There are a lot of news stories tonight because I was away overnight. A long list of headlines, lots of topics…Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JEH, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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An Epic Battle Being Waged
There is a battle being waged now in the world of economics. This battle is fierce. And no matter who wins, the impact will be felt far and wide. I dub this epoch struggle: Godzilla vs. King Kong
I’m not sure who will win, but I do have a favorite.
What I’m talking about is the intellectual and tactical battle concerning the best way to deal with the nasty recession engulfing us from a monetary and fiscal policy perspective.
There Are Two Basic Schools of Thought Here […]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Banks Rescue Will ‘Make Things Worse’: Rogers
[Video]
The new financial rescue plan may not work and could even make things worse because it plunges the US further into debt and it is designed by the same people who failed to forecast the crisis and take measures, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Tuesday.
[…]
But Rogers said Geithner, who was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, “has been dead wrong about everything for 15 years in a row,” and so was President Barack Obama’s economic advisor Lawrence Summers, who acted as Treasury Secretary at the turn of the century.
“It is mind-boggling to me,” Rogers told “Squawk Box Europe.”
“If I were on your show 15 weeks in a row and was wrong, you’d probably never invite me back. These guys have been wrong year after year after year consistently and here they are making the same mistakes again. This is not going to solve the problem, it’s going to make it worse.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Copyright Filtering in Stimulus Bill
We’ve been talking about the topic for some time now, but some of you may not be up on the subject. The idea is that ISPs, using deep packet inspection, would match the files sent in the traffic of Internet users to a database of known movies and music (provided by Hollywood studios and the record labels). Files that matched would be blocked or otherwise prevented from flowing to their destination, as the sending of those files are presumed to be illicit by the ISP and the parter content industries. Those subscribers “caught” in the filter may risk being disconnected from the Internet by their ISP — a proposal better known as “three strikes” where subscribers can get booted from their Internet connection for being accused (not found guilty) of copyright infringement.
Copyright filtering has nothing to do with the reasonable network management allowed by net neutrality, though some would like to conflate the two. Net neutrality, at least from our point of view, ignores the content, source, and destination of the information being sent on the Internet. Copyright filtering specifically looks at the packets and lets someone determine what data goes through to its destination.
Filtering triggers both copyright and privacy problems:
1. Copyright infringement can’t be determined just by seeing what files are flowing over the network. There are fair and legal uses for copyrighted works even without permission of the owner.
2. It would require Internet companies to examine every bit of information everyone puts on the Web in order to find those allegedly infringing works, without a hint of probable cause. That would be a massive invasion of privacy, done at the request of one industry, violating the rights of everyone who is online.
However now the Senate bill will be conferenced with the House bill so the differences between the two can be worked out.
The problem is that this is pretty much a closed-door process. Yes, House rules require one conference meeting to be open to the public, but the rules don’t require that anything of substance happens in that one open meeting. The rest of the conference meetings can be and usually are closed. Those in the room — members of the House and Senate picked by leadership and for their pertinence to the passed legislation — are able to introduce new provisions to the bill. That’s right, conferees could change provisions of a bill that has already passed, if there are no objections (and there are procedures for what happens when a Representative or Senator objects).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crisis: Croatia: -42.5% Vehicle Registration in January
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, FEBRUARY 9 — The automobile sector in Croatia has slowed down notably. During the month of January, only 4,163 new cars were registered, 42.5% less than the same period of last year, reported local agency, Promocija Plus. According to the Italian Trade Institute (ICE) in Zagreb, the brands that continue to sell are Germany’s Opel, which covers 12.3% of the local market, followed by France’s Renault (10.8%), and by Germany’s Volkswagen(9.4%), by the Czech Republic’s Skoda and by Peugeot. The economic crisis has also been felt on the used car market. Last January, 650 used cars were registered, or 38% less than the same period of 2008. In the first month of 2009, light industrial vehicle registration also suffered a downturn (-46.7%) compared to the same period of 2008. The best selling producers include Citroen, Peugeot and Fiat. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Housing: Turkey; With Interest and Price Down, Credit Up 50%
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 10 — In Turkey, number of house loans has increased 50% in the past two months, according to Garanti Mortgage Vice President Burak Ali Gocer. Although the Turkish real estate sector was hit by stagnation in the global economic crisis, some activity has started. The drop in house prices reached 30% and shock reductions in loan interest rates occurred in January, as daily Hurriyet reports. These two factors have apparently activated the potential buyer who was waiting for such an opportunity. The number of housing credits used has risen 50% when compared to the last two months of 2008. In the last quarter of 2008, where home loans nearly reached the point of ceasing, interest rates were up to 2%. However, figures have changed in the first month of 2009. Following the Turkish Central Bank’s shocking interest rate reduction, banks lowered their interest rates one by one for home loans. The new interest rate for banks has reached 1.42%, which in turn thrilled many consumers. Compared to November and December of 2008, the volume of home loans banks have allocated increased in January 2009. While at some banks this increase exceeded 50%, the average increase was around 40%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Raise Afghan Troop Levels
Other major EU countries ‘must play part’
(ANSA) — Makeni, February 12 — Italy is to raise troop levels in Afghanistan in response to a call from the United States, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on a visit to Sierra Leone Thursday.
Troop levels will be raised from some 2,300 to 2,800 and their deployment will be more flexible, he said.
Italy would also step up its work in training Afghan police, ‘‘something which is very close to (US) President (Barack) Obama’s heart because it will strengthen security in the country’’.
Frattini said it was time for other major European Union countries to ‘‘play their part’’ given that Italy already had the third-biggest contingent in the Asian country.
Stressing the need for a political solution alongside military action, Frattini underscored the importance of a conference on Afghanistan, featuring all the regional players, which Italy has called as Group of Eight president.
The conference, which will focus on stabilising the Afghan-Pakistani border, will take place in Trieste in June.
Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi reiterated Thursday that Italy would answer Obama’s call for more troops.
‘‘Obama has asked his allies to give him a hand and we won’t shrink from the task,’’ the premier said on Italian TV, noting that the US recently announced it would gradually double its forces to some 60,000.
Berlusconi stressed the importance of boosting the commitment to Afghanistan in view of the August elections there, to make sure the vote is ‘‘really safe and democratic’’.
Afghanistan topped the agenda of a half-hour phone conversation between the US president and the Italian premier Wednesday, in which Obama thanked Berlusconi for Italy’s ‘‘strong support’’ there, the White House said Wednesday night.
The two leaders also discussed the global financial crisis, the Mideast, Iran and Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay, Italian political sources said.
The Italian premier, who met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak Wednesday, offered the Sicilian town of Erice as a venue for Mideast peace talks and relaunched the idea of a Marshall Plan for the Palestinian economy.
Berlusconi also reiterated the importance of a new phase in relations between the US and Russia.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Our Deadly Debt: How ‘Stimulus’ Prolong Pain
From Nouriel Roubini, the economist who most closely predicted the current mess, comes a warning couched in economic jargon that needs to be deciphered and publicized.
In a column on Forbes.com, Roubini warns that the United States, in its response to the economic crisis, may be following in the disastrous footsteps of Japan — whose sluggish and overly lenient response to a financial crisis led to a decade of economic misery.
In economic jargon, Roubini warns: The “market-friendly, case-by-case approach to the necessary debt reduction of insolvent private non-financial agents — corporate for Japan, households for the US — will be too slow.” He calls for an “across-the-board debt reduction” — lest we be condemned to a “systemic debt overhang.”
In English, this means that by helping people to stay in homes they can’t afford, buy cars beyond their means, pay for college through loans — in short, to acquire goods and services on credit they can’t sustain -we are doing them no favors. Instead, we’re assuring that debt will “overhang” their lives like a vulture sitting on a branch, inhibiting their buying habits and inhabiting their nightmares.
But if we force an “across-the-board debt reduction” that makes them move out of their overpriced homes, trade in their luxury cars, transfer to state colleges — and, if necessary, escape from under their credit-card debt via bankruptcy, we can eliminate the “overhang” and let them and our nation get on with their lives.
Roubini realizes that this approach is “not politically feasible, at this point, in the US.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pelosi’s Mouse Slated for $30m Slice of Cheese
Talk about a pet project. A tiny mouse with the longtime backing of a political giant may soon reap the benefits of the economic stimulus package.
Lawmakers and administration officials divulged Wednesday that the $789 billion economic stimulus bill being finalized behind closed doors in Congress includes $30 million for wetlands restoration that the Obama administration intends to spend in the San Francisco Bay Area to protect, among other things, the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rush: Democrats in Full Assault on Capitalism
‘They are destroying the engine that creates wealth, the private sector’
Talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh is blasting the so-called economic stimulus plan of President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress, calling it an assault on capitalism intentionally designed to harm the private sector and lead to bigger government.
“This is a full-fledged attack on capitalism, and the leftists Democrats have been seeking this for the longest time,” Limbaugh said on his program this afternoon. “That’s why they can’t stop themselves. It is Christmas morning every day for these people. There’s nobody that can stop them.”
A question e-mailed to the host asked if the Democrats really understood that they’re “destroying the source of the wealth that they want to redistribute..”
Yes!” Limbaugh exclaimed. “These people are not uneducated and stupid. They know full well what they are doing. They are destroying the engine that creates wealth, the private sector, and they are turning it to the government.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Muslims Integrated But Fearing Crisis
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 11 — Muslim immigrants living in Spain feel integrated in society and respected for their beliefs and religious practices, they have faith in the institutions and appreciate public services but, like Spanish natives, they are concerned about rising unemployment. This is one of the findings of a survey carried out by Metroscopia on a sample of 2,000 immigrants from Morocco, Senegal, Algeria and Pakistan, presented today in Madrid by the ministers of the Interior, Justice and Immigration and Labour, respectively Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, Mariano Fernandez Bermejo and Celestino Corbacho. The survey shows a 21% increase in people saying they are concerned about unemployment from the results of the same survey carried out in 2006. Of all those interviewed, 76% said they feel well, or rather well, at home in Spain, whilst 4% say that they do not to feel at home in the country. A broad majority, 86%, consider themselves adapted to Spanish life and customs, while 13% claim not to feel adapted. The minister of the interior explained that normally the first generation of immigrants have problems in fitting in, but — as became clear in last year’s clashes in France and the UK — it is the second and third generation that give rise to rejection behaviour. The role schools and universities play in integration is essential according to Rubalcaba. Regarding the Muslim religion, 90% of those interviewed consider the use of violence to defend or spread religious beliefs to be unacceptable; 84% believe they can be good Muslims and good Spanish citizens at the same time. For 8 out of 10 interviewed, the Muslim religion is “perfectly compatible with democracy and human rights”. Cohabitation of various religions is no problem for 78% of the interviewed, who consider Judaism, Christianity and Islam equally respectable religions with no one superior to the other. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
This Depression Will Last 23-26 Years! Government is Powerless!
Note: Martin Armstrong was the highest paid economist in the 80’s and 90’s. He is considered to be brilliant in economics by many. He has predicted all the crashes since the 80’s.
We are facing a Depression that will last 23-26 years. The response of government is going to seal our fate because they cannot learn from the past and will make the same mistakes that every politician has made before them. Even if the Dow Industrials make new highs next week (impossible), the Depression is unstoppable with current models and tools. Stocks & Consumers vs. Investment Banks Let us set the record straight. The Stock Market is a mere reflection of the economy like looking at yourself in a mirror. It is not the economy and does not even provide a reliable forecasting tool of what is to come economically. We are headed into the debt tsunami that is of historical proportions unheard-of in history. There have been the big debt crisis incidents that have hobbled nations, toppled kings, and set in motion economic dark ages. It is so critical to understand the difference between the economy and the stock market, for unless you comprehend this basic and root distinction between the two, survival may be impossible. […]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: As Unemployment Hits 12-Year High of 1.97million, Jobcentres Tell People: Go to Europe and Earn 31p an Hour
But as experts warned it was now ‘inevitable’ that the jobless total will reach three million before the economy starts to recover, jobcentres are pointing Britons to posts in Europe paying as little as 31p an hour.
The Jobcentre Plus website is advertising almost 200,000 posts in Europe — many paying paltry wages — compared with only 61,905 jobs in the UK.
A job as a sous chef in Greece, for instance, is advertised at 31p an hour, while auxiliary jobs in Poland are going for 77p an hour.
Meanwhile, a job as a housemaid in Portugal pays £2.45 per hour.
The search by the Daily Mail follows Business Secretary Lord Mandelson’s suggestion this month that those protesting against foreign workers could go and work in Europe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Did Gordon Know Banks Were Out of Control?
City watchdog admits it warned HBOS over risky business years ago
- FSA warned HBOS in 2002 it was taking too many risks
- Brown denies he or Treasury officials were ever told
- He denies handpicking Sir James Crosby for FSA role
- He declares short-term bonus culture has to end
Gordon Brown was under fresh pressure today after the Financial Services Authority revealed it warned HBOS back in 2002 that it needed to improve its risk assessment.
