Grave Marker of Hillary Clinton’s Father Toppled in Possible Vandalism

WASHINGTON – The gravestone of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s father, Hugh Rodham, was found to be toppled Wednesday in a cemetery in Pennsylvania, a possible case of vandalism that police are investigating.

Scranton police chief Carl Graziano told the local press that someone at the cemetery reported that the marker was tipped over Tuesday, saying that possibly vandals had disturbed it and adding that he is “not sure how else it would have fallen over.”

Rodham, was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, owned a small textile business and was buried there in 1993 after dying of a heart attack in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Paul McGloin, a caretaker at the Washburn Street Cemetery, told local media that he hoped the incident had nothing to do with politics.

The gravestone had been pushed over from its original position but was apparently otherwise undamaged, with no graffiti or anything else on it, authorities said.

Clinton, a former first lady and New York senator, in addition to serving as secretary of state, announced last Sunday that she was running for president for the second time, after being defeated for the Democratic nomination by Barack Obama in 2008.

Iran’s teachers protest gatherings are picking up momentum

As some 1300 teachers in the capital Tehran stated a demonstration in front to the parliament and other sited in Tehran, teachers in Hamadan, Central Iran, also gathered to demand their rights. When the demonstration was first formed, the number of protesters was 200, but as the time went by, the number grew and is reported that is growing by hour. 
In the cities of Sari, Ahwaz, Sanandaj, Mashhad and Meshkin-Shahr similar protests have been reported. Teachers are gathering at every opportunity to express their grievances condemning repressive policies in schools and plundering programs and procedures by the government agencies and offices.

Maryam Rajavi hails protesting Iranian teachers and urges expansion of support for them

NCRI - Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, hailed the teachers, workers and toilers who have risen in various parts of the country for their rights and to protest against discrimination, corruption and oppressive measures by the mullahs’ regime. She called on the people, especially the youth and students, to expand the protests and express solidarity with the teachers.

Teachers’ protest movement, ongoing since last year, swelled on Thursday, April 16, in Tehran and most provinces, including Fars, Mazandaran, Esfahan, Eastern and Western Azerbaijan, Ardebil, Central, Kurdistan, Zanjan, Yazd, Alborz, Khorasan Razavi, Southern Khorasan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Lorestan, Ilam, Kerman, Kermanshah, Qazvin, Khuzestan and Hamedan. Teachers demanded the annulment of judicial sentences and the release of the imprisoned teachers, increase in wages, ending discrimination, and improvement of the educational environment.

Protestors were carrying placards that some of them read: “Imprisoned teacher must be freed”, “improvement of livelihood is our absolute right”, “equality is our absolute right”, “our silence is louder than outcry”, and “criticizing forbidden – embezzlement permitted”.

In Kerman the protestors put on shrouds to portray the condition of teachers while in some cities the teachers chanted slogans against the Education Minister of Rouhani.
Mrs. Rajavi said: While teachers are struggling with severe poverty, the riches of the Iranian people is either spent on unpatriotic projects of export of fundamentalism and terrorism, production of the nuclear bomb, beefing up the suppression machine, the revolutionary guards, and the terrorist Qods Force, or is plundered by the leaders of this regime and their families.

The official budget of the military, suppressive and export-of-terrorism organs is three fold that of the education with around one million teachers and 13 million students. Beside the official budget, billions of dollars is placed at the disposal of the revolutionary guards and the mullahs’ intelligence by Khamenei or through the vast economic resources that these organs control with no supervision over them.

Mrs. Rajavi added: As long as the clerical regime is in power in Iran, poverty, unemployment, inflation and high prices that hurt the people in general and teachers and workers in particular, shall only get worse. Only the overthrow of this anti-human regime by the people and the Iranian Resistance and the establishment of democracy will bring this great catastrophe to an end.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 16, 2015

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UN Urges Sierra Leone to Let Pregnant Students Return to School

NAIROBI – The United Nations requested on Wednesday that Sierra Leone, the country most affected by the recent Ebola outbreak, allow pregnant women to resume their studies, as the schools closed due to the epidemic were recently reopened.

“The United Nations wants to remind the Sierra Leonean government that education is a fundamental human right, in which Sierra Leone is committed to respecting,” a UN statement declared.

Although the Education Act of the African country enshrines the principle of non-discrimination, the government issued an order preventing pregnant students from entering schools, which reopened their doors on Tuesday.

The UN implored authorities to put a stop to discrimination against pregnant adolescents, in accordance with international treaties, while also demanding that the country develop educational programs especially for pregnant students.

“Schools should be accessible without any discrimination and with affordable prices,” the statement issued from the UN headquarters in Sierra Leone added.

The UN also offered assistance to ensure the right to education for all Sierra Leonean youth, pregnant or not.

Around 1.8 million students in Sierra Leone returned to school after an eight-month delay.

Ebola has caused 10,600 deaths, 3,831 of which were in Sierra Leone, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization.