Investigators Dismiss Mexican Government’s Official Story on Missing Students
A protester at a rally against the disappearance of 43 students in the southwestern Mexican state of Guerrero holds a sign that reads: ‘We Are Ayotzinapa. We Demand Justice.’
Credit: Montecruz Foto/CC-BY-SA-2.0
IPS – September 7, 2015
A group of independent investigators has roundly dismissed the Mexican government’s claims that the 43 students who went missing in the southwestern city of Iguala last fall were burned to ashes in a garbage dump, reigniting an international outcry against the disappearance and heaping pressure on the government to provide answers to families of the victims.
The 500-page report released this past weekend by an expert group appointed by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) refutes key aspects of the government’s official story, concluding in no uncertain terms that there is “no evidence” to support the Attorney General’s findings that the college students were executed and burned by a drug gang.
“This report provides an utterly damning indictment of Mexico’s handling of the worst human rights atrocity in recent memory,” José Miguel Vivanco, Americas Director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said in a Sep. 6 statement.
“Even with the world watching and with substantial resources at hand, the authorities proved unable or unwilling to conduct a serious investigation,” he added.
HRW is calling on the government to urgently address its own flawed investigation, which was declared ‘closed’ this past January, and bring those responsible to justice.
The students, all members of the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Mexico’s southern Guerrero state, disappeared on Sep. 26, 2014.
Amid massive protests across the country and around the world, the government concluded that the students had commandeered several buses and traveled in them to a protest in Iguala. Following clashes with local police, the students were allegedly detained and then handed over to a criminal gang, who presumably executed them before burning their bodies in a municipal dump.
But the IACHR investigators say those “conclusions hinge on allegedly coerced witness testimony that is contradicted by physical evidence,” HRW said Sunday.
Negligence, mishandling of evidence and long delays marked the government’s official investigation, the expert panel found, adding that federal prosecutors failed to review footage from security cameras or interview key eyewitnesses.
HRW points out that “crucial pieces of evidence, such as blood and hair” were vulnerable to contamination and manipulation during the investigation, and “in July 2015, more than nine months into the investigation, the group discovered that multiple articles of clothing belonging to the victims had been collected but never examined.”
Perhaps the most damning revelation involves the government’s claim that the drug gang responsible for the students’ deaths built a pyre and fed it over a 16-hour period with scrap material like wood and tires, as well as small amounts of fuel.
Quoting the IACHR study, the Guardian reported Sunday: “It would have required 30,000 kg of wood or 13,330 kg of rubber tyres and burned for 60 hours in order to consume the bodies. [The report] adds that feeding the pyre would have been impossible, and that a conflagration of those dimensions would have left obvious evidence in the surrounding area, which an inspection of the site failed to find.”
Other major flaws in the government’s official version of events include so-called ‘confessions’ extracted from suspects under conditions likely amounting to torture and authorities’ failure to inspect the offices of members of municipal police identified by eyewitnesses.
The expert panel spent six months on the investigation, reviewing existing government evidence, conducting in-depth inspections of the crime scene and interviewing surviving witnesses and family members of the deceased.
Earlier this year, the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearance highlighted shortcomings in the government’s investigation of the Ayotzinapa case, and called on the government to do more to tackle impunity.
HRW estimates that there are currently 300 open investigations relating to enforced disappearances in Iguala alone, and over 25,000 people reported as ‘missing’ nationwide.
“As of April 2014, no one had been convicted of an enforced disappearance committed after 2006, according to official statistics,” the rights group concluded.
Report ends.
Holocaust Hoax: Science Repudiates Mass Cremation Stories
Israeli settlers pepper spraying Palestinians in Hebron attacks
Ma’an – September 5, 2015
HEBRON – Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Hadasa in Hebron on Saturday attacked a young Palestinian man with pepper spray, witnesses said.
A Ma’an reporter identified the Palestinian man as Ayman al-Fakhori, and said that he had been transferred to Hebron hospital for medical treatment.
An activist group, Youth Against Settlement in Hebron, released video footage of the incident that appears to show the Palestinian scuffling with masked men and one Israeli soldier.
The masked men, identified by the activist group as settlers, then beat the Palestinian, before one of them sprays pepper spray directly into his face.
