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Armenians mark centenary of mass killing

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Events in Yerevan commemorate massacre of up to 1.5 million that began in 1915 during last years of Ottoman rule.

The eternal flame burns at the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan [Getty Images]

The eternal flame burns at the Armenian genocide memorial in Yerevan [Getty Images]

by Al Jazeera

Armenians are marking the centenary of the massacre of up to 1.5 million of their people allegedly by Ottoman forces, with world leaders holding a minute’s silence in the capital, Yerevan.

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian and First Lady Rita Sarkisian laid a wreath at a hilltop memorial at the start of a solemn ceremony commemorating the mass killings that began in 1915 during World War I.

He expressed hope that recent steps to recognise the massacre as genocide will help “dispel the darkness of 100 years of denial”.

Each foreign diplomat held a yellow rose to put into the wreath laid at the foot of a monumental 44-metre needle, symbolising the nation’s rebirth.

French President Francois Hollande and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who are among a handful of world leaders to visit for the anniversary, then joined the ceremony.

“We will never forget the tragedy that your people went through,” Hollande said.

The annual April 24 commemorations mark the day when about 250 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up in what is regarded as the first step of the massacres.

The event is widely viewed by historians as genocide but modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman empire, vehemently rejects the charge, saying that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians will later join a procession to the mass killing memorial carrying candles and flowers to lay at the eternal flame.

Members of the Armenian diaspora that came into existence as a result of the mass killing that went on until 1917 were also to commemorate the sombre anniversary in cities around the world.

Many foreign leaders shied away for fear of upsetting Turkey which disputes the Armenian version of the event.

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s prime minister, issued a message of condolence earlier this week ito the descendants of the victims, without calling the killings genocide.

On the eve of the centennial, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted that his nation’s ancestors never committed genocide.

Turkey has said up to 300,000 people were killed, but mostly due to war and starvation, and rejects the use of the term “genocide”.

On Wednesday Turkey recalled its ambassador to Vienna in response to Austrian legislators’ decision to condemn the massacre as “genocide”.

EU border agency won't prioritize saving migrants' lives

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The European Union border agency chief dismissed the idea of dedicating the agency to search and rescue to prevent maritime refugee tragedies.

A migrant cries during a candlelight vigil to commemorate migrants who died at sea in Sliema, outside Valletta, April 22, 2015. | Photo: Reuters

A migrant cries during a candlelight vigil to commemorate migrants who died at sea in Sliema, outside Valletta, April 22, 2015. | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

Saving refugees’ lives in the Mediterranean cannot be a priority for maritime patrols, the head of Frontex, the European Union border agency, has told the Guardian.

As the E.U.prepares to meet for an emergency summit Thursday over the immigrant ship wreck crisis, which saw some 800 people drowned over the weekend, Frontex chief Fabrice Leggeri refused to turn the Triton border patrol off Italy’s coast into a search and rescue mission.

He also dismissed E.U. proposals to head off human traffickers around Libya.

Leggeri told the Guardian, “Triton cannot be a search-and-rescue operation. I mean, in our operational plan, we cannot have provisions for proactive search-and-rescue action. This is not in Frontex’s mandate, and this is in my understanding not in the mandate of the European Union.”

Thursday’s meeting has been called in light of a string of maritime disasters, in which vessels overloaded with asylum seekers have sunk in the Mediterranean.

This year, the problem has intensified, with 50 times more immigrant fatalities this year than by the same point last year.

Addressing this, Francois Crepeau, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights of immigrants said Wednesday that rich countries should agree to implement a plan to accept a million refugees from Syria and Africa in the next five years, to put an end to the Mediterranean disasters.

“We know that a great number of Syrians, in particular, are going to leave those countries and if we don’t foresee an official mechanism for them, they will resort to the smugglers,” the professor of law at the University McGill in Montreal, Canada, told the Guardian.

Meanwhile in Kenya, the African Union called for regional and global urgent action to halt the disturbing surge of migrant deaths, who predominantly set out from from sub-Saharan region of the continent.

“The trafficking of people and irregular immigration cannot be resolved by one country alone. It requires urgent global and regional action,” said the president of the A.U., Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who sent her condolences to the families of the victims.

An EU proposal to send warships to the Libyan coast to combat oil and arms smugglers, which, they say, encourage more migrants to take to the seas in hopes of being rescued and taken to Europe, has been criticized as insensitive and xenophobic.

