The Jim Bakker Show

As smoke clears, capturing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Palestinian demonstrators shout during clashes with Israeli troops at a protest demanding the right to return to their homeland, at the Israel-Gaza border east of Gaza City, April 6, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem.

By Stephen Farrell

GAZA (Reuters) – The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often framed in black and white, an outlook captured by this image of Palestinian youths shrouded by clouds of smoke that block out everything except an isolated moment of protest and defiance.

Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem’s photograph of a handful of demonstrators in a field of dying flowers and charred grass recorded a new phenomenon in an old war the weekly Palestinian protests that began in the spring of 2018 along the Gaza-Israeli border.

The protests pitted thousands of Palestinian demonstrators against heavily armed Israeli soldiers on the other side of the fortified border fence intent on stopping the protesters from crossing or approaching the frontier.

What became known as the “Great March of Return” dominated the headlines for months, evolving into a compelling but deadly form of attritional public spectacle, all covered by photojournalists risking their lives to document it.

Taking place in a handful of accessible locations at prearranged times, the protests became battlegrounds of image and spin for both sides.

The Israeli military published video footage, pictures and social media posts in Hebrew, English and Arabic to support its message that its forces were engaged in “riot dispersal”.

Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, televised images of the Palestinian dead and wounded, and Palestinian protesters posted images from the front lines on social media.

The primary stated purpose of the protests was to revive a demand by refugees for the right to return to lands that Palestinians were driven from or fled when Israel was founded in 1948. Israel has ruled out any such right, concerned that the country would lose its Jewish majority.

But the immediate factor was Palestinian anger at U.S. President Donald Trump’s decisions on Dec. 6 last year to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to begin preparations to move its embassy to the city that is sacred to three of the great monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Trump’s move delighted Israel’s government, which regards Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people, but infuriated Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a state they hope to establish in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza.

A Palestinian man argues with an Israeli soldier during clashes over an Israeli order to shut down a Palestinian school near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, October 15, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman

The deadliest day of the protests was May 14, when the new embassy held its opening ceremony. It fell on a symbolic date for both sides – the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel. That is a joyous day for Israelis, but an event regarded by Palestinians as their “Nakba” or Catastrophe when they lost their homeland.

The Jerusalem-Gaza juxtaposition made headlines at home and abroad, and produced a worldwide split-screen television moment as Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended the embassy ceremony, even as Israeli troops killed around 60 Palestinian protesters just over 70 km (43 miles) away.

The border protests continued and morphed into other forms.

Israelis were angered by another new phenomenon first seen in 2018 – the Palestinian ‘fire kites’ and balloons loaded with petrol bombs by Gaza militants and sent flying over the border.

Palestinians continued to call for an end to an Israeli-led blockade on Gaza.

Palestinians gather around a building after it was bombed by an Israeli aircraft, in Gaza City August 9, 2018. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

The conflict switched to the skies in November when a bungled Israeli commando mission inside Gaza erupted into a deadly gunfight and then the fiercest Palestinian rocket salvoes and Israeli air strikes since the 2014 war.

The skies fell quiet again as the year drew to a close, giving way to ceasefires and mediation efforts, as all sides waited for the Trump administration to unveil its long-expected Middle East peace plan.

(Reporting by Stephen Farrell, editing by Louise Heavens)

Chaos descends as Senate hearing on Trump’s high court nominee opens

U.S. Supreme Court nominee judge Brett Kavanaugh is surrounded by photographers as he takes his seat for his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court pick, opened in chaos on Tuesday, as Democrats protested about Republicans blocking access to documents stemming from the nominee’s White House work more than a decade ago.

With Democratic senators interrupting the Judiciary Committee’s Republican chairman Chuck Grassley at the outset of the hearing and dozens of shouting protesters removed one by one by security personnel, the session quickly descended into a ruckus.

“This is the first confirmation for a Supreme Court justice I’ve seen, basically, according to mob rule,” Republican Senator John Cornyn said, a characterization Democrats rejected.

“What we’ve heard is the noise of democracy. This is what happens in a free country when people can stand up and speak and not be jailed, imprisoned, tortured and killed because of it,” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said.

