Italy’s army may interfere against violent protests over economic woes
Press TV – May 14, 2012
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has pointed to the possibility of calling in the army to deal with the violent protests in the country over the government’s economic policies.
Monti raised alert levels on Sunday at some sensitive sites across Italy to handle the recent violence that has hit the country.
Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri also said on Sunday that she was considering bringing in the army to defend certain locations.
“There have been several attacks on the offices of Equitalia (the agency handling tax collections) in recent weeks. I want to remind people that attacking Equitalia is the equivalent of attacking the State,” she said.
“The army could be used to guard buildings which could be the target of violent protest. The danger of an escalation exists. It’s a situation which demands drastic action,” she added.
On Saturday, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the offices of Equitalia in Livorno, Tuscany, and severely damaged the front of the building after they blew off. Moreover, a letter bomb, which did not blast, was sent to the organization’s offices in Rome on Friday.
Earlier this month, a senior executive of state-controlled nuclear engineering group Ansaldo Nucleare was shot in the leg, with an Italian rebel group claiming responsibility for the attack.
Italy has faced a fresh wave of attacks in the last six months since Monti took office as prime minister and introduced a harsh austerity package to save the country from bankruptcy. The three-year austerity and growth package includes budget cuts, pension reforms as well as tax hikes worth 30 billion euros.
Italy, one of the biggest eurozone economies, fell into recession after its economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the third quarter and by 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011.
The Italian government has been urged to implement economic reforms and budget cuts to reassure investors concerned about the country’s debt.
Italy’s debt ratio in the eurozone is second only to Greece.
A failure to indict killer police
Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. (second from right) listens as lawyers discuss why the officers who killed his father won’t be charged
THE DECISION of a grand jury in Westchester County, New York, to not indict any police officers in the shooting death of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. has sparked anger and outrage from Chamberlain’s family and others seeking justice.
Chamberlain, a 68-year-old former Marine and prison guard, was Tasered and then shot with bean bags and live bullets after police burst into his apartment in White Plains, N.Y., outside New York City, on November 19, 2011.
The police who came to Chamberlain’s apartment in a White Plains housing project at 5 a.m. weren’t responding to reports of a crime in progress, but a possible medical problem, after Chamberlain set off a Life Alert pendant, probably by accident in his sleep. A recording by the medical device in his home captured the horrific crime that was to follow.
Despite the fact that Chamberlain told police he was fine, and the Life Alert company also reported the false alarm, police demanded to enter the apartment. When Chamberlain said through the closed door that he was okay, one officer responded, “We don’t give a fuck.” Another officer can be heard referring to Chamberlain as a “nigger” and making a mocking reference to his Marine service.
Police then took Chamberlain’s door off the hinges. They claim he threatened them with a knife before they attacked. Chamberlain’s family disputes this, saying that video taken after the door was removed shows Chamberlain standing inside his apartment, wearing only boxer shorts, with his arms at his side and his hands empty.
The outrage sparked by the police killing of Chamberlain grew, especially in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, along with several other cases of police killings in New York and elsewhere. Chamberlain’s family refuses to quietly accept his killing, speaking out instead to the media, and with an online petition demanding justice that has garnered thousands of signatures.
Finally, last month, it was announced that a grand jury would convene to consider bringing charges against the officers in the case.
~
THE HOPE of getting justice for the murder of Kenneth Chamberlain was short-lived, however.
On May 3, 2012, a grand jury in Westchester County, New York, voted not to indict any police officers in the shooting. In announcing the decision , Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore presented it as the result of an independent review of the evidence.
But grand jury proceedings are completely secret and controlled by the prosecutor, so the failure to indict almost always means the DA didn’t want an indictment. The fact that DiFiore waited months to convene a grand jury, and reluctantly did so only after the Chamberlain family generated media attention about the shooting, suggests where her sympathies lie.
In addition, she refused to reveal the name of the shooter, and confirmed his identity only after newspaper reporters discovered it was Officer Anthony Carelli. Carelli is currently being sued by two Jordanian immigrants claiming that he and other officers beat them with batons while they were handcuffed to a pole. They claim Carelli referred to them as “ragheads.”
Additionally, police initially shielded the identity of another officer, who is heard on the tape, yelling at Kenneth Chamberlain, “We have to talk, nigger!” Eventually, lawyers for the Chamberlain family revealed that officer to be Officer Steven Hart. Hart is also being sued in federal court by a Hispanic bank manager who claims Hart beat him during an arrest.
