strip searches at Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center in Chicopee. These incidents are local examples of human rights abuses the association has allowed across the country, the organizers said.
Well, now that Baker is here and has his own man in place I suspect the lawsuits will be resolved. They just need to start searching cells for assassins who might escape (give me a f***ing break) and kick the offenders out the doors for good (although caged heat is so hot!).
Many protesters also said prison systems have failed in preparing inmates for returning to society after they have served their sentences.
“Most people in the prisons will be coming out in the communities,” said Aida Fitzgerald, 35, a protester from Jamaica Plain. “We have to give them more opportunities.”
Now you have to go to prison to find a job!
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“You’re not going to arrest away the drug problem.”
But it sure is good for state authority and it's business.
"A drive to rethink what incarceration is for" by Akilah Johnson Globe Staff May 14, 2016
The South Bay House of Correction has become a microcosm of the country’s evolving attitudes toward drug abuse and drug-related crimes.
The legacy of the 1994 crime bill has become a key issue in national politics as presidential candidates and members of Congress talk of rolling back the initiatives it put in place. Both Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have criminal justice reform platforms.
Strange how all the minorities forget that.
Gone is the era when a “lock them up” attitude prevailed in dealing with the crimes that often accompany addiction, everything from possession of a controlled substance to stealing to support a drug habit. Now, presidential candidates are calling for treatment instead of incarceration as they talk of how addiction, specifically the opioid crisis, has affected friends and family.
After President Bill Clinton signed the 1994 crime bill into law, drug crimes became the predominant reason why people go to jail or prison. The crime bill’s aftermath is something that has haunted Hillary Clinton, and to a lesser extent Sanders, along the campaign trail as critics say her husband bears responsibility for how it ravaged poor black and Latino communities.
Last month, the former president got into a tense back-and-forth with protesters about the legacy of the bill, one of his signature pieces of legislation, during a campaign stop for his wife at a rally in Philadelphia. And while he defended it then, Clinton has also admitted that the 1994 crime bill exacerbated mass incarceration, saying it “made the problem worse.”
And now, his wife and Sanders, who voted for the crime bill as member of Congress, want to undo much of what was done in the 1990s.
“The first policy speech I gave in this campaign over a year ago was about criminal justice reform,” Hillary Clinton told the NAACP in Detroit earlier this month. “We have seen the toll on families torn apart by excessive incarceration, children growing up in homes shattered by prison and poverty.”
The presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, who has spoken about the death of his brother because of alcoholism, doesn’t have a criminal justice platform per se. The “drug epidemic” is listed as an issue on Trump’s website, where, in a 43-second video, he says he’ll “build a wall” to keep drugs out of the country and “work with” those who are addicted to drugs “and try and make them better.”
Between 1994 and 2014, the country’s prison population nearly doubled, with a disproportionate number of inmates being blacks and Latinos, particularly those from poor communities, according to federal statistics.
The crime bill also kept in place the vast sentencing disparities between crack and powdered cocaine, which were a carry-over from the Reagan administration, while imposing mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes.
The swift effect was exploding prison populations and imploding communities. Families were torn apart. Housing, jobs, and education opportunities were short-circuited by jail time. Pensions, disability, and veterans benefits must be forfeited at times for those convicted of drug offenses.
“This was almost an evil policy. It was really about us versus them,” said James Jennings, professor emeritus of race, politics, and urban policy at Tufts University....
Is that why I'm so, so tired of my pre$$?!!!!
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But, but, but.... they cover labor!
"Marchers fuse immigration, job concerns on May Day" by Christopher Weber Associated Press May 01, 2016
LOS ANGELES — Hundreds of May Day marchers chanting slogans and carrying signs — and at least one Donald Trump piñata — took to the streets of Los Angeles on Sunday calling for immigrant and worker rights and decrying what they see as hateful presidential campaign rhetoric.
Some hate is okay.
It’s one of several events in cities nationwide to call for better wages for workers, an end to deportations, and support for an Obama administration plan to give work permits to immigrants who are in the country illegally but whose children are citizens.
I thought it was a worker's day, and if so.....
‘‘We want them to hear our voices, to know that we are here and that we want a better life, with jobs,’’ said Norberto Guiterrez, a 46-year-old immigrant from Mexico who joined families, union members, and students who marched through downtown.
