Germany and EU Plan ‘European IMF’
The European Commission and the EU’s biggest economy, Germany, are planning to create a “European IMF” that could rescue debt-ridden countries like Greece, officials said on Monday.
“The (European) Commission is ready to propose a European instrument like this that would have the support of eurozone members,” the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told the Financial Times Deutschland.
Rehn emphasised the financial aid would be linked to “strict conditions.”
“We are working closely on this issue with Germany, France and other EU member states,” he added in the interview.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble have also suggested the creation of a European version of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund.
The IMF gives out emergency loans to countries with troubled finances.
“We’re not planning an institution that would compete with the IMF, but for the internal stability of the eurozone, we need an institution that has the experience and power of the IMF,” Schäuble told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
“We should calmly discuss the consequences of the Greece crisis and should not rule anything out, even the creation of a European Monetary Fund,” he said.
“I will shortly be making proposals on this topic,” added the minister.
Weighed down by a deficit over four times the EU’s limit, Greece has initiated a raft of austerity measures, including sweeping tax hikes and deep cuts in public spending.
The emergency action has sparked protests and nationwide strikes that have affected air and ground transport, as well as schools and hospitals.
On an international level, the crisis has weighed heavily on the value of the common currency, the euro, and on the financial markets.
Napolitano called for the creation of a European monetary fund to help eurozone nations in trouble during a visit to Brussels last week.
“The European Central Bank (and) the European institutions are aware that there’s something missing from our common tool box to tackle unforeseen and serious crises in one of the eurozone nations,” he said.
Socialists in the European Parliament have also called for the creation of such a fund to be managed by the European Investment Bank (EIB).
Under their scheme the EIB, Europe’s lending arm, would borrow from the market at a reasonable interest rate. Countries in crisis could then borrow these funds at a similar rate as others are able to do.
Such a system would protect the eurozone against speculative attacks and create conditions in which a sovereign default by any eurozone member state “is clearly judged impossible by the markets,” the European Socialists said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Tajani: Positive Measures, Italy Not at Risk
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, MARCH 8 — “The measures taken by the Greek government to deal with the situation are very positive. They appear to be adequate to deal with the problems”, said European Commissioner for Industry Antonio Tajani. He added that “Italy is not at risk, also because it has a good banking and business system”. “Greece will not leave the Eurozone, we have never taken this into consideration: we are making sure that the possible problems for the euro will not spread to other countries”, Tajani added from a meeting on SME in Milan. “Greece must solve its problems giving significant and positive answers to the markets, because confidence in the markets is important” the European Commissioner concluded.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Fresh Strikes Today
(ANSAmed) — ATEHENS, MARCH 8 — Greek customs officers have begun a 48-hour strike today against the government’s austerity package, and the country’s rubbish tips are closed until Thursday, the day of a national strike. Court employees will also be striking for two hours today. Communists, who will be taking part in Thursday’s general strike called by the Gsee and Adedy unions, private and public sector workers, have called strikes today in Athens and other cities for International Women’s Day and against the latest measures in order to “keep the pressure” on the government. Students and teachers are also mobilising, though only in part. Since Friday the State Printing Office has been occupied by Interior Ministry employees, who are trying to prevent the publication of the latest measures in the official gazette, and former employees of the privatised Olympic airlines are continuing their protests in front of the State Treasury. According to polls, most Greeks are against the mass strikes against the latest government measures, even though they believe that the latter are too harsh and unfair, and would like them to be temporary only. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Hits Bottom
A Clash of Cultures on the Aegean
The Greek government is doing everything it can to prevent national bankruptcy. But the real fight will be waged between those in Greece who are prepared for sacrifice and those who want to cling to the good old days. A report from the front lines.
The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens were easily the high point in the career of Kostaris Antonis, 45. “I had never before experienced such a thing, neither emotionally nor financially,” he says. Antonis is sitting on his rooftop terrace, which looks out onto the Acropolis. His eyes glow in the sun — and with the memory of Greece’s grand success six years ago.
Antonis is the head of a mid-sized landscaping company with some 50 employees, depending on the season and demand. Prior to the Olympics, Antonis was able to beat out a number of other companies for contracts to beautify game venues in both Athens and Piraeus. Even today, he says, he is still “especially proud” of the honor. It also reminds him of a time when the world still seemed intact.
Today, Antonis still specializes in large projects with high visibility. But his pride has slowly given way to financial worries. “I don’t know anymore how I’m going to go forward,” he says.
He adds that clients owe him a total of €4 million ($5.4 million) for work already completed — with most of the projects having been done for municipalities and other public entities. The northern city of Thessaloniki, for example, owes him €780,000, and there is no sign that it will pay him any time soon.
‘Gets Me Down’
The open account stems for work done in 2006 to beautify venues for an international track and field meet. The contractor was the General Secretariat of Sports, a division of the country’s Culture Ministry. But, so far, not a single cent from the job has landed in Antonis’ account. “It bothers me and sometimes really gets me down,” he says.
But it’s not the only deadbeat customer on Antonis’ books. Indeed, unpaid invoices have become the rule rather than the exception for his company, particularly when it comes to public contractors. He is also owed €180,000 for landscaping work done along some of the main roads in central Athens last year. The 2009 fiscal year has long since passed, but Antonis has seen no money from the project. He has repeatedly been told “there were parliamentary elections,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.
If he is lucky, he is able to use the outstanding invoices as collateral to secure bank financing. But being dependent on financial institutions during a crisis is hardly a comfortable place to be. Furthermore, he has to pay the interest himself and then try to get it back from the public creditors. “To be honest, there are moments when I think about just throwing in the towel,” Antonis says. “It can’t go on like this.”
The situation Antonis finds himself in is something being felt across the entire country. Fear is widespread — fear of a national bankruptcy or of losing one’s own livelihood. Nobody quite knows what a Greek insolvency would look like, but everyone assumes that things are going to get worse — or even completely horrible.
Even If It Hurts
Still, many in Greece have found a new cause for hope. Headlines, of course, are made by those who call general strikes and stage demonstrations in downtown Athens. But much of the population is now cautiously optimistic that Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, the country’s recently elected leader, will be able to lead the country out of crisis with his brutally honest assessment of Greece’s atrocious financial situation. On Friday, Papandreou is in Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Prior to his visit, he asked in an interview for assistance from the German government — Berlin, he hopes, will help Greece secure better credit rates on the international financial markets.
“The new government is showing a desire to impose order,” Antonis says, full of praise, adding that he is convinced that “the words will be followed by action.”
Even if it hurts. The drastic austerity measures that Papandreou announced on Wednesday — and which were approved by Greece’s parliament on Friday — are even stricter than the ones that were originally envisioned. In all, the package of public-sector salary cuts, tax increases and pension freezes is worth €4.8 billion. “The days, weeks and months to come will not be easy,” Papandreou said. He compared the situation with a “state of war.” Unions responded promptly, threatening new demonstrations, general strikes and the occupation of government offices and agencies.
Indeed, in the coming weeks, how Papandreou interacts with his own countrymen will be one of the decisive questions. In addition to winning back the faith of the financial markets and the European Union, he must also win trust on the Greek street — and increase it.
Part 2: Come What May
For now, surveys indicate that up to two-thirds of Greeks support the austerity measures passed by the Papandreou government. Support for his party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), is at 48 percent, higher than it has been in decades. Still, the same figure illustrates a split in Greece — between those who realize the time has come for belt-tightening and those who want things to remain as they have been, no matter what the consequences are.
Kostas belongs to the latter group. The 38-year-old tax official, whose job won’t allow him to provide his last name, is vehemently opposed to the austerity measures. “It’s not the civil servants that are the thieves,” he says. “It’s the others.” For this reason, he participated in the recent labor disputes “on principle” as well as in last week’s general strike. And he’ll do it again, too. As he sees it, these are “defensive actions.” “But a strike alone,” he says, “can’t block the state’s way forward.”
Including benefits, Kostas’ after-tax income is €1,900 ($2,600) a month. His wife, likewise a tax official, earns the same. He says that, with the introduction of the reforms, he, his wife and their three-year-old son will have to make do with at least €500 less per month. “That is a huge problem for our household budget,” he says.
Still, they are relatively privileged. They earn more than the average Greek salary of €700-€900 per month and, as civil servants, they can’t be fired or laid off. And, the bloated Greek bureaucracy is a major part of the problem. One out of every four people working in Greece is an employee of the state.
The Art of Survival
As Alternative Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas says, the government finds it “only natural that there are also counter-reactions and resentment.” He adds: “We have to convince our population that we will proceed in a way that is as socially just as possible. That those with less won’t be squeezed, and that those with more will be asked to contribute more to the rehabilitation. It’s an issue of credibility.”
In essence, though, it’s not merely a question of tax and pension system reform aimed at getting the country back on track. Rather, it is an offensive against an ingrained culture and mentality. It’s about the art of everyday survival in modern-day Greece.
