Anti-abortion protestors celebrate the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling striking down a Massachusetts law that mandated a protective buffer zone around abortion clinics, as the demonstrators stand outside the Court in Washington June 26, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court handed a victory to anti-abortion activists on Thursday by making it harder for states to enact laws aimed at helping patients entering abortion clinics to avoid protesters, striking down a Massachusetts statute that had created a no-entry zone.

On a 9-0 vote, the court said the 2007 law violated freedom of speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment by preventing anti-abortion activists from standing on the sidewalk and speaking to people entering the clinics. The law allowed only patients, staff, passersby and emergency services to enter the 35-foot (11-metre) zone.

The ruling casts into doubt similar fixed buffer zones adopted by several municipalities around the country, including San Francisco and Pittsburgh. The court did not specify under what circumstances other types of restrictions aimed at keeping public order outside clinics would be deemed lawful.

The court sent a signal that some laws might be acceptable by declining to overturn its ruling in a 2000 case that upheld a less restrictive law in Colorado. That law prevents people outside clinics from approaching within 8 feet (2-1/2 meters) of another person without their consent. Montana has a similar law.

The Massachusetts law was enacted in part because of safety concerns highlighted by violent acts committed against abortion providers in the past. In 1994, two abortion clinic workers were killed outside a clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts.

The protesters say their main aim is to counsel women to try to deter them from having abortions.

Although the court did not say buffer zones are always unconstitutional, the decision could make it more difficult for states to pass similar laws in future, said Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women's Law Center. Thursday's decision could give Massachusetts a chance to fashion a new state law.

Eleanor McCullen, the abortion protester who was the lead plaintiff in the case, welcomed the decision saying it allows her to "offer loving help to a woman who wants it" without facing the threat of jail.

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Alan Hoyle rallies in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, in this January 15, 2014 file p …

Abortion remains a divisive issue in America. The Supreme Court in its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalized abortion. In recent years, some Republican-governed states have sought to impose new restrictions on abortion.

Boston will boost police presence around abortion clinics on Friday morning before assessing next steps, said Kate Norton, spokeswoman for Mayor Martin Walsh. "There is always concern when a measure that has been put in place for public safety is removed," she said.

The case specifically concerned people who wanted to protest outside three Planned Parenthood facilities that offer abortions in addition to other health services for women in Boston, Springfield and Worcester.

Planned Parenthood said it plans steps to ensure public safety at the clinics. Marty Walz, executive director of Planned Parenthood in Massachusetts, said the group will train new "escorts" to get patients through picket lines at clinics.

"We have people calling and emailing and volunteering to be escorts for our patients to make sure that they can come in to our health centers safely," she said at a news conference in Boston.

LEGISLATIVE TOOLS

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said in a statement that "with today’s decision, our work begins again. We are not going to give up our fight to make sure women have safe access to reproductive health care" and use "all of the tools we have available to protect everyone from harassment, threats, and physical obstruction."

Coakley said her office would work with the governor, legislature and advocates on "legislative tools that also meet the court’s requirements." In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said no other state has a fixed buffer zone law like Massachusetts. The law was unconstitutional because it was not narrowly tailored in a way that took into account the free speech rights of protesters, he wrote.

The state has "too readily foregone options that could serve its interests just as well, without substantially burdening the kind of speech in which petitioners wish to engage," Roberts wrote.

The fixed nature of the buffer meant that protesters would have difficulty approaching women entering the facility who they wish to engage in conversation, Roberts said.

McCullen is often forced to raise her voice in order to be heard, Roberts noted, which is "a mode of communication sharply at odds with the compassionate message she wishes to convey." Although unanimous on the outcome, some of the justices differed on their legal reasoning. Three of the conservative justices said they would have overruled the 2000 precedent, an outcome that would have cast other buffer zones into doubt.

"Protecting people from speech they do not want to hear is not a function that the First Amendment allows the government to undertake in the public streets and sidewalks," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a concurring opinion.

In a January 2013 ruling, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld the Massachusetts law, prompting the challengers to seek Supreme Court review.

The case is McCullen v. Coakley, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-1168.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Richard Valdmanis in Boston; Editing by Howard Goller, Will Dunham and Grant McCool)

The Supreme Court says Mass. ban on protesters within 35 feet of abortion clinic violates First Amendment rights.
Unanimous ruling

Juba (AFP) - The number of civilians seeking shelter in United Nations bases in war-torn South Sudan has reached over 100,000 for the first time in more than six-months of conflict, the UN said Thursday.

The continued rise in the number of people fleeing violence offers a clear indication conditions continue to worsen in the impoverished nation, with over 101,000 civilians crammed inside squalid camps across the country and the numbers continuing to rise.

The largest increase has been in the northern oil-own of Bentiu, state capital of Unity, where over 45,000 civilians are now packed in a makeshift camp in dire conditions, with many areas flooded due to torrential rains.

The town has been badly damaged in heavy fighting between rebels and government, changing hands several times. Many in camps have fled ethnic violence by rebels loyal to ousted vice-president Riek Machar, from the Nuer tribe, or forces behind President Salva Kiir, from the larger Dinka tribe.

"People are voting with their feet, many do not feel safe," UN chief in South Sudan Hilde Johnson said, after visiting Bentiu this week.

"This is also reflecting a terrible consequence of the fighting, which is food insecurity," she added, according to the statement released Thursday.

"People are hungry, there is severe malnutrition and civilians are also coming to the UNMISS base for food."

The conflict in the world's youngest and one of its most poor countries has killed thousands and forced more than 1.5 million to flee their homes since the war broke out in mid-December.

The US-based Fund for Peace think tank this week ranked South Sudan as bottom of its fragile states index, beating anarchic Somalia to be worst in the world. It warned that neither the rebels nor the government appear to perceive "that it is 'losing' and could be compelled to put down arms."

The fighting between Kiir and Machar's forces has been marked by widespread atrocities and, according to aid agencies, has pushed the world's youngest nation to the brink of famine.

Earlier this month, Doctors Without Borders warned grim conditions in the Bentiu camp are causing an "alarming number of deaths", with three children aged under five are dying every day.

The UN mission in South Sudan opened the gates to its peacekeeping bases to civilians when heavy fighting broke out in mid December, expecting to offer temporary shelter, but many of those inside the camps say they are too frightened to leave fearing revenge attacks.

Peace talks between in Ethiopia adjourned on Monday with no progress made on forming an interim government or implementing a ceasefire.

Over 100,000 seeking U.N. shelter in South Sudan

United Nations peacekeeping outposts have become squalid camps occupied by thousands of war refugees.
Brink of famine

WikiLeaks Reveals Secret Global Trade Deal for Corporations to Operate with Impunity

By Mike Ludwig, Occupy.com – June 24, 2014 – http://tinyurl.com/kqsf6ul

Embattled WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange announced last Wednesday from London the publication of a secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA), a controversial global trade agreement said to make it easier for corporations to make profits and operate with impunity across borders.

The whistleblower and transparency website WikiLeaks published on Thursday the secret draft text of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) Financial Services Annex, a controversial global trade agreement promoted by the United States and European Union that covers 50 countries and is opposed by global trade unions and anti-globalization activists.

Activists expect the TISA deal to promote privatization of public services in countries across the globe, and WikiLeaks said the secrecy surrounding the trade negotiations exceeds that of even the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) that has made headlines in the past year.

Demonstrations erupted in Geneva in April as diplomats met in secret for the sixth round of negotiations over TISA, which would cover international trade in a wide range of service industries ranging from finance and telecommunications to transportation and even local utilities such as water. Protesters demanded that the draft text be released, but it has remained secret until now.

Public Services International (PSI), a global trade union federating public service workers in 150 countries, has reported that TISA threatens to allow multinational corporations to permanently privatize vital public services such as healthcare and transportation in countries across the world.

“This agreement is all about making it easier for corporations to make profits and operate with impunity across borders,” said PSI General Secretary Rosa Pavanelli in response to the leak. “The aim of public services should not be to make profits for large multinational corporations. Ensuring that failed privatizations can never be reversed is free-market ideology gone mad.”

The leak comes two years to the day that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange began hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after the country offered him asylum to evade prosecution in the United States for publishing secret US government documents. Assange is also wanted in Sweden for questioning over sexual assault allegations lodged against him in 2010.

The secrecy of the TISA negotiations “exceeds even the controversial Trans-Pacific Partner Agreement (TPPA) and runs counter to moves in the WTO towards greater openness,” wrote Jane Kelsey, a law professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who analyzed the leaked documents on behalf of Wikileaks, which leaked portions of the TPPA in the past.

The same governments that installed the failed global trade deregulation models in the World Trade Organization that lead to the global financial meltdown are now promoting TISA, according to Kelsey and WikiLeaks.

Kelsey’s analysis also confirms the concerns of trade unions like PSI that the TISA agreement would lock governments into and extend their current levels of deregulation and trade liberalization, thus preventing governments from returning public services into public hands when privatizations fail and establishing greater regulations to protect the environment and workers safety.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports privatization and global trade deregulation, has said that the “payoff from TISA could be huge” for domestic service industry firms and presents “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to tear down barriers to international trade.”

