Hundreds of residents flee Nigerian cities in fear of more violence - 26th Dec 2011

Hundreds of residents in two restive northern Nigerian cities have fled their homes, fearing more violence after a series of bombs swept the country, killing 40 people.

Damaturu, which was struck by two blasts on Sunday, killing three, has been at the centre of clashes between Islamists and authorities in recent days, and saw groups gathered at bus and taxi stations looking to leave.

Meanwhile in Potiskum, residents fled after arsonists set alight 30 Christian-owned shops as well as the home of a Christian leader, on Sunday night in what appeared to be the continuation of religious violence that peaked with the bombing of churches on Christmas Day.

"I can't stay here any longer," a man waiting at a bus stop in Potiskum told the Reuters news agency. "It's peaceful today, but it's no guarantee that in the next hours it will remain the same," the 31-year-old said. "People have been killed and it could be me next."

Police in Madalla, Jos and Damaturu – the three cities targeted in Sunday's bombings – ramped up their investigations on Monday.

Marilyn Ogar, a spokesman for the State Security Services would not confirm the number of arrests made in connection with the incidents, citing the sensitivity of the ongoing investigations. But she told the Daily Telegraph that police are "arresting as many people as possible" for questioning. Read More

Is the Arab Spring failing its people? - 26th Dec 2011

This time last year a match was lit by a fruit vendor in Tunis, which triggered uprisings throughout the region. Countries big, Egypt, and small, Tunisia, have witnessed wholesale change and the toppling of governments.

But at the one year mark, those on the ground here in the region are asking a simple question: Are we better off today than we were before the Arab Spring? People talk of a “The New Middle East” with a mixture of both optimism and despair, from Bahrain to Yemen.

Clearly the voice of the people has been heard and resonates on the streets of Cairo, for example, but unemployment is at a decade long high in Egypt, tourism is down officially by a quarter from a year ago and the Cairo Stock Exchange is the world’s worst performer of 2011.

“This country is literally and figuratively burning and we are approaching the threshold which it will become very hard to rebuild trust in the system,” says Mohamad Al-Ississ, a professor of economics at the American University of Cairo.

Al-Ississ is not optimistic the region’s most populous country can escape “financial Armageddon,” with the erosion of trust in the military. The window of time between now and presidential elections scheduled for late June is considered critical. Read More

Obama condemned for rewriting online gambling rules - and announcing it at Christmas so no one notices - Bet he got a huge Xmas Bonus though

A move by the government that clears the way for the legalisation of online poker and other gambling has been condemned as 'outrageous'.

A Justice Department opinion dated September - but only made public on Friday - reinterprets a decades-old policy which saw civil and criminal charges against operators of some of the most popular online poker sites.

It is a switch that could spur web-based gambling - and which critics fear will only deepen families' spiraling debts.

'I think the notion that the government - during these economic times - is working even harder to increase personal debt goes against the very purpose of what government is supposed to do,' Les Bernal, executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling, told MailOnline.

'Every home, dorm room and office in the country has a internet connection. Why is the government actively pushing for them to be able to gamble?' Read More

Man Stabbed To Death In Oxford Street - 26th Dec 2011

A man - believed to be in his late teens or early twenties - has been stabbed to death in Oxford Street, central London, police have said.

Most of Oxford Street has been closed in the wake of the attack, which took place at around 13.45 at the junction with Stratford Place, opposite Bond Street underground station.

The victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

The Metropolitan Police said a number of arrests had been made, but that enquiries were continuing.

Sky correspondent Ashish Joshi, who is on Oxford Street, said there were "dozens and dozens" of police officers stopping any pedestrians going near the crime scene.

"We think the stabbing happened outside the Foot Locker shop, but that cannot be confirmed," he said.

"At the moment it is pandemonium on the streets leading up to the West End and it is effectively gridlocked. Read More

Syrian Army 'Kills 20' As Arab League Arrives - 26th Dec 2011

A renewed military campaign in Syria has reportedly killed at least 20 people as an Arab League delegation arrives in the country to assess the ongoing crisis.

Heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells fired by government troops targeted the Baba Amr district of Homs, activists said.

It is the third day of violence following car bombs that rocked the capital Damascus which killed 44 people and wounded over 100 more.

YouTube videos purportedly filmed in Homs, show a number of tanks lined up opposite what appear to be residential homes, and firing randomly.

Activists have called for the Arab delegation to visit the city immediately in order to witness the continued crackdown, which has left more than 300 dead around the country in the last week alone.

France has led calls for the observers to head straight to Homs: "The Damascus authorities must imperatively, in accordance with the Arab League plan, allow observers access this afternoon to the city of Homs, where the violence is particularly bloody," spokesman Bernard Valero said

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also echoed the call of activists for the League to travel straight to the opposition city, particularly the "disaster-stricken" Baba Amr district.