News photographers clicked pictures of a smiling Kavanaugh – the conservative federal appeals court judge picked by Trump for a lifetime job on the top U.S. judicial body – as he entered the hearing room along with family members. But moments after Grassley opened the session, Democrats decried the withholding of the documents and asked to have the proceedings adjourned.

Protesters took turns yelling as senators spoke, shouting, “This is a travesty of justice,” “Our democracy is broken” and “Vote no on Kavanaugh.”

“We cannot possibly move forward. We have not had an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said. Democratic Senator Cory Booker appealed to Grassley’s “sense of decency and integrity” and said the withholding of the documents by Republicans and the White House left lawmakers unable to properly vet Kavanaugh.

If confirmed, Kavanaugh is expected to move the court – which already had a conservative majority – further to the right. Senate Democratic leaders have vowed a fierce fight to try to block his confirmation. Democrats signaled they would press Kavanaugh on abortion and gun rights, among other issues, when they get to question him on Wednesday.

Grassley ignored the Democrats’ request to halt the hearing, saying it was “out of order” and accused them of obstruction. Republicans hold a slim Senate majority and can confirm Kavanaugh if they stay united. There were no signs of Republican defections.

Republican Orrin Hatch accused Democratic senators of political opportunism, noting, “We have folks who want to run for president,” though he did not mention any by name. There has been speculation Booker and Harris might consider 2020 presidential runs.

Hatch grew visibly irritated as protesters interrupted him.

U.S. Supreme Court nominee judge Brett Kavanaugh is seated before his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

“I think we ought to have this loudmouth removed. We shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of stuff,” Hatch said.

Senator Ted Cruz accused Democrats of “an attempt to relitigate the 2016 election” won by fellow Republican Trump.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh, 53, to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement on June 27.

Democrats have demanded in vain to see documents relating Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary to Republican former President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2006. That job involved managing paper flow from advisers to Bush.

Republicans also have released some, but not all, of the existing documents concerning Kavanaugh’s two prior years as a lawyer in Bush’s White House Counsel’s Office.

Republicans have said Democrats have more than enough documents to assess Kavanaugh’s record, including his 12 years of judicial opinions as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Kavanaugh sat, fingers intertwined, quietly staring ahead at the committee members as protesters in the audience screamed while being dragged out of the hearing room. He occasionally jotted notes on paper.

A protester is removed during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee judge Brett Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 4, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

There is a long history of heated fights over U.S. Supreme Court nominations, with anger in both parties. But the Democratic frustrations that boiled over on Tuesday had been simmering for more than two years.

Democrats have accused Senate Republican leaders of stealing a Supreme Court seat by refusing to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nominee to the high court Merrick Garland in 2016, allowing Trump to fill a Supreme Court vacancy instead.

Republicans also last year reduced the margin for advancing Supreme Court nominations from 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate to a simple majority in order to force through the confirmation of Trump’s first high court nominee Neil Gorsuch.

‘AM UMPIRE’

Grassley sought to turn the attention to Kavanaugh’s qualifications, calling him “one of the most qualified nominees – if not the most qualified nominee – I have seen.”

The Senate is likely to vote on confirmation by the end of the month. The court begins its next term in October.

“A good judge must be an umpire – a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy,” Kavanaugh said in written remarks released in advance of the hearing. “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

The hearing gave Democrats a chance to make their case against Kavanaugh ahead of November’s congressional elections in which they are seeking to seize control of Congress from Republicans.

Liberals are concerned Kavanaugh could provide a decisive fifth vote on the nine-justice court to overturn or weaken the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Kennedy was a solid conservative but sided with the court’s liberals on some issues, including abortion and gay rights.

