For the first time in nearly 40 years, a majority of Americans believe the United States is less important around the world and that it should mind its own business, a stunning rejection of President Obama’s foreign policy just four years after he received the Nobel Prize.
A new Pew Research Center poll found that 53 percent of people believe that the U.S. is playing a less important role as a world leader than a decade ago, the highest figure since 1984.
Worse: 70 percent said that the U.S. is respected less than in the past, almost matching the high reached under former President George W. Bush, whose foreign policy Obama pledged to reverse.
Other key highlights from Pew’s release:
— By a 56 percent to 34 percent margin, more disapprove than approve of Obama’s handling of foreign policy. The public also disapproves of his handling of Syria, Iran, China and Afghanistan by wide margins.
— For the first time, 52 percent believe the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally.”
— Some 51 percent said the U.S. does too much in helping solve world problems.
— Most say the U.S. should engage internationally on economic issues. Fully 77 percent say that growing trade and business ties between the U.S. and other countries is good.
— Just 31 percent of the public say the war in Afghanistan has made the country safer from terrorism.
The European Parliament voted Wednesday for US access to the global financial database held by a Belgian company to be suspended because of concerns that the US is snooping on the database for financial gain rather than just to combat terrorism.
The Strasbourg based parliament voted 280 in favor, with 254 against, with 30 abstentions, and called for a suspension of US access until a full enquiry clarifies the situation.
“We need full transparency, especially with all the NSA revelations. Europe cannot accept that the data of private citizens is being accessed without anyone knowing about it”, Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberals in the European Parliament, told Reuters.
EU lawmakers are concerned that the US is covertly using information from the SWIFT database following leaked US documents aired by Brazil’s biggest television network Globo, which indicated that the US has secretly tapped into SWIFT.
Under current agreements the US has limited access to the SWIFT database. The deal is part of transatlantic cooperation following the September 2001 attacks, and allows certain data from SWIFT to be shared with the US treasury.
The idea was that by sharing on a limited basis the millions of financial messages that take place across the world every day, it would help combat terrorism.
However, the parliament’s vote is symbolic, not binding, and rather reflects EU wide public anger at the NSA spying allegations. The European Commission and the various EU governments will still need to approve a suspension of US access to SWIFT.
The European Commission has said in a statement that it had no immediate plans to propose a suspension of SWIFT to its member states and that it was “still waiting for additional written assurances”that the US was respecting its prior written agreement with the EU.
For its part the US has denied it is doing anything wrong. According to the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, the US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism, David Cohen, has told her that the US government has respected the 2010 agreement on SWIFT.
But there is undoubtedly a firm belief within certain sections of the EU parliament that the EU should be more careful about what it shares with the US.
“The EU cannot continue to remain silent in the face of these ongoing revelations: It gives the impression we are little more than a lapdog of the United States,” said Jan Albrecht, a German Green in the EU parliament.
The vote comes on the back of allegations by the Le Monde newspaper that the NSA has spied on the agency records of millions of phone calls of top French politicians and business people.
The claims were taken seriously by the French government and on Monday morning the US ambassador to France Charles Rivkin was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry to give an explanation.
It was also reported earlier this week that years of spying on Mexico by the NSA had helped Americans get the upper hand in business talks and get investment opportunities that were more favorable to them. – RT
Syria is committed to the convention against chemical weapons it signed under a US-Russian deal and sees “no obstacles” to its implementation, President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview broadcast Thursday.
Speaking to Venezuela’s Telesur, the Syrian leader insisted that his regime was complying with a deal under which Damascus will turn over its chemical weapons for destruction.
“Syria is generally committed to all the agreements that it signs,” he said in an interview published in full by the Syrian state news agency SANA on Thursday.
He said Damascus had begun to send the required details of its chemical arsenal to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which is overseeing the deal, and that OPCW inspectors were expected to visit Syria.
“Experts (from the OPCW) will come to Syria in the coming period to look into the status of these weapons,” he said.
“As the Syrian government, there are no serious obstacles,” he said.
“But there is always the possibility that the terrorists will obstruct the work of the experts by preventing them from accessing certain places,” Assad added.
The Syrian regime calls all those fighting against it “terrorists”.
