Â
(Washington, DC) – Harsh public registration laws often punish youth sex offenders for life and do little to protect public safety, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Read more... Add new comment
Americas
New report: user data protection in U.S. internet companies
- Thursday, 02 May 2013 10:07
- administrator
- Hits: 103
Â
When you use the Internet, you entrust your conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what do these companies do when the government demands your private information? Do they stand with you? Do they let you know what's going on?Â
Free speech NGO threatened
- Thursday, 02 May 2013 09:48
- administrator
- Hits: 87
Â
ARTICLE 19's Mexico office has this morning received an anonymous letter containing a direct threat of reprisal for the work that the staff undertake to protect journalists from violence.Â
Bolivian President Evo Morales expels USAID
- Wednesday, 01 May 2013 19:05
- administrator
- Hits: 110
Â
Bolivian President Evo Morales has said he will expel the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Buenos Aires Police fire on journalists, city official plays down incident
- Wednesday, 01 May 2013 17:17
- administrator
- Hits: 111
Â
Â
The Buenos Aires metropolitan police used excessive violence against journalists covering a demonstration by hospital employees on 26 April.
US morning-after pill approved for 15-year-olds
- Wednesday, 01 May 2013 08:51
- administrator
- Hits: 108
Â
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the "morning-after" pill without a prescription for women aged 15 and over.
Venezuela MPs in punch-up over disputed election
- Wednesday, 01 May 2013 08:45
- administrator
- Hits: 59
Â
Fistfights have broken out in Venezuela's parliament over the recent disputed presidential election.
Gun vote stirs passion at Ayotte town hall meeting
- Tuesday, 30 April 2013 23:49
- S.Sh.Hedayati
- Hits: 106
Â
WARREN, N.H. -- The daughter of a Newtown victim confronted Sen. Kelly Ayotte during her first town hall meeting since she voted against expanded background checks on all commercial gun sales.
The confrontation erupted in a small meeting building filled with more than 100 people who came to condemn or support the senator's vote. It was Ayotte's first town hall meeting since she opposed a compromise negotiated by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., nearly two weeks ago.
Erica Lafferty, daughter of Sandy Hook Elementary shooting victim Dawn Hochsprung, confronts Sen. Kelly Ayotte at a town hall Tuesday.
"You had mentioned that day the burden on owners of gun stores that the expanded background checks would harm. I am just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't more important than that," asked a visibly angry Erica Lafferty, the daughter of slain Sandy Hook Elementary principal Dawn Hochsprung. Lafferty had first met with Ayotte in Washington following that failed vote.
Ayotte responded: "Erica, I, certainly let me just say - I'm obviously so sorry."
"And, um, I think that ultimately when we look at what happened in Sandy Hook, I understand that's what drove this whole discussion -- all of us want to make sure that doesn't happen again," Ayotte said.
Ayotte defended her vote at the top of her remarks, pointing to her background as a prosecutor. “Where we are right now, my focus has been on wanting to improve our current background check system,” she said. “Frankly, we have fallen down on actually prosecuting gun crimes and violations of our current background check system.”
She said that addressing mental health and keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill were important going forward.
Ayotte and a handful of other senators are at the center of a nationwide push from gun control groups to maintain pressure for new gun laws in the wake of the Newtown shootings.
Groups on both sides — from the National Rifle Association to the gun control group backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — have focused on her and others in swing states where polls show background checks are popular.
In New Hampshire, the NRA is airing ads thanking Ayotte for her vote. The Bloomberg group has ads running against her. Both sides are mobilizing like it's a political campaign — Bloomberg's group circulated printed signs reading "#ShameOnYou" at the town meeting, while Ayotte supporters held the kind of mass-hand-drawn signs often spotted at presidential events.
In a nearby yard, a local resident had placed a large, staked lawn sign with the handwritten message, "Thank You Senator Ayotte." Atop one corner was the Tea Party's preferred flag, the yellow snake with the words "Don't Tread On Me."
The charged atmosphere was a change from Ayotte's meetings - generally staid affairs that begin with a PowerPoint presentation on the budget. (She does a lot of them, as she's pledged to hold a town hall in each New Hampshire county.) At Tuesday's meeting, she stuck with the PowerPoint, but this time, the opening slides had statistics defending her gun vote.
