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Hosting a refugee earns landlords €35 ($37) a day from the state, but asylum seekers report being left without gas, water and food Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Naples Thursday 26 November 2015 14.11 GMT The water and gas had been shut off for days when Lessena M and his flatmates, a group of asylum seekers from Ivory Coast who have been living in Naples for more than a year, decided to stage a protest. They began throwing rubbish bins and an old orange sofa over the balcony of their flat while neighbours gathered in the street to watch. Then the police arrived, seemingly dismayed that the owner of the flat had not yet turned the water back on. Without working plumbing, the stench in the property had become intolerable. Lessena, 34, said even the boy who brought them their food every day in a plastic pouch – always pasta – had stopped coming. “We were totally abandoned. At that point, we were totally alone,” he said. Soft-spoken Lessena, who survived an acid attack in Ivory Coast that scarred his left shoulder and neck, said he had been to the police several times to file formal complaints, because the owners of his building, who are being paid by the Italian state to house asylum seekers, were not reachable. Within days of the protest, which was captured last month in a film for the Guardian by Italian journalists, the asylum seekers were moved. Lessena is one of an estimated 99,000 migrants being hosted in Italy this year at a cost of about €1.16bn, ($1.228B) double what it cost last year. The job of taking care of them has largely been outsourced to charities, individuals, companies and cooperatives across Italy. While many are housed in huge reception centres, such as Europe’s largest in Mineo, Sicily, others are sent to smaller properties, where landlords, hotel managers and restaurant proprietors have turned their available space into housing. It is a lucrative business: owners of shelters for asylum seekers are paid €35 a day for every adult they house. A person running a shelter receives €1.28m ($1.35M) if they house 100 people for a year. On paper, asylum seekers are legally entitled to certain benefits to help them stay safe and healthy and even assimilate into Italian society: food and medical attention, psychological support and €2.50 ($2.65) per day. Rightwing politicians, led by the Northern League’s Matteo Salvini, habitually portray asylum seekers as living cushy lives on the dole. But for some, the reality is substantially different. A number of activists working with asylum seekers believe the business of hosting them is riddled with corruption and the influence of organised crime groups, who are taking advantage of a national emergency and profiting from it. The migrants are concentrated in southern Italy, where the influence of organised crime is significant. The opportunity for illegal profit was sensationally articulated by the man at the centre of the so-called “mafia capitale” corruption scandal in Rome, Salvatore Buzzi, who was recorded last year telling an associate that drugs were “less profitable” than the business of housing asylum seekers. Gianluca Petruzzo, the president of a rights group called Associazione 3 Febbraio, said Italy was essentially in a state of emergency when it came to housing. When authorities know, for example, that 1,000 migrants are arriving in Sicily, arrangements are usually hastily made to house them, often without putting a bid up for tender. “In an area north of Naples, you have a restaurant, this is hosting 300 people – one room for 300 people. There are certified hotels where in a room for two or three people they put bunk beds for seven or eight migrants,” Petruzzo said. In some cases he claims he has personally witnessed, asylum seekers are brought to farms owned by migrant shelter owners to work 12-hour days, usually for about €10 ($10.60) a day. “The biggest indignation is when you go into the centre and speak to the owners and they will say: ‘what do you want, they’re from Africa. We give them food and water, what else do they want?’ The owners think they are more beasts than humans,” Petruzzo said. There is a debate about whether the poor living conditions many asylum seekers in Italy face reflect the fact that the country simply cannot cope with the numbers of migrants, or whether Italy has purposely taken a hands-off approach as a way to deter people from staying. Petruzzo said he did not believe the excruciatingly long wait facing those who had applied for asylum was an accident. While many are supposed to be interviewed by local immigration authorities within 60 days of their arrival, most have to wait six to eight months for their interview, and then another six months before they get their answer. In that period, they are not allowed to work or leave the country. “It is a long time because the longer they stay, the more Italy gets money from [the] EU, the more shelter owners get from that state, and that goes back to the politicians,” said Petruzzo. “It is a lack of organisation, but also intentional misconduct.” Lessena’s experience in Italy followed a harrowing journey last year from Libya on a rubber boat that was partially deflated. He said he watched while his friend and his friend’s girlfriend drowned. He was taken to a building owned by a company that directly and indirectly controls more than two dozen other properties. The asylum seekers allege that they were not given soap and other benefits they are entitled to, as is stipulated under public contracts required of people who house migrants. They also claim their electricity and water were cut off, despite frequent official complaints to police, who Lessena said served as middlemen between the owners and the tenants. A representative from the company did not respond to requests for comment. The office of the prefect of Naples did not respond to requests for comment, including requests for information that is supposed to be public about how much the firm has been paid by the Italian government. Back in the Ivory Coast, Lessena said he worked as a graphic designer making T-shirts, a job he would like to take up again so he can earn money and send it home to his family. He has pain around his neck and shoulder but he has not received medical attention. “When I have my documents, I can enter life again. I can have a moral freedom, I can have an opinion. Because now I don’t know the real life.” Asylum seekers from Ivory Coast protest against conditions in their refugee shelter in Naples. Photograph: theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/26/italy-migrant-shelters-refugees-naples-landlords Umbertino's note: Napoli ( Naples) is an already ultra-problematic city by itself....Always has been.

Bridging divisions between Muslims and Christians is main theme of pontiff’s three-nation tour of continent Murithi Mutiga in Nairobi and Harriet Sherwood Thursday 26 November 2015 11.04 GMT Pope Francis has called on Christians and Muslims to engage in an essential dialogue of peace in the face of religious radicalisation and “barbarous” attacks as he began the first full day of his three-nation trip to Africa. The pope met a small group of faith leaders in Nairobi before a public open-air mass, attended by around a million people in the pouring rain. Religion could never be used to justify violence, the pope told Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish representatives. “All too often, young people are being radicalised in the name of religion to sow discord and fear, and to tear at the very fabric of society,” he said. “How important it is that we be seen as prophets of peace, peacemakers who invite others to live in peace, harmony and mutual respect.” Francis’s message of religious tolerance will resonate in Kenya, where there have been three major attacks in the past two years by the Somalia-based Muslim extremist organisation, al-Shabab. In April, more than 150 students – most of them Christians – at Garissa university, close to the Somali border, were killed. A month earlier, 12 people died in al-Shabab attacks in Mandera county, and in September 2013, at least 67 people died in an attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. The pope referred to all three episodes, saying he understood that memories were still fresh in people’s minds. Francis’s first trip to Africa also takes in visits to Uganda and Central African Republic, where thousands of people have been killed in a conflict that has a strong religious dimension. The pope’s interfaith meeting – the first of several during his six-day trip – was followed by an electric welcome at the rain-soaked university of Nairobi, where a massive crowd was joined by around 10,000 police amid tight security. The usually staid proceedings of a Catholic mass were set aside as Francis’s first public appearance in the Kenyan capital turned into a festival of dance and singing, sometimes obscured by a sea of umbrellas. Colourfully attired members of 12 choirs performed Kiswahili and English gospel tunes with an enthusiasm that brought a smile to the Pope’s face, and band leaders energetically waved the kayamba, a flat reed instrument that is popular in east Africa, to accompany the hymns. Masai tribesmen and traditional dancers performed before the pope. Hundreds of thousands of Catholics – who make up around a third of Kenya’s 44 million population – had travelled to the university to catch a glimpse of the pontiff, with many lining up as early as 3am to secure a spot near the dais in the grounds. Many others in a crowd estimated by police to be 1 million-strong, followed proceedings from large-screen TVs set up in several venues around the city, defying the driving rain. “This is a pope that has really inspired me,” said Wambui Gitau, a 21-year-old college student. “He gives us hope and shows that despite the many challenges and problems that surround us, we can do something to change things.” Since landing in Nairobi on Wednesday evening, Francis has called for religious tolerance and urged leaders to tackle the problem of inequality. He also made an impassioned plea to respect the environment on a continent that makes the lowest contribution to greenhouse gas emissions yet is expected to bear the worst effects of climate change. “We have a responsibility to pass on the beauty of nature in its integrity to future generations, and an obligation to exercise a just stewardship of the gifts we have received,” he said shortly after his arrival. “These values are deeply rooted in the African soul.” However, Francis was restrained on social issues, perhaps reflecting the still-conservative views of many on the continent, including Catholic bishops who insist on traditional church teachings on sexuality, family life and reproduction. In his homily at Thursday’s mass, he praised the strength of the African family especially what he called a culture of respect of the elderly and love for the young, and urged followers to resist practices that “foster arrogance in men, hurt or demean women and threaten the life of the innocent unborn”. He also warned against materialism, prejudice and discrimination, saying the mission of Christian families was “especially important today, for we are seeing the growth of new deserts created by a culture of materialism, selfishness and indifference to others”. He appealed to youth to “shape a society which is ever more just, inclusive and respectful of human dignity. May you always be concerned for the needs of the poor, and reject everything that leads to prejudice and discrimination.” For many in the crowd, though, the symbolism and power of the pope’s presence on the continent dwarfed his words. Much media attention focused on Francis’s choice of a humble Honda Fit as his mode of transport from the airport, a striking contrast to the opulent German-made stretch limousines favoured by Kenyan leaders in a country in which many live below the poverty line. A changing Catholic church was clearly visible in the way the service was conducted. Alarmed by a loss of members to more charismatic preachers in the evangelical churches where services are marked by vigorous dancing and singing, the Catholic church in Africa has made adjustments and shown greater flexibility. The festive atmosphere that marked the service at the university reflected that. Crowds snapping pictures on smartphones jostled to catch a glimpse of the pope, perching on rooftops with some taking precarious positions on trees just outside the venue. In a reception held earlier at State House, Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, praised the role of the Catholic church in delivering services to the poor. “Through its dioceses, in Kenya, the church is the largest non-state provider of healthcare with nearly 500 healthcare units and over 50 community-based orphanages and programmes for vulnerable children,” he said. The pope also received praise for meeting Muslim leaders and for his call for religious harmony and cooperation. “This pope has transcended religious fault lines,” Hassan Omar, the senator of Mombasa and a Muslim, told the Associated Press. “He has talked about the plight of Palestinians, the weak and the downtrodden. He epitomises simplicity and has demonstrated that he is a defender of social justice.” Despite grave security concerns about the pope’s visit, Francis shrugged off fears for his safety, opting to ride in an open pope-mobile and joking to reporters while flying to Nairobi that he had more pressing concerns than physical safety. “There are bad people and there are good people. I am only worried about mosquitoes. Have you carried mosquito repellants?” 1 3 A policeman on horseback keeps watch over crowds waiting to attend a mass led by Pope Francis. Photograph: Noor Khamis/Reuters 2 3 The audience for Francis at the University of Nairobi. Photograph: Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/26/pope-francis-urges-dialogue-between-religions-on-first-day-of-african-tour

