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theguardian.com Tuesday 20 October 2015 19.06 BST Speaking the day after attending “Astronomy Night” at the White House, Ahmed Mohamed, aka ‘clock boy’, says he wants to get a positive message out. The 14-year-old says “It’s not about the colour of your skin or about your religion, but it’s about your heart.” President Obama briefly met Mohamed as he shook hands with students at the event, giving the student a hug http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/oct/20/ahmed-mohamed-judge-a-person-by-their-heart-not-their-looks-video

UN chief calls for calm before meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in hope of easing tensions over renewed clashes that have claimed dozens of lives Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem Tuesday 20 October 2015 19.00 BST The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has flown into Jerusalem for talks with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders amid mounting international efforts to end weeks of violence. Tuesday’s visit, during which Ban warned of the danger of further escalation, came as a 50-year-old Israeli was reported to have died after being hit by a car during a stone-throwing incident near Hebron. Three Palestinians were killed in incidents, including one during an alleged stabbing, another after allegedly driving his car into two Israelis. A third Palestinian man was killed by Israeli gunfire during a protest at the Gaza border. During a press conference with Israel ’s president, Reuven Rivlin, and before a meeting with the country’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ban underscored the urgency of bringing the current violence to an end. “If we do not act fast the dynamics on the ground may only get worse, with serious repercussions in and beyond Israel and Palestine,” he said. “Violence only undermines the legitimate Palestinian aspirations for statehood, and of the longing of Israelis for security and peace. “My visit reflects the sense of global alarm at the dangerous escalation in violence between Israelis and Palestinians ... I am here to encourage and support all efforts to lower tensions and prevent the situation from spinning out of control.” Ban issued a video message late on Monday calling for calm on both sides. He said he understood the Palestinians’ frustrations, but that violence would only harm their legitimate aspirations. “I know your hopes for peace have been dashed countless times. You are angry at the continued occupation and expansion of settlements,” he said. “I am not asking you to be passive, but you must put down the weapons of despair.” Ban, whose trip was announced in Israel only hours before his expected arrival, is scheduled to meet Netanyahu on Tuesday evening and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Wednesday in Ramallah. His mediation efforts came amid reports that the US secretary of state, John Kerry – who will meet Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday, and Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan in Amman on Saturday – is pushing for a clarification of the so-called status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site via a written agreement and a complaint-resolution mechanism. The initial outbreak of violence was fuelled by rumours that Israel was plotting to take over Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, a hilltop compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and home to al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine and a key national symbol for the Palestinians. Kerry has said Israeli and Palestinian leaders need to clarify the status of the Jerusalem compound – which is home to the al-Aqsa mosque – to help stem the current bloodshed. The recent violence has been stoked partly by Palestinian anger at what they see as increased Jewish visits to the Jerusalem holy site, also revered in Judaism as the location of two destroyed biblical temples. Under longstanding arrangements, Islamic religious authorities administer al-Aqsa; Israel allows Jews to visit but not pray in the compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City that it captured, with other parts of east Jerusalem and the West Bank, in a 1967 war. Responding again to claims that Israel has encroached on the status quo, Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress meeting in Jerusalem that Israel had no intention of changing the situation. “ That is one huge lie,” he said. But Muslim suspicions over Israel’s intentions were stoked by the recent visit of a senior Israeli minister, Uri Ariel, and the decision by Israel to ban Islamic volunteer watch groups from gathering at the site. Eight Israelis have been killed in recent stabbings and shootings by Palestinian and Arab-Israeli attackers in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank. An Eritrean, mistaken for an assailant during an Israeli Beduin gunman’s assault, also died after being shot by a security guard and kicked by angry crowd. Israeli security forces have killed at least 42 Palestinians, including 20 assailants and demonstrators, one of whom, police said, fired a gun at them. Israeli security forces have been tasked with clamping down on unrest without provoking a further escalation of violence. Checkpoints in Palestinian areas of annexed East Jerusalem , where many of the attackers have come from, and measures such as home demolitions have provoked further anger. In an interview published on Tuesday in the pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli leader – who has publicly said there was no “quick fix” to the worst Palestinian street violence in years – voiced confidence that the conflict would not widen. “Proper management has ensured that there will not be a mass conflagration in the name of religious war, including a flare-up in terms of missiles from Gaza and Lebanon,” said Netanyahu, who has been accused by some of his cabinet ministers of not doing enough to keep Israelis safe. 1 2 A Palestinian man holds a knife in an anti-Israel protest in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday. Photograph: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/20/ban-ki-moon-due-in-jerusalem-for-talks-amid-escalating-violence

Simone Joseph pleads guilty to causing racially aggravated distress after footage of her threatening to kick pregnant Hanane Yakoubi in stomach went viral Press Association Monday 19 October 2015 15.12 BST A woman has admitted racially abusing a pregnant Muslim woman on a bus after a video of the incident went viral. Simone Joseph called Hanane Yakoubi and her two friends “Isis *******”, accused them of having “bombs up their skirts” and shouted “**** off back to your own country”. She also threatened to kick Yakoubi, who is 34 weeks pregnant, in the stomach so she would “never have children again”. The outburst was witnessed by shocked passengers on the 206 bus in Brent, north London, including Joseph’s two-year-old daughter. The mother of three handed herself in to police three days after the incident, which happened on 13 October, after a member of the public posted the footage online. She pleaded guilty to causing racially aggravated distress at Hendon magistrates court on Monday. Yakoubi has said she is scared to leave the house. “As a consequence I find it difficult to sleep and cannot take medication because I’m pregnant,” she said in a statement read to the court. Joseph, 36, of Willesden Green, north-west London, was released on unconditional bail and will be sentenced on 13 November. She wept as she was led out of the dock. Yakoubi boarded the bus at about 10.30am with two other women and a young child in a pushchair. “For no apparent reason the defendant started swearing at her, telling her to **** off back to her own country,” prosecutor Darren Watts said. “The verbal abuse, described as constant swearing, continued for approximately five minutes. The bus had a number of other passengers present, including children and indeed the defendant’s own two-year-old child. Other individuals appeared shocked and distressed by the footage.” The driver stopped the bus to try to stop Joseph but she carried on, the court was told. She was also seen walking up and down the bus filming her victim. “At one point she said she would kick the complainant in the stomach and she would never have children again,” Watts said. “The complainant is 34 weeks pregnant.” Watts said the incident was reported by “shocked and concerned individuals” after the footage was posted on social media. Joseph told police it was a “lapse” and had been “taken out of context”. In her statement, Yakoubi said she was previously the victim of a similar incident. “Every time I go out I’m afraid I might find myself in this situation as something similar has happened on a bus on another occasion because I am Muslim,” she said. Tony Meisels, representing Joseph, said: “She apologises for the hurt and distress caused to the persons on the receiving end of her behaviour. She recognises this was totally unacceptable and it was totally out of character. “She is appalled, shocked and disgusted by what happened on that day. She wants to convey her regret to the victims.” http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/19/woman-anti-muslim-bus-tirade-admits-racial-abuse

Croatian police hold back migrants as Slovenian efforts to limit the number of arrivals and Hungary’s move to close its border cause knock-on effects Reuters in Berkasovo Monday 19 October 2015 10.59 BST More than 10,000 migrants are currently in Serbia, stranded by limits imposed further west in Europe, the UN refugee agency said on Monday, and warned of shortages in aid. Thousands of people clamoured to enter Croatia from Serbia on Monday after a night spent in the cold and mud, their passage west slowed by a Slovenian effort to limit the flow of refugees into western Europe. “We can only say that there are more than 10,000 refugees in Serbia,” UNHCR spokeswoman Melita Sunjic said. “It is like a big river of people, and if you stop the flow, you will have floods somewhere. That’s what’s happening now.” “There is a lack of food, lack of blankets, we are missing everything,” Sunjic said. The refugees at the border were held back by Croatian police, where refugee camps are full to capacity. In western Croatia, up to 2,000 more people spent the night on a train stranded near the border with fellow EU member Slovenia, which was refusing entry. With Hungary closing its border with Croatia to migrants at midnight on Friday, the unrelenting flow has been diverted to Slovenia en route to Austria and Germany, the favoured destination for many refugees from the Syrian war. But Slovenia has imposed a daily limit of around 2,500 arrivals, saying it will only take in as many people as can then exit into Austria. Slovenia said Austria was accepting a maximum of 1,500 people, far fewer than were previously entering from Hungary, although the Austrian interior ministry said it could not confirm this. Migrant bottleneck ( check link for chart) Upwards of 5,000 people are crossing the Serbian-Croatian border daily, from Greece where they arrive by boat from Turkey, into Macedonia and Serbia, which barely the capacity to cope. A Reuters reporter on the Serbian side of the border said there was no apparent police presence to help maintain order. The refugees were cold and tired. They chanted: “Open the gate, open the gate!” The arrival of a projected 700,000 migrants this year to Europe’s shores – fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia by boat across the Mediterranean and Aegean – has exposed deep and often ugly divisions in the EU. Hungary’s rightwing government says the mainly Muslim migrants pose a threat to Europe’s prosperity, security and “Christian values”, and has sealed its borders with Serbia and Croatia with a steel fence and stringent new laws that rights groups say deny refugees their right to seek protection. Migrants crowd as they wait to cross the Croatian border. Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/refugees-stranded-on-serbian-croatian-border

Exclusive: Guardian lawsuit exposes fullest scale yet of detentions at off-the-books interrogation warehouse, while attorneys describe find-your-client chase across Chicago as ‘something from a Bond movie’ Spencer Ackerman Monday 19 October 2015 13.30 BST Arrestees often are not processed at the Homan Square facility, in apparent violation of Chicago police directives. Photograph: The Guardian Long article http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands

Exclusive: Republican offers rare attack on fellow insurgent, telling Guardian socialism is ‘road to failure’ for candidate who ‘wants to be more mainstream’ Ben Jacobs in Manchester, New Hampshire Tuesday 13 October 2015 13.34 BST Donald Trump has warned about the ideology of his fellow presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, saying the Vermont senator is an “admitted socialist. Some people think he’s even worse than that. He’s the next step.” In an interview with the Guardian on the eve of the first Democratic presidential debate, Trump said Sanders’ beliefs were “a short road to failure for this country”. Despite Sanders leading polls in Iowa and New Hampshire as he is on the Republican side of the race for the White House, Trump said he didn’t think the Vermont senator had staying power because “if you’re a socialist running for office in this country, I don’t see it happening”. Sanders drew attention in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday when he was asked: “Are you a capitalist?” “No,” Sanders replied. “I am a democratic socialist.” Asked about Sanders’ comments on Monday, Trump responded: “I am a capitalist.” He added that in a long business career, “I have created tremendous numbers of jobs and lots of education for families and healthcare for families.” In contrast, Trump said, “Bernie Sanders is a socialist and he’s trying to soften it by saying a Democrat and a socialist – but he’s really a socialist.” The Republican candidate claimed that Sanders has “always said socialist before and now he’s changing it and wants to be a little more mainstream”. But Sanders, an ardent admirer of the early 20th century socialist politician Eugene Debs, has described himself as a “democratic socialist” for at least 20 years and had been wary of using the term “socialist” early in his political career. Trump’s criticism of Sanders represented a rare attack by Republicans on the insurgent leftwinger. In the past, with Sanders handily topping H-illary Clinton in polls in New Hampshire and standing in a dead heat with the former secretary of state in Iowa, conservatives have gone out of their way to praise him. In particular, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal often offers a rather backhanded compliment to the Vermont senator on the campaign trail. “While both candidates are socialists,” the long-shot Republican likes to say, “Bernie Sanders is being honest and saying what H-illary will not say.” Trump’s “next step” jibe at Sanders came in stark juxtaposition to his praise for the senator’s position on trade before his Guardian interview on Monday, at an event in New Hampshire for the bipartisan No Labels group which welcomed them both. “Bernie Sanders feels strongly about trade,” the Republican frontrunner told reporters. “One thing I will say about him is he knows we’re being ripped off on trade.” “That is one issue that I would say we would get along,” Trump said of his fellow outsider across the aisle. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-socialist

City councilman who was arrested on his front lawn says he will address Prairie View police, the same force that arrested Sandra Bland before her death Alan Yuhas in New York Monday 12 October 2015 16.03 BST A Texas city councilman who was shocked with a Taser on his front lawn has promised to take the incident up with officers from the same police force that arrested Sandra Bland before her death in a jail cell this summer. “It went from me asking questions to me basically being put face down on the ground,” 26-year-old Jonathan Miller told KHOU news after his release from jail on Friday. “I’m curious to have a conversation with those officers.” He later told the local CBS affiliate: “It shouldn’t have come that far.” Three videos posted online over the weekend, two from police body cameras and one from a cellphone owned by a friend of Miller, show the incident, during which the Prairie View city councilman was arrested. In the black and white police footage, a female officer talks with three of Miller’s friends outside his house, where they say they had been practicing a step routine for their college homecoming. Miller approaches to ask what’s happening, telling the officer: “They were at my house” and “I’m not trying to be combative or anything”. The officer replies: “I understand that and you’re just coming in on the tail end of it ... They told me everything OK.” A male officer then intervenes, saying, “This is a scene, come on,” and waving his hand. Miller replies: “Officer, please do not put your hands on me.” The officer instructs Miller to step away: “Go over there before you go to jail for interfering, man.” Miller takes a few steps back without speaking and continues to watch the officer, who repeatedly tells him: “I’m telling you one more time, man, go over there before you go to jail.” Finally, the officer reaches out to Miller and tells him to turn around. Miller says: “I’m not saying nothing, get your hands off me.” The officer’s body camera then falls to the ground. Police chief Larry Johnson later said Miller “physically resisted” arrest, and “continued to resist, even after repeated commands to stop” and being “told that he was being placed under arrest for interfering with the investigation”. Miller’s friend Brandon Wilson also recorded the arrest. His video begins with Miller kneeling as officers try to move his arms behind his back. The female officer tells him: “Quit resisting and put your hands behind your back.” Miller does not move his hands behind his back, and lets them fall to his sides when the police back away. The female officer then says: “OK, he’s gonna have to Tase you, you’re not doing like you’re supposed to.” The male officer uses a Taser on Miller, who falls to the ground with a shout of pain. Officers continue to command: “Put your hands behind your back,” though Miller only groans and says: “I live here, man!” In the female officer’s body camera footage, she tells Miller: “Everything was fine, we told you that, but you just kept trying to get involved. Even your frat brothers was telling you, everything was fine. You were not following the instructions that the officer gave you.” She then thanks Miller’s friends for cooperating, and tells them none will face any charges. Miller was arrested and charged with interference and resisting arrest, and he spent the night in jail. “I feel like I was checking on my line brothers and I feel like it escalated to a situation where I was tased, and it shouldn’t have come that far,” Miller told the local CBS affiliate the next day. Johnson later confirmed that the female officer took Sandra Bland to a county jail in July. “We have six police officers. The probability of having the same officer involved in multiple types of incidences is probable,” Johnson told NBC. “I haven’t seen anything that gave me any cause for concern as far as this officer’s conduct at this point.” None of Miller’s friends were arrested or charged, and the man who recorded the video, Wilson, disputed the police account that his friend behaved in such a way as to deserve being shot with a stun gun. “Usually I would think if you’re tasing somebody, it’s somebody that’s running from the cops, somebody that’s trying to inflict harm on somebody, not somebody that’s on their knees with their arms by their sides,” he told KHOU. The Prairie View police fell under national scrutiny earlier this year when a minor traffic stop of 28-year-old Sandra Bland suddenly escalated into a physical confrontation and arrest, much of which was caught on dashcam footage. Bland was found to have killed herself days later in a jail cell. Bland became a symbol of police abuses against black people, and her story was taken up by the Black Lives Matter movement that has grown out of a series of high-profile killings of young black people. Johnson and the female Prairie View police officer involved in the Miller altercation are black. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/12/texas-councilman-taser-prarie-view-sandra-bland

At least 30 people killed in blasts before planned march in Turkish capital to protest against conflict between state and Kurdish militants Staff and Agencies Saturday 10 October 2015 10.37 BST At least 30 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in a terrorist attack on a peace rally in the centre of the Turkish capital, according to reports. Twin explosions outside Ankara’s main train station on Saturday morning appear to have targeted hundreds of people who had gathered to protest violence between authorities and Kurdish separatist group, the PKK. Turkish government officials said the explosion was a terrorist attack and are investigating the claim that a suicide bomber was responsible. Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, is to hold a meeting with government officials and security chiefs in response to the attack, his office said. The country’s interior ministry confirmed 30 people were killed in the blasts and 126 were wounded. A Reuters reporter at the scene saw at least 20 bodies covered by flags, with bloodstains and body parts scattered on the road. Witnesses said the blasts were seconds apart shortly after 10am and were so powerful they rocked nearby high-rise buildings. Those involved in the peace march tended to the wounded lying on the ground, as hundreds of stunned people wandered around the streets. Bodies lay in two circles around 20 metres apart where the explosions had taken place. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred ahead of the planned peace march to the long-running conflict between the state and Kurdish militants in south-east Turkey. The explosion came three weeks ahead of a parliamentary election and amid growing security concerns in the region. A rally for the pro-Kurdish HDP party was bombed in June, ahead of last year’s general election. The country has been in a heightened state of alert since starting a “synchronised war on terror” in July, including airstrikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and PKK bases in northern Iraq. It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected militants at home. Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK launched a separatist insurgency in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. The state launched peace talks with the PKK’s jailed leader in 2012 and the latest in a series of ceasefires had been holding until the violence flared again in July. More details soon... People are seen at the site of the blasts close to Ankara’s main train station. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/turkey-suicide-bomb-killed-in-ankara

Report of rocket launch follows fatal clashes east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis and death of Palestinian man in East Jerusalem Nadia Khomami, Kate Shuttleworth, Peter Beaumontin Jerusalem, and agencies Saturday 10 October 2015 10.26 BST Violence has continued to escalate between Palestinian militants and the Israeli military after a rocket was allegedly fired from the Gaza strip, and clashes broke out following the death of a young Palestinian man in a Jerusalem refugee camp. The missile was launched into southern Israel on Saturday, the Israeli military said, after a week of escalating violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Sirens were triggered in Israeli communities near the border but the rocket landed in open countryside and no one was hurt, according to a statement. Meanwhile, a Palestinian man stabbed and injured three Israeli border police personnel near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, in the second stabbing attack to take place there on Saturday. One of the officers, in his 20s, was wounded seriously, the other two moderately. The Palestinian assailant was shot dead at the scene. Another Palestinian man, Ahmad Salah, 24, was shot dead in Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem overnight on Friday, bringing the total death toll in recent days to nine. Clashes broke out late in the evening with Israeli forces near a military checkpoint at the camp entrance. A spokesman for the Fatah movement in the camp, Thaer al-Fasfous, told the Ma’an news website that fierce clashes had broken out between Palestinians in the camp and Israeli forces “who had fired live ammunition directly at youth from close range”. Two Jewish men were lightly wounded in the first stabbing attack in east Jerusalem on Saturday near Damascus Gate, Israeli police reported. Police shot and killed the alleged attacker at the scene, a 16-year-old Palestinian youth. Emergency workers provided medical treatment to a 62-year-old man in a moderate condition and a 65-year-old man with light injuries at the site of the attack. Both men were taken to hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment. According to Israeli police, clashes broke out between police and a group of Palestinians after the stabbing attack and the shooting of the Palestinian youth. Police dispersed the crowd using teargas. Overnight, another Palestinian from Gaza died of injuries he sustained during clashes with Israeli troops east of Gaza City and Khan Yunis along the border with Israel, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in the clashes to seven. The dead were among a group throwing stones and taking part in a rally, hospital officials in Gaza said. The rally had been called in support of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and followed a spate of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and reprisals by Jews against Arabs. An Israeli military spokeswoman said around 200 Palestinians massed at the border fence in northern Gaza, throwing rocks and rolling burning tyres toward troops stationed on the other side. Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, declared the unrest an intifada and urged further clashes. In a sermon for Friday prayers at a mosque in Gaza City, he said: “We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada. It is the only path that will lead to liberation. Gaza will fulfil its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation.” A fresh wave of stabbings also hit Israel and the West Bank. In the southern Israeli city of Dimona, a Jewish attacker stabbed two Palestinians and two Arab Israelis and later told police: “All Arabs are terrorists.” A Palestinian stabbed a policeman near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, and was shot dead by the policeman, who was lightly wounded. A 16-year-old Israeli was lightly wounded in a stabbing in Jerusalem and an 18-year-old Palestinian suspect was arrested. A Palestinian woman was shot after a stabbing attempt in the northern Israeli town of Afula. Video of the incident at a bus station showed the woman surrounded by police and security guards, apparently raising her hands before being shot multiple times. Friday’s clash was the deadliest in Gaza since the summer 2014 war with Israel. Both the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have called for calm, and Palestinian police continue to coordinate with Israeli security forces to try to restore order, but there are few signs of the tension and violence dying down. The White House has condemned the Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers and appealed for calm on all sides. In Washington, US state department spokesman John Kirby referred to the Palestinian attacks on Israelis as acts of terror. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/10/palestinian-militants-in-gaza-strip-fire-rocket-into-southern-israel Hamas leader in Gaza declares intifada as deadly attacks continue http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/09/hamas-leader-gaza-declares-intifada-deadly-attacks-continue

Coalition of civil society groups wins highest-profile of the six Nobel awards Chris Stephen in Tunis, Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Julian Borger Friday 9 October 2015 11.09 BST The Tunisian national dialogue quartet, a coalition of civil society organisations, has won the 2015 Nobel peace prize for its work on preventing the country’s Jasmine Revolution from descending into violence. Kaci Kullmann Five, the newly appointed chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said the quartet, made up of unions, employers, lawyers and human rights activists had made a “decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia”. The Arab spring began in Tunisia with protests that brought down the government of long-time dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011, but the country fell into crisis in the following years. The quartet helped bring it back from the brink of civil war in the summer of 2013 by persuading the Islamist-led post-revolutionary political leadership to compromise with the opposition over Tunisia’s new constitution. Houcine Abassi, the secretary general of one of the member organisations, the Tunisian General Labour Union, said he was “overwhelmed” by the prize. “It’s a message that dialogue can lead us on the right path. This prize is a message for our region to put down arms and sit and talk at the negotiation table,” he told Reuters. Among the so-called Arab Spring states, only Tunisia has kept its democratic aspirations alive, with war blighting Libya, Syria and Yemen while Egypt saw its elected Muslim Brotherhood government deposed by the army in a popular coup in 2013. Tunisians are also likely to see the Nobel award as a powerful image boost, and will be hoping the international community follows through with aid and support for its economy. While Tunisia’s democracy flourishes, its economy remains in the doldrums, made worse by the massacre of 38 tourists in Sousse in June and a continuing battle against an increasing presence of Isis fighters. Mokhtar Trifi, honourary president of one of the quartet members, the Tunisian Human Rights League, said: “This is extraordinary news. It’s a clear encouragement for the wider process in Tunisia, and for all the work and dialogue that went into the move to elections and democracy. Crucially, it shows that the world is watching us. We have much more to accomplish and are facing new challenges.” He added: “We have to save our country from terrorism and from economic crisis. We’re counting on good will from the west so that we aren’t isolated on those new challenges.” Anouar Moalla, spokesman for Tunisia’s pioneering truth and dignity commission, now investigating the former dictatorship of Ben Ali, said: “It [the Nobel announcement] gives us a lot of hope, this is something unbelievable.” The Tunisia director of Human Rights Watch, Amna Guellali, said the prize was being seen in the country as a reward for sticking with democratic principles. “The Quartet enabled the democratic process to go ahead, it was a political crisis that could have led to civil war,” she said. “People here will hope the award is not just a token celebration, but will bring Tunisia real help.” “The quartet was a disparate entity, made up of groups that did not necessarily see eye-to-eye, historically,” said Sarah Chayes, a Tunisia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “So there had to be a kind of “peace-making” within the quartet before it could perform its function. That is a first, so far as I know, in Nobel history. “The Quartet worked very hard to achieve the result it did,” Chayes added. “This was not a matter of elegant words or a certain stance. The quartet leadership spent all-nighters end-to-end, cajoled, taught, helped, and threatened political actors to produce a solution to the situation of political crisis in which they were mired.” The Nobel committee said the quartet had secured the approval of the Tunisian population at large for the constitutional process that led to democratic elections. “The quartet paved the way for a peaceful dialogue between the citizens, the political parties and the authorities and helped to find consensus-based solutions to a wide range of challenges across political and religious divides. “The broad-based national dialogue that the quartet succeeded in establishing countered the spread of violence in Tunisia and its function is therefore comparable to that of the peace congresses to which Alfred Nobel refers in his will.” Favourites before the announcement was made were the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, for pledging to keep her country’s borders open to hundreds of thousands of refugees, Pope Francis and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif for the landmark deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Others thought to be in strong contention were the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and rebel leader Rodrigo Londono; Mussi Zerai, an Eritrean priest who helps coordinate rescue missions for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and Saudi blogger Raif Badawi. The Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallström, said the award to the Tunisian quartet was well deserved. “It is a long and difficult process to achieve democratic reforms in a country that has been subjected to such a difficult situation, but it has done everything right and it has been done with active support from civil society,” she told broadcaster STV. She particularly praised the country’s establishment of a new constitution that was anchored among women and young people and its attempts to establish consensus between different parties. The quartet is comprised of four key organisations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union, the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/09/tunisian-national-dialogue-quartet-wins-2015-nobel-peace-prize

Spencer Stone in serious condition after ‘nightlife-related incident’ Stone among three Americans who disarmed suspected terrorist in August Lauren Gambino in New York Thursday 8 October 2015 20.28 BST Spencer Stone, one of three Americans who helped foil an attack on a French train this summer, is in serious condition after being stabbed outside a bar in Sacramento in what authorities have described as a “nightlife-related incident” that is not being investigated as a terrorist act. The Sacramento police department said officers responded to a report of a stabbing in an area of midtown Sacramento known for its nightlife at 12.46am on Thursday morning. The victim, identified later by police as Stone, was believed to be out with a group of friends when a physical altercation broke out, and led to him being stabbed multiple times in his upper body, police said in a statement. Stone was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, where he is being treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries, according to authorities. The medical center has released a statement on behalf of Stone’s family that describes his condition as “serious”. “The family of Airman Spencer Stone appreciates the outpouring of love and support,” the statement also said. Sacramento police detectives were called to the scene to assist with the investigation. Police said during a morning press conference that they are searching for two adult males who fled the scene in a dark-colored car. No arrests have yet been made. “The assault incident is not related to a terrorist act,” the police said on Twitter. “Assault occurred near a bar; alcohol is believed to be a factor.” During the press conference, police said that they did not know whether Stone had been drinking, but that he and friends had visited bars in the area and some in his group were drinking. It appears the confrontation began as a “verbal argument” that escalated into a physical fight, a Sacramento police department spokesman said. He emphasized that the incident was not related to the victim’s life-saving action on a French train. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson offered his condolences to Stone and his family. “My thoughts and prayers go out to Spencer Stone and the Stone family,” Johnson wrote on Twitter. “I ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy at this time.” In August, Stone was on a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris with two American friends when he noticed a gunman carrying an AK-47. Together with Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos, Stone tackled the suspected Morocco-born Ayoub El-Khazani to the ground after he opened fire on the train. Stone, who is assigned to Travis air force base in California, almost had his thumb sliced off during the struggle when the gunman pulled a box cutter and stabbed him. Medics stitched it back on to his hand after the confrontation. Stone, along with Sadler and Skarlatos and British businessman Chris Norman, were awarded the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest honour, by the president, François Hollande, for their roles in stopping the suspected terrorist attack. Spencer Stone speaking in August after the incident on the high-speed train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris. Photograph: Etienne Laurent/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/08/spencer-stone-stabbed-france-train-attack

Governor Nikki Haley calls on people to stay inside their homes Eight weather-related deaths reported in Carolinas as scores rescued Martin Pengelly in New York and agencies Monday 5 October 2015 02.15 BST A “once-in-a-millennium” downpour has flooded large parts of South Carolina, causing at least seven deaths. The storm had dumped more than 18 inches (45 cm) of rain in parts of central South Carolina by early Sunday. The state climatologist forecast another 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 cm) through Monday as the rainfall began to slacken. The state’s governor, Nikki Haley, said parts of the state were hit with rainfall that would be expected to occur once in 1,000 years, with the Congaree river running at its highest level since 1936. “This is the worst flooding in the low country [the region around the South Carolina coast] for a thousand years, that’s how big this is,” Haley told a news conference. “That’s what South Carolina is dealing with right now. “Our goal is all hands on deck. If you are in your house, stay in your house,” Haley told a news conference. “This is not something to be out taking pictures of.” Six weather-related deaths were reported in South Carolina, three of them from traffic accidents. Officials reported another two deaths in North Carolina. Though hurricane Joaquin did not hit the Carolinas and the rest of the southern US east coast as expected, instead passing out to sea over the Atlantic after battering the Bahamas, thousands in the state were still left without power by the rain. Officials in the state capital, Columbia, said 100 people had been rescued by mid-morning Sunday from vehicles after trying to cross flooded roads. Police said another 200 rescue calls were pending and state officials reported a total of 200 swift-water rescues around South Carolina. Haley said all interstate highways in and around Columbia would be closed, as 600 national guardsmen were deployed to help with rescues and evacuations. On Saturday, president Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for South Carolina, freeing up federal funds to be used to tackle the floods. On Sunday the state’s the emergency management spokesman, Eric Rousey, told CNN South Carolina was dealing with “a historic flood the likes of which we haven’t seen”. High winds toppled a tree that hit a vehicle and killed a passenger on Thursday near Fayetteville in North Carolina. Three people died in weather-related traffic accidents in South Carolina on Friday and Saturday, the state highway patrol said, and a drowning in Spartanburg, South Carolina, was also linked to the storm. On Sunday most rescue efforts were centered on Dorchester and Charleston. The city of Georgetown was also heavily affected. Amidst record rainfall across the state, Charleston mayor Joe Riley told the Associated Press it appeared the torrential rain has passed but moderate rain could continue for 24 hours, and said he had never seen such flooding in his 40 years as mayor. The rainfall in Charleston on Saturday was measured at 11.5in, a record. “This was a record storm,” Riley said. “I feel very fortunate that we were able to get through this as well as we have.” Haley’s reference to the flooding being the “worst in a thousand years” did not mean that South Carolina, which became a colony in 1663 and a state in 1788, had not seen such flooding since 1015 AD. The reference was to the expectation among forecasters that in any given 1,000 years, such flooding could reasonably be expected to occur only once. 1 5 The swollen Congaree river flows under the Gervais Street bridge in West Columbia. Photograph: Chuck Burton/AP 2 5 Homes inundated by flood waters in Columbia, South Carolina. Photograph: Sean Rayford/Getty Images More pics in link http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/04/south-carolina-flood-governor-nikki-haley-deaths-thousand-year

