Diner outraged after he had to buy $3,750 bottle of wine when he asked waiter for a recommendation (but he did get $1,200 discount)
Ireland defends tax dealings with Apple
Dublin denies EU commission claims that it helped iPhone maker obtain billions of euros in illegal state aid
The Irish government has defended its tax arrangements with Apple as
Brussels prepares to accuse Ireland of providing illegal state aid to
the iPhone maker in a clampdown on tax avoidance schemes employed by
multinationals.
The European commission, which enforces EU law, will on Tuesday issue preliminary findings from an investigation into Apple’s tax affairs in Ireland. It is expected to accuse the US firm of obtaining billions of euros in illegal state aid from successive Irish governments by cutting “sweetheart” tax deals. The EU executive is also looking into the tax arrangements of Starbucks in the Netherlands and those of Fiat’s financial arm in Luxembourg.
“The commission will publish a non-confidential version of its decision to open an investigation into tax rulings granted to Apple in Ireland that was adopted in June this year. The decision will set out the commission’s reasons for opening an in-depth investigation,” said Antoine Colombani, a commission spokesman. “We continue to investigate this case. We do not have any findings to communicate at this point.”
The Fine Gael-Labour coalition in Dublin said on Monday that it is confident no EU rules were breached in its dealings with Apple, which pays a tax rate of less than 2% in Ireland.
“Ireland is confident that there is no breach of state aid rules in this case and has already issued a formal response to the commission earlier this month,” the department of finance in Dublin said.
Apple is a major employer in Ireland with 4,000 people working at its site in Cork, which carries out manufacturing and research and devlopment work. An additional 2,500 jobs are supported locally by Apple’s presence in the city, according to the company’s figures. Its Irish workforce is the second biggest in the EU, behind its operation in the UK which employs 5,000 workers. The Irish finance department said it will take on board the “concerns and some misunderstandings” contained in the commission’s findings.
“Ireland welcomed that opportunity to clarify important issues about the applicable tax law in this case and to explain that the company concerned did not receive selective treatment and was taxed fully in accordance with the law,” the department of finance added.
In response to the investigation, Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief told the Financial Times this week: “It’s very important that people understand that there was no special deal that we cut with Ireland. We simply followed the laws in the country over the 35 years that we have been in Ireland.”
He denied Apple ever made any threat to move jobs away from Ireland to secure a tax incentive when agreeing tax rulings with the Irish authorities in 1991 and 2007.
“If the question is, ‘was there ever a quid pro quo that we were trying to strike with the Irish government’ – that was never the case,” he said. “If countries change the tax laws, we will abide by the new laws and we will pay taxes according to those laws.”
The Apple finance chief added that corporate taxes in Ireland have increased more than 10 times since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, during which time its global sales have increased from $24bn (£14.8bn) that year to $171bn in 2013.
The EU investigation is believed to be the first time the commission has resorted to the rules on state aid to try to curb tax avoidance. The G20 has been calling for action to force the big multinationals to pay their fair share of tax where their profits are earned and the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is working on a new rulebook.
Longstanding commission attempts to “harmonise” corporate tax regimes across the EU have persistently run into fierce resistance from national governments, not least the Irish, as well as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Britain.
The deal has given Apple an effective tax rate of 2% on tens of billions of dollars in profit booked through its Irish affiliates, a US Senate report found last year.
Ireland has a low 12.5% corporation tax rate but the main source of Apple’s rock-bottom tax rate is said to be a manoeuvre called the “double Irish”.
The strategy requires a US company to attribute profits to an Irish subsidiary. A second Irish subsidiary is then set up and managed from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or another tax haven with no corporation tax. The Irish-based company makes royalty payments to the second company and claims those payments as tax deductions in Ireland.
The Senate report did not say that Apple used the “double Irish” but it noted that Apple had a BVI-based company that owned a small share of the group’s main Irish subsidiary.
Apple’s Irish offices are based near Knocknaheeny, an impoverished northern suburb of Cork. The company told the Senate inquiry that its business there was substantive and was not based on a “sweetheart deal” that brought employment to Cork.
Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, told senators that the company did not rely on “tax gimmicks” and that it paid every dollar it owed.
