Volunteers for Planetary Climate Action (VPCA) – October 11, 2014
REQUIEM FOR MIKE BROWN
This past Saturday night, activists from organizations sponsoring #FergusonOctober took over the St. Louis Symphony to draw attention to the movement for Justice for Mike Brown and emphasize that Black Lives Matter.
The goal of the action was to make the comfortable, uncomfortable. During an intermission, they broke into song. Check out the video here.
The conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, Kenneth Woods, commented on the action:
“One friend of mine questioned whether staging a protest on private property was fair to the hall, the orchestra and the audience. I’m not sure I agree. If the concert hall can’t be the center of civic life, a hub for intellectual discussion, a place to share ideas, a place we can mourn, cry, scream, love and heal together, we may as well burn every concert hall to the ground. When we value genteel niceties and professional convenience over the existential questions of right and wrong, life and death, we, as artists, have probably made ourselves completely irrelevant.”
Free Community Yoga Class
October 11 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am
Join us for a relaxing, restorative yoga practice, perfect for first timers and yogis of all kinds at EarthDance Organic Farm School Sundays at 10 am.
Bring water and a mat (or beach towel).
If anyone is willing to show up to the farm’s neighborhood (in Ferguson) 30 min. to an hr ahead of the class to invite neighbors to participate in this free community yoga class, that would be amazing. (And quite the karma yoga.)
Let the healing begin!
www.facebook.com/earthdancefarms
www.twitter.com/earthdancefarms
#MoralMonday Civil Disobedience
October 13 @ 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Residents Run St Louis Police out of Their Neighborhood
WARNING : Vulgar language directed at police.
St. Louis protesters clash with police ahead of ‘Weekend of Resistance’
Activists against police brutality are calling for support in St. Louis for an upcoming “Weekend of Resistance.” Protests in the city reignited following the killing Wednesday of an African American teen by a white police officer.
Following the death of Vonderrick Myers Jr., in which a police officer allegedly shot the 18-year old black teenager 17 times, a wave of clashes has erupted between law enforcement and protesters in the city for two consecutive nights, with hundreds of protesters taking to the streets.
Though these new protests have not been as violent as in nearby Ferguson in August, in which local resident 18 year-old Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer, the St Louis unrest also resulted in several damaged police vehicles, protesters getting pepper sprayed and even the burning of an American flag by a group of demonstrators.
Protesters chanted “No justice, no peace!” while police, armed with riot equipment, threatened to arrest those who refused to disperse from Tower Grove Park, where protesters gathered Thursday evening.
Ferguson October National Mobilization begins with ‘Weekend of Resistance’
Activists are planning to step up protests over the weekend, preparing four days of protest marches and rallies against police abuse with thousands of participants.
One march is set to start in St. Louis at 3:00 pm Friday, and is expected to last for at least two hours.
“To kick off our Weekend of Resistance, we will march on Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch’s office to demand Justice for Mike Brown. In order to get that, he needs to step aside,” the Ferguson October website said. The online resource was created to direct Ferguson October National Mobilization protest activities.
A larger event is planned for Saturday, October 11, under the slogan, “Justice for All: National March and Rally.”
“Thousands of people from Ferguson, St Louis and the nation will come together and show our strength as we stand united against police violence, both here in Ferguson and across the country,” the Ferguson October website declares.
Thousands of Americans have already registered on the website and many intend to come to St Louis from as far afield as Los Angeles and New York to join the protesters.
Ferguson October also calls on supporters to sign a petition demanding that “the federal government… implement critical reforms to end abusive, militarized, and biased policing targeting of black and brown communities.”
Myers’ killing occurred when an off-duty white police officer killed the 18-year-old teen in the after what police claim was a series of shots fired at the police officer involved. Myers’ relatives insist he was unarmed, however.
Exactly two months earlier, on August 9, the shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown in Ferguson sparked violent protests that lasted for weeks.
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles revealed that the local police are preparing to deal with large crowds and possible violence this weekend.
“There are a lot of people coming into town,” the mayor said. “We are going to be prepared. There is intel out there that there are people wanting to do bad things. And people who want to cause a problem are going to use that [the shooting on Wednesday] as a rallying cry,” Knowles said, Reuters reported.
