Day: July 20, 2014

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Israel News Palestine Politics

7 Nobel Peace Winners and 64 Public Figures Want International Arms Embargo on Israel

Sixty-four public figures, including seven Nobel Peace Prize winners, have called for an international arms embargo on Israel for its “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity” in Gaza. The statement came in a letter published in Britain’s The Guardian on Friday.

“Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression. Israel’s ability to launch such devastating attacks with impunity largely stems from the vast international military cooperation and trade that it maintains with complicit governments across the world,” read the statement.

“We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid,” the letter concluded.

Among the signators were Nobel peace laureates Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Jody Williams, Adolfo Peres Esquivel, Mairead Maguire and Rigoberto Menchu.

Also signing were academics Noam Chomsky and Rashid Khalidi, filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, musicians Roger Waters and Brian Eno, writers Alice Walker and Caryl Churchill, and journalists John Pilger and Chris Hedges. Two Israelis, academics Ilan Pappe and Nurit Peled, signed the letter as well.

h/t Haaretz

Categories
News Politics

The Republicans Idea of a Leader, Vladimir Putin, Is Pissing Off The World

Yes, the world is mounting pressure against Russia’s president Vladimir Putin since evidence suggests that Russian equipment shot down Malaysia Airline MH-17, killing 298 innocent people. But what do Republicans think of the man they call “a leader?”

Crickets…

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Russia provided the missile that Ukrainian rebels used to shoot down the Malaysian Air jetliner on July 17, killing 298 passengers and crew, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in television interviews.

“There’s a build-up of extraordinary circumstantial evidence,” Kerry said yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing.”

Putin confronts worldwide scorn just as the U.S. and its allies were trying to push him into a corner over the annexation of Crimea and his support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and Europe tightened sanctions last week, and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron told Putin on a call yesterday that the attack was “totally unacceptable,” his office said in a statement.

“Russia risks becoming a pariah state if it does not behave properly,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said yesterday in an interview on Sky News. “We now need to use the sense of outrage that is clear to get a further round of sanctions tightening against Russia.”

Categories
Featured News sexual assault

Florida Police Officer Accused of Having Sex With Underage Girl

And now our daily news from Florida.

A Florida police officer is accused of having sex with an underage girl he first met when she was 11 and he was assigned to her missing persons case.

Oldy Ochoa Jr., 48, a homicide detective who has been with the Miami Beach Police Department for 20 years, was charged with two counts of sexual battery Saturday for allegedly having sex with the girl in an unmarked police vehicle as he was taking her to her GED class, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

Ochoa first met the girl when he helped locate her six years ago when she had a missing persons case. While living with another family he petitioned the court to allow her to live with his family in December.

She stayed there for two months before running away, the newspaper reports.

The Pembroke Pines Police Department, which is investigating the case, could not make a copy of the arrest report available to the Daily News Sunday.

The victim told police Ochoa allegedly would hold her hand and kiss her while the two were sitting on a couch, the Sentinel reported.

The sexual assault occurred in an unmarked police car in February in an alley near the school where the girl was taking her GED classes, the newspaper reported. The pair also had sex in the car in a wooded area.

Ochoa is now at Broward County jail and his attorney told the newspaper he would not discuss the allegations.

The investigation was launched in March and Ochoa was relieved of his duties as an officer, the newspaper reported.

Miami Beach Police Chief Dan Oates issued a statement describing the situation as “a very sad day for our department” and they would take appropriate action regarding his employment when the criminal case concluded.

Categories
Arizona News

Court Rules – Arizona Man Cannot Be Executed Until Drug’s Origin is Known

Joseph Wood – (image source: AP/Arizona Department of Corrections)

The ruling came from The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday. Arizona is set to execute Joseph Wood on Wednesday, but as of now, that execution is on hold until the source of the drugs are revealed.

Joseph Wood, who killed his estranged girlfriend, Debra Dietz, and her father, Eugene Dietz, in Tucson in 1989, is scheduled to die July 23.

But his attorneys at the Federal Defender’s Office in Phoenix filed suit claiming he had a First Amendment right to know who supplied the drugs that will be used to kill him and the qualifications of the executioners who will carry it out.

Two of the judges in a panel of three sided with Wood; the third dissented.

At issue is a new drug combination that Arizona has turned to because it cannot obtain the drugs it normally uses for executions. That combination, and one of the drugs in particular, a Valium relative called Midazolam, has caused apparent “flawed executions,” as the court called them, in Ohio and Oklahoma.

Categories
Employment Politics weekly address

President’s Weekly Address – Giving Workers The Skills For Today’s Jobs And The Future

In his weekly address, President Obama spoke about the importance of educating and training today’s work force for the jobs of today and for the jobs of the future. Through his opportunity agenda, the President is focused on creating more jobs, educating more kids, and working to make sure hard work pays off with higher wages and better benefits.

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