Canada Campaigns Against Global Bank Tax
Canada will “resist” a bank tax, Industry Minister Tony Clement said Tuesday as ministers fanned out across the world to raise opposition to the proposal for avoiding another financial crisis.
“Canada is, and will remain, opposed to a tax that would penalize financial institutions that remained strong and prosperous while many of the world’s banks failed,” Clement told a press conference with Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon.
“We will resist the bank tax here at home and we seek to convince other heads of government of the virtue of our position,” he said as senior ministers echoed his message in Mumbai, Beijing and Washington.
Attempts to reach international agreement on coordinated bank taxes at last month’s G20 and IMF meetings ran aground.
Nations including Canada and Brazil, whose banking sectors emerged largely unscathed from the financial crisis, objected to the plan, favoring higher capital reserve requirements instead.
But it is expected to be revived at the next meeting of G20 leaders in Toronto next month, with Germany’s Angela Merkel vowing to press for the proposal supported by many in Europe.
Clement said the bank tax would “encourage risky behavior” if it is used to create a bank bailout fund and “reward bad behavior” of those institutions responsible for the recent financial crisis in the first place.
| [Return to headlines] |
Congress Blocks Indiscriminate IMF Aid for Europe
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Europe may have to clean up its own mess after all. The US Senate has voted 94:0 to block use of taxpayers’ money for IMF rescues that make no economic sense or bail-outs for countries like Greece that far are beyond the point of no return.
“This amendment will help prevent American taxpayer dollars from underwriting dysfunctional governments abroad,” said Texas Senator John Cornyn, the chief sponsor. “American taxpayers have seen more bailouts than they can stomach, and the last thing they should have to worry about are their hard-earned tax dollars being used to rescue a foreign government. Greece is not by any stretch of the imagination too big to fail.”
Co-sponsor David Vitter from Louisiana said America had run out of money. “Our country already owes trillions of dollars in debt. We simply can’t afford to take on other countries’ debt in addition to our own.”
It is unclear where this leaves the EU’s $1 trillion “shock and uh” package. Urlich Leuchtmann from Commerzbank said the IMF share of $320bn was the only genuine money on the table, the rest being largely euro smoke and mirrors, or plain bluff.
The measure is an amendment to the US financial overhaul law. Backed by both parties, it can hardly be ignored by the Obama administration whatever Tim Geithner may or may not want to do. The bill has to go to Conference for reconciliation with the House, but the point is made.
It instructs the US representative at the IMF to determine whether a country with a public debt above 100 per cent of GDP can be expected to repay IMF loans. If this cannot be certified, the US must oppose the rescue package.
This is obviously aimed at Greece, which will have a debt of 130 per cent by the end of this year. The debt will rise to 150 per cent by the end of its the rescue/death package, leaving Greece in a worse position than before.
The IMF share of the Greek bail-out is 30 times quota, more than double any other rescue in the history of the Fund. There is a very strong suspicion in Washington that the IMF is being misused by French chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn — French presidential candidate in waiting — to support ideological purposes regardless of economic logic or sanity. This can (and in my view most likely will) destroy the credibility of the Fund itself unless the US and Asians can wrench the institution back from the Europeans.
The US is the IMF’s biggest shareholder and can veto aid packages, though it has never done so because the Fund has never been so stupid as to defy the world’s dominant financial and strategic power.
In this case it fair to assume that China shares many of the Senate’s concerns. The latest US Treasury Tics data shows that China is rotating is vast reserves back into dollars, and presumably away from euro bonds. If we treat this as Chimerica — the US/Chinese single currency or condominium — we have a force in the world that cannot be pushed around.
Personally, I have changed my mind on Greece. My initial reaction earlier this year was that it had to be saved to avoid a sovereign Lehman. Many posters on this blog cried “shame”, saying it was just another moral hazard rescue for bankers. They were right. I flagellate myself and wear a dunce’s hat.
The correct policy would have been — and still is — to help Greece out of its debt-deflation death spiral through an orderly “pre-emptive debt restructuring” along the lines of the IMF package for Uruguay. In Greece’s case it would require a haircut of 50 per cent or so for foolhardy creditors, ie your bank and mine, your pension fund and mine. This would not do much good unless Greece also devalued by 30 per cent to 40 per cent to retrieve competitiveness and put the whole fixed-exchange nightmare behind it.
This would be the normal IMF policy in these circumstances as countless ex-IMF officials have stated. I suspect that many in the Bundesbank and the Bundestag finance committee would have liked this policy too — making an example of a country that was so far gone, and had so flagrantly broken the rules.
The IMF-EU should instead have drawn up its defences in Iberia, along the Lines of Torres Vedras — to borrow from Wellington. Portugal and Spain are at least defensible — arguably — and more deserving.
The solution is being blocked because Brussels views any step back in the EMU Project as intolerable. So the IMF is squandering its scarce resources on an unworkable plan in Greece.
As we can now see, by misusing the IMF so cavalierly the euro-elites have provoked a reaction from Washington that will vastly complicate any future rescue for any eurozone state.
In fact, we are already living in a post-IMF world. There is no bailer-of-last-resort. Sobering, isn’t it?
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
European Nations Upset by EU’s Own Plans for Budget Hikes
European governments, under pressure from Brussels to reduce national deficits, are upset by a 4.5 percent budget hike proposed by the EU Commission for the bloc’s budget next year, sources said Monday.
European finance ministers will begin considering the EU’s budget proposals during a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, in much-anticipated discussions.
“We are in agreement that we need to spend better, not to spend more,” one European diplomat said.
“The European Commission is the one urging the member states to make budgetary efforts to reduce national deficits, and should use the same criteria for its own plans,” he added.
“It can’t go on acting as if there is no economic crisis.”
A diplomat from another European nation said he was “looking forward to hearing why the commission’s budget should be six percent higher in real terms when (EU Economic Affairs Commissioner) Olli Rehn is telling countries to cut their national budgets.”
The commission, the EU’s executive arm which proposes and polices union law “will have to work much harder than usual to explain that rationale,” he added.
The 2011 budget plans foresee a 4.5 percent increase in administrative costs for EU institutions, including 2.9 percent for the commission itself, with the creation of new high-paying posts, according to the EU executive’s figures.
The EU institutions and European governments are already engaged in a tussle over a mooted salary restructuring for some 50,000 European functionaries.
The governments want no more than a 1.9 percent rise, given the heinous condition of national coffers, while the EU personnel are calling for a 3.7 percent increase.
The European Commission, which argues that the pay increase are automatically calculated under EU rules, is putting the matter to the European courts in order to overcome the opposition from national governments.
Commission spokesman on budgetary issues Patrizio Fiorilli told AFP that the EU executive itself was not creating the new jobs.
The EU’s reforming Lisbon Treaty, which came into force last December, increased the remit of some European bodies, such as the EU parliament, the committee of the regions and the economic and social committee, he explained.
He also pointed to growing costs of retirement pay outs “like everywhere in Europe” and higher security costs of EU personnel worldwide.
Of a total proposed budget of 142.6 billion euros (176.4 billion dollars) for the EU in 2011, some 64.4 billion euros are for actions linked to securing Europe’s economic recovery — a rise of 3.4 percent over this year.
The commission spokesman also justified this rise, saying investment in the future is required.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Former Central Bank Head Karl Otto Pöhl: Bailout Plan Is All About ‘Rescuing Banks and Rich Greeks’
The euro reached a four-year low on Monday. Former German central bank head Karl Otto Pöhl said the European common currency’s downward trend could continue.
The 750 billion euro package the European Union passed last week to prop up the common currency has been heavily criticized in Germany. Former Bundesbank head Karl Otto Pöhl told SPIEGEL that Greece may ultimately have to opt out, and that the foundation of the euro has been fundamentally weakened.
SPIEGEL: Mr Pöhl, are you still investing in the euro — or has the European common currency become too unstable of late?
Pöhl: I still have money in euros, but the question is justified. There is still danger that the euro will become a weak currency.
SPIEGEL: The exchange rate with the dollar is still close to $1.25. What’s the problem?
Pöhl: The foundation of the euro has fundamentally changed as a result of the decision by euro-zone governments to transform themselves into a transfer union. That is a violation of every rule. In the treaties governing the functioning of the European Union, it explicitly states that no country is liable for the debts of any other. But what we are doing right now, is exactly that. Added to this is the fact that, against all its vows, and against an explicit ban within its own constitution, the European Central Bank (ECB) has become involved in financing states. Obviously, all of that will have an impact.
SPIEGEL: What do you think will happen?
Pöhl: The euro has already sunk in value against a whole list of other currencies. This trend could continue, because what we have basically done is guarantee a long line of weaker currencies that never should have been allowed to become part of the euro.
SPIEGEL: The German government has said that there was no alternative to the rescue package for Greece, nor to that for other debt-laden countries.
Pöhl: I don’t believe that. Of course there were alternatives. For instance, never having allowed Greece to become part of the euro zone in the first place.
SPIEGEL: That may be true. But that was a mistake made years ago.
Pöhl: All the same, it was a mistake. That much is completely clear. I would also have expected the (European) Commission and the ECB to intervene far earlier. They must have realized that a small, indeed a tiny, country like Greece, one with no industrial base, would never be in a position to pay back €300 billion worth of debt.
SPIEGEL: According to the rescue plan, it’s actually €350 billion …
Pöhl: … which that country has even less chance of paying back. Without a “haircut,” a partial debt waiver, it cannot and will not ever happen. So why not immediately? That would have been one alternative. The European Union should have declared half a year ago — or even earlier — that Greek debt needed restructuring.
SPIEGEL: But according to Chancellor Angela Merkel, that would have led to a domino effect, with repercussions for other European states facing debt crises of their own.
Pöhl: I do not believe that. I think it was about something altogether different.
SPIEGEL: Such as?
Pöhl: It was about protecting German banks, but especially the French banks, from debt write offs. On the day that the rescue package was agreed on, shares of French banks rose by up to 24 percent. Looking at that, you can see what this was really about — namely, rescuing the banks and the rich Greeks.
SPIEGEL: In the current crisis situation, and with all the turbulence in the markets, has there really been any opportunity to share the costs of the rescue plan with creditors?
Pöhl: I believe so. They could have slashed the debts by one-third. The banks would then have had to write off a third of their securities.
SPIEGEL: There was fear that investors would not have touched Greek government bonds for years, nor would they have touched the bonds of any other southern European countries.
Pöhl: I believe the opposite would have happened. Investors would quickly have seen that Greece could get a handle on its debt problems. And for that reason, trust would quickly have been restored. But that moment has passed. Now we have this mess.
SPIEGEL: How is it possible that the foundation of the euro was abandoned, essentially overnight?
Pöhl: It did indeed happen with the stroke of a pen — in the German parliament as well. Everyone was busy complaining about speculators and all of a sudden, anything seems possible.
SPIEGEL: You don’t believe in the oft-mentioned attacks allegedly perpetrated by currency gamblers, fortune hunters and speculators?
Pöhl: No. A lot of those involved are completely honorable institutes — such as banks, but also insurance companies and investment- and pension funds — which are simply taking advantage of the situation. That’s totally obvious. That’s what the market is there for.