With no end in sight to the unprecedented crackdown in the Belgian capital, its economic, social and political costs are rising Jason Burke Brussels Monday 23 November 2015 17.21 GMT Dusk is gathering but the pale wintry sunshine keeps temperatures above zero for a final hour. Annelise Augustyns is on her way to a playground near Brussels’s Gare du Midi with her two children, aged three and five. All three are wrapped against the wind scything across the bleak concrete plaza outside the station. It is the third day of lockdown in the Belgian capital and the Augustyns have spent three days confined to their small apartment. The 35-year-old government worker’s office in the centre of the city has been shut. So too, on Monday, were the children’s schools. “You have to live after all, despite all this tension. The kids are going crazy and no one knows how long this is going to last,” Augustyns said. There is currently no end in sight to the unprecedented crackdown put in place by the Belgian government as security services hunt a network of local Islamic militants linked to the Paris attacks and suspected of planning a similar operation in Brussels. The threat, ministers have stressed for more than 72 hours, is “serious and imminent”. Armoured vehicles and soldiers remained deployed throughout the historic centre of the de facto capital of Europe, and at major stations. Most shops, cafés and banks, most government offices, all museums and cinemas were “exceptionally” closed, according to the hastily typed notices pinned to their windows. About 300,000 children did not attend classes or creches, and universities were shut. The metro and its feeder lines were suspended. Most remain anxious, but some are beginning to doubt the need for such stringent measures. “It seems pretty drastic … But there you go. We’ve got to keep safe, I suppose. So I’ll take the kids to the swings, have a coffee with a friend, then go back home and stay there,” said Augustyns. Hans Kengen, a start-up founder living in the suburb of Woluwe, watched his wife cycle to work on Monday morning at the European commission – which remains open albeit with a reinforced security regime – and was relieved when she called to tell him she had arrived safely at her office. “I’ve lived in India and South Africa so am pretty used to security issues. But I never expected to see the violence of war in Europe. We’re just not used to it. And I know it’s not going to go away soon. We are going to have to get our heads round that,” Kengen said. Like many others, he had discussed the threat, and its causes, with his children, aged 12 and 15. “You can’t hide it from them. They are clearly effected. I’ve tried to reassure them,” Kengen told the Guardian. There is little respite from the constant reminders of danger. TV networks have altered programming. Newspapers are almost entirely taken up with reports on “the situation”. Some offer advice on what to do in the event of a terrorist attack and discussions about the advice is a subject of conversations in cafés, trains and taxis. “I’m not too worried but I just find myself thinking about what I would do if I found myself in that situation. Or what my mum might do. She’s 65 and arthritic and isn’t going to run anywhere very fast,” said Martine Lorent, a shopkeeper working near the Midi station. The failure to find 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, a suspected participant in the Paris attacks known to have returned to Belgium after the killings, has added to the tension. Abdeslam, from the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek, was the principal target of a series of raids involving thousands of policemen and soldiers on Sunday night and Monday morning. “The operation is still ongoing, and will be pursued further,” said Jan Jambon, the minister of interior, on Monday morning. Jambon described other European nations as being “in the same boat”. This is not entirely true. Though precautions have been taken in other European countries in recent years, few are of a scale and severity as those in Belgium. The country is seen by some overseas as a weak link in the European counter-terrorist effort. What is clear is that the economic, social and political cost of the lockdown is rising. “The lockdown of Brussels and its region, paralysing the city and steadily an entire country, in an atmosphere of deep anxiety, will be extremely difficult for the authorities to maintain indefinitely,” Beatrice Delvaux, a columnist at Le Soir, said in an editorial. Kengen, the businessman, agreed. “We don’t know what is going to happen. We manage things from day to day but we’re all still a bit stunned. But how long is this going to last? There’s going to be a moment when you have to loosen things up. This isn’t Gaza after all,” he said. Local experts point out that Belgians have not felt previously specifically targeted by Islamic militants despite a number of ongoing trials of extremists and local plots. Nor have there been prolonged threats from other forms of terrorists, as in other European nations. “I can’t remember anything like this ever, not in my lifetime,” said Gitte Hendrikx, a 22-year-old artist from a small rural community in northern Belgium. In the early 1980s, Belgium suffered from a wave of violence perpetrated by an extreme leftwing terrorist outfit and a gang of brutal criminals, but Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at University of Ghent, said it has been decades since “there was this atmosphere of fear, with no one knowing what might happen where or when or to whom”. However, Coolsaet pointed out that situation has shown another side of Belgian character. When on Sunday evening authorities requested local inhabitants and journalists to refrain from mentioning ongoing raids on social media or news websites, thousands tweeted or posted images of cats instead. “Brussels is the city of René Magritte after all. And so this kind of surrealism is also part of our reaction. I don’t think you’d see the same in France or the US,” said Coolsaet. In a slightly unexpected moment of levity on Monday, Belgian federal police thanked the public, and their cats, for their discretion, tweeting a picture of a police bowl filled with cat biscuits. There is growing concern about consequences for communal relations in Brussels and beyond. Around 5% of Belgium’s 11 million inhabitants describe themselves as Muslim. Malika Hamidi, an activist who lives in the city’s Foret neighbourhood, said there was palpable distrust. “It’s not just between the Belgians who’ve always lived here and the Muslim immigrant community. It’s among the Muslims themselves. People are very anxious. But we must not give way to this fear,” Hamidi said. Her 13-year-old daughter was worried, but her younger child, aged eight, was “really traumatised”, Hamid said. “She has been seeing pictures of war on the television for most of her life. But it was far away. She has been asking me for a long time when it will reach us. Now she thinks it has arrived in the centre of Brussels.” 1 2 Soldiers and police officers in Brussels Photograph: Kevin Van den Panhuyzen/Demotix/Corbis 2 2 A police operation in Molenbeek, Belgium. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/23/deep-anxiety-pervades-brussels-as-lockdown-continues

Reports that about 80 hostages freed At least three people killed Full story: up to 170 taken hostage at Radisson hotel Read the latest summary Matthew Weaver Friday 20 November 2015 14.37 GMT Key Events 14m ago20 Indians evacuated 21m agoUS citizens 'might be present' in the hotel 1h agoHotel owners says 138 people still in the building 2h agoSummary 2h agoAir France says 12 of its staff 'extracted' 3h agoSpecial forces enter hotel 3h agoFive Turkish Airlines staff freed http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/20/mali-hotel-attack-gunmen-take-hostages-in-bamako-live-updates#block-564f163ae4b0875ba8d6db71

St-Denis: what we know so far Who is Paris attacks ‘mastermind’ Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud? Salah Abdeslam and another fugitive ‘barricaded in apartment’ Paris-bound Air France flights diverted in US after threats French police hunt new fugitive thought to be involved in Paris attacks Germany-Holland football match called off after terror attack warning Claire Phipps Wednesday 18 November 2015 07.14 GMT Key Events 20m agoSt-Denis raid: what we know so far 51m agoSt-Denis raid: what we know so far 1h agoAbdel-Hamid Abu Oud: what we know about 'Paris attacks mastermind' 1h agoSalah Abdeslam also reported to be in St-Denis 1h agoTarget of police raid is 'Paris mastermind' Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud – reports 2h agoSt Denis shooting: what we know 2h agoSt Denis shooting: a summary Live Feed http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/18/paris-attacks-police-hunt-ninth-suspect-as-germany-on-alert-after-hanover-bomb-threat-live

John Kerry says anti-Isis coalition is gaining territory US governors refusing or resisting Syrian refugees resettlement Strikes target Isis stronghold in Raqqa Who was attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai? Read the latest summary here Jessica Elgot and Jonathan Bucks Tuesday 17 November 2015 15.10 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/17/paris-terror-attacks-french-police-launch-fresh-raids-overnight-live

President Hollande addresses French MPs Isis apparently releases propaganda film Mastermind named as Belgian jihadi Strikes target Isis stronghold in Raqqa Who was attacker Omar Ismail Mostefai? Read the latest summary Claire Phipps, Jessica Elgot, Josh Halliday and Jonathan Bucks Monday 16 November 2015 16.41 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/16/paris-attacks-france-airstrikes-isis-raqqa-syria-live

Graduate students walk out as support for protests over racial intolerance at school grows but president Tim Wolfe will not step down despite calls to resign Steven W Thrasher in Columbia, Missouri Monday 9 November 2015 15.04 GMT Tim Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri, is waging the fight of his professional life this week as protests continue over racism and discrimination on campus. “It is clear to us that change is needed,” Wolfe said in a statement on Sunday, which stated that he was “open to listening to all sides” and would “share next steps as soon as they are confirmed”. But as night fell on Sunday and temperatures dropped to nearly freezing, 200 or so protesters assembled in prayer on a lawn of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus, dozens of them planning to camp overnight in the frigid air and one of their fellow demonstrators, Jonathan Butler, now a full week into a hunger strike at his home. Butler, a graduate student activist with the group Concerned Student 1950 – which takes its name from the year the university accepted its first black student – has demanded Wolfe resign over his handling of a series of racist incidents at the university. Black players from the Missouri Tigers football team – which generates enormous revenue for the school – said on Saturday they would not participate in team activities until Wolfe steps down. On Sunday the Tigers’ white coach, Gary Pinkel, tweeted his support for the strikers. Meanwhile, the Steering Committee of the Forum on Graduate Rights and the Coalition of Graduate Workers – which represent grad student workers – announced that they are asking 2,800 graduate student workers to stage a walkout on Monday and Tuesday. Multiple departments and dozens of faculty and staff publicly said they would back up the grad students. An unknown number of faculty members are even planning to walk out themselves and will reportedly hold “teach-in” sessions with their students alongside the encampment. The Missouri University System Board of Curators – who have the power to fire Wolfe – will be meeting in a previously unscheduled session on Monday. Two Republican Missouri lawmakers have called for Wolfe’s removal, and on Sunday, Missouri’s Democratic governor Jay Nixon said the university must act to address concerns over “racism and intolerance”. Nixon said the university must be “a place where all students can pursue their dreams in an environment of respect, tolerance and inclusion”. Wolfe has not indicated he has any intention of stepping down, but said in his statement on Sunday that the university is working to draw up a plan by April to promote diversity and tolerance and that “the majority of items listed on the Concerned Student 1950 list of demands were already included in the draft of the strategy”. Concerned Student 1950 has demanded, among other things, that Wolfe “acknowledge his white male privilege”, that he is immediately removed, and that the school adopt a mandatory racial-awareness program and hire more black faculty and staff. But it is unclear who, if anyone, will be going to work as normal on Monday morning at Mizzou, in offices, on the athletic fields, or in the classrooms. The graduate students certainly won’t be – and, though their contribution to campus life might be less financially valued than the football program’s, Wolfe can buy himself a few days until the Tigers’ Saturday game before the football players’ strike is fully felt. Not so with the grad students walking out Monday morning. Connor Lewis, a doctoral candidate in the department of history and one of the organizing co-chairs of the Forum on Graduate Rights, told the Guardian that graduate student teaching and research assistants were being asked to engage in “a withdrawal of labor, of any section they are teaching or any regularly scheduled work” at least through Tuesday. Lewis says he personally didn’t think that after the “football players got involved, that was it” for Wolfe. “He can survive a lot of things, but he can’t afford the football players not playing a nationally televised game against a prominent opponent.” But Lewis said that the graduate steering committee “made a decision to put additional pressure, so he could realize that kind of statement, or non-statement, is simply inadequate”. For months, black student groups have complained of racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white, 35,000-student flagship campus of the four-college system. Frustrations flared during a homecoming parade on Oct. 10 when black protesters blocked Wolfe’s car and he would not get out and talk to them. They were removed by police. The protests began after the student government president, Payton Head, who is black, said in September that people in a passing pickup truck shouted racial slurs at him. In early October, members of a black student organization said slurs were hurled at them by an apparently drunken white student. And a swastika drawn in feces was found in a dormitory bathroom. Two trucks flying Confederate flags drove past the site Sunday afternoon, a move many saw as an attempt at intimidation. The athletes have not explicitly said whether they would boycott the team’s three remaining games this season. The Tigers’ next game is Saturday against Brigham Young University at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, and canceling it could cost the school more than $1mn. “The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere,”’ the players said in a statement. “We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experience. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!” As Wolfe’s options seemed to narrow on Sunday evening, a tent city grew in opposition to his presidency in Mel Carnahan Quad, adjacent to the Mizzou Law School. The grouping of approximately two dozen tents was “quadruple” the size of the previous night’s encampment, according to one observer who helped organize the nightly 10:00 PM prayer circle. Even over the course of a few hours, the tent city grew noticeably. Teams of young people showed up erecting new tents, and covering groups of other tents together under heavy tarps. A dozen heat lamps dotted in between them, fueled by gas tanks. Christmas lights illuminated the village, and hot food was cooking. Jonathan Butler did not appear to be in attendance, and sources who know him said he was resting at home. Meanwhile, dozens of volunteers – white and black, young and old, ranging from male jocks to elderly grandmothers – stopped by to bring the protesters donations of food, water, and heaps of blankets. Any activist or supporter of any race was welcome to come into the tent city, which looked like a cross between Occupy Wall Street’s Zuccotti Park, Ferguson and something from Burning Man. But one group was not welcome: journalists. Over the course of several hours, every person who came out from the tent city said they were “unauthorized to speak to the media” or gave a similar message. One young man said: “Our last press conference was Wednesday. We will decide if and when we will have another. If we do, it will only be on our terms, when we decide, and we will decide what questions we will answer.” The only time this member of the media was able to get near the assembled protesters was when they left the encampment, next to a giant statue of the Mizzou Tiger mascot, create a prayer circle of about 200 people. It was then, to a great cheer of applause, several members of the Tigers arrived. They, too, did not talk to the press, but were able to offer the odd fistbump. A center circle of activists held hands in a circle, facing outward while reciting prayers surrounded by about 10 rings of people holding hands facing inwards towards them. The prayers ranged from generic calls for grace to specific calls for the evil of racism to be expunged from Mizzou by removing Wolfe. “This is our time to move forward,” one protester offered in prayer, before a call was made for everyone to turn to their neighbor, hug them, and tell them they love them (even if they were a member of the media) and a passionate young woman led a call-and-response chant that “we have nothing to lose but our chains”. The Associated Press contributed to this report University of Missouri system president Tim Wolfe speaks on the phone in a room in University Hall on campus late Sunday night. Photograph: Bea Costa-Lima/AP http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/09/missouri-university-black-players-protest-support-grows

Judge rescinds his order to remove child from home of April Hoagland and Beckie Pierce, a married same-sex couple, because of their sexual orientation Associated Press in Salt Lake City Friday 13 November 2015 18.06 GMT A Utah judge reversed his decision to take a baby away from her lesbian foster parents and place her with a heterosexual couple after the ruling led to widespread backlash. Judge Scott Johansen signed an order, which was released on Friday, that will allow the nine-month-old baby to stay with April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a married couple who live in the city of Price. It comes after Johansen said in court on Tuesday that the baby would be removed from the couple’s home. Utah officials and the couple filed court challenges demanding the judge rescind the order. In his first decision, Johansen cited research that shows children do better when raised by heterosexual families. However, the American Psychological Association has said there’s no scientific basis that *** couples are unfit parents based on sexual orientation. Messages left with Jim Hunnicutt, a lawyer for the couple, and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services seeking comments on the judge’s revised order were not immediately returned Friday. Hoagland and Peirce are among a group of same-sex married couples who were allowed to become foster parents in Utah after last summer’s US supreme court ruling that made *** marriage legal across the country. State officials don’t keep an exact count but estimate there are a dozen or more foster parents who are married same-sex couples. A full transcript of Johansen’s initial ruling has not been made public and may not be because court records of cases involving foster children are kept private to protect the kids. Johansen is precluded by judicial rules from discussing pending cases, Utah courts spokeswoman Nancy Volmer has said. The move to take the baby away generated widespread criticism, including from national *** rights groups and Utah governor Gary Herbert. Herbert said Thursday that Johansen should follow the law and not inject his personal beliefs into the decision. Groups including the Anti-Defamation League, Human Rights Campaign and the American Civil Liberties Union called the order shocking, outrageous and unjust. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/13/utah-judge-reverses-babylesbian-foster-parents

Detectives believe woman identified as Andrea G is mother of ‘about seven’ newborns so badly decomposed experts cannot be sure of their number Kate Connolly in Berlin Friday 13 November 2015 17.15 GMT German police are searching for a 45-year-old woman after discovering the decomposing corpses of about seven newborn babies in a house in Bavaria. The bodies were in such a bad state of decay that forensic experts said it was impossible to be precise about how many had been found. The alarm was raised by a neighbour in the town of Wallenfels on Thursday. After finding one corpse, the neighbour called an ambulance. A doctor subsequently discovered further corpses. It is believed that the sought woman – identified only as Andrea G – is the mother of the babies, although police said they had no confirmation of this. “We’re at least searching for her as if she were the mother of the children,” a police spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said postmortems were being carried out on the remains, and the results – including how the babies died, their ages and sexes – would probably be known early next week. The bodies were discovered locked in a disused sauna-turned-store cupboard, wrapped in towels and airtight plastic bags, the spokeswoman said. Germany has seen a string of infanticide cases over the last decade, which have raised questions about whether support for women and families is sufficient, and why women who may need help over issues of pregnancy and motherhood are not seeking it. Andrea G had lived in the house for 18 years and is believed to be the owner of the property. Shocked residents of Wallenfels, which has a population of 2,800, told German media that she had often been pregnant, but that had not attracted any suspicion as she was a “good and caring mother” to her other children. Wallenfell’s mayor, Jens Korn, told Focus magazine: “I’m completely flabbergasted. We are a small, lively community with 2,800 residents, all of whom know each other. We are very distraught, and are of course all asking each other: might we have done something? Might we have helped in some way?” He told Bavarian Broadcasting that the family – a couple whoboth had children from previous relationships – were “very normal”. The man was deeply involved in the local community; the woman is believed to have worked at the local swimming baths. A media throng gathered outside the whitewashed house on Friday, where children’s paper cutouts could be seen in the windows, and a Santa Claus figure by the door. Neighbours said the woman had left at the end of September, and they believed she had moved in with a new partner. Police said they had so far been unable to find her in her new home. The police spokeswoman said that owing to the state and number of the corpses it would “take some time” to reach any conclusions. A criminal investigation has been launched involving scores of police officers. “There are still many people we need to speak to and lots of searches that need to be carried out,” the spokeswoman said. A neighbour told the tabloid Bild that the scenes of the dead bodies were so appalling, “we will never ever divulge what we have seen here”. The Wallenfells discovery is just the latest of many cases involving attempts to cover up infanticide. In July 2005 the corpses of nine babies were discovered in Brieskow-Finkenheerd, in the state of Brandenburg. The mother, who had four other children, was an alcoholic and had given birth to the babies between 1988 and 1998. She had killed them through neglect and buried their remains in plant pots. She was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for murder. In March 2013 a mother in the state of Schleswig Holstein was sentenced to nine years in prison for murdering five babies immediately after birth. One of the dead was found in a paper recycling plant in 2006; another the following year in a car park. The woman was not arrested until 2012, when a DNA test confirmed she was the babies’ mother. She subsequently showed police where she had hidden three more in her cellar. In 2009 four dead babies were discovered in a block of flats in Berlin. Their mother had jumped to her death from the house months before. There are no official statistics on infanticide in Germany, but the children’s charity Terre des Hommes says its own research showed at least 202 newborns were killed between 2006 and 2014. Some parts of the country use “baby hatches” to enable women to hand newborns over to the authorities in complete anonymity, in the hope that this will reduce cases of infanticide. The white house in Wallenfels where the babies were found. Photograph: Nicolas Armer/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/several-dead-babies-discovered-house-germany

Israeli prime minister’s visit aimed at negotiations over size of the new 10-year military aid package and US president says there’s no question it will be renewed Dan Roberts in Washington Monday 9 November 2015 18.50 GMT Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu met for the first time in a year on Monday, pledging to spend much of their meeting discussing ways to expand US military aid to Israel. Putting aside recent disagreements over Iran and Palestine, the US president and the Israeli prime minister struck a hawkish tone during opening remarks in the oval office. “Israel has shouldered a tremendous defence burden over the years and we have done it with the generous assistance of the United States of America,” said Netanyahu, who is thought to be pushing for an existing 10-year deal struck by George W Bush that is worth a total of $30bn to be replaced by a substantially more generous one once it expires. While White House officials have been playing down expectations of completing their negotiations on the size of the new 10-year military aid package during this week’s visit, Obama made clear there was no question it would be renewed. “It will be expiring in a couple of years but we want to get a head start on that to make sure that both the US and Israel can plan effectively for our defence needs going forward,” said the US president. “It’s no secret the security environment in the Middle East has deteriorated in many areas and, as I’ve said repeatedly, the security of Israel is one my top foreign policy priorities and that has expressed itself not only in words but in deeds.” Obama also expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of recent increased violence on the West Bank and claimed security links with the US were stronger than ever. “I want to be very clear that we condemn in the strongest terms Palestinian violence against innocent Israeli citizens and I want to repeat once again that it is my strong belief that Israel has not just the right but an obligation to protect itself,” the president said. “We have closer military and intelligence cooperation than any two administrations in history,” Obama added. “The military assistance that we provide we consider not only an important part of our obligation to the state of Israel, but also an important part of US security infrastructure in the region.” US and Israeli officials are thought to have broadly agreed what weapons systems Israel may obtain under the so-called memorandum of understanding but are still discussing Israeli requests to increase the overall size of the existing $30bn commitment – reportedly from $3bn to around $4.5bn a year. Under the existing agreement, US military aid to Israel will be more than half of its total commitment of foreign military financing to overseas allies in 2016, but Israel is allowed to spend around a quarter on domestic Israeli arms purchases as well as US equipment. Israel has received $124.3bn in military assistance from the US since its founding, according to a recent congressional report. “We are obviously tested today by the instability and insecurity in the Middle East. Everybody can see it with the savagery of Isis and the aggression and terror of Iran’s proxies and Iran itself,” said Netanyahu on Monday. “This is a tremendously important opportunity for us to work together to see how we can defend ourselves against this aggression and terror and how we can roll it back. It’s a daunting task.” The visit has been billed as an opportunity for the two leaders to build bridges in the wake of their clash of Iranian nuclear talks, but there was little hint of compromise during their opening remarks to reporters on Monday apart from a renewed commitment by both leaders to work toward peace with Palestinians. “I also will discuss with the prime minister his thoughts on how we can lower the temperature between Israelis and Palestinians, how we can get back on a path toward peace and how we can make sure that legitimate Palestinian aspirations are met through a political process even as we make sure that Israel is able to secure itself,” said Obama. “I want to make it clear that we have not given up our hope for peace. We will never give up our hope for peace,” added Netanyahu. “I remain committed to a vision of peace of two states for two peoples: a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish state.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/09/obama-netanyahu-us-visit-military-aid-israel

Military chiefs to aid migration agencies as Scandinavian country that has taken far beyond its share of migrants strains from sheer weight of numbers Patrick Kingsley in Stockholm Tuesday 10 November 2015 10.52 GMT Sweden’s army is to help manage the fallout from the country’s refugee crisis, with the civilian administration struggling to cope with an unprecedented surge in arrivals and a top official claiming there is no room left, in the short-term, for migrants reaching Swedish shores. On Monday, military officers were sent to help coordinate logistics at Migrationsverket, Sweden’s refugee and immigration agency. They will be involved at a management level, rather than on the ground. For several weeks, Migrationsverket has already been working with the country’s civil contingencies agency (MSB), a department usually involved in the aftermath of natural disasters or in overseas humanitarian catastrophes. The severely short-staffed migration agency cannot find enough housing for refugees, some of whom have been forced to sleep on the floor of reception centres. Despite some centres quadrupling their manpower in recent months, many agency officials are working double-shifts and weekends. “We don’t have any more space,” the agency’s lead spokesman, Fredrik Bengtsson, said. State-owned accommodation has been full since 2012, he said, and now officials cannot find any more affordable private housing. “For the time being, all of these are finished as well, so for the last three or four nights we’ve had people sleeping in our [non-residential] centres across the country. Right now we’re just looking for people to have a roof over their heads.” Sweden is bearing a disproportional burden of the European refugee crisis, due in part to its pledge in 2013 to provide permanent residency to almost any Syrian who reached Swedish soil. Of the roughly 800,000 people to have arrived in Europe by sea this year, at least one in seven have ended up in Sweden, even though the country accounts for just one in 50 EU citizens. So far in 2015, more than 120,000 people have applied for asylum in Sweden. Migrationsverket expects the total number of refugees to reach about 170,000 by the end of the year, with 10,000 people arriving every week, compared with 4,000 during the summer. A few years ago, case workers hoped to reach a decision on every asylum application within two or three months; now some speculate each one might take two years. For those familiar with other parts of the European migration trail, the scenes in Sweden will seem contained and organised compared with the chaos in places such as the Greek island of Lesbos, where refugees are left to walk and even sometimes sleep in the rain, with little institutional support. But in Sweden, even experienced asylum officials are nevertheless shocked by the unprecedented scale of the challenge that faces them, especially with winter fast approaching. “I’ve never seen this many people, ever,” said Olof Grindemark, a team leader at Märsta, one of the two main reception centres in Stockholm, as he walked past the queues at the centre on Monday. “We don’t seem to have any more beds in Sweden. We don’t have anywhere to send them.” In the medium-term, the situation is not so dire. The government has identified potential space in sports halls and other public buildings for an extra 66,000 arrivals, just under half of which could be converted without too many adjustments. But in the short term, ready-to-use space is proving hard to find due to a combination of allegedly greedy landlords, arsonists and health-and-safety laws. Vandals have set fire to several sites earmarked for refugees, while the agency blames legislative bureaucracy for the delay in opening a series of tent cities in southern Sweden. This struggle to provide something as basic as accommodation has led to fears about Sweden’s ability to handle more complex refugee needs, such as education and healthcare. “How will they manage doctors and schools, and how will [refugees] learn Swedish?” asked Enar Bostedt, one of Sweden’s most experienced asylum lawyers. “That’s totally another issue that no one has had time to think about yet.” For the time being, the migration agency is struggling even to register asylum seekers fast enough. In Solna, the second of Stockholm’s two big reception centres, staff numbers have risen from 30 to 130 in two years, but even this increase is not enough. The volume of applicants is still so great that the management usually has to turn less vulnerable people away, “sometimes by 10am or 11am”, said Joakim Selen, deputy head of the centre’s asylum seeking unit. Staff often work until 11pm, even at weekends, while experienced case workers have been asked to help out with the more basic role of migrant registration, leading to further delays in the decision-making process. In an ideal situation, case workers should judge three asylum applications a week, but this is now rarely possible. “We can’t get out three decisions a week,” said Emma Weinstock, a case worker. “The more cases you have, the more preparation work you have.” Some refugees have lost patience with the backlog. “In Sweden the process is so slow, so I’m going back to Iraq,” said Hassanein, a 29-year-old technician, waiting at Stockholm central station, before his attempted homewards journey. “My family is waiting for me there, and it isn’t safe for them to wait there for so long without me.” Hassanein said he was scared to return, holding up a disfigured hand that he claims was the result of an attack by Islamic State. “But I’m just going back to gather my family, and bring them to Sweden again, so we can all wait here together.” The Swedish government has been criticised for failing to accompany its 2013 promise to Syrians with appropriate measures to prepare for their arrival. In defence of their preparations, Bengtsson said the situation had been very manageable until mid-2015, when the sudden rush of arrivals through Turkey and Greece took all of Europe by surprise. The situation this autumn has been made more critical by a spike in the number of unaccompanied Afghan children, all of whom require an even greater level of care than adult asylum seekers. But whatever the cause of the refugee crisis, it has undeniably caused a crisis of identity within Sweden itself. Some stoke the fear that Sweden risks being unable to provide for its own citizens if it continues to let in so many outsiders. The Swedish Democrats, a far-right party that has recently grown in popularity, distributed a flyer to refugees landing in Lesbos this week that claimed that thanks to immigration “our society is falling apart”, and warned migrants from trying to reach Sweden. Hours later, Sweden’s conservative party, known as the Moderates, called for increased border controls against refugees. Others feel that any dereliction of duties to refugees would mark an abandonment of the core tenets of Sweden’s social democracy. “Our society is built on the principle that people are entitled to the same as everyone else,” said the secretary-general of the Swedish bar association, Anne Ramberg, as she waited to provide legal advice to new refugee arrivals at Stockholm central station. “But we are in a situation where we can’t even give refugees housing.” The answer, Ramberg argued, is not for Sweden to lower its standards, but for the rest of the world’s richest continent to take on its fair share. “A crisis for us,” said Ramberg, “is very different from the crisis in Jordan or Lebanon,” two countries where refugees are estimated to respectively constitute around a tenth and a quarter of the total population. “We could take these people if we had solidarity between EU countries. We are a continent of 500 million people – of course we could do it. But there’s no solidarity. It’s just Germany and Sweden.” Migrants wait to board a ferry to Sweden from Kiel, Germany. Swedish officials say the system is overwhelmed by the numbers of people arriving. Photograph: Carsten Rehder/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/10/sweden-calls-on-army-to-help-manage-refugee-crisis