The masked men then run from the scene along with the Israeli soldier.
Earlier on Saturday, the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa reported another incident of a Palestinian being attacked and pepper-sprayed by Israeli settlers in Hebron.
Wafa identified the Palestinian as Jadawi Hani Abu Haykal, 21.
Abu Hakyal’s family reportedly told Wafa that he was attacked near the illegal Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida and that his body was left severely bruised.
He was reportedly taken to hospital following the incident.
Settler attacks are a routine occurrence in Hebron, where 700 settlers live in 80 homes in the city center, surrounded by nearly 200,000 Palestinians.
Italian activist arrested and beaten in occupied Palestine
Vittorio Fera violently arrested. Photo credot – Haim Schwarczenberg
International Solidarity Movement | August 31, 2015
Occupied Palestine – Italian activist Vittorio Fera was violently arrested and beaten by soldiers at weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine. The Italian activist, 31-year old Vittorio Fera, is falsely accused of throwing stones and attacking soldiers. His case will be taken to court the second time Monday 31st August between 9 and 11 am.
During a weekly demonstration in Nabi Saleh Israeli soldiers randomly arrested two protesters: one 18-year old Palestinian youth and the Italian activist Vittorio Fera. Fera went to the protest to document human rights violations by the Israeli army against Palestinians and became a victim of military violence himself.
While documenting an Israeli soldier strangling a 12-year old boy, Vittorio and the other activists were ambushed by Israeli forces. Vittorio was separated from the group and violently shoved to the ground. “We were shocked to see the boy being choked by a soldier, when suddenly soldiers came running at us and attacked Vittorio”, Josephine from Denmark explains.
Vittorio Fera with clear marks of military assault
Journalists witnessed soldiers kicking and beating him during the arrest, even though he did not resist or fight back. Vittorio, and the Palestinian youth, were forced into a military jeep where they were detained for almost nine hours by the Israeli army, before they were finally taken to a police station. Despite various demands of Fera’s lawyer to have him brought to a police station immediately, both he and the Palestinian were illegally kept in the military jeep until shortly before midnight.
Vittorio Fera with clear marks of military assault
The military accuses Vittorio Fera of throwing stones and attacking the soldiers – an unfounded accusation. A first sentencing in court late Saturday night only resulted in the postponing of the sentencing until Monday morning. The hearing will take place in in Jerusalem Monday the 31st August 2015 between 9 and 11 am.
See the video of the arrest here
Pacific walruses hauled out at Point Lay Alaska again this year
By Susan Crockford | Polar Bear Science | August 28, 2015
A photo of a mass walrus haulout at Point Lay, Alaska taken a few days ago from a distance show thousands of animals. But no one’s counting because apparently, no one’s interested.
The picture on the left (above, courtesy Alaska Dispatch News ) was taken 23 August by global warming activist photographer Gary Braasch, the day after a news report appeared about the US Fish & Wildlife Service and aviation authorities asking the media to approach USFWS about walrus photos and information that gave no hint that a large haulout of walruses was already in place (22 August 2015, “Federal agencies, Point Lay seek to minimize walrus disturbances” ):
“Federal agencies are stepping in to shield a North Slope village from the possibility of a deluge of international attention should a large walrus haulout develop nearby, as it has in years past — agreeing to act as an information clearinghouse on behalf of the Native Village of Point Lay.” [my bold]
Here is what the global warming activist site that published the pictures says about the haulout:
“Thousands of Pacific walrus are coming ashore near Point Lay, NW Arctic coast of Alaska. The huge sea mammals and young began coming up on this barrier island along Kasegaluk Lagoon about August 20, according to local natives. This is one of the earliest known summer haul outs of the walrus along the Alaska coast of the Chukchi Sea, according to wildlife biologists.” [my bold]
They say “thousands.” But the photos taken, reproduced in the Alaska Dispatch News story I read, were taken from a greater distance than the famous photo of ~35,000 animals released by government officials last year and looks like the total could be as large, or larger, than the 2014 haulout.