Demonstrators repeatedly criticized Trump for his remarks about immigrants, workers, and women. The leading Republican presidential contender has called for a wall on the border with Mexico and chided Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton over gender.
‘‘In addition to fighting for workers’ rights, we are fighting for our dignity this time around, our self-respect,’’ said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
They are not fighting for our rights; they are undercutting wages and putting us out of work.
‘‘We can certainly encourage folks to look at what they’re watching, what they’re hearing and have them represent themselves and their families — whether they can vote or not — and say, ‘We are not the rapists. We are not the criminals you are talking about. And we are quite good for this country,’’’ Cabrera said.
You are good for the elite and bu$ine$$ cla$$ that run the place; other than that, it's all $elfi$hne$$. You are a pool of cheap foreign labor that won't complain or cost health and pension taxes who can also be easily replaced. I know that wasn't in the brochure, but....
Trump says he is not racist or anti-immigrant; he simply wants the United States to stop illegal immigration and control its borders.
Around the world, union members have traditionally marched on May 1 for workers’ rights. In the United States, the annual events have become a rallying point for immigrants and their supporters since massive demonstrations in 2006 against a proposed immigration enforcement bill.
In other words, it's become an occasion for the agenda-pushing paper to push controlled opposition protests.
In recent years, the marches have waned in size in US cities, but the tradition has continued.
Marchers along San Francisco’s scenic Fisherman’s Wharf rallied in support of immigrant and workers’ rights and to demand justice for several men fatally shot by city police.
About 300 people, including members of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union, held signs that read ‘‘Long Live May Day’’ and ‘‘Stop Police Terror,’’ and chanted ‘‘No Justice No Peace! No Racist Police!’’
What about JOBS?
Organizers of this year’s rallies in the United States said they were particularly concerned about hateful rhetoric targeting immigrants, workers, and women.
What do you think I read every morning?
Large marches were held Sunday in Portland, Ore., and Seattle, where 16 people were arrested in last year’s demonstrations. Marches were also held in Cleveland, Miami, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco.
Social justice advocates in Durham, N.H., made the rejection of racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim sentiment the theme of their annual rally.
Yeah, don't focus on income inequality that puts 99% of us in the same boat. Unreal!
‘‘The Trump effect has taken over the media and silenced our voices,’’ said Tomas Kennedy, an organizer of the Miami march. ‘‘It’s time to stand up against the current threat to democracy, freedom, human rights, equality, and the welfare of our country and all our people.’’
It's made me shut up, that's for sure.
At a time when America is trying to deal with complex matters of gender, such as gay marriage and transgender rights — as well as find the right solution to the immigration issue — Trump has tried to make Clinton’s gender an issue in the campaign.
This is so far afield from a celebration of workers!
I love my corporately liberal paper, don't you?!!
While the businessman has promised to ‘‘cherish’’ and ‘‘protect’’ women as president, he has dismissed the former senator and secretary of state as little more than a token female.
‘‘Frankly, all I’m doing is stating the obvious,’’ Trump insisted, when pressed about whether his latest putdowns of Clinton were sexist. ‘‘Without the woman’s card, Hillary would not even be a viable person to run for city council.’’
Trump rival Ted Cruz said the GOP front-runner’s attacks on Clinton are unsurprising. ‘‘Donald Trump has a real problem with strong women,’’ Cruz said. ‘‘It’s one of the reasons he can’t win a general election.’’
Who?
Cruz has picked his former Republican rival Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate.
After playing down women’s issues in her 2008 campaign against Barack Obama, this time Clinton is embracing the historic nature of her candidacy and playing up her roles as grandmother and longtime advocate for women. She happily addressed Trump’s accusations that she was making much of her candidacy as a woman.
‘‘If fighting for women’s health care, and paid family leave, and equal pay is playing the woman card,’’ she said, ‘‘then deal me in.’’
--more--"
Time to send the kids off to school:
"Many migrant children kept from enrolling in school" Associated Press May 01, 2016
MEMPHIS — In at least 14 states — including Massachusetts — hundreds of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have been discouraged from enrolling in schools or pressured into what advocates and attorneys argue are separate but unequal alternative programs.
The children are essentially at an academic dead end. America’s schools remain one of the few government institutions for which migrant youth are guaranteed services, but the federal government has extended little money or oversight to monitor whether that happens, in part because schools are locally governed, according to an Associated Press investigation.
