Police arrest man in connection with attack that left third woman with serious injuries at house in Thame A man has been arrested after two women were murdered and another left in a serious condition after being attacked in a house in the early hours of Sunday. Officers were called to Ireton Court in Thame, Oxfordshire, at 2.20am where two women were found with fatal injuries, Thames Valley police said. A third was taken to hospital but her condition is not thought to be life-threatening. A man was arrested on suspicion of murder shortly afterwards and he was being questioned at Abingdon police station. A police spokesman nobody else was being sought for questioning. Police and forensic investigators were at the scene of the murder on Sunday as neighbours spoke of their shock. One Ireton Court resident, who did not want to be named, said: “All the police have told us is that it’s a major incident. Neighbours are saying it is a domestic … I heard a helicopter flying overheard but I presumed there had been a car accident. It had its searchlight on and, thinking about it now, they must have been looking for someone. People haven’t been allowed to take their cars out and that’s all I know.” The ages of the victims have not been released. Crime Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Up to 300,000 take part in Tel Aviv, 50,000 in Jerusalem and 40,000 in Haifa in Israel’s biggest ever demonstration Hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday night in Israel’s biggest ever demonstration to demand social justice, a lower cost of living and a clear government response to the concerns of an increasingly squeezed middle class. About 430,000 people took part in marches and rallies across the country, according to police. The biggest march was in Tel Aviv, where up to 300,000 took part. There was an unprecedented 50,000-strong protest in Jerusalem, and 40,000 marched in Haifa. There were smaller protests in dozens of other towns and cities. It had been billed as the “March of the Million” but organisers said a turnout matching the 300,000-strong demonstrations four weeks ago would be a triumph. Israel’s population is 7.7 million. Saturday’s demonstrations followed 50 days of protests that have rattled political leaders and led commentators and analysts to ask whether a new social movement would transform Israeli domestic politics for the next generation. The movement, which has the support of about 90% of the population according to opinion polls, began when a small group of activists erected tents in Tel Aviv’s prosperous Rothschild Boulevard in protest at high rents and house prices. Tent cities mushroomed across the country and protesters rallied behind the slogan: “The people demand social justice.” Among the issues raised were the cost of housing, transport, childcare, food and fuel; the low salaries paid to many professionals, including doctors and teachers; tax reform; and welfare payments. The government established a committee led by the economics professor Manuel Trajtenberg to examine the protesters’ demands, which is due to report later this month. Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday night blew whistles and banged drums as they marched in a carnival atmosphere to a large square for a rally. Residents hung banners from balconies and cheered as they passed. “We are the new Israelis,” the student leader Itzik Shmuli told the rally. “And the new Israelis want only one simple thing: to live with dignity in this country.” He added: “Tonight we make history again. The people are supporting a protest started by the young people and, a week after the protest was proclaimed over, we are on the verge of breaking another record. From now on the government knows that at any given moment Israelis can return to the streets and must therefore deliver the goods.” Daphni Leef, one of the organisers of the original tent protest, said: “This summer is the great summer of the new Israeli hope born of despair, alienation and impossible gaps … The Israeli society has reached its red line, and has gotten up and said ‘no more.’ This is the miracle of the summer of 2011.” Under a homemade banner saying “Walk Like an Egyptian”, Ruti Hertz, 34, a journalist, said that until this summer people had been privately ashamed of their inability to make ends meet. “Each person was lonely in their situation, thinking it’s my own problem.” That had changed with the protests. She said that she and her teacher husband, Roi, were living on the same income as when they met 10 years ago. “We don’t ask for much, just to be able to finish the month without taking from our parents.” Roi’s monthly take-home pay of 5,500 shekels (£940) went on nursery fees for their two young daughters, she said. Vered Cohen Nitsan, a primary school teacher from Netanya, said she had joined the march “to protest, to support the people of my country and [because] I wish my children will have an easier life in the future”. She added: “For years, you think you just have to work harder and struggle. And now people start to talk to one another and you see it’s not your personal problem.” At a rally in Haifa, Shahin Nasser, an Israeli-Arab, said: “Today we are changing the rules of the game. No more coexistence based on hummus and fava beans. What is happening here is true coexistence, when Arabs and Jews march together shoulder to shoulder calling for social justice and peace. We’ve had it.” The protests have been criticised by some on the left for not paying more attention to the discrimination suffered by Israeli-Arabs, who make up 20% of Israel’s population, or Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Weekly demonstrations, whose turnout had been steadily building, were suspended for two weeks after an attack by militants near the Egyptian-Israel border in which eight Israelis were killed. Some commentators suggested that the movement had lost its momentum. Protest organisers said the tent cities would be dismantled but the movement would continue with other actions. Many tent-dwellers had already left as the Israeli summer holidays ended. Israel Middle East Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