Yet again under the Hollande presidency, workers are scared about the future of their jobs and their families. Is it any wonder they couldn’t contain their anger? Tuesday 6 October 2015 13.01 BST By Philippe Marlière On Monday, about 100 employees stormed an Air France management and union official meeting that was discussing dramatic job cuts. As the negotiations had been making no progress, the staff became angry, and tussled with some company officials. Two Air France executives had their shirts torn off. Xavier Broseta, the airline’s head of human resources, escaped the scene by climbing a chain-link fence, bare-chested, while Pierre Plissonnier, the head of long-haul flights, was escorted away by security guards with his suit and shirt in tatters. The spectacular images were shown around the world and provoked dismay and outcry in the media. Protesters were presented as a “mob”. Manuel Valls, the Socialist prime minister, declared that he was “scandalised” by the “unacceptable violence”. He unequivocally backed Air France management, still a partially state-owned company. Emmanuel Macron, the finance minister, tweeted that the violence was “irresponsible” and “nothing can replace social dialogue”. Fearing a media backlash, most trade unions condemned the violence. Air France management are planning to cut 2,900 jobs in the next two years. The rationale is to reduce costs to compete with low-cost companies. Several weeks of “negotiations” have proved fruitless because Air France management have set conditions which are impossible for the unions to accept. The company demands from their pilots that they work an extra 200 hours a year for the same salary; several routes will be closed; and 400 pilots will be made redundant. To defeat the well-organised pilot union is only the first part of the attack against workers’ rights. Then the hostesses and stewards will be asked to work more for the same pay and will get fewer resting days, and the cabin crews will be downsized. Alexandre de Juniac, the Air France-KLM chief executive, has announced that the company would go ahead with the cuts and redundancies regardless of the outcome of the negotiations. De Juniac is even by Anglo-American business standards a patron voyou (rogue boss). In a jaw-dropping talk he gave in front of businesspeople in December 2014 , he condemned the 35-hour working week (a popular reform among salaried workers in France), questioned whether there should be a legal retirement age at all, and wondered whether the ban on underage workers should not be lifted. Worst of all, he found it amusing to share with the audience a conversation he had with his Qatar Airways counterpart. The latter confided to him that there could never be any strikes in Qatar as pilots would be sent to jail. This is a rather chilling story when one knows that cost reductions are implemented in order to compete with Gulf rivals. Under these circumstances, it is no surprise that the workforce are fed up and combative: their basic working conditions and underlying rights are under attack. The airline workers have embraced the roots of French trade unionism: anarcho-syndicalism (syndicalisme means trade union in French). In the late 19th century, it was a workers’ movement that advocated direct action by the working class. This type of trade unionism was anti-parliamentarian, as professional politicians could not be trusted to represent the interests of the working people (this included social democratic parties). It remained an influential force amongst workers until the first world war. In the 1890s, the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) – then and still today the main French union – promoted this type of direct action (notably the general strike) and “revolutionary unionism”, organising its members around Fédération des Bourses du Travail (Labour Exchanges). Jean-Claude Mailly, leader of Force Ouvrière (Workers’ Strength), declared that “you can fight a management without being violent. This is not part of our traditions.” But does he really know the traditions of French syndicalism in the first place? It is ironic that the tearing of a couple of shirts and of a suit should provoke an international outcry when hardly anyone points to the symbolic violence of Air France management. Why would the media and some of our politicians not hold Air France management to account for their assault on the lives of thousands of people? There is a wealth of academic literature showing that unemployment or poor working conditions can lead to poverty, depression, divorce, suicide and the destruction of entire families. This is not free violence on the part of the strikers: people genuinely fear for their future and the future of their families. The attack on the Air France workforce should be placed in the wider context of the constant undermining of workers’ rights under the François Hollande presidency. When workers start holding managers hostage, or “boss-napping”, they do not do it for fun or because they are a “violent mob”. They do it as a last resort to draw attention to their desperate cause. Air France union activists stormed the headquarters during a meeting about job cuts. Photograph: Solal/SIPA/Rex Features http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/06/air-france-protesters-workers-hollande Air France workers rip shirts from executives after airline cuts 2,900 jobs Staff storm board meeting at Charles de Gaulle airport and force executives to flee, with one clambering over fence half-naked 1 6 Air France’s human resources deputy director, Xavier Broseta, is helped over a fence to escape angry staff. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP/Getty Images Vid in link http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/air-france-workers-storm-meeting-protest-executives-job-losses-paris

Commander of war in Afghanistan tells Senate panel that US forces had called in airstrike at Afghan request – ‘an admission of a war crime’ says MSF chief Spencer Ackerman in New York Tuesday 6 October 2015 18.03 BST US special operations forces – not their Afghan allies – called in the deadly airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, the US commander has conceded. Shortly before General John Campbell, the commander of the US and Nato war in Afghanistan, testified to a Senate panel, the president of Doctors Without Borders – also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – said the US and Afghanistan had made an “admission of a war crime”. Shifting the US account of the Saturday morning airstrike for the fourth time in as many days, Campbell reiterated that Afghan forces had requested US air cover after being engaged in a “tenacious fight” to retake the northern city of Kunduz from the Taliban. But, modifying the account he gave at a press conference on Monday, Campbell said those Afghan forces had not directly communicated with the US pilots of an AC-130 gunship overhead. “Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure to enable fires to go on the ground. We had a special operations unit that was in close vicinity that was talking to the aircraft that delivered those fires,” Campbell told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday morning. The airstrike on the hospital is among the worst and most visible cases of civilian deaths caused by US forces during the 14-year Afghanistan war that Barack Obama has declared all but over. It killed 12 MSF staff and 10 patients, who had sought medical treatment after the Taliban overran Kunduz last weekend. Three children died in the airstrike that came in multiple waves and burned patients alive in their beds. On Tuesday, MSF denounced Campbell’s press conference as an attempt to shift blame to the Afghans. “The US military remains responsible for the targets it hits, even though it is part of a coalition,” said its director general, Christopher Stokes. Campbell did not explain whether the procedures to launch the airstrike took into account the GPS coordinates of the MSF field hospital, which its president, Joanne Liu, said were “regularly shared” with US, coalition and Afghan military officers and civilian officials, “as recently as Tuesday 29 September”. AC-130 gunships, which fly low, typically rely on a pilot visually identifying a target. It is also unclear where the US special operations forces were relative to the fighting, but Campbell has said that US units were “not directly engaged in the fighting”. Campbell instead said the hospital was “mistakenly struck” by US forces. “We would never intentionally target a protected medical facility,” Campbell told US lawmakers, declaring that he wanted an investigation by his command to “take its course” instead of providing further detail. But Jason Cone, Doctors Without Borders’ US executive director, said Campbell’s shifting story underscored the need for an independent inquiry. “Today’s statement from General Campbell is just the latest in a long list of confusing accounts from the US military about what happened in Kunduz on Saturday,” Cone said. “They are now back to talking about a ‘mistake’. A mistake that lasted for more than an hour, despite the fact that the location of the hospital was well known to them and that they were informed during the airstrike that it was a hospital being hit. All this confusion just underlines once again the crucial need for an independent investigation into how a major hospital, full of patients and MSF staff, could be repeatedly bombed.” Campbell suggested but did not say that the Afghans were taking fire from the Taliban from within the hospital grounds, a claim the Afghan government has explicitly made. MSF unequivocally denies that the hospital was a source of fire. It has also noted the precision of the strike that hit only the main hospital building and not its adjuncts. Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame, said that according to international humanitarian law, the critical question for determining if US forces committed a war crime was whether they had notified the hospital ahead of the strike if they understood the Taliban to be firing from the hospital. “Any serious violation of the law of armed conflict, such as attacking a hospital that is immune from intentional attack, is a war crime. Hospitals are immune from attack during an armed conflict unless being used by one party to harm the other and then only after a warning that it will be attacked,” O’Connell said. How the story shifted 3 October “U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct. 3, against individuals threatening the force. The strike may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” Colonel Brian Tribus, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan 4 October “U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in Kunduz city at 2:15am (local), Oct. 3, against insurgents who were directly firing upon U.S. service members advising and assisting Afghan Security Forces in the city of Kunduz. The strike was conducted in the vicinity of a Doctors Without Borders medical facility.” Colonel Brian Tribus, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan 5 October “We have now learned that on October 3rd, Afghan forces advised that they were taking fire from enemy positions and asked for air support from U.S. forces. An airstrike was then called to eliminate the Taliban threat and several civilians were accidentally struck. This is different from initial reports which indicated that U.S. forces were threatened and that the airstrike was called on their behalf.” General John Campbell, commander, US Forces-Afghanistan and Nato's Operation Resolute Support 6 October “Even though the Afghans request that support, it still has to go through a rigorous US procedure to enable fires to go on the ground. We had a special operations unit that was in close vicinity that was talking to the aircraft that delivered those fires.” General John Campbell, commander, US Forces-Afghanistan and Nato's Operation Resolute Support The US account has now shifted four times in four days. On Saturday, the US military said it did not know for certain that it had struck the hospital but that US forces were taking fire in Kunduz. On Sunday, it said that the strike took place in the “vicinity” of the hospital and suggested it had been accidentally struck. On Monday, Campbell said that the Afghans requested the strike and said US forces in the area were not “threatened”. On Tuesday, he clarified that US forces called in the airstrike themselves at Afghan request. Meanwhile, the defense secretary, Ashton Carter, said in a statement on Tuesday, that the Department of Defense “deeply regrets the loss of innocent lives that resulted from this tragic event”. Doctors Without Borders has demanded an independent inquiry, rejecting the three current investigations – by the US, Nato and the Afghans – as compromised by their partiality. “This attack cannot be brushed aside as a mere mistake or an inevitable consequence of war. Statements from the Afghanistan government have claimed that Taliban forces were using the hospital to fire on coalition forces. These statements imply that Afghan and US forces working together decided to raze to the ground a fully functioning hospital, which amounts to an admission of a war crime,” Liu said on Tuesday. In the past, the US has upbraided both allies and adversaries over the indiscriminate use of aerial strikes. On Thursday, the US defense secretary said Russia was pouring “gasoline on the fire” of the Syrian civil war after it launched a campaign of airstrikes against opponents of Moscow’s ally Bashar al-Assad. A day later, the National Security Council spokesman, Ned Price, said the White House was “deeply concerned” that its Saudi ally in the Yemen conflict had bombed a wedding party, something the US itself did in Yemen in 2013. When Israel shelled a UN school in Gaza housing thousands of displaced Palestinians in August 2014, a State Department spokesman said the US was “appalled” by the “disgraceful” attack. Addressing Tuesday’s committee hearing, Campbell confirmed that he has recommended to Obama that the US retain thousands of troops in Afghanistan beyond Obama’s presidency – reversing a plan to reduce the force to one focused on protecting the US embassy in Kabul. He argued for “strategic patience” in the longest war in US history, which has now stretched five years longer than the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again MSF hospital airstrike: who are the victims? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/msf-hospital-bombing-who-are-the-victims

