Easter 2014: Amid celebrations, tension in Jerusalem and prayers in Boston

Christians celebrated Easter around the world Sunday, but with reminders of violence and politics.

In his second Easter message since becoming pontiff, Pope Francis prayed for an end to conflicts in Iraq, Israel, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Venezuela and Ukraine.

He delivered his speech from the central balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica.

"We pray in a particular way for Syria, that all those suffering the effects of the conflict can receive needed humanitarian aid and that neither side will again use deadly force, especially against the defenseless civil population, but instead boldly negotiate the peace long awaited and long overdue," the pope said.

Jerusalem: Tight security

Security was tight in Jerusalem on Sunday, a day afater tensions escalated when Israeli security forces halted Palestinian Christians who took part in a pre-Easter procession in the Old City.

Robert Serry, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, was among the group trying to walk together on what was Holy Saturday.

"I call on all parties to respect the right of religious freedom, granting access to holy sites for worshippers of all faiths and refraining from provocations, not least during the religious holidays," Serry said.

But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor called the incident a "non-event." He told the Jerusalem Post that police were trying to limit the number of those packed into the church and the narrow streets around it.

Boston: A blessing before the marathon

In the United States, Cardinal Sean O'Malley will offer a blessing for runners in the Boston Marathon at the end of Easter Sunday Mass at the Cathedral, CNN affiliate WJAR-TV said.

Though an annual part of the race buildup, the Cardinal's blessing will have extra meaning this year. The city is marking the one-year anniversary of the bombings that killed three people and wounded at least 264 others.

This year's marathon is Monday. Other Boston churches will offer special blessings.

British royals, Obama celebrate Easter

Queen Elizabeth II will attend Easter Mass at St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge continue their tour of Australia.

President Obama wished the American people a happy Easter on Saturday in his weekly address.

"For me, Easter is a story of hope -- a belief in a better day to come, just around the bend," he said. "So to all Christians who are celebrating, from my family to yours, Happy Easter. And to every American, have a joyful weekend."

He celebrated Passover earlier this week with the fifth Seder at the White House. Obama is the first president to host a Seder dinner while in office.

South Korea ferry disaster: Families protest over rescue operation

 

Angry and frustrated over both the search and rescue operation and the flow of information from South Korean authorities, dozens of relatives of missing ferry passengers intending to march in protest to Seoul were blocked by police from leaving Jindo.

Early Sunday around 2 a.m, the family members left their temporary shelter at an indoor gym and demanded they be able to go to the Blue House -- the official residence of the South Korean President Park Geun-hye -- to present their complaints. 

The residence is located in the capital, Seoul -- some 275 miles north of Jindo. 

Jindo is the port city where the search, rescue and recovery operation has been based since the ferry, carrying 476 passengers, capsized and sank on Wednesday. Hundreds of passengers remain unaccounted for.

A police cordon prevented the planned march from proceeding, witnesses said. A few scuffles broke out but no one was reported hurt.

"We are not getting any help, so we want to go to the Blue House,' said Nam Sa Hyun, an older sister of a student who is missing from the ferry. "We want to tell the president about our situation." 

"For four days, there is no help. Right now, nobody is giving information on the missing. Our children are in the boat and there is no plan."

Though the police were not aggressive to the protesting families, Nam questioned why there were so many officers at the site of anguished relatives. 

"They're not letting us get on the bus, the police are blocking us," she said. "They're not helping us, they're just blocking us."

Several families stayed in the street, attempting to break through police lines in their march. Some families lay down on the ground, sleeping outside in the cold to express their displeasure. 

In a video sent to CNN, angry parents yelled at officials who were trying to convince the families to go back to the gym, which serves as a temporary shelter for families.

"I can't believe them," a woman shouted at the official who was urging them to return.

"Let's go on our way. Why do we sit here and listen to them?'

Mario Balotelli shows off his new haircut

AC Milan striker Mario Balotelli took to Twitter on Monday night to show off his new haircut. The 23 year old forward is now sporting a mohawk with asymmetrical patterns. "Just finished my hair cut! Now going home to sleep!' and 'Amos! Best barber! ;-)" He tweeted. Who likes the new hair cut?

