Tag: sheds

Pezzola testimony sheds light on a lingering Jan. 6 mystery — and a critical lie

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It seemed at the time to be smoking-gun evidence linking the Proud Boys to the earliest moments of violence on Jan. 6. But Pezzola now says he wasn’t telling the truth.
On Thursday, on the witness stand in his seditious conspiracy trial — alongside Biggs and three other Proud Boys leaders — Pezzola acknowledged he lied to the FBI about that episode, claiming he believed it would persuade investigators to relax the harsh conditions of his pretrial detention.
“I basically felt like my conditions at the jail wouldn’t improve unless I gave them more,” Pezzola said under questioning from his attorney Steven Metcalf.
The brief exchange between Biggs and Samsel, captured on widely circulated video of the earliest moments of the riot, has been the subject of intense scrutiny because of the role Samsel played in setting off the melee along with Biggs’ leadership role in the Proud Boys. It remains unclear what the two said to each other.
Pezzola said he was initially incarcerated in Washington, D.C., in a cell immediately next to Samsel, who he said told him that Biggs had goaded him to attack the police line. Pezzola said he knew it was false but relayed the story to the FBI anyway, hoping they would relax his conditions of confinement, which were particularly harsh amid the Covid pandemic. (Samsel is slated to go on trial later this year for his role in the events of Jan. 6.)
In the version of events that Pezzola told the FBI during the March interview, he witnessed Proud Boys harassing a boy wearing a “Black Lives Matter” shirt just before Biggs had his exchange with Samsel. He told investigators “Mr. Biggs told Samsel that if he wasn’t antifa, he should prove it by pushing down the barricades,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Kenerson indicated when he grilled Pezzola about the episode.
Prosecutors agreed that they had no evidence Biggs possessed a gun on Jan. 6 but pointed to the episode to underscore Pezzola’s lies to authorities — which they say undercut his attempts to portray himself as honest and honorable. Pezzola said he retracted the story during a third meeting with the FBI while the bureau was still seeking to gain his cooperation.
The New York Times first reported the dispute about Samsel’s account of the episode in October 2021, but Pezzola’s involvement in the matter was newly disclosed this week.

The exchange about the Samsel episode kicked off a contentious turn for Pezzola on the witness stand. Pezzola spent Tuesday and Wednesday, under questioning from Metcalf, expressing contrition about aspects of his conduct at the Capitol — from his decision to smash the window to a celebratory selfie video he shot inside the Capitol while smoking a cigar.
He repeatedly sniped at prosecutors, accusing them of lodging “fake charges” against him and bringing him to a “corrupt trial.”
“You’re just twisting my words, Mr. Kenerson,” he said at one point during the questioning.
Pezzola leveled conspiracy theories, repeatedly attempting to work in mentions of Ray Epps, a former Oath Keeper from Arizona who has become the subject of Trump allies’ false claims that he acted as a government operative. (Epps was visible in several videos nearby Pezzola and other Proud Boys leaders.)
After several references, Kenerson pressed Pezzola on the point.
“Mr. Pezzola, you have absolutely no evidence that Ray Epps is a government informant, do you?” Kenerson said.
“I’ve seen no evidence that he isn’t,” Pezzola replied.
Kenerson spent hours undercutting Pezzola’s claims that he spent most of his time at the Capitol spontaneously reacting to “police brutality” and attempting to protect himself and others from unjustified force. The prosecutor pressed Pezzola on how he was able to judge that the efforts by outnumbered police to control the crowd were unjustified, and Pezzola repeatedly acknowledged he had no expertise in the munitions that were used or how police chose to deploy them.
Pezzola also repeatedly quibbled with Kenerson about whether his attempt to rip a riot shield away from an officer who had waded into the crowd was really an attempt to “take possession” of it. Rather, Pezzola said he merely wanted it to protect himself from a hail of rubber bullets and flash bangs that he said agitated the crowd.
But Kenerson challenged Pezzola on these points, noting that in all the video, there are no images of him using the shield to cover his face or head. He posed for a photo with it before rushing with the mob to the base of the Capitol and using it to smash a window.
Pezzola returned the shield to an officer as he exited the Capitol about 20 minutes after he went inside, stopping to blow a smoke ring in the general direction of police after they took it from him, Kenerson noted.
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#Pezzola #testimony #sheds #light #lingering #Jan #mystery #critical #lie
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 21, 2023
JK’s MLA Hostel Sheds Prison Tag

