BRICS Challenging Western Economic and Political Governance Over the World
They want a reshuffle in leadership positions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as a broad reform of the United Nations to reduce volatility in trade. The five BRICS nations want to assert their new international role against the traditional place occupied by Europe and the United States.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The five-member BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), meeting for their first summit a Sanya (on China’s Hainan Island), want to push the US and Europe to end their monopoly on leadership positions at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. BRICS leaders also said that violence should be avoided in the managing the crises in Libya and Arab nations, clearly aiming their criticism at the NATO air campaign in Libya even though it was not openly named.
“We will insist on the fact that governance at the IMF and the World Bank cannot be a systematic rotation between the US and Europe, with the other countries excluded,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said in Beijing on Tuesday.
Sources told Bloomberg that BRICS leaders agreed to demand that the governance of these international institutions reflect the new balance of power in the world economy.
The five BRICS nations (South Africa just joined) represent 40 per cent of the world’s population and account for 18 per cent of the world’s combined Gross Domestic Product.
In 2010, their foreign currency reserves stood at US$ 3.93 trillion, more than a third of the global total.
The five nations also called for “comprehensive reform” of the United Nations, including the Security Council, “with a view to making it more effective, efficient and representative”.
They criticised excessively volatile commodity prices like food and fuel, which poses a threat to the global economic recovery, and called for greater “regulation of derivatives markets for commodities” to stop rising prices.
However, these emerging economies are not all in synch; their interests often do not coincide. For instance, Brazil is among the countries calling on China to revalue its currency, artificially kept low to favour Chinese exports.
Other countries have also asked China to open its markets to foreign products, from Indian drugs to Brazilian planes.
Brasilia has enact 29 anti-dumping measures aimed at Chinese-made goods.
At the same time, the five nations yesterday agreed to push for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organisation.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to reduce India’s trade deficit with China by boosting imports of Indian information technology and pharmaceutical products.
BRICS nations are also trying to increase bilateral relations. Today, Beijing and New Delhi agreed to re-establish military ties and settle their respective territorial claims, which are outstanding since their 1962 war over disputed border regions.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Papandreou to Push Ahead With Privatisations
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 15 — Greece’ Prime Minister George Papandreou on Friday avoided elaborating on the government’s midterm fiscal plan for the 2012-2015 period, which is designed to save Greece 23 billion euros, saying that details of the new reforms and a time frame for their implementation would be revealed after Easter, which falls on April 24. Addressing his ministers in a cabinet session that was broadcast live on state television and on the Internet — as daily Kathimerini reports -, Papandreou took stock of what his administration has achieved over the past difficult year and stressed that he would push ahead with painful reforms “regardless of the cost.” “We achieved the greatest deficit reduction ever in this country or any other European Union state,” Papandreou remarked. He said his government aimed to cut state spending to 44% of gross domestic product by 2015 but he did not specify how this would be achieved. In a clear dig at the failures of the opposition conservatives who were previously in power, Papandreou declared: “We respond to those who led Greece to the brink of disaster with a fight-dodging and ‘leave it for later’ attitude with decisions and change.” The PM pledged to transform the country from “a Greece of crisis to a Greece of productivity” and stressed that the key issue was not restructuring the country’s debt but restructuring the country itself.f reforms undertaken and those that are still in the pipeline. The reforms are believed to comprise severe cuts to spending in the state sector and the launch of a privatization program. According to sources, the aim is to cut another 4.6 billion euros from public sector salaries, another 3.5 billion euros from lossmaking state companies and the debt-ridden health sector. There are also plans for cuts in defense spending and cutbacks on social benefits and tax exemptions. The privatization program is expected to begin with the sale of an additional stake in OTE telecom to Deutsche Telekom, the selloff of at least 10% of the Public Power Corporation with state sewage and water companies, port authorities and regional airports next in line.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Inflation Rose to 4.3% in March, Eurostat
(ANSAmed) — BRUXELLES, APRIL 15 — Greece’s annual inflation rate rose to 4.3% in March from 4.2% in February, Eurostat said on Friday as reported by ANA. The EU executive’s statistics agency, in a report, said the inflation rate in the Eurozone rose to 2.7% in March from 2.4% in February, sharply up from 1.6% in March 2010. In the EU-27, the inflation rate rose to 3.1% from 2.9% and 2.0% over the same periods, respectively.
Ireland (1.2%), Sweden (1.4%) and Czech Republic (1.9%) recorded the lowest inflation rates in March, while Romania (8.0%), Estonia (5.1%), Bulgaria and Hungary (4.6 pct%) recorded the highest inflation rates. The inflation rate rose in 18 member-states, it was unchanged in five and fell in fourh member-states in March.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rolling Stone to Cause Rolling Heads?
It has also been a week of disconcerting news. In fact, if you’re depressed, you might not want to continue reading. There’s no way to sugar coat depressing news — but it contains information people need to know.
There is word on the street that Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, has approved plans for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to absorb the Federal Reserve System with an eye to the IMF becoming a global central bank. A “basket of currencies” (which includes the Chinese renmenbi/yuan) is to be created to replace the dollar as the international currency of trade. Plans are for “the basket” to become America’s new currency.
Is it true? There’s no way to confirm the rumor. The same spark that lit the fire under the rumor also suggests it will not be long in coming. If true, I believe it is an act that borderlines Treason.
[…]
Too, news of the Fed’s extreme abuse of Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF) funds also came out this week. TALF was passed by the Democrat Congress and it became effective in April 2009. This misfit of taxpayer abuse totally belongs to the Democrat-controlled Congress and the Obama Administration.
According to Matt Taibbi in a three-article series in Rolling Stone, scheduled to appear in the April 28, 2011 issue, staffers in the U.S. Senate and House are “pouring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies…”
Fed Chairman Bernanke, et al, sent billions in TALF funds to banks from Mexico to Bahrain to Bavaria (and Libyan banks borrowed 70 times) while our own banks were suffering liquidity shortages. Billions more were sent to Japanese car companies that compete with Made in American auto manufacturers. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley got more than $2 trillion each. The most shocking thing is that billions more were made available to millionaires and billionaires with offshore addresses — the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, etc. — places where wealthy Americans seek to shelter financial secrets.
[…]
Taibbi points to Susan Karches’ economic experience in finance as dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. Yet, she and her friend, Christy Mack, started their company with an investment of $15 million — which, it appears, immediately qualified them to receive $220 million from the Federal Reserve. They used the Fed’s money — your money and my money — to buy student loans and commercial mortgages. Taibbi says “The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses.” Does that sound like a simple transaction someone who “dabbled in thoroughbred racehorses” could put together without very informed help from an insider?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Texas University Endowment Storing About $1 Billion in Gold Bars
April 16 (Bloomberg) — The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board.
The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterday’s closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.
The decision to turn the fund’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”
Gold reached an all-time high of $1,489.10 an ounce yesterday in New York as sovereign debt concerns boosted demand for the metal as a store of value. Gold has climbed 28 percent in the past year on Comex.
The endowment, which oversees funds held by the University of Texas System and Texas A&M University, has 6,643 bars of bullion, or 664,300 ounces, in a Comex- registered vault in New York owned by HSBC Holdings Plc, the London-based bank, according to a report distributed at the meeting in Austin.
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Audio: As Passover Approaches, Obama Liberating Al-Qaida?
As Passover approaches today, commemorating the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, Aaron Klein explains how the U.S. is doing some liberating of its own, although not necessarily in the country’s best interests.
Listen to this segment from “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” as the WND senior reporter and WABC Radio host rips into President Obama’s war in Libya and U.S. support for the unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state. Klein also exposes how the doctrine used to bomb Libya could be deployed one day against U.S. allies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Maine Legalizing Switchblades for One-Armed People.
Maine lawmakers on Wednesday approved legalizing switchblades for people with one arm, moving close to becoming the first state to make such an exception to laws that ban use of the spring-action knives.
Backers of the measure say legalizing switchblades would eliminate a need for one-armed people to be forced to open folding knives with their teeth in emergencies.
The bill to allow amputees and other one-armed people to carry the quick-opening knives cleared Maine’s Senate on Wednesday after passing the House on Tuesday, Senate officials said.
Until now, Maine banned the use of switchblades by anyone.
In most states, carrying switchblades is illegal in most circumstances, though owning the knives may be allowed in some states.
Federal law allows their use by a person with one arm only on federal property if the blade is shorter than three inches.
The Maine bill requires that the knives have a blade that is three inches or shorter.
Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign the measure into law in the next couple of days, said spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Keeps ‘Czars’ Despite Budget Deal That Eliminated Them
President Obama may have never met a “czar” he didn’t like and he’s not about to bid farewell to any of them now, despite a budget deal he struck with Republican leaders last week that eliminated four of these positions.
The budget compromise that Obama, House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reached in the final moments before the government shut down last Friday included language effectively eliminating the czar positions overseeing health care, climate change, the auto industry and urban affairs — positions that don’t require Senate confirmation.
But after signing the legislation Friday that funds the government through the end of September and cuts $38 billion in spending, Obama issued a signing statement saying he would ignore the part about his czars, arguing that defunding those positions violated his constitutional authority.
Republicans cried foul over Obama’s move.
“It’s not surprising that the White House, having bypassed Congress to empower these ‘Czars’ is objecting to eliminating them,” Mike Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Faith Adviser Helped Craft ‘Perfect Islamic State’
Shariah project scrubbed from Internet, sought to ‘implement’ Muslim caliphate
Dalia Mogahed, appointed to President Obama’s faith advisory council, was a partner in an Islamic project whose stated goal was to “define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times,” WND has learned.
The project was founded and directed by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the controversial Muslim cleric behind the proposed 13-story, $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York City.
Besides her role on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Mogahed is also on the advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security. She testified before the Senate on engagement with the Muslim community.
Together with Rauf, Mogahed was a leading voice in the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement, which issued a 153-page recommendation paper, obtained and reviewed by WND, that calls for dialogue with Hamas.
[…]
WND has learned that Mogahed and the Gallup survey provided key data for Rauf’s “Shariah Index Project ,” which sought, according to its own mission, to “define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Meets With Indoctrinated Green Youths in DC to To Talk Junk Science
Obama met with young green socialists on Friday at the White House to talk junk science and push his nutty energy plan. Thousands of young green community organizers were in DC this week at the Power Shift 2011 green youth army summit. Obama reminded the kids that grassroots organizing in communities and states will help move our nation on energy and climate.
You can be sure that your tax dollars were somehow used to fund this socialist youth indoctrination conference.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Once Shunned, Al Jazeera Has Fans in Obama W.H.
Seven years after then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called the broadcaster’s reporting “vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable” and President George W. Bush joked about bombing it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised it as “real news” in her recent Senate testimony.
Not only that, her staffers, as well as those of the CIA and the Obama White House, were attending the Congressional Correspondents’ Dinner as Al-Jazeera’s guests.
“They are a really important media entity, and we have a really great relationship with them,” said Dana Shell Smith, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international media engagement, who speaks Arabic and has frequently appeared on the channel. “This administration has empowered those of us who actually do the communicating to be in a close relationship with Al-Jazeera. They understand that the relationship can’t consist of complaining to each other about the differences we have.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vandals Break in WI Office — Steal Fleebagger Recall Petitions Hours After it Was Announced Enough Signatures Were Collected (Video)
On Thursday Wisconsin conservatives announced that they had collected enough signatures 15,000 to recall fleebagger Senator Dave Hansen of Green Bay.
Then this happened…
Vandals broke into a Wisconsin political office late Thursday or Friday morning and ripped off the fleebagger recall petitions. (WTAQ)
How convenient.
Vandals broke in and stole computers and recall petitions from a Wisconsin political office late last week.
[Comments: “Fleebagger” term is a reference to the Democrats who fled Wisconsin to avoid a vote on the union issue.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Airstrikes Alone Won’t Topple Gadhafi’
During their summit in Berlin, NATO foreign ministers have failed to make much progress on how to proceed with its mission in Libya. German commentators warn that a lack of resolve against Moammar Gadhafi could reveal the alliance as an impotent relic of the Cold War.
A two-day NATO summit in Berlin this week has been hosted, in part, by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who awkwardly distinguished himself in the UN Security Council’s vote last month on military aid for Libyan rebels by a surprise abstention. Accordingly, when NATO members met on Thursday to decide what to do next, Westerwelle had to choose his words carefully. “What unites us is the goal,” he told his colleagues in Berlin. “We want a free and democratic Libya.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did stand together on a stage and announce that NATO would not be done with Libya until Moammar Gadhafi is toppled — without specifying who would do the toppling. Meanwhile — as NATO jets hit targets in Tripoli, and Libyan forces pounded the western city of Misrata — Gadhafi made sure he appeared on Libyan TV in a defiant mood, standing up through the sun roof of an SUV somewhere in Tripoli.
Britain and France have criticized the US for doing too little since it handed over leadership of the mission at the end of March. Washington let its European allies take the lead in airstrikes and retreated to a support role, which Clinton, in Berlin, gave no indication of wanting to change. So far the NATO summit has produced no new commitments of firepower to the Libyan mission.
But German papers on Friday argue that the only way forward in Libya is to step up Western force against Gadhafi. The current UN mandate does not allow ground troops, but some commentators point out that a humanitarian mission to Libya — in the form of aid convoys or a ceasefire enforcement — would require at least some Western soldiers on the ground. Guido Westerwelle has told NATO, perhaps surprisingly, that Germany might contribute troops in that context.
The summit continues Friday, though the focus will shift to NATO’s relationship with Russia and the controversial European missile shield.
German commentators on Friday meditated on the Libya campaign and the general state of the trans-Atlantic alliance.
