Egypt sentences 10 Brotherhood leaders to death

An Egyptian court on Saturday referred ten Muslim Brotherhood leaders charged with inciting violence to Egypt’s grand mufti, the country’s highest religious authority, to consider possible death sentences against them.

The ten are part of a group of 48 defendants, including Brotherhood Supreme Guide Dr Muhammad Badie, who are standing trial on charges of inciting violence in the Qalioubiya province last year.

The defendants face charges of blocking roads, inciting violence and attacking security forces on July 22 – some three weeks after the ouster of elected president Muhammad Morsi by the military.

Among the defendants referred to mufti – who were all tried in absentia – was senior Brotherhood leader Abdel-Rahman al-Bar, who is known as the Brotherhood mufti.

The same court also set July 5 as a date for issuing a final verdict in the case, the judicial source said.

Among other Brotherhood leaders charged in the same case are senior Brotherhood leader Muhammad Beltagi, former youth minister Osama Yassin, and former supply minister Bassem Ouda.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the movement from which Morsi hails, have been the target of a mounting crackdown since Morsi’s ouster by the army in July last year.

The army-backed interim government late last year designated the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Thousands of Brotherhood members have been arrested on charges of incitement-to-violence and joining a “terrorist” group.

The defendants, however, deny the accusations, which they describe as “politically motivated”.

Images below are file photos from the trials of Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders.

The plight of Palestinian woman blinded by Israeli occupation forces

Ayat Mahfouz, 22, is a Palestinian woman from the West Bank city of Hebron. She has lived with the fear of blindness since she was aged two. In the early 1990s, Israeli soldiers fired a gas canister into her home, which caused her to fall down the stairs and lose her right eye.

With weak sight in the left eye and complete blindness with the right eye, Ayat was forced to live in a world of darkness. As time passed, she became desperate to be cured as vision in her left eye became increasingly worse.

Recently, she has stopped seeking treatment and gave up all hope to be cured after it seemed that her recovery was no more than a dream. The pressures of life forced her to become suicidal and contemplate revenge against the Israeli occupation forces, which caused her misery.

In the last two years, Ayat carried out two failed attempts to stab Israeli soldiers. On the first occasion she was detained for 40 days; the second attempt led to her detention for 10 months.

After being subjected to maltreatment at the hands of her Israeli jailers, Ayat lost all hope of a better life and was soon plunged into a state of complete blindness while in prison.

Ayat’s mother said that her daughter’s sole solution to regain any hope in life is a surgical operation to replace the retina of her left eye in order to regain her sight and the implanting of an artificial right eye to improve her facial appearance.

Her mother said that if she looked at the mirror and saw herself beautiful, she might feel much better and become more disposed to adopting to her surroundings instead of contemplating taking her own life or seeking revenge.

This story is a condensed version of a feature published by Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper, 7 June, 2014

Source; MEMO

Muslim girls complained that burqas exposed them to harassment and discrimination

By Jyoti Punwani

It took a little over seven months, and a final order by the State Information Commissioner Ratnakar Gaekwad himself, for the Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ) to get a copy of the Mehmood-ur Rahman Committee report on the status of Muslims in Maharashtra. The MPJ received a copy of the report on June 2, after applying for it in October last year.

It had been submitted to the government in October last year, and was expected to be tabled in the December session of the Assembly, but that didn’t happen. Till date, the report has not been officially released. With Assembly elections just five months away, it seems unlikely that it will be tabled, for its findings are a damning indictment on the state, which has been mostly ruled by the Congress since Independence.

The most disturbing finding was the community’s loss of faith in the state’s willingness to protect it during riots. The community felt police were against it and felt targeted by them. While Muslims were the first to be rounded up, even the perpetrators of violence against them were not arrested. Though the community constituted 10.6 per cent of the population, it comprised 27 per cent of prisoners in the state.

Among other measures such as dismissal of policemen who indulge in communal conduct, the report recommends greater recruitment of Muslims in the police, and a drive both by the state and by community leaders to get more Muslims to apply for police jobs.

One unnoticed fallout of the resultant feeling of insecurity is the restricted opportunities for women, who are often withdrawn from schools and forced to earn within their homes or neighbourhoods, making them subject to exploitation by middlemen and their own families.