‘Terror on American soil’: #FergusonOctober stages 4-day rally as shooting anger rages
Protests in the suburbs of St. Louis kicked off a weekend-long series of rallies against racial law enforcement profiling that has left two black teenagers dead. Activists confronted police decked out in paramilitary gear, but the night ended peacefully.
Locals dominated the crowds, but people from around the country joined the vigil held in honor of Michael Brown, who was shot dead by a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on Aug 9. The vigil was held on West Florissant Avenue, where protesters gathered 60 days ago to demonstrate.
The death of the two teenagers has sparked a dialogue on racial tensions in the city and the institutions and power that enable such tragedies to occur with such frequency.
At Friday night’s demonstrations, a group of protesters took over the Ferguson Police Department parking lot. Protesters held up a mirrored casket in front of the line of police officers.
“Who do you serve? Who do you protect?” the protesters screamed, as many onlookers recorded the events for social media around the world to see.
Policed blocked radio communication and transmission from the public, in order to “ensure the safety of the 1,300 officers of this department, as well as the citizens we serve,” St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said.
The channels will be blocked to the public for the duration of the protests, police said.
“A public slaying so gruesome it harkened images of the lynchings from the most heinous moments in history, for young and old to see,” the announcement says.
Ferguson Protestor Open Letter 10.7.14 by dmckesso
By half past midnight, the protests in Ferguson had calmed down, with many participants heading home to and others heading to neighboring Shaw, to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech rights.
Brown’s killing on August 9 triggered weeks of civil unrest in the district of St. Louis, which has a mainly black population, while its police department and city leadership is mostly white. Police resorted to using tear gas and rubber bullets to control the August crowds.
Protestors will gather again Saturday morning at 10 am in a “Justice for All” march and rally, to be held in downtown St. Louis.
In other words, high levels of methane (above 1950 ppb, colored yellow) could be present over a much larger part of the Arctic Ocean, while methane in these grey areas could be even higher than the measured peak level of 2456 ppb.
This appears to be confirmed by persistent high methane levels over vast areas across the Arctic Ocean both in the morning (top part of the image further above) and in the afternoon (bottom part of image) on 9 October 2014.
Methane levels are this high over the Arctic Ocean for the number of reasons, including:
- The Gulf Stream keeps pushing warm water into the Arctic Ocean.
- The resulting eruptions of methane from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean constitute a feedback that accelerates warming in the Arctic.
- As the Arctic warms up more rapidly than the rest of Earth, the Arctic’s ice and snow cover will decline, further accelerating warming in the Arctic.
- As the Arctic warms up more rapidly than the rest of Earth, the speed at which jet streams circumnavigates the Northern Hemisphere will weaken, making it meander more, resulting in a greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires. Here’s an example of intense warming. Look at what is currently happening on Greenland.
Furthermore, high cloud cover over the Arctic (image further above) makes it hard for the heat there to radiate out into space, further contributing to high temperature anomalies.
The image on the right shows high temperature anomalies over Greenland and parts of the Arctic Ocean on October 11, 2014. Note that anomalies are averaged out over the course of the day (and night).
The image below (right) shows anomalies at the top end of the scale hitting large parts of Greenland at a specific time during this day. The left part of the image below shows how this could happen, i.e. jet streams curling around Greenland trapping warm air inflow from the North Atlantic.
As Paul Beckwith warns in an earlier post, melt rates on Greenland have doubled in the last 4 to 5 years, and melt rates on the Antarctica Peninsula have increased even faster. Based on the last several decades, melt rates have had a doubling period of around 7 years or so. If this trend continues, we can expect a sea level rise approaching 7 meters by 2070.
| From: More than 2.5 m sea level rise by 2040 |
These are all indications that the pace of climate change is accelerating in many ways, the most dangerous one being ever larger methane eruptions from the Arctic Ocean’s seafloor. As the image below shows, sea surface temperature anomalies are very high in the Arctic Ocean, indicating very high temperatures under the surface.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry recently said: “There are now – right now – serious food shortages taking place in places like Central America because regions are battling the worst droughts in decades, not 100-year events in terms of floods, in terms of fires, in terms of droughts – 500-year events, something unheard of in our measurement of weather.” Warning about looming catastrophe, Kerry adds: “Life as you know it on Earth ends. Seven degrees increase Fahrenheit (3.9°C), and we can’t sustain crops, water, life under those circumstances.”
