Mishaps at nuke repository lead to $54M in fines

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN21 hours ago

Masked protesters hurl bricks, smash windows; police fire teargas, rubber bullets

KGO – San Francisco
Police use tear gas to disperse crowds as hundreds march in Berkeley

Peaceful protests over the chokehold death of Eric Garner took a violent turn in Berkeley, Calif., on Saturday, when several masked protesters smashed store windows and hurled objects at police officers who used smoke and teargas to disperse the crowd.

According to Berkeley police spokeswoman Jenn Coats, two officers were injured during the protests, including one who was hospitalized with a dislocated shoulder after being hit with a sandbag. There were at least six arrests during the demonstration, which drew approximately 1,000 people to the streets of the San Francisco suburb.

Police in riot gear used batons to push back protesters during several confrontations. One protester was seen smashing the window of a store with a skateboard; another was seen in aerial footage being dragged to the ground by several officers in a scene reminiscent of Garner's arrest. After police threw a smoke bomb to thwart one group of demonstrators, a protester picked it up and lobbed it back.

A protester flees as police officers try to disperse a crowd comprised largely of student demonstrators during a protest against police violence in the U.S., in Berkeley, California early December 7, 2014. (REUTERS/Noah Berger)

There were protests in cities around the country for the fourth consecutive day since the grand jury’s decision not to indict the white New York city police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, in the July chokehold death of the unarmed Garner during a confrontation in Staten Island that was captured on video.

In Seattle, seven people were arrested while trying to block a roadway in downtown Seattle, where more than 600 people participated in a march and demonstration in front of police headquarters.

According to the Seattle Times, a group of protesters who broke off from the main group began throwing rocks at officers, police said.

Peaceful protests were held in other cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and Las Vegas.

In New York, the demonstrations were considerably smaller on Saturday night than the previous three, due in part to heavy rains.

More protests were planned for Sunday.

Eric Gardner Protests in Berkeley, Calif., Turn Violent (video)

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer DECEMBER 7, 2014

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has been in direct contact with Syrian rebels for more than 18 months, facilitating the treatment of wounded fighters and at times exchanging parcels and ushering uninjured Syrians into Israel, according to UN reports.

The quarterly reports bolster speculation over the past year that Israel’s humanitarian assistance to more than 1,000 wounded Syrians had also opened a channel of communication with Syrian rebels.

Today, the Syrian military accused Israel of carrying out two airstrikes near Damascus. The Israeli military declined to comment on that claim.

Though some in Israel appear to support the Assad regime as the lesser evil, Israel is no doubt interested in gleaning intelligence from rebel groups in order to better assess and defend itself against jihadi activity in the occupied Golan Heights.

In August this year, the Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front) took over the Quneitra border crossing, raising concerns of infiltration and attacks on Israeli targets.

Israel seized the Golan Heights in 1967 after conquering it in a war with Syria and annexed it in 1981. The cease-fire line is today patrolled by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).

In the most recent report, from December 1, UNDOF stated that it observed soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) allowing two individuals to pass from the “Bravo” line – the Syrian side – to the “Alpha” line on the Israeli side. It added, “UNDOF sporadically observed armed members of the opposition interacting with IDF across the ceasefire line in the vicinity of United Nations position 85.”

Position 85 is located about 15 miles south of Quneitra and away from any Israeli population centers. It appears to have been a key crossing point for wounded Syrians seeking treatment in Israel. According to the eight previous UNDOF reports, covering the past two years, Syrian rebels often were the ones to hand over the wounded and receive them after treatment.

For example, the June 10, 2014 report details 59 incidents at Position 85 during which UNDOF “observed armed members of the opposition transferring 89 wounded persons from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF and IDF on the Alpha side handing over 19 treated and 2 deceased individuals to the armed members of the opposition on the Bravo side.”

At least some of those being treated are wounded fighters. In the spring of 2013, for example, after the permanent representative of Syria wrote to the UN secretary-general and the president of the Security Council about the reported transfer of injured Syrians to Israeli hospitals, the liaison officer of Israel “informed UNDOF that IDF had provided emergency medical treatment to 20 armed members of the opposition.”

It appears that the coordination may have other purposes as well. The June 2014 report notes “on one occasion, UNDOF observed IDF on the Alpha side handing over two boxes to armed members of the opposition on the Bravo side.”

When asked whether the Israeli military disputed UNDOF’s reports of direct contact between the IDF and Syrian rebels and shown the relevant excerpts, an IDF spokesman said the military didn’t have any comment on the UN’s observations.

Tensions grew Sunday over the impending release of a Senate report examining the alleged use of torture by the CIA, with a top House lawmaker saying that the release will cause "violence and deaths" abroad.

