India ( India has ordered the closure of a Coca-Cola plant )

LUCKNOW: Authorities in northern India have ordered the closure of a Coca-Cola plant at the center of protests that it is extracting too much groundwater, an official said.
An anti-pollution official said the Mehdiganj plant in Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh had breached the conditions of its operating licence, prompting the order closure earler this month.
“The plant is closed following our orders,” Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board member secretary J.S. Yadav told AFP.
“They have also been asked to take suitable measures to recharge the depleting groundwater level by twice the amount they have extracted.
“Also, the effluents released by the plant contain pollutants beyond the permissible limits.”
The plant was also asked to produce a permission certificate from a government agency that regulates ground water use, Yadav said.
The company has appealed the closure order to India’s environment court, the National Green Tribunal, he said.
Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soft-drinks maker which has consistently denied the allegations, could not immediately be contacted for comment. 
The Indian unit of the company hit a hurdle earlier this year when local authorities said they would demolish the Varanasi plant, claiming it was built on village council land and was “illegal.”
The authorities also imposed a 126,000 rupee ($2,000) fine on Hindustan Coca-Cola Company Private Limited, over the land issue.
India is one of Coke’s fastest-growing markets thanks to an expanding middle class.

Syria ( Syria has freed after 21 years in jail an ex-horse rider )

BEIRUT: Syria has freed after 21 years in jail an ex-horse rider known to have been an equestrian rival of one of President Bashar Assad’s late brothers, reports said Sunday.
The release of Adnan Qassar is part of a wide-reaching amnesty that Assad decreed last week, and has seen some 1,500 people freed from the war-ravaged country’s prisons, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“In 1993, Adnan Qassar was one of the top horse riders in Syria and the Arab world. He won a horse race against Bassel Assad,” who at the time was being groomed for the presidency, said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
“Qassar was thrown in Saydnaya jail (near Damascus) for his ‘crime’,” said Abdel Rahman.
Aks Alser, a Syrian opposition activist website, also reported Qassar’s release, and said he had been accused of “possessing explosives, and of trying to assassinate Bassel Assad.”
Qassar was jailed “without trial,” it added.
A year later when Bassel Assad died in a traffic accident, “Qassar was dragged out of his cell to a public square, beaten and then thrown back in jail. It took them 21 years to release him,” said Abdel Rahman.
The Assad clan has ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than 40 years.
“Qassar was not a political activist. But in Syria, no one is allowed to be better at anything than the Assads,” Abdel Rahman said.
Qassar was set free as part of a wide-reaching general amnesty that President Assad decreed last week.
So far, some 1,500 people have been set free from jails across the country, most of them from Damascus, according to the Observatory.
The amnesty is unprecedented because it pledges pardon and reduce sentences for people jailed under Syria’s controversial 2012 anti-terror law, which has seen tens of thousands of people jailed over political charges.
The regime has systematically branded armed and unarmed dissidents, including journalists, of being “foreign-backed terrorists.”
“Some of those released so far are prisoners of conscience, others were in jail over criminal charges,” Abdel Rahman said.
The number of those released so far pales in comparison to the estimated total of 100,000 people imprisoned, including some 50,000 held in security buildings dotted across the country.
Rights groups say torture and ill-treatment are systematic in Syria’s jails.

Russian reporter killed in Ukraine fighting

KIEV: A Russian state television reporter was killed on Tuesday during a fierce battle in Ukraine’s separatist east that put Kiev’s tattered relations with Moscow under further strain.
The chief doctor at the main hospital in the rebel stronghold city of Lugansk said Russia’s VGTRK media group reporter Igor Kornelyuk sustained severe stomach wounds after being hit by shrapnel.
“He was unconscious when he arrived and died on his way to the operating room,” doctor Fedir Solyanyk told AFP by telephone.
A Lugansk separatist spokesman told AFP by telephone that Kornelyuk and VGTRK sound technician Anton Voloshin were caught in the middle of a grenade launcher attack staged by Ukranian forces in the Russian border region.
The separatist spokesman said the fate of Voloshin and that of about 15 rebel fighters who were with the Russian television crew at the time remained unclear.
Ukrainian security officials said they would comment only after conducting a full investigation.
But Russia’s Foreign Ministry immediately denounced the reporter’s death as a “crime” committed by Ukrainian forces that it expected global media to condemn.
Kornelyuk’s death is the second confirmed fatality of a reporter in eastern Ukraine since fighting there broke out in mid-April.
Italian photographer Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian assistant Andrei Mironov were killed outside Slavyansk in the neighboring Donetsk region in late May.