Normally, attendees said, a few dozen residents might attend a meeting this far from the state's population centers of Manchester and Nashua, further south in the state. Warren has a population of about 900 people and town administrator Andrew Dorsett describes it as a "pro-gun" place.
At the meetings, Ayotte typically takes questions that had been pre-submitted and written down on notecards. A selected moderator chooses and reads them.
This time, though, that caused a stir. Right before Erica Lafferty spoke, Eric Knuffke, of Wentworth, N.H., stood and demanded to be allowed a question.
"You can't deny people the right to speak because they haven't filled out a card. I have a question," Knuffke shouted. Supporters of Ayotte shouted back at him.
"I do every single town meeting this way, and we have a process," Ayotte responded, though her voice - thin and high-pitched from a cold - was drowned out by the noise.
"You want to regulate that but you don't want to regulate guns," Knuffke yelled back.
"Sit down and shut up!" a member of the crowd shouted back at him, with others joining in.
As Knuffke yelled, Lafferty was sitting in the front row with her hand raised.
"Let Erica speak," said one attendee. "There's a Sandy Hook survivor here," said another.
She had submitted a question in the pile, and Ayotte made sure to let her speak. Lafferty thanked Ayotte for meeting with her the day after senators took the vote on the Manchin-Toomey before challenging her for her vote.
After her exchange with Ayotte, Lafferty stood and stormed out of the town hall.
Asked afterward why she had done so, Lafferty said: "I had had enough."Â
Obama said Pentagon and intelligence officials were asked a year ago to explore Syria options
- Tuesday, 30 April 2013 19:49
- S M Rahat
- Hits: 43
US president says use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad's government would force Washington to "rethink" options.
US President Barack Obama has said his administration will have to "rethink the range of options" available to Washington if chemical weapons have been used by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president.
In a rare Tuesday press conference at the White House, Obama said the Pentagon and other security agencies had been told to make preparations for possible action if the "red line" of chemical weapon use had indeed been crossed.
"I've got to make sure I've got the facts. That's what the American people would expect ... If I can establish in a way that not only the United States but also the international community feel confident in the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime, then that is a game changer," Obama said.
The Assad government has been accused of using weapons loaded with nerve agents against targets in civilian areas during the country's two-year-long conflict.
Obama did not rule out eventual US military action, but remained cautious.
"By game changer, I mean we would have to rethink the range of options that are available to us. We are invested in trying to bring back a solution inside of Syria," he told reporters.
"Obviously, there are options that are available to me that are on the shelf right now that we have not deployed, and that's a spectrum of options."
Obama said as early as 2012, he had instructed the Pentagon, military and other intelligence officials "to prepare for me what options might be available", but would not elaborate on the details of those options.
Military action 'unlikely'
Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said public sentiment in the United States would make direct military action highly unlikely.
Referring to a recent poll, our correspondent said "the vast majority of Americans do not want to see the US have any military role in Syria".
Further complicating the likelihood of direct US action in the Syrian conflict was Obama's reference to the confidence of the international community, Culhane said.
"Satisfying the international community would present a much different set of requirements."
Meanwhile, the Syrian regime again accused rebels of using chemical weapons.
Syria's UN ambassador alleged on Tuesday that opposition fighters had used "chemical material" during an attack near the city of Idlib.
Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told reporters the incident was an attempt to make it look as though government forces had used chemical arms.
Jaafari said "terrorist groups" had "spread seemingly the contents of plastic bags containing a kind of powder which must be most probably a chemical material".
The ambassador said many people were affected by the "heinous and irresponsible act" that was an attempt to "implicate the Syrian government on a false basis".
The Syrian government is refusing to let UN experts into the country to investigate whether chemical weapons have been used in the conflict, in which the UN says more than 70,000 people have been killed.
The government wants any investigation limited to its allegations that the opposition used chemical arms near the city of Aleppo last month. The United Nations and western countries want other allegations investigated.