Médecins Sans Frontières decries ‘horrific’ loss of life, as US airstrike revives questions over whether enough is done to protect civilians in Afghanistan The commander of US forces in the country has apologised to Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, for the attack, the president’s office said. The clinic should have been clearly marked on military maps, and the attack revived long-standing questions about whether Afghan forces and their Nato allies do enough to protect civilians. “Why did the US blow up the whole hospital?” said Nasratullah, whose 25-year old cousin Akbar was among the doctors killed. “We know that the Americans are very clever. If they can target a single person in a car from their planes, why did they have to blow up the whole building?” The charity said it had recently recirculated GPS coordinates of the hospital to all parties fighting in the conflict, even though it has been operating for years and is one of few medical facilities in the city so should have been well known. Human Rights Watch said it had serious concerns about whether US forces had taken sufficient precautions to avoid striking such a sensitive target. Hospitals are among areas protected from attack under international laws governing conflict. “The bombing of the hospital is a shocking development for Kunduz, where civilians and aid workers are already at grave risk from the fighting,” said Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher at the group. “All forces are obligated to do their utmost to avoid causing civilian harm.” She called for an impartial investigation to establish the circumstances of the attack, and urged the US to review its targeting procedures to ensure such incidents do not reoccur. Sarwar Husaini, a spokesman for Kunduz police, claimed Taliban fighters had entered the hospital compound on Friday evening and were firing at security forces from inside. MSF say they can’t confirm the claim. “We have absolutely no information about that,” the charity said. Surviving staff tried to help the injured, and MSF posted pictures of an operation in an improvised surgery, but other pictures showed staff members apparently collapsed in shock and grief. The main building of the hospital was completely gutted by the blaze, with some bodies of those trapped inside charred beyond recognition, said Qiamudeen, a 31-year-old whose neighbour was killed in the strike. “I was shocked, emotional and in tears when I reached the hospital,” he told the AFP news agency. At the time of the bombing, 105 patients and their carers, and more than 80 MSF international and national staff were in the hospital. At least 37 staff members were wounded in the incident, it said. None of the international doctors volunteering at the facility were hurt. An MSF staff member, who was on duty at the time, told the Guardian: “I was inside my office. Around 2am, the plane started bombing the main building of MSF. It lasted one and a half hours. After 3.30am, I came out from my office and saw all of the hospital was on fire.” The injured and any surviving patients had to be evacuated to a town two hours drive away, because the damaged hospital could no longer operate. 1 2 Injured Médecins Sans Frontières staff are seen after an airstrike struck their hospital in Kunduz. Photograph: Associated Press 2 2 Fires burn in part of the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz after it was hit by an airstrike. Photograph: Médecins Sans Frontières/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/kunduz-charity-hospital-bombing-violates-international-law

Co-pilot safely landed flight carrying 147 passengers after calling airport tower to say ‘Medical emergency. Captain is incapacitated’ on Monday Ellen Brait in New York and agencies Tuesday 6 October 2015 01.11 BST An American Airlines pilot died mid-flight on Monday en route from Phoenix to Boston, forcing his co-pilot to make an emergency landing while trying to summon medical help for the stricken captain. “Unfortunately our pilot passed away. We are incredibly saddened by this event, and we are focused on caring for our pilot’s family and colleagues,” an American Airlines spokesperson told the Guardian. Flight 550 was diverted to Syracuse Hancock international airport after the pilot became ill. The plane landed safely shortly after 7am EDT with the co-pilot in control. There were 147 passengers and a crew of five on board the Airbus A320. Andrea Huguely, a spokeswoman for the airline, said a replacement crew was sent to Syracuse and the plane later completed its trip to Boston. Before the flight landed at Syracuse the first officer called the airport tower and said in a calm voice: “American 550. Medical emergency. Captain is incapacitated.” He requested a runway to land. In a recording of his exchange with the tower, the officer expressed concern whether ambulance medics could get on the plane quickly. He was assured they could and told to go into a gate where the medics would meet the plane. The pilot’s medical emergency and identity were not disclosed. Aviation experts said there was never any danger to passengers because pilots and co-pilots are equally capable of flying the aircraft. Former airline pilot John Cox, an aviation safety consultant, said when one pilot became unable to fly the other could rely on help from the plane’s automated systems and get priority treatment from air traffic controllers. “The passengers were not in danger, absolutely not,” he said. Passenger Louise Anderson, who was heading from Reno, Nevada, to Boston via Phoenix, said she had dozed off on the flight. “What I woke up to was the flight attendant telling us we were making an emergency landing because the pilot was ill,” she said. She said rumours of the pilot’s death circulated in the Syracuse airport but were confirmed only by an announcement on their makeup flight to Boston. Anderson said the mood on board then was somber but she commended the crew’s handling of a tragic situation. Airline pilots must pass physical exams every 12 months – or every six months for captains 40 or older. Steve Wallace, who led the Federal Aviation Administration’s accident investigations office from 2000 to 2008, said it was rare for a pilot to become incapacitated. According to the FAA seven pilots for US airlines and one charter pilot have died during flights since 1994. Captains and co-pilots usually took turns flying and doing takeoffs and landings, said former airline pilot James Record, who teaches aviation at Dowling College in Oakdale, New York. “The advantage to that is the co-pilot gets an equal amount of experience and the captain gets to see how the other guy flies,” he said. Record noted the co-pilot remained calm while describing the emergency and requesting permission from air traffic controllers to land. “He was doing what he’s trained to do fly the plane,” Record said. “He was probably more concerned with the health of his buddy, his crew member [than whether he could land on his own].” Modern airliners are capable of largely flying themselves but there is debate in aviation circles about whether over-reliance on automation is eroding pilots’ flying skills. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/05/american-airlines-pilot-dies-mid-flight

Whistleblower says he has offered to do time in prison as part of a deal to return to US, but ‘we are still waiting for them to call us back’ Ewen MacAskill Monday 5 October 2015 17.01 BST The US justice department has made no effort to contact Edward Snowden to discuss a plea deal that would see him return from exile in Russia, the NSA whistleblower said in an interview on BBC Panorama to be broadcast on Monday night. Snowden, who is wanted under the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, said he had offered to do time in prison as part of a deal. “We are still waiting for them to call us back,” he said. His comments come just months after Eric Holder, who was US attorney-general until April, said Snowden’s revelations had “spurred a necessary debate”. He also said the “possibility exists” of a plea deal. But senior figures in the security services in both the US and UK are unforgiving, wanting him to serve a long sentence both as punishment and to act as a deterrent to others. Former head of the NSA Michael Hayden, asked by Panorama what would happen to Snowden, said: “If you’re asking me my opinion, he’s going to die in Moscow. He’s not coming home.” Snowden, in his first interview with the BBC since he disclosed the documents two years ago, said: “I’ve volunteered to go to prison with the government many times. What I won’t do is I won’t serve as a deterrent to people trying to do the right thing in difficult situations.” Asked if he was prepared to face a jail sentence, he replied: “Of course.” If Snowden was to return to the US without a deal, he would be tried under the Espionage Act, which would mean no jury and he would be looking at least at 30 years in jail or even a life sentence. But Snowden does have some leverage. Even some of his critics acknowledge he has sparked a necessary debate worldwide about surveillance and privacy. Further leverage is the embarrassment factor to the US from Snowden’s receipt of prestigious awards and his general popularity, particularly among the young: since starting on Twitter a week ago, he has attracted 1.36 million followers. In May 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii. The following month he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents, and then travelled to Russia, where he was subsequently granted asylum. One of the consequences of the Snowden revelations has been an increasing reluctance on the part of internet service providers and social media to cooperate fully with police and security agencies in handing over data. Mark Rowley, the head of counter-terrorism police operations in the UK, said in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute in London on Monday that some of the internet companies and social media were immature. Rowley said: “Some simply undermine us by adopting a policy that if they supply data to us they will tell the subject that they have done that.” But Simon Milner, Facebook director of policy for the UK and Ireland, told Panorama: “We have made important strides in the last three years to ensure that Facebook is a hostile place for terrorists ... and in rare circumstances where we find somebody who is organising activities which may pose an imminent risk to life, then we can and will report those people to the authorities.” Milner said: “Facebook doesn’t track terrorist content ... However, what we do do is rely on reports from the 1.5 billion people using Facebook to let us know when they see things on Facebook that shouldn’t be there, including terrorist activity.” Milner added: “There is no algorithm that finds terrorist content.” Snowden, who is wanted under the Espionage Act after leaking tens of thousands of top secret documents, said he had offered to do time in prison as part of a deal. Photograph: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/05/edward-snowden-us-has-not-offered-me-plea-deal