Syria agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal under a deal thrashed out following an August 21 sarin attack in the suburbs of Damascus, which killed hundreds of people.
The attack, which occurred as UN chemical weapons experts were in Syria investigating previous alleged chemical attacks, was blamed on the Syrian regime by Washington and other international backers of the Syrian opposition.
Assad’s government denies involvement, but agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal in the face of threatened US military action in response to the August 21 attack.
The UN experts, who confirmed that sarin gas was used in the attack, arrived back in Damascus on Wednesday and are to resume investigations into other previous alleged attacks.
Assad said his government would ensure the UN experts were also able to move around freely, insisting that his regime had invited them to come.
“We are the ones who invited them to come to Syria in March when the terrorists used poison gas in a suburb of the city of Aleppo,” he said. – AFP
A white Obama and black McCain, not the right recipe
Neo-Conservative warmongers must be feeling rather frustrated by the most recent turn of events regarding Syria.
Will the Neo-cons, AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee), the powerful Israeli lobby, the McCain/Graham/Rice hawks lay the whole thing to rest, or will they just wait for a better opportunity to ignite in the already volatile Middle East?
Actually, they might fabricate just such an opportunity, seeing that their current fabrication is being exposed.
They may very well have no other choice. Failing to act “decisively” the US and UK will have lost some sizable measure of global credibility, tantamount to defeat in their estimation, whilst Russia and China are the moderate powers in the eyes of the world.
To have to admit to that would be too costly for Washington.
The hysteria about Iraq’s WMD back in 2003, is proving harder to stir a decade later in Syria.
Unless of course something really big, dramatic, fear-inducing and unprecedented takes place. Perhaps in South Carolina
Yes, South Carolina: Senator Lindsey Graham’s home state. Together with John McCain, Graham has been a key war-monger against Syria in Congress. He sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Interestingly, on Tuesday, 3 September the local CBS Network outlet in his home State reported some odd remarks the senator made on Syria, stressing that “if there is no US response, Iran will not believe America’s resolve to block Iran from developing nuclear weapons…. those nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could result in a bomb coming to Charleston Harbor.”
That same 3 September, some alarming news was reported by an independent journalist on Storyleak.com, referring to an alleged “high level source inside the military confirming that Dyess Air Force base in Texas was actively moving nuclear warheads to the East Coast of the United States”.
It was apparently South Carolina. Normally, such extreme reports would be dismissed outright, were it not for uneasy precedents like the “Bent Spear” incident of the 29th August 2007 which occurred at Minot and Barksdale Air Force bases in the US, after six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles loaded with W80-1 variable yield nuclear warheads went missing for 36 hours, “by mistake” of course.
Many observers believe that it was in fact a foiled attempt by the Neo-cons to get hold of some nukes for “special use” that was fortunately thwarted when whistleblowers leaked the secret to the press…
A terror attack on the US mainland could provide the “ample proof” that it was perpetrated by those “evil” Iranians in connivance with the Syrians, backed by the Russians (and China), and so the “War on Terror” would then escalate to “DefCom 1 Mode”.
They could then blow Syria to smithereens, erase Iran off the map, deal with the Awakened Bear, and order FEMA to deal with any wayward patriot.
Naturally this would all be carefully staged by the “PsyOps Dept.” generating news flashes, teary-eyed reporting, and “news analysis” on CNN, FoxNews, ABC-CBS-NBC, BBC, NYT, Telegraph, TV5 France.
The concept of False Flag attacks is being increasingly debated and understood throughout the world. When addressed with historical perspective regarding key events over the past century, they shed totally new light on how “behind the curtains” misdeeds may have actually triggered major world events.
See prof Daniele Ganser’s questions that still haunt 9/11.
This increased awareness is fast eroding the effectiveness of False Flags. Today’s warmongers have a small advantage in that a Democrat sits in the White House who obviously does not fit the Neo-con profile: clearly he’s not a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant). In fact, he’s a “liberal”, he’s black, he doesn’t come from an establishment family, he’s a Nobel Peace Prize laureate… and he’s rooting for war on Syria and Iran.
The white American exchange student, Amy Elizabeth Biehl, died just over 20 years ago on August 25, 1993. The circumstances of her death read like a chronicle foretold to the current racial animosity in South Africa where singing struggle songs like “Kill a Boer” and attacking white farms continue unabated.
The graduate from Stanford University and anti-Apartheid activist was murdered by black Cape Town residents while a black mob shouted racial slurs. The four men convicted of her murder were released as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process.
Biehl was a student at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town as a scholar in the Fulbright Program.
As she drove a friend home to the black township of Guguletu, outside Cape Town, on August 25, 1993, a black mob pulled her from the car and stabbed and stoned her to death. She probably tried to remind them how much she hated white Afrikaners while she was dying.
The attack on the car driven by Amy Biehl was one of many incidents of general lawlessness in NY1, blamed on the “lack of opportunity as a result of Apartheid” as was fashionable then. These days the reigning anarchy in NY1 is attributed to lacking “service delivery”. Any explanation which ignores a racial motive will do.
To sane South Africans Biehl’s death was simply the result of ignoring the racial divide. Had she gone into NY1 last week, she probably would have met with the same fate. But blinding ideology comes at a price, everywhere in Africa, also in places where no one has ever heard of Apartheid.
Bands of toyi-toying black youths threw stones at delivery vehicles and cars driven by whites. One delivery vehicle was toppled over and set alight and only the arrival of the police prevented more damage. A quick scrutiny of any South African newspaper today would inform the reader of the lasting legacy that Mandela’s release had on black urban violence.
Black urban youths, born well after Apartheid, do not suffer from Mandela’s oft cited “terrible past”. They suffer instead from a terrible example set by the likes of Biehl: Proof that killing whites are rewarded, hate crimes are lauded.
Amy Biehl’s possessions in her car were stolen. According to Rex van Schalkwyk, in his 1998 book One Miracle is Not Enough: “Supporters of the three men accused of murdering [her] … burst out laughing in the public gallery of the Supreme Court today when a witness told how the battered woman groaned in pain.” (pp. 188–89.)
Four people were convicted of killing her. In 1998, all were pardoned by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a travesty to hide the ANC’s past crimes and future intentions.The usual suspects, Britain and the US, gave their firm support to the shameless whitewash.
Amy Biehl’s killing was pardoned at the TRC when the four stated that their actions had been “politically motivated.”. Biehl’s family supported the release of the killers,and her father shook the murderers’ hands, smiling.
“Among those we remember today is young Amy Biehl. She made our aspirations her own and lost her life in the turmoil of our transition, as the new South Africa struggled to be born in the dying moments of apartheid. Through her, our peoples have also shared the pain of confronting a terrible past, as we take the path towards the reconciliation and healing of our nation.”
There was no “terrible past” however. There was only bad faith in depicting a system designed to protect minorities. The smiling handshake would sadly be a prescient gesture of our terrible future, the one that the Biehls enabled by their bought forgiveness.
In 1994, Biehl’s parents, Linda and Peter, founded the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust “to develop and empower youth in the townships, in order to discourage further violence.” The money must have eased the pain of losing a child to such a useless cause.
Two of the men who had been convicted of her murder also received money from the foundation. In 1999, Biehl’s parents were honored with the Aline and Norman Felton Humanitarian Award.
In his speech accepting the Congressional Gold Medal on 23 September 1998, Nelson Mandela said:
“Among those we remember today is young Amy Biehl. She made our aspirations her own and lost her life in the turmoil of our transition, as the new South Africa struggled to be born in the dying moments of apartheid. Through her, our peoples have also shared the pain of confronting a terrible past, as we take the path towards the reconciliation and healing of our nation.”
There was never a path towards reconciliation, never any healing. Mandela simply rubberstamped racial hate crimes.
On August 25, 2010, on the 17th anniversary of Biehl’s death, a bronze plaque mounted on a stone was unveiled by the U.S. Ambassador, Donald Gips, and Biehl’s mother, Linda Biehl, at the Cape Town site where she was killed. It was yet another effort by the US to displace the blame, but this time with little enthusiam.
The faces of laughing black killers had been visited on too many by 2010.
The British vote against military strikes in Syria is a tough blow to Prime Minister David Cameron’s domestic political fortunes.
Since taking office in 2010, he has on numerous occasions been undercut not just from opposition parties, but also from elements within both his own Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, the junior member of the UK’s governing coalition.
That was the combination that once again hurt Cameron late Thursday. The government lost a vote—by a tally of 285 to 272—that would have supported in principle military intervention in Syria. Members of all major parties—including his own Tories—opposed the measure.
Mr. Cameron said it is clear that the British Parliament, reflecting the view of the British people, doesn’t want to see the UK get involved in military action and “the government will act accordingly.”
The outcome marks a significant moment in British politics—it is highly unusual for a prime minister to be defeated on foreign policy and raises the prospect of whether the UK’s role on the world stage going forward.
It is also a rare setback for Anglo-American relations that will spur questions about the so-called “special relationship” between the two nations. In recent decades, the UK. has rarely if ever parted ways with the US on such a significant strategic issue.
While the government doesn’t require parliamentary approval to take military action, it would now be politically difficult to do so. A further parliamentary vote had been due to take place early next week on whether the UK should be directly involved in that action. A spokesman for the prime minister confirmed that the UK now won’t take part in the Syrian action.
The outcome of the UK. vote could make it more difficult for President Barack Obama and other Western allies—already weary from years of difficult military intervention in the Middle East—to convince their own publics of the need for intervention in Syria.
The defense secretary, Philip Hammond, said America “will be disappointed that Britain won’t be involved.” Mr. Hammond, speaking in an interview with BBC, said he still expected other countries to continue to look at a response.
The setback also raises questions about Cameron’s authority. The prime minister, who wasn’t required to hold a parliamentary vote but chose to, had personally laid out his case at length to parliament earlier in the day about why military action was needed and why it would be justified, citing humanitarian grounds and the need to prevent the use of chemical weapons in the future.
US officials said Mr. Obama is prepared to act in coming days without Britain. They added that unlike U.S. involvement in the 2011 military operations in Libya, the options being considered in Syria are on a smaller scale and wouldn’t require a coalition to be effective.
Britain’s about turn leaves France as the last European country still considering conducting air attacks on the Assad regime. French officials have said the country’s military had prepared plans for possible action in Syria but repeated on Thursday that no final decision had been made yet.
The French government can engage force overseas without prior Parliamentary approval.
South African President Jacob Zuma hit out at what it called “dangerous rhetoric” concerning possible strikes against Syria and warned any military action must have United Nations backing.
“We are concerned by the rhetoric pointing to the possibility of a military intervention,” said Zuma while condemning “the chemical weapons attack” in Damascus.
“South Africa does not believe that bombing the already suffering people and crumbling infrastructure of Syria, will contribute to a sustainable solution.”
“Military intervention will serve no other purpose than hurting the possibility of a speedy diplomatic solution to the conflict.”
South Africa, the continent’s largest economy and a G20 member, has largely opposed non-UN Western military intervention since becoming a fully democratic state in 1994, with the fall of apartheid.
“Any attack on Syria without the UN Security Council authorisation would constitute a grave violation of international law and dangerously undermine international order,” Zuma said.
South Africa has long sought a seat on the United Nations Security Council, but has irked Western powers with its stance on Zimbabwe and Libya — where it backed authoritarian rulers’ bids to remain in power.
In recent years South Africa has moved to deepen ties with China and Russia, long-time supporters of the ruling ANC during the anti-apartheid struggle.
Zuma was speaking during a meeting with his counterpart from Sao Tome and Principe, Manuel Pinto da Costa. – Sapa/AFP
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Wednesday that he opposes cutting off US military aid to Egypt but vowed Washington would keep pressing for “reconciliation” in the country.
The United States earlier this month condemned Egyptian security forces for firing on protesters backing ousted president Mohamed Morsi, in a crackdown that left nearly 1,000 people dead.
“The interim government has to get back on the path to reconciliation, stop the violence, put Egypt back on the path of economic, democratic reform,” Hagel said in an interview with the BBC aired Wednesday.
“Now do you do that best by cutting off all aid? Maybe eventually that happens, but I don’t think you can take that approach initially, you have to respond and we’ve made it clear what we’d like to see happen,” said Hagel, in Brunei for a meeting of regional defence ministers.
Hagel did not rule out eventually shutting off the flow of $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Cairo, but he stressed the importance of maintaining the decades-long alliance with Egypt, calling it a source of stability that had reinforced US interests.
