ECM WORLD WATCH: NATIONAL AND GLOBAL NEWS

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April 23, 2014 (San Diego’s East County)--ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflect all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views. Top world and U.S. headlines include:

U..S.

WORLD

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

 

U.S.

 

Racist online forums linked to deadly hate crimes: rights group report (Reuters)

 

 A white supremacist charged with killing three people near two Jewish community facilities in suburban Kansas City this week posted more than 12,000 messages on a racist website. ....according to a report released on Thursday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit civil rights organization.  The report said nearly 100 people in the last five years have been murdered by frequent users of one white supremacist website, Stormfront.... past participants in forums on the website included Wade Michael Page, an Army veteran who opened fire at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012 killing six people before taking his own life.  Another was Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian extremist who massacred 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Oslo and at a nearby youth summer camp in 2011.

 

Toyota recalls about 6.4 million vehicles globally  (AP)

Toyota Motor Corp. is recalling 6.39 million vehicles globally for a variety of problems spanning nearly 30 models in Japan, the U.S., Europe and other places.

 

Medicating our troops into oblivion: prescription drugs said to be endangering U.S. soldiers (International Business Times – by Jamie Reno)

 

When former U.S. Army Specialist Kyle Wesolowski returned from Iraq in December 2010 following a brutal yearlong deployment, psychiatrists at the Fort Hood army post in Texas gave him “a cocktail of seven different drugs” for his anxiety, depression and other war-related mental health issues. More than three years later, Wesolowski has come to an uncomfortable conclusion about the unintended consequences of ingesting those medications: They made him homicidal....

 

Arizona tribe set to prosecute first non-Indian under new law (Washington Post)

 

The Violence Against Women Act was expanded in 2013 to allow Native American tribes to prosecute non-Indians in cases involving domestic violence. Before that, women such as Frances Cupis were unable to press charges against violent partners in tribal court.

 

Should you control your own car's data? (UT San Diego)

 

Cars do more than get you from point A to point B. They also remember the trip

 

US Soldiers Deploying To Poland In Wake Of Violence In Ukraine (Video) (KPBS)

 

Russia's forceful actions in Ukraine have prompted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to announce that the U.S. military will "maintain an enhanced military presence" in Poland until at least the end of 2014.

 

Grieving borrowers told to repay student loan (UT San Diego)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says that after the death or bankruptcy of a parent or grandparent, some student loan borrowers who used these relatives as a co-signer are alarmed to learn they must immediately pay a loan in full.

 

WORLD

 

Europe keeps wary eye on jihadists traveling to fight in Syria  (CS Monitor)

 

Western nations have long known their unwillingness to intervene in Syria’s civil war could only mean mounting death and destruction for Syrian civilians. Now those countries are getting dismal reminders of the grave consequences the enduring conflict is having on their domestic security as well.  According to counterterrorism officials and independent experts, the number of newly radicalized European Muslims flocking to fight with jihadi militias in Syria more than doubled in 2013…specialists’ estimates indicate between 2,000 and 3,000 Europeans are currently acquiring combat and explosives skills as part of their anti-Assad fighting.

 

NATO to send ships to Baltic to bolster defense of E.European allies (Jerusalem Post)

 

NATO is sending part of its naval rapid reaction force to the Baltic Sea as part of a drive to step up the defence of eastern European allies in response to the crisis in Ukraine, the military alliance said on Thursday. Separately, Canada said it had offered six CF-18 fighter planes as its contribution to NATO efforts to beef up its presence in eastern Europe and reassure nervous allies there that NATO would protect them in the event of any Russian aggression.

 

US releases $450 million of frozen Iranian funds after IAEA report  (Jerusalem Post)

 

The United States has taken steps to release a $450 million installment of frozen Iranian funds following a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying that Iran is living up to its part of a landmark nuclear pact with world powers, the US State Department said on Thursday.

 

US decries anti-Semitic leaflets in Ukraine  (AP)

 

The United States on Thursday condemned as "grotesque" the distribution of leaflets demanding that Jews in eastern Ukraine register with a self-proclaimed local authority or face consequences [calling on Jews to register with separatists and pay special taxes.

 

China Admits That One-Fifth Of Its Farmland Is Contaminated (NPR)

 

 Unbridled industrialization with almost no environmental regulation has resulted in the toxic contamination of one-fifth of China's farmland, the Communist Party has acknowledged for the first time

 

In Nigeria, the mass abduction of farmgirls isn’t shocking (CNN)

 

The heavily armed militants stormed the girls dormitory in the middle of the night, herding more than 200 students on to vehicles and burning down nearby buildings as they made their escape.

 

Thugs with machetes attack Nigerian party congress  (UT San Diego)

 

Nigerian officials say machete-wielding thugs have attacked delegates at a meeting of Nigeria's main opposition coalition, wounding scores in the northern city of Kaduna.

 

Gunmen kidnap Tunisian diplomat in Libya (Reuters)

 

 A Tunisian diplomat was kidnapped on Thursday in the Libyan capital Tripoli, Libya's foreign ministry said, two days after gunmen seized Jordan's ambassador.

 


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