Imperial Hubris: US Threatens to Cut Aid to El Salvador for Backing Venezuela

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An official with the ruling FMLN party stood by the government’s position to back Venezuelan in its dispute with the U.S.

FMLN Secretary General Medardo Gonzalez defended the government's decision to stand in solidarity with Venezuela. | Photo: EFE

FMLN Secretary General Medardo Gonzalez defended the government’s decision to stand in solidarity with Venezuela. | Photo: EFE

by teleSUR

The United States is threatening the small Central American country of El Salvador with financial repercussions for having supported Venezuela’s campaign seeking the repeal of sanctions against the country.

The leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) Front government of Salvador Sanchez Ceren, together with all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, called on U.S. President Obama to repeal the executive order that declared Venezuela to be a “threat” to its national security.

However, the threat against El Salvador appears to be the first case of the U.S. trying to push its diplomatic weight around in order to force a sovereign country to take steps that would better align with U.S. interests.

“The government of the United States and the embassy are working hard to obtain money for the Alliance for Prosperity program (but) the reality is these messages make the work harder,” said Mari Carmen Aponte, the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador.

The Alliance for Prosperity program is an effort by the U.S., together with Central American countries, to reduce the influx of migrants to the United States and the Obama Administration proposed US$1 billion in aid to the region as part of the initiative.

Medardo Gonzalez, secretary general of the ruling FMLN, criticized the statements made by the U.S. ambassador Monday. “We have the right to back Venezuela. We have expressed our solidarity and we maintain that the decree should be repealed,” said Gonzalez.

The FMLN handed the U.S. ambassador approximately 25,000 signatures of Salvadorans calling for the United States to repeal the executive order ahead of the Summit of the Americas held earlier this month.

A U.S. official previously expressed disappointment over the lack of support in the region for U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. Even governments widely seen as close to the United States, such as Mexico and Colombia, who joined in the unanimous call for the executive order to be repealed.

The statements by the U.S. ambassador may be an indication that the U.S. Department of State is now pursuing more forceful measures to win support for its highly unpopular decision to impose sanctions on Venezuela.

Anti-immigrant violence spreads in South Africa

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Arrests made in Gauteng province following overnight street battles in downtown Johannesburg.

Arrests are being made in Johannesburg following attacks against foreign nationals [EPA]

Arrests are being made in Johannesburg following attacks against foreign nationals [EPA]

by Khadija Patel, Al Jazeera

Arrests have been made in South Africa as anti-immigrant violence spreads to parts of Johannesburg’s commercial heart.

In Gauteng province, of which Johannesburg is the capital city, police arrested 18 people after overnight street battles, Major-General Phumzo Gela, deputy police commissioner, said on Friday afternoon.

Earlier police fired rubber-coated steel bullets into a crowd of South Africans in Johannesburg’s Jeppestown area.

A crowd of South Africans carrying hammers and axes gathered near the city centre, chanting “Foreigners must leave.”

Groups of South Africans in Jeppestown and Cleveland blocked roads with rocks and burning tyres and then ordered foreigners to leave the country, police said.

Jeppestown and Cleveland are neighbourhoods adjoining the Johannesburg Central Business District (CBD).

A number of shops in the CBD were reported to have been looted and vandalised, further escalating tensions between foreigners and South Africans in Johanneburg.

Police said the suspects were trying to break into shops owned by foreigners.

Colonel Dlamini, police spokesperson, told Al Jazeera calm had been restored, but refused to reveal whether police had received credible reports of further threats of violence against foreigners in the city.

Violence targeting immigrants started earlier in April in the port city of Durban, claiming the lives of six people so far.

Rumours circulating

Rumours of imminent attacks on foreigners have continued to affect foreign nationals in Johannesburg.

Ahmed Fifa, a 35-year-old shop owner in the Ramaphosa settlement east of Johannesburg, said foreign nationals were warned by locals to vacate the area on Thursday night.

“One of the community leaders came to us and told us to move all our stuff and save our lives,” he said.

According to Fifa, the South Africans in Ramaphosa are divided between those who seek to protect foreigners and those intent on violently driving foreigners out.

“I can’t go back until the situation remains stable,” Fifa said. “I have seen the pictures of what happened in Durban and I need to save my life.

“The only problem we have here is the xenophobia.”

In Durban, where six people have been killed in the last two weeks of violence against immigrants, police spokesperson Jay Naicker a fragile calm had been maintained on Friday.

“Overnight we had no reported incidents and it has been calm,” Naicker said, adding that the police had not received reports of further threats against immigrants in coastal city.

