Greece: Summer Sales Turnover Down by 25%
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, AUGUST 12 — Greek stores are reporting a 25% drop in turnover during the first 20 days of the summer sales, compared to the same period last year, while in the center of Athens the decrease is put at up to 40%, partly due to the two-and-a-half weeks of strike action by taxi owners. National Confederation of Greek Commerce (ESEE) data show that despite an average yearly drop in prices by 15%, sales have fallen by a quarter in the period from July 15 to August 3, which constitutes the highest ever annual decrease. It comes on top of a 15% decline last summer and a 20 percent fall in the summer of 2009. ESEE warns that this will likely lead to many shops being forced to close from September. Even department stores are showing a 7-10% drop in sales, while supermarkets have reported a 6-8% decline, as daily Kathimerini reported.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Investor Soros Blames Merkel for Euro Crisis
US investment guru George Soros has squarely blamed Germany for the escalation of Europe’s debt crisis — and in particular Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cautious approach.
“It was the German indecision that intensified the Greece crisis and led to the contagion that has transformed it into an existential crisis for Europe,” Soros wrote in a guest commentary for the business daily Handelsblatt on Friday.
Soros, who has long criticised Europe’s handling of the crisis, called for the introduction of jointly backed eurobonds — a call that has been made by many economists but resisted by Germany.
He wrote that it had been a mistake to try to back up individual countries such as Greece via bailouts rather than strengthen the European Union as a whole. Germany now had to take the lead, he added.
“Otherwise the euro will collapse.”
The current system of rescue packages for individual counties such as Greece was unsustainable. It meant Italy and Spain had to pay higher interest for their state debt than they were receiving from Greece for the emergency credit they supplied.
Merkel’s policy of small steps was too slow, he said.
Merkel has come under fire from several quarters for staying on holiday even as the stock markets gyrated wildly and deep concern emerged over France’s creditworthiness.
“Stockmarket tremors, eurodrama: why is the Chancellor silent?” asked daily Bild this week.
Merkel will meet on Tuesday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris to hammer out a new plan to tackle the euro crisis.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Calls Cabinet Meeting to Forge Agreement on New Austerity Measures
Rome, 12 August (AKI) — Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi Friday summoned his cabinet for a meeting to hammer out agreement between its various members on tough a new austerity plan aimed at balancing Italy’s budget by 2013 and stimulating growth.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at 7 pm local time (1700 GMT) Berlusconi’s office said in a statement.
Higher taxes; reforms to the pension system including raising the retirement age, the privatisation of municipal services and laws to ease hiring and firing of workers in Italy’s rigid labour market are among possible measures outlined Thursday to lawmakers by economy minister Giulio Tremonti.
Tremonti said the measures would be approved by the cabinet on 16 August in a decree, but the austerity plan aimed at fast-tracking an extra 20 billion euros of spending cuts to mend Italy’s ailing public finances, has drawn criticism from within the conservative coalition government.
Berlusconi’s key ally Umberto Bossi, leader of Italy’s federalist Northern League party and junior coalition partner, opposes cuts to pensions and has warned the government risks a “crisis” over pension reforms.
Bossi, who is Italy’s reforms minister, said he and his party would also oppose any taxes targeting private savings.
Bossi and centre-left opposition politicians criticised Tremonti’s address for its lack of detail but one specific measure Tremonti signalled could be introduced immediately is a hike in tax on financial income (from 12.5 percent to 20 percent).
The Northern League’s voter base is the middle class and small business people in the prosperous north of Italy.
Meanwhile, four lawmakers belonging to Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party issued a joint statement saying they would not vote for the fast-tracked austerity measures in parliament.
The government unveiled an austerity package in July containing 48 billion euros of spending cuts. But the European central bank had to intervene earlier this month to prop up turbulent markets and prevent Italy and Spain’s borrowing costs spiralling out of control amid fears they could be infected by the eurozone debt crisis.
In return Berlusconi announced the extra austerity measures to balance Italy’s budget by 2013 instead of 2014 as the government had planned.
Italy’s massive 1.9 trillion euro public debt amounts to 120 percent of gross domestic product, second only to Greece’s in the eurozone.
Earlier this week, the European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet called on Italy and Spain to hasten their return to “normal” budgetary situations.
Trichet, said he had asked Italy “in a very clear way these past few days” to take action on its budget deficit. Tremonti has pledged to reduce this from 3.9 percent of national income in 2011 to 1.5 -1.7 percent before reaching zero in 2013,
Italy’s opposition and the largest trade union federation, CGIL, have both rejected Tremonti’s plans.
Italy’s opposition leader Pierluigi Bersani Thursday rejected a proposal by Tremonti backed earlier by Berlusconi to make a balanced budget part of Italy’s constitution, claiming this would impose “unrealistic” policy constraints.
CGIL threatened strike action if the thrust of the government measures targeted ordinary workers by focusing on cuts to spending and benefits.
It has called on the government to boost revenue through a wealth tax — a measure opposed by Berlusconi, who is one of Italys’ richest men — and by clamping down on tax evasion and increasing capital-gains taxes.
Italy’s president Giorgio Napolitano during a meeting late Thursday in Rome with Berlusconi and Tremonti urged the widest possible consultation the austerity measures to be decreed next week.
“All of Italy’s social and political forces should be aware of their shared reponsibilities at this current, most delicate of moments,” Napolitano stated.
A cabinet decreed must be voted into law by the Italian parliament within three months after it is issued.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Formigoni — Local Authority Cuts 6 Bln 2012 & 3 Bln 2013
(AGI) Rome — Roberto Formigoni said that government cuts to local authorities “will be 6 billion in 2012 and 3 billion in 2013.” The President of Lombardy spoke during a press conference at Palazzo Chigi following his meeting with the government. Formigoni explained that the lower figure for 2012 will be distributed as follows: cuts of 1.7 billion for municipalities, 0.7 billion for provinces, 1.6 billion for ordinary statute regions and 2 billion for special statute regions.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi: Measures to Cut Cost of Politics Excessive
(AGI) Rome — Berlusconi said several measures aimed at reducing the cost of politics were included in the emergency budget plan. Speaking at a press conference in Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister said that the planned measures may be “even in excess of what is actually needed, but we responded to the requests of our citizens who believe that politicians’ incomes are too high”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Milan Shares Rally After Turbulent Week Across Europe
EU regulator imposes two-week ban on short-selling
(ANSA) — Rome, August 13 — Shares prices rallied in Milan and other European markets on Friday after a turbulent week amid rumors about France’s stability, see-sawing spreads on Italian bonds and soaring gold prices.
Milan closed the week a strong 4% higher with its benchmark FTSE Mib index at 15,888 points, after falling below 15,000 points midweek.
The market closed ahead of an emergency cabinet meeting called by Premier Silvio Berlusconi late Friday to discuss urgent measures to avert the country’s financial crisis.
Shares in Paris jumped 4.02% while in Frankfurt they gained 3.45% and climbed 3.04% in London.
Friday’s gains were in large part due to a decision by the European Union market regulator ESMA to impose a two-week ban on short-selling.
The practice enables investors to make quick profits by dumping select shares on the market to drive their prices down before buying more of them back at a lower price to then profit when their values return to normal levels.
Short-selling is also suspected of being behind false rumors aimed at driving down share and bond prices in order to buy them on the cheap.
The ban was to affect markets in Italy, France, Belgium and Spain and decided together with market watchdogs in those countries.
Meanwhile, new figures released on Friday by the Bank of Italy, the central bank, showed that Italy’s public debt reached a new record in June at over 1,900 billion euros — the third consecutive monthly increase. Milan, like most key markets in Europe, opened higher and then retreated before soaring by more than 4%, after better-than-expected retail sales in the United States.
However, gains across Europe shrunk temporarily after a report showed that US consumer confidence in August fell to its lowest level since May 1980.
Milan’s performance this week was influenced by the Italian government’s moves to speed up plans to balance the budget by 2013 and not 2014 as previously decided.
However, its impact on trading was short-lived and the market see-sawed as the government repeatedly kept moving up the issuing of a decree containing measures needed to raise some 45 billion euros, expected to be raised through spending cuts and higher taxes.
The decree was originally expected in September but since market volatility and concern about bond spreads was driving up Italy’s borrowing costs, it is now expected to be issued following the cabinet meeting late Friday.
It will take immediate effect but must be approved by parliament within 60 days.
Uncertainty over Italy’s ability to pay its debt drove its borrowing rate to record highs during the week with the spread between yield on its 10-year treasury bonds and those issued by Germany soaring to a record 407 points, before falling below 300 points later in the week and slipping below 270 points on Friday.
Instability on international markets this send gold to over $1,800 an ounce but on Thursday it fell back to some $1,750 and more or less stayed there on Friday In order to stabilise markets in Europe, the European Central Bank intervened several times this week to buy bonds issued by those countries targeted by speculation over their risk of default.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rome Stands to Lose Eur270m in Budget Cuts, Mayor Says
(AGI) Rome — Rome mayor Alemanno ranks the effects of budget cuts on Rome at 270m euro. Speaking at close of roundtable meetings between government and mayors, Gianni Alemanno described the cuts as “totally unacceptable”. Alemanno went on to say “we [the mayors] have asked government to find ways of securing the required savings foregoing such a heavy toll on services and welfare. [Finance] Minister Tremonti explained that the budget cuts are part of express requests by the European Union; there has been such requests with regards to higher taxation.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dozens of Teens Detained After Philadelphia’s Earlier Curfew
Philadelphia (CNN) — Philadelphia police picked up 50 juveniles for violating the city’s beefed-up curfew which took effect Friday night, authorities said Saturday.