As political leaders prepare to meet in Malta to discuss measures to stem the flow of migrants and refugees from Africa to Europe, Patrick Kingsley meets the smugglers and the smuggled on a route through the desert from Niger Patrick Kingsley in Agadez Monday 9 November 2015 14.58 GMT You can’t see the road from Agadez in Niger to Libya. You simply drive to the edge of the local airstrip, turn left, fork right, head past the one building on the horizon – a lonely police checkpoint – and that’s it. Only a select few local drivers know which dunes lead across the Sahara, and which ones lead to oblivion. And in three days of driving, there are plenty of wrong turnings to make. Yet before they risk death in the Mediterranean Sea, before they cross the battlegrounds of the Libyan civil war, and well before a tiny few of them reach the new security fences at Calais, most migrants from west Africa must pass along this road. Many of them die on it. Cisse Mahamadou explains why. A people-smuggler from Agadez, Mahamadou makes the journey once a week, along with 30 passengers in his pick-up truck. Each time the route looks different, thanks to regular sandstorms that change the shape of the desert. Mahamadou knows the Sahara “like it’s my bedroom”, but others don’t, so they get lost. And once lost, they run out of fuel – and then water. “And if there is no water,” says Mahamadou, 25, “you won’t survive for more than three days”. Then there are the bandits: rival smugglers, jihadis, or simply opportunists looking to steal cars, leaving their previous drivers in the desert. “If you’re lucky you will be rescued,” says Mahamadou, a geologist by training. “If you’re not, they’ll kill you and your passengers as well.” No one can know how many have died in this way. For every corpse discovered in the Sahara – over 40 have been counted since January – there may be another five or even 50 that will never be found. “In my opinion,” reckons Joel Gomez, a failed footballer from Cameroon and one of Mahamadou’s passengers, “the Sahara is more dangerous than the Mediterranean”. Yet record numbers are still risking it. European and African leaders are meeting on Wednesday in Malta to discuss possible measures to curb this flow. They would be better off going to Agadez to see the desperation of the people they want to stop – and the difficulties in attempting to do so. It is late on a summer’s night, and Mahamadou and Gomez mill around one of Agadez’s main bus stations. It’s here on the southern cusp of the Sahara desert that hundreds of migrants arrive legally each night; by the end of the year, local officials say their numbers will top 100,000. This is the northern-most edge of the Ecowas zone, a Schengen-like visa-free swath of west Africa. Within the zone, anyone with means can take a bus from the coasts of Nigeria to cusp of the Sahara desert in Niger. And it is here in Agadez that the bus drivers stop, and the people-smugglers begin. The travellers totter out, often nauseous after a 20-hour ride along bumpy roads. Most have specific people to call – smugglers recommended by friends who’ve successfully made the trip in the past. Others approach the smugglers on arrival. And then they’re all driven to the compounds. Agadez is a squat town, a warren of low clay buildings circling a single tall structure, a 27m-high minaret that looms above its surroundings. The houses it overlooks are mostly single-storey courtyards, each enclosed by a windowless wall. These are the compounds, and perhaps 50 of them are used by smugglers – though no one knows the exact total. They’re the perfect places to hide a hundred migrants until they head north to Libya. Once inside, the haggling starts. The going rate between Agadez and Libya is thought to be about 150,000 West African Francs (CFA), or £166 ($250.5). But one traveller said he paid as much as 500 euros (£363...$548), while Mahamadou claims he charges each of his 30 passengers as little as 50,000 (£55...$83). Even this amount is more than many in west Africa earn in one month, and perhaps counter-intuitively, that is why people are paying it. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), most of those who pass through Agadez are not fleeing wars or political repression (unlike the vast majority of those reaching Europe from other routes, who are mostly refugees). Instead, they are largely trying to find a way out of grinding poverty. The international community does not deem this a legitimate reason to seek a new life in Europe. But the people passing through Agadez do, otherwise they wouldn’t risk death in trying it. Everyone has a story like Paul Ohioyah, a Nigerian who passed through Agadez earlier this summer. Ohioyah is a plumber and part-time pastor, who borrowed $3000 (£1950) to head to Europe. Why? Because back home, he says he couldn’t put food on the table; he’d only get two plumbing jobs a month. “So before you’ve got another customer, you’ve had to spend what you earnt the last time,” says Ohioyah, 31. “It’s better that I die here than I go back to Nigeria.” Ohioyah’s friend, Ojeomokhai Felix, has even stronger rhetoric. “Countries at war are better than Nigeria,” argues Felix, a 33-year-old engineer. “People are still dying there of hunger or sickness because they have no money for food or hospitals. Somebody who sold his house for $3000 to go to Europe can’t go back to his country. It’s better he kills himself than goes back.” Driving people like Felix to Libya is now supposed to be illegal. In May, following pressure from the EU, which runs two missions in the country, the Nigerien government banned people-smuggling. Agadez’s police chief, who asks to be referred to by his role rather than his name, is keen to talk about his enforcement of the ban. Since May, he says, his men have arrested 14 smugglers; another was successfully encouraged to retire from the trade. But what about corruption – do smugglers still bribe policemen to let them through their checkpoints? “Two years ago, what you said could be a reality,” claims the chief. “But after that event, all the policemen who did that were sent elsewhere. And because of that, the newcomers are very afraid. So now no vehicle goes by the checkpoint of the police.” Step outside his office, however, and it is clear that many smugglers still operate under the police’s protection. Mahamadou (not his real name) is a case in point. Since the law’s implementation, he’s been careful. When a journalist calls to schedule an interview, he fears it’s a sting. Tellingly, the man Mahamadou sends to screen the journalist is a plain-clothes policeman in his pay. At each of the three checkpoints before Libya, Mahamadou pays the police 10,000 CFA (£11...$16.5) per passenger to let them pass. “The law has changed nothing,” he smiles. “If you pay certain bribes to the police you can continue to operate the compounds.” The rhythm of the town still operates around the smugglers’ schedule. For most of the week, Agadez is subdued. But as Monday approaches, the day that most smugglers leave together for protection, the town suddenly plunges into fast-forward. The smugglers’ cars of choice – white Toyota pick-up trucks with blacked-out windows and ripped-off license plates – scurry around the streets in greater numbers. They’re taken to the mechanics, for any last-minute repairs. Then they’re loaded with spare fuel and water; Mahamadou buys 470 litres of the former, and 250 of the latter. No one in the town seems fazed. At last, on Monday afternoon, each smuggler gathers 30 passengers outside their compound, and crams them into the back of their Toyota. Sometimes the drivers come from Libya, and the profits are shared between him and the Nigerien compound owner. Other times it’s Nigeriens, like Mahamadou, who do the driving themselves. Either way, both methods see the smugglers try to squeeze every last drop of profit from their clients. The passengers are packed so tightly that those on the outside face outwards, with their legs hanging from the parapet. Once in position, they grip onto sticks attached to the car frame, to stop them falling out when the car picks up pace. And then they’re off, skidding past the airstrip, and out towards the lonely police checkpoint. Here, the drivers’ colleagues linger by the policemen’s hut to make sure the officers get their cut. One radios his colleagues back at the compound. “Get a move on,” he says. “The way is clear.” Minutes later, the smugglers’ trucks hurtle past, and the policemen look the other way – more interested in the presence of a journalist’s car than a smuggler’s. The police aren’t the only ones turning a blind eye. The reason the smugglers leave en masse on Monday is so that they can tag along with the weekly military convoy into the desert. No one seems to mind. “The army led us out of the town,” remembers Ohioyah. “And the army didn’t stop anyone.” Almost everyone admits it would be hard, if not impossible, to meaningfully curb smuggling in Agadez. In one of the world’s poorest countries, and in a town that has no other substantial industries, smuggling is a vital financial lifeline for many local people. In just one trip, a smuggler might make as much as 4.5 million CFA (£4,985...$7,522). In a year, he could take in as much as £250,000 ($377,262). And if 100,000 people do transit through the town in 2015, then that could feasibly rake in a total of £16.6 million ($25.050M) – and that’s before bribes worth £1.1 million ($1.66M) for the police. This money is particularly significant in a town that has many boarded-up travel agencies. Until eight years ago, Agadez was a tourist town, and its little airstrip technically an international airport. But then came a wave of local Berber rebellions, and the rise of a regional Al-Qaida franchise. And so the tourist trade suddenly stopped – and even when things quietened down again, it never came back. An adviser to the Sultan of Aïr, the town’s ceremonial leader, sighs. “This is part of what’s happening,” says Mohamed Tuwara, sitting in the shadow of the town’s famous minaret. “Because of the rebellions, the tourists won’t come to Agadez any more, and the craftsmen don’t sell their products. Many people have to change their work, so some of the craftsmen become gardeners, and there are some who become smugglers.” In his mid-teens, Mahamadou used to drive tourists around the desert. Now he takes migrants through it. It’s this kind of story that makes some local politicians wary of enforcing a smuggling ban without simultaneous economic investment in the area. Mohamed Anacko, the head of the regional parliament, sips tea at a friend’s house. While smuggling remains such an economic crutch for the area, Anacko warns, smugglers will still risk it even if the police start doing their jobs properly. “If they can’t go through the police, they’ll go around the places with the police,” Anacko says, gently. “And that’s a problem because they’re even more likely to get lost.” And this, in turn, will cause more deaths. Those who have survived the journey can nevertheless scarcely imagine how it could get more dangerous. Pape Demba Kebe, a 33-year-old welder from Senegal, crossed the Sahara in August, and during a toilet break his group discovered the bodies of two men. Their driver acted like it was a normal discovery. “One was on his back,” remembers Kebe, “and the other had died while he was praying. So we buried them.” Perhaps the worst part of the journey happens on arrival in Libya. Most passengers are dropped off in Qatroun, the first major town over the border, or in Sabha, further to the north. A few of them won’t have paid upfront, and so the macabre understanding is that they will be locked in a compound in Libya until either their families or sympathetic local migrant workers pay a ransom. Those who paid in Niger are supposed to be released, to allow them to find new smugglers to take them north through the desert to Tripoli, or to earn money that will allow them to pay for this onwards journey. The problem is, many people aren’t let go – and the smuggling business turns into a trafficking one. The victims include Paul Ohioyah, the plumber and part-time pastor. On arrival in Qatroun, a Libyan militia seized Ohioyah’s group, and drove them to Sabha, where they were shut in another compound. “Some people came and said: we bought you with money,” remembers Ohioyah. “So they said we had to pay them back. But I’d already paid €500 – I didn’t have that money.” So Ohioyah stayed locked up for a month. He was only released because a fellow inmate died of illness, and another died after a beating by their jailers – prompting the superstitious compound owner to want rid of an unlucky cohort of inmates. Ohioyah wasn’t tortured, but many in his situation have been. That’s according to the Red Cross in Agadez, which treats some of those kidnapped in southern Libya when and if they manage to return to Niger. “If someone’s parents pay within one day, no problem he leaves,” says Ismail Mohama, the Red Cross’s migration coordinator in Agadez. “But if not, [the traffickers] will torture him. They usually have wounds from beatings on their backs, and sometimes on their heels. At the moment they are calling their parents, they beaten on their feet.” Stories like these help explain why many African migrants in the north of Libya feel they have no choice but to risk the sea voyage to Europe, even if they don’t have the right to political asylum. Some might have seen Libya as their final destination, somewhere they could make their fortune, and then return home with pride. But with a civil war raging, and no one to protect them, most migrants are at risk of kidnap, extortion and forced labour. So they need to leave. But the route back through the desert to Agadez is just as expensive as the Mediterranean voyage, and the risks are similar. Moussa Fofana, a 33-year-old Malian, tried it in August. On the drive to Agadez, his car was ambushed by Libyan youths, and all the money he had saved in Libya was taken. “They were boys with Kalashnikovs who robbed us,” he laughs. “They even took my clothes.” Back in the bus station, Mahamadou cites this kind of desperation to show why Europe’s current attitude to migration is short-sighted. Individual countries are building fences here, fences there, he says. But such local responses don’t really acknowledge the broader, global causes of migration – factors which become more apparent when you visit Agadez. “A fence, even an electrified fence, won’t stop migration,” argues Mahamadou. “These people are suffering, and they will travel anywhere where they can find a better life.” Mahamadou’s passengers are mostly so-called economic migrants whom European politicians heading for Malta hope to deter from Europe with the threat of swift deportation. But if their rhetoric is a guide, it will take more than that threat to stop them from attempting the journey. Joel Gomez, one of Mahamadou’s passengers in the bus station, says Europe’s duty is to repay centuries of colonialism by welcoming the unemployed of Africa. “The white man arrived in Africa by sea without a visa,” says the Cameroonian. “And we have learnt to travel from the white man.” Additional reporting: Chehou Aziz 1 10 People sit on the open cargo of pick-up trucks, holding wooden sticks tied to the vehicle, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez for Libya. Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images 4 10 The minaret of the grand mosque at Agadez, which was first built in the 16th century. Photograph: Joe Penney/Reuters 5 10 A smuggler (with covered face) talks to a group of men. Photograph: Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters/Reuters Many more pics in link / Ecowas (a Schengen-like visa-free swath of west Africa) zone map in link http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/09/on-the-road-in-agadez-desperation-and-death-along-a-saharan-smuggling-route