Ghettoisation, primarily a result of insecurity, was seen as a major reason for discrimination by the state. Schools, colleges, public hospitals and sanitation facilities were found to be lacking in Muslim ghettoes, in which 90 per cent of the community was found to be living (only eight per cent lived in mixed areas). Even the distance to the nearest bus stop from these ghettoes was found to be 1.3 km away.

The report says that transport authorities admitted that Muslim areas were seen as trouble-prone, and thus few routes were planned through them. Many little-known forms of discrimination have been highlighted in the report. One was discrimination in health care.

Apart from the lack of public hospitals in ghettoes, the experience of Muslim women in these hospitals is a major reason for them to prefer private doctors, even if these were of dubious quality.

Hospital staff was especially rude with burqa-clad women, making remarks about them being ‘dirty’, ‘ladaku’ and having too many children. Incidentally, Muslim girls also complained that burqas exposed them to harassment and discrimination in educational institutions, public transport and jobs.

The report breaks some myths about Muslims. Their fertility rate has decreased from 4.11 in 1992-’93 to 3.3 in 1995-’96, and further down to 2.8 in 2005-06, which is better than the rate for Maharashtra as a whole. The immunisation rate (63.9 per cent) is also higher among Muslim infants than the state average.

To overcome the discrimination faced by Muslims, the report recommends an anti-discrimination law on the grounds of the SC/St Atrocities Act, the creation of an equal opportunities commission, inclusion of Dalit Muslims into the SC category, and 8 per cent reservation in public housing, as well as government jobs and educational institutions.

Fox’s Islamophobic Attack On The Facial Hair Of Bob Bergdahl

Fox News personalities attacked the father of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for looking “like a Muslim” and addressing his son in Pashto, going so far as to say his appearance is “insulting” and suggesting he might be an “Islamist sympathizer.”

The network has a long and well-documented history of pushing Islamophobic rhetoric and propagating the belief that Islam is a violent religion, and its pundits didn’t hold back in tapping into anti-Islamic sentiment to identify “something wrong” with Bergdahl’s release. Fox host Bill O’Reilly said he was “insulted” by the”conduct” of the soldier’s father, Bob Bergdahl, during his May 31 Rose Garden appearance with President Obama, because “[h]e has learned to speak the language of the Taliban and looks like a Muslim, actually thanking Allah right in front of the president.” Fox contributor Laura Ingraham later hyped and escalated O’Reilly’s “revelations,” saying on her radio show, “If he wasn’t so light-skinned, he actually looks like the terrorists.”

Other Fox hosts have suggested that Bergdahl’s beard, reportedly grown out of solidarity with his son, is something to be “skeptical” of and something that he grew out of “sympathy with the Taliban.” The current suspicion of Bergdahl’s facial hair comes in stark contrast to the network’s previous support of the famously bearded stars of A&E’s Duck Dynasty.

With the rise of the right wing politics in India, there has been spurt of communal violence against Muslims in various Indian cities

By Mahmad Sidat, TwoCircles.net,

With the rise of the right wing politics in India, there has been spurt of communal violence against Muslims in various Indian cities though most of it has gone unreported in mainstream media or found very little space. The case in example is recent violence in Pune. After morphed picture and derogatory remark about Shivaji appeared in social media, Shiv Sena and various other Hindu groups went on rampage in various cities of Maharashatra, damaging more than 180 buses.

Any state where elections are due and BJP is putting significant emphasis to snatch the state from the opponents, there emerges the pattern of riots followed by communal polarisation as we can see now in Maharashtra. It has now become too obvious to have any surprise elements in it. If Muslims continue to tolerate this, they will end up becoming the punching bags.

Stones were pelted on mosques to provoke the Muslim for retaliation. Thankfully Muslims took it on their chin and demonstrated remarkable resilience. This all happened when it was not even established that this mischief was carried out by some fringe Muslim youth. However, there was deafening silence from mainstream media about this vandalism, till a Muslim IT professional was killed by the mob. The same media had criticised Mumbai Police Chief heavily during the Azad Maidan protest for showing restrain and not firing on unruly Muslim protestors.

