Eyewitness: J'lem brawl was lynch against Arabs
Volunteer for youths at risk says incident in which 18-year-old Arab man was seriously injured instigated by Jewish teens
Acting Jerusalem Police Commissioner Menny Yitzhaki instructed on Friday to set up a special investigation team to probe the violent clash between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem's Zion Square. The incident, which occurred Thursday night, left an 18-year-old Arab man seriously wounded.
The police say they plan to indict the suspects, and are looking into whether the incident had nationalistic motives.
An activist at an aid organization for youths at risk, who witnessed the event, posted a message on Facebook, claiming that the incident was more like "a lynch."
"Today I saw a lynch with my very own eyes, at Zion Square in the center of Jerusalem," she wrote.
"We arrived for our usual volunteering shift at Zion Square and not more than half-an-hour later, (we heard) screams: 'A Jew is a (good) soul; an Arab is a son-of-a...'. (We saw) dozens of teens running and gathering around, starting to deliver deadly blows to three Arab teens who were peacefully walking by," the activist wrote.
"When one of the Arab teens fell onto the floor, they continued to kick his head, and he lost consciousness... the assailants ran away and the rest gathered in a circle (around him) and some continued to shout with hatred in their eyes."
The activist further claimed in her post that when two of the volunteers tried to resuscitate the injured Arabs, "the crowds were complaining that they were Arabs and that they deserve it because maybe now they will be afraid."
Society's Child
The Woodburn priest accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy now has a prominent lawyer in his corner.
Angel Perez has hired attorney Marc Blackman and the Archdiocese of Portland has made him an open-ended loan to pay for the legal fees according to The Oregonian.
© Agence France-Presse/ Scott Olson
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (R)
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (R)
The officers allege that Emmanuel replaced them with officers who volunteered for his 2010-2011 mayoral campaign - a violation of the city's Shakman decree, which forbids politically motivated appointments in city hiring decisions.
The officers, who are white and hispanic, also allege that Emmanuel discriminated against them, favoring African-American officers with less seniority. Six of the plaintiffs had previously filed a complaint with Chicago's inspector general's office last year, citing the alleged Shakman violations. The investigation is still ongoing, according to The Chicago Tribune
While grain prices fell in New York on Tuesday because of rain across most of the Mid-West, prices will persist around current high levels, economists from Standard Chartered said in a report published this week. This is especially the case should high temperatures persist across much of the U.S. well into August, they said.
© Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images; Bill Clark/CQ Roll Cal
Tom Morello and Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan
Tom Morello and Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.
I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!
Police have little information about discovery that comes a month after a human head was found in a Montreal park.
A severed human head and foot have been discovered in a park near Toronto, police in Canada said Thursday.
Peel police acting inspector Randy Cowan said officers discovered the head Thursday morning in the Credit river in Mississauga.
Cowan said it's not clear whether the foot belongs to a man or a woman, but investigators believe it was severed in recent weeks. Police have not said if the foot and head are from the same person.
"Without a cause of death we can't call it homicide, but certainly foul play, there's definitely something amiss," said Cowan.
The right foot was found in the Credit river near the Hewick Meadows Park by hikers and the police marine unit found the head later Thursday.
A severed human head and foot have been discovered in a park near Toronto, police in Canada said Thursday.
Peel police acting inspector Randy Cowan said officers discovered the head Thursday morning in the Credit river in Mississauga.
Cowan said it's not clear whether the foot belongs to a man or a woman, but investigators believe it was severed in recent weeks. Police have not said if the foot and head are from the same person.
"Without a cause of death we can't call it homicide, but certainly foul play, there's definitely something amiss," said Cowan.
The right foot was found in the Credit river near the Hewick Meadows Park by hikers and the police marine unit found the head later Thursday.
"We went down in Syria where there were lots of soldiers. We thought there were some problems and that there was no money to pay for the fuel," News.com.au quoted Najib, who was a passenger on the flight, as saying.
"They asked if the passengers could contribute for the refueling," he added.
Najib claimed that the flight from Paris was diverted to Damascus because of tensions in Beirut and then flew on to Larnaca.
"There were some negotiations going on to buy fuel because Air France doesn't fly to Damascus at the moment," another passenger said.
In its 2012 Fall Seller Update, the online marketplace said it was banning all sales of supernatural goods and services, exiling its witchy and wizardly clientele to the wilds of Craigslist and other Web-based Diagon Alleys.
Among the prohibited items: "advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic services; prayers; blessings; Psychic, Tarot, Reiki, and other metaphysical readings & services; magic potions; healing sessions."
EBay representatives did not immediately respond to questions as to why Harry Potter wannabes were no longer welcome or whether they contributed substantially to eBay transactions.
But beginning Aug. 30, attempts to list such enchantments for sale will be blocked, according to the website.
© RIA Novosti/Andrei Voloshin
The organizer of the youth event Mikhail Yakovlev, said the city administration named three reasons for their decision.
"Firstly, I supposedly failed to notify them in time. Secondly, I did not submit a program of the event. I did both things, though. But the third reason is most shocking: they said the Zombie Parade contradicts the Russian Constitution and the Human Rights Declaration," he told Metromsk news portal.
However, in a private conversation with an employee of Omsk's district administration, Yakovlev found out that the 'raising of the dead' was frowned on by a number of organizations, including the local Orthodox Church and the Muslim Community.
"The' Zombie Parade' bears no ideological or protest meaning: it is simply an entertainment for youngsters," Yakovlev told RIA Novosti.The event - which was planned for August 19 - was officially announced as a costume exhibition. About a hundred people - disguised as zombies and smeared with artificial blood - were to march through Omsk's central street and then have a photo shoot.
© RIA Novosti/Alexey Danichev
Pop singer Madonna performs at the Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex in St. Petersburg.
Pop singer Madonna performs at the Petersburg Sports and Concert Complex in St. Petersburg.
The activists will sue the singer on August 17 in the Moskovsky District Court in St. Petersburg, they said. They are seeking compensation of 333 million roubles (over $10 million) from Madonna, and from the company that organized the concert.
"She insulted the believers' feelings, she promoted homosexuality when there were children at the concert and this is forbidden in St Petersburg. We, the residents of the cultural capital, suffered a colossal moral damage," union spokesperson Darya Dedova told the press.
The activists plan to demonstrate video records of Madonna stepping on the Russian Orthodox Cross and asking the public to raise their hands with pink bracelets, supposedly a sign of solidarity with the LGBT community, Dedova said.
Comment: It is shocking and instructive to read the language used by this article from Ynetnews. First, it calls the event a "brawl" in its original headline, and a "violent clash" in the first paragraph, as if two equal parties were both to blame for the violence. If the article uses the appropriate word at all - "lynch" - it is only because it is quoting an eye-witness who, we suppose, has a little credibility in the eyes of the journalist only because she is Jewish. Then we read that the event was "instigated" by Jewish teens. Not "perpetrated" but "instigated", as if the three Arab boys had somehow willingly involved themselves into violence after a provocation. But the witness accounts very clearly describe that they were brutally attacked for no other reason than passing by. Next we read that the incident was "more like a lynch". "Like" being the key word here; you see, the phrase suggests it probably wasn't a lynch, witnesses just claim it looked like one!
By the way, the quoted testimony is incomplete. It left out the part that mentions that the witness suspects the Arab teenager died after being taken to the hospital in critical condition. Here is the full version as it appeared on Facebook: