Federal Debt Tops $13 Trillion Mark
The federal government is now $13 trillion in the red, the Treasury Department reported Wednesday, marking the first time the government has sunk that far into debt and putting a sharp point on the spending debate on Capitol Hill.
Calculated down to the exact penny, the debt totaled $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of Tuesday, leaping nearly $60 billion since Friday, the previous day for which figures were released.
At $13 trillion, that figure has risen by $2.4 trillion in about 500 days since President Obama took office, or an average of $4.9 billion a day. That’s almost three times the daily average of $1.7 billion under the previous administration, and led Republicans on Wednesday to place blame squarely at the feet of Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Press Says New Pension Cuts Prepared
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JUNE 2 — Under pressure from the EU and the IMF, the Greek government is preparing to bring in harsher pension reform which is to come into early, beginning in 2015, and which will raise the threshold for retirement to 65 or 40 of tax contributions, according to reports in the media today. Meanwhile, unions are getting ready to bring in more strikes and protest. Following weeks of revelations and ambiguity, Giorgio Papandreou’s government has reportedly given into th EU-IMF pressure for the integral application of the Memorandum of Understanding for the granting of aid. All press sources report that the Memorandum provides for the coming into force of the reform in 2015 and not in 2018, as had been contained in the first draft of the bill. Moreover, retirement age will rise for all to 65 years old. Those with 40 years of tax contributions behind them will be able to retire beginning at age 60, but in the latter case payment calculations will be progressively penalising and will reduce up to 48% of wages. Due to the changes brought in on the request of the EU and the IMF, the draft law on pensions will not go into Parliament before the end of the month, while public sector union Adedy, its private sector counterpart Gsee and the communist Pame have confirmed that a large demonstration against the reform will be held on Saturday, and preparations are underway for another general strike for when the draft law is submitted to the unicameral assembly.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Ex-Minister’s Property Deal Probed
Supreme court prosecutor Yiannis Tentes and the financial crimes squad are to investigate former PASOK minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos and his wife after a report by Sunday’s Kathimerini revealed that the couple had purchased a three-story residence opposite the Acropolis from an offshore company for 1 million euros just days before a change in the law would have landed the firm with a much bigger tax bill.
Sources said that Tentes yesterday ordered the court of first instance prosecutor’s office to investigate whether there was anything untoward about the property purchase, which led to offshore firm Nobilis LLC avoiding a sizable tax bill. Tsochatzopoulos’s relationship with the firm is not clear.
Financial crimes squad inspectors have already begun checking the ex-minister’s finances, those of his wife Vicky Stamati, as well as the two offshore firms, Nobilis and Torcaso, that owned the property on pedestrianized Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, which the couple bought with 450,000 euros cash and two mortgages worth 650,000 euros.
In a statement yesterday, Tsochatzopoulos denied any wrongdoing and said that he and his wife had rented the property for three years before buying it and that they had not broken any laws.
Although now largely a peripheral figure in PASOK, Tsochatzopoulos is one of the Socialist party’s most historic members as he helped found the party and served in seven ministerial posts between 1981 and 2004, most recently holding the defense and development portfolios. Tsochatzopoulos also made two unsuccessful bids for the party leadership.
New Democracy attempted to capitalize on the latest revelation relating to the alleged corrupt practices of a PASOK cadre by suggesting that Tsochatzopoulos should be questioned by the parliamentary committee investigating the real estate exchange involving the Vatopedi Monastery.
The conservatives also asked for the panel of MPs to be given more time to probe the matter.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Govt to Push for ‘Liberal Revolution’
Constitutional amendment to deregulate the economy
(ANSA) — Busan, June 4 — The Italian government intends to present a constitutional amendment to ease restrictions on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), artisanal activities and research, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Friday.
Speaking on the sidelines of a G20 meeting, Tremonti added that he would illustrate this proposal to his colleagues here on Saturday and at Monday’s session of the European Union’s council of ministers for the economy and finance (ECOFIN) in Brussels.
“Changing the system from the inside through privatization and selective deregulation has not worked. What is needed is a liberal revolution which will make everything possible which is not prohibited by law,” the economy minister explained.
According to Tremonti, efforts in the past by both center-left and center-right governments to free up the economy have failed because “special interests in many sectors blocked everything”.
For this reason, he continued, a constitutional amendment is needed, “one which is limited to the ‘real’ economy and does not apply to finance, while zoning considerations would be handled separately”.
“We want to see a radical change in which SMEs, artisans and research groups can move forward with new activities through self-certification with controls and verification of their requisites carried out only afterwards,” Tremonti said.
According to the economy minister, these measures would not involve fiscal incentives and would not be on contrast with the government’s federalist reforms aimed at decentralising the state.
Deregulation was also at the center of the address Tremonti made at the G20 meeting where he said that Europe had to unburden itself of 30 years of mounting regulations or “face a slow death”.
Europe has “no choice” but to do this, he explained, because of the competition coming from emerging and developing economies.
According to the economy minister, in order to achieve stability all governments must “put their accounts in order,” while to achieve growth they needed to “free themselves of the shackles” of too many regulations.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Judges to Strike Over Austerity Measures
Rome, 3 June (AKI) — Italy’s judges on Thursday said they would strike to protest the some 25 billion euros in budget cuts that include salary reductions for many civil servants. The measure aims to reduce the country’s deficit and follows similar moves by other members of the European Union.
The Committee of Italian Magistrates “confirms that it is against the excessive measures in the decree law that penalise judges,” the committee said Thursday in a statement. “Taking part in efforts asked of the country to bring it back to health doesn’t mean accepting unequal pay cuts and further destruction of the justice system.”
The statement didn’t say when the walk out would take place.
Italian union leaders last week also threatened a general strike.
Italian politicians and other workers in Italy’s huge public administration will be forced by the austerity measures to accept salary cuts and freezes. The government also says it will recover billions of euros in evaded taxes as a way to reduce its deficit.
The European Union has asked its 27 members to implement measures to curb public spending in a bid to safeguard the euro and prevent a repeat of the Greece’s debt crisis. Germany, Spain, Portugal and Greece have also announced spending cuts.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Romania: For Sale: Crisis Stricken Country
Hard hit by the crisis and forced to contend with austerity measures and striking workers, Romania is on the verge of bankruptcy. România libera worries that Russia and China will step in to fill the vacuum left by the country’s political leaders and Western investors.
Sabina Fati
The President has admitted that Romania is bankrupt, and the governor of the National Bank of Romania, technocrat Mugur Isarescu, has been heard to remark that the state is now facing the same problems that prevailed when he was originally appointed to rescue the situation. All of the evils of the world appear to have suddenly descended on the country without warning, and it seems that no one foresaw the crisis before it was too late.
Romania’s Greek-style crisis
The artificers and victims of the machinations that have now resulted in their own downfall, Romania’s politicians have always placed their own interests before those of the nation, even when they were aware that their actions could lead to disaster. President Traian Basescu has suddenly woken up to the possibility of a “Greek-style” crisis in the country, but only last year he was content to sit by and watch while Emil Boc’s democratic liberal government ramped up spending and drove the country into further debts. You might wonder why the President did not take issue with the government’s purportedly philanthropic approach, and the answer to that question is all too simple: the President’s main objective was not to guide Romania through the crisis, but to obtain a second term in office. If this had not been the case, Traian Basescu would have forced Emil Boc & Co. to cut public service jobs, reduce salaries and deny funding to vote catching measures.
Now that the President has acknowledged danger of a “Greek-style” crisis in Romania, it might be time to wonder if the term “Greek-style” really takes into account the major historical differences and differences in terms of potential that characterise Greece and Romania. Of course, Basescu is right in as much as both countries are facing overwhelming debts, and it is also true that Romania like Greece was very slow to respond to a worsening situation. The President should have come to grips with the problem immediately after his election campaign when he had the opportunity to appoint a prime minister with a strong background in economics and the necessary vision to avoid an imminent financial disaster.
Both countries destined for the butcher’s block
Now at least we have a President who has acknowledged the possibility of a “Greek-style” crisis, but it is an acknowledgement that overlooks the fact that Western investors will find the bargains to be had in Greece much more appealing than the ones that are available in Romania. Now that both countries are destined for the butcher’s block, it is clear that the wares on sale will not be the same, nor are they likely to attract the same buyers. In Greece, which has a modern transport infrastructure, a well-developed tourist trade and an agricultural industry that has benefited from European funding, Western investors will be eager to seek out concession deals and whatever else is on sale. However Romania, with its roads that are continually under construction, its factories that were dismantled years ago, and its backward and much neglected agricultural sector, will become a market for Eastern powers — at best China and perhaps even Russia — who are not only seeking bargains, but who are also attracted by an opportunity to discreetly extend their sphere of influence.
Given a choice, the Germans will relish the chance to buy up property on the Mediterranean shores of Greece, which has the added attraction of being the European country with the highest percentage of indigenous German speakers, but they will not have much interest in Romania, which they perceive as too far away, too backward, and just a bit more corrupt. So we may well have a “Greek-style crisis,” but Greece and Romania will have to contend with two completely different outcomes which are largely aligned with their radically different histories. Greece has always been coveted by the West, while Romania has always had to battle with the danger presented by Eastern powers.
Strikes
Solidarity — but not on my paycheck
A mere 10% of the country’s 700,000 civil servants answered the unions’ call for a strike on 31 May. “Many public employees chose not to protest for fear of further dents in their salaries,” reports România libera . Widespread disgruntlement at the austerity measures announced by the government hasn’t subsided, but the initial élan of protest is gradually giving way to resignation, in keeping with a long tradition of collective acquiescence in Romania, editorialises the Bucharest daily. “People’s enthusiasm died down as soon as they found out the unions don’t have the funds for picketing pay, so they just have to grit their teeth and take the pay cuts,” observes a union official in Bucharest. With the holidays fast approaching and people already struggling to make ends meet, they pledge solidarity in principle, but in fact it’s every man for his purse.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Failure Club: Our Leaders Are Responsible for Europe’s Crisis
A Commentary by Hans-Jürgen Schlamp in Brussels
The leaders of the European Union are more interested in preserving their own power than addressing the bloc’s serious problems.
It was neither tax evaders in Greece nor hedge funds that caused Europe’s existential crisis — political leaders in the euro zone share a great deal of responsibility. They have been either unwilling or incapable of doing their jobs.
When the financial institutions of the Western capitalist world began to wobble in the autumn of 2008 — with some collapsing and taking others with them — fear swept through the corridors of power. What could be done to stop an economic meltdown? Finance ministers and world leaders gathered at hectically planned crisis summits, where they applied Band-Aids to a severely wounded financial sector using billions of dollars and euros of taxpayers’ money and promised to stabilize the fragile system for all eternity.
More than a year has passed since then, but not much of substance has been done.
When the first states found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy — Latvia, Estonia, Hungary and then Greece — the leaders donated more and more billions of taxpayers’ money and prescribed drastic remedies in the form of stringent austerity measures — including for themselves. “We did what was necessary,” a confident German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at each stage of the crisis. Her colleagues nodded in satisfaction.
At the same time, most of them don’t even have a clue as to whether their activities have been helpful or counterproductive, or if they are even having any effect at all. “It worries me that many politicians believe that things will be the same after the crisis as they were before the crisis, when the world was still in order,” Carsten Pillath, the director general in the European Council responsible for finance policy, told a small group of co-workers.
But Pillath, like many other economists, believes that is a big mistake. “In the longer term, we will have slow growth rates, while having to clean up over-indebted budgets at the same time,” he said. If Europe is to succeed in doing that, however, it needs a “macroeconomic model” — in other words, a target which can provide the basis for economic policy decisions.
The fact is, however, that politicians aren’t even thinking about this. The men and women elected to higher office are mainly interested in one thing: getting re-elected and retaining their power. Anything else is secondary.
Provincial Bafoonery and Political Denial
If you look at the European political landscape these days, the image you get is largely a desolate one.
The political parties in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, core countries of the original European project, are locked in endless battles, government crises and provincial buffoonery.
In Eastern Europe — Hungary and Slovakia, for example — nationalist parties are stoking the fires of anger in their own countries.
In Greece, the current government is struggling to deal with a legacy it has inherited from its predecessors. For decades, three families have taken turns to govern the country, with only a few short breaks here and there. The Papandreou clan of the current prime minister is one of them. The corrupt dealings of his grandfather, who once led the country, are the stuff of legend. And the people of Greece, whether passively or actively, adapted to the system.
The situation is no different in Italy: The country, one of the founding members of the European Union, has been in a state of political denial for years. The people of Italy doze in front of the television programs of media czar and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who himself has made a fulltime job of protecting his supporters in parliament with more and more new laws that will save them from prosecution. Meanwhile, opposition politicians are devouring each other over trivialities.
A Hyperactive Sarkozy and a Hesitant Merkel
For a long time, the German-French double act ensured at least a minimal amount of leadership and orientation in Europe. But those days are over, too. Take, for example, the following questions: Do we need European economic governance? Should we ban hedge funds? How massive should the austerity measures being put in place be? Does Europe’s economy need stimulating? The governments of Germany and France are currently providing contradictory answers to most of these questions — or worse, no answers at all.
Almost worse is the fact that the countries’ leaders aren’t only far apart when it comes to goals. They also differ radically in their style of doing things: Nicolas Sarkozy is a hyperactive egomaniac, while Angela Merkel is a grouchy ditherer.
It makes no sense to try to “hide the fact that there is tension between France and Germany,” Jean Bizet, the chairman of the European Affairs Committee in the French Senate, wrote in a recent essay for Le Monde — and it is unlikely he put pen to paper in such a controversial way without discussing it first with Sarkozy, a close political ally.
Berlin regularly riles back, mostly under the cover of aides to the chancellor who can not be quoted. After reaching a €750 billion deal to shore up the faltering euro in early May, Sarkozy boasted to reporters that he had succeeded in pushing through “95 percent” of his ideas, including a “European economic government.” A confidant of Merkel sneered back: “I will not deny that that was hot air.”
Part 2: The Results of Political Failure
Europe’s crisis is not an accident caused by the globalized economy — it is the result of political failure.
Who was responsible for liberalizing the financial markets, and celebrating that fact, until practically no controls were still possible? Wasn’t that the politicians — the conservatives here, the leftists there and the market liberals everywhere?
And was it not the politicians who accepted the fact that the economies within the euro zone were drifting apart — all the while telling the people that that wasn’t a bad thing?
And who was it that racked up the gigantic mountains of debt, because it was so convenient and because it saved them from having to make demands of the electorate? Was it not those same politicians who are today calling this debt the root of all evil and who are heroically trying to clear them away?
And is the return to national interests and the turning away from European solidarity, just to keep nationalist- and populist-minded voters happy, really the way to solve Europe’s problems?
This ailing continent needs newer and better politicians. But where could we find them? There is no sign of a European Obama or anything remotely like him.
