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Whistleblower says ‘profound difference’ has occurred over past two years after leaking of NSA documents as public demands privacy Rebecca Ratcliffe Friday 5 June 2015 01.48 BST A “profound difference” has occurred over the past two years, following the leaking of NSA documents that led to revelations about US surveillance on phone and internet communications, whistleblower Edward Snowden has said. Writing in the New York Times, the computer analyst said that the balance of power is changing as a post-terror generation “turns away from reaction and fear in favour of resilience and reason”. Snowden said that bulk data collection programmes had been declared illegal and disavowed by the US Congress. “After a White House-appointed oversight board investigation found that this program had not stopped a single terrorist attack, even the president who once defended its propriety and criticised its disclosure has now ordered it terminated,” he said in the piece, also published in the French newspaper Liberation. Snowden said the achievement was driven by “the power of an informed public” and added the end of the mass surveillance of private telephone calls under the US Patriot Act was a “landmark victory for the rights of each citizen”. “Since 2013, institutions across Europe have declared laws and similar operations illegal and imposed new restrictions on such activities in the future. The UN has said that mass surveillance was clearly a violation of human rights. “In Latin America, Brazilian citizens’ efforts have led to the adoption of the Marco Civil, the first declaration of the rights of the internet in the world. Recognising the essential role of an informed public in correcting excesses of government, the Council of Europe called for the adoption of new laws to prevent the persecution of whistleblowers.” Progress had also been made towards improving the safety of devices used for communication, he added. “Basic technical protection safeguards such as encryption ... are now enabled by default in the products of pioneering companies such as Apple, which ensures that even if your phone is stolen, your private life remains private.” But Snowden warned that the right to privacy remains under threat, adding that “as you read this online, the United States government makes a note”. “Some of the world’s most popular online services have been enlisted as partners in the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, and technology companies are being pressured by governments around the world to work against their customers rather than for them. “Metadata revealing the personal associations and interests of ordinary internet users is still being intercepted and monitored on a scale unprecedented in history.” The heads of the secret services in Australia, Canada and France have exploited the recent tragedies in order to try to get new intrusive powers, he added. Snowden also pointed to British prime minister David Cameron’s recent comments to the National Security Council: “Do we want to allow a means of communication between the people we [the state] can not read?... For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.” “At the turning of the millennium, few imagined that citizens of developed democracies would soon be required to defend the concept of an open society against their own leaders,” Snowden said. Edward Snowden during an interview with the Guardian. He said that there has been a shift in the balance of power over government surveillance. Photograph: The Guardian/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/05/snowden-balance-power-shifted-people-defy-government-surveillance-nsa

Senior Fifa officials arrested on corruption charges in morning raid as Swiss police open criminal investigation into 2018 and 2022 World Cup awards Owen Gibson in Zurich and Damien Gayle in London Wednesday 27 May 2015 09.47 BST The world governing body of football, Fifa, was plunged into an unprecedented crisis on the eve of its congress in Zurich after Swiss authorities arrested a string of officials in a dawn raid and opened criminal proceedings over the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. More than a dozen plainclothed officers descended on the five-star Baur au Lac hotel on Wednesday, where officials had gathered for Fifa’s annual meeting. The arrests were made on behalf of US authorities, after an FBI investigation that has been ongoing for at least three years. The US Department of Justice said authorities had charged 14 officials, nine of whom are current or former Fifa executives. Those arrested in Zurich face extradition to the US. Hours later, Swiss federal prosecutors said they had opened criminal proceedings in connection with the award of the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar. The decisions have been shrouded in claims of bribery and corruption ever since the vote in December 2010. The Swiss authorities seized “electronic data and documents” in a raid on Fifa headquarters. Bank documents had earlier been collected from various Swiss financial institutions. Police will question 10 members of the Fifa executive committee members who took part in the World Cup votes. In a statement, the Swiss attorney general’s office said the executives were being questioned on suspicion of “criminal mismanagement” and money laundering. It said the timing of the operation was deliberately co-ordinated with the arrests on behalf of the US authorities “to avoid any possible collusion” between suspects and because a large number of those involved in the voting for the two World Cups were present in Zurich, where Fifa president Sepp Blatter was expected to be re-elected for another four-year term on Friday. At a later press conference at Fifa headquarters, spokesman Walter de Gregorio denied Blatter was in any way involved with either investigation and said that the Swiss proceedings were as a result of information provided by Fifa to the attorney general’s office in November 2014. He also confirmed that there was no suggestion that Russia or Qatar would lose the World Cup. The arrests on behalf of the US authorities form part of an international investigation into bribes worth $100m (£65m) spanning three decades. The allegations date back to the 1990s and involve “the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks”, Swiss officials said. Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, of the Cayman Islands, was among those arrested. He is the head of Fifa’s north American regional body, known as Concacaf, which reported itself to US tax authorities in 2012. The organisation had not paid taxes for several years when its president was Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer was secretary general. As well as Webb, the Department of Justice statement confirmed the Fifa officials charged were Eugenio Figueredo, Jack Warner, Eduardo Li, Julio Rocha, Costas Takkas, Rafael Esquivel and José Maria Marin and Nicolás Leoz. A further four defendants were the sports marketing executives Alejandro Burzaco, Aaron Davidson, Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis. A further marketing executive, José Marguiles, was charged as an intermediary. The DoJ statement confirmed the charges were for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, “among other offences” and alleged a “24-year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer”. The charges were announced by the US Attorney General Loretta Lynch. The arrests came two days before Fifa president Blatter had expected to be re-elected for a fifth term. On Wednesday morning, Blatter – who was not among those arrested – was said to be actively lobbying to have Friday’s election postponed. Blatter has been closely entwined with many of those charged in the US during his 40 years at Fifa, including the Paraguayan Leoz and the Trinidadian Warner. Webb and Figuero are current Fifa vice-presidents. Last year it emerged that Blazer, who was forced to resign after being accused of financial irregularities, had been helping the FBI with its long-running inquiry. The DoJ statement said Blazer had already pleaded guilty to charges, as had José Hawilla, the owner and founder of the Traffic Group, a multinational sports marketing agency with its headquarters in Brazil. Blazer wore a wiretap at the London 2012 Olympics and, although seriously ill, has been continuing to help the FBI with its investigation. “The indictment alleges corruption that is rampant, systemic and deep-rooted both abroad and here in the United States, said Lynch. “It spans at least two generations of soccer officials who, as alleged, have abused their positions of trust to acquire millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.” The raids in Zurich are believed to have begun shortly before 6am, when six Fifa officials were led from the Bauer au Lac hotel to unmarked cars with sheets over their heads. The Swiss FOJ said: “The US attorney’s office for the eastern district of New York is investigating these individuals on suspicion of the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks between the early 1990s and the present day. “The bribery suspects – representatives of sports media and sports promotion firms – are alleged to have been involved in schemes to make payments to the soccer functionaries – delegates of Fifa (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) and other functionaries of Fifa sub-organisations – totalling more than $100m. “In return, it is believed that they received media, marketing, and sponsorship rights in connection with soccer tournaments in Latin America. According to the US request, these crimes were agreed and prepared in the US, and payments were carried out via US banks.” Pressure is now bound to build on Blatter to postpone Friday’s election, where he is standing against the Jordanian Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein. “Today is a sad day for football,” said Prince Ali on Wednesday morning. “Clearly this is a developing story, the details of which are still emerging. It would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.” The mounting sense of crisis in Zurich has echoes of four years ago when Blatter was re-elected unopposed following the withdrawal of his Qatari rival Mohamed Bin Hammam in the midst of bribery claims that again centred on Concacaf members. Then he sailed on, asking: “Crisis? What is a crisis?”