A relic from the Cold War appears to have triggered a software glitch at a major air traffic control center in California Wednesday that led to delays and cancellations of hundreds of flights across the country, sources familiar with the incident told NBC News.
On Wednesday at about 2 p.m., according to sources, a U-2 spy plane, the same type of aircraft that flew high-altitude spy missions over Russia 50 years ago, passed through the airspace monitored by the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale, Ca. The L.A. Center handles landings and departures at the region’s major airports, including Los Angeles International (LAX), San Diego and Las Vegas.
The computers at the L.A. Center are programmed to keep commercial airliners and other aircraft from colliding with each other. The U-2 was flying at 60,000 feet, but the computers were attempting to keep it from colliding with planes that were actually miles beneath it.
Though the exact technical causes are not known, the spy plane’s altitude and route apparently overloaded a computer system called ERAM, which generates display data for air-traffic controllers. Back-up computer systems also failed.
AP
A NASA ER-2 high altitude research aircraft is shown in flight on Nov. 4, 1997.
As a result, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had to stop accepting flights into airspace managed by the L.A. Center, issuing a nationwide ground stop that lasted for about an hour and affected thousands of passengers.
At LAX, one of the nation’s busiest airports, there were 27 cancellations of arriving flights, as well as 212 delays and 27 diversions to other airports. Twenty-three departing flights were cancelled, while 216 were delayed. There were also delays at the airports in Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario and Orange County and at other airports across the Southwestern U.S.
In a statement to NBC News, the FAA said that it was “investigating a flight-plan processing issue” at the L.A. Air Route Traffic Control Center, but did not elaborate on the reasons for the glitch and did not confirm that it was related to the U-2’s flight.
“FAA technical specialists resolved the specific issue that triggered the problem on Wednesday, and the FAA has put in place mitigation measures as engineers complete development of software changes,” said the agency in a statement. “The FAA will fully analyze the event to resolve any underlying issues that contributed to the incident and prevent a reoccurrence.”
Sources told NBC News that the plane was a U-2 with a Defense Department flight plan. “It was a ‘Dragon Lady,’” said one source, using the nickname for the plane. Edwards Air Force Base is 30 miles north of the L.A. Center. Both Edwards and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, which is located at Edwards, have been known to host U-2s and similar, successor aircraft.
Gary Hatch, spokesman for Edwards Air Force Base, would not comment on the Wednesday incident, but said, “There are no U-2 planes assigned to Edwards.”
A spokesperson for Dryden did not immediately return a call for comment.
Developed more than a half-century ago, the U-2 was once the workhorse of U.S. airborne surveillance and could fly higher and faster than any other military jet. The plane’s “operational ceiling” is 70,000 feet. In 1960, Francis Gary Powers was flying a U-2 for the CIA over the Soviet Union when he was shot down. He was held captive by the Russians for two years before being exchanged for a KGB colonel in U.S. custody. A second U.S. U-2 was shot down over Cuba in 1962, killing the pilot.
Tal Fortgang, a freshman at Princeton University, says he has been ordered to “check your privilege” by his “moral superiors” several times this year because he happens to be a white male. In a column in the Princeton Tory, Fortgang takes on the ideology he says ”assumes that simply because I belong to a certain ethnic group I should be judged collectively with it.”
Tal Fortgang, Princeton University
“There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. ‘Check your privilege,’ the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year,” the student writes. “The phrase, handed down by my moral superiors, descends recklessly, like an Obama-sanctioned drone, and aims laser-like at my pinkish-peach complexion, my maleness, and the nerve I displayed in offering an opinion rooted in a personal Weltanschauung.”
“‘Check your privilege,’ they tell me in a command that teeters between an imposition to actually explore how I got where I am, and a reminder that I ought to feel personally apologetic because white males seem to pull most of the strings in the world,” he continues.