SPIEGEL: You really think that pension funds should be gambling with high-risk debt securities?
Part 2: ‘Totally Normal Market Behavior’
Pöhl: No. They should be investing their investors’ money as securely as possible. Should the credit rating of a debtor worsen because that debtor has been living beyond his means for years, then it is completely rational for these institutions to get rid of these bonds — because they have become insecure. Then other investors buy them at a lower price. They receive a higher return, but also have greater risk. That is totally normal market behavior.
SPIEGEL: With the exception that speculators are now carrying no risk at all because euro-zone members have agreed to guarantee Greek debt.
Pöhl: Yes, and that is harmful. It means that the basic balancing mechanism in the market economy is out of sync.
SPIEGEL: Is it possible that politicians invented the specter of rampant speculation to legitimize a break with the Lisbon Treaty and with the ECB’s rules?
Pöhl: Of course that’s possible. In fact, it’s even plausible.
SPIEGEL: What will be the political consequences of this crisis?
Pöhl: The whole mechanism of the European community will change. The EU is a federation of nations, not a federal republic. But now the European Commission will have a lot more power and more authority as well as the potential to interfere in national budget law. That, however, is constitutionally problematic in Germany.
SPIEGEL: But this could also be construed as a positive development. For a long time, critics have been saying that before we can have a genuine currency union we need common fiscal and economic policy. Surely this crisis has brought the EU closer to that goal.
Pöhl: Yes, that is the logical next step of our union, but we must bear the burden. You only have to look at what it is going to cost us Germans. I would have preferred that things hadn’t gone quite this far.
SPIEGEL: In the past, the bankers at the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, were vehemently opposed to any political interference — for example, when the government wanted to take control of gold stocks. At the moment even larger taboos are being broken — yet there has been little outcry. Why is that?
Pöhl: The president of the Bundesbank, Axel Weber, is in a bind. He has been issuing warnings about these kinds of developments for some time and he continues to do so. But of course it is difficult to keep this up in the face of a political majority.
SPIEGEL: Especially when he aspires to the presidency of the ECB and is therefore dependent on political goodwill.
Pöhl: That may also play a role.
SPIEGEL: In the run up to the currency union that was formed when Germany was reunified in 1990, it was said that, if something is economically ill-advised, it is also a political mistake. Does the rescue package for teetering euro-zone countries make sense?
Pöhl: It depends on what one wants to achieve. If the point was merely to calm the markets temporarily, then yes. But that can’t be the only reason.
SPIEGEL: Because the side effects will be too large, you mean?
Pöhl: Absolutely. Just imagine if claims were made. Germany would have to pay countless billions, which is dreadful. And, it could lead to the euro becoming a weak currency.
SPIEGEL: If you were president of the Bundesbank today, would you be ordering the printing of German marks just in case they became necessary?
Pöhl: No, no, we have not gone that far quite yet. In my opinion, the euro is in no danger. Perhaps one of the smaller countries will have to leave the currency union.
SPIEGEL: How should that work?
Pöhl: It would involve Greece, if we stick with the case we were discussing, reintroducing the drachma.
SPIEGEL: But Greece doesn’t seem to have any interest in doing that — and it would be against European agreements to force Athens to leave the currency union.
Pöhl: That is correct. As long as a country receives such massive support, it would, of course, have no interest in turning its back on the euro.
SPIEGEL: You think that could change?
Pöhl: On the mid and long term, I wouldn’t rule it out.
Interview conducted by Wolfgang Reuter
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Minister Out Over Taxes
Angela Gerekou resigns after singer husband is revealed to owe 5.5 million euros
Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Angela Gerekou resigned yesterday after allegations that her husband, a popular singer, owed 5.5 million euros in taxes, a revelation that threatened to undermine the government’s efforts to tackle tax evasion.
Gerekou, a former actress, tendered her resignation yesterday evening to ensure the government would not be tarnished, according to a statement issued by Government Spokesman Giorgos Petalotis. He added that the MP for Corfu insisted she had nothing to do with the tax issue of her husband, Tolis Voskopoulos.
Earlier in the day, when confronted with a report in the Eleftherotypia daily about Voskopoulos failing to settle a tax bill over the last 17 years, Petalotis said it was a personal matter. Following the publication of the allegations, Voskopoulos, who had a glittering singing and acting career in Greece spanning several decades, issued a statement denying he enjoyed special treatment by tax authorities.
He said the outstanding amounts date back to a legal dispute with his previous wife (Gerekou and Voskopoulos married in 1996), which had yet to be settled. The singer said his properties had already been seized by the state and he had attempted to negotiate for the interest on the initial amount he owed to be written off.
He also denied living a life of luxury, saying that he owned only one car, which was registered in 1977 and is no longer roadworthy.
A little later, the Finance Ministry issued a statement confirming that five of Voskopoulos’s properties had been seized and that he is the subject of two criminal procedures. However, the ministry added that it deemed the measures taken so far to recover the debt as “not being enough,” although it blamed this on the “collapse” of the tax collecting mechanism under the previous New Democracy government.
PASOK has staked much of its reputation on tackling tax evasion, which could be worth as much as 15 billion euros a year, and the fact that one of its ministers was embroiled in such a case is likely to be a cause for much embarrassment. “The government is determined to restore respect for the law and to treat all citizens equally both in respect to their rights and their obligations,” the Finance Ministry said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Tremonti, Taxes Will Not Increase
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MAY 18 — “We will not increase taxes and there will not be measures on the weakest segments of the population,” said Italian Minister of the Economy, Giulio Tremonti in Brussels, speaking about the budgetary measures that the Treasury Department is working on. “We will not put our hands in the pockets of the people,” he added, “but we will reduce public spending where it is less productive and where it will not have a recessionary effect.” “Italy,” said Tremonti, “in December received indications from the EU to adjust its public spending. We intend to respect these commitments and those figures. Nothing else has been asked of us.” Tremonti also denied that there may be deep changes to the pension system, because, he said, “it functions well”. “We have,” he added, “the most stable national insurance system in Europe.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Shamed Minister’s Resignation Rocks Athens
The resignation of a minister over her husband’s unpaid tax bill of more than 5 million euros stunned the Greek government.
Secretary of State for tourism Angela Gerekou resigned late Monday “due to the sensitivity” of the allegations as the socialist government battles its debt crisis and implements a huge austerity plan, a government statement said.
Gerekou, a former actress and model who once appeared topless in a men’s magazine, resigned within hours of a newspaper article that revealed her husband’s unpaid taxes.
The finance ministry confirmed that Tolis Voskopoulos, a singing star of the 1970s and 1980s, owed 5.5 million euros ($6.9 million) in unpaid taxes and late payment fines.
The resignation is a major embarrassment for Prime Minister George Papandreou whose socialist government has ordered a major campaign against tax cheats.
“Typhoon Antzela hits government,” pro-administration To Vima daily observed Tuesday. Ta Nea, which also supports the ruling party, said the minister had been sacrificed “as a message” to other officials.
Aside from a political embarrassment, Gerekou’s resignation leaves the travel sector leaderless at the start of a tourism season which debt-hit Athens badly needs for revenue.
Visitors and Greeks alike face new hardship as a new general strike against the austerity measures on Thursday will shut down state offices, public services, banks and confine ferries to port.
“We are striking because we do not want to work for 40 years without rights, with hunger wages and leave the workforce at the age of 70 with a mendicant’s pension of 300 euros ($370),” the Communist-affiliated All-Workers Militant Front, or PAME, said.
The strike is likely to disrupt public transport, though flights will not be affected as air traffic controllers have decided not to join the action.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Govt Bond Auction Falls Short of Target Range
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 18 — The costs of financing Spain’s debt continue to increase, as demonstrated by the results of an bond auction for 12 and 18-month bonds today issued onto the market by the Treasury Department, in which it almost doubled the interest seen in the previous bond auction without reaching their minimum objective. In particular yields were set at 1.59% for the 4.359 billion euros worth of 12-month treasury bonds, compared to 0.88% on April 12. For the 2.076 billion worth of 18-month bonds, interest rates were 1.95% compared to 1.62% in April. The sum requested by investors amounted to 8.276 billion euros, compared to the 6.436 billion assigned, lower than the government’s target range, which was set between 6.5 and 7.5 billion euros, which is feeding doubts on the future of the Spanish debt. According to some analysts, the bond issue was influenced by severe tension on the markets. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK Forced to Swallow Bitter Pill on Hedge Funds
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — EU finance ministers have agreed a common position on draft EU legislation on managers of hedge funds and other alternative investment firms, opening the door for negotiations with the European Parliament, the co-legislator.
The agreement on Tuesday (18 May) comes despite UK concerns that the Europe-wide law could negatively impact the British economy, with 80 percent of hedge funds currently located in London.
Lightly regulated hedge funds handled roughly $1.2 trillion (€970 bn) worldwide in 2009, and have been blamed by some European politicians, including the leaders of France and Germany, for exacerbating the effects of the financial crisis, despite the lack of market data in this area.
Supporters of the EU bill say this danger would be reduced under the proposed requirements for greater transparency, which include forcing fund managers to register and comply with reporting requirements, coupled with curbs on risk-taking and pay awards.
Britain is concerned that the rules for non-EU domiciled funds could prove to be particularly onerous, with a majority of the country’s firms currently located in the Cayman Islands for tax reasons.
The country’s new finance minister, George Osborne, was forced to stomach the majority position of EU states on Tuesday however, despite support from the Czech Republic.
UK treasury officials have sought some solace in language in the meeting’s conclusions saying discussions with the parliament will now get underway, “taking into account the concerns expressed by member states.”
“Given where we are this means the UK concerns are still in play,” said one official who wished to remain anonymous. “We have to go into the trialogue discussions now with the parliament and the European Commission.”
Parliament’s position
The finance ministers’ decision comes less than a day after members of the European Parliament’s economy committee voted on the same draft EU law on alternative investment funds, which was originally put forward by the commission last year.
The euro deputies called for new ways to deal with managers and funds located outside the EU, a proportionality system to regulate less risky funds more lightly, and rules on remuneration policies and short selling.
“This position will ensure better transparency and better investor protection while at the same time being on the side of the financial industry when it is working for the real economy,” said centre-right MEP Jean-Paul Gauzes, the parliament’s rapporteur on the subject.
While EU member states say third country funds should get individual approval in each member state in order to market their products there, parliament supports a system under which the external funds would voluntarily agree to the new directive’s terms.
In addition they would have to comply with a number of extra standards such as measures to prevent money laundering, under Mr Gauzes’ proposals.
EU internal market and financial services commissioner Michel Barnier gave an indication of the work to be done in reconciling the two sides after Tuesday’s meeting. “On the third countries issue I am closer to the parliament’s position,” he said. “There are going to be substantial discussions.”
Parliament has indicated it would like the full plenary of MEPs to vote on the draft legislation this July, although analysts say this is an ambitious deadline given the current divergences.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Wall Street Killionaires Are at it Again
The very same people who were responsible for crashing U.S. markets in 2008 now have their sights set on Greece.
In our book “Killing Wealth, Freeing Wealth,” we identified this cabal of highly connected speculators — we call them “Killionaires” — who looted the U.S. stock markets and stole trillions in wealth from millions of investors.
Now the Killionaires are at it again.
They are once again orchestrating a sovereign debt crisis, and pocketing billions. Greek pensioners and welfare recipients are the losers this time, not to mention the European banks, insurance firms such as AFLAC and others invested in these European bonds.
[…]
Killionaires manipulate the prices of bonds after taking huge derivative positions. Their favorite tool is the credit-default swap, which allows them to profit from a decline in bond prices.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“The President Threw Me Under the Bus”
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press that he is “toxic” to the Obama administration and that the president “threw me under the bus.”
In his strongest language to date about the administration’s 2-year-old rift with the Chicago pastor, Wright told a group raising money for African relief that his pleas to release frozen funds for use in earthquake-ravaged Haiti would likely be ignored.
“No one in the Obama administration will respond to me, listen to me, talk to me or read anything that I write to them. I am ‘toxic’ in terms of the Obama administration,” Wright wrote the president of Africa 6000 International earlier this year.
“I am ‘radioactive,’ Sir. When Obama threw me under the bus, he threw me under the bus literally!” he wrote. “Any advice that I offer is going to be taken as something to be avoided. Please understand that!”
The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment Monday about Wright’s remarks. Several phone messages left by the AP for Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ, where he is listed as a pastor emeritus, were not returned…
| [Return to headlines] |
Bloomberg Says NY Shortchanged on Terror Funding
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the city is continually shortchanged on anti-terror funding given the threats it faces.
Bloomberg’s comments came amid a heated debate between New York officials and the Obama administration over federal security funding for the city, just two weeks after a Pakistani-American man was accused of trying to explode a car bomb in Times Square.
Last week, New York congressional leaders complained the U.S. Department of Homeland Security planned to cut the city’s transit and port security funding by at least 25 percent. Obama administration officials refuted the claim, saying that because of $100 million in federal stimulus money and other grants, New York was set to receive 24 percent more security funding than it had in previous years.
Bloomberg said Monday the debate over which account the funding for New York is coming from obscures a larger point.
“It is purely a numbers game,” he said. “The real issue is this city is a target and we don’t get our fair share … if you start counting the risks.”
There have been at least nine planned terror attacks in the city since the Sept. 11, 2001, destruction of the World Trade Center…
| [Return to headlines] |
Congressional Report Says US Repeated 9/11 Intel Failures in Christmas Bomb Plot
Despite a top-to-bottom overhaul of the intelligence community after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the nation’s security system showed some of the same failures when it allowed a would-be bomber to slip aboard an airliner, congressional investigators said Tuesday.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report at times contradicted the Obama administration’s assertion that the nearly catastrophic Christmas Day bombing attempt was unlike 9/11 because it represented a failure to understand intelligence, not a failure to collect and understand it.
The congressional review is more stark than the Obama administration’s report. It lays much of the blame at the feet of the National Counterterrorism Center, which Congress created to be the primary agency in charge of analyzing terrorism intelligence.
“NCTC personnel had the responsibility and the capability to connect the key reporting with the other relevant reporting,” the congressional summary said. “The NCTC was not adequately organized and did not have resources appropriately allocated to fulfill its missions.”
The NCTC is the government’s clearinghouse for terrorism information and is the only government agency that can access all intelligence and law enforcement information.
Lawmakers found that the NCTC was not organized to be the sole agency in charge or piecing together terrorism threats.
“Some of the systemic errors this review identified also were cited as failures prior to 9/11,” Republican Sens. Richard Burr and Saxby Chambliss wrote in an addendum to the report.
| [Return to headlines] |
Congressman Says Climate Science Should be Simplified to ‘Sixth Grade Level’ Because Americans ‘Don’t Get’ it
Americans are growing skeptical about the threat of global warming because “they don’t get” the complex information that scientists deliver, according to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).
Unless scientists can simplify their arguments to the level of newspapers that “print at the sixth grade level,” Cleaver said, the public is “going to get a headache and bail out.”
Cleaver made his comments to a panel of scientists on Capitol Hill at a hearing last Thursday of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
The committee was investigating the “foundation” of climate science after the Climategate scandal saw thousands of damaging e-mails leaked from scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.
| [Return to headlines] |
McCain, Kyl Demand Top Obama State Dept. Official Retract Statement and Apologize for Likening AZ Immigration Law to Chinese Human Rights Violations
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) Tuesday called on the top Obama State Department official responsible for human rights issues to “retract and apologize” for telling officials of the Communist government of China that Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law is an example of a “troubling trend in our society” and for portraying Arizona as the moral equivalent of Communist China.
In a letter to Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, the senators said that he “seemed to imply” during the recent U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue that Arizona’s law “is morally equivalent to China’s persistent pattern of abuse and repression of its people.”
McCain and Kyl told Posner his comments were “particularly offensive” because he heads the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
“We demand that you retract your statement and issue an apology,” they wrote.
| [Return to headlines] |
No, You Can’t Keep Your Health Plan
Insurers and doctors are already consolidating their businesses in the wake of ObamaCare’s passage.
One of the few remaining ways to manage expenses is to reduce the actual cost of the products. In health care, this means pushing providers to accept lower fees and reduce their use of costly services like radiology or other diagnostic testing.
To implement this strategy, companies need to be able to exert more control over doctors. So insurers are trying to buy up medical clinics and doctor practices. Where they can’t own providers outright, they’ll maintain smaller “networks” of physicians that they will contract with so they can manage doctors more closely. That means even fewer choices for beneficiaries. Insurers hope that owning providers will enable health policies to offset the cost of the new regulations.
Doctors, meanwhile, are selling their practices to local hospitals. In 2005, doctors owned more than two-thirds of all medical practices. By next year, more than 60% of physicians will be salaried employees. About a third of those will be working for hospitals, according to the American Medical Association. A review of the open job searches held by one of the country’s largest physician-recruiting firms shows that nearly 50% are for jobs in hospitals, up from about 25% five years ago.
[…]
The bottom line: Defensive business arrangements designed to blunt ObamaCare’s economic impacts will mean less patient choice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NY Sen. Schumer to Attorney General Holder: No KSM Trial in NYC, ‘Just Say it Already’
While Attorney General Eric Holder testified Wednesday that the prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City was “not off the table,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) issued a statement saying that he knows the Obama administration is not going to hold the trial in New York and “(t)hey should just say it already.”
Holder testified on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said, “This administration is in the process of reviewing where KSM and the co-defendants should be tried. … New York is not off the table as to where they should be tried. But we have to take into consideration the concerns.”
“No final decision has been made about the forum which Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-defendants will be tried,” said Holder. “As I said at the outset, this is a very close call.”
Schumer attended the hearing. But in his statement, released on Wednesday, he said: “We know the administration is not going to hold the trial in New York. They should just say it already.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Pelosi to Aspiring Musicians: Quit Your Job, Taxpayers Will Cover Your Health Care
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that thanks to the new health-care reform law, musicians and other creative types could quit their jobs and focus on developing their talents because taxpayers would fund their health care coverage.
“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill,” Pelosi said, “a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.”…
| [Return to headlines] |
Piracy Suspect Pleads Guilty in New York Court to Hijack
A Somali suspect who became the boyish face of 21st century piracy by staging a brazen high-seas attack on a U.S.-flagged ship off the coast of Africa pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges he hijacked the ship and kidnapped its captain.
Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse has been jailed in Manhattan since he was captured last year and faced what was called the first U.S. piracy prosecution in decades.
Prosecutors branded Muse the ringleader of a band of four pirates who provoked a deadly drama by targeting the Maersk Alabama on April 8, 2009, as it transported humanitarian supplies about 280 miles off the coast of Somalia.
The case could be the first of several piracy prosecutions in U.S. courts. It’s part of a larger U.S. policy debate over how best to deal with the insurgents and criminal activities that contribute to the persistent instability in Somalia, making it a haven for Al Qaeda-linked terrorists.
| [Return to headlines] |
SEC Proposes New Circuit Breaker for All Exchanges
Action would halt trading for 5 minutes to avoid another flash crash
In an attempt to prevent a repeat of this month’s rapid market plunge, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday proposed a new “circuit breaker” mechanism that briefly would halt trading in individual stocks that experience a 10 percent price change over a five-minute period.
In addition, the SEC released preliminary findings from an investigation of the market’s dramatic downturn on May 6.
| [Return to headlines] |
Sheboygan Gets a Mosque
This is happening in small towns and cities throughout the US. Sheboygan, WI has been riled for months over whether a use permit to convert a former store into a mosque should be granted by the town fathers. The local refugee population was cited by the Palestinian (from Gaza) imam as one reason they needed the religious center. Last night the mosque was approved over the objections of the majority of the citizens of Sheboygan. Hat tip: Robert
From the Sheboygan Press:
After an hour and a half of fiery discussion, including comments from two dozen speakers, and before an audience of more than 120 people, the Wilson Town Board voted unanimously Monday night to grant a conditional use permit for Sheboygan County’s first mosque.
With the approval, Mohammad Hamad, the Imam, or spiritual leader, of the local Muslim community, said the first worship service at the former Tom’s of Wisconsin health food store at 9110 Sauk Trail Road would be held Friday, the traditional day of worship for Muslims.
Hamad said he was happy the process was over.
“I believe right now we have to focus on the future and put this harsh talk behind us,” Hamad said after the meeting.
“I was a little surprised at the misunderstanding” about Islam and the local Muslim community, he said, adding but the mosque will help open a door to better understanding.”
The proposal had drawn large crowds over the last several months to town Plan Commission meetings and several hundreds to public forums at local churches and other locations, with some saying the U.S. Constitutional guarantee of freedom of worship dictated approval while others said the mosque could attract Islamic fundamentalists and even terrorists to the area.
Read on.
| — Hat tip: RRW | [Return to headlines] |
State Department Defends Official Who Expressed Regret to Chinese Over Arizona Law
The State Department on Tuesday defended a top-ranking diplomat who expressed regret to China last week about Arizona’s immigration law during a discussion on human rights in Washington.
Spokesman P.J. Crowley, in an interview with Fox News, disputed the notion that Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner was apologizing to China, saying he was actually “standing up” for America by describing how debate functions in a “civil society.”
But he echoed other top Obama administration officials in describing the law as a gateway to “racial profiling” and doubled down on Posner’s comments to the Chinese.
Posner told reporters on Friday that the U.S. delegation brought up the Arizona law “early and often,” as an example of a trouble spot Americans need to work on.
“It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society,” Posner said…
| [Return to headlines] |
Texas Doctors Opting Out of Medicare at Alarming Rate
Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.
Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year.
“This new data shows the Medicare system is beginning to implode,” said Dr. Susan Bailey, president of the Texas Medical Association. “If Congress doesn’t fix Medicare soon, there’ll be more and more doctors dropping out and Congress’ promise to provide medical care to seniors will be broken.”
More than 300 doctors have dropped the program in the last two years, including 50 in the first three months of 2010, according to data compiled by the Houston Chronicle. Texas Medical Association officials, who conducted the 2008 survey, said the numbers far exceeded their assumptions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Will GOP Candidates in Virginia 11 Talk About Islamists?