Such survival has long been dependent on who you know — and how much you are willing to pay in bribes. The system is known as “fakelaki” — a word meaning “little envelope” and which refers to the bribes regularly demanded of Greek citizens to “expedite” service. In reality, of course, no fakelaki often translates to no service. Sums of money stuffed in envelopes are passed across desks to secure appointments, documents and permits. It’s a playful form of corruption that is firmly anchored in everyday Greek life.
Like Gyros and Tzatziki
In a recent survey, 13.5 percent of Greek respondents admitted to paying fakelaki; on average, they said they paid €1,450 ($1,970) a year. In reality, though, the numbers and sums could be much, much higher. In Greece, cronyism and bribery go together like gyros and tzatziki. As television sports reporter Dimitris Malisiovas says, there are two important things in a Greek’s life: “knowing someone in the right position and tipping.”
As one German who does business in Greece says, you “practically can’t get a driver’s license without some fakelaki,” adding that you certainly won’t get one on the first try. The way it regularly works, he says, is that you will have “two testers, each of whom gets €100.” And for an important operation, you’ll often have to fork over up to €4,500, even if the cost itself is already covered by medical insurance.
Officials estimate that, of the 25 million houses and buildings in Greece, 10 percent of them are completely illegal and 80 percent are partially illegal, expanded or renovated without a permit. Bribes, of course, cleared the way. Then there is the practice of collecting the pensions of those who have passed away. The most recent census found that pension checks of between 40,000 and 60,000 deceased people, some of whom have been dead for years, were still being cashed. As one civil servant explains, dead people are responsible for notifying the pensions office of their deaths themselves.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Eyeing Your Retirement Account
‘Automatic IRAs’ to grab dollars for funding federal deficits?
The Obama administration is quietly exploring strategies that would require hundreds of billions of dollars in programs such as 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts to be invested in U.S. Treasury bonds, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.
Corsi reports the administration is doing so under the guise of making workplace retirement savings accounts available to all Americans and ensuring that existing retirement savings accounts pay lifetime income.
He noted the Obama administrations needs to sell $1.5 trillion in new U.S. Treasury debt in 2010 just to keep the government operating under the federal budget deficit projected for this year.
“With the Federal Reserve scheduled to phase out its direct purchases of Treasury debt, the Obama administration is anxious to find another market upon which to unload hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury bonds carrying yields much lower than would be required to sell the same hundreds of billions of dollars of Treasury bonds in the open market,” Corsi explained.
He said the Obama administration is contemplating implementation of a so-called “automatic IRA,” packaged as a program designed to guarantee all workers have access to a retirement plan through their place of employment, even if the employer does not currently offer a pension or other tax-favored retirement plan.
“What the ‘automatic IRA’ ends up being is a government mandate that every employee must have a portion of their compensation direct-deposited into a government-mandated IRA,” Corsi wrote, “perhaps whether the employee wants to participate or not.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal: Press, Tax Increase in Anti-Deficit Plan
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 8 — The Portuguese government is working on a plan to bring down the country’s deficit and might eliminate some tax deductions beginning in 2011, as well as raise taxes on financial returns. Reports were from the daily Diario de Noticias, quoted by Bloomberg, which said that the government might continue to freeze government salaries. Among the measures being looked into by the Portuguese government, which will be presenting the plan to the European Union this month, is reportedly also cuts to the Welfare sector: the daily paper Jornal de Negocios wrote that the government is mulling a reduction in expenditure on unemployment benefits for some forms of compensation provided for those receiving a pension. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Conservatives Do it in Public
Unlike liberals, conservatives don’t have to resort to lying and subterfuge to communicate their ideas
No conservative in American history ever attempted the takeover of one sixth of the national economy by way of stealth or by bullying. No legislation has been crafted by conservatives behind closed doors on Christmas Eve without so much as a nod to the opposition party. Health insurance by conscription is anathema to conservative principles.
The convoluted and unconstitutional mélange of devices brewed by liberals would not only commandeer a huge chunk of the US economy, it would change forever the valued relationship between patient and physician; replacing the doctor’s judgment with that of listless bureaucrats.
Worse still, the health crimes legislation would establish a permanent left wing majority in a country that is by nature, center right. Small comfort that the November elections are a presumable rout for the Democrats who supported this lubricity. The mutations to our way of life wrought by the liberals’ scheme will endure far beyond a single midterm or even presidential election.
[…]
Conservatism, in its purest form is effortless. Nobody ever has to force conservatism on a population.
Liberalism, like its cousins, socialism and communism, is entirely antagonist to basic human nature. It’s pure folly to believe that humans will toil as hard for an amorphous “common good” as they will to provide for themselves and their families.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Custodian of U.S. Mosques Promotes Slaying Americans
NAIT: ‘It is the duty of Islam to fight him until he is killed’
The custodian of most of the major mosques in America acts as a front for the radical Muslim Brotherhood in America, and publishes and distributes Islamic literature that exhorts Muslims to “kill” any Westerners who get in the way of spreading Islam, WND has learned.
“No political system or material power should put hindrances in the way of preaching Islam. If someone does this, then it is the duty of Islam to fight him until either he is killed or until he declares his submission,” asserts an Islamic publication distributed by the North American Islamic Trust.
NAIT holds title to more than 300 mosques in America — including the large Islamic center outside Washington where the Fort Hood terrorist and some of the 9/11 hijackers worshipped.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eric Massa: Democrats Ousted Me Over Health Care
Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) says the House ethics committee is investigating him for inappropriate comments he made to a male staffer on New Year’s Eve — and that he’s the victim of a power play by Democratic leaders who want him out of Congress because he’s a “no” vote on health care reform.
“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” Massa, who on Friday announced his intention to resign, said during a long monologue on radio station WKPQ. “And this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they’ve gotten rid of me, and it will pass. You connect the dots.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Frank Gaffney: “The Gop’s Job #1”
One of the most influential conservatives in America this weekend gave a sneak peek at a soon-to-be-published book he has written calling for a “New Republican Party.” (The ground rules of the meeting were off the record; the book will be out soon, though, so stay tuned for much more about it.) The author underscored that for the sort of improved GOP we need, “national security must be Job #1.”
Unfortunately, as noted in this space two weeks ago, it seems that for a some prominent Republican/conservatives, to paraphrase the “Open Borders” crowd, national security is a job Americans don’t want to do anymore.
Consider the scant and mostly euphemistic treatment of the issue in the new Conservative Action Project manifesto dubbed the Mount Vernon Statement, released with much fanfare on February 17. Not particularly objectionable, but a pale comparison to the principled and robust opposition to the totalitarian ideology of the day, Soviet Communism, enunciated fifty years before by William F. Buckley, Jr. and other founders of the modern conservative movement in America.
Then, there was the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in which, apart from several noteworthy addresses, the official agenda was largely bereft of any discussion of the threats to our nation, constitution and society arising from today’s totalitarian ideology — what authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”
Most immediately, the final selection is underway for the Tea Party-inspired “Contract from America.” The idea is that activists and ordinary citizens are being polled to fashion a list of priorities for their elected officials. The only problem is that not one of the twenty options from which the public is being asked to chose addresses national security, Shariah-inspired jihad, terrorism, homeland security or any other aspect of the common defense. For people who are supposed to be attached to the Constitution— which gives priority to that federal responsibility— this seems to be a most curious oversight.
Or is it?…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Michigan Kindergartner Suspended for Making Gun With Hand
To the little boy’s mother, it was just a 6-year-old boy playing around.
But when Mason Jammer, a kindergarten student at Jefferson Elementary in Ionia, curled his fist into the shape of a gun Wednesday and pointed it at another student, school officials said it was no laughing matter.
They suspended Mason until Friday, saying the behavior made other students uncomfortable, said Erin Jammer, Mason’s mother.
School officials allege Mason had displayed this kind of behavior for several months, despite numerous warnings.
“I do think it’s too harsh for a six-year-old,” said Jammer, who was previously warned that if Mason continued the practice he would be suspended. “He’s six and he just likes to play.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Obama Targets GOP in Last-Ditch Pitch for Health Care Bill
Obama used his speech Monday to try to rouse supporters into helping him twist arms on Capitol Hill and send the bill over the “finish line” soon.
“Let’s seize reform. It’s within our grasp!” he shouted.
Looking to make this the home stretch of his yearlong reform push, Obama aggressively went after insurance companies and accused them of making “calculated” decisions to raise rates beyond what families can afford.
“The insurance companies continue to ration health care based on who’s sick, who’s healthy,” Obama said. “These insurance companies have made a calculation.”
[…]
As Obama spoke, House Republican Leader John Boehner warned that Americans will face higher taxes, reduced health benefits for the elderly and lost jobs if Obama gets his way.
Calling the proposed legislation “heavy on snake oil” and light on reality, Boehner said in a statement that Obama should take note of states that already want to opt out of his “burdensome health care mandates.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s TSA Pick: Hire on ‘Ethnic Diversity’
Robert Harding says placing minorities at top should be ‘requirement’
President Obama’s pick to head the Transportation Security Administration long has pushed for “ethnic diversity” as a determining factor in hiring new teams for U.S. military and intelligence agencies, WND has learned.