Perhaps it’s the privilege my grandfather and his brother had to flee their home as teenagers when the Nazis invaded Poland, leaving their mother and five younger siblings behind, running and running until they reached a Displaced Persons camp in Siberia, where they would do years of hard labor in the bitter cold until World War II ended. Maybe it was the privilege my grandfather had of taking on the local Rabbi’s work in that DP camp, telling him that the spiritual leader shouldn’t do hard work, but should save his energy to pass Jewish tradition along to those who might survive. Perhaps it was the privilege my great-grandmother and those five great-aunts and uncles I never knew had of being shot into an open grave outside their hometown. Maybe that’s my privilege.
Or maybe it’s the privilege my grandmother had of spending weeks upon weeks on a death march through Polish forests in subzero temperatures, one of just a handful to survive, only to be put in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she would have died but for the Allied forces who liberated her and helped her regain her health when her weight dwindled to barely 80 pounds.
Perhaps my privilege is that those two resilient individuals came to America with no money and no English, obtained citizenship, learned the language and met each other; that my grandfather started a humble wicker basket business with nothing but long hours, an idea, and an iron will—to paraphrase the man I never met: “I escaped Hitler. Some business troubles are going to ruin me?” Maybe my privilege is that they worked hard enough to raise four children, and to send them to Jewish day school and eventually City College.
Perhaps it was my privilege that my own father worked hard enough in City College to earn a spot at a top graduate school, got a good job, and for 25 years got up well before the crack of dawn, sacrificing precious time he wanted to spend with those he valued most—his wife and kids—to earn that living. I can say with certainty there was no legacy involved in any of his accomplishments. The wicker business just isn’t that influential.Now would you say that we’ve been really privileged? That our success has been gift-wrapped?
The real problem with the notion of automatic “privilege,” he explains, is you have no idea what their struggles have really been or “what they may have gone through to be where they are.”
“Behind every success, large or small, there is a story, and it isn’t always told by sex or skin color. My appearance certainly doesn’t tell the whole story, and to assume that it does and that I should apologize for it is insulting,” Fortgang writes. “While I haven’t done everything for myself up to this point in my life, someone sacrificed themselves so that I can lead a better life. But that is a legacy I am proud of.”
“I have checked my privilege. And I apologize for nothing,” he concludes.
Fortgang is from New Rochelle, N.Y., and plans to major in either history or politics.
His column has received both praise and criticism. One commenter told Fortgang that as a “white male, you are most likely ignorant of the ingrained racism or sexism that lives in society today.”
“You want to play oppression olympics? What about the millions of blacks enslaved in America for 300 years, who then had to deal with segregation and Jim Crow while new immigrants were allowed to assimilate into white culture within one or 2 generations,” another wrote.
One commenter on the College Fix website replied, “From a black guy (although my pic doesn’t show it), good for him. And nicely said.”
House Democrats have overwhelmingly approved a Republican measure to force the Patrick administration to provide a total accounting of all taxpayer money used to salvage the broken Obamacare website and fund temporary health insurance coverage to Bay Staters.
“You can’t help but admit it’s a failure,” said House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones Jr. (R-North Reading). “It’s an abject failure that’s going to cost the taxpayers, whether it’s the commonwealth of Massachusetts or money from the feds or rate-payers, tens of millions of dollars that shoudn’t have happened.”
A majority of House Democrats adopted Jones’ amendment to its budget late Wednesday night to force the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to review the financial impact of the failed Massachusetts Health Connector website and provide a cost analysis of state funds used for temporary insurance coverage. The bill is heading to the Senate for approval and would then need to be signed by Gov. Deval Patrick.
The rare bipartisan moment came on the same day that Connector officials, including Web czar Sarah Iselin and Executive Director Jean Yang, met with Obama administration officials in Washington, D.C., to discuss the option of a federal takeover of the mangled website. The Health Connector board is slated to meet May 8 to consider a full or partial takeover by either the federal or another state system.
Connector spokesman Jason Lefferts called the meeting “a good and productive discussion.”
“We anticipate the requested information will be provided sooner than July by the administration in response to requests from the Legislature,” he said of Jones’ amendment.
