World – Page 52 – praag.org

Snowdenov soon?

NSA leaker Edward Snowden plans to settle in Russia and is ready to begin a court battle if the country’s migration service denies his asylum plea, Anatoly Kucherena, a Russian lawyer who assists the whistleblower, told RT.

“It’s hard for me to say what his actions would be in terms of a positive decision [on the asylum plea],” Kucherena said. “We must understand that security is the number one issue in his case. I think the process of adaptation will take some time. It’s an understandable process as he doesn’t know the Russian language, our customs, and our laws.”

“He’s planning to arrange his life here. He plans to get a job. And, I think, that all his further decisions will be made considering the situation he found himself in,” he added.

Kucherena expressed hope that the whistleblower’s plea will be granted, because the reasons which prompted Snowden ask for political asylum in Russia “deserve attention.”

“He fears for his health and his life. He’s afraid that if he’ll be handed to the US, torture can be used against him down to death penalty,” he said.

In case of a negative ruling on the plea, Kucherena said that Snowden has “an opportunity to go to court and appeal against the decision of the Federal Migration Service.”

“He intends to do so,” the attorney stressed. “During our meeting, our dialogues, and our consultations, he made detailed inquiries on those procedures. And I informed him of what possibilities he has according to Russian law.”

Snowden still remains holed up in the international transit zone of the Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. His asylum plea, which was filed on July 16, has not been yet formalized by migration officials.

“According to the existing practice, it may take five, seven, or eight days. I’m calling them on a daily basis. They tell me that they’re about to finish the formalization,” Kucherena said.

The NSA leaker will then be handed a paper confirming that his asylum application is being reviewed. Once this document is received, Snowden will be allowed to leave the airport where he has spent an entire month.

“There are no travel restrictions. Therefore, receiving the paper will give him an opportunity to leave the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport and choose a place of residence – rent a hotel or a flat. [He can] live in any place within the Russian federation,” Kucherena explained.

According to the lawyer, consideration of the plea will then take up to three months. If his request is approved, Snowden will receive a certificate which will “guarantee him the same rights and freedoms possessed by the citizens of the Russian Federation.”

“The temporary asylum is given on a one-year term. After it expires, the term can be prolonged for another year and this can be repeated an indefinite number of times afterwards,” he said.

Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23 after revealing secret NSA government surveillance programs to the public.

The 30-year-old whistleblower is wanted in the US on charges of espionage and theft of government property.

Several Latin American states have offered him asylum, but the whistleblower believes it is unsafe for him to leave Russia following the July 2 incident in which the Bolivian president’s plane was grounded on suspicion that Snowden was aboard the craft. – RT

It’s a black thing on Capitol Hill

The father of Trayvon Martin, who was shot in February last year, will give a speech on Capitol Hill on Wednesday as part of a hearing focusing on the societal challenges faced by African American boys and men.

Tracy Martin will speak at the opening of the inaugural hearing of the recently-formed Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys.

Other notable speakers at the event will include president of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African-Americans, David Johns, and Georgetown University Sociology Professor Michael Eric Dyson.

George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder earlier this month after being arrested for shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed.

Tracy Martin spoke to Congressional Democrats on the House judiciary panel last year on racial profiling and hate crimes, according to theHill.com.

The Department of Justice said it is investigating the Zimmerman case to see if any civil rights laws were violated. However, legal experts don’t believe any federal charges will be brought against Zimmerman in the wake of the Florida jury’s verdict. – RT

Russia allows Snowden ‘to leave airport’

Police outside Sheremetyevo international airport in Moscow

US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden was set Wednesday to leave the Moscow airport transit zone where he has been holed up for the last month after being provided with a document allowing him to officially enter Russia, reports said.

The state RIA Novosti news agency said the document confirms that his application for asylum in Russia is being considered and allows him to cross into Russia proper so long as border guards do not object, it said.

The news agency added that the document was initially given to the lawyer helping him, Anatoly Kucherena, who was now at Sheremetyevo airport and meeting Snowden in a secure zone.