Kavanaugh also is likely to be questioned by senators about his views on investigating sitting presidents and the ongoing probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“I find it difficult to imagine that your views on this subject escaped the attention of President Trump, who seems increasingly fixated on his own ballooning legal jeopardy,” Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy said.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung, Amanda Becker, Lisa Lambert; Editing by Will Dunham)

Turkey blocks decades-old mothers’ vigil as freedoms suffer

Emine Ocak, (R) mother of Hasan Ocak who went missing in 1995 and a member of "Saturday Mothers", talks with her friend before an interview with Reuters in Istanbul, Turkey, August 27, 2018. Picture taken August 27, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Humeyra Pamuk and Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Every Saturday for 23 years, dozens of people have held a vigil in a central Istanbul square, sitting in silence and holding pictures of relatives who went missing in police detention.

The group was about to stage their 700th demonstration last Saturday when Turkish police told them their protest was banned, before firing tear gas and plastic pellets to disperse the crowd and detaining dozens – including a 82 year-old woman who was among the first to protest in 1995 in search of her son.

The sit-in by the so-called Saturday Mothers was one of the few remaining public protests near Istanbul’s Taksim square, once a vibrant demonstration ground but now off-limits for opposition groups.

Critics say that breaking up the vigil was another sign that NATO member Turkey is drifting into more authoritarian rule under President Tayyip Erdogan, adding to Ankara’s already deteriorating record on human rights and media freedoms.

Casting the protest as a cover for supporting terrorism, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the Saturday Mothers were linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and hinted the vigils would no longer be allowed.

“This has been one of Turkey’s oldest civil disobedience movements,” said Ahmet Sik, former journalist and a lawmaker for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who was at Saturday’s protest.

“There was a time when the police helped these people to do their vigil. To criminalize such an established protest now is an attempt to intimidate the rest of the public,” he said.

Turkey in July lifted a two year-long state of emergency during which 150,000 civil servants were purged and 77,000 people suspected of links to a failed coup in 2016 were charged.

But opponents say Erdogan’s new executive presidency and a counter-terrorism law passed last month equips him with sweeping powers to stifle opposition.

Soylu said on Monday that authorities blocked the sit-in because participants were “trying to create victims through motherhood and mask terrorism through that victimization.”

At a news conference in Istanbul, the group denied links to any militant group and pointed out Erdogan, when he was prime minister in 2011, met them and pledged support.

They also vowed to continue their protest.

“Nobody is using us. Nobody has made us come here,” said Hanife Yildiz, whose son Murat went missing in police detention in 1995.

“I handed over my son to the state and I haven’t gotten him back since.”

‘REPEAT OF THE 1990s’

The silent vigils of Saturday Mothers began as a protest against what they say was the disappearance of relatives in police detention and extrajudicial killings in the 1990s.

At the time, when conflict with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was at its height, such disappearances and killings were common, mostly in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

Emine Ocak, who was briefly detained on Saturday, was among those at the first sit-in after her son Hasan Ocak went missing following clashes with police in Istanbul in 1995.

Soylu rejected that Ocak had gone missing in detention and said he was a member of an ultra-leftist terrorist organization and that he was killed after a row within the group but the Saturday Mothers were trying to put the blame on the state.

Emine Ocak’s picture – the image of a white-haired elderly woman shouting as she was taken by riot police – went viral across Twitter. Her son Huseyin, Hasan’s brother, told Reuters police intervention was unexpected.

“There seems to be a new security approach in the state that very much resembles the one in the 1990s,” Huseyin Ocak said.

“I was there at the meeting with Erdogan on Feb 5, 2011. He said, ‘your problem is my cabinet’s problem.” He also promised to find our relatives, he added.

State investigations have shed light on some of the cases pursued by the Saturday Mothers. A 2011 parliament report found that Cemil Kirbayir, who went missing during a 1980 coup, died under torture.

“Since 1995 we have continued our rightful and silent resistance,” Cemil’s brother Mikail said. “You will not be able to remove us from that square.”

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Alexandra Hudson)

Venezuelan streets quieter than usual after opposition strike call

People queue to withdraw cash from automated teller machines (ATM) at a Mercantil bank branch in Caracas, Venezuela August 21, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s streets were quieter than normal on Tuesday but many businesses remained open despite an opposition call for a national strike to protest economic measures announced by socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

The OPEC nation on Monday cut five zeros from prices in response to hyperinflation as part of a broad set of measures meant to address an economic crisis, including pegging the country’s currency to an obscure state-backed cryptocurrency.

