General view of the opening of the15th Foreign Ministerial Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran.(AFP Photo / Behrouz Mehri)
Leaders of 120 countries have gathered in Tehran to attend 16th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement. Summit host Iran is expected to draw up a new peace resolution to solve the crisis in Syria. Nuclear disarmament issues are also on the table.
The Non-Aligned Movement represents practically two-thirds of UN member states. The movement was founded in 1961 and has become a significant discussion platform for developing countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Among many global topics to be discussed at this summit are human rights and nuclear disarmament issues that have been specified in advance.
At the Tehran summit Iran will take over the leadership role in the Non-Aligned Movement from Egypt for the next three years, meaning Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi is definitely heading to Tehran this week.
A number of controversies surround the start of the gathering. The first is that the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to attend the six-day summit, despite protests from the US and Israel, which both called on to the UN head to stay away from the event.
UNITED KINGDOM, London : Metropolitan police officers stand outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. (AFP Photo / Will Oliver)
Ecuador says Britain has withdrawn a threat to raid its embassy to arrest WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – easing tensions between the two nations in their ongoing diplomatic standoff.
The Ecuadorian government revealed that it received”a communication from the British Foreign Office which said that there was no threat to enter the embassy.”
“We consider this unfortunate incident over, after a grave diplomatic error by the British in which they said they would enter our embassy,” Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said in a weekly media address.
Ecuador granted Assange political asylum but the UK says it will arrest him if he leaves the embassy to deport him to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations.
The case strained relations between London and Quito, which was infuriated after British authorities warned they could enter the Ecuadorian embassy to seize Assange.
The announcement comes a day after all the members of the Organization of American States, except for the US and Canada, stated their support of Ecuador in relation to Assange’s saga.
Senior officials from the 35-state bloc adopted a resolution of solidarity with Ecuador. They reaffirmed their “respect of sovereignty” and denounced “the use of forces in solving conflicts.”
All members approved the full text of the document except for Canada and the United States, which refused to express “solidarity” with Quito.
Earlier, the Ecuadorian president said in an exclusive interview with RT that “Once we granted asylum to Assange, he is under the protection of Ecuador, and we will do everything to make sure this protection is effective.”
A female traveler submits to a full body scan before heading to her flight at Pittsburgh International Airport November. ( Jeff Swensen/Getty Images/AFP)
Several US airlines have been refusing to let ticketed passengers board planes based on how they’re dressed. Being told to change their clothing or not fly, some passengers said they felt unreasonably discriminated against.
One woman was confronted by an airline employee for showing too much cleavage on a Southwest Airlines flight, the Associated Press reports. Another passenger was forced to cover up her T-shirt with a shawl because it showed a four-letter curse word. In the second case, the woman, who is a pro-choice activist, said her T-shirt was questioned because it bore a pro-choice slogan.
On a US Airways flight, an African-American footballer- playing for the University of New Mexico-was kicked off the plane and arrested for refusing to pull up his low-hanging pants, while a Caucasian cross-dresser was allowed to board a plane wearing little more than women’s underwear. In light of both cases, the American footballers lawyer, Deshon Marman, suggested racism might have been involved. The prosecutor thus declined to file charges against the college student.
“You can’t let someone repugnant like that (the cross-dresser) on the plane and single out this kid because he’s black, wearing dreadlocks, and had two or three inches of his underwear showing,” said attorney Joseph D. O’Sullivan. “They can’t arrest him for what someone perceives to be inappropriate attire.”
West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority
A US veteran is facing charges of terrorism after being arrested for trying to get some exercise. That’s William Alemar’s story, at least, who was detained this week after jogging in full military fatigues in public while carrying a training rifle.
Authorities have charged 23-year-old Army National Guardsman and Iraq war veteran William Everett Alemar with “committing a terroristic act and wearing body armor while committing a felony offense.” He was arrested on the morning of August 20 after officers responded to calls of an armed man running along a road adjacent to a Martinsburg, West Virginia high school.
