Six In The Morning

Eric Garner ‘chokehold’ death: A grand jury blind to the evidence before it

Out of America: The decision not to bring charges after the death of a black man in police custody suggests a fatal flaw in the system

RUPERT CORNWELL Sunday 7 December 2014

At least Eric Garner has his epitaph. “I can’t breathe,” he gasped as he was forced to the ground and held by a New York police officer in the chokehold that caused his death. The phrase now serves not only as a chant by demonstrators in cities across the land. It will go down as history’s shorthand for the persecution of black suspects by law enforcement and the judicial system across the US that seems virtually routine.

Anyone – not just black people sick and tired of racist victimisation by police – who has watched the video of Garner, father of six and 43 years old, being wrestled to the ground as if he’d just committed a murder, will be astonished that a grand jury declined to bring any charges against the officer last week – even though the medical examiner at Garner’s autopsy ruled that the death was a homicide.

Thousands in shelters as Hagupit lashes Philippines

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled coastal villages as Typhoon Hagupit swept across the eastern and central Philippines. Power and telephone lines were reported to be down in many areas.

DW-DE

Typhoon Hagupit slammed into remote fishing communities in the eastern Philippines on Saturday night, bringing heavy rain and packing sustained winds of 160 kilometers per hour (100 mph) and gusts of up to 195 kilometers per hour.

The storm was reported to be making it way across the Philippines at a speed of about 15 kilometers per hour in a west-northwesterly direction. It was expected to take about three days to cut across the archipelago.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes to seek shelter in churches, schools or public gymnasiums. The DPA news agency cited the Philippines’ national disaster risk management council, which said that more than 700,000 people had sought shelter in such public facilities. However, Reuters cited the secretary general of the Philippine Red Cross, Gwendolyn Pang, who put the figure at 1.2 million.

The media giant, the cleaners and the £40,000 lost wages

 The case of 35 unpaid cleaning staff at Saatchi & Saatchi’s Soho office highlights the plight of low-income workers

 Yvonne Roberts

The Observer, Sunday 7 December 2014

For weeks, the 35 low-paid and mostly Spanish-speaking cleaners who tend the grand offices of global advertising giant Saatchi & Saatchi have been locked in a bitter dispute to secure what most working people take for granted. They wanted to be paid for the work they had done.

Last Friday, they made a breakthrough when a donor was found to help initiate employment tribunal proceedings – but their campaign for payment of seven weeks’ unpaid wages and holiday money totalling £40,000 has illustrated the vulnerability of millions of workers in a low-wage economy.

Oil wars: Saudi Arabia makes enemies as prices tumble

December 6, 2014

  Paul McGeough

Chief foreign correspondent

Washington: It really is a $US60 question. Oil prices are going through the floor and there is no sense yet of what the new petro-normal might be. But Saudi Arabia is punting that the market will “stabilise” at about $US60 a barrel.

However, if Riyadh is the only global oil producer with the capacity to turn on or off the spigots that match supply and demand and hence can vary the price up or down, it doesn’t require a great analytical stretch to conclude that despite their reluctance to take a conventional military role in Middle East conflicts, the Saudi princes have opted for a ruthless oil war.

There’s no shortage of enemies – Tehran, Damascus, Moscow, even Riyadh’s best ally, Washington.

Can reforms change Mexico’s corrupt police culture?

Police practices came under harsh scrutiny after the disappearance of 43 college students. Mexico’s Congress is debating security reforms, including one that would put a state police command over local police forces.

 By Whitney Eulich, Staff writer  DECEMBER 6, 2014

MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Neito was in Guerrero this week for the first time since 43 students were kidnapped and likely murdered there more than two months ago.

Farther north, in Mexico’s capital, Congress spent the week debating security reforms, including a provision that would replace the most corrupt local police forces – like those brazenly involved with the students’ disappearances – with ones under state control.

The reforms, part of a 10-point plan recently announced by President Enrique Peña Nieto, were in response to the Iguala case in Guerrero state, which displayed such extreme levels of corruption that demonstrations against the government have swept the nation for more than two months.

Israel and the Palestinians: A conflict viewed through olives

7 December 2014

 By Jeremy Bowen

BBC Middle East editor, West Bank

For Israelis and Palestinians everything is politicised, even the olive harvest.

The first time I realised how delicious olive oil from the West Bank can be was more than ten years ago when a Palestinian farmer offered me breakfast as I stood watching a broad strip of his land being destroyed.

He was unlucky enough to live close to Ariel, one of the biggest Jewish settlements Israel has inserted into the land Palestinians want for a state.