The European commission, which enforces EU law, will on Tuesday issue preliminary findings from an investigation into Apple’s tax affairs in Ireland. It is expected to accuse the US firm of obtaining billions of euros in illegal state aid from successive Irish governments by cutting “sweetheart” tax deals. The EU executive is also looking into the tax arrangements of Starbucks in the Netherlands and those of Fiat’s financial arm in Luxembourg.
“The commission will publish a non-confidential version of its decision to open an investigation into tax rulings granted to Apple in Ireland that was adopted in June this year. The decision will set out the commission’s reasons for opening an in-depth investigation,” said Antoine Colombani, a commission spokesman. “We continue to investigate this case. We do not have any findings to communicate at this point.”
The Fine Gael-Labour coalition in Dublin said on Monday that it is confident no EU rules were breached in its dealings with Apple, which pays a tax rate of less than 2% in Ireland.
“Ireland is confident that there is no breach of state aid rules in this case and has already issued a formal response to the commission earlier this month,” the department of finance in Dublin said.
Apple is a major employer in Ireland with 4,000 people working at its site in Cork, which carries out manufacturing and research and devlopment work. An additional 2,500 jobs are supported locally by Apple’s presence in the city, according to the company’s figures. Its Irish workforce is the second biggest in the EU, behind its operation in the UK which employs 5,000 workers. The Irish finance department said it will take on board the “concerns and some misunderstandings” contained in the commission’s findings.
“Ireland welcomed that opportunity to clarify important issues about the applicable tax law in this case and to explain that the company concerned did not receive selective treatment and was taxed fully in accordance with the law,” the department of finance added.
In response to the investigation, Luca Maestri, Apple’s finance chief told the Financial Times this week: “It’s very important that people understand that there was no special deal that we cut with Ireland. We simply followed the laws in the country over the 35 years that we have been in Ireland.”
He denied Apple ever made any threat to move jobs away from Ireland to secure a tax incentive when agreeing tax rulings with the Irish authorities in 1991 and 2007.
“If the question is, ‘was there ever a quid pro quo that we were trying to strike with the Irish government’ – that was never the case,” he said. “If countries change the tax laws, we will abide by the new laws and we will pay taxes according to those laws.”
The Apple finance chief added that corporate taxes in Ireland have increased more than 10 times since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, during which time its global sales have increased from $24bn (£14.8bn) that year to $171bn in 2013.
The EU investigation is believed to be the first time the commission has resorted to the rules on state aid to try to curb tax avoidance. The G20 has been calling for action to force the big multinationals to pay their fair share of tax where their profits are earned and the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is working on a new rulebook.
Longstanding commission attempts to “harmonise” corporate tax regimes across the EU have persistently run into fierce resistance from national governments, not least the Irish, as well as Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Britain.
‘The double Irish’
Apple’s tax arrangements in Ireland were established under a deal that Steve Jobs, Apple’s late co-founder, struck with Dublin in the 1980s.The deal has given Apple an effective tax rate of 2% on tens of billions of dollars in profit booked through its Irish affiliates, a US Senate report found last year.
Ireland has a low 12.5% corporation tax rate but the main source of Apple’s rock-bottom tax rate is said to be a manoeuvre called the “double Irish”.
The strategy requires a US company to attribute profits to an Irish subsidiary. A second Irish subsidiary is then set up and managed from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or another tax haven with no corporation tax. The Irish-based company makes royalty payments to the second company and claims those payments as tax deductions in Ireland.
The Senate report did not say that Apple used the “double Irish” but it noted that Apple had a BVI-based company that owned a small share of the group’s main Irish subsidiary.
Apple’s Irish offices are based near Knocknaheeny, an impoverished northern suburb of Cork. The company told the Senate inquiry that its business there was substantive and was not based on a “sweetheart deal” that brought employment to Cork.
Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, told senators that the company did not rely on “tax gimmicks” and that it paid every dollar it owed.
This midterm massacre boosts the Republican 2016 wannabes
Don’t assume Hillary Clinton will put things right for the Democrats. US voters have turned back time
'The outcome
leaves Obama fighting to be relevant to domestic and international
politics for the remaining two years of his presidency.' Photograph:
Evan Vucci/AP
This wasn’t supposed to happen. In American politics, so the pundits
had increasingly agreed, it was the Democrats and not the Republicans
who would be the dominant party of the 21st century. With the US
population becoming ever more ethnically diverse, the backward-looking
Republican appeal to family, church and flag would dwindle while the
pragmatic Democratic openness to changing times would make them masters
of the new century.