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by JENNIFER NEWTON | HENRILERICHE.COM | OCTOBER 10, 2014
If the Brazilian case is confirmed, it would mean the disease has spread to South America for the first time.
The suspected patient is a 47-year-old man from Guinea, one of the African countries that has been ravaged by the disease.
He has been described in local media as a missionary and he was taken in an air force plane from the southern state of Parana to the National Infectious Disease Institute in Rio de Janeiro on Friday morning.
It came after he arrived at a health centre in the town of Cascavel with a fever the previous afternoon.
The man is thought to have arrived in Brazil from Africa on September 19 from the Guinean capital Conakry after flying to Argentina, with a layover in Morocco, then travelled overland to Brazil, seeking refugee status.
The 47-year-old man, originally from Guinea will be taken to the Brazilian National Infectious Diseases Institute in Rio.
The health ministry said that as of Thursday night, “the patient had a moderate fever and did not present hemorrhaging, vomiting or any other symptom.”
But because the suspected contamination was 21 days ago – within the incubation period for Ebola – health officials immediately activated security plans and put him in quarantine.
The patients who were in the clinic with have also been isolated and the site disinfected, said radio network CBN.
It is thought he is suffering from symptoms similar to those of Ebola and is being moved to Rio de Janeiro for treatment.
It is not yet confirmed if he has Ebola.
Meanwhile French medics have established that an unnamed woman in Paris has tested negative for Ebola.
The Bichat Hospital in Paris where an unnamed woman has been placed in sterilised isolation after fears she may have Ebola. She eventually tested negative for Ebola
It comes as the British government ordered airports and Eurostar terminals to quiz passengers arriving from West Africa in an attempt to prevent Ebola entering the UK.
But experts have told MailOnline ‘shutting borders will not stop Ebola’, as leading experts say the key to tackling the vicious virus is ‘rooting it out’ at the source, in West Africa.
The woman had been undergoing tests at the Bichat Hospital and had been placed in a sterilised isolation room.
Passengers arrive at Heathrow Airport with one wearing a face mask as increased screening for Ebola begins. The checks will be carried out at Heathrow, Gatwick and Eurostar terminals
But France’s health minister Marisol Touraine today said that tests on a suspected Ebola sufferer had proved negative.
The unnamed female American patient had been travelling in Africa, said Ms Touraine, but she was not suffering from the fatal disease.
‘There have been no cases of Ebola in France, and this remains the case,’ added Ms Touraine.
The new suspected cases come after authorities in Taiwan also tested a Nigerian woman for Ebola after she was showing symptoms of the fatal virus after arriving at an airport in the country.
However, it was revealed earlier today that she tested negative Ebola and reportedly had a history of malaria.
The condition of Spanish nurse, Teresa Romero, the first to have contracted Ebola outside Africa has remained stable
Meanwhile, the condition of a Spanish nurse with Ebola today remained stable as she lay gravely ill in a Madrid hospital.
Teresa Romero, 44, is the first person to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa, after becoming infected by a Spanish priest repatriated from Africa with the disease as she treated him at the Carlos III Hospital.
Yesterday seven people turned themselves in to an Ebola isolation unit in Madrid, where Mrs Romero is being cared for.
The seven new admissions included two hairdressers who had given her a beauty treatment before she was diagnosed with Ebola, and hospital staff who had treated the 44-year-old nurse
Doctors wearing protective suits can be seen inside the Carlos III hospital in Madrid, where Mrs Romero is being treated
A sanitation worker wearing protective clothing begins to disinfect the apartment building where the Spanish nurse was staying before she tested positive for the virus
A hospital spokeswoman said there were now 14 people in the isolation unit on its sealed-off sixth floor, including Romero, her husband, and health workers who had cared for Romero since she was admitted on Monday.
Spanish labour unions accused the government of seeking to deflect the blame onto Mrs Romero for the failings of its health system, after the European Union asked Spain to explain how the virus could have been spread on a high-security ward.
The top regional health official in Madrid, Javier Rodriguez, has said Mrs Romero took too long to admit she had made a mistake by touching her face with the glove of her protective suit while taking it off.
