India ( Student " Beaten to death " because of his appearance )

NEW DELHI: The beating and subsequent death in New Delhi of a university student from India’s remote northeast has sparked a furious outcry against racism and criticism of police in the Indian capital.
Several hundred people protested outside a Delhi police station Saturday, shouting demands for justice against what they called a hate crime. The capital’s newly elected chief minister asked that a magistrate investigate the incident as well as the police response.
Police detained two shopkeepers and launched a murder investigation Friday night, after being criticized for doing little following Wednesday’s altercation.
“We are questioning several people in the case,” said Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat.
Officials said 20-year-old Nido Tania had been on vacation from his studies in Jalandhar, Punjab, when he was beaten by New Delhi shopkeepers who had ridiculed his appearance. Many indigenous people from India’s northeast, some ethnically closer to people in Myanmar and China, often say they encounter racism and discrimination in the rest of India.
Tania died in his bed on Thursday morning. An autopsy was being conducted to determine a cause of death.


 Tania was the son of a member of the Arunachal Pradesh state assembly from the nationally ruling Congress Party. The Home Ministry also asked police for a detailed report.
Hundreds of students held demonstrations in front of a police station and near the shop where Tania was beaten in the south Delhi neighborhood of Lajpat Nagar. They carried placards with slogans including “Hang the culprits,” and “Why are we treated like outsiders?“
“This was a racist hate crime,” said Albina Subba, an advertising writer originally from the northeast Himalayan town of Darjeeling. “Our community is often targeted like this. ... We look different, so it’s easy for people to see we’re not from Delhi.”
She added: “We have little faith in the Delhi police, but this time we want them to take action.”
A Facebook page titled “Justice for Nido Tania” had received support from more than 16,700 people by Saturday afternoon.
“There is no place for elements trying to spread hatred against people belonging to any particular part of the country,” Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a statement.
Kejriwal’s upstart Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, said that the brazenness of the public beating proved that the city’s law enforcement was failing its citizens. The party has been lambasting Delhi police force, which reports to the federal government, since almost immediately after last month’s election victory.

BANGKOK ( Gunfire rang out at a major intersection Thailand’s capital )

BANGKOK: Gunfire rang out at a major intersection Thailand’s capital on Saturday as clashes between protesters and government supporters erupted on the eve of tense nationwide elections. At least seven people were wounded, including an American photojournalist.
The confrontation began after a group of pro-government supporters marched to a district office in northern Bangkok containing ballot boxes that had been surrounded by protesters who have been trying to derail the vote.