A large crowd of media was already outside a door marked “staff only” on the lower floor of Terminal E at Sheremetyevo, with police and security guards keeping tight control, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The Interfax news agency said Snowden, who is wanted by the US on espionage charges for revealing a vast spying programme, could leave the airport in the “next hours”.

“The American is currently getting ready to leave. He is being provided with new clothes. The document will be given to him by Kucherena,” Interfax said.

RIA Novosti cited a source within the Russian border guards service as saying he would be allowed to leave the airport as soon as he presents the document.

He would not cross the border with regular passengers but through a special channel, the Interfax news agency reported.

The migration service declined to comment and there was no official confirmation that he was preparing to cross into Russian territory.

Snowden earlier this month applied for asylum in Russia, a process that could take up to three months.

Kucherena has said Snowden may even apply for Russian citizenship and is interested in looking for work in Russia.

Hosting Snowden risks further straining relations between Russia and the United States. But Russia has refused to hand Snowden over, saying it has no extradition treaty with Washington.

Snowden arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23.

The former contractor for the National Security Agency was checked-in to fly on to Cuba the next day but he never boarded the plane to Havana.

He ended up marooned at the Moscow airport after the United States revoked his passport.

With the help of Sarah Harrison, an employee of anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, the 30-year-old applied for asylum in 27 countries but most of the nations denied him a safe haven under pressure from Washington.

Three countries in Latin America known for their anti-US stance –Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela — have said they would be willing to give refuge to Snowden.

But there are doubts about whether the American will be able to travel on to Latin American after Bolivian President Evo Morales’s plane flying from Moscow earlier this month was forced to land in Vienna and searched amid suspicions Snowden was on board.

Breaking his silence for the first time since arriving from Hong Kong, Snowden on July 12 summoned several rights activists and Kremlin-friendly lawyers for a dramatic, closed-door meeting at Sheremetyevo airport.

He told them he would apply for asylum in Russia and asked them to petition President Vladimir Putin on his behalf.

On July 16, Snowden applied for temporary asylum with the help of Kucherena, a pro-Kremlin lawyer who participated in the airport meeting.

The Kremlin has sought to keep Snowden’s case at arm’s length but observers said the activists’ meeting at the state-controlled airport would have never been possible without government involvement. – AFP

NoViolet longlisted on eve of Zim elections

NoViolet shortlisted on eve of Zim elections — NoViolet longlisted on eve of Zim elections

Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo is the African on the Booker longlist for a literary prize, one of the English language’s top fiction awards, which names 13 writers from seven countries.

Selected from 151 titles, it also includes authors from Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Malaysia and Ireland. The choice supports the view that literature prizes in English are pure politics, as the Zimbabwean elections loom.

Announcing the list, the judge Robert Macfarlane said: “This is surely the most diverse longlist in Man Booker history: wonderfully various in terms of geography, form, length and subject.”

“These 13 outstanding novels range from the traditional to the experimental, from the first century AD to the present day, from 100 pages to 1 000, and from Shanghai to Hendon.”

If you thought the name NoViolet Bulawayo is an improbable one, it’s probably because hers is a handy political moniker. Born Elizabeth Tshele in 1981 in Tsholotsho, in the south of Zimbabwe, she moved to the United States when she was 18.

A previous winner of the Caine Prize, she is also the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. She won the Caine Prize in 2011 for the story Hitting Budapest, included in her debut novel as the first chapter. The beautifully written story is told using a deceptively simple but mature child narrator.

It begins: “We are on our way to Budapest: Bastard and Chipo and Godknows and Sbho and Stina and me. We are going even though we are not allowed to cross Mzilikazi Road, even though Bastard is supposed to be watching his little sister Fraction, even though mother would kill me dead if she found out; we are going. There are guavas to steal in Budapest, and right now I’d die for guavas, or anything for that matter. My stomach feels like somebody just took a shovel and dug everything out.”