The City of Brotherly Love is cracking down after a rash of teen violence by roving mobs. Late Friday, there were no signs of trouble, police spokesman Ray Evers told CNN.
“It definitely made a tremendous difference,” he said, referring to the curfew.
Police patrolled the two areas under curfew, including downtown areas popular with locals and tourists during the Friday night curfew. The 50 teens are among the first charged with violating the newly strengthened city ordinance, which forbids anyone under 18 from being out on the street after 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays in two locations: Center City, in the downtown area, and University City, the west Philadelphia neighborhood where the University of Pennsylvania is located.
An hour after the curfew took effect, police had taken 22 juveniles between the ages of 14 and 17 into custody, Evers said.
All 50 minors were cited with a code violation for breaking the curfew, and were not allowed to leave the police precinct until they were picked up by a parent or guardian. All 50 were picked up by Saturday morning, Evers said.
Mayor Michael Nutter announced the earlier curfew following a string of mob attacks by young people alerted to gatherings via email and social media.
“It’s a growing problem in this country,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey said Friday.
Nutter delivered tough remarks in a church sermon last weekend that has received international attention — a blunt, no-excuses scolding that coincided with the start of the England riots.
An African-American, Nutter noted that those involved in the Philadelphia attacks are predominantly black and said their behavior damaged themselves and their race.
He upheld religious values, underscored the importance of parental discipline and lambasted absentee parents, particularly fathers, for neglecting and not keeping watch over their children.
Nutter’s measures target both young attackers and their parents or legal guardians.
He signed an order temporarily moving the curfew up an hour on Fridays and Saturdays for everyone under the age of 18 in the two targeted enforcement districts.
Throughout the rest of the city, the curfew will remain 10 p.m. for those under the age of 13 and midnight for minors between ages 13 and 18.
“Minors who are caught breaking curfew will be sent home, brought home or transported to a police station where their parents will be contacted. Minors may be issued a citation with a $100 to $300 fine for a first offense,” the city said in a news release.
If parents don’t come for their child “within a reasonable time, police will contact the Department of Human Services to start an investigation.”
Parents will receive a notice for first violations, and will be fined up to $500 for successive violations. They are also subject to imprisonment for up to 90 days for repeat curfew violation offenses, according to the city.
In addition, parents “whose child under the age of 18 is found liable or guilty by a court for injury, theft or other criminal acts” will be liable to the person who suffered
| — Hat tip: Paul Green | [Return to headlines] |
Future of Fox News in Jeopardy
A former competitor of Rupert Murdoch is coming to the defense of the media mogul, saying that he is “at the top of the ‘Most Wanted’ list of every Socialist/Communist activist in the world today” and that the demise of his media empire would do terrible damage to conservatism and Western civilization.
Murdoch, who is 80 years old, is chairman and CEO of News Corporation, the world’s leading publisher of English-language newspapers and their on-line affiliates. Fox News Channel in the U.S. is one of its leading subsidiaries.
Alan M. Metcalfe, Chairman/CEO of Safe Worlds TV in Australia, says that the hounds are still “barking for Rupert Murdoch’s blood” but hopes they will not ultimately succeed in destroying his worldwide media organization. He also hopes that Murdoch’s son, James, the heir apparent at News Corporation, is “looking, listening, and learning at this important time in his family’s long and illustrious history.”
James Murdoch is considered the more liberal of Murdoch’s two sons and has been handling Asian and European operations for the company. Some unsubstantiated reports suggest that he is at the center of the telephone hacking scandal and that he could be forced to resign.
Conservatives hope that James Murdoch understands that the “progressives” that he has tried to cultivate as friends and associates are out to undermine the company.
On August 9, so-called “progressives” arranged an on-line discussion to accelerate the campaign against Fox News. Hosted by Robert Greenwald, producer of the film, Outfoxed, the participants were:
- Cenk Uygur — Co-founder of The Young Turks and former MSNBC host
- Eli Pariser — MoveOn.org
- Ellen Brodsky — News Hounds
- Ilyse Hogue — Senior Advisor to Media Matters
- James Rucker — Co-founder of ColorofChange.org
- Janeane Garofalo — Actor/Comedian
- Katrina vanden Heuvel — Editor of The Nation
- Axel Caballero — Founder/Producer of Cuéntame
One of their complaints about the Fox News Channel was that various anchors and guests had cited documentation about President Obama’s socialist opinions and connections. Another was that Fox News had highlighted the extreme views of Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright. One of the participants, James Rucker, and his organization were credited with “getting Glenn Beck off the air.”
News Corporation can, of course, defend itself. But the comments of Metcalfe, an Australian, are significant, since he describes himself as having been “a very small-time competitor in the marketplace” with Murdoch, who began his career in Australia. Metcalfe greatly appreciates what Murdoch has done for conservative causes around the world and has a global perspective on the crisis affecting the media company. His comments appeared in an article entitled, “Rupert Murdoch—another perspective.”
He explains, “God only knows where the world would be, in my opinion, without Fox News and his other media ventures. I am fully aware that his acquisitions can be described as very smart business decisions, especially Fox News. He has obviously made a lot of money out of this and others, however, when we say this, we must acknowledge the considerable political heat that Mr. Murdoch has taken; which is difficult for any publisher to ignore. Hiring and keeping Glenn Beck on the air, as long as he did, will probably go down in publishing history as one of the truly game breaking decisions in the history of political media. Without Beck on Fox News, the Tea Party movement would almost certainly not have been as successful as it has been; and for this, I have to say that America and the world should be very grateful.”
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Denmark: Controversial Street Artist Assaulted After Exhibition Opening
Shepard Fairey, the American street artist who spent last week putting up murals across the city, was reportedly assaulted at the after-party of his exhibition opening last Friday.
The incident happened in the nightclub Kødboderne 18 in Vesterbro’s meatpacking district close to the art gallery V1 were his exhibition ‘Your Ad Here’ had opened that evening.
According to Euroman blogger Kristoffer Dahy Ernst, two young men twice assaulted the artist outside the nightclub when the after party had closed.
“I saw it first out of the corner of my eye. Fairey and his assistant being attacked by two young men,” he wrote.
After the first attack, the alleged assailants returned several minutes later and continued their assault before being separated a second time.
“The two young men disappeared. Fairey’s eye had doubled in size. He was hit several times in the face.”
While the identity of the attackers is unknown, controversy erupted during Fairey’s visit when he painted a mural on a building beside the demolished youth house (Ungdomshuset) at Jagtvej 69 in Nørrebro.
Local artists added a riot scene to the bottom half of Fairey’s mural (Photo: 2200n.dk)
Bearing the image of a dove, the word ‘peace’ and the number 69 — the symbol for the demolished building and the left-wing anarchist community associated with it — the six-storey mural was vandalised less than two days after it was erected.
A compromise was struck later in the week between Fairey and members of the youth house — many of whom were upset that Fairey received money from the city council who did not prevent their eviction from, and subsequent demolition of, Ungdomshuset — in which artists connected to the Ungdomshuset were invited to decorate the lower portion of the mural.
The resulting mural has retained Fairey’s dove, but now painted beneath it is a scene with riot police, a helicopter and explosions, accompanied with the text, ‘nothing forgotten, nothing forgiven’.
| — Hat tip: The Midget | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Rubbish Firms to Process Italian Waste
Dutch waste processing firms have signed a deal to deal with 248,000 tonnes of rubbish from the Italian city of Naples, news agency ANP reports on Friday.
The contract is worth €12m, a spokesman for the waste processors association confirmed.
The deal is a win win situation because Dutch processors have surplus capacity and there is a shortage of capacity in Italy, the spokesman said.
The waste will be brought to the Netherlands by ship next month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Giving Beer a Home in the Rhineland
Traditional beers are experiencing a renaissance among German drinkers. Alexander Bakst takes a tour of the Rhineland to compare Kölsch and Alt, two regional brews steeped in history and ancient rivalry.
Cologne and Düsseldorf might be situated a mere 40 kilometres apart along the Rhine River, but spiritually they exist in different galaxies.
The two cities’ fierce regional rivalry extends to Karneval parades, football, and, of course, beer.
Whereas Cologne is all about drinking golden Kölsch in dainty glasses, Düsseldorf prefers the more ale-like favour of darker Alt.
To avoid ridicule while touring the Rhineland, caution is advised. A customer trying to order a glass of Alt beer in a Cologne pub will earn scorn and mockery from waiters and patrons alike. Conversely, asking for some Kölsch in a Düsseldorf locale is a sure-fire way of becoming the butt of many jokes for the rest of the night.
“It’s a kind of love-hate relationship,” says Dirk Rouenhoff, master brewer at Schlüssel, a traditional brewery in Düsseldorf’s historic centre. “Ultimately, it’s something amusing that provides plenty of conversational fodder as well as funny anecdotes. And it can be a useful gimmick in advertising campaigns.”
The best example is a now-infamous billboard that adorned the streets of Düsseldorf last year. Früh, Cologne’s third-largest beer brand by sales volume, depicted an empty Kölsch glass alongside the caption, “Before it gets old” — a stinging pun on “alt,” the German word for “old” as well as the beer. Another ad agency quickly pushed back in the name of Düsseldorf’s brewers with a campaign claiming “Alt knallt,” which translates loosely as “Alt is the bomb.”