The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
“The dictator must go, that much everyone can agree on. What remains controversial is just how much military force is necessary, let alone permitted by the UN Security Council resolution. In concrete terms: Only seven of the 28 NATO member states have participated in airstrikes. That doesn’t exactly look like solidarity within a military alliance. The summit’s host, Guido Westerwelle, has found room to admonish the alliance that, when it comes to full solidarity over air attacks, Germany is not unique in its reluctance.”
The conservative daily Die Welt writes:
“With a certain show-business aptitude, the NATO representatives in Berlin have all tried to show a new-found unity.”
“From the outset (at the summit), Germany did try to smooth the wrinkles away by promising military escorts for any humanitarian convoys that NATO might — in an emergency — send to Libya. The intended message was: Germany is looking for a way to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its allies again. Meanwhile the old German attitude of I-told-you-so raises its head whenever Guido Westerwelle says, with his penetrating instinct for a platitude, that in the end there can only be a political solution. But who (in NATO) has ever said anything else?”
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung argues:
“Rarely has a conflict demonstrated the impotence of NATO more clearly than the current Libyan war. Afghanistan, by contrast, is a walk in the park. Western militaries can’t behave just the way they please in Libya, out of whatever political motivations they have at home. The politicians gathered for the summit in Berlin are helpless, because the political solution in Libya is hard to figure out.”
“Airstrikes alone won’t topple the Gadhafi regime. Everyone knows this at NATO. The use of ground troops is illegal under the UN Security Council resolution. But there is a back door, which NATO planners are now preparing. Ground troops can protect any humanitarian aid convoys sent into Libya. It wouldn’t technically be an invasion, but who would complain if one or two of Gadhafi’s soldiers get killed?”
“Guido Westerwelle does not want to participate in a war in Libya, but he’s promised German military support for any humanitarian mission. And if a humanitarian mission turned into an invasion? Then he would have to show whether he’s ready, for a second time, to pull a fast one on the alliance.”
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“There are two realistic options: Either NATO continues to ensure a stalemate, by preventing Gadhafi’s troop from advancing while the rebels entrench their positions. In this situation the West can only hope that political momentum will develop and that Gadhafi will stand down under certain conditions.”
“The other option is military escalation. Arming the rebels, more airstrikes, a larger group of participating governments, and perhaps in the end even ground troops — UN blue helmets might be necessary to enforce a ceasefire. France and Britain have argued for this option, and they don’t seem to have the patience for a prolonged debate within NATO. And the member states know that they would have to be in it together —because an open breach within NATO could bring irreparable damage to the alliance.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: Priest Caught Accepting Brothel’s Facebook Friendship Request
A Catholic priest is in hot water after accepting a brothel’s request to become friends on Facebook.
Anton Faber, the well-known head of the St. Stephen’s parish in Vienna, confirmed his profile on the social networking platform was linked with the Facebook page of a self-proclaimed five-star brothel in the city.
Faber said today (Tues) he unlisted the Laufhaus Rachel establishment after being made aware of his blunder. He told newspaper Österreich: “I had no idea. Rachel is a beautiful biblical name. I assumed Laufhaus was a sport venue. That’s how it all happened.”
Faber promised to be more careful when it comes to accepting friendship requests on Facebook, but also made clear that the incident will not make him stop using the website on which more than two million Austrians are registered.
It is not the first time that Faber made headlines.
Asked whether reports that he lost his licence for drink-driving were true, the priest said in an interview in November 2009: “I sinned.”
Faber explained he had to do without his driving licence for half a year after he was caught steering a car under the influence when returning home from an event.
Faber has sparked mixed reactions for regularly attending posh society gatherings in Vienna.
Meanwhile, more people than ever since the end of World War Two (WWII) in 1945 left the Catholic Church. Statistics show that 87,393 quit their membership of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria last year — 63 per cent more than in 2009, the previous record year. The 2010 figures mean that around 65 per cent of the overall 8.5 million people living in Austria are Catholics, down from 89 per cent in 1961.
The Austrian Catholic Church is currently going through what some observers brand as its biggest post-war crisis. Hundreds of former Catholic boarding school pupils have contacted commissions established to handle alleged cases of sexual, physical and verbal abuse in the past months.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: ‘Nazi’ Pie Maker Gets Death Threats
A confectioner has received murder threats for offering cakes showing banned Nazi propaganda symbols and slogans.
The Austrian Mauthausen Committee (MKÖ) — a Holocaust awareness group — informed police and prosecutors about Manfred Klaschka’s controversial business activities earlier this week. The MKÖ was tipped off by horrified customers of the confectioner. A catalogue of previously created products on display at his shop in Maria Enzersdorf, Lower Austria, includes a cake with swastika icing and a pie on which an uniformed arm bursts through to give the Hitler salute.
Klaschka has been threatened with murder in several anonymous postings on various internet discussion platforms since the story broke.
“People are calling me a Nazi swine on the phone. I’m not a fan of (late Third Reich dictator Adolf) Hitler,” he said today (Fri).
The confectioner added: “I made these cakes eight years ago. I don’t know what’s so special about fulfilling extraordinary requests of customers.”
Klaschka infuriated anti-Nazi mindset activists, politicians, non-government organisations (NGO) and readers all over the world earlier this week by arguing: “It’s impossible for me to trace back who ordered the cakes in question as they were requested by walk-in customers around eight or nine years ago. Furthermore, and this applies to all trades: the customer is always right!”
He was also quoted as saying: “If someone orders it, I’ll create a pie showing (Libyan leader Muammar al-) Gaddafi.”
Spreading Nazi propaganda is a breach of law in Austria. The country’s juridical framework also prohibits the possession and trade of any kind of objects depicting symbols associated with Nazi Germany. The number of violations of this section of the federal law rose by 39.5 per cent from 2009 to 2010 to 741.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese, Russian Spys More Active in Holland: AIVD Chief
China and Russia are increasing their espionage in the Netherlands, Gerard Bouwman, head of the AIVD security service, told Nos television on Friday.
The Chinese authorities keep an eye on Chinese minorities in the Netherlands and pressure them to keep out politics, Bouwman is quoted as saying. Family members living in China are often used to add extra pressure, he said
China is also involved in industrial espionage, focusing on the IT and high-end technology sectors.
The Russian secret service is also still active in the Netherlands, with efforts focused on the foreign affairs, defence and innovation ministries.
Terrorist attacks
Meanwhile, the AIVD says the risk of a terrorist attack in the Netherlands has gone up slightly, in line with an increased risk in Europe as a whole.
Nevertheless, the risk of an attack in the Netherlands remains lower than in other EU countries because of the extremist Islamic threat has its origins in the Pakistan Afghanistan border region, the AIVD said.
Internet is increasingly becoming the place where attacks are planned and terrorist networks created, the AIVD said. However, getting a clear picture of the terrorist threat is difficult because of the number of solo operators, such as the Stockholm bomber last December.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Fewer Finns Go to Church
The number of Finns attending church services has got notably smaller. Last year 10 percent less people took part in the main church services than in the year before.
Fewer people also took part in weekly masses, confirmation masses and school and college services. On the other hand, the number of people taking part in children’s church services, youth services and family services went up.
Last year will also be remembered as the year when 83,000 members of the Finnish Evengelical Lutheran Church left the church.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: National Coalition Leads Count — True Finns Overtake Centre
Polls closed at 8pm local time in Finland’s parliamentary election. Turnout is expected to be high with polling stations reporting queues from early in the day. Results from advance voting were announced immediately, with the National Coalition Party gaining the most support from those voting in advance.
Results with 47.5% of vote counted:
National Coalition Party: 18.9%
Social Democratic Party: 18.8%
True Finns: 18.8%
Centre Party: 18.8%
Left Alliance: 8.1%
Green League: 5.9%
Christian Democrats: 4.3%
Swedish People’s Party: 4.3%
Pirate Party: 0.4%
Others: 1.6%
The country basked in warm weather, further lifting participation in what has been a keenly-contested election campaign. Many Finns had cast their ballots before Sunday at 901 advance polling stations across the country, and 241 out-of-country polling stations at consulates and embassies.
The number of advance votes hit one and a quarter million, 31.2% of the electorate.
In the last parliamentary election in 2007, the Centre party won the most votes followed by the National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats. Recent polling has shown a surge in support for the True Finns, a populist Eurosceptic party that was the eighth largest in 2007. Total voter turnout in 2007 was 67.9%.
Most observers believe that indications are that there will be a higher voter turnout recorded in these elections.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Government-Mafia Links Continue to Remain Strong in Italy, Experts Say
Italy’s lingering problems with government-mafia links have not improved and, according to opposition members, are being allowed to flourish by the current government. Organized crime groups in Italy work not only in tandem with politicians, but with ‘legitimate’ corporations, particularly larger ones
Links between the Italian government and the mafia, a problem that has plagued Italy for decades, remain strong, according to members of the Italian opposition.
Apart from continued criticism from some segments of Italy’s political opposition, some experts note that the problem stems not only from a culture of cooperation between politics and organized crime, but from politicians’ cooperation with “legitimate” corporate interests.
One sector that particularly suffers from such linkages is Italy’s construction sector.
“The organized mafia groups often completely monopolize parts of local construction, seeing that businesses want to avoid trouble,” Laura Garavini, a prominent Italian opposition parliamentarian and a member of the anti-mafia committee, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “Mafia groups dig holes and extract sand and other materials for construction, which is then sold on to construction groups building highways, while the newly excavated outlets are covered with illegal industrial waste from other companies.”
Large construction projects, which rely heavily on materials that dry quickly, must use local sand and gravel sites. This has meant that many government infrastructure contracts have had to rely on local subcontractors, which are often owned or run by illegal organizations, according to Garavini.
The last decade has seen several high-profile court cases targeting politicians and their connections with mafia. In 2004, Senator Marcello Dell’Utri, a senior aide to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, was briefly imprisoned for complicity in conspiracy with the mafia after judges declared that he had provided “a concrete, voluntary, conscious, specific and precious contribution to the illicit goals of Cosa Nostra, both economically and politically.”
Late last year, Senator Bonaventura La Macchia was arrested along with 49 others in a raid on mafia members. Senator Nicola Di Girolamo of Italy’s ruling People of Liberty Party, who was arrested in September 2010 for his work in laundering money for the mafia, tendered his resignation last month.
Studies have shown that the mafia has found a niche in Italy, collaborating with “clean companies from northern Italy” and penetrating sectors like construction and waste-management. The illegal organizations have strong profit margins, are highly efficient and often do the dirty work of major non-mafia industrialists, such as helping them to eliminate their large quantities of hazardous waste, according to mafia experts.
“They are successful and efficient with getting public contracts, in part because larger companies want the security they provide and also due to threatening methods of overcoming competition,” Letizia Paoli, a mafia expert and professor in Criminology at the University of Leuven, told the Daily News. “Other aspects of the mafia include the support and direction they get from many legitimate companies from around Italy, often going very unnoticed, although they strongly support their activities covertly.”
Small- and medium-sized businesses, or SMEs, however, often find themselves at odd with mafia groups. In 2007 a study released by Confesercenti, an association representing SMEs in the areas of services and tourism, outlined the degree to which mafia-groups influence and dominate large sectors of the economy, creating an annual turnover of $120 billion.
The government-mafia nexus
Parliamentarians have expressed “very serious concerns” about the current Italian government’s handling and possible involvement with specific illegal criminal groups that are believed to have broadly infiltrated different regional agencies.
While Sicily is still predominately controlled by the infamous Cosa Nostra, other major mafia groups include La Camorra and N’dranghetra. Smaller, but growing illegal groups can also be seen in Apulia with the Sacra Corona Unita and the southern parts of Sicily with the presence of the Stidda.
“The government is very much to blame and the phenomenon continues to be very large scale with the involvement of politicians, especially at a local level,” said Garavini.
The patron-client methods of domination, as well as vote-controlling through cronyism and nepotism are widespread in certain regions across Italy, according to Paoli.
“There is a communion of interests between ‘mafiosi’ and parts of the political class, as can be seen for example with the weakening of the judicial branches under Berlusconi, which highly benefits organized crime,” she told the Daily News.
The nexus between state and organized crime can be seen at the local level, where large groups of politicians are accused of having mafia connections, said Paoli.
Examples range from local politicians, including Nicola Consentino, the regional coordinator of Forza Italia in Campania, to more prominent figures like Berlusconi himself, who was directly accused of mafia involvement during the 1990s by informants and other sources.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Mourns Gaza Activist
Rallies held across country, NGOs ‘will press on’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Italy was in mourning Friday for a pro-Palestinian Italian activist who was brutally murdered in the Gaza Strip. Political leaders and aid agencies expressed their sympathy over the death of Vittorio Arrigoni, as rallies were being held by political parties, trade unions and activist groups in Rome, Milan and other Italian cities to remember him late Friday.
Rallies were also being held in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to honour 36-year-old Arrigoni who was found hanged by Hamas police in a raid on a house early Friday.
A preliminary examination by Gaza medical officials found that he was strangled — possibly with a metal cable — soon after he was kidnapped in Gaza City on Thursday.
Arrigoni’s body will remain at the Shifa hospital in Gaza until the reopening of the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel on Sunday.
President Giorgio Napolitano expressed his sympathy to Arrigoni’s family.
“Vittorio Arrigoni was the victim of an horrendous crime and I have expressed my deep respect and emotion to his relatives and hope that we can determine the truth and who is responsibility for what happened,” the president said after meeting Slovakian president Ivan Gasparovic. Justice Minister Angelino Alfano also expressed his sympathy for Arrigoni whom he said was “killed barbarically” by Islamic terrorists and the head of the centre-left Democratic Party, Pier Luigi Bersani, condemned the killing.
An anti-Hamas Salafi group had set 14:00 GMT Friday as the deadline for Arrigoni to be killed unless one of its leaders was released from prison by the militant organisation which controls Gaza.
But Arrigoni, who had been working for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in Gaza for several years, was found hanged hours before the end of the deadline.
