Gazans begin hunger strike until Rafah crossing reopens
MEMO | June 3, 2015
Scores of people unable to travel because of the closure of Rafah crossing started an open hunger strike yesterday to protest against the closure by the Egyptian authorities, Falesteen newspaper reported.
The hunger strikers set up a tent near the crossing and put up a number of posters including: “People stuck in Gaza call for Egyptian Authorities to open the Rafah crossing in both directions.”
Another poster read: “We call for the UN and all human rights organisations to facilitate the travel of Gaza’s patients… Gaza’s patients are awaiting death because of the closure of the crossing. We are humans… Where are President Abbas and the unity government?”
The hunger strikers said that they would continue their strike until the crossing is reopened, calling for the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian unity government to take actions to make this happen.
The group’s spokesman, Majdi Abu-Kareem, said that around 15,000 Palestinians need to travel urgently and they are “just waiting for the crossing to open”.
“Some of the people who are unable to travel are patients, some are university students and some are foreign passport holders facing expiration deadlines,” he said. “The passports of a number of foreign passport holders have expired.”
“The continuous closure of the crossing increases the suffering of the people of Gaza,” Abu-Kareem said. “The closure makes the coastal enclave the biggest prison in the world.”
Neocon Fugitive Given Ukraine Province
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | June 2, 2015
The latest political move by the U.S.-backed “pro-democracy” regime in Ukraine was to foist on the people of Odessa the autocratic Georgian ex-President Mikheil Saakashvili, a neoconservative favorite and currently a fugitive from his own country which is seeking him on charges of human rights violations and embezzlement.
New York Times correspondent David M. Herszenhorn justified this imposition of a newly minted Ukrainian citizen on the largely Russian-speaking population of Odessa by saying that “the Ukrainian public’s general willingness to accept the appointment of foreigners to high-level positions underscores the deep lack of trust in any government after nearly a quarter-century of mismanagement and corruption.”
But Herszenhorn made no apparent effort to gauge how willing the people of Odessa are to accept this choice of a controversial foreign politician to govern them. The pick was made by President Petro Poroshenko and is just the latest questionable appointment by the post-coup regime in Kiev.
For instance, shortly after the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the new U.S.-endorsed authorities in Kiev named thuggish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk in southeastern Ukraine. Kolomoisky, regarded as one of Ukraine’s most corrupt billionaires, ruled the region as his personal fiefdom until he was ousted by Poroshenko earlier this year in a dispute over Kolomoisky’s use of strong-arm tactics to maintain control of Ukrainian energy companies. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Oligarchs Turn on Each Other.”]
Poroshenko also has granted overnight Ukrainian citizenship to other controversial foreigners to hold key positions in his government, including Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, an ex-U.S. State Department official whose qualifications included enriching herself through her management of a $150 million U.S.-taxpayer-financed investment fund for Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Finance Minister’s ‘American Values’.”]
Beyond his recruitment of questionable outsiders, Poroshenko has made concessions to Ukraine’s far-right nationalists, including signing legislation to extend official recognition to Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis in killing Jews and Poles during World War II. In a bitter irony, the new law coincided with the world’s celebration in April of the 70th anniversary of Russian and U.S. troops bringing an end to the Holocaust. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “How Ukraine Commemorates the Holocaust.”]
Now Poroshenko has given Saakashvili his own province to govern, rescuing him from an obscure existence in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. According to a New York Times profile last September, Saakashvili was there “writing a memoir, delivering ‘very well-paid’ speeches, helping start up a Washington-based think tank and visiting old boosters like Senator John McCain and Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state.”
McCain and Nuland were key neocon backers of the coup that ousted Yanukovych and touched off the bloody civil war that has killed thousands of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, while also reviving Cold War tensions between the West and Russia. Before the coup, McCain urged on right-wing protesters with promises of U.S. support and Nuland was overheard hand-picking Ukraine’s new leadership, saying “Yats is the guy,” a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who became prime minister after the coup.