In fact, Früh’s disparaging comment about Alt doesn’t reflect the reality of how it is brewed. Rather than describing the age of the beer itself, the name refers to the old style of brewing that dates back to the days before Germans discovered lager. Around the mid-nineteenth century, brewers in Düsseldorf began using the same malts found in modern pale lagers but retained the old method of using warm, top-fermenting yeast that is also used to brew ales in England.
One beer to bind them
Strict adherence to unique traditions is a trait of both Alt and Kölsch, and it’s something that German beer drinkers have come to appreciate again in recent years.
“We’ve been experiencing a huge boom over the past six to seven years,” says Andree Vrana, master brewer at Malzmühle, the Cologne brewery whose waiters — or “Köbes” as they are called locally — once served former US President Bill Clinton a glass of Kölsch.
“These days, large breweries are closing or consolidating faster than small ones are opening,” Vrana says. He suspects that the trend amounts to a widespread repudiation of the “standard-issue taste” of manufactured beer. “The big breweries try to make one flavour for all, but what people really want is something special.”
Mühlen Kölsch does indeed have a special taste that is not everyone’s cup of tea, or glass of beer as the case may be. Through the use of natural hops, lower attenuation levels and the addition of extra hops towards the end of the brewing process, Mühlen has a definitive malty taste and what Vrana calls a “subtle floral aroma.” The recipe has made this Kölsch variety a Cologne staple that dates back to 1858 and sells around 38,000 hectolitres annually today.
Although the three largest Kölsch breweries — Reissdorf, Gaffel and Früh — control roughly 60 percent of the Cologne beer market, smaller breweries such as Malzmühle still manage to turn a comfortable profit. From a purely commercial point of view, however, they are unable to compete with industrial producers selling their beer at low prices through economies of scale.
This economic logic also applies to Düsseldorf’s breweries. Due to their relatively small output, production costs and staff payrolls make up a much larger share of the bottom line. In return, customers have to be willing to pay more for a glass of their favourite brew.
“There is a simple explanation for this: Consumers want to know where their beer is coming from,” Rouenhoff says. “Beer needs a home.”
The dark side
But which beer tastes better? Kölsch is generally a light, clear and refreshing beer with a more or less noticeable hops note depending on the brand. Although Alt also uses top-fermenting yeast, the Düsseldorf varieties have a darker brown colour that contrasts with the pale yellow hue of Kölsch.
“[Alt] is in every way stronger than Kölsch,” Rouenhoff says. “Because you can taste the roasted malt and because it uses more hops.” Roasted malt also lends the beer a particular flavour that isn’t found in Kölsch varieties. “It has a very mild flavour,” Rouenhoff says diplomatically while trying not to offend his colleagues in Cologne.
But as fellow craftsmen, the two cities’ brewers are less concerned with the ongoing regional rivalry.
“Of course there are differences between Düsseldorf and Cologne, but the breweries don’t participate in that much,” says Tobias Heller, sales manager at Füchsen, another traditional brewery in Düsseldorf.
At the same time, Heller claims the people of Düsseldorf are more open to other beers than their neighbours downriver. “Folks in Cologne are really obsessed with their beer,” he says. As proof, Heller points out that there is a Kölsch bar in Düsseldorf but no Alt pub in Cologne.
But perhaps the availability of Kölsch in the city of Alt also says something about Düsseldorf’s beer.
“The pub is mainly popular with women who don’t enjoy drinking Alt because of its strong tartness,” Heller says. “In the end, it all comes down to personal taste.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
History’s Lessons for Europe
Time, 12 August 2011
“The decline and fall of Europe” is Time magazine’s fearsome headline. “Its economic union is unravelling, London is ablaze, and the continent’s once dependable trading partner the US is too feeble to save the day — or the euro,” the US magazine reports. “Say goodbye to the old order.”
“The EU has created a single currency, but it hasn’t forged a deeper political or fiscal union,” the magazine continues. Opinions differ on whether to centralize further or break up the EU. There are historic precedents for both: look how the Russian ruble fell apart when “economic discrepancies became too great” between ex-Soviet countries who tried to keep using it after the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand, remember the Exchange Rate Mechanism crisis in 1992, which prompted many European countries to move “towards closer economic integration”? Whichever way, “the crisis reveals the choice and the choice has to be made.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Barbara Berlusconi Says She’s in Love With Brazilian Striker Boyfriend
Rome, 10 August (AKI) — Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter Barbara has claimed in a magazine interview that she is in love with her current boyfriend, the 21-year-old Brazilian striker Alexandre Pato.
“This relationship is not a moment of madness. I would never be together with someone I wasn’t in love with,” 26-year-old Barbara told Italian Vanity Fair’s Wednesday edition.
“Alexandre is a person it’s wonderful to share things with,” said Barbara, who is a board member of Italy’s Serie A team AC Milan, which her father owns and Pato plays for.
Barbara and Pato’s relationship is believed to have begun around the time Barbara became an AC Milan board member, but she said she had no qualms about it.
“I feel like a normal young woman who has fallen for a man who attracts her. I don’t consider it a moral issue or one of status,” she told Vanity Fair.
Both Barbara and Pato have been married and Barbara has two young sons, Alessandro and Eduardo with her estranged husband Giorgio Valaguzza.
Her separation from her husband at the start of the year was “painful for all concerned,” Barbara said, but she claimed she had grown apart from Valguzza, who she had been with since she was 16 and he was 22.
“I think that over time our characters and aspirations developed, and ten years on, we found we were more mature but more distant,” Barbara stated.
She declined to comment on the alimony problems Pato has been reportedly having with his ex-wife.
“I’d prefer not to talk about that. Our romantic pasts are important to both of us, but we are just taking things one day at a time,” she said.
Barbara is the oldest of three children her father had with his second wife Veronica Lario. She is a board member of her billionaire media magnate father’s Fininvest company.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Five Somali Men Jailed for Piracy
Five Somali nationals have been jailed for up to seven years for piracy by a court in Rotterdam.
The public prosecution department had called for sentences of up to 10 years for the leaders of the gang. The five have been held in Dutch jails since last November.
Two of the men, sentenced to seven and six years in jail, were found guilty of involvement in the hijacking of a South African sailing yacht last year in the Gulf of Aden and holding three people hostage. One was rescued but the other two, a couple from Durban, are still missing.
The court commented that pirates are becoming increasingly professional and violent because their actions often ‘deliver a lot of money’.
The trial took place in the Netherlands because the pirates were picked up by a Dutch naval vessel.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Lloret De Mar Declares War on Wild Nightlife
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 12 — After nights of violence, clashes between groups of young tourists and the police and a number of arrests, the Catalan coastal town of Lloret de Mar, in the province of Girona, has declared war on low-cost nightlife. Alcohol-fuelled tourism by groups of youngsters is the cause of the greatest concern, with almost half a million people from across Europe descending every year on the town, some 60 kilometres east of Barcelona. Known as the Ibiza of the Costa Brava, Lloret de Mar has developed a reputation for nightclub binging.
A few nights ago, violence flared outside a night club, resulting, as it had done two nights earlier, in a four-hour pitched battle between tourists and local riot police. By dawn the next day, 20 foreign tourists had been arrested and 22 people, tourists and police, lightly injured. All of those arrested were between the ages of 18 and 22.
Witnesses say that the evening began with a performance at the Colossos nightclub, where the capacity of 1,800 was stretched to breaking point for a show by the world-renowned Dutch DJ, Tiesto. At around 2:00 in the morning, tension mounted inside the venue when a power cut stopped the performance, with the situation aggravated further by the intermittent functioning of the generators and the failure of the air conditioning. Some people were taken ill, while others headed for the exits but found themselves obstructed by other youngsters entering the venue, quite unaware of the situation. Clashes between youngsters led to the intervention of the police. Some youths began throwing bottles while others sought refuge in nearby bars and hotels. Witnesses say that the pitched battle lasted until 6:00 in the morning.
“We are outraged, we have had enough now, things must change,” the mayor of Lloret de Mar, Roma’ Codina, told the media. The town, the population of which grows from 40,000 to ten times the figure in high season, has grown weary of the consequences of low-cost tourism, which has left a trail of damage and disruption. A fifteen year old boy was stabbed to death in Lloret de Mar in July, and a young Frenchman charged with murder. In 2008, Federica Squarise, from a village close to Italian city of Padova, died after a night out.
“Some local businesses exploit a tourism model in an unsustainable way,” the mayor said. Meanwhile, Fecarsam, the local federation of nightspots, has said that venues will shut permanently if the town forces them to close earlier than the current time of 5:00 am.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Cordoba Mosque Reveals Treasures to the Blind
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 8 — A Braille leaflet and a relief map of the great Cordoba mosque, now known as the Santa Maria de Cordoba cathedral, so that the blind, too, may benefit from one of the main expressions of Arab-Islamic art and from the region’s gothic and renaissance architecture. This initiative is led by the city’s Fernando III El Santo lab-school students, in cooperation with Spain’s national organization for the blind (ONCE)’s document adaptation unit. Thanks to the publications being adapted for the blind, a task which was given to the ceramics and reproduction students at the school, the great cathedral will no longer hold any secrets for the blind or for those with serious eye conditions, and will be the first in Spain to provide illustrative material in Braille. Cordoba brings together Arab, Christian and Jewish cultures.
