Lev Tahor children on a bus leaving San Juan La Laguna.
Some 230 members of an Orthodox Jewish group have begun leaving a village in western Guatemala after a bitter row with the local indigenous community.
The Lev Tahor members were asked to leave San Juan La Laguna after meetings with elders of the Mayan community.
The elders accused the Jews of shunning the villagers and imposing their religion and customs.
Members of San Juan La Laguna's indigenous community.
The Lev Tahor had settled in the village six years ago as the group searched for religious freedom.
'Self-defence'
Over the last several days they were seen packing their belongings on lorries in preparations for the departure from the village, about 150km (90 miles) west of the capital Guatemala City.
"We are a people of peace and in order to avoid an incident we've already begun to leave," Lev Tahor member Misael Santos told the AFP news agency.
"We have a right to be there, but they threatened us with lynching if we don't leave," he added.
Lev Tahor members, who practise an austere form of Judaism, also complained that they received threats that water and electricity would be cut if they stayed on.
Meanwhile, the village elders said the Jewish members "wanted to impose their religion" and were undermining the Catholic faith that was predominant in San Juan La Laguna.
"We act in self-defence and to respect our rights as indigenous people. The (Guatemalan) constitution protects us because we need to conserve and preserve our culture," Miguel Vasquez, a spokesman for the elders council, said.
The Lev Tahor said it hoped to settle elsewhere in Guatemala.
Many of the Jewish group members had been living in the village for six years but some had arrived earlier this year from Canada after a row with the authorities.
Californian lawmakers passed a law on Thursday requiring universities to adopt "affirmative consent" language in their definitions of consensual sex, part of a nationwide drive to curb sexual assault on U.S. campuses.
The measure, passed unanimously by the California State Senate, has been called the "yes-means-yes" bill. It defines sexual consent between people as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity".
The bill states that silence and a lack of resistance do not signify consent and that drugs or alcohol do not excuse unwanted sexual activity.
Governor Jerry Brown must sign the bill into law by the end of September. If he does, it would mark the first time a U.S. state requires such language to be a central tenet of school sexual assault policies, said Claire Conlon, a spokeswoman for State Senator Kevin De Leon, who championed the legislation.
Opponents of the bill say it is politically over-reaching and could push universities into little charted legal waters.
The bill comes amid mounting pressure nationwide by lawmakers, activists and students on universities and colleges to curb sexual assaults on campuses and to reform investigations after allegations are made.
The White House has declared sex crimes to be "epidemic" on U.S. college campuses, with one in five students falling victim to sex assault during their college years.
Universities in California and beyond have already taken steps, including seeking to delineate whether consent has been given beyond 'no means no'.
Harvard University said last month it had created an office to investigate all claims of sexual harassment or sex assault, and that it would lower its evidentiary standard of proof in weighing the cases.
Under California's bill, state-funded colleges and universities must adopt strict policies regarding sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking, among other actions in order to receive financial aid money.
No college or university voiced opposition to the bill, Conlon said.
The U.S. Department of Education in May released a list of 55 colleges -- including three in California -- under investigation to determine whether their handling of sex assaults and harassment violated federal laws put in place to ensure equal treatment in higher education.
The Californian institutions on the list are University of California, Berkeley, Occidental College and the University of Southern California.
UN Peacekeeping Observer Force in the Golan Heights.
Picture From Ariel Schalit.
From the Associated Press
An armed group detained 43 U.N. peacekeepers during fighting in Syria early Thursday and another 81 peacekeepers are trapped, the United Nations said.
The peacekeepers were detained on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights during a "period of increased fighting between armed elements and the Syrian Arab Armed Forces," the office of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. It said another 81 peacekeepers are "currently being restricted to their positions in the vicinity of Ar Ruwayhinah and Burayqah."
The statement did not specify which armed group is holding the peacekeepers. Various Syrian rebel groups, including the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front, have been fighting the Syrian military near the Golan Heights. On Wednesday, opposition fighters captured a Golan Heights crossing point on the disputed border between Syria and Israel.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the 43 detained peacekeepers are from Fiji and are thought to be in the southern part of the area of separation. The 81 troops from the Philippines had their movements restricted.
"The situation is extremely fluid. Obviously, we are very concerned," Dujarric said.
"We are dealing with non-state armed actors," he said. "The command and control of these groups is unclear. We're not in a position to confirm who is holding whom. Some groups self-identified as being affiliated with al-Nusra, however, we are unable to confirm it."
The statement said the United Nations "is making every effort to secure the release of the detained peacekeepers," who are part of UNDOF, the mission that has been monitoring a 1974 disengagement accord between Syria and Israel after their 1973 war.
Philippines military spokesman Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala said in a statement later that Syrian rebels demanded that the Filipino troops surrender their firearms, but the soldiers refused.
"They did not surrender their firearms as they may in turn be held hostage themselves. This resulted in a stand-off which is still the prevailing situation at this time," Zagala said.
Israel captured part of the Golan in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. Syria retained the rest of the territory.
The Security Council condemned the detention of the 43 peacekeepers and the restriction of movement of the other 81 and called for their immediate release. A rapidly drafted press statement blamed "Security Council-designated terrorist groups" and "members of non-state armed groups."
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned the detainment of the U.N. detachment.
"This is a force that is responsible for peacekeeping around the world, and certainly we don't think they should be a target of these type of efforts," Psaki said.
In June, the U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the intense fighting between Syrian government and opposition fighters in the Golan Heights and demanded an end to all military activity in the area. Syrian mortars overshooting their target have repeatedly hit the Israeli-controlled Golan, and U.N. peacekeepers have been abducted.