The extraordinary move by the financial watchdog immediately raised the question of whether the Prime Minister — then Chancellor — knew of their concerns.
It is unclear why the FSA decided to release the information hours after deputy chairman and former key adviser to the Prime Minister Sir James Crosby resigned.
Mr Brown, appearing before senior MPs this morning, insisted the Treasury had not been informed about the warning.
[…]
The meeting came after the FSA revealed it had raised its fears about HBOS back in 2002, two years before whistleblower Paul Moore told his bosses he too was worried.
The bank then made changes, including upgrading the post of senior risk manager to board level, the regulator said. Mr Moore was sacked and replaced in 2004.
By December that year, the situation had improved but the bank was still told it needed to increase the ability of its risk experts to influence the business.
Mr Moore subsequently claimed he had been sacked for questioning the approach of the bank and replaced with someone without risk experience.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Meet Labour’s City Cronies: the Roll Call of Bankers Rewarded by Brown and Blair
Labour’s intimate relationship with the financial industry has seen dozens of bankers given honours, appointed as ministers and given jobs on Government taskforces, reviews and quangos.
An analysis by the Daily Mail reveals that while ministers are now railing against the role of bankers in causing the economic crisis, they have spent the last decade cosying up to the industry.
Labour has given 23 bankers honours, brought three into the Government as ministers and involved 37 in commissions and advisory bodies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Who is Pulling Geithner’s Strings?
Appearing behind a podium that proclaimed, “Financial Stability and Recovery,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday carefully read from a teleprompter and provided what his flack said was a “comprehensive” plan. It was not comprehensive in any way. It seemed so amateurish and shallow that the market dropped and commentators and Senators were almost incredulous at the lack of detail.
But what were they expecting? Geithner doesn’t know the details because he hasn’t been given them yet. Those who expected the details of the plan were operating under the false assumption that the Treasury Secretary — and by extension, the U.S. Government — is in practical control and charge of the U.S. economy.
Geithner’s performance followed President Obama having advertised Geithner’s appearance in advance by saying, “He’s going to be terrific.. I’m going to make sure that Tim gets his moment in the sun.” The sun? One analyst said Geithner looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
It turns out the speech, which did mention the spending of trillions of dollars, was delivered in the Treasury Department’s “Cash Room.” No kidding.
Senator Orrin Hatch had voted to confirm Geithner, saying that he “is not merely acceptable for the job — he is highly qualified.” That was largely because of his role as President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank in previous financial bailouts that have yet to succeed. Hatch understood this, but said that Geithner’s recognition that mistakes had occurred “makes him more valuable, in my view, in the continuing effort to right our economic ship.”
Why is he so valuable? It’s not because he learns from his mistakes.. As we have argued in previous columns, Geithner is valuable because he is a major player in the global financial community, a prominent figure in the “Group of Thirty” organization of central bankers and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a former employee of Kissinger Associates and lived in China and speaks Chinese. His father, Peter Geithner, is a former top official of the Ford Foundation who knew Obama’s mother when she was working on “microfinance” in Indonesia.
It would be a serious mistake to say that Geithner is incompetent. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Essentially, his programmed performance was designed to send the message to the American people and the Congress that we can’t be trusted with the details, even when they are available. It was pathetic to watch our elected Senators at a subsequent hearing pleading for details. But it was also a “teaching moment.” This is out of our hands. This is the “New World Order” and we had better get used to it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Animal Lover Kills Hawk to Save Squirrel
VIENNA, Va. — A Vienna, Va., man was arrested for allegedly going too far to protect his squirrelly friend. Police said they caught him red-handed.
Thomas R. Shepler, 65, of Locust Street, was arrested for discharging a firearm in a public place and cruelty to animals after he shot and killed a hawk in his yard, police said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
California Bridge Sculpture is Literally for the Dogs
Dogs do the darndest things.They poop, they hump and they sniff in all the wrong places.
And now you can see them do all of the above every time you cross the pedestrian bridge over Interstate 80 in Berkeley, Calif., thanks to the largesse of the taxpayers.
Artist Scott Donahue of Emeryville, Calif., was paid $196,000 by Berkeley’s public arts program to create two large statues, which feature small, artistic medallions that show dogs doing what dogs do best.
“Various things,” Donahue said. “Biting each other, chasing each other… One dog is defecating, two dogs are fornicating.”
But with the country in a deep recession and California on the verge of bankruptcy, some taxpayers are questioning the money Donahue got for his work. His total budget was $196,000 — 1.5 percent of the total budget for building the pedestrian bridge. And all of it came from taxpayers.
“During this time of economic crisis and unemployment in California, the amount of money needed for that statue was excessive,” says Oona Eddleman of Los Angeles, whose husband Harry has been looking for work since being laid off from his job a few months back. Though Oona is home on maternity leave, she said she will have no choice but go back to work full-time to support her family.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daily Kos Whips Up an Email Campaign Against Meteorologist Who Spoke Candidly About Climate Change
Just when you thought it was safe to assume that everyone had pretty much accepted climate change and moved on, here comes rogue NBC 4 chief meteorologist Jym Ganahl to blow your freaking mind.
“Just wait 5 or 10 years, and it will be very obvious. They’ll have egg on their faces,” Ganahl said this week of global warming advocates.
The “global warming hoax” is an obvious fallacy, Ganahl said in a YouTube video posted Jan. 23.
In the video, taped at a meet-up of the Ohio Freedom Alliance, Ganahl chats with Dave, the self-proclaimed No. 1 biker talk show host on radio, and-still odder-Robert Wagner, a former candidate for the 15th congressional district.
Although global warming is clearly “a fallacy,” Ganahl told the dudes, “It is remarkable how many people are being led like sheep in the wrong direction.”
Evoking Orwellian mind-control power of the media, Ganahl said it’s remarkable how easy it is to panic the unwashed masses.
Ganahl continued to evangelize offline this week.
Sunspots-and not carbon emissions-are to blame for the slow warming of the globe, Ganahl said. “It has nothing to do with us.”
“When there are sunspots, like freckles on the sun-dark spots-these are like turning on a furnace and the earth warms. When there are no sunspots, it is like the furnace is in standby and the earth cools.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Octuplets Could be Costly for Taxpayers
As a single parent with no income, Nadya Suleman could receive thousands of dollars a month in government assistance. And the Medi-Cal bill for her newborns is mounting.
Nadya Suleman has 14 children, including newborn octuplets. She has no job, no income and owes $50,000 in student loans.
Still, the 33-year-old Whittier woman said she’s confident that she can afford to raise her huge family, insisting she can do it without welfare. In an interview Tuesday with NBC, she said she could use student loans to make ends meet until she finishes graduate school and gets a job.
But Suleman faces what are likely to be millions of dollars in medical bills alone, and it’s increasingly likely that taxpayers will foot many of those bills.
Her family is eligible for large sums of public assistance money. Even before she gave birth to the octuplets Jan. 26, Suleman was receiving $490 in monthly food stamps, and three of her children were receiving federal supplemental security income because they are disabled.
Lowell Kepke, a spokesman for the San Francisco office of the Social Security Administration, said that a single parent with no income qualifies for up to $793 a month for each child with a physical or mental condition that results in “marked or severe functional limitations.” That money is used for support and maintenance of the family, and Suleman would not be required to specifically account for how it is spent.
If Suleman’s disabled children received the maximum payment, she would get nearly $2,900 a month in state and federal assistance, including the food stamps.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Octuplet Mother Launches Website to Beg for Donations
The single mother who used a fertility doctor to give birth to octuplets has launched her own website to beg for donations.
Nadya Suleman, 33, who has six other IVF children, shows off her eight newborns on the site and encourages readers to give her money via credit cards and send parcels.
The American mother of 14, who already receives a raft of state handouts to care for her growing brood, also left a message to well-wishers.
‘We thank you for the love and good wishes sent to us from around the world,’ she said.
[…]
Despite previously insisting that she will not be claiming benefits, her publicist confirmed that she already receives food stamps and child disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Senate Support Builds for ‘Fairness Doctrine’
Harkin ‘to squelch’ 1st Amendment in favor of ‘Chinese-style censorship’
Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has become the second U.S. senator in a week to endorse a return to the ideas behind the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” a plan that was abandoned under President Reagan in 1987 as unnecessary and unconstitutional.
The plan, originally introduced in 1949, demanded that radio and television stations give “equal” time to conservative and liberal opinions on political issues under the threat of penalties or license revocation.
According to a report at Politico.com, Harkin told radio host and WND columnist Bill Press, “We gotta get the Fairness Doctrine back in law again.”
WND had reported just days earlier when Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told Press, “I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else — I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Human Rights Commission Calls for Media Watchdog
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and “media services” Web sites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.
The council would have the power to order the publication of its decisions and “would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada,” reads an OHRC report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The media’s freedom of expression comes with a duty to “address issues of hate expression, and [media] should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership,” the report reads.
“At the same time, the OHRC recognizes the media have full freedom and control over what they publish. Ensuring mechanisms are in place to provide opportunity for public scrutiny and the receipt of complaints, particularly from vulnerable groups is important, but it must not cross the line into censorship.”
Barbara Hall, OHRC chief commissioner, said in an interview that the rise of the Internet has strengthened the case for a national media watchdog. In her vision, a national press council would be “a vehicle for full discussion about what’s written in the media” that is less strict and more accessible than the courts.
It would be designed with the input of media, and would allow readers to bring complaints against media anywhere in Canada, no matter where they live. “It allows the affected groups to explain how they’ve been harmed, or the impact on them,” Ms. Hall said.
The recommendation is part of the OHRC’s submission to its federal counterpart, which is preparing a report to Parliament on its own hate speech mandate, in response to the controversy over human rights law and freedom of expression.
A national press council would replace the current array of provincial press councils, which are voluntary, and in some cases moribund. Some national publications belong to provincial councils, with exceptions including the National Post and Maclean’s magazine. Few magazines or news Web sites belong to anything resembling a professional regulatory body.
The idea of a mandatory press council was floated last year by Richard Moon, a law professor and consultant to the CHRC, as an alternative venue for discrimination complaints if Parliament were to accept his main recommendation and scrap the CHRC’s online hate speech mandate.
Soon after, the idea was endorsed by Mohamed Elmasry, former head of the Canadian Islamic Congress and the driving force behind three high-profile hate speech complaints against Maclean’s magazine over alleged Islamophobia in opinion writing. He said the council would be modelled on the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, and it would provide a forum for complaints, while advocating for what he called “fairness, professionalism, ethnic diversity, all the good stuff.”
Ms. Hall’s endorsement is the most prominent so far, and it marks a significant moment in the debate over the role of human rights commissions in regulating the media. Ms. Hall was widely criticized for voicing her sympathies with the Maclean’s complaint, even while formally rejecting it. A national press council could alleviate this confusion, by providing a forum for complainants who turn to human rights commissions, perhaps wrongly, as a last resort.
“As we saw in the Maclean’s case, we had different responses from each province, and that’s really confusing for people,” Ms. Hall said.
Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists, said provincial press councils “are largely toothless and ineffective, and I think that’s fundamentally a bad thing. They represent the only real place that readers can go to complain about stories short of the courts.”
At the same time, she said a mandatory national press council is probably a practical impossibility.
“The provincial ones don’t even work so how could we have a national one?” she said. “And I know a lot of journalists who would take umbrage at essentially being in a federally regulated profession…. If on the crazy off-chance that there is some momentum behind this idea of a national press council, it won’t be coming from journalists.”
“We need to get this out of the hands of human rights commissions, this idea of adjudicating issues of free expression in the media,” said Dean Jobb, who teaches journalism at the University of King’s College in Halifax. “When media are involved in debating issues, they shouldn’t end up before a body like a human rights commission, which is not only adjudicative, but can mete out punishment.”
He recalled that the Atlantic Press Council was established in response to similar rumblings from the Trudeau government in the early 1980s. He said recourse is important for media audiences, but that the Maclean’s cases showed that aggrieved readers can already get attention for their complaints.
“In a way, there is already a mechanism to air these things. I think we should be wary of creating some kind of new complex bureaucracy that’s going to start nosing around saying, ‘Hmm, we’re not quite sure if that was the proper way to say that.’ That doesn’t seem to be consistent with freedom of the press,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JEH | [Return to headlines] |
Jewish Canadian Student Threatened
Anti-Israel activists attack Jewish club’s offices at York University in Toronto, shouting racial slurs
Another anti-Semitic incident took place in a Canadian university Thursday when over 100 anti-Israel activists surrounded a campus building belonging to the Jewish student club ‘Hillel’ at York University, Toronto. The activists pounded on office doors while yelling out racial slurs.
Campus security was forced to alert police to restore order and the latter demanded that the offices be shut down.
An anti-Israel march is also scheduled for Friday, and ‘Hillel’ leaders have called on Jewish students to arrive with Israeli flags in order to show support for the country.
But anti-Semitism also took its toll outside of the campus. A Jewish student reported receiving a phone call during which an unidentified person threatened his life and those of his family members if he were to continue his pro-Israeli activities in the university.
