President Obama backed down from his proposal to force combat veterans’ treatment to be covered by private insurers instead of the VA.
The Messiah seems to have a real tin ear for traditional American political issues. Any halfwit could have told him what would happen with this particular one. But maybe no one did.
Thanks to AA, Brutally Honest, C. Cantoni, CSP, Gaia, Henrik, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JCPA, JD, KGS, TB, Torchlight, Tuan Jim, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –
|
Financial Crisis |
 |
“Getting Tough” With Predator Financial Institutions |
|
Europe Falls Out of Love With Labor Migration |
|
Fed to Buy Up to $300b Long-Term Treasury Bonds |
|
JP Morgan Will Use $400 Million of the Bailoutmoney to Send Thousands of Jobs to India |
|
Klaus: Europe and the Ongoing Financial Crisis |
|
Recession: France, First Fall in National Wealth in 30 Years |
|
UK: A Strong Family and Small State Ought to Go Hand in Hand |
|
UK: Public Sector Job Numbers Soar as Unemployment Hits Two Million for First Time in 12 Years |
|
USA
|
|
ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census |
|
AIG Exec Digs Che Guevara? |
|
First Fifty-Six Days: What Obama Hath Wrought |
|
Gates Readies Big Cuts in Weapons |
|
Hijab-Wearing Basketball Star Scores Big in US |
|
John Bolton: the Coming War on Sovereignty |
|
No Use for Unions |
|
Obama Drops Controversial Health Care Plan for Wounded Veterans |
|
Soldiers Pledge to Refuse Disarmament Demands |
|
The Knock on the Door |
|
Canada
|
|
Canada: Lorne Gunter: “Housing First” Homeless Strategy Won’t Work for Alberta … or Anywhere |
|
Canada: Terrorism Double-Standard |
|
Europe and the EU
|
|
CIA Snatch Trial Adjourned |
|
Czech Rep: Týden: Klaus Provokes Abroad, Unable to Advise Home |
|
Denmark: Police Figures Show Massive Shootings Increase |
|
EU Bans Use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ (and Sportsmen and Statesmen) Because it Claims They Are Sexist |
|
Greece: New Laws Target Hoodies |
|
Netherlands: Two Out of Three Serious Teenage Criminals Are Immigrants |
|
Netherlands: MP Calls Chinese “Slit-Eyes”, Then Apologises |
|
Norway: the Progress Party Tops Latest Poll |
|
Red Ken: I Said Brown Was a Liability and Time Has Proved Me Right |
|
Special Report/ the Gaza War and the Rise of the Neo-French |
|
Sweden: Liberal Party Looking to Reduce Migration Board’s Influence |
|
Swimsuit Rules ‘Sexist’: Swedish Swimmer |
|
Switzerland: Muslims to be Offered Course on Swiss Society |
|
UK: Islamic Terror Suspect Awaiting Extradition to U.S. Wins £60,000 for Police Brutality |
|
Why Italy is Staying Away From Durban II |
|
Balkans
|
|
Bosnia: UN Tribunal Cuts Term for Former Serb Leader |
|
Commissioner Backs EU Enlargement in Balkans |
|
Croatia: Brit People Smuggler Arrested |
|
Montenegro: Berlusconi and Djukanovic to Boost Bilateral Links |
|
Serge Trifkovic: The More Things Change… |
|
Mediterranean Union
|
|
Council of Europe: North-South Prize to Jorda’s Queen Rania |
|
Fishing: Sicily-Egypt Agreement Operative From July |
|
Med Union: EU, Can Aid Peace in the Middle East |
|
Tunisia-Italy: Cinelli in Tunis for Military Cooperation |
|
North Africa
|
|
Algeria: Terrorism Returns, New Attack in Tebessa |
|
Egypt: Imports From Italy Rise 35% to 2.62 Bln in 2008 |
|
Egypt: Cleric Asks Neighbours to Enforce Divorce |
|
Morocco: MPs Look at Bill to Protect Domestic Workers |
|
TV: Algeria, Two New Channels for Koran and Berbers |
|
Israel and the Palestinians
|
|
Al-Qaeda Behind West Bank Strike, Debka Says |
|
Conflicting Reports About Shalit’s Future |
|
Israel: Rebuilding Hamas’ Killing Machine |
|
Obama: Destroying Human Life for the ‘Greater Good’ |
|
Middle East
|
|
Darwin in Turkey |
|
Media: Gaza War Reportage Debated at Al Jazeera Forum |
|
Terrorist Bombing May Have Targeted Koreans Yet Again |
|
The Obama Administration Reaches Out to Syria: Implications for Israel |
|
Turkey: Darwin; Sacked Magazine Editor Reinstated |
|
Turkey: Five Held in Probe Over Allegations of Killings |
|
Veterans Groups Denounce Private Insurance Proposal |
|
Russia
|
|
At G20, Kremlin to Pitch New Currency |
|
South Asia
|
|
Indonesia: Cleric Arrested Over Child Bride |
|
Far East
|
|
Outrage Over British Ambassador Peter Hughes’s Homage to North Korea |
|
Philippines: ‘Nicole’ Faces Perjury Raps |
|
Philippines: 2 Soldiers Slain, 2 Hurt in Lanao Clash |
|
Australia — Pacific
|
|
New Zealand: Killer’s Actions Blamed on Saddam Torture |
|
New Zealand: Spend Tax Cut or Give it to the Needy: PM |
|
New Zealand: Survey Suggests Parents Unclear on Smacking Law |
|
New Zealand: Nats Out to Sink 3-Strike Law, Says Act MP |
|
Sub-Saharan Africa
|
|
Somali Insurgent Group Led by a Swede |
|
Sudan: President’s Expulsion of Foreign Aid Groups Concerns the UN |
|
Latin America
|
|
Desaparecidos Ringleader Condemned |
|
Immigration
|
|
182 Land Near Siracusa, 5 Traffickers Stopped |
|
29 Young Algerians Stopped at Sea |
|
Finland: Vanhanen: Finland Needs Immigration Despite Present Economic Problems |
|
Finland: Halonen and Ahtisaari Differ Slightly on Immigration |
|
Italy: Entrepreneurs Up by 15,000 in 2008 |
|
Obama, Hispanic Dems to Huddle on Immigration |
|
Spain: ‘Hunt of Immigrants’ Reported to Prosecution Office |
|
UK: Asian Postmaster Takes Immigration Stand by Banning Customers Who Can’t Speak English |
|
UK: French Immigration Minister Pours Scorn on UK Claims of Plan to Halt Migrants at Calais |
|
Culture Wars
|
|
Abortion Sparks Row of Government and Bishops in Spain — Feature |
|
Football: Spain, Women Revolt Against Discrimination |
|
Quran is Compatible With Modern US Values: Film |
|
U.S. to Sign U.N. Gay Rights Declaration |
|
Webster’s Dictionary Redefines ‘Marriage’ |
“Getting Tough” With Predator Financial Institutions
AIG, Larry Summers and the Politics of Deflection
The political ‘outrage’ expressed by the Obama Administration is an example of ‘perception management.’ The population is being slyly duped into believing their officials are working in their interest. In reality the officials are channeling growing popular outrage over endless bank bailouts away from the real problem to an entirely tertiary one. The US Government has injected $180 billion since September 2008 to keep the ‘brain dead’ AIG in business and honoring its Credit Default Swap obligations. In effect, they are propping up the casino to continue endless gambling with taxpayer dollars.
The rise of a market in derivatives or ‘swaps’ contracts supposedly to ‘insure’ against a company going into default and not being able to honor its debts, the Credit Default Swaps market, is at the heart of the global financial catastrophe. The market was ‘invented’ by a young economist at JP MorganChase, interestingly enough one of the few big banks recording profit today.
Europe Falls Out of Love With Labor Migration
With unemployment soaring, many European Union countries want the migrant workers they once attracted to go home as quickly as possible. They are sparing no expense or effort to encourage them to leave…
Construction companies and restaurants in these countries were only too pleased to employ the cheap labor from the East. More and more families hired Polish women to clean their houses or nannies with Slavic accents to put their children to bed. The migrants’ wages were modest, and yet in some cases three times as high as they were at home. The newcomers sent as much of their earnings home as possible, injecting capital that helped their hometowns gain unprecedented prosperity.
Once the global economic crisis erupted those days were over. Unemployment has risen twice as fast in Great Britain and Spain as elsewhere in Europe. Now the citizens of Western European countries need the jobs themselves, and their governments are resorting to all kinds of tricks and incentives to get rid of the wiling hands they once needed so badly…
Fed to Buy Up to $300b Long-Term Treasury Bonds
Fed will buy up to $300 billion of long-term government bonds; keeps key rate at record low
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it will spend up to $300 billion over the next six months to buy long-term government bonds, a new step aimed at lifting the country out of recession by lowering rates on mortgages and other consumer debt.
At the same time, the Fed left a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent. Economists predict the Fed will hold the rate in that zone for the rest of this year and for most — if not all — of next year.
Fed purchases should boost Treasury prices and drive down their rates. That would ripple through and lower rates on other kinds of debt. The last time the Fed set out to influence long-term interest rates was during the 1960s with Operation Twist, conceived by the Kennedy administration.
The Fed also said it will buy more mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help that battered market. The central bank will buy an additional $750 billion, bringing its total purchases of these securities to $1.25 trillion. It also will boost its purchase of Fannie and Freddie debt to $200 billion.
“This is not only going to keep mortgage rates low for a long period of time,” said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. “The mere announcement may produce a honeymoon effect and bring mortgage rates down to even lower levels in the coming days.”
In addition, the Fed said a $1 trillion program to jump-start consumer and small business lending could be expanded to include other financial assets.
The program — which is rolling out this week — currently is focused on spurring lending for autos, education, credit cards and loans for business equipment. The government already has announced an expansion to include commercial real-estate assets. Any broadening of the program would be beyond that area.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are taking the new steps as the economy sinks deeper into recession.
Since the Fed last met in late January, “the economy continues to contract,” the policymakers observed.
“Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending,” they said.
Businesses, meanwhile, are facing weaker sales prospects and credit troubles have them cutting inventories. Problems overseas have crimped demand for U.S. exports, dealing domestic companies another blow, the Fed said.
JP Morgan Will Use $400 Million of the Bailoutmoney to Send Thousands of Jobs to India
New information pertaining to the billions in bailout funds given to American financial institutions has come light, shredding Washington’s carefully crafted meme that the money was needed to “ease credit” and exposing the shenanigans of AIG and JP Chase Morgan who received billions of tax payer funds.
Coming on the heels of AIG’s bountiful 165 million bonuses to employees is the revelation that yet another bank bailout, JP Morgan Chase, is going to spend 400 million to outsource thousands of jobs to India.
Klaus: Europe and the Ongoing Financial Crisis
Thank you for the possibility to be with all of you here tonight because I do not very often speak in Milano. I am glad that the Istituto Bruno Leoni gave me this opportunity. I am aware that the institute plays an important role in Italy. I am also very pleased that my book “Pianeta blu, non verde”, in its Italian version, was officially launched today.
As you probably know, it is not a book about climatology or about the technicalities of global warming. It is a book about an ideology called environmentalism and about the dangers behind the ambitions — based on this ideology — to fight the non-existent problem of global warming. I will not go into these arguments here now. I know you wanted me to talk about the ongoing economic crisis, but a connection of the global warming hysteria with the crisis does exist and I have to mention it here.
There is, of course, no connection between temperature and economic growth. We know that there are economically successful countries with both cold and hot climate. Nigel Lawson says in his recent book that “the average annual temperature in Helsinki is less than 5°C/41°F. That in Singapore is in excess of 27°C/81°F — a difference of more than 22°C/40°F.” There is, however, a connection between policies, based on attempts to mitigate the allegedly dangerously growing temperatures, and long-term economic growth.
These policies have been putting obstacles in the way of economic development and we can, therefore, argue that they do contribute to the depth of the current crisis and especially to its prolongation — despite the fact that they did not trigger it.
The connection in the opposite direction is not that clear. I don’t share the erroneous hope of some people that the current crisis will fundamentally change priorities and will make the debate about global warming more rational. I am afraid it is only a wishful thinking. The politicians and their “fellow travelers” have invested so much in global warming they are not willing to devalue this — for them — so precious political capital.
Nevertheless, the financial and economical crisis is here, and is here to stay for some time. There is no miraculous way to get rid of it even though some politicians in Europe and America promise to do it. Let me put this issue into a broader perspective.
A month ago, I spent three days discussing this topic with an important group of leading politicians at the World Economic Forum in Davos and my depressing feeling from these discussions is that both the elementary rationality and the economic science have been more or less excluded, suppressed or forgotten.
I am surprised that no one was prepared for the crisis. To assume that good weather, blue skies, azzurro, will be here permanently is a short-sightedness, if not an intellectual defect. The very unpleasant, day by day deeper economic crisis should be treated as a standard, cyclically repeated economic phenomenon. We should also take it as an unavoidable consequence and hence a “just” price we have to pay for the long-term playing with the market by the politicians and their regulators. Their attempts to blame the market, instead of themselves, should be resolutely rejected. Their activities, aiming at “reforming”, which means re-regulating the economic system world-wide, are all very doubtful and I as said in Davos: “I am getting more afraid of reforms bringing in more rules and increased international regulation than of the crisis itself.” A large increase in the scope of financial regulation and protectionism, as is being proposed these days, will only prolong the recession in the short-run, and undermine the long-term growth potential.
My country has not, luckily, experienced any financial crisis so far. We had one ten years ago, in the moment of the Asian financial turmoil, and it forced our banks to become very cautious. Only three OECD countries have not pumped money into their financial system now — Czech Republic, Slovakia and Mexico. That’s the reason why we are frustrated when the West European media put us together with some of the visibly vulnerable countries of Eastern Europe.
What we did import is the economic crisis. This happened partly because of the fall of demand for our exports, and partly because of the behaviour of foreign banks which own our local banks. Due to the problems in their mother countries, and in the attempts to rebalance their portfolios, they dangerously restricted credits even in countries without apparent financial problems. This is the effect of globalization and of our rapid selling off our state-owned banks after the fall of communism when there was and could not be any domestic capital at our disposal.
Aggregate demand needs strengthening. One traditional way to do this is to increase government spending, mostly on public infrastructure projects, on condition these are available and the country is ready to massively increase its indebtedness. The Czech government has not yet decided to do so because we do not believe in this procedure. Not all of us are Keynesians, even now. We are well aware of the crowding-out effect. It would be much more helpful to initiate a radical reduction of all kinds of restrictions on private initiatives introduced in the last half a century during the era of the brave new world of the “social and ecological market economy”. The best thing to do right now would be to temporarily weaken, if not permanently repeal, politically correct labour, environmental, social, health and other “standards”, because they block economic activity more than anything else.
The question which is raised these days wherever I come is whether the current financial and economic crisis has been caused by capitalism, perhaps by too much capitalism, or — on the contrary — whether it was caused by lack of capitalism, by suppressing its normal functioning, by introduction of policies that are not compatible with capitalism, of policies that undermine it. My answer is that we witness a government failure, not a market failure as some politicians try to tell us.
Not to be misunderstood, I am not in favor of anarchy or elimination of the state. But I don’t believe in the capabilities and the motivations of the state. For most of my life — till twenty years ago — I lived in a system where political, social and all other non-economic arguments and claims of the state dictated the economy, not the other way round. This sequencing is crucial. The horse must always be in front of the carriage, not behind it.
The wrong sequence was the defining feature of the communist system, and the whole idea of our transformation from communism to freedom and market economy was to change this. Our aim was to let the market function, and to supplement market economy with rational social, and now also environmental policies. I stress supplement, which means to add ex-post, not to impose ex-ante. I am sorry to say that the current European, originally German, now also more and more American social and ecological market economy leads us into a totally different world. This is what bothers me.