It costs you taxpayers whose services are being cut, but to point it out is racists so I won't.
In Alabama, California, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and South Carolina, social workers and attorneys said migrant students have been barred from enrolling, kept out of class for months, or routed to reform schools and adult programs.
City officials in Lynn, Mass., suggested two Central American teens were lying about their age to get into high school in summer 2014. Since then, dozens of unaccompanied minors have been sent to alternative newcomers programs, where they studied English and other material but received no credit. The district declined to comment.
Since fall 2013, the federal government has placed nearly 104,000 unaccompanied minors with adult sponsors in communities nationwide, where they are expected to attend school while they seek legal status in immigration court.
Yeah, they dumped them on you in the middle of the night after saying they wouldn't when their was an uproar about it. That's how forthright and honest is this government.
As for me, I no longer have the answers. The globalists who have benefited from all this forced migration have so f***ed it up I have no clue how to "solve" things.
Months later, during the dramatic surge of illegal crossings at the border, the Education and Justice departments issued joint guidelines reminding districts that a 1982 Supreme Court ruling established that states cannot deny children a free public education, regardless of immigration status.
For students learning English, the guidelines say school districts must provide appropriate language assistance services so students can participate equally in the standard instructional program within a reasonable period of time.
Yeah, the ESL classes are another factor. It's why Mass school budgets are going broke. That's what happens when you are a sanctuary state. At least we get cheap labor out of it.
All children must attend school until at least the eighth grade or until they turn 16 under compulsory education laws in all 50 states.
Districts found to have broken the law can be forced to change their enrollment policies, but making that happen is not easy. To start, few migrant children understand their rights.
Students and their advocates can sue districts or file complaints with the Education or Justice departments, but investigations are backlogged and typically result in civil sanctions, said Lisa Carmona, senior attorney with the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center.
Many local school districts have stretched to find the resources and staff to meet the educational needs of these students, who often carry emotional trauma, have gaps in their education, and are older than other English-language learners.
The full extent of how the Central American minors are faring in schools is unknown because the government does not release data on counties where fewer than 50 minors have been placed.
Spokeswomen for the Education and Justice departments would not say how many of the nation’s roughly 14,000 school districts have been investigated for such failures.
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At least they learn about the wider world out there:
"With Turkey in crisis and Europe’s borders closed, smugglers in northern Greece are expecting a profitable summer. Greek police say traffickers are using increasingly sophisticated methods — motorcycle spotters, maps of border surveillance ‘‘blind spots,’’ and even police informants — to move out migrants who have been stuck in this Greek border town for months. Higher smuggling fees and steadily worsening odds of success have done little to dent the determination of migrants...."
And Germany confirms it before the story was buried.
"Trade unions hold rallies around world to mark May Day; clashes break out in Paris" Associated Press May 02, 2016
PARIS — Fearing France’s worker protections are under threat, hundreds of angry youths on the sidelines of a May Day labor rally hurled stones and wood at police in Paris, receiving repeated bursts of tear gas in response.
Trade unions, teenagers, pensioners, and families held largely peaceful marches Sunday in Paris and cities around the country. The traditional rallies on International Workers Day took on greater weight this year as Parliament is debating a bill that would allow longer working hours and let companies lay workers off more easily.
Oh, I thought it was International Illegal Immigrants Day, and that stinks!
Good thing there are all the false flag fakes to take French minds off it -- and the fires!
The bill has prompted the most violent labor-related protests in a decade, with marches and sit-ins frequently degenerating into clashes with police.
Police encircled a few hundred suspected troublemakers on the sidelines of the Paris march Sunday, and frustrated youths threw projectiles. In Marseille, at least five people were arrested after scuffles with riot police. Marchers held banners calling President Francois Hollande a ‘‘traitor’’ and chanted ‘‘Everyone together!’’
We call them agent provocateurs and they generally work for the government. Either that or the French protests do not meet with AmeriKan pre$$ approval.
The Socialist government hopes the relatively modest labor reform will reduce chronically high unemployment and make France more globally competitive, by allowing companies more flexibility. Opponents say it erodes hard-fought worker protections and call it a gift to corporate interests.
It's a $ociali$t government.
In other demonstrations around the world:
■ Britain: Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn joined thousands of people at a May Day rally in central London, using the occasion to condemn the progress of far-right groups throughout Europe.