Violent storms and flooding send water cascading through Antibes, Cannes and Nice, inundating a retirement home and killing three people inside Jessica Elgot and agencies Sunday 4 October 2015 12.58 BST Nineteen people are feared dead after violent storms and severe flooding swept the French Riviera, including three people who drowned in a retirement home after a river broke its banks. Heavy flooding along the Côte d’Azur on Saturday saw the river Brague burst its banks close to the city of Antibes, flooding a home for elderly people. The French president, François Hollande, confirmed at least 16 people had died and three were missing. The interior ministry said earlier in the morning there was little hope of finding the missing people alive. “It’s not over,” Hollande said as he arrived at the flooded retirement home and met emergency service workers. “The toll is not yet finalised. In times like this, we must be fast, efficient and coordinated.” He warned locals to take care on local roads, which are covered with slippery mud. At least seven people drowned after their cars became trapped in underground car parks, according to rescue teams in Mandelieu-la Napoule, with the commune’s mayor, Henri Leroy, warning more bodies may be found. “It’s apocalyptic,” he told Agence France-Presse. “The parking was half-emptied but there are thousands of vehicles. There could be more bodies.” Three people drowned when their car became stuck in rising waters inside a narrow tunnel near Vallauris Golfe-Juan, authorities said. A woman in her 60s is reported to have died in the street in Cannes when huge storms hit the region on Saturday. Water and debris coursed down roads in the festival town and in the neighbouring city of Nice. Another victim was found dead at a campsite in Antibes, according to officials. More than 17cm (6.7in) of rain fell on the Cannes region in two hours, radio France Bleu Azur reported. Guardian journalist Stuart Dredge, attending the MIPJunior television conference in Cannes, said the venue for the event had been flooded. He said he had walked knee-deep in water on his way home on Saturday night after watching the England-Australia Rugby World Cup match. “By half time, the street outside was running with water, and the main Rue d’Antibes road in Cannes was between ankle and knee-deep at its lower points,” he said. “The crossroads were the most dangerous parts: the water really was pouring down from the higher ground with strong currents – and a fair few people walking home had been drinking, so their balance would have been a bit impaired already.” Dredge said he did not see anyone fall into the water, although some moped drivers needed assistance. “This morning, there are a few cars that have clearly been swept along and deposited leaning against railings. When I got home the power was out in my building, but it came back on again shortly before midnight. “I think Cannes probably got off lightly, comparably. It was a hairy walk home, but I didn’t feel in true danger,” he added. “Some cars were carried off into the sea,” said Cannes’ mayor, David Lisnard, describing water levels reaching halfway up car doors and trees left uprooted on the city’s main street. “We have rescued a lot of people, and we must now be vigilant against looting,” he added, announcing that an emergency plan to mobilise police, emergency responders and municipal services. British journalist Sarah Kovandzich said she was in Le Crillon bar a few streets back from the seafront when she and her companions saw water running past the door. “I’ve never seen anything like it in Cannes,” she said. “The water started to seep into the bar, then we were up to our ankles, people were putting their feet up on the chairs. Outside, you could see plant pots and flowers just being carried along the road by the water.” Kovandzich said the walk home was daunting because the flooding had removed manhole covers. “You couldn’t immediately see where the holes might be because of the flowing water.” The power was out in her apartment and water was dripping through the ceiling, she said. One social media user compared the scenes in Cannes on Sunday morning to the zombie TV series The Walking Dead, posting pictures of several damaged cars. France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, was also due to visit the area on Sunday morning to inspect rescue efforts, his spokesman said. Hollande thanked rescuers and politicians for their work, praising the “solidarity of the nation” and offering condolences to the victims’ families, while the prime minister, Manuel Valls, spoke of his “deep emotion” on hearing of the deaths. The Elysée palace announced on Sunday that victims of the flooding will receive help from the state under a French law that gives compensation to victims of natural disasters. A tweet from the president’s office said it would be paid within three months. The areas worst hit by flooding were also the hardest to access, officials said, raising fears the death toll could rise. About 27,000 homes remained without power early on Sunday, 14,000 of them in Cannes. French rail company SNCF said about a dozen trains carrying hundreds of people had to be halted for safety reasons, while roads around Antibes were also flooded, according to French emergency services. Train services are still cancelled between Toulon and Nice, a spokesman said on Sunday, adding that further delays are likely. “Campsites are under water, and two helicopters are circling to ensure the public’s security, as some people are stuck on the roof of their caravans,” said a spokeswoman for the fire brigade. Up to 500 tourists, including several Britons and Danes, sought shelter overnight at Nice airport, while a Nice versus Nantes football match was interrupted by the downpours. French weather forecasters said the worst storms had now passed over the French mainland and were heading for the Italian coast. More than 120 people are staying in temporary shelters in Cannes, according to city authorities. Donations for those who have lost belongings in the floods are being organised in an emergency drive by French charity Secours Populaire. Flooding in Cannes, France. The city’s mayor described water levels reaching halfway up car doors and trees left uprooteed on the main street. Photograph: Stuart Dredge for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/04/heavy-flooding-in-french-riviera-leaves-more-than-a-dozen-people-dead

Defence secretary Michael Fallon says majority of Russian bombs not targeting Isis, but killing civilians and rebels Press Association Saturday 3 October 2015 08.34 BST Russia’s military intervention in Syria is propping up Bashar al-Assad rather than tackling Islamic State, the defence secretary has claimed. Michael Fallon said the vast majority of strikes carried out by Russian forces had not been aimed at Isis jihadis but were instead killing civilians and the Free Syrian Army forces rebelling against president Assad’s regime. Fallon acknowledged that Russian involvement had “complicated” the situation but indicated he still believed Britain should extend its own bombing campaign to target Isis in Syria. In an interview with the Sun, he said initial Ministry of Defence intelligence suggested only one in 20 Russian airstrikes so far were targeting Isis. “We’re analysing where the strikes are going every morning,” he said. “The vast majority are not against Isis at all. “Our evidence indicates they are dropping unguided munitions in civilian areas, killing civilians, and they are dropping them against the Free Syrian forces fighting Assad.” Fallon said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was “shoring up Assad and perpetuating the suffering”. But he denied that Putin’s actions had left Europe and the US looking weak. “I don’t accept he has outmanoeuvred us. He has complicated the situation in Syria. But we’re not powerless.” Fallon suggested that the changed circumstances would not prevent the government pressing ahead with making the case to extend into Syria the RAF’s current strikes against Isis in Iraq. It would be morally wrong not to target Isis in Syria, he said. “We can’t leave it to French and Australian, American aircraft to keep our own British streets safe.” The governments of the the UK, US, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey condemned the Russian involvement, stating it was not targeting Isis, also known as Daesh and Isil. They said in a statement: “We express our deep concern with regard to the Russian military build-up in Syria and especially the attacks by the Russian airforce on Hama, Homs and Idlib which led to civilian casualties and did not target Daesh. “These military actions constitute a further escalation and will only fuel more extremism and radicalisation. We call on the Russian Federation to immediately cease its attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and to focus its efforts on fighting Isil.” A former senior military adviser claimed the UK’s policy in Syria had been hampered by “wishful thinking” about what would happen to Assad’s regime. In an interview with BBC2’s Newsnight, Lt Gen Sir Simon Mayall painted a picture of the UK being in a strategic muddle over Syria and described Russia’s intervention as “hugely significant”. He said the British response was inadequate when faced with the scale of the Isis advance. “If we genuinely want to stop this and reverse it,” he said, “we are going to have to do more than have high-flown rhetoric because this is a really seriously dangerous situation on the ground … and our response, frankly, is inadequate for the scale of the problem that we’ve got.” Russian defence ministry website footage of an airstrike in Syria. Fallon said Putin had complicated the situation in the country. Photograph: AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/russian-airstrikes-in-syria-propping-up-assad-fallon-claims

Witnesses say killer, named as Chris Harper Mercer, asked victims their religion before shooting them, while US president appears visibly frustrated Ben Quinn and agencies Friday 2 October 2015 12.50 BST Harrowing details have begun to emerge after at least nine people were killed at an Oregon community college by a gunman who witnesses said had demanded to know students’ religion before shooting them. A visibly frustrated Barack Obama reacted to the 45th school shooting to take place in the US this year by telling Americans that “somehow this has become routine”. The killer, who was fatally shot in a gun battle with police following the rampage, has been named as Chris Harper Mercer, 26, who lived near Umpqua college, in the rural town of Roseburg. The father of Anastasia Boylan, an 18-year-old student who was in class when Mercer came in shooting, said she survived by playing dead. “[Mercer] came in and there was gunfire immediately and he scattered the room. From what I understood from what she said was he shot the professor point blank, one shot killed him,” Stacey Boylan told CNN. “Others had been injured and then this man had enough time – I don’t know how much time elapsed – he was able to stand there and start asking people one by one what their religion was. “‘Are you a Christian?’ he would ask them, and ‘if you are a Christian then stand up’ and they would stand up. He’d say ‘because you are a Christian you’re going to see God in about one second’ and then he shot and killed them. And he kept going down the line doing this to people.” Hannah Miles, a 19-year-old freshman who had been in her writing class when her teacher got a call from security saying the school was in lockdown, said she heard gunshots from a neighbouring classroom. “There was a huge pop. It sounded like a ruler smacking against a chalkboard. Everyone jumped and we didn’t know what was going on. Then there was another one,” Miles told reporters. She was eventually evacuated by police from the locked classroom. The picture emerging of Mercer is of a killer who had an interest in mass shootings, having reportedly recently posted on a blog about a gunman who killed two US journalists live on air in August. He described Vester Flanagan as a man who “wanted the world to see his actions” before adding: “Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.” Mercer is thought to have been born in England before moving to the US as a young boy. Neighbours in Winchester said he lived in an apartment with his African-American mother, a nurse, and that he loved target shooting and seemed to carry around a black case with a gun inside. His father, Ian Mercer, said he was “just as shocked as everybody” at his son’s actions. Speaking from his home in the US, he told reporters: “I’ve just been talking to the police and the FBI and all the details I have right now is what you guys [reporters] have already. “I can’t answer any questions right now, I don’t want to answer any questions right now. It’s been a devastating day, devastating for me and my family. Shocked is all I can say.” Speaking at the White House, Obama said: “We are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or who want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.” The shooting on the campus in the former timber town 180 miles south of Portland took place on the the first week of classes at the community college, which has about 3,000 students. 1 2 Students confort each other after the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. Photograph: Steve Dipaola/Reuters 2 2 Image taken from the Myspace page of Chris Harper Mercer. Photograph: myspace.com/PA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/02/oregon-college-shootings-witnesses-recall-horror-as-obama-calls-for-action