The cathedral was built where the ancient Visigoth church from Saint Vincent’s era used to lie and when the Muslims occupied the territory, in 711 it was initially divided up and used by both Muslims and Christians. Subsequently, however, emir Adb al-Rahman I had it demolished to then commission the construction of a great mosque, three times larger, to become the greatest across the Muslim world after Samarra’s. When Cordoba was reconquered by Christians, the mosque was converted into a cathedral. The lab’s ceramics students are currently working on reproducing at least one work of art held in each of the rooms of the cathedral, so that once the Diocesan Museum is finished, even the blind will be able to enjoy some of the temple’s treasures. In close cooperation with ONCE’s document adaptation unit, they have already designed the flyer, the Braille transcription of the illustrative guides the mosque currently distributes, containing a map to facilitate the visit of the monument.
The map highlights the different building phases of the cathedral, from the original nucleus, to the mosque, with the different expansion phases throughout history. It also points out the key spots in the mosque, such as the Christian part of the monument, Saint Vincent’s chapel, the Mihrab, the orange patio and the fountains. As for the relief [embossed] versions, different types of material were used so as to highlight the different areas, each of which is indicated by a number which is then found in the key.
And though the reproduction will not give the blind an idea of the colours and splendid embroidery of the ancient mosque’s Arab decor, it will definitely give them an idea of the layout and enable them to benefit from the architectural grandeur through the sense of touch. ONCE welcomes the initiative, and has provided its own equipment for the Braille reproductions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Man Whose Death Sparked the British Riots Was a Notorious Crime Lord’s Nephew
Mark Duggan’s shooting sparked some of the worst civil unrest the British public has seen in decades.
However, little is known about the man himself, except that he was a father of four, yet also was carrying an illegal gun.
There had been theories put forward that Duggan may have had serious links to the UK’s drug underworld, but all were remained unconfirmed.
Now, new evidence seems to support this theory.
The Sun has confirmed that Duggan was the nephew of Desmond “Dessie” Noonan, the patriarch of the Noonan family that ran Manchester’s underworld for 20 years.
Noonan’s second wife Julie is the sister of Duggan’s mum Pamela, and Noonan and Duggan were found to have had regular contact, even after Noonan and Julie divorced.
“They took Mark under their wing, they liked him, not just as a nephew, but as a mate,” a source told The Sun.
Noonan had a long history of crime, but nationally famous in 2005 after appearing in a film by investigator Donal MacIntyre. In the documentary, he bragged “I’ve got a bigger army than the police. We have more guns than the police.”
His appetite for violence was notorious, and eventually his downfall. In the middle of the filming for a follow up documentary, Noonan reportedly attacked a crack dealer and was murdered in retaliation.
Intriguingly, the Noonan family did not end there, with Desmond’s brother Dominic a more charismatic, and openly gay gangster, taking over the reins.
Dominic was himself the subject of a followup film by MacIntyre, called “A Very British Gangster”.
Even more intriguingly, Dominic’s role in riots in Manchester has been scrutinized.
Earlier this week, he was spotted on the streets of Manchester, perhaps orchestrating some of the violence (he is clearly visible at 2:20 onwards):
Noonan has been arrested for his part in the disorder, The Telegraph reports.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Riots: Love Affair With Gangster-Chic Turns Sour for Top Fashion Brands
Looters sought out famous labels — and the industry is furious about what the riots have done to its image
When rioters went on the rampage over the past week, the chain that suffered some of the worst damage was JD Sports. Peter Cowgill, chairman of the successful clothing retailer, said as many as 30 of its stores were targeted and the clean-up and replacing lost stock will cost in excess of £10m. He said he was “depressed” by how quickly things had spiralled out of control. “Ultimately you have to have faith in the law and this resolving itself,” he told Retail Week. The riots affected a broad range of businesses, from Debenhams to Boots, Carphone Warehouse and Argos, which said 18 stores had been looted. A report this week said at least 10% of retail and leisure businesses had been either directly or indirectly hit by the riots. But JD Sports became the enduring image of the devastation. Robin Knight, a retail expert at restructuring firm Zolfo Cooper, said it was targeted because it is seen to “embody youth culture”. He said: “It has clearly positioned itself as a purveyor of very aspirational product amongst the UK’s youth. Currys and Comet got raided because they sell high-value products but JD was very clearly in their minds as [the place] where they’d get the stuff they aspired to. JD has almost been a victim of its own success. It has worked hard to appeal to the youth market and when the country tipped into lawlessness, it still appealed to that market.”
Branding experts are warning that the riots are a wake-up call for the fashion brands that JD Sports stocks. They have cultivated a “gangster chic” image and found themselves targeted by looters across the country. Mark Borkowski, a PR and branding expert, said that image was now coming back to haunt them. “The riots are an absolute disaster for a number of brands. From the day the Daily Mail and the Guardian used that picture of the hoodie equipped completely in Adidas it has become a massive crisis. It has been a wake-up call for many brands which have spent millions developing ‘gangster chic’ and ‘dangerwear’ images.” A rioter dressed head-to-toe in Adidas was pictured on the front pages of most of the country’s national newspapers on Tuesday. One of the youngest offenders appeared at court this week in a full Adidas tracksuit. The brand, which is one of the major sponsors of the 2012 Olympics, took the step of condemning its customers for taking part in the riots.. “Adidas condemns any antisocial or illegal activity,” the company said. “Our brand has a proud sporting heritage and such behaviour goes against everything we stand for.” Borkowski said brands have been aligning themselves with gang and criminal culture for decades but ramped up their association with less clean-cut figures in recent years.
Adidas will next week launch an advertising campaign featuring rapper, gang member and convicted criminal Snoop Dogg. The Adidas Originals advert also stars fellow US rapper Big Sean, who was charged with sexual assault last week. Earlier this week Levi’s withdrew an advertising campaign that featured a young man squaring up to a line of riot police after a public outcry that it glorified riots. The 60-second film ended with the words “Go Forth”. Mark Ritson, a columnist for Marketing Week magazine, said brands which have been featured on newspaper front pages and TV news, have gone into “lockdown” to consider how to respond to the crisis. He said Adidas and Nike, which began as sportswear brands but have branched out into so-called streetwear and urbanwear, could lose hundreds of millions of pounds if their middle-class customers turn their backs on the brands. “Adidas and Nike have got a very, very strong crisis management team and will have called in PR experts and marketeers to advise them on how best to respond,” Ritson said.
Smaller brands that have had negative associations in the media include Criminal, Gio Goi, Fred Perry, Dr Martens, Burberry and Ben Sherman. Borkowski said that while big sporting brands such as Adidas and Nike will be “terrified” about the risk of a public backlash against their association with the riots and looting, other niche brands and advertisers could be “excited” about the possibility of exploiting the riots to promote themselves. “There will be creative [advertisers] who are showing a flicker of excitement about this,” he said. “Yob culture is cool, brands know this and exploit it. The riots on the streets have triggered unprecedented middle-class opprobrium, but in a sense this adds to the uncomfortable coolness of the brands.” Ritson agrees that the most-stolen brands will receive “extra street cred” from their association with the riots and looting. “Some brands may acquire extra street cred because they were part of it [the unrest],” he said. “It’s remarkable, but for brands that are targeted at the young, pissing off a lot of older people will actual increase the brands’ appeal to the young.”
[JP note: The Guardian article which rather tends to lend weight to David Starkey’s perspective — in particular the quote: “Yob culture is cool, brands know this and exploit it.”]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: “Career Fail”
Following David Starkey’s shameful performance on Newsnight, Ben White now tweets: [David Starkey claims ‘the whites have become black’]
This is ironic.
David Starkey said that white youths were behaving like black youth, and black MPs sounded like white MPs. The aim was to create separate ideas about how “white” and “black” behaviour differs. Ben White has been promoting an article linking the riot clean-up to “white fascism”, as if there is a type of behaviour that is fascistic because white people participate in it. The writer of the “white fascism” illustrated her point with a photo, in which she edited out black faces from the riot clean-up. The riot clean-up was portrayed as “white.” By implication, the riots themselves were “black”, or at least “non-white”. If you think there is a type of group behaviour that is “black” or “white”, either there are serious issues with the way you understand politics, or you are a race-baiter. Either way it is indeed a “career fail”.
[JP note: Harry’s Place stopped representing, or even listening to, decent, ordinary citizens of the UK a long time ago — “career fail” for them please.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Adrian Chiles Offers Muslim Actor Dhafer L’Abidine Pork Snack on Live TV in Ramadan
Earning £1.5million a year, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect Adrian Chiles to do some research before interviewing his guests.
But the Daybreak presenter rather embarrassingly offered Muslim actor Dhafer L’Abidine a pork sausage live on television during Ramadan.
L’Abidine, a former Tunisian professional football player, was promoting his upcoming role in hospital drama Casualty yesterday when Chiles was left red-faced.
The former One Show host, 44, offered his guest a chorizo sausage dish, but L’Abidine, 39, declined as it is against his Islamic faith.
Not only is he fasting over the next month for his faith, but Muslims are prohibited from eating pork.
When Chiles realised his error, he said: ‘I can’t believe I offered a Muslim fasting in Ramadan a piece of chorizo. As offences go, that’s pretty serious and I apologise for that.’
And while the smiling Spooks star didn’t seem offended, he couldn’t resist a sarcastic quip.
He said: ‘It wasn’t on national TV in front of everyone so it’s okay.’
To add insult to injury, Dhafer was left sitting in the middle of fellow guests as they awkwardly chomped away.
He wasn’t quite sure where to look while Consumer Editor Phil Reay-Smith and entertainment reporter Anna Williamson tried the meaty feast.