This week, however, US voters turned back the clock. When the dust from the 2014 midterm elections settles, both houses of Congress will again be under Republican control, just as they were under Bill Clinton in the 1990s and under George W Bush in the early 2000s. In the House of Representatives, the already dominant Republicans notched up one of their largest majorities since the jazz age. In the Senate, they regained the control they lost when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008.
This isn’t the new politics the experts predicted. It looks a lot more like a decisive return to the recent old.
The context goes some way to explain what happened this week. In the Senate, where there is a six-year electoral cycle, Democrats elected on Obama’s coat-tails in the big Democratic year of 2008 faced re-election in 2014 in a less favourable political climate. Losses were always likely. They duly took place in bellwether states such as Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina as well as in safer Republican bets such as Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. The obvious conclusion is that post-Ronald Reagan normality has reasserted itself.
That is also true in the House, with its two-year cycle. There, in contrast to the unchanging boundaries of the Senate, congressional districting continues to be loaded in favour of the Republicans. In 2012, the Republicans won 54% of the seats to give them a strong majority, even though the Democrats took 51% of the popular vote. That’s unlikely to have been repeated this time, but the boundary bonus is still real, designed to consolidate any Republican advantage. Again, 2014 looks more like a return to recent House election results than an aberration.
State governorships are not often on foreign observers’ radar. Yet governorsprobably matter more than senators in American politics. The Republican governors who were up for election this year were those who were elected four years ago, a strong Republican year. This year, however, they did markedly better than in 2010, winning in states such as Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts that had remained Democratic four years ago.
It is a standard assumption that the president’s party almost always does badly in midterm elections. This year’s have been typical of that. But they also repeated the pattern of the 2010 midterms, when a smaller and differently composed section of the electorate turned out to vote than in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, which Obama won.
The electorate in those presidential contests was a bit more racially diverse and younger than the whiter and older voters who turned out this week and in the 2010 midterms. But it does not follow that the larger, more diverse and younger electorate will come out to vote again in 2016, with more favourable results for the Democrats.
Then there’s the money. The amounts remain eye-watering. Over $500m was spent in the House races this year, mainly on TV ads, even though only about 30 of the 435 contests were, even generously, described as competitive – another consequence of redistricting. This year has also seen the scale of officially undisclosed donations rising sharply after the supreme court’s decision that such donations constitute freedom of speech. A study of key 2014 Senate contests in which Republicans triumphed this week confirms that these multimillion-dollar donations go disproportionately to Republicans.
All of these things had a bearing on this week’s massacre of the Democrats. But they do not fully explain it. There is no getting away from the fact that Obama was at least part of the Democrats’ problem on Tuesday.
Some of that, without question, is about race. The Republicans are the white people’s party. This week, 60% of white people – and 64% of white men – voted Republican. But race was far from the only issue motivating the voters. Two-thirds of all voters this week told the exit poll on Tuesday that “things in this country are seriously off on the wrong track”, while a third – overwhelmingly Republicans – said one reason they had voted was to express opposition to Obama.
The outcome leaves Obama fighting to be relevant to domestic and international politics for the remaining two years of his presidency. Gridlock in Washington is deeply unpopular – and Americans blame Congress as well as the president. But paradoxically, gridlock has been the electoral gift that keeps giving, as far as the Republicans are concerned. Why compromise now? It is hard to see how Obama will succeed with any other political project other than his own survival – and even there the possibility of an impeachment attempt cannot be ruled out.
How far the Republicans will succeed in undoing Obama’s legislative legacy from his first two years in the White House is uncertain. For all the talk on the campaign trail about getting rid of the affordable care act, there is little Republican agreement about how to do it or what to put in its place.
Republican economic policy is almost nonexistent. But in the other classic legacy areas of a dying presidency – judicial appointments and foreign policy high among them – Obama is likely to find himself fought every inch of the way. This will be clearly noted in places such as Beijing, Moscow, Jerusalem and wherever the headquarters of Islamic State (Isis) are to be found.