In total, seven women are on the list, the others being Alison MacLeod with Unexploded, Charlotte Mendelson with Almost English, Canadian Ruth Ozeki with A Tale for the Time Being, and New Zealand’s Eleanor Catton with The Luminaries.

The judges will meet again in September to decide a shortlist of six books and the winner will be announced at a ceremony on October 15 in London. – Reuters

British far-right clash with police over surveillance

EDL wants surveillance... — EDL wants surveillance…

Protesters have been injured and a police officer hospitalised with concussion after police and far-right demonstrators clashed at an English Defence League (EDL) rally in Birmingham.

Hundreds of EDL supporters gathered in the city’s Centenary Square on Saturday, with Unite Against Fascism members forming a counter-protest in nearby Chamberlain Square.

Soon after EDL leader Tommy Robinson began his speech to the crowd, protesters started tussling with police, with some pulling down fences around a new University of Birmingham construction site and hurling smashed cobble-stones and bottles at officers.

Several protesters were seen with blood pouring from their heads after police equipped with riot gear and armed with batons confronted the crowd.

“Police injured, Broad St bar doors smashed, building site materials thrown at police, shops closed, work lost. Another peaceful EDL protest,” tweeted Birmingham Labour MP Ian Austin.

West Midlands Police said that four arrests had been made and that 1,000 extra officers had been drafted in before the demonstration to help cope with any disorder.

The EDL said they were marching for the reintroduction of CCTV cameras in the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook areas of the city. The cameras were originally installed as a counter-terrorism measure, but removed in 2011. – ibtimes.com

Bomb found at site planned for Pope visit

A homemade bomb was discovered hidden near a Brazilian shrine Pope Francis is scheduled to visit later this week, the military said Monday. The device was found in a parking garage bathroom inside the National Sanctuary of Aparecida in São Paulo state.

The Brazilian Air Force found the bomb, which they said was comparable to dynamite with a fuse, during a routine security sweep prior to the pope’s arrival. It was detonated without incident.

“It was a homemade device with little potential to cause fatalities,” the military said in a statement. “It is worth pointing out that such episodes formed part of our security forces’ training in Aparecida and at no point were civilians’ lives in danger.”

Police added that the bathroom is not located in an area likely to be used during Pope Francis’ visit.

Thousands of people lined the streets in Rio de Janeiro Monday, where Pope Francis arrived on the day to begin celebrations for World Youth Day. He will be in the mostly Catholic country from July 23-28.- RT

US to ‘diversify’ white neighborhoods

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government.

To ensure that “every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of,” HUD has published a new fair-housing regulation intended to give people access to better neighborhoods than the ones they currently live in.

The goal is to help communities understand “fair housing barriers” and “establish clear goals” for “improving integrated living patterns and overcoming historic patterns of segregation.”

“This proposed rule represents a 21st century approach to fair housing, a step forward to ensuring that every American is able to choose to live in a community they feel proud of–where they have a fair shot at reaching their full potential in life,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

“For the first time ever,” Donovan added, “HUD will provide data for every neighborhood in the country, detailing the access African American, Latino, Asian, and other communities have to local assets, including schools, jobs, transportation, and other important neighborhood resources that can play a role in helping people move into the middle class.”

According to HUD, long-term solutions include “helping people gain access to different neighborhoods and channeling investments into under-served areas.” The mapping tool may guide development and zoning decisions, for example.

In a July 16 speech to the NAACP, Donovan said the American Dream still isn’t within equal reach of all communities. He lamented the lack of diversity in America’s boardrooms, schools, and the nation’s “strongest neighborhoods.”

Donovan said HUD’s new neighborhood mapping tool, which uses Census data, will “expand access to high opportunity neighborhoods and draw attention to investment possibilities in under-served communities.”

“Make no mistake, this is a big deal,” Donovan said. “With the HUD budget alone, we are talking about billions of dollars. And as you know, decades ago, these funds were used to support discrimination. Now, they will be used to expand opportunity and bring communities closer to the American Dream.”

