5: 

Most Israelis support extrajudicial killings

Some 53 percent of Israelis have expressed support for the extrajudicial killings of alleged Palestinian attackers on the spot even after their arrest and when they “no longer pose a threat”, according to a new poll.

Published by the Israel Democracy Institute, the poll’s findings reflect hardening attitudes among Jewish Israelis at a time when unrest has spread throughout Israel, the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

The poll examined the attitudes of Israeli citizens – both Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel – as tensions and unrest soar amid growing violence.

The study was conducted over two days in late October and interviewed 600 adults.

It also found that 80 percent of Israeli interviewees believe that the family homes of alleged Palestinian attackers should be demolished.

Aljazeera

4: 

Myanmar’s ‘Very Silly’ Constitution Blocks Nobel Peace Prize Winner From Presidency

Voting unfolded smoothly in Myanmar on Sunday with no reports of violence to puncture a mood of jubilation marking the Southeast Asian nation’s first free nationwide election in 25 years, its biggest stride yet in a journey to democracy from dictatorship.

The party of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to win the largest share of votes cast by an electorate of about 30 million, who chose from among thousands of candidates standing for parliament and regional assemblies.

But a legacy of military rule means she cannot become president after the election, even if her National League for Democracy (NLD) wins a landslide.

As counting began across the country, early indications from observers were that voting was mostly trouble-free and there were only isolated reports of irregularities.

3: 

Indonesia fires: “I’m tired of being made sick by this smoke”

When I was young my friends and I would visit our local river, just a short walk from our small town in Pangkalan Kerinci, upstream of Riau’s peatland coast in Sumatra. On days when we needed to cool down from the heat, we would spend hours swimming and getting lost in the shade of the trees, chasing birds and sleeping.

My parents instilled in me the importance of the environment. Growing up, forests fascinated me – how trees nurture and protect us, the beauty of bark, the way in which roots weave like tangled hair knots. But deep down, I’ve always had a foreboding feeling about forest fires. For the past 18 years during the dry season, ever since the palm oil plantations began, the haze has always been lurking.

Every day, all I would hear were complaints – from the media, from my friends, from my family. Even though I’m just one individual I knew I had to do something. But when fires are burning through the forests you can’t chain yourself to a tree.

Greenpeace

2: 

U.S. Journalists Who Instantly Exonerated Their Government of the Kunduz Hospital Attack, Declaring it an “Accident”

Shortly after the news broke of the U.S. attack on a Doctors without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, there was abundant evidence suggesting (not proving, but suggesting) that the attack was no accident: (1) MSF repeatedly told the U.S. military about the precise coordinates of its hospital, which had been operating for years; (2) the Pentagon’s story about what happened kept changing, radically, literally on a daily basis; (3) the exact same MSF hospital had been invaded by Afghan security forces three months earlier, demonstrating hostility toward the facility;  (4) the attack lasted more than 30 minutes and involved multiple AC-130 gunship flyovers, even as MSF officials frantically pleaded with the U.S. military to stop; and, most compellingly of all, (5) Afghan officials from the start said explicitly that the hospital was a valid and intended target due to the presence of Taliban fighters as patients.

Since then, the evidence that the attack was intentional has only grown. Two weeks ago, AP reported that “the Army Green Berets who requested the Oct. 3 airstrike on the Doctors without Borders trauma center in Afghanistan were aware it was a functioning hospital but believed it was under Taliban control.” Last night, NBC News cited a new MSF report with this headline: “U.S. Plane Shot Victims Fleeing Doctors Without Borders Hospital: Charity.” As the New York Times put it yesterday, the “hospital was among the most brightly lit buildings in Kunduz on the night a circling American gunship destroyed it” and “spread across the hospital roof was a large white and red flag reading ‘Médecins Sans Frontières.’” For reasons that are increasingly understandable, the Obama administration is still adamantly refusing MSF’s demand for an independent investigation into what happened and why.

The Intercept

1: 

Refugee found dead after escaping Christmas Island detention centre

A Kurdish-Iranian refugee has been found dead on Christmas Island two days after he escaped from an immigration detention centre.

The man is understood to be Fazel Chegeni, who was in his 30s. He escaped from the North West Point detention centre on Friday or Saturday, and his body was found in bushland on Sunday. The cause of death is not yet known.

Chegeni arrived in Australia by boat in 2010, and in 2013 he was determined to be a refugee. He spent time at Curtin detention centre in Western Australia, where he was charged with involvement in an assault, and lived in the community in Melbourne. He was detained again by immigration authorities and taken to Wickham Point in Darwin, before being moved to Christmas Island about 10 weeks ago.

Friends told refugee advocates that Chegeni was suffering from serious mental health issues and had grown increasingly anxious about his detention. He had reportedly attempted suicide at least three times in recent weeks.

Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection said Chegeni’s escape had been reported to federal police, who coordinated a search and discovered his body.

“Christmas Island detention centre remains calm and support services are available to all detainees and staff,” the department said in a statement. “As this matter is now subject to a coronial inquiry, the department will not be commenting.”

A spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, said Chegeni’s death was “another needless detention death, this time of a refugee who should never have been in detention.”

The Guardian