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Former IMF chief faces uncertain political future after New York prosecutors drop charges of sexually assaultinghotel maid Dominique Strauss-Kahn has returned to France for the first time since attempted rape accusations by a New York hotel maid dashed the former International Monetary Fund chief’s chances for the French presidency. New York prosecutors dropped their case against Strauss-Kahn because of questions about the maid’s credibility, but the affair cost him his IMF job and exposed his personal life to worldwide scrutiny. On Sunday, smiling and waving silently, Strauss-Kahn stepped off an Air France flight at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport to face an uncertain political future. Four months ago, he was the favourite to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections, but few now expect Strauss-Kahn to make a swift return to French politics His wife, respected former TV personality Anne Sinclair, was at his side, beaming widely. Riot police protected him and the area. The two then drove to one of their homes, on Paris’ Place des Vosges. The crush of reporters was so thick that they had trouble reaching and opening the front door. Strauss-Kahn’s supporters have eagerly awaited his return after three months of legal drama in the US that they saw as unfairly hostile to him. “I’m moved, I always believed in his innocence. I wanted very much for this to be over,” Michelle Sabban, a fellow Socialist party member, told i-Tele television. The last time he tried to take an Air France flight out of JFK, Strauss-Kahn was pulled out of first class by police investigating claims that hours earlier, Strauss-Kahn had forced the maid to perform oral sex and tried to rape her. He quit his job, spent almost a week in jail, then under six weeks of house arrest and nearly two more months barred from leaving the country before prosecutors dropped the case last month, saying they no longer trusted the maid, Guinean immigrant Nafissatou Diallo. Diallo is continuing to press her claims in a civil case. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations. Strauss-Kahn faces another attempted rape investigation in France due to accusations by French novelist Tristane Banon. He calls the claim “imaginary.” Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, told the Associated Press that Strauss-Kahn’s return “is a good thing for my daughter’s complaint because he will have to answer to police.” Banon says she didn’t file a complaint after the 2003 incident because her mother, a regional Socialist official, urged her not to. Mansouret, who has said she regrets that decision, called it “profoundly indecent” that Strauss-Kahn’s homecoming was like that of a “star.” The Socialists are now embroiled in a fierce campaign to choose their candidate for the April and May presidential elections. The frontrunners, while relieved that the New York case was dropped, are not keen for Strauss-Kahn to play a role in the campaign. The eloquent economist and former French finance minister has retained hi popularity in France. One belted out an ode to Strauss-Kahn in a performance at the Paris airport Sunday morning, accompanied by a Verdi opera played on a portable stereo, before police officers asked him to stop. “Dominique! Dominique!,” shouted Gregoire Vandevelde, who said he was a former student of Strauss-Kahn’s at a prestigious economic institute. “I support him completely,” Vandevelde said. “He is extremely brilliant, full of humor and very competent, warm with his students.” Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF France Europe New York United States guardian.co.uk
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The Labor Department reported Friday that for the first time since 1945 – needless to say a long, long time ago – the economy produced exactly zero jobs in the month of August. Despite the history, the tremendously disappointing numbers, and the President speaking before a joint session of Congress next week about this very issue, ABC's World News actually made this its fourth story – yes, I said fourth! – Friday evening (video follows with commentary): Up first on one of the nation's most-watched nightly news programs was a two and a half minute discussion about gas prices heading into the Labor Day weekend. After that came a minute on the President's helicopter being inconveniently rerouted forcing the Commander-in-Chief and his daughter to be driven to Camp David. Imagine how that must have ruined their holiday weekend. Then came an almost four minute report on tropical storm Lee. Yes, I said four minutes