According to the Times profile, Saakashvili also “entertained David H. Petraeus, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” another neocon favorite who ran into legal trouble himself when the FBI discovered he had shared top-secret information with his biographer/lover and then lied about it to FBI agents. Petraeus, however, received only a suspended sentence and a fine in contrast to intelligence-community whistleblowers who have faced serious prison time.
Models, Nude Artist and Massage Therapist
While cooling his heels in Brooklyn, Saakashvili fumed over charges leveled against him by prosecutors in his home country of Georgia. According to the Times profile, Saakashvili was accused of “using public money to pay for, among other things, hotel expenses for a personal stylist, hotel and travel for two fashion models, Botox injections and hair removal, the rental of a yacht in Italy and the purchase of artwork by the London artist Meredith Ostrom, who makes imprints on canvases with her naked, painted body. …
“Mr. Saakashvili is also accused of using public money to fly his massage therapist, Dorothy Stein, into Georgia in 2009. Mr. Saakashvili said he received a massage from Ms. Stein on ‘one occasion only,’ but Ms. Stein said she received 2,000 euros to massage him multiple times, including delivering her trademark ‘bite massage.’ ‘He gave me a bunch of presents,’ said Ms. Stein, who splits her time between Berlin and Hoboken,” including a gold necklace.
The Georgian prosecutors also have charged Saakashvili with human rights violations for his violent crackdown on political protesters in 2007.
However, in Herszenhorn’s May 31 article about Saakashvili’s appointment as Odessa’s governor, the Times correspondent (who has behaved more like a pro-Kiev propagandist than an objective reporter) wrote that the criminal charges against Saakashvili and other officials from his government are “widely perceived as a campaign of political retribution.”
Herszenhorn didn’t say where he had gained that perception, but it is true that Official Washington’s neoconservatives will broach no criticism of their longtime hero Saakashvili, who was a big booster of the Iraq War and even named a boulevard in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in honor of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Saakashvili apparently felt that his close ties to the Bush administration would protect him in summer 2008 when he provoked a border clash with Russian troops over the rebellious territory of South Ossetia. Georgia suffered a sharp military defeat and Saakashvili’s political star quickly faded among his countrymen, leading to his party’s rejection at the polls and his exile.
But Saakashvili’s love of the high life might find similar attitudes among some of the other “carpetbaggers” arriving in Ukraine to take Ukrainian citizenship and get top jobs in the post-coup government. Estonian Jaanika Merilo, an associate of Finance Minister Jaresko’s, was brought in to handle Ukraine’s foreign investments, but Merilo is best known on the Internet for her provocative party photos.
Janika Merilo, the Estonian being put in charge of arranging foreign investments into Ukraine. (From her Facebook page via Zero Hedge)
Janika Merilo, an Estonian brought into the Ukrainian government to oversee foreign investments. (From her Facebook page via Zero Hedge)
Yet, as much fun as some of these well-connected politicians and bureaucrats may be having in Kiev, the plight of the average Ukrainian continues to worsen as “free-market” reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund take hold. Those “reforms” have included slashing old-age pensions, removing worker protections, and hiking the price of heating fuel.
Now, the latest “democratic” reform is to appoint a neocon politician on the run from his own country’s criminal justice system to govern what is likely to be a hostile population of ethnic Russians in Odessa.
On May 2, 2014, neo-Nazi street fighters set fire to Odessa’s Trade Union Building and burned alive dozens of ethnic Russians who had taken refuge there. The building was also spray-painted with Nazi slogans, including praise for the Galician SS, a Ukrainian force that fought with the Nazis and slaughtered Jews. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Dr. Strangelove Reality.”]
Overseeing that tense city now is an unelected ex-Georgian neocon politician who is facing charges in his homeland for human rights abuses and misuse of government funds — more “democracy promotion” in the tragic land of Ukraine.