He said foreigners would still not be re-integrated into the affected communities.

“The area is still tense and the police and security deployment will remain for a while,” Naicker said.

Amir Sheikh, chairperson of the Somali Community Board based in Johannesburg, said the violence in Durban has inflamed tensions between South Africans and foreigners.

“Some of our members have been harassed in Johannesburg following the violence in Durban,” he said.

Late on Thursday a widely disseminated text message claimed that “a train of Zulus” had departed for Johannesburg.

“These men are armed and they are going to be killing any foreigner they meet tomorrow,” the text message said.

The source of these messages remains unclear, but their proliferation has sowed panic and confusion among migrant communities.

“Our members have been unable to go about their day-to-day businesses because each time they open their businesses, a new message is received saying members of a certain ethnic group are gathering to attack them,” Sheikh said.

While these rumours have so far, proven to be false, its effects have already been felt.

Foreign owned stores around Johannesburg have been closed for at least two days already.

“The unfounded rumours have caused more damage to our members than anything else,” Sheikh said.

On Thursday South African President Jacob Zuma and leaders of the opposition in parliament spoke out against the violence against foreign nationals.

Zuma said that the majority of South Africans were not xenophobic.

“We reiterate our view that South Africans are generally not xenophobic,” he said.

“If they were, we would not have such a high number of foreign nationals who have been successfully integrated into communities all over our country, in towns, cities and villages.”

South Africans march against attacks on foreigners

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After weeks of violence, primarily in KwaZulu-Natal, thousands take part in solidarity rally in Durban.

South Africans

by Al Jazeera

Thousands of people are expected to attend a march in South Africa’s coastal city of Durban in solidarity with the country’s foreign nationals.

The march, on Thursday, which includes religious leaders and concerned citizens, comes after weeks of attacks against foreign nationals in which at least five people have been killed and 74 people arrested since the end of March, according to Colonel Jay Naicker, the police spokesperson.

Al Jazeera producer Mukelwa Hlatshwayo, also reporting from the march in the coastal city of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, said that as many as 5,000 people had joined the prosession and that the atmosphere was calm with people ulilating and singing songs of solidarity. Reuters news agency reported that bullets has been shot into the crowd but our correspondent said she had only witnessed a few people shouting into the crowd on the sidelines of the procession that “foreigners must go home.” Many shops remained closed in the business capital of the country, Johannesburg in the Gauteng province fearing attacks as well. Groups of people were said to have travelled to Durban from other provinces to join in the show of solidarity with the foreign nationals. Al Jazeera’s Haru Mutasa, reporting from Durban, tweeted the following:

Similar attacks occurred in 2008 in which at least 60 people were killed. Messages circulating on social media warned people in Gauteng province and KwaZulu-Natal to be on high alert for possible attacks and to also remain indoors. Seeking refuge In Malawi, officials have set up transit camps expected to house Malawians returning to the country, Kondwani Nankhumwa, the country’s information minister, said. More than 2,000 foreigners have already sought shelter in refugee camps in Durban, a South African aid group said on Wednesday. The refugee camps, set up on sports fields around Durban, will not be large enough if attacks on immigrants continue, said Imtiaz Sooliman of the Gift of the Givers organisation. Those who can afford it are planning to leave the country, he said. “They’ve lost their houses, they’ve lost their businesses, they’ve lost everything,” Sooliman said. The organisation made the following appeal to the government on social media on Wednesday:

South Africa President Jacob Zuma condemned the violence and assigned several cabinet ministers to work on the problem with officials in KwaZulu-Natal province.

The government is addressing South African citizens’ “complaints about illegal and undocumented migrants, the takeover of local shops and other businesses by foreign nationals as well as perceptions that foreign nationals perpetrate crime”, Zuma’s office said in a statement.

He also issued a warning to illegally operating foreign-owned businesses to close their doors.

Zuma was due to make statement regarding the attacks later on Thursday.

Some foreign nationals boycotted the march in protest against the South African government’s efforts to resolve the problem.
Our correspondent tweeted the following from the march:

Our producer, Hlatshwayo, said that they are saying that government should protect them.

“There are still those out there feel that there are people who still don’t want them there and that this has not been addressed.”

She added that there is a feeling that the reach of the social media campaign was limited to the economic class that had access to it and that the anti-xenophobia message needed to be taken to the community as well.

Aid group: 400 feared dead after migrant boat capsizes

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Italy’s coastguard rescued 144 from ship off Libya, but survivors tell Save the Children that hundreds were on board.

Coastguard helped rescue 144 people and launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others [AP]

Coastguard helped rescue 144 people and launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Survivors of a capsized migrant boat off Libya have told the aid group Save the Children that an estimated 400 people are believed to have drowned.

The Italian coastguard had helped rescue 144 people on Monday and immediately launched an air and sea search operation in hopes of finding others.

“According to their stories, they all departed from Libya, more than 550 people on the same boat that capsized only 24 hours after they departed,” Carlotta Bellini, a Save the Children spokeswoman in Rome, told Al Jazera.

The coastguard said it assumed that there were many dead given the size of the ship and that nine bodies had been found.

The deaths, if confirmed, would add to the skyrocketing numbers of migrants lost at sea: The International Organization for Migration estimates that up to 3,072 migrants are believed to have died in the Mediterranean in 2014, compared to an estimate of 700 in 2013.

William Spindler, a specialist on asylum and refugee issues at the UNHCR, said that due to conflict in places like Syria and the Horn of Africa, the number of people trying to find safety in Europe has increased “enormously” since last year.

Spindler said that to end the tragedies at sea, people smuggling needs to be combated, and the capacity to rescue people at sea increased.

“At the same time we need to open the possibility for refugees to come legally to Europe so that they don’t need to take these dangerous journeys,” he told Al Jazeera.

“And very importantly, we need to help countries that are hosting the vast majority of refugees in the world, countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya … We need to make sure they can continue to keep refugees safe – because otherwise refugees will continue these journeys and risk their lives to find safety in Europe.”

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Italy’s coastguard had saved about 8,500 migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean since Friday.

“Those rescued since last Friday included an estimated 3,000 people in four boats and 16 dinghies rescued on Monday,” the agency said in a statement.

Earlier on Tuesday, the European Union’s top migration official said the EU must quickly adapt to the growing numbers of migrants trying to reach its shores.

“The unprecedented influx of migrants at our borders, and in particular refugees, is unfortunately the new norm and we will need to adjust our responses accordingly,” the EU’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told lawmakers in Brussels.

More than 280,000 people entered the European Union illegally last year. Many came from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia and made the perilous sea journey from conflict-torn Libya.

European coastguards have been overwhelmed by the numbers. Since the weather has begun to warm, even more people have been fleeing conflict and poverty, trying to reach Europe.

Blackwater guard sentenced to life in prison for role in notorious 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians

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Three other former Iraq military contractors receive 30-year prison terms

This combination made from file photo shows convicted former Blackwater guards, from left, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough. (Photo: AP)

This combination made from file photo shows convicted former Blackwater guards, from left, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough. (Photo: AP)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth on Monday sentenced former Blackwater security guard Nicholas Slatten to life in prison for his role in a 2007 attack on Iraqi civilians, which left 14 dead and wounded 17 others.

The Associated Press reports that the three other Blackwater employees—Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard—were sentenced to 30 years and one day each on charges that included manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and using firearms while committing a felony.

Earlier:

Four former Blackwater guards face sentencing Monday for their role in the deaths of 14 Iraqi civilians during a 2007 massacre called “Baghdad’s bloody Sunday.”

The men, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough, and Nicholas Slatten, were convicted in October 2014 after years of legal battles. “Slatten faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for first-degree murder before U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth,” the Washington Post reports; the other three men face the possibility of dozens of years behind bars.

While defense lawyers have argued that the men were acting in self-defense, federal prosecutors wrote that the men’s “crimes here were so horrendous—the massacre and maiming of innocents so heinous—that they outweigh any factors that the defendants may argue form a basis for leniency.”

In an interview with Democracy Now! last year, Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestsellingBlackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, described the deadly traffic square shooting that left 17 people killed:

[Blackwater guards] were responding—they were a unit called Raven 23. They were the elite Praetorian Guard of the U.S. occupation. They were guarding Paul Bremer, who was the original sort of proconsul in Iraq, the “viceroy,” as he liked to call himself. They were responding to an incident that had occurred on the opposite end of Baghdad from where their base was located. They roll out. They end up hitting a crowded intersection at Nisour Square. What often would happen in Iraq is that mercenary contractors would start throwing frozen water bottles at cars, trying to force them off the street, and then eventually escalate up to shooting at vehicles. These guys basically tried to take over this traffic circle, the Blackwater guys, so that they could speed around and continue on to their destination.