Yesterday former Federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy in National Review on Line (NRO) reports in his post entitled “The State Department Doubles Down on the Islamist Mosque” — -
“Yesterday I noted the State Department’s showcasing of the Dar al-Hijra Islamic Center in a film about Muslim life in America — despite the mosque’s longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, its virulent Islamist ideology, its support for the murderous Hamas organization, its notorious Islamist imams and elders (including al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki), and the ties of some of its worshippers to the 9/11 attacks and the Fort Hood massacre. Then, we learned that the federal government has struck a deal to pay Dar al-Hijra a whopping $582K just for this year (i.e., about one-tenth what it cost the Saudis to build the place), purportedly because the Census Bureau needs work space — y’know, because there are like no federal facilities anywhere near Falls Church, Virginia.”…
| [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Establishment Group Claims it Firebombed Ottawa Royal Bank Branch
By Tony Spears
OTTAWA — An anti-establishment group claimed responsibility for the firebombing of a Glebe bank early Tuesday morning.
The group also vowed to “be there” at the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in an online video that shows a massive fireball exploding from the front window of a Royal Bank of Canada branch on Bank Street and First Avenue.
In the short clip, one person emerges from the branch’s side door and is then silhouetted against a vivid orange flash. Another person follows him out the door and the pair begin to head east across First.
The video abruptly cuts to scrolling text.
“The Vancouver Olympic games are over, but a torch is still burning,” the text reads.
Firefighters responded to the blaze at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, and had it under control just after 4 a.m. No one was injured.
The video was posted on an anti-establishment website at 11:59 a.m. Tuesday. It appears to have been shot on a handheld camera from the northwest corner of the intersection.
“Resistance continues,” the text reads. “An RBC branch can be found in every corner of Kanada (sic).”
In the next paragraph, it mentions the G8 and G20 conferences that are to take place at the end of June in Huntsville and Toronto, where “‘leaders’ and bankers (will) make decisions that will further their policies of exploitation of people and the environment.
“We will be there.”
When informed by The Citizen of the video’s existence, lead investigator Sgt. David Christie said the attack was “one of many theories put out there (as to) what the motive would be.”
RBC has been a favourite target for self-styled anarchists protesting the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In 2008 the firebombed branch had had its windows smashed by brick-throwers.
An online posting signed “Riot 2010!!! ~Ottawa Anarchists” claimed credit for two such incidents Jan. 27 and Feb. 12, 2008, as well as a March 11, 2008, incident at the Elgin and Lisgar streets branch that “was again the target of our rage against the evils they sponsor.
“The trashcan we hurled through their window shows what we think of their Corporate Circus.”
A letter sent to The Citizen in February 2008 said the vandalism was an act of “solidarity” with those who were fighting the 2010 Olympic games “and its corporate sponsors.”
Anarchists also took credit for “paint-bombing” the Olympic countdown clock opposite Parliament Hill.
But RBC itself came under fire in the video’s text, taking aim at the bank’s claim to be one of Canada’s greenest employers (which stems from a competition organized by editors of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, according to an RBC release).
“RBC is now the major financier of Alberta’s tar sands, one of the largest industrial rojects in human history and perhaps the most destructive,” the text says.
The website on which the video is posted has “Montebello” written across the top, bringing to mind violent clashes in Quebec between riot police and protestors outside the Château Montebello in August 2007.
Five police officers were injured in the confrontation, which saw more than 1,000 protestors face down tear gas, pepper spray and plastic bullets, replying with rocks, tomatoes and stone-filled bottles.
They had been protesting North American integration at a two-day summit involving Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and then-U.S. President George W. Bush.
RBC spokeswoman Gillian McArdle would not address the video when made aware of its contents by The Citizen Tuesday afternoon.
She was unwilling to say if RBC would be stepping up security in the wake of the firebombing.
McArdle did stress that safety deposit boxes had not been damaged, and added that branch staff would be redeployed to other locations.
Two employees appeared shaken as they surveyed the damage Tuesday morning. They declined to comment, and did not linger.
The damage to the branch was considerable.
Fire officials said the blaze began in the foyer of the building. Smoke and heat damage then spread throughout the branch, leaving windows cracked and shattered. Two ABMs in the front of the branch were charred almost beyond recognition.
The sidewalk was littered with debris — dinner-plate-sized glass shards, warped metal and burnt insulation forced passersby onto busy Bank Street Tuesday morning.
Fire officials pegged the damage at $200,000 to the building, $100,000 to contents.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium ‘Placed on Democracy Watch List’
Belgium has banned three elected mayors from office for speaking French.
European human rights watchdogs are now watching Belgian democracy closely after the move by Flemish local authorities.
The Council of Europe has “opened a monitoring procedure on local democracy” fuelling a row between Dutch speaking and francophone Belgians that has threatened the existence of Belgium.
Flemish regional authorities have blocked three French-speaking mayors from taking up public office since they were elected in January 2007 in the Brussels suburbs of Linkebeek, Wezembeek-Oppem and Kraainem.
Marino Keulen, the Flemish Interior Minister responsible for the ban, remained defiant and announced he will stick by his decision to outlaw the elected mayors.
“Flanders has not been convicted. Only a court can impose a conviction,” he said. “I would have preferred a different decision, because this will hit the international headlines, but the real impact is nil.”
Mr Keulen insisted that the three mayors did not respect Flemish linguistic legislation that prohibits French election literature even though the suburbs they represent, while geographically in Dutch-speaking Flanders, are mainly inhabited by French speakers.
The COE has demanded that the mayors be immediately appointed and called for a review of Belgium’s linguistic laws that have been used by Flemish nationalists to ban the use of the French language in municipalities around Brussels, home to the EU.
Damien Thiéry, the banned mayor elect for Linkebeek, told human rights watchdogs in Strasbourg that a legal appeal in Belgium could take five years.
“You are our last recourse. Without you the democracy will die out in our towns,” he said…
| [Return to headlines] |
Belgians Urged to Boycott Dutch Mussels in Port Row
The boycott follows a Dutch refusal to begin dredging its side of the Scheldt estuary, the main waterway linking the port of Antwerp to the North Sea.
Bitter disputes over the Westerschelde have dogged Belgian-Dutch relations since Belgium was created in 1830 as a split from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The dredging work, agreed between the two countries in 2005, is necessary to allow large ships to reach Antwerp, and the delay is costing the Belgian port over £60 million a year in lost trade, threatening 180,000 jobs.
Most Antwerpenaars are convinced the Netherlands is delaying because Rotterdam stands to benefit if Antwerp, Europe’s third largest port, remains inaccessible.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there are protectionist ideas at work,” said Annick De Ridder, an MP for the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD).
“The Dutch blocked the Westerschelde back in the 16th and 17th century and turned Antwerp into a ghost town. And there’s a risk it will happen all over again.”
Miss De Ridder is demanding that her fellow Belgians should stop eating mussels and oysters because Belgium’s consumption accounts for 60 per cent of the Dutch Zeeland coast’s shellfish harvest, including crops from the Scheldt.
“It is a symbolic action to get the attention of the people. Mussels are eaten everywhere in Flanders and in Antwerp’s 6,000 restaurants,” she said.
Last week, Kris Peeters, the prime minister of the Flemish region of Belgium, summoned Hannie Pollmann-Zaal, the Dutch ambassador, to express anger at the decision to halt work on environmental grounds.
The row could kill a joint Belgian-Dutch bid to host the football World Cup in 2018 or 2022 and could see tit-for-tat delays on completion of the high-speed rail link with Amsterdam.
Regional Flemish authorities are already considering proposals to impose a road tax on Dutch freight carried by lorries using Belgian motorways.
Earlier this week, the Dutch NRC Handelsblatt newspaper warned: “Flemish anger is very real and the relationship between Belgium and the Netherlands is deteriorating.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Burka Rage as Female Lawyer Rips Veil Off Muslim Woman in French Clothes Shop
A 60-year-old female lawyer ripped a Muslim woman’s Islamic veil off during a row in what French police described as the first known case of ‘burqa rage’.
The astonishing scene unfolded in a clothes shop in France when the pair came to blows before being arrested.
It came as racial tensions grow over of the country’s plans to introduce a total ban on burqas and other forms of religious dress which cover the face.
The 26-year-old Muslim convert was walking through the store in Trignac, near Nantes, in the western Loire-Atlantique region, when she overhead the lawyer making ‘snide remarks about her black burqa’.
A police officer added: ‘The lawyer said she was not happy seeing a fellow shopper wearing a veil and wanted the ban introduced as soon as possible.’
At one point the lawyer, who was out with her daughter, is said to have likened the Muslim woman to Belphegor — a horror demon character well known to French television viewers.
The lawyer’s use of the name ‘Belphegor’ was particularly inflammatory, said police, because the demon was portrayed by classical writers as ‘Hell’s ambassador to France’.
Belphegor, who hates human beings, is usually portrayed as a monstrous demon with horns and pointed nails, but frequently disguises himself.
During a period in Paris, Belphegor was said to live with a group of vampires in the Louvre.
Police said the incident was still being investigated, and that charges could follow.
Neither woman has yet been named.
A ‘shouting argument’ started in the store before the older woman is said to have ripped the other woman’s veil off.
As they came to blows on Saturday afternoon, the lawyer’s daughter joined in, with the three women clashing.
‘The shop manager and the husband of the Muslim woman moved to break up the fighting,’ the police officer said.
‘All three were arrested and taken to the local gendarmerie for questioning.’
A spokesman for Trignac police said that ‘two complaints had been received’, with the Muslim woman accusing the lawyer of racial and religious assault. The latter, in turn, had accused her opponent of common assault.
The French parliament has adopted a formal motion declaring burqas and other forms of Islamic dress to be ‘an affront to the nation’s values’.
Some have accused criminals of wearing veils to disguise themselves. This includes everything from terrorists to minor shop lifters.
A ban, which could be introduced as early as autumn, would make France the second country after Belgium to outlaw the Islamic veil in public places.
But many have criticised the anti-burqa lobby, which includes President Nicolas Sarkozy, for stigmatising Muslim housewives.
Many French women from council estates are forced to wear the veils because of pressure from authoritarian husbands.
The promise of a ban has prompted warnings of racial tensions in a country which is home to some five million Muslims — one of the religion’s largest communities in Europe.
Mr Sarkozy’s cabinet is to examine a draft bill which will impose one-year prison sentences and fines of up to £14,000 on men who force their wives to wear a burqa.
Women themselves will face a smaller fine of just over £100 because they are ‘often victims with no choice in the matter,’ says the draft.
The law would create a new offence of ‘incitement to cover the face for reasons of gender’.
And it would state: ‘No-one may wear in public places clothes that are aimed at hiding the face.’
Women would not be ‘unveiled’ in the street but instead taken to a police station to be formally identified, the draft law states.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
France: Italian Police Given ‘List of 7,000 Tax Evaders’
Nice, 18 May (AKI) — French prosecutors have handed Italian finance police the names of 7,000 potential tax evaders for investigation. The entire list, which is understood to include a total of 120,000 offshore accounts, was handed to police by Herve Falciani, a former employee of the HSBC’s Swiss private banking business.