Opposition critics slammed the plan as inadequate in the face of inflation that topped 82,000 percent in July and called for a one-day halt of commercial activities.

“Don’t got to work, you have the right to protest, because what’s at stake is your life, your future, and your country. Rebel!” opposition party Popular Will wrote via its Twitter account.

Maduro declared Monday a national holiday for banks and consumers to get accustomed to the new pricing scheme, under which items that cost 1,000,000 bolivars last week were remarked with price tags of 10 bolivars.

Fedecamaras, the country’s main business group, slammed the proposal as “incoherent,” noting that the plan’s 3,000 percent minimum wage increase would make it impossible for businesses to keep their doors open.

But the group did not take a position on the opposition-led strike, saying individual members should choose on their own.

Venezuelan 100 bolivar notes thrown by people in a trash bin are seen at a gas station of the Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA in Caracas, Venezuela August 20, 2018. REUTERS/Marco Bello

The Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The ruling Socialist Party announced a march on Tuesday morning to support Maduro’s economic measures that was scheduled to end with a rally at the presidential palace.

The collapse of the country’s once-booming economy has fueled hunger and disease, spurring an exodus of migrants to nearby countries.

In recent days, Ecuador and Peru tightened visa requirements for Venezuelans and violence drove hundreds of Venezuelan migrants back across the border with Brazil.

The discontent has also spread to the military, as soldiers struggle to get enough food and many desert by leaving the country.

Two high-ranking military officers were arrested this month for alleged involvement in drone explosions during a speech by Maduro, who called it an assassination attempt.

Maduro says his government is the victim of an “economic war” led by the opposition with the help of Washington, which last year levied several rounds of sanctions against his government and high-ranking officials.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Paul Simao)

Venezuela arrests six over drone explosions during Maduro speech

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with government officials the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela August 4, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Brian Ellsworth and Vivian Sequera

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan authorities said on Sunday they have detained six people over drone explosions the day before at a rally led by President Nicolas Maduro, as his critics warned the socialist leader would use the incident to crack down on adversaries.

People look at the damage in a building after an explosion in Caracas, Venezuela August 5, 2018. REUTERS/Adriana Loureiro

The suspects launched two drones laden with explosives over an outdoor rally Maduro was holding in downtown Caracas to commemorate the National Guard, Interior Minister Nestor Reverol said. One was “diverted” by security forces while the second fell on its own and hit an apartment building, Reverol

said.

The attack highlights Maduro’s challenges in maintaining control over the OPEC nation, where widespread food and medicine shortages have fueled outrage and despair everywhere from hillside slums to military barracks.

“These terrorist acts represent a slap in the face to the expressed desire of the President of the Republic, Nicolas Maduro, for national reconciliation and dialogue,” Reverol said in a statement read on state television.

State television footage of the rally showed Maduro startled by what appeared to be an explosion and footage later panned to soldiers lined up on a boulevard who chaotically broke ranks in what appeared to be a reaction to a second blast.

Venezuela’s Interior and Justice Minister Nestor Reverol speaks during a news conference in Caracas, Venezuela August 5, 2018. Ministry of Interior and Justice/Handout via REUTERS

The president later described the attack, which injured seven soldiers, as an assassination attempt.

One of the suspects had an outstanding arrest warrant for involvement in a 2017 attack on a military base that killed two people, Reverol said, an incident that followed four months of anti-government protests.

A second suspect had been detained during a wave of anti-Maduro protests in 2014 but had been released through “procedural benefits,” Reverol said, without offering details.

He did not name the suspects.

The arrests suggest the attack was less a military uprising than an assault led by groups linked to anti-Maduro street protesters, dubbed “The Resistance,” who have led two waves of violent demonstrations that left hundreds dead.

That is consistent with the shadowy group that claimed responsibility for the attack, The National Movement of Soldiers in T-Shirts, whose website says it was created in 2014 to bring together different groups of protesters.

Reuters was unable to independently confirm the involvement of the group, which did not respond to requests for comment on the arrest announcements or identify any of its members.