. The difference this time is that Swiss prosecutors have co-operated with US law enforcement to extradite Fifa officials gathered for the most high profile meeting in its calendar. Zurich cantonal police arrived at the Baur au Lac hotel, where senior Fifa executives habitually gather on their all-expenses paid jaunts to Zurich for committee meetings, at about 6am on Wednesday. They stopped at the reception to get the room numbers for the officials they intended to arrest. The men were not handcuffed as they were led away from the hotel. “Very peaceful,” tweeted NYT reporter Michael Schmidt. “Hotel staff meanwhile is freaking out.” Photographs showed officers hiding the suspects behind sheets as they escorted them to unmarked cars. One, Eduardo Li of Costa Rica, was allowed to bring his luggage as he left through a side door, the NYTreported. Reporters were shooed away shortly after arrests began. The last time international media attention was focused on the Baur au Lac was four years ago, when US and British World Cup bids were rejected in favour of Russia and Qatar. Suspicions of vote-buying and wrongdoing in those bidding contests have dogged Fifa ever since. Swiss officials said the suspects’ deportation could be sanctioned immediately. The statement added: “The Zurich cantonal police will question the detainees today on behalf of the FOJ regarding the US request for their arrest. “A simplified procedure will apply for wanted persons who agree to their immediate extradition. The FOJ can immediately approve their extradition to the US and order its execution. “However, if a wanted person opposes their extradition, the FOJ will invite the US to submit a formal extradition request within the deadline of 40 days specified in the bilateral extradition treaty.” Last November, Fifa’s ethics committee closed its investigation into the controversial bidding process that saw Qatar named as host of the 2022 World Cup, ruling that any breaches of the rules were only of “very limited scope”. The decision to award Qatar the tournament was hugely controversial, prompting an avalanche of allegations about the way it won the bid and concerns about the searing heat in which matches would be held as well as the treatment of migrant workers building the infrastructure underpinning it. But Fifa said an investigation did not find any direct link between the World Cup bid and illicit payments made by the disgraced former Asian Football Confederation president Bin Hammam, a Qatari who was banned for life for paying bribes during a campaign to unseat Blatter as president. Fifa officials, clockwise from top left, Rafael Esquivel, Nicolás Leoz, Jeffrey Webb, Jack Warner, José Maria Marin, Eugenio Figueredo and Eduardo Li, who are among those charged by the US Department of Justice with allegedly receiving bribes worth more than $100m. Photograph: DSK/AFP/Getty Images Costa Rica football president Eduardo Li shakes hands with Fifa president Sepp Blatter before kick-off at the 2014 World Cup. Photograph: BPI/REX Shutterstock http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/27/several-top-fifa-officials-arrested

Mayor describes ‘disastrous’ scene with dozens more injured in train wreck on north-eastern service between Washington DC and New York Jana Kasperkevic in New York, Warren Murray and agencies Wednesday 13 May 2015 08.24 BST At least five people were killed and dozens more injured when an Amtrak passenger train crashed in Philadelphia on Tuesday night. The Northeast Regional 188 service was carrying 243 people including five crew when it went off the rails between Washington DC and New York City. The front of the train was going into a turn when it started to shake, according to passengers. The Philadelphia mayor, Michael Nutter, said five people had been killed. He described a “disastrous” scene after going down on to the tracks. Authorities said another six people were critically injured and 65 taken to hospital from the accident on what is a busy route between New York City and the US capital. Several passengers were trapped and the fire department had to use hydraulics tools to get them out, according to officials. A secondary search was under way for anyone else still inside. “It is an absolute disastrous mess,” said Mayor Nutter at a press conference held shortly before midnight. “We do not know what happened here.” A fire department officer described a number of “walking wounded” and said many of the passengers had been able to get out of the train by themselves. Some people were loaded into police vans and transported to hospitals, including Temple University hospital. As the emergency response ramped up there were about 120 firefighters and 200 police officers on the scene. An Associated Press employee on the train said it went off the tracks. Paul Cheung says he was fortunate to be at the back of the train and the front of it “looks pretty bad” with numerous casualties. Former congressman Patrick Murphy was on the train and said he helped people. He tweeted photos of firefighters assisting passengers in the wreckage. Police swarming around the crash site in the Port Richmond area told people to get back away from the train and give first responders room to work. Roads all around the crash site were blocked off. Several injured people, including one man complaining of neck pain, were rolled away on stretchers. Others were unsteady on their feet while walking away. An elderly woman was given oxygen. Janelle Richards, a producer for NBC Nightly News, was on the train, which was supposed to arrive in New York at 10.30pm. It derailed around 9.20 pm, Richards told NBC. The cause of the crash was unknown. Amtrak said it would provide updates later. The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday night it was gathering information. Service was suspended on the Northeast Corridor service between New York and Philadelphia, Amtrak said. Tom Wolf, the Pennsylvania governor, arrived on the scene in the early hours of Wednesday morning. “Anything that the state can do, we stand ready to do that,” he said. “You can count on the commonwealth.” Nutter, the Philadelphia mayor, said he had contacted mayors in Washington DC and New York due to the likelihood of passengers being from those centres. Amtrak issued a statement saying the company was “deeply saddened by the loss of life from Amtrak Northeast Regional Train 188”. “Amtrak has also established a family assistance center to work closely with family and friends of individuals on the train.” Northeast Corridor services between New York and Philadelphia remained suspended and a service plan for Wednesday 13 May would be announced later, Amtrak said. Another Amtrak train crashed on Sunday. That train, bound for New Orleans, struck a flatbed truck at a railway crossing in Amite, killing the truck’s driver and injuring two people on the train. In March at least 55 people were injured when an Amtrak train collided with a tractor-trailer that was stuck on the tracks in North Carolina. Port Richmond, the site of Tuesday’s crash, is one of five neighborhoods in what is known as Philadelphia’s River Wards, located off the Delaware river. • Those trying to locate passengers on the train are being told to call the Amtrak hotline: 1 800 523 9101. People in Philadelphia can do so in person by going to Webster Elementary School on 3400 Frankford Avenue in Philadelphia. Rescue workers search for victims in the wreckage of the derailed Amtrak train. Photograph: Bryan Woolston/Reuters View image on Twitter ( inside of a train car) First responders climb into the train to rescue passengers. Photograph: Reuters A passenger is carried away in a sling following the Amtrak train crash. Photograph: Paul Cheung/AP http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/13/philadelphia-train-crash-multiple-injuries-in-amtrak-derailment

Baltimore police unambiguously contradict conflicting media reports of shooting of black man over what appears to be a Twitter-related misreading Nicky Woolf in New York @nickywoolf Monday 4 May 2015 21.30 BST Conflicting and confused news reports of a shooting incident in still-fraught Baltimore – including by Fox News – have been unambiguously contradicted by city police, causing a surreal scene on social media and cable TV and almost triggering a return to Monday’s violence. The police department sent a tweet that the reports were “NOT true”, though added that a man with a handgun had been arrested at the intersection of North and Pennsylvania avenues, where crowds quickly gathered following the reports. The junction of North and Pennsylvania avenues was the epicenter of Monday’s riots, and a focal point for the week-long protests against the death in police custody of Freddie Gray. Baltimore Police ✔ @BaltimorePolice The reports of a man being shot at North and Pennsylvania Ave are NOT true. Officers have arrested a man for a handgun at the location 9:23 PM - 4 May 2015 1,876 1,876 Retweets 565 Baltimore police have been using their Twitter feed during the last week’s events to keep people and the media updated on events; but they have also continued tweeting other, unrelated crimes that have occurred throughout the city. So when early reports of a firearm incident at the junction of North and Pennsylvania avenues came in, someone at Fox News appears to have checked the Twitter feed and seen this: Baltimore Police ✔ @BaltimorePolice Shooting: 2500 block Marbourne Ave. Man reported to be shot multiple times. Southern District detectives investigating. 8:36 PM - 4 May 2015 151 151 Retweets 46 Apparently assuming the two incidents were one and the same, Fox News began reporting that someone had been shot “multiple times by police”. Their story is still up, now saying that Baltimore police “tweeted [that] the man had been shot several times”. However, the 2500 block of Marbourne Avenue is in the outer suburbs of Baltimore – almost five miles away from the completely separate incident at Penn and North. Few details are known about either incident at this point, which didn’t stop multiple outlets and hundreds of social media users leaping to conclusions with little or no factual evidence. Eyewitness reports from the scene were confused and confusing. Manuel Rapalo, a reporter for Russia Today, who was in a nearby shop when the incident occurred, told the Guardian that he heard “a gunshot” and then saw a man being handcuffed. Police quickly used pepper spray to clear the area, Rapalo said. Surreally, on television, Obama was speaking at an event for his My Brother’s Keeper Initiative as the scene from Baltimore was broadcast live. View image on Twitter Follow Matt Sullivan ✔ — Matt Sullivan (@sullduggery) May 4, 2015 Split-screen America, continued: pic.twitter.com/QzesYlpTtk The police commander on the scene at Penn and North told the Baltimore Sun and other media outlets that the suspect’s own gun went off, injuring him. Fox News host Shepard Smith on air for the network’s reporting the incident as a police shooting. “What happened is, we screwed up,” Smith said. “For the errors that we made here, we are deeply sorry.” Spokespeople from Fox News, the Baltimore police department and mayor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The mayor lifted a city-wide curfew on Sunday, following unrest in the wake of the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who was black, after being held in custody in a police van. http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/04/fox-news-apology-baltimore-police-shooting-report-twitter