Pakistan ( Woman heads police post in largest Pakistan city )

KARACHI, Pakistan: Just days into her job running a police station in Pakistan’s largest city, Syeda Ghazala had to put her training to the test: she opened fire with her .22-caliber pistol at a man who shot at police when they tried to pull him over during a routine traffic stop.
It’s not clear whether it was Ghazala’s shots that wounded the man before he was arrested, but as the first woman to run a police station in Pakistan’s often violent port city of Karachi, she’ll likely have many more chances to hit her mark.

When Ghazala joined the police force two decades ago, she never dreamed that one day she would head a police station staffed by roughly 100 police officers — all men. Her recent promotion is part of efforts by the local police to increase the number of women in the force and in positions of authority. Shortly after she assumed her new job the city appointed a second woman to head another police station.
In a country where women have traditionally not worked outside the home and face widespread discrimination, the appointments represent a significant step for women’s empowerment.
“The mindset of people is changing gradually, and now they (have) started to consider women in leading roles. My husband opposed my decision to join the police force 20 years ago,” said the 44-year-old mother of four. But by the time this job rolled around, he had come full circle and encouraged her to go for it. “It was a big challenge. I was a little bit hesitant to accept it.”
The station house is in Clifton, a posh area home to the elite of this sprawling metropolis of more than 18 million people. But in a city prone to family feuds, political unrest and jihadist violence — where 166 officers were killed in the line of duty last year — it’s by no means an easy assignment. Crimes ranging from petty theft and muggings to terrorism or murder are all part of a day’s work, Ghazala says.
Running a station is a high-profile job in the Pakistani police, one that requires the officer to constantly interact with the public and fellow officers. It’s also a key path to advancement. Senior police officer Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, said he and others in the top brass hope Ghazala’s appointment leads to more women joining the force.
“Our society accepts only stereotype roles for women. There is a perception that women are suitable only for particular professions like teaching,” he said.
The police force is also training the first batch of female commandos, a group of 44 women going through a physically intensive course involving rappelling from towers or helicopters and shooting an assortment of weapons.
Currently, the two in Karachi are the only women running police stations in Pakistan. In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where women make up less than one percent of the roughly 75,000-member police force, women only run stations specifically designed to help female crime victims.
In the southeastern Baluchistan province, there are only 90 women on the police force and no women station heads. In Punjab province, only one woman has ever run a station house, back in 2005, but currently no women hold the position.
Ghazala said most people she has encountered in her new job have been supportive, and she’s become a bit of a celebrity in the neighborhood. She said during her career she’s only had a few instances where she’s felt discrimination. When she got the highest marks in a training course required for promotion, some of the men objected, saying that in Islam women couldn’t lead men.
But she said the commander simply told the men they should have gotten better grades.
“It was the only moment somebody objected to me as a woman,” she said. “Otherwise, all my career, fellow and senior officers encouraged me a lot.”
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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Zaheer Babar in Lahore and Rebecca Santana in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Mexico ( Mexican Rights Body Investigating Attacks on Reporters During March )

MEXICO CITY – The attacks on five journalists by unidentified individuals during a march marking a massacre anniversary in Mexico City are under investigation, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) said.

The incidents occurred last Tuesday, the CNDH said in a statement.

Young men attacked reporters covering a march to mark the 42nd anniversary of the “El Halconazo” massacre with stones and sticks, the CNDH said, citing media reports.

“The CNDH condemns such acts of violence, which violate the free practice of journalism and calls on authorities to investigate the incidents and impose the corresponding penalties on those responsible,” said the rights body, Mexico’s equivalent of an ombudsman’s office.

The reporters attacked during the protest were identified as Paris Martinez, of Animal Politico; Luis Castillo, who works for the daily Reforma; Leonardo Casas, who is with Agencia Quadratin; Nestor Negrete, a freelance journalist; and Marco Ugarte, of the Associated Press.