The medical aid agency, Emergency, said Arrigoni was the “umpteenth civilian victim of war” and the Italian branch of UNICEF said it was “distraught and upset” at his death.
The Italian Association of Non-Profit Organisations said the murder would not deter Italian aid agencies from continuing their “concrete action” to help the people of Gaza.
“I express my sympathy on behalf of the non-government movement which operates with tenacity, patience and intelligence in difficult and risky situations,” said Francesco Petrilli, association president.
“This action is aimed at reconstruction, development and exchange between people, to ensure peace and the future of the Palestinian people and all the afflicted people in the world.” The Italian foreign ministry condemned “in the strongest terms the cowardly and unreasonable act of violence”.
Arrigoni came from the small town of Bulciago, near Lecco north of Milan where his mother is mayor. His mother, Egidia Beretta, said “I’m very proud of him”, adding, about his commitment to the Palestinian cause, “he was always like that”.
The murder was condemned both by the Palestinian National Authority, which controls the West Bank, and by its Gaza rival Hamas, which said it was “an awful crime, against our values”.
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas in Gaza, Friday telephoned Arrigoni’s mother to condemn the murder and reassure her that a full investigation would be conducted to find those responsible.
Haniyeh told journalists a Gaza street would be dedicated to the Italian activist who was considered a hero in the “fight” against Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip.
“His death has saddened us since we considered Vittorio one of us Palestinians,” the political leader said, as he offered his sympathy to all Italians.
Hamas, which is seen by the Salafis as too moderate, said it had detained two men in the case. Israeli military radio said the incident highlighted that the “internal war” between Hamas and Al-Qaeda-inspired groups was intensifying.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Former Prefect Ferrigno Arrested on Sex-for-Favors Charges
(AGI) Milan — Former Prefect of Naples, Carlo Ferrigno, has been arrested in Rome as ordered by Milan’s investigating magistrate, for having received sexual favors in exchange for promising help to deal with matters within the public administration. Ferrigno is also investigated for encouraging the prostitution of minors following sexual encounters with under-age girls.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Thyssen CEO Sentenced to 16-Years Jail
(AGI) Turin’s — The jury at the Turin trial against Thyssen has ruled first degree murder against the steelworks’ management.
CEO Herald Espenhahn has been sentenced to 16 years 6 months jail for the death of 7 plant workers who were burned to death.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Silvio Berlusconi Claims Magistrates Are Undermining Him
(AGI) Rome — Silvio Berlusconi is once again up in arms over the bench “trying to change voters’ opinions”. The Prime Minister added, “crudely put, this is called subversion”.
Berlusconi believes the magistrates are “permeated with leftist ideology”, with the Craxi case being among the worst examples, in his opinion, since the politician was “accused of just about everything”, while it was revealed it all turned out to be unfounded once he had died. The Prime Minister once again called for a probe into the bench to ascertain its real intentions.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: US and France Reject NATO Request for More Aircraft
(AKI/Bloomberg) — A request by Nato’s chief for more ground attack aircraft to target Muammar Gaddafi’s forces was rejected by the US and France as the Libyan leader was shown on state television pumping his fists in the air through the open sunroof of a silver SUV in Tripoli.
US president Barack Obama, UK prime minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy jointly declared that allowing Gaddafi to remain in power “would be an unconscionable betrayal.”
“So long as Gaddafi is in power, Nato and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds,” they wrote in a letter published in European newspapers today.
The limitations of the Nato’s air campaign have become evident as forces loyal to Gaddafi stepped up their assault in Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, and pressed their attack on rebels near the oil port city of Brega. The rebels said 47 people were killed in Misrata Thursday by regime shelling, Al Jazeera television reported.
“We need a few more precision-fighter ground-attack aircraft for air-to-ground missions,” Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said yesterday at a meeting of Nato’s 28 foreign ministers and leaders from other allied nations in Berlin. Only five Nato nations, led by France and the UK are known to be targeting Gaddafi’s ground forces. The ministers are holding more talks today in the German capital. Nato member Germany declined to send jets to serve in the Libya mission.
The call for more warplanes, which Rasmussen said wasn’t directed at a specific alliance member, came 10 days after the US withdrew its ground-attack planes from the civilian protection missions. US and French officials said that their governments don’t plan to offer additional warplanes and that it is up to other allies to help. Foreign minister Alain Juppe said France is already the biggest air power contributor to the mission and can’t send more jets.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Ndrangheta Man Caught for ‘Bombing Campaign’ on Judges
Three other warrants for year-long intimidation in Calabria
(ANSA) — Reggio Calabria, April 15 — A member of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia was arrested on Friday in connection with a bombing campaign last year aimed at intimidating judges and prosecutors in Reggio Calabria.
Vincenzo Puntorieri, 30, is accused of planting bombs in January and August 2010 along with Antonio Cortese, one of three already arrested who were served fresh warrants in the case Friday.
The other two are boss-turned-state’s witness Antonino Lo Giudice and his brother Luciano.
Cortese was fingered by Lo Giudice last year as one of the men who carried out the attacks.
He was arrested on October 20 on the strength of Lo Giudice’s statements to police.
Lo Giudice said Cortese, an experienced bomb-maker, was directly responsible for bombs which exploded on January 3, 2010 at Reggio’s courthouse and on August 26 outside the home of Prosecutor General Salvatore Di Landro.
The boss also told investigators it was Cortese who sent a bazooka to the local anti-Mafia bureau in October.
Cortese was caught on the border between Italy and Slovenia.
In the wake of the attacks, the Italian government sent in the army to guard judicial buildings in Reggio.
Lo Giudice was the second ‘Ndrangheta clan chief to turn informant in a month after Roberto Moio, both key breakthroughs in the fight against the criminal organisation which is tighter-knit than Sicily’s Cosa Nostra and now considered Italy’s richest and most powerful mafia.
Police described the bombing campaign as a reaction to the success of a wave of operations against ‘Ndrangheta.
“The extraordinary work of judges and police is bothering the clans. The mafiosi are on edge, and reacting nervously,” a prosecutor said after the Yugoslav-made M80 bazooka was found on October 5 in what an anonymous phone caller described as “a gift” for Reggio Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone.
Pignatone had previously been the object of threats on May 27 when a letter containing three bullets was sent to him.
Another incident occurred on June 16 when Di Landro’s driver found the bolts on his car wheels loosened.
‘Ndrangheta, whose name means ‘virtue’ or ‘heroism’ in a local form of ancient Greek, once dealt mainly in kidnappings and extortion and fed off the pickings of public tenders.
But it has since expanded to northern Italy and northern Europe, where it invests the huge profits of its chokehold on the European cocaine trade.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Speaking Dutch to be Requirement for Benefit Payments
THE HAGUE, 16/04/11 — People who cannot speak Dutch and are not taking a Dutch-language course will no longer be eligible for basic benefit payments. The new policy will apply both to EU and non-EU citizens.
Those who speak no Dutch must take a course as quickly as possible and complete this successfully. If this requirement is not met, the benefit payment will be cut or halted, under a package of measures presented by Social Affairs Minister Henk Kamp.
To make the measure legally feasible — Kamp has to get around the constitutional ban on discrimination — the measure will apply to everyone, including the Dutch. In practice, it means that the language must be learned both by new immigrants and by groups that do not speak any or bad Dutch although they have already been living in the Netherlands for years, including many Turks and Moroccans.
The fact that the Dutch will become a requirement for receiving basic benefit is a wish of the conservatives (VVD). The party of Kamp announced a private member’s bill for this last year.
Kamp has also given the Lower House information about plans he recently announced for ensuring that EU labour migrants do not abuse social benefit provisions. People from Europe who cannot take care of their own maintenance will not be allowed to stay, he writes.
“Labour migrants from Europe who are here for longer than three months and have no work or prospects of work will lose their right to residence,” Kamp announced. He also says that income requirements will be checked more stringently. The regulations will be adapted for this.
Kamp had said in February that he would draw up measure by 1 April to tackle problems relating to labour migration from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. This has turned out to be two weeks later, partly because of opposition at diplomatic level.
The Polish embassy has already said in a press statement that the Netherlands has no legal basis for sending labour migrants back to Poland if they become jobless or homeless. Also, East European employees cannot be declared ‘undesirable aliens’ if they do not want to go back to their home country or repeatedly return to the Netherlands, according to the embassy.
Meanwhile, the integration and immigration ministry has already confirmed that the Netherlands cannot declare a person living on the street and causing nuisance an undesirable alien just like that. This clashes with the EU directive on the free movement of persons.
Kamp has therefore announced he will “investigate what action must be taken in the European context” to get the directive amended. He is targeting changes to ensure that the right to residence lapses if the person in question has worked for longer than a year and less than five years in the Netherlands, has insufficient means and therefore also has no right to benefit.
Kamp also wants strict measures against employers who violate the rules. Employers who retain to high a percentage of the salary for costs for accommodation or transport will be fined. A registration requirement is being introduced in the Netherlands for temps bureaus on 1 January 2012.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Cabinet to Get Tough on Jobless Europeans, And Bad Employers
European nationals who do not have a job or who cannot financially support themselves will have to leave the Netherlands within three months, if new rules the government is planning to introduce come into force.
The aim of the new measures is to ‘better regulate the arrival and departure’ of migrants from other EU countries, ministers say. It is not yet clear if and how the measures conflict with EU rules on the free movement of people.
‘The direct cause [of the new measures] is the increase in migration from Central and Eastern Europe but the tougher measures affect all EU citizens,’ the document, drawn up by the social affairs and immigration ministries, says.
Right to stay
The new rules state EU citizens with no means of support will have to leave the country and those who spend more than three months looking for a job will also lose their right to stay.
Welfare (bijstand), the basic social security payment for people will no other means of support, will only be paid to people who speak Dutch. Claimants must complete a course to qualify. The requirement to speak Dutch will affect everyone, not just EU citizens.
The cabinet is also to make sure all ‘work migrants’ are registered with the immigration service and their local authority and to require local councils to check up that people have proper housing. It also wants housing corporations and local authorities to take more account of the needs of migrants in housing policy.
Central and Eastern Europe
Specific action is being targeted at people from Central and Eastern Europe because of concerns that many of them are being exploited by unscrupulous employers.
And several politicians from the right and left of the political spectrum have recently called for government action to curb what they say is the nuisance caused by thousands of Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian workers.
In February, for example, a Socialist MP called for help to deal with a ‘tsunami’ of Eastern European migrants in Zundert.
To combat the exploitation of migrants from these countries, fines will be stepped up for employers who deduct high costs for bed and board and all staffing agencies will have to be officially registered with the authorities.
The cabinet also plans to declare EU nationals who repeatedly commit crimes undesirable aliens.
Conference
Social affairs minister Henk Kamp will host a conference to discuss the new measures with local authorities and migrant organisations on April 20.
Earlier this year, European justice commissioner Vivian Reding warned the Netherlands it must respect EU rules on the free movement of people. The cabinet is to look into which EU-level rules need to be amended to make sure the Dutch plans can go through.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Only 200 People Indexed as Presumed ETA Members
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 12 — ETA is slowly but surely losing affiliates, though still counts within its ranks around a hundred “soldiers” ready to strike and another hundred or so ready to enrol. Police arrests have meant that the armed Basque separatist group has lost around 359 effective members or collaborators since 2008, according to figures in today’s 20minutos newspaper. The group counts 99 presumed terrorists, of whom 30 or so have fled to France, with specific criminal records, belonging to the so-called level 5 and whom the police are under orders to arrest on sight. These include Oier Gomez and Itziar Martinez, who were arrested in France on Sunday and are accused of the attempted murder of a gendarme, who was injured in a shooting at a checkpoint.
Police situate a further 103 people at level 4, which groups together the potential members of ETA, who are considered the organisation’s reserves. The Civil Guard, meanwhile, suspects that ETA has two dormant cells in the Basque Country, thought to include members not currently on the police radar. All level 4 names correspond to presumed members of ETA below the age of 35, most of whom are on the run.
A total of 202 people are presumed to belong to the armed organisation, which the Civil Guard claims is experiencing the worst period of its bloody 50-year history, during which 870 lives have been claimed. The numerous arrests of recent years mean that there is no longer a military leadership, nor is there a defined structure to the organisation, while weapons and explosives are increasingly thin on the ground. Investigators believe that ETA is making the most of the truce to restructure itself.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sunday Evening: Election Special — Advance Votes Indicate Big Gains for True Finns and a Bad Night in Prospect for Centre Party
Finns went to the polls today in what has been one of the most eagerly-watched elections in a long time, with many eyes on the outcome not just in Finland itself, but across the European Union, amid speculation that a strong performance from the populist and fiercely eurosceptic opposition grouping the True Finns could affect the bailout programme for Portugal and lead to the country adopting a less amenable attiude towards Brussels than hitherto.
In bright sunny weather, at least in the south, turnout at polling stations was brisk across the country, with long lines forming in some places, indicating a rise in the overall voting figures, which have dipped alarmingly below 70% in recent elections.
The polls closed at 20:00, and the first results of advance voting — in which some 31.2% of the electorate took part — have just come in.
They suggest a very strong showing by the True Finns, and that the Centre Party of Prime Minister Mari Kiviniemi has taken a battering. The Centre are only in fourth place behind the National Coalition Party and the opposition Social Democrats and True Finns. The Social Democrats have thus far claimed second place, as the count continues.
Advance voting (20:05)
The approximately 1.3 million votes cast in advance of the Parliamentary Elections were distributed as follows (advance voting percentage from 2007 in parentheses):
National Coalition Party (Cons.) 20.2 % (21.8%)
Social Democrats 19.5% (22.9%)
True Finns 18.6% (3.7%)
Centre Party 17.3 (24.8%)
Left Alliance 8.3% (9.4%)
Greens 6.4% (6.5%)
Christian Democrats 4.3% (4.9%)
Swedish People’s Party 3.5% (3.2%)
Others 2.0% (2.6%)
It is important to note that these initial figures are an indicator at best, as they reflect something of a bias towards the rural voters, who traditionally support the Centre Party (formerly known as the Agrarian Union), and who have generally been active in advance voting.