Under the proposed rule, the neighborhood data provided by HUD will be used to evaluate patterns of integration and segregation, racial and ethnic concentrations of poverty, and access to “valuable community assets.” HUD wants to know if existing laws and policies–such as zoning, financing, infrastructure planning and transportation–create, perpetuate or alleviate segregation. – CNS News

Ivy League prof calls God a ‘white racist’

The mainstream media and the Obama administration’s active fomenting of racial tension and hatred following the George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict has led to some bizarre public outbursts, including a recent deranged blog posting published by a supposedly well-educated college professor. University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) associate professor Anthea Butler recently spewed her obvious disagreement with the verdict by ranting online that God is a “white racist” who walks around with a gun “stalking young black men.”

Butler, who teaches at the UPenn Department of Religious Studies, went off on a disturbing tangent in her blog posting when she began to vomit her irrational beliefs about how God “ain’t good all of the time,” insinuating that because the Zimmerman verdict was not what she wanted, God is somehow evil. Butler proceeded in her posting to accuse God of not being “for” black people in general because of the verdict, making sure to also blame Christians for Trayvon Martin’s murder.

“As a historian of American and African-American religion, I know that the Trayvon Martin moment is just one moment in a history of racism in America that, in large part, has its underpinnings in Christianity and its history,” gushes Butler. “When the good Christians of America are some of its biggest racists, one has to consider our moral responsibility to call out those who clearly are not for human flourishing, no matter what ethnicity a person is.”

Butler goes on and on to decry white people, Christians, all Americans that are not black, and of course God in her lunatic diatribe against essentially all of non-black humanity, illustrating how completely off her rocker she truly is. Not only did the Zimmerman trial have absolutely nothing to do with white Christians — Zimmerman, after all, is actually part Hispanic, for anyone that actually cares — but the verdict itself was determined based on the evidence, or lack thereof, that was presented during the trial.

“No amount of heartbreak over the Zimmerman acquittal justifies these hateful posts,” wrote Josiah Ryan, editor-in-chief of the UPenn paper Campus Reform, in an editorial about Butler’s unhinged pontification. “Professor Butler’s remarks were clearly designed to hurt when Americans needed healing and to divide when we needed unity.”

“In tumultuous times students must be able to turn to their professors for calm and wisdom. In stoking the flames of hatred, Professor Butler has betrayed her students’ trust. UPenn administrators out not to allow her back in the classroom.”

The real irony in Butler’s rant is that it really only illustrates her own seething racism towards non-blacks, whom she fallaciously blames for all of the problems faced by what she presumptuously refers to as “us,” specifically African-Americans. And by somehow managing to drag God into the mix and labeling him as a racist, Butler proves that she has literally lost her grounding in reality.

According to reports, Butler has not been able to be reached for comment following her irrational blog posting, which she gleefully followed up with hateful “tweets” suggesting that God is a member of the KKK. Not surprisingly, UPenn officials have also thus far refused to comment on the situation. – Natural News

Indian school poisoning: Principal ‘forced kids to eat’ odd-looking food

After 23 Indian children died from consuming poisoned school meals, it has emerged that victims refused the food before being made to eat it, according to the Times of India. Preliminary investigations indicate the cooking medium was laced with pesticide.

Police say that the latest case of poisoning, which claimed the lives of 23 children, was most probably caused by storing cooking oil in a used pesticide container.

Monocrotophos is an insecticide which is toxic to birds and humans. The World Health Organization describes it as highly hazardous and advises that its handling should only be undertaken by well trained and competently supervised users. All material contaminated with the chemical should be destroyed in a high-temperature chemical incinerator, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

However, an anonymous HRD (Ministry of Human Resource Development) source told the Times of India that the cooking agent used for soyabean subzi may have played a role.

“Earlier it was thought oil was put in a pesticide container. But it seems that the lady cook used pesticide,” the source said.

