Indians Face Off vs. Police with Bows and Arrows Before Brazil Congress

BRASILIA – Dozens of Indians protesting against a bill proposing to alter the regulations for marking their reservations faced off against police, whom they attacked with bows and arrows, in front of the Brazilian Congress on Tuesday.

The Indians, with painted faces and festooned with feathers tried to enter the legislative headquarters but were kept back by a police cordon, resulting in several incidents that concluded without any injuries, despite the fact that the demonstrators began to use the bows and arrows they were carrying.

One of the arrows fired by the Indians hit a police officer’s shoe and split the sole, but he was not injured.

The bill that sparked the protest has been pending since 2000 in the lower house of Congress and, after being shelved for almost 12 years, it was dusted off two years ago and approved in several legislative committees.

Its most controversial aspect proposes that authority to mark new indigenous lands, which currently resides with the executive branch, would pass to Congress.

The Indians oppose that move and say that it would give more power to the large landowners and mining, lumber and other firms that operate in the Amazon region, where most of the country’s Indian reservations are located.

Those businessmen maintain tight links with lawmakers of the so-called “rural bench,” a group comprised of upper and lower house members from different parties who defend in Congress the interests of the country’s large landowners.

UFO - MOJAVE, Calif. escorted by police ? Video

Iran: Female political prisoner transferred to harsh condition prison

NCRI - The authorities in Tehran’s Evin prison have transferred a female political prisoner to a prison known for its life-threatening conditions after she protested the appalling conditions at Evin’s women’s section.

Mrs. Hakimeh Shekari has been among the Mothers of Laleh Park (Mourning Mothers), a group of Iranian women whose spouses or children were killed by government agents and held protests in Laleh Park in Tehran demanding accountability for the death, arrests and disappearances of their children.

On numerous occasions Mourning Mothers were arrested by security agents at Laleh Park. They were chased down by the police, piled into the back of police vans and carted off to prison.

Mrs. Shekari was first arrested on December 7, 2010 while attending a memorial ceremony for an anti-regime protester killed in 2009 and she was imprisoned in section 209 of Evin prison for two months after being released on bail.

She was sentenced to three years in prison by a Revolutionary Court on April 11, 2012 on the charges of “propaganda against the system” and “acting against national security”.

Located in the outskirts of Tehran, Qarchak prison has been described as hell on earth, where inmates have expressed they would rather be executed than live in those conditions.

Pakistan Police: Taliban attack school, all gunmen killed

 16 December 2014

A bloody Taliban raid on an army-run school in northwest Pakistan has ended, police said Tuesday, with all six attackers dead.

The assault on the school in the city of Peshawar killed at least 130 people, most of them students, according to officials.

Earlier, the health minister for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the restive northwestern province where the attack took place, said two other teachers were among the dead, according to AFP.

Sharif Khan, a doctor at the Lady Reading Hospital in the city of Peshawar, where the attack is still under way, said they had received the bodies. A senior police official confirmed the toll.

A Reuters journalist at the scene could hear heavy gunfire from inside the school as soldiers surrounded it. Ambulances were transporting wounded children to hospital.

"We were standing outside the school and firing suddenly started and there was chaos everywhere and the screams of children and teachers," said Jamshed Khan, a school bus driver.

Military officials said at least six armed men had entered the military-run Army Public School. About 500 students and teachers were believed to be inside. 

"Our suicide bombers have entered the school, they have instructions not to harm the children, but to target the army personnel," Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani told Reuters.

Revenge

Explaining the reason behind the attack, the Taliban said it was a revenge for the Pakistani military targeting their own families, a spokesman said.

“We selected the army's school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani.

“We want them to feel the pain.”

Following the tragic event, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called the school massacre a “national tragedy” and said he was heading to Peshawar. 

RWB: Sixty-Six Journalists Killed this year

The Paris-based press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) says a total of 66 journalists have been killed while performing their duties across the world this year.

According to the report released Tuesday, Syria, where 15 journalists have been murdered, remains the most dangerous country to work in for the second year in a row.

Seven reporters died when covering events during the Middle East conflict, while six others were killed in Ukraine and four each in Iraq and Libya.