Hence we have chosen to compare them not with the final outcome in 2007, but with the votes cast for each party in advance.
Furthermore, these advance votes are incomplete, with approximately 200,000 advance votes from around the country still to be counted.
Even so, for the Centrists to have lost such a colossal share of their vote at this stage does not bode well for their evening, and the phenomenal success of the True Finns would appear on the face of these numbers to have been drawn in great measure from the defection of former Centre Party supporters.
On past experiences, the share of the National Coalition Party and Greens can be expected to rise accordingly as the votes from the larger urban voting districts of the south come in during the course of the evening, but the role of and strong support enjoyed by the True Finns in this election has meant that we are in many respects sailing in uncharted waters.
We can already infer that the Centre Party have taken a hammering and that the True Finns are the runaway winners thus far, but the full outcome of the election will only start to emerge properly when Sunday’s votes begin to come in in large numbers.
Advance voting ended on Tuesday 12th April, and since then undecided voters have had several days in which to make up their minds.
A traditionally accurate benchmark for the result has been the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s election prognosis, which is expected at or around 21:00.
The names of the new contingent of 200 MPs will only become clear as the count progresses, though naturally a few front-runners will emerge early on who can be said with some certainty to be in the new intake. One certainty is the True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini, who seems likely to be at or near the top of the pile in Uusimaa.
See also:
HS Election Results Service (real-time, in Finnish)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Wear a Headscarf or We Will Kill You’: How the ‘London Taliban’ Is Targeting Women and Gays in Bid to Impose Sharia Law
Women who do not wear headscarves are being threatened with violence and even death by Islamic extremists intent on imposing sharia law on parts of Britain, it was claimed today.
Other targets of the ‘Talibanesque thugs’, being investigated by police in the Tower Hamlets area of London, include homosexuals.
Stickers have been plastered on public walls stating: ‘Gay free zone. Verily Allah is severe in punishment’.
Posters for H&M which feature women in bikinis and a racy poster for a Bollywood film have been defaced.
It is believed Muslim extremists are behind a spate of attacks being investigated by police, according to the Sunday Times.
An Asian woman who works in a pharmacy in east London was told to dress more modestly and wear a veil or the shop would be boycotted.
When she went to the media to talk about the abuse she suffered, a man later entered the pharmacy and told her: ‘If you keep doing these things, we are going to kill you’.
The 31-year-old, who is not a practising Muslim, said she has since been told to take holiday by the pharmacy owners and now fears she may lose her job.
She said: ‘Why should I wear a hijab (headscarf) or burqa? I haven’t done anything wrong.’
Other incidents reported include the placing of stickers across the white-minority borough which state it is a ‘gay-free zone’ and the daubing of paint on posters for clothing shop H&M featuring women in bikinis.
Ghaffar Hussain, of the anti-extremism thin tank the Quilliam Foundation, told The Sunday Times that the intimidation was the work of ‘Talibanesque thugs’.
He added: ‘This minority think they have the right to impose their fringe interpretation of Islam on others.’
Paul Rickett from the Met Police said: ‘I am saddened that there are a small minority of people who do not wish to respect the lifestyle choices of others’.
He added that there was nothing to indicate the incidents were linked.
Three men have been charged with religiously-aggravated criminal damage in connection with some of the incidents, which have mirrored crude attempt at censorship in Birmingham.
Borough Commander of Tower Hamlets, Paul Rickett said: ‘I am saddened that there are a small minority of people who do not wish to respect the lifestyle choices of others.
‘I would like to reassure the people of Tower Hamlets that we are investigating these incidents.
‘At this stage there is no information to suggest any of the incidents are linked. Anyone found committing such criminal acts will face criminal proceedings.
‘We work closely with faith leaders in the community, the Tower Hamlets interfaith forum, our partner agencies and the local community to ensure that people feel safe in the borough.’
Khalid Mahmood, MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, said he had seen posters vandalised in Birmingham but was not aware of threats being made.
He said: ‘I have seen posters defaced in Birmingham and it’s just complete nonsense.
‘If people choose to follow the religion they should be free to do so and we don’t want to go down the route that the French have done, but these people have to accept other people.
‘If it’s about the freedom to do what you want, others should have the freedom to do what they want to do.
‘It’s the actions of a very small minority, and in Birmingham we have not seen people threaten women who are not wearing the burqa — it someone were to do that the police should be informed.’
Firebrand Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary said that he was aware of individuals who would speak up if they saw a Muslim woman without a headscarf, but insisted they were only giving advice about their views of Islam.
He said no threats would be made and described the allegations of threats of death as ‘completely ridiculous’.
He said: ‘There are groups who propogate Islam, and if they see a Muslim woman without a hijab they may say “sister, it’s obligatory that you cover your hair”.
‘It’s an individual intervention to propagate Islam. For non-Muslims, they may point out to them that women are being exploited in the West.
‘It’s about telling people about the preference of covering up, but nobody’s going to say “you are going to be killed”.’
Tower Hamlets has a reputation for being a centre of Islamic extremism in London.
Recently it was revealed Rich Dart, a middle class former BBC worker had converted to Islam and was living in Bow, east London in a £300,000 flat paid for by benefits.
Despite being unemployed, Mr Dart regularly attends Muslim rallies in which he was recently heard to say: ‘When the Taliban defeat the allies we will establish Sharia law and take the fight to the enemy.’
Before Christmas posters appeared in the borough claiming the religious festival was ‘evil’.
The campaign’s organiser was 27-year-old Abu Rumaysah, who once called for Sharia Law in Britain at a press conference held by hate preacher leader Anjem Choudary, the leader of banned militant group Islam4UK.
Mr Rumaysah said: ‘Christmas is a lie and as Muslims it is our duty to attack it.
‘But our main attack is on the fruits of Christmas, things like alcohol abuse and promiscuity that increase during Christmas and all the other evils these lead to such as abortion, domestic violence and crime.
‘We hope that out campaign will make people realise that Islam is the only way to avoid this and convert.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ali G Dizaei: In Wraparound Shades and Street-Cred Puffer Jacket, Jailed Police Chief Back on the Streets
Looking like an older version of spoof character Ali G, the man who was once one of the most powerful police officers in Britain walks incognito around the streets of Bristol.
But Ali Dizaei — in wraparound shades and puffer jacket — has long since lost any respect, as Ali G would say.
The country’s former highest-ranking Muslim officer was jailed for four years in February 2010 after being found guilty of misconduct in public office and perverting the course of justice.
He was later sacked as a £90,000-a-year Metropolitan Police commander.
Described during his trial as a ‘criminal in uniform’, Dizaei, 49, is now awaiting judgment in his appeal against his conviction.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: ICTY: Brussels, Zagreb Should Continue Cooperating
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 15 — Following today’s sentencing in the Hague of former Croatian general Ante Gotovina for war crimes and crimes against humanity, the European Commission renewed its appeal to Zagreb to implement “full cooperation” with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which represents an “essential” condition for membership. The explanation was offered by Natasha Butler, spokesperson for EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule, today in Brussels.
Butler stated that “Negotiations on the chapter concerning justice and fundamental rights will continue independently from today’s ruling. At the same time we expect Croatia to continue cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal. In fact full cooperation with the Tribunal is essential for the closing of this chapter”.
The closing of another two negotiation chapters involving Zagreb should take place on occasion of the next membership conference scheduled on April 19 in Brussels. The most delicate hurdle for Croatia’s integration into Europe remains that concerning justice and fundamental rights, which may delay the closing of negotiations scheduled expected before the end of June 2011.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Israel: 2010 Trade Exchange Up to About USD 35 Mln
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 15 — Last year’s foreign trade exchange between Serbia and Israel amounted to about USD 35 million, a situation which could be significantly improved, Secretary of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Board for International Economic Relations Olivera Kiro said, reports Tanjug news agency.
At the first gathering of Serbian and Israeli entrepreneurs in Belgrade, Kiro said she expected an agreement on avoidance of double taxation between Serbia and Israel would be concluded soon, which would greatly facilitate the cooperation between the two countries.
She said that last year’s total foreign trade between Serbia and Israel amounted to about USD 15 million in exports and USD 20 million in imports.
According to her, the Israeli investments in Serbia officially amount to about USD 50 million, although in practice it is lot more than that.
Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Israel in Belgrade Eyal Naor said that Israel was a small country, but very good at innovation, adding that it was the second country in the world by the number of highly educated people in relation to population.
Deputy Director of the Serbian Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) Bojan Jankovic said that the agency planned to organize a visit of Serbian companies to Israel for October to offer cooperation with that country’s companies in three sectors — information technology, furniture manufacture and food industry.
He said that Israel annually imports about USD 40 billion worth of goods, mostly food, agricultural products and energy, and Serbia was in the position to offer all of them.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Folk Diva Makes Deal With Prosecutors Over Embezzlement
Belgrade, 12 April (AKI) — Serbia’s top singing star Svetlana Raznatovic, indicted for embezzlement of millions of euros worth of illegal transfers for football players, has made a deal with prosecutors to pay a fine of 1.5 million euros and spend a year in house arrest.
The deal, revealed by Raznatovi’c lawyers on Tuesday, which still has to be accepted by the court, would free her of a potential 12-year priosn term and confiscation of property.
Raznatovic, 38, popularly known as Ceca, has been under investigation for the past eight years and was indicted last month. She had been married to the late Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, a former leader of the Tigers, a paramilitary group, who was suspected of committing war crimes during 1991-1995 war that followed the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
Arkan was the owner of a first division Serbian football Obilic club, which Ceca inherited after he was murdered in January 2000 in a gang-style killing.
According to the indictment, Ceca, her sister Lidija Velickovic and two other club officials embezzled millions of dollars stemmng from the sale of Obilic players to foreign clubs.
The transfer money was never paid to the club but rather to private accounts opened by Ceca and her sister in several European countries, the indictment said. Obilic eventually fell out of the first division and practically ceased to exist.
Ceca is a close friend of a current Serbian police minister Ivica Dacic, but he has said he would not interfere in the case. Dacic’s close aide Vladan Zagradjanin was arrested four years ago with deputy central bank governor Dejan Simic, but they were also freed this year for a lack of evidence.
Simic and Zagradjanin were arrested with a suitcase packed with 100,000 euros, allegedly taken as a bribe from a local bank to renew operating licence.
According to the deal, Raznatovic, Serbia’s most popular folk singer, will be banned for one year from holding concerts and her sister will also spend six months in home detention.
Ceca’s fans on Serbia’s web sites cheered the settlement as a way to “wash away shame” from their idol’s name. But others said it was a shame on Serbia’s judiciary system which has “hit rock bottom”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Zawahiri (Al Qaeda) Video, Arabs Overthrow Gaddafi
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 15 — Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman Al Zawahiri, has released a pre-recorded video urging Arab armies to intervene in the Libyan conflict and overthrow the regime of Colonel Gaddafi. This is according to the Al Quds Al Arabi, which quoted the American network ABC.
The video posted on the internet shows Al Zawahiri urging Arab armies to take steps to avoid Western intervention becoming an “invasion”.
Al Qaeda’s number two also welcomed the fall of the regime of Hosni Mubarak, saying that Egypt’s future depends on the application of Sharia law and the destruction of Israel.
Some observers and American terrorism experts have recently claimed that the uprisings currently sweeping through the Arab world are generally a sign of Al Qaeda’s inability to drum up support.
Al Zawahiri’s latest video comes after an 18-month silence. In the intervening period, the Al Qaeda figure had released only audio messages.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: US Seeks Country to Offer Gaddafi Asylum
(AGI) New York -The Obama administration is looking for a country, possibly in Africa, willing to offer asylum to Muammar Gaddafi. This, if the Colonel should decide to step down. The New York Times has reported that the negotiations are being conducted with descretion, but the search has been complicated by the probability that Gaddafi will be incriminated by the International Criminal Court for the Lockerbie disaster and for atrocities committed by the Libyan government.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘No Libya Bombings’ Says Berlusconi
Italy giving ‘maximum support’ says PM
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Italy has reaffirmed that it will not participate in any bomb attacks against Libya.
Government sources said Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reinforced the government’s stance Friday during a cabinet meeting in which he reportedly said: “We are doing enough”.
Berlusconi told Cabinet members that Italy was acting “in line with the UN resolution” and “considering our geographic position and our colonial past, a major commitment would not be understood”.
The premier stressed that Italy was giving “maximum support with its bases” and everything the country had done was “understood and appreciated” by its allies, but he did not foresee a major military commitment in the country. Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said Italy’s military commitment was “second to none”. The leaders of the US, the UK and France on Friday released a joint letter in which they say there can be no peace in Libya while Muammar Gaddafi remains in power.
President Barack Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Nicolas Sarkozy say NATO must maintain military operations to protect civilians and maintain pressure on Colonel Gaddafi.
The letter was published in the UK newspaper The Times, the French daily Le Figaro and The International Herald Tribune on Friday amid growing dissent within NATO about how to proceed with air strikes against Libya.
In March Italy gave unconditional backing for a no-fly zone over Libya and has provided seven of its military bases and eight aircraft to support US and NATO forces bombing raids. Only a few of Nato’s 28 members — including France, the UK, Canada, Belgium, Norway and Denmark — are conducting air strikes.
On Wednesday Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maurizio Massari, said Italy planned to boost Libyan rebels’ capacity to defend themselves from Gaddafi’s forces but would stop short of supplying them with weapons.
Italy has major business relations with its former colony and Berlusconi had close ties with Gaddafi before the crisis.
