Reporter James Foley Beheaded on Video by Islamist Militants

James Foley

The Islamic State militant group has released a video online purporting to show the beheading of US journalist James Foley, missing since 2012.
The militants said the killing was revenge for US air strikes against the Islamic State group in Iraq.
Foley's mother Diane said on Facebook she was proud of her son: "He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people." The White House said if the video was genuine, the US would be "appalled".
Foley has reported extensively across the Middle East, working for America's Global Post and other media outlets including the French news agency AFP.

In the video titled A Message to America, a man who appears to be James Foley is dressed in orange kneeling in desert-like terrain beside an armed man dressed in black.The militant, who speaks with a British accent and identifies himself as an IS member, says the journalist's death is the direct result of US bombing of IS targets in Iraq.

In a statement, the Global Post asked for "prayers for Jim and his family", adding that it was waiting for the video to be verified. James Foley has been missing since he was seized in Syria in 2012

 

James Foley has worked for a number of media outlets, travelling across the Middle East

 

A ribbon is tied to a tree outside James Foley's house in Rochester, New Hampshire

In a 2012 interview,  Foley described his motivation for covering conflicts.
"I'm drawn to the drama of the conflict and trying to expose untold stories," he said.
"There's extreme violence, but there's a will to find who these people really are... And I think that's what's really inspiring about it". Foley was also briefly detained in Libya in 2011.
US officials confirmed that they had seen the video and were trying to establish its authenticity.

President Obama had also been informed. White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: "If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends."
The footage claimed to have been released by the IS also shows another prisoner identified by the militants as an American reporter.
Mrs Foley, in her Facebook post, urged the militants to free any other hostages.

"Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world," she wrote. The militant group has been accused of massacring hundreds of people in areas under their control in Iraq and also in eastern Syria.
The violence has displaced an estimated 1.2 million people in Iraq alone.
Pursuing an extreme form of Sunni Islam, IS has persecuted non-Muslims such as Yazidis and Christians, as well as Shia Muslims, whom it regards as heretics.

How Americans View Ferguson

Published on Aug 19, 2014          

The Pew Research Center conducted a poll over the weekend to gauge how Americans now view what has happened in Ferguson.
The poll's results shows an America divided along racial and political lines over the complex issues at play in the shooting's aftermath. Produced by the BBC's David Botti

Maybe yes -Maybe no : 'Don't know' if Missouri teen shot with hands up

ST LOUIS, MO - AUGUST 18: Dr, Michael Baden points to an autopsy diagram showing where the gun shots hit Michael Brown as family attorney's Benjamin Crump (L) and Daryl Parks look on during a press conference at the Greater St. Marks Family Church on August 18, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9th. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

ST LOUIS, MO - AUGUST 18: Dr, Michael Baden points to his head where one of the gun shots hit Michael Brown as family attorney's Benjamin Crump (L) and Daryl Parks look on during a press conference at the Greater St. Marks Family Church on August 18, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9th. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

 ST LOUIS, MO - AUGUST 18: The family attorney for Michael Brown, Benjamin Crump, raises his fingers to indicate that 6 gun shots were the minimum number of times the 18 year old teenager was hit during a press conference at the Greater St. Marks Family Church on August 18, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9th. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

People donate money for the family of Michael Brown during a rally Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. Brown, who was unarmed, was shot to death Aug. 9 in the street. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

FERGUSON, MO - AUGUST 17: A man gets help after being overcome by tear gas that police launched at demonstrators protesting the killing of teenager Michael Brown on August 17, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Police shot smoke and tear gas into the crowd of several hundred as they advanced near the police command center which has been set up in a shopping mall parking lot. Brown was shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer on August 9. Despite the Brown family's continued call for peaceful demonstrations, violent protests have erupted nearly every night in Ferguson since his death. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) -- A Missouri teenager fatally shot by police suffered a bullet wound to his right arm that may indicate his hands were up or his back was turned to the shooter, but "we don't know," a pathologist hired by the teen's family said Monday.

An independent autopsy determined that 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot at least six times, including twice in the head, according to the family's attorneys and hired pathologists. Brown was unarmed when he was shot by a police officer Aug. 9 in Ferguson, touching off a week of rancorous protests in the St. Louis suburb. Police have used riot gear and tear gas, and the governor called in the National Guard early Monday to help.

Forensic pathologist Shawn Parcells, who assisted former New York City chief medical examiner Dr. Michael Baden during the private autopsy, said a bullet graze wound on Brown's right arm could have occurred in several ways. He said the teen may have had his back to the shooter, or he could have been facing the shooter with his hands above his head or in a defensive position.

"We don't know," Parcells said. "We still have to look at the other (elements) of this investigation before we start piecing things together."

Witnesses have said Brown had his hands raised above his head when he was repeatedly shot in a street in Ferguson, where the death has heightened racial tensions between the predominantly black community and the mostly white police department.

Another protest quickly deteriorated Sunday night as marchers pushed toward one end of a street, and authorities - who said they were responding to reports of gunfire, looting, vandalism and protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails - pushed them back with tear gas.

The streets were empty before a state-imposed midnight curfew, but hours later, Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the National Guard to Ferguson. It was unclear when the troops may arrive.