"We urge the Arab observers to head immediately to Baba Amr to be witnesses to the crimes against humanity that are being perpetrated by the Syrian regime," the Observatory said in a statement. Read More

The militarisation of 'war on terror' in the US

The National Defence Authorisation Act continues the onward march of the 'war on terror' through the American homeland.

New York, NY - In an instructive coincidence, the passage of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) by the US Congress came on December 15, 2011, the same day as the official start of US forces' pullout from Iraq. One front in the US' post-9/11 conflicts closed overseas, as another front seemingly opened at home. Now awaiting President Barack Obama's signature, which will turn it into law, the NDAA would further entrench here at home some of the defining features of the United States' extraterritorial campaign against political violence by non-state actors, continuing the onward march of the so-called "war on terror" through the American homeland.

For years, my students, my colleagues and I have been dealing with the realities of indefinite military imprisonment without trial, and of trial before untested and unfair military commissions. But we deal with those issues in the context of our work on behalf of our many non-citizen clients imprisoned outside of the US, at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and at Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan.

Together, the NDAA's provisions keep Guantánamo open as a facility, while expanding within the US a set of practices and legal approaches that stem from the Guantánamo experiment. Of course, the Guantanamisation of the American justice-and carceral-system was already well underway. Since 9/11, lengthy and oppressive pre-trial detention conditions have become the norm in federal terrorism cases, along with draconian sentence enhancements meted out to convicts in such cases, and subsequent imprisonment under cruel Special Administrative Measures and in majority-Muslim Communications Management Units. But this legislation represents further, significant strides in that direction, and, notably, ones that are overtly military in character.

To be clear, the NDAA does not institute martial law for all in the US. But it would be foolish not to see that it lays a potential foundation for it in the future. Students of history, and those of us new Americans who have lived under military or militarised regimes - and that includes many Muslim Americans - will spot the kinship and recognise in this law some of the markers of authoritarian rule. Read More

North Korean mourners, crying to survive?

Since Kim Jong Il's death was announced on Monday, many people have marveled at the mourning scenes featured on North Korean state television, made viral on the Internet: North Koreans prostrate, weeping, hitting the ground. Many have asked whether the anguish is genuine. How could citizens mourn the passing of a totalitarian, such a gross abuser of human rights?

The answer may be found in the human rights abuses themselves.

It is a lamentable characteristic of totalitarian regimes that they often demand acts of deceit from those they oppress. Often it is a matter of simple survival. Those who hate the regime are obliged to demonstrate patriotism. To fail is to risk persecution. The only alternative is to flee, a choice made by tens of thousands of North Koreans in the past two decades.

North Korea is unambiguously a totalitarian state. An estimated 200,000 North Koreans are held under brutal conditions in remote forced labor camps called kwan-li-so. Citizens are deprived of the freedom to speak, to dissent, to assemble, to seek remedies for grievances. Perhaps worst of all, there is no freedom from fear -- knowing that one can be imprisoned and tortured for minor trifles, sent to a kwan-li-so for being related to someone who displeased the state, or face a kangaroo court trial and possible public execution for a long list of political or economic "crimes." Read More

New North Korean satellite images give rare glimpse of life under Kim Jong-il

Yellow swaths of corn surround a nuclear reactor building in one image, revealing a surprisingly outdated system of gathering and drying crops, and thousands of North Koreans form a bird formation during military practice in another.

In a nation which struggles with famine in some of its poorest regions, the piles of corn drying around the Yongbyon centre is in stark contrast to the country's pursuit of nuclear technology just a few metres away.

Pomp and parade in the country is a collective effort, with tens of thousands taking part in elaborate spectacles shown to only a few dignitaries. The formation of a human bird during practice for the Pyongyang games in Kim II-Sung Square demonstrates the extraordinary discipline that is expected of North Korea's million-man army.

Other images, which have yet to be released, capture the expanding mass graves in the country's gulags – labour camps such as the ones where American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to work – and a prison-worker's mine shaft emitting a mile-long cloud of soot. Juche propaganda is also seen carved into the nation's mountains.

Allison Puccioni, a senior imagery analyst at IHS Jane's in California, said satellite images are perhaps the only way to get an accurate picture of daily life in the clandestine state. Read More

Kim Jong Il's son strengthens power with new post - 26th Dec 2011

North Korea identified Kim Jong Il's son as head of a top ruling party body Monday, a post that gives him authority over political matters in addition to the military control attributed to him in recent days.

Kim Jong Un has rapidly gained prominence since the death of his father on Dec. 17, with the state media showering new titles on him almost daily.

On Saturday, state media referred to the younger Kim as "supreme leader" of North Korea's 1.2 million-strong armed forces and said the military's top leaders had pledged their loyalty to him. On Monday, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper described him as head of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party — a post that appears to make him the top official in the ruling party.

Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea for 17 years, wielded power as head of three main state organs: the Workers' Party, the Korean People's Army and the National Defense Commission. His father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung remains the nation's "eternal president" long after his 1994 death.

The Kim family has extended its control over the country of 24 million people to a third generation with Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s and was revealed last year as his father's choice among three sons for successor.

He was named a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party, but was expected to ascend to new military and political posts while being groomed to become the next leader. Read More

Syria: 13 killed in Homs as Arab League observers arrive in country - 26th Dec 2011

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed: "The shells fired from heavy machineguns in the Baba Amro district caused 13 deaths on Monday morning and dozens of injuries. The situation is frightening and the shelling is the most intense of the last three days".

Monitors will visit Homs on Tuesday, a source at the mission told Reuters, as they seek to assess whether Damascus is ending a bloody nine-month crackdown on protests in line with an Arab League peace plan.

Three more people died in Homs on Sunday and 124 were injured in shelling of the city's Bab Amro district, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The Arab monitoring team will visit Homs as it is the most turbulent place," the source said.

Syria has endured daily bloodshed for months as security forces struggle to suppress a popular uprising, at first peaceful but now increasingly violent, against President Bashar al-Assad whose family has ruled Syria for more than four decades. Read More

13 bodies found in abandoned truck, Mexican authorities say - 26th Dec 2011

Authorities have opened a murder investigation after the discovery of 13 bodies Sunday in an abandoned truck in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, the attorney general's office reported.

They were discovered near the border with Veracruz state during routine patrols by national defense forces.

"It's presumed that the case is related to illegal organized crime groups because of a couple of blankets that were found in the truck alluding to rivalries between groups of organized crime," said Tamaulipas Attorney General Bolivar Hernandez Garza.

The incident was believed to be tied to a pair of recent attacks in the area that killed 21 people, including three Americans, but the attorney general's office didn't explain how the events may have been connected.

An American consulate general statement warned American citizens to "exercise caution and remain vigilant when traveling in the state of Veracruz. American citizens residing in, visiting or traveling through the northern portion of Veracruz that borders Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosi should maintain a heightened sense of alert." Inter-city road travel at night should be avoided, the consulate general said. Read More

South Korean civilian delegation enters North to pay respects to Kim - 26th Dec 2011

A delegation of South Korean citizens arrived in Pyongyang on Monday to express condolences over the death of the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the North's state-run news agency reported.

The 18-member civilian delegation was led by Lee Hui-ho -- the widow of the former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at nurturing reconciliation between the two Koreas -- and Hyun Jeong-eun, the widow of Chung Mong-hun, the former chairman of Hyundai Group who pushed for heavy industrial investments in the North.

"I hope this helps improve North and South relations," Lee said in a statement read by one of her aides prior to her departure at the border.

The visit comes at a delicate point in relations between the two Koreas. The death of Kim Jong Il, announced by Pyongyang on December 19, has put the region on edge, as the world waits to see how the leadership succession will play out in the secretive regime.

Seoul has expressed its sympathy to the North Korean people and given the green light to Lee and Hyun's group to visit the North. But it has said it will not send an official delegation to pay respects to Kim Jong Il.

Pyongyang had sent delegations to South Korea when the former president Kim and the former Hyundai chairman Chung died in 2009 and 2003 respectively. Read More

Club Fathom Gunfight: Nine people shot at night club Christmas party after gunfight, Tennessee - 25th Dec 2011

Nine people were shot after a fight broke out at a nightclub Christmas party.

Chattanooga police said that an off-duty officer who had been working at Club Fathom fired shots at a suspect who pointed a gun at him.

The officer was not wounded and the gunman got away.

Around 400 teens and adults were at the club when the fight broke out around midnight.

All those shot are expected to survive.

No arrests have been made, and it was not immediately known how the fight started.

Police say they are still working to gather details because of the number of victims and possible suspects involved.

Police Chief Bobby Dodd told News Channel 9 that the officer chased the suspect down the street when he pulled a gun and they exchanged shots.

Two of the victims are juveniles and the others are adults.

Police shut down four blocks as a result of the shooting as they try to collect evidence and investigate.

The shootings occurred at various locations in the center city, according to Sgt Jerri Weary of the Chattanooga Police Department. Read More

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, could be hanged after international outcry - 26th Dec 2011

A woman who was to be stoned to death in Iran on an adultery conviction could be hanged instead.

Authorities said today they were moving ahead with plans to execute the woman but are reconsidering what punishment to carry out.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is already in prison serving a ten-year sentence on a separate conviction for the murder of her husband.

Her case has generated international outrage and last July Iranian officials suspended plans to carry out her death sentence on the adultery conviction.