A 2008 friendship treaty between Italy and the North African country ruling out military action from Italy had been effectively suspended because of the uprising.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Risk of a Long War in Libya, Says French Defense Minister
(AGI)Paris-French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet admitted there is a risk that military intervention in Libya could last a while. “Gaddafi and Libya are not wholly predictable,” Longuet underlined in an interview with Le Parisien, “it is a complicated and therefore long conflict.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Arrigoni: Israel Fears Hamas-Salafist Conflict
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — The brutal murder of Italian volunteer Vittorio Arrigoni marks a sudden acceleration in the Gaza Strip of the latent conflict between Hamas, the Islamic faction that has been in charge in the enclave since 2007, and the even more radical Salafite and pro-al Qaeda groups. This alarming conclusion is reached today by Israel’s main broadcasters and experts in the field after the death of an activist who was known for fighting Israel’s policies and who seems to have become the victim of a Palestinian fundamentalist fringe group, against all logic. The shadow of the Salafite groups active in the Gaza Strip looms behind Arrigoni’s abduction, though the main suspect — al-Tawhid wal-Jihad — denied the accusations today in a statement. ‘Al-Tahwid’, local mass media report, is active in Gaza since 2004 and is known for its violence. In 2006 the group carried out a terrorist attack on tourist residences in the Sinai, killing around 20 people. In 2009 they used horses rigged with explosives against the Karni border crossing (between Gaza and Israel). Last summer the group launched several rockets from the Sinai in the direction of Eilat and Aqaba, resorts in Israel and Jordan on the Red Sea. By the end of February Hamas arrested the group’s most important member in Gaza, the Palestinian with Egyptian passport Hisham Saidni (known as Abd el-Walid al-Maqdisi). One of the demands of Arrigoni’s kidnappers was the release of this leader. This development could have caused tensions between Hamas and the new Egyptian leaders in the critical post-Mubarak period. According to radio Jerusalem, ‘al-Tahwid wal-Jihad’ counts several hundreds of activists in Gaza at the moment (on almost one and a half million inhabitants). The radio station expects — mentioning the danger of rising tensions that will also have repercussions for Israel — that Hamas will now use its forces against this group, as it did in the past in similar situations.
Radio Jerusalem underlined for example that in 2007, after the long kidnapping of British journalist Alan Johnston, Hamas clamped down on the kidnappers, members of the “Army of Islam”: a formation that includes former Hamas members and that is in a way also inspired on al Qaeda. In the summer of 2009, a real battle was fought to silence preacher Abdel Latif Mussa, who led another Salafite -based group (Jund Ansar Allah), after the announcement in a mosque in Rafah (south of Gaza) of the birth in the Gaza Strip of an emirate faithful to Osama Bin Laden’s plans. An unheard defiance of the ‘established’ authorities, to which the Hamas militias responded by attacking the rebel mosque using heavy weapons. At least eight people died in the bloody clash, including the preacher, who had barricaded himself inside the mosque together with several heavily armed followers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Arrigoni’s Mother Refuses for Body to Return Via Israel
(AGI) Rome- The mother of pro-Palestinian activist Victorio Arrigoni reaffirmed that his body should not return via Israel.
Israeli author Etgar Keret had appealed to Arrigoni’s family to reconsider their decision, so as not to transform “his last voyage into a symbol of hate and refusal towards those he considered enemies”, but Egidia Beretta replied that “Israel did not want him when he was alive and won’t have him when he is dead”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas to Hold State Funeral for Vittorio Arrigoni
(AGI) Gaza City — On Monday Palestine will hold a ‘state funeral’ in Gaza for Vittorio Arrigoni, the Italian pacifist murdered by a Salafite cell. His body will then be sent to Egypt traveling through the Rafah pass. The news was announced by Hamas’ Foreign Minister, Mohammed Awad, who added that security forces in Gaza are on the verge of arresting all those involved in his murder .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
IDF: 2 Palestinians Arrested in Fogel Family Massacre
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
Two Palestinian youths from the village of Awarta were arrested in recent days for the brutal slaying of five members of the Fogel family in their Itamar home last month, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday following the lifting of a media ban on the investigation.
The suspects have been named as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar.
The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and re-enacted the murders, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.
Both men are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.
The suspects planned the stabbings days ahead of time. On the night of March 11, after unsuccessful attempts to obtain firearms from a local PFLP representative in their village, the two set out toward Itamar on foot, armed with knives, a wirecutter and masks to cover their faces.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Secret Service Captures Killers of 5 Settlers
(AGI) Jerusalem- Agents of Israel’s secret service have captured those who slaughtered an entire family of settlers on March 11. The murders occurred in Itamar, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Israel’s public radio announced that two Palestinians aged 19 and 17, Amjad and Hakim Awad from the Awarta village near Itamar, have beena arrested. They youths are apparently members of the same family clan and linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Teenager Injured in April 7 School Bus Attack Dies
(AGI) Jerusalem — A teenager who was injured in the April 7 Palestinian rocket attack on a school bus has died. The yellow bus was hit by an anti-tank rocket while it was driving near the Gaza Strip. It had dropped off almost all its passengers and only had the driver, who was lightly wounded and the teenager. The attack caused three days of reprisals by the Israelis, who killed 19 Palestinians.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
PNA Asks USA for Clear Position and Action for State
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 13 — The president of the Palestinian National Authority (Pna), Abu Mazen (Mahmud Abbas), asked the United States to provide a clear position on the creation of a Palestinian State and prompt action ahead of the UN General Assembly scheduled in September, when the Palestinians plan to ask recognition of their developing State in all the land occupied by Israel in 1967. The statement was made today by Nabil Abu Rudeina, Palestine’s presidential spokesperson.
Israel warned against the proclamation of a Palestinian State that is not the result of direct negotiations. But the Palestinians do not want to resume negotiations until Israel ceases all construction activities in the settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
In reply to US secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who on Tuesday stated that the United States plan to soon provide a new impulse to attempts to promote a solution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Abu Rudeina stated that “speaking about plans and new initiatives is not enough. There must be an effective role of the United States and even a determined policy against the settlements”.
At the same time, in his opinion, Clinton’s announcement is a sign that “the US administration is starting to become aware of the gravity of the situation in the Middle East” which could take a turn “whose consequences would be grave for everyone”. The statements of the Palestinian spokesperson coincide with the meeting that Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad had today in Brussels with western representatives to ask for almost five billion dollars in investments to launch the Palestinian State.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Demonstration in Jordan Injures Over 40 Policemen
(AGI) Amman — At least 40 police were injured, among whom seven were seriously injured in knife attacks, in a demonstration by Salafite Islamists in the northern Jordanian town of Zarqa.
Police sources released the information, adding that the protest degenerated into violence when some Islamists stabbed seven policemen, who intervened to defend some citizens, accused of being atheists, who had been attacked by the demonstrators. The crowd was dispersed with tear gas.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan Arrests 70 Islamists After Violent Clashes
(AGI) Amman — Jordanian security forces arrested 70 Islamists after yesterday’s violent march in Zarqa. Security force sources report that the suspects belong to an ultra conservative Salafite movement, which attacked police during the march, injuring at least 40, seven of whom seriously.
Initially 120 people were detained but 50 of them were later let go while 70 were quizzed about their involvement in the violence. A member of the Salafist movement meanwhile told the press that 22 prominent figures of the Islamist group including its chief in Jordan, Abdul Shahatah al-Tahawi, were among those detained. The Islamist group has been protesting for some weeks, demanding the release above all of Abu Mohammed Al-Maqdis, former mentor of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq killed by the USA iin 2006, and a native of Zarqa.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lithuanian Model and Expat Stars in Turkish TV Series
Lithuanian model-turned-actress Kerry Demirci plays a fun-loving Erasmus student from the Netherlands in the popular family sitcom “Çocuklar Duymasin” (Don’t let the kids hear). Winning a beauty contest in Lithuania at the young age of 17, it was down to a luck of the draw that she was sent out by her modeling agency to Turkey, where she met and fell in love with her future Turkish husband, eventually also converting to Islam. Not just a pretty face, Kerry initially dreamt of becoming a dentist before she was offered a modeling job. In the meantime, she has kept up her studies at the open university in Lithuania where she is a psychology freshman.
In a recent interview, she spoke about her new life in Turkey and plans for the future. Noting that “tamam” was the first word she learned in Turkish, Demirci also said she attended a language school for eight months in order to learn Turkish. Although Demirci noted that she hadn’t experienced much of a culture shock in Turkey, she described how she was often met with curious stares on the street.
“I’ve felt like a foreigner from the way that people look at me in the street. I think that everyone looks at me because I am blonde and blue eyed. However, in Lithuania, people come across as cold, perhaps due to the weather. Here [Turkey], people are so warm and friendly,” Demirci said.
She spoke of regularly meeting up with the community of other Lithuanian women married to Turkish men and living in Istanbul and put the popularity of the inter-cultural marriages down to a mutual soft spot between Turks and Lithuanians.
“There are about 30 girls from Lithuania in Turkey. I found them through Google. All are married to Turkish men, we meet up quite frequently,” she said.
On the importance of staying healthy, Demirci spoke of her balanced diet and sporting activities.
“I go to the gym regularly in order to stay fit, around four to five times a week. I have a balanced diet and I eat a lot of chicken and boiled vegetables. If I have time I also make great sushi. I don’t eat bread at all. Turkish dishes are so delicious but I stay away from most of them,” she said.
Although, Demirci has visited many cities in Turkey, she listed Istanbul and Izmir as her favorites, adding that Bebek was her preferred hang-out spot in Istanbul.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Prisoner of Conspiracy: Ahmet Sik and Turkey’s Increasingly Paranoid Politics
Almost every Turkish citizen now deeply believes either that Ergenekon is real or that Gülen is running their country—and is truly terrified of one or the other. The investigation is now being played as a zero-sum game, with all concerned of the opinion that it’s win or die and that therefore it’s a luxury to worry about what’s true, or about such legal niceties as presumption of innocence, tainted evidence, endless pretrial detentions, and freedom of expression.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Balcony Fall Nurse’s Devoted Father Takes His Battle to Prove She Was Murdered to the Grave
A devoted father made famous by his mission to prove that his daughter was murdered in Saudi Arabia has died aged 83 — taking his battle to the grave.
Ex-policeman Ron Smith refused to bury 23-year-old nurse Helen Smith for three decades — the longest period that a body had been kept unburied in Britain.
She was finally cremated in 2009.
Mr Smith accepted his daughter had died at an illegal drinks party in Jeddah in May 1979, but was adamant that she had been pushed from a sixth-floor balcony.
He dedicated the rest of his life to his quest, making legal history by getting an inquest held in the UK even though his daughter had died abroad. It recorded an open verdict.
But Mr Smith, who died in a Leeds hospital on Friday, never got the public inquiry that he desperately wanted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syrians Protest Despite Assad’s Promises of Reform
A pledge by Syria’s embattled president to lift almost 50 years of draconian emergency rule within a week was brushed aside as not enough as protesters continue taking to streets. Assad addresses the broad spectrum of complaints that have sparked countrywide protests, including unemployment, corruption and a crisis in agriculture during his speech
Thousands of people waving Syrian flags and shouting “We Want Freedom!” took to the streets Sunday in southern Syria, a day after President Bashar al-Assad promised to end nearly 50 years of emergency rule in an attempt to quell the growing uprising, witnesses said.
Activists had called for protests to mark Independence Day and to bolster the month-long uprising against the country’s regime.
Demonstrations erupted Sunday in the southern agricultural city of Daraa, which has become the epicenter of the protest movement, and the nearby town of Suweida about 130 kilometers southeast of the capital, Damascus.
Witnesses reached by telephone said thousands of people were marching in Daraa, shouting “Whoever kills his own people is a traitor!” Others shouted “The people want to topple the regime,” which was the rallying cry during protests in Egypt and Tunisia that ousted the countries’ longtime leaders.
Another demonstration in Suweida drew about 300 people, according to witnesses. They said police beat up demonstrators with batons, injuring several of them. The witness accounts could not be independently confirmed because Syria has placed tight restrictions on media outlets and expelled foreign journalists.
The demonstrations come despite promises by Assad to end the widely despised state of emergency rule by next week at the latest, and implement other reforms following more than a month of unprecedented — and growing — demonstrations.
In a televised address Saturday to a new cabinet tasked with launching reforms, Assad also expressed his sorrow over the deaths of an estimated 200 people in a month of protests demanding greater freedoms. “We are sad for all the people we have lost and all the people injured, and consider them all martyrs,” he said.
Assad addressed the broad spectrum of complaints that have sparked countrywide protests, including unemployment, corruption and a crisis in agriculture. Assad said demonstrations were “allowed by the Syrian constitution” although he added “there is no law in place to regulate them” and “police must first be trained and equipped to handle them.”
He told the new government unveiled on Thursday to act quickly and “take responsibility” and be “transparent” in their action. British Foreign Secretary William Hague welcomed Assad’s call for emergency law to be lifted, in the first reaction by a Western leader.
On Sunday, Syria’s state-run news agency said security forces seized a large quantity of weapons hidden in a truck coming from Iraq. SANA reported that the weapons were confiscated at the Tanaf crossing on the Syrian-Iraqi border, adding the shipment included machine-guns, automatic rifles, night vision goggles and grenade launchers.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Wants Settlement of Peace in Libya, Says Erdogan
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 15 — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkey wanted settlement of peace in Libya, as Anatolia news agency reported today from Paris.