‘I SAW THE LITTLE PLANE’

Bolivar Avenue of downtown Caracas, where the incident took place, was calm on Sunday.

Joggers and cyclists were taking up two of the lanes that are traditionally used for weekend recreation. The stage where Maduro spoke had been removed.

Witnesses said they heard and felt an explosion in the late afternoon, then saw a drone fall out of the sky and hit a nearby building.

“I heard the first explosion, it was so strong that the buildings moved,” said Mairum Gonzalez, 45, a pre-school teacher. “I went to the balcony and I saw the little plane … it hit the building and smoke started to come out.”

Two witnesses said they later saw security forces halt a black Chevrolet and arrest three men inside it.

The security forces later took apart the car and found what appeared to be remote controls, tablets, and computers, said the two, who identified themselves as Andres and Karina, without giving their last names.

Opposition critics accuse Maduro of fabricating or exaggerating security incidents to distract from hyperinflation and Soviet-style product shortages.

Leopoldo Lopez, formerly mayor of Caracas’ district of Chacao, for example, is under house arrest for his role in 2014 street protests that Maduro described as a coup attempt but his adversaries insisted were a form of free expression.

“We warn that the government is taking advantage of this incident … to criminalize those who legitimately and democratically oppose it and deepen the repression and systematic human rights violations,” wrote the Broad Front opposition coalition in a statement published on Twitter.

Maduro’s allies counter that the opposition has a history of involvement in military conspiracies, most notably in the 2002 coup that briefly toppled socialist leader Hugo Chavez.

“I have no doubt that everything points to the right, the Venezuelan ultra-right,” Maduro said on Saturday night. “Maximum punishment! And there will be no forgiveness.”

Maduro, who blames the country’s problems on an “economic war” led by adversaries, during the course of his five-year rule has often announced having foiled military plots against him that he says are backed by Washington.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that the United States was not involved in the blast.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Ulmer,; Editing by Grant McCool and Bill Trott)

NFL decision on national anthem protests- teams can be fined

FILE PHOTO: Washington Redskins tight end Niles Paul (84) and linebacker Ryan Anderson (52) and Washington Redskins linebacker Chris Carter (55) kneel with teammates during the playing of the national anthem before the game between the Washington Redskins and the Oakland Raiders at FedEx Field in Landover, MD, U.S., September 24, 2017. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo

By Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed a decision by the National Football League to fine teams if players on the field refuse to stand for the national anthem, saying if they do not want to stand maybe they should not be in the country.

Last season some NFL players kneeled during the anthem to protest police shootings of unarmed black men, provoking a controversy. Trump denounced the players as unpatriotic and repeatedly demanded an end to such protests.

Under the new policy unveiled on Wednesday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, teams will be fined if players on the field fail to stand during the “Star-Spangled Banner.” Players who choose not to stand may remain in the locker room until the anthem is finished.

“I think that’s good. I don’t think people should be staying in locker rooms but still I think it’s good,” Trump told Fox News in an interview taped on Wednesday and broadcast on Thursday.

“You have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem. Or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country,” the president said.

The NFL Players Association said it was not consulted on the new policy and may issue a challenge should it violate the collective bargaining agreement.

The NAACP also criticized the decision.

“Instead of coming together to address an issue disproportionately plaguing the African-American, the NFL owners have chosen to bury their heads and silence players,” the United States’ oldest civil rights organization said in a statement.

“Players cannot disconnect from the aggression African-Americans face every day.”

Democratic U.S. Senator Ben Cardin said the president’s words were “inflammatory” but not unexpected, and added that Trump’s suggestion that players’ should be ousted is “never going to be acceptable to me and, I think, to many Americans.”

“This country stands for the constitutional protections of the First Amendment, the right to freedom of speech. That’s what this country is about,” Cardin told CNN in an interview.

Still, Cardin added, “what the NFL is doing right now is moving in the right path,” noting that employers can establish reasonable standards over employees’ expression.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Jonathan Oatis)

Protest camps quiet as Gazans fast and fill sandbags

A Palestinian man reads the Koran inside a tent during the holy month of Ramadan, at a protest camp near the Israel-Gaza border in the central Gaza Strip May 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) – Young men filled sandbags to prepare for future protests at encampments along Gaza’s Israeli border on Thursday, though tents were mostly empty as Palestinians joined Muslims around the world observing the daylight fast at the start of Ramadan.

