Turkey’s two major unions—which consist of roughly 800,000 workers—went on a one-day strike on Monday to show solidarity with the protesters who were evicted from Gezi Park on Saturday night. Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler denounced the strike as “illegal.” Sporadic clashes between police and protesters continued in Istanbul, where police violently removed protesters on Saturday night ahead of a rally in support of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At Sunday’s rally, Erdogan told hundreds of thousands that the two weeks of countrywide protests had been manipulated by “terrorists” and denied that he was behaving like a dictator. Meanwhile, the president of the Turkish medical association told the BBC that five doctors and three nurses had disappeared since treating the protesters.
The Turkish deputy prime minister has said that the army could be deployed to halt protests that have swept the nation over the past two weeks.
Bulent Arinc on Monday said the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) could be pressed into action if the police failed to restore order.
"What is required of us is to stop if there is a protest against the law. Here is the police, if not enough gendarme, if not TSK," he said in a televised interview to the A Haber channel.
The threat came as members of two union federations in Turkey went on a one-day strike over the forced evictions of protesters from Istanbul's Gezi Park a day earlier.
Labour groups representing doctors, engineers and dentists are also said to have joined the strike on Monday. The striking groups represent about 800,000 workers.
The Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Guler said the strike was "illegal" and warned of police action.
The call for the strike came as police and protesters clashed sporadically in Istanbul overnight following a weekend of scuffles in the city.
Riot police, some in plain clothes and carrying batons, backed by a helicopter, fired teargas and chased groups of rock-throwing youths into side streets around the iconic Taksim Square and Gezi Park late on Sunday night, trying to prevent them from regrouping.
Turkish police used tear gas and water cannons to clear protestors from Istanbul's Taksim Square and Gezi Park on Saturday. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had issued a warning to the group earlier in the day to leave or face expulsion, saying "If it is not emptied, from now on, this country's security forces will know how to empty that place." The protesters ignored the threat, countering that none of their demands had been fulfilled. The PM has pledged to hold a vote on whether to redevelop the park where the protests started, instead of making an executive decision, but apparently it was too little, too late. Since the unrest started, there have been four deaths and around 5,000 people injured.
"Thousands of peaceful protesters, choking on the fumes and stumbling among the tents, put up little physical resistance, even as plain-clothes police manhandled many to drive them from the park. Just moments before, the park had been full of protesters young and old, as well as families with children.
Many ran into nearby hotels for shelter. A stand-off developed at one hotel on the edge of the park, where police opened up with water cannon against protesters and journalists outside before throwing tear gas at the entrance, filing the lobby with white smoke. At other hotels, plain-clothes policemen turned up outside, demanding the protesters come out.
Some protesters ran off into nearby streets, setting up makeshift barricades and running from water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets into the early hours of Sunday. Plumes of white tear gas rose from the streets.
As news of the raid broke, thousands of people from other parts of Istanbul gathered and were attempting to reach Taksim. Television showed footage of riot police firing tear gas on a highway and bridge across the Bosphorus to prevent protesters from heading to the area."
Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest movements, told The Associated Press by phone, "Let them keep the park, we don't care anymore. Let it all be theirs. This crackdown has to stop. The people are in a terrible state."
(Reuters) - Thousands of people took to the streets of Istanbul overnight on Sunday, erecting barricades and starting bonfires, after riot police firing teargas and water cannon stormed a park at the center of two weeks of anti-government unrest.
Lines of police backed by armored vehicles sealed off Taksim Square in the center of the city as officers raided the adjoining Gezi Park late on Saturday, where protesters had been camped in a ramshackle settlement of tents.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had warned hours earlier that security forces would clear the square, the center of more than two weeks of fierce anti-government protests that spread to cities across the country, unless the demonstrators withdrew before a ruling party rally in Istanbul on Sunday.
"We have our Istanbul rally tomorrow. I say it clearly: Taksim Square must be evacuated, otherwise this country's security forces know how to evacuate it," he told tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters at a rally in Ankara.
Protesters took to the streets in several neighborhoods across Istanbul following the raid on Gezi Park, ripping up metal fences, paving stones and advertising hoardings to build barricades and lighting bonfires of trash in the streets.
Some chanted, "Tayyip, resign."