Around 50 people arrested on Saturday night after rally at city hall Anger spreads over treatment of different neighbourhoods Raya Jalabi in Baltimore @rayajalabi Sunday 3 May 2015 07.28 BST Legal observers and medical volunteers were among around 50 people arrested in Baltimore on Saturday night, as another evening of protests over the death of Freddie Gray ended in yet more clashes as protesters attempted to defy curfew restrictions. Gray died a week after he was arrested on 12 April, then handcuffed and shackled in the back of a police van without a seatbelt. On Saturday night two volunteers, who identified themselves as belonging to the National Lawyers Guild, were seen by the Guardian being arrested alongside four street medics outside the Baltimore City Correctional Center. One of the legal observers was wearing a bright green cap emblazoned with her organisation’s name – caps which have proven useful for protesters seeking legal advice during this past week. As police were seen handcuffing the volunteers, a seventh man walked past and was apprehended, after one officer with a handheld stun gun asked him where he was going. The man had said he lived in the neighborhood and was on his way home. The arrests happened less than 10 minutes after the start of the curfew. Concern has spread over how the Baltimore curfew has been applied. On Saturday Deborah Jeon, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, issued a statement which said: “At this point, it is being used to restrict the first-amendment rights of protestors, legal observers, and the media, and is engendering needless tension and hostility.” The arrests outside the building on Greenmount Avenue stood in contrast to the police’s treatment of curfew-defiers in Hampden, a predominantly white neighborhood in northern Baltimore. Earlier in the day, a group of activists had called for a “silent curfew protest” which they said was intended to highlight the police’s differing treatment of protesters based on race, and to expose the police’s “anti-black racism, an institutionalized practice of the police force and government”. They were mostly white. A video tweeted out by activist Deray McKesson – a Baltimore native who was a prominent figure and organiser at the Ferguson protests last August following the death of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown – showed police officers trying to reason with the assembled crowd at Hampden. “The last thing I want to do is put someone in handcuffs,” a white police officer told the crowd, before issuing a last warning and asking them to “please leave”. According to several accounts on social media, this was the officer’s third warning to the group. Also among those arrested on Saturday night was Joseph Kent, the 21-year-old activist who was seen last week getting “kidnapped” live on television. Kent’s lawyer, Steve Beatty, confirmed on Twitter that his client had arrived at Baltimore central booking station. It was the second arrest for the Morgan State University student in connection with the Freddie Gray protests. Thirty people were reportedly arrested at the intersection of Pennsylvania and North avenues. A protester wearing a “**** the Police” T-shirt appeared to be pulled to the ground by police and pepper-sprayed. Kent had been in a large group of protesters at the intersection between Pennsylvania and W North avenues, the focal point for much of the week’s demonstrations. Wearing a T-shirt with a photograph of himself at the scene of his previous arrest, Kent chanted with a group of roughly 200 people and gave out the phone number for a legal advice helpline. He then led some of the protesters away from the intersection, blocking traffic as they went along. Earlier on Saturday, two thousand people participated in a rally at City Hall. Under the spring sunshine and to the sound of Public Enemy’s Fight the Power, protesters listened to speakers ranging from young organisers to politicians. Many of the demonstrators later moved back towards the Pennsylvania and North intersection, where they were greeted with a “Party for Peace”. Protesters danced, grilled burgers and chatted with local police officers. The seemingly arbitrary nature of the curfew’s enforcement has led activists to voice their concern that the curfew was targeting poor black communities unevenly. The curfew has also forced local businesses to close at 10pm since it came into effect last Tuesday. Kirby Fowler, the president of the Downtown Baltimore local business association, said the number of people affected by the drop in business in the area could reasonably be in the thousands. “It’s not just business owners who are being impacted,” Fowler said. “It’s waiters and waitresses and dishwashers who depend on tips to support their families.” A man is led away by Baltimore police on Saturday night. The man claimed he was on his way home when he was arrested. Photograph: JM Giordano/for the Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/03/freddie-gray-legal-volunteers-arrested-after-defying-baltimore-curfew

Fires, smashed cars and attacks on officers after Freddie Gray funeral National guard on the streets and mayor declares week-long curfew Jon Swaine, Ben Jacobs and Paul Lewis in Baltimore Tuesday 28 April 2015 09.06 BST Troops from the US national guard began rolling into Baltimore in armoured vehicles after violent clashes, looting and fires led city authorities to declare a week-long curfew banning people from the streets at night. At least 27 people were arrested after intense rioting broke out following the funeral service for Freddie Gray, a young black man who died last week of injuries sustained after his arrest. Fifteen police officers were injured in Monday night’s unrest, six of them seriously, according to chiefs. Young people began hurling bricks and bottles at police in riot gear soon after Gray was buried in the afternoon. Shops in the Mondawmin mall were looted and police cars were set on fire and smashed – one while an officer remained seated inside. “This is not protesting, this is not your first amendment rights, this is just criminal activity,” said police commissioner Anthony Batts, declaring he was “supremely disappointed in what’s happened in our beautiful city”. Repeatedly condemning the rioters as “thugs”, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said a city-wide curfew between 10pm and 5am would be imposed for a week beginning on Tuesday night. As the chaotic scenes unfolded there was an appeal for calm from Gray’s family. “I think the violence is wrong,” his twin sister, Fredericka, said late on Monday. Gray, 25, died in hospital on 19 April, a week after he sustained a broken neck and lapsed into a coma. He had been arrested a week earlier, having been chased by officers for “catching the eye” of a lieutenant and running away. A knife was found in his pocket. Six officers have been suspended and a criminal inquiry into Gray’s death is under way. His funeral on Monday was followed by violent scenes. Crowds were shot at by police using teargas grenades, so-called “less lethal” bullets and pepper balls, which explode to release an irritant. Passersby and reporters were among those struck. At least one officer was seen throwing a brick back at protesters. Maryland governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency, activating the state’s 5,000 national guard personnel with an executive order declaring the need “to protect the lives and property of citizens”. Batts said the troops would protect buildings. President Barack Obama was briefed on the crisis in Washington by Loretta Lynch, his new attorney general. As night fell several fires burned across the city. In one instance firefighters trying to extinguish a blaze at a pharmacy were set back by a rioter with a knife who slashed a hose connected to a hydrant. In east Baltimore flames engulfed a construction project due to become a 60-unit building to house low-income elderly people. City authorities said it was unclear whether the fire was linked to the riots. Baltimore’s authorities announced that the public school system would be closed on Tuesday, leaving more than 80,000 students without classes to attend amid an atmosphere of seething discontentment with police and the city administration. Struggling to keep up with events, Mayor Rawlings-Blake said at her own press conference: “I am at a loss for words … It is idiotic to think that by destroying your city you’re going to make life better for anybody.” Police had put the city on alert earlier on Monday after claiming to have intelligence of a violent threat. Batts explained late in the evening police understood the Bloods, Crips and Black Guerilla Family gangs had met and each pledged to kill a police officer. However the unrest appeared instead to have been sparked by a younger crowd of high school students left milling around the neighborhood near the site of Gray’s funeral by the cancellation of public transport. “They thought it was cute to throw cinder blocks at police,” said Batts. The rioting on Monday night followed scattered vandalism and looting after peaceful protests on Saturday. Gray’s case is the latest flashpoint for demonstrators who accuse American police of killing young black men without justification. Cellphone video footage showed him being dragged into the police van while yelling in pain. One of his legs appeared limp. However police have indicated his neck was broken after this point, while declining to provide details. Police chiefs admitted officers failed to provide Gray with medical attention despite his requests and failed to seatbelt him in the van. Past prisoners in Baltimore have described “rough rides” in which police vehicles are seemingly deliberately driven erratically to injure passengers. Gray travelled with his hands cuffed behind his back and his legs in restraints. A second man was collected by the van during the journey. The man, whose name has not been released, is said to have given police an account of what he saw inside the vehicle. H-illary Clinton, the former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential hopeful, said in a tweet she was “praying for peace and safety” for all in Baltimore. Clinton described Gray’s death as “a tragedy that demands answers”. Baltimore firefighters battle a blaze at *** and Chester Streets. Photograph: Jerry Jackson/Zuma Press/Corbis Baltimore police officers detain a demonstrator after clashes with police. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/27/baltimore-police-protesters-violence-freddie-gray