‘A Leadership Vacuum in Its Hour of Crisis’
People are being fooled by “renationalization tendencies” and politics that are increasingly provincial, argues Manfred Weber, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union — the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU — who is the deputy head of the European People’s Party group in the European Parliament. “People think they can solve the problems best on their own, in their own country.” But Weber argues that thinking is incorrect: “It just reinforces prejudices.” His conclusion? “There aren’t enough true Europeans involved in politics.”
Europe is “suffering from a leadership vacuum in its hour of crisis,” claims Markus Ferber, the head of the Christian Social Union group in the European Parliament. That is especially apparent in Brussels, the European Union’s control center. It’s the place where, ideally, proposals for dealing with the crisis would come quickly and decisively, would be packaged to meet the interests of the 27 member states, and compromises would be prepared in advance that would make it possible for all countries to swiftly make decisions together. But at the time of the most threatening crisis since the bloc was founded, the people at the helm in Brussels are pale, weak figures.
A Complete Failure in Brussels
The European Commission, which likes to proudly present itself as keeper of the Holy Grail, in the form of the European treaties, and which sees itself as the core of the political project of the century, has been completely out of commission when it comes to crisis management. First, it remained silent in order not to endanger the re-election of its president, Jose Manuel Barroso. And once he was confirmed in office after a protracted stalemate, he had suffered so many indignities that leaders in the important European capitals no longer took him seriously.
In addition, the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the successor document to the failed European constitution, put the European Parliament — previously a talking shop without much power — onto a largely equal footing with the Commission. The parliament and the European Council, which comprises the heads of state or government of the 27 EU members, have suddenly become the poles of power in Brussels, says Professor Jörg Monar of the College of Europe, a university known for grooming future eurocrats. The European Commission, he says, “is getting increasingly crushed” between the two.
Breakfast on Mondays
Former Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy so far hasn’t done anything to change the state of malaise in Brussels. He was chosen as the first permanent president of the European Council and was expected to lend more European solidarity to the biannual summits of national EU leaders. That effort went pretty much awry. “Van Rompuy was travelling in Asia as the crisis summit was being held in Brussels,” scoffed the CSU’s Ferber, adding that European Commission President Barroso was “busy with the EU-Latin American summit.”
Now the impotent want to regroup. Van Rompuy has announced the creation of “some crisis cabinet” that would quickly bring together “the main players and the main institutions.” It would include Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, European Commission President Barroso and, naturally, Van Rompuy himself. “That’s hilarious,” one government adviser in Berlin said in response to the proposal. And inside the Elysee Palace, Sarkozy’s official residence, people were reportedly “laughing out loud.”
Barroso and Van Rompuy have since scaled back their ambitious plan a bit. They are now meeting for breakfast every Monday.
Hans-Jürgen Schlamp is DER SPIEGEL’s Brussels correspondent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
USA: Private Employers Hold Back on Hiring in May
WASHINGTON (AP) — A swell in temporary government hiring for the census drove almost all the job market’s gains last month — a huge disappointment to Wall Street and a sign that private employers aren’t yet confident enough in the recovery to start adding workers with gusto.
Daunted by the European debt crisis and a falling U.S. stock market at home, American businesses added just 41,000 jobs in May, the fewest since January. The government hired 10 times as many for the national census, but those positions will begin to disappear as summer arrives.
At least on paper, the 431,000 total new jobs was the biggest gain in a decade. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent, mainly because hundreds of thousands of people gave up searching for work and were no longer counted.
“On the surface, they look great,” Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, said of the numbers. “But that beauty was only skin-deep. The private sector is not out there hiring like crazy.”
Wall Street interpreted the numbers as a big letdown, a sign that the recovery, if not derailed, is at least stalling. The Dow Jones industrial average sank from the opening bell and tumbled 323.31 points, its second worst slide of the year. The index closed below 10,000 for the second time in two weeks. All the major indexes were down more than 3 percent.
The new employment snapshot, released Friday by the Labor Department, indicated that many private employers are still wary of bulking up their work forces. And it suggested the economic recovery may not bring help fast enough for millions of Americans still unemployed.
The slowdown isn’t unusual for an economic recovery. Hiring can slow in one month, then accelerate the next, as was the case after the 2001 recession. But that recession was relatively brief and mild. The Great Recession wiped out so many jobs that it will take unusually strong hiring to bring substantial relief. And neither the Federal Reserve nor the Obama administration expects that to happen soon.
Nor are Americans spending as lavishly as they typically do when recessions end. Wages are barely increasing. And the stock market has taken a beating. If shoppers stay frugal, businesses could become even less confident about adding new workers.
The European debt crisis hurts, too.
“We had all this bad news coming out of Europe, which made employers more cautious,” said Tig Gilliam, CEO of Adecco Group North America, an employment services company.
The government hired 411,000 workers in May for the census. But last month was the peak of hiring for the 10-year count, and it will begin to tail off in June. The loss of those temporary jobs could help keep the unemployment rate high.
The nation has produced jobs for five straight months. That’s a sharp improvement from last year, when employers were slashing work forces to survive the recession. Yet at the current pace of job creation, it could take at least until the middle of the decade to recoup the 7.4 million jobs lost since December 2007 and reduce unemployment to a more normal 6 percent or below.
Economists think the rate will remain above 9 percent through November, potentially leaving both Democratic and Republican incumbents in Congress more vulnerable to defeat. The weak job market also puts pressure on senators to pass an extension of unemployment benefits.
Unemployment is expected to remain high — in the 7 percent range — all the way into 2012, when President Barack Obama would seek re-election. On Friday, the president stressed the recovery was still in its early stages.
“Things never go completely in a smooth line,” he said. Obama urged patience, said his policies are working and said the economy is “moving in the right direction” because it is producing jobs again.
Americans aren’t so sure. Only one in five considers the economy in good condition, according to an Associated Press-GfK Poll conducted in mid-May.
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio seized on the jobs report as evidence that the president’s $787 billion stimulus package isn’t working.
“It is disappointing that nearly all of (the job) gains are temporary, taxpayer-funded government jobs through the U.S. Census,” he said.
The number of net jobs created each month is calculated from a government survey of companies. The unemployment rate, which has not fallen far from its quarter-century high of 10.1 percent in October, is derived from a separate survey of households.
Some analysts think the rate could peak in June at 10.4 percent. About 125,000 new jobs are needed each month just to keep up with population growth and prevent the rate from rising.
All told, 15 million people were unemployed in May. Counting those who have given up looking for work and part-timers who would rather be working full-time, the “underemployment” rate fell slightly in May to 16.6 percent. That meant fewer people were forced to work part time, even though they wanted full-time jobs.
The number of people out of work six months or longer reached a record high in May, 6.76 million.
One of them is James Phelps, laid off a year ago from his job as a sales executive at the computer hardware company Seagate Technology in Minneapolis.
“First, I thought they’d probably hire me back,” said Phelps, 64. “Maybe everyone thinks that.”
The offer never came. And he found the job market frozen last summer when he starting casting around for executive-level positions.
The hiring picture for new college graduates has brightened somewhat. Employers plan to hire 5 percent more this year than a year ago, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The group’s annual survey found that about 24 percent of 2010 graduates who applied for jobs had landed one, compared with about 20 percent a year ago.
But in a sign of how tough things remain, not even half the students with the most sought-after major for employers — accounting — had jobs waiting after graduation, the group found.
Employers across a range of industries last month added jobs at a slower pace, or cut them. Factories, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality companies, and education and health care firms all slowed hiring.
Financial services, construction companies and retailers all pared jobs. The federal government led the way in hiring last month, but only 1,000 of the 412,000 positions were not census-related. State and local governments cut jobs and are expected to keep doing so as they wrestle with budget crises.
With auto sales rising, Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor Co. announced plans last month to hire. But others are still laying off workers. Hewlett-Packard Co. said this week it is cutting 9,000 jobs in its technology services division, and chocolate-maker Hershey Co. may cut 600 jobs.
Wages did rise modestly last month. Average hourly earnings increased to $22.57, from $22.50 in April.
But inflation was eroding paychecks. A Gallup poll, which surveyed shoppers for the week ended May 23, showed consumer confidence has started to deteriorate, mostly likely reflecting declining stock prices.
Still, most economists think shoppers will spend enough to keep the recovery intact. “Consumers will be ringing up enough sales to prevent employers from suddenly clamming up,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Will Greeks Have to Work 500 or 1,000 Years to Receive a Pension?
Will Greeks have to work 500 or 1,000 years to receive a pension? The issue preoccupied the press for days as Labour Minister Andreas Loverdos revealed a love letter from Brussels saying that Greeks will have to work 40 years to receive a pension, and not the 37 Loverdos claimed.
The dispute involved the interpretation of the terms of the EU-IMF bailout package, which some in the government are suggesting is subject to partial renegotiation. Either way, the popular backlash over the deep pension cuts and steep retirement age hikes is enormous, as most Greeks feel their pensions will be a pittance after decades of work. The only thing that could cover up the uproar, at least for now, was the din from scandal revelations in parliament.
Evidence of diachronic corruption in the office of the Greek prime minister, both under Pasok premier Kostas Simitis and ND PM Kostas Karamanlis (his office was allegedly in on the Vatopedi scandal), was proof positive that George Papandreou must make Herculean efforts if he hopes to establish real transparency in government. And it will often seem like a Sisyphean task. Just as the PM tries to pass a major reform, such as the redrawing of Greece’s public administration map, it is overshadowed by the stench emanating from scandal probes.
Former Pasok transport minister Tasos Mantelis, one of ex-PM Kostas Simitis’ closest associates, nonchalantly admitted to parliament on May 26 that he took a 200,000 Deutschmark “campaign contribution” from Siemens. But Mantelis cannot be prosecuted. Pasok and ND already took care of that when they constitutionally mandated a short statute of limitation for former ministers. It is part of the pervasive impunity (some say omerta) of the political system at the highest level.
Though a prosecutor charged Mantelis with money laundering, a top constitutional scholar told this newspaper that courts will almost definitely have to uphold the statute of limitations for the former minister.
The result? In a slew of scandal probes initiated by the government, the two biggest parties have become wrapped up in a furious blame game, spending dozens of MPs, thousands of hours and plenty of money to probe real corruption for which nobody will be prosecuted. Many believe the time and money would be better spent on parties working together for a brighter future in education, healthcare and other “little things” that make men free.
Battle to lower the retirement age from 40 to 37, trumpeted Ta Nea on May 27, suggesting the government is in “tough negotiations” with the European Commission. He confessed to a kickback and left unpunished! the same paper declared, with more than a touch of feigned shock.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Documents Show Kagan’s Liberal Opinion on Social Issues
Elena Kagan has kept her cards so close to the vest that in the days after President Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court, some on the left worried she was too moderate to replace liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
But in documents obtained by CBS News, Kagan—while working as a law clerk to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall — made her positions clear on some of the nation’s most contentious social issues.
The documents, buried in Marshall’s papers in the Library of Congress, show Kagan standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the liberal left, at a time when the Rehnquist Supreme Court was moving to the conservative right.
They also provide a remarkably candid picture of her opinions, including on the most controversial issue Supreme Court nominees ever confront: abortion.
Although Kagan’s confirmation has thus far been an all but foregone conclusion, sources say these documents will give Republicans a few cards of their own to mount a strong fight against her.
And they will only heighten demands for more information on her views—including interest in her papers in the Clinton Library. Some of the Clinton Library documents, which cover her time working in that administration, could be released as early as Friday.
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Obama’s ‘Chicago Way’ Plunders the Private Sector
An interesting thing about Barack Obama is that he chose, on two occasions, to live in Chicago — even though he didn’t grow up there, had no family ties there, never went to school there.
It was a curious choice. Chicago has a civic culture all its own and one that is particularly insular. Family ties and personal connections are hugely important. Professionals who have lived and worked there for a quarter-century are brusquely reminded, “You’re not from here.”
Nonetheless, Obama moved upward in the Chicago civic firmament with apparent ease. The community organizer joined the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church in search of street cred in the heavily black South Side. The adjunct law teacher made friends around the University of Chicago from libertarian academics to radical organizer William Ayers. The young state senator designed a new district that included the Loop and the rich folk on the Near North Side.
Obama could not have risen so far so fast without a profound understanding of the Chicago Way. And he has brought the Chicago Way to the White House.
One prime assumption of the Chicago Way is that there will always be a bounteous private sector that politicians can plunder endlessly. Chicago was America’s boomtown from 1860 to 1900, growing from nothing to the center of the nation’s railroad network, the key nexus between farm and factory, the headquarters of great retailers and national trade associations.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rape Charges Dropped Against Liberian Boy in Ariz.
PHOENIX (Map, News) — An Arizona judge has dismissed rape charges against a 10-year-old Liberian boy who was among four young refugees accused of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl in Phoenix last year.
A Maricopa County Juvenile Court judge ruled that the boy could not understand the charges and was not mature enough to help in his defense. Judge Aimee Anderson dismissed the charges on Thursday, but the boy will remain in foster care under court supervision.
On Wednesday, a 15-year-old Liberian refugee who pleaded guilty to participating in the gang rape of the young girl was sentenced to probation.
Charges against the youngest boy, now 9, have also been dropped because he was found incompetent. A judge is awaiting a final psychological evaluation for the fourth boy, who is 13.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Awards for Top US-Based Women Researchers
Bridges to Italy acknowledges top female Italian scientists working in America Projects in final include DNA training course for criminologists and an anti-cancer protein
MILAN — Some of the successful brains that have drained out of Italy are keen to network and help the Bel Paese, albeit from a distance. The brains in question are female and belong to researchers in bio- and nanotechnology, renewable energy and IT. This year, the Bridges to Italy is assigning the second Premio Award in June after the closure of the online poll to vote for the top North America-based Italian woman scientist working in these disciplines.
THE AWARD — The Premio Award is organised by the Bridges to Italy association, founded and chaired by Bianca Delle Piane, an Italian now resident in Los Angeles, in collaboration with ITWIIN, Associazione italiana donne inventrici e innovatrici [Italian Association of Women Inventors and Innovators]. At the end of June, the winner will be able to “come home” to Bari and tell Italy about her project. This initiative is in stark contrast to ritual moaning about Italy’s brain drain for the women involved are seeking to link up with Italian colleagues and spread their knowledge and achievements in Italy and North America. Ms Delle Piane explains: “We are driven by a strongly constructive spirit. Our hope is that the initiative will offer the greatest possible visibility to the very many talented Italian women who are working in the United States and elsewhere for the advancement of knowledge, often achieving astonishing results”.
THE FINALISTS — There are plenty of exciting projects to vote for once you have registered on the website. Among these are: a GPS application for monitoring the oceans; research into a protein that could be used in treating cancer; an online DNA analysis training course for criminologists and investigators; a gene homologue for clinical screening tests, such as the test for Huntington’s disease, so that no human guinea pigs are required; an e-learning project that exploits social networks; and a television programme to raise the awareness abroad of the lesser-known corners of Italy’s food and wine heritage.