The two sides clashed first with rocks and firecrackers, then with pistols and assault rifles. One group of men carrying huge sticks smashed the windshields of a car carrying protesters that sped away. People caught up in the mayhem took refuge inside a nearby shopping mall and ducked on a pedestrian bridge. Some crouched behind vehicles.
According to the city’s emergency services, at least six Thais were wounded, including a reporter for the local Daily News newspaper. An American photojournalist, James Nachtwey, was shot in the leg, according to Associated Press staff on the scene.
The violence came one day ahead of a highly unusual ballot that has little to do with the traditional contests between rival candidates vying for office. Instead, the vote is shaping up as a battle of wills between protesters and the government — and those caught in between who insist on their civil rights.
On the one side are demonstrators who say they want to suspend the country’s fragile democracy to institute anti-corruption reforms, and on the other, forces supporting Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and civilians who know the election will do little to solve the nation’s crisis but insist the right to vote should not be taken away.
“How did we get to this point?” asked Chanida Pakdeebanchasak, a 28-year-old Bangkok resident who was determined to cast her ballot Sunday no matter what happens. “Since when does going to vote mean you don’t love the country?“
The protesters, a minority that cannot win power at the polls, are demanding the government be replaced by an unelected council that would implement political and electoral reforms to combat deep-seated problems of corruption and money politics. Yingluck has refused to step down, arguing she is open to reform and such a council would be unconstitutional.
The crisis — which has killed 10 people and wounded nearly 600 since November — has almost completely overshadowed campaigning. Instead of stump speeches and electrified rallies for candidates hoping to take office, Thailand’s muted capital has been gripped by a palpable sense of dread and uncertainty over whether demonstrators will physically block voters from getting inside polling centers.
Campaign posters bearing Yingluck’s images have been ripped apart and punched through, defaced with a blunt message for her beleaguered government: “Get Out.”
Although unrest already hit Bangkok and polling stations may not open in some parts of the south if ballot materials don’t arrive in time, voting is expected to proceed smoothly in most of the country.
Police said they will deploy 100,000 officers nationwide, while the army is putting 5,000 soldiers in Bangkok to boost security. More than 47 million people are registered to vote.
Whatever happens, the outcome of Sunday’s election will almost certainly be inconclusive. Because protesters have already blocked candidate registration in some districts, Parliament will not have enough members to convene. That means Yingluck will be unable to form a government or even pass a budget, and Thailand will be stuck in political limbo for months as by-elections are run in constituencies that were unable to vote.
A power vacuum may entice the military to step in and declare a coup as it did in 2006, when Yingluck’s elder brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, was deposed. Thaksin lives in exile but has remained a central — and highly polarizing — figure in Thailand’s political strife ever since. The rural majority in the north adore him for his populist policies, such as virtually free health care, while Bangkok’s elite and many in the south consider him and his family a corrupting influence on the country. Protesters say Yingluck is a puppet of her billionaire brother.
Another possibility is what is being called a “judicial coup.” Analysts say the courts and the country’s independent oversight agencies all tilt heavily against the Shinawatras’ political machine, and Yingluck’s opponents are already studying legal justifications to nullify Sunday’s vote.
“I think probably we are moving toward a judicial coup of some sort,” said Chris Baker, a Bangkok-based political analyst and writer. “I think we are moving toward a position in which some part of the judicial machinery, be it the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Constitutional Court, some combination of this, will somehow bring down this government.”
The protests began in earnest late last year after the ruling party tried to push through an amnesty bill that would have allowed Thaksin to return from exile.
Desperate to defuse the crisis, Yingluck dissolved the lower house of Parliament in December and called new elections. But protests only intensified, and Yingluck — now a caretaker prime minister with limited powers — has found herself increasingly cornered. Thai courts have begun fast-tracking cases that could see Yingluck or her party banished from power, and the army has pointedly left open the possibility of intervening again if the crisis is not resolved peacefully.
Protesters have occupied half a dozen major intersections in Bangkok, barricading roads and forcing government ministries to shut down or work from backup offices.
Last week, demonstrators chained polling stations shut and stopped hundreds of thousands of people from casting advance ballots, sparking violence that left one protester dead.
This time around, the Election Commission has signaled its intention to cancel balloting in eight southern provinces — a stronghold of the protesters who surrounded post offices there to prevent electoral materials from being delivered.
“There’s no point casting your ballot when the people who will get to Parliament are the same old crooks,” said Wanida Srithongphan, a 43-year-old protester from southern Thailand. “It’s a waste of money.”
___
Associated Press journalists Papitchaya Boonngok, Hau Dinh, Thanyarat Doksone, Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul, Andi Jatmiko, Wally Santana and Jinda Wedel contributed to this report

Ukraine ( Activist found " crucified " and ear cut off ) Sick

KIEV: A leading Ukrainian opposition activist who vanished for eight days emerged bloodied and badly beaten on Friday, saying his captors cut off an ear and drove nails through his hands before dumping him in a forest.
Dmytro Bulatov, a 35-year-old member of the opposition movement involved in street protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, appeared with his face swollen and caked in blood on Ukrainian television after going missing from Kiev on Jan. 22.