“We’ve had strong partnerships with Egypt for many years starting with the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that the US brokered in 1979 that essentially prevented the region from breaking out into a regional war,” he said.
The United States “wouldn’t necessarily agree with the forms of government, the dictatorships, but… we would not want to see the disintegration of a relationship with a large important country like Egypt,” he said.
Echoing similar remarks he made earlier this month, Hagel said America’s influence with Egypt had limits.
“So we’ve tried to help where we can, within the boundaries where we can affect influence where we can,” Hagel said. “You can’t go in and impose. It’s up to the Egyptian people what kind of future they want and what kind of government they want.” – Sapa/AFP
The Senate Judiciary Committee, looking to provide protections for journalists and their sources, ran into a roadblock Thursday when lawmakers couldn’t agree on the definition of “journalist.”
Under the legislation, journalists wouldn’t have to comply with subpoenas or court orders forcing them to reveal sources or confidential information unless a judge first determines there’s reason to think that a crime has occurred and government officials have exhausted all other alternatives.
It’s the third time Congress has considered a “shield law” for journalists. Similar bills have failed despite bipartisan support.
“I’m hoping the third time’s a charm,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the committee’s chairman.
The bill defines a journalist as a person who has a “primary intent to investigate events and procure material” in order to inform the public by regularly gathering information through interviews and observations. The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining any protected information and must plan to publish that news.
But senators disagreed on how to define journalists, since some thought the bill’s definition wasn’t specific enough.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., wondered whether it could be used to provide protections to employees of WikiLeaks, an organization that allows anonymous sources to leak information to the public.
“I’m concerned this would provide special privilege to those who are not reporters at all,” Klobuchar said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., suggested that the definition comprise only journalists who make salaries, saying it should be applied just to “real reporters.” The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., was against that idea, since there are bloggers and others in the Internet age who don’t necessarily receive salaries.
“The world has changed. We’re very careful in this bill to distinguish journalists from those who shouldn’t be protected, WikiLeaks and all those, and we’ve ensured that,” Schumer said. “But there are people who write and do real journalism, in different ways than we’re used to. They should not be excluded from this bill.”
The Standing Committee of Correspondents, a group of reporters that issues congressional press passes, requires that reporters be full time and paid in order to receive passes.
The reconsideration of a shield law comes on the heels of media controversies that came to light in May. The Justice Department had seized the phone records of 20 Associated Press reporters over two months without giving them prior notice and had traced the phone calls and emails of a Fox News reporter.
The bill also would require the Justice Department to notify any reporters it chose to monitor. It allows Justice officials to delay that notice by 45 days and permits them to ask for an extension of another 45 days.
Most states have their own shield laws for journalists, but those laws don’t apply in federal court. That means any monitoring of reporters by the federal government would be covered only under a federal shield law.
The committee will continue debating the bill when it reconvenes in September, and Schumer said he hoped it would head to the Senate floor by the end of the year. – McClatchy Washington Bureau
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/08/01/198338/senators-spar-over-definition.html#storylink=cpy
Colorado’s first recognized same-sex divorce is final.
Supporters of Colorado’s new civil unions law say the court ruling sets a precedent for gay couples married in other states who want to legally terminate their relationships here without uprooting their lives.
Juli Yim and Lorelei Jones wed in Massachusetts in 2009, where same-sex marriage is legal.
Yim tells the Fort Collins Coloradoan the relationship went sour and she found a new partner in Colorado.
Colorado is one of several states that treat gay and straight couples the same in almost every respect through civil unions or domestic partnerships. Gay couples are not allowed to marry in Colorado but can get divorced there under state statute. – myfoxdc.com
A Nigerian, Jacob Ajomale, who alleged that he was maltreated by the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, officers, by forcefully inserting a tracking device (chip) in his body through his anus, has petitioned the United Nations Council on Human Rights over alleged inhuman treatment meted to him.
Ajomale through his lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, SAN, claimed that the chip was inserted in him in December 2010.
Falana in the petition to the UN, is urging the world body to direct the United States to remove the tracking device from Ajomale’s body with immediate effect.