Late on Sunday night, Dr. Katherine Mitchell said she received a phone call from a fellow employee at the Phoenix VA hospital who needed advice on how to handle a sensitive situation.
Her co-worker explained that records were being destroyed that very moment in the Phoenix VA Health Care System. But he had preserved evidence of what he believed were falsified wait times for medical care. The purported "secret lists," along with accusations that up to 40 Arizona veterans died awaiting care, are the subject of national controversy and investigations by Congress and the VA Inspector General.
Mitchell was a confidante with experience — nearly 16 years at the veterans hospital, first as a nurse who became supervising physician in the emergency room, then as medical director over a transition program for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
She said her colleague explained that the documents were being destroyed that evening. Aware that the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs had issued orders for the VA to preserve documents at the medical center in Phoenix, the two agreed to protect evidence.
Mitchell said she went to the medical center and walked her co-worker to VA police headquarters, where they asked officers to secure the documentation. Police declined, Mitchell said, but suggested they find a safe place to conceal the materials inside the hospital.
Twelve hours later, Mitchell said, her co-worker delivered the evidence and a statement to an investigator from the Office of the Inspector General while Mitchell visited The Arizona Republic, asserting status as a government whistle-blower.
Mitchell struggled with emotions as she described the incident, her career-threatening decision and concerns about the integrity of VA administrators.
"I had no doubts they were capable of destroying evidence, or altering evidence," she said. "So there I am, a 47-year-old doctor with two degrees, trying to figure out where to hide stuff.
"I spent my whole professional life wanting to be a VA nurse, and then a VA physician. ...(But) the insanity in the system right now needs to stop, and whatever I can do to accomplish that, I will."
The Republic this week sought comment from Phoenix VA Health Care System Director Sharon Helman about Mitchell's assertions, and an interview with the director, scheduled Thursday, was canceled at the last minute when Helman was placed on administrative leave by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki.
Fight for improved care
Mitchell said she fought for improved veterans care within the system, warning that Emergency Department patients were in jeopardy and, more recently, that suicides had escalated amid a shortage of mental-health staffers.She said she was transferred, suspended and reprimanded.
Many of her allegations coincide with complaints lodged by Sam Foote, a VA primary-care physician who retired in December. In letters to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and the inspector general, as well as in interviews with The Republic, Foote first made the accusation about patient deaths and fraudulent records.
Both physicians, as well as other VA employees who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, said the Phoenix VA leadership disdains internal criticism and retaliates against those who speak out. In interviews and a written statement, Mitchell told TheRepublic she can no longer remain silent.
"I am violating the VA 'gag' order for ethical reasons," she wrote. "I am cognizant of the consequences. As a VA employee I have seen what happens to employees who speak up for patient safety and welfare within the system. The devastation of professional careers is usually the end result, and likely is the only transparent process that actually exists within the Phoenix VA Medical Center today."
In recent interviews, Helman said employees are encouraged to express concerns, especially about medical care. She and chief of staff Darren Deering said their leadership team has dramatically improved service to veterans, is unaware of any patient deaths linked to delayed care and did not manipulate or falsify wait-time data.
But Mitchell and other VA employees have expressed fears of evidence-shredding before and after inquiries were launched by congressional committees and the Office of Inspector General.
Those concerns were echoed Thursday by Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., who first disclosed the Phoenix VA allegations as chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. In a letter to Shinseki, Miller warned against the destruction of evidence and threatened to issue a subpoena.
Helman was placed on leave hours after that letter was sent, and one day after Dr. Robert Petzel, undersecretary for health in the Department of Veterans Affairs, told the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs that a VA team sent to Phoenix found no evidence of secret patient lists or related patient fatalities.
Early warnings
Hospital administrators and critics in Phoenix agree that, beginning several years ago, a surge of veterans and an exodus of medical staffers resulted in huge delays in care. Waits for first-time appointments with primary-care doctors exceeded one year, and referrals to specialists often took months.