“We had orders to organise the list that contains thousands of names,” said Nice prosecutor Eric de Montegolfier, in an interview with Adnkronos. “We separated the (Italian) names and handed them over to authorities.”
Montegolfier gave the list with the suspected tax evaders to French authorities in Paris. The Italian finance police are now expected to deliver it to their country’s tax-collection agency where officials will examine the data before considering legal action.
Turin prosecutor Giancarlo Caselli, a former high-ranking mafia prosecutor, expressed interest in pursuing prosecutions after the list was examined by the tax collection agency, Agenzia dell’Entrate.
The Agenzia dell’Entrate recovered 9.1 billion euros in 2009 in its fight against tax evasion.
Total revenues collected for the year were 32 percent higher than the previous year when a record 7 billion euros were recovered, the agency said in March.
HSBC, the London-based banking giant, in March announced that Falciani, a computer systems worker with duel French-Italian citizenship, had stolen the information from the bank.
He fled to France while under investigation in Switzerland.
French authorities subsequently seized the data and then passed it to the Swiss federal prosecutor.
Alexandre Zeller, chief executive officer of HSBC’s private banking told reporters in March that Falciani was a “trusted employee” who worked for the firm for more than seven years.
Falciani took the data “probably over a period of months” while working on a project to transfer client information between computer systems, he said.
In addition to Italians, the list contains names of account holders from the United States, the UK and Germany.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Future of Belgium Under Threat Over Language Row
The “survival” of Belgium as a unified country was called into question last night after a row between French and Dutch speakers brought the government to the verge of collapse.
The wrangle has already brought down the government four times in the past three years but the latest spat is the gravest yet and threatens to split the country into Flemish areas and French-speaking areas.
King Albert II warned politicians that the political crisis “seriously threatens” the country’s role in Europe, after the Prime Minister, Yves Leterme tendered his resignation.
Mr Leterme stepped down after talks broke down over plants to give French speakers in the suburbs of Brussels special voting powers which the Flemish parties want to see denied.
The failure to reach a deal led the Flemish liberal party, Open VLD, to pull out of the five-party ruling coalition and just hours later Mr Leterme resigned. King Albert has delayed a decision on whether to accept the resignation.
Dutch speakers make up 60 percent of the population in Belgium, where only the capital Brussels is officially bilingual. Prosperous Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north wants greater autonomy, whereas poorer, French-speaking Wallonia in the south argues enough powers have been devolved.
The Brussels-Hal-Vilvorde districts at the centre of the row have acted as a focal point for these deep-seated linguistic tensions, as they are Flemish-run but with a sizeable French-speaking community.
Some Wallon politicians saw the latest crisis as a Flemish plot to break up Belgium…
| [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Driver Arrested After 21 Afghans Found in His Truck
Venezia, 17 May (AKI) — Border police in the northeastern city of Venice have arrested a Greek lorry driver after 21 illegal immigrants believed to be Afghans were found hidden inside his truck. The migrants were discovered with the help of finance police and customs officials when the truck disembarked from a ferry from the coastal city of Patras in Greece.
The 52-year-old truck driver was arrested on suspicion of abetting illegal immigration.
One of the Afghan migrants aboard the truck, a minor, was handed over to Italian social services.
Migrants, many from Afghanistan and Iraq, regularly attempt to enter Italy and other European countries illegally, concealed inside goods vehicles. There have been several tragedies when migrants have died of heatstroke, suffocation or dehydration on the journey.
Twenty-seven illegal immigrants were detained in the souther Italian port city of Bari in April, 2008, after being discovered in a truck that arrived on a ferry from Greece.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Govt Approval Rating Drops
Public works graft scandal appears to damage executive’s image
(ANSA) — Rome, May 18 — The approval ratings for Premier Silvio Berlusconi, his center-right government, and his People of Freedom (PdL) party and government ally the Northern League all fell in May with those of the premier, his executive and the PdL hitting record lows.
The opposition, however, failed to benefit from the drop in confidence among Italians towards the center right, according to a monthly poll from the IPR research group released on Tuesday.
The sharp decline in popularity for the the premier and his government appears to be linked to a growing public works graft scandal, which this month led to the resignation of Industry Minister Claudio Scajola, who stepped down after being implicated in a shady real estate deal. Berlusconi’s approval rating has been falling steadily this year and the percentage of Italians who expressed confidence in his leadership fell this month to 41%, from 44% in April, while those who had little or no confidence in the premier rose to 55%, both figures records for the government’s first two years.
The premier took office in the spring of 2008 and his popularity leaked in October 2008 at 62%.
The government’s approval rating has also been declining steadily this year and in May fell three percentage points to a record low of 35%, while the disapproval rating climbed three points to break the 60% threshold for the first time and hit 62%.
Until this month the PdL had been the political party which enjoyed the greatest confidence among Italians, even if this has been declining since December, but in May confidence in the premier’s party fell two percentage points to the same level, 38%, of the opposition Italy of Values Party (IdV) of former Clean Hands prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, which was the only party this month not to lose ground.
The Democratic Party (PD), the biggest opposition group, saw its approval rating this month slip to 36%, while confidence in the opposition centrist UDC party slipped to 35% and in the Northern League to 32%.
The approval ratings of the PD, UDC and Northern League all fell by two percentage points this month.
Within the government no minister saw his or her approval rating rise while seven remained the same and 14 ministers saw their ratings fall by between two and three percentage points.
Following Scajola’s resignation, only seven out of 22 ministers had approval ratings of 50% or above.
Welfare Minister Maurizio Sacconi enjoyed the greatest confidence rating, 62%, followed by Justice Minister Angelino Alfano (60%), Interior Minister Roberto Maroni (59%), Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti (57%), Equal Opportunities Minister Mara Carfagna (55%), Civil Service Minister Renato Brunetta (54%) and Reforms Minister Umberto Bossi (50%).
Tourism Minister Mario Vittoria Brambilla remained the minister with the lowest approval rating, 25%, below Regional Affairs Minister Raffaele Fitto (26%) and the minister for relations with parliament, Elio Vito, (27%).
The IPR poll was carried out May 14-16 on a cross section of 1,000 resident Italian voters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tories Continue to Mellow on EU Policy
By Andrew Rettman
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — UK foreign minister William Hague has pledged support for the EU’s diplomatic service and economic growth agenda in a surprisingly mild policy statement.
“It is true that we in the Conservative Party were not persuaded of the case for the new EU External Action Service as a service, but its existence is now a fact …Britain’s Conservative government will work closely with the high representative, whom we wish well,” he wrote on Tuesday (18 May) in a column for Europe’s World, the house journal of the pro-federalist Friends of Europe think-tank.
He spoke warmly of EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy’s ideas on economic reform: “Herman Van Rompuy has accurately said, ‘we need more economic growth, now and in the future’ and has rightly identified competitiveness as a key issue.”
The diplomatic service and the Council president, who is routinely lambasted in British media, are the main embodiments of closer EU integration under the Lisbon Treaty.
Mr Hague’s article is the latest in a series of attempts by the Conservative Party to moderate its eurosceptic image since coming to power in a coalition with the pro-EU Liberal Democrats last week.
The Europe’s World statement is also marked by lack of defensive comment on the City of London, despite being published on the morning of a major debate by EU finance ministers in Brussels on joint economic governance and hedge fund regulations.
Outlining traditional British foreign policy priorities, Mr Hague said the EU should play a more robust role in the Balkans and championed Turkish accession.
“There is a strong argument for the threat of targeted sanctions against politicians who undermine the Bosnian state,” he said. “Turkey’s membership would refute those who claim that there is a clash of civilisations between the West and Islam, and would make Turkey an ideal interlocutor between Europe and the Middle East.”
On the Europe 2020 growth strategy, he underlined “better enforcement of single market rules and [taking] full advantage of the opportunities offered by e-commerce” as well as action on the bloc’s “fragmented licensing and copyright regimes.”
He also restated the Conservative Party’s recent turn-around on pre-election plans to categorically opt out of EU social and criminal legislation.
Mr Hague spoke instead of seeking “specific British guarantees on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the operation of the EU’s competence in criminal justice and on social and employment legislation,” adding: “We will take our time, negotiating firmly, patiently and respectfully, and aim to achieve these guarantees over the lifetime of our newly-elected parliament.”
But he sharply attacked the EU’s working time directive, which limits the working week to 48 hours. “Such regulation discredits the EU when it creates serious problems for public services, as it has by damaging patient care in Britain,” the minister said.
Both the Conservatives and the former Labour government have long been united in opposing such worker protections.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Customs Free Trade With Albania and Moldavia
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MAY 18 — On July 1, Serbia is to begin the full liberalization of agricultural and food products trade with Albania and Moldova as part of the CEFTA agreement, said the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, reports BETA news agency. “Further liberalization in the trade of agricultural products in two stages, this year and the next, has been agreed with Croatia,” said Serbian Chamber of Commerce adviser Milena Mirkovic at a meeting between representatives of the chambers of commerce of CEFTA countries. She recalled that Serbia had full trade liberalization with Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and UNMIK Kosovo. She specified that in the first stage of trade liberalization with Croatia it was envisaged that preferential customs duties would be decreased by 50%, while quotas would be increased by 100%, but tobacco, cigarettes, sugar and sugar syrup would be exempt.(ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt to Rule on Status of Men Married to Israelis
A COURT in Egypt is to rule next month on whether Egyptian men married to Israeli women are to be stripped of their citizenship, a judicial source said.
“The High Administrative Court will issue its verdict in June,” the source said, in a case that highlights Egyptian sentiment towards Israel, more than 30 years after an unpopular peace deal was signed with the Jewish state.
A lower court ruled last year that the interior minister must look into the cases of Egyptian men married to Israeli women, and their children, in order to “take the necessary steps to strip them of their nationality.”
The interior and foreign ministries appealed the case, saying it was for parliament to decide on such matters.
Nabil al Wahsh, the lawyer who took the case to court in the first place, said that “Egyptian nationality law warns against marriage to anyone characterised as Zionist.”
He said authorities refused to provide the exact number of Egyptian men married to Israeli women, but according to him the number is thought to be around 30,000.
“The majority are married to Israelis considered Zionist, and only 10 percent are married to Arab Israelis,” Wahsh said.
Thousands of Egyptians, particularly a large number who lived in Iraq and returned after the 1990 Gulf War over Kuwait, moved to Israel in search of work and married Israeli women.
In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel.
