USA Live Blog

The University of California, Davis has launched an investigation in the wake of video showing an officer using pepper spray on a group of protesters who appear to be sitting passively on the ground with their arms interlocked.

Calling the video "chilling," UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said on Saturday she is forming a task force made up of faculty, students and staff to review the events surrounding the protests a day earlier. Katehi made theannouncement in a message to the campus.

In the video, the officer displays a bottle before spraying its contents on the seated protesters in a sweeping motion. Police have said protesters were warned repeatedly beforehand that force would be used if they didn't move.

People protesting against the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pray in Foley Square in New York, November 18, 2011.

Demonstrators are protesting against the reportedly heavy-handedness of New York Police Department (NYPD) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Muslim communities and neighbourhoods in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to media reports. The protesters were joined by people affiliated with Occupy Wall Street. Reuters

 

The Occupy protests have attracted students at elite colleges across the country, and some of them know their involvement can seem contradictory.

Schools such as Harvard and Yale can cost more than $50,000 annually and have multibillion-dollar endowments. Students there say it can be tricky to protest society's elite institutions as members of them.

But they say it's simply wrong to assume they all come from wealth or are headed for lucrative careers.

They say that though the Occupy movement targets the privileged, there's no reason members of the privileged class can't be drawn to it. And they say that even as they face skepticism about their motives, they're simply trying to direct people from all backgrounds to work to better society. [AP]

Police are investigating a fatal shooting just outside the Occupy Oakland encampment in Northern California, the apparent suicide of a military veteran at an Occupy encampment in Vermont's largest city and a man found dead in a tent Friday morning in Utah.

Salt Lake City's police chief has ordered all protesters to remove their tents from a city park after authorities found the body of the man, who was in his 40s.

A cause of death was not available, but authorities say it did not immediately appear to be foul play.

Atlanta police have swarmed the area near a city park where Occupy Atlanta protesters had gathered with the intent of staying overnight.

Police officers converged on the area near Woodruff Park on motorcycles, horseback and in riot gear soon after its 11pm Saturday (0300 GMT Sunday) closing time.

Police began herding protesters away from the park and installed barricades around it. A police helicopter flew overhead.

While most protesters left the park, police arrested at least two people who stayed. Demonstrators chanted and yelled to protest the show of force.

Organisers had said earlier they planned to hold a rally and stay overnight despite warnings that anyone who stayed past closing would be arrested.

Police on October 26 arrested more than 50 people they say were violating a city ordinance by staying in the park after closing.   [Associated Press]

Police arrested about 30 demonstrators early Sunday with the Occupy Portland movement after they refused to leave a park in a rich district after a midnight curfew.

Police pulled vans up to a group of about 30 protesters sitting in a circle at Jamison Square and began arresting them one-by-one.

An Associated Press photographer says most of the protesters went limp and police carried or dragged them away. There was no violence during the 90-minute period of arrests.

The protesters, all appearing to be in their 20s and 30s, were handcuffed before they were driven off. One continued to chant "we are the 99 percent".

Dozens of other protesters remained on the edges of the park in a show of support, but the crowd thinned out around 3:30 a.m. as the last arrests were made.  [Associated Press]

Police officials confirmed that at elast 38 members of the ongoing Occupy Austin demonstration were arrested outside City Hall earlier this morning and charged with criminal trespass.

Demonstrators who were present during the arrests say that around 12:30 am, officers attempted to shut down a table that was used to distribute food. When the demonstrators refused, they were taken into custody. The names of those arrested were not immediately available early Sunday morning.

Officers originally warned the demonstrators around 9:45 pm that a city ordinance prevented food from being distributed at City Hall after 10 pm, said Brian Overman, who witnessed the arrests. He said officers also removed other parts of the camp, including blankets and sleeping bags.

Another demonstrator, Zachary Hill, said that demonstrators locked arms and sat on food to prevent officers from taking it away.

“The only resistance on this side was passive,” Hill said.

The Occupy Wall Street invitation.

US lawmakers, concerned about the Bahraini government's response to a popular uprising, on Friday introduced a rare measure that would halt a $53m arms sale to the Gulf Arab state.

US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and US Representative James McGovern of Massachusetts, both Democrats, said they introduced resolutions in both houses of Congress to prevent the sale of US weapons to Bahrain "until meaningful steps are taken to improve human rights" there.

Selling weapons to a regime that is violently suppressing peaceful civil dissent and violating human rights is antithetical to our foreign policy goals and the principle of basic rights for all that the US has worked hard to promote," Wyden said in a statement posted on his website.

The US should not reward a regime that actively suppresses its people. This resolution will withhold the sale of arms to Bahrain until the ruling family shows a real commitment to human rights," Wyden said.

The Pentagon last month notified lawmakers that it had approved the sale of $53m of weapons to Bahrain,
including more than 44 armored Humvees and 300 missiles, 50 of which have bunker busting capability.

McGovern said it was not in the United States' national security interest to sell weapons to Bahrain:

Human rightsought to matter in our foreign and military policy. Now is not the time to sell weapons to Bahrain."

- Reuters

 

 

AFP - The United States is increasingly  convinced Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be overthrown and is preparing
for a possibly violent aftermath, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The newspaper said Washington is quietly working with Turkey to plan for a  post-Assad future that could see Syria's various ethnic groups battle for  control of the country, potentially destabilising neighbouring states.

It said that despite calling on Assad to step down, the United States has yet to withdraw its ambassador, Robert Ford, because it views him as a vital  conduit to the opposition and various ethnic and religious communities.

The Times said intelligence officials and diplomats in the Middle East,  Europe and the United States increasingly believe Assad will not be able to  quash the months-long revolt against his family's four-decade-long rule.

"There's a real consensus that he's beyond the pale and over the edge," the  Times quoted a senior official in US President Barack Obama's administration as  saying. "Intelligence services say he's not coming back."

Assad has deployed tanks and troops in an increasingly violent response to  anti-regime protesters inspired by the Arab Spring, with at least 2,600 people,  mostly civilians, killed since March 15, according to UN figures.

Obama was to discuss the Syrian crisis and wider turmoil throughout the  Middle East in talks on Tuesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip  Erdogan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.