US President Barack Obama (centre) plays golf on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts August 23, 2011. With Obama are Eric Whitaker (left) and Marvin Nicholson (right).
US country music singer Hank Williams Jr. said on Tuesday he was “very sorry” for any offense caused by his remarks on Fox News Channel this week comparing President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.
His apology was posted on his website a day after the Disney-owned cable sports channel ESPN pulled Williams’ theme song from its popular “Monday Night Football” broadcast in a rebuke to the country star for his Hitler remark.
Clashes that broke out when a Muslim mob attacked thousands of Christians protesting the burning of a Cairo church killed at least 13 people and wounded about 140, officials said yesterday.
The Muslims torched the church amid an escalation of tensions over a love affair between a Muslim and a Christian that set off a violent feud between the couple's families.
The officials said all 13 fatalities died of gunshot wounds.
In a separate incident, at least two people were wounded when rival crowds threw rocks at Cairo's central Tahrir Square.
Egyptians gather near armored vehicles after yesterday's incidents
Tanks emit smoke to disperse demonstrators in Tahrir Square
A medic treats a wounded man after yesterday's clashes in Cairo
State multiculturalism has failed and left young Muslims vulnerable to radicalisation, Prime Minister David Cameron will say today, arguing for a more active policy to heal divisions and promote Western values.
Cameron, in a speech to a security conference in Munich, will argue that Britain and other European nations need to “wake up to what is happening in our countries” as well as tackling terrorism through military operations overseas.
“It is time to turn the page on the failed policies of the past,” he will say, according to extracts from his speech released by his office.
“So first, instead of ignoring this extremist ideology, we — as governments and societies — have got to confront it, in all its forms.”
Photo of a woman wearing a niqab/burqa walking near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on June 24, 2009.
The Netherlands could ban the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women, as soon as next year, Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders told Reuters in an interview yesterday.
Wilders’ populist Freedom Party is the third largest in parliament and provides crucial support to the minority ruling coalition in exchange for the government taking a tougher line on Islam and immigration from non-Western countries.
His party has grown in popularity largely because of his outspoken criticism of Islam, which he describes as “a violent ideology.”
“There are not too many people who are willing to fight for this cause. It’s a big responsibility. It’s not only a Dutch problem, it’s a problem of the West,” said Wilders.
He has been charged with inciting hatred against Muslims for comparing Islam to Nazism. The case is due to start over again following a request for new judges.
Pope Benedict started a trip to Britain today urging the country to protect its Christian roots and tradition of tolerance in the face of threats from aggressive secularism and atheist extremism.
More than 100,000 people, including protesters, turned out to watch the 83-year-old pope as he was driven through the streets of the Scottish capital wearing a green plaid scarf.
Los Angeles riot police arrested 22 protestors and fired rubber bullets in a second night of clashes after a Guatemalan immigrant was shot dead in a confrontation with officers, officials said early Wednesday.
Angry mostly Hispanic demonstrators hurled rocks, bottles and eggs at the local police station in the MacArthur Park area near downtown Los Angeles, according to an AFP photographer on the scene.
Those arrested were detained on charges including unlawful assembly and failing to disperse after the violence, said Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer Karen Rayner.
Protestors in LA burned mattresses and other rubbish
Los Angeles Police close 6th Street Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010, in Los Angeles as protestors rally over the death of a Guatemalan immigrant killed by Los Angeles police Sunday, Sept. 5, 2010
A man holds up a Guatemala flag while asking a question at a community meeting in Los Angeles, Wednesday, Sept. 8, 2010. Los Angeles police Chief Charlie Beck has been greeted by boos, whistles and chants of 'justicia!' by an angry crowd at a community meeting intended to calm residents after the fatal police shooting of a knife-wielding man.
Police brutality victim Rodney King is to marry one of the jurors who awarded him over £2m in damages for the shocking assault.
King and Cynthia Kelley first met in a pizza restaurant hours after a jury made the civil award in 1994.