Bert Camp, of York Police, said the case was being investigated by the hate crimes unit because the threatened student is a well-known pro-Israeli figure on campus. Camp said the threats were in all probability related to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
York University, one of the largest in Canada, is home to many Jewish and Israeli students, and many of its faculty members are Jewish. But in recent years the number of Muslim students on campus has increased, and its student council has been characterized as anti-Israeli. The council published statements condemning Israel during its operation in Gaza.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Toronto Mosque “Detoxifies” Extremists
CAIRO — A Canadian mosque is offering a helping hand to young Muslims leaning toward extremist ideology with an intervention program that helps shield the youth against radical views.
“We just want to encourage them to be faithful and do not take the law into your own hand,” Mohammed Shaikh, director of the Masjid el-Noor in Toronto, told the National Post on Wednesday, February 11.
The mosque leadership has come up with a 12-step Specialized De-radicalization Intervention program intended to provide “treatment and counseling” to young Canadian Muslims sympathetic to Al-Qaeda ideology.
It is based on the idea that extremism can be fought theologically by challenging the dark extremist vision with an alternative interpretation of Islam.
The program will deal with the youth through 12 steps like the use of verses from the Noble Qur’an promoting peace and good behavior.
Among the steps are countering extremism through education, public speaking and writing and the Canadian society.
They also feature finding common grounds between the three Abrahamic Faiths; Islam, Christianity and Judaism and other faiths.
“As Canadians of Muslim faith, it is our ardent desire to become leaders in the championing of anti-terror values,” reads a document outlining the program.
There are not reports pointing out to a rise of Canadian Muslims leaning to extremist and violent ideals, but a recent report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the radicalization of Muslims is a “priority issue” for Canada.
Muslims make around 1.9 percent of Canada’s 32.8 million population and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the Roman Catholic country.
A recent survey showed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are proud to be Canadian, and that they are more educated than the general population.
Unique
The Toronto mosque leaders say the extremist detox program is the first of its kind in Canada.
“Our mosque is the only one that is working on these kind of programs,” boasts Shaikh.
“We are the only ones who are professional mediators…so it is good that we are in there and the youth seems to understand us.”
The program creators say they want to help parents fearing the radicalization of their children.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Gang Violence Impacts Hospital Blood Supplies
Increases in incidents of shooting and stabbing are draining the supplies at the country’s largest blood bank in Copenhagen
Intensified street shootings and knife attacks between criminal gangs has severely impacted the country’s largest blood bank. The head of Rigshospitalet’s blood bank is now calling for an influx of donors to replenish the stocks.
‘There’s been a steady round of shootings and knife attacks, which is upping the pace at operating tables and the emergency units where both shooting and stabbing victims are brought in,’ said Morten Bagge Hansen.
Hansen told Metroxpress newspaper that it wasn’t unusual for patients brought to the hospital trauma centres to receive 100 units of blood in a couple of hours.
The Rigshospitalet blood supplies were adequate in the middle of last year, but now are only two-thirds of what they should be. Next week the hospital will call up 400 blood donors in Copenhagen and 200 more in the greater Copenhagen region to replenish the supplies.
‘We have a big task in front of us over the next two week to get our stocks filled up. We’ll try to put the pressure on even more people to donate, even though our personnel are already working hard,’ said Hansen, who indicated that even more blood donor stations would be open than normal.
Volunteers can already donate blood at more than 80 locations nationwide, either at a hospital or through a local mobile clinic. New rules introduced at the start of this year increased the age range for blood donation to between 17 and 67.
The National blood donor association said it support the extraordinary blood collection drive and said the effort has not been made any easier by under-pressure medical staff and regular donors who have been hit by the current strain of influenza.
More than 380,000 blood donations take place annually and approximately 238,000 Danes are registered blood-donors.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
European Officials Warned of ‘Interns Trading Sex for Secrets’
European Commission officials are being told to beware the charms of Mata Hari type interns, who are accused of trading sex for the innermost EU secrets.
Paranoid Brussels security officials fear that Eurocrats might be susceptible to the attractive guise of the “pretty trainee with the long legs and the blonde hair”.
Every year hundreds of “stagiares”, or interns, work at the Commission’s Berlaymont HQ in Brussels. Many of them are young, female and some, it has been claimed, are engaged in espionage.
Other covers said to be assumed by spies or agents, hired by industry or foreign powers, include people who have day to day contact with European Union officials, such as lobbyists or journalists.
“Like any large-scale organisation which deals with sensitive or confidential information, there are always people who endeavour to gain access to this information,” said a Commission spokeswoman.
“It could be the pretty trainee with the long legs and the blonde hair.”
A confidential memorandum sent in December by Stephen Hutchins, the Commission’s director of security, warned that “the threat of espionage is increasing day by day”.
“A number of countries, information seekers, lobbyists, journalists, private agencies and other third parties are continuing to seek sensitive and classified information,” he wrote.
Geoffrey Van Orden MEP, a former Brigadier in the Intelligence Corps and Conservative spokesman on defence and security, expressed his surprise at the alert.
“I cannot, for the life of me, think what ‘secrets’ the Commission would have to hide,” he said.
“Even if there were any, the EU’s institutional culture is such that they would not be secret for long, as the leaking of this memorandum shows.”
One woman, working in an EU institution on a six month internship, suggested that the idea of glamorous female spies might be more about male fantasy than reality.
“I think men working here in boring jobs would love to believe that sexy women spies were after their bodies and their secrets. I personally think it is unlikely,” said Petra, a 24-year old stagiare from a Baltic country.
The Commission makes proposals for legislation and monitors breaches of EU laws in areas such as competition policy. It does not handle any military or security secrets.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Audit Court Denounces Corruption
Transparency seen as best weapon against fraud
(ANSA) — Rome, February 11 — Italy’s state Audit Court opened its judicial year on Tuesday urging greater action against fraud and corruption in government and public affairs.
The court is the highest judicial authority in regard to matters of public accounting and also serves as advisor to the government.
In his address, Attorney General Furio Pasqualucci reviewed the wide range of corruption and fraud in Italy in such areas as health care and pharmaceutical spending, urban waste management and using structural funds from the European Union.
He also cited corruption linked to uncompleted public works projects and the reckless use by public administrators of financial derivatives, speculation on which many consider to be one of the causes of the current financial crisis.
The image of public administrations and state employees, Pasqualucci said, continued to be damaged by an unacceptably high number of cases of bribery, kickbacks and inflated consultancy fees.
While Italy is not ‘‘a nation of the corrupt and the corrupted,’’ he observed, ‘‘it is one of the worst according to international surveys and classifications on this phenomenon’’.
Greater transparency is the best way to combat corruption, said the Audit Court’s chief justice, Tullio Lazzaro, ‘‘because corruption can only grow in the shadows. It is very hard for corruption to survive in the light’’.
‘‘The utmost transparency is needed in all areas of public administration, otherwise there will be a mortal risk for democracy itself,’’ he added.
Civil Service Minister Renato Brunetta was among those on hand on Tuesday and he vowed that special efforts will be made to combat fraud and corruption, especially in regard to outside consultancies.
‘‘When and where necessary we will adopt measures, including laws passed by parliament, to ensure the maximum transparency in the use of public funds in regard to consultancies and salaries paid to state managers,’’ the minister said.
‘‘No shadow areas will be allowed and the correctness of the system must be extended to all areas. This will be a pillar in relations between my ministry and the Audit Court,’’ he added. Lazzaro also spoke on the government’s plans to decentralize the powers and responsibilities of the state, Lazzaro said that the court will keep a close eye on the costs of federalism in order to provide parliament with unbiased and objective information on which to base its decisions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Muslims Express Sympathy for ‘Right to Die’ Woman
Rome, 10 Feb. (AKI) — The president of Italy’s largest Muslim grouping, UCOII, Mohamed Nour Dachan, on Tuesday sent condolences over the death of a comatose woman at the centre of a euthanasia debate. Eluana Englaro, 38, died late Monday after being in a vegetative state since she was injured in a car crash in 1992.
“I send my most heartfelt condolences, and am certain that these represent those of all Muslims in Italy at the death of Eluana Englaro,” Dachan said in a statement.
Doctors at a nursing home in the northeastern city of Udine removed Englaro’s feeding tube last Friday in accordance with a ruling from Italy’s top court and her family’s wishes.
“I send these to her family and all those who loved her and were close to her during these terrible years,” the statement said. “May merciful God accept and forgive.”
Debate about Englaro’s ‘right to die’ has divided Italian public opinion and faced opposition from the conservative Berlusconi government and the Vatican.
The Italian parliament had been due on Tuesday and Wednesday to enact a bill outlawing the suspension of food to patients “unable to take care of themselves”.
Englaro (photo) died before voting could take place.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nazi Women Exposed as Every Bit as Bad as Hitler’s Deranged Male Followers
In Nazi art, films and magazines, women were always the fairer sex, defending the home-front as their menfolk fought on the battlefields.
But what did Hitler get in return for his dutiful attentions?
Until recently, the role of the Nazi woman in the construction of the brutal state machinery of the Reich has never been truly revealed.
Now a new book in Germany called Perpetrators: Women Under National Socialism explodes the myth behind the propaganda.
In the first German post-war analysis of the role of women in the crimes of the Nazis, historian Kathrin Kompisch documents the shameful truth about her sex in the war, which until now has been a taboo subject in her homeland.
‘The participation of women in the crimes of the Nazis has been blended out of the collective conscious of the Germans for a long time,’ she writes.
The fairer sex venerated by the propaganda machine of Josef Goebbels was, according to Kompisch, every bit as eager to turn the thumbscrews on the victims held in Gestapo cellars across Europe; every bit as fanatical as the male when it came to crushing resistance to the state.
They became assistants to the doctors who first sterilised, and later murdered, the ‘useless’ handicapped.
They became head guards in the gulag of concentration camps — like Herta Bothe, known as the Sadist of Stutthof for her merciless beatings.
And they were handmaidens to the SS as they staffed the ‘baby farms’ where ‘supermen’ children were born. In these ghoulish clinics, women were the managers and nurses.
And, Kompisch points out: ‘One should never forget the legions of women who stood by their menfolk as they killed people by the tens of thousands in Russia, in Poland, in places like Auschwitz and Treblinka.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: ‘Borrowing Money Costs Money’.
The Netherlands has an Authority Financial Markets (AFM). It’s principle job is to regulate and oversee Dutch financial markets. And a sterling job they did, what with the way they saw the credit crunch coming… (yes: sarcasm). And now they have discovered the Dutch consumer.
Convinced as the AFM is that the average Dutch sincerely believes that money is handed out by pixies, who made it from the contents of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they have taken it upon themselves to guard us from the ills of overlending. Hence the decision to put a mandatory(!) warning label on credit ads:
‘Borrowing money costs money’.
I kid you not. A more perfect example of how high the Dutch citizen is rated by the ruling classes would be very hard to come by, I should think. And of course, a PR company was hired to come up with this flashy warning and equally flashy logo. Undoubtedly for another 6 or 7 figure invoice to the Dutch taxpayer. Money well spent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Backtracks on Letting Police Wear Hijab
Norway’s government will reexamine its week-old decision to allow Muslim women police officers to wear the Islamic head scarf following massive criticism of the ruling, Justice Minister Knut Storberget said.
“In light of the debate that has surfaced … especially the reactions from (the main police union) Politiets Fellesforbund, I think it is necessary to start over again,” Storberget said during a televised debate on Norway’s TV2 late Tuesday.
Storberget’s comment came a week after Norway’s centre-left government approved a police decision to allow female officers to wear the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, in a bid to improve recruitment of Muslim officers.
“We think it’s necessary to recruit widely and to develop a police force which reflects all classes in society, regardless of beliefs and ethnicity, which is more important than demanding a neutral uniform,” police chief Ingelin Killengreenv said.
The decision was made after months of debate but sparked an outcry, especially from the main opposition populist right Progress Party, which decried the “gradual Islamisation” of the Scandinavian country.
The police union, which has demanded that force uniforms remain “neutral,” also objected.
Storberget said the question would now be reevaluated.”We’re not saying no (but) we’re not saying yes either,” he said.
Several other European countries, including Sweden and Britain, allow their police officers to wear religious headwear.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Prince Harry Sent on Equality Training by Army After ‘Paki’ Slur
Prince Harry has been ordered to attend an equality and diversity course by Army chiefs after being formally disciplined for his ‘Paki’ remark.
It is the second time the prince will have had to undertake the racial awareness training, which is mandatory for recruits.
The course aims to educate soldiers on what type of behaviour and language is unacceptable in today’s multicultural Army.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Right-to-Die Woman Buried
Eluana Englaro’s parents not present to avoid ‘media siege’
(ANSA) — Paluzza, February 12 — An Italian woman at the centre of a right-to-die battle that split the country was buried in a family grave on Thursday after a short religious ceremony without her parents.
Eluana Englaro died Monday after 17 years in a vegetative state, four days after doctors removed her feeding tube in accordance with a landmark court ruling based on what her father said were her wishes.
