Hundreds arrested at Occupy Oakland; protesters break into City Hall

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

Sgt. Christopher Bolton of the Oakland Police Department told msnbc.com that the number arrested was likely between 200 and 300. “We are still processing the arrests,” he said. He was speaking after the release of a statement on the Oakland City website that put the number of arrests at 200. “That figure is probably on the low side and we don’t have a confirmed total yet,” said. Sgt Bolton. In the statement, released in a PDF file format, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan said: “Once again, a violent splinter group of the Occupy Movement is engaging in violent actions against Oakland. The Bay Area Occupy Movement has got to stop using Oakland as their playground.” The statement also said there were reports of damage to exhibits inside City Hall during the protest.

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

       Making the rounds on Facebook and Twitter, large posters at an Osaka department store trumpeted a “Fuckin’ sale” with everything 20 percent off.

   Also from the good people in Osaka, a burger joint was advertising a “Fuckin’ yummy hamburger!!” We’ll take two … fuck yeah!

   Coming of Age Day in Japan saw a record-low 1.22 million people who will turn 20 this year, the fifth straight year the figure has decreased.

   The decline marks the first time the number has been less than half the record of 2.46 million set in 1970.

   “The roughly 620,000 men and 600,000 women comprise 0.96 percent of Japan’s population, down for the eighth consecutive year,” according to an estimate by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

   An ornery 65-year-old Japanese man was arrested by FBI agents in Hawaii for assaulting a flight attendant on a Delta flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. Apparently, the guy “hit the flight attendant once with an open hand and once with a closed fist after drinking multiple glasses of wine.” So he hit the bottle then hit the stew.

   A court in Kobe found a former president of West Japan Railway not guilty of professional negligence over the 2005 high-speed train wreck in Hyogo Prefecture that left 107 people dead when a train hopped the tracks and hit an apartment building.

   The US magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the so-called “Doomsday Clock” in 1947, said in a statement there are still “approximately 19,500 nuclear weapons [in the world today], enough power to destroy the Earth’s inhabitants several times over.”

   A researcher in Hokkaido has concluded that marimo balls-“a type of green algae that grows in a round shape”-have been spread around the world from Japan through migrating birds.

   ANA passengers who flew on the airline’s Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” on New Year’s Day got a nice greeting from staff wearing long-sleeved kimonos while bearing gifts and souvenirs.

   A marathon in tsunami-hit Ofunato in Iwate Prefecture was held once again this year, attracting some 1,500 runners, although the course did have to be altered due to the events of March 11.

   A very pissed-off Chinese dude threw four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul because, he says, “his great grandfather on his mother’s side died of torture while fighting against Japan’s colonial rule,” according to a report from the Yonhap News Agency.

   Three crew members from a disabled North Korean fishing boat found drifting off Shimane Prefecture were shipped back home via China. A fourth man, who had died, was also heading home in a body bag.

Gingrich wins South Carolina primary  

Former US house speaker raises the possibility of a lengthy campaign by beating the Republicans’ favourite, Romney.

Last Modified: 22 Jan 2012 07:30

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, took roughly 40 per cent of the vote. His victory means that three different candidates have won the first three contests in the state-by-state Republican primary, reflecting a party electorate that has yet to make up its mind.

Rick Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, won the Iowa caucuses on January 3, and Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, won the New Hampshire primary on January 10.

Speaking at a late-night victory rally in Greenville on Saturday, Gingrich complimented his rivals before laying into Obama, whom he called a “radical” who would transform the United States into a European-style socialist state.

Official statements

   The commanding general of the Ground Self-Defense Force admitted that he thought Japan “was done for” in the early days of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

   The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office has requested that officials in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Yokohama allow social welfare experts to sit in on police interrogations of “possibly mentally disabled suspects.”

   Among the themes addressed by the Emperor in his traditional year-end waka poems were his wife’s 77th birthday and the evacuees of the March 11 disaster.

   During a visit to India, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Japan would contribute ¥4.5 billion toward a large-scale development called the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.

IF THE SHOES FIT …

Running shoes worn by competitors in a national ekiden relay race have been sent to underprivileged student-athletes at schools in Nagasaki, a move spearheaded by Nike Japan and a Nagasaki Prefecture track and field association.