Wise observers in those capitals and elsewhere may draw a more lasting conclusion, too. Gridlock may be part of the new American governing normality, in which this week’s elections are just one episode. As Michael Tomasky argued last week, a Democratic successor to Obama is likely to face a similar switchback ride unless and until the Democrats can manage to find the language and the promises that will make their voters turn out in midterm elections.
Yesterday, the day after the 2014 midterms, was also day one of the next presidential election campaign. This week’s results have unquestionably boosted the chances of the Republican 2016 wannabes. Nothing would be more foolish than to assume that 2014 does not really matter because Hillary Clinton will put everything right in two years’ time.
This week, however, US voters turned back the clock. When the dust from the 2014 midterm elections settles, both houses of Congress will again be under Republican control, just as they were under Bill Clinton in the 1990s and under George W Bush in the early 2000s. In the House of Representatives, the already dominant Republicans notched up one of their largest majorities since the jazz age. In the Senate, they regained the control they lost when Barack Obama was first elected in 2008.
This isn’t the new politics the experts predicted. It looks a lot more like a decisive return to the recent old.
The context goes some way to explain what happened this week. In the Senate, where there is a six-year electoral cycle, Democrats elected on Obama’s coat-tails in the big Democratic year of 2008 faced re-election in 2014 in a less favourable political climate. Losses were always likely. They duly took place in bellwether states such as Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina as well as in safer Republican bets such as Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia. The obvious conclusion is that post-Ronald Reagan normality has reasserted itself.
That is also true in the House, with its two-year cycle. There, in contrast to the unchanging boundaries of the Senate, congressional districting continues to be loaded in favour of the Republicans. In 2012, the Republicans won 54% of the seats to give them a strong majority, even though the Democrats took 51% of the popular vote. That’s unlikely to have been repeated this time, but the boundary bonus is still real, designed to consolidate any Republican advantage. Again, 2014 looks more like a return to recent House election results than an aberration.
State governorships are not often on foreign observers’ radar. Yet governorsprobably matter more than senators in American politics. The Republican governors who were up for election this year were those who were elected four years ago, a strong Republican year. This year, however, they did markedly better than in 2010, winning in states such as Illinois, Maryland and Massachusetts that had remained Democratic four years ago.
It is a standard assumption that the president’s party almost always does badly in midterm elections. This year’s have been typical of that. But they also repeated the pattern of the 2010 midterms, when a smaller and differently composed section of the electorate turned out to vote than in the presidential elections of 2008 and 2012, which Obama won.
The electorate in those presidential contests was a bit more racially diverse and younger than the whiter and older voters who turned out this week and in the 2010 midterms. But it does not follow that the larger, more diverse and younger electorate will come out to vote again in 2016, with more favourable results for the Democrats.
Then there’s the money. The amounts remain eye-watering. Over $500m was spent in the House races this year, mainly on TV ads, even though only about 30 of the 435 contests were, even generously, described as competitive – another consequence of redistricting. This year has also seen the scale of officially undisclosed donations rising sharply after the supreme court’s decision that such donations constitute freedom of speech. A study of key 2014 Senate contests in which Republicans triumphed this week confirms that these multimillion-dollar donations go disproportionately to Republicans.
All of these things had a bearing on this week’s massacre of the Democrats. But they do not fully explain it. There is no getting away from the fact that Obama was at least part of the Democrats’ problem on Tuesday.
Some of that, without question, is about race. The Republicans are the white people’s party. This week, 60% of white people – and 64% of white men – voted Republican. But race was far from the only issue motivating the voters. Two-thirds of all voters this week told the exit poll on Tuesday that “things in this country are seriously off on the wrong track”, while a third – overwhelmingly Republicans – said one reason they had voted was to express opposition to Obama.
The outcome leaves Obama fighting to be relevant to domestic and international politics for the remaining two years of his presidency. Gridlock in Washington is deeply unpopular – and Americans blame Congress as well as the president. But paradoxically, gridlock has been the electoral gift that keeps giving, as far as the Republicans are concerned. Why compromise now? It is hard to see how Obama will succeed with any other political project other than his own survival – and even there the possibility of an impeachment attempt cannot be ruled out.