Said a Washington Post story (27 August 2015):
“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed to the Post Wednesday evening that a mass of walruses had “hauled out,” or gathered on shore, near the remote community of Point Lay. The service did not estimate the number or provide images. But photojournalist Gary Braasch has posted dramatic photographs, taken during an Aug. 23 flyover, of what appear to be at least several thousand walruses crowding onto a barrier island.” [my bold]
According to The Guardian “Extreme Arctic sea ice melt forces thousands of walruses ashore in Alaska”
“Braasch has spent about a decade photographing evidence of climate change in Alaska, and had been tracking the movement of tagged walruses through the US Geological Survey mapping projects.
“What they looked like by eye was three brown smudges along the beach. They were not visible as individual animals,” he said. But he said the blown-up images revealed large numbers of animals. “Certainly they were in the low thousands at that point.”
Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not an expert on estimating numbers from aerial photos. But have a look and ask yourself – why didn’t the FWS say there was a haulout last week when they made their announcement about protecting the herd from disturbance?
And now that the cat is out of the bag, why have they not released any official photos or made an official estimate? Considering the hype they generated last year, why the reticence now? It just seems odd to me.
Is it that they don’t want to emphasize how many walruses there really are? That all the walruses didn’t all die last year due to global warming? Or did they simply realize that their alarmist rhetoric and the media storm it generated last year made the situation worse for the animals?
Compare this year from the new required great distance (below upper) to an official photo from last year (below lower):
Apparently, photographer Gary Braasch was “at least a mile away”:
“Braasch said he took precautions, including flying in a small aircraft, and at a distance, “so as not to disturb the herd.”
“I used a very long telephoto lens,” Braasch said. “My pilot says we were at least a mile away.”
The high resolution copy of the photos at the World View of Global Warming website shows lots of animals in the water in the 2015 photo, indicating the walruses were actively feeding, as the animals were last year – not sitting on the beach starving to death. It’s likely that in a few days they’ll be gone, if they aren’t already.
Now the Feds are threatening to press charges against the photographer who flew over the haulout without permission, saying he may have broken their rules (“Feds investigating if photographer flew too near walruses hauled out at Point Lay”)
As far as I know, there is no new population information on walrus that wasn’t available last year, when I covered this topic extensively (Crockford 2014; video below).
US passports scoffed at by Israel; US stands by
By James Zogby | The Hill | August 24, 2015
Last year, some members of Congress attempted to pass legislation that would admit Israel into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. The State Department pushed back, noting that because of Israel’s long history of discrimination against Americans of Arab descent, they do not meet the program’s key requirement of reciprocity.
Congress relented and instead passed a Sense of Congress that stipulated that should Israel meet this requirement, they could be included in the Visa Waiver Program. In a sense, they were put on probation.
In the past year Israel has continued to demonstrate that it has no intention of ending their practice of discriminating against persons of Arab descent. My office has received new reports of shameful treatment meted out to Arab Americans on their arrival in Israel. Two cases, in particular, deserve to be noted.
After landing at Ben Gurion International airport, George Khoury, 70, and Habib Joudeh, 62, were detained for long hours, subjected to abusive interrogations, insulted by Israeli security personnel, and finally denied entry and forced to purchase, at their own expense, return tickets to the United States.
George is a professor and a deacon of his church from San Francisco. Habib is a pharmacist and respected community leader from Brooklyn. Both are American citizens of Palestinian descent. George was traveling to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage. Habib was on his way to attend a family wedding in the West Bank. Neither had been back to Israel/Palestine in more than 20 years. And neither was able to complete their journey.
While no American should be subjected to such treatment, the most disturbing element of these cases is the reason they were denied entry and deported. Because both men were of Palestinian descent, Israel would not honor their U.S. passports or recognize the men as American citizens. Both were told they had to acquire Palestinian IDs and then, as Palestinians, enter the West Bank through Jordan.
George’s case is especially instructive. When the Israeli border control agent told him that he could not enter Israel, George attempted to engage the agent saying, “I’m coming as an American citizen.” To which the agent replied “No, no, you belong with the Palestinian people. This is our Israel, this is for the Jews. No Palestinian should come to Israel. You should have gone through the Allenby Bridge.”
When George explained that “I am coming with an American passport and you should honor it,” the agent replied, “How do you want me to honor your American passport? Do you want me to kiss it, to hug it, or to worship it?”