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Restoration Programme Starts for 10,000 Mosques
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, MAY 18 — Three months after the collapse of the minaret of the Meknes mosque, causing the death of 41 people and injuring 75, the Islamic Affairs Ministry has set up a restoration programme for all of the country’s places of worship. The Minister, Ahmed Tawfik, explained that 2.7 billion Dirhams (that is 245 million Euros) have been budgeted for this work: 18 million for technical feasibility studies and 227 million for construction work). The programme will concern over 10,000 mosques: 389 will be demolished and rebuilt, 6674 will undergo restoration work to reinforce their structures. Another 3374 buildings will undergo technical surveys to decide about possible intervention. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli-Palestinian Delegation on Visit to Italy’s ‘Heel’
(ANSAmed) — LECCE, MAY 18 — An Israeli-Palestinian delegation, headed by Fuad Kokaly, an MP from the Palestinian Legislative Council, is visiting Salento (Italy’s “heel”), in Apulia, over the next few days to meet with representatives of the institutions, local administrations and organisations operating in the handicraft and agriculture sectors. The visit, reports a note released by the Province of Lecce, falls within a programme of the project, “Olive: peace and development in the Mediterranean”, promoted by the ‘Fair Trade Cooperative’ of Lecce and by the association ‘Not only Fair trade’ of Fasano, financed by the Apulia Region’s Councillor for the Mediterranean, with the contribution of the Province of Lecce and other local administrations in the Salento area. The project, says the note, was launched in 2007 and has established a fair trade channel between Palestine, Israel and Apulia, allowing the arrival to Apulia of a number handicraft and agricultural products from the Middle East: embroidery glass artefacts, artefacts in recycled paper, olive wood and mother-of-pearl, produced by the BFTA cooperative in Bethlehem, olive oil bars of soap, baskets in willow, and zàtar, a local spice, produced by the Israeli cooperative Sindyanna, which is committed to Providing work to the Palestinian minority living in Israel. The olive, an economic resource and contemporarily a cultural emblem in the three territories, is the element around which the project is centred, aiming at the Exchange of experiences and products between Apulia and the Holy Land: Apulia offers a collaboration within the ambit of the valorisation and promotion of agricultural and handicraft products; Israelis and Palestinians return experiences and products which seem to have been forgotten in our land, such as the artefacts made of olive wood and cosmetics made out of olive oil. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinian Houses Demolished in Gaza
Earlier today, Hamas leaders demolished scores of Palestinian homes in Rafah, Gaza. And why? What is the real reason for this Palestinian-on-Palestinian demolition? Was the land needed for villas for Hamas heavies? Was it for a military purpose? Were these tunnels in which Palestinians were trying to escape from Gaza and into Egypt?
[…]
Sadly, no one really cares about the Palestinians. Most are known killers and terrorists, gangsters. No Arab country will grant them citizenship. Jordan massacred them in 1970 and began to exile them in 2009; this is an ongoing process. They are forgotten by Arab tyrants whose own countries are filled with people who are also living in poverty and considerable misery. The Palestinians only matter as a symbol to quell national Arab unrest and when it is Israelis who are demolishing Palestinian homes or shooting back at Palestinian terrorists.
President Obama has not signaled to the Arab or Muslim world that he cares about Arab or Muslim suffering—or democracy, dissent, human rights, or women’s rights. On the contrary. He has signaled that he does not care about such rights (or will not commit American money or blood to ensure them, not even in Tehran), and that he will accept, appease, and negotiate with the worst tyrants in the interest of … stability…
| [Return to headlines] |
Detained Militant in Iraq Details World Cup Plot
An al-Qaida militant detained in Iraq on suspicion of plotting to attack the World Cup told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wanted to target Danish and Dutch teams to avenge insults against the Prophet Muhammad.
Iraqi security forces announced the arrest of Saudi citizen Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani Monday, saying he was suspected of planning an attack in South Africa during the World Cup beginning June 11.
During an interview arranged by the Iraqi security officials holding al-Qahtani, he described the plot and said the idea of attacking the World Cup came up in late 2009 during talks with friends over content in the Western media that was offensive to Muslims.
“We discussed the possibility of taking revenge for the insults of the Prophet by attacking Denmark and Holland,” he said.
[…]
“The goal was to attack the Danish and the Dutch teams and their fans,” the militant said. “If we were not able to reach the teams, then we’d target the fans,” he said, adding that they hoped to use guns and car bombs…
| [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Police ‘Foil Al Qaeda Soccer World Cup Terror Plot’
IRAQI security forces claimed they have foiled a planned al Qaeda attack at the soccer World Cup in South Africa.
A spokesman for Baghdad security services said they detained a Saudi army officer suspected of planning a “terrorist act” at next month’s tournament.
Abdullah Azam Saleh al Qahtani, who entered Iraq in 2004, was wanted for several attacks in the capital and elsewhere in the country.
A police spokesman in South Africa said Iraqi officials were yet to file an official report.
South African police have offered a demonstration of their security strength to allay fears ahead of the first World Cup on African soil.
Officers paraded fire engines, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles through Johannesburg.
“South Africa will be hosting the whole world, and therefore will take no chances,” Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Al-Qaeda Leader ‘Planned World Cup Attack’
Riyadh, 17 May (AKI) — A senior member of Al-Qaeda arrested in Iraq two weeks ago had been planning an attack against next month’s World Cup in South Africa, a senior Iraqi security official said on Monday. Abdullah Azzam Saleh Misfar al-Qahtani, a 30-year-old Saudi, “participated in the planning of a terrorist act in South Africa during the World Cup,” said Baghdad security official, Major General Qassim Atta.
Abdullah Azzam Saleh Misfar al-Qahtani, a 30-year-old Saudi, “participated in the planning of a terrorist act in South Africa during the World Cup”, said Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta.
The alleged militant, whose battle name is believed to be Sanan al-Saudi, was said to be in direct contact with Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri.
According to investigators, the pair were planning an attack in South Africa in the first few days of the World Cup, which begins in June.
Al-Qahtaniwas arrested by Iraqi forces in Baghdad. Born in 1979, the militant left his native country for Syria and entered Iraq through the al-Qaim border.
He has reportedly been living in volatile al-Anbar province where he was responsible for Al-Qaeda security.
He is accused of carrying out kidnappings and attacks in Iraq and having planned a series of attacks against holy Shia sites in the cities of Najaf and Karbala.
On Monday Iraqi security forces arrested another alleged member of Al-Qaeda. Algerian Tareq Asnan Abdel Qade, known by the battle name of Abu Yasin.
Born in Algeria in 1974, Qade crossed into Iraq via Syria and had been training at an Al-Qaeda camp in al-Anbar. He was arrested by US forces in 2006 and released in 2008.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Woman Beats Up Religious Police Officer Who Stopped Her for Walking With a Man
When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise — when the woman suddenly attacked him.
The officer, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.
Unmarried men and women are barred from mixing under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic rules.
The young man immediately collapsed for reasons that have not been made clear, the Jerusalem Post reported.
But before the policeman could do anything else, the woman — believed to be in her mid-twenties — laid into him.
He was punched repeatedly about the head and upper torso during the attack in the eastern city of Hofuf Mubarraz.
The assault was so severe and sustained, the officer was eventually taken to hospital suffering from severe bruising.
Neither religious nor local police have commented on the incident, which was widely played out in the Saudi media.
If the woman is charged with assaulting the officer, she could face a lengthy prison term, or a lashing, or both.
But public opinion appears to have been firmly behind her.
‘People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years,’ Saudi human rights activist Wajiha Al Huwaidar told the Media Line news agency.
‘To see resistance from a woman means a lot… This is just the beginning and there will be more.’
Saudi’s archaic laws mean that, in addition to being barred from socialising with men in public, Saudi woman are also banned from driving.
They cannot divorce, inherit, or gain custody of their children, and they must be chaperoned in public by a male relative at all times.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — known locally as the Hai’a — are tasked with enforcing these laws.
But resistance to the draconian measures — fuelled and empowered by the internet — has been growing in recent months.
‘There is some sort of change taking place,’ Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line.
‘But it’s not quite clear what’s happening and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Syria-WTO: Observer Status, Membership Process Begins
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, MAY 18 — The World Trade Organisation (WTO) has given Syria the status of observer, the run-up to procedures for its successive admission as an effective member. The decision, reports the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) in Damascus, has been taken about nine years on from the membership application presented by the Syrian government, and represents an important success for the country. The obtainment of this status was made possible by the United States decision to remove the veto over Syria’s membership. A unanimous consensus among all member states, continues the note, is the preliminary condition to start the membership process of a new member state. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s New Political Balance: Old AKP and New Kemalism
Turkey’s protracted political battle between the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and its opponents reached a crescendo this month with the Turkish Parliament’s vote on proposed constitutional amendments.
The battle over the amendments represented the zenith of the country’s dangerous polarization between two broad political camps congregated around Islamists and secularists. The two sides are in an all-out struggle against one another, and neither feels it can afford to lose. The mantra of Turkish politics in summer 2010: Eat your opponents for lunch or else they will eat you for dinner.
The changes to the Constitution promise to give the AKP, which already has control over the executive and legislative branches of government, the powers to appoint high court judges and shape the judiciary in its image.
Such a development would be the near end of the secular, pro-Western Turkey we have come to know since Ankara became a multi-party democracy in 1946 and dropped anchor in the West in 1947. Turkey, run by secular parties between 1946 and 2002 and by the AKP, a party with roots in political Islam, since 2002, is now severely split between secularists and Islamists.
The struggle between the two sides has already taken alarming turns. There have been coup allegations against the AKP, followed by the Ergenekon case, which the government has not only used to prosecute these allegations, but also crack down on its secularist opponents. The AKP has also levied massive tax fines against independent media. Furthermore, the judiciary is split along ideological lines. Islamist and secularist powers stubbornly continue to attempt to destroy one another.
Turkey, however, has a way out of this conundrum if it can reinvent Kemalism at the same time that the AKP agrees to share the spoils of political power. This would require both wisdom and vision. After eight years of unbroken AKP rule and the consequent rise of a conservative, political, economic and intelligence elite to support the party, it is likely Turkey will not ever be the same as it was before 2002. Yet, secular Turks, with their supporting media, businesses, lobby groups, political parties and nongovernmental organizations, as well as their sheer numbers, will not simply disappear.
Opinion polls that measure attitudes toward the AKP and its conservative values suggest that 32 percent to 38 percent of Turks (upward of 25 million people) would never support the AKP or want to live in a country shaped solely by its values.
This, then, is the recipe for the new Turkey: The country must provide room for everyone.
Considering its transformation under the AKP, Turkey will find it difficult, if not impossible, to return to its 1990s position. Still, Turkey must avert political deadlock and polarization. To this end, Kemalism must first be reinvented as New Kemalism.
New Kemalism is not pre-Kemalism — I am not calling for the return of Caliphate — nor is it anti-Kemalism; I am, of course, not asking for an end to women’s emancipation. Rather, New Kemalism is Kemalism 2.0, updated and recast to preserve the liberal aspects of a Kemalist polity. It asserts the separation of religion and government, but jettisons authoritarianism and anachronistic aspects of traditional Kemalism.
New Kemalism would necessarily be open-minded toward social conservatism while maintaining the separation of religion and government. In this regard, the relationship between the government and religion would be redefined. The state would be equally distant from all faiths, or lack thereof. Laws would ensure that religion be kept outside the body politic, while an ombudsman would watch out for the rights of people who practice Islam, as well people who do not practice, a necessary institution in a country where 99.9 percent of the people are of the same religion.