In its annual report the group says 66 reporters have been killed in connection to their work over the past year, down 7 percent on 2013.

In India in May this year, a journalist, Tarun Kumar Acharya, was killed and in Pakistan two journalists -- Irashad Mastoi and Abdul Rasool -- met a similar fate in August, the report added.

Meanwhile, the number of those kidnapped during journalistic activities has been on the rise. A total of 119 reporters were abducted this year around the world, with most cases reported in Ukraine (33), followed by Libya (29), Syria (27) and Iraq (20).

This figure is 37 percent higher than last year, when a total of 87 journalists were abducted.

The report says 178 journalists have been sentenced in 2014 due to their professional activities. A total of 29 reporters are serving jail terms in China, 28 in Eritrea, 19 in Iran, 16 in Egypt and 13 in Syria.

Struan Stevenson condemns abuses in Iran and Iraq

The president of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA) condemned Iran's meddling in Iraq and widespread abuses of human rights in both countries.

Struan Stevenson criticised the US for appeasing the Iranian regime over its human rights violations. And he praised Iranian Resistance leader Maryam Rajavi for her 'democratic and tolerant version of Islam' that can play a vital role in isolating the Iranian regime.

He told a conference to mark International Human Rights Day in Brussels: "Not every day is Human Rights Day in Iran and Iraq. For too long, the international community has remained silent towards human rights violations in Iraq and Iran.

"Maliki utilised the claim of fighting a war against terror to secure his grip on power and the West fell for it.

"When Maliki came to power, step by step his government distanced itself from Washington and got closer to Tehran. A clear indication of this was Maliki’s approach towards the main Iranian Opposition, members of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

"3500 PMOI members had lived in Iraq for almost 25 years. But from the first day after the fall of Saddam, Tehran had conspired to massacre their arch foe and to annihilate Ashraf and in Nouri al-Maliki they found a willing tool."

"The predictable outcome materialised in the form of six brutal massacres during the years 2009 to 2013. We warned the US, UN and EU again and again that these massacres would take place. But our cries fell on deaf ears."

He added: "The PMOI and Maryam Rajavi's democratic and tolerant version of Islam, can play a vital role in isolating the Iranian regime and its twisted Islamic Ideology inside Iran."

And he said of Iraq: "It has a dreadful human rights record and now is in third place after only China and neighbouring Iran in the number of people it executes. In spite of vast oil revenues, per capita income is only $1,000 per year, making it one of the world’s poorest countries.

"The situation for women in Iraq is dire. Women are subject to rape, attack and violence. Iraq has 5 million widows and 5 million orphans, but only 120,000 receive state aid.

"The world now looks to Haider al-Abadi to take control and restore order inside Iraq. He must purge the army of Iranian mercenaries and all those that Maliki recruited under his sectarian policy, restoring patriotic officers and turning it into a professional and national army.

"The new Prime Minister should also disclose to the Iraqi people the names of those who carried out the executions, massacres, bombardment and rocket attacks against innocent people and those responsible for poverty and state corruption; all should be held accountable in the courts. He must re-establish the independence of the Judiciary, dismissing those who have turned Iraq’s justice system into a political tool wielded by Maliki. He must also arrest and hold to account the perpetrators of the six massacres at Camps Ashraf and Liberty."

Mexican Jihad's join war?

Jihadism experts said the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that a man of Mexican nationality joined the ranks of the Islamic State, his nom de guerre Abu Hudaifa to be Meksiki (Mexican, Arabic).Few details have leaked the identity of Abu Hudaifa to Meksiki, whom even his true identity is unknown.

"All we can say is that is the only Mexican enrolled in the Islamic state or at least the only one whose trail we could follow," says El Mundo, daily Veryan Khan, editorial director of TRAC (Consortium of analysis and research on terrorism , for its acronym in English).

The Mexican jihadist is not the only foreigner among the ranks of the Islamic state, which according to reports this organization has more than 15,000 foreign fighters who have traveled have joined the jihad (holy war). It is estimated that at least 184 people from Spain or Latin America in the jihadist organization