When the cops found Alemar three minutes later, he was wearing his full National Guard get-up and was brandishing an air-soft “training rifle,” a gun that while similar to his actual weapon only fires pellets, not bullets. He was also garbed in a ballistic vest composed of bullet-resistant ceramic panels and was equipped with two knives and several unloaded magazines, the Herald-Mail reports.
“The primary concern for the police department was that subject’s proximity to the area schools — Martinsburg High School, South Middle — when he was first located off Bulldog Boulevard,”Martinsburg Police Lt. George Swartwood says to reporters.
Americans turned to New York early Friday for a dose of doom and gloom, but the murder scene outside of the Empire State Building wasn’t the only mass shooting site in the country during the last few hours. In Chicago, 19 people were shot overnight.
In the midst of a surge in shootings in the Windy City that have occurred in recent weeks, police officers in Chicago, Illinois were once again busy responding to reports of shots fired late Thursday and into early the next day.
Two 14-year-old boys, one 15-year-old boy and a 19-year-old woman are among the injured in Chicago last evening after a drive-by shooting in the city’s South Side shortly after 9 p.m. sent eight people to the hospital.
Within only 30 minutes, at least four separate shootings left 13 people injured, including several teenagers. By Friday morning, 19 people in all had been shot in Chicago during the evening hours, with police reporting zero fatalities.
Thursday night’s shootings are not unusual in Chicago.
Chicago’s Red Eye newspaper reports that 15 people were killed in the city during the week ending August 22, including six homicides occurring at one point on a single day. At the time, the city reported 40 homicides in the month of August, already surpassing last year’s tally of 37 with still two weeks to spare.
Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik (C) arrives on Jin the courtroom in Oslo on the last day of his trial. (AFP Photo / POOL / Heiko Junge)
Anders Behring Breivik has been found to be of sound mind and judgment and found guilty by a Norwegian court today. He has been sentenced to at least 21 years in prison.
Breivik has previously stated that a ruling pronouncing him sane would validate his crime as a political act.
His sentence to “at least 21 years” means that every third year after the original sentence was delivered the court will consider whether he is still a danger to society.
Breivik pleaded guilty to killing 77 people in June 2011, first detonating a bomb in Oslo which left eight people dead, then on the same day killing 69 more – mostly teenagers – after going on a shooting spree at a Labour Party youth camp on Utoya Island.
Breivik claims he was protecting Norway against Islam and multiculturalism, which he accused the ruling Labour Party of promoting, and had promised to fight an “insanity” verdict that would deprive his act of political significance, calling psychiatric incarceration a “fate worse than death.”
“I think we all can agree that on July 22, a barbaric thing happened,” Breivik said while delivering a somewhat muddled closing statement in June.
“I carried out a small barbarism to stop a greater barbarism,” he said, referring to his view that Norway’s immigration policies had created a “demographic war” against non-Muslims, in which he felt obligated to defend himself.
Breivik’s lawyer Geir Lippestad had previously argued that to find Breivik insane would be a violation of his human rights, as it would deny him his role in carrying out “a political project.”
“If we look at the basic human rights and take into account that the defendant has a political project – to see his actions as an expression of illness is to take away a basic human right, the right to take responsibility for one’s own actions,” Lippestad insisted as the 10-week trial wrapped up in June.
The maximum 21-year sentence for Breivik could be extended if he is deemed a danger to society.
Breivik’s jail cell has been the subject of controversy. On the chance that Breivik was found not guilty by reason of insanity, Breivik would have been the sole patient of a psychiatric ward that cost 130,000 and 260,000 euro, built especially for him. According to Associated Press reports, 17 people would have been on staff to treat him.
As it is, Breivik currently occupies a three-room jail cell, equipped with a computer and treadmill, having access to a games room, television, newspapers and daily outdoor strolls. It is likely that he will now return to this cell.
Analysts had been conflicted on Breivik’s mental status. Initially, forensic psychiatrists Torgeir Husby and Synne Sørheim concluded that Breivik was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, in a report issued last December.
Following a massive wave of criticism from legal and psychiatric experts, the court decided to appoint two new psychiatrists, who in April found that Breivik was legally of sound mind.