~
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com)
FBI operating surveillance aircraft over US, planes traced to fake companies – report
RT | June 2, 2015
The FBI is operating its own air force, sending low-flying planes across the US. The aircraft carry video and cellphone surveillance technology, and are hidden behind bogus companies that are actually fronts for the government, AP has revealed.
According to the news agency, the surveillance tools on board are typically used without a judge’s approval. The flights are widespread, spanning across the United States.
In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew more than 100 flights above more than 30 cities in 11 states, plus the District of Columbia. Those cities included Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and Minneapolis. Aircraft also flew over southern California.
The FBI says the planes are used for specific, ongoing investigations.
The findings come after years of reports since 2003 that a government surveillance program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling US neighborhoods.
Flight tracking
The news agency began analyzing flight data following a Washington Post article in early May, which revealed flights by two planes circling over Baltimore.
As part of its investigation, AP examined aircraft ownership registrations that shared similar addresses and flight patterns. Using data from FlightRadar24.com, the agency found that some FBI missions circled above at least 40,000 residents during a flight over Anaheim, California, in late May.
Most of the flight patterns occurred in counter-clockwise orbits up to several miles wide, and roughly one mile above the ground at slow speeds.
One of the planes photographed in flight last week in northern Virginia had unusual antennas under its fuselage and a camera attached to its left side.
In total, AP has tracked 50 aircraft back to the FBI.
Fears of spying
While Washington maintains that aerial surveillance is important for certain investigations, the use of such aircraft has sparked concerns over whether there should be updated regulations protecting the civil liberties of Americans, as such technology could potentially facilitate government spying.
It could also have other wide-ranging implications, according to the report. For instance, the planes could capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground, which could be handed over for prosecutions.
Some of the aircraft can be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry – even if they’re not making a call, or they’re tucked away in their own homes.
Officials told AP that the practice – which mimics cell phone towers and gets phones to reveal subscriber information – is rare, but it does indeed exist.
However, AP found FBI flights orbiting over large, enclosed buildings in recent weeks, for extended periods of time. These flights took place in areas where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection – including Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.
But FBI spokesman Christopher Allen said the planes “are not equipped, designed or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance.”
An unnamed FBI spokesman also said the surveillance flights comply with agency rules. Those rules, which are heavily redacted in publicly available documents, limit the types of equipment the agency can use, as well as the justifications and duration of surveillance.
‘Not a secret’
Allen also said the FBI’s aviation program “is not secret,” but that “specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes.”
However, AP managed to trace the aircraft to at least 13 fake companies – including FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation, and PXW Services.
According to law enforcement officials, Justice Department lawyers approved the decision to create fake companies to protect the flights’ security. They added that the Federal Aviation Administration is aware of the practice.
The FBI asked AP not to disclose the names of the bogus companies, claiming it would burden taxpayers with the expense of creating new cover companies, and could endanger the planes and the integrity of the surveillance missions. The agency’s request was denied.
Meanwhile, basic aspects of the aviation program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official Justice Department reports.
The findings come just one month after a Justice Department memo barred law enforcement agencies from using unmanned drones “solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment,” saying they are to be used only in connection with authorized investigations and activities.
‘Human Rights’ and Soft Power in Russia
By Eric Draitser | New Eastern Outlook | June 1, 2015
The news that Lyudmila Alekseyeva, head of the Russian Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) the Moscow-Helsinki Group, will be returning to the Presidential Council for Human Rights, has been heralded by many in the liberal establishment in Russia as a victory for their cause. Indeed, as an adversary of President Putin on numerous occasions, Alekseyeva has been held as a symbol of the pro-Western, pro-US orientation of Russian liberals who see in Russia not a power seeking independence and sovereignty from the global hegemon in Washington, but rather a repressive and reactionary country bent on aggression and imperial revanchism.