Standing atop a red London bus, Corbyn said the party is united against the far-right and against racism. ‘‘We stand in solidarity now against the growth of the far right in Europe,’’ said Corbyn, whose faltering opposition party has been accused of anti-Semitism in recent days.
Corbyn, who represents Labour’s left wing, was the first Labor leader to address a May Day crowd in decades.
He's not out yet?
■ Egypt: Egyptian police prevented hundreds of workers from holding a meeting in Cairo, while independent trade union leaders urged the government to allow them freedom of assembly.
Kamal Abbas, of the Center for Trade Unions and Workers’ Services, said some 650 workers came to the city center and initially sought an alternate location to hold a news conference after police prevented them from entering the journalists’ syndicate building.
The area was under lock-down by dozens of uniformed and plainclothes security forces, some wearing face masks and carrying automatic weapons. A smaller group of workers convened at Abbas’s offices and spoke out against what they described as government suppression of their constitutional rights.
Egypt is a key ally and lynchpin the U.S. can not afford to lose so nothing but silence from the administration.
Now more than ever:
■ Turkey: Thousands of Turkish demonstrators rallied for May Day in an authorized area of Istanbul while police cracked down on other protests. Police used tear gas and water cannons on demonstrators trying to reach Taksim Square. One man died after being hit by a water cannon vehicle.
Taksim has symbolic meaning as the center of protests in which 34 people were killed on May Day in 1977. The office of the governor of Istanbul said 24,500 security officers reported for duty Sunday, and that 207 people were detained.
In the capital, Ankara, police rounded up four suspected Islamic State members who were allegedly planning to attack May Day demonstrators.
Related: "There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Police in Ankara, meanwhile, carried out antiterror operations overnight and detained four suspected Islamic State members allegedly planning to attack May Day demonstrators, the Anadolu Agency reported. In Istanbul, police imposed tight security measures and used water cannons and tear gas on May Day demonstrators who sought to rally in nondesignated areas. One man died after being run over by a water cannon vehicle, according to local media."
Also see: "The government has been encouraging nightly anticoup rallies in all of the country’s 81 provinces since July 15. The event was broadcast live on giant screens in all Turkish provinces, and crowds of thousands gathered to watch in the country’s major cities. Thousands of buses and more than 200 boats were commissioned to bring people to the rally area, where they passed through one of 165 metal detectors before being given hats and flags."
Looks like an AmeriKan political campaign!
A lot has happened in Turkey since then, and a lot of it has a lot to do with the Russians. That's why the US sicced the Kurds on them.
Could Obama's legacy be the loss of Turkey and the vital conjunction between east, west, north, and south?
■ Russia: Tens of thousands of people marched across Moscow’s Red Square on a sunny Sunday morning in a pro-Kremlin workers’ rally. The protesters were carrying the Russian tricolor and balloons.
As is typical for rallies organized by the ruling United Russia party, the May Day rally steered clear of criticizing President Vladimir Putin or his government for falling living standards. The slogans focused on wages and jobs for young professionals. Left-wing Russian groups held their own rallies.
Nothing the AmeriKan pre$$ says can ruin that parade. F*** them.
■ Philippines: In Manila, about 2,000 left-wing protesters scuffled with riot police, who used shields and a water cannon to try to prevent the flag-waving demonstrators from getting near the US Embassy. Labor leaders said 20 protesters were injured.
Some of the protesters managed to break through the police cordon. TV video showed some of them punching a retreating police officer and using wooden poles to hit a fire truck.
Police made no arrests and the protesters dispersed after about two hours.
Related: Encircling China: Filipino Front
Also see:
"Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked more than 150 judges, mayors, lawmakers, police, and military personnel to illegal drugs Sunday, ordering them to surrender for investigation as he ratcheted up his bloody war against what he calls a ‘‘pandemic.’’ Duterte promptly relieved members of the military and police he named from their current posts and ordered government security personnel to be withdrawn from politicians he identified in a nationally televised speech. He also ordered gun licenses of those named revoked. ‘‘There is no due process in my mouth,’’ Duterte said. Duterte’s war on drugs has already left more than 400 suspected dealers and pushers dead and more than 4,400 arrested in more than a month since he took office."
I'm beginning to see why the AmeriKan power structure doesn't like this guy!