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SRINAGAR: The administration of Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory has removed the prison tag from MLA hostel Srinagar, where Kashmir’s mainstream leaders were lodged after their detention in 2019.
The UT’s Home department has de-notified MLA hostel Srinagar as subsidiary jail. It was still a prison on papers.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (b) of Section 2 of the Prisoners Act, 1900(Act. No 10 of 1987, the building with the premises declared and notified as “subsidiary jail” vide notification S.0. 09 dated 14.11.2019 is hereby de-notified with immediate effect,” reads a notification issued by the Home department.
On November 14, 2019, 34 mainstream leader’s including Peoples Conference president Sajad Gani Lone, bureaucrat-turned-politician Shah Faesal and NC general secretary Ali Muhammad Sagar were lodged in MLA hostel.
They were shifted to MLA hostel due to escalating cost of their lodging at SKICC. Three days before their shifting, on November 14, 2019, the MLA hostel was notified as a subsidiary jail under the Prisoners Act-1900 which became applicable to J&K from October 31, 2019.
Hilal Akbar Lone, son of NC MP Muhammad Akbar Lone was the last person released from MLA hostel in March 2021. (KNO)

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#JKs #MLA #Hostel #Sheds #Prison #Tag

( With inputs from : kashmirlife.net )

March 29, 2023
Telangana government sanctions 2,676 sheds to street vendors under Pattana Pragati

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Hyderabad: The state government has identified 618 vending zones and sanctioned 2,676 sheds to street vendors under the Pattana Pragati welfare scheme.
According to a survey conducted by the state, 4.24 percent of the urban population, that is, 6,22,476 people were found to be street vendors.
The sheds are set to create facility centers for local consumers and street vendors which will also ease the flow of traffic. The works for 1,294 sheds have been completed and another 1,382 are in progress, said a press note on Monday
Out of a total interest subsidy of Rs 66.56 crores being provided across the country the vendors across the state received about Rs 9.26 crores and out of the total Rs 23 crore cash incentives being given across the country, Telangana street vendors received Rs 4.56 crores.
Telangana has stood first in granting the first installment to the vendors, with Rs 10,000 distributed per person. The state has disbursed Rs 351.46 crores of a loan amount to 3,51,467 street vendors where as the target was to reach 3,40,000 street vendors.
Government sanctioned Rs 242.62 crore, Rs 20,000 per vendor to 1,21,672 street vendors in the distribution of its second installment of loans. Telangana provided loans to 2,214 people in the third installment, Rs 50,000 per vendor.
A total of 18,02,284 women registered as members in 1,77,503 Self Help Groups (SHG) in 143 municipalities including the Cantonment area.
A total of 26,016 urban SHGs are provided a bank linkage of Rs 2,083 crores, which exceeded the target of Rs 1,745 crores for the year 2022-23. Bank linkage of Rs 2,429 crores was provided to 33,324 SHGs where as the target was set at Rs 1,507 crores for 2021-2022.

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#Telangana #government #sanctions #sheds #street #vendors #Pattana #Pragati
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 27, 2023
In from the coal: Australia sheds climate pariah status to make up with Europe

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Europe loves the Aussies again.
Australia was, until recently, an international pariah on climate change and a punchline in Brussels. But a new government in Canberra coupled with Europe’s energy and economic woes mean a better relationship is now emerging — one that could fuel Europe’s transition to a clean economy, while enriching Australia immensely.
“Europe is energy hungry and capital rich, Australia’s energy rich and capital hungry, and that means that there’s a lot that we can do together,” said Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.
A little over a year ago, relations between Australia and the EU were in a parlous state. The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had reneged on a nuclear submarine contract — a decision the current government stands by — incensing the French and by extension the EU. Equally as frustrating for many Europeans was Australia’s climate policy, which was viewed as outstandingly meager even in a lackluster global field.
The election of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — whose father was Italian — last May brought a change in tone, as well as a new climate target and a trickle of policies designed to cut greenhouse gas pollution that heats up the planet.
Those moves were “the entry ticket” to dealings with Europe, Bowen told POLITICO in Brussels, the second-last stop on a European tour. “Australia’s change of climate positioning, climate policy, has changed our position in the world.”
That’s been most notable in progress on talks on a free trade agreement with the EU. Landing that deal would be a “big step forward,” said Bowen. Particularly because when it comes to clean energy, Australia wants to sell and Europe wants to buy.
Using the vast sunny desert in its interior, Australia could be a “renewable energy superpower,” Bowen argued. Solar energy can be tapped to make green hydrogen and shipped to Europe, he said.