Thursday's statement noted that UNDOF peacekeepers who were detained by armed forces in March and May were later safely released.
As of July, UNDOF has 1,223 troops from six countries: Fiji, India, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands and the Philippines.
But the Philippine government last week said it would bring home its 331 peacekeeping forces from the Golan Heights after their tour of duty ends in October, amid the deteriorating security in the region.
In June 2013, Austria said it was withdrawing its 377 U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights. Croatia also withdrew in 2013 amid fears its troops would be targeted.
In the past month, a spate of violent attacks in Tanzania targeting people with albinism for their body parts has highlighted a morbid practice linked to witchcraft.
People with albinism, also known as albinos, are born with a deficiency of melanin pigmentation. Those with a complete lack of pigmentation have extremely pale skin and hair, and their eyes are typically a light shade of blue. The condition generally results from recessive genes carried by parents. Albinism in Africa brings with it an increased chance of developing fatal skin cancer, and the lack of pigment to protect eyes against the bright sun can cause sight problems.
Africans with the condition can suffer alienating social stigma in communities where their neighbors and relatives believe them to be ghosts, cursed, or intellectually incapacitated. In some regions, they face a near-constant threat of violence.
UN officials and rights groups reported at least five assaults on albinos that occurred in Tanzania in less than two weeks in August.
On August 5, three men armed with machetes hacked a 15-year-old girl's right arm off below the elbow in the western region of Tabora. Her family was threatened with death and could not scream for help. Later that day, the assailants targeted her uncle, who also has albinism, though he was able to escape.
The three men were eventually arrested, including a local witch doctor who informed authorities that they had amputated her arm because buyers were willing to pay as much as $600 dollars for it.
On August 14, the mutilated body of a young albino man was found lying in a swampy area in the outskirts of Dar es Salam. Pictures of the victim shared on social media showed that a large patch of skin had been excised from his torso and a hole bored into his abdomen.
Two days later, a pair of men attacked a 35-year-old woman with albinism in a small village in Tabora. They killed her husband for attempting to defend her before severing the lower portion of her left arm and fleeing.
'The stigma and discrimination is mind-boggling.'
Though these acts of mutilation are widely abhorred and spiritual practices in the region vary greatly, in isolated areas with little access to medical information it is still believed that the body parts of people with albinism can impart mystical or magical benefits.
"In sub-Saharan Africa there's a significant belief in witchcraft, which often involves the use of body parts," Peter Ash, who heads the albinism-rights group Under the Same Sun, told VICE News. "That's been the case in the region for a long time, well before colonization. It's part of a deep-seated cultural, historical, and spiritual practice."
In parts of the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, UN officials have seen reports of gold miners using amulets made of the bones of albinos to enhance their luck, and of fishermen weaving their hair into nets to ensure a large catch.
Since 1998, Under the Same Sun has documented 332 attacks on people with albinism in 24 African countries, including 147 in Tanzania alone. Ash said that the reported figures are only a fraction of the assaults actually taking place across the continent. Most incidents occur in rural areas, where they sometimes go unreported and are rarely investigated.
In many parts of Africa, albinism occurs at higher rates than in much of the world. In Tanzania, one in 1,400 people have the disorder — roughly 35,000 people nationwide. Globally, the rate is generally one in 20,000.
With limbs regularly selling for hundreds of dollars and entire bodies reportedly costing up to $75,000 in a country where the median annual income is less than $600, there is a widespread assumption in Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa that members of the business and political elite are behind the demand. A rise in attacks has been documented in several countries ahead of elections, when candidates have reportedly employed witch doctors to increase their likelihood of victory.
"Witch doctors have long been influential in many communities, but now they're trying to make a buck, rather than just being elder and respected practitioners," Ash said. "Now they're entrepreneurs."
Though Tanzania — where 93 percent of Christians and Muslims say they believe in witchcraft, according to a 2010 Pew Research report — is often portrayed as the epicenter of this grisly phenomenon, much of that perception stems from the presence in the country of non-governmental organizations like Under the Same Sun, which has an office with 20 employees who can be dispatched to document crimes.
After a 2008 BBC report on the Tanzanian trade in body parts horrified the international community, activists began paying closer attention to the plight of albinos in the country. But while closer observation has seen a greater reporting of incidents in Tanzania, the same cannot be said of the rest of Africa, where freedom of the press is weak and rates of violence against albinos remains for the most part unknown.
Because neighbors and relatives are often involved in attacks on people with albinism, police face obstacles even when they are willing to investigate. Families often bury deceased albino relatives in unmarked graves out of fear that their body parts will be harvested even in death.
Amid the increase in attacks over recent years, Tanzania's government has increasingly housed children with albinism in schools created for children with disabilities — an ostensibly protective measure that has lately prompted concerns of segregation.
"When it was proposed, it was an emergency measure, but it has now become a long-term solution," Alicia Londono, a UN human rights official who recently returned from a visit to the country, told VICE News. "The conditions are very bad. Many of the children already have the early stages of skin cancer, and the staff is not trained to treat this disease."
More than half of these schools now house albino children. Londono described them as "dumping places" where families leave unwanted progeny, and noted that children in these facilities face a risk of sexual and physical abuse.
"They are rejected by their families and communities, they don't have access to health services or education," she said. "It's a vicious cycle of discrimination and poverty."
Ikponwosa Ero, a researcher from Nigeria who has albinism and works with Under the Same Sun, told VICE News that everyday life for children with the condition is immensely difficult.