The subzi looked black and smelt odd according to the source. “The school principal insisted the cooking medium cannot be bad since it had come from her husband’s shop,” he said. “When students refused to eat, the principal scolded and forced them to eat.”

“I can accept accidents can happen anywhere. But the scale of this incident and the carelessness, the sheer callousness of the response, the delay in treating the children, is shocking,” activist Dipa Sinha of the Right to Food Campaign told AFP.

The children died after eating lentils, potatoes and rice cooked with oil containing agricultural insecticide that was five times the strength sold in the market place, according to tests.

Forensic tests have shown that the oil contained a “highly toxic” form of insecticide which killed the children so quickly that some died in their parents’ arms while being taken to hospital.

The principal reportedly fled the school shortly after realizing the extent of the tragedy. “A crucial one and half to two hours were lost. Had these children been rushed to hospital immediately few lives could have been saved,” he said. – RT

US welfare recipients shipping food stamp groceries overseas

Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.

The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.

The feds say the moveable feasts go against the intent of the $86 billion welfare program for impoverished Americans.

A spokeswoman for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service said welfare benefits are reserved for households that buy and prepare food together. She said states should intervene if people are caught shipping nonperishables abroad.

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, called it just another example of welfare abuse.

“I don’t want food-stamp police to see what people do with their rice and beans, but it’s wrong,” Tanner told The Post. “The purpose of this program is to help Americans who don’t have enough to eat. This is not intended as a form of foreign aid.”

The United States spent $522.7 million on foreign aid to the Caribbean last fiscal year, government data show.

Still, New Yorkers say they ship the food because staples available in the States are superior and less costly than what their families can get abroad.

“Everybody does it,” said a worker at an Associated Supermarket in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. “They pay for it any way they can. A lot of people pay with EBT.”

Customers pay cash for the barrels, usually about $40, and typically ship them filled with $500 to $2,000 worth of rice, beans, pasta, canned milk and sausages.

Workers at the Pioneer Supermarket on Parkside Avenue and the Key Food on Flatbush Avenue confirmed the practice.

They said food-stamp recipients typically take home their barrels and fill them gradually over time with food bought with EBT cards.

When the tubs are full, the welfare users call a shipping company to pick them up and send them to the Caribbean for about $70. The shipments take about three weeks.

Last week, a woman stuffed dozens of boxes of macaroni and evaporated milk into a barrel headed for her family in Kingston, Jamaica. She said she didn’t have welfare benefits and bought the food herself.

“This is all worth more than $2,000,” she said. “I’ve been shopping since last December. You can help somebody else, someone who doesn’t live in this country.”

A man helping her pack the barrel said: “We’re poor here, and they’re poor. But what we can get here is like luxury to them.” – NY Post

Music online hits 70% of Swedish sales

Music streaming companies now account for 70 percent of all music bought in Sweden, home of Spotify, the world leader in the field, official industry figures revealed on Sunday.

The Swedish Recording Industry Association (GLF) said physical sales of music now stood at just 25 percent, confirming the march of digital music in the pioneering country.

The remaining five percent of consumers downloaded music to own on a hard drive.

GLF said the percentage of streamed music, where songs are downloaded but not kept permanently on computers, had risen from 57 percent in 2012.

Sales of music overall grew by 12 percent in the first half of this year and have been increasing steadily since 2008, while not reaching the heights seen at the beginning of the last decade.

“The strong growth seen in 2012 continued in 2013, and the Swedish consumer’s preference for streaming is clearer than ever,” said Ludvig Werner, director in Sweden of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. – AFP

Renting apartments to Africans strictly forbidden

Renting apartments to Blacks is strictly forbidden

“Renting apartments to Africans is strictly forbidden”. This message hangs in several building lobbies in Casablanca, Morocco. Some landlords have been enforcing this rule, even though it is completely illegal. Our Observer, a student from the Ivory Coast, experienced this discrimination firsthand a few months ago.