While this view is not one shared by the vast majority of Russians – Putin’s approval rating continues to hover somewhere in the mid 80s – it is most certainly in line with the political and foreign policy establishment of the US, and the West generally. And this is precisely the reason that Alekseyeva and her fellow liberal colleagues are so close to key figures in Washington whose overriding goal is the return of Western hegemony in Russia, and throughout the Eurasian space broadly. For them, the return of Alekseyeva is the return of a champion of Western interests into the halls of power in Moscow.
Washington and Moscow: Competing Agendas, Divergent Interests
Perhaps one should not overstate the significance of Alekseyeva as an individual. This Russian ‘babushka’ approaching 90 years old is certainly still relevant, though clearly not as active as she once was. Nevertheless, one cannot help but admire her spirit and desire to engage in political issues at the highest levels. However, taking the pragmatic perspective, Alekseyeva is likely more a figurehead, a symbol for the pro-Western liberal class, rather than truly a militant leader of it. Instead, she represents the matriarchal public face of a cohesive, well-constructed, though relatively marginal, liberal intelligentsia in Russia that is both anti-Putin, and pro-Western.
There could be no better illustration of this point than Alekseyeva’s recent meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland while Ms. Nuland was in Moscow for talks with her Russian counterparts. Alekseyeva noted that much of the meeting was focused on anti-US perception and public relations in Russia, as well as the reining in of foreign-sponsored NGOs, explaining that, “[US officials] are also very concerned about the anti-American propaganda. I said we are very concerned about the law on foreign agents, which sharply reduced the effectiveness of the human rights community.”
There are two distinctly different, yet intimately linked issues being addressed here. On the one hand is the fact that Russia has taken a decidedly more aggressive stance to US-NATO machinations throughout its traditional sphere of influence, which has led to demonization of Russia in the West, and the entirely predictable backlash against that in Russia. According to the Levada Center, nearly 60 percent of Russians believe that Russia has reasons to fear the US, with nearly 50 percent saying that the US represents an obstacle to Russia’s development. While US officials and corporate media mouthpieces like to chalk this up to “Russian propaganda,” the reality is that these public opinion numbers reflect Washington and NATO’s actions, not their image, especially since the US-backed coup in Ukraine; Victoria Nuland herself having played the pivotal role in instigating the coup and setting the stage for the current conflict.
So while Nuland meets with Alekseyeva and talks of the anti-US perception, most Russians correctly see Nuland and her clique as anti-Russian. In this way, Alekseyeva, fairly or unfairly, represents a decidedly anti-Russian position in the eyes of her countrymen, cozying up to Russia’s enemies while acting as a bulwark against Putin and the government.
And then of course there is the question of the foreign agents law. The law, enacted in 2012, is designed to make transparent the financial backing of NGOs and other organizations operating in Russia with the financial assistance of foreign states. While critics accuse Moscow of using the law for political persecution, the undeniable fact is that Washington has for years used such organizations as part of its soft power apparatus to be able to project power and exert influence without ever having to be directly involved in the internal affairs of the targeted country.
From the perspective of Alekseyeva, the law is unjust and unfairly targets her organization, the Moscow-Helsinki Group, and many others. Alekseyeva noted that, “We are very concerned about the law on foreign agents, which sharply reduced the effectiveness of the human rights community… [and] the fact the authorities in some localities are trying more than enough on some human rights organizations and declare as foreign agents those who have not received any foreign money or engaged in politics.”
While any abuse of the law should rightly be investigated, there is a critical point that Alekseyeva conveniently leaves out of the narrative: the Moscow-Helsinki Group (MHG) and myriad other so-called “human rights” organizations are directly supported by the US State Department through its National Endowment for Democracy, among other sources. As the NED’s own website noted, the NED provided significant financial grants “To support [MHG’s] networking and public outreach programs. Endowment funds will be used primarily to pay for MHG staff salaries and rental of a building in downtown Moscow. Part of the office space rented will be made available at a reduced rate to NGOs that are closely affiliated with MHG, including other Endowment grantees.” The salient point here is that the salary of MHG staff, the rent for their office space, and other critical operating expenses are directly funded by the US Government. For this reason, one cannot doubt that the term “foreign agent” directly and unequivocally applies to Alekseyeva’s organization.