Journalist Tasmin Lucia Khan allowed herself to have a small nibble on the pastry, but as a fellow Muslim she was also unable to enjoy the meat.
Casualty co-star Gemma Atkinson supported her friend and appeared to resist the delicacy too.
A show insider told the Daily Star: ‘He (Chiles) had no intention of offending him. Everyone was tucking into the dish that was made earlier and Adrian was just sharing it out.
‘As soon as he said it he knew he’d made a mistake. He squirmed quite a bit and then apologised.
‘Thankfully Dhafer wasn’t offended and took it for the simple mistake it was.’
Ramadan takes place in the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and can last up to 30 days.
Muslims must refrain from eating, drinking and sexual intimacy during daylight hours and it is intended to teach them about patience, spirituality, humility and submissiveness to God.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Cost of EDL Rally Should be Put in Perspective
Am I the only person who was in the council chamber last week who became nauseated with the number of councillors lining themselves up to condemn the EDL protest and its costs?
Let me make it clear I am no supporter of the EDL but there were but a few hundred of them and yet the Police numbers were ludicrous.
This would explain the inflated costs of such.
Of course no councillor actually said as much but I would wager it wasn’t too far inside in raising the issue of a ban on the EDL attending again. Of course that would be a dangerous precedent to set and could backfire.
However comparing what damage they did, if any, to the most vile and repugnant violence happening in London just now might just put things into perspective.
I don’t remember bricks, concrete blocks and fire bombs being readily available within minutes.
I don’t remember any arson of buildings and vehicles and more importantly I don’t remember any looting from the EDL either.
I don’t remember the type of violence witnessed in the G20 protests and I don’t remember a fire extinguisher being hurled from a rooftop and I certainly don’t remember hearing about the storming and ransacking of anywhere as was done by the G20 violent thugs.
Most of all I didn’t see anything like the vulgar hatred as shown in Bradford 10 years ago in the Muslim riots.
I also feel the costs of keeping the EDL protest contained are petty cash compared to any one of the others I mention.
I repeat, I am no supporter of the EDL but what they did compared to the others needs getting into perspective.
Councillor Roger Taylor
Conservative
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Did David Starkey’s Comments About Race Cross the Line?
Famed British historian David Starkey is in hot water after making allegedly racist comments about the London riots on the BBC2 television show “Newsnight.” But were those remarks really over the line? And are they, as some have intimated, career killers? David Starkey is known for two things. The first is being one of the most brilliant historians of early modern British history the world has ever seen. The second is being brutally, rudely, and often obscenely honest.
It’s no surprise then that he said, in reference to co-panelist Owen Jones’ book Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Classes, “What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs [the nearest American equivalent to the word is probably ‘white trash’] that you wrote about have become black.” He continued, adding “The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion and black and white boys and girls operate in this language together.”
Starkey referenced a “Jamaican patois” and indicated that there was a sense at times that he was living in a foreign country. It isn’t Starkey’s opinion in this case which is shocking, but his wording. Of course David Starkey has never been known as a tactful man, but even he must have realized as the words were leaving his mouth that his thoughts were being poorly expressed.
Starkey’s comments on Newsnight indicate that he has a fundamental flaw in his understanding of race and class. He seems to see white and black as social classes, expressing surprise that white youths would behave in a manner which he believes only black youths behave. But of course this isn’t correct—the London riots have shown that this is a social issue, not a racial one. The youths who seem hell bent on destroying their own neighborhoods come from a variety of races. What Starkey fails to realize (or perhaps he does and he’s just doing what he does best, which is to say something shocking) is that these youths all relate in their economic disenfranchisement. David Starkey should be given a pass, career-wise, for his London riot comments. While blunt and simplistic, they help demonstrate even further that a real discussion of race, class and economics needs to be had by those in the upper classes—especially for those who, like Starkey, seem to have a poor grasp of what goes on in his own country.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: David Starkey Claims ‘The Whites Have Become Black’
Historian provokes storm of criticism after remarks during a televised discussion about the riots on BBC2’s Newsnight
The historian and broadcaster David Starkey has provoked a storm of criticism after claiming during a televised discussion about the riots that “the problem is that the whites have become black”. In an appearance on BBC2’s Newsnight, Starkey spoke of “a profound cultural change” and said he had been re-reading Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech.
“His prophesy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber did not foam with blood but flames lambent, they wrapped around Tottenham and wrapped around Clapham,” he said.
“But it wasn’t inter-community violence. This is where he was absolutely wrong.” Gesturing towards one of the other guests, Owen Jones, who wrote Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Classes, Starkey said: “What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs that you wrote about have become black.”
An outcry on Twitter began with the Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn asking the BBC: “Why was racist analysis of Starkey unchallenged? What exactly are you trying to prove?” A spokesman for Newsnight said: “I think that [presenter] Emily Maitlis very robustly challenged David Starkey. The two guests [Jones and the writer and education adviser Dreda Say Mitchell] that we had also quite clearly took issue with his comments.”
Jones told the Guardian he believed Starkey’s comments were “a career-ending moment”. He said: “He tapped into racial prejudice at a time of national crisis. At other times, those comments would be inflammatory but they are downright dangerous in the current climate. I fear that some people will now say that David Starkey is right, and you could already see some of them on Twitter. I am worried about a backlash from the right and he will give legitimacy to those views in the minds of some.” On the programme, Starkey said: “The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion and black and white boys and girls operate in this language together.. This language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has been intruded in England and that is why so many of us have this sense of literally of a foreign country.”
The historian and broadcaster, whose historical documentaries on Channel 4 about the Tudors established him as a household name, went on to name-check Tottenham’s Labour MP: “Listen to David Lammy, an archetypal successful black man. If you turn the screen off so that you are listening to him on radio you would think he was white.” He was challenged by Mitchell, who ridiculed his theories about the speech patterns of young people.”You keep talking David about black culture. Black communities are not homogenous. So there are black cultures. Lots of different black cultures. What we need to be doing is … thinking about ourselves not as individual communities … as one community. We need to stop talking about them and us.”
[JP note: In a saner world, this would, of course, be a career-ending moment for the twittish, bien-pensant, feather-weight Owen Jones.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: England Riots: ‘The Whites Have Become Black’ Says David Starkey
Historian David Starkey has told BBC’s Newsnight “the whites have become black” in a discussion on the England riots with author and broadcaster Dreda Say Mitchell and the author of Chavs, Owen Jones. He also hit out at what he called the “destructive, nihilistic gangster culture” which he said “has become the fashion.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Historian Says “Black Culture Turned Whites Into Looters”
David Starkey’s outrageous remarks on BBC TV
WELL KNOWN historian and broadcaster David Starkey has been blasted for his comments on BBC TV where he blamed ‘black culture’ for turning white youngsters into looters.
In a discussion on BBC2’s Newsnight show, Starkey said he had been re-reading racist MP Enough Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech. Starkey claimed: “His prophesy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber did not foam with blood but flames lambent, they wrapped around Tottenham and wrapped around Clapham,” he said. “The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.” He added.
To further outrage, the historian went on to say: “Listen to David Lammy (MP), an archetypical successful black man,” he said. “If you turned the screen off so you were listening to him on radio you’d think he was white.” The association being that those who speak like a ‘white person’ are civilised and those who speak with “Jamaican patois’ are criminals.
Writer and education adviser Dreda Say Mitchell, a fellow guest on the show, was clearly annoyed with Starkey’s comments.
She said to Starkey: “You said David Lammy when you heard him sounded white and what you meant by that is that white people equals respectable.” She added: “You keep talking about black culture. Black communities are not homogenous. So there are black cultures. Lots of different black cultures. What we need to be doing is … thinking about ourselves not as individual communities … as one community. We need to stop talking about them and us..”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How to Recover Britain’s Streets for Civilisation
by Charles Moore
After the 1981 riots, politicians laid into heavy-handed police. How different to today.
Yes, yes, I blame the parents. Yes, and the slack teachers. And the greedy bankers, pop videos, mass immigration, social media, celebrity culture, MPs’ expenses, hamburgers, and no doubt lots of other nasty things, if you will give me a moment to think of them.
But although it may be therapeutic to work off one’s feelings in this way, I wonder if it is the best use of valuable time just now. There are many things in our society which — on the whole, luckily — politicians cannot do much about. On Thursday, they hurried home from their holidays for a day to discuss the rioting and looting. Let us take advantage of this moment to think of what our elected leaders, and the public authorities answerable to them, can actually do.
As someone who was a young journalist the last time a wave of disorder swept through the country, I am struck by a great change that has taken place.. Contrary to what you may have read, this change is not that violence has increased. It was in 1981 that horrible things like attacking fire engines, trying to kill policemen and using riot as a cover for mass looting first showed themselves in mainland Britain. Although the technology is different today, allowing the criminals to bring trouble to more places, the ferocity of violence has been, if anything, slightly less bad than in Brixton or Toxteth 30 years ago.
No, the difference lies in public attitudes to what has happened. This time, the attitudes are much better. Then as now, of course, most ordinary citizens were unequivocal in their disgust at rioting. But in 1981, the prevailing culture among our ruling elites was different. The weight of the BBC, local government, trade unions, officialdom, came down on the police for being too harsh, and, needless to say, on the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, for the same crime. The chairman of the Merseyside Police Authority supported the rioters, saying: “They would be apathetic fools if they didn’t protest.” In Parliament, Michael Foot, the Labour leader, hurled anathemas at the evil Thatcher. In the capital, a young man called Ken Livingstone took over the Greater London Council in a post-election coup, and began attacking the police.
