Rubber Bullets

For years, police in New Jersey have had only one option when confronted by an attacker: Shoot to kill. In most other states, police have several less-lethal options, including beanbag guns and rubber bullets. Yesterday, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram gave the official go-ahead for Garden State police to use less-lethal, non-penetrating ammunition in situations where deadly force is justified. Stun guns remain prohibited, Milgram's spokesman Peter Aseltine said.

New rubber bullets have been blamed for the deaths of four Arab youths in five days, raising concern the ammunition may be more lethal than earlier rubber rounds used to combat the Palestinian uprising. The victims, two girls and two teen-age boys, were struck in the head with the spherical pellets when Israeli soldiers opened fire to quell demonstrations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Arab doctors said yesterday. The deaths came during a round of violent clashes between soldiers and stone-throwing protesters that have left 10 Palestinians dead since Thursday.

Israeli soldiers confiscated the passports of five American travelers in the occupied West Bank and accused them of participating in a protest that troops dispersed with rubber bullets, military and other sources said yesterday. The Americans, activists on a private fact-finding tour in the occupied territories, denied the allegations, saying they were observers. Meanwhile, in a new offensive against Palestinian activists in the occupied lands, Israel closed adult education programs in the West Bank yesterday, prompting protests by hundreds of Palestinians, witnesses said.

Xie Wei, a 30-year-old University of Pennsylvania student visiting his family in Beijing, knew it was foolish to walk the streets during the bloody June 3 massacre. But Xie, who flew back from China yesterday after a three-week visit, said he and his sister, a student in Beijing, just had to see for themselves what was happening. "As we walked toward Tiananmen Square, we heard gunfire and saw trucks full of soldiers moving slowly through the street," Xie said in an interview in his University City apartment.

TWENTY YEARS and five weeks after the last unemployed and most vile of scum (MOVE) attempted to hold our city hostage, here we are again with their proteges, whom we'll call the Puppeteers. And like our altercations with the previously mentioned derelicts, it has led to another Philly officer murdered. I know I speak for many when I say the signal has been given to take the rubber bullets out, and let's give these little anarchists/puppet makers/welfare-drawing degenerates the lifetime jobs they've been clamoring for . . . as corpses.

Stone-throwing protests swept the West Bank yesterday for the third straight day since three Palestinians were shot to death at an Israeli army roadblock. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed sympathy to the victims' families yesterday and said "mistakes" were made. Eighteen Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in clashes yesterday with Israeli soldiers in five communities, including the victims' village of Dura. Another Palestinian was seriously wounded when an armed Israeli motorist opened fire after protesters stoned his car near Dura.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators protesting an Israeli security barrier in the West Bank yesterday. The protest came ahead of a summit today between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush at the White House. The two will discuss how to move ahead with the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that calls for a Palestinian state by 2005. The discussion follows talks last week that Bush held with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

A radical Palestinian group said yesterday that two guerrillas killed overnight in southern Lebanon had been on a raid aimed at "retaliating" for the policies of PLO leader Yasir Arafat. The incident was likely to increase Israeli demands that the United States halt its dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization, although Arafat was quoted yesterday as saying he believed that he had done enough to convince Israel that the PLO had renounced terrorism. In a statement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command said of the raid: "The operation was in retaliation for the submissive policy of Arafat and in support of the uprising of our people in occupied territories.

South Africa is not blind to what it has done. It has rung down a curtain of silence - "An Iron Curtain," the Johannesburg Star called it - forbidding all accounts of (and participation in) anti-government activity. It has censored the press as it seeks, in extending an emergency decree, to cut the tongue from Pretoria's critics. Foreign Minister Roelof F. Botha knows what it looks like. He assures the clampdown is to save South Africa, not destroy it. "Nothing will remain of democracy," he says, unless normal democratic rules "that we all subscribe to" are suspended.

Thousands of riot police have been deployed across Jerusalem in a bid to quell Palestinian unrest on the eve of the 21st anniversary of Israel's capture of Arab East Jerusalem. At least 10 Palestinians and four policemen were injured when paramilitary police clashed with demonstrators following Moslem prayers at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan yesterday, police sources said. Officials at a United Nations hospital in Jerusalem said 120 people wounded by rubber bullets and police beatings were treated at the al-Aqsa mosque clinic in the Old City.