No one hurt in cave-in measuring more than 120m (400ft) long that claimed cars and trucks. The question now is what caused it Associated Press Monday 9 November 2015 02.31 GMT Experts are investigating the collapse of a restaurant parking lot at the weekend that created a 120m-long (400ft) hole that swallowed 12 vehicles in Mississippi. No one was hurt. Buck Roberts, the public safety director of the city of Meridian, told the Meridian Star the Saturday night collapse was not the result of a sinkhole, which is generally caused when an underground water aquifer dries and leaves a void in the ground. “You can call it what you want, a cave-in or whatever, but it is not a sinkhole,” Roberts said. He said engineers and contractors would be on the scene Monday studying the site. Emergency crews were called to the IHOP restaurant in Meridian on Saturday evening and found a section of parking lot about 10.5m (35ft) wide and 122m (400ft) long had collapsed. Cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles had dropped into hole, which appeared to be about 4.5m (15ft) deep. Gwendolyn Fikes told the newspaper her daughter’s car was one of the vehicles that fell into to the chasm. Fikes said she and her daughter had stopped by the restaurant just minutes earlier when it happened. “We’d been in there about three minutes,” Fikes said when they suddenly heard a “boom”. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/09/giant-hole-swallows-12-vehicles-in-mississippi-resturant-parking-lot

Luís Ortíz, 26, became disoriented and started vomiting, and doctors found the larva embedded in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain Nicky Woolf in New York Wednesday 4 November 2015 22.20 GMT When the headaches first started in late August, Luís Ortíz tried to ignore them. But after a day spent skateboarding in early September, the 26-year-old university student found the pain had become too much to bear. Ortíz became disoriented, and when he started vomiting his mother rushed him to the hospital, where neurosurgeon Soren Singel found the real culprit: a tapeworm larva lodged in his brain. Worse, it had embedded itself in a cyst that was stemming the flow of water to his brain, Singel told the Napa Valley Register. Singel drilled a hole above Ortiz’s eyebrow and fished out the worm and the cyst with a neuroendoscope equipped with a grasping tool. “The worm was still wiggling when we pulled it out,” Singel told the Register. Where the larva came from remains a mystery. Most likely, it entered his body as an egg in food – most likely pork. Ortiz told a local CBS affiliate that he had “no idea” where he might have gotten it. But he was lucky to have arrived at the hospital when he did: Singel told the Register that another 30 minutes of the blockage, and Ortiz would have died. “I was shocked,” Ortiz said. “I just couldn’t believe something like that would happen to me. I didn’t know there was a parasite in my head trying to ruin my life.” The surgery and the aftermath have greatly affected his life, Ortiz said. He had to drop out of school, move back home and find a temporary place for his dog. He can’t drive or work. “My memory is like a work in progress,” he said. “It gets better from therapy,” but he has to remind himself to do his memory exercises and other daily tasks. Ortiz told CBS that the whole ordeal has given him a “new lease on life”, and he told the Register that he had also been “staying away from pork ever since”. A close up image of the head of a pork tapeworm. Photograph: Alamy http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/04/california-man-tapeworm-brain

Former president claims hawkish reaction to 9/11 attacks and desire to ‘get our way in the Middle East’ hurt his son’s administration, says new biography Claire Phipps and agencies Thursday 5 November 2015 08.58 GMT Former US president George HW Bush has hit out at **** Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, two of the most senior figures in his son’s administration, labelling them too “hardline” and “arrogant” in their handling of the 11 September attacks. A new biography of the 41st president – Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush – reveals that Bush Sr held Cheney and Rumsfeld responsible for the hawkish stance that “hurt” his son’s administration, Fox News reported on Wednesday. The book, by Jon Meacham, is based on audio diaries that Bush recorded during his time in the White House, as well as interviews with the former president and his wife, Barbara. Cheney served as defence secretary during George HW Bush’s 1989-1993 presidency and later as vice-president under President George W Bush. After 9/11, Bush Sr told his biographer: “I don’t know, he just became very hardline and very different from the **** Cheney I knew and worked with. “The reaction [to 9/11], what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East,” Bush told Meacham in the book, which is due to be published next week. Of his son’s role, Bush Sr told his biographer: “He’s my son, he did his best and I’m for him. It’s that simple an equation.” But he criticised Bush Jr for allowing Cheney to build “kind of his own state department” and for the inflammatory language that infused the US response to the 9/11 attacks. “I do worry about some of the rhetoric that was out there – some of it his [bush Jr], maybe, and some of it the people around him. Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problem.” He added that George W Bush’s infamous state of the union address in 2002, in which the then president warned of an “axis of evil” of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, “might be historically proved to be not benefiting anything”. Rumsfeld, who was Bush Jr’s secretary of defense for most of his two terms, has so far not commented on the criticisms directed at him by the 41st president, who in the book calls him “an arrogant fellow”, adding: “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the president. “I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick-ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that.” But Cheney told Fox News he took the “iron-ass” jibe as a compliment. “I took it as a mark of pride,” he says. “The attack on 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor, in terms of the number people killed, and the amount of damage done. I think a lot of people believed then, and still believe to this day that I was aggressive in defending, in carrying out what I thought were the right policies.” Cheney insisted he had enjoyed reading Meacham’s book. “The diary’s fascinating, because you can see how he felt at various key moments of his life. So I’m enjoying the book. I recommend it to my friends. And [i’m] proud to be a part of it.” But he dismissed claims levelled by the former president that Lynne Cheney, his wife, as well as his daughter Liz Cheney, had been the “eminence grises” behind his vice-presidency. “It’s his view, perhaps, of what happened, but my family was not conspiring to somehow turn me into a tougher, more hard-nosed individual. “I got there all by myself.” George W Bush said his father “would never say to me: ‘Hey, you need to rein in Cheney. He’s ruining your administration.’ It would be out of character for him to do that. “I made the decisions. This was my philosophy. “It is true that my rhetoric could get pretty strong and that may have bothered some people. Obviously it did, including Dad, though he never mentioned it.” Reuters contributed to this report. 1 2 A new biography of George HW Bush quotes the former president saying **** Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld damaged the reputation of the US. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA 2 2 From left to right: Donald Rumsfeld, George W Bush and **** Cheney, pictured in 2006 at the armed forces farewell tribute to Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/05/george-bush-senior-iron-ass-cheney-arrogant-rumsfeld-damaged-america