Marches in New York, Boston, Ferguson and Washington, while authorities in Baltimore back down after holding people for days without charge Nicky Woolf in Washington, Oliver Laughland in Baltimore and Steven W Thrasher in New York Thursday 30 April 2015 08.18 BST Protests over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray spread across the US overnight as the city at the centre of the storm used national guard troops to help maintain a curfew and authorities were forced into an apparent backdown after holding suspected rioters for days without charge. Gray died last weekend in Baltimore with a severed spine after apparently being injured in police custody. Baltimore on Monday had been the scene of widespread rioting and destruction but on Wednesday night the protests, while large, were mostly good-natured. People dispersed in the lead-up to the 10pm curfew, instituted on Tuesday by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. It was enforced by 1,000 extra police officers and almost 2,000 national guard troops brought into the city after Governor Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency on Monday night. Also on Wednesday, after a flurry of legal challenges, more than 100 people were freed from police custody, having been been held since Monday under what amounted to a suspension by Hogan of the writ of habeas corpus – the right to be released from an arrest made without lawful cause. Natalie Finegar, the deputy district public defender in Baltimore City, told the Guardian that after 82 habeas corpus petitions were filed to the attorney general’s office, a decision was made to release those who were yet to have charges read against them. Finegar said the decision to hold so many “without any respect for due process” could “further shake the confidence in the criminal justice system for those arrested”. She said many of those detained had complained of the harsh conditions in jail. Some said they went 18 hours without food and later were given inedible pieces of bread. After darkness fell New York became the scene of the most vigorous protests. A crowd gathered over the course of the afternoon in Union Square and marched north towards Harlem, chanting “Black lives matter!” and “Freddie Gray!”. The New York march was splintered several times by police, with some people heading north towards Harlem and others gathering in Times Square. It was largely peaceful but there were some clashes with police. The NYPD said there were more than 60 arrests. In Boston, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the police headquarters chanting: “Being black is not a crime, same story every time,” and “Every night and every day, join the fight for Freddie Gray!” Students linked arms and families peered out of low-income housing along Shawmut Avenue. About 1,500 more reportedly rallied in Gold Medal Park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and marched across town, led by protesters carrying a coffin. There were other gatherings in Ferguson, Missouri, and in Washington DC where people staged an impromptu sit-in at the junction of 14th Street and U – the site from which the famous 1968 riots spread out after the assassination of Martin Luther King. In Baltimore on Wednesday night around 2,000 people rallied near City Hall and marched to Penn Station but dispersed well before the nightly order to leave the streets came into force. At the intersection of North Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore a small group of protesters congregated as the curfew loomed but gradually departed, leaving empty streets. The intersection had the location of much of the looting that occurred on Monday and where on Wedneday protesters were dispersed with teargas. In New York, Arafa Speaks, 60, who stays in a nearby homeless shelter, spoke to the Guardian a block east of Times Square, where a small group of protesters had split off. “We know the pain of death,” she said, holding a sign saying: “Is life a white privilege?” As the evening unfolded, media and social-media attention focused more tightly on the events surrounding Gray’s death – though the facts remained elusive. A Washington Post article published on Wednesday revealed vague details of a police document that quoted a prisoner who had been placed in the same police van as Gray – though in a separate compartment – as saying Gray had been “trying to injure himself”. The paper said the other prisoner could not see Gray because of a metal partition and it was unclear whether any other evidence backed up his account. Jason Downs, an attorney for the Gray family, told the Post: “We disagree with any implication that Freddie Gray severed his own spinal cord.” Baltimore television station WBAL interviewed a person that it described as a relative of one of the officers in the van. “Does the officer believe he did anything wrong?” asked WBUL investigative reporter Jayne Miller. “No. No. In their minds they did the right thing,” the relative replied, adding that the subsequent backlash hurt the officers “more than anything”. Paul Lewis and Jon Swaine in Baltimore, Kayla Epstein and Jana Kasperkevic in New York, Sarah Betancourt in Boston and Daniel Knowles contributed to this report A demonstrator is arrested by NYPD officers during a protest march through Times Square. Photograph: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/freddie-gray-protests-across-us-as-baltimore-is-forced-to-free-100-suspects

‘If we had money we would have built a strong house,’ says one woman who, like hundreds of thousands of others across Nepal, has been left homeless Jason Burke in Kathmandu Monday 27 April 2015 16.11 BST After more than 36 hours of darkness, Garima Saha, 12, woke up on Monday morning in a makeshift orthopaedic surgery ward in the reception hall of a hospital in central Kathmandu. When she opened her eyes, finally regaining consciousness having been buried for nine hours in rubble after Saturday’s earthquake, she found she was safe, but in great pain with multiple fractures to her shoulder. She also learned that her mother and elder brother were dead. An hour or so later, held by her sobbing grandmother who had rushed from a distant village to be with her, she was gently raised to a semi-upright position in the bed she had been placed in after a long surgery on Saturday night. Garima looked out with stunned eyes on a scene that many in earthquake-prone Kathmandu suspected they might one day see, but fervently hoped they never would. Lit by flickering fluorescent lights, she saw a dozen exhausted doctors, many on their feet for days; a score or so of white-coated nurses, their faces blank with fatigue; a western tourist who had volunteered that morning and was clumsily rolling bandages. And she saw rows of other patients on old beds, stretchers, or just the floor. Opposite was Chirim Baby Sahi, a 55-year-old newspaper seller and the sole breadwinner in his family of five, who had been trapped by masonry falling from a temple and is now paralysed. To one side was Anusha Khatry, a 16-year-old schoolgirl from the hard-hit Sindhulpalchowk district a five-hour drive from Kathmandu. Propped up against her bed were the x-rays which, Prof Gopal Raman Shama said, show she has spinal injuries that mean she is unlikely to walk again. “She does not know yet,” whispered her mother. What all these casualties share, like almost all the 3,729 dead and nearly 7,000 injured confirmed by late Monday afternoon, is that they are poor. Though many had predicted that an earthquake in Kathmandu would bring the newly constructed cement apartment blocks tumbling down, it was the older, brick and wood homes that, almost exclusively, were reduced to rubble. Anyone who stayed in these could not afford better. “Outside Kathmandu it’s the rural poor. But in the city it’s the people in the older precarious housing. It’s obvious: the wealthier you are, the stronger the house you have,” said Bhaskar Gautam, a local sociologist. Often four or five storeys high and subdivided into cheap family apartments like tenements in Victorian London, the homes of people like Garima have long been known as a risk. Garima’s brother, a waiter in a noodle shop, said the family’s home was their “bad luck”. “We should have moved 20 years ago,” he said. The wife of Sahi, the paralysed newspaper seller, was angry and desperate. To add to her misery, the family’s home had also collapsed and now they, like hundreds of thousands of others across Nepal, were homeless. “If we had had money we would have built a strong house. But we had none. There is no place to go. There is no one to look after us. Life was hard for us already. I don’t want to be alive,” she said. Parts of Kathmandu are coming back to life. Hawkers sell limes and cabbage on pavements. One or two shops are open, even a bank. The city’s notorious traffic is still far from its usual level but is returning to chaotic, congested normality. Yet thousands are still camping on open spaces, frightened to return to their homes. Some say they will wait until 72 hours have passed, but continuing aftershocks scare. Many, too, are still seeking treatment for bad injuries, some waiting outside hospitals. The