Speaking to “France 24” television channel, Erdogan replied to questions about Libya saying that Turkey was not interested in natural resources in Libya ans adding that Turkey did not want Libya to be like Afghanistan or Iraq. “Turkey wants peace in Libya. It wants civil war to end there as soon as possible,” he said. Erdogan added that what was important was demands of the people and the government should meet demands of the people in Libya. Replying to a question, Erdogan said that Turkey was a country where Islam, secularism and democracy existed together.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Minister Bagis Slams Israel in Defense of Electoral Threshold
Defying European Union calls to slash the national electoral threshold from the current level of 10 percent, Turkey’s chief EU negotiator used the negative example of Israel on Sunday to bolster his argument on political stability.
“In Israel, they have a foreign minister who flushes the toilet as he speaks on radio,” State Minister Egemen Bagis said, speaking Sunday during a TV program. “The guy in his youth was a nightclub bodyguard in Moldova. He still thinks of himself as one and cannot pass on to being a statesman. Israel’s foreign policy has been entrusted to this man because they don’t have an election threshold.”
In order for Turkey not to end up in a similar situation, “stability has to be protected while creating space for different ideas,” Bagis said.
Responding to a question on the possibility of a “civilian diktat” in the aftermath of the June 12 general election, Bagis reminded that his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has been in power for the past nine years. “Whose life standards have we poked our noses into? Who has meddled with people’s choices in this country? These are artificial concerns,” he said.
Bagis also fiercely criticized the country’s opposition parties, accusing them of “acting as cloaks for some deep [illegal] organizations.”
“Opposition parties are in collaboration with some individuals who are accused of having links to gangs,” he said. “The last-minute changes in their [parliamentary candidate] lists show that the [reins] they have handed over to those gangs has not been enough.”
Strasbourg appearance
During his TV appearance, Bagis was also asked about Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
Erdogan “emphasized an unease over the long periods of detention” during the ongoing Ergenekon trials, according to the minister.
“I hope the process is solved as fast as possible and [the judiciary separates the grain from the chaff]. We want this more than anybody else does,” he said, adding that Turkish prosecutors are not taking people into custody “just the sake of it.”
Apparently responding to criticism that the AKP has lost sight of the EU membership target, Bagis said the process would accelerate after the election. “Turkey will complete its homework by 2014. It will implement the necessary legal changes,” he said. “Afterwards, it’s about attaining political rapprochement.”
Bagis claimed that Turkey has “finished up work” that is enough to open 29 chapters with in the EU accession talks, but that there are political obstacles. “We need to be patient. They want us to throw in the towel, but we won’t do this,” he said.
Speaking about the Halki Seminary on Istanbul’s Princes’ Islands, Bagis said Greece also has to take some steps before it can be reopened. “In Athens, there still is no Muslim cemetery, or a mosque for worship,” he said.
Family insurance proposal
In a separate speech in Istanbul’s Maltepe district Sunday, Bagis mocked the “family insurance” promise of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP. The Turkish nation “does not need fake Gandhis,” he said, referring to CHP leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
Questioning how the CHP would find the resources to carry out such a plan, Bagis said the proposal promises “many times the amount of the Turkish national budget.”
The CHP’s family insurance proposal involves a monthly payment of between 125 and 1,250 Turkish Liras to families that live below the poverty level.
“When we ask where he will find the resources for this, [Kiliçdaroglu] responds by saying, ‘My name is Kemal.’ We like Kemals, for sure,” Bagis was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency. “But which Kemal are you? You are surely not Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] nor Namik Kemal. You can, at most, be a fake Gandhi Kemal.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Uprisings: Iran’s Balancing Act Between Gaddafi & Assad
(ANSAmed) — TEHERAN — An Islamic, anti-Western “revolution” along the lines of the one in Teheran in 1979: this is the gloss that Iran continues to give in official reporting of the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa, with the exception, however, of Syria, an historic ally of the Islamic Republic in the region.
It is a line that would appear to be forcing the Iranian government into a certain amount of ambiguity such as when, while launching an attack Gaddafi, it came down against the West’s military intervention, or while remaining silent over the protests against the regime of Syria’s President Bashar al Assad. There is also an internal contradiction with the repression of the opposition demonstrations in Iran, after they attempted last month to return to the streets in order to express support for the uprisings taking place in Arab countries.
Into this scenario come the growing tensions with the Gulf Arab states, which are accusing Iran of fomenting popular revolts among the Shiite-majority population of Bahrain.
“The oppressive governments,”Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad said in reference to the Western intervention in Libya, “are bombing innocent civilians and destroying the infrastructure of other countries in order to dominate them”.
In the meantime, however, through its ‘National Council for Human Rights’, Teheran is condemning what it calls “the brutal and inhuman actions of the Libyan government against its own people” and state television is triumphantly announcing that “the countdown for the fall of the dictator,” i.e. Muammar Gaddafi, has started.
While Iranian television is giving constant coverage of what it is calling “revolutions” in the region, it limits itself to a few brief mentions of the protests in Syria, sticking to the official version coming out of Damascus and stressing that what is happening there is being “generated from abroad”. This comes as no surprise when one considers the vital importance of the ties between Iran and the Syrian regime, which have united in an anti-Israeli axis lending support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But even closer to Iran geographically is the crisis in Bahrain, an island off the southern coast of the Gulf which is host to the US navy’s fifth fleet and where the population is 70 per cent Shiite. The Arab monarchs of the Gulf, Sunnis, are more or less openly accusing the Islamic Republic, a Shiite stronghold in the region, of supporting the opposition there and the crisis has already seen the reciprocal expulsion of two diplomats by Bahrain and by Iran. For its part, Teheran has strongly condemned the intervention of the troops of the Gulf Cooperation Council, to which Saudi Arabia, Iran’s great rival in the region, belongs.
This is “a tragic event,”the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, said, adding that the intervention of Arab soldiers “will make the situation in the region more complex and the crisis difficult to resolve”.
Qatar, which has good relations with Iran, has cooled tempers a little, denying reports on an online Kuwaiti newspaper, Al Aan, that the Qatari authorities had seized two Iranian ships loaded with weapons off their coast close to Bahrain.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Uprisings: Arab World Crisis Revives Turkey’s Role in Region
UPRISINGS: ARAB WORLD CRISIS REVIVES TURKEY’S ROLE IN REGION (ANSAmed) — NICOSIA — Although in some ways it is not yet clear how the uprisings that have recently occurred in a number of Arab countries will contribute to redrawing the internal balance of the countries themselves and of the Mediterranean, they have already certainly done much to restore a sheen to Turkey’s role as a regional power, a role to which the government of Islamic roots led by the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has aspired since he came to power in 2002.
After the diplomatic and political successes reached first with Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood, and then with their Tunisian counterparts, who clearly indicated Turkey as being “a model for the democratic development” of the respective countries, Ankara is currently involved in an area that stretches from Libya to Iraq via Syria.
After weeks of opposition, reluctance and concern over potential intervention in Libya, only on March 23 Ankara leant its support to the NATO mission for the respect of the arms embargo against Tripoli and made five military ships and a submarine available, albeit in a non-operational military sense.
Prime Minister Erdogan, however, was unyielding on one key point: “Turks will not fire so much as one shot against their Libyan brothers”.
In the British newspaper The Guardian, Erdogan has said that Turkey is ready to act as a mediator with the aim of reaching a rapid ceasefire in Libya and preventing the North African country from turning into “a second Iraq” or “a new Afghanistan”. Erdogan claims that Ankara has been in contact with both Gaddafi and rebels for some time and announced that his country, in agreement with NATO, is preparing to assume the running of the airport and port of Benghazi, the so-called “capital of the February 17 revolution”, in order to facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid.
“Turkey’s duty will be to restore the unity and national integrity of Libya as part of the democratic aspirations of its people,” said Erdogan, adding that if the two sides ask Ankara to mediate in the search for a solution to the crisis, “we will take the necessary steps” with NATO, the Arab League and the African Union. For some days, however, Ankara has also been involved in Syria, which is also being shaken by a wave of violent and unprecedented anti-government protests inspired by the popular uprisings afoot in other Arab countries. Only last Tuesday, before the situation degenerated and dozens more civilians were killed, Erdogan phoned the Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad, advising him to “learn from what was happening in the area” and to act quickly in introducing reforms allowing the process of democratisation to take place peacefully. “Turkey is sensitive to the situation in Syria and we cannot remain silent in the face of what is happening there. We share a border of some 800 kilometres and we have good relations with our neighbours in Damascus,” Erdogan said on March 28 before leaving for Iraq, another country that Ankara’s diplomacy is looking to seduce. Erdogan was very clear regarding the country: “Improving cooperation between Turkey and Iraq is of strategic importance for us in the quest to turn the Mesopotamian basin into an area of common stability and prosperity”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: Religious Schools and Tribal Heads Tell Saleh: Out Now
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, APRIL 15 — Pupils in religious schools and tribal leaders have said that they are supporting demands by young Yemeni revolutionaries for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to stand down immediately.
In a statement published today in the capital Sanaa, the protests of the last few weeks have been defined as “peaceful” and the need is underlined for “the President to resign immediately”, along with “all of his relatives, from military officials to state security”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Top Imam ‘Calls for Crescent on Russia’s Crest’
A top Muslim cleric called Friday for a crescent moon to be added to Russia’s double-headed eagle coat of arms to represent the country’s multi-million-strong Muslim population.
“We are asking for one of the heads to be topped with a crescent moon and the other to be topped with a Russian Orthodox cross,” Talgat Tadzhuddin told the Moskovskiye Novosti daily in an interview.
“All the crowns on the coat of arms — two on the heads of the eagles and one above them in the middle — are topped by crosses. But Russia has 20 million Muslims. That’s 18 percent of the population,” he said in an interview.
The imam, who heads the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, a major regional association, said he sent the proposal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and showed a sketch to President Dmitry Medvedev.
Most of Russia’s Muslims live in historically Muslim regions, such as the North Caucasus, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, but there is also a huge swell of immigrants from Muslim ex-Soviet states to large cities.
According to the last published census results, Russia in 2002 had around 14.5 million Muslim residents. The findings on religion declared in a census taken last year have yet to be published.
Tadzhuddin serves at the central mosque in Ufa, the capital of the mainly Muslim republic of Bashkortostan. Russia lacks a single governing body for Muslims, and the council he heads is one of three regional associations.
Russia readopted the tsarist double-headed symbol in 1993. The two heads of the eagle are topped by crosses, and they are linked by a third crown, also topped with a cross.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-Russia Visa-Free Travels to Begin Tomorrow
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 15 — Turkish and Russian nationals will be able travel between the two countries without obtaining a visa, as Anatolia news agency reports. Turkey and Russia signed an agreement on May 12, 2010 in Ankara to enable Turkish and Russian nationals travel without visa requirements. The agreement will take effect as of April 16, 2011. The visa-free period between Turkey and Russia is expected to have positive outcomes both in trade and contractor services as well as tourism. Actual 26.2 billion USD foreign trade volume between Turkey and Russia is expected to amount to 40 billion USD in one year after removal of visa procedures. The implementation is also expected to make a significant rise in number of Turkish and Russian tourists. The deal paves the for 30 days of visa-free travel within a 90-day period.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Kuansing: Vote Sparks Violence: Church Burned, Damage to Electoral Commission Headquarters
The ballot for the office of mayor sparks a street revolt. Thousands of people attack a Christian place of worship. Today, thousands of police in riot gear restore calm, but tension remains. Catholic priest says attacks caused by elections, not sectarian.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — A Christian church set on fire and an office of the Electoral Commission seriously damaged. This is the outcome of a revolt that took place yesterday in the district of Kuantan Singing — alias Kuansing — on the island of Sumatra, that broke out following the results of local elections. The political struggle between the main warring parties over the ballot, turned into an open clash after the announcement of the winner for the office of mayor. Even today, the tension remains high, the authorities have deployed a large group of police to prevent further violence.
Yesterday afternoon an angry mob, made up of thousands of people stormed and set fire to a Christian church — it is not known whether Catholic or Protestant — and the headquarters of the Electoral Commission of Kuansing district, Riau province, Sumatra island, west of the Indonesian archipelago. The street clashes, the news that the favourite to take over running the city had been defeated on the ballot.
The tension in the area remains high and only the deployment today of thousands of police in riot gear is preventing new clashes. Hundreds of people are afraid and do not intend to return to their homes. Restiawan, police chief Kuansing, excludes the possibility that the burning of the church is due to sectarian issues. “The defeat of their leader — says the official — has created discontent among the groups of supporters.”
The ballot for the mayor’s office only had two pairs of candidates: the first formed by the head of the Kuansing district Sukarmis, and his deputy Zulkifli. Their challengers are Sukarmis’ current deputy, Mursini, and an local parliamentary named Gumpita.
Fr. Leo Mali, head of the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara province, strongly condemned “the anarchy that caused the destruction of the church in Kuansing” and accuses the state of not knowing how to apply the law to punish those guilty. A resident of the area affected by the violence, on condition of anonymity, added that “80 families living near the burned church do not have the courage to return to their homes.”
Speaking to AsiaNews Fr Anton Konseng Pr explains that it is still unknown whether the church belongs to a Catholic or Protestant community, because “the place is in a remote location, hours of travel are needed to reach it.” He adds that the violence “has nothing to do with inter-religious harmony in the regency, but was triggered by dissatisfaction with the election results.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Sleeper Agent Kills 10 in Attack on Afghan Base
KABUL, Afghanistan — Like hundreds of thousands of Afghan men, he volunteered in the national army, ran drills in the mud, carried an automatic rifle and worked alongside coalition mentors struggling against a hardcore insurgency.
But he was not one of them.
On Saturday, he walked into a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in the eastern province of Laghman and detonated a vest of explosives hidden underneath his uniform.
Five NATO troopers, four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter were killed in the deadliest sleeper agent assault.
Four Afghan soldiers and three interpreters were wounded in Saturday’s attack.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing and said the soldier was a sleeper agent who joined the army a month ago, a contention confirmed by an Afghan army official.
“Today, when there was a meeting going on between Afghan and foreign soldiers, he used the opportunity to carry out the attack,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email to reporters.
Attacks by insurgents donning security uniforms are a relatively rare but recurrent problem as NATO and Afghan forces work more closely together. Afghanistan’s security forces also are ramping up recruitment of Afghan soldiers and policemen so they can take the lead in securing their nation by the end of 2014, adding more than 70,000 police and soldiers last year in an effort to reach 305,000 troopers by the end of this year.
Afghan security forces are supposed to be vetted by past employers or even village elders, but in a country where unemployment is about 35 percent, the literacy rate is about 28 percent, and computerized record-keeping is a novelty, background checks are often rudimentary.
The explosion took place at 7:30 a.m., as many people on the base were beginning the morning shift and as NATO and Afghan service members conducted what military officials call a “key leader engagement” meeting, according to a NATO spokesman.
After the explosion, Blackhawk helicopters swooped down to carry the dead and wounded to hospitals.
Baz Mohammad Sherzad, the director for health in nearby Nangarhar province, said the bodies of four Afghan soldiers brought to a hospital in Jalalabad were too badly damaged to determine their military rank.
NATO is mum
NATO declined to provide further identifying information about its soldiers killed in the blast, pending notification of their next of kin.
In the wake of such attacks, often it’s not clear whether the shooter was an Afghan trooper who turned on his Western counterparts spontaneously or an insurgent who donned a uniform to infiltrate the base and attack from inside.
On Friday, a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up inside the Kandahar police headquarters complex, killing the top law enforcement officer in the restive southern province.
Earlier this month, a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform shot dead two American military personnel tasked with helping train members of the country’s security forces in Faryab province.
In February, an Afghan soldier shot and killed three German soldiers and wounded six others in the northern province of Baghlan.
Until Saturday, the worse case of a sleeper agent attack was in November, when an Afghan border policeman shot to death six American soldiers before he himself was shot to death in the eastern province of Nangahar. The policeman had been in the force for three years and had accompanied American troopers for about three months when he opened fire on them.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Uzbekistan: Tashkent Punishes Those Who Lend or Give Bibles to Children
Police intimidation and a stern warning to a Baptist Church that gives money to children. A woman who gifts a bible to a friend fined more than 4 years’ salary. 3 Islamic clerics who are studying in Arab countries “dismissed”.
Tashkent (AsiaNews/F18) — Beatings and a strong penalty for the Christian Baptist Galina Shemetova from Tashkent who gave a Bible “for children” to a colleague. Meanwhile, the fear of the Jasmine Revolution sees authorities to harass three Muslim clerics.
In the summer of 2010 Shemetova gave the book to a colleague while they were at the Tashkent subway. For this she was denounced for “proselytism”, which is considered a serious offense.
Later April 1, the woman on, went to hospital for treatment, saying she had an accident at work. A witness told Forum 18 agency that “the underground police hit the woman on the head and dragged her by the hair to their car”. The local police, contacted by F18, denies any aggression, but recognizes that they stopped Shemetova who began to “call for help for no reason”. They claimed that the Christian is a missionary and has violated the law. “
F18 found that there will be no investigations and recalls that the UN Committee against Torture denounces that violence and torture are “normal” in the country.
Also on 1 April, the Court of Tashkent ordered the Shemenova to pay a fine of 2,486,750 som, amounting to 1015 euro, 50 times the average monthly wage, saying she had made a clear attempt to proselytize.
The incident is not isolated. In the central region of Navoi , theBaptist Church Zarafshan, registered on August 15 decided to allocate 400 thousand som (160 euro) to the local children’s home, called “Happiness.” After that the Church sent its quarterly financial statement to authorities, on March 12 2011 the police raided its premises and the pastor received a written “warning” from the local prosecutor Khudayberdy Norkobilov for breach of an administrative rule, without any further explanation.
The State is particularly attentive to the activities of Muslims, perhaps for fear of the Jasmine Revolution. The authorities in February and March “dismissed” without explanation Najmiddin Hasanov, imam of the Jurabek mosque, Jabborali Nurmatov, also an imam in the capital, and Saidjamol Masayidov, deputy director of the Islamic Institute, all in Tashkent. The three clerics are studying in Arab countries. The state has full control of Islamic institutions and does not want the slightest risk of protests.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Protestant Mass in Public, Dozens of Arrests
(AGI) Beijing — The Chinese police arrested dozens of people taking part in a protestant mass in Beijing. The Shouwang Church mass was celebrated in public because the church was evicted from the customary place of worship.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Gags Economic Speech Too
In asking the multinational Unilever to forgo price rises on its products, the Chinese government has treated it exactly as it has treated detained artist Ai Weiwei. That is, the government has restrained Unilever’s ability to express itself freely.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Radiation Levels in Seawater at Crippled Fukushima Plant Jump 6,500 Times Above Legal Limit Ahead of New 5.9 Earthquake
Radiation levels have risen dramatically in seawater near the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, sparking fears of a new leak, according to the country’s government.
The announcement came ahead of a fresh 5.9-magnitude earthquake that hit the Kanto region, in the eastern part of the country on Saturday morning.
Ironically the new quake hit hours after the country’s nuclear safety agency ordered plant operators to beef up their quake alert systems to prevent a recurrence of the previous nuclear crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
N. Korea Slams Armed Attacks on ‘Sovereign State’ In Middle East
SEOUL, April 18 (Yonhap) — North Korea has voiced its opposition to the armed aggression of a sovereign country under the pretext of an anti-terror campaign, Pyongyang’s state media said Monday, in what appears to be thinly veiled accusations against the United States over the unfolding crisis in Libya.
A North Korean envoy has accused the U.S. of launching armed aggression against a sovereign country in the Middle East and killing its civilians, calling it an act of terrorism and a human rights violation, the Korean Central News Agency said, without naming the country in the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerian Presidential Results Show North-South Divide
Nigeria’s presidential election has been given an initial thumbs up by observers, but early indications on Sunday showed sharp divisions between the mainly Muslim north and mostly Christian south.
While President Goodluck Jonathan was the favorite going in to the race in Africa’s most populous nation, turnout appeared especially strong in the north, the stronghold of his main opponent, ex-military ruler Muhammadu Buhari.
Early results from various districts published by local newspapers showed Buhari performing well in the north and Jonathan strong in the south, raising the possibility of a runoff between the two.
Given the size of Nigeria — a country of some 150 million people — it remained too early to draw any firm conclusions on Saturday’s vote. The electoral commission has said it intends to release full results within 48 hours after the end of voting in Africa’s largest oil producer.
“There’s good news in this Nigerian presidential election: we’re counting actual votes and people are interested in the count,” said Chidi Odinkalu of the Open Society Justice Initiative NGO. “And quite bad news: the country is badly divided, north vs. south.”
It is a scenario many analysts had hoped to avoid in a country as fractious as Nigeria, a nation of some 250 ethnic groups and roughly divided in half between Christians and Muslims. In the months leading up to the polls, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party sought to heal internal rifts over whether it should abandon Jonathan, a southern Christian, in favor of a candidate from the north.
Jonathan, the first president from the oil-producing Niger Delta region, won out in the end, but bitterness remained. Many in the north saw Buhari as their chance to return power to their economically marginalized region.
A crowd of hundreds loudly greeted Buhari when he arrived at his polling place in his hometown of Daura on the edge of the Sahara, with some climbing on a rooftop to see him and yelling “Allahu Akbar!” After voting, Buhari alleged there had been reports of electoral fraud.
Several newspapers on Sunday highlighted the regional divisions early results were showing. ThisDay newspaper reported that the early results “were reflective of the sectional divide between the north and south, with voters from both sides casting their votes along regional and religious lines.”
A candidate must do more than carry the most votes to be declared the winner, with the constitutional spelling out that one-quarter of the ballots in at least two-thirds of the states must also be captured.
If that is not achieved, a runoff is to be held, which would throw Nigeria into a scenario it has not experienced since the end of military rule in 1999. The ruling PDP has handily won every presidential vote since then. The election was a bid by Nigeria to hold its cleanest polls for head of state in nearly two decades after a series of violent and deeply flawed ballots.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
“We Are Europe’s Border”, Says Ventimiglia Mayor
(AGI) Ventimiglia — The mayor of Ventimiglia (Liguria) said that “Italy should not be left on its own, we are Europe’s border”. The number of demonstrators demanding freedom of movement in the EU for Tunisian migrants has grown in front of Ventimiglia’s train station. “It seems like a peaceful protest to me,” mayor Gaetano Scullino stated, “I think the free movement of refugees is a European result”. “I hope that all European countries do their part to face this current emergency,” he added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
All Trains to France From Ventimiglia Canceled
(AGI) Ventimiglia — All trains leaving for France from Ventimiglia railway station have been suspended due to protests. Some 250 protesters, including staff from social service centers and immigrants, have gathered around the station in southern Italy to call for the free circulation of Tunisian refugees in Europe. Dozens of travelers going abroad from the station are now stuck.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Asylum Visas Delayed Six Months on Christmas Island
TWO Sri Lankan asylum seekers locked in the Christmas Island Detention Centre had their visas applications delayed for six months because they had not been properly logged and authorities did not realise they were there.
This is just one of the bungles found during an investigation into Australia’s failing detention procedures.
Sources from within Christmas Island’s North West Point facility say the two Sri Lankan men fell off the centre’s internal system after arriving by boat last year..
“There’s just so many things going wrong. There’s no oversight. The government wouldn’t have a clue of half the stuff that’s happening,” one centre worker said. “There’s no continuity for anybody.”
The immigration department said it was unaware of the incident, but workers are adamant the men were overlooked for months last year and the mistake was just one of many bungles that have beset the isolated detention centre.
The Commonwealth Ombudsman announced an investigation into claims excessive force was used during last month’s riot and senior politicians privately admit they are struggling with asylum issue.
The Daily Telegraph spent four days on the island last week, and discovered a community deeply troubled by the centre.
Workers claim the island’s three main detention camps are dysfunctional, beset with allegations of sexual abuse, violence, theft and inhumane conditions spoiling the once peaceful phosphate rich island paradise.
Staff say:
- A 13-YEAR-OLD INDONESIAN who bailed water on a illegal boat arrival has been detained at the centre for more than seven months and had no contact with his family despite him wanting to return home. the department refused to say how many other unaccompanied minors were on the island.
- DETAINEES are regularly flown to the mainland for medical treatment, despite claims they would never set foot on Australia without appropriate visas.
- THE FACILITIES have been rocked by numerous complaints of sexual assaults, although the immigration department says none have been substantiated.
Last month a 23-year-old man at the Phosphate Hill camp used to house young males complained he’d been raped by fellow detainees. Police were called but the investigation dropped after the man withdrew the complaint.
- A MANAGER at one of the island’s three main detention sites left after complaints of sexual harassment.
- TRAUMATISED GUARDS with limited training say they are dealing with attempted suicides at the island’s three main detention facilities at a rate of about three a week.
- DETAINEES including children are kept in crowded dormitories with limited access to outside space.
- INFLATION on the island is rampant, with locals blaming government departments for spiralling rents and food prices . The department denies its caused the inflation but says “It’s important to remember there are also significant economic benefits for the local economy.”
- VALUABLE detainee belongings have gone missing from detention centre secure areas.
- THE LOCAL cricket club wants $100,000 a year to allow the detainees to use an oval adjacent to the camp on Phosphate Hill. The detainees were banned by the club — which doesn’t actually own the oval — from playing there after the clubrooms were broken into and alcohol stolen
- A DETAINEE shot with a so-called bean bag gun during last month’s riot remains in hospital with a severely injured leg.
- IMMIGRATION Department assistant secretary Fiona Andrew admitted to locals last month the Detention Centre was “tense” despite the removal of hundreds of detainees after the riot.
Kaye Bernard, who heads the island union and who regularly visits the centre, says the incidence of self harm in the centre is underreported.
“Officers are dealing with self harm occurring at a rate of one every couple of days and doing cut-downs regularly for suicide attempts. The cleaning staff are untrained in what’s known as biological cleans, meaning how to clean up blood,” Ms Bernard said. “ I welcome the Ombudsman’s review of the current situation that is occurring on this Island and across Australia.”
Over a week ago, the Australian Federal Police pulled down their main camp outside the NorthWest Point facility, in an apparent attempt to show detainees they’d withdrawn following last month’s riots.
Although police have moved away from the centre many remain on the island, discreetly housed just outside the island’s main township.
One detention centre worker said more trouble is expected.
“There’s some bad things going on in there. There’s detainees that intimidate others, there’s been sexual assaults. They spend a lot of time on the phones. I had one bloke tell me to get a room ready for his sister. He knew she was coming on a boat,” one worker at the facility said.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Fewer in Ventimiglia After Passage to France
(AGI) Ventimiglia -About 150 Tunisian immigrants spent the night in the provisional reception centre in Ventimiglia, fewer than in the past few days. Some of them have left Italy and gone to France after being granted a residence permit. This morning many Tunisians were in line in front of the police station for their permits.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France Blocks Train From Italy With Migrants
ROME — A train carrying Tunisian immigrants from Italy was halted at the French border Sunday in an escalation of an international dispute over the fate of North African migrants fleeing political unrest for refuge in Europe.
But France blamed what it said were hundreds of activists on the train planning a demonstration in France, and posing a problem to public order. Traffic was re-established by evening — but not before Italy lodged a formal protest.
“At no time was there a … closing of the border between France and Italy,” French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henri Brandet said. It was an “isolated problem,” he said by telephone, “an undeclared demonstration.”
He estimated that up to 10 trains may have been affected, five on each side.
There was no immediate Italian reaction to the French explanation late Sunday.
Italy has been giving temporary residence permits to many of the roughly 26,000 Tunisians who have gone to Italy to escape unrest in northern Africa in recent weeks. Many of the Tunisians have family ties or friends in France, the country’s former colonial ruler, and the Italian government says the permits should allow the Tunisians to go there under accords allowing visa-free travel among many European countries.