Obama Praises CVS For Pulling Tobacco Products From Store

 

President Barack Obama is praising CVS Caremark for its decision to stop selling tobacco products at its drugstores.


Obama says CVS is setting a "powerful example," and says the decision will help his administration's efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths and disease and bring down health care costs.


Obama is a former cigarette smoker. First lady Michelle Obama said in 2011 that her husband had finally kicked the habit.


CVS Caremark, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain, said Wednesday that it will phase out cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco by Oct. 1, a move that will cost it about $2 billion in annual revenue.

Obama, in a statement released Wednesday by the White House, says CVS new policy "will have a profoundly positive impact on the health of our country."

ECOWAS Court Halts Execution of Edo Death Row Inmate

 

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Community Court of Justice has ordered the federal government and the Edo State Government to take Mr. Thankgod Ebhos’s name off the death row.

Ebhos, who has faced imminent threat of execution since June 24, 2013 when he was taken to the gallows alongside four other inmates who were executed in Benin Prison, had been on death row for 18 years.

Apprehension of his transfer to another prison for the purpose of execution had been lurking since then.

Avocats Sans Frontières France, in a bid to preclude further executions in the state, had instituted an action against the federal and state governments at the ECOWAS Court of Justice on Ebhos’ behalf.

An application was filed by Avocats Sans Frontières France, seeking an interim injunction restraining the respondents from executing Ebhos pending the hearing and determination of the substantive matter before the court.

The court established proof of desire to appeal on the part of the convict and stated that in the light of such a desire, any move to enforce the death sentence would be a violation of article (4) of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights which states that if a convict is executed without exhausting the avenues for appeal, it constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of the right to life.

Furthermore, the court held that the application satisfied the court in line with article 20 of the protocol of the court and article 79 of the laws of the procedures of the court.

“Whereas a conviction and sentence hanging on the second plaintiff when his intention to appeal against the conviction and sentence is in the court’s estimation an extreme gravity and urgency and to avoid irreparable damage to the second plaintiff, the court shall grant interim measure or injunction by ordering that the defendant shall suspend the death sentence until the case before the court is determined,” the court stated.

The court further ordered that his name be removed from death row, pending the determination of the substantive matter before it.

Reacting to the ruling, Head of Office of Avocats Sans Frontières France, Angela Uwandu, expressed immense satisfaction and reiterated the commitment of ASF France to ensuring that rights of detainees and convicts are upheld.

Saudi Arabia beheads drug smuggler, murderer

Saudi authorities on Wednesday beheaded a Pakistani for smuggling drugs and a national for killing a compatriot, the interior ministry said, bringing the number of executions in the kingdom this year to nine.

Mohammed Asharaf Ramadan was caught attempting to smuggle into the kingdom an amount of heroin that he swallowed, the ministry said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

He was executed in Riyadh.

In another case, Saudi national Turki Ahmed al-Salami, was executed in the southwestern Asir region after he was convicted of shooting dead Salman Subaykhi, the ministry said in a separate statement.

Saudi Arabia beheaded 78 people in 2013, according to an AFP count.

Last year, the UN High Commission for Human Rights denounced a “sharp increase in the use of capital punishment” since 2011 in the kingdom.

According to figures from Amnesty International, the number of executions in Saudi Arabia jumped from 27 in 2010, of whom five were foreigners, to 82 in 2011, including 28 foreigners.

In 2012, the number of executions slipped slightly to 79 people, among them 27 foreign nationals.

Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under the conservative kingdom’s strict version of Islamic sharia law.

Apple could pay up to $840 million over e-book conspiracy

Apple’s shady e-books deal with publishers could see the world’s largest technology company pay up to $840 million in damages, in a case of the State attorneys and consumers versus Apple.

The state attorneys and consumers who sued Apple over its e-book pricing are asking for $280 million and want the amount tripled, according to a filing by their lawyer with the federal judge in Manhattan who presided over the U.S. case against Apple.

 The plaintiffs think that Apple has been proven guilty of this offence and they’re entitled to triple damages under the antitrust law.

It was revealed in 2012 that Apple had signed agreements with publishers to sell their e-books under the agency model. The agency model allows publishers to set the price of e-books instead of retailers. Apple will in turn get 30% of sales of the e-books.