But as they were both married their romance remained a secret and they eventually drifted apart.
Four months ago King, 44, called Kelley and after they began dating again asked her to marry him.
He said: 'We hadn’t spoken to each other for many years, and it just so happened that we reconnected. It was like we were never apart from one another.
Engaged: Rodney King with his future wife Cynthia Kelley, one of the jurors who awarded him a $3.8 million compensation payout following his 1991 beating by Los Angeles Police
One of the most controversial and outspoken figures of America's Right is under fire today for holding a rally in the exact spot where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr made his stirring 'I Have a Dream' speech - on the anniversary of the iconic event.
Fox News commentator Glenn Beck, infamous in the U.S. for his attacks on Barack Obama, insisted today that it was just a coincidence that his 'Restoring Honor' rally was being held on the 47th anniversary of Dr King's speech.
But he drew the ire of civil rights leaders, including the Reverend Al Sharpton, as up to 100,000 conservative members of the Tea Party movement - including Sarah Palin - descended on Washington, DC today.
'For too long, this country has wandered in darkness': Fox News commentator Glenn Beck at a Tea Party rally to pay respect to America's troops in Washington, DC today
Overcome: U.S. President Barack Obama wipes away tears during the funeral for the 'Godmother' of the civil rights movement Dorothy Height in Washington today
Respect: Mr Obama watches as Dr Height's coffin is carried into the cathedral
Changing the course of history: Dr Dorothy Height, left, in one of her characteristically colourful outfits, with her comrade-at-arms Rosa Parks
Tears streaming down his cheeks, grief overcame Barack Obama today as he attended the funeral of the woman he called the 'Godmother' of the American civil rights movement.
The U.S. president was weeping openly as he watched the service for Dorothy Height in Washington today.
He delivered the eulogy for Dr Height, whose activisim stretched from the New Deal right up until Mr Obama's election as the first African American president of the United States.
Dr Height died last week at 98 after a long illness. She was a pioneering voice of the civil rights movement who remained active and outspoken well into her 90s.
She often received rousing ovations at events around Washington, where she was easily recognisable in the bright, colourful hats she almost always wore.
Dr Height led the National Council of Negro Women for decades and marched with the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.
People sing and dance after the suspect in the murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche is led out of court in Ventersdorp, South Africa, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Whites and blacks have faced off angrily in song in front of a heavily guarded courthouse where a teenager and another farm worker who allegedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader in a wage dispute have appeared.
Supporter of slain white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche hold a placard reading, Afrikaners on the march to freedom, outside the court in Ventersdorp, South Africa, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Whites and blacks singing competing national anthems from South Africa's racist past and its democratic reality faced off angrily Tuesday in front of a heavily guarded court preparing for the first hearing of a teenage boy and older farm worker who have allegedly confessed to killing the country's white supremacist leader.
Followers of slain Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche scuffle with police outside the courthouse in Ventersdrop, 140 km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday April 6, 2010, as the two alleged killers are brought to court. Whites and blacks faced off angrily in song Tuesday in front of a heavily guarded South African courthouse before the first hearing of a teenager and another farm worker who have allegedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader.
One of the suspects, center, with his face covered, in the murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche, is lead out of the court by police in Ventersdorp, South Africa, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Whites and blacks have faced off angrily in song in front of a heavily guarded courthouse where a teenager and another farm worker who allegedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader in a wage dispute have appeared.
South Africa's governing party said Wednesday it has asked all its wings to stop singing controversial songs including one with lyrics that encourage people to shoot white farmers which some blame for the slaying of a white supremacist leader.
The African National Congress has rejected any link between the song and Saturday's killing of Eugene Terreblanche, but nevertheless made the decision at a meeting Tuesday as leaders seek to calm racial tensions and quell fears ahead of the first World Cup soccer tournament to be held in Africa.