Republican candidate promised to eliminate income tax on those earning less than $25,000 a year, but that group already pays no such tax, experts say Jana Kasperkevic in New York Tuesday 29 September 2015 17.26 BST When he introduced his tax plan on Monday, Donald Trump came off as an Oprah equivalent, of sorts, only on tax reform: You get a tax cut! YOU get a tax cut! And you get a tax cut, too! The Republican presidential frontrunner promised to eliminate taxes for the poorest Americans, close loopholes for the rich and simplify the US tax code by reducing the number of income brackets by more than half. The poor wouldn’t pay income tax. The rich wouldn’t pay estate tax. And all of this would be paid for by hedge funds, which Trump previously said had been “getting away with murder”. It all sounded so exciting. Yet according to tax experts across the political spectrum, Trump’s policy proposal is nothing new, “not a radical plan” so much as Republican orthodoxy including tax cuts for the poorest Americans that already exist. “It reduces or eliminates most of the deductions and loopholes available to special interests and to the very rich,” Trump said of his plan. “In other words, it’s going to cost me a fortune.” Closer inspection of Trump’s proposal, however, reveals that even the rich would be getting a tax cut – in fact, the most generous one. As it stands now, under Trump’s plan, more people would not be paying taxes than actually paying taxes, according to Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. “I don’t think that’s healthy,” he said. “I think taxes ought to be low and flat across the board and simple. Taking people off the tax roll on the bottom is dangerous for democracy.” In the presentation accompanying Trump’s announcement, the campaign stated that by eliminating income tax for single Americans earning less than $25,000 or married Americans jointly earning less than $50,000, the candidate’s policy would remove “nearly 75 million households – over 50% – from the income tax rolls”. Americans earning less than $25,000 already do not pay any income taxes, said Josh Bivens, of the leftwing Economic Policy Institute. According to the Tax Policy Center, about 45% of taxpayers – equivalent to 76.5m households – do not pay income tax. That’s mostly because of the earned income tax credits and the child tax credits where applicable. “They usually get a refund,” said Bivens. “This idea that taxes are what is dragging down living standards is just not true. It’s a distraction from real issues.” Voters tend to find any mention of tax reductions appealing, but, Bivens said: “The act is getting old.” The only people who would not get a tax cut in Trump’s America – but would instead be paying for it – are hedge-funders and other “speculative partnerships that do not grow businesses or create jobs and are not risking their own capital”. Additionally, companies that hold cash overseas will be subject to a one-time repatriation fee “at a significantly discounted 10% tax rate”. Trump said that these proposals would make his plan revenue-neutral, but experts remain unconvinced. According to the Tax Foundation, a libertarian group, Trump’s plan would reduce US tax revenue by $10.14tn over the next decade. Furthermore, closing the carried interest loophole, many experts argued, would affect more than just hedge funds and is likely to also affect private equity and venture capital. Yet for most Americans, hedge funds remain shrouded in mystery and as such have become an easy target. “The word ‘hedge fund’ has become a bad word,” said Mitch Ackles, president of the Hedge Fund Association. “Think about what your first instinctual response is to the term hedge fund. People in my family cringe.” It’s too early to determine what impact Trump’s proposal will have, says Ackles, but he expects to hear more about hedge funds in the coming weeks. “Anything that Mr Trump is bringing up – whether it’s immigration or this specific issue of carried interest – is getting greater scrutiny, greater attention from candidates on both sides of the aisle,” Ackles said. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush has also called for closing the loophole on carried interest. Edwards, of the Cato Institute, described the carried interest proposal as “sort of a sideshow” that has long stagnated on Washington’s agenda. “Trump is trying to generally paint himself as an outsider and make a case that he is radically different than other Republican candidates, but the fact is, his tax plan is orthodox among Republican candidates,” said Edwards. “He heavily criticizes Jeb Bush, but actually his tax plan is in some ways similar to Jeb Bush’s. It’s pretty orthodox. It’s not a radical plan.” Bush, for his part, said he “finally” got around to reading Trump’s tax plan. “Looks familiar!” he tweeted on Tuesday. “I’m flattered. But he should’ve stuck with growth & fiscal responsibility.” A supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts to a joke. Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP Impact of individual tax changes proposed by Jeb Bush & Donald Trump. Chart in link http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/29/donald-trump-tax-plan-analysis-nothing-new

President tells UN that the world must recognise Palestine as a state under occupation Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem Wednesday 30 September 2015 18.35 BST Mahmoud Abbas has said Palestinians will “no longer continue to be bound” by the Oslo accords unless they receive “international protection” from Israel. Speaking at the UN general assembly in New York, the Palestinian president said the 20-year-old peace agreements needed updating and were not workable if they remained one-sided. Watched stony-faced by the Israeli delegation led by ambassador Ron Prosor, Abbas on Wednesday called for the international community to recognise Palestine as a state under occupation in the same way that countries were occupied in the second world war. Describing the situation as “unsustainable”, and with Palestinian patience “at an end”, Abbas also accused Israel of risking turning a political conflict into a religious one over the issue of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque – the focus of recent clashes. Israeli sources have indicated that Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, will use his own speech before the UN on Thursday to blame problems at the religious site on Palestinian incitement. Abbas made his speech on the day that the Palestinians raised their flag at the UN for the first time. “In this historical moment, I say to my people everywhere: raise the flag of Palestinians very high because it is the symbol of our identity,” the 80-year-old Abbas told the crowd. “It is a proud day.” Although Abbas went further in his comments at the UN than many had anticipated – despite saying this month he planned to drop a “bombshell” at the general assembly – it remained unclear whether his threats over the Oslo accords, which Palestinians argue Israel has comprehensively breached, should be taken as a warning or an indication of more imminent moves. He said: “We cannot continue to be bound by these signed agreements with Israel and Israel must assume fully its responsibilities of an occupying power, because the status quo cannot continue. “We will start the implementation of this declaration by all peaceful and legal means. Either the Palestinian National Authority will be the conduit of the Palestinian people from occupation to independence, or Israel, the occupying power, must bear all of its responsibilities.” Abbas added that Israel’s refusal to commit to agreements signed “render us an authority without real powers”. In his speech, the Palestinian president accused Israel of “repeated, systematic incursions upon al-Aqsa aimed at imposing a new reality”, warning that such actions create an explosive situation. He also rejected comments by Netanyahu regarding renewed talks. “It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations for the sake of negotiations; what is required is to mobilise international efforts to oversee an end to the occupation in line with the resolutions of international legitimacy,” Abbas said. “Until then, I call upon the United Nations to provide international protection for the Palestinian people in accordance with international humanitarian law.” Before his speech, Abbas’s aides had circulated to diplomats a matrix setting the Oslo and subsequent agreements against claimed Israeli violations. Significantly, however, he did not announce the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority – set up under Oslo – or the cancelling of security cooperation with Israel as some had speculated he would. Abbas had gone to New York hoping to secure commitments from the US secretary of state, John Kerry, that Washington would breath life into the moribund peace process – guarantees he failed to secure from a US administration distracted elsewhere in the region. “As long as Israel refuses to cease settlement activities and to the release of the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners in accordance with our agreements, they leave us no choice but to insist that we will not remain the only ones committed to the implementation of these agreements, while Israel continuously violates them,” Abbas said. “We therefore declare that we cannot continue to be bound by these agreements and that Israel must assume all of its responsibilities as an occupying power.” Some view Abbas’s tough talk as an attempt to mask his political weakness. Hopes of setting up a Palestinian state have been derailed, and there have been calls for him to resign and dissolve the Palestinian Authority. Without a specific deadline for taking those steps, Abbas left himself room for diplomatic manoeuvring to refocus the attention of the international community on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Western diplomats who have met him recently report he feels exhausted and isolated and has increasingly lost faith in the viability of a two-state solution. “Abbas feels he has played the ‘good guy’ and done what the international community has asked of him at every turn and has received nothing to show in return. He feels betrayed and let down,” one Palestinian official told the Guardian. “He went into his meeting with Kerry [on Saturday] with an open mind to see if there was anything on offer. But failing that the speech is bound to be more pessimistic.” There has been growing talk in recent months that Abbas, 80, is losing the enthusiasm to continue as president, with his own prestige and legacy badly damaged by the lack of progress on peace talks amid continued Israeli settlement building. That in turn has fuelled a growing crisis in Palestinian politics, with no obvious successor and collapsing confidence in the political leadership represented by his Fatah movement. The poll last week undertaken by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) suggests two-thirds of Palestinians want Abbas to step down. It also indicted that the majority of Palestinians no longer believe that a two-state solution is realistic, with showed 57% saying they support a return to an armed intifada in the absence of peace negotiations, up from 49% three months ago. ThePSR said the figure was similar to numbers seen ahead of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000. “If a spark comes along,” pollster Khalil Shikaki said, “there is absolutely no doubt that the Palestinian situation today is very, very fertile for a major eruption.” The grim assessment comes amid bleak signs from the peace process. Diplomatic sources familiar with the talks say contacts between Israeli and Palestinian officials in Cairo and Amman in recent months showed no signs of any movement, with Israel reportedly signalling that despite recent remarks by Netanyahu that he was open to bilateral contacts with Abbas, there was no enthusiasm in his rightwing government for negotiations. A Palestinian request to talk about borders, say Palestinian officials, was also rebuffed. Despite some symbolic successes, efforts by Abbas to internationalise the Palestinians’ incremental push for statehood among global institutions have recently run into the sand at the UN, despite some. Domestically, too, he appears constrained in his room for manoeuvre, not least in the oft-repeated threat to either end security cooperation with Israel – largely aimed at Hamas on the West Bank – or nullify the Oslo accords. In reality, as officials point out, the Palestinian Authority is the largest employer in the West Bank supported by large amounts of foreign aid, which has long benefitted the political class around Abbas. “Abbas is not going to dissolve the Palestinian Authority because there is an internal interest in maintaining it, the privileges, the international pressure and the international money,” said Ali Jerbawi, a former Palestinian cabinet minister. Mahmoud Abbas addresses the United Nations general assembly in New York. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/30/mahmoud-abbas-palestinians-no-longer-bound-by-oslo-accord-with-israel