WINNERS — Last year, the award went to Alessandra Luchini, a 32-year-old Novara-born bioengineer, who patented a new procedure for the early diagnosis of tumours and other serious diseases using gel nanospheres that can detect tumour markers in the blood. Thanks to the Premio Award, Alessandra is currently setting up her own company in Virginia and garnering plaudits from all around the world.
Eva Perasso
01 giugno 2010
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Council of Europe Slams WHO Handling of Swine Flu
PARIS — A report released by the Council of Europe on Friday accuses the World Health Organization and European governments of vastly exaggerating the public health risks of swine flu and making secretive decisions that benefited pharmaceutical companies.
WHO, the U.N. health agency, has said those who claim swine flu was a fake pandemic created for the benefit of drug companies are irresponsible.
A report by the health committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a 47-member human rights watchdog, says the public health guidelines by WHO, EU agencies and national governments led to a “waste of large sums of public money and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public.”
The report was made public Friday. Legislators from all 47 members of the Council of Europe will debate the report June 24. The Council of Europe is not a European Union body and has no power over WHO.
The committee said decisions about the outbreak were poorly explained and not transparent enough. It warned that public trust in WHO recommendations is “plummeting,” which could be dangerous in case of a more severe pandemic in the future. The committee also suggested that drug makers contribute to a public fund to support independent research.
Since bird flu broke out several years ago, governments worldwide have bought stockpiles of vaccines and antivirals. The emergence of swine flu sparked some countries to buy even more drugs. Many of the drugs and vaccines have gone unused, and the outbreak turned out to be much less deadly than some experts had feared.
Because influenza is so unpredictable, authorities often must prepare for the worst. Some had feared swine flu could be as deadly as the 1918 pandemic, which killed up to 50 million people worldwide.
The WHO website says that, as of Sunday, 18,138 deaths were attributable to swine flu, which has affected more than 214 countries and overseas territories or communities.
WHO has said the outbreak last year had all the scientific characteristics of a pandemic, and insisted the organization was never improperly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Italy Urged to Change Civil Service Retirement
Brussels, 3 June (AKI) — The European Commission has accused Italy of sexual discrimination and urged it to introduce the same retirement age for male and female civil servants. In a letter to the Italian government, the commission called for parity between the required retirement age “immediately” or face prosecution in the European Court of Justice.
Italy’s plan to equalise retirement ages by 2018 is “inadequate” the commission said.
It also accused Italy of “discriminatory treatment in retirement ages between men and women working in public administration”, according to a commission statement.
Male Italian civil servants reach retirement age at 65 years old while women are permitted to retire at 60 years old.
“Italy must get rid of the transition period,” commission spokesman Matthew Newman was quoted as saying in a news report. “Italy must introduce parity immediately.”
Italy risks a fine if the European Court of Justice finds the country guilty of discrimination.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France: Minister Sentenced for Racial Abuse — Controversy
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JUNE 4 — France’s Interior Minister and personal long-time friend of President Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux, has today been found guilty and fined by a Paris court for racially abusing a young party activist of Maghreb origins in his own party, the UMP. The Socialist Party and the antiracist movement, MRAP, are calling for the Minister to resign. According to many lawyers, he is the first case in the Fifth Republic to be found guilty of “abuse of a private party of a racial nature”. The events took place on September 5 2009, during a ‘summer school’ for young members of the right-wing UMP party. A party militant presented the young Amine in a — to put it mildly — regrettable manner, as “our little Arab,” who, nonetheless “eats pork and drinks beer”. Upon which Hortefeux immediately quipped: “But that won’t do at all: he doesn’t fit the stereotype in the least,” and continued: “But sure, one is always useful: when there’s only one of them that’s OK. It’s when there’s a lot of them that the trouble starts”. This entr’acte, which can be viewed in full on in film format on the Le Monde internet site — has stirred up a hornet’s nest in France. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
French Police Urge Jews to Go Straight Home After Prayers
French police on Friday asked local Jewish leaders to conclude Saturday morning prayers earlier than usual due to a mass protest against Israel scheduled to take place in Paris that same day.
Protest marches will also be held throughout the French capital, even in the city’s Jewish neighborhoods.
Fearing clashes between protesters and Jewish worshipers leaving the synagogue after the prayers, police asked the Jewish leaders to tell their congregants to return to their homes after praying and avoid the streets until the demonstrations end.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
History Returns to Europe
So naturally, there is a general sense of satisfied accomplishment among European social democrats. They believe that finally a quiet sameness across their continent has replaced two millennia of constant European warring and revolution. Now, everybody seems to get an apartment, small car, state job, good pension and peace — and in exchange, all voice comfortable center-left consensus politics.
But beneath the genteel European Union veneer, few remembered that human nature remains constant and gives not even nice Europeans a pass from its harsh laws.
So suddenly the Greek financial meltdown, and the staggering debts that must be repaid, have alternately enraged and terrified northern European creditors. Even the most vocal Europhiles are quietly rethinking the entire premise of a European Union that offers lavish benefits but no sound method of paying for them.
After all, it is one thing to redistribute income by taking from richer Germans and Austrians to give to poorer Germans and Austrians. But it is something else for all Germans and Austrians to extend their socialist charity to siesta-taking Greeks, Italians and Spaniards. For all the lofty rhetoric of the collective European Union, age-old culture, language and nationalism still trump the ideal of continental unity.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: State to Help Poverty-Hit Erotic Icon Antonelli
Star of steamy 1970s classic Malizia falls on hard times
(ANSA) — Rome, June 3 — Italian erotic icon of the 1970s Laura Antonelli is set to receive a special allowance for artists who have fallen on hard times, after the government said it will respond to an appeal to help the actress.
Antonelli, 68, is having to get by on a pension of 510 euros a month plus donations from her local church, according to the popular actor Lino Banfi, who launched the appeal in a letter in Thursday’s Corriere della Sera. After a recent meeting with the actress, Banfi asked Culture Minister Sandro Bondi and Premier Silvio Berlusconi to allow Antonelli to benefit from a law for poverty-hit figures from the fields of culture, art, show business and sport.
He quickly obtained a positive reply.
“The procedure for Laura Antonelli to be recognised as a beneficiary of the ‘Bacchelli’ Law will begin as soon as possible,” Bondi said on Thursday.
Antonelli appeared in dozens of films in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, although she is best known for Salvatore Samperi’s steamy 1973 classic Malizia (Malice). The movie challenged bourgeois morality, sending a frisson through Italian society of the day and sparking the Vatican’s ire with its story of Antonelli as a saucy, socially climbing maid.
Her career effectively ended in 1991 when she was convicted on drugs charges before eventually clearing her name after a long legal battle.
She rarely socialises after a plastic surgery operation went wrong at the start of this decade.
She has become extremely devout, according to Banfi, spending her days in prayer and listening to religious radio programmes, having stopped watching TV some 20 years ago.
“I thank Lino Banfi and all those who are worrying about me,” Antonelli said in a statement issued via her lawyer.
“I’d like to live in a more serene, dignified way, although I’m no longer interested in this life on earth. I’d like to be forgotten”. The Bacchelli Law got its name from Riccardo Bacchelli, the Italian writer who was the first person to be helped by it shortly before his death in 1985.
Other past beneficiaries include actor Salvo Randone, actress Alida Valli, boxer Duilio Loi and war-time hero Giorgio Perlasca, the Italian who posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary to help thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Government Solidarity With Israel, Ronchi
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 4 — “We show solidarity with the Jewish community of Rome and with the state of Israel on a day like today, on which the far-left is organising protests in Naples and Rome against the Jewish state”. These are the comments this morning from Andrea Ronchi, the Minister for Community Policy, who was speaking in the heart of Rome’s Jewish ghetto. Ronchi was received by the chairman of Rome’s Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, and offered the support of the entire Italian government and showed his indignation at the moral violence of a number of anti-Israeli slogans used in protests organised in the capital. The minister also spoke of a “heavy media attack”. Ronchi reiterated that “to shed light on what happened on the pro-Palestinian activist ship raided by Israeli commandos, we must await the results of the independent inquiry commission”. “Despite the seriousness of the situation, negotiations over the peace progress must continue. Italy and its Foreign Minister Frattini are working to ensure that ties are not cut”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Sagrada Familia at Risk From Tunnel, UNESCO
(ANSAmed) — Madrid, JUNE 4 — The architect in charge of works at the Church of the Sagrada Familia, Jordi Bonet, has resumed his protests to the country’s Infrastructure Ministry today, calling for a halt to work on the high-speed rail link in the light of a report conducted by UNESCO, which advises that the course of the tunnel be changed as it nears the foundations of the edifice. The surveyor’s report entrusted by the International Council for Monuments to UNESCO experts Rolf Katzenbach and Wolfgram Jager, states that the stretch of tunnel “is not able to withstand unexpected disastrous events with safety”, for which reason it advises that it be moved away from the Sagrada Familia. As cited by the Europa Press agency, the report also calls for better safeguards for the high-speed section including the construction of a double protection wall between the tunnel and the church’s foundations in order to prevent any possible damage to the landmark building. “It is the wise who change their plans” Bonet said in pointing out to the press how the team which has been working on the completion of the church over the past years has long been calling for a change in the route of the planned tunnel — also now recommended by UNESCO. The chief architect for works on Sagrada Familia said it was and act of “irresponsibility to route the tunnel less than four metres from the foundations”. For his part, the CIU leader, Artur Mas, said the Unesco report constituted “a clip around the ear” for the Socialists and that it should make Barcelona’s Mayor, Jordi Hereu, “reconsider the works” on the high-speed line. In a statement to the media following a visit to the church, Mas said that the expert report was “an extremely important warning signal which must be borne in mind” and “an upset for those who have been ignoring warnings on the dangers to the Sagrada Familia represented by the works on the tunnel”. (ANSAmed) .
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: An Open Letter to the Prime Minister From the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain
Lift this inhumane blockade of Gaza NOW !
The Rt Hon David Cameron MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 0AA
3 June 2010
Dear Prime Minister,
We, the undersigned, are appalled at the unlawful killing of humanitarian workers on board Mavi Marmara by Israeli commandoes in international waters defying international law. The Gaza Freedom flotilla was an international humanitarian effort to bring aid to the besieged population of Gaza.
The Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Brian Cowen, has directly blamed the Gaza Blockade for the deaths. He is quoted in the London Evening Standard: “I believe that is in violation of international law. People are entitled to have humanitarian assistance.” The UN also considers the blockade illegal. We commend the Foreign Secretary’s statement calling for an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and now ask our government to pursue this course of action as a matter of urgency.
The blockade has heaped misery on Gaza’s 1.5 million residents many of whom are refugees in their own country having been forcibly expelled from Israel. The UN humanitarian co-ordinator said last week that the formal economy in Gaza has “collapsed” and 60% of households are short of food. According to UN statistics, around 70% of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75% rely on food aid and 60% have no daily access to water. A UN report last year said that on average it took 85 days to get shelter kits into Gaza, 68 days to deliver health and paediatric hygiene kits, and 39 days for household items such as bedding and kitchen utensils. It said that school textbooks and stationery had been delayed. A UN fact finding mission described the blockade as “collective punishment”, illegal in international law.
We urge you in the name of humanity to provide leadership to end this siege; this state of affairs should not be allowed to continue for a day longer and the time has come for the newly elected British government to use all its resources to bring an end to the inhumane Gaza Blockade.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari
Secretary General, Muslim Council of Britain
Joined by
1. Brendan Barber — General Secretary, Trades Union Congress
2. Professor Avi Shlaim — Professor of International Relations, Oxford University
3. Michael Mansfield QC — Human Rights Activist
4. Ken Livingstone — Former Mayor of London
5. Robert Lambert — Co-Director, European Muslim Research Centre
6. James O’Nions — Chair, War On Want
7. Maulana Sarfraz Madni — President, UK Islamic Mission
8. Rt. Hon Lord Dafydd Elis-Thomas — Presiding Officer, National Assembly For Wales
9. Lord Ahmed of Rotherham
10. Tony Benn — President, Stop the War Coalition
11. John F Smith — General Secretary, British Musicians’ Union
12.. Brian Eno — Singer, musician, composer, record producer
13. Maulana Moudood Hassan, President, Dawatul Islam UK & Eire
14. Musleh Faradhi — Central President, Islamic Forum Europe
15. Andrew Murray — Chair, Stop the War Coalition
16. Oliver McTernan — Cofounder & Director Forward Thinking
17. William Sieghart — Chairman, Forward Thinking
18. Dr Jonathan Githens-Mazer — University of Exeter and Co-Director EMRC
19. John Griffiths AM — Minister of Children, Education, Government of Wales
20. Derek Simpson — Joint General Secretary, Unite the Union
21. Matloob Hussain — Chairman, Union of Muslim Organisations — Walsall
22. Saleem Kidwai- Secretary General, Muslim Council of Wales
23. Salah Beltagui — Convener, Muslim Council of Scotland
24. Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra — Chairman, Religions for Peace UK
25. Christine Blower — General Secretary, National Union of Teachers (NUT)
26. Faisal Hanjara — President, Federation of Students Islamic Societies
27. Dave Prentis — General Secretary, Unison
28. Dr Mohamed Mukadam — Chairman, Association of Muslim Schools UK
29. Abdurrazagh Ezzeddin — Chair, Muslim Students Society UK & Eire
30. Ibrahim Hewitt — Chairman of the board of Trustees, INTERPAL
31. Jeremy Corbyn MP — Member of Parliament (Islington North)
32. Hywel Williams MP — Member of Parliament (Plaid Cymru, Arfon)
33. Irfan Mustafa — Vice President, Indian Muslim Federation (UK)
34. Toufik Kacimi — Director, Muslim Welfare House
35.. Sheikh Qari M Ismail — Lead Imam, Central Mosque Birmingham
36. Ufuk Seçgin — Islamic Community Millî Görüº UK (ICMG UK)
37. Lindsey German — Convener, Stop the War Coalition
38. Young Muslims UK
39. Jews for Justice for Palestine
40. Asif Ahmed — Chairman, Scottish Islamic foundation
41. Sandra White MSP — Member of Scottish Parliament (Glasgow)
42. Cllr Salma Yaqoob — Leader, Respect Party
43. Anas Takriti — The Cordoba Foundation
44. Dr Daud Abdullah — Middle East Monitor
45. Ahtsham Ali — President, Islamic Society of Britain
46. Bob Crow — General Secretary, National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers
47. Jeremy Dear — General Secretary, National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
48. Dr Ashraf Makadam — Chairman, Federation Of Muslim Organisations Leicestershire
49. Majed Al Zeer — Palestinian Return Centre
50. Muhammad Sawalha — British Muslim Initiative
51. Dr Ruth Blakeley — Lecturer in International Relations, University of Kent
52. Norman Finkelstein — Author
53. Dr Abdul Karim Khalil — Director, Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre Trust
54. Revd Gwynn ap Gwilym — Adviser to the Bench of Bishops, Church in Wales
55. Nia Griffiths MP — Assembly Member, National Assembly of Wales and MP of Llanelli
56. Leanne Wood AM — Assembly Member, National Assembly of Wales
57. Christine Chapman AM — Assembly Member, National Assembly of Wales
58. Bethan Jenkins AM — Assembly Member, National Assembly of Wales
59. Sayed Mohammed Musawi — Chair, World Ahlul Bayt Islamic League
60. Billy Hayes — General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU)
61. Sally Hunt — General Secretary of the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU)
62. Matt Wrack — General Secretary, Fire Brigades’ Union (FBU)
63. Mark Serwotka — General Secretary, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)
64. Hugh Lanning — Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)
65. Chris Keates — General Secretary, NASUWT, The Teachers’ Union
66. Dr Swee Ang — Senior consultant, Barth’s Hospital
67. Richard Newsom — Consultant Surgeon and Hon Senior Lecturer, Southampton University
68. Professor Ilan Pappe — Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies, University of Exeter
69. Abbas M H Ismail — Islamic Education Manager, The World Federation of KSIMC
70. Gerry Doherty — General Secretary, Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association
71. Ifath Nawaz — President, Association of Muslim Lawyers UK
72. Steve Gillan — General Secretary, The Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers
73. Haji Khadim Hussain — President Bradford Council for Mosques
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four MPs on Terror Hitlist
Exclusive: Channel 4 News has learned that police are advising four MPs whose names were found on a suspected terrorist hit list. The news follows the knife attack on Labour MP Stephen Timms. Political correspondent Cathy Newman reports.