Ugarte “received a hard blow to the nose and left cheek for which he remains hospitalized,” the CNDH said.

Thousands of people, led by students and teachers, took to the streets of Mexico City last Tuesday to mark the 43rd anniversary of the “El Halconazo” massacre.

A group of self-proclaimed anarchists joined the march and threw fire bombs and stones at the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) headquarters.

National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) students took to the streets of Mexico City on June 10, 1971, to demand that President Luis Echeverria, who governed Mexico from 1970 to 1976, allow political freedom and democratize higher education.

The protest started peacefully but turned violent when “Los Halcones,” a paramilitary group, opened fire on demonstrators, killing at least 22 people and wounding around 50 others.

Several protesters were reported missing after the demonstration.

Riverside California ( 37 year old woman runs "Father over with car " drunk driving )

RIVERSIDE, California: Authorities in Southern California say a 69-year-old man who was trying to prevent his daughter from driving drunk was run over and killed by the woman in her driveway.
Riverside police Sgt. Dan Reeves said Saturday that 37-year-old Soukvilay Barton ignored her father’s pleas not to drive and backed her BMW convertible out of the garage, striking him.
Bounmy Rajsombath was rushed to a Riverside hospital, where he was pronounced dead Friday night.

Barton was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. Police say they don’t know if Barton has a lawyer, and a listed number for her couldn’t be located.
Witnesses say Barton had been drinking and arguing with family members. She stopped the car after seeing that her father was injured and sat sobbing before being taken into custody.

JERUSALEM ( 3 Teens kidnapped 1 U.S citizen - west bank area )

JERUSALEM: Three Israeli teenagers, one of them also a US citizen, have been kidnapped in the occupied West Bank, presumably by Palestinians, the army said on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held the Palestinian Authority responsible for their well-being, but Palestinians baulked at the idea they were to blame for the disappearance inside an Israeli-controlled area of the West Bank.
The abductions come as Israel piles pressure on a new Palestinian government, formed early last week under a reconciliation deal between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel foe Hamas.
The three, all students at a Jewish seminary, went missing late Thursday as they were hitchhiking between Bethlehem and Hebron.
“We believe that they have indeed been kidnapped by presumed Palestinians,” a senior officer told journalists, without giving further details on who was behind the abduction. He said the search is being carried out in coordination with security forces from the Palestinian Authority, and that “tens of Palestinians” have been arrested in the process.
He added that substantial reinforcements had been brought in, including special forces and an airborne brigade, to participate in the search around Hebron, in the southern West Bank.
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon was also on his way to the site of the disappearance to discuss the situation, army radio said.
Troops closed the main crossings into the Gaza Strip to prevent the teenagers from being smuggled into the territory. A rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel early Saturday without causing any casualties or damage, the army said.
In response, Israel carried out airstrikes on southern Gaza “hitting a site of terrorist activity and a weapons depot,” an army statement said.
Hamas said Apache gunships had fired on a training camp of its armed wing in Khan Yunis and empty ground in Rafah, on the Egyptian border, without causing any casualties.
Meanwhile, a seven-year-old Gaza boy wounded in an air raid on the northern Gaza Strip died on Saturday, a spokesman for the Palestinian health services said.
Ali Al-Awour was wounded in Wednesday’s strike targeting his uncle, Mohammed Al-Awour, who was killed. Another Palestinian man was wounded. Awour, 30, and the wounded man were traveling on a motorbike when they were attacked. The boy had been passing by on foot.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry Friday, and said he holds Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas responsible for the teenagers’ safety.
Kerry also telephoned Abbas, a Palestinian source said.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority’s security services, Gen. Adnan Al-Damiri, called Netanyahu’s suggestions “mad.”
Damiri said that the PA had no authority over the sprawling Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which is under full Israeli control.
“Even if there was an earthquake, Netanyahu would blame the Palestinian Authority,” he told AFP.
Another Palestinian official said the authority’s security services were “cooperating” with Israeli agencies to gather information on the teenagers’ disappearance.
A statement in Arabic attributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group claimed the kidnapping late on Friday.
The statement’s authenticity could not be verified, however, and it contained spelling errors.