Václav Klaus, Notes for Milano, Palazzo Realo, Istituto Bruno Leoni, March 16, 2009
Recession: France, First Fall in National Wealth in 30 Years
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MARCH 17 — The steep downturn on stock markets and the slump in property prices may appears to have led to a 3% drop in France’s net national wealth in 2008, the first fall since 1978. This is the finding of a study by the country’s statistical agency, INSEE, which examines the country’s national wealth during the 30-year period from 1978 to 2007. At the end of 2007, French families boasted net overall wealth of 9,500 billion euro, two-thirds of which was made up of non-financial assets. Over the 30 years in question, the percentage of France’s population who are home-owners rose from 47% to 58%, and in the past 10 years the value of these assets rose sharply from representing 4.4 years of gross income during the period 1978-1997, to reach 7.5 years of gross income in 2007. There was a rise of over 10% in the value of wealth held between 2003 and 2006 thanks to a boom in property prices. In 2007 this growth saw a slow-down and in 2008 “this turned into a fall, of around 3%, for the first time in 30 years, in view of the stock-market downturn and a reverse of trend on the property market”. (ANSAmed).
UK: A Strong Family and Small State Ought to Go Hand in Hand
The economic crisis is forcing the Tories to rethink their policy agenda. In the first part of a new series, Tim Montgomerie argues that social reform matters more than ever before
If you ask a traditional Conservative to list the causes of economic wealth, they’ll give you a familiar list. Low and simple taxation. Light touch regulation. Free trade. Opposition to monopolies. Property rights. Low inflation.
All good answers but not, says David Cameron, the full answer. Since he became Tory leader he has been arguing that Britain’s long-term health — and wealth — depend upon the strength of society, too. Families that stay together. Children who leave school with meaningful qualifications. Adults who stay free of drug and alcohol dependency. A welfare state that encourages personal industry, not dependency.
These hallmarks of a socially conservative society should also be the goal of every fiscal conservative. A society full of strong families is a society that doesn’t need expensive state welfare. A society that nurtures educated and independent citizens is a society that will produce more tax revenue. The link between family structure and later success in life is established by empirical study.
As the economy worsens there will be pressure on Mr Cameron to retreat from his social agenda. He must resist that pressure. Although, as prime minister, he will need to get an urgent grip on the ballooning budget deficit, he must also have a long-term focus on building the kind of strong society that makes a small state sustainable…
UK: Public Sector Job Numbers Soar as Unemployment Hits Two Million for First Time in 12 Years
But while private firms bore the brunt of the job losses, the number of people employed in the public sector actually rose over the past year.
Public sector jobs soared by 30,000 to 5.78million last year while employment in private firms fell by 105,000 to 23.6million, said the Office for National Statistics.
ACORN to Play Role in 2010 Census
The U.S. Census Bureau is working with several national organizations to help recruit 1.4 million workers to produce the country’s 2010 census, including one with a history of voter fraud charges: ACORN.
The U.S. Census is supposed to be free of politics, but one group with a history of voter fraud, ACORN, is participating in next year’s count, raising concerns about the politicization of the decennial survey.
AIG Exec Digs Che Guevara?
The gentleman second from the right in the picture below [wearing a Che Guevera T shirt], Gerry Pasciucco, heads the AIG Financial Products unit. “We learned over the weekend,Che fan” reads a letter dated March 17 from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to Rep. Barney Frank, that AIG had, last Friday, distributed more than $160 million in retention payments (bonuses) to members of its Financial Products Subsidiary, the unit of AIG that was principally responsible for the firm’s meltdown.”
[…]
The Soviets sent the equivalent in economic subsidies of eight Marshall Plans to Cuba, which was not a war-ravaged continent of 300 million people but an island of 6 million people who shortly before had enjoyed a higher-per-capita income than half of Europe. These Cuban citizens had owned more TVs’ per capita than any European country, had enjoyed the services (some free, most extremely cheap) of more doctors and dentists per capita then citizens in the U.S. or Britain and had never emigrated from their homeland. Instead, in the 40’s and 50’s when Cubans could get U.S. visas for the asking and Cubans were perfectly free to emigrate with all their property and family, fewer Cubans lived in the U.S. than Americans in Cuba. At the time Cuban laborers earned the 8th highest wages — not in Latin America— but in the world.
By a process that defies not only the laws of economics, but seemingly the very laws of physics , 40 years later Castroite Cuba emerged from this Soviet largesse with among the lowest per-capita incomes in the Hemisphere, a lower credit rating than Somalia, fewer phones per capita than Papua New Guinea, fewer internet connections than Uganda, and 20 per cent of her population gone — all at total cost of their property and many at extreme cost to life and limb
First Fifty-Six Days: What Obama Hath Wrought
The first fifty-six days of the Obama presidency have been—to put it mildly— planned frenzy. Frenzy in an attempt to keep We-the-People from knowing what’s really going on (chaos is a tyrant’s friend) and planned because it was! Just some of what Obama and his supplicant Congress have wrought includes: …
Gates Readies Big Cuts in Weapons
WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration was drawing to a close, Robert M. Gates, whose two years as defense secretary had been devoted to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, felt compelled to warn his successor of a crisis closer to home.
The United States “cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything,” Gates said. The next defense secretary, he warned, would have to eliminate some costly hardware and invest in new tools for fighting insurgents.
Hijab-Wearing Basketball Star Scores Big in US
For most teenagers high-school is tough enough facing peer-pressure and acne, but being a Muslim female who wears a hijab, or headscarf, can make it even more daunting, especially when you are a top-scoring, history-making basketball player.
For Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir, who is on her way to becoming the first player in Massachusetts state history—male or female—to score 3,000 points, wearing the hijab was not an option but she was determined not to let it be an obstacle either.
“I’d like to really inspire a lot of young Muslim girls if they want to play basketball “
Bilqis—young basketball star”It really wasn’t a decision. I had to.” Bilqis told Sports Illustrated. “I had to get used to it, no matter how hard it was for me. I know the first few weeks in school kind of tested me.”
At 5’ 3.5”, Bilqis started playing as an eighth-grader for New Leadership Charter School in Springfield but it was not until she reached puberty that she put the Muslim veil on and consequently start playing in full Muslim dress with her arms and legs completely covered beneath her uniform.
Bilqis said it was not easy and she frequently turned heads as people taunted her about the “tablecloth” on her head or for being a “terrorist.”
“Sometimes they yell out, ‘Terrorist!’“ one of Bilqis’ teammates told the Boston Globe. “She gets mad, but she doesn’t lash out. I don’t know how she handles it. She just takes it.”
Things changed for the honor student when she stunned critics and proved to be an exceptional player with her major skills on the court. Bilqis is now expected to become the first Muslim player in NCAA Division I history.
Bilqis is set to start college on a full basketball scholarship next fall in Memphis and hopes to become a heart surgeon.
“I’d like to really inspire a lot of young Muslim girls if they want to play basketball,” Bilqis told the paper. “Anything is possible. They can do it, too.
John Bolton: the Coming War on Sovereignty
Barack Obama’s nascent presidency has brought forth the customary flood of policy proposals from the great and good, all hoping to influence his administration. One noteworthy offering is a short report with a distinguished provenance entitled A Plan for Action, which features a revealingly immodest subtitle: A New Era of International Cooperation for a Changed World: 2009, 2010, and Beyond.In presentation and tone, A Plan for Action is determinedly uncontroversial; indeed, it looks and reads more like a corporate brochure than a foreign-policy paper. The text is the work of three academics-Bruce Jones of NYU, Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institution, and Stephen John Stedman of Stanford. Its findings and recommendations, they claim, rose from a series of meetings with foreign-policy eminences here and abroad, including former Secretaries of State of both parties as well as defense officials from the Clinton and first Bush administrations. The participation of these notables is what gives A Plan for Action its bona fides, though one should doubt how much the document actually reflects their ideas. There is no question, however, that the ideas advanced in A Plan for Action have become mainstays in the liberal vision of the future of American foreign policy.That is what makes A Plan for Action especially interesting, and especially worrisome. If it is what it appears to be-a blueprint for the Obama administration’s effort to construct a foreign policy different from George W. Bush’s-then the nation’s governing elite is in the process of taking a sharp, indeed radical, turn away from the principles and practices of representative self-government that have been at the core of the American experiment since the nation’s founding. The pivot point is a shifting understanding of American sovereignty…
No Use for Unions
Labor: In the same week legislation that would kill the secret ballot used to form a union is introduced, a poll finds fewer than one in 10 non-union workers wants to join a union. No wonder coercion is necessary.
The bill is called the Employee Free Choice Act. But instead of liberating workers, it would enslave them to unions.
Under current law, a work force is organized when a simple majority of workers, voting with secret ballots, approves of unionization. The Employee Free Choice Act, more appropriately called the card check bill, turns that honorable practice on its head.
If it becomes law, unions would be certified if a simple majority sign the cards that are used to gauge employee interest in voting on union participation. The signing is done publicly, where workers are vulnerable to intimidation from union representatives.
Obama Drops Controversial Health Care Plan for Wounded Veterans
President Obama will not advance a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service.
President Obama, after an uproar by veterans groups, has scrapped a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service.
“In considering the third-party billing issue, the administration was seeking to maximize the resources available for veterans,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday in a written statement. “However, the president listened to concerns raised by the [veteran service organizations] that this might, under certain circumstances, affect veterans’ and their families’ ability to access health care.
“Therefore, the president has instructed that its consideration be dropped,” Gibbs said.
Obama met with 11 veterans service organizations on Monday and explained his plan to increase funding for Veterans Affairs by $25 billion over five years and bring more than 500,000 eligible veterans of modest income into the VA health care system by 2013.
But the American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans group, said the president’s plan would have increased premiums, made insurance unaffordable for veterans and imposed a massive hardship on military families. It could have also prevented small businesses from hiring veterans who have large health care needs, the group said.
The American Legion applauded Obama’s decision to drop the plan on Wednesday.
“We are glad that President Obama listened to the strong objections raised by The American Legion and veterans everywhere about this unfair plan,” Cmdr. David K. Rehbein of the American Legion said. “We thank the administration for its proposed increase in the VA budget and we are always available to assist by providing guidance to ensure a veterans health are system that is worthy of the heroes that use it.”
The American Legion wants the existing system to remain in place. Service-related injuries currently are treated and paid for by the government. The American Legion has proposed that Medicare reimburse the VA for the treatment of veterans.
Soldiers Pledge to Refuse Disarmament Demands
Campaign urges members of military to ‘steel resolve’ to ‘do the right thing’
An invitation to soldiers and peace officers across the United States to pledge to refuse illegal orders — including “state of emergency” orders that could include disarming or detaining American citizens — has struck a chord, collecting more than 100,000 website visitors in a little over a week and hundreds of e-mails daily.
Spokesman Stewart Rhodes of Oath Keepers told WND his organization’s goal is to remind military members their oath of allegiance is to the U.S. Constitution, not a particular president.
The Knock on the Door
A sitting President of the United States is “organizing a political organization loyal to him, bound by a pledge, outside the government and existing party apparatus. The historical precedents are ominous.”
[…]
As Politico reported, OFA will take the 10 million person database built up by the Obama campaign “to mobilize support for the president’s legislative agenda.”
A visit to the OFA website reveals that supporters are not simply asked to sign up, they are asked to take a pledge. A pledge to support — not the flag, not the constitution, not the country, not even the Democratic Party, but Obama and his “bold plan.” OFA does not use the Democratic Party logo but the “O”-shaped logo of the Obama campaign in which the red white and blue of the flag are abstracted to soft pastel colors.
Canada: Lorne Gunter: “Housing First” Homeless Strategy Won’t Work for Alberta … or Anywhere
Anytime someone proposes an elaborate new plan to end homelessness, the first thing they should be asked is “Are you going to reinstitute involuntary committal of mental patients who refuse to take their medications?”
If not, then ask them politely to move along and keep their hands off your tax money.
There are two causes of homelessness that tower over all others — mental illness and drug addiction — and unless and until governments, poverty activists and social agencies are prepared to confront these two, no appreciable dent will be made in homelessness.
The fashionable philosophy in homeless programming for the past two decades has been “housing first”: Get the homeless their own housing and the rest of their problems, while not disappearing, will be far easier to solve.
This may sound sensible, but it is truly nothing more than another way to demand that governments build more “social” housing.
After the fad of building subsidized housing died in the late 1980s, advocates struggled for ways to repackage their argument, until an initiative called Housing First was born in New York in 1992 as a strategy to deal with vagrants, addicts and squeegee men by moving them into their own apartments.
On Monday, even Alberta succumbed to this fad. That day, the Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness — a provincial government-commissioned agency — laid out a $3.3-billion, 10-year strategy to eliminate homelessness in the province by 2019.
Yes, the report does recommend that provincial jails, foster homes, hospitals and nursing homes not be permitted to release inmates, wards, patients and residents on to the street, or even into shelters. This comes close to reviving the proven notion of involuntary committal. But without a plan (and budget) that would enable such facilities to hold on to potential homeless people indefinitely, such a recommendation is no more than wishful thinking.
The cornerstone of the homeless secretariat’s report, instead, is a call for 8,000 or more new, affordable, public housing units over the next decade, as well as improved and streamlined support services for those living on Alberta’s streets.
That sounds an awful lot like “housing first” to me. And given that the strategy has been tried across North America for nearly two decades without major success, it is time to tell the nice Alberta secretariat people to move on and leave taxpayers’ money alone.
Moreover, at least two-thirds of the homeless are on the streets because they are off their meds or addicted to drugs. Poverty is not the root cause of their status. So even if you build them new affordable housing, they will still be mentally ill or addicts. Nice, new apartment or not, they will still suffer from the very conditions that led them to homelessness in the first place.
This is not a call to ignore the homeless. Most are victims of their conditions, not the author of their own circumstances. This is not even a call for construction of vast new warehouses in which to consign the homeless until they are “cured.” A system in which mental patients live in mainstream society, but in which they are required to report to authorities to prove they are taking their pills — or be committed — would probably be preferable.
But if you are going to start by asking for $3-billion for “housing first,” you may as well be asking for $3-billion for happy-face stickers. That will do just as much good.
Canada: Terrorism Double-Standard
As members of this editorial board watched tens of thousands of Tamil Canadians throng downtown Toronto on Monday, we couldn’t help but be struck by a curious double-standard that afflicts Canadian ethnopolitics. To wit: Why are Canadian Tamils permitted to express support for terrorism in a manner that would be considered outrageous if the demonstrators were Arab or Muslim?
The rally that took place in Toronto on Monday was not just, as organizers claimed, an expression of support for Tamil civilians in war-torn Sri Lanka. Many of the participants carried flags of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group that practices suicide bombings and abducts children to use as soldiers. (In 2006, Canada’s federal government officially designated the Tamil Tigers a terrorist group, a move that criminalized the group’s fundraising efforts in this country.) Some of the banners displayed on Monday also depicted Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, a wanted mass murderer who personally authorizes the acts of terrorism the group has committed over the last three decades.
Yet there was little outrage. To our knowledge, no politicians at any level of government have come forward to denounce this open demonstration of support for a banned terrorist group. In fact, Liberal MP Gurbax Singh Malhi recently appeared personally at a similar rally in Ottawa, and another Liberal MP, Derek Lee, has urged other MPs to join in, too.
Imagine for a moment, if the protestors had instead been Arab or Muslim. Would Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Dalton McGuinty and David Miller be silent if 120,000 supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah paralyzed downtown Toronto as they chanted slogans and waved flags praising groups that slaughter Jews?
To his great credit, Mr. Ignatieff recently denounced “Israel Apartheid Week” when he saw that it was being used as a cover for poisonous attacks against the Jewish state. Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, has lashed out against the Canadian Arab Federation for its leader’s unhinged attacks in the same vein. This zero-tolerance attitude toward terror-apologism is praiseworthy — but we would like to see it applied across the board. The Sinhalese Sri Lankan victims of Tamil Tiger terrorism are no less deserving of support than the Jewish residents of Ashkelon or Sderot.
The reason for this double standard is obvious: There are more than 200,000 Canadians of Sri Lankan Tamil descent in Canada, enough to comprise a swing vote in suburban Toronto-area ridings. This is the reason that the Liberals were too scared to ban the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization when they were in power — even with an (otherwise) principled anti-terror activist, Irwin Cotler, ensconced as Justice Minister. It was only when the Conservatives took power that the Tamils were added to the list of banned terrorist groups.
