Syrian eyewitness accounts of alleged chemical weapons attack in Damascus

A mother and father weep over their child's body who was killed in a suspected chemical weapons attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta Photograph: REX/Erbin News/NurPhoto

Few people sleep early in Damascus, even in times of war. So when shells started to crunch into the east of the capital at around 2am on Wednesday, Um Hassan and her four children were wide awake, bracing for familiar sounds of bombs falling on buildings and the empty road below.
Soon, though, loudspeakers in the neighbourhood, some attached to mosque minarets, started blaring terrifying warnings – telling residents to leave their houses and flee.
"We were in a panic to take the children and run out of Zemalka to any nearby villages," said Um Hassan of her area in the east Ghouta district of the capital. "People who were sleeping in their homes died in their beds because they could not feel the effects of the attack."
Headaches and nausea quickly overcame the family as they scrambled though blackened streets towards the family car, a violent cacophony of shelling all around and the air filling with a strange, noxious odour.
"I still feel sick and drowsy with all the smoke I have breathed," she said 36 hours after the attack, which killed hundreds of people, wounded many more, and sparked outrage around the world.
"As we were trying to [leave], I could see people coming out of their homes but they would fall down. We tried to help some of them but they died before we got them to the hospital."
The attack seemed relentless, according to Um Hassan and other victims and first responders contacted by the Guardian via Skype onThursday. The Syrian government has acknowledged that its military launched a large operation in eastern Ghouta in the early hours of Thursday, but has vehemently denied the use of chemical weapons.
"We picked up a woman with her two kids, the rocket had hit their house but … they all died. I could see the foam coming out of their mouths and noses."
Not far away in Zemalka, Abu Omar, a militant with the Free Syrian Army, was on call when he heard the first rocket land. "I ran to my house immediately to check if my wife and kids were OK. When I reached home, I began to smell something like vinegar and rotten eggs. Then, I heard people shouting that the district was under attack by chemical rockets. I and some of my colleagues ran to the FSA headquarters in Zemalka to get ambulances to evacuate the people.
"We were in a district called Al-Mazra'a. We started to knock on the doors, calling people to get out. Those who were not responding or opening the doors, we began to break their doors and look for people inside. We were able to evacuate 20 people. None of them were dead but they were suffocating.
"We distributed them among the makeshift hospitals in the district. It is really a miracle that none of the victims were dead ... though some of them were foaming at the mouth and their bodies were turning blue."
Abu Omar says another burst of rockets landed around 3am. But they were unlike other explosions that had regularly peppered the area for the last year as regime forces tried to dislodge rebel groups and the communities that backed them from their stronghold less than seven miles from the heart of Damascus.
"You could hear the sound of the rocket in the air but you could not hear any sound of explosion." And they caused no visible damage to any buildings. The smell became overpowering.
Abu Omar says he tried to seek shelter in the local mosque, but was turned back by the scene of a sheikh and his family lying dead. The dead and dying were by now all around.
"I went to one of the houses and found an infant who was a year and a half old. I can't forget this scene till now," he said. He was jumping like a bird, struggling to breathe. I held him immediately and ran to the car but he died. I swear to God the number of the dead infants and children are more than the numbers of elders. We even broke the locks of the shops to pile the victims inside. In one of the shops, there were 200 children."
Also in Zemalka on Wednesday morning, Ashraf Hassan, 18, and his four friends were playing cards.
"Around 1.30am, we started to hear shouts of people for help. We did not hear any attack or shelling. We went out to find out that the district is in complete chaos and panic. At 2am, mortars started to fall.
"We began to break in houses to check out about the people inside. In one of the houses, I found four brothers sleeping opposite each other dead in their bed and their parents were dead too in another room. All of them suffocated. I could see foam on their mouths and noses.
"I helped many other guys evacuate bodies and some people who were still alive … until I myself started to smell the gas.
"The smell was like cooking gas. My friends told me to wear a mask on my nose and mouth but I began to feel nausea and vomiting. My eyes turned very red and started to itch.
"I felt I'm almost going to lose consciousness. I woke up today with very itching eyes and could not open them at all, so I came to the hospital for treatment."
He said all those who survived the attack were suffering from the same symptoms.
As whatever it was that dropped on Zemalka and two other areas in eastern Ghouta continues to ravage its residents, survivors and eyewitnesses have tried to piece together where the rockets or missiles were fired from.
Two areas of the capital, not far away, and both in regime held areas are being scrutinised.
"They came from around four kilometres away," said Haitham Baghdadi, a resident of Jobar, who on Thursday was trying to flee with his family to Jordan. "One site was the October War Panorama, and another was the air base. They have tried to wipe us off the map. SOURCE

Peter PSquare Rains Thousands of Dollar Bills On Strip*ers In A Chicago Strip Club

This Guys are having so much Fun. Peter, his brother Paul and their crew have been in the States for some days now having concerts.And this is where Peter showed up last night to unwind. #Toomuchmoney lol.. But i thought he just got Engaged? i hope his fiance don't mind!