"The stigma and discrimination is mind-boggling," she said. "Aside from physical attacks, the suffering that happens is beyond comprehension. The ejection from school, rejection from society. I wasn't allowed to step outside at night without a relative, and I was always aware that attacks by ritualists was a possibility."
Activists and UN officials believe that efforts to educate the public about albinism will help abate attacks on albinos and ensure that they have greater access to services and support — but Londono noted that it won't be easy.
"Everyone from authorities who I met to the driver of my taxi referred to beliefs that are attached to the condition, that they are subhuman beings," she said.
The US was "caught off guard" by air strikes against Islamist militia in Libya, a senior official has told the BBC.
The attacks on militia positions around Tripoli airport were reportedly carried out by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from bases in Egypt.
Egypt has denied any involvement and the UAE has not commented.
A militia alliance recently captured the capital's international airport after a battle lasting nearly a month.
The official told the BBC that the US had not been consulted about the air strikes and that it was concerned that US weapons may have been used, violating agreements under which they were sold.
The unidentified war planes attacked twice in the past week during a battle for Tripoli's airport between Islamist and nationalist militias.
A report in The New York Times on Monday said the UAE had provided the military aircraft, aerial refuelling planes and crews while Egypt gave access to its air bases.
On Monday, the US, France, Germany, Italy and the UK issued a joint statement denouncing "outside interference" in Libya which it said "exacerbates current divisions and undermines Libya's democratic transition".
Weak police and army
The BBC's Barbara Plett Usher in Washington says the air strikes have exposed another battleground in a regional struggle for power between Arab autocrats and Islamist movements.
Qatar has provided weapons and money to Islamist forces in Libya and elsewhere, she says, while Egypt and the UAE along with Saudi Arabia are trying to roll back Islamist advances.
Violence in Libya has surged recently between the rival groups who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi in the 2011 uprising.
Libya's police and army remain weak in comparison with the militias.
Over the weekend, Islamist-affiliated forces from Misrata and other cities took over Tripoli airport from the Zintan militia, which has held it for three years.
The airport, Libya's largest, has been closed for more than a month because of the fighting.
Hundreds of people have died since clashes broke out in Tripoli in July.
Rival parliaments
In another development on Monday, Libya's previous Islamist-dominated parliament reconvened and voted to disband the country's interim government.
Correspondents say it leaves Libya with two rival parliaments, each backed by armed factions.
Elections in June saw the old General National Congress (GNC), where Islamists had a strong voice, replaced by the House of Representatives, dominated by liberals and federalists.
The GNC, which reconvened in Tripoli on Monday, has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of its successor assembly, which is based in Tobruk.
The House of Representatives says the groups now in control of Tripoli airport are "terrorist organisations".
But the Misrata-led brigade, now in control of Tripoli airport, has called on the GNC to resume work.
Libya's government has repeatedly called for the militia groups to disband and join the national army. But so far, few have shown a willingness to disarm.
Bottled-water drinkers, we have a problem: There's a good chance that your water comes from California, a state experiencing the third-driest year on record.
The details of where and how bottling companies get their water are often quite murky, but generally speaking, bottled water falls into two categories. The first is "spring water," or groundwater that's collected, according to the EPA, "at the point where water flows naturally to the earth's surface or from a borehole that taps into the underground source." About 55 percent of bottled water in the United States is spring water, including Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead.
The other 45 percent comes from the municipal water supply, meaning that companies, including Aquafina and Dasani, simply treat tap water—the same stuff that comes out of your faucet at home—and bottle it up. (Weird, right?)
But regardless of whether companies bottle from springs or the tap, lots of them are using water in exactly the areas that need it most right now.
The map above shows the sources of water for four big-name companies that bottle in California. Aquafina and Dasani "sources" are the facilities where tap water is treated and bottled, whereas Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead "sources" refer to the springs themselves.
In the grand scheme of things, the amount of water used for bottling in California is only a tiny fraction of the amount of water used for food and beverage production—plenty of other bottled drinks use California's water, and a whopping 80 percent of the state's water supply goes toward agriculture. But still, the question remains: Why are Americans across the country drinking bottled water from drought-ridden California?
One reason is simply that California happens to be where some bottled water brands have set up shop. "You have to remember this is a 120-year-old brand," said Jane Lazgin, a representative for Arrowhead. "Some of these sources have long, long been associated with the brand." Lazgin acknowledges that, from an environmental perspective, "tap water is always the winner," but says that the company tries to manage its springs sustainably. The water inside the bottle isn't the only water that bottling companies require: Coca-Cola bottling plants, which produce Dasani, use 1.63 liters of water for every liter of beverage produced in California, according to Coca-Cola representative Dora Wong. "Our California facilities continue to seek ways to reduce overall water use," she wrote in an email.
Another reason we're drinking California's water: California happens to be the only Western state without groundwater regulation or management of major groundwater use. In other words, if you're a water company and you drill down and find water in California, it's all yours.
Then there's the aforementioned murkiness of the industry: Companies aren't required to publicly disclose exactly where their sources are or how much water each facility bottles. Peter Gleick, author of Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession With Bottled Water, says, "I don't think people have a clue—no one knows" where their bottled water comes from. (Fun facts he's discovered in his research: Everest water comes from Texas, Glacier Mountain comes from Ohio, and only about a third of Poland Springs water comes from the actual Poland Spring, in Maine.)
Despite the fact that almost all U.S. tap water is better regulated and monitored than bottled, and despite the hefty environmental footprint of the bottled water industry, perhaps the biggest reason that bottling companies are using water in drought zones is simply because we're still providing a demand for it: In 2012 in the United States alone, the industry produced about 10 billion gallons of bottled water, with sales revenues at $12 billion.