The president announced today his nominee for TSA chief, retired Gen. Robert Harding.
[…]
Harding declared “selection must be made at the senior levels!”
He added, “[There are] many ways to do that, but if legislation is needed maybe it should be part of the discussion here.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pardon Me, Obama Administration, But Isn’t Your Policy on Fire?
by Barry Rubin
The story of the U.S. engagement with Syria and the sanctions issue regarding Iran’s nuclear program are fascinating. Each day there’s some new development showing how the Obama Administration is acting like a deer standing in the middle of a busy highway admiring the pretty automobile headlights.
Or to put it a different way, it is like watching the monster sneak up behind someone. Even though you know he’s not going to turn around, you can’t help but watch in fascinated horror and yelling out: “Look out!” But he pays no attention.
So I’m not just writing about these two issues in isolation but as very appropriate symbols of everything wrong with Western perceptions of the Middle East (and everywhere else) and the debates over foreign policy (and everything else) nowadays.
On Syria, for the most recent episodes of the story see here and here but, briefly, the Syrian government keeps punching the United States in the face as Washington ignores it.
But now, on March 1, a new record is set. The place: State Department daily press conference; the main character, departmental spokesman Philip J. Crowley. A reporter wants to know how the administration views the fact that the moment the U.S. delegation left after urging Syrian President Bashar al-Asad to move away from Iran and stop supporting Hizballah, Syria’s dictator invited in Iran’s dictator along with Hizballah’s leader and Damascus moved closer to Iran and Hizballah. Indeed, Asad said regarding Hizballah, “To support the resistance is a moral, patriotic and legal duty.”
In other words, the exact opposite of what the United States requested. Is the government annoyed, does it want to express some anger or threat?so
Let’s listen:…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Was the Pentagon Shooter an Obama-Approved Pothead?
The left says he was a right-winger; the conservatives say that he was a leftist. What is abundantly clear, from reading his Internet commentaries, is that Pentagon shooter John Patrick Bedell was a psychotic pothead. He hated a government that he believed was standing in the way of his desire to use, grow and glorify marijuana. He virtually worshipped the drug. “I’m a cannabis enthusiast,” he proclaimed.
In terms of ideology, he expressed conservative ideas about limiting the role of government, but opposed the war in Iraq and favored open borders.
But rather than try and make silly ideological points by accusing Bedell of being either left or right, there is an urgent need for the blogosphere—and the major media—to address the question of how he became criminally psychotic and a patsy for conspiracy theories. The answer is marijuana, which alters the ability of the mind to comprehend reality but which is depicted by most of the media as safe and harmless.
This connection—between pot and mental illness—is a matter of the medical record but is conveniently being ignored in the many stories about this young man’s strange journey and tragic end.
The book, “Marijuana and Madness,” cites studies and evidence from around the world, some of it going back 40 years, linking the use of marijuana— supposedly a “soft” drug—to mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and psychosis. One of the latest studies finds that “Marijuana use at a young age significantly increased the risk of psychosis in young adulthood…”
The public laughs at the old propaganda films such as “Reefer Madness,” which depict marijuana smokers as crazed zombies. However, the Pentagon rampage was likely triggered by marijuana-induced psychosis. Bedell was not only a heavy marijuana user and had been busted for possession and growing the drug, but dedicated much of his life to glorifying the substance.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Joe the Plumber Should Not Accept a Compromise McCain Bill
It is a common political strategy in Washington, when a member’s pet bill is in trouble, to signal an interest in accepting “reasonable” changes. Aware that John McCain’s Dietary Supplement Safety Act will not move without significant change, he now aims to save the awful measure, quell the loud opposition. and invite greater support by suggesting that he would entertain a lot of changes. The bill, however, is a disaster from beginning to end. The harm it is advertised to address (the sale of supplements as steroids) is already illegal. In short, there is no room for compromise on this bad bill. It needs to go to the dust bin.
McCain’s bill has hit a wall of opposition, a wall constructed by significant protests from consumers, physicians, and industry, precisely because it invites FDA to remove supplements from the market and it regulates down to the grandmother who distributes supplements from her basement. The bill is the political equivalent of a loathsome, contagious disease. Those who sign onto it will likely suffer the same rebuke as Senator McCain. Consequently, weeks after its introduction, it still has only one co-sponsor, the original one, the retiring liberal Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan.
While Senator McCain claims the bill is designed to protect consumer interests, his claim is belied not only by the bill’s terms but also by the fact that he introduced it on behalf of lobbyists for the major national baseball leagues, themselves representatives of corporate interests. As Congressman Ron Paul has astutely pointed out, the bill favors the pharmaceutical industry and threatens consumer access to supplements.
Senator McCain’s bill was advertised as a means to stop steroids from being sold as supplements, but instead the bill gives FDA broad new powers to ban all manner of supplements other than those sold as steroids, to require new registration and reporting by all who sell supplements, and to cause simple distributors of supplements to be open to FDA inspections, even civil penalties and fines, for the first time. In short, McCain’s bill greatly expands FDA discretionary power to remove a wide variety of safely consumed dietary supplements from the market and to cause presently law abiding citizens to become law violators for failing to file registration forms and keep records (neither of which are remotely needed to protect the public from supplements sold as steroids).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cyprus: EU Launches Bids for Turkish Community’s Schools
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MAR 3 — The European Union, through Europeaid, launched the fourth Call for proposals under the Eu ‘Schools’ Initiative for Innovation and Change Grant Scheme, that will provide grants of between 10.000 euros and 50.000 euros to pre-primary, primary and secondary schools in the northern part of Cyprus. Only schools that have not received a grant under any of the three previous Calls for Proposals are eligible to apply. Overall, up to 500.000 euros will be available. The grant scheme, the European Commission affirmed in a note, will offer support to the modernisation of the Turkish Cypriot communitys education sector by funding a range of activities including, amongst others, training courses, study visits, upgrading of materials and equipment. The aim of such activities is to promote the development of modern teaching and learning methods, to raise the capacity of teachers, to improve the overall management of the educational system and to encourage networking between stakeholders. The deadline for submission of proposals is 20 april. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Flemish Pride
In the corner of a garage in Lede, Belgium, there are a dozen boxes stacked to the ceiling. Each box contains hundreds of small yellow flags with the black Flemish lion. This is the flag of the people, not the government. This is the identity of a culture that for centuries others have tried tirelessly to eradicate. When I speak with Ghislain, the owner, about bike racing, I speak of the favorites to win. He speaks of the Belgians. When he asks if I would like a beer, I am served a Westmalle Dubbel, his favorite Flemish beer. There are thousands of garages like this, and owners like Ghislain, many of whom I’ve met. They form the backbone of Flemish life, a culture that, unless you embrace, you risk remaining an outsider…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
France: Problems in South Due to Heavy Snow
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MARCH 8 — The south of France was hit by heavy snowfall last night, exceptional at this time of year. The snow has caused blackouts and problems on roads and in air transport. Eight departments in the south of France and in the Principality of Andorra stay on high alert today. The last time so much snow — up to 25cm on sea level and 40cm locally — fell in the area was in 1974. ‘Meteo France’ called the weather ‘remarkable’ considering the time of the year. In the Gard department, where 30cm of snow fell last night, around 250 people were unable to continue on the road and had to be “rescued and moved to temporary shelters”, local authorities report. Heavy vehicles, weighing more than 7.5 tonnes, are not allowed to run. Traffic remains difficult due to the ice that has formed on the roads. Yesterday evening the airport of Nimes, in the Gard, decided to reroute all flights to the airport of Montpellier. School busses are not running either, and the prefecture has asked people to move around as little as possible. According to Meteo France, the situation will improve this afternoon.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Won’t Pay’ Sex Clients Guilty of Rape
Man who ‘did a runner’ gets four years
(ANSA) — Rome, March 3 — Clients who don’t pay prostitutes are guilty of rape, Italy’s highest court ruled Wednesday.
The Cassation Court, Italy’s highest appeals court whose sentences set legal precedents, upheld a four-year rape conviction against a Ligurian man who ‘did a runner’ from a hotel without paying for his sex bout.
“There is no doubt,” the supreme court justices said, “that the man abused the women and was aware of it”.
It was not consensual sex, the judges said, because the sex act was “only committed in light of the fee due”.
Diego S., 50, compounded his crime by getting the hotel to say he hadn’t been there, the court said.
He was ordered to pay Laura S. 2,000 euros as provisional compensation with further damages to be established by a civil court.
Diego S. was banned for life from any watchdog agencies and for five years from any other public position.
The court did not say what his occupation was.