Englaro’s uncle, Armando, led the 300 mourners in Paluzza, in the mountains north of Udine, but her parents Beppino and Saturnia did not attend to avoid what her uncle described as the ‘‘media siege’’.
Local priest Tarcisio Puntel read out a brief message from Udine Archbishop Pietro Brollo, in which he expressed sympathy with the Englaro family.
‘‘Eluana deserves a great show of affection. She spoke to us, and she asked questions of us. Now she knows the truth better than we do,’’ he said.
Outside the Udine clinic where Englaro spent her final days, pro-life protestors left flowers and candles as well as a huge floral arrangement of red and white roses bearing the word ‘‘sorry’’.
Englaro died of cardio-respiratory failure sooner than expected but preliminary autopsy results on Wednesday showed no signs of foul play.
Toxicology results are expected within the next two weeks.
Hailed by libertarians, the court ruling was forcefully opposed by the Catholic Church and the government, which tried to block it on several occasions.
At the time of Englaro’s death, the cabinet was trying to hurry an emergency law banning the removal of feeding tubes through parliament.
A law on living wills sparked by the Englaro case started its way through parliament Wednesday and the government hopes it will be passed by the summer.
There is currently no legislation governing living wills in Italy.
A living-will law passed by a conservative-dominated parliament would be extremely restrictive, observers say.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi said in a television interview Thursday that the law would ‘‘forbid any sort of euthanasia’’.
It would also prevent doctors from removing feeding tubes from people ‘‘unable to take care of themselves’’, he added. Englaro, 38, had been in a permanent vegetative state following a car accident at the age of 21.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Stem Cells: Now a Millionaire Euro Business in Spain
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Stem cell research has become a global business. In Spain alone, according to a report in El Pais today, 26,500 couples have sent abroad the umbilical cords of their children, paying between 1,300 and 2,000 euro to have it preserved for 20 years, to get round the national law which sets up public collection banks and calls for the sharing of cells. For many parents this is the only guarantee that the umbilical cords can be used to extract stem cells exclusively for their own children. An ever greater number of companies offers, above all by internet, the storage of the cells for possible future use, which for now has no scientific basis, apart from the umbilical cord cells, used to treat certain types of leukaemia for example. For the rest, companies have mushroomed which will store cells taken from milk teeth, menstrual bloos, body fat and samples of tissue for possible use by the donors, but only once the therapeutic applications have been developed. The report mentions for example US company Bioden, which freezes milk teeth in banks. ‘‘One day, a mouse could save your children’s lives’’ says the advert on the website of the company which charges 1,000 euro for conservation, plus 95 euro per year. Other companies such as ‘C’Elle’ store ‘‘your monthly miracle’’, or ‘C’Elle’, which stores the fat taken from liposuction for possible use in regenerative medicine. Only cells from the umbilical cord are used to treat bone marrow diseases. ‘‘Experts do not recommend conserving blood from the cord, because in Spain there is an specific public bank which covers the necessities’’ says Director of the Biomedical Institute of Seville, Jose’ Lopez Barneo. ‘‘In ten years of adult stem cell research we have not cured a single illness at the clinical level; however in the field of regenerative medicine a true revolution has been seen in cell reprogramming’’ maintains Juan Carlos Izpiasua, Director of the Centre for Regenerative Medicine in Barcelona (CMRB). This is a procedure whereby adult cells are reprogrammed to become stem cells, which behave like embryo cells. The CMRB, along with the Centre for Energy and Technological Research in Madrid, has developed all the steps, starting with a human hair from a person with a genetic blood disease such as Fanconi anaemia, to become equivalent to a embryonic mother cell. The objective is to correct the genetic alteration which produces the disease and transform it into a blood cell capable of producing a ‘‘corrected’’ cell store to be used to treat the sick person. In this scenario, the private banks which store cells for possible applications in regenerative medicine would no longer have any reason to exist. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Muslim Woman Sues College Over Veil Ban
A Stockholm woman has reported an adult education college in Spånga to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) after being told that she could not wear an Islamic headscarf in class.
The woman was told on January 15th that she was no longer welcome at Västerort Vuxengymnasium, an adult education college in Spånga, if she persisted in wearing her niqab. The niqab is part of a hijab headress and covers the entire face except for the eyes.
The woman has now reported the matter to the Equality Ombudsman (DO) alleging discrimination.
In her report to DO dated January 20th, the woman alleges that she was told that she could not wear her niqab in class or in contact with the school’s staff.
The woman explains that the school justified its decision by referring to a recent decision by the National Agency for Education (Skolverket) which banned the wearing of some Muslim headscarves in class.
“But this is just a ruling, it is not a law and the ruling concerns those who wear a burqa, covering the whole face. I have a niqab which shows the area around the eyes,” the woman argued.
The woman writes that she finds it “offensive” to be expelled for her “personal style” and argues that the ruling is confusing as some schools permit the niqab.
But the college’s rector, Britt-Marie Johansson, has defended the school’s right to exclude the student from classes, referring to the education agency’s ruling.
“At Västerorts vux it is not allowed in the classroom to cover one’s face, with a veil or similar. This rule also applies in contact with staff. This means that neither a niqab nor a burqa can be worn.”
According to Johansson, the choice facing students is thus clear.
“Accept the rules stated above or discontinue your studies.”
But the student is keen to continue her studies and claims that she has offered the school a compromise.
“I have said that I can sit at the front of the class, and remove the niqab during classes and to identify myself.”
“I have even spoken to the men in the class…and they have said that it doesn’t bother them.”
The student argues that freedom of religion is enshrined in law in Sweden and this should take precedence over the education agency ruling.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Ticino Wary Despite Boon of EU Labour Deal
Opening up the labour market to the European Union has not adversely affected the southern Swiss Ticino region, according to a recent study.
But voters remain wary of closer ties with the EU as Ticino’s economy is exposed to strong competition from neighbouring northern Italy. A majority of the electorate in southern Switzerland is likely to reject the continuation and extension of a labour accord with the EU in a nationwide vote on February 8.
Pressure on salaries has been limited over the past few years following the gradual opening of the labour market in 2002, said the authors of the report, published in December.
The data dismisses persistent concerns about a wave of foreigners, who continue to make up about 25 per cent of the resident population.
The report, entitled Transformations of the Ticino Labour Market, also says there are no signs of salary dumping as even wage levels of low-skilled workers have increased over the past six years.
The 8.5 per cent increase in the number of cross-border workers to 40,202 by 2007 is the result of the economic upswing and not linked to the open labour market, the report found.
A committee made up of representatives of the canton, employers and employees agrees that the measures introduced to prevent salaries being undercut have helped to bring to light cases of exploitation and allowed the authorities to intervene.
Both trade unions and employers’ organisations also point out a strong boost in the number of personnel agencies offering low paid jobs to cross-border workers, in particular women, and also an increase in on call and temporary employment.
“The accompanying measures have allowed to us correct market distortions that existed before the bilateral accords were introduced,” says Saverio Lurati of the Unia trade union.
“It is clear that we have to remain vigilant and that controls have to be stepped up,” he added.
" Obviously fears are spreading now there is a recession looming. "
Siegfried Alberton, Economic Research Centre Boom years
Siegfried Alberton of the Centre for Economic Research and co-author of the report acknowledges that the so-called free movement accord was launched in a period of economic boom.
“We have to see how the market will react in economically more difficult times. Obviously fears are spreading now there is a recession looming,” says Alberton.
Ticino saw economic growth similar to the rest of Switzerland and in line with the northern Italian Lombardy region between 1990 and 2006.
It was marked by periods of growth and stagnation. Experts point out that Gross Domestic Product rose two per cent as a result of the higher volume of work and better productivity in the years 1997-2006.
The structure of the Ticino economy did not experience major changes. All sectors, including banking, industry and trade, benefited from economic growth, according to experts.
The report also highlights an increase in part-time work, particularly for women, and a more flexible labour market. Two out of five new permits for cross-border workers went to women with nearly one in two women not working full time.
The study concludes that the influx of labour from neighbouring Italy is linked to long-term economic growth and not directly attributed to the Swiss-EU accord granting mutual access to the labour markets.
What’s this?
Free movement of people
Short-term permits
One of the most noticeable impacts of the open job markets has been an increase in the number of people who obtained permits for fewer than 90 days a year for well-paid activities. That figure more than doubled between 2004 and 2007.
The liberalisation of the labour market has helped to counter the impact of an ageing population and opened up new options for the recruitment of young workers in the employment market, according to the report.
The authors of the study recommend increased market surveillance “particularly in sectors, including trade where the Swiss workforce is under pressure”.
Experts point out that the Ticino labour market is one of the Swiss regions most exposed to international competition and pressure on salaries.
The southern canton is on the fringes of the Lombardy region with its business hub, Milan, in northern Italy.
Nearly 45 per cent of the workforce in Ticino are foreigners — including 20 per cent who live in the southern Swiss region and 16 per cent who commute across the Italian border.
swissinfo, based on an article in Italian by Françoise Gehring
————————————————————————————————————————
TICINO
The Ticino region in southern Switzerland borders northern Italy with its business hub Milan and is part of the Lombardy economic area.
Ticino has a resident population of about 323,000, including 25% foreigners, according to official statistics.
More than 83% of the population speak Italian, while German is the main language for about 8%.
The service sector, including financial companies and tourism employs about 113,000 people, while 46,000 work in industry and 4,700 in agriculture (Federal Statistics Office, figures from 2000/2001).
Nearly 45% of the workforce in Ticino are foreigners, including 20% who live in the southern Swiss region and 16% from across the Italian border.
————————————————————————————————————————
TICINO AND THE EU
Ticino voters are notorious for their scepticism towards closer relations with the EU.
In the past they have overwhelmingly rejected European issues, including the Economic Area Treaty with the EU in 1992.
Opinion polls say at least 56% of voters in Ticino will reject the labour deal on February 8. The French-speaking region is largely in favour, while the main German-speaking region appears to be split down the middle.
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GETTING BIGGER
Map
The extension of access to labour markets
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CONTEXT
Switzerland is not a member of the EU but it has concluded 20 major bilateral agreements with the 27-nation bloc.
The labour accord, brought into force in 2002 for an initial seven-year period, was extended to eight mostly eastern European countries in 2005 and is set for another extension after the vote in February 2009.
Under the agreement Switzerland and the EU grant each other access to their labour markets.
Parliament approved the continuation of the labour accord and its extension to Bulgaria and Romania last year, but rightwing groups challenged the decision to a referendum.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Axe Falls on St George: Parade is Halted After Council Says it Attracts Racist Thugs
England’s biggest St George’s Day parade is facing the axe after councillors said many of those attending it were racist.
For the last decade up to 15,000 have assembled in the town of West Bromwich under the slogan ‘Forever England, For Everyone’.
Children and parents from all over the country parade through the Black Country town waving St George flags and marching to rousing anthems such as Jerusalem.
Organisers say one of the aims is to reclaim the Saint George Cross from Right-wingers and make it a source of pride for all.
But last night the local council, Labour-controlled Sandwell, voted to withdraw its support for the parade. Funds will go to support a Party in the Park instead.
It leaves parade organisers with what they say is the impossible task of raising £10,000 to cover their costs with only a few weeks to go.
In a letter to the organisers, one councillor, Yvonne Davies, said the parade created an ‘unhealthy atmosphere’ and inspired young boys to be racist.
She wrote: ‘It is not only the parade which is the problem, but the tribal excitement it creates.’
[…]
Trevor Collins of the Stone Cross Saint George Association, which organises the parade, said: ‘To suggest the parade is racist is ridiculous and offensive. When you see the kids, the dogs, everyone out having fun, it’s really a beautiful sight. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, green, brown or whatever, everyone’s welcome.
‘The council’s decision means we have to foot the bills for insurance and security. We’ve got to come up with £10,000 in two months which seems impossible.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Couple Wrongly Accused of Abusing Their Baby Cannot Have Their Children Back Because it is ‘Too Late’, Court Rules
A judge yesterday ruled that a couple will never see three of their children again even though he accepted they may have been wrongly accused of abusing them.
Mark and Nicky Webster’s three eldest children were taken into care in 2004 after doctors claimed that six tiny fractures found on the middle child had been inflicted deliberately. All three were adopted.
Yesterday, in a failed attempt to have the adoption order overturned, the couple were told that even though they could be victims of a miscarriage of justice it was ‘too late’ for them to be reunited with their daughter and two sons.
[…]
Medical experts later concluded that the injuries were not caused by violent twisting and shaking, but were symptomsof scurvy. This now-rare deficiency is believed to have been caused by the family GP’s advice that the child should be fed on soya milk, which is lacking in vitamin C.
The Websters have not seen their first three children since January 2005, when they were aged five, three and two.
They have always denied causing the fractures.
After the heartbreak of losing the children Mr Webster, 35, and his wife, 27, fled to Ireland in 2006 to stop their fourth child, Brandon, being taken into care at birth. He has never had contact with his siblings.