A small white car with a young Iraqi medical student and his mother didn’t stop fast enough for the Blackwater convoy, and they decided to escalate it all the way up to assassinating those individuals. And I say “assassinating,” because they shot to kill these people, and then they blew their car up. And then, that started this massive shooting spree that went on for—it was sustained for minutes. And at the end of it, 17 Iraqis were killed, including a nine-year-old boy named Ali Kinani, whose story we’ve told on the show before, and some 20 others were wounded in the attacks. And it was—you know, it became known as Baghdad’s “Bloody Sunday.”

And Blackwater… in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, said that they had been fired upon. They had their allies in the media. A senior producer at CNN was quick to get on TV and say, “Oh, no, no, this wasn’t a massacre. You know, this was a firefight, and Blackwater was shot at.” Clearly, this jury saw what the Iraqi eyewitnesses have always contended, and that is that this was an unprovoked massacre of Iraqi civilians, none of whom were posing a threat, except not stopping fast enough for the mercenaries helping to occupy their country.

As Common Dreams previously reported, “the incident became a flashpoint of outrage over the atrocities that U.S. forces—particularly mercenaries—inflict on occupied civilian populations in Iraq.”

The Post reports Monday: “Defendants said that the case is the first in which the U.S. government prosecuted its own security contractors for the firearms violation, which involve weapons given them by the government to do their jobs in a war zone.”

Scahill wrote following the guilty convictions that they marked yet another instance in which high-ranking individuals failed to be the targets for accountability.

“Just as with the systematic torture at Abu Ghraib, it is only the low level foot-soldiers of Blackwater that are being held accountable. [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince and other top Blackwater executives continue to reap profits from the mercenary and private intelligence industries.

“None of the U.S. officials from the Bush and Obama administrations who unleashed Blackwater and other mercenary forces across the globe are being forced to answer for their role in creating the conditions for the Nisour Square shootings and other deadly incidents involving private contractors,” Scahill wrote.

Hillary Clinton announces 2016 US Presidential bid

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Former US secretary of state announces 2016 White House bid to become the first female president of the country.

FILE: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Admitted To Hospital Hillary Clinton Gives Speech On Energy Diplomacy

by Ted Regencia, Al Jazeera

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has declared that she is running for president in 2016, seeking to become the first female to occupy the seat that her husband Bill Clinton held for eight years, and setting up what could be the most expensive campaign in history.

Clinton made the announcement on Sunday in a video published on her website, saying “the deck is still stacked in favour of those at the top” as she sought to highlight the theme of economic inequality.

It is the second time that Clinton has run for presidency.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama, who defeated her in the 2008 Democratic nomination, said Clinton “would be an excellent president”.

“She was an outstanding secretary of state. She is my friend. I think she would be an excellent president,” Obama said from Panama, where he attended the Summit of the Americas and held a historic meeting with the Cuban leader Raul Castro.

With her first candidacy in 2008, Clinton made history as the first ever spouse of an American president to seek the highest elective office in the US.

In the biography section of her website, Clinton, a Democrat, talked about her bipartisan record as senator, crossing party lines to work with Republicans, who now control the US Congress.

But during her husband’s presidency from 1993 to 2001, both Clintons repeatedly clashed with the Republicans, who tried to remove the 42nd president from office. She became a lightning-rod for Republican criticism, from her handling of the Clinton administration’s failed healthcare reform to the investigations into their private lives.

$2.5bn campaign

Although a native of Chicago, Clinton has set up her campaign headquarters in New York, where she served as senator after her husband left office.

Clinton is expected to make her first campaign stop in the US state of Iowa, which will hold the first nominating process in early 2016.

Clinton is not the only high-profile US politician in the running for president. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, son of the 41st US President George HW Bush and brother of another former president, George W Bush is also expected to declare his candidacy for the Republican Party.

Not long after Clinton announced her bid on Sunday night, Jeb Bush responded on Twitter, saying: “We must do better than Hillary.”

That sets up a potential Clinton-Bush matchup and a repeat of the 1992 elections, when the elderly President Bush lost to Bill Clinton, then a governor of the small southern US state of Arkansas.

According to a New York Times report, Clinton and her allies are trying to raise as much as $2.5bn to finance her campaign. The eventual Republican candidate is also expected to match that amount.

In anticipation of her announcement, the Republican Party posted on its website a 31-second video questioning Clinton’s candidacy, from her role in the deadly US consulate attack in Benghazi to her decision to delete a large cache of emails from her time as the US top diplomat.

