Death toll from Delhi riots climbs to 38; violence begins to subside

A riot police officer stands among debris at a damaged area in East Delhi that was affected by deadly clashes in Delhi on Thursday. Photo by EPA-EFE

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The death toll from violence in Delhi's northeast district climbed to 38 Thursday, though officials there said rioting began to subside.

Religious clashes began Sunday over India's controversial citizenship law, which offers amnesty to refugees from multiple neighboring nations as long as they aren't Muslim.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have consistently supported the law, but opponents say it violates the secular principles of the Indian Constitution.

Opponents rallied against the measure and demanded its withdrawal, but government officials say they won't pull it or amend it. Some activists have clashed with swords, stones and other weapons, and homes, vehicles and other property have been burned across the capital.

A senior Delhi Health Department official told the Press Trust of India that 11 more deaths were reported Thursday. Some 200 people have been injured in the violence.

It's unclear how many people have been arrested amid the arson, looting and bloodshed.

Some witnesses told The New York Times that police forces loyal to Bharatiya Janata Party have declined to intervene as Hindu mobs kill Muslim civilians.

Special Commissioner S N Shrivastava said, though, the violence has subsided in some areas.

"The situation is returning to normal. We are here to reassure people that we are with them," he said.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=HINDUISM 

IS FASCISM, CASTISM AND RACISM

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=INDIA

ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
Oklahoma inmates seek to re-open suit on state's lethal injection protocol

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A group of Oklahoma death row inmates on Thursday filed a motion to reopen their lawsuit against the state's lethal injection protocol, weeks after officials announced a plan to resume executions.

The group challenged the state's plan, saying its new protocol is incomplete. The motion also alleges that a grand jury investigation into the state's methods of execution haven't been completed.

Those shortcomings, the court document said, threaten the inmates' First, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights.

The state announced Feb. 13 that it plans to resume executions, nearly six years after the use of an incorrect drug led to the botched execution of a convicted murderer.

RELATED Colorado House votes to abolish death penalty; Gov. Polis to sign

Gov. Kevin Stitt said that after mulling the option of using nitrogen gas to cary out executions, the state has now found a "reliable supply of drugs" to resume lethal injections.

Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol came under scrutiny in 2014 when Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack amid complications during his execution.

Autopsy reports released a year later indicated Oklahoma corrections officials used the wrong drug -- potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride -- during the process. Lockett complained of a burning sensation and attempted to raise his head and speak after doctors declared he was unconscious.

RELATED Supreme Court denies new hearing in Arizona death penalty case

The same incorrect drug was delivered to corrections officials for use in the planned 2015 execution of Richard Glossip. Former Gov. Mary Ballin called off Glossip's execution with a last-minute, indefinite stay after she learned of the discrepancy.

Oklahoma has carried out only one other execution since Lockett's, that of Charles Warner in January 2015. He received a nine-month stay due to the previous botched lethal injection.

Since then, the state had an unofficial moratorium on executions as it attempted to secure a supply of lethal injection drugs. Oklahoma uses a three-drug cocktail of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

RELATED Texas appeals court lifts stay for death row inmate

Executions in the United States have undergone changes in recent years after states started running out of the essential lethal injection drug pentobarbital. The European Union in 2011 voted to prohibit the sale of the drug and seven other barbiturates to the United States for use in torture or executions. Other pharmaceutical companies have refused to sell drugs for lethal injection purposes outright, and some will only sell if their name is kept confidential.

Now states are being forced to use new drug cocktails, scramble to restock their stores of drugs and review their lethal injection policies.

In 2018, Oklahoma's attorney general's office announced it would use nitrogen gas inhalation as its primary method of execution. Officials, though, had difficulty finding a manufacturer to sell a method for administering the gas for an execution. Additionally, state law says nitrogen hypoxia may be used for executions only if drugs for lethal injections are unavailable.

RELATED Alabama death row inmate of 30 years dies of natural causes

Forty-seven people currently sit on death row in Oklahoma, including 30 who have exhausted the appeals process and are eligible for execution dates.