There was similarly no outrage or panel debate on mainstream TV channel for the innocent killed in Hyderabad police firing, biased role of police in these riots or acquittal of 6 accused in the Akshardham case by Supreme Court after spending over 10 years in Jail. Damming statement by the acquitted accused that “they were asked to choose between Godhara, Akshardham or Pandya murder” invoked little horror either on mainstream media or social media.

There are lessons to be learnt for the Muslims from this apathy. Majority of the Indian Muslims have been strong believer in the secular tradition of India and rightly so. They have believed, more than anyone else, its majority Hindu of this country who would speak up for them should government of the day changes the track. And there are reasons for this. It’s always prominent Hindus who have taken up the cause of Muslim. No one has hounded BJP for 2002 riots more than likes of late Mukul Sinha or Teesta setalvad. However, India has been secular does not mean it will always remain so. Muslims pathetic inaction or passivity can cost them dearly.

Muslims can not rely solely on main stream Media to speak up for them anymore. The word “Secularism” has been abused by right wingers to no end. The prominent journalists who once espoused the cause of secularism have either softened their tone or have been purged out from their respective organisations. So what Muslims can do or needs to do?

Ideally it would have been great to have liberal left to centre main stream news channels to balance and counter the propaganda continuously run by right wing crowded TV channels. I am still wondering why some Muslim businessman with fat purse has not thought of setting up some channel, perhaps Indian version of Al Jazeera.

While such a channel is still a distant dream, there is still hope. If we analyse the way media has picked up some stories in past year or so, we can see that lot of them have been influenced by social media. Some of the stories which were initially ignored by media had to be covered after intensively mounted pressure on social media. The way specific topics are trended on Twitter or specific issues are highlighted and massively shared in Facebook, it’s evident that there are organised groups out there with specific agenda. This is where Muslims need to get organised and make effective use of social media to mount pressure on main stream media to cover the stories that matters. Alternate online news portals too have proved instrumental in highlighting such issues.

Make no illusion though social media is effective but not enough to counter this bigotry that is effectively being entrenched in main stream media. There must be sincere and open debate among Muslims to come up with effective means to counter this bigoted onslaught by them.

(Author works in an Australian Insurance Company.)

Bergdahl, Afghanistan, and the darkening of the American soul

When Bowe Bergdahl was reported missing in Afghanistan on the morning of June 30, 2009, a crack formed in the U.S. narrative about the longest war in our nation’s history.

Bergdahl’s release this week, as part of a prisoner-of-war swap with the Taliban, has provoked the partisan pundits to hurl invective at the American POW, his family, and at President Barack Obama. Far removed from the din of these professional Beltway hecklers, though, in Hailey, Idaho, Bob Bergdahl, the young prisoner’s father, has been struggling for his son’s release. The ordeal of the son, and the disciplined, contemplative activism of the father, projects the U.S. war in Afghanistan through a different lens.

We know little yet of what exactly led to Bowe Bergdahl’s disappearance that night in Paktika province. Sean Smith, a filmmaker with The Guardian, met him the month before his disappearance. “Bowe was a softly spoken, intelligent and thoughtful guy,” Smith wrote. Smith produced two remarkable videos, one with footage shot in Afghanistan, another in Idaho, showing Bob Bergdahl’s personal efforts to not only free his son, but to understand the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. Bowe himself is not interviewed in Smith’s films, but two fellow soldiers, in their tightly-knit group of five or six, were:

SOLDIER ONE: “These people just want to be left alone.”

SOLDIER TWO: “They got dicked with from the Russians for 17 years and then now we’re here.”

SOLDIER ONE: “Same thing in Iraq when I was there. These people just want to be left alone. Have their crops, weddings, stuff like that, that’s it, man.”

Days later, Bergdahl disappeared. Smith told me, “They weren’t criticizing the chain of command, but they were questioning the war and the concept of it … a number of American soldiers expressed queries and questions.”

Back in Idaho, Smith trekked into a remote, snow-covered camp with Bowe’s father. Bob Bergdahl had grown a long beard and was studying the Pashto language in order to connect with the people of Afghanistan. In the film, Bergdahl talks about his son: “He was not there for national security. He was not there because he lost a personal friend on 9/11. He was there because the way he was raised forced him to have compassion. I know that was Bowe’s motivation, to help these people. That is how the war is shaped in the minds of a lot of Americans, is that we are there as some kind of Peace Corps with guns, and that is just an impossible mission.”