Besides, Ajomale has also sued United Airlines and the Nigerian Minister of Internal Affairs before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, demanding $100 million and N100 million damages for the violation of his fundamental rights to dignity of human person and right to mental and physical health as guaranteed by Sections 35 and 41 of the Constitution and Articles 6 and 12 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act.
His arrest
Ajomale had averred in an affidavit that he has been living in the United States since April 12, 1997 with a visiting visa and became a permanent resident in February 2008, and never had any criminal record all through the period.
According to him, on January 22, 2009, he travelled to Nigeria for his father’s burial and on his way back, he was arrested on February 5, 2009 by one officer, Derrick, at the BWI Airport in Baltimore, Maryland, kept in a cold room for nine hours, where he was tortured in order to make an incriminating statement of using falsified passport in 2001.
He was subsequently arraigned, tried, convicted and sentenced to six months imprisonment at the DC jail and Rivers Correction Centre, all in North Carolina.
Second arrest
According to Ajomale, he was released back to the community on August 11, 2009 at 7pm, after being cleared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, but surprisingly, he was arrested again by the same officer, Derrick, on August 15, 2009 on the ground that his release from detention was a mistake.
He said: “While in detention at Worchester Detention Centre Snow Hill, Maryland, an ICE officer, William Malone told me I could be released but it was going to cost me money. I told my lawyer about it who reported to senior ICE officers. Investigation was carried out and Officer Michelle Rawlings interrogated me and promised to get back to me, which she never did. Afterwards I became the target of all the officers.
“I was hospitalised on July 12, 2010 at Atlantic hospital for sinusitis and body weakness, but was discharged without adequate treatment. I was maltreated by three officers, who flung me on an empty steel bed, and I put in a grievance report concerning the issue. In August, 2010, I was moved to Frederick Detention Centre, Maryland, and the same aggression continued against my person. I felt some vibration on my bed and reported to the authorities but no action was taken.” – Vanguard
When classes at Clarksville High Connecticut resume, more than 20 teachers and other employees in the US school district will be carrying concealed weapons.
After a school shooting in Connecticut last December that left 20 children and six teachers dead, the idea of arming schoolhouses against gunmen was hotly debated across the country.
The National Rifle Association declared it the best response to serious threats. But even in the most conservative states, most proposals faltered in the face of resistance from educators or warnings from insurance companies that schools would face higher premiums.
Making use of a little-known Arkansas law that allows licensed, armed security guards on campus, assistant principal Cheyne Dougan and other teachers at the school will be considered guards.
“The plan we’ve been given in the past is, ‘Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best,'” Superintendent David Hopkins said. But as deadly incidents continued to happen in schools, he explained, the district decided, “That’s not a plan.”
In strongly conservative Arkansas, where gun ownership is common and gun laws are permissive, no school district had ever used the law to arm teachers on the job, according to the state’s department of education. The closest was the Lake Hamilton School, which for years has kept several guns locked up in case of emergency. Only a handful of trained administrators – not teachers – have access to the weapons.
Flood of calls from parents
Clarksville, a community of 9 200 people about 160km north-west of Little Rock, is going further.
The town isn’t known for having dangerous schools. But Hopkins said he faced a flood of calls from parents worried about safety after the attack last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Hopkins said he and other school leaders didn’t see why the district couldn’t rely on its own staff and teachers to protect students rather than hire someone.
State officials are not blocking Clarksville’s plan, but Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell is opposed to the idea of arming teachers and staff. He prefers to hire law enforcement officers as school resource officers.
There are other dissenters, too. Donna Morey, former president of the Arkansas Education Association, called the idea of arming teachers “awful”. The risk of a student accidentally getting shot or obtaining a gun outweighs any benefits, she said.
“We just think educators should be in the business of educating students, not carrying a weapon,” Morey said.
Gun stipends
Participants in the programme are given a one-time $1 100 stipend to purchase a handgun and holster. Hopkins said the district is paying about $50 000 for ammunition and for training that is narrowly tailored for teachers to respond to shooters on campus.
Sydney Whitkanack, who will enter seventh grade this fall, said she’s grown up around firearms and doesn’t mind if teachers or staff are armed at school.
“If they’re concealed, then it’s no big deal,” said Whitkanack. “It’s not like someone’s going to know ‘Oh, they have a firearm.'”