After the trial in 2013, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote concluded that “the publisher defendants conspired with each other to eliminate retail price competition in order to raise e-book prices, and that Apple played a central role in facilitating and executing that conspiracy.”

Apple appealed the trial and there will be another trial this year. This ‘small’ amount of money is only 0.5% of $158.8 billion in cash that Apple reported it had as at the end of 2013.

Philip Seymour Hoffman Dies of Apparent Drug Overdose

Cast member Philip Seymour Hoffman poses at the premiere of the film "A Most Wanted Man" during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in Park City

One of the leading actors of his time - Philip Seymour Hoffman - is found dead at his New York City apartment at age 46.

A police source said Hoffman - who won an Academy award in 2005 - died of an apparent drug overdose.

A police spokesman said the actor was found Sunday with a syringe in his arm and two small plastic bags containing suspected heroin also were recovered at his West Village apartment. An investigation is ongoing.

Hoffman - had spoke of past substance abuse problems - and was born in Fairport, New York - outside of Rochester.

He won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of writer Truman Capote in the biographical film “Capote” and received Academy Award nominations as best supporting actor in “The Master” in 2013, “Doubt” in 2009 and “Charlie Wilson's War” in 2008.

He burst onto the film scene in 1997's “Boogie Nights” and recently appeared in the blockbuster series, “The Hunger Games.”

Hoffman also often appeared on Broadway - earning three Tony award nominations - and in independent films.

Last month, Hoffman appeared at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah for the premiere of the thriller “A Most Wanted Man.”

He spoke to Reuters about playing Gunther Bachmann - a German spy.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, said, "I connected a lot of it, you know, I think it would be hard for anyone not to kind of connect with the loneliness, he is pretty lonely, he's a very driven, obsessive guy, you know, he's not unforgiving, of himself in a lot of ways, and there's a lot of people carry in one way or another."

Hoffman is survived by three children and his partner Mimi O'Donnell.

Officials: Convicted murderer escapes Mich. prison

A convicted murderer serving life behind bars in Michigan for four 1993 slayings is at large after he escaped from prison and apparently abducted a woman who fled his grips when he stopped for gas in Indiana, authorities said Monday.

Michael David Elliot, 40, was discovered missing about 9:30 p.m. Sunday from the Ionia Correctional Facility in mid-Michigan, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan said in an email.
"It appears that he created a hole at the bottom of the two perimeter fences of the correctional facility and then crawled through those holes," Marlan said.

Elliot apparently abducted a woman from Ionia using a knife or box cutter and drove to Elkhart, Ind., roughly 100 miles southwest of Ionia near the Indiana-Michigan state line. The woman escaped when they stopped at a gas station, and she called police, Marlan said. He provided no information about the condition or identity of the woman, nor if she had any previous connection to Elliot.

Elliot left the gas station and was at large Monday morning, Marlan said. MDOC did not release information about where Elliot might be heading or if he has out-of-state connections. He was serving life sentences for first-degree murder and has convictions for arson and armed robbery.

"Citizens should immediately call 911 if they observe anything suspicious or possibly become aware of the whereabouts of ... Elliot," Marlan said in the email.

Officers from the Michigan Department of Corrections, Michigan State Police and other law enforcement agencies are involved in the hunt for Elliot.

An emergency count was conducted at the Ionia Correctional Facility and all other prisoners have been accounted for, Marlan said.

Beyonce to be studied in the University

Queen Bee has joined other celebrities including Oprah and husband Jay Z, (who has a Georgetown University sociology course named after him), who are studied in the University. The course is called Politicizing Beyonce and can be taken at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies will be exploring the social & cultural significance of the songstress’s music and image.

The course will allow fans to explore Beyonce's alter ego Sasha Fierce, and debate the extent of control she has over her own image. They will also debate whether her red hot persona is an outlet of female sexual empowerment or merely complying with western gender stereotypes.

"This isn’t a course about Beyonce’s political engagement or how many times she performed during President Obama’s inauguration weekend. She certainly pushes boundaries. While other artists are simply releasing music, she’s creating a grand narrative around her life, her career, and her persona.’ Kevin Allred, the person in charge of the course at Rutgers University said