They later returned to their home in Cromer, Norfolk, where after a long legal battle Norfolk County Council dropped proceedings to take Brandon into care after accepting that he was in ‘robust good health’.
Yesterday the Websters were left bitterly disappointed after the Court of Appeal rejected their bid to challenge the adoption order on their other children.
Lord Justice Wall, sitting with Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Lord Justice Wilson, said he had ‘profound sympathy’ for the couple, for whom the case had been a ‘disaster’, but ruled that the courts could do nothing for them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Drugs Panel to Call for LSD Downgrade After Ecstasy Snub
[Comments from JD: This “drugs panel” seems more interested in spreading drug use. First they suggested downgrading ecstasy, now LSD… This panel should be downgraded — ie abolished.]
Controversial Government drug experts will turn their attention to downgrading the dangerous psychedelic drug LSD after suffering a humiliating snub over proposals for a softer line on Ecstasy.
Ministers rejected outright the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ recommendation the killer dance drug Ecstasy should be downgraded from Class A to B.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Britain, the Cradle of Liberty, is Sleepwalking Towards Cultural Suicide
If anyone had doubted the extent to which Britain has capitulated to Islamic terror, the banning of Geert Wilders should surely open their eyes.
Wilders, the Dutch member of parliament who had made an uncompromising stand against the Koranic sources of Islamist extremism and violence, was due to give a screening of Fitna, his film on this subject, at the House of Lords on Thursday. Geert Wilders
This meeting had been postponed amid claims that Lord Ahmed had previously threatened the House of Lords authorities that he would bring a force of 10,000 Muslims to lay siege to the Lords if Wilders was allowed to speak.
Lord Ahmed denies this report and said his lawyers are investigating those he blames for spreading it.
To their credit, the Lords authorities had stood firm and said extra police would be drafted in to meet any threat and the Wilders meeting should go ahead.
But now the government has announced that it is banning Wilders from the country.
[…]
So let’s get this straight. The British government allows people to march through British streets screaming support for Hamas, it allows Hizb ut Tahrir to recruit on campus for the jihad against Britain and the west, it takes no action against a Muslim peer who threatens mass intimidation of Parliament, but it bans from the country a member of parliament of a European democracy who wishes to address the British Parliament on the threat to life and liberty in the west from religious fascism.
It is he, not them, who is considered a ‘serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society’. Why? Because the result of this stand for life and liberty against those who would destroy them might be an attack by violent thugs.
The response is not to face down such a threat of violence but to capitulate to it instead.
It was the same reasoning that led the police on those pro-Hamas marches to confiscate the Israeli flag, on the grounds that it would provoke violence, while those screaming support for genocide and incitement against the Jews were allowed to do so.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Millions Face ‘Stealth Tax’ on Heating Bills to Subsidise Green Energy
Millions of families face yet another hike in heating bills to pay for a massive expansion of green energy.
Ministers say that the money raised will subsidise solar panels, wind turbines and wood-burning boilers for hundreds of thousands of homes.
But critics warn that the levy is an ‘insidious’ stealth tax that will hammer households at a time of rising unemployment, falling incomes and economic uncertainty.
We are already paying an average of £410 more on our annual energy bills after price rises last year of 59 per cent for gas and 26 per cent for electricity.
The green levy, or ‘Renewable Heating Incentive’, is part of an energy package to be unveiled today by the Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband.
As well as grants for domestic windmills and solar panels, he will announce plans to insulate seven million homes.
The measures will be funded by the levy on fossil fuel energy suppliers — which will be passed on to us in our household bills.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nutt
What’s important here is that Professor Nutt, like virtually everyone else in the official drug policy establishment, is a member of the same faction — the one that believes the best approach to drugs is ‘harm reduction’, that rejects any moral objection to self-stupefaction, or the idea that by disapproval and punishment we could reduce the amount of drug-taking and the number of drug takers. On the contrary, they work on the basis that drug abuse is more or less inevitable and so must be managed by advice (much as the ‘sex education’ zealots work on the assumption that the young will have sex below the age of consent and without any thought for the consequences, whatever we do or say, and so the only thing we can do is pelt them with condoms and morning-after pills). Doesn’t it occur to them that the adoption of this attitude by Professors and Police officers might actually make drug taking more likely? It occurs to me, and to many others experienced in the field, including Mary Brett (the deviser of an excellent and effective anti-drugs campaign for school students). Why isn’t Mary ever asked on to these bodies?
I’m not going to speculate here on why this opinion (for once genuinely comparable with Chamberlainite appeasement) is so common among educated and influential people nowadays, though it’s an interesting question. What troubles me more is why bodies such as the ‘Police Foundation’ and the Advisory Committee and the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, not to mention all but one of the drug ‘charities’ that speak about this, take the same view, all the time and everywhere.
Why is the other equally valid (to say the least) opinion — that legal sanctions against drug users would work — never considered? Who ruled it out? On what grounds? Why are those who take this view largely excluded from official levels where the matter is decided? Why, in short, are people with the attitudes of Professor Nutt always listened to, and taken seriously? And why should we take them seriously, when they say things like this?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pensioner, 97, ‘Dies of Hypothermia’ After Care Home Heating Fails
A 97-year-old woman may have died of hypothermia in a private care home after being left without heating for more than a week.
Police are investigating Rosetta Maslen’s death after concerns had been raised about the care of patients at the home.
One of the care home’s residents has claimed that Mrs Maslen died of hypothermia.
She died as snow and blizzards forced the country to a standstill and temperatures plummeted to their lowest in 20 years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Village Fury Over £8,000 to be Spent Teaching Romany Songs to Schoolchildren
Residents of a village besieged by one of Britain’s biggest gipsy camps have slammed plans to spend £8,000 teaching Romany songs to local schoolchildren.
Youngsters in Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, will be taught the music by professional folk singers during a month of workshops — before performing in a concert in November.
The workshops are being funded by a National Lottery ‘Awards for All’ grant, applied for by Cottenham’s Fen Edge Community Association.
Cottenham became synonymous with conflict between travellers and villagers after the nearby Smithy Fen site mushroomed into one of the biggest camps in Britain in 2004.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Whatever Happened to Free Speech?
Britain was once renowned around the world for defending people’s right to speak out. Not any more, says Philip Johnston.
The refusal to admit the oddball Dutch MP Geert Wilders to Britain yesterday marks a further retreat from this country’s traditions of free speech. It stands in stark contrast to what happened exactly 20 years ago tomorrow, when Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa calling for the death of Salman Rushdie for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in his book The Satanic Verses.
In retrospect, that was a turning point in the country’s history of free speech, an event that appeared to demonstrate indomitability, yet turned out to be a defeat. An unambiguous stand was taken on Rushdie’s behalf by the government of the day, which denounced the threat to his life and broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. Sir Geoffrey Howe, then foreign secretary, told the Commons: “This action is taken in plain defence of the right within the law of freedom of speech and the right within the law of freedom of protest.”
Despite mass book burnings, protests around the world, including in Bolton and Bradford, and threats of violence, the work continued to be published and sold. How could it be otherwise? This was Britain, after all, the citadel of free speech. We would not be brow beaten into denying the rights of one of our citizens, or anyone else for that matter, from having their say, however controversial or offensive their opinion might be.
Sadly, the past two decades have seen a pusillanimous flight into cowering capitulation. We seem to have forgotten what free speech entails, how hard it was fought for and how important it is to defend. It is the value with which this country is most associated throughout the world. It is why Britain has been home, over the centuries, to so many political dissidents who would have been persecuted elsewhere, and why those who live in autocracies that brook no criticism tune into the BBC World Service.
They see this as a place able to accommodate opinions that are obviously crazy, offensive or even seditious, a country where a view can be held and expressed, provided — and this has always been true — that it does not foment violence.
Geert Wilders is an anti-Islamist who regards the Koran as inherently inflammatory and believes he is justified in saying so. He has made a 17-minute film, Fitna — an Arabic word meaning test of faith — setting out this thesis and was invited to show it at a private screening in the House of Lords. The film can be seen on the internet, so there is no question of stopping its dissemination. It contains some unpleasant images of bomb explosions, of captured hostages facing death and of chanting mobs interlaced with passages from the Koran.
Wilders claims that these verses from the holy book of Islam are being used today to incite modern Muslims to behave violently and anti-democratically. You may think he is wrong to say this; you may agree with him; you might, like the lords who invited him to Britain, think it is something worthy of discussion, given the obvious problems caused around the world by radical Islamism and the violence perpetrated in the name of the religion. It is hard, in a free country, to understand why it is a view that must be suppressed.
What, then, possessed the Home Office to ban Wilders — an unprecedented action against a democratically-elected politician from a European state, who is entitled to free movement within the EU? By any measure, it was an extraordinary decision; yet it was not even raised in parliament, the supposed guardian of our freedoms, though some MPs have commented on the ban, largely to support it.
Were Wilders a terrorist preaching violence against particular groups, it could be understood on public order grounds. The order issued by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, read: “The Secretary of State is of the view that your presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society. The Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.”
Yet what possible threat to public security is posed by a Dutch MP showing a film, in private, to a smattering of peers on a Thursday afternoon in February? Of itself, the film does not call for violence against Muslims; indeed, it suggests that Islam is a cause of violence, a view with which you are entitled to agree or feel strongly about, but not to prohibit.
The reason for the ban appears to have been the possibility of protests by some Muslim organisations against Wilders’s visit. In other words, his freedom to express a view and the liberty of peers to hear it in an institution supposedly devoted to free speech, were set aside in the face of intimidation — the opposite of what happened in the Rushdie case, even if that author was forced into hiding.
What is particularly insidious is the application of double standards. One of those most opposed to Wilders’s visit is the Muslim peer Lord Ahmed, though he denies allegations that he warned parliamentary authorities that 10,000 demonstrators would take to the streets. Yet two years ago, Lord Ahmed invited Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian previously detained on suspicion of fundraising for groups linked to al-Qaeda, to Westminster to meet him. When he was criticised for doing so, he said it was his parliamentary duty to hear Rideh’s complaints. He does not appear to see any contradiction with the position he now adopts against his fellow peers.
Had a foreign parliamentarian who disliked Christians and considered the Bible to be inflammatory planned a visit to Britain, does anyone imagine he would have been prevented from doing so? No, and neither should he have been. This must work for everyone.
The arrest and possible prosecution of Rowan Laxton, a Foreign Office diplomat, for railing at the Israeli invasion of Gaza from his exercise bike in the gym, is the latest example of an equally sinister development — the denunciation of opinions expressed in private, as with Carol Thatcher’s “golliwog” comments. Free speech is about understanding that some people hold a different view from you, whether you like it or not. When we start to alert the “authorities” to thought crimes we really are one step away from the dystopian world that Orwell invented as a warning, not a prophecy.
The Government that has treated our liberties in such a cavalier way is having none of this, of course. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said the film made by Wilders was “full of hate” and therefore fell foul of British laws, though he admitted that he had not seen it and therefore could not judge. But, in any case, is he right? Is it against the law?
People have always been free under the criminal law to speak their minds, provided they did not, in doing so, incite others to commit violence or infringe public order. Rabble-rousers trying to whip up the mob have never been the beneficiaries of this latitude: there is, in other words, a difference between license and liberty. However, it is necessary to demonstrate that the words complained of are likely to stir up hatred and public disorder, not merely to complain that they are unpleasant or objectionable to some. Imams have been allowed to continue preaching in mosques when it could be argued that they have overstepped this mark, as when they have called for the death of homosexuals or Jews.
Wilders is no advertisement for free speech. After all, he wants the Koran to be banned. But that is not the point. It is what this affair says about us, not him, that matters. Is Britain now adopting a position where people who support suicide bombers and jihad are able to make known their opinions without legal challenge, whereas those who oppose them cannot?
The very people who in 1989 were demanding the murder of Salman Rushdie for writing a book are today leading the charge against a Dutch MP for making a film. The fundamental difference is that 20 years ago, the government supported free speech; today, it has cravenly surrendered. It is simply not good enough to say that Wilders should not be heard because he might provoke a backlash from those who do not like him or his views. That is not upholding the law. That is appeasement.
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Zurich’s Rich Foreigners Lose Their Tax Perks
Zurich is to do away with tax privileges for wealthy foreigners, a policy which has attracted a host of super-rich celebrities to the canton.
On Sunday voters unexpectedly endorsed a proposal by centre-left political parties to abolish lump sum taxation.
Nearly 53 per cent of voters came out in favour of scrapping tax perks — in the first ballot held on the issue.
Proponents of lump sum tax argued Zurich stood to lose revenue to other cantons. Opponents took issue with different legal standards for the wealthy and the less well-off, for Swiss and for foreigners.
Some 137 foreign residents are taxed at a flat tax rate in the Zurich region.
In 2006 more than 4,100 wealthy foreigners across Switzerland benefited from special tax arrangements.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: International Troops Search Homes of Mladic’s Relatives
Sarajevo, 10 Feb. (AKI) — Members of European forces in Bosnia (EUFOR) and NATO on Tuesday searched homes of relatives of the country’s wartime military commander and indicted war criminal Ratko Mladic. The soldiers were looking for information on Mladic’s whereabouts, officials said.