Twenty-one inmates were named in the lawsuit when it was filed in 2014: James Coddington, Benjamin Cole, Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez, Nicholas Davis, Richard Fairchild, John Grant, Wendell Grissom, Marlon Harmon, Raymond Johnson, Emmanuel Littlejohn, James Pavatt, Kendrick Simpson, Kevin Underwood, Brenda Andrew, Glossip, Shelton Jackson, Phillip Hancock, Julius Jones, Alfred Mitchell and Termane Wood. Warner, who was executed in 2015, also was named.

FOR FULL PDF CLICK HERE 







THE RIGHT TO LIFE END THE DEATH PENALTY

Film 'Welcome Strangers' explores immigrants stranded by ICE

ByJean Lotus

A still shot from the film "Welcome Strangers" shows recently released immigrants in Colorado arriving at Casa de Paz, a hospitality house where they can temporarily stay before traveling to family. Photo courtesy of "Welcome Strangers"





DENVER, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The plight of immigrants stranded far from home after being released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention near Denver is the focus of a new independent film that shows how volunteers come to their aid.

Welcome Strangers, a short that premiered this month at Montana's Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, explores immigrants' vulnerabilities when they leave an ICE detention center with little other than the clothes on their backs and a bag of paperwork.

The film focuses on volunteers at Casa de Paz, a Denver-area organization that helps immigrants who just have been been released from the 1,800-bed privately run GEO Group facility in Aurora, Colo.

"Immigrants are released out the back door of the detention center at night, with no identification, food or money," said Garret Savage, the film's producer. "Volunteers and citizens have recognized this problem and show up every night to pick them up."

RELATED Homeland Security: Tensions rising in crowded migrant detention facilities

Released detainees can stay at the Casa de Paz house in Aurora for up to three days while they contact family members, eat home-cooked meals, take hot showers and arrange transportation to their ultimate destination, founder Sarah Jackson said. Jackson owns and lives in the house.

"You could be overjoyed you're finally free, and yet you are frozen in fear because you just don't know what to do," Jackson told UPI. "It just boils down to the fact that immigrants are released from detention, and it's nobody's responsibility to make sure the person gets to where they need to go."

The GEO Group detention center is situated in an industrial park. The film shows volunteers approaching detainees standing in the dark, asking them if they need help.

RELATED Nationwide protests demand closure of migrant detention centers

Many of the immigrants do need help, although ICE contends that detainees have resources to make plans for after they're released.

"The [GEO Group] lobby is open 24/7 and people will choose to wait there when it's cold," Alethea Smock, public affairs officer in the Denver ICE office, said in an email. Detainees have access to phones to call their home consulates, she said.

But volunteers say detainees are released in the clothes in which they were arrested, sometimes even pajamas.

RELATED ICE deports survivor of New Orleans hotel collapse

"They're shoved out the back door at night after their attorney's office is closed, with paperwork and left to figure out their next move," said Carmen Mireles, who coordinates immigrant cases for a Longmont, Colo., law firm.

"Thank God for Casa de Paz, because they send a volunteer to the detention center every night without fail," Mireles said.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora, battled for access to the GEO Group facility last year. His staffers now tour it twice a month.

"ICE officers will give a heads up to Casa about how many people are being released, and the detainees know to look our for Casa volunteers either at the facility or a gas station nearby," said Anne Feldman, Crow's local spokeswoman.

Casa de Paz director Jackson, who works during the day at a software company, coordinates hundreds of volunteers, who donate clothing, toiletries and frequent flyer miles and prepare hot meals. They also visit detainees and accompany them to the airport.




"Sarah is my angel," volunteer Oliver, a Cameroon native, said in the 21-minute film. Oliver spent six months in detention until he was granted political asylum and was released from GEO Group -- knowing nothing about Colorado, he said. The film shows the reunification of Oliver with his daughter and wife, who had been held in California.

Another immigrant, Javier, released on an asylum petition, makes a phone call to his wife and son in Mexico in the film. He told U.S. officials he had been beaten by gangs in Mexico.

"To the men who beat me, I am a dead man," he said in the documentary.

But Javier worried that his remaining family members were in danger. He had been in detention for three months without speaking to family.