As Gleick wrote, "This industry has very successfully turned a public resource into a private commodity." And consumers—well, we're drinking it up.
Suspected Islamist Boko Haram fighters have abducted dozens of boys and men in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria, loading them onto trucks and driving them off, witnesses who fled the violence said on Friday.
The kidnappings come four months after Boko Haram, which is fighting to reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria, abducted more than 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok. They are still missing.
Several witnesses who fled after Sunday's raid on Doron Baga, a sandy fishing village near the shores of Lake Chad, said militants clothed in military and police uniforms had burned several houses and that 97 people were unaccounted for.
"They left no men or boys in the place; only young children, girls and women," said Halima Adamu, sobbing softly and looking exhausted after a 180 km (110 mile) road trip on the back of a truck to Maiduguri, capital of the northeastern state of Borno.
"They were shouting 'Allah Akbar' (God is greatest), shooting sporadically. There was confusion everywhere. They started parking our men and boys into their vehicles, threatening to shoot whoever disobey them. Everybody was scared."
They said six older men were also killed in Sunday's raid, while another five people were wounded.
Boko Haram, seen as the number one security threat to Africa's top economy and oil producer, has dramatically increased attacks on civilians in the past year, and the once-grassroots movement has rapidly lost popular support as it gets more bloodthirsty.
Its solution - kidnapping boys and forcing them to fight and abducting girls as sex slaves - is a chilling echo of Ugandan rebel Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, which has operated in the same way in Uganda, South Sudan and central Africa for decades.
DETERMINED FOE
The military did not respond to a request for comment. A security source said they were aware of the incident but were still investigating the details.
The kidnappers overpowered local vigilantes who had no support because this is no military presence there, the villagers said.
Talatu Abubakar, another villager who fled to Maiduguri, said the invaders had taunted the men for being unable to defend themselves.
"They were shouting 'Where is your pride? You people used to be warriors. Today you are all just women, not as brave as we thought'," he said.
He said that from his Hadeija clan alone, some 47 people were missing and feared to have been abducted.
The raid shows how mobile Boko Haram units can be.
After a military offensive in May last year broke their hold on the area around Lake Chad in the far northeast of Borno state, the rebels relocated to the south of the state, near the Cameroon border nearly 300 km (190 miles) away. Chibok, where the girls were taken from, is in this area.
Their re-appearance in the area demonstrates their ability to move across vast swathes of northeastern Nigeria without being intercepted by the military.
Nigerian forces are overstretched against a determined foe. In the past week they have fought gun battles with Boko Haram Islamists in two key towns in the south of Borno - Gwoza, the security sources said, and the garrison town of Damboa, which the militants sacked a month ago.
Aug. 6, 2014 photo the abandoned canoe/kayak venue is seen at the
former Helliniko Olympic complex in southern Athens.
(AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
By Nocholas Paphitis and
Theodora Tongas
From Associated Press
In an obscure corner of a park sits a forlorn reminder that, 10 years ago, Athens hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics. The crumbling miniature theater is inscribed with the words "glory, wealth, wisdom, victory, triumph, hero, labor" — and it is where visiting Olympic officials planted an olive sapling that would bear their names for posterity.
Once a symbol of pomp, the marble theater is now an emblem of pointless waste in a venture that left a mixed legacy: a brand-new subway, airport and other vital infrastructure that significantly improved everyday life in a city of 4 million, set against scores of decrepit sports venues built in a mad rush to meet deadlines — with little thought for post-Olympic use.
As Greece groans under a cruel economic depression, questions linger of whether the Athens Games were too ambitious an undertaking for a weak economy. While economists agree it would be unfair to blame the meltdown on the 17-day Games, the post-Olympic era is seen as a decade of lost opportunities — including failure to significantly boost the country's sporting culture. It's a lesson to which Brazil may pay heed, as it races to complete projects ahead of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
"We didn't take advantage of this dynamic that we got in 2004," said former Olympic weightlifting champion Pyrros Dimas, a Greek sporting hero turned Socialist member of Parliament. "We simply made the biggest mistake in our history: We switched off, locked up the stadiums, let them fall to pieces, and everything finished there."
"We spent a lot of money for some projects (that) are shut and rotting," said Dimas, who won his last Olympic medal in an Athens arena now reinvented as a lecture and conference venue. "There were projects that should have cost 2 and 3 million (euros) and suddenly became so big that they cost 13 and 14 million. There was no control."
The latest government estimate sets the final cost of the Games at 8.5 billion euros, double the original budget but a drop in the ocean of the country's subsequent 320 billion-euro debt, which spun out of control after 2008. Former organizing committee chief Gianna Angelopoulos has commissioned the first independent survey of the Olympics' overall economic effect. It will aim to weigh Olympic overspend and waste against a possible boost to the crucial tourism industry — arrivals have almost doubled since 2004, from 11.7 to 20.1 million — foreign investment and employment.
"The Olympics were very important in increasing the brand awareness ... of Greece," said economist Theodore Krintas, managing director of Attica Wealth Management. "But we did, very, very limited things on a follow-up basis."
Andrew Zimbalist, a U.S. economist who studies the financial impact of major sporting events, said past experience shows that hosting the Olympics does not generally promote economic development: "At the end of the day, the main benefit to be had seems to be a feel-good experience that the people in the host city or the host country have," said Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College. "But that's a fleeting experience, not something that endures.
"Why couldn't Athens have simply invested ... in development and transportation and communications and infrastructure, and not hosted the Olympics?"