That move was a welcome one: Tamil bagmen can now no longer operate with impunity, extorting “contributions” from Tamil-owned businesses to fund the war back in Sri Lanka. And the police have since busted up a number of fundraising fronts tied to the Tigers. But public figures must also speak out when supporters of the Tigers make a spectacle of themselves, as they did in Toronto.
The message must be: Terrorism is a criminal affront to Canadian values, wherever it is practiced. Just because Canadians don’t pay as much attention to Sri Lanka as they do to Israel doesn’t change that fact.
CIA Snatch Trial Adjourned
Prosecutors optimistic court ruling won’t halt case
(ANSA) — Milan, March 18 — A Milan trial into the CIA’s rendition of a Muslim cleric in 2003 has been adjourned until the Constitutional Court issues a formal explanation of its recent ruling that prosecutors broke state secrecy.
The Constitutional Court ruled on March 12 that prosecutors broke secrecy rules in some cases but not others in their investigation of the abduction of Hassan Mustafa Omar Nasr. The verdict’s explanation, which the trial judges need in order to determine whether the case can go ahead, is expected in about a month.
The Milan judges adjourned proceedings until April 22.
The lead prosecutor in the case, Armando Spataro, told reporters he did not think the case would be halted when the Constitutional Court verdict emerges in full.
“I don’t think it will be stopped,” he said.
The verdict, expanding on a brief communique issued on the night of the ruling, is expected to set a new framework for court proceedings. In Spataro’s view, it will likely spell out that prosecutors will have to “stick closely to limits” when questioning defendants.
Last week’s ruling upheld some petitions from successive Italian governments but rejected others, allowing both sides to cry victory.
According to legal experts, it meant that certain documents on the activities of military intelligence agency SISMI would be ruled inadmissible, as well as the confession of a Carabinieri officer who said he took part in the snatch.
But prosecutors would be allowed to use wiretaps of SISMI agents, experts said.
Spataro last week said the verdict “showed we were correct” while the state’s general advocate, Ignazio Francesco Caramazza, claimed “a complete victory”.
Legal experts added that the prosecutors would perhaps be hampered by not being allowed to ask questions about relations between the CIA and SISMI.
The Constitutional Court took two days to examine three pleas from Italian governments on the trial of several top Italian spies and 26 CIA agents in the abduction of Nasr.
It also considered two counterpleas, from the Milan judge and the prosecution in the case, arguing that state secrecy norms were not violated and the abduction itself was a “subversive” act that breached the Constitution.
Spataro has accused Berlusconi and his predecessor Romano Prodi of using national security norms to obstruct justice and “prevent the truth emerging”.
Italian governments, while denying any role in Nasr’s abduction, have argued that the probe compromised relations with foreign security agencies.
The abduction of Nasr claimed headlines worldwide and stoked discussion of the controversial US policy of ‘extraordinary rendition’, which was recently extended by President Barack Obama under the proviso that detainees’ rights should be respected.
The top Italian defendant in the case is Niccolo’ Pollari, the former head of SISMI, which recently changed its name to AISE.
Eight Italians including Pollari and his former deputy Marco Mancini are on trial with the 26 CIA agents, who are being tried in absentia.
The US agents include ex-Rome CIA station chief Robert Seldon Lady and ex-Milan chief Jeff Castelli.
Nasr, the former head of Milan’s main mosque, disappeared from the northern Italian city on February 17, 2003.
Prosecutors say he was snatched by a team of CIA operatives with SISMI’s help and whisked off to a NATO base in Ramstein, Germany.
From there, he was taken to Egypt to be interrogated, allegedly under duress.
Nasr, who was under investigation in Italy on suspicion of helping terrorists, was released early in 2007 from an Egyptian jail where he says he was beaten, given electric shocks and threatened with rape.
He has demanded millions of euros in compensation from the Italian government.
Berlusconi, who was in power at the time of the events, has been called to testify at the trial.
Prodi, his predecessor and successor, has also been admitted as a witness.
The CIA was first granted permission to use rendition in a presidential directive signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 and the practice grew sharply after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Czech Rep: Týden: Klaus Provokes Abroad, Unable to Advise Home
Prague, March 16 (CTK) — Czech President Vaclav Klaus cultivates “provocacy” abroad, which is his personal form of diplomacy, but he is somehow unable to give advice at home, Martin Fendrych writes in weekly Tyden Monday.
“He ridicules, he teaches lessons to Washington, Brussels, he utters witty sentences and he even sometimes hits the target,” Fendrych writes.
He reminds the lectures Klaus delivered in the United States early this month and his criticism of US President Barack Obama in meetings with journalists and at a climate conference in Santa Barbara.
“I can hardly believe my own eyes when I see how much you trust the government and how much you mistrust the free market,” Fendrych quotes Klaus as saying on one occasion.
Klaus was alluding to the doubling of the United States’ state debt and Obama’s effort to “bribe” the economic crisis, he writes.
Klaus also criticised the fundamental cuts in US armament expenditure that, he said, might lead to a “new American isolationism,” Fendrych writes.
Klaus did not attract the attention of the major US media, but this does not mean much. The more important is that he is taunting the US “icon” shortly before he is to arrive in Prague for an informal meeting with EU heads of state and government on April 4-5, Fendrych writes.
This can be overlooked neither by the Czech media nor the US embassy staff who are preparing Obama’s Czech visit, Fendrych writes.
He says Klaus is easily and quickly becoming Obama’s rival and thanks to the criticism he will reach his level.
Similarly he became a sort of rival to former US vice-president Al Gore thanks to his global warming scepticism compared with Gore’s struggle against climate change.
Klaus is right in many respects. A freedom-loving individual must like his attacks on the new US “God.” Praguers, for their part, must be even more pleased because Obama’s visit will only bring them various restrictions, Fendrych writes.
He says Klaus knows this well and he skillfully chooses themes. It would be difficult not to share his resentment of the Eurobureaucracy, Fendrych writes.
He says that many a Czech felt mischievous joy when Klaus said in the European Parliament in February that the Union has “a democratic deficit.”
Klaus’s criticism of Obama and the “undemocratic” EU, however, is rather out of place when developments in his country are considered, Fendrych writes.
In the United States no one will remind Klaus of that the Czech state poured some 500 billion crowns into the collapsing banks in the latter half of the 1990s and that the problems surfaced when he was prime minister, and that no one was punished for the siphoning off of assets from the banks, Fendrych writes.
In Brussels, no one will unfortunately remind him of the fundamental Czech democratic deficit — the ill judiciary, the most difficult law enforcement, and the length of lawsuits some of which are dragged out for more than ten years, Fendrych writes.
“One can hardly imagine a worse deficit,” he writes.
At home, Klaus would have many opportunities to show how brilliant he is. One them is the existence of 300 ghettos, mainly inhabited by Romanies, that is the biggest and least popular problem.
“In ghettos, however, the free market and its invisible hand are represented by usurers, and this is something else than global warming or the U.S. debt,” Fendrych writes.
He says “Klaus has one very Czech feature: the strong need to criticise, a great portion of irony, the cheap concept of freedom, and dislike of and inability to solve really burning, local, unpopular, acute problems.”
“It tastes sweet to ridicule warming, but it tastes bitter to live with socially deprived citizens,” Fendrych writes in conclusion.
Denmark: Police Figures Show Massive Shootings Increase
Recent gang-related gun violence in Copenhagen weighs heavily in the latest national crime statistics
The latest figures from the National Centre for Investigation (NEC), outlining gang membership and arrests in Denmark, show a sharp increase in the number of gang-related shootings.
In 2007, police registered 28 shooting episodes, of which 12 were attributed to gangs currently being monitored by the authorities. Last year, that figure rose to 167 shootings, of which 76 were gang-related.
Police continuously monitor 80 different biker and immigrant gangs, including support groups for each. Police keep tabs on a total of 944 gang members — 585 associated with the bikers and 359 linked to immigrant gangs. More than 6,500 sentences were handed down to gang members and their support groups by Danish courts last year amounting to 2,228 years in prison terms.
The NEC is the police branch responsible for the investigation of organised crime, within and outside Denmark’s borders. In its latest report, investigators fingered the struggle for the control of the drugs market as the primary cause of tension between the biker and immigrant criminals.
Throughout last year, the Hells Angels bikers established ten new AK81 support groups to help strengthen their position and mark their territory. AK81 means Altid Klar (always ready), with 81 representing the numeral letters of the alphabet — H and A.
The national police also highlighted the age difference between the bikers and their opposition. The average age of a Hells Angels member is 39 years old, while the immigrant gangs are on average ten years younger.
Members of the AK81 support group average 27 years old.
EU Bans Use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ (and Sportsmen and Statesmen) Because it Claims They Are Sexist
Using ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ has been banned by leaders of the European Union because they are not considered politically correct.
Brussels bureaucrats have decided the words are sexist and issued new guidelines in its bid to create ‘gender-neutral’ language.
The booklet warns European politicians they must avoid referring to a woman’s marital status.
This also means Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein and Senora and Senorita are banned.
Instead of using the standard titles, it is asking MEPs to address women by their names.
And the rules have not stopped there — they also ban MEPs saying sportsmen and statesmen, advising athletes and political leaders should be used instead.
Man-made is also taboo — it should be artificial or synthetic, firemen is disallowed and air hostesses should be called flight attendants.
Headmasters and headmistresses must be heads or head teachers, laymen becomes layperson, and manageress or mayoress should be manager or mayor.
Police officers must be used instead of policeman and policewoman unless the officer’s sex is relevant.
The only problem words that do not fit into the guidelines are waiter and waitress, which means MEPs are at least spared one worry when ordering a coffee.
They have reacted with incredulity to the booklet, which has been sent out by the Secretary General of the European Parliament.
Scottish Tory MEP Struan Stevenson described the guidelines as ‘political correctness gone mad’.
He said: ‘This is frankly ludicrous. We’ve seen the EU institutions try to ban the bagpipes and dictate the shape of bananas, but now they seem determined to tell us which words we are entitled to use in our own language.
‘Gender-neutrality is really the last straw. The Thought Police are now on the rampage in the European Parliament.
‘We will soon be told that the use of the words “man” or “woman” has been banned in case it causes offence to those who consider ‘gender neutrality’ an essential part of life.’
West Midlands Conservative MEP Philip Bradbourn is calling on the Secretary General to reveal who authorised the publication of the booklet and how much it has cost.
He described it as ‘a waste of taxpayers’ money’ and ‘an erosion of the English language as we know it’.
‘I will have no part of it. I will continue to use my own language and expressions, which I have used all my life, and will not be instructed by this institution or anyone else in these matters,’ he said.
‘I shall also expect the many translators who sit in the European parliament to translate accurately the language I use. I find this publication offensive in the extreme.
‘The Parliament, by the publication of this document, is not only bringing itself as an institution into more disrepute than it already suffers, but it is also showing that it has succumbed to the politically correct clap-trap currently in vogue.’
Greece: New Laws Target Hoodies
Vandals, rioters offending while wearing hoods will have jail terms doubled
Justice Minister Nikos Dendias yesterday heralded the introduction of stricter penalties for hooded demonstrators caught vandalizing public property or disturbing the peace, proposing that jail terms be doubled for those found guilty of wreaking havoc while concealing their identity.
“We envisage a series of provisions (to discourage) the use of hoods, the concealment of features,” Dendias said after talks with Inner Cabinet officials. “Greek citizens should not be afraid to show their faces, particularly while protesting,” he added.
The new stricter penalties would range from two years for disturbing the peace — an offense that currently carries a one-year jail term — to 10 years or more for causing widespread damage to public property and injuring citizens or police officers….
Netherlands: Two Out of Three Serious Teenage Criminals Are Immigrants
THE HAGUE, 18/03/09 — Two out of three serious teenage criminals are children of parents born outside the Netherlands. In most cases, no prison sentence is imposed, it emerges from a study sent to parliament by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin.
In the research, 447 case files of youngsters aged from 12 to 17 were studied. All the files involved cases in which the perpetrator was convicted of a crime for which the maximum jail sentence is 8 years or more. These were murder, manslaughter, robbery with violence, extortion, arson, public acts of violence and sexual crimes.
Only just over one-third (37 percent) of the convicted youngsters are white Dutch. Two-thirds are of immigrant origin, meaning that they themselves or their mothers were born abroad.
“The most prevalent group of youthful immigrants (among the perpetrators) are young Moroccans (14 percent),” according to the report. For another 14 percent, the parents’ country of birth could not be determined. A further 8 percent of the young criminals came from Turkey, 7 percent from Surinam and another 7 percent from the Netherlands Antilles, 9 percent from the category ‘other non-Westerners’ and 4 percent, ‘other Westerners.’
The report also reveals that most offenders did not have to go to jail. Although detention was imposed in 69 percent of the cases — whether or not in combination with community service — the sentences were largely suspended.
Some 25 percent of offenders only received suspended detention. Another one-third received a combination of suspended and real detention and just 11 percent, only an unconditional prison sentence.
Fourteen percent of the very serious crimes were committed by 12-13 year olds, 25 percent by 14-15 year olds, and 50 percent by 16-17 year olds. All very serious types of crime were more frequently committed by 16-17 year olds except sexual offences, for which the 14-15 year olds were the biggest group. Here, the 12-13 year olds also deliver “a large share compared with the other types of offences.”
The core question in the study was how judges deal with youngsters aged from 12 through 17 who commit very serious offences. Hirsch Ballin concludes “that the courts can operate adequately with the sentences and measures that youth criminal law offer them. The study offers a nuanced picture of the handling of serious youth cases,” according to the minister.
Netherlands: MP Calls Chinese “Slit-Eyes”, Then Apologises
Conservative MP Arend-Jan Boekestijn has apologised for referring to Chinese as “slit-eyes”. In the course of an online discussion about dictators Mr Boekestijn said that he might have underestimated the number of Chinese victims during Mao Zedong’s rule. When challenged in a twitter conversation started by author Ronald Giphart the MP wrote “Yes, I may have missed a slit-eye or two, there are so many of them!”
The MP later deleted his remark from his twitter page, but meanwhile other sites had copied and republished the text. He later published an apology: “I regret my remark about Chinese. I had no intention of offending anyone.”
Norway: the Progress Party Tops Latest Poll
The right wing Progress Party now has the support of 30.9 per cent of the electorate, and is again the nation’s largest political party, according to the latest poll carried out by Opinion. The decline for Labour continues. Opinion’s results for March:
- Progress Party 30.9 (+6.4)
- Labour Party 28.4 (-2.1)
- Conservatives 13.2 (-3.5)
- Agrarians 6.8 (+1.6)
- Socialist Left 6.4 (-0.4)
- Liberal Left 6.1 (-1.2)
- Chr. Democrats 5.6 (-0.4)
- Red 1.8 (+0.1)
The poll was made for the ANB news agency
Red Ken: I Said Brown Was a Liability and Time Has Proved Me Right
KEN LIVINGSTONE launched a savage personal attack on Gordon Brown today, criticising his handling of the economy and blaming the Prime Minister’s national polling for costing him the mayoral election.
In a wide-ranging interview to be published tomorrow, the former mayor of London claimed that Labour’s unpopularity led directly to his defeat at the hands of Boris Johnson last summer.
Mr Livingstone also hinted that he would run as an independent if the party should “rig” its candidate selection process for the next mayoral race in 2012.
Mr Livingstone caused uproar within the Labour party when he called for Mr Brown to be sacked as Chancellor in 1998.
At the time, he accused Mr Brown of “economic misjudgments”, “subservience to the City” by guaranteeing big bonuses, and claimed that Britain was “heading towards an unnecessary recession entirely of Gordon’s making”.
Most wounding of all, Mr Livingstone wrote in 1998 that Mr Brown could not “ grasp the grand picture” and lacked an “instinctive feel for the huge sweep of movements in the global economy”. He wrote: “Quite clearly, Gordon is not on top of macro-economic policy.”
In last year’s mayoral election, he ditched his criticisms as the pair campaigned against Mr Johnson.
Special Report/ the Gaza War and the Rise of the Neo-French
One citizen or resident of France out of five has Islamic and/or third world roots. No political party or political leader in France can ignore it any more. Not even Sarkozy.