EUFOR spokesman Patrick O’Callahan told media that the search was carried out at the request of the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which has charged Mladic with crimes against Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war.
O’Callahan said the international soldiers searched the homes of Mladic’s sister Milica Avram and sister-in-law Radinka Mladic in the villages of Vojkovici and Kasindol near the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.
EUFOR troops removed documents and materials during the search that will be turned over to the UN tribunal at The Hague for further analysis, O’Callahan said.
He said that the reward of five million dollars offered by the US Department of State for information leading to Mladic’s arrest was still on offer.
Mladic (photo) has been indicted for genocide in eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995, when up to 8,000 Muslims were killed by Bosnian Serb forces. The court has also charged him with crimes against humanity and violation of the laws of war in Bosnia.
Mladic has been in hiding for the past ten years and this was the sixth search of homes of people suspected of helping his hiding in the past few years. He and Goran Hadzic, the wartime leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, are the only two fugitives accused by the UN tribunal who remain at large.
The tribunal has charged 161 individuals, mostly Serbs, with crimes committed during the 1990s Balkan wars and close to 60 have been sentenced to over one thousand years in jail.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Alcoholic Beverage Exports +26% in 2008
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB FEBRAURY 9- In 2008, alcoholic beverage exports in Croatia increased by 26%, totaling 38 million liters,. According to the Croatian Beverage Producer Association, production also increased to 377 million liters in 2008, and alcoholic beverage sales increased by 3% compared to 2007, including a 1% increase on the local market. According to the ICE office in Zagreb, Maraska is one of the top producers in the country, with 67 million kuna (9.3 million euro in revenue in the first 9 months in 2008 and 11.86 million kuna (1.64 million euro) in sales abroad, mostly to the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Canada, Australia, and the United States, while local sales increased by 12.5% compared to 2007. Maraska’s exports in 2008 marked a 96% increase compared to the previous year. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Rise in Depleted Uranium Related Ailments, Report Says
Mitrovica, 6 Feb. (AKI) — The number of illnesses related to exposure to depleted uranium in some parts of Kosovo has more than doubled after the 1999 NATO bombings, where the controversial weapon was used, a non-governmental organisation’s report has shown on Friday.
In some parts of Kosovo, the number of ailments, including cancer has jumped by 200 percent in the past ten years, the organisation ‘Merciful Angel’, based in the northern Kosovar city of Mitrovica, said in a report released on Friday.
The organisation, which has the same name as NATO’s military operation in Serbia, has investigated for the past ten years the effects of radiation and the use of depleted uranium in the area on its population.
“We were shocked, because a great number of young people came asking for help,” doctor Nebojsa Sabljak, president of “Merciful Angel”, told the media.
Many of them were former soldiers who served in a location of Kosare, the site of a heavy NATO bombing, he said.
He said 80 percent of the patients had rapidly lost weight, complained of exhaustion and had started spitting up blood. In the area of Mitrovica alone, twelve soldiers who had served at Kosare have died, Sabljak said.
He blamed the ailment on the “radiation produced by NATO’s bombing and the use of bombs and ammunition with depleted uranium.”
Serbian experts have decontaminated areas affected with depleted uranium in Serbia proper. But they have had no access to Kosovo, which was put under United Nations control in 1999 and declared independence last year.
NATO has admitted the use of depleted uranium in its bombing campaign. Italian media has reported that 45 Italian soldiers who served in the international forces in Kosovo (KFOR) after the bombing had died and 515 were reportedly diagnosed with cancer.
Sabljak said the problem has reached alarming proportions and should be brought to the attention of the international community and the World Health Organization.
NATO’s bombings were aimed at stopping what was called a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ during the ethnic Albanians rebellion against Serbia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Industry: Libya; Norwegian Company Yara Invests USD 225 Mln
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 9 — Norwegian group Yara International, which specialises in the production of fertilisers, has announced that it will invest 225 million dollars in a company which it is setting up in Libya together with two local groups. Yara International will control 50% of the capital of the company, Lifeco, and the National Oil Company (NOC) and the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) will each hold 25%. The final agreement was signed today in which “Noc will transfer its current activities in fertilisers to Lifeco in Marsa El Brega, estimated at 225 million dollars, and will receive an equivalent sum in cash from Yara”, announced the Norwegian group. Before investing in new production plants, the three groups decided to work on modernising and optimising the Marsa El Brega plants, where the two main components of nitrogen fertiliser — 900,000 tonnes of urea and 150,000 tonnes of ammonia — are produced annually. According to the agreement Noc will supply natural gas to Lifeco on a long-term basis at a price index-linked to the price of fertilisers, said Yara. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Turkey: Twinning of Carabinieri and Gendarmes
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 10 — A statement released by the Italian embassy in Ankara reports that a twinning project between the two countries, financed by the EU for the sum of 1.9 million euro, will enable the Carabinieri to shadow the Turkish gendarmes for two years in order to strengthen their adhesion to EU regulations. Tomorrow in Ankara the director of the Italian Carabinieri’s Stability Police Units Centre of Excellence, General Emilio Borghini, and the commander of Turkey’s Gendarmes, General Mustafa Biyik, will take part in a ceremony to begin a twinning project between the Italian Carabinieri and the Turkish Gendarmes, entitled, ‘Training of Gendarme officials in European Human Rights proceedings’. The programme aims to support the Turkish Gendarmes in its application to belong to the European Gendarmes force, (Eurogendfor). Administrative twinnings, set up by the European Commission instituted in 1998, seek to offer assistance to candidate countries for EU membership through institution-building processes’, whereby the applicant country has to fulfil the administrative and legal regulations as laid out in the acquis communautaire. The Italian embassy points out that General Borghini’s visit to Ankara for the twinning comes in a context of excellent bilateral relations between the two countries, as well as Italy’s strong support for Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Publishing: in Sicily Tunisian Newsletter Created
(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, FEBRUARY 11 — A bi-monthly newsletter about Tunisia in Italian intended for Sicilian institutions and the Tunisian resident community on the island has just been created. The newsletter, published and distributed by the Consulate of Palermo, has the goal of informing the institutions about political events, the economy, culture, and cooperation in the Northern African country. First issue reports, according to the 2008/2009 World Report of the Davos Forum on macroeconomic competition, Tunisia is ranked 1st in Northern Africa, 1st in all of Africa, 4th in the Arab world, and 36th in the world. The same issue reported Tunisian government initiatives to provide aid for poor families. In fact, using money from a National Solidarity Fund, from 1992 until now, 267 thousand resident families in 1,829 zones have received support. A section was also dedicated to “Health-Related Tourism”, which allowed thousands of Arab, African, and European tourists to receive treatments in Tunisia, with many receiving cosmetic surgery. Vice-Consul of Tunisia, Walid Hajjem explained, “The newsletter was created with the goal of informing Sicilian institutions. Besides political and economic news, activities and events organized by the Consulate and cooperation initiatives between Sicily and Tunisia will be reported”. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Criminal Activity Increase in 2008
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, FEBRUARY 11 — Arms and explosives trafficking, counterfeiting and smuggling, theft and violence. According to the national police’s figures, 2008 saw a steep increase in crime in general in Algeria. More than 40 thousand cases were handled and almost 58 thousand people were arrested in Algerian territory; +14% and +24% respectively compared to 2007, read the figures released today by the Algerian press. Over 1,000 crimes and 1,300 arrests in arms, ammunition and explosives trafficking (+26%) while more than 4,600 people were arrested for drug trafficking. More than 15,000kg of opium, 30 tonnes of kif (a local narcotic), 76 thousand poppy plants for producing opium, and more than 9,000 cannabis plants were seized over the course of the last year. More than 1,200 people of African origin, 55% from Nigeria and 22% from Mali, were arrested for smuggling, while 6,200 sub-Saharan Africans were deported from Algerian territory. There were 20 thousand common crime of which 40% were thefts. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: EU Provides Eur 168mln to PNA for 2009 Budget
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 11 — The Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and the European Commission Representative Christian Berger, today signed a EUR 168 million financing agreement in direct support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) budget for 2009. Both repeated earlier calls to the Israeli authorities to allow the transfer of PA funds from Ramallah to the Gaza Strip, in order to allow the PA to pay salaries, pensions and social allowances in Gaza, as well as provide for early recovery. The main aim of this agreement is to support the Palestinian Authority and its ability to provide vital services to all Palestinian citizens through a monthly contribution for the payment of salaries to the Palestinian Authority’s civilian workers and pensioners, both in the West Bank and Gaza. In addition this agreement will provide support to the most vulnerable Palestinians by providing regular contributions for allowances paid to vulnerable families through the Ministry of Social Affairs’ social protection system. Currently over 47,000 families benefit from these allowances, out of which more than 24,000 are based in Gaza. The Palestinian Authority will also use part of these funds to support the continued provision of essential public services, in particular by supplying industrial fuel to the Gaza power plant to ensure that it can continue to generate electricity for Gaza, not only for ordinary people, but to allow schools, hospitals and clinics to function.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Vote, Tzipi/Bibi Challenge Continues in Private
(by Giorgio Raccah) (ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, FEBRUARY 11 — 24 hours after the closure of voting booths, the issue of Who won the elections in Israel is still a controversial one. The electorate has, in fact, re-elected Tzipi Livni’s Kadima (centre), which has a relative majority, with 28 seats in the Knesset. But right-wing parties have definitely gained strength, and now they collectively hold a numeric majority in the Knesset — news which has been greeted with worry by Palestinians and the international community alike. At least on paper this situation allows Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu, who gained 27 seats, a real chance of setting up a coalition government based on ideological similarities. With things being as they are, it is hardly surprising that there is so much confusion and that both Tzipora Livni (dubbed Tzipi), and Benyamin Netanyahu (dubbed Bibi), have not wasted any time in meeting with Israel Beitenu (IB) leader Avigdor Lieberman to go through potential government alliances. Tzipi and Bibi are trying to outsmart each other, each trying to counter the other’s moves. Both claim that they are seeking a government for national unity but who will lead it is still a matter of debate. Kadima is talking about reaching an agreement to share the position of prime minister between Kadima and Likud during the 4 year legislature, something reminiscent of 1984’s Shamir-Peres alternation agreement. Lieberman is benefiting most from this situation, as he leads the country’s third largest party which now holds 15 seats in the Knesset. IB is the major surprise of these elections despite the party’s success having been predicted by polls. But Lieberman — who politically speaking is much closer to Likud than to Kadima — is acting like a veteran poker player and is keeping his cards close to the chest, saying that he is ready to meet anyone, without promising anything. Lieberman says that the country definitely needs a stable government as soon as possible in order to come out of the current state of paralysis and deal with the State’s pressing economic and security needs. But IB is also asking for something in exchange for joining a government coalition: a determined effort “to crush terrorism”; reform of the election law; reform of the citizenship law (which aims to impose an oath of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state upon the Arabs); and the separation of State and religion. This last issue is blasphemy for the religious parties, especially for Shas (orthodox Sephardic) which during the electoral campaign stated that voting for IB meant “voting for Satan”. But election results now mean that even Shas has to play along and its political leader Eli Ishai is no longer ruling out a government alliance with Lieberman, noting that, after all, in the past “there have been even more extreme political combinations”. Party moves are just in their opening stages while they wait and see who president Shimon Peres will call to set up a government. In a few days he will have received the official results of the election and will have talked to the political formations that have made it into the Knesset. The final results of the election will only be available after the count of votes cast by soldiers, prisoners, invalids and diplomats who are abroad. They will not radically alter the electoral scenario but they may lead to a new distribution of seats. Meanwhile, Ehud Barak’s Labour party (which plummeted from 19 to 13 seats) is stating that it wants to put up a “combative opposition”. It is the greatest loser of this election along with Meretz, the small Zionist left wing party which went from 5 to 3 seats. For the Labour party — which has always claimed to be “chosen by God for power” — the result is proving a very bitter pill to swallow. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Voting; PNA Premier, New Govt Must Close Settlements
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, FEBRUARY 11 — The PNA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has already drawn up a list of immediate requests for the new Prime minister of Israel, whoever it may be after yesterday’s elections, said Palestinian press agency Maan. The main requests are: the freezing of building projects in the districts of Jerusalem where building goes beyond the 1967 demarcation line; the renewal of the Israel-Palestine security agreements in effect in the West Bank before September 28, 2000, when the armed intifada began; the end of the isolation of Gaza; and the removal of the road blocks in the West Bank. Accusingly, Fayad also said that ‘Israel has stepped up its efforts to create a situation which will prevent the creation of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and to extend the occupation’’. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Vote; Resigned Arab Press Relies on Cartoons
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, FEBRUARY 11 — Resignation and dark pessimism, even in cartoons, characterise the comments of the main newspapers of the Arab press reporting the results of the Israeli elections. The front page of the Pan-Arab al-Hayat, edited in London, underlined the defeat of the Labour party, “fourth place for the first time”, and highlighted the ascent of the ultra right-wing Avi Lieberman. The newspaper owned by the Saudi royal family, reported the “resigned” positions of Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority. The peace process, sustained Lebanese as-Safir, was absent from the electoral campaign. “For the first time in 20 years, the Arab peace issue was not in the program of the main Israeli candidates”, wrote as-Safir. Pan-Arab ash-Sharq al-Awsat, also Saudi-run, pictured a cartoon with an “election” bus rounding a corner ramming into a small “peace process” bus, sending it into a ravine. Another cartoon, published by Lebanese an-Nahar pictures two ballot boxes, a large one with a picture of Benyamin Netanyahu, and a smaller one with a picture of Tzipi Livni shaped like a tank. Syrian government newspaper al-Thawra asserted that “from a right-wing and racist society like Israel, nothing other than a right-wing and racist government could have been expected”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Elections; Palestinian Press Sees Gloomy Future
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, FEBRUARY 11 — The first comments by the Palestinian press on the outcome of the general elections in Israel, which saw right-wing parties gaining ever greater support, are pessimistic. Al Quds, the newspaper with the largest readership in the Palestinian Territories, has said that ‘now we will see a continuance of the political paralysis which has characterized the Olmert government since the 2006 war in Lebanon.’’ In the eyes of the paper, all Arab and international initiatives for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may now have to be set aside until a new situation emerges. For this reason, wrote Al Quds, Arab diplomacy and US president Barack Obama must now take action to get out of a stalemate caused by the results seen in the Israeli elections. According to Al Hayat Al Jadida, the official press organ of the National Palestinian Authority, there is no real difference (except for their names) among Israeli parties, and this is why we will see a continuation of the Israeli style of politics consisting of “death, destruction and colonization”. Thus, said the paper, settlements will continue to grow, as will the demolition of houses in East Jerusalem and attacks in the Gaza Strip. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Palestinians Divided Over Rise of Right-Wing Bloc in Israel
Ramallah, 11 Feb. (AKI) — Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that he was not concerned with the emergence of the right-wing bloc in Israeli politics. He also reaffirmed his commitment to seek a peace agreement that leads to the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of 2009.