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Related: Deluge, flooding kills 21 in Macedonia
That's a far cry from here where it is hot and dry, although there is some rain on the way.
At least the Indian drought is over:
"Indian forces arrest more than 1,000 protesters in Kashmir" Associated Press August 08, 2016
SRINAGAR, India — Government forces have arrested more than a thousand protesters in Indian-controlled Kashmir in an attempt to stem deadly anti-India demonstrations in the Himalayan region, a top police official said Monday.
Inspector General Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gillani said the arrests were made over the past two weeks in a bid to end a month of protests in which more than 55 civilians and two police officers have been killed and thousands injured.
Kashmir has been under a security lock-down and curfew since the killing of a popular rebel commander on July 8 sparked some of the largest protests against Indian rule in recent years.
Tens of thousands of people have defied the curfew and participated in street protests, often leading to clashes between rock-throwing residents and government forces firing live ammunition, shotgun pellets, and tear gas.
On Monday, tens of thousands of troops patrolled streets ringed with barbed wire and enforced a curfew in most parts of Kashmir. Shops and schools were closed because of the security crackdown and a separatist-sponsored protest strike.
The visit was a dramatic gesture to break the ice at a time when relations between Pakistan and India have been almost completely stalled.
What visit?
However, protests demanding the end of Indian rule over the region continued in several places, with reports of clashes between protesters and government forces in at least five locations. Seven civilians were reported injured.
Separatist politicians, who challenge India’s sovereignty over Kashmir, have called on residents to resist the crackdown and stage protests when troops raid neighborhoods to arrest young people.
Kashmir is divided between archrivals India and Pakistan, which have fought two wars over control of the region since British colonialists left the subcontinent in 1947.
What do the Kashmiris want?
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training Kashmiri rebels who have been fighting for independence or for a merger with Pakistan since 1989. Pakistan denies the charge, saying it only provides moral and political support to Kashmiris.
How come Kosovo and Sudan get a vote, but Kashmiris and Palestinians do not?
More than 68,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since rebel groups began fighting Indian forces in 1989 and in a subsequent Indian military crackdown.
Meanwhile in New Delhi, opposition lawmakers on Monday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence over the situation in Kashmir and demanded that the government take political steps to defuse the crisis.
Lawmakers attacked the government over the firing of shotguns by soldiers at unarmed protesters. Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Congress party leader in the upper house of Parliament, urged Modi to hold a meeting in which leaders of all political parties could discuss and offer ways to reach out to the people of Kashmir.
Troops have continued firing shotguns to disperse angry crowds despite warnings from India’s home ministry to minimize their use, and requests for a ban from local and international rights groups. The pellets have killed at least two men and left hundreds of civilians with serious eye injuries. Dozens of people have lost their vision because of pellet injuries.
No mention of the rape crisis, but you can't have everything.
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Are you hungry for more?
"‘I will never forget this moment’: Indian activist ends 16-year hunger strike" by Rama Lakshmi Washington Post August 09, 2016
NEW DELHI — A few drops of honey. That’s how Indian human rights activist Irom Sharmila on Tuesday ended her epic 16-year hunger strike to protest alleged military abuses. Now she wants to build up the strength to run for political office next year.
Sharmila, 43, had not eaten for years as a protest against an immunity law covering Indian military in the country’s conflict zones such as her home state, the northeastern state of Manipur, where a separatist rebellion has raged for nearly four decades.
‘‘I want to drink something in front of the world,’’ Sharmila said at a news conference in Imphal, the capital city of Manipur. Then she broke down as she stared at a bottle of honey.
‘‘Please give her some time. She is sentimental,’’ a doctor said to the media.
Popularly known as the ‘‘Iron Lady of Manipur,’’ Sharmila has staged the most powerful protest against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. India gives its troops sweeping powers to shoot in insurgency-hit areas in states such as Manipur and Kashmir, and it protects them from prosecution.
The Indian government has said her protest amounts to suicide and has force-fed her through a nasal tube for years.
I'm sure the Gitmo detainees understand.
Sharmila said she will run in the state elections scheduled to be held next year.
‘‘I need power to remove the black law,’’ Sharmila said referring to the immunity provisions.
Not everybody is happy with Sharmila’s new path.
A secessionist group called the Alliance for Socialist Unity said in a statement this week that other activists have been assassinated when they joined politics.
‘‘People remain negative toward me, about my new decision,’’ said Sharmila, and added that they want to see her continuing as ‘‘just a symbol of resistance.’’
‘‘Let them kill me, the way people killed Mahatma Gandhi . . . the way they killed Jesus Christ,’’ Sharmila said. ‘‘With that blood let them voice their dark emotions, their negative feelings toward me.’’
She is no Gandhi. The fighting continues.
Human Rights Watch has called on India to repeal the immunity law, saying India’s troops ‘‘routinely engage in torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation in army barracks. The law forbids prosecution of soldiers without approval from the central government, which is rarely granted.’’
Senior army officers have said that they cannot fight terrorist groups with their hands tied and have opposed the removal of the special immunity law.
India has a long and rich history of activists using hunger strike as a tool of protest, right from the days of Gandhi during the decades-long freedom movement that ended British rule in the 1940s.
Environmentalists and anti-corruption protesters have used this method to draw attention to their causes.
When a reporter asked Sharmila how it felt to eat after so many years, she replied: ‘‘I will never forget this moment.’’
--more--"
Also see:
India Lends Saudi Arabia a Hand
Planting a Tree in Pakistan
Then everything went boom:
"Suicide blast kills 74 at hospital in Pakistan" by Salman Masood New York Times August 09, 2016
ISLAMABAD — A suicide bomber struck a hospital in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta Monday, officials said, killing at least 74 people in another devastating attack on civilians in a city that has become a byword for massacre and struggle over the past decade.
Before the bomber attacked, dozens of lawyers had gathered at the hospital to condemn the shooting death of a prominent colleague early Monday, officials said.
Late Monday evening, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for both attacks. “Our attacks will continue till the imposition of Islamic system in the country,” the statement of responsibility read.
This is absolutely reeking of CIA.
Quetta is the capital of Baluchistan, a rugged and resource-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran that has been racked by a separatist war, ethnic and sectarian violence, and militant intrigue. Those fault lines come to a point within Quetta, a city of more than a million.
It's also a base for CIA operations, which is why it is rarely covered in my pre$$.
Quetta’s Hazara minority, which is mostly Shi’ite, has been targeted over and over by Sunni extremist groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Political tensions between ethnic Pashtun and Baluch leaders have been another source of conflict. As well, the Afghan Taliban’s leadership is based in Quetta, and infighting, militant-driven assassinations, and kidnappings have scarred the city.
At the same time, Baluchistan is one of the most forbidding environments for journalists. Foreign reporters are routinely barred from visiting, and local journalists in the province have been killed or intimidated in great numbers, according to human rights groups.
The bombing Monday came hours after the president of the Baluchistan Bar Association, Bilal Anwar Kasi, was gunned down by unknown attackers. Local news reports said that he was killed by men on a motorcycle as he was on his way to court.
As news of Kasi’s death spread through Quetta, dozens of lawyers went to Civil Hospital, where his body had been taken for an autopsy.
As they protested the killing, a powerful blast ripped through the entrance to the hospital’s emergency wing. Television footage showed scores of lawyers running for cover as gunfire echoed in the background.
The bombing left a trail of destruction. The charred bodies of victims lay in pools of blood. Several vehicles parked nearby were damaged, and windows of buildings were shattered.
One witness, Hajji Abdul Haq, said the suicide bomber was dressed in the traditional “lawyers’ uniform” of Pakistan — a black suit and black tie. The bomb went off right as the attacker moved toward the center of the crowd.
Sam Zarifi, the Asia director of the International Commission of Jurists, said in a statement, “This attack targeted mostly lawyers and intellectuals [many of them from the Pashtun community] who had gathered at the hospital to mourn the loss of one of their own.
“As such, it constituted a serious loss for the legal community and increases existing pressure on the independence of the bar.”
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the bombing Monday, urging law enforcement authorities to improve security in Quetta. “No one will be allowed to disturb the peace in the province that has been restored thanks to the countless sacrifices by the security forces, police and the people of Baluchistan,” he said in a statement.
In a message posted on Twitter, army spokesman Asim Saleem Bajwa claimed that the attack was “an attempt to undermine the improved security” in Baluchistan, specifically targeting the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar endeavor by both countries that includes infrastructure networks and energy projects.