Some frozen beef imported into Japan from the United States in July apparently contained spinal columns, “so-called risk materials feared to cause mad cow disease and barred from importation into Japan.”

Winter bonuses at major companies in Japan rose an average of 3.62 percent from the previous year, up to ¥802,701. It was the second consecutive rise and the first time the figure cracked the ¥800,000 barrier in three years, according to the Japan Business Federation.

A 77-year-old man, who was punched out and lost consciousness after telling two men not to cross the street on a red light outside Oimachi Station, has died from his injuries.

Two-time Olympic judo champion Masato Uchishiba was indicted for allegedly raping a member of a university judo team he was coaching after first plying the young woman with alcohol.

A 55-year-old air traffic controller who nodded off while on duty at Naha airport was docked 10 percent of his pay for a month by the transport ministry.

Blacks in New Orleans cry foul over French Quarter curfew

The City Council says stricter rules are meant to protect kids, but critics accuse members of wanting to keep low-income blacks out of sight of tourists.

By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Atlanta– From a distance, it seemed like common sense: an ordinance meant to keep children away from an open-air night-life zone with more than 350 places to buy booze, an abundance of strip joints and a 300-year-old reputation for iniquity.

But last week, as the New Orleans City Council approved a strict curfew for youths 16 and younger in the French Quarter, it sparked an incendiary debate that laid bare some of the tensions over race and police priorities that the Louisiana city – which suffers from the nation’s highest per capita murder rate – is struggling to resolve as it navigates its post-Hurricane Katrina future.

US president signs controversial defence bill

 Barack Obama signs into law new provisions regarding counterterrorism and fresh sanctions against Iran.

Last Modified: 01 Jan 2012 04:44

Barack Obama, the US president, has signed a wide-ranging defence bill into law, putting into place new provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation and prosecution of those suspected of terrorism, as well as imposing fresh sanctions on Iran.

In a statement accompanying his signature to the $662bn bill, Obama said that he was signing it despite having “serious reservations” about the provisions relating to terrorism, contending that politicians in the US congress were attempting to restrict the ability of counterterrorism officials to protect the country.

 Pope calls for worshipers to remember ‘essence’ of Christmas

 

By the CNN Wire Staff

December 25, 2011

Pope Benedict XVI presided over Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, delivering a homily that focused on the “essence” of the holiday rather than the “commercial celebration” it has become.

“Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity,” the pope said after recalling the story of Christmas. “Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.”

MONEY MONEY MONEY

The environment ministry says that ¥11.5 billion worth of “eco points” from the government’s recent energy-saving promotion are set to expire next March without being redeemed.

Authorities are investigating the president of a used-car company over suspicions that he bilked 2,500 investors out of ¥1.3 billion “on the pretext of helping victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and poverty-stricken African people.”

Police in Okayama and Yokohama busted three Chinese man and one woman for smuggling 3kg of stimulants into Japan aboard a cargo ship last month. The drugs have a street value of ¥230 million.

It was announced that Japan will provide $2.9 million of additional funding to support the UN-backed trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders in Cambodia. By the end of the year, the tribunal will have spent nearly $150 million.

Sentence of the Week: “A ‘veteran’ pickpocket has told police he’s lost his touch and he’s going straight after he was caught lifting a person’s wallet on a bus [in Fukuoka] by another passenger.” (via The Mainichi Daily News)

‘The war is over’: Last US soldiers leave Iraq

The last American troops crossed the border from Iraq into Kuwait early Sunday, ending the U.S. military presence there after nearly nine years.

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

As the last convoy left Iraq at daybreak Sunday, soldiers whooped, bumped fists and embraced each other in a burst of joy and relief, The Associated Press reported.

NBC News’ Richard Engel tweeted from the border: “The gate to #iraq is closed. Soldier just told me, ‘that’s it, the war is over.'”

The final column of around 100 mostly U.S. military MRAP armored vehicles carrying 500 U.S. troops trundled through the night along an empty highway, across the southern Iraq desert to the Kuwaiti border.