Finally, New Kemalism would boost traditional Kemalism’s commitment to Turkey’s European vocation while reguiding it toward more liberal values. In the early 20th century, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, wanted the country to go West, and that remains Kemalism’s goal. Europe, however, has moved figuratively further West since then. Joining this new Europe, the European Union of liberal values, has to be New Kemalism’s driving mantra.
In agreeing to share political power, the AKP must also adjust itself to encompass Turkey’s Kemalist legacy and strength.
What interest does the AKP and its allies have in sharing power? Secular Turkey is too large for the AKP to digest even if the party were successful in eating its secularist opponents for political lunch. Even with its newfound weight, the AKP cannot afford to ignore modern Turkey’s historical make-up without further breaking the country.
Hence, the AKP would benefit by choosing to coexist with its political adversaries. This stance flourished within the party when the AKP sought Turkey’s accession into the European Union and consensus in politics. However, when accession talks stalled in 2005 and the AKP won an intoxicating landslide electoral victory soon after, in 2007, the party shifted from building consensus to authoritarian politics. It curbed media freedoms and cracked down on dissent. The AKP’s recent shift in stance contrasts starkly with the party’s erstwhile politically pliable format.
The vision of a new Turkey that provides room for everyone requires a new and lasting political balance between the old AKP and New Kemalism. The country’s ruling party must re-embrace liberalism, while its Kemalist adversaries must evolve. Otherwise, Turkey will crumble from the pressures of increased polarization between the new AKP and traditional Kemalism.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine — Russia: Medvedev’s Visit in Kyiv Casts a Russian (And Chechen) Shadow Over the Ukraine
Russia’s president makes his first official visit to Ukraine for the inauguration of the new pro-Russian Yanukovich administration. Ukraine’s opposition parties slam the presence of Chechen President Kadyrov in the Russian delegation. The visit marks new bilateral relations, with talks on energy taking centre stage.
Kyiv (AsiaNews) — Russia and Ukraine may no longer be at loggerheads over trade, energy or military bases, but Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s first official visit to Kyiv (today and tomorrow) for the official inauguration of the new Ukrainian administration of President Victor Yanukovich has not started without controversy, especially among Ukrainian nationalists, because of the presence in the Russian delegation of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
In a recent interview, the Chechen leader, a close Kremlin ally, said, “Georgia, South Ossetia, Ukraine—all this will go on and on. This is a private disease in Russia. Why do we must always suffer if we can eliminate this problem? We are a great country; we have it all, military technology. We must attack.”
Words aside, it is clear that the victory of pro-Russia Yanukovich is seen by many as a move towards Ukraine’s subordination to the Russian Federation. This is especially the case among Ukrainian nationalists and the country’s political opposition who are clearly irritated by the presence of a hawk like Kadyrov.
Indeed, Medvedev’s visit marks a rather quick readjustment in bilateral Russian-Ukrainian relations following the replacement of pro-Western Yushenko by Yanukovich.
Although no energy deal is scheduled for this visit, the attention of the international community will focus on how the two countries deal with gas, mergers and new projects like the South Stream pipeline, areas in which the gap between the two sides was rapidly narrowed.
At the same time, Ukraine wants to be Russia’s partner, not its subordinate. President Yanukovich has excluded for now a proposal to merge Russia’s Gazprom with Ukraine’s Naftogaz (as suggested by Russian Prime Minister Putin), suggesting instead a consortium with Russia and the European Union to upgrade Ukraine’s pipelines.
Yet the merger idea is not dead. Indeed, Moscow is not likely to accommodate the Ukrainian leader. Gazprom has in fact reiterated its support for the South Stream pipeline (which bypasses the Ukraine), and any improvement in Ukrainian pipelines will not change the mind of the Russian energy giant.
In the end, the efforts by the new Ukrainian administration to show the European Union and its domestic opposition that closer ties with Moscow are not that important, many people think that a change of course has already been made.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Two Italian Soldiers Killed
Roadside bomb also hurts two other troops including woman
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Two Italian soldiers were killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb hit their armoured vehicle in an international convoy in northeastern Afghanistan Monday.
One of the wounded is a woman, military sources said.
The incidents took Italy’s death toll to 25 including 24 soldiers, prompting Simplification Minister Roberto Calderoli to say: “we have to see if the sacrifices are worth it”.
But Premier Silvio Berlusconi reiterated “the fundamental importance of the mission in Afghanistan for the stability and pacification of a strategic area”.
Calls for an Italian withdrawal last came in September when six soldiers were killed in Kabul but Italy went on to commit to US President Barack Obama’s surge against the Taliban and has been active in seeking political solutions to the conflict.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Italy Will ‘Stay the Course’
Commitment renewed after two soldiers killed
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Italy will stay the course in Afghanistan, officials said Monday after two soldiers were killed, taking the Italian death toll to 25 since 2004. Premier Silvio Berlusconi reiterated “the fundamental importance of the mission in Afghanistan for the stability and pacification of a strategic area”.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini echoed the premier, saying the troops were on a “peace mission in which our men and women are working for our security and the good of the Afghan people”.
Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa stressed there could be no unilateral decision to pull out.
Italy, along with the rest of NATO, will begin to draw down numbers in 2011 as Afghan forces step up and the pull-out is expected to be completed in 2013, he said.
“In the meantime we will boost training of Afghan troops in order to make the local government able to handle the security problem on its own,” he said.
“We are aware of the importance of the mission for security and peace at home,” La Russa stressed.
The troops, he said, “aren’t there only to seek a balance to bring peace closer in that sensitive and unfortunate region, but also to keep the terror threat far from home”.
The leader of junior government partner the Northern League, Umberto Bossi, said: “I don’t think we can run away because it would be hard to explain to the Western world”.
“Our country can’t leave on its own”.
Bossi, who is Reforms Minister, was speaking after League heavyweight and Simplification Minister Roberto Calderoli said “We have to see if the sacrifices are worth it”.
Meanwhile in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Italian troops are doing an “excellent job”.
“The Italian soldiers are doing an excellent job in Afghanistan and NATO greatly appreciates the Italian contribution to the mission, as well as the solid political commitment which (Italy) has always shown,” Rasmussen told ANSA.
Italy’s centre-left opposition responded to the deaths by calling on the government to report to parliament.
Pier Luigi Bersani of the largest opposition group, the Democratic Party, said parliament should be allowed to “reflect” on the mission.
The leader of a smaller opposition force, Antonio Di Pietro of the Italy of Values party, went further, saying “the government must explain to Italians the reasons, which we do not think are valid any longer, why Italian troops should stay in Afghanistan”. Calls for an Italian withdrawal last came in September when six soldiers were killed in Kabul but Italy went on to commit 1,000 troops to United States President Barack Obama’s surge against the Taliban, when he ordered 33,000 more US troops to join the 68,000 in Afghanistan.
ROADSIDE BOMB HIT ARMOURED CAR.
The two dead soldiers were identified as Sergeant Massimiliano Ramadu’, 33, from Velletri near Rome, and Corporal Luigi Pascazio, 25, from a town near Bari in Puglia.
Two soldiers were also wounded by the blast that hit their armoured car: Cristina Buonacucina, 26, from Foligno near Perugia, and Corporal Gianfranco Scire’, 27, from Palermo.
The four, members of an Alpine regiment, were in an engineering unit tasked with clearing Afghan roads and patrol routes of explosive devices.
The Lince (Lynx) car was in an international convoy heading north from Herat to Bala Morghab near the border with Tajikistan.
A bigger and stronger armoured car, the Freccia (Arrow), will begin arriving in June as Italy starts boosting its contingent numbers to around 4,000, defence sources said after Monday’s incident.
Italy currently has 3,150 troops deployed in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
It is the fifth-largest contingent in ISAF.
Most of the Italian troops are in the northwest of the country, in the city and province of Herat, where Italy heads ISAF’s Regional Command West.
Italy’s toll of 25 is the eighth-biggest in Afghanistan after the US (1,071), United Kingdom (285), Canada (144), Germany (43), France (41), Denmark (31) and Spain (28).
Netherlands has had 23 dead while there have been 76 casualties from other countries.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Slain Soldiers Return
Defense minisiter reports to parliament on Monday’s bomb attack
(ANSA) — Rome, May 18 — The bodies of two Italian soldiers killed in Afghanistan on Monday will return to Italy on Wednesday and their funeral will be celebrated the following day, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said in a report to parliament on Tuesday.
Sergeant Massimiliano Ramadu’, 33, from Velletri near Rome, and Corporal Luigi Pascazio, 25, from a town near Bari in Puglia, were killed when the armored car they were riding in was hit by a roadside bomb.
Two other soldiers were wounded by the blast: Cristina Buonacucina, 26, from Foligno near Perugia, and Corporal Gianfranco Scire’, 27, from Palermo.
The four, members of an Alpine regiment, were in an engineering unit tasked with clearing Afghan roads and patrol routes of explosive devices.
Scire’ arrived in Rome on Tuesday and was taken to Celio military hospital, while La Russa said he hoped Buonacucina, who was more seriously injured, could be brought back to Italy soon.
Buonacucina is currently at a NATO hospital in Ramstein, Germany, where she is being treated for multiple fractures to her ankles, damage to her spinal cord and a bruised liver.
La Russa said she was receiving “the best medical assistance possible and that a neurosurgeon from Celio hospital had joined the medical team in Ramstein. The defense minister went to Ciampino military airport to meet Scire’ on his arrival and later said that the solider had told him he felt ‘lucky’.
Monday’s attack, La Russa told MPs, “reinforces our determination to fulfill our commitment in Afghanistan. Our commitment there was not put into question by this cowardly attack. The presence of our troops there is also important to keep the terrorist threat as far away as possible from our own cities”.
In his report, the defense minister said that a team of investigators had been sent to Afghanistan to ascertain the exact nature of the bomb that killed the two soldiers, which he said had been “extremely powerful”.
It was so powerful, in fact, that it was able to penetrate the armoured Lince (Lynx) car, he added.
La Russa also told MPs that “in regard to our missions abroad, we can discuss the number of men who are deployed but never the resources necessary to ensure their utmost security”.
“We need to maintain equipment which is of the highest quality possible in order to respond to the need for greater security in view of the growing risk in the Afghan theatre,” he added.
In a related development, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Italian soldiers as well as the other troops taking part in the international mission “will not return home until Afghanistan is capable of defending itself and defending us from those terrorists who, after leaving Afghanistan, will seek to attack us in our homes”.
According to Frattini, the international community can expect “backlashes and desperate acts” by terrorists in Afghanistan this year.
“Terrorists are preparing a campaign to sabotage the great assembly called to reconcile all the tribes in Afghanistan (later this month), to sabotage general elections in the autumn and sabotage the summit of foreign ministers in Kabul (July 20) and so we must remain steadfast and not waiver before terrorism,” he added. The July summit of foreign ministers from countries involved in Afghanistan, Frattini explained, “will serve to review the results achieved so far and the advantages gained for the Afghan people in regard to security, education, infrastructures and farming”.
“We need to understand how life is changing for the Afghan people for which concrete results on their part are also needed, starting with the fight against corruption,” the Italian diplomatic chief added.