Prostitution is not illegal in Italy but exploiting it is.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 53% of Income Concentrated in North
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 25 — On average about 53% on the income available to Italian families is concentrated in the north, 26% in the south and 21% in the central part of the country. The data came from research carried out by ISTAT examining the 2005-2007 period. In particular, the north-west, the central area and the south show similar average annual growth at about +3.2%, equal to the national average of +3.2%. On the contrary, growth in the north-east was above the national average at +3.4%. Topping the list was Emilia-Romagna with +4%. Regarding the north-west, Liguria and Lombardy show growth rates for income available to families for the 2005-2007 period at respectively +3.4 and +3.3%, while Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta showed rates inferior to the national average with +3% and +2.9% respectively. In the north-east there exist regions with rates above the national average, like Emilia-Romagna with +4% and the province of Trento +3.6% and others in which the increase was below the figure, like Veneto (+3%). In the central regions, Marche and Lazio showed figures above the national average at +3.4% and +3.3% respectively, while Umbria showed the most contained growth of all the regions with +2.5%. For southern Italy, Abruzzo distinguished itself, again for the 2005-2007 period, showing the largest increase in available income at 3.9%, followed by Molise with +3.8%. It is growth that compensates for the below average figure from Campania with +2.7%, Sardinia with +2.8% and Calabria and Sicily, both with 3.3%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 70% Home-Owners and 13% Mortgagees
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 26 — Italy is a country of home-owners: the latest survey made by the country’s statistical agency, Istat (about the situation in 2008) shows that around 7 out of every 10 households (68.5% of the total, or 16.9 million households) are owner-occupiers, while around 2 in 10 (18.9% or around 4.7 million) pay rent. And there are the lucky ones: 3.1 million households (12.6% of the total) live in rent-free accommodation. Owner-occupiers (around 300,000 households re-scheduled their mortgages in 2008), represent 13.4% of the total, with percentages varying between 15.9% in the Centre-North to 8.2% in the South. It is a situation that mostly involves newly-weds: e.g. young couples without children (36.6%). Lastly, the costs: in 2008 housing costs (condominium, heating, gas, water, other services, normal upkeep, electricity, telephone, rent, passive mortgage interest) were one of the main outgoings for households. Average monthly spending stood at 347 euros, or 9% of income for the richer households and 30.5% for the less well-off. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Let’s Keep Our Paws Off Knut’s Balls
Castrate Knut? Overzealous animal rights activists need to keep their paws off Berlin’s beloved polar bear, argues Bernd Matthies from Der Tagesspiegel.
Knut is doing just fine, thank you. Berlin’s leading furry citizen is all grown-up. No longer an adorable celebrity fuzzball, Knut’s become a man — so to speak. He’s even got a live-in girlfriend at his small yet centrally located bear pad in the German capital. The only thing missing for an ursine happily-ever-after to this story is a couple of cute cubs of his own.
That is, if it weren’t for the killjoys at Peta. This week the animal rights group claimed that Knut and his lady Giovanna shared the same grandfather — which could lead to detrimental inbreeding should the two decide to start a family. The solution? Castrate Knut!
Perhaps not. First of all, the demand to snip Berlin’s favourite furry son is coming from an organisation known for its hunger for publicity. Peta would sell its own grandmother to create a few choice headlines — if you known what I mean.
Besides, what kind of signal does it send if Berlin neutered a city institution known around the globe? And let’s not mention the whole panda baby bust at the Berlin Zoo, shall we? If anything, the still extremely broke German capital could use another baby polar bear or two to keep the tourists happy.
So let’s keep our paws off Knut’s balls.
This commentary was published with the kind permission of Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, where it originally appeared in German. Translation by The Local.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Portugal: Civil Servants Strike Over Salary Freeze
(ANSAmed) — LISBON, MARCH 4 — Portuguese civil servants have downed tools in protest against the freezing of their salaries decided by the Socialist Government of Premier José Socrates as part of measures to reduce the public deficit. The strike was called by the country’s three main unions. It is the first since the election in September which Socrates won, although he lost the absolute majority in Parliament which he had held in the previous legislature. Today’s strike, said spokeswoman for the Common Front for the Public Administration, Ana Avoila, “is one of the largest strikes by the civil service”. Portugal’s public deficit is currently 9.3% of GDP. The Government of José Socrates is committed to going below the 3% ceiling by 2013 as imposed by Brussels.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Armed Forces Cuts Troops and Bases
The Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) has proposed to scale down the country’s domestic defences, closing at least one air force base, eliminating one troop regiment and halving training resources for home defences.
The reductions will lead to 800 million kronor ($112 million) in savings, which will be invested in the military’s transition to a professional army, according to a report from Sveriges Radio (SR).
In July 2010 Sweden’s compulsory military service scheme will come to an end and be replaced by a voluntary system, which is not expected to require the same training resources.
“We have a certain over capacity and can carry out our activities in fewer locations,” General Lieutentant Jan Salestrand told SR.
“We have not yet started identifying where they should be.”
The government has been criticized for plans to close air force bases and regiments, which opponents say will leave the country vulnerable to an attack. A freeze on any closures was ordered until after the general election in September.
However analysts speculate that the most likely candidates for closure will be the F17 air force base in Ronneby in southern Sweden as well as troop regiments in southern and western regions. Northern Sweden is expected to keep the F21 base in Luleå, which hosted Nato war games last year.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Garbage of Naples: How the Mafia Helped Send Italy’s Trash to Germany
German courts have been dealing with an unusual problem. More than 100,000 tons of Italian trash were shipped to eastern Germany, saving a waste treatment plant from bankruptcy. But what could have been a solution to Naples’ notorious garbage crisis ran afoul of the law.
Plastic bags filled with garbage covered the Piazza del Plebiscito in Naples. In the suburbs, piles of garbage grew like tumors along arterial roads, and at night the air was heavy with the pungent odor of burning dumps. More than 1,100 tons of new waste was being added to the piles every day.
The garbage had to be removed. But how? And where would it go? That was the question that worried Lorenzo Miracle, the manager of an Italian logistics company.
Meanwhile, the streets were spic and span in Großpösna, a town in the eastern German state of Saxony. It is the site of the Cröbern Central Waste Treatment Plant, a monument to German thoroughness that cost at least €100 million ($135 million) to build and includes sewage treatment basins and a decorative pond. It is one of Europe’s most advanced facilities, a garbage dump for the 21st century.
But the Cröbern treatment plant was apparently bigger than it needed to be. Residents of the state were not producing enough garbage to keep the plant running at full capacity. It needed more waste. But who was going to provide it? That was the problem faced by Konrad Doruch, the waste treatment plant’s chief solid-waste procurer.
Each of the two men, Mr. Miracle and Mr. Doruch, had something the other man wanted. They reached an agreement, and beginning in April 2007, freight trains loaded with waste from Naples started running north to Großpösna almost daily.
‘Unprecedented’
It was an arrangement that seemed to benefit both sides. The only problem was that it apparently involved several illegal activities, including the unauthorized handling of hazardous waste, bribery and the establishment of a criminal organization.
Unfortunately for Doruch, the solid-waste procurer in Saxony, the Italian police targeted him in a large-scale investigation dubbed “Operation Ecoballe.” The investigators, hoping to get the better of the Neapolitan Mafia, known as the Camorra, intercepted hundreds of phone calls. Companies tied to the Camorra arrange for the transport and illegal disposal of waste, both in Italy and abroad.
In late November, the Italian investigators expanded their efforts to German soil. Prosecutors and police officers searched the waste processing plant in Großpösna and other waste processing and recycling companies in Saxony and the neighboring state of Saxony-Anhalt. The authorities were looking for anything associated with solid waste coming from Italy, including shipping documents, contracts and invoices. The investigation revolved around 150,000 tons of solid waste that had been transported to Germany in 200 freight trains, which apparently should never have been allowed to cross the Alps.
The Italian-German solid-waste profiteering scandals provide insights into a booming industry. According to investigations by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), up to two million tons of household waste have already been dumped illegally in German waste dumps and former landfills. “The extent of the solid-waste profiteering activities is quantitatively and qualitatively unprecedented,” and has been completely underestimated by government agencies and politicians, according to an internal BKA study conducted with the goal of putting shady solid-waste deals on the agenda at the next conference of environment ministers in June.
Illegal Household Waste
The case of the Cröbern treatment plant shows that it is not always shady demolition companies and landfill operators who are treating law and order the way they treat waste. Even semi-governmental businesses have been suspected of acting illegally in extreme circumstances.
The circumstances were indeed extreme in April 2006, when local politicians in the eastern city of Leipzig met to discuss the crisis faced by the treatment plant operator, the Western Saxon Waste Disposal and Recycling Company (WEV). The company, a majority of which is owned by the city of Leipzig and the surrounding counties, was “in acute economic difficulties, which could ultimately jeopardize its continued existence,” the agenda of the meeting reads.
The WEV lost €4.5 million in 2005 alone, and it was time for management to come up with a plan. Decision-makers were in demand, men like Konrad Doruch, a Saxon with a pronounced dialect who has made a career for himself in the waste management business. At first, he was in charge of safety and fire protection at the waste treatment plant, and he was later promoted to the job of sales director.