The district will post signs at each school about the armed guards, but the identities of faculty and staff carrying weapons will be kept secret, Hopkins said.
Those who participate in the programme will continue to receive regular training, he said.
Sherry Wommack said the programme is one reason she’s taking her son, an incoming eighth-grader, out of Clarksville’s schools before the school year begins. Wommack said she doesn’t believe teachers should make life-or-death choices involving students.
“I think police officers are trained to make those decisions, not teachers,” Wommack said. – Sapa-AP
A judge has ordered Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, to testify about the bailout of AIG in a case where the government is accused of illegally appropriating the insurer and using it “to covertly funnel billions of dollars to foreign entities”.
Government lawyers had argued Mr Bernanke was too senior and the facts had been raked over too often for his appearance to be necessary.
Judge Thomas Wheeler disagreed. Compelling Mr Bernanke to travel to a Washington law firm to answer questions about the government bailout, he wrote on Monday that the “court cannot fathom having to decide this multibillion-dollar claim without the testimony”.
The claim comes from Hank Greenberg, the former chief executive of AIG, who says he and other shareholders were unfairly diluted when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York took an 80 per cent equity stake in return for $182bn in emergency funding. He is suing the government for compensation.
Judge Wheeler said there were “extraordinary circumstances”, a test of whether senior officials had to give evidence in lawsuits.
In his decision, he wrote: “Mr Bernanke was a central figure in the government’s 2008 determination of how it should handle AIG’s fiscal difficulties. To rule otherwise would deprive the court of important relevant evidence in its fact-finding and resolution of this case.”
The insurer came close to collapse in September 2008 as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. AIG had written credit default swaps, an insurance against default by subprime mortgage-backed securities, which fell in value as the crisis deepened.
The US provided AIG with more than $182bn in taxpayer funds to stave off collapse in return for a majority stake. In its complaint, Starr International, Mr Greenberg’s vehicle, said the US did so against the wishes of AIG shareholders “without due process or just compensation”. – FT
Seventeen lawmakers from the European Parliament have called on President Barack Obama to put an end to the persecution of US soldier Bradley Manning accused of aiding the enemy after he handed over a bunch of sensitive military documents to the WikiLeaks website.
In an open letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, the group of seventeen praised Manning for shedding light on “evidence of human rights abuses and apparent war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“We hereby urge you to end the persecution of Bradley Manning, a young gay man who has been imprisoned for over three years, including ten months in solitary confinement, under conditions that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez deemed ‘cruel and abusive.’ Bradley Manning has already suffered too much, and he should be freed as soon as humanly possible,” MEPs from Spain, France, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, and Ukraine wrote.
The lawmakers specifically stressed that the “aiding the enemy” offense thrown at him by the US court martial would set a terrible precedent.
“To consider releasing information about war crimes to the public to be ‘aiding the enemy’ would be a terrible setback for the defense of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law worldwide,” they underscored.
“Army prosecutors closed their arguments in the case without having provided any real evidence that Bradley Manning aided the enemy, or that he intended to do so,” they said.
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning faces a potential life sentence for passing hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables to the transparency website WikiLeaks, which exposed America’s crimes in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and further abuses around the world.
The military judge in Manning’s trial is expected to deliver a final verdict today, July 30. The sentencing stage of the trial is expected to run for several weeks in August.
Manning faces life imprisonment if found guilty
The sentence a US court will pass upon Wikileaks informant Private Bradley Manning will show what fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden would get should he return to his country, a senior Russian lawmaker Alexei Pushkov said.
“When the sentence is passed upon Manning for handing files to the Wikileaks website, it would be clear what would await Snowden if he returned to the United States,” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the Russian lower house’s international committee, said on Twitter on Monday.
Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for leaking classified data about the US National Security Agency’s surveillance programs, formally requested temporary asylum in Russia on July 16. Washington has repeatedly called on Moscow to reject Snowden’s request for asylum and send him back to the United States to stand trial on charges of espionage and theft. – Voice of Russia, RIA, RT, Express Tribune, TASS, Scoop
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For the first time in nearly 40 years, a majority of Americans believe the United States is less important around the world and that it should mind its own business, a stunning rejection of President Obama’s foreign policy just four years after he received the Nobel Prize.