 

Blanket ban on ‘African’ tenants unfair, dialogue needed, says state rep

PETALING JAYA, Aug 27 — An all-out ban against Africans as tenants may backfire on Malaysians, PKR’s Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad has suggested, and pledged to meet with the condominium management that moved to drive out renters from the continent last week.

The assemblyman for Seri Setia, the state constituency where the controversial Ridzuan Condominium is located, said he would arrange for a meeting soon with the apartment residents and the authorities to facilitate a peaceful solution to the simmering row that has taken on a racial slant that may become a diplomatic concern unless handled properly.

“I’ve always tried to tell (my constituents) that my stand is, it’s unfair. We cannot have a blanket ban... If we’re overseas we don’t want to be treated that way,” Nik Nazmi (picture) told The Malay Mail Online here, referring to racial discrimination.

“I will discuss with them on the matter, together with the authorities, for residents to feel safe and at the same time be fair to foreign tenants,” he said.

He added that he would be calling on the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ), a commissioner of buildings, the Immigration Department and the police to help mediate in the occupancy problem the condominium’s local residents seem to have with foreigners.

The Malay Mail Online had yesterday reported the unprecedented occupancy ban imposed last week by the management of Ridzuan Condominium in Bandar Sri Subang here against “African” tenants, telling the renters they have three months to vacate their units.

The decision came after the majority of the condominium’s residents voted at an annual general meeting held on July 6 against renting their units to foreigners from the continent, whom they allege to have “caused a lot of nuisance”.

According to Nik Nazmi, residents in his constituency have filed countless complaints not just against tenants from Africa, but also those from Indonesia and mainland China.

The state lawmaker believes there may be some grounds for the residents’ wariness to the foreigners living in their midst, noting the regularity of non-Malaysians being caught by the police during their swoops to clean up the area of undocumented immigrants, crime suspects and for other related illegal activities.

“I would state strongly that it’s very important first that we should not racialise the issue... If anyone commits a crime, we should look at it case by case,” he said.

Most of the complaints, he said, were against foreigners who tended to crowd their apartment units with groups of 10 people, sometimes even 20 to a unit.

The disproportionate number of tenants in high-rise homes dotting the area had inadvertently caused common facilities such as elevators to suffer more damage, he noted.

“Once one community comes in, they will tell their members to come and stay in the area... When there are a lot of tenants, less propensity to pay for maintenance,” said Nik Nazmi.

He noted that the bulk of the complainants were from property owners who also resided in the condominium and felt their rights as citizens had been ignored.

The second-term assemblyman’s call was reflected in a similar statement issued today by his political foe from Umno, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan.

The urban wellbeing, housing and local government minister had advised Malaysians against sending the “wrong signal” to the world with the ban.

“To say that every African is a troublemaker is grossly unfair... I think we need to ensure there is no racial profiling, it’s dangerous,” Abdul Rahman told reporters after delivering a keynote address at a National Housing and Property Summit here.

Calling the restriction “crazy”, Abdul Rahman urged concerned owners and management boards to deal with problematic tenants on a case-by-case basis.

The Ridzuan Condominium ban may be the first attempt of its kind reported in Malaysia after years of alleged discrimination and hostility towards the oft-maligned African community, including in the mainstream media.

Despite being a continent of 54 countries with diverse and distinct ethnicities, cultures, languages and societies, its migrants are commonly pigeonholed using the “African” catchall, while the derogatory label “Awang Hitam” (literally, Black Fellow) is also used by Malay-language dailies in reference to their dominant skin colour.

The negative perception towards African migrants in Malaysia is believed to stem from the frequency of cases of drug smuggling, financial scams, frauds and sex crimes reportedly involving the group.

The Immigration Department reported that a total of 79,352 Africans entered the country last year.

The department also issued 25,467 student visas to Africans in 2012 to study in public or private institutions.

In view of this development, I suggest an emergency meeting of NIDO-MY executive to discuss on ways to respond to it.