on a tropical storm. You'd think these folks would have learned from over-hyping the previous tropical storm. That clearly not being the case, roughly nine minutes into the program, with the President set to give a jobs address to a joint session of Congress next Thursday, “World News” finally got to what was clearly the most important story of the day. Would this have been the case if George W. Bush or any Republican was in the White House? Doubtful, as bad economic news was typically front and center in what young folks in our nation commonly refer to as “the day.” Just as noteworthy, the placement of this story at ABCNews.com kept it off the “World News” front page: As you can see, there's nothing about the disappointing jobs report, but there is a link to “Gas Prices Down, Economy Recovering.” Somebody was really using his/her noggin with that one. Not surprisingly, ABC News wasn't alone in thinking the jobs report wasn't the most important story Friday. The “NBC Nightly News” led with tropical storm Lee, followed it up with more on the impact of tropical storm Irene, and then told the nation about August's horrible unemployment numbers. These folks sure are fixated on tropical storms, aren't they? Bucking the trend was the “CBS Evening News” which began Friday's program with what most likely is the greatest concern of most Americans. When Dan Rather's former employer is besting its broadcast competition, you should be very concerned. I know I am.
Continue reading …Title: Radar Love Artist: Golden Earring Saturday! Bring it. And while you’re bringing it, head over to our sister site Newstagia for the Backstage Weekend Concert : The Pretenders, Live at Montreaux 1987.
Continue reading …Bill O’Reilly Brings on Rep. Allen West to Attack the Congressional Black Caucus
September 3, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media As I already mentioned in my post on Mary Matalin defending race-baiting Glenn Beck on Blitzer’s show this week, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Andre Carson, recently made some remarks that have had these so-called “tea partiers” up in arms. And naturally, the talking heads over at Fox have been making hay of the Congressman’s remarks as well. While I agree with Donna Brazile who said that using that level of inflammatory rhetoric is not necessarily useful to the debate over whether we’ve seen a horrendous level of racism and just out and out disrespect towards our first bi-racial president and race-baiting whether it be towards African Americans, Hispanics, members of the Muslim community or a number of other groups from this so-called “tea party” and those who want to attach themselves to that label in the Congress, anyone at Fox or the likes of Allen West have absolutely no ground to stand on when it comes to criticizing anyone else for overheated rhetoric or flame throwing. So pot, meet kettle with Bill O’Reilly’s interview of Allen West on this Thursday’s O’Reilly Factor. News Hounds summed up the hypocrisy pretty well in their post here — O’Reilly Trots Out Allen West To Attack Congressional Black Caucus’ Rhetoric : Fox News’ utter hypocrisy on the subject of inflammatory rhetoric was on display (again) last night as Bill O’Reilly trotted out Rep. Allen West to disparage discuss the Congressional Black Caucus’ comments about the Tea Party. Yes, that’s the same Allen West who called Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz “the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives” and refused to apologize . That’s also the same guy who called himself the “modern-day Harriet Tubman” leading blacks from the plantation of Democrats. That Allen West was who “fair and balanced” Fox News thought an appropriate person to serve as an analyst for the supposedly inflammatory comments of Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus. I’m sure it didn’t hurt West that O’Reilly, himself, had cheered on West’s attacks on Wasserman Schultz. Yet O’Reilly was up in arms over Rep. Andre Carson’s comments saying that some Tea Party members of Congress would “love to see you and me… hanging on a tree.” OK, so I’ll agree it was inflammatory and maybe not the wisest choice of words. But why is this a major topic of discussion on Fox News, if not as an excuse to attack the Congressional Black Caucus? It’s not exactly significant to the economy, unemployment or even the 2012 election. And it’s not as if Fox News ever pays attention to anything else Rep. Carson says or does. O’Reilly reiterated his request that West get back with any response to his letter because “this is an important story.” Why is this important if you’re not out to get the CBC? Full transcript via Fox : BILL O’REILLY, HOST: Now for the top story tonight: the Congressional Black Caucus in big trouble. The group is comprised of 43 congresspeople, all African-American, who promote policies favorable to their constituencies. The CBC generally dislikes the Tea Party, but now some of the rhetoric is getting out of hand. (BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) REP. ANDRE CARSON, D-IND.: Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party Movement would love to see you and me, I’m sorry, hanging on a tree. (END AUDIO CLIP) O’REILLY: Now, using violent imagery with racial overtones to attack a political group is absolutely un-American. But Mr. Carson is unrepentant. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARSON: I stand on the truth of what I spoke. My intentions weren’t to hurt anyone or any group. (END VIDEO CLIP) O’REILLY: Joining us now from South Florida, Congressman Allen West, a Republican and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. So Congressman, I understand you wrote a letter to the leader of the CBC, Congressman Cleaver. What did it say? REP. ALLEN WEST, R-FLA.: Well, basically it made reference to the comments of my colleague, Congressman Carson, as well as the comments of Congresswoman Maxine Waters, where she was telling the Tea Party to go to hell. And I don’t think that we need that type of incendiary talk coming out there. And I think that it’s a reflection that when you look at the almost 17 percent unemployment rate in the black community, 40 percent unemployment among black teens, the high incarceration rates, that we are not seeing them go at the failure of the policies of the Obama administration but rather they are trying to demonize and attack the Tea Party movement as a scapegoat for these failures. O’REILLY: Now, did Congressman Cleaver respond to your letter? WEST: Well, what we have gotten so far is that he will wait to respond later. He feels that he is right now too engaged with this job fair. So I will look forward to speaking with Congressman Cleaver when we return back to Washington, D.C. if I don’t hear something from him prior to that. Because I believe… O’REILLY: All right, would you do us a favor? And when he — when he gets back to you, would you let us know right away so we can be fair to Cleaver and see if he’s going to take action against Carson and Maxine Waters? WEST: Yes. O’REILLY: Now, here is my theory about why this is happening, and I put forth this last night. When a guy like Carson and Maxine Waters speaks in these terms, they’re always speaking to the choir, to people who are anti-Tea Party, mostly Democrats, mostly liberals, who love Barack Obama. That’s their forum here. And I believe that the CBC and other pro-Obama people are very worried that African-Americans aren’t going to turn out next year to vote as they did in 2008. And this is — these tactics are being used to demonize Mr. Obama’s opposition so that it gins up the turnout. That’s what I think is behind this. WEST: No, you’re absolutely correct and you talked about it early in your “Talking Points” when you read the statistics as far as the general approval or the opinion of the Tea Party. This is nothing but one of the tactics. I believe it’s Rule Number 13 out of Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” where you pick a target, you freeze it, you isolate it and you begin to attack it. And I think that’s one of the important things that they want to try to do. O’REILLY: Right. There’s no doubt that that’s what’s going on here. Now, I’m curious, are you the only Republican in the CBC? WEST: Yes, I am. O’REILLY: OK, now… WEST: But without being Republican or Democrat, I think that this type of rhetoric has no place in the political discourse. O’REILLY: And I think — I think 99 percent of Americans would agree with you. I haven’t heard anybody justifying Congressman Carson’s — anybody sane justifying his remarks. But when you guys meet, do you ever discuss what you just said? That for decades, more than decades, for hundreds of years, the African-American community has not — has not prospered despite massive amounts of government spending, massive interventions by the federal government, things aren’t improving, maybe there is another way. Have — do you — do you ever discuss that or are you shouted down and it’s no, we want more, we want more, we want more? WEST: Well, that’s one of the important parts, I think, in joining the Congressional Black Caucus, so that you can bring that different perspective. When you look at the history of the black community with the Democratic Party, you see slavery, you see segregation, you see the Jim Crow laws, you see secession and now you see socialism, which is really not beneficial to the black community. And we already talked about those unemployment statistics. You’re seeing the second and third generations of welfare ever since we had the great society programs and even Daniel Patrick Moynihan once gave warning to some of the policies that we were going to see implemented in the black community with the destruction of the black family. So I think it’s an important time right now that we objectively assess some of the social statistics that we see occurring in the black community. O’REILLY: All right. Thank you very much, Congressman. Let us know what Congressman Cleaver… WEST: Thanks. O’REILLY: …says it to you because this is an important story. And we appreciate your time very much tonight. WEST: Absolutely. And one final note here. If Allen West decides to leave the Congressional Black Caucus over this matter, the rest of them should tell him not to let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. Allen West has decided to join a party that has nothing but utter disdain for the working class and the poor and doesn’t even try to hide it these days. The loss of West from that caucus would mean nothing other than there’s one less member that never had the interests of the African American community at heart in the first place, unless of course anyone believes eliminating our social safety nets and giving more tax cuts to rich people is looking out for them.