The cost of hosting the Olympics and ensuring a city is not left with white elephants is a key issue facing the International Olympic Committee and new president Thomas Bach. Scared off by the record $51 billion price tag associated with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, several Western European cities declining to bid or dropped out of the race for the 2022 Winter Games.
Reducing the cost and focusing on long-term sustainability is part of Bach's "Olympic Agenda 2020," a package of reforms that will be voted on at a special meeting in Monaco in December.
In Greece, few of the sporting venues — mostly purpose-built permanent structures — have seen regular post-Olympic use. The badminton venue is a successful concert hall, but the empty table-tennis and gymnastics stadium is up for sale, and the beach volleyball center has been rarely used and was recently looted.
Most venues are padlocked.
The seaside site of Athens' old airport hosted half a dozen venues. Politicians have dithered for a decade over how to use the sprawling plot — meaning facilities have simply been left to rot. Lengths of large tubing lie near abandoned runways. Decommissioned jumbo jets sit near where planners once dreamed of building a water amusement park. This year, private investors won a tender to develop the entire area into a residential, commercial, hotel and leisure center, in a 7 billion-euro investment.
Greek Olympic Committee head Spyros Capralos, a senior member of the 2004 organizing committee, said the state of the sporting venues "puts our country to shame." The former swimming champion and two-time Olympic water polo competitor blames bureaucracy and lack of foresight.
"Nobody was thinking what would happen the next day," he said. "Many of the sports facilities were constructed just to be constructed ... and nobody thought that they required a lot of money for maintenance after the Olympic Games."
In their haste to meet implacable construction deadlines, government officials didn't even secure proper planning permits for several venues, including the elegant crown on the main Olympic Stadium — a steel canopy by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.
Greece's sports ministry says it has finally rectified the permits oversight, which until now hindered necessary repairs and maintenance, and funding has been found to conserve the roof.
Overall, Capralos insisted, the Games were a boost for Greece, mainly due to non-sports infrastructure pegged to the Games that otherwise might never have materialized.
"It saddens me that public opinion has come to believe the Athens Olympic Games were not successful," he said. "They were very much so, both from the sports aspect and through projects that gave life to Athens — tourism has increased, there is a modern airport, roads, the metro, phones work properly and when it's very hot the power system doesn't collapse."
Capralos believes the legacy of the stadiums can still be salvaged. "Simply, someone must do whatever is needed for the venues to be taken over by the private sector — because I don't think the state can be a very good entrepreneur or venue manager."
The massacre of at least 1,150 demonstrators by Egyptian security forces in a series of protests between July and August 2013 was systematic, methodical, and premeditated, Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged in a 188-page report released today.
The killings — many of which were carried out during the dispersal of a sit-in in support of ousted president Mohamed Morsi in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square on August 14 — “most likely” amounted to crimes against humanity, the human rights watchdog said.
Egyptian officials declined to collaborate with HRW, but rejected the report after its release. They also made clear they didn’t like the accusations on Sunday when authorities at Cairo’s airport stopped HRW’s executive director Kenneth Roth and Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson, denying them entry to the country without explanation.
An unnamed airport official told the Associated Press that the instruction to stop the two came from an unspecified security agency. Roth and Whitson spent 12 hours at the airport, the AP reported. Omar Shakir, a HRW researcher in Cairo who worked on this report and a US citizen, also left Egypt following the episode.
“Instead of denying the messenger entry to Egypt, the Egyptian authorities should seriously consider our conclusions and recommendations and respond with constructive action,” Roth said in a statement following the incident. “It appears the Egyptian government has no appetite to face up to the reality of these abuses, let alone hold those responsible to account.”
In a statement today, the Egyptian government said it took “note” of the HRW report, which it rejected as “highly negative” and “biased.” It added that the rights group does not enjoy any legal status allowing it to operate in the country.
“The Egyptian government regrets the report’s deliberate omission of any reference to the hundreds of police, military, and civilian victims who fell as a result of the then and still ongoing violent terrorist incidents conducted by those described in the report as ‘peaceful protestors,’” the two-page statement said.
The HRW report does actually include reference to security officers killed during the events it documents. “The report also clearly fails to mention the fact that the dispersal came in the failure of all political and popular efforts aimed at persuading the protesters to disperse peacefully,” the official statement continues. “The Egyptian government reaffirms its full respect for the promotion and protection of human rights.”
Yet if the choice to deport the HRW staff brought further attention to the report, for Egyptian authorities it was still preferable to letting them discuss its findings right in the country’s capital.
“Either the government does not realize what kicking out the world's most reputable rights watchdog representative says about its policies or they think that they can contain it,” an Egyptian journalist who asked not to be named told VICE News. “But whatever the toll this will take on its already-tainted image abroad, it will be less damaging than having HRW say, from Cairo itself, that Egypt's government has committed a massacre that amounts to a crime against humanity.”
'You essentially had Egyptians supporting the mass killing of their fellow countrymen in a way that was really unprecedented in modern Egyptian history. That’s a very difficult thing for a country to confront.'
The rights group shut down its Cairo office earlier this year, after its requests for registration had gone unanswered since 2007.
The episode was a first for the Egyptian government, HRW said, noting that its staff has never been denied entry before, including under former president Hosni Mubarak.
To those observing the Egyptian authorities’ crackdown on civil society with growing concern — including on foreign NGOs and journalists — the development was deeply disturbing, though not necessarily surprising.
“No one in the Egyptian government wants to touch Rabaa in any serious way, it’s the terrible thing that is not spoken of,” Hamid said. “Anything that reminds Egyptians of what happened last year is avoided, no one wants to look inward and address what happened that day because it would be very damning of the Egyptian government and military but also of the Egyptian people, many of whom cheered on the massacre while it was happening.