“The ascent of the Israeli right does not worry me, we can negotiate with Netanyahu,” Abbas told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Wednesday.
“We want a peace agreement before the end of 2009 and the creation of a Palestinian state.”
However, Palestinian caretaker prime minister Salaam Fayyad asked the Israeli government to meet its international obligations in regard to peace talks with the Palestinians.
“There are just merits they must fulfil immediately such as halting settlement construction in Jerusalem (and) changing Israel’s security policy… ending the siege on the Gaza Strip and removing military checkpoints in the West Bank,” Fayyad told reporters.
“After 15 years, the peace process has failed to hit the desirable target, but rather Israel intensified its efforts to create de facto situations which impede the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and ending occupation.”
But the Gaza-ruling Islamist Hamas movement — Fatah’s political rival — said voters in Israel had elected a ‘troika of terrorism’ which appeared to suggest a poor outlook for peace negotiations.
“This troika, this trio of terrorism of Lieberman, Livni and Netanyahu chose the dramatic development in Israeli society towards terror,” said Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum, quoted by Arab TV network al-Jazeera.
“This shows that the Zionist voters clearly start choosing the one who is most extreme in his speech, the one who wants war with the Palestinians.”
Another top Palestinian Authority negotiator predicted little chance for peace and disagreed with Abbas about the prospect of establishing a Palestinian state in 2009.
“Any form of government as a result of these elections will not accept the two state solution, they will not accept the agreements signed, they will continue with the settlements activities and the incursions and the attacks,” said Saeb Erekat, quoted by al-Jazeera.
Fearing a stall in negotiations after the possible formation of a right-wing coalition government in Israel, the European Union also issued a statement in regards to peace talks.
“We hope that the new Israeli government will honour the obligations taken by Israel … and refrain from measures rendering a two-state solution impossible,” the EU’s Czech presidency said.
The French government also urged the future Israeli government to immediately resume peace talks with the Palestinians.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Judge Sentences Pregnant Gang-Rape Victim to 100 Lashes for Committing Adultery
A Saudi judge has ordered a woman should be jailed for a year and receive 100 lashes after she was gang-raped, it was claimed last night.
The 23-year-old woman, who became pregnant after her ordeal, was reportedly assaulted after accepting a lift from a man.
He took her to a house to the east of the city of Jeddah where she was attacked by him and four of his friends throughout the night.
She later discovered she was pregnant and made a desperate attempt to get an abortion at the King Fahd Hospital for Armed Forces.
According to the Saudi Gazette, she eventually ‘confessed’ to having ‘forced intercourse’ with her attackers and was brought before a judge at the District Court in Jeddah.
He ruled she had committed adultery — despite not even being married — and handed down a year’s prison sentence, which she will serve in a prison just outside the city.
She is still pregnant and will be flogged once she has had the child.
The Saudi Arabian legal system practices a strict form of medieval law. Women have very few rights and are not even allowed to drive.
They are also banned from going out in public in the company of men other than male relatives.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Nearly 40 Percent of Women Abused, Poll
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 12 — Four out of ten Turkish women are victims of physical abuse by their husbands and only a fraction report it to authorities, according to an official survey released today and published by daily Hurriyet website. The poll, conducted among 12,795 women in summer of 2008, found that 39% of those were “slapped, pushed, punched, choked, burnt or threatened or attacked with a weapon such as a knife or gun”. Fifteen percent said they were victims of sexual abuse, described by the survey as being physically forced to have sex, having sex out of fear or being forced to engage in degrading or humiliating sexual acts. One in four women was injured as a result of physical or sexual violence. The poll, released by the governments office on the status of women, said that 48.5% of the victims did not tell anyone about the abuse while only 4% sought help from police and a mere one percent sought refuge in state-run shelters. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Italian Brand Opens Coffee University in Istanbul
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 9 — Italian cafe brand “Illy” inaugurated the “Università del Caffé della Turchia”, the university of coffee, in Istanbul as Anatolia news agency reported. This is the 14th coffee university opened by Illy in the world. “In the Università del Caffé della Turchia, we want to develop the coffee culture of food and beverage professionals, and offer all the process from the plant to the cup,” Morena Faina, international director of the Università del Caffé, said during the inauguration ceremony. First established in 1999 in Trieste, Illy’s Università del Caffé was created to promote, develop and disseminate quality coffee throughout the world. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Vestel to Produce 40% More LCDs as Sales Increase
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 9 — Turkish company Vestel Elektronik will raise production of LCD televisions by at least 40% this year as sales increase in Europe, Omer Yungul, chief executive of parent Vestel Group, said to Hurriyet daily. The firm produced 3.9 million liquid crystal display TVs last year, compared with 3.3 million in 2007. “We seek to produce over 5.5 million LCD TVs this year,” Yungul said. Revenue growth will probably be slower than volume growth because prices declined in the global financial crisis, according to Yüngül. Vestel, which exports about 90 percent of its LCD TVs to mainly European countries, has benefited as its competitors shut factories in Europe because of the global financial crisis. The group exported 76 million euro (USD 97 million) worth of goods in January, up about 10% from a year earlier, Yungul said. Vestel made a net loss last year after posting a profit of 18 million Turkish Liras (USD 11 million) in 2007, he said. Owner Zorlu Holding will inject USD 110 million into Vestel later this month, he said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
India’s Muslims Call Al Qaeda Threats “Stupid”
This is the reply to the intimidating message to New Delhi from the terrorist organization. One Jamia Millia Islamia teacher says Al Qaeda wants war between Pakistan and India, “we must not get caught in their trap.”
Mumbai (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Indian Muslims are condemning the threats made by Al Qaeda against New Delhi, and mullah Abu Zafar Hassan Nadvi Azhari calls them “stupid and illogical.”
In a video message on February 9, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the third in command of the organization and head of the terrorist group in Afghanistan, had said: “The mujahideen will not let you attack Muslims in Pakistan.” The brief intimidating message is an answer to New Delhi’s accusations against Islamabad, over the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.
Islamic religious leaders, intellectuals, and activists have responded to the threats from Al Qaeda by marking them return to sender. Asghar Ali Engineer, an Islamic scholar, says that “this is a political game and has nothing to do with Islam or Muslims.”
In India, the Muslims are a little more than 12% out of a population of 1.1 billion, but in the districts of some states, like Assam, and especially Jamu and Kashmir, they represent more than 30% of the population.
Mullah Azhari says that the Islamic terrorist organization and radical Hindu movements like Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad are “two sides of the same coin. They talk in the same language of intimidation and threat.”
For Hasan Kamal, a journalist and activist for the modernization of Islam, the threats of al-Yazid demonstrate the “sheer ruthlessness and lack of respect for dialogue” of Al Qaeda, which “is making [Pakistan] more vulnerable.”
Akhtarul Wasey, a professor of Islamic studies at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, emphasizes that Al Qaeda wants war between Pakistan and India, “but we must not get caught in their trap and allow them to succeed.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerian Militants Target Italians
Oil company workers ‘at risk’ after Italy offers boats
(ANSA) — Rome, February 11 — Nigerian militants on Wednesday threatened to attack Italian companies and workers in the West African country after Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Italy would supply the government with military technology. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Nigerian Delta (MEND), which is demanding that the oil-rich region be given independence and that money from oil be used to reduce poverty locally, said the Agip unit of Italian fuels group ENI would be among targets.
‘‘The Italian government has made an unsolicited offer to supply two patrol boats to the Nigerian army, which is conducting an unjust war against the population of the Niger Delta,’’ said MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo.
Gbomo said Italy, like the United Kingdom, ‘‘believes the best way to take oil from the Niger Delta is to support an army and a government oppressing a long-exploited people’’.
‘‘This puts the Italian workers and companies in the country at serious risk’’.
He added that Italy’s offer to supply the boats could be the first of many in order to sustain Italian industry, and that the Nigerian customers ‘‘are too blind and foolish to understand that this is just another commercial Trojan horse’’.
Local people blame foreign oil companies for environmental damage to their fishing and farming and militants have declared an ‘oil war’, staging attacks and kidnappings against the industry and government targets over the last three years.
MEND, one of the main militant groups, claimed it had attacked a gas plant operated by Royal Dutch Shell on Saturday.
The group has been holding two British oil workers since September, but hostages are usually released unharmed after a short period, sometimes after a ransom has been paid.
Last month an 11-year-old girl was killed by gunmen as she tried to prevent the kidnap of her brother.
In 2007 four Italian oil workers were held hostage in the Nigerian forests for over a month.
Frattini, who is currently in Nigeria on a four-country African tour, said Tuesday that Italy would give Nigeria the two boats to patrol the Niger Delta in a bid to prevent attacks on Western oil interests in the area, including those of ENI.
On Wednesday he confirmed that the Nigerian government had also expressed interest in Italian military technology for a series of supplies in the defence sector including naval, aeronautical and army equipment and vehicles such as armoured cars.
However, Frattini said he was ‘‘very struck’’ by the alarm voiced by Nigerian leaders over rising pollution in the Niger Delta, adding that they were ‘‘very concerned.’’ He said Italy needed to contribute to a political solution for the Niger Delta which went beyond supplying patrol boats and training police. Nigeria is Africa’s second-biggest oil producer after Angola.
Frattini invited Nigeria to take part in outreach sessions that will be held at this year’s Group of Eight summit on the island of La Maddalena off northern Sardinia July 8-10 with Italy as duty chair. Photo: Nigerian gunmen on the Delta.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Italy to Aid Security in Niger Delta
Abuja, 11 Feb. (AKI) — Italy is ready to contribute reconnaissance aircraft and patrols to enhance security in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, foreign minister Franco Frattini said on Wednesday. Frattini made the pledge during an official visit to the country’s capital, Abuja, while stressing the need for “a political solution” for the region where troops are battling militants who attack foreign petroleum companies.
Armed attacks by rebels from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, including kidnappings and the hijacking of vessels, have reportedly cut Nigeria’s crude oil exports by more than 20 percent since 2006.
Apart from security, the minister stressed that serious environmental issues need to be addressed in the region, such as oil leakages that damage the environment and water. Thousands of barrels of oil are lost every day due to damage or attacks on infrastructure.
“I suggested several solutions to local authorities,” Frattini said. “First of all they need technology to prevent and control leakages.”
Frattini also proposed projects to support agriculture and fishing in the region.
“Italy can not only make a financial contribution, but also suggest other technologies,” the minister said, noting that Italy has a monitoring system in place for its pipes.
“In the agricultural and fishing sectors we can mobilise important resources and also set up police to control the maritime frontier, “Frattini said.
On Tuesday Frattini pledged to send two boats to help patrol the Niger Delta.
Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil producer and the fifth-biggest source of oil imports to the United States.