Â
Obama shows off his funny side
- Sunday, 28 April 2013 11:56
- administrator
- Hits: 111
Chemical weapons in Syria a ‘game changer,’ says Obama
- Saturday, 27 April 2013 02:05
- Shafigh Hidayati
- Hits: 117
Â
Â
US President Barack Obama underlined on Friday that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would amount to a “game changer,” but also said that intelligence that such weapons had been used by the Syrian regime was not yet definitive.
US President Barack Obama reiterated on Friday that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime was a “game changer,” but stated that intelligence proving that such weapons had been used was not yet concrete.
“Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law,” Obama told reporters at the White House.
“That is going to be a game changer. We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us ... recognise how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of chemical weapons on civilian populations,” he said.
CROSSING BARACK OBAMA'S 'RED LINE'
Right now the US is quite right to be very cautious. Politically there is a lot of pressure to lower the threshold, to provoke some type of military intervention. But I think the burden of proof should be very high.
Jean Pascal Zanders, Senior Research Fellow at the European Union’s Institute for Security Studies
Obama’s comments came one day after the White House said US intelligence services believed with “varying degrees of confidence” that the chemical nerve agent sarin had been used by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against opposition combatants in the country.
UK plays down idea of military response
Following the White House’s statement, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that the situation was “extremely serious,” echoing past statements by Obama that the use of such weapons would represent a “red line” for the international community.
Cameron, however, shied away from the idea of a military intervention, suggesting that a political response would be more likely.
"I think what President Obama said was absolutely right, that this should form for the international community a red line for us to do more," Cameron told the BBC. "I've always been keen for us to do more."
"In my view what we need to do – and we're doing some of this already – is shape that opposition, work with them, train them, mentor them, help them so we put pressure on the regime and bring this to an end," Cameron added.
US keeps ‘all options’ open
In the US, there has been much speculation about the Obama administration’s next move, with several members of Congress calling for greater American involvement in the Syrian conflict. However, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Washington D.C., Philip Crowther, said that White House officials have insisted that intelligence assessments alone are not enough to warrant a military response.
“The White House says it has intelligence… but wants definitive corroborated evidence,” said Crowther.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, White House spokesperson Jay Carney said, “I’m not going to set a timeline, because the facts need to be what drives this investigation, not a deadline. We are continuing to work to build on the assessments made by the intelligence community, that the degrees of confidence here are varying, that this is not an airtight case.”
Thus far, the US has endeavored to avoid military involvement in Syria, providing only non-lethal aid to opposition forces fighting against Assad’s regime. Carney stressed that Obama was considering a range of options if it were determined chemical weapons had been used in Syria, including, but not only, a military response.
Pressure for strong US response
Yet some lawmakers, such as Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, have insisted that the intelligence assessment demanded a strong, US response.
“The president of the United States said that if Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, it would be a game changer, that it would cross a red line,” McCain said. “I think it’s pretty obvious that red line has been crossed.”
Meanwhile, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, voiced her concern that the US’s highly public acknowledgement of its intelligence assessment could embolden Assad, prompting him to calculate “he has nothing more to lose.”
“Syria has the ability to kill tens of thousands with its chemical weapons. The world must come together to prevent this by unified action,” she said.
Other leading congressional voices, however, urged a more tempered response following a brief by Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday.
“This is not Libya,” said Nancy Pelosi, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives. “The Syrians have anti-aircraft capability that make going in there much more challenging.
US economy growth rate misses expectations
- Saturday, 27 April 2013 01:52
- hatef mokhtar
- Hits: 105
US economic growth gained speed to an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, but not enough to meet forecasts made by economists.
The Commerce Department said on Friday that gross domestic product (GDP)Â expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate, after growth nearly stalled at 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter.
However, the increase missed economists' expectations for a three percent growth pace.
"It wasn't the bang-up start to the year we had hoped for, and the signals from March suggested that we will only decelerate from here into the spring trimester," said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Economics in Toronto.
Part of the acceleration in activity reflected farmers' filling up silos after a drought last summer decimated crop output. Removing inventories, the growth rate was a tepid 1.5 percent.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, increased at a 3.2 percent pace - the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2010. It grew at a 1.8 percent rate in the fourth quarter of last year.
