Wochit
The Man Who Stabbed People With a Sword in Sweden Had a Racist Motive Motive

TROLLHATTAN, Sweden (AP) — Hundreds of people lit candles Friday in the yard of a Swedish school where police said a 21-year-old masked man with a sword and a knife went on a rampage a day earlier, stabbing two to death and seriously wounding two others before being shot by police.

Police described the Thursday attack as a carefully organized, racist hate crime by a young man who methodically selected his victims in Trollhattan's Kronan school, where most of the students are foreign-born.

The Scandinavian nation of 10 million, known for its welcoming attitude toward migrants, was shocked by the violence in the southern industrial town near Sweden's second largest city, Goteborg.

"This is a black day for Sweden," Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said of the country's deadliest school attack. "It is a tragedy that hits the entire country."

Although violent crime is relatively rare in Sweden, there has been a spate of arson attacks on asylum centers in recent weeks as an influx of refugees has surged. Immigration officials estimate some 190,000 asylum-seekers will arrive this year, second only to Germany in Western Europe.

Nour Shilbaya, an 18-year-old former student at the school, took part in the candlelight vigil.

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A man lights a candle outside Kronan school in Trollhattan, Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, a day after an at …

"I've been living here my whole life. It feels so hard to see all of this happening because it feels like a movie," she said. "You can't imagine that it is real."

Handwritten signs in Swedish, Arabic and Persian stuck on windows and doors urged people to respect those who visited to pay their respects throughout the day.

Police investigator Thord Haraldsson told reporters that school surveillance video showed how the attacker roamed through the school with a sword and a sharp knife, selecting victims who were all "dark-skinned."

Evidence appears to indicate he acted alone, Haraldsson said, adding that police found "a kind of suicide note" in his apartment. They said the assailant had considered the attack his final act.

The sword's sheath was found inside a car parked near the school, Haraldsson said.

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Mourners light candles outside Kronan school in Trollhattan, Sweden, Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, a day af …

None of the victims has been identified by authorities, but local media cited relatives as saying those who died were 20-year-old Lavin Eskandar, a mentor at the school, and Ahmed Hassan, a 15-year-old student.

Before the candlelight vigil, a few hundred people held an anti-racism protest outside the school, some carrying banners with the words "No to racism, no to hatred" and "Why?"

"We do not have all the facts yet, but we know innocent people have died. Maybe because of the distorted debate in the society," Imam Abdi Rizak Wabari said during Friday prayers at a nearby mosque.

Once Sweden's busiest industrial city, a center for heavy industries and car production, Trollhattan has been struggling with unemployment for years. It now has Sweden's highest jobless rate — 14.1 percent in 2014 compared to 8 percent for the whole country. In addition, the city's rate of people with higher education is 20.9 percent, below the national average of 25.1 percent.

"This is a quiet place. A very nice place to live. It is not a racist place," said Abdul Asiz Kassim, a 37-year-old Somali translator who came to Sweden 23 years ago. "What happened here yesterday ... nobody can stop.

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Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, right, talks to local people near the school Thursday afternoon where …

"Just like in Norway with (Anders Behring) Breivik. People get crazy ideas from the Internet," Kassim said, referring to the anti-Muslim extremist who killed 77 people in a bombing and gun rampage in Norway in 2011.

Surveillance videos authenticated by police show the assailant posed for photos with some students before beginning his deadly rampage. Several students thought the attacker was playing a Halloween prank.

Police said he entered the school through a cafe in its lobby that is open to the public. He stabbed two victims, then knocked on two classroom doors and stabbed two more victims.

Mohammed, who declined to give his last name, recalled how a classmate was stabbed when he opened the door to the attacker, whom he described as a man with "a Star Wars mask and a really big sword."

"We all still thought it was a joke, Halloween and all. But then he lifted his shirt and his intestines were hanging out," he told The Associated Press. "That's when it became serious, we all panicked. We all started screaming."

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A police officer speaks to a woman near the scene of a sword attack by a masked man at the Kronan sc …

Panicked students fled the school as police and ambulances rushed in. Authorities found a dead male teacher and three people seriously wounded — two boys and another male teacher. All the wounded had surgery but one of the students later died.

Hospital officials said that the other wounded student's condition had improved Friday and was considered stable, while a 41-year-old teacher was in "serious but stable" condition.

Sweden's last school attack was in 1961, when a 17-year-old opened fire at a school dance in the southwest, wounding seven students, one of whom died later.

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Jona Kallgren in Trollhattan and Jan M.Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed to this reprt.

Police: Racist motive behind Sweden school attack

The Japanese government has recently admitted that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant contracted cancer as a consequence of radiation exposure of 2011, British journalist Oliver Tickell points out, warning that there are many more cases on the way.

The Japanese government has officially confirmed that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant has contracted radiation-related cancer: the man has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukaemia.