BY MICHEL GURFINKIEL.
For about fifty years, from the Charles de Gaulle presidency (1959-1969) to the Jacques Chirac one (1995-2007), France’s policies in the Middle East were shaped primarily by nationalistic ” grand strategic ” factors : hostility towards American hegemony, the lure for cheap oil and then for oil-related trade and investment, and a fascination for a French-Arab or Euro-Islamic alliance. On all three accounts, Israel was seen as a nuisance, if not an enemy.
The nationalist paradigm was partially relaxed under François Mitterrand (1981-1995), who was interested, for various reasons and at least to a point, in smoother relations with both the United States and Israel. A second relaxation occured in Chirac’s final years (2004-2007). The Iraq War, that Chirac had fiercely opposed, had destroyed or weakened several of France’s associates or former associates in the area : Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, but also the Assad dynasty’s Syria and Muammar Kadhafi’s Libya. It was safer, accordingly, to adapt to the new American-dominated situation. In addition, Ariel Sharon’s about-face on the Palestinian question allowed for a quick reconciliation with Israel without any ” loss of face ” on the part of France.
In 2007, nationalism seemed to be gone for good, as Nicolas Sarkozy, a supporter of Nato, a friend of America and an open admirer of Israel, was elected president. Two years later, however, France is clearly relapsing into its former pro-Arab and pro-Islamic options. Not for grand strategy reasons any more, but out of sheer domestic concerns : France, once a Western, White country with a Christian background, is morphing into a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious nation, with a strong Islamic element.
Like most other Western countries, and in spite of its nationalistic posturing, France has ingathered large numbers of alien immigrants for decades, mostly from the third world : either citizens of the former colonies in North Africa, Subsaharan Africa, the Levant, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, or citizens of other Middle Eastern or tropical countries, or even ” cultural aliens “, i. e. French citizens from overseas territories in the West Indies, the Indian Ocean and Oceania, who settled, or were induced to settle, in France proper. In the long run, it has led to a dramatic demographic and societal transformation.
Under French law, no census may be taken on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Even academic investigation is somehow restricted regarding these matters. Still, it is widely estimated that : (a) about 10 million residents of metropolitan France, out of a total number of 63 million, i. e. one resident out of six, have third world roots ; (b) if one is to include the overseas territories, which are technically part of the same country under French law and international law, one should rather say that 13 millions residents out of 66 millions, i. e. one resident out of 5, have third world roots ; (c) the immigrant or overseas communities are much younger and more prolific than the metropolitan communities : when it comes to the younger brackets of the global French population, they amount to 30 % of the total population at least, and in some cases, to 50 %.
Quite naturally, the Neo-French (” les Français issus de la diversité “, as they are currently refered to — something to be loosely translated as ” the more diverse Frenchmen “) tend to exert as much leverage as they can on French politics…
Sweden: Liberal Party Looking to Reduce Migration Board’s Influence
A working group within the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) wants to strip the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) of its power to appoint legal representatives to asylum seekers.
Integration minister Nyamko Sabuni believes the agency’s only roll should be to decide if an asylum seeker be allowed to stay in Sweden, she told Sveriges Radio (SR).
“It’s a question of credibility,” she said.
Sabuni says that having the agency charges with deciding an asylum seeker’s fate shouldn’t also be in charge of deciding who represents the asylum seeker in arguing their case.
The Liberal Party working group proposes instead that Sweden’s migration courts take over responsibility for assigning legal representation to asylum seekers.
Moreover, the Migration Board’s role can be changed in a number of ways, according to the Liberal Party.
Municipalities, volunteer organizations, or private contractors could also take over responsibility for accepting asylum seekers into the country. In particular, activities such as teaching the Swedish language and orientation for new arrivals could be handled by groups other than the Migration Board.
By reducing the number of activities for which it is responsible, the agency would be able to focus on its “core tasks” or handling asylum claims and other residence permit matter, according to Sabuni.
A could would also result in diminished influence for the Migration Board, a smaller budget.
Sabuni said her party’s working group plans to put forward a number of proposals which it hopes will improve Sweden’s integration policies.
“We can see today that the median time for new arrivals to enter the workforce after being granted a residence permit is seven years. Therefore, we’re argueing that we need to be more effective and offer better conditions for individuals, from when they come to our borders and seek asylum to the time they get a decision and can be introduced into society,” Sabuni told SR.
Swimsuit Rules ‘Sexist’: Swedish Swimmer
Swimmer Therese Alshammar has slammed as ‘sexist’ new rules preventing swimmers from wearing two swimsuits, which led to the Swede being stripped of a new world record on Tuesday.
Online sports betting by www.bwin.com
Alshammar set a world record of 25.44 in the 50 metre butterfly at the Australian Swimming Championships, shaving 0.02 seconds off her existing world mark, but was disqualified for wearing two swimming suits.
The Swede said she was trying to preserve her modesty in the hi-tech suits, which are skin tight and can become see-through.
She slammed Swimming Australia laws introduced late last year, which allow female swimmers to wear bikini bottoms or briefs under their suits but not an entire costume.
“I thought a modesty suit would be a modesty suit,” Alshammar told Channel 10 television. “I would almost claim that’s a bit sexist saying that the men can cover their private parts up with briefs and women can only also wear briefs.
“I would totally, even though I’m Swedish, understand that a modesty suit would be to cover your modest parts. I guess you can’t even wear a modesty suit any more.”
The 31-year-old was competing at the Australian meet as a training foreigner as she prepares for her bid to secure a spot on the Swedish team for the world titles in Rome next July.
Switzerland: Muslims to be Offered Course on Swiss Society
Fribourg University is to be the first Swiss institution to offer a course to imams and Muslim community leaders on understanding how Swiss society works. The vocational training is also open to non-Muslims with the purpose of fostering cross-cultural knowledge. It has largely been welcomed by the Islamic community.
The course will start in October and is organised by the university, the Group of Researchers on Islam in Switzerland (GRIS) and the Paris-based International Institute of Islamic Thought.
Stéphane Lathion, GRIS head and director of the “Islam, Muslims and Civil Society” course, said there are currently no practical studies on Islam and society in Switzerland.
“The idea is to offer some answers to the federal and cantonal authorities which in recent years have had to deal with problems linked to the Muslim community, such as people not keeping to the principles of Swiss democracy,” he told swissinfo.
“So there’s the problem of how to be sure that imams and community leaders know about Swiss society and on the other hand, Muslims themselves are calling for their leaders to be better trained about the Swiss situation.”
Integration role Lathion said that apart from their religious duties, many imams played a key role in integration.
“If someone comes from Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Tunisia, they don’t know the Swiss context so the idea is to offer imams or community leaders the tools so they can work better in their daily role in Muslim communities,” he explained.
With more than 350,000 members or 4.3 per cent of the population, Islam is the second-largest religion in Switzerland. Twelve per cent of Muslims have a Swiss passport.
The course will encompass modules on history of religion and European and Swiss society, as well as elements of Muslim theology adapted to the European context.
Vocational modules, which can be taken separately by health or social work professionals on job-related issues, will be a first in Europe, says Lathion.
Headscarves, for example, might be tackled in the health module where wearing the veil at hospital would be discussed.
More than 50 experts, including many from the Muslim community, will help teach the course, which runs until June 2010.
Minaret debate “The situation is not yet too serious in Switzerland concerning relations between Muslims and non-Muslims compared with what’s happening in France, Germany and Britain, but we have to anticipate any future issues,” said Lathion.
The heated debate about whether to allow minarets in Switzerland proves that it is the right moment to tackle difficult questions, he added.
“We should have debate on Islam and Muslims in Europe, but contrary to the debate on minarets, we should keep it on what can be done and not on the level of fantasy and emotion,” said Lathion.
Community leaders’ feedback on the course has mostly been positive. The Federal authorities are also watching its progress.
Ender Demirtas from the Foundation for the Muslim Community in Geneva said that the project had a wide reach — non-Muslims could learn more about Islam and the Muslim community would be able to better organise their community leader training.
He said that he thought that some Muslims would participate, but that some might be reticent because the project was new.
“You have to look at it in the long term and it is more important to train and interest the future generations,” Demirtas, who would like to send two young people to the course, told swissinfo via e-mail.
Community reaction The Inter-Knowing Foundation in Geneva, which promotes relations between Muslims and non-Muslims, is also on board. Spokesman Hafid Ouardiri said that his institution had already put forward the idea of having a humanities and Islamic studies centre in 2003 and had been following the issue ever since.
“We agree with the initiative to do something on civil society and Islam, but Muslims should really do this themselves because it’s important that it comes from them,” he told swissinfo.
“People don’t want a situation like in France and don’t want the feeling that something has been imposed on them.”
But he stressed it was important to be a partner and to work towards having a good quality course. It is important for societies to live together in dignity and friendship and communication is key to this, added Ouardiri.
For his part, Lathion says a civil society course is a better solution than any Swiss training for foreign imams, which would not be accepted by the Muslim community.
“What we are proposing doesn’t interfere on a theological basis and we don’t judge anyone who might have had training in Tunisia or elsewhere,” he said.
UK: Islamic Terror Suspect Awaiting Extradition to U.S. Wins £60,000 for Police Brutality
A terror suspect, wanted in the U.S. for raising funds for jihad, has won £60,000 in damages from Scotland Yard after being assaulted by the officers who arrested him. The High Court heard that Babar Ahmad was subjected to ‘serious gratuitous prolonged unjustified violence’ and ‘religious abuse’ during an anti-terror raid.
Ahmad, a 34-year-old IT support analyst, was never charged following the dawn operation at his home in Tooting, south-west London, in December 2003. But he was later re-arrested, at the request of the authorities in U.S., who want to prosecute him over separate terrorism charges. Lawyers for Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who had initially disputed the claim, agreed at the High Court that Ahmad had been the victim of gratuitous violence. One of the officers alleged to have been involved will now face criminal action, the court was told. On Monday, Ahmad’s lawyer Phillippa Kaufmann told the High Court that officers dragged her client from his home using handcuffs and subjected him to dangerous neck-holds which made him fear for his life. Police had been told that Ahmad, a Muslim, was believed to be connected to Al Qaeda, was the head of a South London terrorist group and was potentially very dangerous, she said….
Why Italy is Staying Away From Durban II
Andrea Loquenzi for Hudson New York
The March 12th conference, organized by the Italian-Israeli friendship association at the Senate, represented the Italian way to say no to the “anti-Semite conference against democracy” that is Durban II. The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, was among the speakers and explained why our country is staying away from the preliminary works of the conference, while all the other European countries are participating.
Our foreign Minister has made clear that “Italy cannot negotiate what is not negotiable” and explained why. The first reason being anti-Semitism: “We believe in the dignity of the UN and we cannot contemplate a document headed ‘United Nations’ including a paragraph defining Israel as a threat to international peace.” The second main reason for the Italian forfàit is freedom of expression: we cannot support a document that states “the right to free expression cannot be extended to criticisms of any religious creed whatsoever” and therefore we are not going to collaborate at the preparation of this conference unless the a major shift in policy will take place, we are doing this “in the name of the credibility of the United Nations,” said Frattini.
Regarding the first reason, Frattini thinks that “like in 2001, also this time we see five paragraphs of the document dedicated to Israel. In this “abnormally long document” these five paragraphs are the only part of the document dedicated to a regional issue. “None of the other 245 paragraphs — Frattini went on saying — contain references to regional issues but only horizontal matters, as it should be”. The document speaks about Israel as an “actor of a racial discrimination policy”, a country “responsible for the apartheid, torture and criminal acts which constitute a threat to the international peace and security”. These expressions “go beyond the limit of legitimate criticism toward the State of Israel,” according to Frattini. They could easily become an incitement to racial hatred against the Jews.” This is really serious — said the Minister — because the UN is a member of the Quartet and should for this reason send reconciliatory messages in order to favor the peace process.”
Freedom of expression would be the second main reason why our country is pulling out from the preliminary work of the Durban II conference (which is due to take place in Geneva from April the 20th to the 24th). Frattini underlined that the paragraph dedicated to the “very-insidious-so-called religious defamation rule” was totally unacceptable. Various countries are trying to introduce “complementary standards” when it comes to every sort of criticism toward a whatsoever religious cult. “This is about the notorious incident of the Danish cartoons and would prevent freedom of expression…it is clear that Italy is opposing this,” explained Frattini.
So, Italy will not take part in the Durban II conference unless the conditions will change: Frattini hope for the “total cancellation of these paragraphs and the reduction of the entire document to just some chapters and few horizontal themes upon which we all agree on,” added Frattini who also said that “if today we bend over such an important issue as anti-Semitism or the freedom of expression, tomorrow we will have to bend over everything else and this is not acceptable”.
Our foreign Minister spoke for about fifteen minutes and was interrupted several times by the claps of his audience. The room was filled with some two hundred people, give or take. Among the other speakers, Professor Gerald Steinberg, the Executive Director of NGO Monitor, explained what he calls “the Durban strategy”: “The Durban speeches and resolutions largely ignored the issues for which this conference was ostensibly called — Steinberg said — focusing instead on branding Israeli anti-terror responses as ‘war crimes’ and ‘violations of international law.’ The Durban conference crystallized the strategy of delegitimizing Israel as “an apartheid regime through international isolation based on the South African model. This plan is driven by UN-based groups as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which exploit the funds, slogans and rhetoric of the human rights movement.”
“On this basis — Steinberg added — a series of political battles have been fought in the UN and in the media. These include the myth of the Jenin ‘massacre’, the separation barrier, the academic boycott, and, currently, the church-based anti-Israel divestment campaign.”
Also the notorious Italian journalist (and member of the Parliament for the PDL) Fiamma Nirenstein attended the conference and her words were the most applauded. She attended the first Durban conference and that she said that she remembers exactly how the people there, were manifesting against Israel just for the sake of doing it and that there was no rational criticism whatsoever. All she saw was people chanting against the Jewish State and gathering above Osama Bin Laden’s signs.
“During that conference I’ve even heard Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro talking about human rights,” said the Honorable Nirenstein, people laughed. “I heard people in Europe -after the first Durban conference — chanting ‘Hamas, Hamas the Jews to gas’. “I’m still not surprised though — said the MP — because we also heard people clapping hands while homosexuals were being hanged in Iran and women stoned to death”. “We must be careful cause anti-Semitism might have been more effective in the past but it was never such a broadly spread ideology as it is today…this is frightening.” “I also think that Italy has done an historical thing by not joining the preliminary works of this conference — continued Fiamma Nirenstein — but be careful! The situation here is messy and we must do something about it, if we don’t do anything we’ll soon face the consequences, we can’t let these people [the organizers of the Durban conference] switch from political dialogue to the incitement to genocide! It already happened in the past and that is what we talk about when we say never again.”
Bosnia: UN Tribunal Cuts Term for Former Serb Leader
The Hague, 17 March (AKI) — The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Tuesday reduced by seven years the 27-year sentence given to former Bosnian Serb parliament speaker Momcilo Krajisnik.
While the court said he must serve 20 years for the deportation and forced resettlement of non-Serbs in Bosnia, it reversed some of his convictions for crimes against humanity.
Krajisnik, 65, was arrested in April 2000 on charges of genocide, murder and the persecution of Muslims and Croats during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war. He was sentenced to 27 years behind bars in September 2006.
A key ally of the Bosnian Serb wartime president Radovan Karadzic, who is currently facing the charges before the court, Krajisnik has already spent eight years in detention.
Prosecutors demanded a life sentence, while Krajisnik’s defence asked for his acquittal.
Presiding judge Fausto Pocar said Krajisnik had the right to a retrial, but the court’s appeals panel has decided that “under the present circumstances it wouldn’t be in the interest of justice”.
Pocar said Krajisnik was a part of a “joint criminal undertaking” by Bosnian Serb leaders, aimed at the forced resettlement and deportations of Muslims and Croats in Bosnia.
But he said Krajisnik was not guilty of “other crimes which derived from that undertaking”.
Karadzic is currently on trial at The Hague on 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia’s war.
He was arrested on a Belgrade bus in July 2008, after 13 years in hiding.
Former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, a leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, are still at large.