In a radio interview he said: ‘She has taken days to recognise that she may have made a mistake when taking off the suit. If she had said it earlier, it would have saved a lot of work.
But the nurse’s brother Jose Ramon told the newspaper El Pais: ‘They will find any way to blame her. Basically, my sister did her job … and she has become infected with Ebola.’
The British government have ordered airports to quiz passengers arriving from West Africa in an attempt to prevent Ebola entering the UK. Pictured, a health agent checks the temperature of a passenger leaving Liberia at the Roberts International Airport near Monrovia
The Ebola virus causes fever, vomiting and diarrhoea and sometimes internal bleeding, and is spread through direct contact with body fluids. About half of those infected in West Africa have died.
The World Health Organisation say around 3,600 people have died from the infection during the current outbreak.
But experts have warned that shutting borders will not stop Ebola from spreading.
Dr Ben Neuman, a virologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: ‘Shutting borders will not stop Ebola, you have to root it out.’
He added: ‘The longer this goes on the more likely it is we may see a case in the UK.
‘But the UK deals with things like this effectively, they (the authorities) handle it.
‘They are ready enough and have the capacity. There are a lot of doctors and nurses here who have been out there (to West Africa) with Doctors Without Borders, and so who have Ebola experience, which is invaluable.’
It comes just hours after Michael Fallon appealed for calm over threat of virus reaching the UK. Pictured are Liberian Red Cross burial volunteers praying before collecting the body of an Ebola victim.
Meanwhile Professor Robert Dingwall, a specialist in health policy responses to infectious diseases at Nottingham Trent University accused the US of ‘gesture politics’, by introducing temperature screening at five airports.
He told MailOnline: ‘Controls are costly to enforce, inconvenience people and disrupt economic activity while having little or no impact on the spread of infections.’
Experts say the most effective method of tackling the outbreak is to direct resources and funds to fighting the disease in West Africa, welcoming news the UK has vowed to deploy 750 soldiers and a medical warship to Sierra Leone.
With Ebola cases already seen in Spain and the US, ministers have admitted it is ‘entirely possible’ the deadly virus will enter the UK ‘by one route or another’.
Airport screening of people leaving airports in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea has been in place for several weeks.
Up to 750 British troops are being sent to Sierra Leone, where volunteers have been pictured picking up the bodes of Ebola victims
Health experts have pleaded that anyone with symptoms do not visit their GP or A&E for fear of spreading the disease
Official figures from the US Centre for Disease Control found in the last two months since exit screening began in three countries, 77 people from 36,000 screened were denied boarding a flight over health concerns.
None of the 77 passengers were diagnosed with Ebola, though many were diagnosed as having malaria.
Professor Dingwall said screening is ineffective because ‘many diseases have a fairly lengthy incubation period and the infection cannot be passed on until the symptoms appear’.
He told MailOnline: ‘In this case, Ebola has an incubation period of up to 21 days.
***
Texas Ebola Outbreak Results in Forced Quarantine, Blood Draws or Arrest
The United States has taken action in light of the recent Ebola outbreak in Dallas, appearing to want to keep the issue isolated. The U.S. government has forced quarantine and blood draws from the family in Dallas where a member was found to have the virus. They face arrest if they don’t comply.
My question is – if the government was so keen on keeping this ‘virus’ (biowarfare) in control, why didn’t they restrict travel from countries where it is running rampant? Why have they not informed hospitals of the possible dangers? Why was this man, who sought medical attention, turned loose to possibly contaminate hundreds more people before the government then decided to use militia tactics for lock down?
Government-mandated medical procedures of any kind is a very slippery slope to go sliding down. If they will do this to a family in Dallas, they will do it to anyone ‘suspected’ of having Ebola.
“The state of Texas and Dallas County health officials have ordered four close family members of a Dallas Ebola patient to stay home and not have visitors to prevent spreading the deadly disease,” the Dallas affiliate of CBS reported. “If ignored, a violation could result in criminal charges.”
Would you be ready to face a 21-day forced quarantine, as this family is being asked to comply with? Do you have enough food, water, and other necessities to stay in your own home as if it were a prison? How about being ordered to give blood on command? How does that sit with you?