But of course, the Moscow-Helsinki Group is not alone as more than fifty organizations have now registered as foreign agents, each of which having received significant amounts from the US or other foreign sources. So, an objective analysis would indicate that while there may be abuses of the law, as there are of all laws everywhere, by and large it has been applied across the board to all organizations in receipt of foreign financial backing.
It is clear that the US agenda, under the cover of “democracy promotion” and “NGO strengthening” is to weaken the political establishment in Russia through various soft power means, with Alekseyeva as the symbolic matriarch of the human rights complex in Russia. But what of Putin’s government? Why should they acquiesce to the demands of Russian liberals and allow Alekseyeva onto the Presidential Council for Human Rights?
The Russian Strategy
Moscow is clearly playing politics and the public perception game. The government is very conscious of the fact that part of the Western propaganda campaign is to demonize Putin and his government as “authoritarian” and “violators of human rights.” So by allowing the figurehead of the movement onto the most influential human rights-oriented body, Moscow intends to alleviate some of that pressure, and take away one of the principal pieces of ammunition for the anti-Russia propagandists.
But there is yet another, and far more significant and politically savvy reason for doing this: accountability. Putin is confident in his position and popularity with Russians so he is not at all concerned about what Alekseyeva or her colleagues might say or do on the Council. On the other hand, Putin can now hold Russian liberals accountable for turning a blind eye to the systematic violations of human rights by the Kiev regime, particularly in Donbass.
One of the primary issues taken up by the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights in 2014 was the situation in Ukraine. In October 2014, President Putin, addressing the Council stated:
[The developments in Ukraine] have revealed a large-scale crisis in terms of international law, the basic norms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. We see numerous violations of Articles 3, 4, 5, 7 and 11 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and of Article 3 of the Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of December 9, 1948. We are witnessing the application of double standards in the assessment of crimes against the civilian population of southeastern Ukraine, violations of the fundamental human rights to life and personal integrity. People are subjected to torture, to cruel and humiliating punishment, discrimination and illegal rulings. Unfortunately, many international human rights organisations close their eyes to what is going on there, hypocritically turning away.
With these and other statements, Putin placed the issue of Ukraine and human rights abuses squarely in the lap of the council and any NGOs and ostensible “human rights” representatives on it. With broader NGO representation, it only makes it all the more apparent. It will now be up to Alekseyeva and Co. to either pursue the issues, or discredit themselves as hypocrites only interested in subjects deemed politically damaging to Moscow, and thus advantageous to Washington. This is a critical point because for years Russians have argued that these Western-funded NGOs only exist to demonize Russia and to serve the Western agenda; the issue of Ukraine could hammer that point home beyond dispute.
And so, the return of Alekseyeva, far from being a victory for the NGO/human rights complex in Russia, might finally force them to take the issue of human rights and justice seriously, rather than using it as a convenient political club to bash Russians over the head with. Perhaps Russian speakers in Donetsk and Lugansk might actually get some of the humanitarian attention they so rightfully deserve from the liberals who, despite their rhetoric, have shown nothing but contempt for the bleeding of Donbass, seeing it as not a humanitarian catastrophe, but a political opportunity. Needless to say, with Putin and the Russian government in control, the millions invested in these organizations by Washington have turned out to be a bad investment.
Israeli forces demolish 3 houses in East Jerusalem
Ma’an – June 2, 2015
JERUSALEM – Israeli forces demolished three Palestinian homes in the Silwan neighborhood and Salah al-Din street in occupied East Jerusalem early Tuesday morning, the owners told Ma’an.
They were told that the houses were demolished because they had been built without necessary licenses from the municipal council.