"But that single 'official' cancer case is just the beginning. New scientific research indicates that hundreds more cancers have been and will be contracted in the local population. A 30-fold excess of thyroid cancer has been detected among over 400,000 young people below the age of 18 from the Fukushima area," British journalist, author and health and environment issue campaigner Oliver Tickell wrote in his article for The Ecologist, citing a report entitled "Thyroid Cancer Detection by Ultrasound Among Residents Ages 18 Years and Younger in Fukushima, Japan: 2011 to 2014."

© AP PHOTO

Unspoken Death Toll of Fukushima: Nuclear Disaster Killing Japanese Slowly

"The highest incidence rate ratio, using a latency period of 4 years, was observed in the central middle district of the prefecture compared with the Japanese annual incidence (incidence rate ratio = 50; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 25, 90)," the report read.

Tickell noted that during a first screening for thyroid cancer held four years after the Fukushima catastrophe among 298,577 youths, the disease was registered 50 times more frequently among those who lived in the most heavily irradiated zones than among other Japanese youth.

During a second screening carried out in April 2014 among 106,068 young people who lived in less contaminated areas of the Fukushima prefecture, the disease was 12 times more common than for the main population.

"Thyroid cancer is commonly developed as a result of acute exposure to radioactive iodine 131, a product of nuclear fission. Because iodine concentrates in the thyroid gland, thyroid damage including cancer is a characteristic marker of exposure to nuclear fallout," Tickell elaborated, adding that iodine-131 constituted about 9.1 percent of the radioactive material released during the Fukushima disaster.

© AFP 2015/ POOL / ISSEI KATO

Fukushima Disaster Aftermath: Japanese Government Has Something to Hide

Quoting the report, Tickell called attention to the fact that "the incidence of thyroid cancer is high by comparison with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986," beating the drums over the possibility of a growing cancer threat in the region in the next four-five years.

That is not all, the British journalist added, emphasizing that the real exposure doses for residents could have been higher than had been reported by the authorities and the World Health Organization.

"We could infer a possibility that exposure doses for residents were higher than the official report or the dose estimation by the World Health Organization, because the number of thyroid cancer cases grew faster than predicted in the World Health Organization's health assessment report," the authors of the report underscored, as quoted by Tickell.

The British journalist also highlighted that the scientists have failed to mention that other radioactive elements emitted in the accident pose even more of a threat to the population's health (in particular, 17.5 percent Cesium-137 and 38.5 percent Cesium 134).

"These longer-lived beta-emitters (30 years and two years respectively) present a major long-term hazard as the element is closely related to potassium and readily absorbed into biomass and food crops," Tickell stressed.

The author bemoaned the fact the Japanese people also face a danger posed by "long lived alpha emitters like plutonium 239 (which has a half-life of 24,100 years) which is hard to detect."

"Even tiny nano-scale specks of inhaled plutonium entering the lungs and lymphatic system can cause cancer decades after the event by continuously 'burning' surrounding tissues and cells," Oliver Tickell warned.

HEMEIMEEM AIRBASE, Syria (AP) — Sleek combat jets loaded with precision bunker-buster bombs roar into the skies as soldiers in desert-style uniforms march past rows of neat housing at this Russian military base at one of Syria's largest airports.

The air campaign in Syria, Russia's first military action outside the former Soviet Union since the war in Afghanistan, shows a revamped Russian military, which sharply differs in both capability and mindset from the old, Soviet-style force.

It is capable of quickly projecting power far from Russian borders, widely uses drones and precision weapons, and cares about soldiers' comfort.

The thunder of Syria's civil war couldn't be heard at Hemeimeem, located in the coastal province of Latakia, which has largely been spared the chaos and destruction of more than 4 1/2 years of fighting in Syria.

A small group of journalists visiting the base this week could see a dozen Su-24 bombers taking off into the night with a deafening roar, piercing the darkness with scarlet flames from their engines.

Such missions were impossible just a few years ago, when the Russian air force had few planes capable of hitting targets at night.

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In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, A Russian transport plane lands at Hemeimeem airbase …

As part of President Vladimir Putin's sweeping military modernization program, the air force received hundreds of new and modernized aircraft, all equipped with state-of-the art electronics on a par with U.S. and NATO jets.

"All aircraft here at the base are equipped with targeting systems that allow hitting targets with pinpoint precision," said Defense Ministry spokesman Maj.-Gen. Igor Konashenkov.

He dismissed Syrian opposition claims that the Russian airstrikes killed civilians as "sheer nonsense," saying the aircraft have hit ammunition depots, bunkers and other targets away from populated areas. The ministry has released cockpit video to support its claims, just as the Pentagon did during the two Gulf wars.

The precision strikes differ sharply from Russian operations to quash two separatist insurrections in Chechnya, where the Russian military indiscriminately used obsolete, inaccurate weapons, reducing the Chechen capital of Grozny to rubble.

Latakia, the heartland of Syrian President Bashar Assad's Alawite minority, offers the Russian military a safe environment — and a warm welcome from people blaring car horns and chanting "Thanks!" in Russian.