According to Texas state authorities, “The family members must also be available to provide blood samples, agree to any testing by public health officials, and immediately report any symptoms to Dallas County Health and Human Services,” reports CBS News.
If this outbreak spreads to other cities – it would be very easy for our government to do exactly what they did after 911 – take away all of our rights. Will you let them?
One family may not seem like a big deal –and of course, other Dallas residents don’t want to contract Ebola, but what happens if there are suddenly 500 cases? Does that mean the government will force everyone to stay inside for weeks at a time – an entire city quarantined?
What then – when there aren’t enough police or ‘authorities’ to monitor those who are infected. The word FEMA comes to mind for some, even though they will likely be called “Community Health Centers” or something lovely sounding.
The same thing has already happened in Liberia.
I suggest preparing in advance, and just being prepared for the worst-case scenario, and pray for the best case. Have enough water and freeze-dried or storable health foods for 21 days minimum and learn about how to defend your health during a pandemic – (whether real or created)
Cuba Warns of Serious Dangers Facing Humanity at the United Nations
UNITED NATIONS.— Cuba yesterday [Oct. 7th] warned of the serious dangers threatening the existence of the human species at the United Nations General Assembly, and called for commitments to address them.
“Humanity is literally facing life and death,” the Cuban Ambassador to the UN, Rodolfo Reyes, said during a plenary of the Assembly devoted to discussing the report of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the work of the organization, according to PL.
The Caribbean diplomat noted that nearly 70 years following the creation of the United Nations, the planet and its 7.2 billion people are at the mercy of nuclear weapons, climate change, severe and rapiding spreading epidemics and the attacks on sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.
Nothing can justify that 25 years after the declaration of the end of the Cold War we continue to be threatened by more than 16,000 nuclear weapons, a quarter of which are ready for immediate use, he stated, according to PL.
Reyes ratified the position of the island that the only way to rid humanity of this danger is the total prohibition and elimination of these lethal devices, whose devastating impacts were felt by the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese cities which the United States dropped atomic bombs on in 1945.
He noted that many member states have proposed to agree on a comprehensive convention on nuclear weapons, to prohibit their possession, development, production, testing, storage and transfer, as well as their use or the threat of using them.
We urge the Secretary General to contribute with his influence to the beginning of negotiations for such an agreement, he said.
The representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed the unfavourable scenario created by climate change, resulting in the decline of the ice caps, rising temperatures, the gradual rise in sea levels and ocean acidification.
The keys causes of the global environmental crisis are the irrational and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption imposed by capitalism, he said. (PL)
Video of the Day – NYPD Officer Steals Brooklyn Man’s Money, Then Pepper Sprays Him
Earlier this week, I highlighted the growing practice of police stealing American citizens’ hard earned cash with reckless abandon via the shady practice known as “civil asset forfeiture” in the extremely popular post: “Common People Do Not Carry This Much U.S. Currency…” – This is How Police Justify Stealing American Citizens’ Money.
While that post focused on how cops confiscate cash from motorists on the road, it appears the NYPD prefers to do its work on street corners. Like what happened to Lamard Joye in Coney Island, Brooklyn last month. The New York Daily News reports that:
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office is investigating allegations that an NYPD cop swiped more than $1,000 from a man during a stop-and-frisk, then pepper-sprayed him and his sister when they complained, the Daily News has learned.
The encounter was captured on a cell phone video, which has been turned over to prosecutors and the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau.
“One of the most disturbing things about the video is the other cops standing around watching and doing nothing to stop the wrongdoing,” lawyer Robert Marinelli said Wednesday.
“I believe that this officer made an assumption that any money Mr. Joye possessed was obtained illegally and therefore he would not report the theft. This assumption was wrong. Mr. Joye is a hardworking taxpayer deserving respect,” said Marinelli.
What precipitated the Coney Island incident, and is not recorded on the video, according to Marinelli, were cops roughing up a young man named Terrell Haskins nearby, prompting Joye and his friends to shout, “Is that necessary?”
A group of cops confront Joye, whose arms are outstretched as he says to onlookers, “You see this?”
The cop appears to reach into Joye’s pocket and pull out a thick wad of cash.
“Gimme my money!” Joye shouts, before the cop squirts him in the face with the spray.