After the bloodiest day for Palestinians in years on Monday, when 60 were killed by Israeli gunfire during mass demonstrations that Israel said included attempts to breach its frontier fence, calm and a heatwave descended on the area.

Organisers of the protests that began on March 30 set Friday as a day to honour the dead and urged Gazans to flock again to the tent cities. But Ramadan traditions – prayer, family visits and feasts – seemed to keep crowds away during the hot hours.

At one encampment, about 70 young men filled sandbags in anticipation of people returning to the protest sites.

“We are making a sand barrier so people can feel a bit safer,” one of the men said, declining to give his name.

Ramadan is usually a time of celebration, but after dozens of funerals during the week the mood was bleak in Gaza.

Israel’s intelligence minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday neighboring Egypt had put pressure on Hamas, the armed Islamist faction that controls the Gaza Strip, to scale back the protests.

Hamas denied it had come under Egyptian pressure to curb the protests, which provoked international condemnation of Israel’s deadly tactics in putting down the unrest. The organizing committee for the demonstrations said Muslims’ abstinence from food and drink during the hot mornings and afternoons of Ramadan would be taken into account in further protests.

The “March of Return” demonstrations advocate the return of Palestinians to lands lost to Israel during its founding in 1948, and are also intended to draw attention to harsh conditions in Gaza, where the economy has collapsed under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since Hamas took power in 2007.

Israel, with U.S. backing, says Hamas is behind the protests, deliberately provoking violence for propaganda aims. Hamas says the demonstrations are a popular outpouring of anger, and Israel carried out a “massacre” in response.

ISRAELI AIR STRIKE

Dawoud Shehab, a member of the organizing committee, said activities at the encampments would get under way only in the late afternoon when temperatures drop. Late-night prayers will also be held there, he said.

“The marches are continuing and there are calls on people to gather in mass on Friday in a day we have dedicated to glorifying the martyrs,” Shehab told Reuters.

The message was echoed in appeals blared by loudspeakers on vehicles that drove into Gaza neighborhoods to urge people to turn out. Organisers said the protest would stretch into June.

Violence along the border has been comparatively limited over the past two days, with no casualties reported by either side since Tuesday, when two Palestinians were killed while dozens of others were buried.

Early on Thursday, Israeli aircraft hit four Hamas targets in the northern Gaza Strip in response to heavy machine gun fire that struck houses in the Israeli town of Sderot, the Israeli military said.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the past decade since Gaza fell under control of the militant group that denies Israel’s right to exist. Israel and Egypt say their de facto blockade of the strip is necessary for security reasons.

The World Bank says it has driven Gaza to economic collapse, with one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. Eighty percent of Gaza’s 2 million people are now dependent on aid.

(Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Peter Graff)

Colorado, Arizona teachers rally for second day over pay, funding

People march in front of the Capitol in Phoenix, Arizonia, U.S., April 26, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. Jeremy Whittaker, City of Mesa Councilman/via REUTERS

By David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of teachers in Colorado and Arizona rallied for a second day on Friday to demand higher pay and school funding as a revolt by U.S. public school teachers spread westward.

Waving placards such as “Teachers Just Want To Have Fund$,” educators and their supporters descended on the state capital in Denver to demand an increase in school budgets.

The Rocky Mountain state is $2,700 below the national average in per-pupil funding even though Colorado is one of the fastest-growing state economies in the United States, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Protesters are demanding the state begin to repay $6.6 billion in funding withheld since 2009 as the state recovered from the recession, address a shortfall of 3,000 teachers and adequately staff schools with counselors, social workers and special educators.

Encouraged by similar protests in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, organizers in Colorado said the protests would send a message to political leaders about their dissatisfaction.

“We have educators working two or three jobs to make ends meet,” said Kerrie Dallman, head of the Colorado Education Association, a statewide federation of teachers’ unions organizing the two-day walkout.

