More Than 50 Arrested in Ferguson Protests: Police

Ferguson, Missouri:  Pounding rain and tornado watches didn't deter hundreds of protesters Monday outside Ferguson police headquarters, where they stayed for almost four hours to mark how long an 18-year-old black man's body was left in the street after he was fatally shot by a white police officer.

Organizers of the four-day Ferguson October protests dubbed the day "Moral Monday" and committed acts of civil disobedience across the St. Louis region. In addition to the initial march on Ferguson police headquarters, protesters blocked the entrance to a major employer, held a loud rally inside St. Louis City Hall, disrupted business at a Ferguson shopping center and a Wal-Mart, and tried to crash a private Democratic Party fundraiser. On Monday night, protesters announced plans to picket a second Wal-Mart in the St. Louis suburbs.

All told, more than 50 people were arrested, including scholar and civil rights activist Cornel West.

West was among 42 people arrested for disturbing the peace at the Ferguson police station. Some protesters used a bullhorn to read the names of people killed by police nationwide. Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy members - some of whom were among the first arrested - led a prayer service before marching to the station two blocks away.

"My faith compels me to be here," Bishop Wayne Smith of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri said outside Ferguson police headquarters. "I want to show solidarity, and call attention to the structural racism of St. Louis."Protesters were met by about 40 officers in riot gear. Several clergy members approached individual officers and asked them to "repent" for Brown's killing and other acts of violence. Some officers engaged the protesters, while others ignored the efforts.

"My heart feels that this has been going on too long," Ferguson officer Ray Nabzdyk told the clergy. "We all stand in fault because we didn't address this."

Tensions have simmered since the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown by a white police officer who has not been arrested or charged with any crime. Residents were upset about the way Brown's body lay in the street for more than four hours while police investigated the shooting. Many insist Brown was trying to surrender, with his hands up. Residents also protested the military-style police response to the days of riots and protests that erupted immediately after Brown's shooting in the predominantly black St. Louis suburb of Ferguson where just three blacks serve on a 53-officer force.

Since Brown's death, three other fatal police shootings of black males have occurred in the St. Louis area. The most recent involved an off-duty St. Louis officer who was working for a private neighborhood security patrol when he shot and killed 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr. on Wednesday night. Police said the white officer fired 17 rounds after Myers opened fire. Myers' parents say he was unarmed.

Outside Emerson Electric headquarters in Ferguson, six people were arrested for failing to disperse after blocking a street, St. Louis County Police spokesman Brian Schellman said. Emerson is one of the region's largest employers.

At St. Louis City Hall, about 100 protesters blew whistles that echoed off the marble walls. Protest leader Kennard Williams presented a list of four demands to Jeff Rainford, chief of staff for Mayor Francis Slay. Slay was not in the office Monday.

The demands called for an end to participation in a program providing military equipment to police, body cameras for all officers, a civilian review board for police and mandatory independent investigations whenever police kill someone.

Rainford said St. Louis is not part of the militarization program; he promised the other demands will be taken seriously.

"We are already working on all of these things," he said.

Williams said that wasn't good enough, and pledged further disruptions in days to come. One protester was arrested for property damage.

Earlier, hundreds of people marched to Saint Louis University in the pre-dawn hours. A small group held a brief demonstration inside the upscale Plaza Frontenac shopping center in St. Louis County. Another group was turned away by police and security at a Ferguson Wal-Mart, but the store closed out of concern about the protest.

County police spokesman Brian Schellman said Monday night that several protesters were arrested there but could not provide a precise total. He added that an unspecified number of additional arrests were made at the fundraiser for County Councilman Steve Stenger, a Democrat who has come under criticism for his political links to St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch.

Ferguson October began Friday with protesters marching to McCulloch's office and renewing calls for charges against Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown. A grand jury is reviewing the case, and the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation.

Turkey Has Not Reached New Deal to Let US Use Base: Officials

Ankara:  Turkey has not reached a new agreement to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against Islamic State militants, and talks are continuing on the subject, Turkish officials said on Monday.

Turkey had reached an agreement with Washington on the training of Syrian rebels, sources from the Turkish prime minister's office told reporters, without saying who would train the insurgents or where.