The Pakistani Bar Association said lawyers across the country would hold a three-day strike in all courts and spend a week in mourning.
--more--"
So why would the CIA want to kill a bunch of lawyers?
"In one blast, a generation of a Pakistani city’s lawyers gone" by Max Bearak Washington Post August 09, 2016
WASHINGTON — Baluchistan is a place that desperately needs lawyers.
Pakistan’s largest province by area, it is the home of a decades-old separatist insurgency, fueled by grievances over neglect and lack of political representation. It is also increasingly the target of Sunni extremists, who bomb and kill its Shi’ite minorities. What leaders the province has are widely considered corrupt. Dozens of local journalists have been kidnapped in the past few years. It is nearly impossible for foreign reporters to enter Baluchistan. Lawyers are almost all that give the province a semblance of justice.
About 60 of them were killed in one attack on Monday in Baluchistan’s capital, Quetta. They were packed into an emergency room where the body of another slain colleague lay, riddled with gunshot wounds. A widely circulated video showed lawyers milling about the hospital before an enormous explosion. A Pakistani Taliban offshoot claimed the attack, as did the Islamic State, though analysts say the latter’s claim is dubious.
That no longer means anything to me anymore. Plenty of videos that have been pimped by the pre$$ have proven to be fakes, and the Pakistan school attack was just such a thing. They used a Sandy Hook kid in the video.
I've got two claims here by the New York Times and Washington Post, that's all.
A week earlier, another lawyer was fatally shot. In June, the principal of the province’s law college was, too.
A generation of lawyers has been wiped out in Quetta, and it will leave Baluchistan, in more ways than one, lawless.
Yeah, who would want to kill all the lawyers?
On Tuesday, the Pakistani bar association called for an indefinite boycott of the courts. But so few lawyers are left in Baluchistan that it will be years, probably, until its legal community recovers.
The global response has been muted.
It always is when the victims are Muslims. Had this happened in Europe....
Ban Ki-moon, Hillary Clinton, and other international figures issued brief, bland statements. Pakistan’s leaders did much the same. No officials have been held responsible for the security breakdown at what should have been a highly guarded scene. The website of Dawn, Pakistan’s most reputed English-language newspaper, had only a day-old story and photo gallery about the attack on its homepage on Tuesday evening.
OMG! The government let it happen to get rid of the lawyers causing them trouble, or the CIA media is fingering them for it.
It's the same f***ing goddamn script every f****ing time!!!!!!!!!
Barkhurdar Khan, a member of the Baluchistan Bar Council, was one of the few lawyers who survived the attack. He has practiced in Quetta for nine months. After the attack, Khan offered his singular perspective in a heart-rending stream of posts on social media.
‘‘All, I repeat ALL Senior practicing lawyers and Barristers died today,’’ he wrote. ‘‘The number of junior lawyers, who are the sole bread winners of their homes and who are now unemployed runs into hundreds.’’
‘‘Most of those who died were first gen educated. The scenes of misery and loss cannot be put into words. The bent shoulders of their fathers, the broken backs of their brothers. Their kids, still oblivious to their own loss, playing and hoping,’’ Khan continued. ‘‘Every lawyer that has ever given me a lift home is dead, except for one, Naveed Qambrani, he is critical and was airlifted to Karachi.’’
--more--"
Related: Obama’s drone-missile machinery of murder
Not part of the pre$$ playbook.
This is:
"Uganda’s government vows to ‘suppress’ gay pride activity" Associated Press August 08, 2016
KAMPALA, Uganda — Uganda’s government said Monday it ‘‘will continue to suppress’’ the public activities of homosexuals and that a rehabilitation program had been developed to allow them to ‘‘lead normal lives again.’’
Ugandan police last week arrested about 20 people attending a gay pride event at a nightclub in the capital, Kampala. They were questioned and released hours later, although some said they had been assaulted by police officers. ‘‘The police ordered the inmates to beat me,’’ one activist, Pepe Onzima, said.
Simon Lokodo, a Ugandan minister in charge of ethics and integrity, told reporters that gay pride activities are being organized ‘‘with the influence of some foreign forces’’ he didn’t name. He also accused gay people of trying to promote themselves.
Homosexuality is criminalized in Uganda, as in many African countries. A colonial-era law proscribes such sex acts ‘‘against the order of nature.’’ Advocates said the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transsexual community faces discrimination, violence, and extortion.