In the Commons on Thursday, the Opposition was as good as gold. David Cameron politely invited Ed Miliband to agree with him, and Mr Miliband politely did. Except on police numbers (with Labour wanting more of them), there was no way of distinguishing between one party and the other. Faced with overwhelming public anger and opinion polls in which 90 per cent wanted water cannon and a third even wanted live ammunition for the police, MPs knew which side their bread was buttered. In 1981, an MP saying that he supported the police was making a controversial political statement. This week, he was uttering a commonplace. So great is the moral pressure that even the criminal justice system, which for years has said that it is utterly impossible to speed up its processes, has suddenly found that its courts can, after all, work through the night.
So the Government must not use this political unanimity as an excuse to change the subject — as Mr Cameron seems rather inclined to do — to moaning about “cultural” problems in the whole of society. Let it alter the culture which it truly can affect — its own.
The basic trend of public policy since the Brixton riots has been to make it harder for the police to deal with crime. It has not been a question of money. Since 2000, public spending on the police in England and Wales has increased by 36 per cent in real terms. Numbers have risen by 14,000, plus 16,000 community support officers. “Resources” are not a problem, although their allocation certainly is (why, for example, have only a fifth of Met officers had public-order training?).
The problem has been a refusal to accept that the need for civil peace must come first. After Brixton in 1981, the Scarman report ushered in an era when police relations with “communities” — a euphemism for ethnic minorities — began to trump their duties to the only community which matters, that of all citizens. The Macpherson report in 1999 went so far as to make race awareness almost the first principle of policing, enunciating the insane, McCarthyite doctrine that “a racist incident is one which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”. In Northern Ireland, the needs of “community” were invoked to abolish the Special Branch and thus all intelligence on the most serious criminals. More recently, the rights of protest have been considered so important that the pressure group Liberty has actually sat in police control rooms monitoring the handling of demonstrations. And “kettling”, itself a timid way of handling riots, is considered an infringement of human rights.
Some of the reforms were undoubtedly prompted by bad practices in the police. But the overall result has been risk aversion, in the ranks and among the leadership, with the public paying the penalty. Sir Hugh Orde, the head of Acpo, who is trying to claim the credit for this week’s “surge”, wrote in the Guardian this week that British policing is “premised on human rights”. It isn’t. Sir Robert Peel invented it more than 150 years before Tony Blair injected human rights into British law. British policing is founded on exercising the minimum use of force required to keep the peace. Thanks to the importation of “human rights” (from European countries where, oddly, the police are more brutal than our own), keeping the peace has become much, much harder.
We all saw the police hanging back from making arrests during this week’s troubles. The reason is that, under current rules, arrests are a bureaucratic and legal nightmare. They require at least two officers and inordinate processing time. If there is “insufficient evidence”, the police can be sued for false imprisonment. The scenes all over England this week were uniquely appalling in their scale, but in the character of the police response they were very like what happens in hundreds of towns every Saturday night. Young people tip out of the pubs behaving badly, and the police, worried by what they might be accused of, just watch them. It is visible proof of the old saying that for evil to triumph it is necessary only for good men to do nothing.
There was an interesting exchange in Parliament on Thursday. David Miliband, Ed’s big brother, made a surprisingly cack-handed intervention in which he criticised the Government’s plans for “electing chief constables”. This allowed the Prime Minister to point out that the plan is not to elect police chiefs but commissioners to oversee them, with what he called the “thoroughly good” result that they will become accountable to the public. This reform is vital, and I am surprised Mr Cameron isn’t making more of it.
Mr Cameron also says he is against any inquiry. When one looks back at the last 30 years, one can see that inquiries have generally had bad effects. But that is because they have all reflected the false preoccupations now discredited by this week’s horrors. If this Government chose the right person and the right subject — an investigation into how our laws and practices have come to prevent the police doing the job almost all of us want them to do — it could start to reverse the trend of 30 years and recover our streets for civilisation
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Outrage as Historian Starkey Says: Enoch Powell Was Right With Infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech
Historian David Starkey sparked outrage last night by claiming that Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech had been right and blaming ‘black culture’ for the riots.
He said white youths had adopted a black culture which promoted the violence and looting.
Mr Starkey claimed Powell’s infamous 1968 speech had been right in one sense, but it wasn’t inter-communal violence that was the problem.
‘The substantial section of the chavs have become black, the whites have become black,’ he told Newsnight on BBC 2.
‘A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become fashion, and the black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together.
‘This language is wholly false. It is a Jamaican patois that has intruded in England, which is why so many of us have this sense that we are literally living in a foreign country.
‘It is about black culture, that is the enormously important thing, it is not skin colour, it is culture.’
| [Return to headlines] |
UK: Shoddy Work by the BBC
Last Thursday, I appeared as one of a number of guests on a BBC Radio 4 programme looking at extremism in the UK [MP3] and the section of their interview with me that aired was on my research into neo-Nazi networks in the UK. The programme sought largely to examine the question of ‘Islamisation’ and the EDL and did so by using the recent outrageous ‘Shariah Controlled Zone’ sticker campaign of fringe group al-Muhajiroun as a key example of what leads some to fear the ‘Islamisation’ of Britain is under way.
OK, fair enough, but in addition to looking at this recent issue, we also had to endure yet another lengthy segment of air time given over to the media’s favourite rent-an-extremist, Anjem Choudary. It’s not as though we don’t already know that this scumbag is behind every single one of these types of campaigns, and it’s not as though he doesn’t already get endless amounts of attention in the British press. Do we really need to keep flattering this self-publicist with yet more air time?
While the programme quite rightly looked at the fear that gay people are feeling upon seeing this al-Muhajiroun trash plastered all over their neighbourhoods, there was no mention of the fact that Muslims too suffer when Islamists are present in their local areas, that Muslims too are victimised if they don’t fall in line with the agenda of Islamist groups. We didn’t hear of this, nor did we hear from any of the Muslim moderates who are campaigning against this sort of thing.
Indeed, instead of hearing from moderates, Lutfur Rahman — yes, Lutfur Rahman! — was wheeled out to represent the voice of ‘moderation’. Naturally, we had the usual condemnation of ‘extremists’ and Rahman came across as quite a reasonable sort of bloke, but anyone who then chose to Google Rahman’s name after the programme could immediately find numerous examples of his own Islamist connections, documented many times by this very website.
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Telford EDL March Passes Off Peacefully
Police said a protest in Telford by members of the English Defence League passed off peacefully this afternoon.
A statement from West Mercia Police said: “An estimated 300 to 350 EDL supporters gathered to listen to speeches in Church Street, Wellington, during the morning and early afternoon, while another 200 to 250 have attended a ‘unity rally’ on the Nailor’s Row Car Park. Both groups were accompanied by police to their respective assembly sites.
“The crowds were largely good natured and there were only sporadic and isolated incidents of disorder in various parts of the town which were quickly dealt with by police.
“Two people were arrested this morning en route to Telford and three in various parts of Wellington for public order offences and breach of bail.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Teen Looters Talk to Sky News
A gang who took part in looting in London and spoke to Sky News about their theft have been told there is “no excuse” for their actions.
The Communities Secretary has dismissed claims that they stole from shops because the Government is not doing enough to help them.
The four teenagers who looted in neighbourhoods across London told Sky News it was like a ‘shopping spree’. Speaking on condition of anonymity the group admitted that they stole iPads, Blackberry tablets, games consoles, laptops, clothes, trainers and even nappies and clothes for their children. One teenager appealed for the Ministers to help them and said: “They say are going to help us but I don’t see any of it, there has to be more opportunities and jobs. Help us at least and then maybe everyone will settle down.”
But Eric Pickles rejected their arguments out of hand. “I think that is them trying to justify being thiefs, robbers and burglars,” he told Sky News. I think it’s retrospective justification. It sounds to me like they have been talking to their social worker and picked up the jive about them being repressed. I was brought up in a home much more humble than the home they showed and I think they have absolutely no excuse.”
The young men, all aged 16 or 17, told Sky that they are not part of an organised gang but just disillusioned teenagers who cannot find work. They claim they used a transit van to move between different boroughs and grabbed so many different items that the van was filled several times over and emptied between their sprees.
[JP note: The Tom Parmenter meets Looters video may be seen here news.sky.com/home/video/16049147 . What is interesting about this video clip is how closely at times it resonates with scenes from George A. Romero’s recent zombie film Land of the Dead — in particular those showing Fiddler’s Green, a gated community of tower blocks upon which the zombie horde marches. In the Parmenter video, the youths are filmed beside the Thames with a view of Canary Wharf on the horizon.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Middle Class ‘Rioters’ Revealed: The Millionaire’s Daughter, The Aspiring Musician and the Organic Chef All in the Dock
Poverty, social exclusion, poor education — these are just some of the theories put forward to explain the recent rioting.
Yet shockingly, among those in the dock accused of looting are a millionaire’s grammar school daughter, a ballet student and an organic chef.
A law student, university graduate, a musician and an opera steward also said to have taken part.
They are just some of the youngsters from comfortable middle-class backgrounds who have been charged with criminality.
Some of them were arrested at the scene, others handed themselves in after seeing their faces in photographs and on video.