Kingsley Efobi.O
PRO
NIDO-MY

J.Martins Blasts Wizkid For Being Proud And Arrogant To His Loyal Fans

J.martins in a recent interview on Hot Fm 98.3 Abuja reacted to Wizkid’s outburst after he (Wizkid) was told by a fan he needed to go back to school for his poor use of tenses. Wizkid had lashed back calling the writer a ‘broke fan’

J Martins on the show said ‘I’m not taking any side, don’t mean no beef, no disrespect, and no hate but let the truth be told. I don’t believe because you feel you have a few change you didn’t have a few years ago and which you cannot guarantee having in a few years to come then you wake up and look at those people who have cheered you up, loved you, supported your music, bought your CD’s, prayed for you, just because you can lay your hands on some phone and you call them ‘poor’. Am not in and will never be in support of anyone who has such bad attitude.

“It needs to be corrected, we owe our fans the duty of being good examples that’s why they hold us in high esteem, that’s why you are a role model and if you know you cannot be a good role model you have no business in Music. You don’t know if it’s that person that might help you tomorrow, whoever does that should be checked.

Do you think video games encourage real violence?

 

The long-running debate about violence in video games was rekindled over the weekend with reports that an 8-year-old boy who police say shot and killed his elderly caregiver had been playing "Grand Theft Auto IV," a game rated as appropriate for adults.

To be sure, there's plenty of content in video games that's not for kids. Virtually everyone agrees on that, and there's an industry-created ratings system in place to help parents decide which games are appropriate and which ones aren't.

The ratings, like those at a movie theater, provide guidelines and create rules for game retailers. (California's law, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2011, would have judged games differently though, making it a crime if a retailer doesn't follow them.)

But even the current ratings system was born out of controversy. And, as games get more graphic and complex, it hasn't stemmed the tide of complaints about some titles.

Studies have been inconclusive about what role, if any, video games play in encouraging real-world violence. But the argument isn't new.

In light of this week's shooting, here's a look at 10 video games that sparked controversy with their violent content -- and what it was that made them so polarizing.

1. 'Death Race' (1976)

At this point, it's downright quaint.

But when it hit arcades more than three decades ago, "Death Race" (based on the cult movie "Death Race 2000") may have been the first video game to spark controversy for its violence.

In the chunky, black-and-white pixilated graphics of the time, players ran down "gremlins" in their vehicles. The targets squealed and cried, and were then replaced by tombstones on the screen. It didn't help when word leaked that the working title had been "Pedestrian."

It was enough to prompt the National Safety Council to call the game "morbid" and earn it a spot in a "60 Minutes" segment on violence in games.

2. 'Mortal Kombat' (1992)

The '90s classic has spawned innumerable sequels that have found themselves pretty well in the middle of the pack in terms of fighting-game violence.

But when it hit arcades in 1992 and home consoles the next year, "Mortal Kombat" jumped out because of the gore it depicted in digitized graphics.

Brandishing severed heads, ripping out hearts and spines and the like helped put "Mortal Kombat" at the head of a pack of games that prompted hearings in Congress and, eventually, led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

The gore also helped it to become one of the most popular video games of all time.

This year's reboot (often called "Mortal Kombat 9") does its best to uphold the tradition. Options include eating an opponent's head, pulling out their stomach after spitting acid down their throat and slicing them in half with a buzz saw.

Read More  here

Wife paid N80,000 for rival’s assassination – Police

…The suspects

 …The suspects

I engineered murder plot   – Night guard
Did a housewife hire an assassin to kill her rival? Or did the family night guard try to assassinate his master’s wife? These are the knotty questions the police in Ibadan, Oyo State capital are attempting to answer after a suspected hired assassin, Ikechukwu Christopher, was arrested.

The suspect was said to be on his way from Enugu to Ibadan to carry out the assassination when he ran into the police. A locally-made single barrel gun and a woman’s photograph found on him gave him away. He was taken into custody.

Ikechukwu named one Adenola Adeniyi, a former timber contractor, based in Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, as his sponsor. The police went after Adeniyi who, in turn, named one Arowolo Lateef as the person who gave out the assassination job. Assassination fee was put at N80,000.

The police alleged that a woman, identified as Mrs. Funke Abidoye, contracted Lateef, the family nightguard, now apprehended, to assassinate the husband’s junior wife, Ololade.

But the nightguard denied the claim, saying he was the mastermind of the murder plot to avenge the ordeal of the first wife, Funke, in the hands of Ololade.

Meanwhile, Funke is said to be on the run.

Oyo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Indabawa, narrating the story, said Ikechukwu, the suspected hired assassin, confessed that he was contracted by Adeniyi and Lateef to kill Ololade, “Based on his confession, the said Adenola was arrested and he too corroborated the statement made by Ikechukwu and added that he was hired by Arowolo at the rate of N80,000”, Indabawa said.

He continued: “Investigation revealed that Arowolo hired them at the rate of N80,000. After a diligent investigation, the said Arowolo too was arrested and he confessed that one Funke, the first wife to one Muyiwa Abidoye, hired him to kill the younger wife. He explained further that he, as the husband’s night guard, was contracted by the first wife to look for hired assassins that would kill the younger wife.