Spy agencies will be able to track everyone’s internet use without warrant UK governments have signed secret orders on data collection for years Alan Travis Patrick Wintour and Ewen MacAskill Wednesday 4 November 2015 13.57 GMT Last modified on Wednesday 4 November 2015 16.27 GMT New surveillance powers will be given to the police and security services, allowing them to access records tracking every UK citizen’s use of the internet without any judicial check, under the provisions of the draft investigatory powers bill unveiled by Theresa May. It includes new powers requiring internet and phone companies to keep “internet connection records” – tracking every website visited but not every page – for a maximum of 12 months but will not require a warrant for the police, security services or other bodies to access the data. Local authorities will be banned from accessing internet records. Key points Requires web and phone companies to store records of websites visited by every citizen for 12 months for access by police, security services and other public bodies. Makes explicit in law for the first time security services’ powers for the “bulk collection” of large volumes of personal communications data. Makes explicit in law for the first time powers of the security services and police to hack and bug into computers and phones. Places new legal obligation on companies to assist in these operations to bypass encryption. New “double-lock” on ministerial authorisation of intercept warrants with panel of seven judicial commissioners given power of veto. But exemptions allowed in “urgent cases” of up to five days. Existing system of three oversight commissioners replaced with single investigatory powers commissioner who will be a senior judge. Prime minister to be consulted in all cases involving interception of MPs’ communications. Safeguards on requests for communications data in other “sensitive professions” such as journalists to be written into law. The proposed legislation will also introduce a “double-lock” on the ministerial approval of interception warrants with a new panel of seven judicial commissioners – probably retired judges – given a veto before they can come into force. But the details of the bill make clear that this new safeguard for the most intrusive powers to spy on the content of people’s conversations and messages will not apply in “urgent cases” – defined as up to five days – where judicial approval is not possible. The draft investigatory powers bill published on Wednesday by the home secretary aims to provide a “comprehensive and comprehensible” overhaul of Britain’s fragmented surveillance laws. It comes two-and-a-half years after the disclosures by the whistleblower Edward Snowden of the scale of secret mass surveillance of the global traffic in confidential personal data carried out by Britain’s GCHQ and the US’s National Security Agency (NSA). It will replace the current system of three separate commissioners with a senior judge as a single investigatory powers commissioner. May told MPs that the introduction of the most controversial power – the storage of everyone’s internet connection records tracking the websites they have visited, which is banned as too intrusive in the US and every European country including Britain – was “simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”. Her recommendations were broadly welcomed by the shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, but received a more cautious welcome from the former Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis, the former shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister. Some former ministers pressed May on the nature of the double-lock, whereby a warrant could be issued first by the home secretary and then endorsed by a specially appointed judge. They also asked whether some warrants could be issued by the home secretary outside this dual-lock process. Burnham said it was important to stress the proposals were “neither a snooper’s charter nor a plan for mass surveillance”. The Labour frontbencher said the UK’s laws were outdated given that changes in technology had made the jobs of the security services and police much harder. Burnham said: “In a world where the threats we face internationally and domestically are growing, parliament cannot sit on its hands and leave blind spots where the authorities can’t see.” He said strong powers must be balanced by strong protections for the public, adding: “What the home secretary has said today, it seems clear to me both she and the government have been listening carefully to the concerns that were expressed about the original legislation presented in the last parliament.” Burnham added: “I think it would help the future conduct of this important public debate if this House sent out a unified message today that this is neither a snooper’s charter nor a plan for mass surveillance.” Davis questioned whether the new warrant process would cover all the current mechanisms for the intercept and use of communications data. He also questioned the independence of the judicary, asking if they will be appointed by the prime minister or by the Judicial Appointments Commission. Clegg, who in government blocked previous attempts to give spies sweeping new powers, was cautious, saying the proposals were “much improved” compared with the snooper’s charter. But he warned: “I have a feeling under the bonnet it still retains some of the flaws of its predecessor.” The Lib Dem MP suggested it might be be simpler and faster to provide for direct judicial authorisation, rather than retaining a role for ministers. He also queried why it was necessary to hold so much internet browsing data. The draft bill explicitly includes in statute for the first time powers for the bulk collection of large volumes of communications and other personal data by MI5, GCHQ, MI6 and for their use of “equipment interference powers” – the ability to hack computers and phones around the world – for purposes of national security, serious crime and economic wellbeing. UK has secretly collected data in bulk since 1994In her statement, May also revealed for the first time that successive governments since 1994 have issued secret directions to internet and phone companies to hand over the communications data of British citizens in bulk to the security services. She said these secret “directions” had allowed the security services to thwart a number of attacks in Britain, including the plot to attack the London Stock Exchange in 2010. May revealed that the use of these powers – which show that GCHQ was also engaged in mass surveillance programmes on British citizens using their communications data – under the 1984 Telecommunications Act will be put on a more explicit footing in the new legislation and be subject to the same safeguards as other bulk powers. Home Office estimates put the extra costs of storing internet connection records and the new judicial oversight regime at £245m to £250m ($376.6M to $384.3M) over 10 years after the legislation comes into force in December next year. This includes £175m ($269M) for the cost of storing everyone’s internet records and £60m ($92.2M) for the extra judicial oversight. Welcoming the bill as a decisive moment in updating Britain’s surveillance laws, May said: “There should be no area of cyberspace which is a haven for those who seek to harm us to plot, poison minds and peddle hatred under the radar. “But I am also clear that the exercise and scope of investigatory powers should be clearly set out and subject to stringent safeguards and robust oversight, including ‘double-lock’ authorisation for the most intrusive capabilities. This bill will establish world-leading oversight to govern an investigatory powers regime which is more open and transparent than anywhere else in the world.” She said it could not be used to determine whether somebody had visited a mental health website or even a news website but only for the purpose of finding out whether they had visited a communications website, such as WhatsApp, an illegal website or to link their device to a specific website as part of a specific investigation. But the detail of the bill makes clear that the authorisation arrangements for internet connection records will remain exactly the same as the current 517,000 requests for communications data made last year. These requests are made without any kind of warrant and signed off by either a police inspector or superintendent depending on the kind of data. Jim Killock, the executive director of the privacy campaigning body Open Rights Group, sees the draft bill as an attempt to secure even more intrusive powers. “At first glance, it appears that this bill is an attempt to grab even more intrusive surveillance powers and does not do enough to restrain the bulk collection of our personal data by the secret services,” he said. “It proposes an increase in the blanket retention of our personal communications data, giving the police the power to access web logs. It also gives the state intrusive hacking powers that can carry risks for everyone’s internet security.” A Microsoft spokesperson tentatively welcomed the bill while adding caveats about private data and protection for customers, saying: “We appreciate the government’s willingness to engage in an open debate about these important issues, and as this process unfolds, we will work to ensure that legislation respects these principles and protects the privacy of our customers.” GCHQ in Cheltenham. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/04/theresa-may-surveillance-measures-edward-snowden

William Melendez has evaded conviction for a series of police misconduct allegations for more than a decade, costing the city millions in legal settlements. But video evidence in the Floyd Dent trial starting this week may change his luck Ryan Felton in Detroit Tuesday 3 November 2015 14.16 GMT He has been accused in lawsuits and a federal indictment of planting evidence, wrongfully killing civilians, falsifying police reports and conducting illegal arrests. His conduct has cost the city of Detroit millions in legal settlements. He’s well-known by his nickname, “RoboCop”. And this week, William Melendez, the former officer in the town of Inkster near Detroit goes to trial for pulling a man out of his car during a routine traffic stop and repeatedly punching him in the head – a move caught on video. Melendez, 47, now faces his starkest punishment yet in the trial on three felony charges, after decades during which he continued to serve as a police officer. The trial centers on his conduct during a 28 January arrest of Floyd Dent. Dent was pulled over around 10pm, after he had failed to use a traffic signal and disregarded a stop sign, according to a police report of the incident. He continued to drive at roughly the same speed for about three-quarters of a mile to a well-lit area where, Dent said, he felt more comfortable. Police have said Dent, who was unarmed, was driving with a suspended license – a point the 58-year-old has acknowledged. After Dent pulled his Cadillac over near an old police station, he opened his door and put both his hands out of the window. But as Melendez approached with his firearm drawn, the officer said he believed Dent was reaching for a gun. Moments later, Melendez dragged Dent out of his vehicle and, almost immediately, placed him in a chokehold. The officer then punched Dent’s temple more than a dozen times. “At one point, I just gave up,” Dent told the Guardian earlier this year. “I thought that was it for me.” Another officer soon arrived and proceeded to use a stun gun against Dent, three times. In a dashcam video of the incident, Dent, with blood dripping from his forehead and cheek, appears not to be resisting Melendez’s efforts to arrest him. The altercation landed Dent in the hospital for two days with a fractured left orbital, blood on the brain and four broken ribs. The incident didn’t garner significant attention until video was obtained and released in March by a local TV news station. Activists highlighted the rough arrest as one of a number this year that have illuminated a national police brutality problem. Charges filed against Dent for resisting arrest and possession of cocaine were later dropped, after the Wayne County prosecutor’s office opted to prosecute Melendez for his conduct in the arrest. “This devalues greatly the work that the majority of police officers in this country perform daily,” Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement at the time of the announced charges against Melendez. “The alleged police brutality in this case cannot and will not be tolerated.” Melendez – who denies any wrongdoing – faces up to 10 years in prison, if convicted, for three felony charges that include misconduct in office, assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and assault by strangulation. Worthy said her office didn’t know about the incident until the video was aired by WDIV-TV. Protests immediately broke out in Inkster – a Detroit suburb whose population is 73% black, however the police force is estimated to be 80-90% white – and Highland Park, where Melendez was also employed. He was soon fired from both departments, and later declined to discuss specifics of Dent’s arrest, only telling a TV station in April that “you’re tying police officers’ hands when you’re Monday morning quarterbacking”. A dozen lawsuits, an indictment, and a record for citizen complaints Melendez’s firing was the most severe sanction yet after decades of police brutality allegations. At one point, he received more citizen complaints than any officer in Detroit, where he started his career in 1993 and served until his resignation in 2009. He entered Inkster’s police force a year later. The former officer has been named as a defendant in a dozen federal lawsuits, accusing him of planting evidence, wrongfully killing civilians, falsifying police reports and conducting illegal arrests. Some suits were settled out of court; others were dismissed. Just three years after joining the Detroit police force, Melendez and his partner fatally shot Detroit resident Lou Adkins, and witnesses testified Adkins was shot an additional 11 times while on the ground. The case was settled for $1.05m, court records show. Years later, Melendez was indicted by a federal grand jury on civil rights violations as prosecutors alleged he, and several other officers, stole guns, money and drugs from suspects, planted weapons and broke into homes without search warrants, among other things. In one incident that sparked the indictment, a man Melendez arrested spent 213 days in jail before he was released. Melendez had arrested Detroit resident Darrell Chancellor, who had a felony conviction on his record, for possession of a firearm. Chancellor testified that he was sitting in a car with a group of friends when Melendez drove by with his partner. Chancellor testified in the case that he and his friends exited the vehicle quickly “because it was RoboCop”. Melendez claimed Chancellor tossed a gun away as he exited the vehicle; Chancellor denied that he had one. About 15 minutes later, according to Chancellor’s testimony, Melendez put a gun on top of the vehicle and said: “Chancellor, this is your gun.” Chancellor denied the accusation. Federal prosecutors would later dismiss the charge and released Chancellor during the investigation into allegations against Melendez, who was cited as the ringleader of numerous officers charged with civil rights violations. The officers were later acquitted, as jurors reportedly explained they couldn’t believe the testimony of the government’s witnesses, many who had criminal records. Nevertheless, after Melendez departed for Inkster, his conduct would soon take a financial toll on the cash-strapped city. Inkster, a Detroit suburb, agreed to pay Dent $1.38m as a result of his arrest by Melendez. The city’s treasurer said Inkster would levy a one-time tax hike on homeowners to raise funds for the settlement, a roughly $178 increase. The city will also have to pay out a $100,000 settlement for the 2011 arrest by Melendez of Inkster resident Deshawn Acklin. According to the federal lawsuit filed by Acklin, Melendez allegedly choked him until he lost consciousness. Melendez – who would later contend that Acklin resisted arrest – allegedly beat Acklin until another officer said “that’s enough”. Eventually, a court filing stated, Acklin “succumbed to the pain and lack of oxygen and passed out while defecating on himself”. Acklin was treated at a hospital for a closed head injury, a left foot sprain and bleeding from his eyes. He spent three days in custody and was never charged with a crime. Inkster homeowners will be forced to pay an additional $15-$20 on their property tax bills to pay for the settlement. Acklin’s attorneys didn’t respond to a request for comment. The financial settlements come at a difficult time for the city, which, since 2012, has been under a consent agreement to address its dire financial problems. Inkster’s former police chief told the Guardian in March that only 24 officers are employed by the department now, down from 73 only a few years ago. ‘Video changes the dynamic’ The trial against Melendez is expected to last two weeks. On Monday, jury selection began, with 90 prospective jurors expected to impanel. The centerpiece of the case will be the video of the incident, said Wayne State University law professor Peter Henning. “When you look it, it certainly gets your attention, just the number of blows being delivered and the force,” Henning, a former prosecutor, told the Guardian. “So the prosecutor’s going to point to that and build the case around saying, even if there was some fear when Dent emerged from the car, it didn’t justify going this far for the defense.” Henning pointed to the 1991 infamous beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police as an indication of how Melendez’s attorney may build his defense. The defense in King broke down footage of the incident into “very small bits”, Henning said, to suggest to the jury where King may have appeared to be resisting arrest. “Of course, there just has to be a reasonable belief on Melendez’s part that there was a threat, and that can eliminate his criminal liability,” Henning said. Melendez’s attorney, James Thomas, didn’t respond to requests for comments. But during a May hearing in the case, he said if Dent had a suspended license, he would have a motive to resist arrest. “An important issue in this case was whether or not officer Melendez was justified at the time that he engaged Mr Dent,” Thomas said. The Wayne County circuit court judge in the trial, Vonda Evans, said earlier this year that she would allow testimony about the previous arrests of Dent, a veteran Ford employee who had no criminal history. Court records show he has been previously charged for various driving infractions. But, Henning said, Melendez faces “a tricky defense” because of the existence of video footage, which requires the defendant to concede: “‘Yeah, I beat him, I really beat this guy up, but I had a good reason to do it.” “Video changes the dynamic; it really shifts the focus over to the defense,” Henning said. “Because the prosecutor will - not that they’ll keep it this simple – but essentially, they’ll say, ‘Look at the video, What more do you need?’ “When you look at that video, it’s striking, just how forceful this was. And so I think the prosecutors are going to count on the jury’s revulsion.” http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/03/detroit-police-robocop-traffic-stop-beating-floyd-dent-trial

Video shows officer making forceful arrest in case that stokes tensions among black and white parents in Richland County School District Two Matthew Teague Tuesday 27 October 2015 02.43 GMT Video of a South Carolina sheriff’s deputy manhandling a student in a high school classroom has added to simmering racial tensions among parents. The video shows a school monitor reported to be Ben Fields – who is also a Richland county sheriff’s deputy, confronting a black female student. When she refuses to leave her seat in a classroom at Spring Valley High, he tells her: “I’ll make you.” He wraps his arm around her neck, flips her desk backward, then drags her across the floor. He arrested both the girl, and a male student. The sheriff’s department has placed Fields on administrative leave while it investigates the case. A spokeswoman for the school district, Libby Roof, said on Monday night that the administration was “deeply concerned”. “We are investigating it, along with the sheriff’s office,” she said. A spokesman for the Richland county sheriff did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s calls. The video only lasts a few seconds but reflects an eruption of tension that has built in Richland County School District Two over several years. The school system was predominantly white 10 years ago, but after a rapid demographic reversal is now three-quarters black. “It’s crazy, man,” said Stephen Gilchrist, a business owner and father of three boys who is a founding member of the Richland Two Black Parents Association. The group formed a year ago with a dozen or so members and now has 5,700 on its rolls. “We formed because it was so obvious the white parents were getting the best access and opportunities. But we are a community of black parents who want to get involved,” Gilchrist said. “The problem is widespread.” Fields has a history of alleged aggression during arrests. According to federal court papers a man named Carlos Martin sued Fields for pepper spraying him and roughing up his wife after he pulled his car into a parking lot playing loud music. The suit ended in Fields’s favor. In a second federal suit a high school student named Ashton James Reese is suing Fields for allegedly falsely accusing him of being in a gang. In court papers Reese’s attorney claims Fields “recklessly targets African-American students with allegations of gang membership and criminal gang activity”. That suit is pending. The speed of demographic change in the school system surprised the entire community — parents, administrators, voters — and led to conflict among black and white groups. After the formation of Richland Two Black Parents Association, another group sprang up, which Gilchrist said is commonly known as the Bipartisan White Citizens Committee, although the local newspaper uses the name “Bipartisan Committee”. A year ago a member of the committee, George Shissias, spoke to the State newspaper ahead of a school board election in which the board shifted from mostly black to mostly white. “I think it’s the last stand for a good school district,” he said. “You will have people who will leave for other jobs. They will bully them and threaten them.” His wife, former South Carolina state representative June Shissias, is also on the committee. Two months ago the school district formed a new administrative position: chief diversity and multicultural inclusion officer. It hired attorney Helen Grant with a role she described on Monday night as “making sure everyone is included and that the school workers look at least somewhat like the students”. She said she had met with members of the Black Parents Association and had heard of the White Citizens Committee but had not met with its representatives. Roof, the school district spokeswoman, said: “In the past there have been some issues but I believe that any parent with concerns can bring it to the administration and be heard.” http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/27/south-carolina-sheriffs-deputy-on-leave-after-forceful-classroom-arrest

British resident returning after 14-year detention without trial in US military camp where he was beaten Richard Norton-Taylor , Ed Pilkington and Ian Cobain Friday 30 October 2015 09.36 GMT Shaker Aamer has been released after 14 years of incarceration at Guantánamo Bay, where he was beaten by his American military jailers but never tried for any offence, the UK’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has confirmed. “The Americans announced some weeks ago that they were going to release Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo and I can confirm that he is on his way back to the UK now and he will arrive in Britain later today,” he said. According to the flight tracking firm FlightAware, a plane left Guantánamo Bay bound for London’s Biggin Hill airport at 11.30pm local time (4.30am GMT). While it is unclear where Aamer will be taken on arrival, he has told his lawyers that he wants first to be given a thorough medical examination, and then wishes to see his wife. He has said that he wants to discuss his children with his wife before meeting them. He may be questioned by anti-terrorism police or MI5 officers, but given that ministers – including the prime minister, David Cameron – had campaigned for his release, he is unlikely to need to spend his first night back on British soil in a police cell. Though the US leaked claims – some extracted from the torture of other detainees – that Aamer fought for al-Qaida and was paid by Osama bin Laden, he was nevertried for any offence. He insists he is innocent and was working in Afghanistan for an Islamic charity when he was detained. He has said British officials were aware – and on one occasion, present – when he was being beaten by US interrogators. The Foreign Office has said it “did not accept allegations of ... complicity in his mistreatment”. Whether he wishes to, or can, pursue his allegations, remains to be seen. In January, Cameron raised Aamer’s case with Barack Obama in the White House and won an assurance from the US commander-in-chief that he would prioritise the issue. An announcement that Aamer was to be released followed in September. Friday’s actual release came after the passing of a mandatory 30-day notice period that has to be given to the US Congress in all such cases. Andy Worthington, co-director of the We Stand With Shaker campaign, said he had been informed by Aamer’s lawyer that he was due to return to the UK on Friday. “We’re delighted to hear that his long and unacceptable ordeal has come to an end,” Worthington said. “We hope he won’t be detained by the British authorities on his return and gets the psychological and medical care that he needs to be able to resume his life with his family in London. Amnesty International UK’s director, Kate Allen, said: “After so many twists and turns in this appalling case, we won’t really believe that Shaker Aamer is actually being returned to the UK until his plane touches down on British soil. “We should remember what a terrible travesty of justice this case has been, and that having been held in intolerable circumstances for nearly 14 years Mr Aamer will need to time to readjust to his freedom.” Cori Crider, Aamer’s US lawyer and strategic director at Reprieve, said: “We are, of course, delighted that Shaker is on his way back to his home and his family here in the UK. It is long, long past time. Shaker now needs to see a doctor, and then get to spend time alone with his family as soon as possible.” Judging by the descriptions given by Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, which has been acting for Aamer over the years, and visited him more than 30 times, he will need prolonged treatment. He has been on hunger strike and held in solitary confinement. Aamer can be expected to receive compensation, perhaps as much as £1m ($1.535M), as 15 other British residents and citizens did in 2010, in return for dropping a civil case for unlawful imprisonment. They abandoned their demands for evidence they said would back their case that MI5 and MI6 were involved in their rendition to Guantánamo Bay. In 2010, officers from the Metropolitan police visited him at the US military jail in Cuba where they questioned his allegations of British security and intelligence agency complicity in his mistreatment. Aamer has said British officials were aware he was beaten at Bagram, the US prison in Afghanistan, before he was secretly flown to Guantánamo Bay, and on one occasion a British intelligence officer was present when US interrogators banged his head against a wall. It is unclear whether Aamer’s lawyers have advised him to agree to a confidentiality agreement and to voluntary security measures. Binyam Mohamed agreed to such measures, including regular reports to a police station, when he was released to Britain from Guantánamo Bay. Aamer, born in Medina, Saudi Arabia, 47 years ago, is a British resident with a British wife and four British children – his fourth child, Faris, was born the day he was flown to Guantánamo Bay. His wife, Zin Siddique, and her family live in Battersea, south London, where the MP Jane Ellison has campaigned for his release. He was captured by what are said to be bounty hunters from the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and handed over to US forces in December 2001. Two months later, he was rendered to Guantánamo Bay. Repeated calls by successive British governments for his release will weaken the impact of any hostile stories, or smear tactics, directed at Aamer on his return to the UK. In May, Jeremy Corbyn met senior officials in Washington with fellow Labour MP Andy Slaughter, and former Conservative ministers Andrew Mitchell and David Davis, to try to secure Aamer’s release. 1 2 Shaker Aamer was the last British resident to be held at Guantànamo Bay. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images 2 2 The flight that left Guantánamo Bay for London at 11.30pm. Photograph: FlightAware http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/30/shaker-aamer-released-from-guantanamo-bay

At least three people die in accident – taking death toll from five separate incidents in eastern Aegean on Wednesday to 11 Associated Press in Athens Thursday 29 October 2015 08.32 GMT The Greek coastguard has rescued 242 people off the eastern island of Lesbos after a wooden boat capsized, leaving at least three people dead. The search for more survivors continues as it remains unclear how many people were on the boat when it sank on Wednesday. Greece is the main entry point for people from the Middle East and Africa trying to reach the EU. More than half a million have arrived so far this year. The International Organisation for Migration said in a statement that some sources said there were 300 people on board. Fishing boats and coastguard vessels ferried survivors to the port village Molyvos on Lesbos, which is a few miles from mainland Turkey. In makeshift shelters, volunteers and doctors offered assistance. Many women suffered from shock or hypothermia and received first aid in a chapel at the port. The accident raised the total death toll from five separate incidents in the eastern Aegean sea on Wednesday to 11. A seven-year-old boy died off Lesbos in one incident, while a 12-month-old girl was in critical condition in hospital from the same boat accident. Another three children and a man died off the coast of Samos, while one woman and two children drowned off the islet of Agathonisi. Greece’s merchant marine minister, Thodoros Dritsas, expressed sorrow about the deaths and called for more coherent European Union policies to stop refugees risking their lives by paying people smugglers to ferry them to Greece in unseaworthy craft. “The coastguard’s admirable, constant struggle to rescue refugees at sea is, unfortunately, tending of late to turn into a constant and agonising operation to locate and recover drowned refugees,” he said. “Europe’s priority should be to safely relocate refugees from their countries of origin and transit to European Union members. “Safe passage, EU entry visas on humanitarian grounds, and permits to join family members, study and receive health treatment are solutions that we should all look into very seriously.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/greek-coast-guard-rescues-242-people-after-wooden-boat-capsizes

Clashes break out in Istanbul after government seizes 22 companies linked to critic of President Erdoğan Reuters in Istanbul Wednesday 28 October 2015 09.05 GMT Turkish police have stormed the offices of an opposition media group days before the country’s pivotal election, in a crackdown on companies linked to a US-based cleric and critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Police sprayed water to disperse dozens of people as fights broke out outside the offices of Kanaltürk and Bugun TV in Istanbul. The media groups are owned by Koza Ipek, which has links to Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen. The authorities seized 22 companies owned by Koza Ipek on Tuesday in an investigation of alleged financial irregularities, including whether it funded Gülen. The company denies wrongdoing. Erdoğan has led a crackdown against once influential followers of Gülen, his former ally, after police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to the cleric opened a corruption investigation into the president’s inner circle in 2013. Legal action against other opposition newspapers, including the nationalist Sözcü, was planned for after the vote, said Aydin Ünal, a legislator in the ruling AK party. “After 1 November, we will hold them accountable. Sözcü newspaper insults us every day,” Ünal, a former Erdoğan adviser, told A Haber channel. “There is a lot of pressure on Turkey. If we say something, the world accuses us of interfering with the press, so we’re not in a comfortable position now, but after 1 November we will settle up with all of them.” Rights groups questioned the move against opposition media outlets so close to an election. “The government’s seizure of Koza Ipek undermines the fairness of the parliamentary elections,” said Robert Herman, of Freedom House. He described the takeover of the media firms as censorship. A prosecutor is seeking a prison sentence of up to 34 years for Gülen on allegations that he ran a “parallel” structure within state institutions that sought to topple Erdoğan, who has led Turkey, first as prime minister, then president, since 2003. Gülen has lived in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999. A number of prominent journalists who worked at Gülen-affiliated newspapers and TV stations are in pre-trial detention on similar charges. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/28/turkish-police-storm-opposition-media-offices-as-election-looms