Nidal Abu Rmeila said bulldozers under Israeli army escort had demolished two apartments, totaling 140 square meters, that he had been building in Silwan near the Moroccan Gate of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Abu Rmeila said he had not been able to obtain a license from the Jerusalem municipality as the building was located close to the Al-Aqsa compound in an area he claimed the Israeli antiquities authority is “greedily” interested in.
He began construction in late 2014, after which the municipality inspectors ordered him to stop, issuing a demolition order.
Abu Rmeila said the order was postponed several times, adding that bulldozers had arrived two weeks ago to demolish the house, but left after it became clear they were too big to access the building.
Tuesday’s demolition was only possible, he said, after the Israelis “used a lift to carry small excavators and bring them close to the site.”
Abu Rmeila said Israeli troops had assaulted members of his family when they evacuated the home before the demolition.
He said that relatives Hashim Abu Rmeila, Izz al-Din Abu Rmeila and Nur al-Din Abu Rmeila sustained bruises, while his 70-year-old mother was injured when soldiers fired tear gas canisters into the house.
Separately on Tuesday, Israeli forces demolished the upper story of a house on Salah al-Din Street near the Old City belonging to Rafiq al-Salayma.
A relative of the owner Abu Jabir al-Salayma told Ma’an that Israeli troops raided the house at 6 a.m. and forcibly evacuated the family before workers set about demolishing the upper floor.
The family house was built long ago, al-Salayma said, but “because the house was too small” they had added a new floor and roofed it with clay tiles.
The demolitions come less than a week after another house was demolished in Silwan.
Silwan is one of many Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem witness to an influx of Israeli settlers at the cost of ongoing demolition of Palestinian homes and eviction of Palestinian families.
While Jewish residents frequently take over Palestinian buildings with the protection of Israeli forces, government policies make it nearly impossible for Palestinian residents to obtain building permits, according to Israeli rights group the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
Law Enforcement Agencies Use Tasers Over 300,000 Times A Year
By Sarah Kaufman | vocativ | June 1, 2015
The use of a Taser in the fatal shooting of a black man by a cop in South Carolina earlier this year has reignited a debate about how safe they are and whether police are relying too heavily on them. Many people, especially residents of North Charleston, S.C., where the shooting occurred, have expressed concern that Tasers pose a health risk to some who are involved in run-ins with police.
Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston Police Department fatally shot Walter L. Scott on April 4 in North Charleston. The incident was recorded on tape by a bystander, and the officer’s use of a Taser was documented as well.
Here’s a look at some of the numbers behind the raging debate over Tasers:
Slager had used his Taser 14 times in five years
The record shows Slager was no stranger to the Taser’s electrical charge, The New York Times reported. He used his Taser six times in 2014 alone, according to police documents. That’s four percent of the department’s total Taser use.
North Charleston’s police deployed Tasers 825 times in four years
That means the department, on average, performed 206 tasings per year. For comparison, The New York Times offered Tyler, Texas, a town similar in population but with 150 fewer police officers. Tyler’s department used Tasers 65 times in the same time period, or roughly only 30 percent of the tasings that occurred in North Charleston.
Over 18,000 law enforcement agencies have Tasers
The weapon is highly prevalent, according to Taser International. But there is no publicly available national standard for law enforcement in using one.
Tasers are used 900 times a day
Taking that data from Taser International and assuming every day is relatively consistent in Taser usage, that’s 328,500 tasings a year.
Tasers have been blamed for over 500 deaths
While Taser International says it has conducted independent studies to verify the weapon’s safety, some medical experts say the electric jolts can pose sometimes fatal threats to a person’s health. According to Amnesty International, Tasers are responsible for at least 500 deaths.
The hunt for conscripts to the Ukrainian army
The latest recruitment methods in Ukraine | 27. Juni 2015 | www.kla.tv from KlagemauerTV on Vimeo.