In the past eight years, 2,903 visitors have stayed at Casa de Paz. These include immigrants seeking asylum, those who have been released on bail and detainees' family members. They came from 73 countries, including those in Central America, Cameroon, Fiji, Haiti, India, Italy, Mexico, Nepal, Sudan and Vietnam.

"What we're doing is quite simple and basic, giving things that are not difficult like a meal, a ride to the airport," Jackson said.

Shuffling detained immigrants between facilities across the country makes it harder to comply with court orders in their home states, advocates say.

"It's a logistical nightmare," Denver area immigration attorney Tiago Guevara said. "The government relocates you hundreds of miles from where you live, detaining you for several months so you can't work, and then releases you essentially homeless."

In Colorado, ICE also confiscates passports and IDs, making it difficult for detainees to pass through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at the airport when trying to get home in time to meet court dates, he said.

Jackson said the environment for immigrants is more difficult than it was a year ago. Some guests are so anxious they won't even take a walk around the block, fearing they will picked up again by ICE, she said.

"It's just continually getting harder and harder to deal with the reality that our country is increasingly becoming more fearful of the 'other,'" she added.

"For a lot of the guests who come to the Casa, they fled trauma, persecution, death and other horrors. And then our government welcomes them with more terror to put them through -- it's just not necessary," Jackson added.

Jackson and Casa de Paz also created an interactive traveling exhibit that was displayed at a 2019 Denver-area TEDx event called Julia's Journey. The exhibit depicts the path of an asylum-seeking mother who stayed at Casa de Paz with her child after being held at the privately run GEO Group center.

"Immigrant detention has become a money-making business, and you can feel pretty depressed about it," Jackson said.

Capturing the human emotions of both immigrants released from detention and the volunteers who help them was the goal of filmmakers, Savage said.

Filmmakers plan grass-roots screenings near other U.S. detention centers.

"We want to show the film to people who may have one idea of what an immigrant looks like in their head," Savage said.

"They might have an idea that an immigrant is a lawbreaker who should not be helped, but not everyone is in detention because they committed a crime. Many are seeking asylum and escaping from trauma in their own countries."

Casa de Paz's mission has also opened the eyes and hearts of hundreds of volunteers, Jackson said.

"You don't need a lot of resources, but if we all give a bit, we can make a big difference. It gives us an experience of seeing our humanity through the eyes of a stranger."

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY FEB 28

FBI ATF RAID BRANCH DRAVIDIAN CULT 

IN WACO TEXAS

Special counsel and former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth points to where shell casings were found at the Branch Davidian compound, in Waco, Texas, during a news conference July 21, 2000.

On February 28, 1993, federal agents attempting to serve warrants on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, were met with gunfire that left five dead. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

In 2019, it was announced that a Caravaggio painting discovered after being hidden in an attic for 400 years would go to auction. It was snapped up by a foreign buyer for an undisclosed sum before the auction could happen, though.

In 1885, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. was incorporated in New York as a subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.

In 1935, nylon was invented by DuPont researcher Wallace Carothers.

In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated on a street in Stockholm.

CLINTON'S HUMANITARIAN WAR APPROVED BY THE UN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE KOREAN WAR 

In 1994, NATO was involved in combat for the first time in its 45-year history when four U.S. fighter planes operating under NATO auspices shot down four Serb planes that had violated the U.N. no-fly zone in central Bosnia.

VIETNAM ERA ANTI WAR TV SERIES ABOUT THE KOREAN WAR 

In 1983, the concluding episode of the long-running television series M*A*S*H drew what was then the largest TV audience in U.S. history.

UPI File Photo

US Federal court blocks "Remain in Mexico" immigration policy

Migrants are held for processing in El Paso, Texas. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked President Donald Trump's Migrant Protection Protocols, calling for immigrants seeking asylum to remain in Mexico, on Friday. File Photo by Justin Hamel/UPI 

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily halted the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy Friday.