Former minister Jim Fitzpatrick, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, is among the four MPs who have been offered advice and assistance by the police.
Channel 4 News understands Scotland Yard is reviewing security for all 650 members of parliamentin the wake of fears over Islamist extremists.
Senior police sources have expressed concern that politicians may be at risk from so-called “self-radicalisers” — lone extremists who are not part of an organised plot but who are inspired by al-Qaida. Scotland Yard tonight declined to comment.
The disclosure comes two weeks after the former minister Stephen Timms was stabbed while speaking to constituents. The attack in east London by a young Asian woman is now being treated as a terrorist investigation. His assailant is believed to have been radicalised by Islamist extremists.
Budget cuts
The home secretary today announced a £10m reduction in this year’s counter-terrorism policing budget, as part of £367m in Home Office savings.
The news, which was buried in a written ministerial answer, has caused fury among Labour and the Conservatives.
Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson criticised the decision to budget cuts, in the light of the “worrying” news that MPs were had been warned of terrorist threats.
“All MPs now, particularly in London, are going to have to talk very profoundly with the police to see what measures they have to take,” he told Channel 4 News. “In terms of the overall picture we need to ensure the police have the proper resources in counter-terrorism, as well as in all the things that they do.”
Police have also raised concerns over David Cameron’s personal security, after he abandoned the traditional prime ministerial motorcycle outriders and continued to walk around Whitehall.
The prime minister moved into Downing Street today, after warnings from counter-terrorism experts that it would cost too much to make his west london home safe.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Gaza Crisis Pits Lib Dems Against Tories
The public response to the Gaza crisis reveals a deep split between Conservative supporters on the one hand, and Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters on the other.
The Gaza crisis has divided voters along party lines, with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats the groups that disagree most prominently, new PoliticsHome research reveals.
PoliticsHome asked a sample of 1,009 voters whether they thought the Israeli blockade of Gaza was justified and whether the government’s response to the crisis has been too harsh or too lenient on Israel. Overall, fifty six per cent of people believe that the Israeli blockade of Gaza is unjustified, compared to twenty seven per cent thinking it is justified.
Sixty six per cent of Labour supporters, and an overwhelming majority of Liberal Democrat supporters (seventy six per cent) strongly oppose the blockade. But Conservative supporters tend to believe it is justified by a margin of forty nine to thirty eight.
Government Response
On the question of whether the government has been too harsh or too lenient on Israel, the overall tendency among voters is to believe that the response has been too lenient. This view is strongly held by most Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters (fifty nine per cent and sixty two per cent respectively), as well as non aligned voters (fifty six per cent).
However, Conservative supporters are most likely to think that the government has struck the right tone, and are more likely to believe that the government response has been too harsh than too lenient.
The results indicate the fragile tightrope that the coalition government must walk in attempting to communicate effectively to supporters of both parties.
PoliticsHome interviewed 1,009 adults by email from 2-3 June 2010. Results are weighted by age, gender and political party identification to reflect the population of Great Britain.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Home Office RICU Unit Downplays Israeli Massacre of Innocent Aid Workers
The Government’s Research, Information and Communications Unit (RICU) issued a fact sheet yesterday on the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.
While not as specious as an earlier fact sheet issued by RICU when the Viva Palestina convoy was violently halted by the Egyptian border police some months ago, the latest fact sheet does contain some rather disturbing omissions.
The fact sheet states that the boats carrying humanitarian activists, including 37 British nationals, ‘were boarded in the early hours of 31st May by the Israeli Navy.’
No mention that the boats were boarded by Israeli commandos in international waters, 40 miles off the coast of Israel raising important questions on the legality of Israel’s interception of the aid convoy.
The fact sheet continues:
‘The Israeli Government has stated that the Israeli Navy were met with violent resistance (including knives and firearms) ‘compelling IDF soldiers to defend their lives’.
No mention thereafter of the accounts of activists themselves who, on their return, have been expounding the horror of their encounter with the commandos in the early hours of Monday.
The fact sheet repeats the government’s support for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza and the reinstatement of peace talks to resolve the conflict as a whole. The sheet reads:
‘As the UK Government and its partners have made clear, Israel’s restrictions on access to Gaza must be lifted in line with Security Council Resolution 1860 — the crossings must be opened to allow unfettered access to allow the legitimate flows of aid, trade and reconstruction goods and people.
‘The UK Government believes that this week’s events underline the need to find a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the problem of Gaza.
‘The UK Government has urged all parties to comply with the call in UN Security Resolution 1860 for renewed and urgent efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognised borders.’
What the fact sheet doesn’t state is what measures, diplomatic and economic, the UK will take to ensure that the blockade is lifted immediately. Nor does it spell out how it plans to move towards ‘a comprehensive peace based on two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, liv[ing] side by side in peace with secure and recognised borders‘, in its foreign policy formulation. This despite recommendations from the foreign affairs select committee, Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group, and the UK’s former Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, that the Quartet move to bring Hamas to the negotiating table.
Without statements that lay out a future plan of action, the government’s fact sheet will remain little more than hollow words in the face of yet another catastrophe in the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Proof That Our New Government is Grovelling to Islamists
Douglas Murray
I have just been forwarded an email from the UK government which suggests that the new administration does not merely feel blackmailed by Islamists but is also actively trying to placate them. The Research Information and Communications Unit (RICU) is jointly funded and run by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Home Office and the department of Communities and Local Government.. Founded in 2007, it officially forms part of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism. It is the main conduit for Government in dealing with the disparate mass that it thinks of as “the Muslim community”.
Late yesterday the RICU sent out this message to its email list:
Dear all,
Both the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary made statements in the House of Commons today regarding the Israeli Navy’s interception of the Aid Flotilla to Gaza, and the subsequent deaths of a number of passengers. The attached factsheet provides details of these statements and further background and facts surrounding this incident.
We encourage you to share this unrestricted document with your contacts.
As ever we would appreciate your feedback on the format, content and timing of this document as well as suggestions on issues you would like it to cover. Please email …. with comments or if you would like to subscribe.
Kind regards,
Head, News Coordination Team
RICU
And what is it that it wishes its Muslim recipients to “share” with all their “contacts”? The attachment in question quotes at length the lamentable statements on the Gaza flotilla incident from David Cameron and William Hague. In case any aggravated Islamist isn’t yet getting this, RICU is at pains to reiterate in its “KEY POINTS”:
The UK Government deeply deplores the loss of life during the interception of the flotilla.
The UK Government believes that Israel now bears a responsibility to provide a full account of what occurred. The UK Government agrees with EU partners and the UN Security Council that there must be a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation or inquiry in to these events.
The UK Government believes that this week’s events underline the need to find a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the problem of Gaza.
And so on…
There is only one reason why this email was sent out: the British government is attempting to placate Muslim pressure groups in the UK by saying, “Look at us, you’re not going to catch us being soft on Israel, we’re as furious and condemning as you are.”
As it happens, various Muslim groups in Britain wrote to the Government before this communication, calling for it to condemn Israel. Our new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary have taken their hint and issued a set of ignorant and pusillanimous statements attacking Israel’s right to defend herself by preventing the importing of arms into the terrorist-run state of Gaza. Our politicians have decided that instead of condemining terror they will condemn those dealing with terror. Most Orwellian of all, our own Office for Security and Counter Terrorism is being used to boast about this line in an attempt to placate activist Islamic groups.
What was Winston Churchill’s definition of an appeaser again? “One who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” When will the Conservative/Liberal government realise that this crocodile will not eat them last, but next?…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Accused of Attempting to Murder MP Stephen Timms to Face Old Bailey Trial
Roshonara Choudhary charged with attempting to kill East Ham MP as well as two counts of weapon possession
The woman accused of stabbing the Labour MP Stephen Timms at a constituency surgery in east London will face trial at the Old Bailey in November. Roshonara Choudhary, 21, of East Ham, east London, appeared via videolink at the court today.
She is charged with attempting to murder Timms — the MP for East Ham and a former Treasury minister — last month, as well as two counts of weapon possession.
Choudhary, wearing glasses and with a crimson scarf covering her head and shoulders, spoke only to confirm her name and say she understood the proceedings. She was remanded in custody to appear at the same court for a plea and case management hearing on 13 July, and a two-week trial was fixed for 1 November.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Van Rompuy Still Finding His Feet
Le Figaro, 02 June 2010
On the occasion of “his first official encounter with President Dmitri Medvedev” at the EU-Russia summit, “the new permanent President of the European Union did not mince his words with regard to the issue of human rights in Russia,” reports Le Figaro. Herman Van Rompuy notably spoke of the climate of impunity that reigns in Chechnya and the North Caucasus. It was “a short but scathing declaration,” which destabilised the Russian delegates and took Commission President José Manuel Barroso, “who remained silent on the issue”, by surprise. Le Soir, however, notes that the President of the European Council appeared to be “overwhelmed by the event,” where he read “a prepared speech before silently returning to his seat.” At the same time, Catherine Ashton, the head of Europe’s diplomatic service was nowhere to be seen. The Brussels daily quotes a Russian diplomat who remarked with an ironic smile that the new European leadership “is still being broken in.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Troops in Lebanon and Cyprus Peace Missions
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, JUNE 4 — Serbian troops will participate in the peace missions in Lebanon and Cyprus. The country already has its own contingents in four other missions. The announcement was made by Defence Minister DraganSutanovac. Serbia currently participates in the UN peacekeeping missions in Chad (21 members), Liberia (4 members, official members and military observers), Ivory Coast (3 official members and military observers) and Congo (2 medics and four healthcare technicians). In an interview with the newspaper Vecernje Novosti, Minister Sutanovac said that the professionalisation of Serbia’s armed forces will be completed by the start of next year, with 36 thousand regular officers. “Our defence system will be modern and will contribute to the country’s reforms, speeding up its path towards the European Union”, Sutanovac concluded. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Premier, Autonomous Government Kabylia Only Gossip
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JUNE 3 — Algeria’s Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has said that the creation of a provisional government in Kabylie is only an irritating rumour. The creation of a government was announced yesterday in Paris by the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia (MAK). “It is only noise” said Ouyahia to the press from the opening of the 43th Algiers Festival, quoted by the newspaper Liberté. The announcement was made by MAK chairman Ferhat Mehenni, 59 years old, who will also be president of the provisional government. “We no longer want to suffer injustice, our existence has always been denied, our dignity tread on” said Mehenni. “We have been discriminated in all sectors, we have been denied our identity, language and Kabyle culture, we live in Algeria like strangers”. Mehenni, also a famous singer, has always opposed the Algerian government and has been sent to prison many times. Apart from Mehenni, the provisional government includes nine Ministers, two of whom are women. The Kabyle Berbers form 25-30% of the Algerian population (more than 33 million based on 2007 figures). Most of them live in the Kabylia region, a poor mountain region around a hundred kilometres east of Algiers. Since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962, the Kabyle people have fought for the recognition of their language, the tamazight, and their culture. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Tourism +11% in Jan-April 2010
(ANSAmed) — RABAT — Tourists paying a visit to Morocco in the period running from January to April 2010 numbered 2.39 million, a 11% rise on the year, according to reports from the Tourism Department. Topping the list of visitors were the French, but also on the rise were the numbers of those from Italy, Great Britain, Spain and Holland — between 17% and 19% — and those from Germany and Belgium, respectively 9 and 13%. For the first time in the last 18 years also rising was the number of overnight stays, 7% more, a figure which shows that Morocco has been able to benefit from the economic crisis hitting Europeans, who are opting for cheaper holidays. In 2009 Morocco saw 5% growth, in first place among African countries, in part due to a very good agricultural season. Last year eight million tourists visited Morocco, a number which the Rabat government hopes to bring to 10 million this year. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia Aims to Double Tobacco Production
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JUNE 4 — Tobacco growing in Tunisia in 2009 led to the production of 1,655 tonnes obtained from a total surface area of 1,266 hectares, employing 80,000 people. This represents a relatively modest yield, which is also due to difficulties in development linked to the requested quality of water, the insufficient training of the workforce and the reduction in the amount of surface area dedicated to this type of culture. Mabrouk EL Bahri, chairman of the Tunisian Agriculture and Fishing Union (UTAP)m close collaboration is needed between UTAP and the tobacco monopoly to reduce imports. The latter is involved in improving the quality of Tunisian tobacco (particularly in the east of the country and in introducing new species. This is all geared towards increasing production which, in the next few years, is expected to reach three thousand tonnes. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Israel’s Daunting Task
The ferocity and speed of the current international assault on Israel has left the government in a daze. Statements from our leadership are marked by confusion. This reaction is understandable. Everywhere Israel turns it is met with hostility.
Turkey — which just a decade ago was Israel’s most important regional ally — has taken a leadership position next to Iran in the Islamist and global assault against the Jewish state.
Under President Barack Obama’s stewardship, the US has joined the international bandwagon against Israel. Ireland — never a friend — is now openly siding with Hamas against Israel. And as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu noted on Wednesday evening, Britain, France and Germany and the rest of the Western democracies calling for Israel to end its blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza’s coast are effectively arguing that Israel should give Iran— which controls Hamas— a seaport on the Mediterranean.