Speaking slowly and visibly shaken by his experience, Bulatov said his unknown captors blindfolded and abused him before dumping him in a forest outside the Ukrainian capital, from where he was able to make his way to a nearby village.
“My hands ... they crucified me, nailed me, cut my ear off, cut my face,” Bulatov told Ukraine’s Channel 5 television, still wearing his blood-soaked clothes and pointing to holes on his palms. “Thank God I am alive.”
“I can’t see well now, because I sat in darkness the whole time,” he said, adding that he was unable to see his captors.
Bulatov’s account drew immediate international condemnation, with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton warning Ukrainian authorities that targeting activists “must immediately be stopped.”
“I’m appalled by the obvious signs of prolonged torture and cruel treatment” of Bulatov, she said in a statement, calling it another incident in the “continuous deliberate targeting of organizers and participants in peaceful protests.”
Amnesty International said the “barbaric act” must be investigated, adding that it is only one of several cases of similar disappearances.
The United Nations’ human rights office on Friday also called on Ukraine to launch an independent probe into deaths, kidnappings and torture amid the raging political unrest.
The US Embassy in Kiev posted a picture of Bulatov with a blackened gash on his cheek and said that “the government of Ukraine must take full responsibility for the timely investigation, capture, and prosecution of those responsible for this heinous crime.”
It further voiced concern over reports of 27 more missing activists, in a statement posted on its official Facebook page.
Ukraine’s UDAR (Punch) opposition party leader and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko said Bulatov was tortured “to scare those who disagree with the regime, to show that it can happen to anyone.”
“What they did with Dmytro is an attempt to frighten all citizens,” Klitschko was quoted by his party as saying.
In a video of Bulatov made by fellow activist Oleksiy Grytsenko, he said that despite the atrocious torture, he would keep protesting. “They won’t scare us,” he said.
Police questioned Bulatov’s friends and said Friday that a probe has been launched into the abduction, but complained that the victim was not helping the investigation.
“Unknown individuals hit him on the head with a blunt object and stuffed him into a car” on Jan. 22, the interior ministry said.
On the ministry’s database of wanted persons, Bulatov was listed as on the run from police and subject for arrest on charge of “mass riots.”
Ukraine’s deputy chief investigator Oleg Tatarov complained at a briefing that Bulatov’s friends took him for medical treatment instead of calling police to the scene right away.
“Nobody wants to give information, nobody wants to cooperate,” he said.
Tatarov suggested that the abduction “could have been staged with the goal of provoking a negative reaction from the public.”
Bulatov’s disappearance came as the two-month protests in Ukraine escalated into deadly clashes with police. It caused great concern because it followed similar cases of apparent abductions of prominent activists from the opposition protests in central Kiev.
One of the activists, Yuriy Verbytsky, was found dead in a forest while another, Igor Lutsenko, survived a severe beating and was hospitalized.
Bulatov is a leading member of Avtomaidan, a loose group of drivers who have held protest motorcades near Yanukovych’s sprawling country estate in Mezhygirya outside Kiev and were instrumental in organizing the protests in Kiev.
This month, its members have come under immense pressure from the authorities and some have gone into hiding or left the country.
Ukraine’s protests erupted in November after Yanukovych scrapped an integration deal with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Kiev’s historical master Moscow.

Brazil ( Police " Shoot Indians over land " 60 cops arrive massacre continues )

Brazilian Police Shoot at Indians, Church Says

RIO DE JANEIRO – A contingent of Brazilian Federal Police fired shots at the Indian residents of a community in the northeastern state of Bahia, the Catholic Church’s Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) said on Wednesday.

The violence took place after a protest by members of the Tupinamba tribe against the installation of a Federal Police outpost on the Sempre Vinca plantation, land that the Indians claim as their own, a CIMI spokesperson told Efe.

Brazil’s Indian affairs agency, FUNAI, said in 2009 that the site of the prospective police base is “traditional indigenous territory.”

But FUNAI has yet to officially demarcate the extent of the Tupinamba lands, which means the tribe cannot secure official recognition of its rights over the territory, CIMI said in a statement.

The violence at Sempre Vinca, which began after midnight Tuesday, represents “the return of the dictatorship in Brazil,” the principal of the local Indian school, Magnolia Jesus da Silva, told Efe.

“Twenty-five men fired their guns and hurled grenades until 4:00 in the morning,” she said. “Today, 60 more police are arriving to continue with the massacre.”

Mexico ( 16 yr old Girl " Pizza delivery driver " executed ) Suspects wanted

A teenage girl just 16 years old, was found dead with evidence of having been executed, had feet and hands tied.


The incident occurred in Ebony, agents of the State Ministerial Police investigations have already begun to try to catch the person or persons responsible. The victim worked as a pizza delivery business "Bandini's", was identified as Rafael.

The body was found yesterday afternoon in a vacant lot The Tulillo community, some peasants who discovered the body and immediately proceeded to give notice to the competent authorities

Read more: http://www.elblogdelnarco.net/search?updated-max=2014-01-30T06:50:00-08:00&max-results=6#ixzz2rzeqt3Tt
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Africa ( Christian extremist group " kill man and remove his ears " ) Christian neighborhood