Between 2003 and 2006, Doruch successfully arranged to have more than 200,000 tons of solid waste shipped from Italy. It was premium material for the plant in Großpösna, including slag from an aluminum plant in Novara and insulation material containing asbestos from Verona. State authorities had granted the Cröbern treatment plant special permission to dispose of the hazardous waste.
The WEV, losing money and lacking enough solid waste to keep its plant running efficiently, sent Doruch back to Italy. This time, however, he didn’t procure industrial waste from the north, but household waste from the south, from Naples and the surrounding Campania region, where the Camorra all but controls the waste disposal business.
If what the investigators claim is true, that was when the WEV’s methods became illegal. Household garbage from Campania cannot simply be exported to Germany like olive oil or wine.
Part 2: Afoul of German Treatment Laws
Since 2005, even German domestic household garbage can no longer be dumped into landfills. Instead, it has to be incinerated or subjected to a complicated procedure, which involves sorting and crushing the garbage, and then removing as much bacteria as possible. German authorities only approve garbage imports if the waste has been properly treated first.
Despite these restrictions, the Saxon and Italian solid-waste dealers tried anyway. Beginning in April 2007, freight trains filled with household waste began departing from the Maddaloni-Marcianise depot about 30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Naples, to be unloaded the next day in Großpösna, 1,500 kilometers away.
Minor incidents like the one that happened on April 26, when a special unit of the Carabinieri, Italy’s national police force, ordered foul-smelling containers opened, could not put a stop to the German-Italian garbage connection.
According to the freight documents, the containers were supposed to contain pre-treated waste, or intermediate products in the recycling chain. Instead, the Carabinieri found ordinary household waste from southern Italian kitchens, and seized eight containers. But by the next day, the trains were running again.
Under this system, the contents of 7,500 containers ended up in eastern Germany. It was apparently an extremely lucrative arrangement for the WEV, which is said to have been paid €16 million, or €86 per ton. The politicians from Leipzig and the surrounding areas must have been pleased, now that their prestigious project was finally paying off. Their company, almost bankrupt a year ago, was in the black.
It appears that authorities in Saxony were not particularly interested in the nature of the solid waste being processed in their treatment plants. Investigators believe they can prove that Sales Director Doruch simply lied about the contents of many shipments and promptly shipped the bulk of the waste, a total of 107,000 tons, to treatment facilities run by Andreas Böhme in neighboring Saxony-Anhalt. Böhme, an automotive body specialist by trade, did not have a permit to process solid waste from Italy, but he did own a waste shredder. In Saxony-Anhalt, the solid waste from Naples was apparently re-classified once again, this time as “sorted mineral waste,” which qualified it for disposal.
‘A Fixed Group’ of Criminals
Some of it wound up in a landfill in the town of Freyburg-Zeuchfeld, in Saxony-Anhalt, which was all but shut down in the spring of 2009, after state environmental inspectors had found 300,000 tons of illegally dumped waste at the landfill.
The prosecutors believe they know who is behind the garbage shipments. From the very beginning, says one investigator, “a fixed group of German and Italian criminals” planned to “dispose of the garbage from Campania illegally, because most of it was untreated, in the region of Saxony-Anhalt.”
Böhme denies this. His attorney, Steffen Segler, says that his client treated the solid waste from the WEV “properly.” Konrad Doruch also rejects accusations that he was involved in illegal garbage profiteering. Doruch, like his former boss at WEV, has since left the company.
The new man at the head of the waste treatment plant has hired an auditing firm to conduct an internal investigation, the results of which will be presented to the WEV Supervisory Board in mid-March. It’s still unclear whether, and when, prosecutors in Leipzig and Halle (the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt) will file charges.
Their counterparts in Naples appear to be further along in prosecuting the case. In the fall of 2008, they presented Lorenzo Miracle with an arrest warrant, and two dozen other managers at the treatment plant and officials were temporarily arrested. They all stand accused of being involved in illegal garbage profiteering.
It almost seemed as if these efforts had put an end to the international garbage dealers’ work. But that impression is deceptive. In December, another 100 tons of fresh garbage was discovered in a waste dump in Saxony-Anhalt. It was from Italy.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Suspected Hitler Youth Acted as ‘Spyclists’
The British intelligence agency MI5 suspected members of the Hitler Youth conducted bicycle reconnaissance tours through the countryside in the run-up to World War II, documents released by the UK National Archives revealed on Monday.
“File KV 5/87 deals with the activities of the Hitler Youth in the UK in the years leading up to the Second World War, in particular bicycling tours. The danger of reconnaissance activity was recognised, though initially on the basis of an exaggerated newspaper report about ‘spyclists’,” archive officials said in a statement about the newly declassified documents.
Concerns about the Hitler Youth tours apparently began after the Daily Herald newspaper ran a May 1937 article entitled, “Nazis must be spyclists,” which allegedly translated Nazi cycling association documents encouraging young fascists on holidays abroad to take special note of important landmarks and geological features for use by German authorities.
While MI5 was apparently sceptical about the report’s authenticity, it still gathered reports about Hitler Youth cycling tours through England ahead of the war.
The more than 100 pages of records and intercepted correspondence also detail how the Nazi organisation attempted to create a relationship with the Boy Scouts. The German ambassador reportedly invited prominent Boy Scout leaders, including founder Baden Powell, to dine with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Powell was also allegedly invited to meet Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, though there is no evidence that such a meeting took place.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Baby Left in Bag Outside Mosque Dies After Police Took 80 Minutes to Spot He Was Still Alive
A baby abandoned on the steps of a mosque was left outside in the cold for 80 minutes by police officers who thought he was dead.
The boy was eventually spotted breathing as forensic officers investigated the scene where he was left in a carrier bag at the weekend.
He was taken to hospital where he died within the hour.
Witnesses told how the area was cordoned off and a white tent put up around the infant after police arrived at 10.30am on Saturday.
Shouts for an ambulance were heard around midday before the child was taken away in a police car.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Drunken Teenage Yob Shouted ‘Timber’ After Killing Sports Coach With Single Punch
A drunken teenage yob who had previously been let off with a string of warnings over his thuggery killed a university graduate with a single punch.
Adam Rogers, 24, was punched in the head after he stepped in to stop a fight during a night out.
When a friend later asked William Upton, 17, whether he had floored the sports coach with a single blow, he callously replied: ‘Timber!’
Today a judge said he was sick of dealing with cases involving young drunken youths.
Judge Stuart Baker said: ‘Sadly I don’t find the circumstances of this case to be unusual at all. Sitting here day after day after day I have an almost endless succession of cases involving young men who chose to go out, become far too affected by alcohol and then, by little cause or sometimes no cause at all, resort to violence seeming to think that it is alright to do it and thinking they are not going to do any harm.
‘It gets to the stage where members of the public — decent folk — who may want to go into the town centres in the evening, feel intimidated or unable to do so because they don’t know what sort of danger they will be exposed to as a result of young men being drunk and sparking off violence with no reason to do so.’
He said: ‘Because the public rightly expresses real concern about drunken street violence, unprovoked street violence, the only appropriate sentence to indicate to the public that the courts take a serious view of young men drinking and behaving in a violent and drunken way is to impose a custodial sentence.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Downplays Pope Miracle Report
Theologians to get French nun ‘cure’ assessment after Easter
(ANSA) — Vatican City, March 5 — The Vatican is downplaying a Polish newspaper report claiming a miracle cure attributed to late pope John Paul II in his beatification cause was not in fact miraculous.
Warsaw daily Rzeczpospolita reported Thursday that French nun Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, who testified in 2005 that she had dreamed of the recently deceased pope shortly before recovering from Parkinson’s Disease, in fact suffered from a similar disease which is not terminal.
There was no official response from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints but an authorised Vatican source said the nun’s miracle was still the one being examined in order to clear the way for the beatification.
The examination of the nun’s case is still at an initial stage, he said.
Experts will hand a report to a medical commission which will give its considered opinion to theologians and cardinals after Easter, the source said. “The miracle is ‘sub judice’ and it is absolutely premature, as well as false, to speak of it being disproved or approved,” the source said.
Vatican experts said this would inevitably mean a delay in the beatification, pushing it back from November 2010 to early 2011.
The Vatican has received more than 240 reports of alleged miracles attributed to the intervention of John Paul but intends to stick with the nun’s case, Vatican sources insisted.
John Paul cleared the first hurdle towards sainthood in November when his “heroic virtues” were recognised.
This rekindled speculation that he might become a saint on the fifth aniversary of his death, next month, but the Vatican said it would take longer. One miracle is needed for beatification, the second step to sainthood.
A second one is required for the third and final step, canonisation, when someone becomes a saint.
Candidates for beatification must overcome a complicated and lengthy vetting process.
In the case of pontiffs, the procedure is usually much longer because the Vatican must examine much more material given the mass of responsibility and decisions made by popes.