People sing and dance outside the court in Ventersdorp, South Africa, Tuesday, April 6, 2010. Whites and blacks faced off angrily in song Tuesday in front of a heavily guarded South African courthouse before the first hearing for a teenager and another farm worker who have reportedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader in a wage dispute.
Black rsidents look at followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) slain leader Eugene Terreblanche who gathered outside the courthouse in Ventersdrop, 140 km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday April 6, 2010.Whites and blacks faced off angrily in song Tuesday in front of a heavily guarded South African courthouse before the first hearing for a teenager and another farm worker who have reportedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader in a wage dispute.
Followers of slain Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche scuffle with police outside the courthouse in Ventersdrop, 140 km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Tuesday April 6, 2010, where the two alleged killers are being brought to court. Whites and blacks faced off angrily in song Tuesday in front of a heavily guarded courthouse before the first hearing of a teenager and another farm worker who have allegedly confessed to killing a white supremacist leader in a wage dispute.
VENTERSDORP, South Africa — A racially charged standoff outside a courthouse where a teenager and another black farm worker were charged with killing a leading white supremacist ended peacefully Tuesday — a victory for democracy in South Africa.
The older suspect was walked out of the courthouse hours later to a rapturous welcome from blacks outside who screamed, ululated and whistled their support.
"Hero! Hero! Hero!" they chanted.
"We are celebrating the death of the man who has abused us so much," one woman in the crowd shouted.
The brutal bludgeoning of Eugene Terreblanche, once convicted of beating a black farm worker so badly the man was left brain damaged, has focused attention on simmering racial tensions less than 10 weeks before South Africa hosts the World Cup.
A top member of a South African white supremacist group says the slaying of their leader is "a declaration of war" by blacks against whites.
Andre Visagie also vowed Sunday to avenge the death of Eugene Terreblanche and says his group will warn soccer teams to avoid the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He did not specify what form the vengeance will take.
Terreblanche led the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging movement, which wanted to create three all-white republics that would only allow blacks as guest workers.
Police said he was bludgeoned to death Saturday by two of his farm workers over wages. Terreblanche's followers on Sunday blamed a fiery youth leader for spreading hate speech that led to his killing, a charge the youth leader denied.
Followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche gather near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages.
Followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche bring flowers to the gate of his property near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages, the South African Press Agency reported
Followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche gather near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages
In this Friday Dec. 16, 2005 file photo, South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche addresses followers at a rally held downtown Pretoria, South Africa. Leader of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages, the South African Press Agency reported
A follower of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche speaks to South African Police commissioner Bheki Cele, sitting in car, near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wage
South African police officers enter the farm of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages.
African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, at a rally in Harare in neighboring Zimbabwe Saturday, April 3, 2010. Followers of South Africa's slain white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche said Sunday, April 4, 2010, they blame Malema for spreading hate speech that led to his killing, amid growing racial tensions in the once white-led South Africa.
Followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche gather near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages.
flowers are seen on a gate of the farm of Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader Eugene Terreblanche near Ventersdrop, 140km West of Johannesburg, South Africa, Sunday April 4, 2010. Terreblanche was attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp on Saturday, North West police said. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terreblanche, 69, was attacked by a man and minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument over unpaid wages.
In this photo taken Friday, April 2, 2010 African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, third from right, arrives at Harare's International airport for a visit to neighbouring Zimbabwe. Followers of South Africa's slain white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche said Sunday , April 4, 2010, they blame Malema for spreading hate speech that led to his killing, amid growing racial tensions in the once white-led South Africa.
Victoria police have been criticised over attacks on Indian students
Up to 100 police officers are being investigated in the Australian state of Victoria for sharing a racist e-mail.
The message reportedly shows a non-white man being tortured. Officers being investigated could face dismissal for circulating it on police computers.
The Victoria police force has been criticised for failing to respond adequately to a series of attacks against Indian students in Melbourne.