However, households cut back on saving to fund their purchases after incomes dropped at a 5.3 percent rate in the first quarter. The drop in income was the largest since the third quarter of 2009.
The saving rate fell to 2.6 percent, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2007, from 4.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Monetary stimulus
The GDP report could give ammunition for the Federal Reserve to maintain its monetary stimulus.
The US central bank, which meets next week, is widely expected to keep purchasing bonds at a pace of $85bn a month.
Although government spending, which fell to a 4.1 percent annual rate, tax increases and federal budget cuts could slow growth later this year.
Data ranging from employment to retail sales and manufacturing weakened substantially in March after robust gains in the first two months of the year. There are indications the weakness persisted into April.
The GDP report showed contributions to growth from all areas of the economy, with the exception of government, trade and investment by businesses in offices and other commercial buildings.
Homebuilding growth
Much of the gains in first-quarter spending came from car purchases and outlays for utilities, which were boosted by unusually cold temperatures.
Consumers managed to step up their spending despite the return of a two percent payroll tax and higher petrol prices.
Despite the spike in petrol prices, inflation pressures were benign in the first three months of the year.
An inflation gauge in the government's GDP report rose at a 0.9 percent rate, the smallest increase since the second quarter of 2012. The personal consumption expenditure index had increased at a 1.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter.
Business spending on equipment and software slowed sharply, growing at an only three percent rate after a brisk 11.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.
Homebuilding marked an eighth straight quarter of growth, though the pace moderated from the fourth quarter.US economic growth gained speed to an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter, but not enough to meet forecasts made by economists.
The Commerce Department said on Friday that gross domestic product (GDP)Â expanded at a 2.5 percent annual rate, after growth nearly stalled at 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter.
However, the increase missed economists' expectations for a three percent growth pace.
"It wasn't the bang-up start to the year we had hoped for, and the signals from March suggested that we will only decelerate from here into the spring trimester," said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Economics in Toronto.
Part of the acceleration in activity reflected farmers' filling up silos after a drought last summer decimated crop output. Removing inventories, the growth rate was a tepid 1.5 percent.
Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, increased at a 3.2 percent pace - the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2010. It grew at a 1.8 percent rate in the fourth quarter of last year.
However, households cut back on saving to fund their purchases after incomes dropped at a 5.3 percent rate in the first quarter. The drop in income was the largest since the third quarter of 2009.
The saving rate fell to 2.6 percent, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2007, from 4.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Monetary stimulus
The GDP report could give ammunition for the Federal Reserve to maintain its monetary stimulus.
The US central bank, which meets next week, is widely expected to keep purchasing bonds at a pace of $85bn a month.
Although government spending, which fell to a 4.1 percent annual rate, tax increases and federal budget cuts could slow growth later this year.
Data ranging from employment to retail sales and manufacturing weakened substantially in March after robust gains in the first two months of the year. There are indications the weakness persisted into April.
The GDP report showed contributions to growth from all areas of the economy, with the exception of government, trade and investment by businesses in offices and other commercial buildings.
Homebuilding growth
Much of the gains in first-quarter spending came from car purchases and outlays for utilities, which were boosted by unusually cold temperatures.
Consumers managed to step up their spending despite the return of a two percent payroll tax and higher petrol prices.
Despite the spike in petrol prices, inflation pressures were benign in the first three months of the year.
An inflation gauge in the government's GDP report rose at a 0.9 percent rate, the smallest increase since the second quarter of 2012. The personal consumption expenditure index had increased at a 1.6 percent pace in the fourth quarter.
Business spending on equipment and software slowed sharply, growing at an only three percent rate after a brisk 11.8 percent pace in the fourth quarter.
Homebuilding marked an eighth straight quarter of growth, though the pace moderated from the fourth quarter.
Guantanamo Bay and Indefinite Detention - Hunger Strike Continues
- Friday, 26 April 2013 21:07
- administrator
- Hits: 105
Â
(New York) – More prisoners have joined a hunger strike at the US-run detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, bringing the reported total to 93 out of 166 held at the facility, according to media reports. Lawyers for the detainees claim that the actual number is higher.
Norwegian