morgue at Bir hospital, the city’s biggest, is overflowing, with bodies now lined up outside. There is also the fear of disease. “Now there could be communicable illnesses, diarrhea, flu and so forth. The earthquake will have broken all the sewers and pipes so the water supply will be contaminated,” said Dr Sameer Thapa, as he looked out over a carpark and garden covered in tents sheltering patients at the Tribhuvan University teaching hospital. Aid is beginning to arrive. Incoming western humanitarian organisations are taking the hotel rooms of departing tour groups. On Monday flights were being turned back from Kathmandu’s airport, the only international strip in the country, because there was no space for them to land, let alone unload. Lila Mani Poudyal, the government’s chief secretary and the rescue coordinator, said recovery was also being slowed because many key workers – such as water tanker drivers, electricity company employees and labourers needed to clear debris from the streets – had all gone home to their families. As the injured continued to arrive at hospitals, “we especially need orthopaedic (doctors), nerve specialists, anaesthetists, surgeons and paramedics,” Poudyal told reporters. If in Kathmandu, life is slowing returning to normal, out in the rural areas, the situation is very different. In Dhulikhel, the main hospital, one of only two serving Kabre district, with its population of 380,000, was due to run out of diesel fuel for its generator at midnight. “We are trying to get more but it’s difficult. We’ve a little bit of solar but not enough to light the operating theatres and the wards,” said Dr Deepak Shrestha. With so many fractures and spinal injuries, there is an acute shortage of wheelchairs, crutches, even stretchers. In Dhulikhel too, patients are being treated outside under makeshift shelters of plastic sheeting. Under one, labelled “simple injuries”, an elderly man wept in pain as a wound to his leg was dressed, the white of the bone clearly visible. The situation in Ghorka district, the epicentre of the quake, is still unclear. Though the death toll remains about 200, it is expected to rise, though not “into the thousands”, said local officials. However vast numbers of homes have been destroyed, leaving tens of thousands at least exposed to chill late spring Himalayan temperatures and frequent rain. As elsewhere across Nepal, one of the poorest countries in Asia and long known as a state with limited administrative capacity, much depends on a small number of key bureaucrats. One is Sudarshan Parshad Dhakal who, from his hilltop residence in Dhulikhel, manages the lives of the 80,000 households of Kabre district with a handful of mobile phones. On Monday he was plunged in meetings, his officers, the local chief of police, and representatives of other services sitting on battered chairs on a terrace overlooking a plunging valley. The good news, Dhakal said, was the low level of fatalities, relative to what had been feared. In Kabre, the death toll is likely to reach somewhere between 200 to 250, with about 900 injured. The bad news is the number of homeless. “We have tens of thousands of homes destroyed and many more rendered uninhabitable. I estimate there are perhaps 100,000 people who are now displaced. We need at least 3000 family tents, blankets too and dry food for three days,” Dhakal said. The meetings continue, the telephone rings, the ground shudders with another aftershock and Kabre’s top bureaucrat wearily shrugs. An elderly woman mourns in front of her destroyed home in the Kumalpur village, on the outskirts of capital Kathmandu. Photograph: Narendra Shrestha/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/27/nepal-earthquake-victims-poor-homeless

Streets quiet by midnight as mass confrontation averted by community activists and Bloods and Crips gangs who pushed protesters back from police lines Jon Swaine, Oliver Laughland , Paul Lewis and Ben Jacobs in Baltimore Wednesday 29 April 2015 06.48 BST Police in riot gear drove people from the streets of Baltimore with teargas and smoke grenades on Tuesday night, after hundreds of protesters defied a 10pm curfew to continue demonstrating over the death of Freddie Gray. Twenty-five minutes into the first of a week of city-wide lockdowns, officers in full body armour advanced on a crowd that had gathered throughout the day in the sunshine at an intersection in west Baltimore. “If we go home tonight, there’s going to be another Freddie Gray in the morning,” said Devon Fields, 27, as he and a friend angrily resisted pleas to leave from protesters and politicians alike. Plastic and glass bottles, and a dinner plate, were thrown at police. Officers quickly swept people westward with a brief bombardment of smoke, gas and pepper balls, which explode with an irritant. One teargas grenade thrown back by a protester landed on a pile of litter beside a library, igniting a small fire. At least 10 people were arrested after curfew, according to police commissioner Anthony Batts. Seven were detained in west Baltimore for breaking the curfew. Two were charged with looting and one for disorderly conduct away from the main protest. Another three or four were arrested earlier in the day for throwing rocks at officers in south Baltimore. Batts declared the night a success after avoiding a repeat of the chaotic scenes of Monday night, when more than 200 people were arrested during hours of violent clashes. “Citizens are safe. The city is stable. We hope to maintain it that way,” he said. However, another mass confrontation was averted on Tuesday only thanks to members of the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs, who teamed with community activists to push hundreds more protesters, who had demonstrated late into the evening, back to their homes as the curfew loomed. “It ain’t about me being a Crip,” said Sin, 15, who wore lipstick and hair braids in the gang’s distinctive blue. “It’s about us coming together and making our community better.” “We’re not helping police, we’re helping our people,” said War, a 23-year-old Blood wearing a red bandana, who linked arms with others in the line pushing protesters back. “I was a knucklehead in my time, but now I’m out here doing this for the community.” Gray, 25, died in hospital on 19 April, a week after lapsing into a coma from injuries sustained during his arrest and transportation in a police van. He was chased for “catching the eye” of a lieutenant and running away. A knife was found in his pocket. His family said his spine was “80% severed” at the neck and his voice box almost crushed. Police have declined to explain how Gray suffered his injuries. The six officers involved in Gray’s arrest have been suspended. City authorities are conducting a criminal inquiry and the US department of justice is looking into potential civil rights charges. Following heartfelt remarks by President Barack Obama on the subject at the White House earlier, former secretary of state Hillarious Clinton on Tuesday evening made her first significant intervention on the crisis in American policing and race. “It is heartbreaking,” Clinton said at a fundraising event in New York, according to a pool report. “The tragic death of another young African-American man. The injuries to police officers. The burning of peoples’ homes and small businesses. We have to restore order and security. But then we have to take a hard look as to what we need to do to reform our system.” Also instrumental in maintaining calm on Tuesday night was Elijah Cummings, the US Representative for Maryland’s seventh congressional district, who walked out into the crowd to call on both sides – police and protesters – to show restraint. “Folks its almost 10 o’clock,” he told the crowd. “You’ve got to start clearing out.” He embraced protesters, one of whom had a bloodied face, and called on them to leave. “I feel their pain,” he said of the young people surrounding him. “I’ve seen a lot of these young people grow up.” He then told reporters: “You’ve got to have a situation where police hopefully have restraint here tonight. We’ve seen people boisterous, but you don’t see any kind of violence. If police will just stay calm and let people kind of ease out it will be fine.” Cummings, who lives just a few blocks from the where crowd had congregated, said protesters had a valid grievance. “We’ve got to listen to our children,” he said. “This is, without a doubt, the civil rights cause for this generation – this and voting rights. And America needs to wake-up – big time.” Standing behind the police lines, Cummings used a loudhailer to urge people to retreat. “I’m not asking you, I’m begging you, please turn around and go home,” he said. “Let’s go home.” A similar message was projected to the crowd from police helicopters overhead. Earlier in the day a carnival-like atmosphere flourished at the junction of North and Pennsylvania avenues. Drummers and a marching band entertained the diverse crowd. Three men on motorcycles arrived and performed death-defying wheelies. Throughout, a line of older residents stood firm between protesters and police to defuse tensions. However the police line remained intact throughout, backed by two armoured vehicles. At one point a man was seized and arrested after arriving and throwing an object at officers, to widespread condemnation from protesters. Police sprayed him with mace, which also ensnared television reporters as they broadcast live. The 1,500 national guard soldiers deployed to the city by Maryland governor Larry Hogan remained out of view to protesters. In a show of strength, they guarded major buildings in the city’s downtown area and patrolled the harbour. Across town in the western district, the centre of the demonstrations, one protester who had earlier vigorously taken part in efforts to push people away from police lines later turned on officers as he claimed to have been hit by projectile. “**** that,” he shouted at police. “Burn this **** down if ******* gonna shoot at me.” Shawna Enton, of Baltimore County, carried a sign that read “Go Home! Stop Police USA”. She had made it earlier in the day and argued that police “have the law behind them and they are correct, we need to go home. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Enton could then be seen running from police lines still clutching her sign as smoke grenades and pepper bombs were fired. By midnight, streets around Baltimore were quiet. The city centre and suburbs, which had been filled with roaming groups of looters 24 hours earlier, were eerily still. The roads were clear except for occasional satellite TV vans, emergency vehicles with flashing blue lights and convoys of military-style humvees filled with National Guard. In predominantly white, prosperous areas, streets were empty. No bar or restaurant dared violate the ordinance. Even 24-hour gas stations and convenience stores were shuttered, though at some the neon “OPEN” signs still flickered. They had never had to turn off before. Others capitalised. At a McDonald’s just over the city line – almost six miles north of the centre of tensions in West Baltimore – the line snaked around the building. A cashier said it was the busiest shift she could remember. Police enforce the city-wide curfew of 10 pm near the CVS pharmacy that was set on fire on Monday. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Getty Images t US Representative Elijah Cummings asks people to go home after the 10 pm curfew. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/29/baltimore-protests-police-in-riot-gear-disperse-hundreds-defying-10pm-curfew