Earlier this month the police chief admitted some officers were racist.
Computer experts tracking the e-mail found that several had added racist comments before forwarding it on to colleagues, the Melbourne newspaper The Age reports.
It was one of a series of e-mails that were either racist or pornographic in nature, according to the Victoria Police chief Simon Overland.
"It's offensive and my view is that it would cause significant concern and alarm in the community if the nature of the material was made public," he said.
Earlier this month, Mr Overland was forced to concede there were racial bigots within the ranks of his force.
This followed a damning report that accused police officers of taunting and beating up an African youth.
As the genocide trial of former Bosnian Serb Leader Radovan Karadzic resumed Monday in the Netherlands, a member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's rotating presidency said that, in effect, "ethnic cleansing" continues -- 15 years after a brutal civil war there ended.
"The ethnic cleansing is there because people did not come back to their homes. Hundreds of thousands of them are around the world today and that's the problem," Haris Silajdzic, a Bosnian Muslim, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
"The ethnic divisions continued because people did not go back, were not allowed to go back, to their homes, including Srebrenica, where the genocide took place, and other places, too."
His comments came on the same day that Karadzic, who faces 11 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide during the 1992-1995 Bosnian conflict, told an international tribunal in The Hague that the Serb cause is "just and holy" .
The charges relate to the killing of almost 100,000 people in the war, many of them in "ethnic cleansing," a term first coined in the Bosnian conflict. Yugoslavia -- once a multi-ethnic state of Serbs, Croats and Muslims -- dissolved into six countries during the bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
Among other things, Karadzic is accused of being responsible for the 44-month siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in which some 10,000 people were killed, and the 1995 ethnic cleansing of the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica, where more than 7,000 Bosnian men and boys were slaughtered in the worst genocide in Europe since World War II.
Silajdzic said the divisions in Bosnia are deeper than ever, because the world has not implemented the peace accords that ended the conflict and allowed refugees to return to their homes.
He also said there is paralysis in the Bosnian government because Serb legislators are voting as an ethnic bloc in the country's parliament and blocking progress.
"If we unblock this, we actually have a democracy in Bosnia, not ethnocracy", he declared.
But the former international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lord Paddy Ashdown, told Amanpour that the Dayton Accords that ended the war have not failed and in fact have been a success.
"We made more progress in ten years in Bosnia than we did in Northern Ireland in 36 (years)," Ashdown said.
He acknowledged that since 2006, Bosnia has begun to unravel and is now going backwards.
"We have to complete the job. We were, I think, eight-tenths of the way there by 2006, but because the international community and above all Brussels took their eye off the ball, this thing started to unravel backwards again", he added.
"So instead of having progress towards unity, we now have a dangerous dynamic moving the opposite direction towards nationalism, and that may well be reflected in the coming elections."
He said he does not think war will break out again in Bosnia. "The real danger is that Bosnia descends backwards into a black hole of corruption, criminality, and dysfunctionality in the middle of the Balkans."
Ashdown said that U.S. President Barack Obama and the European Union's new so-called foreign minister, Catherine Ashton, must get the political momentum moving again so Bosnia can achieve full membership of "the two great Atlantic institutions" -- NATO and the European Union.
"When it's made those changes, I think people will see it as one of the little jewels of Europe," he added.
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered the army on Thursday to take over security in the central city of Jos to prevent further clashes between Christians and Muslims, which killed more than 460 people this week. Mr. Jonathan, left, has been empowered by a federal court to perform executive duties in the absence of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who has been in a hospital in Saudi Arabia for two months. “Let me assure all that the federal government is on top of the situation and that the crisis is being brought under control,” Mr. Jonathan said in a televised address.
Massacre: violent clashes have forced about 17,000 people to flee their homes
Mass funerals are underway in the central Nigerian city of Jos after days of fighting between Christian and Muslim gangs left hundreds of people dead.