 

The comments come after U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a U.S.-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.

"There is not an agreement, no decision has been taken with regards to using Incirlik air base," Tanju Bilgic, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, told reporters at the United Nations in New York.

He said the possible use of Incirlik air base was still "on the agenda" and suggested that Turkey had agreed to allow other facilities to be used to help train and equip Syrian rebels.

"Many issues are pending and many issues are being discussed between the United States and Turkey, this includes the creation of a safe zone and creation of a no-fly zone as well," he said. 

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Boston Evacuates Five With Flu-Like Symptoms From Flight

Boston:  US emergency services in Boston on Monday evacuated five people with flu-like symptoms from a passenger jet after it was quarantined on arrival from Dubai, officials said.

It was at least the third Ebola scare on a commercial flight within the United States in just days, but none of those people taken to local hospitals was believed to have travelled from West Africa.

Emirates flight EK 237 arrived at Boston Logan International Airport at 2:30pm after a 14-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates.

It sat on the tarmac without being evacuated for around two hours before a team of officials dressed in Hazmat (hazardous materials) suits boarded the plane and evacuated the five passengers.

"If it is anything that puts public health at risk, we will notify the proper authorities," said McKenzie Ridings, spokesperson for the Boston Public Health Commission told AFP.

On Sunday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first Ebola case contracted on American soil, a Texas health care worker being treated in Dallas.

Five US airports are screening for Ebola but Logan Airport is not one of them and there are no direct flights between the northeastern US city of Boston and West Africa.

Health care workers in West Africa are on the frontline of the worst-ever Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 4,000 people this year, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and the hardest-hit, Liberia.

Iran's President Says Nuclear Deal With West 'Certain'

Dubai:  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday a nuclear deal with the West was bound to happen and he believed it could be achieved by a Nov. 24 deadline.

"We have reached consensus on generalities and there are only the fine details to be worked out: whether we would reach an agreement within the next 40 days, if the time will be extended, etc.," the president told his people in a late evening address broadcast live on television.

"Of course details are important too, but what's important is that the nuclear issue is irreversible. I think a final settlement can be achieved in these remaining 40 days. We will not return to the situation a year ago. The world is tired and wants it to end, resolved through negotiations," he said.

"A nuclear settlement is certain," he said, vowing to "apply all our efforts in that direction."Rouhani, a moderate elected by a landslide 14 months ago partly on promises to end hostilities with the West, cautioned nevertheless that "a 12-year-old dilemma cannot be resolved overnight."

Top diplomats of the United States, Iran and the European Union will meet for another round of talks in Vienna later this week to push for an elusive deal ahead of a Nov. 24 deadline.

The United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain, grouped under the P5+1, have already held a series of meetings with Iran to try for a deal that would curb the Islamic republic's suspected nuclear activities in return for a gradual lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran.

The West hopes resolving the nuclear standoff will ease tension and avert a full-scale conflict in the troubled Middle East - with repeated Israeli threats of force to stop its arch- enemy Iran from gaining nuclear weapon technology.

Tehran has denied any such ambitions, insisting that its uranium enrichment programme is designed to generate electricity and for scientific research.

A U.S. official said last week a deal was likely by the present deadline, but Western diplomats say the two sides remain divided on such key issues as the future scope of Iran's uranium enrichment, which at high purity could be used to make bombs.

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Hong Kong Police Make Fresh Attempt to Clear Barricaded Roads

Hong Kong:  Hong Kong police made fresh attempts on Tuesday to unblock streets that have been occupied for two weeks by pro-democracy protesters, removing more barricades a day after clashes broke out as opponents of the protest movement tried to reclaim roads.

Police, criticised for using tear gas and batons in the first 24 hours of the protests, have adopted a more patient approach, counting on protesters to come under public pressure to clear some of the Chinese-controlled city's major arteries.

Pro-democracy protesters believe Monday's clashes, which occurred after police removed some barricades, were co-ordinated and involved triad criminal groups.

They said some police stood by or did not act quickly enough as hundreds of people, some wearing surgical masks and armed with crowbars and cutting tools, dismantled barricades.