Because of the logjam, vets began flooding the hospital emergency room, which already was shorthanded. Mitchell, then director of the Emergency Department, said patients waited hours while nurses with inadequate triage training tried to determine which ones needed immediate attention for life-threatening problems.
Mitchell said she wrote memos to hospital administrators, including Deering, describing "near misses," to raise a red flag. The Republic has obtained substantiating e-mails.
Mitchell said her warnings were dismissed at first, and patients were further endangered as some nurses, resentful of perceived criticism, became uncooperative. Then, in early 2012, Helman took over leadership at the hospital and paid a visit to the Emergency Department, which was overwhelmed with patients.
"When she asked me how things were going, I pulled her into the back and answered her honestly and without the usual political correctness," Mitchell said. "Without adequate staffing, ancillary services and sufficient triage training, I told her the ER was so dangerous that it should be shut down immediately. ... The only thing worse than losing my career was failing to prevent another vet from dying. I hoped a new leader would understand the critical nature of the situation and divert needed resources. I was wrong."
Mitchell alleges that, within days, she was told by senior administrators that the only problem in the Emergency Department stemmed from her deficient communication skills. After other ER doctors met with administrators to express similar concerns, Mitchell said, hospital managers began making improvements.
But they also transferredMitchell out of the ER to a position as medical director of transition services for vets who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In that role, Mitchell said, she became concerned that suicides among Phoenix veterans had spiked in recent years amid a shortage of mental-health staffers. Once again, she said, vets appeared to be suffering from delayed care and triage failures. She sounded another alert without immediate results.
Mitchell said she decided in September to file a confidential complaint with the Office of Inspector General, channeled through Arizona Sen. John McCain's office because she believed that would be more effective. She said the Phoenix VA was so dysfunctional that she included a multitude of other safety and patient-care issues in hopes of bringing "the greatest change possible."
Records show Mitchell's list of concerns went to Tom McCanna, McCain's staffer for veterans affairs. An aide to the senator said that more than 2,000 complaints about the VA have been received in the past 18 months but declined to discuss individual constituent complaints or to allow The Republic to interview McCanna.
Mitchell said she learned that only part of her correspondence was forwarded to the VA. Records show her list of concerns wasnot submitted to the inspector general, who investigates systemic problems and wrongdoing, but to the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs — a political liaison department in Washington.
A Feb. 27 letter to McCain's office from Michael Huff, congressional-relations officer for the VA, contains responses to Mitchell's complaint. It describes suicide-prevention processes, but does not address assertions that suicides increased amid growing delays in care. With regard to medical care, Huff's letter confirms a new Electronic Wait List was implemented, an inspector general probe was under way and new procedures and staff training were initiated. It does not address whether wait-time data had been falsified.
The VA Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs did not respond to Republicinquiries.
Complaints filed
Mitchell said that within days after she made the complaint via McCain's office, she was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation for unspecified wrongdoing. She said her confidentiality had been breached, and in January, Mitchell received written counseling that alleged she "may have" violated patient privacy in filing her complaint.
Mitchell said VA leaders refused to explain what she'd done wrong or provide documentation.
"I was devastated to learn I would not be given access to the investigative file because it was shredded 'for my own protection,' " she wrote recently in an open letter describing her experiences. "I was told that HR (human resources) determined it did not need to inform me of which specific policy I had violated because a written counseling did not rise to the level of a disciplinary action employees were allowed to challenge."
Jean Schaefer, a Phoenix VA spokeswoman, said agency officials are unable to comment on investigations or disciplinary actions regarding Mitchell because she declined to sign a privacy waiver.
Mitchell said she sent a second complaint, with extensive backup materials, to the senior liaison for the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. She said she was advised those documents would be shared with the Office of Inspector General, but that to date she has been unable to verify that her accusations are part of the ongoing investigation.
A spokeswoman for the inspector general said the office does not comment on specific complainants or their allegations.
Mitchell said she decided to go public as a last resort, risking a career she loves.
"It's not like I'm going to get any fame or fortune out of this," she said.