The Chamberlain family has stated that it will not accept the results of the grand jury process, and is pressing on with a civil suit and demands for a federal investigation.
After a service at Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church during which Rev. Calvin Butts compared the Chamberlain killing to those of Trayvon Martin and Ramarley Graham, Kenneth Chamberlain Jr. said, “My father is not here anymore… I refuse to mourn him until there is some justice for my father. And when I say that, I mean indictments. Criminal indictments.”
The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which includes Westchester County, has agreed to review the case.
Kenneth Chamberlain’s death is not the only case of this kind of gross injustice in Westchester County. In 2008, a 23-year old Black man name Christopher Ridley, an off-duty Mount Vernon cop, was shot and killed by a white officer as he tried to break up a fight on the street. Ridley’s family alleges in a pending lawsuit that DiFiore participated in a cover-up and engineered a grand jury decision not to issue indictments in the case.
Then, in 2010, a 20-year old unarmed Black college student name Danroy Henry was fatally shot in his car by a police officer who claimed the young man was trying to run him over as he fled. The police version is disputed by eyewitnesses, who say that Henry never tried to flee, and was attempting to comply with a police directive to move his car from a fire lane when he was shot.
Remarkably, Henry was bleeding to death in handcuffs while an ambulance crew prioritized an officer’s minor leg injury, prompting a classmate of Henry’s to step in and administer chest compressions in an attempt to keep him alive. Henry’s family urged the appointment of an independent prosecutor to take the investigation away from DiFiore.
~
THE EVIDENCE in the Chamberlain case has now been made public, including a series of four calls from the medical alert company. It clearly shows that police unnecessarily escalated the situation leading to Chamberlain’s death.
In the second call, the company dispatcher tells a police dispatcher that the company has made contact with Chamberlain and confirmed he is okay. The company dispatcher attempts to cancel the emergency call, but the police dispatcher says police want to enter Mr. Chamberlain’s home anyway.
In a third call, the medical dispatcher attempts to patch Kenneth Chamberlain’s sister through to police, but the police dispatcher dismisses her offer by saying they don’t want to “mediate.”
In a fourth, the medical company dispatcher again attempts to relate an offer to have Chamberlain’s son called to help deescalate the police confrontation. Eventually, the dispatcher takes a phone number for Chamberlain’s sister, but apparently never made contact.
Police and local news accounts have highlighted Chamberlain’s angry refusal to allow the police entry into his home, and the fact that he had consumed alcohol in his home. Left unexplained, however, is why police were so intent on gaining entry even when they were aware that the call was a false alarm.
Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. had committed no crime, and police had no warrant or probable cause to believe that a crime was in progress. While they have characterized him as “delusional” and “emotionally disturbed,” police have not explained why pounding on his door in an effort to force entry, mocking his military service and calling him “nigger” were the best tactics to gain control of the situation–or why they repeatedly spurned offers of help from his family.
In one of the chilling recordings, immediately before the door is taken off its hinges, Chamberlain announced that police were about to break down his door and do him harm. As it turns out, this is the most accurate testimony on the encounter available.
Israel arrests 800,000 Palestinians since 1948
Petra | May 12, 2012
Gaza – Israel has arrested and imprisoned around 800,000 Palestinians since 1948 including children, according to Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs Abdul Nasser Farwaneh.
He added in a statistical report released today that the Israeli occupation forces adopted the policy of arrest on a daily basis to humiliate Palestinians, noting that Israel used some of them as human shields and executed many of them.
The Director of Palestinian Statistics Department said the period between 1948-1967 was the worst for Palestinian and Arab prisoners as there were random arrests and collective detention.
The Palestinians prisoners had been exposed to severe torture and abuse as they were deprived of minimum rights guaranteed to prisoners of war and conflicts by international conventions.
Hunger-striking detainees sign deal with prison authority
Ma’an – 14/05/2012
BETHLEHEM – Detainees on Monday signed a deal with the Israeli prison authority to end their mass hunger strike, officials told Ma’an.
Prisoner representatives from each of the factions agreed to the deal in Ashkelon jail, prisoners society chief Qaddura Fares said in a statement.
Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet confirmed the deal, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.