What happened to Habib and George were not the actions of a few rogue agents. For more than three decades, the Arab American Institute has submitted to the State Department hundreds of instances where Arab Americans have been subjected to such treatment at Israel’s borders.
By so flagrantly disregarding the citizenship rights of Americans of Arab descent, Israel is in violation of its treaty obligations found in the “1951 US-Israel Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation.” In the language of the treaty, Israel pledges to permit U.S. citizens the right to “travel freely, to reside at places of their choice, to enjoy liberty of conscience” and to guarantee them “the most constant protection and security.”
Not only has Israel consistently violated its treaty obligation, but our government has failed to live up to its commitment to protect the rights of its own citizens. The opening page of the U.S. passport states that “The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful aid and protection.”
The Department of State says that it does not condone Israel’s treatment of Arab Americans. In reality, despite denying Israel’s admission into the Visa Waiver Program, the State Department appears to acquiesce to Israel’s behavior.
When George Khoury’s daughter wrote a letter of complaint to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, she received a response saying “Unfortunately, the US government cannot assist US citizens in gaining entry into Israel… Should your father wish to travel again in the future, we advise him to contact the nearest Israeli Embassy or Consulate for guidance.”
The U.S. official then directed her to the Department of State “Travel Advisory” which states that “regardless of whether they hold US citizenship, Israeli authorities consider anyone who has parents or grandparents who were born or lived in the West Bank or Gaza to have a claim to a PA ID.” They will, therefore, be treated as Palestinians and not as Americans.
It is upsetting that both the Department of State “Travel Advisory” and the Consul’s letter acknowledge Israel’s disregard for our citizenship rights and claim to be powerless to hold them accountable for their actions. This acquiescence allows Israel to act with impunity. It also makes our government appear to be complicit in Israel’s behavior.
More must be done. Israel cannot be allowed to disregard the citizenship rights of Americans or to unilaterally define persons of Arab descent as second-class American citizens. The Department of State and our elected representatives should demand that the Israeli government fully live up to its treaty obligations to treat all Americans equally without regard to their religion or national origin.
This is not merely a matter of denying Israel Visa Waiver privileges, it is a question of whether or not our government will guarantee Arab Americans the equal protection to which they are entitled and which they deserve.
Zogby is president of the Arab American Institute.
Tower block in Ukraine goes up in flames
RT | August 29, 2015
Two firemen have suffered injuries after a fire engulfed a luxury high-rise in Odessa, Ukraine. The fire was able to spread due to flammable materials being used for insulation.
The 22-storey Gagarin Plaza is still under construction, and was empty, save for builders, when the fire started at about noon Saturday.
Eyewitnesses told the local 112 Ukraine TV channel that the fire began at the top floor of the building, and rapidly spread downward to the ground floor.
Emergency services dispatched 13 vehicles to the site, with over 40 firemen deploying six hoses. But they were unable to access the top floors of the building.
“Our ladders only reach the 9th floor,” complained Nikolay Chechetkin, the head of the country’s emergency services, to NewsOne channel. “To put out a fire this high up, you need water pressure, which can only be provided by electric-powered pumps. But the building has not been connected to the mains.”
The fire department of the coastal city said the most they could do now was to contain the blaze. One of their personnel suffered airways burns, due to inhaling smoke; the injuries of another have not been specified.
Chechetkin blamed synthetic insulation materials chosen by the architects for the ease with which the flames were able to spread.
In May, 17 people died in Baku, Azerbaijan, when unsafe Chinese-made plastic paneling – also used for insulation – caught fire in another high-rise.
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A low-fat, high-carb diet has been the largest public health experiment in history. It’s past time for a rethink.
By Malcolm Kendrick | RT | November 25, 2020
New research suggests that four billion people globally will be overweight in 2050. This trend can be traced back to the ‘low-fat, high-carb’ guidelines first issued in the 70s, and should prompt a major U-turn on dietary advice.
A recent report from the Potsdam Institute predicts that by 2050 there will be four billion overweight people in the world, with one-and-a-half billion of them obese. This is not entirely surprising. The world has been getting fatter for years, and things do not seem to be slowing down.
Why is this happening? … continue
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