European governments, divided over how to respond to migrant boat tragedies, convene as reports suggest death toll from weekend capsizing in Mediterranean could reach 950 Ian Traynor in Brussels, Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome and Patrick Kingsley in Zuwara Monday 20 April 2015 11.29 BST Interior ministers and senior police officials from the 28 countries of the European Union are rushing to Luxembourg for emergency talks on how to respond to the migrant boat tragedies in the Mediterranean. The meeting comes as reports in Italy suggested the death toll from the weekend capsizing of a fishing vessel packed with migrants could reach 950 – an increase on the 700 deaths reported on Sunday – and as a migrant boat ran aground off a Greek island in a separate incident on Monday. The interior ministers are to join their countries’ top diplomats on Monday afternoon in what was to have been a routine meeting of EU foreign ministers but which has been transformed into a crisis session amid a clamour for action to stem the loss of life in the Mediterranean. EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini demanded immediate action. “With this latest tragedy … we have no more excuses, the EU has no more excuses, the member states have no more excuses,” she said. “The main issue here is to build a common sense of European responsibility, knowing that there is no easy solution.” Malta is preparing to bury the bodies of 24 migrants killed in the latest tragedy, which looks likely to be the worst of its kind in the Mediterranean. The Italian coastguard dropped off the bodies before heading to Sicily with 28 survivors. Gen Antonino Iraso of the Italian border police said those small numbers suggest that hundreds may have been locked in the hold, because with so much weight down below, the boat would “surely” have sunk. Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, said survivors spoke of “haunting experiences”. One survivor from Bangladesh has told investigators he believed there were about 950 people on board the ship. That report has not been confirmed. Coastguard officials said the vessel probably overturned when the migrants caught sight of a Portuguese ship and all moved to the same side of their boat. The Italian coastguard has said rescue operations would continue as long as it believed it would still be possible to find survivors. Commercial vessels and cargo ships – which helped save 40,000 migrants last year – have also been asked to support the mission. In a separate incident the Greek coastguard said on Monday that at least three people died after a boat carrying dozens of immigrants ran aground off the island of Rhodes. Video footage and photos posted by a local news website show a large, wooden double-masted boat, packed with people, just metres from the land. The vessel rocks wildly in the waves and passengers are seen in a photo jumping into the sea and swimming toward land. Libyan smugglers are telling migrants to remain stationary during trips to Europe, in full knowledge that even small movements of such overpacked boats could overbalance and capsize the vessels. According to a Libyan fisherman from a major smuggling hub in west Libya, the ships that capsized with catastrophic effect in recent days did so because migrants ignored instructions to stay put once on board. “When they leave, they are told to stay where they’re seated,” said the fisherman. “Then at daybreak they realise they’re in the midst of the ocean, they start to shift around, and then the boat, which can only withstand a certain number of tons, has its balance shifted. It starts to take on water and begins to sink.” Before Sunday’s disaster, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimated that about 20,000 migrants had reached the Italian coast this year, and 900 had died. There will be tough words in Luxembourg about clamping down on the criminal networks of people-traffickers in Libya and elsewhere in north Africa and about the need to tackle the roots of the migration epidemic at source in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. But European governments, deeply divided over how to respond, appear impotent in the face of the surge of migrants risking their lives to reach European shores, and are reluctant to relax immigration policies for fear of boosting support at home for anti-immigrant parties doing well in many parts of the union. The populist anti-immigrant Finns party, formerly the True Finns, performed strongly in general elections on Sunday, coming second and are likely to be part of the new government in Helsinki. Three weeks before Britain’s election, Theresa May, the home secretary, will be unlikely to risk any policy shifts that might bolster Nigel Farage and his anti-immigration UK Independence party. Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister and chancellor Angela Merkel’s former chief of staff, also takes a hard line, arguing, like May, that more ambitious European search-and-rescue missions in the Mediterranean will act as a “pull factor”, encouraging smugglers to send more migrants to sea in unsafe, packed vessels. The national governments of Europe, as opposed to the EU institutions in Brussels, are responsible almost entirely for immigration policy and jealously guard their national prerogatives. Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner responsible for migration issues, will attend the Luxembourg meeting. He is to unveil a new EU policy blueprint next month, but power rests overwhelmingly in national capitals. While the ministers are unlikely to agree on any swift, concerted action to mitigate the problem, the EU’s failure to mount effective naval patrols charged with saving lives is being loudly condemned as a scandal. Munich’s Süddeutsche Zeitung at the weekend denounced the EU as a ”union of murderers”, accepting the deaths of refugees in the hope of discouraging other refugees from following them. The crisis has put the spotlight on the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who on Sunday issued a harsh critique of his European partners for not assisting Italy as it tries to cope with the influx of migrants. The centre-left politician called the traffickers the “slave drivers” of the 21st century. He has insisted for months that the solution to the problem was not increasing patrols at sea, but instead focusing international efforts on returning stability to Libya. “It is unthinkable that in the face of such a tragedy, there isn’t the feeling of solidarity which Europe has shown in other instances,” he said. “We ask not to be left alone, not so much when it comes to emergencies at sea, but to stop the trafficking of human beings.” The issue has taken centre stage in Italy at a difficult moment for the prime minister, who is trying to pass controversial government reforms and facing intense scrutiny from political rivals on the right who say that Renzi has not acted with enough resolve to stem the tide of incoming migrants. “Waves of immigrants are a harsh reminder of how shaky Italy’s neighbourhood has become lately,” said Francesco Galietti, an analyst at Policy Sonar in Rome. “Renzi has travelled quite extensively to the Gulf and Egypt, but has not found a way to stem the flow of immigrants. This is a major source of problems.” Gianni Pittella, the Italian who is the floor leader of the social democrats in the European parliament, accused EU governments of hypocrisy. He said: “The deafening silence of so many member states is an embarrassment, no longer acceptable.” Particular criticism is being directed at the EU’s lacklustre maritime patrols in the Mediterranean, the Triton mission under the EU’s Frontex border controls agency. It is small, comprising one helicopter, one aircraft, and nine vessels, has no search-and-rescue mandate, and merely patrols Italian territorial waters. It replaced, at a fraction of the cost, a much more ambitious and effective Italian navy operation, Mare Nostrum, last year. Frontex’s annual budget is a paltry €90m (£65m....$96.6M). The IOM said the Triton mission had to be expanded into a proper search-and-rescue operation, noting how European naval operations off the Horn of Africa in recent years had succeeded in combatting the Somali piracy plague. It also called for swift action from the European Union following “the worst tragedy in living memory involving migrants crossing the Mediterranean from north Africa”. The Latvian government, which currently holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, called for “speedy action to prevent further loss of life”, and urged governments to commit greater resources for Frontex. “Options should be explored for setting up a full-fledged search-and-rescue operation of the EU,” said Rihards Kozlovskis, the Latvian interior minister. “The EU is standing by with arms crossed while hundreds die off its shores,” said Judith Sutherland, the deputy Europe director at Human Rights Watch. “These deaths might well have been prevented if the EU had launched a genuine search-and-rescue effort.” People come on to land after a boat ran aground off the Greek island of Rhodes. Photograph: Loukas Mastis/EPA http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/20/eu-ministers-meet-migrant-crisis-talks-mediterranean-death-toll-rises