Joye darts off and his sister begins arguing with the cop. An onlooker is heard yelling, “How ya gonna take his money?” “That’s robbery” and “Get his badge number.”
“I went to get his badge number and name,” Lateefah Joye told The News. “I leaned over to see his badge. He pushed me away. I saw a two and a one and that’s when he pepper-sprayed me in my mouth and my whole face.”
Now here’s the video:
That’s what neo-feudalism looks like.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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http://rt.com/news/194864-madrid-university-ukraine-nationalists/
‘Fascists, get out!’ Spanish students eject protesting Ukraine nationalists (VIDEO)
Students at the Complutense University of Madrid kicked out several radical Ukrainians who stormed into a lecture, trying to provoke a fight. Posters reading, ‘Ukraine besieged by fascism will not happen,’ appeared in campus halls after the incident.
The university faculty of political sciences and sociology is currently hosting an exhibition titled, “Humanitarian crisis in southeastern Ukraine and its consequences for Europe,” which features photographs from Odessa, and the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. The display is part of a series of lectures and roundtables on the situation in Ukraine.
While students were gathering for one of the discussions, on the subject of the May 2 Odessa massacre, that left nearly 50 anti-government activists dead, several radicals carrying Ukrainian flags and banners of some of the country’s nationalist parties stormed into the hall, not letting professors begin the lecture.
The skirmish was filmed and posted on YouTube.
According to Spanish newspaper La Republica, the protest was carried out by a group of supporters of the neo-Nazi Svoboda (Freedom) party. Chanting the name of Stepan Bandera, leader of Ukrainian nationalist movement during World War 2, the protesters threatened and assaulted several students who had gathered to remember the victims of the events in Odessa.
“At first professors asked them to leave the room, but they wouldn’t do so, saying they would not let the lecture begin. Students were outraged by that and started shouting ‘Fascists, get out of here!’ Almost half the faculty got involved,” one of the exhibition’s organizers, Sergey Markhel, told RIA Novosti news agency.
After the fight’s instigators were kicked off of the campus, students put up posters against fascism in Ukraine.
Leaving the university premises, still waving Ukrainian flags, the offenders were seen by a van with the registration of the Diplomatic Corps of the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, La Republica reported.
The event was attended by a representative of the Ukrainian Embassy, the embassy confirmed to RIA Novosti.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to Spain has later met with the university rector, expressing his “deep concern” and asking him to cancel Ukraine-related conferences, which he claimed were being “used by Russian propaganda agents to give false information,” El Pais reported.
The conference on the Ukrainian crisis is scheduled to run at the Complutense University until October 23.
Reuters investigation exposes ‘serious flaws’ in Maidan massacre probe
A Reuters examination of Ukraine’s probes into February’s Maidan shootings, which left over 100 dead and nearly a thousand injured, uncovered ‘serious flaws’ in the case against Berkut officers, arrested by the country’s officials.
The research, carried out by journalists, is based on interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, protesters, police officers and legal experts. It studies the case of officers from an elite riot police unit – Berkut – who have been arrested as Maidan sniper shooting suspects.
From a sea of flags to rivers of blood: How Kiev’s peaceful protests turned into Maidan mayhem
A 38 years-old unit commander Dmitry Sadovnik was detained in April and accused of ordering his men to fire at the crowd of protesters in Kiev on February 20. Two younger officers, Sergey Zinchenko and Pavel Abroskin were also arrested. The three men are charged with a massacre of 39 unarmed protesters.
Among what has been unveiled in the Sadovnik case is a photograph, allegedly showing him near the crime scene, wearing a mask and holding a rifle with two hands, “his fingers clearly visible,” the report says.
But, as Reuters points out, the man has only one hand, as his other one was blown off by a grenade in a training accident six years ago. Sadovnik demonstrated his stump at a courtroom. “He can’t really shoot, to blame him for the crime is a political game,” Sergey Vilkov, Sadovnik’s lawyer said, as quoted by Reuters.
Another gap in the investigation, according to the research, is the fact that “no one has been apprehended in the shooting of policemen,” although, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Interior Affairs, almost 200 police officers were injured with gunshots and 13 died between February 18 and 20. But the prosecutors “represent the whole picture as a peaceful protest,” Reuters quotes Sadovnik having told a judge at a hearing.