Local television footage showed groups of demonstrators blocking a main highway to Ataturk airport on the western edge of the city, while to the east, several hundred walked towards a main bridge crossing the Bosphorus waterway towards Taksim.
Officials say that an inspector who checked a Philadelphia building prior to its collapse last week has committed suicide. The Department of Licenses and Inspections employee was found shot in a pickup truck. He had inspected the building about a month before it crumbled—during a controlled demolition—but then the building fell on a Salvation Army next door, killing six people. A crane operator is charged with involuntary manslaughter.
"The building was being demolished when it collapsed onto a neighboring Salvation Army Thrift Store on June 5, killing two employees and four customers. Police allege a heavy equipment operator was high on marijuana when it happened.
The city's top prosecutor is convening a grand jury to look into the collapse."
The inspector, Ronald Wagenhoffer, was the last city official to check on construction at the doomed building and found no violations during his inspection on May 14.
A morning explosion and fire at a Louisiana chemical plant Thursday killed one person and injured dozens more, Gov. Bobby Jindal said.
The explosion took place at Williams Chemical Plant in Ascension Parish, Louisiana State Police said, and a fire after the explosion was contained and extinguished later in the day.
Seventy-three people were taken to local hospitals, and a total of 300 workers evacuated, Jindal said. He said 10 people remained in a safe room at the plant.
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CNN reports that emergency crews responded to an explosion at a chemical plant in Louisiana Thursday morning.
The blast and resulting fire occurred at the Williams Olefins facility in Geismar, causing multiple injuries, and forcing authorities to evacuate the area around the facility.
"The Geismar, La. facility annually produces approximately 1.3 billion pounds of ethylene and 90 million pounds of polymer grade propylene. Also in Louisiana, the olefins team is responsible for the ethane transportation business consisting of approximately 200 miles of pipelines, as well as a refinery-grade propylene splitter."
WAFB reported that residents in St. Gabriel, a nearby community, were being asked to shelter in place as a precaution.
UPDATE:Six deaths have been confirmed, and a 61-year-old woman was recovered alive late last night.
A building collapsed in downtown Philadelphia, and authorities say as many as 10 people may be buried in the rubble. At least a dozen people have been rescued so far, eyewitnesses tell NBC, with at least two being taken away in stretchers. Rescue teams are frantically searching through debris. The neighboring four-story building was under demolition, according to fire officials. Market Street is closed from 20th to 23rd while paramedics and fire crews search the area.
A building in downtown Philadelphia has collapsed and authorities have rescued twelve people and believe at least two remain trapped beneath the rubble and a frantic search continues to locate them.
“I was parked on 21st just heading to Market Street, next thing you know it felt like an earthquake," said Bernie Ditomo, a truck driver with Belfi Brothers. "I said, 'What the hell is going on?' My truck is totaled. I am a little dusty and dirty, but I’m alright. I am one of the lucky ones.”
The collapse at 2140 Market Street happened around 10:40 a.m., and early reports from Philadelphia Police indicate that it may be the results of an industrial accident as construction crews were working on nearby structures.
A neighborhood message board reports that one of the victims was a young woman who got engaged last week. It was her first day of work at the Salvation Army.
A Reddit reader reported that he'd made a complaint to the city's 311 call center on Tuesday to report unsafe conditions at the demo site, but the city didn't check into it because he didn't know the property's exact address. He contacted the center again after the collapse, saying they didn't stop that tragedy but that similar conditions existed at another nearby demolition site.
The intake worker's response? They needed the exact address.
The video below shows demolition work on the building Sunday afternoon:
At least seven people were injured Tuesday after an explosion on a college campus north of New York City.
Rockland Fire and Emergency Services coordinator Gordon Wren Jr. tells Fox News the explosion blew out windows and doors in a two-story building at Nyack College.
Wren says seven people were injured in the blast, including one woman who fell from a window and was taken to the hospital. None of the injuries appeared to be life-threatening. Some people were trapped after the explosion, but have since been freed.
The explosion at Nyack College happened just before noon. A spokesman for the Rockland County executive's office says county fire departments are responding.
"There's a lot of people hurt," South Nyack Mayor Bonnie Christian said after arriving at the scene. "There's a lot of people injured. We got ambulances up here galore."
The college sent out a tweet saying that "Everyone is doing ok."