Several photos of these posters, written in both French and Arabic, have been circulating on social networks over the past few days. According to our Observers, the photos were taken in buildings in the residential Farah Essalam neighbourhood in the Oulfa area, where many students from sub-Saharan Africa live. Similar posters have also been reported in other parts of town.

While Morocco is located in northern Africa, many Moroccans don’t consider themselves “Africans”, a term they generally use to refer to sub-Saharan Africans.

“Discrimination against Africans has been firmly rooted here. Not all relationships with Moroccans are this confrontational, but life is definitely more unpleasant if you’re black. Personally, I’ve had stones thrown at me on the street several times, sometimes even fruit, depending on the person’s mood,” says a student from the Ivory Coast. – France24

Google boss is a love rat

Planning to implant microchips into the brain

He is the billionaire Google boss under fire for not doing enough to protect children from internet porn.

Yet The Mail on Sunday revealed that 58-year-old Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, does fiercely protect one thing: his own private life, which is as colorful and complex as the ever-changing ‘Google doodle,’ which pops up each time the search engine is launched.

He is all for freedom when it comes to dodging corporate tax.

But there’s one place the freewheeling views of the billionaire Google boss fizzle out – his bedroom door.

Schmidt has had a string of affairs with younger women, including TV presenter Kate Bohner, PR executive Marcy Simon and Vietnamese concert pianist Chau- Giang Nguyen.

But the unlikely sex symbol with thinning hair and pockmarked skin who is worth $5.4 billion made at least one mistress sign a confidentiality deal.

Bohner, 46, had a three-year affair from 2007 with the married mogul, dubbing him Dr Strangelove. “As far as Kate was concerned it was true love,” a friend said. “The reason I am speaking out now is it is ironic that someone like him can be so free and easy discussing other people’s privacy issues online while using his vast wealth to protect his own image.”

Schmidt’s wife Wendy, 57, has reportedly accepted their open marriage. – The Standard

Juror describes mental anguish to find Zimmerman ‘guilty of something’

A juror from the trial of George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin broke into tears as she described the mental anguish she and the other jurors felt as they weighed their decision.

She said the six-women panel was sharply divided when deliberations began.

The juror said ultimately it became a question of whether the events leading up the shooting were legally relevant or if, for self-defence, it is the moment before pulling the trigger that counts.

“It was just so confusing with what and what we could apply to what. Because I mean, there was a couple of them in there that wanted to find him guilty of something,” the juror said.

But “after hours and hours and hours of deliberating over the law and reading it over and over and over again, we decided there’s just no way.”

The jurors ultimately came to a unanimous decision, finding Zimmerman not guilty on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the case that has brought tough questions about racism in the United States back to the fore.

But in an interview on CNN, juror B-37 – who was not named and was shown in deep shadow – said the first vote was split down the middle between those who wanted an acquittal and those who wanted to convict.

“We had three not guilties, one second degree murder and two manslaughters,” the juror said, adding she was one of the ones who voted not guilty.

Zimmerman – who has a white father and a Peruvian mother – said he acted in self-defence when he shot Martin during an altercation on the rainy night of February 26 2012.

But prosecutors said he profiled and stalked Martin, provoking the altercation that led to Martin’s death.

The juror explained her understanding of what happened that night: “I think George got in a little bit too deep … He shouldn’t have been there.”But Trayvon decided that he wasn’t going to let him scare him and get the one up on him or something. And I think Trayvon got mad and attacked him,” the juror said.

“I had no doubt George feared for his life in the situation he was in at the time.”

But she broke into tears as she described the mental anguish she and the other jurors felt as they weighed their decision.

“It’s a tragedy this happened, but it happened. And I think both were responsible for the situation they had gotten themselves in to. I think both of them could have walked away.”

In the aftermath of the verdict, race again came to the fore, with angry protesters asking if the result would have been the same had the teenager been white and Zimmerman black.

“We are all Trayvon,” some cried. – AFP