Frattini’s trip, which began in Angola on Monday, is aimed at boosting Italy’s economic ties with several African countries and increasing Italian business there.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: New Wave of Immigrants Arrive in Rome
Rome, 11 Feb. (AKI) — The Italian capital Rome received a wave of new immigrants in 2008 despite the Berlusconi government’s hardline immigration policies. A report by the Catholic charity Caritas said the number of immigrants rose by 43,347 or 15.6 percent to reach a total 321,887 in Rome and surrounding areas in 2008.
The director of Caritas in Rome, Guerino Di Tora, said despite the economic crisis there are thousands and thousands of immigrants who are arriving in the city every year.
He said newborns and immigrants looking to be reunited with their families were expanding the city’s migrant population.
According to Caritas, Romanians topped the list of immigrants with a total of 92,258 immigrants — 28.7 percent of the total number of migrants living in Rome.
The second largest group of migrants are Filipinos, with a total of 25,888 migrants (or 8 percent of the total) followed by Poles, Albanians and Peruvians.
The report said that the majority of migrants were employed in the services, commerce and construction sectors.
Some groups of immigrants — such as Chinese, Bangladeshis and Moroccans — were more involved in commerce, while Romanians, Poles, Moldavians and Albanians were predominantly in the construction sector, the report said.
With respect to education, Caritas said that there is a higher number of immigrants enrolled in school (45,000) and universities (7,000) than previous years.
To the northeast of the city, the town of Guidonia has the second-largest number of immigrants with a total of 6,244 or 8 percent.
Guidonia is the town where groups of Albanians and Romanians were beaten by a mob after an Italian woman was allegedly gang raped by Romanian immigrants in January. The day after the rape, Romanian-owned shops were attacked in Guidonia.
Attacks against immigrants are on the rise in Italy. On 1 February, a homeless Indian labourer was savagely attacked and set on fire, in the coastal town of Nettuno, 70 kilometres south of Rome, allegedly by three young men.
Responding to rising concern about immigrants, the Italian Senate passed a bill last Thursday approving volunteer vigilante groups to monitor the ‘illegal activities’ of immigrants.
The legislation sponsored by the anti-immigrant Northern League includes a provision for a ‘census’ of homeless people, as well as allowing doctors to report illegal immigrants to authorities, thereby lifting a previous ban that dated to 1998.
Another proposal includes the imposition of a charge of 80 to 200 euros on immigrants requesting a permit of stay in Italy.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Statistics Chief Accused of Intending to Embarrass Brown With Foreign Workers Figures
[Comment from JD: Good for the ONS — telling the truth to the British public]
Labour ministers are furious at a decision to release official statistics that highlight the increase in foreign workers in Britain.
Yesterday the ONS revealed that the number of non-UK nationals in work rose by 214,000 to 3.8million and a record 151,000 work permits were handed out to foreigners.
The figures came as official statistics showed that the number of people out of work had risen to a 12-year high.
But this is the first time that the ONS has highlighted the employment of foreigners in a separate press release.
Ministers are said to be ‘fizzing’ with anger at what they regard as a political act by Karen Dunnell, director at the Office for National Statistics.
Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said he would raise concerns about the release of the figures with the Prime Minister.
He told The Times: ‘The danger is that such information could be misconstrued or misused by those who do not support the view that Britain should be a diverse and multicultural society.’
The ONS said the statistics on foreign workers had been released because of ‘the level of interest in this aspect of the labour market.’
An ONS spokesman said: ‘We felt it was right and in the public interest to do this. We have a role to fully report what is happening in society.’
This is not the first time that the ONS and Downing Street have clashed over figures.
[…]
Last night, rattled Ministers were preparing to cut the number of work permits handed to non-EU workers, amid fears of a possible backlash from jobless Britons.
It comes just days after illegal wildcat strikes spread across Britain in protest at the use of cheap foreign labour and the failure of Prime Minister Gordon Brown to keep his pledge of ‘British jobs for British workers’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Frosty Reception for Vulnerable Refugees
The unwillingness of Swedish municipalties to take in refugees who are traumatised or disabled has been described by the head of the Migration Board as “a major problem”.
Migration Board Director General Dan Eliasson and Stockholm County Governor Per Unckel have called for local councils to extend a more generous welcome to “new Swedes” in a in article published on Thursday in the Dagens Samhälle weekly.
“The asylum system is not just for people who are ready to start working. It is predicated on providing protection for those who need it, including people who have been tortured or are traumatised, disabled, illiterate or have a low level of education. These are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable,” write Eliasson and Unckel.
Sweden’s municipalities taken in around 20,000 people a year who have received residence permits through the asylum system. Many successful asylum seekers decide to remain in the areas where they have managed to organise accommodation during the application process.
But In 2008 Sweden’s various county administrative boards negotiated 2,900 municipal homes for people who had been staying at the Migration Board’s own temporary apartments.
Although the government has set a maximum limit of one month, around 400 successful asylum applicants had to wait more than four months for the municipalities to arrange accomodation for them. There are even examples of people who have had to wait more than nine months, write Eliasson and Unckel.
Policies rewarding municipalities where new arrivals quickly enter the workplace have led to a bonus system by which the local councils received money from the state for each person who has either received a job or begun work experience. But there is no such reward system for councils taking in vulnerable applicants who are likely to demand a lot of societal resources.
“There is nothing wrong with the work policy; it should be encouraged. But it needs to be pointed out that Swedish migration policy consists of different parts,” write Eliasson and Unckel, who urge the government and the municipalities to work together to find a solution.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Texas Crafts Plans for Mexico’s Collapse
AUSTIN — Texas officials are working on a plan to respond to a potential collapse of the Mexican government and the specter of thousands fleeing north in fear for their lives after recent reports indicated the country could be on the verge of chaos.
“You hope for the best, plan for the worst,” Katherine Cesinger, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said last week. “At this point, we’ve got a contingency plan that’s in development.”
Late last year the U.S. Department of Defense issued a report that listed Pakistan and Mexico as countries that could rapidly collapse. The report came after similar alarms sounded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey.
“I think their fears are well-grounded,” Texas Home land Security Director Steve McCraw told lawmakers recently at a border security briefing.
Lawmakers expressed concern that the state’s southern neighbor, embroiled in drug violence and facing uncertain economic conditions, could send thousands north in search of safety.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UAE: Stay Permits Halved, But Population Grows
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, FEBRUARY 11 — According to data presented by the Immigration Department today, population growth in Dubai experienced a marked slowdown compared to last year, but has continued to record positive growth. The data reflects an adjustment to the job market due to the global economic crisis. According to the report, half the number of visas were granted in January of 2009 compared to the previous year, reducing the average number of stay permits granted daily from 2000 to 1000. Mohammad al Marri, director of the Immigration Department, said that the reduction in residencies is due to international financial turmoil which has also stuck Dubai, underlining that despite everything, the population is still “experiencing balanced growth with respect to the job market”. Population growth, like tourism, has played a significant role in Dubai’s economic policy, which calculates the rate of economic and real-estate expansion for the coming years based on these estimates. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Google Map: Intimidation or Conversation Starter?
Web service identifies names, locations of Prop 8 supporters
Is it intimidation or a conversation starter? “It” is an Internet service, Google Maps, that provides the names, donation amount and location all of those people who donated $100 or more to the successful California Proposition 8 state constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman — only.
Ruth Schneider, under the column headline “OUTspoken,” in the Olympian newspaper in Washington state, said the identification “should be an invitation to have an open conversation.”
She cited Toni Broaddus, executive director of the Equality Federation group of “60 state-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organizations,” who said she certainly has “hope there are no threats against people for taking a particular political position.”
But officials for Protect Marriage.com, the group that organized the amendment campaign, said it hasn’t worked exactly like that.
“There has been a systematic effort to intimidate and harass donors to the Prop 8 campaign,” said Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com, at a time recently when amendment supporters were asking California courts to halt enforcement of state campaign reporting laws mandating the release of such donor information.
“The latest example of this is the publication by our opponents of ‘Google Maps’ showing the home or office location of Yes on 8 contributors.
“The message of this harassment is unmistakable — ‘support traditional marriage and we will find you,’“ he said.
The lawsuit seeking the protection of the identities of some of those who donated lesser amounts to the Prop 8 campaign noted organizations such as “Californians Against Hate” now “exist for the primary purpose of identifying and taking action against supporters of Proposition 8.”
The organization cited “numerous examples of threatening and harassing e-mails, phone calls and postcards suffered by supporters of Proposition 8, including death threats.”
The courts ultimately refused to provide that protection.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Hetero’ Gal Benched ‘for Not Being Lesbian’
Star basketball player says female coach wrongly revoked scholarship
A former star basketball player is now suing Central Michigan University, claiming the school’s basketball coach benched her and revoked her scholarship because she wore too much make-up and was not a lesbian.
Brooke Heike has filed a federal lawsuit against the college and its women’s basketball coach, Sue Guevara, alleging discrimination by Guevara caused her emotional distress, physical injury and eventual loss of her athletic scholarship.
According to the Detroit News, Heike claims, “Throughout the 2007-08 season, defendant Guevara continued to subject plaintiff to unwelcome harassment and discrimination because of plaintiff’s heterosexual preference and refusal to abandon her heterosexual preference and adopt a homosexual preference.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Holy Smoke! Batwoman Makes Her Comic Book Comeback as Red-Headed Lesbian
Batwoman is making her comic book comeback — as a red-haired, crime-fighting lesbian.
Billed as a ‘lesbian socialite by night and a crime-fighter by later in the night,’ she replaces the Caped Crusader after he was killed off in a recent issue.
Batwoman — the alter ego of Kathy Kane — is clad in a figure-hugging black outfit and knee-high red stiletto boots.
She is Detective Comics first openly gay superhero and will stalk the means streets of Gotham City from June.
Writer Greg Rucka said the introduction of a gay character was ‘long overdue’
‘We have been waiting to unlock her,’ he told the Comic Book Resources website. ‘Yes, she’s a lesbian. She’s also a redhead.
‘It is an element of her character. It is not her character.
‘If people are going to have problems with it, that’s their issue. It’s certainly not mine. […]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
School Secretary Faces Sack Over Prayer Plea After Five-Year-Old Daughter is Told Off for Talking About God
A primary school receptionist whose five-year-old daughter was scolded by a teacher for talking about God is facing the sack after seeking support from members of her church.
Jennie Cain, who works part-time at her daughter Jasmine’s school, sent an e-mail to close friends asking them to pray for her child.
Jasmine was left in tears after she was reprimanded by a teacher for discussing heaven and God with a friend.
But Mrs Cain’s e-mail fell into the hands of the school’s headmaster, Gary Read.
The mother-of-two is now being investigated for professional misconduct for allegedly making claims against the school and staff members.
She has been told she may be disciplined and was warned she could face dismissal from Landscore Primary School, in Crediton, Devon.
It is the latest example of a Christian facing a misconduct hearing where they work for practising their faith.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Government Health Care Will Literally Kill You
Once the Obama Administration completes their goal of passing an enormous spending bill with the promise of stimulating the US economy, they will set their sights on passing legislation to control the health care system throughout the nation, according to a conservative congressman who held a press conference for news reporters, Internet journalists and bloggers earlier this month.
The Democrats, they said, are seeking to replicate the socialized medicine systems of other industrialized nations such as Britain, Canada and Japan.
“The mainstream news media and liberal politicians are always praising the health care systems in other countries, but they never discuss the nightmare stories emanating from these countries’ medical professionals,” said political strategist Mike Baker.
“I also believe individuals should have the opportunity to select the health insurance policy that best meets his or her needs, which is why I am an original co-sponsor of the Health Care Choice Act. The Health Care Choice Act would enable consumers to choose and purchase affordable health insurance policies that offer a range of benefits, said Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI).
“My bill will allow consumers to shop for health insurance online, by mail, over the phone or in consultation with an insurance agent but would not limit them to policies that meet their state’s regulations and mandated benefits. Individuals would have the opportunity to choose a plan that is qualified in one state and offered for sale in multiple states that best meets his or her needs,” he told reports and Internet journalists.
[…]
Hoekstra and other conservative congressmen want Americans to receive medical care, but they say they don’t want the government dictating what care is given and when it is given.
During the press conference, one congressional staffer told NewsWithViews.com this horror story from Japan:
An elderly Japanese man with head injuries after getting struck by a motorcycle, waited in an ambulance as the paramedics phoned 14 hospitals, each refused to treat him.
The man died 90 minutes later at the facility that finally relented and also one of thousands of victims repeatedly turned away in recent years by understaffed and overcrowded hospitals in Japan.
According to a fire department official, paramedics reached the accident spot within minutes after the man on a bicycle collided with a motorcycle in the western city of Itami. Having 14 hospitals turning down to admit the 69-year-old citing a lack of specialists, equipment and staff is shocking said the official.
This was the latest incident, among the recent cases in which patients were denied treatment, underscoring health care woes in a rapidly aging society that faces an acute shortage of doctors and a growing number of elderly patients. One of the hospitals agreed to provide care when the paramedics called a second time more than an hour after the accident. But the man, who suffered head and back injuries, died soon afterward of shock from loss of blood.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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