Bob Bergdahl is next shown watching a video of Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his famous “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” sermon in 1967. Bergdahl reflected: “How can we teach two generations at least of children in this country that we have zero tolerance for violence but we can occupy two countries in Asia for almost a decade. It is schizophrenic. … The purpose of war is to destroy things. You can’t use it to govern.”

The chorus of voices calling for Bowe Bergdahl to be court-martialed is receiving much attention. Media Matters, a nonprofit media watchdog group, has documented the Fox News Channel’s unrelenting campaign against Bergdahl, and the demonization of his family. The New York Times challenged the claim, tirelessly repeated by CNN, MSNBC and others, that six to eight soldiers died while searching for Bowe Bergdahl in the weeks and months after he went missing.

Other, perhaps better informed people, who get too little space in the mainstream media, have more nuanced responses to the prisoner-of-war swap. Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis was the chief military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay until he resigned in 2007. He told me, “I just don’t know how you end a war without talking to the other side.” In response to the criticism that the five Guantanamo prisoners swapped for Bergdahl were high-level terrorists, Davis said, “[I] wasn’t familiar with any of these names … we had more than 12 years. If we could have proven that they had done something wrong that we could prosecute them for, I’m confident we would have done it, and we didn’t.”

The late Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings reported on Bowe Bergdahl, quoting emails from Bowe to his parents that were very critical of the U.S. occupation. Bowe wrote, “I am sorry for everything here.” At the end of Sean Smith’s video shot in Idaho, we hear Bob Bergdahl quietly remark about the U.S. war in Afghanistan: “I think this is the darkening of the American soul. It is where the guilt comes from, because you are being told you are helping, but you know on the inside that you are not.”

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 1,100 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.

ISH/ISH

Justice eludes rape victims of Muzaffarnagar riots

By M Reyaz, TwoCircles.net,

Muzaffarnagar/Shamli: Within days of rape of two cousins in Uttar Pradesh’ Badaun district, police and administration was forced to act in haste after the mainstream media was abuzz and they arrested the culprits as also suspended the principal secretary (home). It’s been nine months now to the infamous communal riots in Muzaffarnagar-Shamli districts though, and there has been little – if any – progress made in the eight registered cases of rapes.

There are seven registered cases of gang rapes during the riot and later another girl from Jogia-Kheda camp was raped. In the seven reported cases of rapes during the riot, earlier 42 persons were named as accused by the vicitms, but the police later dropped about 20 names claiming that they were falsely named. There are still 22 persons named as accused together in all these cases, but so far only two persons – Ved Pal and Rocky – have been arrested. In the subsequent eight registered case, two accused persons Sachin and Sunil Kumar were immediately gheraoed by the people and arrested, as the victim’s younger sister had seen them dragging her and had immediately informed the villagers.

Her father, 54 year Rafique (name changed), who has five children, has not got the compensation that other rape victims are entitled to as she was not raped during the riots. He wonders that when the kin of victims in Badaun could get rs 5 lakh compensation, why was it denied to his daughter.

Seated in front is one of the victims, along with her young sister and her father, 54 year old at Jogia Kheda. At back is the 45 year old rape victim.

It should be mentioned here that there are reports of several rapes – some estimate it to be in 100 – but for fear of harassment and “shame it would bring,” most of them hence preferred to be silent.

Police claims that most of them are absconding or that when they raided they could not find them in houses, but many of these accused are openly found to be talking to media persons and issuing statements. In fact the day TCN visited Muzaffarnagar district, a Hindi daily had an accused demanding CBI probe.

When TCN asked Neyaz Ahmed (name changed), husband of one of the rape victims, if they too would demand CBI probe since there has been little headway, he said that he is not against any investigation, but added, “The accused persons are using all sorts of delaying tactics and want to buy time to coerce us into dropping cases.”

“Police should first of all arrest all the accused persons and then they can have any sort of probe they want,” he told TCN.