London venue rejects claims of racist door policy after social media campaign triggers protests she told the BBC. “I’m half African-American too. I have godsisters and family who have darker skin as well. I don’t support any sort of discrimination. I love people for who they are.” http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/oct/01/dstrkt-nightclub-denies-ban-dark-overweight-women-west-end-london

Eyes are on Vladimir Putin as Russian president attends event for the first time in more than a decade, joining more than 150 world leaders in New York Julian Borger in New York Sunday 27 September 2015 17.00 BST In geopolitics, this is the greatest show on earth. For the best part of a week, the world’s leaders – more than 150 of them – will mingle, bargain and argue over the state of the world at the UN general assembly in New York. For much of the proceedings, “show” is the operative word. When the presidents and prime ministers mount the green marble podium, there will be a strong element of theatre. They will be playing to different galleries, declaiming their positions to their peers in the chamber, but also to domestic audiences. The drama will be greater than ever this year, at the 70th session of the UN general assembly, known inside the institution by its acronym Unga (rhyming with hunger). Within the space of two hours on Monday morning, Presidents Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Hassan Rouhani and François Hollande will take their turn to speak. Each will try to anticipate and respond to the other, seeking rhetorical advantage and one-upmanship in their claims to global leadership. The global balance of power will be laid out in the open. The leaders will huddle on Sunday to discuss climate change and global development goals. They will discuss the future of UN peacekeeping on Monday, with several countries pledging troops to the task, and on Tuesday, debate strategies of defeating the Islamic State and other violent extremists. The greatest wild card this year will be Putin. It will be the first time he has shown up to talk at Unga for a decade, and he flies to New York at a critical time. While he has eased the pressure on Ukraine, dialling down Russia’s covert military campaign alongside the separatists in the east, Putin at the same time has raised his country’s stakes in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad, setting up an air base in Latakia and consolidating Russia’s hold on a naval base at Tartus. In so doing, he has backed up by force of arms the argument he has been trying to win since the war started more than four years, and 250,000 lives, ago: that the only road to peace is through support for Assad and a concerted campaign against Isis. The US, its western allies, and most human rights advocates see the continuing slaughter through an inverse lens. In their view, Isis and other extremist groups are the symptoms of the chaos wrought by the Assad regime through the daily barrel bombing of civilians in rebel areas. It sounds like a fundamentally different view but it has been based on a bluff that Putin has called. Neither the US nor its European allies are prepared to risk military action to try to remove Assad. They can agree to bomb Isis because it advertises its atrocities online and explicitly threatens the West. Obama will be co-hosting a summit meeting on countering Isis starting on Tuesday morning. Putin is not expected to attend, as he seeking to claim his own leadership of the anti-Isis campaign. That will be the state of play when Obama meets Putin on Monday afternoon, at what is likely to be the most critical summit of the week. The president will be seeking assurances of Russian agreement to a relatively brisk abdication by Assad (months rather than years) in return for legitimising the Russian boots-on-the-ground campaign in Syria. But right now, those are assurances Putin seems in no mood to give. Over much of the previous decade, in Putin’s absence, the central drama at the general assembly has been provided by the Iranian state and its volatile relationship with the US – from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s baiting of his American houses to the tentative rapprochement of his successor, Hassan Rouhani. The symbolic highlight of the general assembly in 2013 was a phone conversation between Obama and Rouhani as the latter was in his car heading to the airport. Two years on, US-Iranian exchanges are now routine. A deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme was finally clinched in July, and in getting there the US secretary of state, John Kerry, and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, spent more time in each other’s company than any other two foreign ministers on earth. On Monday, Zarif will be meeting ministers from the six nations who negotiated the nuclear agreement, in order to discuss its implementation. But the White House has said there is still no meeting expected between Obama and Rouhani this year. Rouhani told National Public Radio that Iran was ready to start discussing Syria with the US “right now” but a personal encounter has not been approved by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The nuclear agreement has yet to have a diplomatic domino effect. Iran and the US remain far apart on each other’s role in the Middle East. Iran has reportedly not been invited to Obama’s summit on countering Isis. The White House says, however, that the president will have a brief meeting with Raùl Castro, who will be addressing the general assembly for the first time on Monday afternoon. Obama met the Cuban leader at the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April, and Kerry went to Havana to reopen the US embassy in August, ending a 54-year break in relations. A follow-up Obama-Castro handshake is intended to underline the normalisation in relations, and be another showcase for the benefits of diplomacy. The challenge this year, though, will be making progress in the deeply troubled relationship with Putin, particularly on Syria and Ukraine, and that will be a tougher nut to crack. 1 3 Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Photograph: Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media 2 3 Vladimir Putin will meet Barack Obama on Monday afternoon. Photograph: TASS / Barcroft Media 3 3 Barack Obama boards Marine One as he travels to New York City to attend the United Nations general assembly and other events. Photograph: Erik S Lesser/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/27/un-70th-general-assembly-new-york-putin-obama-syria

US airstrike hits Taliban position on outskirts of city that was overrun by militants on Monday Sune Engel Rasmussen in Kabul Tuesday 29 September 2015 13.24 BST The US military has launched an airstrike to aid Afghan government forces in a counteroffensive against Taliban fighters who have captured large parts of Kunduz, a strategic provincial capital in the country’s north. The hardline Islamists stormed the northern provincial capital on Monday, effectively overrunning it in their biggest triumph since being ousted from national power in 2001. Afghan security forces said they had cleared the area around the central prison, from where the Taliban released several hundred inmates, and the police headquarters. “The Taliban are being pushed back. In a few hours the city will be free from their hands,” claimed Dowlat Waziri, deputy spokesman for the defence ministry. He said the army had sent reinforcements from neighbouring Kabul and Balkh provinces, including special forces. The Taliban meanwhile released a video on social media hailing their takeover of Kunduz with fighters showing off seized tanks and armoured cars, as they promised to enforce Islamic sharia law. Mohammad Omar “Pakhsaparan”, a commander of a unit of the Afghan local police, said the areas of Bala-e Sar, Imam Sahib and Gul Tepa were now cleared, but large portions of the city was still under Taliban control. Col Brian Tribus, a spokesman for the US and Nato missions in Afghanistan, said the airstrike early on Tuesday morning was conducted “in order to eliminate a threat to coalition and Afghan forces”, though there were no foreign troops left inside the city. He did not elaborate if more airstrikes would follow. On Monday, as government officials and families who had the means to leave fled Kunduz, scores of civilians were caught in the crossfire. As of noon on Tuesday (07.30am GMT), public hospitals in Kunduz had received 172 injured and 16 dead bodies, according to spokesman Wahidullah Mayar. In addition, Médecins Sans Frontières said their hospital in Kunduz had admitted more than 100 casualties, and was operating on full capacity. “Our surgeons have been working non-stop to treat patients with gunshot wounds. We have added 18 extra beds to bring the total bed capacity to 110 in order to cope with the unprecedented level of admissions,” said Guilhem Molinie, MSF’s country representative. The seizure of Kunduz happened almost exactly one year after the president, Ashraf Ghani, came to power, and illustrates the government’s difficulties in reining in the insurgency in the wake of last year’s mass withdrawal of foreign combat troops. On Tuesday Ghani vowed to take the northern city back from the insurgents, urging his nation to trust Afghan troops to do the job. In a televised address, Ghani said that security forces are “retaking government buildings … and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos, are either there or on their way there. “The enemy has sustained heavy casualties,” Ghani added. He urged Afghans not to give in to “fear and terror”. Monday’s multi-pronged assault on Kunduz took the Afghan authorities and military officials by surprise. Hundreds of Taliban launched a coordinated attack and after a day of fierce fighting, they managed to overrun government buildings and hoist their flag in the city square. The governor of Kunduz, Mohammad Omar Safi, who was not in town at the time of the attack, but told the Wall Street Journal that he had been requesting support from the central government for months. Kunduz is the first provincial capital in 14 years to effectively fall to the Taliban, and is possibly the militants’ biggest victory since they were ousted from power in 2001. By Tuesday morning, roads were blocked and some government buildings set on fire, several residents told the Associated Press. “From this morning, the Taliban have been setting up checkpoints in and around the city, looking for the government employees,” one resident said. “Yesterday it was possible for people to get out of the city, but today it is too late because all roads are under the Taliban control.” Taliban fighters treated the invasion as a propaganda victory. In footage broadcast on social media, insurgents exclaimed: “We want to serve the people and they have to help us. We want to establish sharia law.” The 10-minute clip posted on Facebook opens with a shot of Kunduz main square where Taliban cadres cheer as they raise their white flag under the wary gaze of subdued-looking residents. Elsewhere fighters show off tanks and armoured cars they have captured, chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest) and roaming the streets in seized pick-up trucks. The video ends with a message from the Taliban’s newly appointed leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, though he does not appear on screen, declaring: “We do not believe in revenge” and announces a “general amnesty” for government troops wishing to defect. Mansour’s message also instructs government officials and doctors in Kunduz to carry on work as normal, and tells residents the Taliban will ensure their safety and protect their property. The capture of Kunduz will serve to boost morale among Taliban fighters still reeling from the news two months ago that the movement’s founder and leader, Mullah Omar, had passed away in 2013. “It is a disaster for the Ghani government,” Pakistani militancy expert and author Ahmed Rashid told AFP, describing Kabul as “totally disorganised”. The Afghan troops in Kunduz numbered 7,000 including local militias, he said, while local reports put the number of Taliban attackers at fewer than 1,000. But the government had “no strategy, no ability to defend the city”, Rashid said, comparing the Taliban offensive to sweeps by the Islamic State group, which controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria. “The timing of it is very important,” he added. After years of costly involvement, most Nato troops pulled back from front lines in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, although a residual force of about 13,000 remains for training and counter-terrorism operations. 1 2 A Taliban fighter sitting on a motorcycle in Kunduz on Tuesday. Photograph: Uncredited/AP 2 2 Taliban fighters driving a Red Cross vehicle in Kunduz. Photograph: Uncredited/AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/29/afghanistan-counter-offensive-taliban-kunduz