Continue reading …Documents Point to Close CIA Ties With Gaddafi Spy Unit, US Sending Suspects To Be Tortured
September 3, 2011 No CommentI don’t think the rule of law applies in this country anymore — unless you’re powerless and poor. Seems like no one’s ever going to be punished for this: TRIPOLI, Libya — Documents found at the abandoned office of Libya’s former spymaster appear to provide new details of the close relations the Central Intelligence Agency shared with the Libyan intelligence service — most notably suggesting that the Americans sent terrorism suspects at least eight times for questioning in Libya despite that country’s reputation for torture. Although it has been known that Western intelligence services began cooperating with Libya after it abandoned its program to build unconventional weapons in 2004, the files left behind as Tripoli fell to rebels show that the cooperation was much more extensive than generally known with both the C.I.A. and its British equivalent, MI-6. Some documents indicate that the British agency was even willing to trace phone numbers for the Libyans, and another appears to be a proposed speech written by the Americans for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi about renouncing unconventional weapons. The documents were discovered Friday by journalists and Human Rights Watch. There were at least three binders of English-language documents, one marked C.I.A. and the other two marked MI-6, among a larger stash of documents in Arabic. It was impossible to verify their authenticity, and none of them were written on letterhead. But the binders included some documents that made specific reference to the C.I.A., and their details seem consistent with what is known about the transfer of terrorism suspects abroad for interrogation and with other agency practices.
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Raised in small-town Tennessee, Justin Timberlake is the perfect Southern gentleman. So how does he square being a multiple Grammy-winning singer and an increasingly respected actor with his old-school values? Rachel Cooke digs deep Most writers, myself included, tend to dislike doing big- star-in-a-ritzy-hotel type interviews. But in the case of Justin Timberlake, the situation brings with it, I must admit, certain advantages. For one thing, the Dorchester has baked special biscuits in the shape of the letters “F”, “W” and “B” – to stand for Friends With Benefits , Timberlake’s new romcom. OK, so the icing is a bright swimming-pool blue, which is a little off-putting (later, as I am leaving, Justin himself will pick up a wobbly “W” and, in a slightly incredulous voice, ask: “Is this actually edible?”) But, still: free biscuits. For another, it is only fair I admit that the Dorchester’s luxuriant pale carpets and mushroom-cloud plumped cushions are, in this instance, a great leveller. They make him seem less young, and me less uncool. It would, of course, be exceedingly thrilling, not to mention mightily amusing, if he were to start singing “Rock Your Body” in his excellent falsetto, while leap-frogging the sofa. But on a balance of probabilities, this is unlikely to happen here, among all the swags and nests of tables. Something about the place seems to act as a kind of tranquilliser. His assistant brings him down from a suite upstairs. He is, at least to begin with, plainly guarded, and his face is as grey and as pale as old grouting (this is the final leg of a Europe-wide publicity tour for Friends With Benefits ), but he is also polite to a fault, his old-fashioned Southern manners apparently having remained intact in the face of both his multi-million pound fortune and his immense fame (a few girls are patiently standing outside the hotel even as we speak). Later on, when I