How far the Republicans will succeed in undoing Obama’s legislative legacy from his first two years in the White House is uncertain. For all the talk on the campaign trail about getting rid of the affordable care act, there is little Republican agreement about how to do it or what to put in its place.
Republican economic policy is almost nonexistent. But in the other classic legacy areas of a dying presidency – judicial appointments and foreign policy high among them – Obama is likely to find himself fought every inch of the way. This will be clearly noted in places such as Beijing, Moscow, Jerusalem and wherever the headquarters of Islamic State (Isis) are to be found.
Wise observers in those capitals and elsewhere may draw a more lasting conclusion, too. Gridlock may be part of the new American governing normality, in which this week’s elections are just one episode. As Michael Tomasky argued last week, a Democratic successor to Obama is likely to face a similar switchback ride unless and until the Democrats can manage to find the language and the promises that will make their voters turn out in midterm elections.
Yesterday, the day after the 2014 midterms, was also day one of the next presidential election campaign. This week’s results have unquestionably boosted the chances of the Republican 2016 wannabes. Nothing would be more foolish than to assume that 2014 does not really matter because Hillary Clinton will put everything right in two years’ time.
From: Foxnews
Analysts: IS ignores al-Qaida's call to reunite to fight West, but their feud has tapered off
 |
| FILE - In this Monday, Oct. 20, 2014 file photo, thick smoke and flames from an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition rise in Kobani, Syria, as seen from a hilltop on the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border. Al-Qaida is using U.S. airstrikes in Syria as a reason to extend olive branches to the renegade Islamic State group, saying the two should stop feuding and join forces to attack Western targets, a reunification that intelligence analysts say would allow al-Qaida to capitalize on the younger group’s ruthless advance across the region. (AP Photo, Lefteris Pitarakis, File) (The Associated Press) |
WASHINGTON – Al-Qaida is using U.S.
airstrikes in Syria as a reason to extend olive branches to the renegade
Islamic State group, saying the two should stop feuding and join forces
to attack Western targets — a reunification that intelligence analysts
say would allow al-Qaida to capitalize on the younger group's ruthless
advance across the region.
Analysts are closely
watching al-Qaida's repeated overtures, and while a full reconciliation
is not expected soon — if ever — there is evidence the two groups
have curtailed their infighting and are cooperating on the Syrian
battlefield, according to activists on the ground, U.S. officials and
experts who monitor jihadi messages.Al-Qaida is saying, "Let's just have a truce in Syria," said Tom Joscelyn, who tracks terror groups for the Long War Journal. "That is what's underway now. ... What we have seen is that local commanders are entering into local truces. There are definitely areas where the two groups are not fighting."
The Islamic State group has seized about a third of Iraq and Syrian territory and is terrorizing civilians to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Their advances led to airstrikes by the United States and a coalition of Western and Persian Gulf nations in both Iraq and Syria.
IS was kicked out of al-Qaida in May after disobeying its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. So far, IS has not publicly responded to al-Qaida's calls to reunite — the most recent on Oct. 17 from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based offshoot that denounced the airstrikes and called on rival militant groups to stop their infighting and together train their sights on the West.
Reconciling with al-Qaida senior leadership would let IS benefit from al-Qaida's broad, international network but would also leave it restrained in carrying out its own attacks. For its side, al-Qaida would get a boost from the Islamic State group's newfound popularity, which has provided an influx of new recruits and money. The Treasury Department said last week that IS has earned about $1 million a day from selling oil on the black market.
One school of thought is that if the two groups continue to spend time and resources fighting each other, it diminishes the terror threat to the West. Experts tracking terrorist networks say, however, that continued infighting also could incite a competition over who would be the first to launch a new attack against the West.
Jihadi groups across the world recently have rushed to proclaim a new allegiance to IS, either out of fear or because they want to be with the winning team. But Joseclyn notes that they are all "B-listers," not mainline al-Qaida affiliates.
"The Islamic State is the strongest jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, but the evidence thus far says that al-Qaida is much stronger everywhere else," he said.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists around Syria, also said that Islamic State and Nusra Front, al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria, have stopped fighting in parts of the country since the airstrikes began there Sept. 23. Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Observatory, said that in the Qalamoun region bordering Lebanon, the two groups have been cooperating for some time — even before the strikes. Moreover, Abdurrahman says, hundreds of fighters have defected from Nusra Front and joined the Islamic State group.