"Even beyond the government, it was a very dark day for Egyptian people, and you essentially had Egyptians supporting the mass killing of their fellow countrymen in a way that was really unprecedented in modern Egyptian history. That’s a very difficult thing for a country to confront.”
The HRW document, researched over the course of a year and documenting accounts by more than 200 witnesses, paints a deeply unflattering picture of Egyptian authorities after the coup that ousted Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president.
'It was Raining Bullets.'
In a single day, August 14, Egyptian security forces shot and killed at least 817 people assembled outside a mosque in Rabaa al-Adawiya, in the Nasr City suburb of Cairo — but that’s a conservative estimate, the report found, and the actual death toll was “more likely at least 1,000.”
Witnesses recounted security forces beating, torturing, and executing several people. They accused officers of deliberately shooting into the crowd, of firing on makeshift medical facilities, and of positioning snipers to target anyone entering or leaving Rabaa hospital. Towards the end of the day, the first floor of the hospital and nearby facilities were set ablaze, the report said.
'The highest levels of government officials in Egypt planned this dispersal… including now president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.'
“They immediately fired tear gas and live fire,” a witness told the group. “It was so intense, I can’t even describe it; it was not like the other times before, one or two at a time. It was raining bullets.”
“I smelled the gas and immediately saw people being hit and falling down around me,” he added. “I have no idea how many people were hit. We didn’t hear any warnings, nothing. It was like hell.”
Eight police officers were also killed during the dispersal, and in the following days, Egyptian authorities claimed that some protesters had used firearms during the demonstration, and announced that they had found 15 guns in Rab’a, after the dispersal.
HRW confirmed a few instances of protesters using firearms, but called the authorities’ response “grossly disproportionate,” and said instead that the government’s targeting of “overwhelmingly peaceful” protesters was “premeditated.”
“What we know and what is actually a matter of public record is that the highest levels of government officials in Egypt planned this dispersal,” Whitson said in the video. “There was a very high level meeting called of the most senior government officials, army officials, security officials, including the interior minister, including then-defense minister, now president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.”
As the report points out, Egypt’s Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim seemed to admit to the charges of premeditation in the days following the massacre, saying in a televised interview that the ministry had “expected” losses of “10 percent” of the “more than 20,000 people” at Rabaa. Later, however, the minister said the actual death toll was “less than what we expected” and “close to 1,000.”
HRW used satellite images to estimate that about 85,000 demonstrators were at the sit-in at some point.
“There’s been a lot of debate about specifics and what the actual evidence is, and this report fills the gap, offering the definitive account of what happened,” Hamid said.
“A lot of Egyptians in particular have resisted facing what happened that day, and I think many who were anti-Brotherhood and sympathetic to the military dismissed the claims of the massacre saying there’s not enough evidence, or the evidence is that there were armed members at the sit-in. Here we can actually resolve some of the debate.”
But it’s unlikely that Egyptians will see much of the report in their local media.
“As far as Egyptian media goes, which is overwhelmingly pro-army, the report will either be ignored or spun as a part of the grand foreign conspiracy against Egypt which is used as the excuse for any international criticism of Sisi,” the Egyptian journalist said. “The government appears to be willing to prevent any reopening of the Rabaa case and that includes journalistic investigation.”
The journalist, who was at Raba the day before the massacre, said protesters showed her sniper installations set up at a military facility overlooking the square.
“They said it wasn’t there the night before,” she said, adding that some of that evidence made it into the HRW report. “Some of their evidence shows that the army allowed this facility to be used as a hub for police snipers.”
'The Obama administration in particular has kind of gone back to pre-Arab spring business as usual, they’re relying increasingly on autocratic regimes.'
The report also documented killings by police at five other demonstrations, most of which left dozens of other people dead.
“This wasn’t merely a case of excessive force or poor training,” Roth said in a statement at the release of the report. “It was a violent crackdown planned at the highest levels of the Egyptian government. Many of the same officials are still in power in Egypt, and have a lot to answer for.”
Many of the military leaders Human Rights Watch indicts as directly responsible for the violence are now key figures in the government, including Sisi himself, whom HRW says “should be held individually accountable.”
“The government’s ongoing efforts to crush dissent, sweep its abuses under the rug and rewrite history cannot erase what happened in Rab’a last year,” Roth added. “Given Egypt’s resounding failure to investigate these crimes, the time has come for the international community to step in.”
HRW called for criminal charges to be brought against these individuals, including in international courts. It also called on foreign governments to stop military and other aid to Egyptian authorities.
But it may be a little late for that, critics said.
“Once it was clear that there was a military coup the US was under an obligation to suspend military aid according to our own law,” said Hamid. “Now it’s a year later and it’s difficult to imagine how or why the US or Europe would consider a serious suspension of military aid when they didn’t do so last year when there was much more international concern.”
“I think the international community has largely come to terms with the Sisi regime,” he added, citing as an example the willingness of international financial institutions to work with Egypt’s current government. “A lot of countries have moved on, and the Obama administration in particular has kind of gone back to pre-Arab spring business as usual, they’re relying increasingly on autocratic regimes, there’s less talk of supporting democracy and human rights in the Middle East.”
Ok maybe love is a little strong but President Barack Hussein Obama has supported the State of Israel to a greater extent than many, if not all, of his predecessors.
Since the launch of the latest Israeli military operation
in the Gaza Strip, social media has been ablaze with messages of support,
frustration and personal opinions. One opinion that has been prevalent among
the pro-Israel factions is the lack of support President Obama and his
administration, specifically Secretary of State John Kerry, has given to the Israeli side.