Terms
Senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, who was a member of the negotiations team, said Israel agreed to provide a list of accusations to administrative detainees, or release them at the end of their term.
In comments to the Hamas-affiliated new site Palestine Information Center, he said that under the Egypt-brokered deal Israel agreed to release all detainees from solitary confinement over the next 72 hours.
Israel will also lift a ban on family visits for detainees from the Gaza Strip, and revoke the “Shalit law,” according to the official.
The “Shalit law” restricted prisoners’ access to families and to educational materials as punishment for the five-year captivity of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Shalit was freed in October in a prisoner swap agreement.
All or nothing
Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Ma’an that all prisoners must end the hunger strike within 72 hours, and not later refuse food, for the deal to hold.
Around 2,000 prisoners joined a mass hunger strike launched on April 17 to demand fair prison conditions, according to prisoners groups’ estimates.
Another group of prisoners held in administrative detention launched an earlier strike in protest at their detention without charge, including Bilal Diab, 27, and Thaer Halahla, 33, who have gone for 77 days without food.
Their lawyer Jamil Khatib told Ma’an that Diab and Halahla were informed of the deal earlier Monday. They were told the agreement includes their release at the end of their detention term but both refused to stop their strike unless they were immediately released, Khatib said.
On Monday evening, a relative of Halahla said the long-term hunger-strikers were still deciding on next steps. Prisoners society lawyer Jawad Bulous is heading to the prison hospitals to discuss the deal with hunger-strikers, minister Issa Qaraqe told reporters.
Power of non-violence
PLO official Hanan Ashrawi applauded the deal and said it proved the power of non-violent resistance.
“The Palestinian prisoners in facing the Israeli Prison Authority is a victory not only for them and their families, but also for the millions of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory and in exile,” Ashrawi said in a statement.
“The hunger strikers’ courage is magnificently inspiring, and their selflessness deeply humbling,” the official added.
She also thanked Egyptian mediators, the international community “and people of conscience worldwide” for supporting the strikers.
Related articles
- Mashaal: Israel broke promises under Shalit deal (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Hunger-striker Bilal Diab writes will to family (windowintopalestine.blogspot.com)
Tel Aviv University imposes restrictions on Nakba Day events
MEMO | May 11, 2012
Tel Aviv University has imposed policies and procedures intended to restrict those Arab students who wish to organise Nakba commemorative events on campus. Palestinians remember the Nakba (Catastrophe) on 15th May every year, the date on which the state of Israel was created on their land.
According to a report in Haaretz newspaper, the presidency of the university has told the organisers of Nakba Day activities to provide the necessary funding for hiring at least six security guards from the university’s own security company to maintain control and order. The university wants to prevent any disturbances or riots during the ceremony scheduled for next week.
The event organisers must provide the required sum of money two days ahead of the proposed date of the programme, failing which it will be cancelled. The university has also banned the use of flags, banners and loud PA systems even though the Nakba Day commemoration has been approved by the students’ council, considered widely to be the first time such permission has been granted.
The organisers of the ceremony told Haaretz that the purpose behind the event is to introduce to non-Arab students the facts about the disaster that befell the Palestinians in 1948. In doing so, they also hope to influence Israeli public opinion and remind all citizens of the loss and human tragedy experienced by the Palestinians as a result of the Israeli occupation of their land.
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UN approves guidelines against land grabbing
DW | May 12, 2012
After three years of discussions, the UN has agreed a document meant to protect local populations against land grabbing. It should help ensure the right to food.
When big investors buy up land, small farmers are often driven from the land that feeds them. On Friday (11.05.2012) the 128 countries in the UN Committee on World Food Security unanimously adopted policies to protect the local population.
The voluntary guidelines specify how soil and land use rights, fisheries and forests should be handled. They are intended to increase transparency in land investment, give residents a greater say and especially to strengthen the position of the local small farmers. Often, they have only informal land rights – and no official land titles.
“The key point is that all rights for people to use land and other resources should be recognized, and that these people have proof. And they cannot easily lose these rights overnight because someone else may have more money or more influence,” said Babette Wehrmann, responsible for climate, energy use and rights at the FAO.