The San Francisco-based court upheld a lower court injunction, stopping the Migrant Protection Protocols by which tens of thousands of asylum seekers remain in Mexico to await their U.S. hearings. The policy is an effort to limit access by migrants to U.S. soil and reduce a surge of migration by families from Central America. In 2019, more than 470,000 people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in search of asylum, and most were allowed to remain in the United States await court hearings.

The administration of President Donald Trump credits the program, meant to prevent families from entering the United States and then foregoing hearings that could deport them, for the decline in border crossings from record highs in the summer of 2019. Families now await their hearings in Mexico.

The two-to-one ruling on Friday said the MPP "should be enjoined in its entirety," calling it "invalid in its entirety due to its inconsistency with" federal law. In a 70-page opinion, the judges -- Richard A. Paez and William Fletcher, appointed by President Bill Clinton, who upheld the injunction, and Ferdinand F. Fernandez, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, who disagreed -- said the program likely violates "non-refoulment" obligations under international law. Those laws prevent the U.S. government from returning immigrants to countries where they could face persecution.

The Trump administration has reduced its reliance on the MPP program in recent months, instead relying on relatively quick deportation hearings which transfer asylum seekers to Guatemala to seek asylum there. The number of those in Mexico awaiting hearings has declined.

The court also upheld an injunction Friday blocking any presidential proclamation disqualifying an immigrant illegally crossing the border to the United States.

Mick Mulvaney 

blames media for 'huge panic' over COVID-19

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Friday said media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak is to blame for the plunging stock markets.

Speaking at the Conservative Action Conference near Washington, D.C., he said there's been a panic over the novel coronavirus, which has sickened more than 84,000 people globally, including 60 in the United States. More than 2,800 people have died worldwide.

"We sit there and watch the markets and there's this huge panic and it's like, why isn't there this huge panic every single year over flu," Mulvaney asked.

When asked what he might do to settle the markets, Mulvaney said, "really what I might do today [to] calm the markets is tell people turn their television off for 24 hours."

The major U.S. stock indexes continued their slide Friday morning, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down another 1,000 points at 10 a.m., the S&P 500 down 4 percent and the Nasdaq down 3 percent.

Mulvaney suggested media outlets are stoking fears over the coronavirus to hurt President Donald Trump politically.

"The reason you're seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the president," he said.

"Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure," he added.

"But we do this, we know how to handle this."

Trump made the same argument Thursday night on Twitter.

"So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of 'Trump,'" he tweeted.

In front of protesters, Pompeo testifies Iran drone strike was a deterrent 

LIKE HIS BOSS POMPEO LIES
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks with committee 

Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Friday before testifying before

 the House foreign affairs committee on Capitol Hill in

 Washington, D.C. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | 

License Photo

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testified in Congress Friday and told lawmakers the U.S. drone strike that killed a top Iranian military commander last month was a smart move that reduced the risk to American troops in the Middle East.

Pompeo told the House foreign affairs committee that he supported President Donald Trump's order for the Jan. 3 strike to kill Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, as did other advisers. Iran retaliated with missile strikes against two U.S. positions in Iraq, which injured dozens of U.S. troops.

"It was my judgment that this reduced risk to America to take this strike," Pompeo told the panel Friday. "I think the team all presented that to the president. He made the final decision that was right, that we would reduce risk both in the short-term, medium-term and in the long-term to American interests."

Pompeo said the drone attack that killed Soleimani deterred Iranian aggression and weakened Tehran's military capabilities.

"I can say in an unclassified setting [Iran] recognizes the seriousness with which America acted to take the strike," Pompeo said. "I think they appreciate the seriousness with which President Trump and the administration are taking, our obligation to defend America and our partners. It clearly demonstrated our preparedness to continue to deter Iran's behavior and [Trump] thinks they have taken that seriously."

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., chided Pompeo for waiting more than a month to appear before the committee to field questions about Solemani's death. Pompeo answered that Congress had been briefed 70 times since the strike was carried out.

Sherman also accused the Trump administration of trivializing the 110 soldiers who received brain injuries in the Iranian counterattack.

RELATED Over 20 GOP lawmakers seek assurances on U.S.-Taliban deal

Pompeo's appearance Friday was met by a significant throng of protesters who advocate for peaceful relations with Iran. The activists carried signs in the committee room and wore shirts that read, "Peace with Iran."
The secretary of state also defended the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus outbreak.