Of course most of these posts are just echoing accusations
made by right wing pundits and Republican Party officials looking to score
political points in an election year, but the unfortunate truth is that this
perception is a pervasive mentality predating the current conflict in the
Levant.
Questions over Obama’s support for the Jewish state were first
raised during the 2008 election when his Muslim sounding middle name, Hussein,
sparked unfounded allegations of the then Senator’s sympathies. Some inferred that
a Muslim sympathizing President would align more with the Muslim Palestinians than the Jewish Israelis. After his election Obama’s comment in 2011, stating that the 1949
Armistice Line should be the starting point for any peace discussion, sparked widespread accusations that the President was less than supportive of Israel as the comment was
interpreted as an affront to the State of Israel. More recently
Secretary Kerry has come under harsh criticism, first for a comment earlier this year warning that Israel risked becoming an apartheid state, and his failed attempts at securing a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas just this month. In both cases the Secretary of State was
called everything from a racist to a terrorist, and the vitriol was then imputed onto Obama.
But the question is whether or not the vilification of
President Obama and his administration’s position on Israel is justified?
Since the late 1960s the United States has been Israel’s
staunchest ally and supporter. From financial aid and military agreements to
trade and politics, the U.S. and Israel have forged a special relationship adopted,
supported, and enhanced by every American President since Richard Nixon. Trying
to gauge the level of support each President in that time frame has given to Israel is like a 4th grade pissing contest. All the
Presidents have supported Israel in their own way, and all have adopted
policies and statements which can be perceived as contrary to Israel's interests.
Statements by themselves are a horrible metric for gauging a politician's support. As anyone who follows politics can tell you what a politician says and what a politician does are rarely analogous. Less cynically, talk is cheap and it's the actions of an individual which show that person's true colors.
Judging a President's support by analyzing American financial aid to Israel during their tenure isn't definitive since Congress sets the federal budget, and the flow of aid has been relatively static since 1978. However, it does serve as a starting point for the discussion. Since 1987 Israel has received roughly $3 billion per annum for economic and military assistance from the United States, not including supplemental aid packages and joint military ventures. This number has been relatively stable since 1978 with the exception of the 2003 deduction, when a Republican controlled congress voted for, and the Bush Administration approved, a reduction in American aid to Israel by 0.65%. The 2003 reduction in aid was first time American aid to Israel had ever been reduced.
In addition to the regular economic and military assistance, Israel has received five separate aid packages. The first aid package came during the Carter administration when Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was a high interest loan, with the remaining $800 million unconditional) to compensate the cost of relocating its military bases from the Sinai peninsula to the Negev as a condition of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty. The second aid package was a $1.5 billion economic emergency package used to stabilize the Israeli economy during a period of extremely high inflation during the Reagan Administration. During the Clinton Administration, Israel received $100 million to aid its counter terrorism operations after the end of the First Intifada. As compensation for the security preparations associated with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israel received its fourth aid package worth $10 billion. However, the Bush Administration's aid package included $9 billion in loans and $1 billion in direct assistance which was subject to a reduction equal to the amount that the Israeli government spends on settlements in the Palestinian territories. It also mandated that the money could only be spent within the pre-1967 Israeli borders. The final and most recent package were two direct payments requested by the Obama Administration of $250 million and $680 million for the development and production of the Iron Dome missile defense system. Neither aid grant included a loan or condition.
Israel also receives U.S. funding for joint development of missile defense systems including David's Sling and Arrows 1 through 3. American payment for these projects are driven by the Pentagon and are usually set by the Executive branch and not Congress. The total American appropriation for all the projects have been the following (in the millions of dollars): 2006 - $132; 2007 - $137; 2008 - $155; 2009 - $177; 2010 - $202; 2011 - $166; and 2012 - $235. The reduction in 2011 was attributable to the drawdown in Arrow 2 spending as the project's development phase ended. American spending for joint missile defense development increased in 2009 when President Obama took office, and has nearly doubled since the heydays of the Bush Administration.
American funding for the Iron Dome system, which has been credited with saving hundreds if not thousands of Israeli lives during this most recent conflict, serves as the largest non-loan and unconditional financial package to Israel since the Reagan Administration's aid package in 1985. Although the Bush administration's package had a higher initial value, the majority of the which were loans which Israel must pay back with high interest rates and the loans were subject to reductions and conditions, the package itself was precipitated by the security concerns resulting from the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In addition American funding for joint-development projects have steadily increased under the Obama Administration. Financially, Israel has benefitted greatly during the Obama Administration.
But as was stated before using financial aid as a metric to determine support is a tricky endeavor. Judging policies and actions of American presidents are by and far a more accurate metric. American policy regarding Israel has radically changed since the Egyptian peace agreement, the end of the Cold War, and the beginning of the Second Intifada. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada American responses to two Israeli operations warrant comparison.
At the height of the Second Intifada, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield and moved its military into the large Palestinian cities in the West Bank. President Bush responded by demanding, then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon cease the operation and move the military out of the West Bank cities. Sharon ignored the directive and continued the Israeli Defense Force's (IDF) counter-terrorism operation in the territory.
By comparison President Obama has given no such directive to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during Operations Cast Lead or Protective Edge. Although the President and members of his staff and the State Department have issued statements proclaiming their worry over the death and destruction being produced by the operations, their statements have stopped short of condemnation or calls for the IDF to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. In fact, the administration has continuously issued statements supporting Israel's right to defend itself from terrorism and rocket attacks, with the strongest worded statements opposing the operation coming only after the occurrence of Israeli artillery strikes on UN operated schools serving as refugee shelters.