The Chamber has recommended that TISA “eliminate regulatory inconsistencies” and ensure that private companies are not put at a disadvantage when they compete with “state-owned enterprises.”

While TISA negotiations are being held outside the WTO framework, the countries involved are WTO members, and the negotiations are being crafted to be compatible with existing global trade services agreements.

The current negotiating countries include Australia, Canada, Chile, Taiwan, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, the United States and the European Union’s 28 member states.

The TISA countries will meet again for a seventh round of negotiations in Geneva from June 23 to 27.

Leaks Put Spotlight on Assange

WikiLeaks officials announced the TISA leaks on Wednesday during a press call from London featuring embattled Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian embassy since the country accepted his request for asylum two years ago out of fear that he would be extradited to the United States to face criminal charges for publishing thousands of U.S. military documents and diplomatic cablesin 2010.

Assange and his supporters fear that, if he leaves the embassy, he will be arrested and brought to Sweden to face questioning from prosecutors over sexual assault allegations made by two women in 2010. From Sweden, his attorneys said, Assange would be given a “one-way ticket” to the United States.

Assange’s attorneys said they have invited Swedish prosecutors to question him at the embassy in London or over Skype, but the prosecutors have refused.

“But for that bear in the room in the United States, we would not be in that situation,” said Michael Ratner, a WikiLeaks attorney from the United States.

New information on the Swedish case against Assange will be revealed next week, Assange’s legal council said, but they declined to elaborate on the nature of the information.

For the past two years, London police have kept the embassy under surveillance and stood ready to arrest Assange should he leave the building, which has cost British taxpayers $10 million, according to reports.

Assange said he continues to be the target of “the largest ever criminal investigation into a publisher by the U.S. Department of Justice,” and demanded that Attorney General Eric Holder end its investigation of WikiLeaks or resign.

He also warned President Obama about leaving office with a legacy that includes “extrajudicial killings, including those of Americans” and chilling free speech by targeting more journalists for investigation than “all other presidents combined.”

“It is against the stated principles of the United States, and, I believe, the values supported by its people, to have a four-year criminal investigation against a publisher,” Assange said. “The ongoing existence of that investigation produces a chilling effect, not just on internet-based publishers, but all publishers.”

While hiding in the embassy, Assange said he has been busy working as a trustee for the Courage Foundation, a defense fund for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

When asked about the conditions of his exile in the embassy, Assange pointed out that Chelsea Manning, the U.S. intelligence analyst who was sentenced to 35 years in prison last year for leaking secret U.S. military documents to WikiLeaks, was in much more difficult circumstances. Assange said Manning’s “ongoing situation” remains a “big concern.”

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Thursday identified two well-known Hamas operatives in the West Bank as the central suspects in the recent disappearance of three Israeli teenagers, in the first sign of progress in a frantic two-week search for the missing youths.

Israeli and Palestinian officials said the two men have been missing since the teenagers disappeared, and that a large manhunt was underway.

In a statement, Israel's Shin Bet security service identified the men as Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh. It said both men are activists from the Hamas militant group in the West Bank city of Hebron, near where the youths disappeared on June 12.

Israel has accused Hamas of kidnapping the three teens, who disappeared as they were hitchhiking home. But until Thursday, it had provided no evidence to support the claim. It said both Qawasmeh, who was born in 1985, and Abu Aisha, who was born in 1981, have served time in Israeli prisons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who publicly condemned the kidnapping in a high-profile Arab gathering in Saudi Arabia, to end a unity government he formed with the backing of Hamas earlier this month.

"I now expect President Abbas, who said important things in Saudi Arabia, to stand by those words (and) to break his pact with the Hamas terrorist organization that kidnaps children and calls for the destruction of Israel," he said.

Netanyahu has made similar calls throughout the crisis, saying Abbas cannot claim to be seeking peace while also having an alliance a group committed to Israel's destruction. Hamas, which Israel and the West consider a terrorist group, has no formal role in the government, and Abbas has said the Cabinet remains committed to his policies.

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Two-picture combo image provided by Shin Bet, Israel's security service, shows Marwan Qawasmeh, …

Following the disappearance of the teens, Israel launched its broadest ground operation in the West Bank in nearly a decade, rounding up nearly 400 Palestinians, most of them Hamas activists. The search for the teens — Eyal Yifrah, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old with dual Israeli-American citizenship — has become an obsession in Israel, with intensive media coverage and prayer vigils.

Hamas officials in Hebron confirmed the two suspects were members, and said Israeli troops have targeted the men's homes since the beginning of the operation. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fears for their safety, said the brothers and wives of the two men had been taken into custody, though the women have since been released. They said troops had entered the homes several times, conducting intense searches and confiscating items as evidence.