In her letter, she wrote: "The pending investigation has the potential to help address and resolve the issues which have held a stranglehold on our facility, ourveterans and our employees for decades. ... Although I welcomed news of an official Senate Committee inquiry last week, I have no faith at this point that the VA Medical Center is capable of providing an accurate accounting of its deficiencies, or that an investigative team will accurately document what it finds."
(JTA) — Two founding members of the Pink Floyd rock band called on their colleagues from The Rolling Stones to cancel a concert in Israel.
Roger Waters and Nick Mason made the call in an op-ed that was published Thursday on Salon.com.
“Playing Israel now is the moral equivalent of playing Sun City at the height of South African apartheid,” wrote the men, who described themselves as “the two surviving founders of Pink Floyd.”
The op-ed says it was written in light of “the recent news that the Rolling Stones will be playing their first-ever concert in Israel, and at what is a critical time in the global struggle for Palestinian freedom and equal rights.”
The Stones are scheduled to perform June 4 at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park.
Roger Waters is a longtime advocate of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Over the past year, he has come under criticism from several Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, which accused him of anti-Semitism – an accusation he has denied.
Waters has used a pig-shaped balloon emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center said the pig display was a symbol of “Jew hatred” but the ADL said it was merely disquieting and not necessarily anti-Semitic. Waters said the Star of David was meant to signify what he called Israeli oppression, not Judaism.
He later said: “The Jewish lobby is extraordinarily powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock ‘n’ roll, as they say.”
Following these statements, ADL National Director Abe Foxman said in December that “judging by his remarks, Roger Waters has absorbed classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and these have now seeped into the totality of his views.” Foxman added that “How sad that a creative genius could become so perverted by his own narrow-minded bigotry.”
OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The botched Oklahoma execution of Clayton Lockett was largely due to a collapsed vein during the lethal injection, and the needle was inserted in the groin area instead of the arm after prison officials used a stun gun to restrain him, a prisons report said on Thursday.
Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said in the report the state's execution protocols needed to be revised and called for an indefinite stay of executions until the new procedures are in place and staff trained.
Ahead of the Tuesday execution, Lockett, a convicted murderer, had refused to be restrained, the report said, and after being given a warning "an electronic shock device was administered," causing an injury to his arm.
The state has come under a barrage of criticism for the botched execution that many saw as a violation of constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. The White House said the process fell short of humane standards.
Lockett, 38, died of an apparent heart attack minutes after the lethal injection protocol failed. He was convicted of shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Nieman in 1999 and then helping to bury her alive in a shallow grave, where she died.
Death row inmate Clayton Lockett is seen in a picture from the Oklahoma Department of Corrections da …
Witnesses to the execution said Lockett clenched his jaw and fists a few minutes after the drugs were injected and appeared to be in pain. Prison officials covered the windows to the death chamber soon after as it became apparent there was trouble.
The doctor overseeing the execution reported that Lockett's vein had collapsed during the injection and the drugs had either absorbed into the tissue, or leaked out or both, Patton said.
Patton asked if enough drugs been administered to cause death, and the doctor answered "no." Patton then asked if another vein was available and if enough drugs remained to finish the execution. The doctor responded "no" to both questions.
Once the problem became apparent, Patton halted the execution. Lockett died 43 minutes after the execution started, and an autopsy was under way.
"I intend to explore best practices from other states and ensure the Oklahoma protocol adopts proven standards," Patton said in his report.
Patton said in the report that medical officials examined Lockett's arms, legs, feet and neck for veins, but no viable entry point was located. After that, a lethal injection insertion point was used in Lockett's groin area.
"As the Oklahoma Department of Corrections dribbles out piecemeal information about Clayton Lockett's botched execution, they have revealed that Mr. Lockett was killed using an invasive and painful method - an IV line in his groin," said Madeline Cohen, a lawyer who fought to halt the execution of another Oklahoma death row inmate.