A more definitive and reliable metric to judge an American president's pro-Israel credentials is through an analysis of United Nations Security Council votes. Whereas the UN General Assembly is composed of all UN member states, the UN Security Council is composed of the five permanent members and ten rotating non-permanent members and has the power to pass legally binding resolutions as opposed to the General Assembly. Due to the binding nature of Security Council resolutions each of the five permanent members has the power to unilaterally veto any resolution.
In fact, the United States has used its veto power on the security council 82 times, the most after the former Soviet Union (not including Russia's veto power as the successor state to the USSR), and has exercised that power more times than any other member since 1966, one year before the Six-Day War in 1967. The vast majority of the time the United States has exercised its veto power has been to block resolutions denouncing Israel or Israeli action. It is safe to then assume that any resolution that is ratified by the Security Council is done so with the United States' consent.
Under the U.S. Constitution the executive is vested with the power to conduct the nation's foreign relations (with the noted exception in Article 2 requiring the president to seek the advice and consent of 2/3 of the Senate). America's Security Council veto is under the complete autonomy and direction of the President. Therefore an analysis of the United States voting record on the Security Council represents the most reliable metric to judge an administration's position on Israel as it represents an affirmative action with relative political autonomy.
Since the UN partition plan in 1947 establishing the Jewish state, there have been over 200 Security Council resolutions concerning Israel and Palestine. The following is a breakdown of the number of UN Security Council resolutions concerning Israel and Palestine passed during each presidential administration since Israel's declaration of independence:
Truman (1945-1953) - 18
Eisenhower (1953-1961) - 10
Kennedy (1961-1963) - 2
Johnson (1963-1969) - 16
Nixon (1969-1974) - 22
Ford (1974-1977) - 12
Carter (1977-1981) - 22
Reagan (1981-1989) - 58
George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) - 21
Clinton (1993-2001) - 28
George W. Bush (2001-2009) - 9
Obama (2009- )- 0
As the list above shows since the establishment of the state of Israel every Presidential administration has allowed Security Council resolutions, mostly condemning Israel, to pass with the exception of three: Kennedy, George W. Bush and Obama. Whereas Truman, Eisenhower and Johnson had to deal with large scale conflicts in the Levant (Israeli War of Independence, Suez Crisis, and the Six Day War respectively), the region was relatively quiet during Kennedy's time in office. On top of that, Kennedy had the shortest tenure in office than any of the other men on the list other than Gerald Ford.
George W. Bush and Barack Obama's commitment to using the United States' veto power far exceeded their predecessors. An explanation for the relatively low amount of resolutions passed during the Bush and Obama administration comes from the adoption of the Negroponte Doctrine, named after the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte. The doctrine dictated that the US would exercise its veto power on any resolution brought before the security council condemning Israel without also condemning terrorist groups. Since the adoption of the doctrine in 2002, the number of UN resolutions condemning Israel dropped dramatically. In addition, the text of the resolutions also became softer and focused less on condemnation. Even so, Resolution 1435 was passed after the adoption of the Negroponte Doctrine and demanded that Israel withdraw its forces in and around Ramallah for an operation during the height of the Second Intifada.
Since taking office not a single Security Council resolution regarding Israel has been adopted during Obama's tenure as commander-in-chief. Whether or not this was a result of an adoption and expansion of the Negroponte Doctrine one thing is clear: Obama has taken a firm stance on international condemnation of Israel in the Untied Nations. Such a position marks an extreme departure from the traditional American policy towards Israel. Even in situations where Israel may be deserving of criticism and condemnation, under the Obama administration there have been none.
Of particular note was the passage of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 67/19 in 2012. The Resolution upgraded Palestine to non-member observer state status from observer entity. GA Resolution 67/19 was seen as a major step towards legitimizing Palestine as an independent state as the UN designated the actor as a non-member state, even though the Palestinian Liberation Organization (the recognized government of Palestine by the UN) exercises little to no sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Since the resolution was introduced in the General Assembly and not the Security Council, the United States could not exercise its veto power to defeat the resolution. In the face of overwhelming support, the United States along with eight other nations including Israel, Canada, Panama, the Czech Republic and several small Oceanic states, voted to oppose the resolution. While the vast majority of Israel's traditional allies: developed Western nations, either voted in the affirmative (France) or in abstention (the United Kingdom). The United States stayed steadfast in its support at the risk of further alienating its allies in the Middle East.
So why then do people believe that President Obama is unsupportive of Israel? One answer could be attributed to the vehement hatred that some possess towards Obama. Some have an unalterable conceptual idea in their mind not subject to reason or fact that Obama hates Israel. It is similar to the birth certificate movement that permeated through some of the more radical elements of conservative America.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Left) and President Barack Obama
(Right). Picture from the Atlantic.
A more reasonable and likely answer can be found in the strained relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The two leaders have constantly found themselves on opposing political sides on issues mostly dealing with Iran and the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Educated in the United States, Netanyahu has been more active in the American political scene and media than past Israeli prime ministers. Due to his relatively high exposure in American society, Netanyahu's disagreements with the White House tend to get more attention than past disparities.
The misguided concept that disagreeing with a country's political leader shows a lack of support for that country is a notion that runs into logical problems when applied to American politics. If this theory were to hold true than most Democrats would have been traitors during the Bush administration, and most Republicans traitors since Obama took office. Just because someone disagrees with a government's policy or actions doesn't mean that person lacks support for that government's state. In fact that idea runs afoul to not only the basic concepts of democratic governance and society, but also of American ideals and freedoms.
Obama may not love Israel, but he has most certainly supported it.