The New Cold War | May 31, 2015
The [originally posted] video [which has been sent down the memory hole by Youtube] shot in the city of Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine shows soldiers and police boarding public transport to hunt for young men and issue them military draft notices. But passengers and the bus driver shout at them, eventually forcing them to leave the bus.
Passengers shout, “F*** off!” “What are you telling me? You’ve no right.” “Leave the bus before you are kicked off of it” “Get out!”
In the end, the confused looking soldiers are obliged to leave the bus.
A Ukrainian editor commenting on the film footage writes on Facebook, “One cannot but feel in these past months a certain despair among our pro-Maidan nationalists and patriots. They realize only too well the limited base of support for their agenda and that the patriotic wave in support of their civil war is almost exhausted.
Most Americans oppose the Patriot Act
Press TV – May 31, 2015
A new poll in America reveals a startling fact: most Americans oppose the Patriot Act, used by the National Security Agency as a legal basis to spy on its own citizens.
Despite mass resentment, their Government is determined to continue using it for spying on them. Much of the data collected is of no relevance to national security and no administration in US history has spied more closely than Obama’s administration into the lives of innocent Americans.
Repeated calls by American citizens for the repeal of the Patriot Act and the closure of the highly controversial National Security Agency have been ignored.
In May 2015, the Federal Appeals Court ruled mass data collection was not legal, and the US Congress narrowly refused to sanction an extension of some powers.
Yet American President Barack Obama still has vast powers to allow surveillance of calls to, from and inside the US, as well as authorizing snooping on other digital communications. Many Americans now say they distrust their own government.
Oklahoma troopers rush to ‘help’ stranded motorists, shoot and kill non-compliant pastor
RT | May 31, 2015
A flood “rescue mission” turned fatal for one Oklahoma man, who was shot and killed by a state trooper. Police claimed that the man did not want to leave his vehicle, argued and allegedly attacked officers as they tried to get him out of the water.
The incident took place some 20 miles outside of Tulsa when Okmulgee County state troopers came to the rescue of two men trying to save their car stranded at a roadway from rushing water on Friday.
The water levels were rising too rapidly, and the troopers we “worried about them getting swept away,” according to Capt. Paul Timmons who spoke of the incident with the press on Saturday.
“[The troopers] were trying to get them to come out of the water,” Timmons said. “(The men), for whatever reason, were just really upset about having to leave the vehicle there.”
When the two unfortunate drivers got to the dry land, at least one of them allegedly attacked the officers and was shot and killed, AP reports.
“It’s not real clear how it all transpired,” Timmons admitted. A weapon was reportedly recovered from one of the suspects, but it remains unclear whether the man fired at the troopers. The second man was arrested for assault and public intoxication. Their identities were not revealed.
Local news however reported the victim as a 35-year-old Nehemiah Fischer, a pastor of a local church, while the second man was identified as his brother.
Meanwhile the troopers did not suffer any injuries. The superiors are due to decide whether the officers should be placed on leave following the incident.
Fatal US police shootings in 2015 at 385: Report
The Los Angeles Police Department engages in an altercation that ended in the death of a homeless man on March 1, 2015
Press TV – May 31, 2015
A new report shows that US police have shot and killed 385 people during the first five months of 2015, an average of more than two fatal shootings a day.
The death rate is over twice the account tallied by the federal government during the past 10 years, which officials admit is incomplete, according to a Washington Post analysis published on Saturday.
“These shootings are grossly underreported,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization which works to improve law enforcement.
“We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information,” Bueermann was quoted by The Post as saying.
The analysis is the result of information The Post is compiling on every fatal shooting by police in 2015 in addition to data of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty.
The data is related to shootings and does not include killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody.
The study shows that almost half the victims were minority. However, the demographics shifted markedly among the unarmed victims, with two-thirds being African American or Hispanic.
On the whole, US police killed blacks at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts, where the shootings took place.
A large proportion of the victims, over 80 percent, were armed with objects, including guns, knives, machetes, revving vehicles and, in one case, a nail gun.