"Tens of fighters left Nusra over the past days," he said, citing increased sympathy for the group because of the airstrikes. "They believe that they are being attacked by what they call the infidel crusader enemy" — the United States — and should not be fighting against each other.
An activist in the central Syrian province of Hama who is in contact with rebels in Aleppo and Idlib in northern Syria said hundreds of militants have defected from Nusra Front as well as an ultraconservative group that had fought for months alongside Nusra Front against the Islamic State.
The activist, Bassil Darwish, also said infighting stopped after the U.S. said in August that it would launch airstrikes. Asked if the plans for airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition led to this undeclared truce, he said, "Yes, this is the main reason."
Rita Katz, the director and co-founder of the SITE Intelligence Group, which analyzes international terrorists' messages, said she sees no evidence that the infighting has stopped and cited fighting between the groups about 10 days ago in Aleppo. "I cannot believe that at this stage IS or Nusra are saying they are not fighting," she said.
Meantime, al-Qaida is worried about the Islamic State group's success in recruiting young jihadis — so much so that a pro-al-Qaida cleric from Saudi Arabia went online last week to chastise militant commanders, including ones affiliated with al-Qaida, for not doing more to stem the tide of recruits heading to IS. Abdullah Muhammad al-Muhaysini denounced IS for killing Muslims and for declaring a caliphate, or Islamic empire, "without consultation" among all Muslims. He said he planned to visit all the top jihadi leaders in Syria to again try to unify the groups.
Experts and intelligence officials say that's unlikely.
Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who sits on the Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees, said it was "likely" the two groups cooperate, at least tactically. But, he added, "they certainly don't agree with one another."
___
Mroue reported from Beirut. AP Intelligence Writer Ken Dilanian in Washington contributed to this report.
From: Foxnews
As San Francisco Giants fans revel in series victory, celebration turns violent in some areas
The partying unfolded peacefully with fans gathering in the streets and uncorking champagne, lighting bonfires, dancing in a mosh pit and hugging strangers Wednesday night as their team scored its third series win in as many championship appearances, a triumph all the more gratifying by its arrival at the end of a seventh, winner-takes-all 3-2 game.
"I knew they were going to win. It's the Giants. They do this all the time," San Francisco native Barbra Norris, 54, said of the team's odds-defying win in an away game played the night after a crushing shutout in Kansas City.
But in some areas, the atmosphere grew rowdier as the night wore on.
Violence left three people injured in separate incidents, two by gunshots and one in a stabbing, said Officer Gordon Shyy, a police spokesman. The gunshot victims' wounds were not life-threatening, but he didn't have information on the stabbing.
Shortly after the celebrating began, Shyy said officers made "a handful of arrests" as fans filled the streets and blocked traffic around the Civic Center, in the Mission District and on Market Street within walking distance of AT&T Park. No updated arrest figure was available later.
"Police personnel were assaulted with bottles on Market Street and Mission district. Officers in the Southern district were also struck with bottles," Shyy said. "These objects were thrown at officers as they attempted to disperse crowds and assist firefighters extinguish bonfires."
Shyy said multiple officers suffered minor injuries, but did not provide an exact number. He also said one was treated at a hospital for injuries.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the region around Third and King streets was especially raucous with thousands of fans spraying beer, smashing bottles, lighting fires and setting off fireworks. That prompted police in riot gear to move in and set up a perimeter.
At one point, riot police lined up three rows deep, leading people to hurl bottles, some shattering on the street and others hitting cringing officers, the newspaper reported.
The wild street scenes lasted into the early hours Thursday. Shyy said crowds were still in the streets in some areas and stoking bonfires shortly after midnight, and officers continued to try to clear the areas. But by 1:30 a.m. PDT, he said crowds had dispersed for the most part.
Earlier in the evening, across from San Francisco City Hall, where the exterior lights had been glowing orange all week, more than 9,000 people gathered in an outdoor plaza where the city had set up a Jumbotron and a vendor sold hot dogs — but no beer.
"You come out here to feel the pulse of the city. When it's the seventh game, you want to get the vibe," said Geoff Goselin, 61.