European governments are listening closely to the pitch. Bowen was in Rotterdam on Monday, inspecting the potential to use the Netherlands port as an entry for antipodean hydrogen. He signed a provisional deal with the Dutch government to that end. Last week, Bowen announced a series of joint investments with the German government in Australian hydrogen research projects worth €72 million.
It’s not just sun, Australia has tantalum and tungsten and a host of minerals Europe needs for building clean tech, but that it currently imports. In many cases those minerals are refined or otherwise processed in China, a dependency that Brussels is keen to rapidly unwind — not least with its Critical Raw Materials Act, expected in March.
According to a 2022 government report, Australia holds the second-largest global reserves of cobalt and lithium, from which batteries are made, and is No. 1 in zirconium, which is used to line nuclear reactors.
Asked whether Australia can ease Europe’s dependence on China, Bowen said: “We want to be a very strong factor in the supply chains. We’re a trusted, reliable trading partner. We have strong ethical supply chains. We have strong environmental standards.”
But Australia has its own entanglements.
Certain Australian minerals, notably lithium, are largely refined and manufactured in China. Bowen said he was keen on bringing at least some of that resource-intensive, polluting work back to Australia.
While its climate targets are now broadly in line with other rich nations, the rehabilitation of Australia’s climate image jars with its role as one of the biggest fossil fuel sellers on the planet.
Australia’s coal exports, when burned in overseas power plants, generate huge amounts of planet-warming pollution — almost double the amount produced annually by Australians within their borders. Australia is also the third-largest exporter of natural gas, including an increasing flow to the EU. At home, the government is facing calls from the Greens party and centrist climate independents to reject plans for more than 100 coal and gas developments around the country.
But how many of Bowen’s counterparts raised the issue of Australia’s emissions during his travels around Europe? “Nobody,” he said. “We are here to help.”
Antonia Zimmermann contributed reporting.

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#coal #Australia #sheds #climate #pariah #status #Europe
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 8, 2023
Hyderabad: HLF panel sheds light on sexism in Indian scientific research

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Hyderabad: The second day of the Hyderabad Literary Festival (HLF) conducted a panel on Women in Science moderated by veterinary scientist Dr Sagari Ramdas which invoked the sexism present in the scientific community in the country.
The panel hosted two scientists: Nasreen Ehtesham from the National Institute of Pathology and Immunologist Dr Vineeta Bal. Kickstarting the panel discussion, Dr Ramdas shed light on how only 14% of women are present in STEM research in India and the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISs) and Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) have only 12.72% of women. She further pointed out that the presence of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi women in scientific research is negligible owing to a wide range of divisive factors.
Dr Bal invoked the sexism present at the 108th Indian Science Congress (ISC) which was hostel by Nagpur University in the first week if January 2023. She mentioned kukum-haldi being offered to the delegates and stated that “the presence of patriarchal symbols was just another example of sexism wherein women scientists weren’t treated on par with men.”
The conference had hosted the presence of Prime Minister Narender Modi and saw controversial speeches made by Women’s Science Congress convenor Kalpana Pande and Union minister Nithin Gadkari’s wife Kanchan Gadkari.
Last year, Delhi High Court judge Pratiba M Singh had stated that Manusmrithi grants “very respectable position” to women at a panel titled “Facing the unseen barriers: Addressing challenges faced by Women in Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Mathematics (STEM).”
Dr Bal and Dr Ehtesham spoke about how lack of access to bathrooms, improper maternity leave and other institutional hindrances added to the lack of women in scientific research.
When asked about the current challenges younger women of science face, Dr Bal remarked that with the decline in a joint family system, women are compelled to stay at home to take of children as there isn’t enough familial or institutional assistance.
Further, when asked about the impact of #Metoo, the panelists mentioned that while we have come a long way, scientific community is still plagued with several cases of sexual harassment and aside from the setting up of an Internal Complaints Committee (ICC), most scientific institutions are unable to do much.

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#Hyderabad #HLF #panel #sheds #light #sexism #Indian #scientific #research
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

January 30, 2023