Of the eight rape victims, TCN met five of them on this trip alone and everyone echoed the harassment and threats they have been receiving. All the victims also questioned the dubious role of the woman Investigating Officer Mala Yadav, who they alleged has “good money from Jat accused.” Yadav, they claimed asked them several times to drop cases and used “all sorts of coercive tactics and harassment,” almost all of them said.

Although Yadav denies all charges, one of the accused petitioner, Shabana (name changed) has now written a letter to UP CM Akhilesh Yadav requesting to him to change the IO

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How the national security state kills a free society

What follows is the content of an email ACLU supporters received from Edward Snowden this morning, one year to the day since The Guardian broke the first in a series of revelations exposing the breathtaking scope of US government surveillance.

It’s been one year.

Technology has been a liberating force in our lives. It allows us to create and share the experiences that make us human, effortlessly. But in secret, our very own government—one bound by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights—has reverse-engineered something beautiful into a tool of mass surveillance and oppression. The government right now can easily monitor whom you call, whom you associate with, what you read, what you buy, and where you go online and offline, and they do it to all of us, all the time.

Today, our most intimate private records are being indiscriminately seized in secret, without regard for whether we are actually suspected of wrongdoing. When these capabilities fall into the wrong hands, they can destroy the very freedoms that technology should be nurturing, not extinguishing. Surveillance, without regard to the rule of law or our basic human dignity, creates societies that fear free expression and dissent, the very values that make America strong.

In the long, dark shadow cast by the security state, a free society cannot thrive.

That’s why one year ago I brought evidence of these irresponsible activities to the public — to spark the very discussion the US government didn’t want the American people to have. With every revelation, more and more light coursed through a National Security Agency that had grown too comfortable operating in the dark and without public consent. Soon incredible things began occurring that would have been unimaginable years ago. A federal judge in open court called an NSA mass surveillance program likely unconstitutional and “almost Orwellian.” Congress and President Obama have called for an end to the dragnet collection of the intimate details of our lives. Today legislation to begin rolling back the surveillance state is moving in Congress after more than a decade of impasse.

I am humbled by our collective successes so far. When the Guardian and The Washington Post began reporting on the NSA’s project to make privacy a thing of the past, I worried the risks I took to get the public the information it deserved would be met with collective indifference.

One year later, I realize that my fears were unwarranted.

Americans, like you, still believe the Constitution is the highest law of the land, which cannot be violated in secret in the name of a false security. Some say I’m a man without a country, but that’s not true. America has always been an ideal, and though I’m far away, I’ve never felt as connected to it as I do now, watching the necessary debate unfold as I hoped it would. America, after all, is always at our fingertips; that is the power of the Internet.

But now it’s time to keep the momentum for serious reform going so the conversation does not die prematurely.

Only then will we get the legislative reform that truly reins in the NSA and puts the government back in its constitutional place. Only then will we get the secure technologies we need to communicate without fear that silently in the background, our very own government is collecting, collating, and crunching the data that allows unelected bureaucrats to intrude into our most private spaces, analyzing our hopes and fears. Until then, every American who jealously guards their rights must do their best to engage in digital self-defense and proactively protect their electronic devices and communications. Every step we can take to secure ourselves from a government that no longer respects our privacy is a patriotic act.

We’ve come a long way, but there’s more to be done.

AT/AGB

Egypt, May 2014: 1,238 detainees sentenced to 5,823 years in jail

The Egyptian Observatory for Rights and Freedoms reported that the month of May saw a series of unfair judgments against political detainees, with 1,238 detainees brought to trial with sentences amounting to 5,823 years, and fines reaching 7.56 million Egyptian pounds.

The Observatory said in its monthly report on the trials that have been held in the month of May entitled “Unjust sentences and heavy fines”, that these trials are among numerous violations which have undermined all fairness and credibility, and is in clear violation of Egyptian laws and norms and international conventions which were developed in order to achieve justice and equality of all.

The detainees in these cases were arrested while exercising their legitimate right to demonstrate and express their opinion, hundreds more were arrested from their homes and workplaces unlawfully, all were charged similarly.