The footage of the IDF’s celebrated naval commandos falling prey to an Islamic lynch mob on the deck of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara on Monday morning serves as a perfect simile for the national mood. The commandos boarded the ship armed with paintball guns expecting to be greeted by hostile, but non-violent humanitarian activists. Instead they were accosted by a murderous mob…
| [Return to headlines] |
Erdogan: Hamas is Not a Terrorist Group
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 4 — Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today said that Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic movement which controls the Gaza Strip, is not a terrorist group. ‘ ‘Hamas has resistance fighters who fight to defend their country. They won the elections,” said Erdogan in Konya, in central Turkey. “I told the American leaders… I don’t consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation. I still believe this today. They are defending their country,” added the PM, whose statements were then broadcast again by Turkish television. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza Flotilla’s Leader Explains: It Was a Jihadist Attack Not a “Humanitarian Operation”
by Barry Rubin
Bülent Yildirim, the main organizer of the Gaza Flotilla, explained at a Hamas rally in Gaza that the operation was no humanitarian effort but part of a global Jihad to overthrow governments and install Islamist dictatorships. He made no secret of that fact, as shown in the MEMRI translation and video.
Keep in mind as you read this that his group originated the project and was the main funder, that his followers controlled the biggest ship, and that they were most of those who attacked the Israeli soldiers. Thus, more than any other individual, Yildirim represents the thinking behind the operation, its direction, and the organization of a militarized group that started the violence in order to achieve the intended result. Notice, too, that he—and thus the organizers of the operation and those who created the violence—are totally indifferent to the loss of life they cause.
“My brothers,” he begins, “I have brought you the blessings of Saladin and Sultan Abd Al-Hamid. There are 70 million Sultan Abd Al-Hamids in Turkey, and they all support you. We congratulate you on your victory.”
Saladin, of course, defeated the Crusaders and destroyed their kingdoms, an analogy often drawn about Israel by Jihadists. Sultan Abd al-Hamid was the last of the Ottoman Empire’s Islamic-oriented rulers. He thus represents what Yildirim sees as an Islamist Turkish state. He was also a caliph, that is, the leader of the Muslim world as successor to Muhammad. Many Islamists want to reestablish the caliphate, a single Muslim ruler over the whole Muslim-majority world (or even the whole world period). The Turkish Islamists hate Kemal Ataturk for establishing a republic and ending the caliphate (along with the Young Turk secularists).
Their goal is not to succor the people of Gaza but to wipe out Israel and kill the Jews as “rightful” (his words, not mine) successors to Muhammad in continuing this task:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Refuses Israel’s Delivery of Flotilla Supplies
Hamas refused Thursday to accept an Israeli delivery of at least 20 truckloads of humanitarian aid from the flotilla of ships that commandos intercepted in a raid that left nine people dead.
The group said it was waiting for instructions from the Turkish government on whether to accept the supplies.
Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip and Israel’s Defense Ministry said Thursday the cargo, including medical supplies, clothing, blankets and toys, was held up at the Kerem Shalom crossing after being brought 38 kilometers south from the port in Ashdod.
Hamas said it would not take the aid because Israel confiscated some of the supplies and was still holding some of the more than 700 passengers involved in the May 31 attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.
Israel said last night it had expelled all foreigners from the ships except for seven who are hospitalized. It is also detaining an Israeli Arab religious leader who may be prosecuted.
Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
“The government decided not to receive any aid until the occupation releases all those who are held,” Ahmed al-Kurd, the Hamas minister for social welfare, said in a telephone interview from his office in Gaza City. “We will accept all of the aid or none of it.”
The Israeli Defense Ministry unit that coordinates civilian issues with the Palestinian Authority said it had checked the flotilla cargo for weapons and other prohibited materials before delivering it to Gaza.
Israel is “acting in coordination with international aid organizations operating in the Gaza Strip which are waiting for the transfer of the cargo on the other side of the border,” the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said in a statement posted on the Defense Forces website.
Al-Kurd said Hamas was waiting for instructions from the Turkish government on whether to accept the supplies. “We will wait for a Turkish green light to receive the aid because this flotilla was flying the Turkish flag,” he said. “Once it decides we should take the aid, we will take it.”
The pro-Palestinian activists were attempting to sail into Gaza, which has been under Israeli blockade since the Islamic Hamas movement took full control of the territory in 2007. A seventh ship has sailed for Gaza to try and breach the Israeli blockade.
Egypt temporarily eased its own blockade on the Gaza Strip yesterday to allow trucks of food and other supplies to cross the border and more than 600 Palestinians to leave, according to Palestinian border officials.
The Israeli raid on the ships has led to condemnation throughout the world. The United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to authorize an independent international investigation of the raid. The U.S., the Netherlands and Italy voted against the measure.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Extremists Hit Israeli Soldiers With Iron Bars, West Surrenders?
by Barry Rubin
“I have not yet begun to fight!” —Captain John Paul Jones 1779
“Don’t Give up the ship!” — Captain James Lawrence, 1813
“Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!” —Admiral David Farragut, 1862
“You may fire when ready, Gridley!” —Commodore George Dewey, 1898
“Oh no! Israel stopped a ship near Gaza, the militants attacked the troops, and nine were killed. Our policy is untenable and we better give in.” —President Barack Obama, 2010?
I hope the above turns out to be an exaggeration. Some minor changes—letting private groups send in goods over the border after Israeli inspection—would not damage the effort to isolate and defeat Hamas. But things may go far beyond such cosmetic alterations.
For some reason the Obama Administration may be deciding that its policy toward Hamas is no longer working and it’s time to begin to raise its arms in surrender, give up the ship, put on the brakes, and make room for Hamas. But it should be remembered that a policy is not wrong or untenable because some—even a lot of people—don’t like it or because it doesn’t work real fast. The question is whether the policy fits the resources available and goals that are vital ones.
And here, regarding the Gaza Strip issue, there are major strategic issues that should not be forgotten:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Rachel Corrie 150 Miles Away, Hughes(Free Gaza)
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 4 — The Rachel Corrie, the Irish cargo ship heading to Gaza carrying humanitarian aid and about twenty pro-Palestinian activists intending to break through Israel’s marine blockade of the Gaza Strip, is currently 150 miles off the coast of Gaza. This is according to Mary Hughes, a spokesperson for Free Gaza, who was speaking to CNRmedia. “It is travelling at an average of 9 miles per hour. This means that we don’t think it will arrive in waters surrounding Gaza before tomorrow morning,” she said. Yesterday, Israeli officials said that the Rachel Corrie would be intercepted in high seas and taken to the military harbour in the Israeli port city of Ashdod. Its cargo will then be expected there and forwarded to Gaza, as occurred with the cargo on board the Freedom Flotilla, which was intercepted on Monday during a bloody raid. “The skipper will decide whether or not to slow down at night,” said Hughes in a telephone interview, “so as to avoid coming too close to the coast, which would favour intervention by Israel’s military units. We know that they intervene at 60-70 miles”. The Rachel Corrie is named after an American activist killed a few years ago in the south of the Gaza Strip as she tried to stop an Israeli military bulldozer from razing a Palestinian building. Meanwhile, the Free Gaza movement, which has been trying for months to lift Israel’s blockade on Gaza by sending vessels containing humanitarian aid, has announced that two ships from the “Freedom Flotilla” are out of service because of unforeseen damage of a suspicious nature. The damage was spotted a week ago when the ships — Challenger 1 and 2 — were in high seas near Cyprus. Free Gaza has learned that repairs will take longer than expected. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Mankell Accuses Israel of ‘Piracy’
Top Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell has accused Israel of “piracy” for its attack on a Gaza-bound aid fleet and has denied weapons were stashed on the ships, in comments broadcast on Wednesday.
Mankell, the author of the popular Wallander series of detective novels, said Israeli commandos shot people who were sleeping during Monday’s raid on the flotilla, in which nine activists were killed and dozens injured.
“The Israelis transformed their navy into a pirate enterprise,” Mankell told reporters after he returned to the southwestern Swedish city of Gothenburg late Tuesday after taking part in the aid operation.
“All the ships (in the flotilla) were hijacked, and this was really piracy,” said Mankell, whose comments were broadcast by Swedish public radio on Wednesday.
“What will happen next year when we come back with hundreds of boats? Will they fire a nuclear bomb?” he asked.
Mankell was one of 11 Swedes who participated in the operation, which involved a total of 682 people from 42 countries aboard six ships.
“We had expected to run into trouble when we reached the border (of Israeli territorial waters), but we were mistaken,” Mankell said.
“Far from the limit, in (international) water, we were attacked… by helicopters, speedboats and other vessels and lots of commando soldiers who came onboard and hijacked ship after ship.
“They did not hesitate to attack using lethal force. They shot people who were sleeping,” he said.
Mankell said the Israelis’ claim that large numbers of weapons were found on the vessels was “nonsense.”
“On the ship I was on, they found one weapon: my razor. And they actually came up and showed it off, my razor, so you see what level this was at,” Mankell said.
The author further accused Israel of kidnap when it towed the ships to one of its ports and detained those on board.
“At the moment they started taking the boats towards Israel, we were all kidnapped. It is that simple,” he said.
Despite the aid flotilla’s failure to break Israel’s blockade against the Gaza Strip and deliver some 10,000 tonnes of supplies, Mankell said the operation was a partial success.
“Today we know that Israel is on its knees. No one could predict that the rest of the world would react in this way. They are completely isolated,” he said, adding “people are completely fed up with this brutality and this violence that the power (Israel) has on its conscience.”
He said he was in “despair” over the killings and added that he was also saddened to think of “some of our friends who are still sitting in some very uncomfortable prisons in Israel, where they are being beaten.”.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Interferes With Israel’s Gaza Blockade
The Obama administration suggests international players investigate Israeli actions.
The Obama administration is pushing for an internationalized investigation of Israel’s recent effort to preserve its naval blockade of Hamas-run Gaza. In an extraordinary interference with the sovereignty of a democratic society and its right of self-defense, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Wednesday that the United States wants “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation. … We are open to different ways of assuring a credible investigation, including international participation … “
Assistant Secretary of State Philip J. Crowley elaborated that the administration was demanding Israel produce “an investigation that is broadly viewed as credible by the international community.” That would be the same international community which has condemned Israel without the facts, and which has refused to walk back their spontaneous reactions, though the video evidence of armed “civilian” attackers and martyr-seeking “humanitarians” now stares them in the face.
[…]
While the Obama administration voted against the HRC resolution, it did not use its membership on the council to impede in any way the numerous breaches in procedure which made the debate and the introduction of the resolution to condemn Israel possible in the first place. Never in its history had the council held what was uniquely labeled an “urgent debate” on any human rights issue at all, anywhere. The HRC has specific requirements for holding “special sessions” and decided to ignore them, without American objection. In order to move with lightning speed, the substantive resolution was introduced under an agenda item on procedural issues, again without American objection.
[…]
The Obama administration is doing nothing to slow down the extraordinary pace of international condemnation racing forward minus the facts. On the contrary, its support of some form of internationalization of an Israeli investigation — which would obviously occur in this fully democratic society in a manner consistent with the rule of law — is a blatant attempt to pile on the pressure. It also goes to the very heart of Israeli sovereignty. Imagine the response if anyone tried to force the United States military to subject its actions in self-defense to the judgment of an international overseer, just hours after the event.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘We Had No Choice’
‘Mavi Marmara’ raid commando: “They had murder in their eyes.”
When St.-Sgt. S. fast-roped down from an air force Black Hawk helicopter onto the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship on Monday morning, he did not expect to be landing in what he called “a battlefield” and facing off against a group of “murderous mercenaries.”
The 15th and last naval commando from Flotilla 13 (the Shayetet) to rappel down onto the ship from the helicopter, S. said on Thursday that he was immediately attacked by what the IDF has called “the mob of mercenaries” aboard the vessel, just like the soldiers who had boarded just before him.
Looking to his side, he saw three of his commanders lying wounded — one with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another with a gunshot wound to the knee. A third was lying unconscious; his skull was fractured by a devastating blow with a metal bar.
As the next in the chain of command, S., who has been in the Shayetet for three and a half years, immediately took charge.
He pushed the wounded soldiers up against the wall of the upper deck and created a perimeter of soldiers around them to begin treating their wounds, he said. He then arranged his men to form a second perimeter, and pulled out his 9 mm. Glock pistol to stave off the charging attackers and to protect his wounded comrades.
The attackers had already seized two pistols from the commandos, and fired repeatedly at them. Facing more than a dozen of the mercenaries, and convinced their lives were in danger, he and his colleagues opened fire, he said. S. singlehandedly killed six men. His colleagues killed another three.
On Thursday, S. sat down with The Jerusalem Post at the Shayetet’s base in northern Israel for an exclusive interview, during which he described the dramatic events aboard the Mavi Marmara on Monday; he is being considered for a medal of valor.
“When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes,” S. told the Post. “These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us.”
S. does not look like a hero. Well-built, like all commandos in the Shayetet, he is also soft-spoken and stingy with words, but his commander Lt.-Col. T. fills in the blanks.
“S. did a remarkable job,” T. said. “He stabilized the situation and succeeded in hitting six of the terrorists.”
Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.
The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades.
The IDF’s understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.
Nevertheless, the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the “mercenaries” threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel.
T. said he realized the group they were facing was well-trained and likely ex-military after the commandos threw a number of stun grenades and fired warning shots before rappelling down onto the deck. “They didn’t even flinch,” he said. “Regular people would move.”
Each squad of the “mercenaries” was equipped with a Motorola communication device, the IDF said, so they could pass information to one another. Assessments in the defense establishment are that members of the group were affiliated with international global jihad elements and had undergone training in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
S. on Thursday downplayed his involvement in the operation. “I did what I was trained to do and now I move on,” he said.
In contrast to earlier reports, the commandos said that they began using their weapons within a minute and a half after boarding the ship, due to the extreme violence they faced. One of the reasons S. pulled out his gun right after landing on the ship was because one of the mercenaries was pointing a pistol, snatched from one of the commandos, at another commando’s head…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
What Do the Swedish Gaza Activists Hope to Achieve?
The Ship to Gaza incident was, to say the least, badly handled by Israel. The blockade of Gaza is wrong. But Swedish activists need to ask themselves tough questions about the consequences of their actions, says Stockholm-based Israeli journalist David Stavrou.
As Swedish activists return from Israel and stride towards the waiting microphones and television cameras, it’s important to take a look behind the events which took place off Gaza and perhaps revaluate the way Swedish activists engage in one of the most complicated regions on earth.
It’s worth saying at the very outset that the nine people who died on the Mavi Marmara didn’t deserve to die. This is true whether they acted violently or peacefully, whether they were terrorist sympathizers or not, whether one agrees with their politics or not. The whole affair was handled badly by Israel, to say the least, and there are many questions about the legality and reasonableness of Israel’s actions.
Beyond that, however, there is a bigger picture.