49 people were not armed with any weapons, while the guns used by 13 others were not real. Overall, 16 percent were either carrying a toy or were unarmed, according to The Post.
Several current and former police chiefs and other criminal justice officials said it was time police accepted responsibility for the bloodshed. They argued that a vast majority of the killings, examined by The Post, resulted from poor policing.
“We have to get beyond what is legal and start focusing on what is preventable. Most are preventable,” said Ronald L. Davis, a former police chief, who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.
Police “need to stop chasing down suspects, hopping fences and landing on top of someone with a gun,” Davis said. “When they do that, they have no choice but to shoot.”
The report came as many US cities have been the scene of protests over the deaths of several unarmed African Americans by white police officers and decisions by grand juries not to indict the officers.
Another analysis by The Post and researchers at Bowling Green State University, released last week, showed that only 54 officers have been charged for thousands of fatal shootings at the hands of police across the United States over the past decade.
NY Times Applauds While Israel Robs Palestine of Water
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | May 30, 2015
The New York Times invites us to gaze with wonder on the miracles of Israeli technology today, with a page 1 photo and story touting the innovations that have saved the country from drought. Because of wise policies and applied science, we learn, “there is plenty of water in Israel.”
The Times never tells us, however, that a significant number of those who reside on the land are seriously deprived of water: Palestinians in some areas of the West Bank are forced to survive on only 20 liters of water a day per person, well below the World Health Organization minimum of 60 liters. In Gaza 90 percent of the water is unfit to drink.
Meanwhile, Israelis in West Bank settlements “generally have access to as much running water as they please,” according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, and Israelis over all use three times as much water as Palestinians. Settlers also confiscate West Bank springs, and Israeli security forces destroy water equipment in Palestinian villages and prevent their residents from building cisterns and wells.
In the Times story, “Aided by the Sea, Israel Overcomes an Old Foe: Drought,” Isabel Kershner writes that Israel is thriving because it has adopted recycling and desalination. She quotes at length from Israeli officials but includes not a single Palestinian voice.
Kershner manages to dismiss Palestinian concerns in two sentences: “Israel, which shares the mountain aquifer with the West Bank, says it provides the Palestinians with more water than it is obliged to under the existing peace accords. Palestinians say it is not enough and too expensive.” She feels no need to address the humanitarian crisis Israeli has created in confiscating Palestinian water for its own use.
In fact, Israel steals the water from under the feet of Palestinians, draining West Bank aquifers, allocating 73 percent of this water to Israel and another 10 percent to settlers. Palestinians are left with 17 percent, and many are forced to buy from the Israeli water company at rates up to three times as high as the tariffs charged Israelis.
Kershner omits any mention of the obvious inequalities between Israeli West Bank settlements and the Palestinian villages nearby. Settlements often have swimming pools and green, watered turf, while villages remain dusty and dry, without enough water for agriculture or even for home gardens.
The Times has also turned its back on news that underscores the outright theft of water in Palestine. It had nothing to report, for instance, when settlers recently surrounded a Palestinian spring with mines and barbed wire. The paper also remained silent when security forces destroyed pipes providing water to an impoverished Jordan Valley herding community earlier this year.
Many organizations, however, have spoken out. The United Nations, the World Bank, Amnesty International, B’Tselem, church groups, If Americans Knew, and others. They have issued reports and press releases noting that Israel violates international law in confiscating Palestinian water resources and highlighting the striking disparities between West Bank villages and Jewish settlements.
Kershner found none of this worth mentioning in her story today. Instead, we find a promotional piece that should benefit Israeli water specialists now peddling their products in California and other drought-stricken areas of the United States.
Editors and reporters are complicit in this effort to tout Israel as an enlightened and technologically advanced country, even in the face of its flagrant theft of Palestinian water. The New York Times has found an Israeli puff piece on water technology to be worth a front page spread, but it deems the criminal confiscation of this basic resource unfit to print.
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