Abu Aisheh's father, Omar, said he last saw his son at a wedding party on June 12 before he disappeared later that night. "I don't know where he is," he said, asking whether Israel might have arrested him.

He said Israeli forces have arrested seven family members, including two other sons, and that the family's homes have been raided eight times.

"They have searched every item of the house, every centimeter of the house," he said, including a sheep pen outside the home. "They have turned the whole house upside down, but they did not find anything."

He claimed Amer, who is married with three small boys, was not involved in politics, but acknowledged that his son had spent seven months in Israeli custody in 2005.

He also said he himself had been arrested by Israel in 1995 for hiding a Hamas fugitive — and said Israel had demolished his home as punishment. He said another son was killed by Israel in 2005. The Israeli army confirmed the death, saying he had been throwing a bomb at Israeli troops at the time.

A relative of Qawasmeh declined comment, fearing Israeli retribution.

While Abbas has refused Israeli calls to break up his alliance with Hamas, he has instructed his security forces to continue a controversial policy of security coordination with the Israelis.

A senior Palestinian intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said the two suspects are believed to be hiding and that Palestinian security forces were also searching for them.

He said the fact that the two men have been missing since the kidnapping is "clear evidence they have links with the abduction."

___

Daraghmeh reported from Ramallah, West Bank.

Toronto (Canada) (AFP) - Australians Richard Laslett and Collin Gunther waited 37 years to say "I do" to one another.

The couple finally got their chance on Thursday in Toronto, at a mass wedding that brought 115 gay and lesbian couples together, as part of the city's World Pride Week.

The pairs from around the world gathered in the garden of a midtown Neo-Gothic castle to "celebrate the power of love," Toronto interim Mayor Norm Kelly said.

"After a while, you think it's never going to happen," Gunther told AFP moments before the men exchanged vows. "You settle into a relationship," added Laslett.

Swept up in the moment while traveling abroad and confident that their marriage will someday be recognized back home, they took the plunge.

"We'll call ourselves husband and husband," said Laslett, "even though our marriage won't be recognized when we go home" to Melbourne, Australia.

Worldwide, 15 countries now allow same-sex marriage.

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A couple kisses during the Grand Pride Wedding, a mass gay wedding at Casa Loma in Toronto, Canada, …

Canadian gays and lesbians have been tying the knot since June 2005, when a series of court decisions forced Ottawa to legalize same-sex marriages on the basis that denying them was discriminatory.

- 'The real thing' -

In Casa Loma's magnificent gardens, couples dressed in white gowns and black tuxedos sipped champagne from flutes and chatted with guests among the flowers and water fountains, under a hot sun.

More than 200 couples were originally expected by organizers hoping to break a world record, but many were unable to arrange travel or obtain a local marriage license in time for the event.

"This is not a pretend wedding. It's the real thing," said host Nick Di Donato.

Couples traveled from as far as Australia, Ghana and Taiwan to wed.

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Cheryl Taylor and Jennifer Smith hold hands as they arrive for the Grand Pride Wedding, a mass gay w …

"It's an opportunity for them to publicly express their love and commitment to each other," Di Donato said, even if their marriages may not be recognized or legal in their home countries.

The interfaith ceremony integrated elements from twelve denominations, including Judaism, Buddhism, Paganism, Anglicanism, First Nations and Islam.

The event also marked the first time a Sikh minister has presided over a gay marriage, according to Yogi Akal. No Sikhs, however, were married at the event.

"I'm very excited," Akal told AFP. "I'm having a good time. I hope all of the couples here are having a good time. But you can't do this in a lot of places -- you'd be killed."

The Sikh faith does not specifically decry homosexuality, "but there are personal and cultural biases that exist," Akal added.

Nevertheless, "religion doesn't belong in the bedroom," he said.

- 'No different from anybody else' -

"I think it’s about time the world celebrated us and this kind of relationship. Because we are no different from anybody else. But we have to do something like this to make this statement to the whole world that our relationships are just legitimate,” said Nora, who said her vows at the mass ceremony.

El-Farouk Khaki, a gay imam who also took part, said he has faced discrimination along several avenues.

A heterosexual couple at his mosque, for instance, were fine with being married by a woman, but not a gay man.

But at a ceremony in the US state of Ohio, he said, "Evangelicals had a problem with me being Muslim, not with me being gay."

On the other hand, he said: "some conservative Muslims also embrace gay marriage, because they believe gay men should not be exempt from the rules of Islam: everyone must be married to have sex," he said.

Breaking in, his partner Troy Jackson suddenly got down on one knee and proposed to Khaki.

"I just called my mother (in Eastern Canada). She screamed, and congratulated us," Jackson said later.