“Teachers are spending $656 (a year) out of their own pocket to buy supplies like paper and dry erase markers,” said Dallman, a high-school social studies teacher from Jefferson County.

The Colorado action forced the state’s two largest school districts, in Denver and neighboring Jefferson County, to cancel classes for hundreds of thousands of students.

Democratic lawmakers who control Colorado’s lower house back the teachers but Republicans, with a Senate majority, have balked at spending more on education, saying funding needs to go to infrastructure like roads.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has vowed to work with the teachers and on Friday met with a small group of educators, according to protest organizers.

In Arizona, thousands rallied in Phoenix for an immediate 20-percent increase to teacher salaries, which are among the lowest in the country, and restoring education funding to 2008 levels.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a Republican, has offered a cumulative 20 percent pay rise by 2020. He has pledged $371 million over the next five years for school infrastructure, curriculum, school buses and technology.

“What I’m dealing with now are our legislators, Republicans and Democrats, so we can get that passed,” Ducey told NBC affiliate news station 12News on Thursday.

The vast majority of Arizona’s more than 200 public school districts, with roughly 1.1 million students, canceled classes for Thursday and Friday.

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; writing by Andrew Hay, editing by G Crosse)

Eight on trial for rape, murder of girl in India’s Kashmir amid public anger

Children attend a protest against the rape of an eight-year-old girl, in Kathua, near Jammu and a teenager in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh state, in New Delhi, India April 15, 2018. REUTERS/Cathal McNaughton

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Eight men accused of involvement in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state appeared in court on Monday for the first hearing in a case that sparked nationwide outrage and criticism of the ruling party.

The girl, from a nomadic community that roams the forests of Kashmir, was drugged, held captive in a temple and sexually assaulted for a week before being strangled and battered to death with a stone in January, police said.

Public anger at the crime led to protests in cities across India over the past few days, with outrage fueled by support for the accused initially shown by state government ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The protests have also focused on another rape allegedly involving a BJP lawmaker in the crime-ridden, most populous, poor northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The outrage has drawn parallels with massive protests that followed the gang rape and murder of a woman on a Delhi bus in 2012, which forced the then Congress-led government to enact tough new rape laws including the death penalty.

Yet India has long been plagued by violence against women and children – reported rapes climbed 60 percent from 2012 to 40,000 in 2016, and many more go unreported, especially in rural areas.

Reports of torture, rape and murder of another child have emerged from Modi’s western home state of Gujarat.

In that case, the corpse of a girl was found near a cricket ground in the city of Surat a week ago.

The post-mortem showed she had been tortured and sexually assaulted before being strangled. The body had 86 injury marks, including some inflicted to her genitalia with hard, blunt objects, while more minor injuries suggest she had been beaten with a stick or slapped.

Doctors estimate that the unidentified girl was about 12, police said.

As the groundswell of revulsion grew, Modi assured the country on Friday that the guilty would not be shielded, but he has been criticized for failing to speak out sooner.

Before leaving for an official visit to Europe this week, Modi received a letter from 50 former police chiefs, ambassadors and senior civil servants upbraiding the political leadership over its weak response.

“The bestiality and the barbarity involved in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old child shows the depths of depravity that we have sunk into,” the former officials said.

“In post-Independence India, this is our darkest hour and we find the response of our government, the leaders of our political parties inadequate and feeble.”

The letter went further by blaming the BJP and likeminded right-wing Hindu groups for promoting a culture of “majoritarian belligerence and aggression” in Jammu, and in the Uttar Pradesh case it blasted the party for using feudal strongmen, who behave like gangsters, to shore up its rule.

The former officials said they held no political affiliation other than to uphold the values of India’s secular constitution that guarantees equal rights to all citizens. Some of the signatories have spoken out in the past also against Modi’s Hindu nationalist party accusing it of whipping up hostility towards India’s 172 million Muslims.

THREATS AGAINST LAWYER

Fallout from the 2012 rape case led to the resignation of Congress chief minister of Delhi. This time, Congress was quick to realize the mood of the country, with party leader Rahul Gandhi leading the first major protest in the capital last week.