The comments by Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, came after Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday urged Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the senator in charge of the report on CIA interrogations, to reconsider the timing of the release. Obama administration officials said they still support making the report public.

Rogers is regularly briefed on intelligence assessments. He told CNN's "State of the Union" that U.S. intelligence agencies and foreign governments have said privately that the release of the report on CIA interrogations a decade ago will be used by extremists to incite violence that is likely to cost lives.

"I think this is a terrible idea," Rogers said. "Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths...Foreign leaders have approached the government and said, 'You do this, this will cause violence and deaths.' Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths."

Rogers questioned why the report needed to become public, given that the Justice Department investigated and filed no criminal charges.

In addition, a U.S. intelligence official, who was not authorized to be quoted discussing classified intelligence assessments, told the Associated Press that Congress had been warned "of the heightened potential that the release could stimulate a violent response."

The 480-page report, a summary of a still-classified 6,000 page study, is expected to be made public next week. It amounts to the first public accounting of the CIA's alleged use of torture on suspected Al Qaeda detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

CBS News reported Sunday that the report contains evidence that the CIA went beyond what was “legally allowable,” and that the agency lied to the White House, the Department of Justice and Congress about the effectiveness of the program.

The CIA told Fox News it would not comment until the report is released, but former agency officials have told Fox News that the agency’s program provided it with foundational intelligence about the Al Qaeda network after the Sept. 11 attacks. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has previously told Fox News that it was not feasible to believe that three different CIA directors and three different deputy directors of the agency conspired over a seven-year period to lie about the program's effectiveness. Hayden and former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo have also claimed that the program provided evidence that helped direct the 2011 raid that killed Usama bin Laden.

U.S. officials who have read the report say it includes disturbing new details about the CIA's use of such techniques as sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces, humiliation and the simulated drowning process known as waterboarding.

President Barack Obama has previously acknowledged, "We tortured some folks." The report also says the alleged torture failed to produce life-saving intelligence, a conclusion disputed by current and former intelligence officials, including CIA director John Brennan.

A congressional aide noted to the Associated Press that the White House has led negotiations to declassify the report since April, and that both the president and his director of national intelligence have endorsed its release. The government has taken steps to beef up security at American posts around the world, said the aide, who was not authorized to be quoted by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Feinstein has not responded to reports of the Kerry call, though she told the Los Angeles Times in a story published Sunday that "We have to get this report out."

She told the Los Angeles Times that the harsh interrogations undermined "societal and constitutional values that we are very proud of. Anybody who reads this is going to never let this happen again."

Fox News' Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Protesters sing Christmas carols at Grand Central Station denouncing the recent decisions by two grand juries not to indict police officers in the deaths of unarmed black men in New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, in New York City December 7, 2014. REUTERS/Sebastien Malo

By Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Amid a sea of holiday shoppers, about 30 protesters, among them professional opera singers, gathered on Sunday in midtown New York to sing Christmas carols modified with lyrics lamenting recent cases of police violence against African American males.

The event, which drew smiles from onlookers, was in contrast to more charged protests, including a night earlier in Seattle, where people threw rocks at police, and in Berkeley, California, where looters smashed store windows.

In the reimagined songs, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" became "O Little Town of Ferguson," the Missouri city where Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot dead in August by a white police officer. A grand jury declined last month to indict the officer, Darren Wilson, sparking a nationwide wave of protests.

Other songs included "All I Want for Christmas is an Indictment" and "Little Drummer Boy," which was remade into a dirge for Eric Garner, who died in July after being choked by a New York police officer in Staten Island. That officer also avoided indictment in a decision handed down last week.

Organizer Cassandra Oliveras, 35, a self-described "choral freak," said the idea of adapting carols to the current controversies came to her after a recent protest in Manhattan aimed at stopping the lighting of the city's Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Police blocked protesters from reaching the site.

"I was so angry and I felt so incredibly hopeless," she said. "I couldn't sleep that night and I just stayed up writing these things because they just poured out of me."

The carolers, who began singing at Penn Station before shifting locations, ranged from sign-bearing activists to professional opera singers.

Susanna Mentzer, a mezzo soprano who will perform in "Marriage of Figaro" on Monday at the Metropolitan Opera, said the event marked her first protest.

"I think what's so unique about current protests is that everyone I know seems outraged," said Mentzer, 57, who attended with a fellow cast member after learning of the protest on social media.

For some more experienced protesters, the singing represented a welcome change of pace.

"Friday there was a definite sense of anger. All you could do is scream," said Katie Carman, 33, a Manhattan filmmaker, referring to protests in New York.

"Today I wanted to come out and show people we can deliver this message in other ways. But I may be back on the streets shouting."

(Editing by Jonathan Kaminsky and Eric Walsh)