Britain: Resume talks on Assange LONDON - British Foreign Secretary William Hague on Monday urged Ecuador to quickly resume negotiations over the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange, who is seeking to avoid extradition to Sweden for questioning over sex crimes allegations, has been sheltering inside Ecuador's Embassy in London since June 19. Ecuador has offered Assange asylum, but he will be arrested if he sets foot outside the embassy. "Our two countries should be able to find a diplomatic solution," Hague wrote in a statement.

Mario Gomez scored twice as Germany left the Netherlands on the brink of elimination from the European Championship, beating their historic rivals, 2-1, on Wednesday in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Although Robin van Persie pulled one back for the Dutch in the second half, the defeat leaves the 2010 World Cup runner-up dangerously close to going home. Germany, a three-time European champion, has six points from its two wins but is still not sure of advancing from Group B, where three teams could end up even.

CAIRO - Egyptian riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets stormed into Cairo's Tahrir Square Saturday to dismantle a protest tent camp, setting off clashes that killed two protesters, injured hundreds and raised tensions days before the first elections since Hosni Mubarak's ouster. The scenes of protesters fighting with black-clad police forces were reminiscent of the 18-day uprising that forced an end to Mubarak's rule in February. Hundreds of protesters fought back, hurling stones and setting an armored police vehicle ablaze.

SAN'A, Yemen - A crackdown that killed dozens failed to stop massive demonstrations against Yemen's U.S.-backed president as crowds of thousands clashed Saturday with security forces smashing their protest camps; they even seized control of one southern city. In the capital, the government had to bring out tank units and other military forces to protect key buildings as crowds swelled. Protesters stood their ground in the southern city of Mualla, surging out of their destroyed encampment and encircling a police station.

SAN'A, Yemen - Security forces and government loyalists struck protest camps across Yemen on Thursday, hurling rocks, beating protesters with sticks, and firing rubber and live bullets, hoping to break the will of thousands camped in squares for more than a month, demanding that their longtime authoritarian leader leave power. The violence underscored the chipping-at-the-edges tactic of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years. He does not appear to have the will - or perhaps the capabilities - to disperse the demonstrators conclusively.

For years, police in New Jersey have had only one option when confronted by an attacker: Shoot to kill. In most other states, police have several less-lethal options, including beanbag guns and rubber bullets. Yesterday, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram gave the official go-ahead for Garden State police to use less-lethal, non-penetrating ammunition in situations where deadly force is justified. Stun guns remain prohibited, Milgram's spokesman Peter Aseltine said.

TWENTY YEARS and five weeks after the last unemployed and most vile of scum (MOVE) attempted to hold our city hostage, here we are again with their proteges, whom we'll call the Puppeteers. And like our altercations with the previously mentioned derelicts, it has led to another Philly officer murdered. I know I speak for many when I say the signal has been given to take the rubber bullets out, and let's give these little anarchists/puppet makers/welfare-drawing degenerates the lifetime jobs they've been clamoring for . . . as corpses.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at Palestinian demonstrators protesting an Israeli security barrier in the West Bank yesterday. The protest came ahead of a summit today between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush at the White House. The two will discuss how to move ahead with the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan that calls for a Palestinian state by 2005. The discussion follows talks last week that Bush held with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas.

With the burned-out vehicles cleared away and smashed windows boarded up yesterday, police tried to sort out the riot involving University of Arizona basketball fans. Police also were examining their own response to Monday's melee in a commercial and residential district near the university. The riot began after Arizona's loss to Duke in the NCAA championship in Minneapolis. Fans overturned vehicles and set them on fire in a scene reminiscent of disturbances that followed the Wildcats' victory in the 1997 title game.

The query was posed to a group of lawyers representing protesters arrested during the Republican Convention. A reporter wanted to know: Why had the demonstrators decrying police abuse and corporate power elicited so little sympathy from Philadelphians? The subtext of the question was obvious: This is a Democratic town, traumatized by the sort of post-industrial globalization the protesters denounced. There is a history of tension between the black community and the police.