BANGUI, Central African Republic: Rudimentary weapons taken from Christian extremist militias by French troops in the capital of the Central African Republic were piled up on the ground, near the body of a young man whose ears were ripped off.
“He was a Muslim from here, named Abaka. They killed him in the courtyard of his house,” a Christian neighbor, Benjamin, told AFP.
“They” referred to “anti-balaka” (anti-machete) vigilantes who fiercely target Muslims in Bangui on the pretext of hunting down ex-rebels from the Seleka coalition.
Sporadic shots could be heard Thursday around the PK-5 business hub of the capital, where numerous Muslim-owned shops attract looters and anti-balaka forces, who are kept at bay by armed Muslims and remaining Seleka forces.
But night and day, residents from the Muslim minority, like Abaka, are cut down by anti-balaka forces armed with machetes, hammers, slings and spades.
“We need to cover the body,” said a soldier of France’s Operation Sangaris, consisting of 1,600 troops who work alongside an African Union peacekeeping force currently 5,500 strong. About 20 French soldiers sought to prevent scores of people from looting the property of the murdered Muslim.
But several looters were already busy.
“Don’t come close, stay where you are and back off,” a soldier yelled at a youth, but when the soldier stepped just three meters away, the looter came past, carrying a wooden door, while another followed with a hosepipe.
Though few in number, the soldiers were holding dozens of youths at bay, half-hidden by tall grass behind the dead Muslim’s property. It was impossible to tell whether they were anti-balaka forces, would-be looters or hooligans.
“This isn’t normal,” Benjamin protested. “Sangaris wants to stop us from looting!“
By the roadside, the owner of a shop named “L’Arche de Noe” (“Noah’s Ark“) took advantage of a few moments’ peace to shut up his premises with a padlock, but the curious kept gathering in their hundreds.
“We won’t tell you ten times,” a soldier warned the new arrivals. “Get over to the other side of the road.”
Coming from the airport zone, where the French troops and the AU’s MISCA force are based, an African military ambulance sped by with a wailing siren. Warning shots rang out as French soldiers fired over the heads of the crowd.
A score of French troops backed up by two armored vehicles on Thursday threatened looters in the Yangato district near the airport with the use of force unless they departed.
“Disperse or we will use force against you,” the platoon commander announced by megaphone to a crowd seeking to pillage Muslim property. “Any man who commits extortion is an enemy of the peace.”
The threat was affective, though determined looters lingered, waiting for the French troops to leave.
Inter-religious violence has claimed thousands of lives and displaced a million people in the population of 4.6 million, yet such clashes are unprecedented in the poor, landlocked country.
They erupted when former strongman Michel Djotodia, brought to power by Seleka forces in March last year, proved incapable of reining in his fighters, whose atrocities against Christians prompted the emergence of the anti-balaka and a spiral of violence and hatred.
In one district lay the body of a young Christian, killed according to local people because anti-balaka fighters mistook him for a Muslim.

“He looked like a Muslim with his curly hair and prayer beads around his wrist,” witness Victor said. The dead man’s legs, sticking out from under the cloth that covered him, were deeply cut above the ankles, “to make the blood flow faster,” according to one commentator.
“This can’t go on. Things are getting out of hand. It must stop,” Victor said softly.
The wife of the victim and one of his sisters were weeping. “I told him not to go out,” cried the bereaved spouse, throwing her arms up to heaven. Relatives and neighbors put the body on a cart and embarked on a slow funereal procession.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported Thursday that in Bangui, “our teams are treating large numbers of people for injuries that are the result of extreme violence including maimings from attacks and lynchings.”
“Last week we treated 200 people... for violence-related injuries, 90 of whom needed lifesaving surgery, MSF said in a statement, adding that it planned to extend its medical and humanitarian work into the interior, “where our emergency teams report that some villages remain deserted and people are terrorized.”
The new interim president, Catherine Samba Panza, has appealed for hundreds more troops and a full United Nations “peacekeeping operation.”
The UN Security Council responded on Tuesday with a resolution giving a planned European Union contingent of 600 men a mandate to use “all necessary force,” while also authorizing an asset freeze and travel bans on the ringleaders of groups blamed for atrocities.

JAPAN ( Naked man on train " Who's photos went viral on twitter " found guilty ) Gets 6 months in jail

KANAZAWA —

A man arrested for public indecency after he stripped naked and took photos of himself on a JR train in Kanazawa last September was found guilty and given a suspended sentence.
According to the Kanazawa District Court, Masatoshi Komai, 22, who runs a restaurant in Takaoka City, Toyama Prefecture, undressed on a train bound for Kanazawa and took some photos of himself during the brief stop at Kanazawa Station. The photos went viral on Twitter.
Komai told the court he did it as a prank for his friends, NTV reported.
The presiding judge said: “It was a shameless act and there can be no extenuating circumstances, even if it was a ridiculous prank. It also affected the train service.”
However, the judge noted that Komai had shown remorse and sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for three years.