Human rights groups estimate at least 450 people have been killed in the violence and many of the dead have been taken to mosques and churches for burial.
At one mosque alone, more than 200 bodies have been left for burial, while dozens of others have been taken to churches.
Fighting between the groups of youths began last weekend and quickly escalated into a massacre.
It is unclear what sparked the clashes, which also forced about 17,000 people to flee their homes.
The city of Jos lies in Nigeria's Middle Belt where the mainly Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south and has been a flashpoint for Nigeria's religious differences for the past decade.
Hundreds of people have been killed in similar clashes in the past decade.
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Authorities in the central Nigerian city of Jos claim clashes between Christian and Muslim gangs have killed around 150 people.
Gangs of Christian and Muslim youths have been roaming the streets of Jos since the weekend seemingly intent on killing.
The fighting erupted when Christian youths began protesting about the construction of a mosque in a predominantly Christian area.
Houses and cars were set alight before the gangs began shooting at each other.
Victims of the fighting have been taken to the main mosque and workers there claim more than 150 people have been killed while more than 800 have been wounded.
Authorities fear the violence may spread and have imposed a 24-hour curfew on the city's residents.
A spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Nigeria, Robin Waudo, says his workers in Jos have told him they are trapped indoors by the renewed fighting.
"What you have now is those people fighting still on the streets even with the curfew right now," he said.
"The main road into the city has been isolated now because of the fighting, so even our team that was leaving from Abuja this morning is not able to get into the city."
Nigeria has sent more troops to the troubled city of Jos as clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs, that have left about 300 people dead, spread to new districts.
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan ordered extra soldiers to Jos to clamp down on the violence as authorities enforced a 24-hour curfew.
The unrest erupted on Sunday over plans to build a mosque in a mainly Christian district of the city, which has riven by sectarian tensions for many years.
Mobs have set fire to buildings while many of the dead had been shot. Muslim leaders said about 200 bodies had been taken to the central mosque in Jos.
Several hundred have been reported wounded and casualties have filled hospitals. Some clinics were reportedly running out of medical supplies.
Residents said the fighting spread during the night to areas on the fringes of Jos, capital of Plateau State.
Idris Sarki, who fled into Jos from the nearby town of Kuru Karama, said attacks are still going on in areas in the southern parts of the city including Kuru Karama, Bisiji, Sabongidan and Kanar.
"The area I came from has been sacked. All residents like me who are fortunate have left, but many, many have been killed," he said.
Other residents said they had seen the army reinforcements on the streets.
The Human Rights Watch (HRW) lobby group said more than 13,500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999 in the west African country.
The Martin Luther King celebration includes two days of activities, beginning with the annual Interfaith March for Peace today at 1 p.m.
The Wheeling Area Martin Luther King Celebration committee has two days of events planned for the observance of Martin Luther King Day. Events will be held today and tomorrow.
Events kick off at 1 p.m. today with the Interfaith March for Peace along National Road along Bethany Pike, ending at the Wheeling Jesuit Chapel.
This year, the march begins at the Temple Shalom on Bethany Pike. Escorting the marchers will be the Laughlin Chapel Young Lion Group. These young men will be wearing memorial sweatshirts honoring Bishop Donald Pitts, a longtime supporter of Martin Luther King Day activities and former member of the committee who passed away last spring.
An interfaith prayer service in the Wheeling Jesuit Chapel of Mary and Joseph concludes the March. All guests are invited to enjoy a lunch of soul food in Wheeling Jesuit's Benedum Room following the prayer service.
The cost of the meal is $3.
At 4 p.m., a service organized by the Black Clergy Alliance will be held.
This service will feature Reverend Albert Anderson of Macedonia Baptist Church. The service is taking place at the Bethlehem Apostolic Temple, located at 330 Main Street in North Wheeling.
Other events will be held tomorrow beginning at 9 a.m. starting with a children's breakfast held at West Virginia Northern Community College's Education Center.