UN spokesman says it appears passengers surged to one side after spotting commercial ship, causing boat to capsize with loss of estimated 400 lives Damien Gayle and agencies Wednesday 15 April 2015 11.34 BST A migrant boat that sank in the Mediterranean with the loss of as many as 400 lives appears to have capsized after its passengers surged to one side because they thought they were about to be rescued, a UN spokesman has said. The migrants, who had set off from Libya, spotted a commercial ship and pushed their way to one side of the wooden two-deck vessel, causing it to tip over, said Federico Fossi, a UN refugee agency spokesman in Italy. Many hundreds are feared to have drowned before an Italian navy ship arrived at the scene 80 nautical miles south of Lampedusa to begin a rescue operation. Fossi said the navy brought 145 survivors, all migrants from sub-Saharan countries, to the southern port of Reggio Calabria. Nine bodies were recovered and brought to Trapani, on the west coast of Sicily, he added. Save the Children reported that there were several young males, probably minors, among the victims, and also children among those rescued. Fossi said there had been about 550 people on the boat, “which brings the number of people lost at sea to around 350 to 400”. “Apparently, as often happens, they spotted a commercial ship in the sea and therefore all the people on board moved on one side of the boat and the boat capsized,” Fossi told the Guardian. “They were rescued by the IT Orione, one of the Italian navy’s military ships, which brought the 145 together with other people rescued in different situations, making a total of 660 people brought into Reggio Calabria.” Fossi added: “In this case the commercial ship they spotted was probably too far [away], so they had to wait for the Italian navy to come and rescue them.” It was the deadliest such incident since October 2013, UNHCR said. The latest tragedy came as Italian authorities said about 8,500 migrants had been rescued at sea between Friday and Monday. Fossi said the number of rescued people had made it difficult to gather all the information on the disaster. Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration in Italy, told Agence France-Presse that several of the survivors had reported that there were between 500 and 550 people on board when the ship sank. “We are continuing to investigate in order to understand how the shipwreck happened,” Di Giacomo said. The deaths, if confirmed, would add to the soaring numbers of migrants lost at sea: the IOM estimates that up to 3,072 migrants died in the Mediterranean in 2014, compared with an estimate of 700 in 2013. But even those figures could be low. The IOM estimates that since 2000 more than 22,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to reach Europe. UNHCR said the estimated number of deaths from the latest disaster brought the total number of people lost at sea so far this year to 900, compared with 17 in the same period last year. Recent good weather in the Mediterranean and an increasingly violent and chaotic situation in Libya has meant even more people have tried to flee conflict and poverty for new lives in Europe. European coastguards have been overwhelmed by the numbers. Separately on Tuesday, the EU’s Frontex border agency said people-smugglers trying to recover a wooden boat that had been carrying migrants had fired shots into the air to warn away a coastguard vessel. The incident took place on Monday, 60 nautical miles off the coast of Libya, after an Italian tugboat and the coastguard ship came to the rescue of 250 migrants. The coastguard vessel was carrying 342 migrants from a previous rescue. The latest deaths will raise even more concerns about the logic and morality of Europe’s decision to cut back maritime rescue operations in the Mediterranean last autumn. The majority of the operations this month have been performed by the Italian coastguard and navy and some commercial ships in international waters, rather than the European-backed Triton mission that patrols waters within 30 miles of the Italian coast. Triton replaced a far more ambitious programme conducted by Italy, the Mare Nostrum mission, at the end of last year. Mare Nostrum was a one-year programme that cost Italy about €9m a month, compared with Triton’s budget of €2.9m, and carried out search-and-rescue missions over a 27,000 sq mile area. On Tuesday the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must adapt quickly to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores. “The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm, and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,” the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said in Brussels. Avramopoulos is expected to unveil a new EU strategy late next month. Migrants arrive at Palermo harbour on a cargo vessel. Photograph: Antonio Melita/Demotix/Corbis A migrant arrives into the port of Corigliano Calabro in southern Italy. Photograph: Alfonso Di Vincenzo/AFP/Getty Images http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/15/migrant-boat-sinks-mediterranean-passengers

Survivors describe chaotic scenes at university in Garissa after scores killed in al-Shabaab rampage Murithi Mutiga in Nairobi Thursday 2 April 2015 20.00 BST Julia Gichuki was fast asleep when she heard the staccato sound of gunfire drawing ever closer to the women’s hostel at her university in the town of Garissa, about 90 miles from the Kenyan border with Somalia. “I just sprang out of bed and started running,” she told the Guardian. “We didn’t know in which direction to go because bullets were flying everywhere. But we were lucky that the attackers seemed to be targeting the men’s hostel and we managed to flee.” Julia was one of the lucky ones. By the time militants from the Islamist al-Shabaab group had concluded their deadly rampage, 147 people had been killed and scores were injured, several critically. The gunmen allowed Muslim students to leave the hostel before holding dozens of Christians hostage for more than 12 hours. The attack – and especially the targeting of young students – has stunned Kenya. It was the worst atrocity in the region since the bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998, which killed 213 and wounded thousands. A visibly shaken President Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the nation on Thursday afternoon and promised to bring the killers to book. “This is a moment for everyone throughout the country to be vigilant as we continue to defeat and confront our enemies,” he said. The interior minister, Joseph Nkaisserry, appointed to the post recently after his ineffective predecessor was fired following a spate of attacks, said four of the assailants in Garissa had been killed. Five hundred students had been rescued, he said. A dawn-to-dusk curfew was declared in much of Kenya’s restive north, which borders Somalia and which has been the scene of numerous attacks by al-Shabaab. Kenyan police offered a $220,000 (£150,000) bounty for Mohammed Mohamud, who they said was the mastermind of the attack. Arnolda Shiundu, of the Red Cross, said the attack began at 5.30am when several of the militants shot their way through the university gate and began firing randomly. John Ongamo, who is training to be a teacher, described scenes of carnage as the militants killed anyone they identified as a Christian on the spot. “When I heard the gunfire, I slipped out of bed and hid in the wardrobe. The attackers stormed into the hostel and said they wanted to know where the kafirs [unbelievers] were,” he said. “The girls in the neighbouring hostel started screaming and running and in the confusion I managed to flee. It was terrible. I have never been that scared in my life. They were just spraying bullets around.” Julia Gichuki was one of about 65 students who scaled a fence and fled to a neighbour’s house. “It was just terrible,” she said. “Some girls were running without any clothes on. There were screams and nobody knew if we would survive. We were so relieved when we managed to scale the fence and a neighbour took us in.” The biology and chemistry student said she caught a fleeting glimpse of one of the attackers, whom she described as a slight man whose face was covered in a black-and-white keffiyeh and who she said was carrying a “very huge machine gun”. Kenya, long seen as an island of peace in a turbulent region, has been rocked by a number of attacks by al-Shabaab since 2011 when its troops joined a UN-backed security force that is seeking to tackle the al-Qaida affiliate in Somalia. African Union troops have pushed al-Shabaab from virtually all major populated centres in the country, but the rebels have hit back with a series of terror attacks in Somalia, Kenya and Uganda, another country contributing troops. The four-day siege of the Westgate mall in Nairobi in September 2013 that left 67 dead was the highest-profile al-Shabaab atrocity so far, and the north of Kenya, which is primarily settled by Kenyan Somalis, has been the scene of a string of attacks including the massacre of dozens of bus passengers in November. Britain and Australia issued travel advisory notices last week warning against all travel to the north of Kenya and to Coast province. The tourism industry, the biggest source of employment at the coast, has been seriously affected by the attacks. In Garissa, crowds of anxious parents and other relatives gathered at the university seeking information on students, but there security forces were unable to say how soon they might attempt to end the hostage drama. Kenyan troops were patrolling the streets in large numbers and most residents stayed indoors. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/kenya-attack-survivors-garissa-al-shabaab