The Observatory confirmed that the decisions of the public prosecutor over the past month, as well as the verdicts of the judiciary which have been condemned by the international community, were a conspiracy to limit rights and freedoms in Egypt, and serve as a blow to the great January 25 revolution. These unfair judgments and heavy fines are unprecedented not only in the history of Egypt, but in any country of the free world, it explained. They represent a serious threat to the security and stability of society aimed at breaking the will of the Egyptian people and forcing them to relinquish their legitimate rights.

According to all the reports about the judicial system in Egypt, there is a continued absence of justice with the oppression and suppression and murder of tens of thousands of detainees.

The Observatory reported: “We lack the standards of prompt justice and these sentences are based mostly on political judgments. Every day is seeing an increase in the number of convicts with the most bizarre sentences. The years of the absence of freedoms are multiplying and surpassing the age of the oldest nation on earth.”

The Observatory requested coup authorities release all political prisoners, stop the pursuit of political activists and ensure the freedom of opinion and expression of the Egyptian people. They also asked for charges against demonstrators be dropped, stop the extension of the repressive system and return independence of the judiciary and remove the political exploitation of power, in order to preserve the security and stability of the homeland

Sunshine brings out a whole host of folk to Middlesbrough's Albert Park

Middlesbrough's Albert Park was bathed in sunshine yesterday and there were plenty of folk about including some practicing their circus skills

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Locals enjoy the sun in Albert Park

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A first hint of sunshine brings all sorts of folk to enjoy the warm rays.

And yesterday saw a mixture of people in Middlesbrough’s Albert Park making the most of the mini-heatwave.

Shaun Whitby was spotted riding a unicycle while there were also jugglers like Amanda Shaylor and tightrope walker James Morris.

And they were joined in the park by families determined to enjoy the weather before it is due to break tomorrow when heavy downpours are forcast.

The Met Office has issued yellow warnings to people to be aware of rainfall starting in the early hours of tomorrow and getting heavier as the day goes on.

Your Club: Redcar Running Club

Pictures and details from Redcar Running Club, based at Redcar Cricket Club, Kirkleatham Street, Redcar

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Gallery: Your Club - Redcar Running Club

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Buy these pictures on our photosales website here

Club name: Redcar Running Club

Address: Redcar Running Club, C/O Redcar Cricket Club, 30 Kirkleatham Street, Redcar TS10 1QH

Tell us about your club: We are a small, friendly running club based at Redcar Cricket Club catering for runners of all ages and abilities. We offer a base where runners can meet and socialise, share your experiences, encourage one another and provide mutual support for your hopes and aspirations. We meet each Wednesday evening and offer a variety of options including organised interval training and Fartlek sessions. We use a number of different routes and distances so you can choose which you want to do. We also use the running track at Guisbrough once a month for additional training.

How often does the club meet? Every Wednesday evening 6 - 6.30pm

No. of people in club: 80

When did the club start? 1986

Any other information? Unfortunately we can only cater for adult runners, over 16, at the moment as we do not have systems in place to facilitate junior members.

Club contact name and number: Paul Munster, chairman, on 07954408167.

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Your Club: 2nd Redcar Brownies

Rape ‘sometimes right, sometimes wrong,’ says Modi’s minister

NEW DELHI: A lawmaker from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party has described rape as a social crime, saying “sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” in the latest controversial remarks by an Indian politician about rape. The political leaders of Uttar Pradesh, the state where two cousins aged 12 and 14 were raped and hanged last week, have faced criticism for failing to visit the scene and for accusing the media of hyping the story.

A regional politician from Modi’s own party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said on Thursday that the crime of rape can only be considered to have been committed if it is reported to police.

“This is a social crime. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong,” said Babulal Gaur, the home minister responsible for law and order in Madhya Pradesh. “Until there’s a complaint, nothing can happen,” Gaur told reporters. The BJP dismissed Gaur’s comments as an expression of his personal views, and not the party’s.

Modi, who was sworn in as prime minister last week after a landslide election victory, has so far remained silent over the double killing in the village of Katra Shahadatganj, around half a day’s drive east of New Delhi. The father and uncle of one of the victims said they tried to report the crime to local police but had been turned away. Three men have been arrested over the killings. Two policemen were held on suspicion of trying to cover up the crime.