However, Pope Benedict XVI put John Paul II’s beatification cause on a fast track, waiving a rule requiring a five-year wait before the start of the process.
New reports of miracles attributed to John Paul II’s heavenly intervention are said to arrive in Rome every week.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Croatia: 100,000 on Facebook Forum Against Hate
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, FEBRUARY 17 — A Facebook forum already counting over 100,000 Serbs, Croats and others has been set up to demand that an end be put to the hatred and disagreements between Serbs and Croats generated by the fratricidal wars of the 1990s in the Balkans. “I have a dream that one day on the Balkan hills, the children of our Slavic ancestors will sit down side by side around a table as brothers,” reads the group’s presentation, which began on 5 June 2008 on the initiative of Brandon Djordjevic. “We use Facebook to put an end to Serbian-Croatian hatred” was the initial slogan, and by June 26, two thousand had already signed up, with this figure rising to 13,000 by December 31. The slogan was thereafter changed to “Wéll find 50,000 Serbs and Croats who do not hate each other”. The latter target was achieved in only four days: from December 14 to December 18, 2009. The invitation was then changed once more to “Are there 100,000 Serbs and Croats who do not hate each other? Say yes”. From that moment until February 14, the forum of contacts taking part grew to 101,000. “I am a Croatian from Split. I do not hate anyone, except for the politicians of the 1990s. They harmed our interests and got enormously rich doing so,” said one of those who has joined. “If we had been wiser we could have lived as a confederation, an alliance of states like in the US, the United Kingdom, or Australia, and we would already have joined the European Union long ago.” “It is great to hear that in this former Yugoslav area there are at least 100,000 normal people who before all else want to be men, and only afterwards Serbs, Croats or Bosnians,” said one of those who commented on the site. “It is great to know that there are a lot of people out there who feel good not hating anyone. I am sure that there are many more than 100,000, even if we haven’t yet managed to really listen to each other due to the still-raging turbo-patriotic din.” The initiative aiming to reconcile Serbs and Croats, and in the future all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, is giving rise to both praise and generalised agreement. “It is very encouraging, since most of the 100,000 are young people, future opinion makers and future opinion leaders,” Zharko Korac, a well-known psychology professor at the Belgrade University told ANSA. “They are the future journalists, writers, and directors, and in 10-15 years they will become our managerial class.” “I am also in contact with the group, and some have already come to Pola on holiday, where we had the chance to meet up,” said the Istrian Misel Percan, one of the leading forces behind the initiative. Among the Facebook group’s contacts are also Bosnians, citizens of other former Yugoslav Republics and those of other countries. Among the latter, the Italian Alex Ferronato said that it was only natural that he “supported the Serb-Croat cause, even if I live very far from this reality. I feel that it is utterly absurd that people in this world seem unable to understand that past misunderstandings and mistakes cannot continue to have negative repercussions on our lives.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Israeli Press Praises Maimonides Synagogue Restoration
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — “An amazing result: an incredibly beautiful work of restoration, to which words just cannot do justice” was how Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot’s Cairo correspondent described the “resurrection” of the synagogue of the medieval philosopher Maimonides, following years of reconstruction work financed by the government. Yesterday members of the tiny local Jewish community celebrated inaugural services with religious figures who had come to the country for the express occasion from Israel. The official reopening of the synagogue, in the Jewish quarter of Cairo’s Old City, will occur in a week’s time. According to the correspondent from the Israeli paper, the restoration of the building “seems miraculous”, seen for many years in an abandoned state and which had even been left roofless. In order to get back the ancient splendour, he added, Egyptian authorities had invested over two million dollars. Born in Spain in 1138, the philosopher-rabbi and doctor Maimonides (Moshe’ Ben Maimon) died in Cairo in 1204, after having won renown not only within the Jewish world but also in the Christian and Muslim ones of the time. Later his synagogue was to take shape within the collective imagination as a place of miracles. According to Yediot Ahronot, Egyptian King Fuad even wanted to spend a night in it to get over ailments from which he was suffering. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
March 8: EU Competition on Gender Equality for Children
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MARCH 8 — “Once upon a time there were a girl and a boy; together they wanted to make the world a better place”. For the forth year in a row, the European Commission launches an international drawing competition on gender equality on the International Women’s Day. The competition calls on children all over the world to express their vision of gender equality. The winners will be selected from each region by a jury of European children, and a prize equivalent to the value of ?1.000 Euros will be awarded to each winner. Up until the 14th of May, Egyptian children in the age of 8 to 10 can submit their drawings on the theme of “Once upon a time there were a girl and a boy; together they wanted to make the world a better place..”. Children should submit their drawings to the office of the Delegation of the European Union to Egypt. The winning drawings will be included in a booklet published by the European Commission. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Schools and Roads in Catalonia Closed
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 8 — The snow that fell in Catalonia in the past hours, as low as 200m above sea level, has caused serious discomfort. A total of 71 provincial and State motorways have been closed, as well as hundreds of schools, mainly in the province of Girona. Many flights on Barcelona had to be rerouted to Reus. The general direction of Civil Protection has raised the alarm level in the special snow plan to 1 in around 30 provinces, together with the alarm for rough sea and strong winds, according to sources in the councillor’s office for interior affairs of the Generalitat. Orange alert (“serious risk”) has been raised by the State meteorological agency in Huesca, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, Tarragona, Castellon, Valencia and the Spanish enclaves in Morocco of Ceuta and Melilla. Minimum temperatures are expected to reach -9 degrees in Catalonia. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: One on Five Citizens Own Credit Card
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, MARCH 8 — On December 31 2009 a total of 2.082 million credit cards were in circulation in Tunisia, a penetration rate of 20.17% among the population. This figure has increased by 11.4% compared with the previous year. Over the same period, the number of cash dispensers increased from 1,246 to 1,424 (+14.3%). The volume of transactions climbed from 3.1 million dinars (around 1.6 million euros) in 2008 to 3.6 million dinar (around 1.86 million euros) in 2009. Most operations last year regarded cash withdrawals at cash dispensers (82.48%). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UN Inquiry Accused of Anti Israel Bias
By Ben Evansky
UNITED NATIONS — A controversial United Nations report called the UN Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and more commonly known as “The Goldstone Report,” is under fire for being biased against Israel. Among its conclusions was an accusation that Israel had committed “war crimes” during its twenty-two day war with Palestinian terrorists that ended in January, 2009. Critics discredit this finding — saying key members of the report were clearly biased in favor of the Palestinians.
The Geneva based UN Human Rights Council created the Goldstone report in April 2009 after a recommendation by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on “The situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967”, to investigate Israel’s Gaza offensive.
Prior to his UN appointment, Falk had written that Israel’s “imposition of collective punishment had a certain resemblance” to what the Nazis had done in World War II, and is known for his controversial views on the 9/11 terror attacks, telling Fox News that Americans “deserve a more adequate response to the unanswered questions…that have been provided by the 9/11 commission.”
Falk says he fully supports the Goldstone Report saying its members are “highly qualified and professionally respected.”
Nile Gardiner disagrees. Gardiner is a UN expert at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, and tells Fox News that the so called experts who helped write the report had already convicted Israel for war crimes before coming on board to investigate it. According to Gardiner “it’s an extreme example of the UN’s anti-Israel propaganda, which comes at a huge expense to taxpayers.”
Just last month, commission member Desmond Travers told the pro-Palestinian website Middle East Monitor that Hamas had only fired “something like two” rockets at Israel prior to the build up to the conflict in December 2008. According to official Israeli figures the number of rockets fired into Israel was 125, in addition to 80 mortars. Travers also called Gaza the “only gulag in the Western hemisphere”, and in that same interview accused Britain’s “Jewish lobby” of wielding undue influence over that country’s foreign policy. Travers did not respond to a request for an interview.
Another member of the team is Christine Chinkin, who in a letter published by the Sunday Times of London during the height of the war joined others in accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza. Several months later Ms. Chinkin was appointed to the Goldstone report. Chinkin did not respond to a request for an interview.
This last weekend Francesca Marotta, a senior member of the UN staff that helped compile the Goldstone Report, was advertised as being the keynote speaker at a pro-Palestinian event in Switzerland. Marotta told Fox news she did not end up attending and wouldn’t answer any further questions.
Calls for her to be disciplined were scoffed at by UN spokesman for the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Rupert Colville told Fox News that none would be taken against her, saying, “Why on earth should there be?” Colville also says staff from his office “attend a huge variety of meetings on issues related to work.”
Hillel Neuer is the executive director of the Swiss based NGO UN Watch and first publicized Marotta’s speaking engagement. He argues that no one in her position should side with partisan political campaigns and says her actions undermine the UN’s authority and neutrality.
As to the four senior members who produced the report, Neuer points to a letter sent by future inquiry members Judge Richard Goldstone, Hina Jilani and the aforementioned Desmond Travers a full month before their appointment that protested Israel’s actions in Gaza. Neuer says, “Goldstone promised impartiality but the mission members had all made up their minds, adopting the Hamas narrative over Israel from the very start.”