Italy’s highest court to decide whether to uphold convictions of Knox and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito over 2007 murder of British student Press Association Friday 27 March 2015 09.31 GMT An Italian court’s decision on whether to uphold the convictions of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher is imminent, court officials have said. Italy’s highest court had been expected to reach its decision on Wednesday, but closing arguments took longer than expected. Officials said the decision is now due to be made on Friday. Kercher, a 21-year-old from Coulsdon, Surrey, was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death in her bedroom in 2007 while studying in Perugia, Italy. Her flatmate Knox, a student from Seattle in the US, and Knox’s then-boyfriend Sollecito spent four years in jail for the murder but were acquitted on appeal in 2011. Knox returned to the US before an appeal court threw out the acquittal and reinstated her and Sollecito’s guilty verdicts last year. Italy’s supreme court in Rome must decide if it finally upholds those convictions, which would put an end to eight years of courtroom twists and turns, or orders another appeal. A spokeswoman for the court said: “The public hearing will continue at 9am, when one of the lawyers of the appeal will intervene. The panel of judges will go into chambers and then deliver their verdicts.” Knox, 27, will not be in court to see if her 28-year sentence is confirmed. Sollecito, 30, who has had his travel documents seized, was mobbed by journalists and camera crews as he made his way into the Palace of Justice in central Rome. He faces a sentence of 25 years. The Kercher family were not in court on Wednesday but have said that if Knox’s conviction is confirmed they want authorities in the US to extradite her to Italy. The Kercher family’s lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said earlier this week: “The interest of the family is to arrive to the end of this trial. They want to be able to remember Meredith outside of the courtroom.” Knox said last year she would become a fugitive if convicted and would have to be taken back “kicking and screaming” to Italy. If her conviction is upheld, she could delay going to jail if she were pregnant, according to Italian legal experts. Last month, she announced her engagement to 27-year-old musician and school friend Colin Sutherland, who wrote to her while she was in jail. There has also been speculation that political pressure from the US could hamper a potential extradition process. Sollecito is seeking to separate his case from that of Knox, with his lawyers pointing out that a partial confession written by the American and later retracted did not mention his presence at the scene of the crime. If that argument succeeds, the Italian could be given a new trial. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/27/meredith-kercher-italian-court-amanda-knox-conviction

Jon Belmar says two officers were lucky to survive attack during protests Police pictured on roof of Ferguson home as part of shooting investigation Jon Swaine in New York and Paul Lewis in Washington Thursday 12 March 2015 17.48 GMT The two police officers who were shot in Ferguson were the victims of an “ambush” by shooters who might have been associated with protesters outside a police station, a police chief claimed on Thursday. Less than an hour after St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar made the comments at a press conference, armed police were pictured on a roof of a home in Ferguson, as part of a fast-unfolding investigation into the shooting. Brian Schellman, a spokesman for St Louis police, told the Guardian the “tactical situation” developing in Ferguson was “part of the active investigation from last night’s events”. Around noon, the Associated Press, citing a St Louis County spokesperson, reported that two people had been taken in for questioning. Schellman told the Guardian there had been no arrests. “We are currently speaking with people. No arrests,” he said. The US attorney general, Eric Holder, who last week threatened to disband Ferguson’s police department after a damning report into discrimination by the force, on Thursday described the attack on the officers as “inexcusable and repugnant”. “Such senseless acts of violence threaten the very reforms that nonviolent protesters in Ferguson and around the country have been working towards for the past several months,” he said. He said “the full range of investigative resources” at the Department of Justice would be made available to law enforcement authorities in Missouri. “And we will continue to stand unequivocally against all acts of violence against cops whenever and wherever they occur.” The family of Michael Brown, the black man whose shooting by a Ferguson police officer in August last year sparked protests that have since snowballed nationwide, forcefully condemned the attack. “We reject any kind of violence directed toward members of law enforcement. It cannot and will not be tolerated,” the family said in a statement. “We specifically denounce the actions of stand-alone agitators who unsuccessfully attempt to derail the otherwise peaceful and non-violent movement that has emerged throughout this nation to confront police brutality and to forward the cause of equality under the law for all. The attack on the officers took place around midnight on Wednesday as a small demonstration wound down in the St Louis suburb, which has been gripped by unrest since the fatal police shooting of Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, last year. Police chief Belmar made clear he was not blaming demonstrators for an attack in which one officer was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder, both of whom he said were lucky to survive. However, he repeatedly drew attention to the “agitated” and “rowdy” demonstration that had taken place on a road just in front of the Ferguson police department – about 125 yards from where police saw muzzle flashes from a suspected handgun or pistol. “I would have to imagine that these protesters were among the shooters that shot at the police officers,” he said. Protesters have pushed back hard at any suggestions they were connected to the shooters and point out the shots appear to have been fired from a hill behind a dwindling group of demonstrators who were celebrating the resignation of Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson. Belmar said one officer, from Webster Groves, a 32-year-old who has worked in the department for five years, was shot in the cheek and the bullet lodged just behind his ear. The St Louis County officer, who is 41 and a 17-year law enforcement veteran, was shot in the shoulder, he said. The bullet exited his back, near to his spine. “We’re lucky by God’s grace we didn’t lose two officers last night,” Belmar said, comparing the incident to the shooting of NYPD officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos in December last year. “We could have buried two police officers next week over this.” However, protesters stressed that the shots emanated from an area they were not demonstrating in. Tony Rice, a Ferguson resident and protester, said “the shots came from up Tiffin Avenue” – an upwards-sloping street directly opposite the police department. DeRay Mckesson, a prominent leader of the Ferguson protest movement, agreed that the shots were fired from “the alley or street” behind where protesters stood. “I’m 100% sure on that,” Rice told the Guardian. “Clearly no one shot a gun close to me.” Rice recalled in a telephone interview that he “heard gunshots go off, and felt a bullet whizz by my head”, prompting him to take cover from the direction of the shots by hiding behind a car, while facing the police line. “I saw the officer who was shot in the face hit the ground,” said Rice. “He was hollering and moaning. Not saying words but just screaming. Other officers were jumping around him tending to him. Some were scrambling to get out of the way.” Rice said the officer struck in the face had been standing on the pavement outside police headquarters, and the officer hit in the shoulder was on a grassy patch behind him. He said that from a high of about 200 protesters earlier in the evening, numbers had fallen to between 30 and 50 as people went home for the night. Belmar provided a similar account of a protest that was dissipating – with protesters and police returning home – when the shots were fired. The shootings occurred just hours after Thomas Jackson became the sixth senior official in Ferguson to lose his job following the publication of a damning federal report on the city’s criminal justice system. He said that at the start of the protest, at 8pm, there were about 150 protesters and just 15 police officers. However, as protesters became more “agitated”, Belmar said, reinforcements were called. There were three arrests of protesters blocking the road in front of the police department. By 11.45pm, Belmar said, what had been a “pretty rowdy” demonstration was winding down. “I imagine we had 75 protesters, probably 40 police officers left at this time, so we’re thinking that this is thinning out,” he said. Around 15 minutes later, three or four shots rang out, and two officers hit the ground. The officers had been lined up in front of the police station, making them easy targets. “This is really an ambush,” he said. “You can’t see it coming, you don’t understand that it’s going to happen, you’re basically defenceless.” “I feel very confident that whoever did this was there for the wrong reason, not the right reason,” Belmar said. “I do feel that there was an unfortunate association with that [protest] gathering.” He added: “We have an obligation to make sure that folks that want to express their first amendment rights have the authority to do that. But when you look at the tenor of at least some of the people that are involved in the protest or civil unrest, it at times can be very troubling.” After the press conference, St Louis County police department shared pictures of the officer’s blood-spattered face mask. Missouri governor Jay Nixon called on Ferguson residents to come forward with information. “The fact that these officers appear to have been intentionally targeted is deeply troubling,” he said. The shots were the first to strike law enforcement officers in the seven months since protests erupted following the shooting of Brown by Darren Wilson, a white officer. Gunfire was heard repeatedly during protests and rioting in August, when Brown was killed, and November, when prosecutors decided not to bring charges against Wilson. “I think it is a miracle that we haven’t had any instances similar to this over the summer and fall, with the amount of gunfire we would hear,” Belmar said. A police helmet where two police officers were shot just after midnight in Ferguson. Photograph: St Louis County police/Reuters http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/12/ferguson-police-officers-shot-ambush