The diverse crowd sang "Let's Go, Giants" whenever their counterparts 1,800 miles away rooted for the home team and chanted a prophetic "M-V-P" whenever Giants ace Madison Bumgarner took the mound.
"Bumgarner is the beast, the man," Aden Bacus, 41, shouted after the exhausted pitcher secured a series of strikes on the heels of giving up a gasp-inducing triple. "I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous there at the end."
Amid the revelry, Mayor Ed Lee said the city would host a parade and celebration for the team Friday.
San Francisco police maintained a heavy presence but kept a cool distance as marijuana smoke wafted over Civic Center Plaza and jubilant fans set off fireworks and popped open cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon someone sold out of a cooler.
One indication of the mood was that several fans said they would have been able to stomach a Royals victory with a shrug, if not a smile.
"It would have been really cool for Kansas City to win the World Series at home," said David Janmohamed, 23.
___
Seavey reported from Phoenix.
Former Marine banned from daughter’s school after dispute over Islam lesson
 |
| A Marine dad said he was banned from his daughter’s Maryland high school after he called the school and asked that she be temporarily removed from a course studying the virtues of the Muslim faith. (MyFoxDC.com) |
Kevin Wood told MyFoxDC.com that he went to La Plata High School in La Plata, a town about 30 miles southeast of Washington, and challenged a history assignment requiring students to list the benefits of Islam. He said the meeting with the vice principal got heated; the school said he made a threat and banned the Iraq veteran from school property.
"[Wood] was threatening to cause a disruption or possible disruption at the school," a district spokesperson said.
Wood did not deny getting worked up over the issue, but said he was standing up for the Constitution and is against any religion being taught at the public school.
"I have witnesses that have said I did not threaten anybody," he told the station. "I don't force my religious views on them, so don't force your religious views on me."
The school is allowing his eleventh-grade daughter to spend the class time in the school's library, but defended its assignment and said it is teaching world history, not religion.
Wood's wife, Melissa, wondered how teaching about one religion is considered a history lesson while teaching about Christianity would be viewed diffrerently.
"We cannot discuss our Ten Commandments in school but they can discuss Islam's Five Pillars?"
The three-page assignment asked questions including, "How did Muslim conquerors treat those they conquered?"
A homework assignment obtained by MyFoxDC.com showed the correct answer was, “With tolerance, kindness and respect."
UN: US says it doesn't, and won't, spy on UN
UNITED NATIONS : The United Nations said on Wednesday it has received assurances from the US government
that UN communications networks "are not and will not be monitored" by
American intelligence agencies. But chief UN spokesman Martin Nesirky
would not comment on whether the world body had been monitored in the
past, as reported recently by the German magazine Der Spiegel.
Nesirky said the United Nations had been in contact with Washington about the reports that surfaced two months ago and has received a US guarantee of no current or future eavesdropping.
"Back in August when these reports first surfaced, we said we would be
in touch with the relevant authorities," he said. "And I can tell you
that we were indeed in touch with the US authorities. I understand that
the US authorities have given assurance that the United Nations communications are not and will not be monitored."
Nesirky would not elaborate on whether spying had taken place and
declined to answer related questions. For emphasis, he held up a piece
of paper that said: "No comment."
A US official told The
Associated Press that "The United States is not conducting electronic
surveillance targeting the United Nations headquarters in New York." The
official, who was not authorized to be named, spoke on condition of
anonymity.
It was not clear whether foreign U.N. missions in New York could be monitored by US intelligence agencies.
Former US ambassador John Bolton, who held the post at the United
Nations from 2005-2006, would not comment on "what may or may not have
gone on in the past" because he's no longer in government.
"That said, it seems to me that the United Nations and everybody walking
through the U.N. building are perfectly legitimate intelligence
targets, and I think any decision by any president to say we are not
going to eavesdrop on UN headquarters is a mistake," he told the AP.
"There's nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says you may not
eavesdrop on the U.N.," Bolton said. "Silence and a deeply emphasized
'No comment' is how you should deal with all these intelligence
questions."
Der Spiegel reported that documents it obtained from U.S. leaker Edward Snowden show the National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.'s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year.
Der Spiegel quoted an NSA document as saying that within three weeks,
the number of decoded communications had increased from 12 to 458. Der
Spiegel also reported that the NSA installed bugs in the European
Union's office building in Washington and infiltrated the EU's computer
network.