"I commit to you, as we need resources, if we find out there aren't sufficient resources to address the problem where we can create value and reduce risk, we will come to you," Pompeo said. "We will execute that and we will deliver for the American people."

Pompeo will be a keynote speaker Friday night at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., which will finish with a speech by Trump on Saturday.

THERE IS A GERMAN WORD FOR THIS; GESTAPO

A New Section Of US Attorneys Is Being Created To Strip Naturalized Citizenship From Suspected Fraudsters

Experts said the move appeared to be another symbolic effort aimed at targeting immigrants.


Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press
People are sworn in as new citizens of the United States during a special naturalization ceremony for 50 new Americans at the State Department in 2007.

The Department of Justice is creating a new section of attorneys to handle cases aimed at stripping naturalized citizenship from people suspected of fraud, officials announced Wednesday.

The move will likely inspire increased fear in immigrant communities already on edge over the Trump administration’s immigration restrictions.

DOJ officials framed the creation of the Denaturalization Section, which will be housed in the civil Office of Immigration Litigation, as an effort to crack down on an increase in cases of those who have engaged in fraud, human rights violations, sexual offenses, and other crimes.

“When a terrorist or sex offender becomes a U.S. citizen under false pretenses, it is an affront to our system—and it is especially offensive to those who fall victim to these criminals,” Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt said in a statement. “The Denaturalization Section will further the Department’s efforts to pursue those who unlawfully obtained citizenship status and ensure that they are held accountable for their fraudulent conduct.”

Justice Department lawyers have filed 94 denaturalization cases since 2017 and the agency’s annual filing rate has shot up by 200% over the past three years, according to a DOJ official. During that same period, there has been a 600% increase in case referrals from DHS.

DOJ officials said in a statement that “the growing number of referrals anticipated from law enforcement agencies motivated the creation of a standalone section dedicated to this important work.” Individuals can have their citizenship stripped if the government proves that naturalization was illegally received or if it was “procured by” lying or concealing a fact like a previous crime.

In its announcement of the new section, justice officials highlighted successful denaturalizations, including a person who had allegedly been associated with terrorist groups, another who had been prosecuted for executing people in Bosnia, and four people who had falsely claimed to be a family in order to gain visas.

Experts said the move appeared to be another symbolic effort aimed at targeting immigrants.

“While this effort may result in relatively few denaturalizations, it shows that the administration’s desire to keep immigrants ‘looking over their shoulder’ extends past legalization and even naturalization. If you weren’t born here, this administration is trying to keep you uncomfortable,” said Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

In 2018, US Citizenship and Immigration Services officials announced that they would increase their focus on denaturalization cases from an operation that began years ago, including under the Obama administration, that inspected cases of potential fraud. USCIS officials at the time said they would look to refer more than 1,000 cases to the justice department.

Under Operation Janus, officials had found that hundreds of thousands of fingerprints were missing from a centralized fingerprint system. The government believed some individuals may have “have sought to circumvent criminal record and other background checks in the naturalization process.” Government officials had found that more than 800 people were granted citizenship even though they had been ordered deported under a different identity.

Hamed Aleaziz is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.
Last updated on February 26, 2020

Pew Research Center: 1 in 10 eligible voters in 2020 are naturalized citizens

Naturalized U.S. citizens make up 10 percent of the eligible voting population, a Pew Research Center report revealed on Wednesday. Photo by Matthew Healey/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- One in 10 eligible voters in 2020 are naturalized U.S. citizens, a Pew Research Center study released Wednesday said.

Over 23 million immigrants who became citizens, a record, will be able to vote. The number increased by 93 percent since 2000, a period in which U.S.-born eligible voters grew by 18 percent. The number of immigrants living in the United States has risen from 9.6 million in 1965, when the Immigration and Nationality Act became law, to about 45 million today, currently constituting about 13.9 percent of the population. A rising number of immigrants, 7.2 million between 2009 and 2019, have chosen to become U.S. citizens, the study says.