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In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, Syrian children stand at a refugee camp in Latakia, Sy …

At a refugee camp in Latakia, which houses several thousand mostly Alawite refugees from other provinces in Syria, smiling kids shouted: "Thank you, Putin!"

Warmly greeted by the locals and at a safe distance from the front lines, Russian soldiers at the base look calm and relaxed.

Still, Russian military police manning checkpoints with Syrian security forces thoroughly check incoming vehicles, special forces guard key facilities and Mi-24 helicopter gunships sweep around the base on regular patrols looking for any suspicious activity. Pantsyr air defense systems are deployed at the edge of the airfield, completing the security bubble.

Soldiers at the base are visibly proud of their crisp new uniforms and comfortable sand-colored high boots, a stark contrast with the drab Soviet-style military attire worn until recently.

Air force support crew attaching heavy bombs and missiles under the warplanes' wings wear shorts and white sports shoes for comfort in very un-Russian temperatures of nearly 30 Celsius (mid-80s Fahrenheit).

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In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, A boy, right, arranges traditional Syrian bread at a r …

On a typical day, each jet flies several sorties during the day and at night.

Konashenkov shrugged off U.S. criticism that Russia was targeting moderate rebel groups fighting Assad instead of focusing on Islamic State militants, the main goal declared by the Kremlin. He argued it doesn't matter which of the myriad militant groups owns facilities making suicide belts and rigging trucks with explosives for suicide missions, which the Russian warplanes target.

In another break with the old Russian military tradition, the planners of the Hemeimeem base took care of the troops, a marked departure from Soviet-style neglect of soldiers' comfort.

The neat rows of housing units, each holding from two to eight men depending on rank, are equipped with air conditioning, a must in the scorching heat, and there are plenty of wash cabins available.

A field kitchen and a canteen look immaculately clean, a sight to shock anyone familiar with crude ways of the old-style Russian military.

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In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, A Russian serviceman works at a water treatment facili …

At the base's water treatment unit, Lt.-Col. Alexander Yevdokimov spoke enthusiastically about a multilayer filter system that purifies Syrian tap water to the highest drinking standard and prevents any threat of chemical or bacteriological contamination.

"Please try it, it tastes really good!" he told reporters.

The base bakes its own bread and cooks prepare no-frills but filling Russian dishes. An army store offers souvenirs, cosmetics and clothing, and smiling attendants at a nearby coffee shop sell candies, cookies and ice cream delivered from Russia.

Konashenkov, a veteran of the war in Chechnya and other post-Soviet conflicts, is keen to highlight the progress the military has made.

"Remember Chechnya, where everything was covered in dirt?" he asks, pointing at the base's freshly paved grounds that help keep uniforms and housing units clean.

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In this photo taken on Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, Russian cooks prepare food at Hemeimeem airbase, Syr …

Officers at the base say its comfortable layout and logistics reflect the personal touch of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is widely popular in the ranks, unlike his predecessor, Anatoly Serdyukov.

Serdyukov, who was ordered by Putin to streamline the bloated and under-funded military after the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, conducted painful cuts of the officer corps and made other radical changes, but was eventually sacked amid growling in the ranks.

The military welcomed the appointment of Shoigu, who had served as Russia's emergencies minister for two decades and won a reputation as one of the few Russian officials who could actually get things done.

A latecomer to Putin's inner circle, Shoigu has developed strong personal ties with the president. They have gone fishing together and the defense minister now seems to be one of the few officials whom Putin particularly trusts.

Spending on the military increased under Shoigu's leadership, financing hundreds of new aircraft and missiles and the commissioning of numerous other new weapons.

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In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015, Russian army Lt.-Col. Alexander Yevdokimov stands near …

The armed forces have held a series of massive exercises, engaging hundreds of thousands of troops and hundreds of aircraft across vast areas from the Baltics to the Pacific and from the Caspian Sea to the Arctic.

The drills paid off when Putin moved to annex Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014. Within hours, waves of Russian transport planes airlifted special forces that quickly blocked Ukrainian troops at their bases without firing a shot. The swift operation took the West by surprise.

Unlike the past, when the military's post-Soviet meltdown forced the Kremlin to rely increasingly on nuclear weapons, it has grown more confident about its conventional forces.

The rapid deployment of a sizable expeditionary force by sea and air, an air campaign in which dozens of jets relentlessly pounded targets round the clock for weeks and the launching of long-range cruise missiles from the Caspian were intended to send a clear message: Russia's military could rival U.S. operational capability.

Putin has pointed at the launch of 26 cruise missiles from Russian navy ships in the Caspian at targets in Syria 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) away as a signal to the U.S. that Russia can pack a similar punch.

Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, shrugged off the Pentagon's claim that four of the missiles crashed in Iran.

"All those targets (in Syria) must have exploded all by themselves then!" he said with a sardonic smile, insisting that every Russian missile hit its target.