Authorities say there's a gas leak at the building, but it's unclear if it caused the explosion or if the explosion caused the leak. The explosion sparked a fire in the building, which was surpressed by the sprinkler system.
Nyack College is a Christian college about 25 miles north of New York City. The explosion appears to have occurred inside the two-story Sky Island Lodge building at 177 South Hyland Ave.
Sky Island Lodge was built as a 30 room mansion in the 1930s, according to the Nyack Villager. From 1939 to 1945, the mansion was used for people displaced by the war in Germany.
Anti-capitalist demonstrators from the Blockupy movement paralysed Germany's financial center on Friday, cutting off access to the European Central Bank and Deutsche Bank's headquarters.
Police estimated 1,500 protesters (Blockupy says there were 3,000) against Europe's austerity policies arrived in Frankfurt's financial district on Friday to disrupt business at banking institutions they say are to blame for the deep recession in euro zone countries, such as Spain and Greece.
"Riot police, showered with stones and paint bombs, used pepper spray to prevent the protesters breaking into the ECB. Several protesters were injured and police made some arrests, though they gave no numbers.
"The aim of this blockade is to prevent normal operations at the ECB," said Blockupy spokesman Martin Sommer, adding that some people who had tried to come to work had been sent home by the protesters.
A suburb near Oklahoma City was ravaged by a tornado Monday that some estimates put at nearly a mile wide (some onlookers put that size at closer to two miles) and that witnesses say more closely resembled a giant black wall of destruction than a typical twister. The tornado, which struck the community of Moore, was “ripping apart homes” and devastating everything in its path, according to CNN. Entire blocks of homes were destroyed, as well as several schools. A local news station, KFOR, said it was likely the most destructive tornado ever. The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the Oklahoma City area, where more tornadoes could touch down. It’s the second day in a row of severe tornadoes in Oklahoma.
A monstrous tornado at least a half-mile wide roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs Monday, flattening entire neighborhoods with winds up to 200 mph, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school. At least 37 people were reported killed.
The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, south of the city. Block after block of the community lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.
The National Weather Service issued an initial finding that the tornado was an EF-4 on the enhanced Fujita scale, the second most-powerful type of twister.
Authorities expected the death toll to rise as emergency crews moved deeper into the hardest-hit areas. At least 60 people were reported hurt, including more than a dozen children.
Rescuers mounted a desperate rescue effort at the school, pulling children from heaps of debris and carrying them to a triage center.
The same tornado that struck the city of Moore, OK ravaged not just one, but two local elementary schools, delivering a “direct hit” on Briarwood Elementary School, in particular, according to local officials. At nearby Plaza Towers Elementary School, students from grade 4-6 were moved to a nearby building before the tornado arrived and are reportedly all accounted, but grades K-3 were still in the building. As many as 75 children may have been in the school when the storm arrived. "Students were told to go into the hallways and they were literally hugging the walls; teachers laying on top of kids,” said one KFOR reporter. The station reports that the bodies of seven children have been recovered and 20-30 more children are believed to still be inside the building. Rescue teams don't expect to find more survivors. So far, the AP reports that at least 37 are confirmed dead because of the tornado.
444 E. Britton Rd.
Oklahoma City, OK 73114 NO CLOTHES PLEASE
Donate: Text “storm” to 80888 to make a $10 donation.
- The Red Cross said the best way to assist families is to make a donation to www.redcross.org/okc or www.redcross.org or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
At least 54 people were killed and over 100 more injured on Monday in a series of bomb blasts throughout Iraq, the latest in a series of escalating attacks linked to political and sectarian tension. Most of the dead were in Baghdad, where eight separate explosions rocked the capital, hitting bus stations and markets mainly in Shia areas of the capital. No group has taken responsibility for the bombings yet. Monday’s blasts come just one day after 10 police officers were reportedly killed in the northwest, and on Friday, at least 60 people were killed in three separate bombings in Sunni Muslim areas in and around Baghdad.
"Washing the blood off the streets - the clear-up begins after another deadly day of violence in Iraq. Here in Basra, a predominantly Shi'ite oil hub in the south, at least 11 people were killed when two car bombs exploded. One was detonated near a busy market and restaurants while the other went off in a bus terminal."