Fifty-six percent of immigrants-turned-citizens live in California, Texas, New York or Florida, and two-thirds have been U.S. residents for over 20 years. The majority came from either Latin American or Asian countries. Mexican immigrants account for 16 percent of the total. Hispanics, at 7.5 million, accounted for 34 percent of all immigrant eligible voters in 2018. At 6.9 million, Asian immigrant eligible voters comprise 31 percent of the foreign-born electorate. Both figures are increased since 2000. White immigrant eligible voters are 22 percent of the group, a decline since 2000, and black immigrant eligible voters comprise 7 percent, up from 2000.

Combined, immigrants born in Mexico, the Philippines, India, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and El Salvador, account for about half of all immigrant eligible voters, the study reveals.

The study is based on Census Bureau data.

Issues of immigration policy are regarded as an important issue in the 2020 election. Policy changes proposed by the White House have resulted in polarized reactions from the voting public. The Pew report suggests that "these proposals may also affect how immigrants see their place in America and the potential role they could play in the 2020 presidential election."

MORE ON IMMIGRATION
DHS Considered How To Punish States That Deny Access To Driver Records, A Memo Says Hamed Aleaziz · Feb. 10, 2020

ICE Is Now Fingerprinting Immigrants As Young As 14 Years Old

Hamed Aleaziz · Feb. 5, 2020

 The Gestapo was a secretive plainclothes agency and agents typically wore civilian suits. There were strict protocols protecting the identity of Gestapo field personnel. 


... Uniforms were worn by Gestapo men assigned to the Einsatzgruppen in occupied territories, in this case the Waffen-SS field uniform.

A CLASSIC GESTAPO WHO DUNNIT 

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The Third Reich's Good Cop | The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com › magazine › 2017/07/10 › the-third-reichs-g...

Jul 3, 2017 - Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther solves crimes for Nazi Germany. ... one of crime fiction's most satisfying and unlikely survivors: the good cop in the ... Kerr made his first trip to Berlin in the early eighties, a few years after the course ... ahead of the Gestapo—not to mention the Mafia, the South American diaspora ...

A Bernie Gunther Novel - Penguin Random House

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com › series › BRG › a-bernie-gunther-...

Philip Kerr has won an international reputation as a master of historical suspense ... suspense with his noir detective Bernie Gunther tackling the dark underbelly of Nazi- ... A vicious murder puts Bernie Gunther on the trail of World War 2 criminals in ... novel hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “one of Kerr's best.

A final bow for Philip Kerr's detective Bernie Gunther - The ...

https://pilotonline.com › entertainment › books

Apr 24, 2019 - What's in a name? ... "Metropolis: A Bernie Gunther Novel" by Philip Kerr (G.P. Putnam's ... does it mean to be a "good cop" and a "good man" in Nazi Germany? ... Gunther does not hate Jews; as he admits in "The One from the Other," he ... Berlin's chief of the Criminal Police, who offers Gunther, a vice cop, ...

Fictional Crimes/Historical Crimes: Genre and Character in ...

https://www.mdpi.com › 2313-5778 › 3 › htm

by L Major - ‎2019 - ‎Related articles

Nov 14, 2019 - This paper will explore Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy, composed of March Violets (1989) ... These detective stories are not directly about the Holocaust, and although the crimes investigated by the mordant Bernie Gunther are fictional, they are ... style highly appropriate for crime novels set in Nazi Germany.

Berlin Noir: The First Three Bernie Gunther Novels (A Bernie ...

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 Rating: 4.4 - ‎500 reviews

Editorial Reviews. Amazon.com Review. Now published in one paperback volume, these three ... Now in one volume—the first three novels in Philip Kerr's New York Times bestselling ... We first meet ex-policeman Bernie Gunther in 1936, in March Violets (a term of ... March Violets, Pale Criminal and A German Requiem.

Report: Japan requested IAEA valuation of Fukushima plan
By
Elizabeth Shim
(0)


Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant discharges 170 tons of contaminated water daily. File Photo by Kimimasa Mayama/EPA-EFE

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Japan has requested a valuation from the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to discharge contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, where a nuclear meltdown in 2011 has resulted in the daily production of nuclear wastewater.