"These violent acts are a disservice to the family of Michael Brown and his memory and to the people of this community who yearn for justice to be served and to feel safe in their own homes," Nixon said in a statement.

A grand jury could begin hearing evidence Wednesday to determine whether the officer, Darren Wilson, should be charged in Brown's death, but it's unclear how long it may take, said Ed Magee, spokesman for St. Louis County's prosecuting attorney.

Family attorney Benjamin Crump said Brown's parents wanted the additional autopsy because they feared results of the county's examination could be biased. Crump declined to release copies of the report, and the county's autopsy report has not been released.

"They could not trust what was going to be put in the reports about the tragic execution of their child," he said during Monday's news conference with Parcells and Baden, who has testified in several high-profile cases, including the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

The second autopsy, Crump said, "verifies that the witness accounts were true: that he was shot multiple times."

Baden said one of the bullets entered the top of Brown's skull, suggesting his head was bent forward when he suffered that fatal injury. The pathologists said Brown, who also was shot four times in the right arm, could have survived the other bullet wounds.

Baden also said there was no gun-power residue on Brown's body, indicating he was not shot at close range. However, Baden said he did not have access to Brown's clothing, and that it was possible the residue could be on the clothing.

Crump also noted that Brown had abrasions on his face from where he fell to the ground, but there was "otherwise no evidence of a struggle."

Associated Press writers Jim Salter in St. Louis and David A. Lieb in Jefferson City contributed to this report.

Ebola Quarantine Center Looted

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Health workers move the body of a fellow health worker who was found dead in a seat, and who they believe passed away from the Ebola virus, at one of the largest hospitals in the city of Monrovia, Liberia, Saturday, Aug. 16, 2014. The Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 1,100 people in West Africa could last another six months, the Doctors Without Borders charity group said Friday.

Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum on August 16, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. A crowd of several hundred local residents, chanting, 'No Ebola in West Point,' drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took the patients out, many saying that the Ebola epidemic is a hoax. The isolation center, a closed primary school originally built by USAID, was being used by the Liberian health ministry to temporarily isolate people suspected of carrying the virus. Some 10 patients had 'escaped' the building the night before, according to a nurse, as the center had no medicine to treat them. The Ebola epidemic has killed more than 1,000 people in four West African countries, with Liberia now having the most deaths.

An Ebola quarantine centre in Liberia has been looted by a gang, who reportedly took bloodstained sheets and mattresses, and  forced 17 patients to flee, drastically raising the chances of the virus spreading. The attack happened at a unit in the West Point area of Monrovia late on Saturday. Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack, told the AP news agency on Sunday that the gang were mostly young men armed with clubs.
Wesseh said she heard the attackers shouting anti-government slogans and insisting there was "no Ebola" in Liberia. "They broke down the door and looted the place. The patients have all gone," she said.

The head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams, said the unit had housed 29 patients who were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital.

"Of the 29 patients, 17 fled last night. Nine died four days ago and three others were taken by force by their relatives," he said. "They had all tested positive for Ebola."

The AP news agency quoted the assistant health minister, Tolbert Nyenswah, as saying residents of West Point were angry that patients had been brought from other parts of the capital to the centre.

The agency reported that bloodstained sheets and mattresses were taken. Ebola is transmitted by bodily fluids. Liberian police restored order to West Point, a slum area home to up to 100,000 poor Liberians, officials told AP.

The Ebola outbreak has already killed 1,145 people in five months in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. Liberia has the worst toll, with 413 people dead.

Missouri Governor Criticizes Police for Releasing Footage

Missouri governor Jay Nixon has criticized police for releasing CCTV footage which apparently shows shooting victim Michael Brown stealing. He said the release of the footage nearly a week after a policeman shot Mr Brown in Ferguson, St Louis, "appeared to cast aspersions" on the dead man.

"It made emotions raw," Mr Nixon told US broadcaster ABC on Sunday. US Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a federal post-mortem on the black teenager's body.

Riot police used tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse protesters overnight as they defied a curfew in Ferguson. The curfew is being extended for a second day, beginning at midnight and running for five hours.

The killing of Brown on August 9th has inflamed racial tensions in the largely black suburb.

It caused dismay across the US, with peaceful nationwide vigils held on Thursday night, while images of riot police deployed in an American city suburb have made headlines worldwide.

The video "appeared to cast aspersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street", said Governor Nixon. On Saturday, he declared the curfew after looters targeted stores in Ferguson overnight. Mr Brown's family condemned the release of CCTV footage by local police.

Seven arrests were made as police used smoke bombs and tear gas to disperse a crowd of about 150 in Ferguson, after being called to the scene of a disturbance at a restaurant after the curfew started.

A police car reportedly came under fire and a person was hurt in an apparently unrelated shooting in the same area. As police were nearing the restaurant, a man with a handgun went into the street but ran away, AP news agency reports.

Protesters in Ferguson, St Louis, on Saturday night

Protesters in Ferguson, St Louis, on Saturday night

Protesters in Ferguson, St Louis, on Saturday night

Police in Ferguson, St Louis, on Saturday night

Someone also shot at a police car but it was not clear if it had been hit. In the same area, a person was shot and critically wounded and police were searching for the attacker. Demonstrators complained that the curfew would make matters worse.