“Items recovered from the three suspects are one locally made single barrel, one dane gun, eight live cartridges, one expended cartridge, one dismantled locally made gun, two cutlasses, eight handsets, one nylon containing criminal charms, photographs of Mrs. Ololade Abidoye and her husband, Muyiwa Abidoye found on the prime suspect, Ikechukwu. Meanwhile, the second wife who was said to have contracted the arrested suspects to kill her colleague has absconded from her matrimonial home. Efforts are on top gear to prosecute the arrested suspects”.

But, Arowolo denied being contracted by the first wife as alleged by the police, stressing that he just wanted to kill the younger wife in annoyance and to avenge the ordeal the first wife suffered because of her younger wife.

Ikechukwu confessed that his boss in Enugu gave him the contract to carry out the assassination. “But, when I was going, the police stopped me and found the pistol I was carrying. I was arrested and taken into custody”.

When asked why he was the person his boss in Enugu instructed to commit the crime if he had not done anything like that before, he answered that he learnt the act of shooting through hunting game and he had never been involved in killing anybody.

Adeniyi said he was in Ago Iwoye as a timber contractor when the business went under and Arowolo offered to help.

“He gave me a motorcycle to work and he did not collect any money from me. After sometime, he told me a woman was owing him N20million and for three years, she had been avoiding him. I asked him the business he transacted with the woman but he told me to help him look for hired assassin to kill the woman. After sometime, he started to threaten me. I later got in touch with one man who now linked me with a man at Enugu”.

I just thank God that he is alive: Tenage stowaway’s mum..

 

The mother of the 13-year-old stowaway, Ricky Daniel Ohikhena, who on Friday hid in the tyre compartment of an Arik plane on a flight from Benin to Lagos, was on Monday quizzed for hours by a combined team of security operatives from the Department of State Security Service and aviation security.

The mother, Evelyn, who confirmed that she was quizzed by the SSS operatives, said her son was a nice boy who never displayed any tendency for such a dangerous venture.

An embattled Evelyn said Daniel was a nice boy who did not mingle with bad friends.

She said, “My son answers Daniel in school and Ricky at home. I went to my elder sister’s place who put to bed and when I got home the next morning (Saturday), I couldn’t find him. My daughter told me that they quarrelled in the night because he woke at midnight to watch movies and she told him to stop watching movie in the night and she said he eventually slept in the parlour while she said she went back to sleep in the room.

“One of his younger brothers said he saw him remove all his school books from his bag; so I asked my neighbours whether any of them saw him and they told me that at around 5 to 6 am, they heard sounds that somebody was opening the gate but never thought it was my son. He doesn’t go out. What I know is that he is always watching films in the house but he doesn’t have friends.

“I went to Oba Market police station, they referred me to Evbuotubu police station, when I got there they said they will declare him missing after 24 hours and that I should come back the next day.”

Speaking on the type of person her son is, Evelyn said, “He is always at home, I have never seen anybody come to look for him and he doesn’t have friends. I am begging the government to help me, because I have never been to the airport before, I have been to Lagos before so they should help me. I don’t know how he manage to get there but I just thank God that he is alive.

Switzerland launches 'sex drive-ins'

Swiss "sex drive-ins" open for business

 

(CNN) -- In an attempt to reduce open street prostitution and to improve security for sex workers, Switzerland's largest city, Zurich, is opening "sex drive-ins" Monday.

The nine garage-style structures, located in Sihlquai, a former industrial zone in the city, are equipped with alarm buttons and guarded by security personnel to ensure the safety of the prostitutes. Customers are not allowed to leave the area with the sex workers.

Read more: Brazil drops 'happy being a prostitute' ad campaign

"Prostitution has escalated in the city," said Michael Herzig, from the Zurich social services department. "It was done out in the open on the street and men harassed passers-by.

"It was noisy and dirty because men took the prostitutes to a side street and left used condoms on the streets. The drive-ins are more discreet and safer."

Sex workers learn English for World Cup

Spain making money from prostitutes

 

Herzig leads the project, which has cost 2.4 million Swiss francs ($2.6 million) to set up.

"The project is extremely controversial. Prostitution is about morals and religion. But we leave these things aside and see it as a business. The humanitarian aspect is more important for us," said Herzig.

Around 30 to 40 women are expected to work at the site each night. Sex workers have to pay 5 Swiss francs per night to make use of the so-called "sex boxes," but customers don't have to pay an entrance fee.

Read more: Ahead of Brazil World Cup, free English classes planned for prostitutes 
SOURCE