While Clinton tries to steer her campaign mostly on domestic issues, it is likely that her foreign policy record as the secretary of state during Obama’s first four years, would be put under scrutiny.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ibrahim Sharqieh, foreign policy fellow at Brookings Doha Center, said that as secretary of state, Clinton “lacked serious commitment” in resolving many of the issues affecting the Middle East, particularly the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Given her record, Sharqieh said that he is “not very optimistic that she is going to make a difference on US foreign policy towards the Middle East”.

He said that Clinton “failed miserably” in putting pressure on Israel and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu to address the Palestine issue.

However, he said that he expects Clinton to be more “hawkish” than President Obama, whom he called as “the most passive American president in decades” on Middle East issues.

US cop arrested for murder after video shows him shoot unarmed black man in back

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Video of the incident shows 50-year-old victim running away from South Carolina officer when he was shot.

Screenshot from the by-stander's video footage which shows Officer Michael Slager in the process of shooting a fleeing Walter Scott in the back.

Screenshot from the by-stander’s video footage which shows Officer Michael Slager in the process of shooting a fleeing Walter Scott in the back.

by Al Jazeera

A white police officer from the US state of South Carolina has been charged with murder after a video showed him shooting eight times at the back of a 50-year-old black man who was running away.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said on Tuesday that state investigators decided to charge officer Michael Slager, 33, with the murder of Walter Scott after they viewed the video of the incident, which followed a traffic stop on Saturday morning.

The FBI and US Justice Department have begun a separate investigation.

“When you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” Summey told reporters. “If you make a bad decision, I don’t care if you’re behind the shield or just a citizen on the street, you have to live by that decision.”

The incident began after Scott was pulled over for a broken brake light, police said.

A video of the encounter published by the New York Times appears to show a brief scuffle between Slager and Scott before the latter begins running away.

Eight shots fired

The video, apparently recorded by a bystander, shows the officer firing eight shots at Scott as he runs away. Scott then slumps face down onto the grass.

A police incident report says that Slager, who joined the department in 2009, told other officers Scott had taken his stun gun. In the video, Scott does not appear to be armed while fleeing from Slager.

With the victim lying face down on the ground, Slager approaches him and puts him in handcuffs, the video shows. The officer then walks several paces back to where he opened fire, before returning to Scott and appearing to drop an object next to him on the ground, it shows.

Chris Stewart, an attorney for Scott’s family, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

The incident comes at a time of heightened tension over the deadly use of force by US police, particularly by white police officers against black men – including 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot and killed by a white police officer last year in Ferguson, Missouri, sparking nationwide protests.

Israeli official says military action against Iran 'still on table'

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Last ditch effort to undermine talks slammed as ‘desperate and reckless’

Israeli Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz. (Photo: DFATD-MAECD/cc/flickr)

Israeli Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz. (Photo: DFATD-MAECD/cc/flickr)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

In a last ditch effort to undercut a framework agreement between world powers and Iran, a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Monday that, regardless of the diplomatic process, military action against Iran is “still on the table.”

Yuval Steinitz, Likud Party minister for strategic affairs, told reporters that Israel is still unilaterally weighing the “military option.”

“It was on the table. It’s still on the table. It’s going to remain on the table,” said Steinitz. “Israel should be able to defend itself, by itself, against any threat. And it’s our right and duty to decide how to defend ourselves, especially if our national security and even very existence is under threat.”

“We are going to make an additional effort to convince the U.S. administration, Congress, Britain, France and Russia not to sign this bad deal, or at least to dramatically change and fix it,” added Steinitz.

Netanyahu’s administration, along with hardline allies in U.S. Congress, has vigorously opposed the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the five members of the United Nations Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France) plus Germany.

Advocates of the nuclear talks—from the administration of President Barack Obama to grassroots civil society organizations—say that the push to undermine the diplomatic process, ultimately, amounts to a call for dangerous military escalation and potentially war.

Leading nuclear non-proliferation specialists, meanwhile, released a statement on Monday championing the framework agreement as a “vitally important step forward.”

Jamal Abdi, policy director for the National Iranian American Council, toldCommon Dreams, “The notion that the military option is still on the table, first of all, ignores the fact that any military option makes an Iranian nuclear weapon far more likely, not less likely. Anybody talking about military action is being disingenuous or just desperate and reckless.”

“Some of our own members of the U.S. Senate are goading Israelis to say things like this,” Abdi added. “Hopefully these people don’t do more and more crazy things to sabotage the more desperate they get.”

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