Jayson Ross, who was leading the protesters toward the police before tear gas was fired, was quoted as saying by AP: "They got guns. We got guns. We are ready."

Local politician Antonio French, who was with the protesters, tweeted to say: "Too many young men talking about being ready to die tonight."

The US justice department is investigating the shooting of Mr Brown, with 40 FBI agents dispatched to Ferguson to gather information. The justice department said on Sunday that Mr Holder had ordered a federal post-mortem examination at the request of Mr Brown's family, in addition to a Missouri state autopsy.

Michael Brown had recently graduated from high school. His family said their son was not "perfect"

A preliminary autopsy by the St Louis County Medical Examiner's office on the day after Mr Brown's death found he had been shot, police said, without disclosing how many times. Earlier, the lawyer for the dead teenager's family, Anthony Gray, announced that it had hired one of America's most famous forensic pathologists, Michael Baden, to conduct an independent examination. Mr Baden, 80, has worked on investigations into the deaths of such public figures as President John F Kennedy, the punk star Sid Vicious and the family of the last Russian emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, according to a profile on Fox News, where he works as a TV host.

Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson revealed on Friday that the officer who shot Mr Brown was Darren Wilson, a six-year police veteran with no previous complaints against him. Mr Wilson has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting. The policeman had reportedly stopped the teenager for walking in the street, disrupting traffic.

Apparently the Sixties Have Come Back to Ferguson

For many, the recent scenes in Ferguson looks like something out of the 1960s, when such responses were far too common.

Internet users across the country soon began uploading photos of the police response to civil rights protests and photos from Ferguson and comparing them side by side. The similarities are striking, as are the questions they raise.
Racial profiling still goes on. It often, still seems like a knee-jerk response to  situations by many law enforcement officers. What exactly is racial profiling?  It is the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as the  basis for deciding whether to stop or arrest someone. The practice blatantly countermands civil rights and the constitution. Whether or not it happened  in Ferguson is for wiser heads than mine to figure out. But I don't think that looting, robbing and destruction of the properties of the citizens of Ferguson, in the name of Michael Brown, is in any way legitimate or justified.
 

Photograph captured during the 1968 wildcat sanitation strike in Memphis, Tennessee, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. But as of a few days ago, people are finding a second photograph taken in Ferguson far too similar.

Attack dogs, then and now

The Civil Rights Act is 50 years old. These two pictures were taken 50 years apart. 

Left, Montgomery Alabama, 1965 stare-down....right Ferguson stare-down

Same tactics now, as in 1965 Watts riot

Thanx to Huff Post



Landing on a Comet ? - You Gotta be Kidding

Rosetta captures high resolution images of comet 67P

As Rosetta moved into what's officially called a "hyperbolic orbit", the cameras on board have been busy taking new images of the strange, icy body, comet 67P.

"It was very emotional to see these high-resolution pictures," said Dr Holger Sierks, principal investigator of Osiris - the main science camera system onboard Rosetta.

"We've never seen images like this before in this detail, and with the features we never really thought to see."

The close-up image above shows a range of features on the surface including boulders, craters and steep cliffs. The image was taken from a distance of 130km and the image resolution was 2.4m per pixel.

"We saw boulders all over the nucleus," said Dr Sierks.

"Some are the size of houses. And I want to understand how did they get into place, what are they made of, and how will they evolve?

"We will stay with the comet through its most active phase, and then afterwards through the decay of activity. We are expecting to see the comet evolve and the surface evolve. We might start to see the boulders moving, falling apart and even reforming."

This image above was taken on 3 August, from a distance of 285km. Scientists are curious about the neck area joining the two main parts. They believe there may be fresher ice at this point but they do not yet know why.

This image shows what's termed the comet's "head" at the left of the frame, which is casting shadow on to the "neck" and "body" to the right. The image was taken from a distance of 120km and the image resolution is 2.2m per pixel.

This image was taken from a distance of 550km. The exposure time of the image was 330 seconds and according to the European Space Agency, the comet nucleus is saturated to bring out the detail of the comet's activity. Rosetta will be very interested in the gas and dust that is coming off the surface. As it gets closer to the Sun, this activity will increase.

"We are already seeing dust lifting up from the surface. With the deep exposure, we are seeing the first jets - this is localised activity, localised jets of dust."
As well as the images, the Esa researchers are getting their first scientific data from 67P. They've already identified water coming from the surface in a haze of gas.
"The rate at which it is escaping is two plastic cups per second," said Dr Sam Gulkiss, who is the principal investigator of the Miro instrument.
"That's about one-third of a kilogram of gas per second coming off the nucleus. That is going to increase a hundred to a thousand times as it gets closer to the Sun."

This image, resembling a colourful, spotty mushroom, indicates possible landing sites for the Philae lander, due to touch down on the surface on 11 November.
The red areas are in constant sunshine, while the blue are in constant darkness. The optimum is in the orange/yellow areas, and over the next month researchers will be taking measurements to try to identify the best location.