Up to 83 million hectares of land have been sold or leased to investors since 2000 – especially in Africa. The International Land Coalition, an alliance of non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, operates a website on which land investments can be followed. However, because many deals are not disclosed, the land-matrix database is far from complete, the ILC’s Michael Taylor says. Even so, some trends can be identified: African countries are of particular concern, including Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Targeted investments in countries with weak legislation
These countries are particularly vulnerable “because they have weak policies and weak land ownership legislation. The international investors sought out the most vulnerable countries where it was worthwhile to invest because of the fertile ground,” says Frank Brassel, rural development expert at Oxfam.
According to the country matrix the major investors include India, China and the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Even these countries have now agreed to the voluntary guidelines.
The ILC sees more risks than opportunities for local people in the land deals that are currently being negotiated, Taylor said. It would make most sense for investors to work with small farmers. Many countries are now worrying about new approaches to strengthen farmers’ rights, Taylor says.
“Countries such as Madagascar and Ethiopia have begun to issue certificates to confirm the ownership of land, and while they are not the same as a (legal ownership) title, they still ensure ownership of the land and only cost a fraction of the price,” says Taylor. “In Madagascar, the cost for a small farmer who wants to certify his land has fallen from 600 dollars to 15 dollars, or about 12 euros.”
This certificate assures the farmers that they can continue to cultivate “their” land. Because if big investors oust the local population, they lose twice: First, they can no longer grow anything, and second, the products are then mostly exported. So-called “flex crops” are especially popular – plants such as palm oil, soya beans and sugar cane – that can be sold according to market demand as a biofuel or food, says Taylor.
Local farmers are often forced off their land
And it would be a mistake to think that investors are looking for idle land, says Kerstin Nolte, an expert on land grabbing at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
“Investors are, of course, looking for land that is very fertile and is close to infrastructure. And that is usually populated,” says Nolte. “This means that it often involves expulsions.”
Nolte traveled to Zambia, Kenya and Ghana for field studies. In Zambia, traditional local authorities decide which family cultivates which piece of land.
“When the chief performs his role well in the traditional sense, then he will negotiate with the investor and consult with his people. These chiefs are only slightly better off, which means they do not have very much money, property or land” Nolte said. “That means the system is very susceptible to corruption, both because there’s no one monitoring the chief and because there are a lot of money or valuables coming in from the outside.” Nolte says that this has led to much communal land in Zambia being transferred to commercial agriculture.
The rapid growth of land grabbing in recent years has depended in particular on the fact that food prices have risen dramatically since 2007. “This has led to two major groups seeing that it pays to invest in land: the first are the Gulf countries and emerging economies such as China and India. They want to secure their future food supply by buying or leasing huge areas of land in weaker countries,” Brassel said.
“The other group is traditional investors, who have also seen that it pays to invest in land, for food and for biofuel, as both promise to be lucrative businesses for the future.”
The largest land grabbers are not necessarily foreign investors. “We hear from our member organizations working in countries such as these it is the local elites who are responsible for the largest land scarcity. The cumulative effect of many people acquiring small plots of land for speculative purposes may be greater than that of two investors who purchase vast areas of land,” Taylor said.
More transparency?
The experts agree the voluntary guidelines of the UN member states are now an important first step to strengthen the situation of the local population and create more transparency. The guidelines can help to set a certain standard for the local population.
Although they are voluntary, the guidelines could put a lot of positive developments into motion, Brassel says. Oxfam has seen positive effects of the 2004 voluntary guidelines for the human right to food, he says. Even so, Oxfam would have liked to expand the newly adopted guidelines against land grabbing. “We should have not only applied the guidelines to land, but also to water resources,” he said.
“We would have liked a statement at the beginning that says, in the next three years we will have a moratorium on large land investments to be able to apply these guidelines on-site in the most affected countries first.”
The protection of small farmers now depends on the extent to which the individual states consider the voluntary guidelines to be binding.
Related articles
- U.N. adopts norms against ‘land grabbing’ (thehindu.com)
- Colombia: ‘Carbon credit’ scheme a cover for land grab (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- World Bank helps corporations with land grabs in Africa: Environmental groups (rawstory.com)
Muslim toddler removed from US flight on security grounds
Press TV – May 11, 2012
An 18-month-old girl has been taken off a JetBlue Airways plane in the United States because her name appeared on a no-fly security list.
The parents of the toddler, who were also taken off the plane, said on Friday that they were humiliated by the security officials’ action.
“We were put on display like a circus act because my wife wears a hijab,” Riyanna’s father told WPBF 25 News, ABC’s local affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida.