Whatever the reasons for their alleged trouble-making, it is clear that their future dreams could be crushed by their moments of madness.
| [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why We Need a Post-Riot Inquiry
[…]
[reader comment by Jolier Veppers at 6:35 pm on 12 August 2011]
I read the following on another website this morning and think it goes some way to one explanation for a ‘broken Britain’ It reads like a blueprint for all Left Liberal ideas since the 1970’s.
Recommendations from the Frankfurt school of marxism Germany in the 1920’s.
In effect a blueprint to undermine western society. Thus it was believed, paving the way for communism in western Europe.
Do any of these ideas appear familiar to you ?
| 1. | The creation of racism offences. | |
| 2. | Continual change to create confusion | |
| 3. | The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children | |
| 4. | The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority | |
| 5. | Huge immigration to destroy identity. | |
| 6. | The promotion of excessive drinking | |
| 7. | Emptying of churches | |
| 8. | An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime. | |
| 9. | Dependency on the state or state benefits | |
| 10. | Control and dumbing down of media. | |
| 11. | Encouraging the breakdown of the family. | |
| 12. | Attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children. | |
| 13. | Abolish differences in the education of boys and girls | |
| 14. | Abolish all forms of male dominance . | |
| 15. | Declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’. |
Well here we are, did the Frankfurt school achieve their goals?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Was David Starkey Being Racist on Newsnight Last Night?
Twitter erupted last night after David Starkey’s appearance on Newsnight. The general consensus was that he was guilty of racism. Among those objecting on Twitter was the Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the following question to Newsnight: “Why was racist analysis of Starkey unchallenged? What exactly are you trying to prove?”
But was Starkey being racist?
He appeared alongside Owen Jones, the author of Chavs: the Demonisation of the Working Class, and Dreda Say Mitchell, an author and broadcaster, to discuss the broader cultural significance of the riots. Starkey opened the batting by making two points. His first was that these weren’t riots in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. civil disorder prompted by a political grievance. Rather, they were much less significant than that. They were simply “shopping with violence”. Nothing particularly controversial there. It was his second point that set the Twittersphere ablaze.
“I’ve just been re-reading Enoch Powell,” he said. “His prophesy was absolutely right in one sense. The Tiber didn’t foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped round Tottenham and wrapped round Clapham.” Now, that statement is vintage Starkey. He almost says something inflammatory — “Enoch Powell was absolutely right” — but, after pausing for a nano-second, pulls back from the brink — “in one sense”. He then went on to say what he thought Powell had got wrong — “But it wasn’t inter-communal violence. This is where he was completely wrong” — without saying what he’d got right (apart from the lambent flames). So it’s difficult to say which parts of the Rivers of Blood speech he was agreeing with.
In any event, that wasn’t the particularly controversial bit. It was the next thing he said that set the cat amongst the pigeons:
What’s happened is that a substantial section of the Chavs that you wrote about have become black. The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in this language together, this language which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that’s been intruded in England, and this is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country.
Is that racist? That was certainly the view of Owen Jones. “What you’re doing is equating black culture with criminality,” he said. It was also the view of Emily Maitlis, who accused Starkey of “using black and white culture interchangeably as good and bad”. (Not exactly unchallenged, then, Mr Corbyn.) But I’m not sure Starkey was guilty of racism which, according to the OED, is defined as “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race , especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races”.
To begin with, Starkey wasn’t talking about black culture in general, but, as he was anxious to point out, a “particular form” of black culture, i.e. “the violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture” associated with Jamaican gangs and American rap music. Had he been talking about these qualities as if they were synonymous with African-Caribbean culture per se, or condemning that culture in its totality, then he would have been guilty of racism. But he wasn’t. He was quite specifically condemning a sub-culture associated with a small minority of people of African-Caribbean heritage. (Admittedly, he could have made this clearer.) Rather than being racist, he was merely trotting out the conventional wisdom of the hour, namely, that gang culture is to blame for the riots. The Prime Minister made the same point in the House of Commons on Thursday. (I wrote a blog post on Thursday in which I pointed out the shortcomings of this analysis.)
In addition, Starkey wasn’t linking this sub-culture to people of just one skin colour, but condemning working class white people — “Chavs,” as he put it — who embraced it as well. “It’s not skin colour, it’s cultural,” he said. Again, if he’s not condemning a culture associated with one particular race in its entirety, but merely condemning a particular sub-culture that’s embraced by blacks and whites alike, then he isn’t, according the OED definition, being racist.
He then went on to make an almost equally controversial observation about the Labour MP for Tottenham. “Listen to David Lammy, an archetypical successful black man,” he said. “If you turned the screen off so you were listening to him on radio you’d think he was white.” Owen Jones leapt on this: “You said David Lammy when you heard him sounded white and what you meant by that is that white people equals respectable.” But I don’t think that is what Starkey meant. Rather, he was simply reiterating the point that he wasn’t condemning African-Caribbean men per se. On the contrary, he was condemning a particular sub-culture, one that may have originated in parts of the African-Caribbean community, but which has now been taken up by some white people as well. Condemning a sub-culture that’s associated with certain people of a particular race, but is embraced by blacks and whites, may be provocative, but it isn’t racist.
No doubt there’ll be people who take issue with this analysis. They’ll point out that Starkey’s “body language” and his “tone” were somehow racist. Perhaps they’ll even dig up other things Starkey has said. But if we confine ourselves to just those things he said on Newsnight last night, he wasn’t guilty of racism. It was just Starkey being Starkey — sailing close to the wind, but never quite crossing the line.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Tito, We Miss You’: Young Kosovars Lose Patience With Foreign Helpers
Plagued by manipulated elections, mismanagement and corruption, the new Balkan republic of Kosovo has seen little progress since it declared independence in 2008. Frustrated young people accuse the many UN and EU officials in the country of stifling development, and consider their prime minister to be a puppet of the Americans.
| — Hat tip: Rembrandt | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Tries to Get Poison Out of Castor Beans
(AGI) Washington — The US fears that Al Qaeda is trying to extract poison from the castor plant in Yemen. The New York Times, quoting intelligence sources, stated that such poison could be use to build small explosive devices capable to disperse ricin in the air. That protein can cause cell death: a dosage of 0,2 mg is sufficient to kill if injected in the blood stream.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow to Explore Some of the Largest Copper and Gold Deposits in the World
The United Nations grants Russia the right to prospect parts of the Atlantic seabed. For the Kremlin, it is a major geopolitical coup.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — The United Nations has approved Russia’s request to explore one of the world’s largest untapped copper and gold deposits in the world. Located on the Atlantic Ocean bed, it has reserves five to ten times higher than that of onshore fields, Kommersant reported. For the Russian business paper, this represents as much a geopolitical as an economic coup for Moscow.
“The development of the world ocean’s bed is a large geopolitical project to protect Russian interests as a leading raw materials state,” a Foreign Ministry source told the paper, adding that Moscow had sped up its efforts in exploring oceanic deposits after China had filed an official request to the United Nations last year to explore a ridge in the Indian Ocean.
Investment in the exploration of the area located near the equator may be around US$ 20-43 million over next five years, the Natural Resources Ministry’s Darya Vasilevskaya said.
“Six promising fields were found in the Russian section,” said Sergei Andreyev, deputy head of the World Ocean’s geology and mineral resources department in Russia’s Oceanology Research Institute.
On average, the copper content in ore mined in onshore deposits is about one per cent compared to 2.5-10 per cent in offshore deposits, he said.
Since Russia does not have the necessary equipment for exploration, it would have to bring in a foreign partner, most likely Canada’s Nautilus Minerals, in which Russian tycoon Alisher Usmanov holds a 20 per cent stake.
Russia is also preparing an application to explore cobalt, iron and manganese deposits in the bed of the Pacific Ocean, a request the United Nations will consider next year. (N.A.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Central Asia: Danger of War Over Water Growing
Kazakhstan wants more water from Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan wants to prevent Tajikistan from building a dam to generate power. Water supplies in Central Asia are drying up. Without an agreement, the confrontation could degenerate into conflict.
Bishkek (AsiaNews/Agencies) — After talks in Bishkek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz officials failed to reach an agreement on Kazakhstan’s request for additional water supplies from upstream Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, the worst drought in decades threatens the livelihoods of farmers in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Kyrgyz Deputy Energy Minister Avtandil Kalmamatov said Kazakhstan asked for more water for wheat and cotton producers in southern Kazakhstan. Talks, he added, would resume very soon. If an agreement is reached, Kyrgyzstan will release water from its Toktogul Reservoir.
The problem goes back a long time. Central Asia is relatively dry and water is not evenly distributed. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have lots of it but are poor in energy and raw materials. For this reason, they want Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to trade water for what they need. Downstream nations have balked at the idea, saying that water belongs to everyone and are opposed to Kyrgyz and Tajik plans for upstream hydroelectric power stations.
Earlier this month the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) released a report on the situation in the Amu Darya Basin. The report noted that temperatures are projected to rise by 2-3 degrees in the next 50 years. It found that glaciers in the high mountains of Central Asia are vanishing. All this puts the Amu Darya in danger. The longest river in Central Asia at 2,540 kilometres, it marks the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan before flowing through Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan until the Aral Sea.
Under Soviet rule, a network of water pumps and irrigation canals was built to boost the region’s agriculture. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, the population of the region has more than doubled, as has the demand for water. More importantly, the agricultural sector still employs 67 per cent of the labour force in Tajikistan, 45 per cent in Uzbekistan, 48 per cent in Turkmenistan and 80 per cent in Afghanistan.
“Differences of opinion” regarding the river were affecting the nature of overall relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Tajikistan’s foreign minister, Hamrokhon Zarifi, said on 18 July.