In April, ex-Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko said Berkut riot police were targets and not shooters during the Maidan standoff. He added that a fair investigation of the tragic events in Kiev was impossible under the biased, coup-imposed government.
In September, Dmitry Sadovnik went missing after he was released from pre-trial detainment by the court and put under house arrest. According to the prosecutor’s statement, the suspect escaped “aiming to avoid punishment.” The journalistic investigation says the former unit commander “was being framed, and saw flight as his best option.” He called the case against him “a political lynching,” and in the days before he vanished, his family received death threats, Reuters reports, based on the suspect’s wife’s and lawyer’s statements.
Another two suspects remain in jail with no trial date set. All three face life imprisonment.
Several earlier reports stated that snipers who killed dozens of people during the violent unrest in Kiev in February operated from a building controlled by the protesters on Maidan square. The allegations have been confirmed by former chief of Ukraine’s Security Service Aleksandr Yakimenko.
According to a leaked phone conversation between the EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton and Estonian foreign affairs minister, which emerged online in March, the latter said that “there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovich, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” Estonian Foreign Ministry later confirmed authenticity of the leaked call.
Duma calls for international community to investigate Ukrainian atrocities
The Russian Lower House is calling on international organizations and national parliaments and governments to investigate crimes against civilians in south-east Ukraine, and to step up efforts to find a peaceful settlement in the region.
The motion was passed by 428 votes in favor with only one abstention.
The proposal draws special attention to the mass graves recently discovered near Donetsk. Russian MPs say that the bodies belong to victims of pro-Kiev forces, and are calling on the international community to give an unbiased assessment of the activities of those who committed the crimes against civilians, and those who gave orders in Kiev and financed the punitive units.
“The State Duma calls upon the UN, the OSCE, and the international community to hold an objective, independent and all-sided international investigation of the crimes that have caused numerous victims among the civilian population in the south-east of Ukraine,” the motion reads.
“All participants in criminal acts against the Ukrainian people must stand before a court and receive a well-deserved punishment,” it adds.
At the same time, Russian lawmakers asked legislative and executive bodies in foreign countries to step up their efforts to promote peace, and called for a broad international conference about modern threats and the role of parliamentary diplomacy in overcoming these threats.
The head of the Lower House Committee for relations with the CIS bloc, Leonid Slutsky, said in a speech that the situation in Ukraine remained exceptionally tense. “The international law is still being violated in Donbass, people continue to perish and more and more mass graves are being discovered. These graves are filled with bodies of people who gave their lives simply for the right to remain Russians, to bring up their children in a free and democratic country,” he said.
Slutsky also said that Russia had repeatedly drawn attention to numerous violations of human rights in Ukraine. “However, the political leaders of the Western nations refuse to see the objective picture of the current events and leave Russia’s requests without attention. Besides, the US and the EU are rendering political, financial and moral support to the Kiev regime since the moment of destabilization.”
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Bankocalypse drill: US and UK to run ‘too big to fail’ collapse simulation
The US and UK will stage a comprehensive simulation next week check whether the countries’ financial and banking sectors are still vulnerable to the problem of the ‘too big to fail’ institutions and coordinate their actions in case of such collapse.
Government financial leaders from Britain and US will simulate a failure of a large banking institution on Monday in Washington, DC, to test the effectiveness of each county’s banking regulations.
They hope the simulation – which will not mimic the collapse of any particular ‘too big to fail’ institution – will demonstrate what the officials have learned from the financial crisis about their respective roles, and how new practices should shield taxpayers from further bailouts. The simulation will run through procedures if a large UK bank with US operations failed, and those for a US bank with a British presence.
“We are going to make sure we can handle an institution that was previously regarded as too big to fail,” said UK chancellor, John Osborne, speaking to journalists at an International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington on Friday. “This demonstrates the distance we have come over the last few years to build resilience and learn the lessons of the financial crisis.”
Participating in the “war game” along with Chancellor Osborne will be US Treasury secretary Jack Lew, head of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, with senior officials from both countries.