The United Nations lodged objections. U.N. spokesman
Farhan Haq said in August that international treaties protect U.N.
offices and all diplomatic missions from interference, spying and
eavesdropping.
"The inviolability of diplomatic missions,
including the United Nations, has been well-established in international
law, and therefore all states are expected to act accordingly," Nesirky
said Wednesday.
The 1961 Vienna Convention regulates
diplomatic issues and status among nations and international
organizations. Among other things, it says a host country cannot search
diplomatic premises or seize its documents or property. It also says the
host government must permit and protect free communication between the
diplomats of the mission and their home country.
However, wiretapping and eavesdropping have been used for decades, most dramatically between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. NEWS TWO
Pakistan still supports terror operations in India: US expert
WASHINGTON: Pakistan continues to support terror operations in India even after Nawaz Sharif has taken over as the new Prime Minister, a former top Pentagon official and an eminent defence analyst has told the US Congress.
"They support terror operations in India with terrorist organisations. They support the Haqqani network and the Taliban in conducting operations against the United States and Nato and Afghanistan. They've got blood all over their hands with the casualties," General (Retd) Jack Keane said yesterday.
Currently the chairman of the board of top US thinktank, Institute for the Study of War, Keane said during a Congressional hearing that he does not expect much from the current regime.
"This is a regime that is dominated by its military, who puts its
military self above the state. We've got a weak civilian government,
fundamentally corrupt. The economy is in the tank. We've got a raging insurgency. We've got an escalating nuclear power," Keane said.
Stating that terrorist safe-havens is a big issue, Keane recommended that US forces be permitted to target Haqqani network inside Pakistan.
"My recommendation to mitigate that risk is to permit targeting of the
Haqqani network in those sanctuaries in Pakistan, and then you bring
down Haqqani's operational network and certainly raise the morale of the ANSF forces to the point where they think they have a chance," he said.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said for Afghanistan to achieve security and stability, Pakistan is going to have to play a stronger and more positive role.
"Extremist groups like the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Haqqani network
have used areas in the Pakistan border as insurgent sanctuaries to
conduct militant operations inside Afghanistan, without much resistance
from the Pakistani intelligence and military forces, if not outright
collaboration," she said.
"Because Pakistan is vital in
establishing stability in the region, we must work with the government,
but we must not continue to give billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan
and hope and pray and wish that the prime minister will work with us. We
must ensure that Pakistan is meeting certain benchmarks in its fight
against these insurgent sanctuaries within its borders, or else Pakistan
should not receive further US funding," the Congresswoman said.
"They support terror operations in India with terrorist organisations. They support the Haqqani network and the Taliban in conducting operations against the United States and Nato and Afghanistan. They've got blood all over their hands with the casualties," General (Retd) Jack Keane said yesterday.
Currently the chairman of the board of top US thinktank, Institute for the Study of War, Keane said during a Congressional hearing that he does not expect much from the current regime.
"This is a regime that is dominated by its military, who puts its military self above the state. We've got a weak civilian government, fundamentally corrupt. The economy is in the tank. We've got a raging insurgency. We've got an escalating nuclear power," Keane said.
Stating that terrorist safe-havens is a big issue, Keane recommended that US forces be permitted to target Haqqani network inside Pakistan.
"My recommendation to mitigate that risk is to permit targeting of the Haqqani network in those sanctuaries in Pakistan, and then you bring down Haqqani's operational network and certainly raise the morale of the ANSF forces to the point where they think they have a chance," he said.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said for Afghanistan to achieve security and stability, Pakistan is going to have to play a stronger and more positive role.
"Extremist groups like the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Haqqani network have used areas in the Pakistan border as insurgent sanctuaries to conduct militant operations inside Afghanistan, without much resistance from the Pakistani intelligence and military forces, if not outright collaboration," she said.
"Because Pakistan is vital in establishing stability in the region, we must work with the government, but we must not continue to give billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan and hope and pray and wish that the prime minister will work with us. We must ensure that Pakistan is meeting certain benchmarks in its fight against these insurgent sanctuaries within its borders, or else Pakistan should not receive further US funding," the Congresswoman said.
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