That inmate, convicted murderer and rapist Charles Warner, had also been also scheduled for execution on Tuesday night, but was granted a 14-day stay after the botched execution of Lockett.
The executions of Lockett and Warner, convicted in separate crimes, had been put on hold for several weeks because of a legal fight over the state's new lethal injection cocktail, with lawyers arguing Oklahoma was withholding crucial information about the drugs to be used.
Attorneys for death row inmates have argued that the drugs used in Oklahoma and other states could cause an unnecessarily painful death, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson called Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” for his part in recent Supreme Court decisions.Photo: UPI
Should black liberals get a pass on making racist accusations?
On a Nation of Islam radio show last weekend, Rep. Bennie Thompson — a Mississippi Democrat and member of the Congressional Black Caucus — called Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom” for his part in recent Supreme Court decisions, such as last year’s finding of a portion of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.
For the uninitiated, this is one of the most vile terms that can be directed at an African-American. It has come to mean a servile black person in league with white power interests.
Days later, Thompson refused to apologize: “If you look at his decisions on the court, they have been adverse to the minority community, and the people I represent have a real issue with an African-American not…sensible to those issues.”
A CNN reporter noted that “Uncle Tom” is inappropriate if said by a white person. “But I’m black,” Thompson responded.
So that makes it right, Congressman?
We note this is not the first time Justice Thomas has been slurred in this fashion. A few years back, members of the Hawaii branch of the ACLU also called him an “Uncle Tom” when they objected to inviting him to a conference on the First Amendment. Thomas isn’t alone: Other black conservatives have been likewise smeared simply for having convictions that deviate from proscribed liberal orthodoxy.
People are free to disagree with Justice Thomas’s decisions and his views on life. But hurling a slave term at a black man of singular achievement is racist — no matter what the race of the person saying it.
So he spoke on Nation of Islam radio which tells you all you need to know about this creep. The nation of Islam is anti white, anti Christian, Jew hating organization which in saner times would be considered no different then the KKK in black dress.
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — The Hook-Up truck – a conceptual “art” installation consisting of a box truck converted to a sex suite on wheels, including temperature controls, birth control, safe sex accouterments, and a camera option, in case you and yours decide to make the escapade a YouTube sensation, is finally open for service the weekend of May 2nd and 3rd.
The “Hook-Up Truck” is the brainchild of artist Spy Emerson. According to their website, the box truck is a car service, like a mobile hotel room, available for short-term rentals.
“The room is designed with cleanliness in mind. I’ve created a very minimalist room. Everything is wiped down and cleaned before and after every person. It’s probably cleaner than the BART or any public toilet you’ve used.”
Instead, there’s a custom-built metal-and-wood bench covered with vinyl, which is stain-resistant.
“Instead of a traditional bed – which is bedding and absorbent – this is a bench, in the shape of a ‘C’, and designed to facilitate positioning for the average-sized bodies,” Emerson said.
“This is a game for adults who want to play with sex,” says Emerson. “You have to be nice, and cool,” she said, adding “No Drunks!, but everyone is welcome to join us. There will be a party going on all the time!”
Saturday, from 6-9 p.m., it will be in Oakland’s Uptown neighborhood for the Art Murmur, before heading to San Francisco’s Mission District where Emerson will be on the air with Radio Valencia at 10 p.m.
Street musicians are scheduled to stop by, possibly to serenade the “sexcapaders.”
On Sunday, it returns to Oakland for a party at NIMBY on Amelia Street from 5-9 p.m.
The truck also can be reserved through mobile datingapps “for immediate dispatch.” It can also be pre-booked for festivals, weddings, or holiday parties. Users of the truck must be at least 21 and registered with the service online.
Hiring in U.S. Kicks Into Higher Gear as Unemployment Plunges to 6.3% "The drop in the unemployment rate from March’s 6.7 percent came as the agency’s survey of households showed the labor forceshrank by more the 800,000 in April. The so-called participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest level since 1978, from 63.2 percent a month earlier."
DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Ukraine should withdraw its military from the eastern and southern regions of the country, a statement that could bolster anti-government insurgents who are seizing buildings.
Hours later, Ukraine's acting president ordered that the military draft be renewed, citing "threats of encroachment on the nation's territorial integrity" and interference by Russia in its internal affairs.
Moscow has consistently denounced Ukrainian security forces' largely ineffectual operation against the eastern insurgents and warned they should not commit violence against civilians.
In a telephone conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Putin said the removal of military units was the "main thing," but it was unclear if that could be construed as an outright demand.
Oleksandr Turchynov's conscription order marked a turnaround for the country, which last year announced plans to end military conscription in favor of an all-volunteer force. His order did not specify where conscript-bolstered forces could be deployed. The renewal of military conscription affects only men 18 to 25 years old.
Earlier in the week, the acting president said police and security forces had been effectively "helpless" against insurgents in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the heart of the unrest, and that efforts should be focused on preventing the instability from spreading to other parts of the country.
In the regional capital city of Donetsk, anti-government demonstrators took over the regional prosecutor's office Thursday. Several dozen riot police standing guard at the office fired stun grenades and tear gas when some at the front of the crowd of several hundred people attempted to force their way into the building.
As the confrontation escalated, some in the crowd threw rocks and managed to wrest away shields from police. An Associated Press reporter saw a handful of officers being dragged away and beaten by members of the crowd.
Hundreds of onlookers accompanying the protesters shouted slogans and hurled abuse.
A car outside the building blared out patriotic World War II music. Inside, a passenger waved a flag bearing a doctored image of Soviet leader Josef Stalin in a black vest and holding a machine gun superimposed with the words: "Death to Fascism."
Upon occupying the building, protesters discarded the Ukrainian flag and replaced it with that of the Donetsk People's Republic - a movement that seeks either greater autonomy from the central government, or independence and possible annexation by Russia.
Donetsk is the heartland of support for Russia-friendly former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in February after months of protests in the capital. Opponents of the government that succeeded him have seized buildings in about a dozen cities and towns in eastern Ukraine.
Local news website Novosti Donbassa reported that earlier in the day around 30 armed men arrived in six cars in the town of Amvrosiivka, which lies close to the Russian border, and took over the city council and forced the mayor to resign.
On Wednesday, insurgents took control of the customs-service building in Donetsk and city hall in Alchevsk, an industrial center of about 110,000 people, adding to the scores of buildings taken by the separatists over the past month in the east, where a dozen cities are now in the hands of the separatists.
There has also been a spate of reported kidnappings of pro-government politicians. The Svodoba nationalist party said a local party branch leader in Kostiantynivka, 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Donetsk, initially managed to fight off attackers at his home but was taken away as he was phoning for help.
Turchynov has twice proclaimed "anti-terrorist" operations to regain control of the east, but to little effect.
Unlike many recent seizures of the government offices, the assault on the prosecutor's office appeared to have been spearheaded by people armed with little more than sticks. However, at least one young man was seen with a handgun tucked into his trousers, and at least one firebomb was thrown at the building.
The armed element of the insurgency is focused on Slovyansk, a city 110 kilometers (70 miles) north of Donetsk in which seven European observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe remain held by pro-Russia gunmen.
Merkel on Thursday again called Putin and asked for his assistance in freeing the group, Merkel spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said.
Russia denies allegations from Kiev and the West that it is influencing or fomenting strife in eastern Ukraine.
The Kremlin confirmed the conversation and said Putin stressed "the main thing was for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from southeastern Ukraine, stop the violence and quickly start a broad national dialogue on constitutional reform."
In Washington, the second-ranking official of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said the alliance now feels compelled to start treating Moscow as an adversary.
"In central Europe, clearly we have two different visions of what European security should be like," Alexander Vershbow, the deputy secretary-general of NATO, said in a question-and-answer session with reporters.
He said Russia's annexation of Crimea and its apparent efforts to manipulate turmoil in eastern Ukraine have fundamentally changed the NATO-Russia relationship.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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