As to whether UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon was worried about the UN’s neutrality being question, his spokesman Farhan Haq told Fox News that he had “no comment” about the composition of Goldstone’s team and that the report’s substantive findings “speaks for itself.”
Rupert Colville said the members of the mission “should be thanked and congratulated, not subjected to personalized abuse.” Hillel Neuer fired back telling Fox News, “The inquiry disregarded the basic principles of international fact-finding” through its selection of members.
While Judge Richard Goldstone did not respond to a request for an interview concerning the impartiality of the inquiry members, UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer believes that “the Islamic-dominated Human Rights Council carefully selected mission members whom they knew were sharply critical of Israel.
The UN General Assembly will again take up the Goldstone report in early spring 2010.
| — Hat tip: AA | [Return to headlines] |
Audio: Dire Warning: Israel Must Strike Iran Now
Tehran will have nukes before U.N., Obama do anything, says diplomat
The only action that can stop Iran from building nuclear weapons is an Israeli strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, argued John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the Bush administration.
Speaking in a radio interview with WND senior reporter Aaron Klein, who hosts an investigative program on New York’s WABC 770 AM, Bolton warned time is running out for an Israeli attack.
“Right now we know about the facilities. … We know where they are,” he said. “We know exactly what their dimensions are, and I think they are susceptible to an Israeli attack.”
Bolton said an Israeli military option “isn’t there forever. … If Israel is going to use military force, it needs to use it sooner rather than later.”
[Comments from JD: Audio of interview at url above]
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Earthquake: 150,000 to Die in Istanbul, Report Predicts
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 3 — Up to 150,000 people will lose their lives and 300,000 buildings will be knocked down in an anticipated earthquake in Istanbul, predicts a report released by the Turkish Chamber of Civil Engineers, or IMO, as daily Hurriyet reports today. The report, which was sent to Parliament on Monday, reveals over half of construction projects approved by engineers of inspection companies are not earthquake proof. The results came after IMO inspected 9% of the 1,031 projects supposedly made earthquake-proof by inspection companies in 2008. The IMO report predicts in the next anticipated Istanbul earthquake 70,000 buildings will undergo severe damage and 200,000 buildings will undergo moderate damage. According to the report, 70,000 to 150,000 people will lose their lives and a further 160,000 to 200,000 will be injured and hospitalized. Moreover, 400,000 families are expected to need shelter in the aftermath of the quake. IMO has warned parliament hospital buildings need to be strengthened in Istanbul as inspections have shown 86% of hospitals in the city are susceptible to collapse. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Gives Russia Pilots Two Months to Leave: Report
TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran has given Russian commercial pilots working in the Islamic Republic two months to leave the country as it has no need for them, Transport Minister Hamid Behbahani was quoted as saying on Saturday.
The move is a further sign of strains between Iran and Russia, which has indicated it could back new sanctions against Tehran over its disputed nuclear work. For its part, Iran has voiced frustration over Moscow’s failure to deliver a defense missile system.
Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency said the idea to order the Russian pilots to leave the country gained momentum after a Russian-made aircraft caught fire as it landed in northeastern Iran in January, injuring more than 40 people.
The plane belonged to Iran’s Taban airline but the pilot was Russian, Fars said. It did not say how many Russians currently worked as pilots for Iranian airlines.
“Upon an order from the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad), the Road and Transport Ministry has set a two-month deadline, upon the expiry of which all Russian pilots will have to leave the country,” Behbahani said.
“When our country itself possesses plenty of professional and specialist pilots, there is no need to bring in pilots from abroad,” he told Fars.
Iran has suffered a string of crashes in the past few decades, many involving Russian-made aircraft.
In 2009 a Tupolev aircraft flying to Armenia caught fire in mid-air and crashed, killing all 168 people on board.
U.S. sanctions against Iran have prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West, forcing it to supplement its aging fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from Russia and other former Soviet states.
Behbahani said about 120 aircraft out of 193 planes in Iran’s commercial fleet were currently active, with the rest grounded for one reason or another.
Russia, which has significant trade ties with Iran, is among six world powers trying to find a diplomatic solution to the long-running dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Moscow has indicated it could support new sanctions against Iran provided they are not too severe. Iran denies Western accusations that its nuclear work is aimed at developing bombs.
Iranian officials have voiced growing frustration at Russia’s failure to supply the advanced S-300 missile defense system, which Israel and the United States do not want Tehran to have. Russia last month said it would not sell weapons if it leads to destabilization in any region.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Influential Cleric Urges Veil Crackdown
Tehran, 8 March(AKI) — On the occasion of International Women’s Day, influential Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said on Monday that women must stop breaking Islam’s rules and wear the veil in the correct manner.
“I ask competent authorities to intensify checks on veils and on the type of clothing worn by women in public with the aim of stopping the moral corruption that is spreading in society, said Khatami, a close associate of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Women must respect Islamic law and wear the veil in an appropriate way,” Khatami said in an interview with state-funded Iranian Students’ News Agency.
In the lead up to Women’s Day, several pro and con opinions have been voiced regarding the veil, which since the 1979 Islamic Revolution has been an obligatory part of women’s clothing while in public.
On Saturday, Zahra Rahnavard, wife of Iranian ex-prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi — a politician in her own right — said parliament must change the law on the veil on the grounds that it violates women’s civil and political rights.
According to rules in place in Iran on Islamic dress codes, a woman who does not completely cover her hair and body in public can be fined or imprisoned. Men also must wear their hair short and T-shirts and all Western-style clothes are banned.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Earns USD 825.9 Mln From Hazelnut Exports
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 3 — Turkey, one of the leading hazelnut producers of the world, has earned USD 825.9 million from hazelnut exports in the past six months, Anatolia news agency reports quoting an exporters association as saying on Wednesday. Turkey shipped more than 133,898 tons of hazelnuts to almost 90 countries, Association of Black Sea Hazelnut Exporters said. One quintal (100 kilograms) of decorticated hazelnuts was traded approximately at USD 630 from September 1, 2009 to February 28, 2010. Some 101,014 tonnes of hazelnuts exports were made to EU countries, it said. Turkey shipped 159,680 tonnes of hazelnuts and earned USD 774.8 million the same period last season. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
United Arab Emirates to Follow Third Reich Policies Against Jews
The authorities of the United Arab Emirates made an unusual decision. Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan al-Tamim said on March 1 that anyone who looks or sounds like a citizen of Israel will be blocked from entering the country, even if a suspected individual produces a passport of a different state.
“It is easy for us to identify [Israelis], through their face or when they speak any other language. We used to respect them when they would come holding European passports; we regarded them as Europeans and never treated them badly. But from now on, anyone we suspect to have a dual citizenship, they will be treated with great suspicion,” the police chief said.
The decision is directly linked with the assassination of a high-ranking official of Palestine’s Hamas movement in one of Dubai hotels on February 20. UAE officials believe that Mahmud al-Mabhuh, one of the founders of the military wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, was killed by Israel’s Mossad. The secret agents most likely used passports of other countries to commit the crime.
It is not quite clear, though, how Arab officials are going to identify Israelis. They would obviously have no difficulty in identifying Orthodox bearded hasids for their side-locks, hats and glasses. It looks like a joke though: “Wearing a hat and a pair of glasses makes you a Jew.”
Such people would never think of traveling to Emirates. Will Emirates liken itself to the Third Reich and use rulers and protractors to measure the shape of the nose, earlaps and the skull structure? If it does, the UAE will lose all of its friends in the West.
The police of Dubai suspect 26 people in the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh. The suspects hold passports of Britain, Ireland, Germany, France and other countries.
Mossad’s participation in the plot to kill the high-ranking official of Hamas is just a theory. Even if we assume that it is true, the passports, which the suspected Israelis produced, may not necessarily be fake. Israel has dual citizenship agreements with dozens of countries, including those mentioned in the criminal case.
It may just so happen that law-abiding Britons or Australians will not be allowed to enter the UAE. Such a state of affairs will quickly develop into an international scandal. There are influential Jewish communities in the two countries, and the members of those communities hold two passports on absolutely legal grounds.
In general, the situation is a comic one. However, the scandal related to the assassination of the Hamas official does not look like a joke at all.
Israeli scientist of politics, Avigdor Eskin, said in an interview with Pravda.Ru that the police chief of Dubai released the above-mentioned statements for propaganda purposes.
“One has to take account of Oriental pride here. Someone attacked your territory and you were not able to prevent the crime. Nevertheless, it is easy to see that it was an attempt to distract people’s attention from the most important question. Why did the law-enforcement bodies of the UAE ignore the presence of an outstanding terrorist on the territory of the country?”
Sergey Demidenko, an expert with the Institute for Strategic Analysis, said that the incident in the Emirates would not affect the dialogue between Arabs and Israelis just because of the fact that there is no such dialogue.
