12 March 2015 Last updated at 08:26
Ferguson police shot during protest
Two police officers have been shot in Ferguson, a Missouri town hit by riots over the killing of an unarmed black teenager last year.
One officer was shot in the face and one in the shoulder, St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said.
Both suffered "very serious gunshot injuries" but were conscious, he said.
They were shot during a demonstration after the resignation of Ferguson's police chief, which followed a report alleging racial bias in his department.
Protesters had gathered outside Ferguson police headquarters late on Wednesday, in what was initially a relatively low-key demonstration.
But shortly after midnight at least three shots were fired as the crowd of protesters was starting to break up, Mr Belmar said.
He said he was assuming that "these shots were directed exactly at my police officers", rather than the officers being hit by stray bullets.
Jean-Claude Juncker call for a European army has much to do with optics
The idea of a European common defence is likely to gain short shrift
Jean-Claude Juncker’s call in a German weekend interview for a European army re-ignites a debate that has existed since the very beginnings of the European Union.
With memories of the second World War still fresh, the idea of a European army was central to the vision of Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet in the early 1950s when the European Coal and Steel Community was established. But plans for a European Defence Community were vetoed by France. Instead, European countries nestled under the protective wing of Nato, as the transatlantic alliance became the dominant guarantor of European collective defence in the Cold War era.
As the EU has expanded and developed, the question of a European army has reared its head at various points, not least during the various Irish referendums on EU treaty change. The prospect of Irish troops being sent to fight for Europe has been a reliable tool in the arsenal of “No” campaigners, from Maastricht to Lisbon.
Acquittals in China fall, top court says
Figures released by China's Supreme People's Court show a drop in the number of defendants found innocent in 2014 compared to the year before. A judge has called for lessons to be learned from miscarriages of justice.
China's courts had a conviction rate of 99.93 percent in 2014, with just 778 criminal defendants being declared innocent from more than a million accused, a report released by the Supreme People's Court showed on Thursday.
In his report to the annual session of the National People's Congress, chief justice Zhou Qiang said 1,317 cases had been revised, with "a number" of wrongful sentences corrected.
One case saw a teenager from the Inner Mongolia region exonerated 18 years after he was executed for the murder and rape of a woman.
"With regard to miscarriages of justice, we deeply reprove ourselves and demand that courts at all levels draw profound lessons and further strengthen the effective prevention of unjust and false cases," Zhou said, adding that courts must "leave no hiding places for judicial corruption."
Zhou's report for 2013 showed 825 acquittals and 1.158 million convictions.
Syrian rebels' march on Damascus becomes fight for their survival (+video)
A months-long campaign by the Free Syrian Army, the largest rebel group in the south, has collided with an Iranian-backed counteroffensive in support of the Assad regime.
AMMAN — With the Syrian crisis entering its fifth year, a months-long campaign by the largest antigovernment militia in the south to march on Damascus and turn the tide of the war has become a bitter fight for its very survival.
The Free Syrian Army (FSA), once seen as a natural US ally for toppling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, is locked in a showdown with an alliance of government forces, Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, and Iranian-commanded Shiite militias.
The battle is being waged in an area south of Damascus and east of the Israeli-held Golan Heights, a theater that had been the quietest in the Syrian conflict. The stakes are high for all sides, ranging from the Assad regime’s stable hold on the capital to the viability of the FSA at a time when the US is struggling to find pro-Western rebels in Syria to arm and train – and keep them from joining jihadist factions that increasingly have the upper hand in the war.
Middle East
Mar 12, '15
|
Libya, ISIS and the unaffordable
luxury of hindsight
By Ahmad Barqawi
"Who are you?" the late Muammar Gaddafi once rhetorically asked in a famous speech of his towards the end of his reign; (rightly) questioning the legitimacy of those seeking to overthrow his government at the time, calling them extremists, foreign agents, rats and drug-addicts.
He was laughed at, unfairly caricatured, ridiculed and incessantly demonized; a distasteful parody video poking fun at the late Libyan leader even went viral on social media; evidently the maker of the video, an Israeli, thought the Libyan colloquial Arabic word Zenga (which means an alleyway) sounded funny enough that he extracted it from one of Gaddafi’s speeches, looped it on top of a hip-hop backing track and voila …, he got himself a hit video that was widely (and shamefully) circulated with a "revolutionary" zeal in the Arab world. We shared, we laughed, he died.
luxury of hindsight
By Ahmad Barqawi
"Who are you?" the late Muammar Gaddafi once rhetorically asked in a famous speech of his towards the end of his reign; (rightly) questioning the legitimacy of those seeking to overthrow his government at the time, calling them extremists, foreign agents, rats and drug-addicts.
He was laughed at, unfairly caricatured, ridiculed and incessantly demonized; a distasteful parody video poking fun at the late Libyan leader even went viral on social media; evidently the maker of the video, an Israeli, thought the Libyan colloquial Arabic word Zenga (which means an alleyway) sounded funny enough that he extracted it from one of Gaddafi’s speeches, looped it on top of a hip-hop backing track and voila …, he got himself a hit video that was widely (and shamefully) circulated with a "revolutionary" zeal in the Arab world. We shared, we laughed, he died.
But the bloody joke is on all of us; Gaddafi knew what he was talking about. Right from the get-go, he accused the so-called Libyan rebels of being influenced by al-Qaeda ideology and Bin Laden’s school of thought; no one had taken his word for it of course, not even a little bit.
Pupils Speak Out: 'They called us the 'K' word and told us to go back to the township'
Philippi High School pupils give their account of events on March 6, when police with stun grenades repelled them from the WC education department.
The article you are about to read is part of a weekly series of comment pieces written by South African pupils about the problems they encounter in their schools. The series offers pupils a chance to be part of the debate about South Africa’s education system.
This is a statement of what actually happened on March 6 at the Western Cape Education Department, and events since.
On the morning of March 6 2015, we, as the Philippi High pupils, decided that each pupil will go the Western Cape Department of Education (WCDE) for each of us to ask and get answers themselves.
When we arrived at the Cape Town Central Train Station, the South African Police Service (SAPS) were already there waiting for us. They asked to speak to our leaders; we told them we don’t have any. They then asked who is in charge, why we were there and where we were going.
We told them that our entire school is made up of shipping containers and that we are going to ask for ourselves from the WCDE when are they planning on building a proper school for Phillippi High.
No comments:
Post a Comment