Who actually profited from what happened? Well, most analysts agree that the biggest beneficiaries are the radical Islamists of the Middle East, notably Hamas, the terrorist organization which currently rules Gaza. Hamas won a major PR victory and gained valuable international legitimacy at the expense of moderate Palestinians and the Fatah leadership of the West Bank. Politically this is a boost for those Palestinians who object to peace negotiations with Israel, and prefer the more violent path of jihad, the so-called holy war against Israel and the non-Muslim world.
In Turkey, Islamist extremists are milking the incident to win easy points against secular and modernising forces. Iran is delighted that the world’s attention is being diverted away from its nuclear programme and arms deals with Hezbollah and Syria. As so often before in the Middle-East, the rhetoric of peace and freedom becomes a tool to strengthen despotic, terror-sponsoring regimes which scoff at both. This happened largely because, as Israeli author David Grossman put it, Israel acted like a puppet on strings pulled by a small fanatical Turkish organization.
It’s hard to tell if this is what the Swedish activists on the flotilla were hoping to achieve. If it wasn’t, and their only aim was to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and protest against Israel’s blockade, they must be extremely naïve if they call the flotilla a success. Assuming their intentions were good, they might want to consider a few changes next time they embark on Middle East mission.
First, it’s always good to know who your partners are. In this case, the IHH, the Turkish movement behind the Mavi Marmara, has proven links to terrorist organizations and global Jihad. It is now obvious that their aim wasn’t only humanitarian aid: they have boasted that they were looking for violent confrontation and sadly Israel gave them more than they needed to make their point. Now they have their martyrs.
In reality, the flotilla was an unfortunate alliance of idealistic peace activists and hard-core Islamic extremists. Swedes genuinely wanting to help Palestinian refugees would do far better to act with bodies like the UN or the many local Palestinian or Israeli humanitarian organizations, which have been getting aid to Gaza and the West Bank for years.
Second, in a conflict as complicated as this one, context is king. Many of those who condemn Israel for its blockade of Gaza don’t even know that Gaza is also blockaded by Egypt. But Egypt, an Arab and Muslim country, is not the target of demonstrations, boycotts or international vilification. It would be interesting to see an international convoy trying to enter Gaza through the closed Egyptian Rafah crossing instead of the regular Israeli route, and no one should hold his breath to see demonstrators burning Egyptian flags in the next demonstration at Sergels Torg.
This is because most Swedes see Israel as the sole aggressor whilst in reality, this is much more than a conflict between nations, it’s a conflict within nations. The women of Gaza, for example, were victims of Gaza’s armed men long before they were victims of Israeli tanks.
The children of Sderot in southern Israel were victims of the neglect of various Israeli governments long before they became victims of Palestinian missiles. And the sight of the Turkish government acting as a spokesman for human rights is probably very strange to some of its neighbours and citizens, like the Greeks, the Armenians, the Cypriots and the Kurds. This is a long and bitter conflict between forces of democracy and social progress and fundamentalist fanatics serving powerful global economic masters.
Any Swede who wants to act in this region must realize that this is not just a question of Israel vs. Palestinians or Jews vs. Arabs. Painting it this way may make it easier to explain, but it’s false. Iran’s machinations, the Egyptian blockade, Syria’s domination of Lebanon, the mockery of human rights in the Arab world, and the violence in Iraq are just some examples which demonstrate that Israel isn’t the real problem. At least not the only one.
But Israel has become the neighbour everybody hates and that’s its tragedy. It may have the most powerful army in the area and it may be the strongest economy but in the long run it will never survive as a Jewish democracy without recognition from its neighbors and legitimacy from the world. And this is exactly what it is losing now.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, need civilian development; they need industry, infrastructure and democratic institutions. These too can only come as a result of an international effort. If Swedish activists have perspective as well as good intentions, they should focus their efforts on these areas, not on provoking violent confrontations, however justified they may appear.
The last piece of advice for potential Swedish peace activists is this — peace is about understanding, compromise and reconciliation, not about winning an argument. Peace can never be achieved without understanding both sides, even the side you’re initially opposed to. True, five years after its disengagement from Gaza successive Israeli governments seem to display a constant lack of moral judgment and continue to make terrible mistakes, both political and military.
Monday’s seizing of the Gaza-bound flotilla was just another mistake, as many Israelis reluctantly admit. By now many Israelis also realize that the three year blockade of Gaza is both wrong and ineffective. But it also remains true that Israel has a right to defend itself, and a basic duty to its citizens to prevent ever-more powerful weapons being smuggled into Gaza by land and sea by Syria and Iran who continue to arm their puppet allies. It is also true that international law does acknowledge a nation’s right to impose maritime blockades and the right to intercept ships even in international waters.
These events have gradually changed Israel, which has been under attack for too many years and has tried too many solutions. It signed peace agreements and withdrew from occupied-territories but the extremists on all sides invalidated these steps and led to yet more bloodshed. Every Israeli generation has seen full scale wars, military campaigns and endless terror attacks, everyone knows someone who was killed or injured, everyone is a soldier or a soldier’s relative, and everyone is at war.
And so Israel expels visitors just because they speak against it, it continues building settlements, irresponsibly risking its relationship with the US and it persecutes journalists and activists. Its government is wrapping itself in a warm blanket of self-conviction, behaving like it’s the only victim, with truth being unconditionally and eternally on its side. Israelis have largely lost faith that the International community will ever be able to understand their unique position, and this is sadly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Does all this sound familiar? If it does, it’s because these words describe the Palestinian condition too. It’s a tough situation and it won’t be resolved without help from the outside. Surely Sweden, with its long and rich record of diplomacy and moderation, could support moderates on both sides, resist provocations and promote the only realistic answer — a two state solution. Surely Sweden could do better than the Mavi Marmara.
| — Hat tip: Freedom Fighter | [Return to headlines] |
Will Israel Drop an Atom Bomb?: Mankell
Swedish author Henning Mankell is one of a trio of activists which have arrived back in Sweden after being released by Israel following their participation in the Gaza-bound flotilla attacked by Israeli commandos.
Mankell arrived in Sweden late Tuesday together with Green Party member Mehmet Kaplan and senior physician Victoria Strand.
“What will happen next year when we come back with hundreds of boats? Will
they drop an atom bomb,” the renowned author of the Wallander crime series said when he returned to Gothenburg airport on Tuesday night.
Mankell expressed concern over the Swedes remaining in Israel.
“We are worried about our friends who are still in jail,” the renowned author of the Wallander detective series told the Expressen tabloid onboard the flight to Sweden.
Sweden’s foreign ministry has said that four of the 11 Swedes who had been travelling with the flotilla when it was attacked early Monday — leaving nine
activists dead and scores injured — had been permitted to leave Israel.
Kaplan and Strand met the assembled media when they arrived at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. Strand said that it took eleven hours for the Israelis to tow the boat on which they were travelling, the Sofia, into Ashdod harbour. During this time the activists were guarded by masked soldiers.
The quay was lined with hundreds of soldiers past which the activists were forced to walk passed. They were then dispersed to various “stations”.
“The Israelis did all they could to humiliate us… They wanted to scare us into obedience,” Strand said.
According to Strand the activists were accused of illegally encroaching on an Israeli military zone.
“Then I replied that “you detained us 79 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza and you do not have any right to a military zone there’“.
Under protest Strand decided to sign a document where she agreed to immediate deportation.
Mehmet Kaplan told how the Israeli commandos boarded the boat from both sides.
“It was if we had been attacked by pirates. When they approached our boat they got onboard via grappling hooks on on both sides. We retreated up to the bridge and engine room to protect them but the soldiers, who bore balaclavas, used stun guns against several people on the boat,” he said.
Kaplan underlined that nobody that he travelled with, neither the crew nor the activists, offered any resistance.
“We had undertaken anti-violence training and we retreated the while time as they advance, fully equipped,” he said.
Kaplan only first found out that activists had died at the hands of Israeli commandos on Tuesday. He reserved warm praise for the foreign ministry and the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv.
“Without their help we would perhaps still be there. It is a lifeline for those who remain,” he said.
Henning Mankell completed his journey in Gothenburg and on arrival at Landvetter airport he told the Expressen daily that he had not regrets over his participation, but elected to reserve further comment until later.
“For the simple reason that some of our friends remain in custody in Israel,” he said.
The Israeli government said on Tuesday that it plans to release all of the foreigners who were involved in the Gaza-bound flotilla. Hundreds were expelled on Wednesday.
The six ships in the Freedom Flotilla, carrying more than 700 passengers, were on a mission to deliver some 10,000 tonnes of supplies to Gaza, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
EU: 11mln Aid to Iraqi Refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 4 — New funds from the European Commission for Iraqi refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Brussels provided an 18 million euros humanitarian aid package for victims of the Iraqi crisis both inside Iraq and in neighbouring countries. The funding — according to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu) — will provide protection, water and sanitation, basic household items as well as access to basic health care and psychosocial support to the most vulnerable people. “After years of displacement or exile — Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Kristalina Georgieva, said — hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still live in dire conditions both in Iraq and in neighbouring countries. Despite generous hospitality measures and while efforts are mobilised for the reconstruction of the country, the humanitarian situation of the most vulnerable among the Iraqi people should not be forgotten”. Of the 18 million euros, around 7 million euros will go to help those most in need in the country. The rest of this latest commitment will fund activities for refugees in neighbouring countries, particularly Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, where they live mainly in urban areas. The funding will be administered by ECHO and delivered through a number of partner organisations such as specialised Un agencies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement as well as international NGO’s.(ANSAmed).
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Italy Considering Debt Swap Agreement With Jordan
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, JUNE 2 — Italy is contemplating a debt swap agreement with Jordan involving the 16-million-euros debt in return for Italian projects in Jordan, according to Italy ambassador to Jordan Francesco Fransoni. The diplomat said ties with Jordan are expected to be boosted following the start of Jordan-Italy Business Forum, to be held in Amman on June 27. Around 100 businessmen representing various industries and trade sectors including construction, agriculture, energy and machinery are expected to take part in the event to boost ties with Jordanian counterpart. According to Fransoni, Italy has provided funds in the shape of grants or soft loans in a total amount of about 90 million euros. Official figures show that Italy is the second European country after Germany, in terms of export to the kingdom and the eighth worldwide. Jordan exports to Italy metals, basic chemical products, jewels while Italy exports jewels, machinery, refined oil products, machines for special purposes, electrical equipment, medical and dental supplies and home appliances. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kurds: Ankara Expects Cooperation From Barzani
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 3 — The government of Ankara expects the “full cooperation” of the regional administration of Iraqi Kurdistan in the fight against the terrorism of Kurdish rebels of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). This was indicated today by Turkish Foreign Minister Mehmet Davutoglu during a joint press conference at the end of a meeting with Massoud Barzani, the head of the regional government of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. “Fully integrated work will be carried out between Turkey and Northern Iraq as a bridge for the close relations between our countries,” added Davutoglu. The Turkish head of diplomacy then said that a joint strategy will also be implemented in the energy, trade and transport sectors, but he also warned that terrorism is the greatest threat to Turkish and Iraqi partnership. Barzani’s visit to Turkey, the first in six years since the war launched by the US against Iraq in 2003, and unimaginable until a short while ago, represents — according to various observers — a true political turning point for Ankara regarding Barzani, who has always been considered by Turkish politicians and military officials to be partial to Kurdish rebels and their demands for an independent territory. Barzani’s visit to Ankara coincided not by chance with a recent, violent and renewed offensive by the PKK against the Turkish army in the east and southeast of the country, which in recent weeks has killed dozens. Turkey, as sources in the Foreign Ministry report, now expects Barzani to launch “a harsh warning against terrorism”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lawyer for Slain Turkish-Armenian Journalist Found Dead in Istanbul
DEATH: Hakan Karadag’s friends gathered after hearing the incident.
A lawyer who was working on the murder case of Hrant Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist slain in 2007, was found dead in his house Friday, the Anatolia news agency reported.
Hakan Karadag’s body was found hanged in the central Istanbul neighborhood of Sehremini, the agency wrote, adding that police had removed the lawyer’s body to conduct a forensic examination.
A source close to the Dink family, who declined to give his name, said Karadag most probably committed suicide. “However, as he was a lawyer working on the Dink murder case, the police are looking at the possibility that he might have been murdered, although it is only a slight possibility,” the source said.
Dink, a Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, was gunned down in broad daylight Jan. 19, 2007, in front of the offices of his bilingual weekly, Agos. The shooter was detained a short while after the crime was committed, and the investigation of the murder is ongoing. Dink’s family, however, has claimed that the investigation will not dig deep enough to find those who ordered the journalist’s murder.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pope: Turkey Murder ‘Won’t Hurt Dialogue With Islam’
‘Muslims are our brothers,’ pope says on plane to Cyprus
(ANSA) — Rome, June 4 — The murder of the Vatican’s representative in Turkey will not affect dialogue with Islam, Pope Benedict XVI said Friday as he travelled to Cyprus for a meeting with Middle Eastern bishops ahead of a synod at the Vatican later this year.
The pope said the death of Msgr Luigi Padovese, stabbed by his Turkish driver Thursday, “must not in any way overshadow the dialogue with Islam”.
“One thing is sure, it was not a political or religious assassination”.
The driver, 26-year-old Murat Altun, was being treated for psychiatric problems and reportedly told police he had a “Divine revelation” telling him to kill the bishop, according to Turkish media. Padovese, 63, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, was the second Catholic priest to be murdered in Turkey in recent years after Father Andrea Santoro in 2006.
“Naturally I am deeply pained by the death of Msgr Padovese, who also contributed a great deal to the preparation of the synod and would have been a precious element (in the talks in Cyprus),” said the pope, who earlier Friday received a message of condolence from Turkish President Abdullah Gul.
“But we do not want this tragedy to interfere with dialogue with Islam, which will be the theme of my trip”.
Referring to the synod in the Vatican on October 10-24, the pope voiced the hope it would boost both dialogue among Christians and “our common capacity for dialogue with Islam”.
Muslims “are our brothers, despite our differences,” he said.
Benedict has worked hard to mend relations with Islam since he upset Muslims around the world with comments he made in 2006, during a lecture in Regensburg, Germany.
Detractors interpreted his reference to a medieval emperor, who described Islam as a ‘violent’ religion, as an indication of his own views.
Since then, Benedict has stepped up efforts to make inter-religious dialogue a priority for his papacy.
In an effort to demonstrate his commitment to fostering goodwill among religions he re-established the Council for Interreligious Dialogue in 2007 after having merged it with the Council for Culture at the start of his pontificate.
In late 2008, the Holy See hosted a series of historic talks between prominent Muslim and Catholic scholars aimed at forging closer ties between the world’s two largest religions.
During his trip to the Holy Land in May 2009, the pope expressed his “profound respect for the Muslim community” and called on an “alliance of civilizations” to end religious violence and conflict.