“Israel has formal relations with only two Arab states — Egypt and Jordan. There is nothing new in the current situation. It is just another episode in the long-standing opposition. Israel’s relations with the Arab world can be characterized with indifference and scandals. The number of scandals has been growing recently — one may recollect the liquidation of Hezbollah’s high-ranking officials last year. More scandals are coming soon, I can be sure of that.
“The new Israeli administration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman at the head conduct a tough political course against Israel’s adversaries. They try to neutralize them where they can,” Demidenko said.
Sergey Balmasov
Vadim Trukhachev
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Car Bomb on Intelligence Headquarters in Lahore , 11 Dead and Over 60 Injured
The attack bears the hallmark of al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban. In the past the Federal Investigation Agency had already suffered two attacks. The residents had requested moving the headquarters, located in a residential area. In two and a half years Pakistan has recorded 360 attacks and more than 3 thousand victims.
Lahore (AsiaNews / Agencies) — This morning at dawn a car bomb hit the Federal Investigation Agency headquarters in Lahore. Official sources said that the toll is 11 dead, including a woman and a child, and at least 60 wounded. The attack bears the hallmark of al Qaeda militants, backed by Pakistani Taliban who are seeking to overthrow the government through bombings and repeated violent attacks.
Khusro Pervaiz, an official of the provincial government, said that “clearly, the target of the attack was the investigating agency. The attack is a psychological blow for the Pakistani authorities who have recently won a series of successes against Islamist militias. A battle that has the consent of the U.S. government, which has welcomed the capture of leading figures among the Afghan Taliban.
The explosion left a deep crater in the road in front of the headquarters of the Federal Investigation Agency — Pakistani intelligence — and has destroyed the facade of the building. In the past the intelligence agency had already suffered two separate attacks.
A group of citizens has railed against the police that arrived in the meantime on the scene. The government building is located in the suburb of Model Town, Lahore, in an area with a high population density. A woman reports that “several times in the past we asked that it be moved away from our homes, but they have not done anything.”
In 2009, in Lahore there were at least three bloody attacks: March 3 armed commandos killed six police in an ambush on the Sri Lanka cricket team. On 30 March a group targeted the police academy, killing eight people. On May 27 a car bomb exploded near a police barracks, causing at least 23 victims.
In two and a half years, Pakistan has registered some 360 attacks, in which more than 3 thousand people have been killed. Most were suicide attacks perpetrated by the Taliban in Pakistan engaged in an armed conflict against the army in the tribal areas on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Appeals for Calm After Nigerian Sectarian Slaughter
JOS, Nigeria — UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed Monday for “maximum restraint” amid revulsion at the slaughter of more than 500 Christians in Nigeria, as survivors told how the killers chopped down their victims.
Funerals took place for victims of the three-hour orgy of violence on Sunday in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos, blamed on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group.
While troops were deployed to the villages to prevent new attacks, security forces detained 95 suspects but faced bitter criticism over how the killers were able to go on the rampage at a time when a curfew was meant to be in force.
Media reported that Muslim residents of the villages in Plateau state had been warned by phone text message, two days prior to the attack, so they could make good their escape before the exit points were sealed off.
Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting ‘nagge’, the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Troops Deployed to North After Christian Killings
Jos, 8 March(AKI) — Nigeria’s government sent in troops to the northern Jos region on Monday after at least 500 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on Christian villages early on Sunday. Police said they had arrested scores in connection with the attacks, which are said to have been carried out in revenge for Muslim-Christian clashes near Nigeria’s city of Jos that killed hudreds earlier this year.
“We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act,” said Dan Manjang, an adviser to the Christian-dominated Plateau state government, in one report.
Many of the dead were women and children, who were hacked to death by the gangs, who were also armed with machine guns, officials said.
In January, 326 died in clashes in Jos between rival religious and ethnic groups, according to police, although rights activits said more than 550 had been killed.
Another Plateau state official, Gregory Yenlong, in a report urged people to “remain calm and be patient as the government steps up security to protect lives and property in this state”.
Killing between Christians and Muslims, as well as inter-tribal massacres are common in Nigeria. Following its independence from the UK in 1960, ethnic tensions erupted into the three-year Nigerian-Biafran war resulting in the death of more than 1 million civilians either from the fighting or starvation.
A Red Cross spokesman said the security situation was “still in disarray” and that while its teams had been able to help evacuate some people to hospital in Jos, they were still trying to reach all those areas affected.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew has been in place since the four-days long clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs in January.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
26 Illegal Immigrants Found in Lorry
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 8 — A Romanian man has been arrested by the police of Greece for traffic of illegal immigrants. The man was driving a lorry in which 26 immigrants, among whom 12 children, were hidden in cardboard boxes. He was arrested at Promachonas at the Bulgarian border. The police have impounded the lorry, a mobile phone and 710 euros in cash, found on the driver. The man will have to appear in court, and the prosecutor of Serres has decided that no legal steps will be taken against the immigrants.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Roma Duped Into Seeking Swedish Asylum
An estimated 1,000 Roma people, primarily from Serbia, have been lured this year alone into travelling to Sweden in the vain hope of securing residence permits, the Swedish Migration Board has said.
Buses filled with Roma people have been pulling into Gothenburg and Malmö on an almost daily basis.
“Travel agencies run by unscrupulous businessmen are tricking already vulnerable people into coming to Sweden,” said board director-general Dan Eliasson.
The migration board chief is advising Roma people not to make the long trip to Scandinavia as their chances of being granted residency are “extraordinarily small”.
“They probably feel that they are living in difficult social conditions and maybe even that they are discriminated against, but this is not something that gives them the right to protection in Sweden.
“Generally they’ll quickly be informed that they can’t get a residence permit and they’ll have to go home,” said Eliasson, who added that the vast majority came to Sweden from Serbia, though some have also made their way north from Montenegro and Macedonia.
The Roma population in Serbia is considerably poorer than the wider population, and sporadic reports have emerged of violations perpetrated against Roma in Serbia, Kosovo and, recently, in Italy.
“But in order to gain asylum you need to be able to show that you are persecuted and risk violent treatment. It is very difficult to receive asylum from Europe,” said Eliasson.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: “Homosexuality is a Disease”, Says Minister
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 8 — Turkey’s State Minister responsible for the affairs of women and families, Mrs. Aliye Kavaf, continues to make controversial comments on morals and values that raise reactions. Following her criticisms on the love scenes in Turkish soap operas, the minister said she believes homosexuality is a biological disorder that requires treatment “I believe homosexuality is a biological disorder, a disease,” said Aliye Kavaf in an interview with the daily Hurriyet’s Sunday supplement. “I believe (homosexuality) is something that needs to be treated. Therefore I do not have a positive opinion of gay marriage.” Kavaf said her ministry does not have an agenda for gay marriage and there is no demand for such a thing anyway. “We are not saying that there are no homosexuals in Turkey, these cases do exist” she said. The comments come shortly after Kavaf was criticized last week for saying she is disturbed by love scenes in Turkish soap operas and that she believes they are inappropriate for Turkish family values. “When reporters asked me about kissing scenes in Ashki Memnu (Forbidden Love) soap opera, I said: ‘In Europe and America that type of program is broadcast under control. They are encrypted, people who want to watch them buy them.’ Kavaf said in the Hurriyet interview that she does not approve of broadcasting that is solely focused on ratings. “That scene may not be important for 45- to 50-year-old people in terms of degeneration, but it might have a different effect on children aged 4-10.” Other criticisms against the minister included her seeming tolerance for violence. Kavaf provided fire for the canon in her Hurriyet interview. “I only watch Kurtlar Vadisi (The Valley of Wolves). I do not know if it is wrong or right, but the messages offered in the show attract my attention,” she said. Kurtlar Vadisi is a popular soap opera about mafia and “deep state” affairs in which scenes of murder and torture are common. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IMF Floats Climate Change Fund Idea
Global financier the International Monetary Fund has switched its attention to the environment with a plan for the world’s governments to pool together to raise money needed to adapt to climate change.
IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the fund was worried about the huge amount of money needed and the effect that will have on the global economy.
He added that the proposal may help efforts to reach a binding agreement on climate change later this year.
Mr Strauss-Kahn proposed that countries adopt a quota system similar to the one it uses to raise its own money, which could bring in money faster than proposals to increase carbon taxes or other fundraising methods.
He only provided a broad outline of the plan, as the organisation will release a paper later this week with full details.
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Political Agendas Continue to Drive Climate Fiasco
Exploitation of global warming underscores a fundamental difference between left wing ideology from communism through socialism, and free market capitalism.
The former pursue political agendas regardless of failures and cost. Obama pursues green jobs or cap and trade that have failed elsewhere. The latter, if not too shackled by government, flexes, adapts, innovates, invents and advances the human condition and improves the environment (check pollution levels in communist countries). The left who used global warming as their Trojan Horse continue despite complete exposure of the fraudulent means used to build the horse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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