A senior judiciary official said experts were studying whether the punishment of stoning could be changed to hanging.

Malek Ajdar Sharifi, the head of justice department of East Azerbaijan province, where Ashtiani is jailed said: 'There is no haste. ... We are waiting to see whether we can carry out the execution of a person sentenced to stoning by hanging or not.

'As soon as the result (of the investigation) is obtained, we will carry out the sentence.'

The charge of a married woman having an illicit relationship requires a punishment of stoning, he said. Read More

Note: Could anyone confirm or clarify this?

1. Sentence for Murder is 10 years.

2. Adultery - Death Sentence

'Anonymous' hacks thousands of credit card numbers from US security firm think tank Stratfor - 26th Dec 2011

U.S. security think tank Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) said its website had been hacked and that some of the names of corporate subscribers had been made public.

Stratfor said the breach came from an unauthorized party, while activist hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility.

"As a result of this incident the operation of Stratfor's servers and email have been suspended," the Austin-based company said in an email on Sunday.

Hackers claiming to be the group Anonymous said they had obtained around 4,000 credit card details, passwords and home addresses on Stratfor's private client list, which was posted on information-sharing website Pastebin. Read More

'War On Christmas' Declared In America

The season of peace and goodwill is under threat in the United States amid claims that a "war on Christmas" has been declared.

Rows about the display of traditional Christmas symbols have broken out across the country.

But one of the pressure groups accused of being partly responsible has told Sky News it defends its campaign on behalf of non-Christians and non-believers.

The usual debate over whether it is acceptable to say 'Merry Christmas' or 'Happy Holidays' has exploded into a much wider disagreement this year.

Thousands of people took part in a prayer rally in the city of Athens in Texas after an atheist group took court action to have a nativity scene removed from outside the courthouse.

They claim it promotes Christianity and excludes non-Christians but a judge has so far ruled the traditional Christmas scene can stay. more

At least 40 patients die amid India doctors' strike

More than 40 patients have died in the last five days amid an ongoing strike by doctors at public hospitals in India's Rajasthan state, CNN sister network CNN-IBN reported Sunday.

The government has suspended 40 doctors, and 390 others have been arrested for failing to perform their duties, CNN-IBN reported.

Some 10,000 doctors remained on strike. The doctors, who work at government-run hospitals that cater to the poor, are demanding higher salaries and better promotion opportunities that are on par with their counterparts in federal medical services.

But so far, the state government has not budged.

Instead, it made interim arrangements by bringing in 373 military doctors Saturday, said Dr. Lokendra Sharma of SMS Medical College in Jaipur. Another 1,000 doctors will be brought in Monday, he said.

The government has also tapped doctors from railway services, brought others out of retirement and has asked some private hospitals to provide care at government rates.

Army doctors have also stepped in to help out, and emergency services were restored in some hospitals, CNN-IBN reported Sunday.

Attempts by CNN to reach state health officials were unsuccessful.

"Patients, they are dying," said Dr. Ganpat Chandra Gupta, an anesthesiologist.

He said the government needs to negotiate with the state's government doctors.

"They are working in poor conditions," he said. "The government is deaf and dumb and blind." more

Collapse of the Soviet Union in pictures: Just in case a refresher is needed

View the entire gallery here.

India paramilitary soldier opens fire on comrades, kills 3, police say - 25th Dec 2011

Three Indian paramilitary soldiers were killed by a comrade who opened fire at a military camp near Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administer Kashmir, a district police chief said Sunday.

The shooting followed an altercation between the men, Maqsood ul Zaman, the police chief, said.

"Following an altercation between two troopers in the barracks, one of them opened indiscriminate fire at his colleagues," Zaman said.

The shooting occurred late Saturday at a paramilitary camp in Kulgam, south of Srinagar, he said.

In addition to those killed, a fourth soldier was wounded, Zaman said.

Kashmir has faced separatist violence for 20 years.

More than 40,000 people have been killed, according to the official count, but several human rights groups and other non-governmental organizations believe the number of dead is at least twice that amount. Read More

3 Americans among Mexico victims - 25th Dec 2011s

Three of the seven victims of a highway attack this week in the Mexican state of Veracruz were American citizens, officials said.

A mother and her two daughters, dual Mexican-U.S. citizens who lived in Fort Worth, Texas, were aboard one of three buses that were attacked by gunmen in the city of Panuco, in the northern part of Veracruz.

"We express our deepest condolences to their family and friends during this difficult time," State Department spokeswoman Neda Brown said.

A Mexican official in the state of Hidalgo, the hometown of the mother, identified the Americans as Maria Sanchez Hernandez and her two daughters, Karla, 19, and Cristina, 13.

The buses were on a road between the towns of Tempoal and Panuco near the border of Veracruz and Tamaulipas, Mexican and U.S. government officials said. Read More