Commissioner Backs EU Enlargement in Balkans
BRUSSELS — The European Union should not freeze plans to admit western Balkan countries as members, the union’s enlargement chief said yesterday, responding to German doubts about the pace of expansion.
German chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that the EU needed a “consolidation phase” before it added new members.
Asked about the statement, EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn said prospects to join the Union helped to anchor political stability and economic reform in the western Balkans, a region torn by wars in the 1990s. “We cannot take any sabbatical from our invaluable work for stability and . . . progress in the western Balkans, which is essentially provided by a European perspective,” Mr Rehn told a news conference.
“This is . . . an anchor of stability in southeastern Europe. We should not shake this anchor.”
Mr Rehn said the economic crisis and efforts to ratify the Lisbon Treaty should not be a distraction from the enlargement efforts. “The EU is able to handle several things at the same time,” he said.
Mr Rehn spoke after a meeting with foreign ministers from Slovenia and Croatia, which are locked in a border row that is blocking Zagreb’s EU entry talks.
Croatia hopes to wrap up EU accession talks this year and join the Union in the next few years, but the goal is threatened by EU member Slovenia’s veto on further progress of the talks. Mr Rehn said he presented a compromise to the countries, which now needed to be studied. “It is still work in progress. I don’t want to go into details regarding a possible agreement,” he said. — (Reuters)
Croatia: Brit People Smuggler Arrested
ZAGREB (Croatia) — CROATIAN police said on Wednesday they arrested a British national and six Afghan teenagers he was trying to smuggle into the European Union. The 50-year-old Briton and six of the illegal immigrants were stopped in a van near the northern Dubrave Krizovljanska border crossing with Slovenia, police spokeswoman Marina Kolaric told AFP.
The six Afghans, aged between 15 and 17, had formally requested asylum in Croatia ‘a few days ago,’ said Kolaric.
They had each paid the Briton $7,000 for his help, but were returned to the asylum centre where they were being housed, she added.
The British national, whose identity was not revealed, is due to appear before an investigating magistrate. He faces a penalty of up to three years in prison.
Croatia, which aspires to join the European Union by 2011 at the latest, lies on a Balkan route used by organised crime gangs to smuggle drugs, arms and people into western Europe. — AFP
Montenegro: Berlusconi and Djukanovic to Boost Bilateral Links
Podgorica, 17 March (AKI) — Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his counterpart in Montenegro Milo Djukanovic have vowed to boost bilateral trade and cooperation. On a brief visit to Montenegro late Monday, Berlusconi met Djukanovic and pledged Italian support for the country’s bid to join the European Union.
“Italy is among first ten investors in Montenegro and our goal is to be among the first five,” Berlusconi told journalists at a media conference with Djukanovic after their talks.
Djukanovic said that Italian businesses were mostly interested in investing in Montenegro’s energy, tourism, and transport sectors, including the privatisation of the country’s main port of Bar and the modernisation of the Bar-Belgrade rail link.
The two leaders said they also discussed a possible project to lay cable under the Adriatic Sea to transport electricity between Italy and Montenegro.
Berlusconi said he had been among the first “to see the right solution for west Balkan countries lay in EU membership” ..
He vowed to support Montenegro in its EU membership bid.
But Montenegro’s opposition leaders criticised Berlusconi’s visit. His meetings with Djukanovic and president Filip Vujanovic were seen as “meddling” in the electoral campaign ahead of parliamentary polls on 29 March.
Opposition leader Nebojsa Medojevic said Berlusconi had refused to meet him and other parliamentary opposition leaders, choosing to meet with a group of Italian language students instead.
Medojevic also criticised Berlusconi’s meeting with Djukanovic, saying it sent “a bad message that organised crime pays off.”
Djukanovic has been investigated by Italian prosecutors for his alleged role in a multimillion dollar mob-run cigarette smuggling racket to Italy in the 1990s and for money laundering.
But the case was dropped after Djukanovic, known as Montenegro’s political “godfather”, became prime minister again last February.
A controversial figure, Djukanovic has already served four terms as prime minister and one term as president, but he withdrew from politics in 2006 to dedicate himself to his business interests.
Montenegro’s opposition leaders have claimed Djukanovic accumulated millions of euros in investment and banking schemes between 2006 and 2008.
“We are disappointed that the Italian premier is meeting ahead of the election a man who was indicted by the Italian judiciary,” Medojevic said.
Serge Trifkovic: The More Things Change…
…the More Washington’s Quest for Global Dominance Stays the Same.
The war waged by the U.S.-led North Atlantic Alliance against Serbia started ten years ago and it is substantively unfinished to this day. That Clinton’s war was illegal, illegitimate, aggressively premeditated, justified by blatant falsehoods, and “objectively” disastrous in its consequences, is eminently beyond dispute to the remaining thinking men. We are still facing the complex task of defining the geopolitical essence of that war, however.
That essence is apparent in the fact that the attack’s key architects believe that it was successful. Not one has had any second thoughts over the past decade. Particularly noteworthy is the position of the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who remains proud of having pressed her husband to start the Kosovo war in 1999. In her 2003 Senate speech just before the Iraq war vote she pointed approvingly to his decision. She has reiterated that position during last year’s presidential campaign. At a time when the power and authority of this country are increasingly challenged around the world, she sees the Balkans as the last geopolitically significant area where the U.S. can continue to assert its “credibility” along the lines charted in the spring of 1999.
[…]
Council of Europe: North-South Prize to Jorda’s Queen Rania
(ANSAmed) — LISBON, MARCH 16 — Queen Rania of Jordan and the former President of the Republic of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, received the 2008 North-South Prize from the Council of Europe during a ceremony in Portuguese Parliament in Lisbon. The award was presented by the Portuguese head of state Anibal Cavaco Silva, in the presence of King Abdullah of Jordan. Since 1995, the North-South Centre has awarded the prize — a statuette made of Portuguese marble with a base made from African wood — to two public figures, one from the north and the other from the south. The Centre, located in Lisbon, is a branch of the Council of Europe and aims to defend human rights, democracy and reciprocal awareness and solidarity between the northern and southern parts of the world. 20 countries, including Italy belong to the centre. Emma Bonino has received the award in the past. In an interview with daily “Diario de Noticias”, Queen Rania expressed a wish that dialogue and negotiations to resolve the problems in the Middle East should resume. Queen Rania said that “the situation for women has registered progress in many Arab countries, but there is still a long way to go. The greatest challenge today for Arab women is to change the mentality of men, and I can say that this is changing”. (ANSAmed).
Fishing: Sicily-Egypt Agreement Operative From July
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MARCH 16 — From July 1, fishermen from Mazara del Vallo will be able to fish and explore Egyptian waters, as stated in the agreement signed last August 13 between the Region of Sicily, Industrial Fishing Production District of Mazara del Valo (COSVAP), the Egyptian Minister for Agriculture and the Egyptian Union for Living Water Resources, which gave the go-ahead to six fishing vessels from the Sicilian city to fish in the waters of the Red Sea. The news emerged from the fourth Mediterranean Forum currently in course in Cairo, with ten delegations from the Mediterranean countries. “Already from June 15”, affirmed the president of the fishing district, Giovanni Tumbiolo, “the vessels will be present in Egypt to begin the cooperation project between the two countries. The fishing licence, which will begin from July 1, will be valid for three months. Regarding the fishing quotas, 25% will go to Egypt, 75% to Italy. On the basis of the agreement, moreover, there will be the possibility for 5 Egyptian fishermen to participate on Italian fishing expeditions for training”. (ANSAmed).
Med Union: EU, Can Aid Peace in the Middle East
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 17 — “The strengthening of the programme of the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM) is in the interest of the citizens of the two shores. Now it is necessary to concentrate on our partnership to resolve the deadlock, face the global security issue and the impact of the economic crisis,” said Karl Schwarzenberg, the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic and holder of the rotating presidency of the EU, addressing representatives gathered for the 5th plenary session of the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (APEM) today in Brussels. According to the Czech minister “the Union for the Mediterranean does not substitute other peace initiatives in the Middle East, but it will be able to contribute” to a relaunch of the process. The President of European Parliament and the current President of APEM, Hans Gert Poettering, made and appeal to the representatives of the two shores of the Mediterranean at the session: “The APEM has an important role to play in building dialogue. The Middle East is the key for security and stability in the Mediterranean”. (ANSAmed).
Tunisia-Italy: Cinelli in Tunis for Military Cooperation
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, MARCH 17 — Italy’s Lieutenant General, Aldo Cinelli, general secretary of Italy’s Defence Ministry and inspector of infrastructure to the Italian general staff, has been received by Tunisian Defence Minister, Kamel Morjane at the start on his four-day visit to Tunisia. Talks focused on military cooperation between the two countries, which was described as “exemplary”. Also examined were the details of the meeting of the mixed Italian-Tunisian military commission (the eleventh in the current series), which is to be held in Tunis this June. Among the issues under examination will be the formation of military panels, professional training in the Tunisian armed services and military health-care. (ANSAmed).
Algeria: Terrorism Returns, New Attack in Tebessa
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS — Following the attack that cost the lives of five members of the same family, there were a further two civilian deaths yesterday in a bomb blast at Oued Essania, in the same Algerian region of Tebessa, close to the border with Tunisia. Meanwhile, four military service personnel were killed and five seriously injured in an explosives attack near Tadmait yesterday afternoon, just a few steps away from the barracks of the municipal guard which had been the target of a suicide attack last week. Citing sources inside the security forces, the Algerian press is today attributing these attacks to groups affiliated with the Al Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb (formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), which is still active in various regions of Algeria. At least 18 persons have died during the past month in attacks carried out in the Tebessa area.(ANSAmed).
Egypt: Imports From Italy Rise 35% to 2.62 Bln in 2008
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MARCH 17 — In the first 11 months of 2008, Italian exports to Egypt totalled 2.62 billion euros with a net increase of 35.1% compared to the same period in the previous year. According to data from the National Statistics Office (ISTAT), in the same period under examination, Italian imports registered an increase of 25.8% compared to the first 11 months of 2007, bringing them to 2.14 billion euros. Trade between the two countries also increased by 30%, totalling 4.75 billion euros, with an increasing positive balance for Italy (478.8 million euros compared to 237.6 million in the same period in 2007). These figures, reported a note from the Italian Foreign Trade Commission (ICE) in Cairo, show that in a three-year span, trade between the two countries has more than doubled, increasing substantially in both imports and exports, and allowing Italy to increase its balance. (ANSAmed).
Egypt: Cleric Asks Neighbours to Enforce Divorce
Cairo, 13 March (AKI) — A fatwa or religious edict issued by a senior Egyptian cleric invites people to end their neighbours’ marriages if they can prove they are collapsing from irreconcilable differences.
“If the evidence that the neighbours present is verified, the court has the right to make the couple divorce,” said Sheikh Jamal Qutb, cited by Dubai-based TV network Al-Arabiya.
Qutb, an Islamic scholar and former head of the fatwa committee at Egypt’s most prestigious religious institution Al-Azhar, said that a community, including family members or neighbours, should have the same right to end a marriage as the couples themselves.
However, he said neighbours should try to intervene and solve a couple’s differences. If they fail, they can then go to court and present evidence that the marriage cannot be saved.
The cleric also said that a couple’s refusal to divorce may be for several reasons, and that a judge should investigate whether these reasons are valid.
In Islam, a man has no right to go back to his wife if he has married and divorced her three times unless she has remarried and divorced from her second husband.
Morocco: MPs Look at Bill to Protect Domestic Workers
Rabat, 13 March (AKI) — The Moroccan parliament is examining a bill aimed at giving domestic workers greater protection, Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya reports.
The bill has already been backed by the country’s leading jurists. It aims to regulate a sector where many of the weakest sections of the population are employed informally and are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse including physical assault and rape.
It could become law in the next few weeks.
The bill makes it illegal for employers to hire domestic workers who are less than 15 years old and obliges the employer to give them a day off each week.
It sets a minimum monthly wage of 100 euros and requires employers to allow inspectors to pay home visits to ensure they are respecting the law.
Under the bill, domestic workers who have worked for an employer for at least six months must be given annual holidays.
“The bill is a very important step for Morocco, even though the minimum salary should reflect the inflation being seen here,” said legal expert Abdel Malik al-Zaza.
“But the biggest breakthrough is the protection the bill gives to young girls working in households, where they are often subjected to violence and rape.”
Human Rights Watch estimates there are 66,000 girls aged under 15 who are working as home help in Morocco.
TV: Algeria, Two New Channels for Koran and Berbers
(by Laura De Santi) (ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MARCH 17 — Tomorrow, which is the day before the opening of the electoral campaign for the presidential elections, due on April 9, two new satellite channels will be launched by Algerian state TV, ENTV, the only broadcaster in the country, since the sector remains closed to private businesses. The 4th channel, reported a message from the Institute for Public Television (EPTV), will broadcast programmes exclusively in a range of dialects including the Amazigh (Berber) language, while ‘Maerifa’ (to know in Arabic), the 5th channel, will be entirely dedicated to the Koran. A “strategic” initiative, reads an editorial in Algerian daily Liberté, because Algerians “have been bombarded by fatwas (religious edicts) for years from eastern satellite channels in the hands of Salafist preachers, far from the Malakite sect and the ancestral traditions of Algeria”. Its mission, said the Minister of Religion, Bouadbellah Ghlammalah, a few days ago, “is to preserve the religious authority of the state, represented by the Malachite sect, which is threatened by the Salafists (one of the most fundamentalist sects of Islam, editor’s note)”. El Watan was also critical, asking if this initiative is not just “an operation of electoral seduction” to secure “Kabyle and radical Islamic electorate who are eluding central power”. The daily continued, that the two channels are bound to “have the same political orientation as their mother company” and “do not meet the need to end the state monopoly and to open the audio-visual sector, demanded by the opposition and all those who are fighting to break away from this single-ideology system”. Broadcasts on the Berber channel, managed by Said Lamrani, will be run 6 hours per day, from 5pm until 11pm in all of the Berber languages spoken in Algeria: Kabyle, the most widespread and spoken in Kabilya (east of Algeria), Targuie, a dialect of the populations in the Algerian Sahara, Chaoui of the Aures Plateau (east), and Chenoui, spoken in the Tipaza zone (70km west of Algiers). Maerifa will be run by Mohamed Aouadi and will go on air from 4pm to 12am. Both channels, which will be broadcast in addition to the three generic channels of ENTV (ENTV, Canal Algerie, A3), will be transmitted by Hotbird, AB3, and Nilesat satellites in addition to conventional transmissions. (ANSAmed).
Al-Qaeda Behind West Bank Strike, Debka Says
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MARCH 17 — Al-Qaeda was probably behind the attack carried out in Massuà (West Bank) two days ago, in which two Israeli police officers were killed by attackers who then disappeared without trace. According to an Israeli news website specialising in intelligence issues, Debkafile, a leaflet claiming responsibility for the attack and listing numerous details about the course of events, was distributed in the West Bank and Jordan yesterday. According to Debka, the leaflet was signed by a hitherto unknown group: ‘The Brigades of the showdown in Jerusalem’, which claims to be the armed wing of Al-Quaeda in the West Bank and to be preparing further attacks. Debka finds it noteworthy that the attack and distribution of the leaflets coincided with the release of a new audio cassette by Osama Bin Laden. The attack had already been claimed by another mystery group, “Imad Mughniyeh Group’, but Israeli security services commented that this appeared to be a bogus claim. (ANSAmed).
Conflicting Reports About Shalit’s Future
Gaza City, 17 March (AKI) — Kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit may be freed on Thursday in exchange for 450 Palestinian prisoners, sources have told the Palestinian news agency, Maan.
However, Israel’s industry, trade and labor minister, Eli Yishai, said on Tuesday that the current government would not be able to secure the soldier’s freedom and that it was up to the next government to resolve the issue.
Yishai was quoted in the Israeli daily, The Jerusalem Post, ahead of a special cabinet meeting.
“It seems that this government won’t succeed in resolving the Shalit saga,” he said before meeting prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.
“But the next government will be committed with the same intensity to bringing Gilad back. That is its duty, despite the difficulties anticipated.”