On Monday, Gandhi tweeted that there had been nearly 20,000 child rapes in India in 2016, and urged Modi to fast-track prosecutions “if he is serious about providing ‘justice for our daughters'”.

Though the rape and killing of the girl in Kashmir had been known about for months, the backlash erupted after the charge sheet giving gruesome details of the crime was filed last week.

It alleged that the attack was part of a plan to drive the nomads out of Kathua district in Jammu, the mostly Hindu portion of India’s only Muslim-majority state.

The alleged ringleader of the campaign, retired bureaucrat Sanji Ram, looked after a small Hindu temple where the girl had been held and assaulted. Two of the eight on trial are police officers who stand accused of being bribed to stifle the investigation.

After Monday’s initial hearing in Srinagar, the judge adjourned the case until April 28 while the Supreme Court heard a petition from the lawyer representing the victim’s family to have the trial held elsewhere due to fears for her safety.

Ahead of the trial, the lawyer said she had been threatened with rape and death for taking up the case.

“I was threatened yesterday that ‘we will not forgive you’. I am going to tell Supreme Court that I am in danger,” said the lawyer, Deepika Singh Rawat, who has fought for a proper investigation since the girl’s body was found in January.

The Supreme Court also ordered security for the victim’s family after her father said he too feared for their safety.

Two ministers from the BJP, which shares power in Jammu and Kashmir, were forced to resign after being pilloried for joining a rally in support of the accused men.

(This version of the story corrects first paragraph below sub-head to show Delhi chief minister lost election, not forced to resign)

(Additional reporting by Suchitra Mohanty in NEW DELHI; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Robert Birsel)

Israeli troops wound dozens on Gaza border as Palestinians bury dead from earlier violence

A Palestinian hurls stones at Israeli troops during clashes at the Gaza-Israel border at a protest demanding the right to return to their homeland, in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot and wounded about 70 Palestinians among crowds demonstrating at the Gaza-Israel border on Saturday, health officials said, after one of the deadliest days of unrest in the area in years.

Thousands of people marched through the streets of Gaza in funerals for the 15 people killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday, and a national day of mourning was observed in the enclave and in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was responsible for the violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was protecting its sovereignty and citizens.

An Israeli military spokesman said he was checking the details of Saturday’s unrest. It broke out when Palestinians gathered on the border between the Hamas-run enclave and Israel then began throwing stones. Palestinian health officials said about 70 were wounded.

A Palestinian hurls stones at Israeli troops during clashes at the Gaza-Israel border at a protest demanding the right to return to their homeland, in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

On Friday at least 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces confronting protesters. The military said some had shot at them, rolled burning tyres and hurled rocks and fire bombs toward troops across the border.

Hamas said five of them were members of its armed wing. Israel said eight of the 15 dead belonged to Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Israel and the West, and two others belonged to other militant groups.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered on Friday along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) frontier, where tents had been erected for a planned six-week protest pressing for a right of return for refugees and their descendents to what is now Israel.

But hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organizers and the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier and violence broke out.

The protest, organized by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, is scheduled to culminate on May 15, the day Palestinians commemorate what they call the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out of their homes in 1948, when the state of Israel was created.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It says refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end have been frozen since 2014.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but still maintains tight control of its land and sea borders.

Egypt also keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.

Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said: “The message of the Palestinian people is clear. The Palestinian land will always belong to its legitimate owners and the occupation will be removed.”

A Palestinian is evacuated during clashes with Israeli troops at the Gaza-Israel border at a protest demanding the right to return to their homeland, in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Israeli military spokesman Brigadier-General Ronen Manelis said Hamas was using the protests as a guise to launch attacks against Israel and ignite the area. He said violence was likely to continue along the border until May 15.

“We won’t let this turn into a ping-pong zone where they perpetrate a terrorist act and we respond with pinpoint action. If this continues we will not have no choice but to respond inside the Gaza Strip,” Manelis told reporters.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an independent investigation into Friday’s bloodshed, and appealed for all sides to refrain from any actions that could lead to further casualties or put civilians in harm’s way.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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