Although a rape is reported in India every 21 minutes on average, law enforcement failures mean that such crimes — a symptom of pervasive sexual and caste oppression — are often not reported or properly investigated, human rights groups say. More sex crimes have come to light in recent days. A woman in a nearby district of Uttar Pradesh was gang-raped, forced to drink acid and strangled to death. Another was shot dead in northeast India while resisting attackers, media reports said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he was “especially appalled” by the rape and murder of the two girls.

“We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of, ‘Boys will be boys’,” he said in a statement this week that made clear his contempt for the language used by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

Stockton Riverside College celebrates glowing Ofsted report

Rapid improvements have seen Stockton Riverside College leap from a previous grading of 'Requires improvement' to 'Good' across the board

Students and staff at Stockton Riverside College are celebrating a glowing inspection report.

The college, which includes SRC Bede Sixth Form in Billingham, has been rated ‘Good’ across all areas by education watchdog Ofsted.

The new grading is a step up for the college which Ofsted said had made “rapid improvements” across the board in the last 18 months.

The previous inspection in November 2012 saw the college rated as ‘requires improvement’.

Principal Phil Cook said: “As one of the fastest improving colleges in the country, Stockton Riverside College is at the heart of its community.

“We have excellent partnerships with local schools, businesses, the council and our local university.

“It’s great to see our students and staff getting the external recognition that they deserve.”

The college chief, who took over the reins in February last year, puts the success down to “amazing students, amazing staff and amazing governors”.

He said the next aim was to achieve ‘outstanding’ status.

Ofsted inspector Stewart Jackson said: “Learners at all levels are well prepared for, and have very high levels of progression into suitable employment, further training or higher education.”

The college, which has 10,800 students, was awarded good in all areas with apprenticeship outcomes graded as Outstanding.

Inspectors found that students enjoy their learning and are taught by enthusiastic teachers who are experts in their field.

The report said students at all levels benefit from a range of “outstanding opportunities” to progress in education and boost their chances of going on to find work.

Mr Jackson said the proportion of learners successfully achieving their qualifications at Stockton Riverside and SRC Bede Sixth Form has risen steadily over the last three years, while “inspirational leadership” has resulted in strong management at all levels.

The report said the college on Harvard Avenue, Teesdale, was not yet outstanding because success rates for English and mathematics functional skills qualifications “require further improvement”, a significant minority of learners do not reach their full potential based upon their prior attainment and a small minority of teachers “do not track and monitor learners’ progress well enough”.

The “embedding of equality and diversity within lessons” is also inconsistent and “not all teachers have the skills or confidence to challenge poor behaviour or inappropriate use of language” the report added.

Vodafone reveals network spying by states

Vodafone, one of the world’s largest cellphone companies, has revealed the scope of government snooping into phone networks, saying authorities in some countries are able to directly access an operator’s network without seeking permission.

The company outlined the details in a report on Friday covering 29 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia in which it directly operates, and providing the most comprehensive look to date on how governments monitor mobile phone communications of their citizens.

Amongst other revelations, the report said that authorities require direct access to an operator’s network in a small number of countries, bypassing legal procedures like acquiring warrants. It did not name the countries.

“In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link,” the report said

“The need for governments to balance their duty to protect the state and its citizens against their duty to protect individual privacy is now the focus of a significant global public debate,” the company said in the report. “We hope that… disclosures in this report will help inform that debate.”

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights group Liberty, described the findings as a worst-case scenario infringement into civil rights.

“For governments to access phone calls at the flick of a switch is unprecedented and terrifying,” Chakrabarti said in a statement.

Though Vodafone is a global company, it consists of separate subsidiaries, all of which are subject to domestic laws of the countries in which it operates.

The company attached a number of caveats to the report, arguing that it is governments, not communications operators, who have the responsibility to offer greater transparency on demands for data.

The company noted that different operators have different ways of reporting statistical data – or may choose not to publish it at all.

“After months of detailed analysis, it has become clear that there is, in fact, very little coherence and consistency in law and agency and authority practice, even between neighbouring EU Member States,” the report said.

Last year, former US National Security Agency systems administrator Edward Snowden exposed some of the agency’s most sensitive spying operations. However, the United States is not one of the countries assessed in the Vodafone report.

Source: Al Jazeera