“The purpose of the simulation was to make sure every player, including politicians, knew their own responsibilities and who needed to act, which creditors would take a hit, and how to communicate the authorities’ actions to the public,” Osborne told the Financial Times.
the only winning move is not to play RT @vgmac On Monday, US and UK regulators will “war game” a big bank failure. http://t.co/b7RWCsngYU
— Matthew Zeitlin (@MattZeitlin) October 10, 2014
It has been six years since the 2008 financial crisis when $700 billion in taxpayer dollars was used to shore up failing institutions, besides the cost of other bailout programs such as for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that totalled at least $135 billion more. The financial crisis led to mass unemployment, drastic cuts to US government social programs, and contributed to the economic downfall of several European states.
READ MORE: JPMorgan ‘agrees’ to tentative $13 billion penalty for role in 2008 financial crisis
Since then regulations have passed in the US – the Dodd Frank Act of 2010 that forced banks to have in place capital and to draw up plans of how they would go through an ordinary bankruptcy and which groups would be paid off first.
Next week’s simulation, the results of which are expected to be released to the public, is designed to reassure the taxpayers in both UK and the US that their money will not be misused next time when a large financial institution turns out to be not that big to fail.
READ MORE: Record global debt risks new crisis – Geneva report
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A CVS drugstore requested a friend’s phone number for a cash purchase. Has anyone else experienced something similar?So we were in Sonoma co. over the weekend and experienced something new. My husband went to CVS to buy a pair of sunglasses because he left his behind. He took them to the counter and pulled out cash. The cashier said she needed his phone number if he wanted to pay in cash! He said he didn’t have a phone. She said then she needed to have his CVS card. He said he didn’t have one. She asked did he want one and he told her no, he did not. He told her to call the manager to overide the sale. Somehow they managed the sale. I told him our next step is to probably make up a phone number. Have you heard this or experienced this yet? This was a first on our end.
M
Kirk MacKenzie
Subject: Democracy or Pathocracy
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:36:29 -0700Hey man! Good day to you. FYI all of my email systems are now working. First time in years. Thanks for sharing the “Psychopaths in Power” article. Here’s my statement on political psychopathy. I’m quite sure I’m the only pol who sees this as the primary political and psychological barrier to organizing what we must create for planetary survival.
News Links, October 11, 2014
German Government To Cut Its Own Economic Growth Forecasts
North American markets suffer worst week since 2012 as Dow erases gains for the year
CDC Could Quarantine US Citizens Who Refuse Ebola Screenings At American Airports
Here’s what will happen if you refuse an Ebola screening at a US airport
Saudi Arabia Unleashing ‘Systematic and Ruthless’ Repression Against Dissenters: Report
Clashes Erupt in Second Night of Protests Over St. Louis Police Shooting
Severe coal shortage at Indian power plants hits industries
New pipelines to cost Kashagan oil project up to $3.6 bln
## Infrastructure scavenging ##
Thieves steal copper as fast as it is installed
By studying the immune systems of plants, they’ve developed a technique that eliminates the need for chemicals.
If you garden or farm, this is a must-read. — RF
Mexico’s junk food tax hitting Pepsi, Coke sales
## Environment/health ##
State health commissioner granted quarantine power
Tiny Gasoline Drips Can Create Big Problems
At least 100,000 Snapchat photos hacked: Report
There have been a total of 589 data breaches recorded so far in 2014 by the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). About 76.7 million records have be exposed, including the breach of 56 million credit and debit card numbers at Home Depot Inc. (NYSE: HD), the largest breach ever recorded for a retail company.## Systemic breakdown/collapse/unsustainability ##
Nissan recalls 238,000 2013 Altima sedans on hood latch issue
Paul Krugman and the Limits of Hubris
## Japan ##
Japan pitches nuclear restart in tightly controlled townhalls
Air pollution in northern China worsens
Residents asked to repair potholes
Residents have been asked by a council to fill in potholes themselves in order to save money on road repairs.
The government has today hired three banks to help the UK become the first Western state to issue bonds in the Chinese currency renminbi. The Treasury has appointed HSBC, Standard Chartered and the state-owned Bank of China to run the sale. The new bonds will help to diversify the UK’s public reserves, which are currently held in US and Canadian dollars, euro and yen.
The Stronger Dollar = Stealth QE
U.S. Government Wants to Charge $1,500 to Take a Photo in Federal Wilderness Areas
Anyone recall how the war in Iraq would pay for itself? That was the US Defense Department estimate in 2003.
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