The Vatican also signed a declaration with the Arab League in April 2009, agreeing to work for peace around the world, especially in the Middle East.
There are some two billion Christians worldwide, about half of whom are Catholics. Muslims number around 1.3 billion.
SYNOD WILL EXAMINE EXODUS OF CATHOLICS.
At the meeting with Middle Eastern bishops, Benedict will unveil a working document to lay the groundwork for the synod, which will address ways of stemming an exodus of Catholics from the Holy Land, Iraq and other countries.
During his three-day visit the pope will also have talks with Greek Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos II and meet the island’s small Catholic community.
The trip is the pope’s 16th since his election in 2005 and his third this year after Malta and Portugal.
Benedict will stay in the papal nuncio’s residence in Nicosia, on the Green Line that has separated the island since the Turkish north split from the Greek south in 1974.
A former British colony, Cyprus became an independent republic in 1960.
Following violence between ethnic Greek Cypriots and minority Turkish Cypriots, Turkey invaded in 1974, leading to the division of the island between the internationally recognised south and the north, which is only recognised by Turkey. The pope’s trip comes days after Greek Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias and the Turkish Cypriots’ new president, Dervis Eroglu, resumed peace talks after a two-month break.
The United Nations has been pressing the two sides to agree on reunification.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Ankara Halts Projects With Israel After Deadly Raid
Istanbul, 3 June (AKI) — Turkey has suspended all state water and energy projects with Israel following the deadly raid by Israeli naval commandos on a Turkish humanitarian aid vessel, energy minister Taner Yildiz said in Istanbul on Thursday.
“At a time when we are focused on the humanitarian aspects of what Israel did, we can’t talk about commercial and economic matters,” Yildiz said.
“We won’t start any project with Israel until relations with them have been normalised.”
Yildiz singled out the Manavgat water project, which was expected to transport as much as 50 million cubic metres of water from Turkey to Israel annually, and a proposed extension of the Blue Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to Israel, as among the projects to be halted.
Cited by Turkish media, Yildiz said the suspension did not include deals between non-government companies.
Projects by companies such as Turkey’s Zorlu Energy group, which has natural gas agreements with Israeli companies including Ashdod Energy, Ramat Negev, and Solad Energy, may continue to proceed.
Israeli commandos raided an aid ship owned by a Turkish charity, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, on Monday, killing nine people, most of them Turks.
The ship was part of an international flotilla attempting to break Israel’s embargo of the Gaza Strip.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s Arab Appeal Surges After Israel’s Raid
Protesters carry a huge Turkish flag during a protest in front of the U.N. house in Beirut, Lebanon. AP photo.
Turkey’s tough response to Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla has cemented its popularity among Arabs, frustrated with their governments’ inability to face up to Israel, analysts say.
Demonstrators in most Arab cities, who rushed to the streets this week to protest the deadly attack, carried Turkish flags while posters of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew high.
“The growing involvement of Turkey and its engagement in favor of the Palestinians, as well as the uncompromising positions of Erdogan, have led the Arab street to consider him like a new (Gamal Abdel) Nasser,” said Michel Nawfal, referring to the late Egyptian president and pan-Arab legend. “Turkey is no longer considered the Trojan horse of the West in the region,” said Nawfal, who authored a book titled “The Return of Turkey to the Orient.”
Turkey was the first Muslim country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and the two countries signed a military cooperation accord in 1996. But their relations have deteriorated relentlessly since Israel launched a 22-day military offensive on Gaza in Dec. 2008.
Erdogan, whose conservative government in the secular Muslim country has strengthened ties with the Arab world, launched a tirade against Israel after Monday’s raid, which he called a “bloody massacre.”
Eight Turks and a U.S. national of Turkish origin were killed in the raid on a Turkish ferry that was part of the flotilla. Many of the 45 people wounded were also Turks. On Wednesday, the Turkish parliament unanimously demanded that the government review all political, economic and military ties with Israel.
A day earlier, in an extraordinary session of the Kuwaiti parliament, the majority of deputies hailed what was called “the heroic stance of Ankara.” And Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas was interrupted by a long round of applause during a speech when he mentioned Turkey’s role.
“This new role for Turkey,” heir to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled most of the Arab world for centuries until its defeat in World War I, “compensates for the weakness of Arab regimes,” argued Nawfal. “It also represents at the same time a positive equivalent to Iran’s” role in the region, he added.
Analyst Abdul Wahab Badrakhan said, “Turkey’s policies in the region represent now a lifeline for the Arab street, as opposed to the weakness of Arab regimes with regard to Israel.” “Turkey came to fill an important gap, because the role of Egypt (in confronting Israel) does not exist, while that of Saudi Arabia is limited and Syria cannot act on its own,” he said referring to the three Arab heavyweights.
Erdogan’s popularity in the Arab world took a strong boost last year as he stormed out of a debate at the World Economic Forum, accusing the Jewish state of “barbarian” acts in Gaza. The fact that Turkey is a Sunni Muslim country gives it a preference over Shiite Iran in the majority-Sunni Arab world. “The popularity of Turkey could have gone to Iran,” which champions the Palestinian conflict with Israel, “but the Sunni-Shiite conflict does not allow that,” Badrakhan said.
Abdul Bari Attwan, editor-in-chief of London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily, agreed that Turkey is more acceptable than Iran “because the Turks are Sunnis and are not in direct confrontation with the West like Iran,” which has locked horns with the international community over its nuclear program. “Turkey has realized that the Palestinian issue is the best gateway to play an important role in the Arab world,” he said.
Turkey presents to Muslim Arabs, who are “tired of being branded as terrorists, an economic and democratic model of moderate Islam,” he said. “For the first time, Arabs put aside their (Arab) nationalism in favor of pan-Islamism,” he added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Msgr. Padovese; Driver Charged, Led by Divine Voice
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 4 — Murat Altun, the 26-year old Turkish driver, was this morning formally charged by a court in Iskenderun in connection with the murder of Monsignor Luigi Padovese, the vicar apostolic of Anatolia, who was knifed to death in his garden yesterday. So reports the private broadcaster NTV, though the exact nature of the charge was not specified. The suspected murderer, who had served at the high prelate for over four years, had converted to Christianity but in the last few years, as relatives and collaborators of Monsignor Padovese confirmed, he had shown signs of mental instability and was undergoing treatment. During police questioning, according to today’s Miliyet, is reported to have claimed that “a divine revelation” led him to kill Monsignor Padovese. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Did Israel Orchestrate the Terror Attack in Iskenderun?
The terrorist attack by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in the district of Iskenderun last Monday, which killed seven soldiers, is the outcome of the organization’s new strategy.
The PKK targeting of the navy is not directly related to the counter-terrorism efforts of the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK. Iskenderun is a city outside the encounter zone. Soldiers targeted were not on duty at guard posts. These are some other differences involving the attack. The PKK has issued a challenge, showing that they can pick anyone or any point as a target. And the attack signals a very dangerous threshold that PKK terror has arrived as summer settles in.
Therefore, it is crucial to make an accurate analysis of the attack and take effective measures.
The government and the CHP should unite
Interestingly enough, the PKK attack took place just a few hours after a humanitarian aid convoy was sailing to Gaza in the eastern Mediterranean. For this reason, Turkish political circles and public opinion believed in the existence of a connection between the two incidents.
The first noteworthy move came from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. He said: “Various circles have concerns over this issue. Seven soldiers were killed. This is something very important. As the Israeli marines continue operations, such an attack took place in Turkey. This is very intriguing,” as he answered the questions of reporters Monday.
The main opposition is not alone in considering that the two incidents are linked. The ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Deputy Chairman Hüseyin Çelik said the following on the same day:
“We don’t think it is a coincidence that our soldiers were killed and the attack aimed at Gaza occurred at the same time. Whenever Turkey has a say in the international community, whenever we fly high, some circles take action to bring trouble to Turkey and disturb peace and calm. These could be orchestrated international powers or their subcontractors in Turkey.”
As society loses sense of reality
Given the two statements above, the government and the main opposition mostly agree that the PKK’s attack in Iskenderun and the Israeli attack over the humanitarian relief convoy are pieces of a whole.
We see a “unity of understanding” between the government and the CHP. Both think Israel used the PKK.
Living in a society inclined to read everything as a conspiracy theory, people will definitely take this common view as an “absolute truth.” And, of course, the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories causes a great deal of trouble. One of them is not to support facts with evidence, thus losing a sense of reality. Ultimately, this creates a habit of linking all events whether they are really connected or not. And society starts to believe everything.
Soothing effects of conspiracy theories
A serious result of the situation is that it could misdirect decision-makers. And if you misevaluate a threat, you make deadly mistakes as you try to retaliate. For instance, while you look at the PKK but overlook the big support and the infrastructure they have and while you see the organization as the one being used by foreign power centers only, you make deadly mistakes in the fight on terror and in the solution of Kurdish question. Now that doesn’t mean that external powers do not, or will not, use the PKK. I am only saying that if that is your assessment over the PKK, you make a mistake.
But of course believing conspiracy theories has such a soothing effect on people at times. You can easily have a pattern to put the burden on while facing a problem or a trouble. Besides, this also saves you from detailed analysis of situations as it keeps you away from self-evaluation of your mistakes. Therefore, you think you are perfect. Even for now, I have begun to hear that some people claim this is a conspiracy plot by the Israeli Intelligence, or Mossad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey — Vatican: Mgr. Padovese’s Driver Charged With Murder. Doubts About His “Insanity”
Christian observers and ask that the investigators to delve deeper into the motives for the murder.. Several attacks against Christians in Turkey are the work of “young unbalanced men” The condolences of the Italian Bishops Conference and PIME. The funeral of Mgr. Padovese next week in Milan.
Iskanderun (AsiaNews) — The driver of Mgr. Luigi Padovese, killed yesterday in front of his house in Iskanderun has been formally charged with murder by a Turkish court. The police confirm that the man, who for over four years was a close collaborator of the slain bishop suffers from mental disorders. But some doubts remain surrounding his illness and there have been widespread calls on the authorities to deepen their investigations into the motives for the assassination.
Murat Altun, 26, was arrested yesterday, hours after the killing of the bishop. According to some witnesses the murderer was stilly carrying the knife with which he had butchered Mgr. Padovese. After hours of questioning, the police confirmed the insanity of Murat. AsiaNews sources had said yesterday that Murat was “depressed, violent, full of threats.”
But faithful and the Turkish world are still finding it hard to accept the thesis of mental illness, which only became evident a few months ago. Several attacks in recent years were committed by young people deemed “unstable” at the time but who later proved to have connections with ultra-nationalist and anti-Christian groups.
To many observers it seems that governments, politicians, Turkish civil authorities are avoiding all serious analysis of these events. The risk is that these violent episodes will be merely brushed off with the excuse that they are the isolated acts of madmen, the casual gesture of an young Islamic fanatic.
Among the “isolated acts” of unbalanced people are: the wounding of Fr Adriano Franchini, Italian Capuchin, Smyrna on December 16, 2007; Fr. Roberto Ferrari, threatened with a kebab knife in the church in Mersin on 11 March 2006, Fr. Pierre Brunissen stabbed in the side, 2 July 2006 outside his church in Samsun. These three attacks were carried out without fatal consequences.
This was not the case for Don Andrea Santoro, shot and killed Feb. 5, 2006 while praying in church in Trabzon; the same fate for the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink assassinated January 19, 2007 just outside his home in a crowded street in Istanbul. And the even more tragic death April 18, 2007 of three Protestant Christians, including one German, tortured, stabbed and killed while working in the Zirve publishing house in Malatya, which publishes Bibles and Christian books.
Among Christians and some Turkish NGOs is the request that investigations do not stop at the arrest of a deranged turn, but dig deeper.
Meanwhile, church figures are flocking to Iskanderun to express their condolences to the local church. The body of Mgr. Padovese was transferred to hospital in nearby Adana, for an autopsy. According to preliminary information, the funeral of Mgr. Padovese will be held in Milan, his city of birth, not before Wednesday, June 9.
Among the first expressions of condolence — sent to the nuncio in Turkey, Mgr. Antonio Lucibello, are those of the Italian Bishops Conference. A message signed by Card. Angelo Bagnasco, reads: “While we deplore this barbaric murder, we join the pain of the local Church, which still is tried so very hard”.
Condolences have also been expressed by priests from the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), in whose seminary Mgr. Padovese had been a professor. Fr. Mark Rebolini, who had visited the bishop in Turkey last summer, writes: “It is incredible to think about what happened to him …. a sense of profound sadness lingers in me because martyrdom .. is always a defeat for humanity, but in the logic of God it is a great gesture of love capable of healing many wounds. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Ankara Looks at Legal Action Against Israel Over Raid
Ankara, 4 June (AKI) — Turkey may appeal to the International Crimes Court in The Hague to investigate the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla, Turkish media reported on Friday. Ankara’s public prosecutor has begun gathering evidence and testimony from witnesses who were wounded in the Israeli attack which killed nine Turkish activists.
The prosecutor has been gathering testimony and evidence to determine whether Turkey should open a case demanding compensation or pursue criminal charges, according to the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman.
Turkey can also file claims under Article 77 of the Turkish Penal Code, which regulates crimes against humanity, but for now compensation cases will remain the priority, the daily said.
Turkish president Abdullah Gul (photo) has warned that relations between the two countries “will never be as they were before.”
“Israel has made one of the biggest mistakes in its history,” he said.
Hasan Koni, a professor of international law from Galatasaray University, told Today’s Zaman that Turkey could initiate legal action under the principles of diplomatic protection.
This means that a state can take diplomatic and other action against another state on behalf of its nationals whose rights and interests have been injured by the other state.
“Even if the relatives of the dead and wounded people give up their rights, the state can do this on their behalf,” he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry of justice has set up a commission to research potential legal actions prescribed in national and international law which could be taken against Israel.
The commission also decided to send letters to its counterpart commissions and the European Union Parliament as well as the Council of Europe regarding Israel’s action.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s Reaction to Israel Not Strong Enough, Says Survey
Turkey’s reaction to Israel for its attack on a Gaza aid flotilla that killed nine Turks on Monday is not strong enough according to a majority of Turkish citizens, according to a survey released Friday.
According to research by the MetroPOLL Research Company among 1,000 people, 60 percent of respondents said Turkey should have shown a stronger reaction to Israel, whereas 33 percent said the reaction was right on point.
Around 45 percent of respondents said the real reason behind the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla was to put Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a hard situation in the domestic and global arena. However, 33 percent of respondents said Israel’s aim was to prevent the breaking of the blockade on Gaza.
