A roundup of today's other world news in brief
Police smashed driver’s (70) car window
WALES – Two police officers were taken off operational duty after a 70-year-old man, who drove away when he was stopped for not wearing a seatbelt complained they smashed his car window and kicked his windscreen.
One officer repeatedly hit the driver-side window of Robert Clive Whatley’s Range Rover with a baton while another stood on the bonnet. The court heard Mr Whatley drove away because he thought he had been dealt with and needed his medication for a heart condition and a stroke, the Western Mail reported.
Footage of the incident, filmed from the police car, shows an officer running towards Mr Whatley’s car and breaking the window when it stops on a country road. – (PA)
US Senate approves Kagan appointment to supreme court
WASHINGTON – US president Barack Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the supreme court won Senate approval yesterday, his second appointment to the court that decides abortion, death penalty and other contentious cases.
The Democratic-led Senate voted largely along party lines, 63-37, to confirm the former Harvard law school dean as the fourth female supreme court justice in US history and the 112th high court member.
Ms Kagan (50) was Mr Obama’s solicitor general, arguing government cases before the supreme court, when he named her in May as his choice to replace the retiring liberal justice John Paul Stevens. Ms Kagan, who will be the third woman on the current court, is not expected to change the ideological balance of power on the closely divided panel, which for years has been dominated by a 5-4 conservative majority.
All Democratic senators but one voted for her, also two independent senators and five Republicans. All other Republican senators opposed her nomination. – (Reuters)
Germans mourn Kiev Nazi victims
KIEV - Around 200 Germans have arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to take part in actions aimed at apologising for the Nazis’ crimes in the second World War.
A mourning procession from the German city of Tubingen walked along the so-called “death road” to the monument near Babi Yar ravine in Kiev, the site of one of the most horrific chapters of the Holocaust. Processions by German people are also expected in 15 other cities in Ukraine tomorrow. More than 33,700 Jews were shot at the ravine over 48 hours, beginning on September 29th 1941. In the ensuing months, the ravine was filled with some 100,000 bodies, including non-Jews. One of the march participants, Anke Krüger, said: “I am a representative of a new generation that cannot keep silent any more.” – (AP)
Most Arabs view Obama negatively
WASHINGTON - A majority of people in the Arab world now hold a negative view of President Barack Obama and the United States in a substantial change from how he was seen at the start of his presidency, according to a public opinion poll released yesterday. Some 62 per cent hold a dim view of Mr Obama and the US compared with 20 per cent who view them in a positive light, according to the 2010 Arab Public Opinion Poll released by Washington-based think tank The Brookings Institution.
In a survey early in his presidency, only 23 per cent of respondents in six countries expressed a negative view of Mr Obama and the US, while 45 per cent were positive about the new administration. In the latest poll, 63 per cent said they were discouraged by Obamas Middle East policy. – (Reuters)