Research shows a dozen officers have been prosecuted this year, yet proportion of deaths leading to charges remains small, experts note Reuters in Washington Monday 26 October 2015 18.36 GMT The number of US police officers charged in fatal shootings has hit the highest level in a decade in 2015, new research shows, driven by greater scrutiny over use of deadly force. Public outrage over the deaths of black men at the hands of police in New York, Missouri, and elsewhere has spurred prosecutions. Police body cameras and bystanders’ videos have also helped bring cases, but even with the upturn, only a small percentage of police killings result in charges, lawyers and analysts say. A dozen officers have been charged with murder or manslaughter this year resulting from shootings, up from an average of about five a year from 2005 to 2014, said Philip Stinson, an associate professor of criminology at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University. He sifted through court records and media reports as part of research for the Justice Department on police crimes and arrests. The 2015 number does not include six Baltimore officers facing trial for the death of Freddie Gray. The 25-year-old black man died in April from a spinal injury after he was arrested and bundled in a transport van. Four of the officers face murder or manslaughter charges. None of the officers has been convicted, and over the previous decade just one in five officers charged was found guilty, said Stinson, a former police officer. Stinson, attorneys and criminologists say it is too early to tell if the upturn indicates a permanent change or is a statistical fluke. “We can tell for one year, but is that just an anomaly or is it a trend?” said Stinson. The prosecutions represent only a small fraction of the killings by US police. A Washington Post database last week showed 796 fatal police shootings this year, and one maintained by the Guardian recorded 936 deaths from all causes. ** The United States has lacked official numbers on police-related deaths, and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, said this month that the Justice Department was trying to improve data on the use of force by police. A study for the department said in March that less than half of arrest-related deaths had been reported under two programs. At least two states, California and Texas, and several local jurisdictions, including Houston, Dallas and Fairfax County, Virginia, have started public databases on police-related shootings or deaths. Ezekiel Edwards, director of the criminal law reform project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said mayors, prosecutors and lawmakers were under increasing public pressure to act when a questionable police shooting occurred. “It’s not that there has been this massive uptick in civilian deaths. It’s just that there has been this massive uptick in scrutiny and protests,” he said. Widespread protests over police brutality exploded over the August 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A grand jury declined to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, and the Justice Department cleared him of civil rights violations. Besides the Baltimore police, the officers charged this year include: Michael Slager, a former North Charleston, South Carolina, patrolman facing trial over the death of a black man who ran from a traffic stop and was shot in the back. A bystander caught the incident on video. Ray Tensing, an ex-University of Cincinnati officer, charged with murder for the July death of an unarmed black motorist during an off-campus traffic stop. Tensing’s body camera showed the stop and the shooting. Stephen Rankin, a former Portsmouth, Virginia, officer, who faces a first-degree murder charge for the April shooting of a black teenager in a Walmart parking lot. Lawrence Grandpre, with the Baltimore thinktank Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, which organized protests over Gray’s death, said prosecutions alone were not enough. Police departments resolve most brutality allegations internally, and officers in Maryland and many other states are shielded by special legal protections, he said. “Cops are going to have a massive incentive to, when in doubt, punch first, hit first, shoot first, and ask questions later,” said Grandpre, whose father was a Baltimore police officer. Stuart Slotnick, a former state prosecutor in New York, said getting a conviction in cases involving police is difficult since officers are empowered to use weapons. Police cases generally involve split-second decisions made during interactions with civilians that go tragically wrong, he said. That can make prosecutors reluctant to bring charges and judges and juries to appear to second-guess officers. “Most of the cases are not clearcut incidents where a police officer goes totally rogue and commits a clearcut crime,” said Slotnick, a partner with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney. Stinson, the Bowling Green professor, said 11 of the 47 officers charged from 2005 to 2014 had been convicted. Richard Combs, the former police chief of Eutawville, South Carolina, is the most recent officer to be convicted. He pleaded guilty in September to misconduct in connection with the 2011 death of a black man over a traffic ticket. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge against Combs after two mistrials. He received a suspended sentence of 10 years in prison, with one year of home detention and five years of probation. James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the biggest police union, said officers face unjustified criticism as they carry out a crucial job. “The important and telling statistic is the conviction rate,” he said. Anger over the deaths of black people at the hands of police has helped drive prosecutions. Photograph: John G. Mabanglo/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/26/police-shootings-charges-reach-10-year-high

Israeli PM accused of trivialising the Holocaust for saying grand mufti of Jerusalem gave Hitler idea of exterminating Europe’s Jews Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem Wednesday 21 October 2015 17.34 BST The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has attracted a storm of criticism for an incendiary speech in which he accused the second world war Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem of having suggested the genocide of the Jews to Adolf Hitler. The comments in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem came in the context of the current violence between Israelis and Palestinians and were condemned by historians and the Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog for trivialising the Holocaust. On the Palestinian side, senior official Saeb Erekat described the remarks as absolving Hitler. In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 1941. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’” According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.” Among those questioning Netanyahu’s interpretation of history was Prof Dan Michman, the head of the Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University and head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem. He said that while Hitler did indeed meet the mufti, this happened after the Final Solution began. Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Prof Dina Porat, told the Israeli news website Ynet that Netanyahu’s claims were incorrect. “You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It’s not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.” Netanyahu made the claim – which he also made in 2012 – to illustrate what he said was the Palestinian history of using holy sites in Jerusalem as pretexts for committing acts of violence against Jews. However, almost as soon as the transcript was released by his office, he was accused on social media and then by a raft of Israeli political figures of factual errors in his assertions. The claim that Husseini – who met and supported Hitler – was the one to initiate the idea of the extermination of Europe’s Jews has been suggested by historians on the fringes of Holocaust research, but is rejected by most historians. Defending his comments, Netanyahu said: “I didn’t mean to absolve Hitler of responsibility, but to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy Jews even without occupation.” Speaking before flying to Berlin to meet the US secretary of state, John Kerry, Netanyahu said he did not mean to diminish Hitler’s responsibility for the Holocaust. “He is responsible for the Final Solution, and he made the decision,” he said. “It is also absurd to ignore the role played by the mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was a war criminal and encouraged Hitler to exterminate European Jewry.” A spokesman for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, however, rejected Netanyahu’s framing. “All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilisation that was the Holocaust,” her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said. “I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own.” At the centre of the row is Netanyahu’s suggestion that Hitler had wanted to expel Jews and that it was Husseini who somehow persuaded him instead to kill them when the two men met in late November 1941. In reality, the mass killings of Jews by SS mobile killing units – Einsatzgruppen – were already under way when the two men met face to face. The first was in Lithuania in July 1941, described by Yad Vashem as the “beginning” of the Final Solution. In September 1941, again before Husseini’s meeting with Hitler, Einsatzgruppe C, commanded by Otto Rasch, killed more than 33,000 Jews over two days in the Babi Yar ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, an act of mass murder ordered by the new Nazi military governor of Kiev, Maj Gen Kurt Eberhard. Netanyahu’s incendiary comments come amid a rising death toll and accusations of incitement on both sides, with Israelis pointing to comments made by Palestinian officials and inflammatory material on social media, and Palestinians equally accusing Netanyahu’s government of fanning the flames and pointing to anti-Palestinian material on social media. The violence continued on Wednesday with several incidents, including a stabbing that critically injured a 19-year-old Israeli female soldier. Over the past month, 10 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them stabbings. In that time, 46 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, including 25 identified by Israel as attackers, and the rest in clashes with Israeli troops. An Eritrean asylum seeker died after being shot by a security guard and beaten by a mob that mistakenly believed he was a Palestinian assailant during a deadly Arab attack at a bus station. Reacting to Netanyahu’s comments, Herzog wrote on his Facebook page: “This is a dangerous historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimises the Holocaust, Nazism and … Hitler’s part in our people’s terrible disaster.” He added that Netanyahu’s remarks played into the hands of Holocaust deniers. “A historian’s son must be accurate about history,” Herzog wrote. “Netanyahu has forgotten that he’s not only the prime minister of Israel but the prime minister of the Jewish people’s government.” The grand mufti, added Herzog, “gave the order to kill my grandfather, Rabbi Herzog, and actively supported Hitler”. Herzog’s fellow Zionist Union MP Itzik Shmuli called on Netanyahu to apologise to Holocaust victims. “This is a great shame, a prime minister of the Jewish state at the service of Holocaust-deniers – this is a first,” he said. “This isn’t the first time Netanyahu distorts historical facts, but a lie of this magnitude is the first.” Denouncing Netanyahu’s comments, Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator, also weighed into the row. “It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbour so much so that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust.” Seeking to defend Netanyahu, the defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, told Army Radio that the idea for the Final Solution was Hitler’s and the mufti had joined him, and accused the Palestinian Authority of employing “incitement” that was “the legacy of the Nazis”. “I don’t know what exactly the prime minister said. History is actually very, very clear,” said Ya’alon. “Hitler initiated it, Haj Amin al-Husseini joined him, and unfortunately the jihadi movements promote antisemitism to this day, including incitement in the Palestinian Authority that is based on the legacy of the Nazis.” Netanyahu’s comments follow remarks made by the energy minister, Yuval Steinitz, at a recent conference in Washington, who accused the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, of “Nazi-like incitement”. Steinitz – one of Netanyahu’s most loyal allies who often echoes the Israeli prime minister’s positions – labelled Abbas “the number one inciter in the world against Israel and the Jewish people” and compared his attacks against the Jewish state to Nazi propaganda. Isaac Herzog (centre) has criticised Netanyahu for his comments. Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/21/netanyahu-under-fire-for-palestinian-grand-mufti-holocaust-claim Germany refuses to accept Netanyahu's claim Palestinian inspired Holocaust http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/21/germany-refuses-accept-binjamin-netanyahu-claim-adolf-hitler-holocaust

Syrian president hails Russian help in combating ‘terrorism’ on first foreign visit since 2011, as Moscow sets up meeting with US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey Kareem Shaheen in Beirut, Shaun Walker in Sochi and Ian Black in London Wednesday 21 October 2015 09.05 BST Bashar al-Assad has thanked Vladimir Putin for his military support in the Syrian crisis, praising the Russian leader for intervening to fight “terrorism” in one of the most dramatic turning points of the four-and-a-half-year war. The surprise meeting between the two presidents in Moscow, which took place on Tuesday evening but was not announced by the Kremlin until Wednesday, was followed by the announcement of imminent talks between Russia, the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It was Assad’s first foreign visit since the uprising against his authoritarian rule broke out at the height of the Arab spring in 2011. Since then 250,000 people have died and millions have been displaced. The Russian military intervention in Syria began three weeks ago with airstrikes against opposition groups inching closer to Assad’s strongholds in the west of Syria. Putin ordered airstrikes against Islamic State, but most Russian attacks have targeted other rebel groups fighting Assad. According to a Kremlin transcript, Assad told the Russian president: “First of all I wanted to express my huge gratitude to the whole leadership of the Russian federation for the help they are giving Syria. “If it was not for your actions and your decisions, the terrorism which is spreading in the region would have swallowed up a much greater area and spread over an even greater area.” Putin hailed the Syrian people for standing up to the militants “almost on their own” and claimed the Syrian army had notched up major battlefield victories of late. Also present at the meeting in the Kremlin were Russia’s foreign and defence ministers, as well as the head of the security council and of the foreign intelligence service. Assad’s first official state visit since the revolution began hints at growing confidence in his camp that the Russian intervention may reverse or at least stall a series of military setbacks and defeats over the past nine months, with rebels having seized significant territory in the provinces of Idlib and Hama and beat back regime offensives in Aleppo and Daraa. Isis seized key territory in Homs this summer, including the historic city of Palmyra. Russian intervention has primarily targeted rebel groups, including those backed by regional and western states, with a minority of airstrikes hitting Isis. The regime has opened several fronts against the rebels, backed by Russian airstrikes, hoping to take back territory in Homs, Hama, Aleppo and Latakia. Syrian state TV said the two presidents discussed the continuing military operations in Syria against “terrorist” groups – a catch-all term that the regime and Moscow use to refer to the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad – as well as plans for ground campaigns. Putin was quoted as saying he would assist on the military and political fronts in Syria and would contact other foreign powers in an effort to reach a settlement to the crisis. The Russian president is due to speak to an audience of foreign politicians and Russia-watchers in Sochi on Thursday. Since addressing the UN general assembly last month in a call for the world to come together to fight terrorism, he has been keen to emphasise that Russia must be part of the solution in Syria. “Putin wants to be seen talking to Assad,” said Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, on the sidelines of the Sochi conference. “He is the only channel through which we’re likely to get Assad on board to any kind of transition and this impression will be reinforced by this meeting.” The Russian foreign ministry later announced later that the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had agreed to meet in Vienna on Friday with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia and Turkey to discuss the Syria crisis. The Saudis and Turks are key backers of anti-Assad rebel groups. That constitutes one of the broadest encounters yet held to discuss the Syrian war – although it conspicuously excludes Iran, which along with Russia is a key supporter of Assad. The Saudis and Iranians are deeply hostile to each other and unlikely to agree to discuss Syria with each other. “The US, Saudis and Turks will want to see what Russia will put on the table,” said Julien Barnes-Dacey of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “But I think it will be one of those occasions when everyone goes hoping that the other side will back down. I am sceptical that it will lead to an opening.” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/21/bashar-al-assad-thanks-russia-vladimir-putin-syria-airstrikes