The survey was conducted in 31 different provinces around Turkey on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: West Java: Christians Bring Their Protest to the UN After Their Church is Closed
Municipal authorities want to prevent Christians from conducting any public activity. After unsuccessfully seeking remedy with a number of Indonesian agencies, Yasmin Church members are launching an appeal to the United Nations for discrimination and persecution.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Members of the Indonesian Christian Church (aka Yasmin Church, Gereja Kristen Indonesia in Indonesian) are preparing to appeal to the United Nations against a decision by the authorities in the West Java City of Bogor to close down their church. Municipal authorities have been trying to prevent Christians from expressing their faith publicly in response to Muslim extremists. Christians have argued instead that they have a right to profess their faith wherever they live, even if it means praying in the streets.
The decision was taken yesterday. Revs Ujang Tanusaputra and Diah Renata Anggraeni, leaders of the Yasmin Church, reiterated in a press conference that Bogor chief had issued a valid building permit (MB) in 2006 authorising the GKI to build a church with associated facilities. However, Bogor municipal authorities later began discriminating them and on 12 March issued an order to stop all Church activity.
“On 11 and 15 April and 9 and 24 May, they forced our parishioners to hold our weekly religious service outside,” Rev Tanusaputra. “We have decided to appeal to the United Nations after we failed to elicit action from the appropriate Indonesian agencies.”
Before that, Bogor authorities suspended the building permit, which the GKI challenged before a court. The Administrative Tribunal in Bandung ruled that the suspension was illegal. In March 2010, the Church applied again to resume construction, said Thomas Wadudara in a statement.
Rini, a member of the Church, told AsiaNews, “this is a clear example of grave discrimination against a minority group.”
Several human rights groups back the ruling. Alexander Paulus, of the Human Rights Working Group, said, “Bogor officials not only destroyed legal property of the Church in the compound and inside the building but they also disrupted the site where church goers hold their services in order to prevent them from fulfilling their religious beliefs.”
The church under construction is located in the so-called Yasmin Garden complex, an area of 1,700 m2 where Christians have built other buildings, at least until the suspension order of 12 March.
Bogor City officials turned against the Church after a series of protests by Muslim extremist groups, like the Hisbut Tahrir Indonesian and the Islamic Defender Front, who accuse the Christians of proselytising, and are opposed to any construction or public display of the Christian faith.
At the end of April, thousands of extremists attacked another Christian complex, setting it on fire. They are opposed to the construction of a Christian educational centre, accusing those behind the project of actually planning to build a place of prayer.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
After Suicide Controversy, Foxconn Invests in Turkey
The Taiwanese technology giant Foxconn, which drew attention due to worker suicides in its factories in China, has launched a joint project with Hewlett-Packard in Turkey.
The two companies plan to produce desktop personal computers in Turkey at a facility that will be constructed by Foxconn. The investment totals $60 million.
Foxconn makes a range of top-selling products including Apple iPhones, Dell computers and Nokia mobile phones. Ten workers at the giant Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China have committed suicide this year. An 11th worker died at another factory in northern China, while another worker allegedly died of exhaustion on May 28.
As the deaths made headlines in the world press, the company raised the pay of its Chinese assembly line workers by 30 percent.
At a meeting on Wednesday in Istanbul, representatives of HP and Foxconn met executives of 30 supplier companies and free trade zone officials. The meeting was also attended by Alpaslan Korkmaz, the chief of the Prime Ministry Investment Support and Promotion Agency.
Speaking at the meeting, Benoit Fagart, the HP Deputy President for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said the first deliveries to HP customers from the Foxconn facilities in Çorlu will be conducted in December this year. “The factory will start serial production in January next year,” he said.
Speaking after Fagart, Turkey’s Korkmaz said the investment would provide 2,000 jobs. “Its annual export volume is projected to reach $1 billion,” he said. “We are proud of this project.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The “New” Chinese Working Class, Willing to Commit Suicide Rather Than Bend to Oppression
Foxconn announces wage increases of 30%. But experts believe that the many suicides are a demand for more humane working conditions. 145 million migrants, ready to fight for their right to live.
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Yesterday, the company Foxconn, a leader in technology, which has seen 11 suicides this year in its Longhua factory (Shenzhen), announced 30% wage increase for assembly line workers. But experts point out the need to review the whole organization of work that has made China “the world’s factory” for the price of inhumane working conditions, for the exclusive benefit of Western capitalist multinationals and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Foxconn official sources have expressed their hope “that the wage increase will help improve the living standards of workers and allow them to have more free time.”
Analysts note, however, no one in China seems to want to address the issue of working conditions or the absence of unions to protect workers’ rights.
Faced with suicides motivated by work stress, Foxconn defends itself by saying that it does not violate the law and applies working conditions similar to those in other Chinese factories. According to the workers in the company, the “normal” working conditions include 12-hour shifts, with a ban on speaking with to colleagues, sitting or unnecessary absences. Workers are subject to a military discipline both at work and in company canteens and dormitories and are fined for the slightest offense, even washing their clothes in the dormitory. They are not allowed to contradict their superiors direct orders.
Lee Jen-hsing, an expert in Taiwan, told the South China Morning Post that “in past decades migrant workers came from families with limited resources and agreed to stay in free dorms under the strict control of managers.” “But the new generation want jobs with more freedom and democracy.”
85% of 400 thousand factory employees in Shenzhen are young immigrants born after the 80s, who do not accept this pace of work. Meanwhile, in the last five months, employment of the industrial workers in China has grown at its fastest rate in 5 years, which has helped make workers aware of their importance in the production process. It is the generation the one child family, who have always had the complete attention of their the whole family and do not expect only a salary from their job, or a life enslaved to the assembly line. The wage demands at the Honda factory in Foshan, whose workers have received significant salary increases are only one aspect of this demand fairer working conditions.
Migrant workers are estimated at least 145 million, approximately 11% of the population. In order to maintain economic growth, Beijing relies on increased domestic consumption to offset reduced exports to the West. But this is contributing to workers demands for not only more material goods, but also leisure and democracy. Internet has also helped to circumvent the strict censorship of state media and increase awareness of these problems throughout the country and the world.
Experts note that the claims will be difficult to meet, because China lacks unions to protect workers rights and that the national union, the All-China Federation of trade unions, is headed by the CPC and bends to State interests. Attempts to create independent unions have been increasingly repressed in recent years. But the example of Honda shows the growing ability of workers to see their claims met. In recent years, there have been frequent strikes for economic reasons. The Foxconn suicides also show the workers difficulty to organize: Local sources report that workers at Foxconn are encouraged to spy on colleagues and rewarded if they do. But they also show how the problem can not be simply ignored.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Aban Pearl Semisub Drilling Rig Sinks Offshore Venezuela, Chavez Reports Via Twitter
The Aban Pearl semisubmersible drilling rig has sunk offshore Venezuela. The accident forced all 95 rig workers to evacuate, but no one has died.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reported the incident, interestingly enough, from his Blackberry via social networking site Twitter.
In his post, Chavez wrote (translated): “I regret to inform you that the Aban Pearl natural gas drilling platform has sunk minutes ago. The good news is that the 95 workers have been saved.”
An hour later, the Venezuelan head reassured the public that there is not an environmental threat, concluding with “Viva Venezuela!!!”
The Aban Pearl is a semisubmersible drilling rig with a rating to drill up to 25,000 feet deep in waters measuring 1,250 feet deep. The rig was constructed in 1977 and is a Aker H-3, twin hull column stabilized design with a DNV class rating.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Los Angeles Students to be Taught That Arizona Immigration Law is UN-American
The Los Angeles Unified School District school board wants all public school students in the city to be taught that Arizona’s new immigration law is un-American.
The school board president made the announcement Tuesday night after the district’s Board of Education passed a resolution to oppose the controversial law, which gives law enforcement officials in Arizona the power to question and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally when they are stopped in relation to a crime or infraction.
Critics of the law say it will result in racial profiling.
The school board voted unanimously on Tuesday to “express outrage” and “condemnation” of the law, and it called on the school superintendent to look into curtailing economic support to the Grand Canyon State. About 73 percent of the students in the school district are Latino.
But supporters of the law say the school board is way out of bounds and that the measure will just distract from the children’s education.
“This is ridiculous, it’s ridiculous for us to be involved in Arizona law,” said Jane Barnett, Chairman, Los Angeles County Republican Party. “There is a 50 percent dropout rate in some parts of the school district—is this going to keep kids in school?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Man Held After Migration Board Hostage Drama
A man has been arrested on suspicion of assault after two people were taken hostage during an attempted break out at the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) detention centre in Ljungaskog in southern Sweden on Friday.
The 44-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault and threatening behaviour after he barricaded himself in a room with two people who had been part of a demonstration outside the centre protesting deportations to Iran.
“The perpetrator has been arrested. One person is injured and has been taken to hospital in Ängelholm for care,” Sofie Österhheim at Skåne police told news website DN.se on Friday afternoon.
Police were called to the detention centre at 11.20am on Friday after the man had seized the pair after they had entered the centre to talk to people threatened with deportation, according to the local Helsingborgs Dagblad.
The 44-year-old Iranian, whose four-year stay in Sweden was due to end with his deportation on Friday, eventually gave himself up shortly before 2pm after protracted negotiations. The man requested a lawyer and was later taken into police custody.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Nun Excommunicated After Saving a Mother’s Life With Abortion
Church Stands by Decision to Kick Out Sister Margaret McBride After She Authorized an Emergency Abortion to Save a Woman’s Life
Sister Margaret McBride was forced to make a decision between her faith and a woman’s life last year, when a 27-year-old mother of four rushed into St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix only 11 weeks pregnant.
“I think [McBride] prayed and prayed and I’m sure that this weighed on her like a ton of bricks. This was not an easy decision for her,” says her long-time friend Mary Jo Macdonald.
As a key member of the hospital’s ethics board, McBride gathered with doctors in November of 2009 to discuss the young woman’s fate.
The mother was suffering from pulmonary hypertension, an illness the doctors believed would likely kill her and, as a result, her unborn child, if she did not abort the pregnancy.
In the end, McBride chose to save the young woman’s life by agreeing to authorize an emergency abortion, a decision that has now forced her out of a job and the Catholic Church.
Despite being described as “saintly,” “courageous,” and the “moral conscience” of the Catholic hospital, McBride was excommunicated from the Catholic Church by Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted for supporting the abortion.
“An unborn child is not a disease … the end does not justify the means,” Olmsted said in a statement issued to a the Arizona Republic newspaper this past May.
Hospital officials defended McBride’s actions and released a statement saying, “In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother’s life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy.”
Although many medical ethicists say it was the right decision, the hospital confirmed McBride has been removed from her position as senior administrator and reassigned.
Critics are arguing McBride’s punishment is a double standard. Many are pointing out that it has often taken years for priests who sexually abuse children to be even reprimanded, let alone excommunicated.
“It’s very disturbing to me to see how the pedophiles cases have been handled and yet how fast the bishop came out and excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride,” her friend said. [emphasis added]
Many experts in canon law, the Catholic legal system, say McBride’s decision is admissible.
“All the bishop focused on was the abortion, not on the other circumstances — included that the mother was almost certainly going to die,” canon lawyer Father Thomas Doyle.
[If the mother died, the fetus would have died as well. Where’s the logic in this? — Z]
But right now only the Phoenix Diocese ruling stands and she is no longer a member of the Catholic Church.
For a devout woman who spent years dedicated to her religion, serving the poor, the sick and the needy, McBride is paying the ultimate sacrifice for her decision to help another life; she is no longer allowed to receive the sacraments.
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Jews Worldwide Share Genetic Ties
Different communities of Jews around the world share more than just religious or cultural practices — they also have strong genetic commonalities, according to the largest genetic analysis of Jewish people to date.
But the study also found strong genetic ties to non-Jewish groups, with the closest genetic neighbours on the European side being Italians, and on the Middle Eastern side the Druze, Bedouin and Palestinians.
Researchers in New York and Tel Aviv conducted a genome-wide analysis on 237 individuals from seven well-established Jewish communities around the world, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and eastern Europe. The team then compared these genetic profiles to those of non-Jews in the same geographic regions based on data from the Human Genome Diversity Project, a database of genomic information for individuals from populations worldwide. Each group of Jews is genetically distinct, but similarities between the groups weave them together with what the researchers describe as “genetic thread”.
“There has been this back and forth discussion over the course of a century or more — are these a people? Is this in the genome?” says Harry Ostrer, a geneticist at New York University, the study’s lead author. The new findings, he says, show that there “does seem to be a genetic basis to Jewishness”.
Several studies in the past decade have looked at the genetics of Jewish populations, using smaller numbers of individuals, or focusing on markers in mitochondrial DNA — which is passed down maternally — or on the Y chromosome, inherited paternally. The genetic ties identified in the present study, published in the June issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics 1, are consistent with the results of previous work, says Sarah Tishkoff, a human geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, “but this is, I would say, the first study to put everything together into a big picture by looking at a large number of sites in the nuclear genome”.
Close neighbours
The researchers analysed single-letter differences in the genome called single nucleotide polymorphisms, longer segments of DNA shared between different Jewish groups, as well as deleted or duplicated stretches of DNA called copy-number variants. Although the groups had strong genetic commonalities, the results also showed a varying degree of genetic mixing with nearby non-Jewish populations. The most genetically distinct Jewish communities, compared both to other Jewish groups and to nearby non-Jews, were those from Iran and Iraq.
The study provides a genetic basis for confirming or debunking theories of Jewish origin and history, says Ostrer. For example, one theory proposes that Ashkenazi Jews (of eastern European origin) are largely descended from Khazars in eastern Europe who converted to Judaism, but the genetic closeness between Ashkenazi Jews and other non-European Jews does not support this idea.
The study also highlights how genetics can reflect history, Ostrer says, including evidence of the dispersal of Jewish populations throughout the Middle East and Europe. “We really see the events of the Jewish diaspora in the genomes of Jewish people.”
Using a computer simulation, the researchers estimate that the genetic split between Middle Eastern and European Jews occurred about 100—150 generations ago, or 2,500 years ago — when Jewish communities are thought to have become established in Persia and Babylon. They also trace a high level of genetic mixing between Ashkenazi Jews and nearby non-Jews to more recent times, corresponding to a period between the beginning of the fifteen century and the start of the nineteenth century when the Jewish population in Europe swelled from about 50,000 to 5 million.
But constructing a timeline on the basis of genetic analysis is tricky, say others. “There are too many assumptions you have to make,” says David Goldstein, a geneticist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “I don’t think we have the resolution right now in the genetics to time the events.”
Another tantalizing question that the study doesn’t address, he says, is the historical explanation for the shared genetics between the Jewish groups. Although the data point to a common ancestral origin in the Middle East, further details — such as when and how much different populations intermixed — are impossible to glean. “That level of resolution is just not there,” he says.
Ostrer says that the researchers are extending their analysis to more Jewish populations. They also hope to apply the findings to medical research by focusing on some of the longer shared genetic markers that have been identified. The group is now studying the genetic susceptibility to breast and prostate cancers among Ashkenazi Jews, he says, and other groups are using genetic mapping techniques to study conditions such as Crohn’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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