That does seem a little extreme.
Frank Mugisha, a prominent gay rights leader in Uganda, said on Twitter that LGBT Ugandans will continue to hold public events despite Lokodo’s order.
Lokodo, a former Catholic priest who condemns homosexuality, has previously been accused of leading efforts to foil the public activities of LGBT Ugandans.
Lokodo said a program has been developed to ‘‘rehabilitate members of the LGBT community, with the ultimate aim of giving them a chance to lead normal lives again.’’
Many Ugandans say they despise homosexuality and believe it is imported from the West.
In 2009, a Ugandan lawmaker introduced a bill that prescribed the death penalty for some homosexual acts, saying he wanted to protect Ugandan children.
The proposed bill prompted international condemnation, and a less severe version passed by lawmakers was rejected by a court as unconstitutional.
--more--"
Related: South African Elections
"Algerian court upholds 2-year term against journalist" AP August 09, 2016
ALGIERS — An Algerian appeals court has upheld a two-year prison sentence against London-based journalist Mohamed Tamalt for insulting President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on his Facebook page.
Lawyer Amine Sidhoum said Tuesday that the court in the capital Algiers also confirmed the $1,800 fine handed to his client last month. Tamalt has been on a hunger strike for 44 days.
Sidhoum said he would ask Bouteflika to grant a presidential pardon to Tamalt, a London resident who was arrested on June 27 while visiting his family in Algeria.
Tamalt’s sentence is the latest in a series of signs that officials are going after independent Algerian media for unnecessarily ‘‘darkening’’ the image of the North African country. Algeria is facing political uncertainty surrounding its ailing 79-year-old president.
So how is it that Algeria is straying from the Empire's line?
--more--"
Must have been an aberration.
"South Sudan rejects UN proposal to send more peacekeepers" Associated Press August 11, 2016
JUBA, South Sudan — South Sudan on Wednesday rejected a US proposal for the UN Security Council to send 4,000 additional troops to the East African country to restore calm, saying it ‘‘seriously undermines’’ its sovereignty and threatens a return to colonialism.
Government spokesman Michael Makuei said the proposal gives the United Nations the ability to govern. The proposal also calls for a vote on an arms embargo on South Sudan if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reports within a month that authorities have blocked the regional force.
The Security Council could vote Friday on the proposal, which comes after a former US special envoy suggested last month that the UN and African Union temporarily administer the country after fighting broke out once again.
And the oil that comes with it.
South Sudan’s pushback comes as UN officials say the government has begun a crackdown that includes seizing dozens of passports of UN workers and imposing restrictions on travel and delivery of food aid.
Deadly fighting in the capital, Juba, last month raised fears of a renewed civil war after an August 2015 peace deal and worsened a humanitarian crisis.
Rebel leader and former first vice president Riek Machar fled during the fighting and says he will return only when regional peacekeepers secure the capital.
An East African political body, IGAD, last week said South Sudan had agreed to a regional force, but Makuei on Wednesday disagreed and said the government had not been consulted.
Under the US proposal, the regional force would report to the UN force that numbers more than 12,000 peacekeepers but has been criticized for not protecting civilians. The regional force would protect the airport and promote ‘‘safe and free movement’’ in and out of the capital.
How is there record regarding the rest of the continent?
--more--"
Related: UN approves robust South Sudan peace force
Also see: Nigeria reports first 2 cases of polio in years, WHO says
It's ISIS's fault.
From A to Z in Africa:
A woman casts her ballot at a polling station in Lusaka South during Zambian general elections on August 11, 2016 © AFP / Gianluigi Quercia
That photograph came in the printed paper, and I chose to put it up as a celebration of life.
Isn't that little package about the cutest thing you've ever seen?
Judge may let suit proceed against N.C. officials who won’t marry gay couples
Ala. chief justice, accused of trying to block gay marriage, will stand trial
Lesbian couple sue over New Jersey rules for fertility treatment
I'm going to shut up now. Have a good night.
NDUs:
South African police struggle to gain trust among apartheid’s victims
Help is on the way.
Swiss police report stabbings, fire on train; suspect held
He was -- you guessed it -- an Uber driver from Hungary.
"Police are still searching for a motive but said there’s no indication the suspect, identified only as a 27-year-old Swiss man from a neighboring region, had ties to extremist groups."