He said the incident was motivated by prejudice because they are Muslims and of Middle Eastern descent.
A JetBlue spokeswoman called it a “computer glitch” and stated that the airline was investigating the May 8 incident, which occurred at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida. JetBlue also issued an apology to the family, who live in New Jersey.
“We believe this was a computer glitch,” JetBlue said in a statement. “Our crewmembers followed the appropriate protocols, and we apologize to the family involved in this unfortunate circumstance.”
The family was eventually allowed to re-board the flight, but the family instead left the airport in protest.
The Transportation Security Agency said the little girl could not have been on the government watch list because she’d already been issued a boarding pass.
A poll by the Pew Research Center conducted last year showed that abuse of Muslims by US airport security, law enforcement officers, and others has increased considerably since American Muslims were first polled in 2007.
Almost 43 percent of American Muslims reported experiencing harassment in 2010, a three percent increase in the number reported in 2007.
License Plate Tracking Spreads beyond Criminal Suspects
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | May 08, 2012
From Tennessee to the District of Columbia, police are using mobile and stationary surveillance cameras to collect and store license plates of residents who have committed no crime—so that they can be found if they ever do.
In Tennessee, police utilize cameras mounted atop patrol cars that can capture thousands of license numbers each day. The information is then loaded into an ever-expanding database, which can help officers locate a vehicle in the event its owner is suspected of criminal behavior. The program is now expanding to include stationary cameras mounted next to busy roads.
“I’m sure that there’s going to be people out there that say this is an invasion of privacy,” Detective James Kemp of Gallatin County told The Tennessean. But “the possibilities are endless there for solving crimes. It’s just a multitude of information out there—to not tap into it to better protect your citizens, that’s ludicrous.”
In Washington D.C., local police make use of 250 cameras set up around the city that can capture license plates. Last year they claimed that the cameras led to an average of one arrest a day. DC reportedly has the highest concentration of cameras per square mile in the United States for spotting criminals on the move or just ordinary citizens going about their lives.
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union’s technology and liberty program, expressed concern over D.C.’s “large database of innocent people’s comings and goings.” He told The Washington Post: “The government has no business collecting that kind of information on people without a warrant.”
Others predict that the technology will be declared constitutional because license plates are displayed in public, so there is no invasion of privacy.
To Learn More:
- High-Tech License Plate Readers Aid Police But Raise Ethical Issues (by Tony Gonzalez, The Tennessean)
- License Plate Readers: A Useful Tool for Police Comes with Privacy Concerns (by Allison Klein and Josh White, Washington Post)
- Utah Police Cameras Could Identify Drivers with Auto Insurance Issues (news.onlineautoinsurance.com)
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New Book
The silver that medicine dropped — four thousand years of clinical use, four decades to erase.
Colloidal Silver — First Edition, 2026, Paperback
Lies are Unbekoming | October 16, 2026
Silver was medicine. Not alternative medicine. Not folk medicine. Medicine. In surgery. In obstetrics. In the burn ward. In water treatment. In the household medicine chest. Every physician before 1938 knew this.
By the 1870s, silver nitrate was standard in surgical wound care across the leading hospitals of Britain, Germany, and the United States. Colloidal silver preparations — Collargol, Argyrol, Protargol — entered European and American practice through the 1890s and early 1900s and became standard antiseptics in military field medicine. By the time Fleming grew his first penicillin mould in 1928, silver was the first-line antimicrobial of the Western pharmacopoeia. The Lancet and the British Medical Journal carried the clinical reports in volume. The practice ran continuously through the Victorian era, the Edwardian era, the First World War, the interwar period. By 1980, almost all of it was gone.
What has not been treated at book length, until now, is how a four-thousand-year clinical record disappeared from mainstream medicine within four decades of the Flexner Report — and what the honest account of silver looks like once that record is reassembled.
Colloidal Silver reconstructs the pre-1938 record from The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the primary literature of the era; recovers Robert Becker’s bioelectric framework from the regeneration research the pharmaceutical model buried; and places silver inside a practical terrain-paradigm guide to its current place — in water, on the body, inside the body, and in the chronic conditions where antibiotics have failed. … continue
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- Israel keeps Palestinians struggling just to survive–Daily Update
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- No, the world zionist movement is not an antisemitic conspiracy theory
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- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
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