According to Frattini, the ratio of money spent in Afghanistan for military and non-military projects, currently ten-to-one, must in the future even out.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India: Endless Violence Against Christian Women of Kandhamal
After anti-Christian pogroms of 2008-2009, the Christian women of Kandhamal have difficulty returning to their villages and resuming their lives. The Social Centre in Mumbai studies their problems to see how to help. The continuous support of the Church toward the persecuted.
Bhubaneswar (AsiaNews) — Christian women were beaten, abducted, suffered sexual and verbal violence during the August 2008-2009 anti-Christian pogrom in Kandhamal district, Orissa. Now a group of researchers connected with the College of Social Work Nirmala Niketan in Mumbai have conducted a research on the violence, the first step to finding a solution.
A team of 16 between 6 and 12 May interviewed a group of 300 women from several villages in Kandhamal, visiting the sites and their homes to gather information on their social situation and housing and families.
Sister Anita chat services, Daughters of the Heart of Mary, is a teacher at the Nirmala Niketan Center who participated in the research. She told AsiaNews that “women and girls of Kandhamal have suffered various forms of violence” such as cases of beatings, sexual violence, insults and threats, kidnapping, and have had to flee from their villages. According to information gathered, the Hindu extremist assailants belonged to different clans and tribes and came from different regions.
Sister Chata says that many women and their families are still traumatized by that time and are afraid to cultivate their land. Many women have reported a continuing state of anxiety, fear, tension, fear for their lives and those of their children at all times.
Sukumari Digal, 40, from Latingia village, mother of four children, now “only” suffers verbal violence and threats, along with other women of the village. But this has left a mark on her life and she says that together with other women, “we feel depressed. We do not feel for the land. Our cows have disappeared. “ “I can not concentrate on daily chores, I am always afraid. I fear to travel on a bus. I feel great anxiety when any member of my family are away from home when the children are not with me. Now even I go to meet people I know and I feel ashamed and embarrassed when I talk with them. I feel anger toward those who should have protected me and did not do it. The situation is still tense and many people do not feel safe to return, because the refugee camps of the government are quite safe, but the village is not “. Sukumari says that about 50 girls and women of her village have fled to other cities looking for work and fearful for their safety. She has made reports to local police, but they have made no inquiries and no one was arrested for the violence. But they have help and support from priests, nuns and social workers.
“Despite all this, I feel no anger towards the people who caused all this.”
Sunila Bhise, also a member of the research group from Mumbai, confirms that Kandhamal women continue to suffer from the violence. In their villages, they lack medical facilities, social opportunities and work security. Those who went home are finding it difficult to resume life as before. Others have gone to different cities.
Father Ajay Kumar Singh of the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar believes that the study should provide a credible framework for Kandhamal women. The Church and other groups of civil aid, based on similar reports, want to develop strategies to help women and the entire population of the area.
The study of the Nirmala Niketan is a scientific report and will be submittedto the National Commission for Human Rights and other pro-rights groups by August.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Soldiers’ Deaths Spark New Debate on Afghan Mission
Milano, 17 May (AKI) — The deaths of two Italian soldiers in a bomb attack in western Afghanistan on Monday provoked renewed debate about the country’s military commitment in the war-wracked nation. Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his allies said Italy’s troops would stay, but political opponents voiced scepticism over the mission.
Sergeant Massimiliano Ramadu, 33, and Corporal Luigi Pascazio, 25, were killed when a powerful roadside bomb exploded as their armoured NATO Lynx vehicle was driving in a convoy near Bala Murghab on the border with Turkmenistan.
Two other soldiers were injured in the attack and evacuated to hospitals in Kabul and in Herat to receive treatment.
Italy’s lower house of parliament observed a one-minute silence as a mark of respect to the soldiers who were killed in the attack.
Parliament speaker and key Berlusconi ally Gianfranco Fini read out the message of support he sent to Italy’s chief of staff Vincenzo Camporini:
“In such tragic moments as this we must give full support to our soldiers and reiterate with conviction our determination to carry out what we’ve committed to doing, until the international mission has achieved its objectives,” the message said.
“The commitment of our troops and that of our allies represents a shield against the forces of terror and destabilisation and an irreplaceable bulwark in a region devastated by conflicts spawned by fanaticism,” Fini added.
Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini, reiterating earlier remarks by Berlusconi, said Italy’s troop deployment in Afghanistan was “fundamental, a peace mission that’s working for our security and for the good of the Afghan people.”
But the leader of Italy’s largest opposition party, the centre-left Democratic Party, Pierluigi Bersani, urged the government to “reflect on the evolution of the Italian mission”.
Centre-left Italy of Values party leader and former prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro went further: “We need to accelerate our exit strategy,” he stated.
Prosecutors in Rome have opened an inquiry into Monday’s tragic incident, which brought to 22 the number of Italian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
Italy has one of the largest contingents in the NATO-led international force, numbering around 3,500 troops. A total 202 troops have been killed in Afghanistan this year, NATO said on Monday.
Ramadu and Pascazio’s bodies were expected to be returned to Italy from Herat on Wednesday, Italy’s defence minister Ignazio La Russa said.
In a statement released earlier on Monday by Berlusconi’s Rome office, the premier expressed “profound sorrow and condolances” at Ramadu and Pascazio’s deaths.
But Berlusconi said Italy’s Afghan mission was “of fundamental importance to stability and peacemaking in a strategic area.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hong Kong — China: Despite a Low Turnout, Voters in Hong Kong Strongly Support “Referendum” On Democracy
Only 17.1 per cent of eligible voters turned out to vote in yesterday’s by-elections, following a boycott campaign by the government. Five pro-democracy candidates are re-elected. A Hong Kong man comes home from Finland to vote; “universal suffrage cannot be delayed,” he says.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The turnout in yesterday’s LegCo by-elections was very low. Voters had to fill the seats left vacant by pro-democracy lawmakers who resigned in January. Only about 579,000 voters, or 17.1 per cent of 3.37 million eligible voters, cast their ballot. Turnout was affected by a massive boycott campaign organised by Hong Kong authorities and government-friendly parties. However, supporters of the initiative called the vote a success.
Hong Kong voters were called to vote when five pan-democrat (pro-democracy) Members of the Legislative Council (LegCo) resigned in January to trigger by-elections. The parties they represent wanted to turn the vote into a referendum on democracy in order to abolish functional constituencies and introduce direct election to the post of chief executive.
Only half of the LegCo’s 60 seats is chosen by universal suffrage. The other half is picked by functional constituencies and the government. This means that members of functional colleges can vote twice.
The chief executive is elected by a college of 800 members, most of whom are to loyal to Beijing.
Under British rule, Hong Kong never had a democratic government, a situation that continued after the crown colony was returned to China. Since then, mainland authorities have claimed the right to decide what political reform the territory deserves, if any.
Concerned about a pro-democracy referendum, Hong Kong authorities came up with a reform package that would come into effect for the 2012 elections. It included a larger electoral college for the post of chief executive (from 800 to 1,200 members) and ten more LegCo seats.
Beijing and its supporters in Hong Kong strongly opposed the by-elections. Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and members of his cabinet announced before the election that they would not vote.
The five lawmakers who triggered the by-elections—Tanya Chan and Alan Leong Kah-kit of the Civic Party, and Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan Wai-yip of the League of Social Democrats—were re-elected with comfortable majorities, according to official results released this morning.
On Thursday the League said it would consider the by-elections an “unprecedented success” if turnout reached 25 per cent. Speaking after polls closed, Civic Party leader Audrey Eu Yuet-mee said the turnout was satisfactory.
According to an exit poll by the University of Hong Kong, more than 50 per cent of respondents said they had voted to fulfil their civic duties; 65 per cent said they backed the “de facto referendum”: and 59 per cent said they opposed the government’s reform proposals.
Hong Kong’s Catholic Church also expressed its support for direct elections. Bishop Emeritus, Card Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, said, “Without a democratic system, there can be no improvement in people’s livelihood. This referendum is an unusual chance for us to demonstrate our anger through peaceful means.”
As for the government, not only did it not support the vote, but it also played dirty. Some voters in the New Territories were forced to go out of their way to remote polling stations after rural leaders refused to rent their premises to the government. Others voters could not vote because polling stations were too far away, in downtown Hong Kong.
Unlike his predecessors, Electoral Affairs Commission chairman Barnabas Fung Wah did not urge people to vote.
Still, many voters cast their vote in order to turn the election into a referendum.
University lecturer Chapman Chen said, “I have been living in Finland for two years but I came back to vote. The day for universal suffrage cannot be delayed anymore”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
African Influx Reshapes Immigration to Minnesota
For the first time ever, the continent is the source of a majority of Minnesota’s legal immigrants, with Somalis topping the list.
The flow of immigrants to Minnesota is quietly reaching record highs amid signs of what could prove to be a profound and lasting shift in their continents of origin.
For the first time ever, African nations are supplying more than half the state’s legal immigrants. Four countries from that continent now stand atop the list.
Arrivals are doubling and quadrupling from countries such as Kenya and Liberia even as numbers are tapering off, for a variety of reasons, from past immigrant taproots such as India, Thailand and Russia, federal data show.
Africans say they are attracted here for the same reasons as others — quality of life, good schools for their kids — with the additional twist of Minnesota’s reputation in parts of that continent as being receptive to immigrants with funny accents.
“Minnesota holds a very prominent place in the minds of Liberians,” said Ahmed Sirleaf, of Advocates for Human Rights, a worldwide nonprofit based in Minneapolis. “I’ve heard people there say that Minnesota is one of the very few states where an immigrant with an accent can be hired to work in his chosen profession. In other places, most people have to stay in odd jobs.
“I don’t think this movement is going to slow down or stop at some point.”
At a time of severe job losses, the rise in the sheer number of immigrants, combined with their increasing likelihood of being black and Muslim, creates the conditions for a backlash.
But demographers are warning that Minnesotans should be grateful for anyone who chooses to plant stakes in the frozen north these days, at a time when Minnesota’s population growth has slowed and dozens of its counties are slowly emptying.
The arrivals won’t put a huge dent in the state’s mostly European-origin demographics any time soon: We’re still talking about 18,000 total immigrants counted last year in a state of 5.26 million. But the federal government only closely tracks a portion of the total flow, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Judge Rules Terror Pair Are a Threat to National Security… But They Can’t be Deported Because of Human Rights
Two Pakistani men branded a threat to national security by a judge, today won the right to stay in the country.
Al-Qaeda operative Abid Naseer, 24, and Ahmad Faraz Khan, 26, should not be deported back to their homeland because of the risk to their safety, the same immigration judge ruled.
The pair were arrested last year in counter-terrorism raids but never charged. This morning they were told they had won their appeal against deportation at a hearing of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).
Mr Justice Mitting, in a written ruling of the tribunal, said: ‘For the reasons stated, we are satisfied that Naseer was an al Qaeda operative who posed and still poses a serious threat to the national security of the UK and that… it is conducive to the public good that he should be deported.’
But he added that the tribunal was allowing the appeal because ‘the issue of safety on return’ made it impossible to deport Naseer to Pakistan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
0 comments:
Post a Comment