Tokyo's ministry of industry asked the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi to consider the disposal plans, Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun reported Friday.

The Japanese request was sent on Feb. 10 to the international agency, ahead of Grossi's visit to Japan this week, according to the report.

On Thursday in Tokyo, Grossi told reporters the IAEA is reviewing a subcommittee report on the plans, Kyodo News reported.

RELATED Japan lifts last remaining ban on Fukushima fish

Grossi also said he would "assuage" concerns of Japanese fishermen and the South Korean government. Opponents of the wastewater disposal say the move would damage the environment. Fishermen in Japan have said they are concerned the disposal could affect sales of fish.

"The issue of the timing is always important...but it's not a race against time. It is a race, I would say, more against safety. And more safety, this is what is very important," Grossi said.

About 170 tons of water is contaminated every day at the Fukushima plant. Tokyo has said the water is being purified, using an advanced liquid-processing system. The process does not remove tritium and leaves traces of radioactive elements.

RELATED Green Day postpone Asia tour dates over coronavirus

Grossi, a former Argentine diplomat, has supported the Japanese plan and said this week it is aligned with international practice. Grossi also said this week other countries discharge nuclear wastewater but the measures have not caused significant problems, according to the Sankei.

Residents of Fukushima have shown mixed responses to the discharge plans.

According to a survey from local paper Asahi Shimbun, conducted on Saturday and Sunday, about 57 percent of 1,035 respondents opposed the plan, while 31 percent said they approve.

Israeli high court rejects surrogacy ban for same-sex parents, single men
By
Don Jacobson
(0)


The ruling is a major victory for LGBT advocates, who have opposed the surrogacy law for two years. File Photo by Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled a controversial law that bars same-sex couples and single men from accessing surrogacy services is discriminatory -- and ordered it be changed, or entirely eliminated.

The high court's unanimous decision, handed down Thursday, was a victory for Israel's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, which staged mass protests in 2018 after the Knesset limited the law to allow only single women and heterosexual couples to become parents via surrogacy.

An attempt to amend the controversial statute to include same-sex couples was not successful, despite support from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"The sweeping exclusion of homosexual men from the use of surrogacy is viewed as 'suspicious' discrimination, suggesting that this part of the population is inferior," Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Justices Hanan Melcer and Neal Hendel wrote in Friday's decision.

RELATED Supreme Court to hear Philadelphia case on same-sex foster parents

The plaintiffs, the Association of Israeli Gay Fathers, celebrated the victory.

"Even if there's still a ways to go to reach full equality, from today we can all raise a family -- just like everyone else," group co-founders Itai and Yoav Finks Arad said. "We must now see to it that the next government enacts a new, egalitarian law."

The high court ordered the Knesset to amend the legislation within 12 months or it would move to strike it entirely from the books.

RELATED Gay men underestimate HPV risk, researchers say

Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz -- who will again face off against Netanyahu in another election Monday, the third in less than a year -- also welcomed the ruling.

"The time has come to actually amend the surrogacy bill, rather than just talking about it," he said. "A Blue and White-led government is the only one that would amend the bill and ensure equality."

3.81-mile line of books awarded Guinness World Record
BUT DID THEY READ THEM ALL

A New York state nonprofit broke a Guinness World Record by creating a line of books measuring 3.81 miles long. Photo courtesy of The Book Fairies

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Guinness World Records confirmed a New York state-based nonprofit broke a world record by assembling a line of books 3.81 miles long.

The record-keeping organization said more than 150 volunteers from Freeport-based nonprofit The Book Fairies set up a line of 31,000 books winding through two connecting elementary schools in Wyandanch for a total distance of 3.81 miles.

Guinness said the distance was sufficient to beat the previous record, a 2.6-mile line of books created in Illinois.

"It's truly exhilarating to know that it is official," Book Fairies founder Amy Zaslansky told The Long Island Press. "We literally won by a mile and set an incredible new record with the help of our dedicated volunteers, partners, and sponsors."

The books used in the record were donated to Wyandanch residents.