Students reinforced barricades late on Monday, erecting bamboo scaffolding four metres high along one major thoroughfare, while others mixed concrete to pour over the foundations of their road blocks.

The protesters, mostly students, are demanding full democracy for the former British colony. The protest initially gained wide public support but that has waned as frustrations build over traffic gridlocks gripping the Asian financial hub.

On Tuesday, police cleared some barricades from the bustling shopping district of Causeway Bays as protesters remained largely calm, according to a Reuters witness.

At the main protest site in Admiralty, next to government buildings and the business district, scores of police stood guard surrounded by hundreds of students, some still sleeping.

Taxi and truck drivers were among those who tried to dismantle barricades on Monday afternoon and some have threatened to return if the protesters do not quit by Wednesday.

The protesters have called on the city's embattled leader, Leung Chun-ying, to step down after Beijing in August ruled out free elections for Hong Kong's next leader in 2017.

China rules Hong Kong under a "one country, two systems" formula that accords the former British colony a degree of autonomy and freedoms not enjoyed in mainland China, with universal suffrage set as an eventual goal.

Leung has vowed to remain in office and warned that there was "zero chance" that China's leaders in Beijing would change an August decision limiting democracy in Hong Kong.

© Thomson Reuters 2014

Islamic State Demands for US hostage Cannot be Met, Parents Say

The parents of an American hostage threatened with beheading by Islamic State militants said in an interview with "CBS This Morning" on Monday that they are unable to meet the financial and other demands of their son's captors.

The parents of Abdul-Rahman Kassig, an aid worker abducted on Oct. 1, 2013, did not elaborate on what Islamic State had demanded in exchange for their son's freedom.

"Their demands have always been ones that we cannot accommodate," Paula Kassig, the captive's mother, told the TV programme.

"CBS this Morning" reported that Kassig's parents received an audio recording of their son two weeks ago in which he warned that he was in danger if the United States did not halt its air strikes.

The 26-year-old captive, an Indiana native, was threatened in a video issued earlier this month by Islamic State that showed the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning, 47.

Kassig's parents told the TV programme that they had kept his capture secret for roughly a year on orders from Islamic State militants but that the recent beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff after his family had followed similar instructions moved them to change tactics.

Kassig's family on Monday also made public additional portions of a letter from their son they received earlier this year from a hostage released by Islamic State.

In it, Kassig said he is kept together with other hostages, with whom he plays chess and trivia games, but that the mental strain of captivity has been "incredible."

"Don't worry Dad, if I do go down, I won't go thinking anything but what I know to be true. That you and mom love me more than the moon and the stars," the letter said.

A former US Army soldier who deployed to Iraq in 2007, Kassig was doing humanitarian work through Special Emergency Response and Assistance, an organization he founded, when he was taken captive while on his way to the eastern Syrian city of Deir al-Zor, his family has said.

Kassig's first name was Peter before he converted to Islam while in captivity, the family has said.

Henning's beheading was the fourth such killing of a Westerner by Islamic State, following the deaths of two US journalists and another British aid worker.

New York Ratty About Rats, Complaints up 10 Percent

New York:  The rat race is making New Yorkers ratty.

Complaints about rodents shot up by 2,000 or more than 10 percent last year and health officials are failing to implement pest control measures, a watchdog warns.

In an audit unveiled over the weekend, New York comptroller Scott Stringer says the city received 24,586 online and telephone complaints about rats in 2013, up from 22,300 in the previous year.

New York is no stranger to rats.

Rodents are regularly spotted scampering in and out of subway tracks and although rarely seen in daylight they can also hide out by the bins or among trash bags dumped on the street for collection.

The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene did not adequately follow procedures for addressing complaints, and inspections were not performed consistently or in a timely manner, the report found.

Twenty-four percent of cases were not inspected within the target time of 10 days, including 160 complaints where there was no evidence there was ever an inspection, it said.

"You've got to attack this problem in a very serious way and a very quick way," Stringer said.

But the department strongly disagreed with the audit's assessments.

It said auditors reached "incorrect conclusions" because they focused only on complaints and ignored non-complaint inspections, which it said account for more than 85 percent of inspections done.