At the centre of their disagreement lies Tajikistan’s plan to complete the construction of Rogun, a Soviet-era hydropower dam, on the Vaksh River, one of the sources of the Amu Darya. Once it is completed, it would be the highest hydroelectric dam in the world.
Uzbekistan is concerned that it might lose control over its water. It has called on the international community to act, claiming that the dam would have a negative impact on the environment.
Conversely, Tajikistan said it has no other way of generating energy (which is already rationed in winter), accusing instead Uzbekistan of holding up Tajik exports on its border, including by trains.
At the same time, Uzbekistan has already cut its gas export to Tajikistan and stopped power supplies from Turkmenistan.
The according to the United Nations report, the river cannot meet all the demands put on it and that its volume could shrink.
An agreement is needed to prevent things from degenerating into confrontation.
Tajik Foreign Minister Zarifi recently said that the matter should be referred to the Commonwealth of Independent Nations, which includes former Soviet republics, for a solution. Yet, although Dushanbe wants a deal, it is still pursuing its own road.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: In Big Cities, Parking Costs More Than a Flat
In Xi’an, a parking space costs the equivalent of a 70m2 flat. The situation is getting worse each year, as more cars are added to the road than there are parking spots. Developers are taking advantage of the situation whilst the authorities are slow to react.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — In Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province and home to 8 million people, a residential parking space at the Honorable Place residential development can cost up to 400,000 yuan (US$ 62,000), compared to the average price of a new home of “only” 5,398 yuan per square metre. For Zhang Jigang, director of property market supervision in the province, “It’s about time the sale of parking spaces was regulated” because “Some developers have been making excessive profits and this has affected social stability.”
The average sales price for a residential parking space in Xi’an is about 170,000 yuan. In some high-end communities, it goes much higher. And what is true in Xi’an is even truer in bigger cities. In some high-end communities in Beijing, the cost to own a parking spot has now reached 800,000 yuan. In downtown Beijing, prices climbed to 200,000 yuan in many communities.
So far, in Guangzhou, the most expensive parking spaces went for 720,000 yuan each at the Lanse Kangyuan housing project near Binjiang East Road. Only three years ago, they went for 300,000 yuan. For residents though, finding a place to park after 6 pm is real nightmare.
In Shanghai, parking space costs about 150,000 yuan on average, but in some places, the price can be three times as much.
In Haikou (Hainan), a parking space can cost property owners more than 450,000 yuan, which could fetch a small flat in mid-range communities.
Chinese authorities have tried to put a lid on skyrocketing prices and bring under control the real estate boom, but in the case of parking space, they have failed.
In Shaanxi, the local Housing and Urban-Rural Development Department issued the country’s first directive on the sale of parking spaces on 10 June. Regulations allow market forces to set prices, but ban overpricing. They also set the annual increase in price to below that for housing.
However, developers have been able to get around the rules by getting buyers to sign long-term rental agreements. In response to this practice, the Shaanxi housing bureau fined the developer of Honorable Place 530,000 yuan for misleading homeowners about prices and for selling its parking spaces before getting the permit to do so.
In Shanghai, the pricing department recently issued regulations that urged property developers to explicitly list the price and number of parking spaces in a development and post them prominently in their sales offices.
Experts note that the actual average cost for a regular underground parking space is about 3,000 yuan per square metre. But in Xi’an, the city reports a deficit of roughly 300,000 parking spaces of about 1.2 million cars.
In their own defence, developers say that they are doing nothing more than respond to market demands. Critics counter however that new developments are often built without planning for the parking needs of their future occupants.
In the meantime, 23,000 new parking spaces were built last year in Beijing, but 700,000 new cars were added to local roads.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Migrant Thug Avoided Deportation
A STUDENT who attacked two women in the street avoided deportation because he passed a character test.
One victim told a court she found herself on the ground with the attacker’s fist raised above her.
The man, a Bangladeshi, 29, was carrying a knife when he was arrested less than a week after arriving on a student visa.
Federal authorities said he could not be deported because he did not fail the nation’s character test.
He is living in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: African Pedophile Wins Reprieve on Persecution Fears
THE Gillard government’s attempts to deport a pedophile African refugee who impregnated a 12-year-old girl in Australia have suffered a setback, after the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled he could not be returned to Liberia because he fears persecution.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen was last night seeking legal advice after the tribunal overruled his department’s decision to cancel the visa of Liberian refugee Thomas Scott Gbojueh despite admitting he “plainly” failed the government’s character test.
In 2009, Gbojueh, 43, was sentenced to 27 months’ jail after pleading guilty to twice having sex with his lover’s daughter, with the first offence taking place less than four months after he arrived in Australia from West Africa.
Coalition spokesman Scott Morrison last night called on Mr Bowen to use his ministerial discretion to cancel the pedophile’s visa, pledging the Opposition’s support for such a move.
In its decision, the tribunal judged Gbojueh had a “well-founded fear of persecution” since he and his family were members of the Kranh ethnicity and were associated with the regime of former Kranh dictator Samuel Doe.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: British Man Faces Deportation Over Go Card Fare Evasion Conviction
IN THE old days, they sent convicts from Britain to Australia for petty offences such as stealing a cow or break and enter.
Now, we’re set to send a hard-working engineer back to Britain over a $2.65 train fare.
Mark Littler, 30, faces deportation after being convicted for fare evasion when he claimed his faulty go card did not work on a trip from Morningside station to Fortitude Valley.
Mr Littler, who does not hold an Australian passport, could be returned to Britain if the Immigration Department reacts to the conviction.
This comes despite examples when more serious crimes have not attracted the same result.
In September 2009, Gold Coast sisters who bashed two tourists at Surfers Paradise received 18 months’ probation and no conviction, while a series of crimes against animals, including dragging horses behind cars and killing family pets, have not attracted convictions.
Mr Littler fought the $200 fine for fare evasion because he believed he was acting in “good faith” when he reported his go card as faulty to a transit officer on board a train on December 12, 2009.
In May this year, Magistrate Brian Hine not only upheld the fine but recorded a conviction against Mr Littler, putting his hopes of gaining permanent residency in Australia in doubt.
His advice from Immigration was that a conviction for fare evasion would be regarded as a “minor fraud offence” and could affect his chances of remaining in Australia.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Convicted Killers, Rapists and Paedophiles Cleared to Stay in Australia
DOZENS of foreigners who committed despicable crimes in Australia have escaped deportation because of a tribunal’s rulings.
Convicted killers, rapists, paedophiles, armed robbers and serial offenders who have had their visas cancelled have won the right to remain in Australia.
In the last financial year the Administrative Appeals Tribunal overturned 24 cases — reinstating serious convicted criminals’ visas that had been cancelled by the Immigration Department.
In another eight cases the tribunal told Immigration Minister Chris Bowen to reconsider the Government’s finding that the offenders were not of good character and to give them visas.
One of the most shocking cases involves Maltese-born “DNCW”, a convicted rapist and paedophile, who settled in Victoria after moving to the country from overseas as a child.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Boat Carrying 300 Immigrants Sighted South of Lampedusa
(AGI) Rome — Another boat carrying some 300 immigrants has been sighted by a Coast Guard plane about 55 miles south of Lampedusa. Meanwhile, search operations continue for a boat carrying 250 immigrants reported by a trawler north of the island of Pantelleria. Another vessel with 300 people on board (not 200 as initially reported) sighted this morning by the Coast Guard is currently in SAR waters about 20 miles off Lampedusa. A Coast Guard patrol boat is escorting it to the island.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France Halves Professions Open to Migrants
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, AUGUST 12 — The French government has halved the number of professions appearing on the list of those open to foreigners residing in non-EU countries and which give a right to a regular residence permit. The news has been released by the country’s Ministries of Labour and of the Interior.
The number of professions for which employers are allowed to take on non-EU immigrants has thus been reduced from 30 to just 14. Disappearing from the new list are professions linked to the construction, public and IT sectors.
This change does not affect non-EU immigrants already living in France on a regular basis, nor does it affect countries such as Tunisia and Senegal with whom France has signed special agreements on migrant flows. The decision is part of a broader policy by the French government to reduce levels of legal immigration which Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing party has made an election theme ahead of the presidential elections of 2012.
Interior Minister Claude Gueant has already repeatedly stated his intention of bringing the number of legal immigrants who enter France to work, study or visit their families down from 200,000 to 180,000.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lampedusa Island Witnesses Arrival of 320 Migrants
(AGI) Rome — The island of Lampedusa has witnessed a new migrant boat landing. A wooden vessel carrying 320 — among whom 35 women and 11 minors — Sub-Saharan nationals, was spotted this morning half a mile off the port of Lampedusa and was rescued and towed by a Coast Guard patrol boat.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Weird! Our Universe May be a ‘Multiverse, ‘ Scientists Say
Is our universe just one of many? While the concept is bizarre, it’s a real possibility, according to scientists who have devised the first test to investigate the idea.
The potential that we live in a multiverse arises from a theory called eternal inflation, which posits that shortly after the Big Bang that formed the universe, space-time expanded at different rates in different places, giving rise to bubble universes that may function with their own separate laws of physics.
The idea has seemed purely hypothetical, until now. In a new study, researchers suggest that if our universe has siblings, we may have bumped into them. Such collisions would have left lasting marks in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, the diffuse light left over from the Big Bang that pervades the universe, the researchers say.
| — Hat tip: Rembrandt | [Return to headlines] |
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