Quoting unnamed sources, the Maan report said Shalit would be transferred on Thursday to Egyptian security forces and then to Israel.
Maan said that it was not immediately clear whether the prisoner exchange would include four detainees that Israel had previously refused to release including Abbas As-Sayyed, Abdullah Al-Barghouthi, Ibrahim Hamid and Ahmad Saadat.
There was no mention of prominent jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.
On 5 March, the director of the Free Marwan Barghouti campaign, Saed Nimr told Adnkronos International (AKI) that Barghouti would be released as part of the prisoner exchange deal.
However, Israeli media also said that Israeli ministers had ‘seriously harmed’ talks on Shalit.
“The conduct of ministers gave Hamas a feeling that the domestic pressure in Israel was intolerable,” the sources said, quoted by Israeli daily Haaretz.
“They saw this as an opportunity and radically toughened their demands, out of an understanding that Israel would agree to this.”
Israeli media said negotiations have failed and will no longer continue under the auspices of outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert, and instead would resume under Netanyahu’s leadership.
Netanyahu is still trying to form a government over a month after winning 27 seats in Israel’s general elections in February. He has until 4 April to create a workable coalition.
Shalit was kidnapped in June 2006 by Hamas-linked militants in a cross-border raid. He is believed to be being held in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas overran in mid-2007.
Israel: Rebuilding Hamas’ Killing Machine
There’s been a long and ugly tradition of the left romancing tyrants and terrorists, and the Obama administration has now picked up the torch — flirting with Hamas and planning to hand over $900 million of American taxpayers’ money into its blood-soaked hands.
Hamas, just in case you’re new to the political scene, is the Palestinian Nazi Party. That’s why its members do charming little things like engage in the Nazi salute. And that’s why their favorite book of all time is “Mein Kampf.”
Obama: Destroying Human Life for the ‘Greater Good’
The suitability of adult stem cells for potential cures and the many medical successes have attracted significant financial support from private companies, universities, and venture capitalists. The same cannot be said about embryonic stem cells experimentation. This is due to the lack of any medical evidence where a malady has been healed using embryonic stem cells, the difficult ethical and moral issues raised, and the tendency of these treatments to produce tumors as a side effect, including the recent discovery of brain and spinal cord tumors in a young man in Israel undergoing fetal stem cell therapy.
The lack of private capital is the reason embryonic stem cell advocates are beating down the doors of government. In his criticism of California’s Proposition 71 (which authorized $3 billion of state funds to support embryonic experimentation), social ethicist Wesley J. Smith explained:
Think about it. If this were really likely to bring about cures any time soon, you would have to beat venture capitalists away with a stick. But the money to pay for cloning and embryonic stem cell research is not flowing from the private sector, so they want the public to pay for the research with borrowed money that is not accountable to the legislature.
Darwin in Turkey
‘Most Express Sympathy for the Censorship’
The firing of a magazine editor in Turkey over her intention to put a story about Darwin’s evolution theory on the cover has generated a flood of criticism. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke with the editor about just how conservative Turkish society has become.
No issue divides Turks more than the country’s alleged creeping Islamization. Early last week, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tubitak) sparked an international controversy after it prevented the publication of a cover story about Charles Darwin’s evolution theory in Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), one of the country’s leading science journals. The publication’s editor-in-chief, 41-year-old Cigdem Atakuman, claims she was fired as a result of the incident.
Secular Turks are outraged and the world is watching. Did Tubitak, which publishes Bilim ve Teknik, censor a feature about the theory of evolution under pressure from the conservative Islamic-oriented AKP-led government because it couldn’t be reconciled with Muslim religious beliefs?
A senior Tubitak official has blamed the editor for removing the story, according to Turkish daily Hürriyet, saying changes were made at the last minute and rushed. But Atakuman has denied the allegation, saying the deputy head of the council, Ömer Cebeci, told her the cover story was too controversial and that he no longer trusted her to responsibly perform her duties. The paper claims the incident has been reduced to a case of “one person’s word against the other’s.”
In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Atakuman defends her position and says she is worried about the future of bias-free science in her country….
Media: Gaza War Reportage Debated at Al Jazeera Forum
(ANSAmed)- DUBAI, MARCH 17 — The role played by the media in reporting what happened during the last Israeli military offensive on the Gaza Strip was the concluding debate at the Al Jazeera Forum on ‘Power, Information and the Middle East’, three days of debate in Doha. According to the Al Jazeera director Ahmed Al Sheikh, the satellite broadcaster from Qatar played a brave and unique role. ‘Whilst most of the media chose to give the war zones a wide berth and to ‘make information’ from other bases, the burden of reporting the suffering and brutal acts committed fell upon our correspondents,” Al Sheikh explained, pointing his finger at the Western media, accusing them of having “failed miserably”. Different European information resources played a key role instead, according to Robert Fisk, Middle East expert and correspondent of England’s The Independent, who reported not only on Operation Cast Lead, but also what happened before and its consequences. Despite Fisk’s criticism that Al Jazeera’s coverage of the events was more balanced in the English language broadcasts and more pro-Palestine in the Arab language broadcast, the deputy director of Le Monde Diplomatique, Alan Gresh, said that Al Jazeera remained however “a model to emulate”. Despite the Israeli government’s careful preparation of the media, which included organised visits to Sderot to support their forced decision to launch war on Gaza in response to Hamas’ rockets, Israel lost the war of information for “long-term untenable propaganda”, argued Gresh, also mentioning the lack of credibility that Arab journalists still have in the eyes of westerners, precisely because they are Arabs and not westerners. (Ansamed).
Terrorist Bombing May Have Targeted Koreans Yet Again
Blast hits convoy carrying officials, kin of victims of explosion in Yemen
A possible suicide bomber has again targeted Koreans in Yemen, officials there told wire services.
Korean officials, however, say it¡¯s too soon to know what was behind the second bombing. What is clear is that a bomb exploded in Yemen yesterday as two vehicles carrying South Korean government officials, family members of Sunday¡¯s bombing victims and the victims¡¯ remains were on their way to the airport in Sana, the Yemeni capital.
The officials had been sent to investigate the earlier bombing that killed four South Korean tourists.
According to the ministry, the bomb went off between a Yemeni patrol car and one of the vehicles. A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official in Seoul said no one in the convoy was injured though the car windows were shattered.
The government officials and family members continued on to the airport. They are scheduled to arrive in Korea today.
The Korean government said it was still trying to determine whether the bomb had been planted on the roadside, had been thrown from a distance or had been carried by a suicide bomber. A high-ranking ministry official said while there was a bloodstain on the attacked vehicle, no one in the car actually bled following the explosion.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young used the words ¡°terrorist bombing¡± in his statement on the explosion. Yemeni security officials told various wire services that yesterday¡¯s attack was a suicide bombing.
One security source told Reuters that the bomber was waiting by the roadside before the attack. One official told the Associated Press that the bomber walked in between the two cars and set off the bomb.
If that proves to be true, it would likely mean the attacker had knowledge of the convoy¡¯s whereabouts and targeted the Koreans. The same official said the convoy included the South Korean ambassador to Yemen, Kwak Won-ho, but the Foreign Ministry here said that wasn¡¯t true.
¡°It¡¯s not clear whether the Koreans were specifically targeted,¡± an official said on condition of anonymity. ¡°It could have been a random attack [by militants] against the government, since there was a Yemeni police car in the convoy [suggesting it was escorting high-ranking officials].¡± Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon added that the Korean government “has all possibilities open.”
According to the ministry, in the cars were three surviving family members, two government officials from Seoul, one official from the Korean Embassy and an employee of the Korean travel agency used by the victims.
The Obama Administration Reaches Out to Syria: Implications for Israel
by David Schenker
- In early March, two senior U.S. officials traveled to Damascus for the highest-level bilateral meeting in years, part of the new administration’s policy of “engagement.” Washington seeks to test Damascus’ intentions to distance itself from Iran. While a “strategic realignment” of Damascus is unlikely, in the short term the diplomatic opening is sure to alleviate international pressure on Damascus.
- The Assad regime made no secret of its preference for Barack Obama last November. At the same time, Syrian regime spokesmen appear to be setting preconditions for an effective dialogue, saying Washington would first have to drop the Syria Accountability Act sanctions and remove Syria from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.
- U.S. diplomatic engagement with Syria comes at a particularly sensitive time, just a few months before the Lebanese elections, where the “March 14” ruling coalition faces a stiff challenge from the Hizbullah-led “March 8” opposition, and Washington has taken steps to shore up support for its allies.
- Should the U.S. dialogue with Damascus progress, Washington might consent to take on an enhanced role in resumed Israeli-Syrian negotiations. However, U.S. participation on the Syria track could conceivably result in additional pressure for Israeli concessions in advance of any discernible modifications in Syria’s posture toward Hizbullah and Hamas.
- Based on Syria’s track record, there is little reason to be optimistic that the Obama administration will succeed where others have failed. Washington should not necessarily be faulted for trying, as long as the administration remains cognizant of the nature of the regime. Damascus today remains a brutal dictatorship, which derives its regional influence almost exclusively through its support for terrorism in neighboring states and, by extension, through its 30-year strategic alliance with Tehran…
Turkey: Kurds, 5 Arrested Over Mass Graves in South-East
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 17 — Turkish police have arrested five persons in connection with the recent discovery of mass graves in the south-eastern region of the country, with the remains of around a score of persons coming to light. Digging began on March 9 in connection with an open investigation to establish whether or not mass graves indeed existed containing the bodies of persons of Kurdish ethnicity who had been killed by Turkey’s security forces. The investigations are being carried out in the Silopi area, in the Sirnak province, under the orders of a magistrate who opened a dossier on the case following the publication of various newspaper articles alleging that a large number of people who disappeared during the 1990s — the period of heightened violence in the Kurdish rebellion in the region — were in fact executed and buried in mass graves. Among those arrested — according to judicial sources cited by broadcaster NTV — are two sons of a former mayor of the city of Cizre, situated on the border between Iraq and Syria, and three inhabitants of a village close to the site where the remains have come to light. The same sources have stated that police are seeking the former mayor, who is allegedly a member of the Kurdish militia which was armed and financed by the Ankara government to combat Kurd separatists of the PKK (the Kurdistan Worker’s Party). Today’s arrests are the first in connection with the investigation, which is also trying to establish whether the victims’ bodies were dissolved in acid before being buried. (ANSAmed).
Turkey: Darwin; Sacked Magazine Editor Reinstated
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 17 — Editor of Turkish scientific magazine Science and Technology’ Cigdem Atakuman, who was sacked at the beginning of March for putting a photo of Charles Darwin on the front cover of the magazine, has been reinstated. Private pro-government TV station CNN Turk reported that the Turkish Council for Scientific Research and Technology (Tubitak), which is the highest scientific institution in the country, “took a step back”. Her reinstatement follows the controversy which was sparked after vice president of Tubitak Omar Cebeci sacked Atakuman because she had decided to dedicate the cover of the magazine and a 16-page article to the British naturalist and founder of the theory of evolution on the 200th anniversary of his birth. Atakuman’s dismissal sparked protests throughout the Turkish scientific community, who stated that they were “witnessing one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the Turkish Republic’. The episode also led president of the Italian Senate Emma Bonino to write and ask the relevant EU bodies to condemn ‘this flagrant violation of freedom of thought and scientific independence”. The Islamist scholars’ lobby is extremely powerful in Turkey, which is a secular country in its constitution only, and where the pro-Islam Justice and Development party has been in power for six years. The lobby maintains that Darwin’s theory is incompatible with the Koran, which teaches creation theory. (ANSAmed).
Turkey: Five Held in Probe Over Allegations of Killings
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 17 — Turkish police detained five people after human bones were unearthed as part of an investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings, news agencies reported Tuesday. The detained include two sons of the former mayor of Cizre town, Kamil Atak, in Sirnak province, as well as three residents of a southeastern village near where nearly 20 bone fragments were unearthed Monday. The state-run Anatolian Agency reported that the detainments came on the testimony of an anonymous witness who said that some people were detained by Atak on the claims they provided support to the PKK and were handed to the terror organization Turkish Hezbollah for interrogation, the report said. An investigation was launched after Abdulkadir Aygan, a former informant from the terror organization PKK said many people were murdered by anti-terrorism squads in the 1990s and buried in wells after being dipped in acid baths. Excavations started under the investigation at two different sites in Silopi that produced several bone fragments, including pieces of a human skull, clothing and human hair. (ANSAmed).
Veterans Groups Denounce Private Insurance Proposal
An Obama administration proposal to bill veterans’ private insurance companies for treatment of combat-related injuries has prompted veterans groups to condemn the idea as unethical and powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill to promise their opposition.
Nevertheless, the White House confirmed yesterday that the idea remains under consideration, and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and leaders of veterans groups are scheduled to meet tomorrow to discuss it further.
The proposal — intended to save the Department of Veterans Affairs $530 million a year — would authorize VA to bill private insurance companies for the treatment of injuries and medical conditions related to military service, such as amputations, post-traumatic stress disorder and other battle wounds. VA already pursues such third-party billing for conditions that are not service-related.
Veterans groups said the change would be an abrogation of the government’s responsibility to care for the war wounded. And they expressed concern that the new policy would make employers less willing to hire veterans, for fear of the cost of insuring them, and that insurance benefits for veterans’ families would be jeopardized.
Lawmakers explicitly ruled out the proposal yesterday in budget recommendations from the Senate and House veterans’ affairs committees.
The chairman of the Senate panel, Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), said a majority of the committee members say the plan is fundamentally unfair.
“America’s veterans and their families pay the true cost of war everyday, and we must pay for the care and benefits they have earned. I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to pass a budget worthy of their service,” Akaka said in a statement.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member of the Veterans’ Affairs and Budget committees, warned VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki last week that the idea would be “dead on arrival,” and she vowed yesterday that any budget containing the provision “is not going to pass.”
“The VA has an obligation to pay for service-related care, and they should not be nickel-and-diming vets in the process,” she said in an interview. “This proposal means that family members will be hurt because, if a vet meets the maximum [benefit amount] for their insurance, their wife and kids would not be able to get insurance [benefits] anymore. . . . God forbid a wounded vet from Iraq has a wife who gets breast cancer.”
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that the Obama administration has not made “the final . . . decision on third-party billing as it relates to service-related injuries.”
At the same time, Gibbs noted that the administration is seeking an 11 percent increase in discretionary spending in the VA budget, a decision lawmakers and veterans groups have praised. “This president takes very seriously the needs of our wounded warriors that have given so much to protect our freedom on battlefields throughout the world,” Gibbs said at a White House news conference.
VA and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to requests for more details on the proposal.
Veterans groups said the plan was a puzzling political misstep by the new administration in its relations with the 25 million Americans who have served in the military. Obama heard firsthand about such objections Monday when he met with leaders of the groups at the White House.
“To ask veterans to save $500 million in a [VA] budget of over $100 billion is not only bad policy, it is bad politics,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who attended the meeting.
“It could be a rookie mistake,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s only going to hurt the president.”
Another problem, critics said, is that the proposal could hurt wounded veterans’ employment opportunities, particularly with small businesses.
“A small company is not going to want to take on the burden of increased premiums” by hiring a wounded veteran, said Craig Roberts, media relations manager for the American Legion. He added that the proposal could make buying private health insurance prohibitively expensive for these veterans.
Details of the proposal remained unclear yesterday, and a spokesman for the health insurance industry said its potential impact is difficult to assess. “We are going to carefully evaluate any proposal that is made,” said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the trade association America’s Health Insurance Plans.
Lawmakers and veterans advocates said VA could save $500 million by simply collecting from private insurers all that it is authorized to bill for non-service injuries each year.
More broadly, the issue underscores a significant challenge confronting the administration: ballooning health-care costs for veterans and active military members taking up an ever-larger share of VA and Pentagon budgets.
It is uncertain how many veterans would be affected by the proposed change, which would concern only those with private health insurance. As many as 7 million veterans are enrolled in the VA health-care program, and about 5 million use VA facilities each year.
Some veterans groups voiced concern that the administration’s plan could represent a move toward privatizing VA benefits.
Other experts said it reflects the broader dilemma of how to increase cost-sharing for medical care in comprehensive programs such as the VA one. “There has been no change in cost-sharing features for 10 or 12 or more years,” said William Winkenwerder Jr., the Pentagon’s former top health official, who runs a private health strategy and consulting firm in the Washington area. “That is what is most responsible for driving up the cost of those programs to the government,” he said.
Still, any proposals to increase cost-sharing “tend not to be very popular politically, especially at this time,” Winkenwerder said.
At G20, Kremlin to Pitch New Currency
The Kremlin published its priorities Monday for an upcoming meeting of the G20, calling for the creation of a supranational reserve currency to be issued by international institutions as part of a reform of the global financial system.
Indonesia: Cleric Arrested Over Child Bride
JAKARTA — A WEALTHY Indonesian Muslim cleric who married a 12-year-old girl faces up to 15 years in jail after being arrested for obscenity, reports said on Wednesday.
Pujiono Cayho Widiyanto, a 43-year-old businessman and cleric, was arrested by police in the Central Java city of Semarang on Tuesday, The Jakarta Globe English-language daily said.
Widiyanto sparked nationwide outrage by taking a poor village girl, Lutfiana Ulfa, as his second wife in August last year.
‘We’ve collected enough evidence to charge him with under age obscenity under the Criminal Code,’ chief detective Royhardi Siahaan was quoted as saying, adding the charges carried a maximum of 15 years jail.
The cleric was arrested after police collected documents proving Ulfa was under age, Mr Siahaan said.
Widiyanto and his supporters say his actions are acceptable under Islam but others say he should abide by state law, which sets 16 as the minimum age for marriage.
Police were not immediately available to confirm the report.
Although Indonesian law carries stiff penalties for paedophilia, arranged marriages between older men and girls are common in poor rural areas, but are not registered with the government.
About 90 per cent of Indonesia’s 234 million people are Muslim, but the country has sizeable Hindu, Buddhist and Christian minorities. — AFP
Outrage Over British Ambassador Peter Hughes’s Homage to North Korea
Britain’s ambassador to North Korea has sparked outrage on his first foray into the blogosphere with an extraordinary puff piece on springtime in Pyongyang.
Peter Hughes was accused of painting Pyongyang as an idyll with his lyrical blog entry on the “festive atmosphere” of elections in the reclusive dictatorship.
The account of polling day omitted to mention the lack of opposition parties, the handpicking of candidates by the regime or the laws forcing every citizen to vote.
“Spring seems to have arrived in Pyongyang,” Mr Hughes waxed in his debut blog on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, filling in for the British ambassador to Seoul, who is on annual leave.
“There was a very festive atmosphere throughout the city. Many people were walking to or from the polling stations, or thronging the parks to have picnics or just stroll.”
“Outside the central polling stations there were bands playing and people dancing and singing to entertain the queues of voters waiting patiently to select their representatives in the country’s unicameral legislature. The booths selling drinks and snacks were very popular with the crowds and everyone seemed to be having a good time.”
Mr Hughes went on to report — straightfaced — the unsurprising results, published a day later. “There was a reported turnout of over 99 per cent of the voters and all the candidates, including Kim Jong Il, were elected with 100 per cent approval.”
He noted with pleasure the warmer weather that was bringing schoolchildren “marching through the streets in their blue uniforms with red neck kerchiefs, carrying red banners and flags” in support of their leader. “The children sing songs and chant slogans as they either walk gaily hand in hand, or march solemnly by.”
Springtime has also sparked a frenzy of vegetable planting in the small plots of land around apartment blocks — presumably to insulate against the country’s notorious food shortages. Pyongyang’s residents, however, are the country’s elite and best fed, trusted not to embarrass their Government in front of foreign guests.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: “This is taking ‘going native’ to another level.” A reader who commented on the blog asked: “Is this meant to be some sort of insight from someone who works for the UK Govt, or is this just a press release from the North Korea news agency?” Another scoffed: “Peter Hughes, you make North Korea sound like an Idyllic place to live.”
Mr Hughes wrote in his defence that he would not “apologise for portraying Pyongyang as a normal city”.
“My entry in Martin Uden’s blog was not intended as political commentary, rather it was an opportunity to show that Pyongyang is not a dark and evil place populated by demons, but a city inhabited by human beings who make the best of their lives in spite of the difficulties they face on a daily basis.”
There was no mention of the joys of Pyongyang’s new Italian restaurant, reportedly opened on the orders of Kim Jong Il after he developed a fondness for pizza.
Mr Hughes confirmed, however, that his controversial guest appearance will not become a permanent fixture. “I regret that I do not have a blog because the technology to set one up is not available to us here,” he lamented.
Philippines: Rape Case Sparks Calls for Abolition of Military Pact With US
Manila, 17 March (AKI) — Leftwing non-governmental organisations and former lawmakers on Tuesday called on the Philippines government to abolish a controversial military agreement with the United States that has allowed a US marine convicted of rape to avoid jail pending an appeal.
Called the ‘Junk the Visiting Forces Agreement’ movement, the group includes former political heavyweights such as former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and former senator Sergio Osmena III.
The Philippines government has come under fire from the movement, the parliament and Filipina woman Nicole who was raped by US marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith. They criticise the government for failing to transfer Smith from the US embassy compound to a local prison despite an order last month from the Supreme Court.
The ruling overrode an agreement inked in 2006 between Manila and US Ambassador Kirstie Kenney that saw Smith moved from a local jail and placed in the custody of the embassy, where critics say he is being held in far better conditions.
Washington claimed custody of Smith saying this was “granted under the VFA,” which came into effect in May 1999.
Philippines president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and US president Barack Obama have both voice support for the VFA and talked on the phone last weekend.
The VFA states that Philippine authorities have jurisdiction over US military personnel who commit crimes here, unless they are crimes under US military law or against other US service members.
However, the agreement adds that when US authorities ask for jurisdiction over suspects “to maintain good order and discipline among their forces,” Philippine authorities will waive their right “except in cases of particular importance to the Philippines”, and that the US military can have custody over servicemen “until completion of all judicial proceedings.”
Washington said it is still studying the Supreme Court ruling and so far has been granted temporary custody of Smith.
Smith has said that Nicole and he had consensual sex in November 2005 and has appealed the December 2006 verdict that sentenced him to at least 20 years in jail for her rape.
The government reiterated on Monday that it is negotiating a solution to the current deadlock.
“The VFA is not about Smith. We have not abandoned Nicole. We will be supporting her all the way and I’m sure there will be some kind of a compromise agreement between the two countries so that we can come to terms for the best, for what would be the best for Nicole,” said deputy presidential spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo.
Nicole is said to have left the Philippines and moved to the US. Smith is doing clerical work during his detention at the United States embassy compound in Manila.
Philippines: Recantation to Affect Vfa Review — Palace
MANILA, Philippines — A Palace official admitted yesterday that the recantation made by Subic rape victim “Nicole” against American Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith could have an impact on the review of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
At the weekly press conference at Malacañang, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the review of the VFA would now depend on the action to be taken by the United States, particularly on the provisions covering the custody of American servicemen involved in a crime.
Ermita said the move of Nicole also took the Palace by surprise, as he reiterated that they had nothing to do with it.
Calls for a review of the VFA were prompted by a ruling by the Supreme Court (SC), which declared the VFA constitutional but directed Smith to be placed under the custody of Philippine authorities.
Members of the Senate were among the most vocal on the need to review the VFA, with some even pushing for its abrogation for failure of the Philippine government to get custody of Smith.
Just a few days after the SC handed down its ruling, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo met with US Ambassador Kristie Kenney to discuss the custody of Smith…
Philippines: ‘Nicole’ Faces Perjury Raps
MANILA, Philippines — Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez believes that “Nicole” and her lawyers could be charged with false testimony and perjury after she backtracked on her complaint that she was raped by US Marine Lance Corporal Daniel Smith.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Gonzalez said it appeared that “we have been taken for a ride” in the Subic rape case.
“So many problems have been created by this. Foreign policy has been affected,” he said. “So much time has been spent. It has split public opinion and caused a lot of emotional upsurge. So whatever she did has created a lot of problems for us.”
Gonzalez said Nicole’s recantation will have “no bearing” on Smith’s appeal before the Court of Appeals since it is not part of the records of the trial.
“Unless you can convince the court to open the trial to admit the affidavit, this will not pass as newly discovered evidence,” he said.
“Under the Rules of Court, there is such a thing as the court taking judicial knowledge or judicial cognizance of events that take place,” he added.
Gonzalez said the CA justices are aware that Nicole had backtracked on her court testimony through the newspapers.
“That is only where this thing could play some role,” he said. “It is up to the court if the justices subconsciously take cognizance of the affidavit. But technically, it should not be given weight.”
Gonzalez said it is remote that the CA would allow a retrial of the case since Nicole is no longer in the country.
Nicole should not ask the court to reopen the case, he added.
He could not recall any case where recantation of the complainant or witness had been given weight after conviction of the accused, Gonzalez said.
‘It was a family decision’
The mother of Nicole said yesterday her daughter’s recantation was a family decision.
“(President Arroyo) has nothing to do with this,” she told abs-cbnNEWS.com. “It was a family decision.”
It was unlikely that they would consult the government because “the government has never helped us,” she added.
Nicole’s mother said her daughter wants to move on as she wants to get married abroad.
In a separate interview with GMA 7, Nicole’s mother denied any alleged “US pressure” on her daughter to recant her testimony of the rape.
Speaking in Filipino, she said her family had decided to put an end to the “sad story” of her daughter.
“My family has grown tired of this (rape) case for the past three years,” she said. “So we thought that that’s enough.”…
…Senators dismayed
Senators expressed dismay yesterday over Nicole’s decision to recant her testimony in court.
Sen. Francis Escudero said Nicole’s recantation should not be used as leverage by the United States to negate efforts to abrogate the VFA.
“Nicole may have recanted but this doesn’t mean that Mr. Smith now goes to Washington,” he said.
“And the US government should be advised not to use Nicole’s latest true confession to plan his exit out of the country.”
Escudero said Nicole’s affidavit is not a “boarding pass to freedom” as legal procedures would have to be followed.
“I cannot blame Nicole for deciding to settle out of court,” he said.
“But her affidavit will just be treated as a mere scrap of paper unless she affirms it in open court.”
Senators Rodolfo Biazon, Joker Arroyo, Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano agree that Nicole’s action would have a great impact in the renegotiation of the VFA.
Biazon said Nicole’s recantation has raised moral, legal and judicial questions.
“(These questions include) who is the victim, Nicole or Smith?” he asked.
“Smith had lost his career if not a big part of his life. Nicole even raised the question of deficiencies of our justice system. Justice for whom? For Nicole? For Smith? For the Filipino people? Or justice for the Filipina Maria Clara?”….
Philippines: 2 Soldiers Slain, 2 Hurt in Lanao Clash
MANILA, Philippines — At least two soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in a clash with an unidentified group of gunmen Tuesday night, a military official said Wednesday.
Colonel Benito de Leon, commander of the 104th Brigade, said in a statement that the brief firefight occurred in the hinterlands of Barangay (village) Sandor, Baloi town at around 10 p.m. Tuesday.
He said the soldiers had been protecting routes taken by residents in the area because of “threat reports targeting local leaders.”
De Leon did not identify the casualties pending notification of their families.
Lanao del Norte is believed to be the area of operation of wanted Moro Islamic Liberation Front leader Abdul Macapaar alias Commander Bravo, one of the rebel leaders accused of attacking civilian communities in Central Mindanao last year.
New Zealand: Killer’s Actions Blamed on Saddam Torture
An Iraqi refugee jailed yesterday for stabbing two men to death in Auckland blamed the attack on his torture in one of Saddam Hussein’s jails.
Baseem Ridha Kadhim Abbad al Amery, 31, was granted refugee status in 2001 after he fled Iraq where he claimed he had been locked up, tortured and sentenced to death.
But in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Justice Rhys Harrison rejected Amery’s troubled past as a mitigating factor, saying much of what he said was self-serving, self-obsessive and lacked empathy for his victims.
“If anything, members of this society would have expected that a person who has been given asylum and the opportunity of a new life in a country of social and political stability that values the sanctity of human life would respect that privilege — not abuse it in the way you have chosen.”
Amery was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 years for the murders of David Roberts, 43, and Deni Rudiantonio, 41. Mr Roberts was from Wales and Mr Rudiantonio from Indonesia.
Amery’s victims: Deni Rudiantonio and David RobertsAn Iraqi refugee jailed yesterday for stabbing two men to death in Auckland blamed the attack on his torture in one of Saddam Hussein’s jails.
Baseem Ridha Kadhim Abbad al Amery, 31, was granted refugee status in 2001 after he fled Iraq where he claimed he had been locked up, tortured and sentenced to death.
But in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Justice Rhys Harrison rejected Amery’s troubled past as a mitigating factor, saying much of what he said was self-serving, self-obsessive and lacked empathy for his victims.
“If anything, members of this society would have expected that a person who has been given asylum and the opportunity of a new life in a country of social and political stability that values the sanctity of human life would respect that privilege — not abuse it in the way you have chosen.”
Amery was sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 18 years for the murders of David Roberts, 43, and Deni Rudiantonio, 41. Mr Roberts was from Wales and Mr Rudiantonio from Indonesia.
The two men got in Amery’s way on July 14 last year when he was intending to kill his former girlfriend.
Mr Roberts was property manager of Alpha Apartments in central Auckland, and Amery went to him for the master key so he could get to his former girlfriend, Ying Wang. He wanted to kill her because she had left him.
Yesterday, he was also sentenced to one year’s jail for threatening to kill Miss Wang.
In mitigation, defence lawyer Charles Cato said: “He [Amery] had a terrible period in Iraq under the hands of that monstrous man Hussein.”
Justice Harrison said Amery “may have suffered great trauma in Iraq as a teenager and this may explain why you showed such little regard for the lives of two innocent men.”
But, he said, that was no excuse for what Amery did…
New Zealand: Spend Tax Cut or Give it to the Needy: PM
John Key wants people who don’t need to spend their upcoming tax cuts to donate them to charity, a step he hopes will help develop an American-style culture of giving.
The next round of tax cuts, due in a fortnight, will give workers on $45,000 an extra $11.54 a week in the hand and those earning $100,000 about $24.
Speaking at a Philanthropy New Zealand conference yesterday, Mr Key said those who “can’t bring themselves to spend their tax cuts” should give the money to a charity rather than save it.
The cuts are part of the Government’s economic stimulus plans, aimed at increasing household spending in the recession.
Mr Key said though many people needed the tax cuts to pay debt or bills, “I am just as sure there are many who are in a position to donate some.
“I’ll be reminding people that if they can’t bring themselves to spend their tax cuts, there are many organisations who could benefit.”
Labour leader Phil Goff said Mr Key’s reasoning was deeply flawed, as were tax cuts designed to favour the wealthy. The cuts gave little to low-income workers who would have spent it, and more to those on high incomes who were less likely to spend it.
“It smacks of the old aristocracy to say ‘we will make things worse for the low-income people and then, out of the generosity of my heart, I will call on other well-heeled people to donate theirs to charity’.”
Mr Key, whose tax cut will be $98 a week, gives a “reasonable portion” of his $393,000 salary to charities and intends to continue doing so.
Though New Zealanders donated as much per head as comparable countries, he said there was potential to do more, especially when the recession ended. He would like to see New Zealanders become more like Americans, who give twice as much of their income to charity.
When living in America he had admired its “culture of giving”. This was partly because Americans earned more, but also because of a “culture of generosity and giving ingrained in them for generations.
“That’s the kind of attitude I want to foster here.”…
New Zealand: Survey Suggests Parents Unclear on Smacking Law
A lobby group campaigning for the repeal of anti-smacking legislation has released survey findings showing many parents are confused about the law change.
In research commissioned by Family First NZ, respondents were asked whether the new law made it always illegal for parents to give their children a light smack.
As the law stands there are some circumstances where a light smack would not be illegal.
Fifty-five per cent of the 1000 people surveyed thought smacking was always illegal, 31 per cent thought it was not, and 14 per cent did not know.