France says it will honor the permits only if the migrants prove they can financially support themselves and it has instituted patrols on the Italian border — unprecedented since the introduction of the Schengen travel-free zone — bringing in about 80 riot police last week. Germany has said it would do the same.
A spokesman for the Italian rail company, Maurizio Furia, told The Associated Press in Rome that the train carrying migrants and political activists who support them wasn’t allowed to pass into Menton, France, from the border station of Ventimiglia on Sunday.
Italy lodged a protest with the French government, calling the move “illegitimate and in clear violation of general European principles” the Italian Foreign Ministry said. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini ordered his envoy in Paris “to express the strong protest of the Italian government.”
The French Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.
However, France’s Interior Ministry insisted on the isolated nature of the problem and said that once the train was blocked, activists demonstrated on the train tracks in Vintimiglia, forcing the prefect there to take action because they were blocking traffic.
The ministry spokesman said the French rail authority and the prefect of France’s Alpes-Maritimes region, which governs the French border town of Menton, ordered the train blocked because activists planned an unauthorized demonstration once in France.
“France did not demand the closing of rail traffic between France and Italy. It was a consequence” of the activists plans which threatened public order, Brandet said.
The distinction is critical as tensions rise between Paris and Rome over the migrants.
European nations have been increasingly and bitterly sparring over the issue.
“We have given the migrants travel documents, and we gave everything (else) that is needed, and the European Commission recognized that, it has said that Italy is following the Schengen rules,” Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said in an interview on Italy’s Sky TG24 TV.
Visa-”free travel is legitimate for all those with the papers and who want to go to France,” said Maroni, a top officials of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, a main coalition partner of Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
While he has robustly backed pro-democracy movements in the Arab world, triggered by the Tunisian uprising, conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy is also trying to cut back on the number of migrants arriving in France, whose former colonies in North Africa already provide the majority of immigrants.
France and Italy agreed to joint sea-and-air patrols more than a week ago to block any new North African migrants from sailing to destinations including Italy’s southernmost point, the tiny Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. It is not clear when joint patrols would begin.
| — Hat tip: AC | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Asks France to Explain Decision to Stop Trains
(AGI) Rome — The Italian government has protested strongly against France’s decision to stop all trains from Ventimiglia, a provision that Foreign Minister Franco Frattini considers “illegal”. Frattini immediately instructed the Italian Ambassador to France to take all necessary diplomatic steps “to express Italy’s firm protest and ask for explanations regarding the aforementioned decisions that appear illegitimate and in clear violation of general european principles.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Fewer Asylum Requests Last Year, More Skilled Migrants
There were 15,150 requests for asylum made in the Netherlands last year, down 1,000 on 2009, according to new figures from the immigration service.
The number of requests from people wanting to join family members was also down slightly at 20,920, the figures show.
The new government is committed to reducing the number of asylum and family reunion applications.
Work permits
The figures also show the number of non-EU nationals applying for a permit to work in the Netherlands was down 6% at 3,300, while 10,530 people applied to come to the Netherlands to study, up 4% on 2009.
The number of people applying to live in the Netherlands under the highly-skilled migrants scheme was up 9% at 5,880.
Last year, the deportation service picked up or sent back 22,560 people of whom 52% can be proved to have gone back, the IND said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Protesters Occupy Railways in Ventimiglia
(AGI) Ventimiglia -Crying “freedom”, hundreds of protesters, blocked since this morning in Ventimiglia, have occupied the railway. The protesters, who are trying to reach France, accompanying the refugees to the border, have, as a group, occupied the tracks in the direction of France. The demonstrators have halted in the vicinity of a train crossing and are deciding how to proceed. It is not yet clear if they mean to reach the French border on foot, or if they will stop to stage a sit-in protest.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Romania Will Let 200 Tunisians From Italy Into the Country
(AGI) Bucharest — Romania is ready to let 200 Tunisian immigrants coming from Italy into the country, president Basescu said. “Berlusconi asked Europe for help, and this is Romania’s response”, President Traian Basescu said after notifying Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi of his decision.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Trains to France to Resume Running on Schedule Soon
(AGI) Paris — France will not change its rules on immigration and soon trains from Italy will be allowed into France,sources of the French Interior Ministry reported.The decision is due to the protests which broke out in the border city of Ventimiglia.
France has not changed its immigration policy,as it was stated ten days ago when Italy’s Interior Minister Maroni met with his French counterpart in Milan.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Immigration Blunders That Left This Gangland Thug Free to Kill Agnes
A man convicted of the murder of a brilliant schoolgirl who hoped to go to Oxford University was an illegal immigrant who was free to kill her following a series of blunders by immigration officials.
Mohammed Smoured, 21, was granted bail by an immigration judge and allowed to live with his elderly parents while appealing moves to deport him back to Algeria.
But when he lost his appeal hearing, UK Border Agency officials failed to lock him up in an immigration removal centre while awaiting deportation. The blunders meant Smoured was free to kill 16-year-old Agnes Sina-Inakoju as she stood innocently with friends in a takeaway — less than two miles from his parents’ home in Hackney, East London.
Agnes’s family have never been told Smoured was an illegal immigrant and on learning the news yesterday they accused UKBA of attempting to ‘cover up’ their ‘catastrophic mistakes’.
Speaking on the first anniversary of Agnes’s death, her older brother Abiola said: ‘I hold the immigration authorities partly to blame for my sister’s death. I want the immigration judge and UKBA to know how much my family have suffered since Agnes’s death.’
UKBA bosses last night admitted that it had made number of errors in the handling of the case and as a result were ‘implementing new training and guidelines’ for immigration officials.
Last week Smoured and fellow gang member Leon Dunkley, 22, were each sentenced to serve a minimum of 32 years in prison for murdering the schoolgirl as she was caught up in a feud between two gangs. Senior London Fields members Smoured and Dunkley cycled up to the Hoxton Chicken and Pizza takeaway in East London believing rival Hoxton Boys thugs would be inside.
Dunkley pulled out an Agram 2000 9mm submachine gun and fired through a window while Smoured acted as lookout.
Agnes was joking with two friends as she waited for a pizza inside the takeaway.
Harrowing CCTV footage showed her fall to the ground and roll over in agony while clutching her face.
Immediately afterwards, callous Smoured laughed and told his accomplice: ‘It was funny, the way she dropped.’ Agnes died in hospital 36 hours later.
Police later discovered four other deadly guns hidden by the gang under the bed of a nine-year-old boy.
Sentencing Smoured and Dunkley at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London, told them: ‘Not only did you take a life of a young woman of great promise but you have destroyed a family’s happiness.’
Smoured came to the UK from Algeria at the age of six with his family and failed to get any qualifications or a job. UKBA began deportation proceeding against him in August 2009 following his release from prison after serving a sentence for drug dealing and robbery.
UKBA claim they wanted to keep Smoured locked up while he appealed against deportation, but an immigration judge allowed him to return on bail to the tough Hackney estate where he previously lived.
The judge took the decision because he believed his elderly parents would be around to look after him.
In November 2009, Smoured had exhausted all his appeal rights and was no longer legally allowed to remain in the UK.
But UKBA agents failed to pick him up from his family’s home and transfer him to an immigration removal centre while he awaited deportation. Smoured was involved in the killing of Agnes just five months later.
UKBA bosses launched an investigation into the handling of the case and concluded errors had been made. But they did not inform Agnes’s family of its failings.
Tearful Abiola Inakoju, 32, said: ‘My family were not aware of any of this, we had no idea the immigration authorities made these mistakes.
‘It is very worrying we were not told about this. But I can see why they would want to cover it up.
‘Previously I blamed Smoured and Dunkley for my little sister’s death. Now I have the immigration authorities to blame as well.
‘If Dunkley did not have his friend with him that day it is unlikely he would have done the shooting alone, and Agnes would still be here.
‘Now I have to work out a way to tell my family that it was possible Agnes’s death could have been avoided.’
Agnes was the youngest of five children raised by their mother, Safurat, an NHS worker. Her father left when she was a toddler.
She attended Haggerston School in Hackney and was predicted A-grades in her GCSEs. She had ambitions to go to Oxford University and went to an open day there with friends just a week before she was murdered.
UKBA would not reveal the name of the immigration judge or the location of the hearing.
David Wood, UKBA Director of Criminality and Detention, said: ‘Mr Smoured is a serious criminal and we have been pursuing his deportation from the UK. He was released from immigration detention by the courts despite strong objections from the UK Border Agency.
‘We will seek to deport Mr Smoured at the end of his sentence.’
Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch, said: ‘This is a tragic consequence of not removing somebody quickly enough when they are not supposed to be in the country.
‘Once immigrants have exhausted all legal avenues open to them to remain in the country, they should be removed as quickly as possible.’
In 2003 failed asylum seeker Aso Mohammed Ibrahim killed Amy Houston, 12, in a hit-and-run in Blackburn after he was allowed to remain free while awaiting deportation.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Ventimiglia Sit-in, French Consulate Blocked Off
(AGI) Ventimiglia — A large number of Police, Carabinieri and Financial Police in anti-riot gear have been deployed in Ventimiglia. They are preventing demonstrators gaining access to the French Consulate in Via Hanbury, in Ventimiglia. Roughly 300 non-wage earners from social centres and Tunisian migrants are protesting against the closure of the border with France and the ban on the free movement of refugees in Europe.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Historian Says Gays Caused Downfall of Rome, Sparks Row
LONDON: A top Italian history professor has caused outrage after he claimed that the Roman Empire fell due to the rise of homosexuality.
Roberto De Mattei, 63, a devout Roman Catholic, had already raised eyebrows by saying the Japanese tsunami was “divine punishment”, and now with his latest claim he faces calls to resign.
“The collapse of the Roman Empire and the arrival of the Barbarians was due to the spread of homosexuality,” the Daily Mail quoted the vice-president of Italy’s prestigious Centre for National Research as saying in a radio interview.
“The Roman colony of Carthage was a paradise for homosexuals and they infected many others. The invasion of the Barbarians was seen as punishment for this moral transgression.” It is well-known that effeminate men and homosexuals have no place in the kingdom of God, he said. “Homosexuality was not rife among the Barbarians and this shows God’s justice throughout history,” De Mattei stated.
Fellow historians, gay rights groups and politicians expressed their outrage over the historian’s claims. “I have tabled an urgent call for the education minister to intervene,” Paola Concia, a lawmaker with the Democratic Left, said.
Italian homosexual groups said the professor’s comments were “based on superstition” and described them as ridiculous and outrageous”. The groups called on him to resign from his Rome-based post.
“It is highly improbable homosexuality led to the fall of the Roman Empire,” historian Emilio Gabba, a leading light in Roman history, said. However research would seem to suggest homosexuality was rife in ancient Rome, and it is widely portrayed in ancient Roman art and was seen as acceptable 2,000 years ago.
“There is no proof Rome had a high number of homosexuals. I can safely say Rome did not fall because it was gay,” Professor Lellia Cracco Ruggini, an expert on Roman history from Turin University, added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Be as Diverse as You Like as You Like, But Not Christian
The smiley slogan of our vast public sector is ‘Equality and Diversity’. At first sight, it seems hard to object to such aims. Who would favour inequality and intolerance?
But things are not always as they seem, and words do not always mean what they appear to. For it is under this very motto that a strange and disturbing campaign against the Christian faith has recently burst into the open.
A teacher, a registrar, a nurse, an airline worker, guest-house owners and would-be foster parents have all fallen foul of it, not to mention numerous preachers. And in each of these cases it is clear that Christianity alone has been selected for this treatment.
It is impossible to imagine the same forces being deployed against non-Christian faiths in identical positions.
And now we have the case of Colin Atkinson, an electrician who displays an eight-inch palm cross on the dashboard of his employers’ van.
He has been instructed by those employers — who are in the vast, semi-detached segment of the public sector that is accountable to nobody — to remove it or face disciplinary action.
They say that the cross may ‘offend’ people, or suggest that the organisation is Christian. It is hard to imagine what sort of person would or could be offended by an eight-inch palm cross inside someone else’s vehicle.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Persecuted for His Cross: Electrician Told He Faces the Sack for Christian Symbol on His Van Dashboard
But Colin Atkinson’s boss has a poster of Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara on the wall!
An electrician faces the sack for displaying a small palm cross on the dashboard of his company van.
Former soldier Colin Atkinson has been summoned to a disciplinary hearing by the giant housing association where he has been employed for 15 years because he refuses to remove the symbol.
Mr Atkinson, a regular worshipper at church, said: ‘The treatment of Christians in this country is becoming diabolical…but I will stand up for my faith.’
Throughout his time at work, he has had an 8in-long cross made from woven palm leaves attached to the dashboard shelf below his windscreen without receiving a single complaint.
But his bosses at publicly funded Wakefield and District Housing (WDH) in West Yorkshire — the fifth-biggest housing organisation in England — have demanded he remove the cross on the grounds it may offend people or suggest the organisation is Christian. Mr Atkinson’s union representative said he faces a full disciplinary hearing next month for gross misconduct, which could result in dismissal.
[…]
Speaking at his neat terrace house in Wakefield — where there is little evidence of his strong faith except for a Christian fish symbol alongside an array of family photographs — Mr Atkinson said he had suffered sleepless nights and had occasionally been reduced to tears.
He said his wife, who suffers from a muscular disease that has often confined her to a wheelchair, had also suffered from stress.
He added: ‘I found the meetings intimidating and a bit confrontational. I felt on the defensive. I came out thinking, “Why should I be on the defensive?”
‘I have, however, received overwhelming support from friends and rank-and-file colleagues, which has given me strength.
‘I can only think the company is motivated by fear of offending ethnic minorities.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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