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Médecins Sans Frontières executive says charities must admit that much of the country can’t be helped The head of an international medical charity has called on aid agencies to stop presenting a misleading picture of the famine in Somalia and admit that helping the worst-affected people is almost impossible. The international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Dr Unni Karunakara, returned from Somalia last week and said that, even though there was chronic malnutrition and drought across east Africa, hardly any agencies were able to work inside war-torn Somalia, where the picture was “profoundly distressing”. He condemned other organisations and the media for “glossing over” the reality in order to convince people that simply giving money for food was the answer. According to Karunakara, agencies have been able to provide medical and nutritional care for tens of thousands in camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, which have been receiving huge numbers of refugees from Somalia. But trying to access those in the “epicentre” of the disaster has been slow and difficult. “We may have to live with the reality that we may never be able to reach the communities most in need of help,” he said. Karunakara said that the use of phrases such as “famine in the Horn of Africa” or “worst drought in 60 years” obscured the “man-made” factors that had created the crisis and wrongly implied that the solution was simply to find the money to ship enough food to the region. He described Mogadishu, the Somali capital, as dotted with plastic sheets supported by twigs, sheltering groups of weak and starving people who had walked in from the worst-affected areas in southern and central Somalia. “I met a woman who had left her home with her husband and seven children to walk to Mogadishu and had arrived after five days with only four children,” he said. “MSF is constantly being forced to make tough choices in deploying or expanding our activities, in sticking to our principles of neutrality with the daily realities of people going without healthcare, without food. Our staff face being shot. But glossing over the man-made causes of hunger and starvation in the region and the great difficulties in addressing them will not help resolve the crisis. Aid agencies are being impeded in the area. “MSF has been working in Somalia for 20 years, and we know that if we are struggling then others will not be able to work at all. The reality on the ground is that there are serious difficulties that affect our abilities to respond to need.” He said charities needed to start treating the public “like adults”. He went on: “There is a con, there is an unrealistic expectation being peddled that you give your £50 and suddenly those people are going to have food to eat. Well, no. We need that £50, yes; we will spend it with integrity. But people need to understand the reality of the challenges in delivering that aid. We don’t have the right to hide it from people; we have a responsibility to engage the public with the truth.” Chronic malnutrition, said Karunakara, is not new in east Africa and needs long-term action. “The Somali people have been living in a country at war, with no government, for 20 years, with several long periods of hardship, of famine and drought. This harvest failure is just what has tipped them over the edge this time, a catastrophe made worse,” he said. A brutal war between the transitional government, which is backed by western nations and supported by African Union troops, and armed Islamist opposition groups, notably al-Shabaab, is ongoing in Somalia. Fierce clan loyalties keep independent international assistance away from many communities, meaning that Somalis are trapped between various forces, depriving them of food and healthcare for political reasons. “We face constant difficult challenges over simple things like a new nurse or getting a car,” said Karunakara. “When we need to be saving lives with a fully fledged medical response, we constantly need to be communicating with both sides in a war, reminding them what humanitarian aid is. One needs only to look at how few charities are working in Somalia.” Ian Bray, a spokesman for Oxfam, said it was unhelpful for aid agencies to be seen to be arguing with each other. “We’re being honest with donors and we have always been honest,” said Bray. “A drought is a natural occurrence; a famine is man-made. We don’t go around to people saying we have a magic wand, give us £5 and we will make Africa feed itself. We do say give us £5 and we won’t use it to give you a history of Somalia, but we will use our expertise to save lives. This is what the bargain is we make with our donors. If you support us, we will do our level best to alleviate the distress for those people in most dire need.” Aid Charities Somalia Voluntary sector Africa Tracy McVeigh guardian.co.uk
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