“This proves just how confusing the law is to parents and it is this confusion that is causing huge harm,” said Family First national director Bob McCoskrie.
To add to the confusion, a survey undertaken by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner in November last year found that 43 per cent of those surveyed who knew of the law change supported it.
“Only 28 per cent were opposed to the law change. The remainder were neutral,” Commissioner Cindy Kiro said.
The survey was conducted as part of efforts to judge public opinion in the lead-up to a referendum taking place in August this year on the 22-month-old law, which removed the defence of reasonable force for disciplining a child.
New Zealand: Nats Out to Sink 3-Strike Law, Says Act MP
The Act MP who designed the proposed three strikes law says National has expanded it to include offences like bestiality in a “Machiavellian” attempt to make it look unworkable.
National has toughened the law by adding 20 crimes like bestiality, incest and acid throwing to the list of “strike offences” that could see a repeat offender sentenced to life imprisonment with a 25-year non-parole period.
But hardline Act MP David Garrett said many of the new offences arguably did not justify a life sentence and were possibly an attempt to undermine three strikes.
“It may be a Machiavellian move by National designed to sink the three strikes provision. Many will say incest, for example, while a deeply unpleasant offence, should not be a reason to send someone to jail for 25 years.”
Three strikes has been introduced to Parliament by National as a condition of the Act Party’s agreement to support it as Government.
National has made three strikes a provision of its own Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, which is how it added the extra offences….
Somali Insurgent Group Led by a Swede
A Swedish citizen of Somali origin previously held in Sweden on terror financing suspicions has returned to his homeland to assume a leadership position in a newly created armed insurgent movement.
Yassin Ali was released on June 11th, 2008 after spending more than three months in custody last year following his arrest in a joint raid carried out by Swedish and Norwegian security police.
He and two other men were suspected of having sent money to al-Shabaab (‘The Party of Youth’), a Somalia-based Islamist insurgent group with ties to al-Qaeda.
Al-Shabaab has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and is considered a terrorist group by both the Swedish and Norwegian security police.
One of the men was released shortly after the February arrests, while Ali and a second man remained in custody as prosecutors continued to build their case.
But Swedish prosecutor Ronnie Jacobsson eventually closed the case in September 2008 without filing formal charges, saying he had been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the men had sent money to finance terror groups in Somalia.
“The investigation has not been able to show to a sufficiently high degree to whom or what in Somalia, and for what purpose, the money was sent,” wrote Jacobsson in a statement at the time.
Having since returned to Somalia, Ali has assumed a top leadership position within Hisbi Islam (also known as Hizbul Islaam — ‘The Islamic Party’) a recently formed coalition of four insurgent Islamist groups united in fighting the Somali government.
In late February, both al-Shabaab and Hisbi Islam were involved in a fierce battle with African Union peacekeepers which claimed more than 20 lives and left dozens wounded.
Following the revelations that Ali was leading an armed insurgency in Somalia, Jacobsson said he knew that Ali had return to the country but wasn’t aware of his role.
Jacobsson added that he didn’t think there was much he could do about the matter.
“I’d have to think about it awhile,” he told the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.
“But just being a member in something identified as criminal isn’t enough to be convicted of a crime.”
Mats Paulsson, who heads the counter terrorism division with Sweden’s security police, Säpo, was also skeptical as to whether Swedish authorities have any power to stop Ali.
“Under current legislation it’s not possible to impede, legally speaking, Swedes from participating in these types of groups,” he told SvD.
Per Gudmundson, an editorial writer with SvD who has written extensively about Swedish terror connections in Somalia, says it’s regrettable that Swedish authorities weren’t able to build a case against Ali and prevent him from returning to Somalia to participate in more violence.
“Part of the problem is that the Swedish security services, law enforcement, and prosecutors don’t have the resources to carry out the costly and time consuming work of tracing money all the way back to al-Shabaab,” he told The Local.
“Of course, they also operate with the goal of preventing crimes from taking place in Sweden, and don’t have the legal tools to prevent crimes from occurring abroad.”
Gudmundson also noted that revelations of a Swedish citizen leading an Islamic terrorist group in Somalia hadn’t gotten much attention in the Swedish press or among Swedes in general.
While news about Africa seldom attracts a great deal of attention, he theorized that Swedes’ views about citizenship may also have something to do with the general lack of awareness of Ali’s case.
“In the eyes of most Swedes, a Swedish citizen of Somali origin is simply considered Somali,” he said.
“Swedes don’t really think it has anything to do with them.”
Sudan: President’s Expulsion of Foreign Aid Groups Concerns the UN
New York, 17 March (AKI) — The top United Nations humanitarian official has expressed “surprise” at reports on Monday that Sudan’s president Omar Al-Bashir has called for all international aid groups to leave the vast African nation within one year.
Under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs John Holmes said his office had yet to receive any communication from the Sudanese government regarding al-Bashir’s order to all overseas aid groups to leave the country.
“I think our position will clearly be that this decision is not appropriate and it’s a decision which should be reversed,” the UN official told reporters in New York late on Monday.
Sudan two weeks ago ordered the expulsion of 13 major international aid organisations, immediately after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant on 4 March for al-Bashir for alleged crimes committed in the war-torn western Darfur region.
Al-Bashir also ordered the country’s ministry of humanitarian affairs to ‘Sudanize’ the voluntary work in the country and told aid organisations to “leave their food aid at the airport.”
Referring to humanitarian aid operations in Darfur, Holmes said: “The relief operation is already heavily ‘Sudanized’.”
He pointed out that 13,000 out of the 14,000 relief workers currently operating in Darfur are Sudanese.
While the UN is happy for Sudan to play a larger part in assisting those in need “in principle,” Holmes stressed that “it needs to be done in a practical way.”
Joint UN-government missions are under way to assess critical gaps in aid and are expected to return to the capital, Khartoum on Wednesday, Holmes said.
Holmes warned the effects of international aid organisations’ withdrawal will not be immediately felt.
“But over time, it will have a dramatic impact if we’re not able to fill the (aid) gaps” in areas such as water and sanitation, treating disease outbreaks and food distribution, he said.
He expressed concern over meningitis cases in some camps, voicing hope that a vaccination campaign targeting 100,000 people can be carried out by non-governmental organisations still operating in Darfur.
Desaparecidos Ringleader Condemned
‘Angel of Death’ Alfredo Astiz ran death flights, court says
(ANSA) — Rome, March 18 — Italy’s supreme court on Wednesday found an Argentinian ex-navy officer responsible for all the death flights during Argentina’s so-called Dirty War in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Upholding a life sentence for former captain Alfredo Astiz for the murders of three Italians, the Cassation Court noted that the so-called ‘Blond Angel’ or ‘Angel of Death’ had told a former prisoner that “rivers give back corpses but killer whales eat bodies”.
Astiz also confided in Maria Alicia Milia that the death flights were used to ease overcrowding at the infamous Navy School of Mechanics (ESMA) barracks and were reserved for the estimated 20% of the suspected leftist opponents of the regime deemed “irredeemable”.
In April 2008 a Rome appeals court upheld guilty sentences for Astiz and three other Argentinian ex-navy officers in the murders of the three Italians who ‘disappeared’.
The four ex-officers, who contested the legitimacy of the proceedings, were tried in absentia.
Three of them — Astiz, Jorge Eduardo Acosta and Alfredo Ignacio Antonio Vanek — are being held in Argentina for similar offences while the fourth, Jorge Raul Vildoza, is a fugitive.
A fifth former officer, Hector Antonio Febres, was also convicted at the original trial in 2007 but has since died of poisoning in his Argentine cell.
The defendants were convicted of torturing and murdering three Italo-Argentinians during Argentina’s military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983.
Angela Maria Aieta, the Calabrian mother of a Peronist MP, was seized by the Argentinian military in April 1977.
Businessman Giovanni Pecoraro was seized together with his daughter Susanna in June 1977.
The three were all taken to a torture centre in downtown Buenos Aires and never heard of again.
The appeals court last April also confirmed a preliminary determination of compensation of 150,000 euros for the victims’ relatives.
Italy has repeatedly asked for the four to be extradited.
A sixth defendant, former admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, was scratched from the list because of health problems. He may be tried separately.
The six men are alleged to have been part of a group which helped run ESMA, a military academy which was turned into a torture centre.
Rome prosecutor Francesco Caporale based part of his case against the ex-officers on testimony provided by ESMA detainees who escaped death.
The court found that thousands of people held at ESMA were drugged and dumped alive into the ocean from military transport planes.
During Argentina’s ‘Dirty War’ against suspected leftist opponents, as many as 30,000 people were killed, including an estimated 500 Italians who joined the ranks of the desaparecidos, the ‘disappeared’ or ‘missing ones’.
CAMPAIGN BY VICTIMS’ FAMILIES.
Families of the Italian-born victims have been campaigning for years for the cases to be brought before the Italian courts.
Caporale took up the case of the three disappeared Italians in the wake of the 2000 convictions in absentia of seven Argentinian military and police officials accused of abducting and murdering eight Italian nationals.
Former general Carlos Guillermo Suarez Mason, one of the most notorious officers of the military dictatorship who died in 2005 while being held in solitary confinement, was handed a life sentence together with another ex-general, Omar Santiago Riveros.
The five other defendants, who included police chief Juan Carlos Girardi, were sentenced to 24 years.
In a related case that grabbed headlines here at Christmas 2007, a Uruguayan ex-navy intelligence officer accused of murdering four Italian citizens was found to have been living in Salerno for years undisturbed.
A year later Italy refused an extradition request for the man, Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli, on the grounds that he was an Italian citizen.
Troccoli was one of 140 people named in arrest warrants issued by Rome prosecutors investigating the deaths of 25 Italian citizens in a decades-old cross-border operation aimed at hunting down leftists.
The others are former government chiefs and military and intelligence officers in seven South American countries including Argentina.
Rome prosecutor Giancarlo Capaldo has asked the Italian justice ministry to forward extradition requests to the countries whose military regimes sent teams to kill fugitive dissidents.
The Brazilian justice ministry has said it was unlikely to grant such requests.
The other countries concerned — Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru — did not respond.
Capaldo started his probe in December 1998 on the basis of suits filed by the relatives of the Italians who ‘disappeared’ during Operation Condor, which ran from 1975 to the mid 1980s.
182 Land Near Siracusa, 5 Traffickers Stopped
(ANSAmed) — SIRACUSA, MARCH 17 — Five Somali men between 18 and 35 years old were stopped for aiding and abetting illegal immigration as part of an investigation into the landing of 182 immigrants, including three children and 25 women, yesterday at Portopalo di Capo Passero, in the province of Siracusa. Eleven foreigners were admitted to hospitals in Noto and Avola for medical checks.(ANSAmed)
29 Young Algerians Stopped at Sea
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MARCH 17 — In 48 hours, several boats with 29 young people on board were intercepted by the Algerian navy off the eastern and western coasts of Algeria. According to reports from APS, 10 Algerians between the ages of 20 and 30 were stopped yesterday off the coast of Oran, 400km west of Algiers, on board a dinghy loaded with food and fuel, while they were trying to reach the northern shore of the Mediterranean, more specifically, Spain. On Sunday, 19 Algerians between the ages of 22 and 34 were stopped at sea 11 miles from Annaba, a point of departure for migrants headed to Italy. (ANSAmed).
Finland: Vanhanen: Finland Needs Immigration Despite Present Economic Problems
Soini: True Finns’ party image affected by “a few outspoken individuals”
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) believes that increasingly wary Finnish attitudes toward immigration are the result of the current economic slump. According to a Helsingin Sanomat Gallup poll published on Tuesday, opposition to increased immigration has increased by about ten percentage points in the past 18 months. “I assume that it is linked with the phase of job cuts and temporary redundancies that is going on. It is an emotional reaction”, Vanhanen said at a seminar in Stockholm on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister emphasised that Finland needs immigrants. “It is important that all those who bear responsibility will say openly that we will need work-based immigration in the future.” Vanhanen said that it is important to view the matter beyond the current temporary crisis.
He emphasised that in the coming two decades Finland will not cope without work-based immigration and a lengthening of the time that people remain at work. Vanhanen feels that immigrants will be needed in all kinds of professions, from the highest researchers and doctors on down. “It needs to be based on the real needs of the labour market. At present, as people are being laid off; we are not getting work-based immigration, because work is not available”, Vanhanen noted.
In asylum policy Finland needs to act according to international agreements. “Asylum applications are processed. If there are good reasons, the people will be accepted into Finland, and if not, they will be turned away.”
The same poll indicated that the True Finns party is perceived as a group whose statements and actions are exceptionally xenophobic. More than a third of respondents felt this way about the True Finns. “That can probably be explained by the statements of a few outspoken individuals”, said True Finns’ chairman Timo Soini to Helsingin Sanomat. “The image that the True Finns are seen like this comes from somewhere of course — there is no point in blaming the mirror of the face is crooked. However, I sharply deny that I, or the party would be anti-foreigner.” “I claim to know where our support comes from, and I stipulate that this [immigration policy] is not a very significant factor in the increase in our popularity.”
Soini characterises his party’s views on immigration as “moderately critical”. He emphasises that he is referring to the views of the party, the party leadership, and the Parliamentary group, and not the views of “some local councilman or deputy councilman”. Soini expects immigration policy to be a minor theme in the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, and that the economic crisis will be the focus of attention.
Finland: Halonen and Ahtisaari Differ Slightly on Immigration
President Halonen and predecessors attend Presidential Forum Tuesday
Finnish President Tarja Halonen says that she is not surprised at the recent growth in anti-foreigner sentiment in Finland.
“It has been smoldering under the surface for a long time”, Halonen said on Tuesday at the ninth Presidential Forum held at the President’s palace in Helsinki.
The President was commenting on the results of Tuesday’s poll, which was commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat and conducted by Suomen Gallup, according to which support for increased immigration had declined to 45 per cent from 55 per cent in September 2007.
“It is human to notice that one is prejudiced”, Halonen observed.
In her speech Halonen warned against treating immigrants as mere available labour. She said that while she is in favour of free migration, she is opposed to the idea of “importing labour”.
“People must not be handled as mere labour. Work is important, but people do not live on work alone. We need to take care of immigrants also when they get old.”
Former President Martti Ahtisaari noted that his views diverge somewhat from those of President Halonen. In his view, there is nothing wrong with trying to encourage people with the kinds of skills that the country needs to immigrate to Finland. However, he emphasised the need to focus on refugee policy as well.
He pointed out that Finland is not an easy country for immigrants to come to. “We have a foreign culture, a unique language, and a rough climate.”
He emphasised the importance of tolerance. “Finns should see arrivals as a resource, and not a burden.”
Ahtisaari also underscored the importance of teaching the Finnish language and culture to immigrants. He said that there are examples in many European countries how integration of immigrants can fail…
Italy: Entrepreneurs Up by 15,000 in 2008
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 17 — In 2008, 36,694 businesses were opened in Italy by people born outside the European Union. Compared to the previous year, the total number of individual businesses run by immigrants from non-EU countries has increased by 15,187 (compared to an increase of over 60,000 in 2007) standing at 240,596 companies, 6.7% more compared to 2007, a year in which the increase was 8%, said Unioncamere. The figures from 2008 confirm the vitality of entrepreneurship in the immigrant community, although this sector has not passed through this phase of the crisis unscathed. Compared to 2007, a slowdown in registrations and an increase in sales of businesses has been observed, compared both to the 4th quarter in the same period, and compared to the entire year. As a result, the balance from 2008, although positive, shows a decrease compared to the previous year. (ANSAmed).
Obama, Hispanic Dems to Huddle on Immigration
Hispanic Democrats will have their first West Wing meeting with President Obama on Wednesday morning to discuss immigration reform, according to Democratic sources.
The meeting is the first face-to-face sit-down between Obama and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) since the president was sworn in. Some in the CHC have recently expressed frustration that Obama has not talked more about immigration in his first two months in office.
Spain: ‘Hunt of Immigrants’ Reported to Prosecution Office
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 17 — A report has been filed with the national prosecution office over the “hunt of immigrants” which was allegedly ordered by the ministry of the Interior. The report was filed today by some 200 unions, which are asking for damages to be paid to non-EU citizens and for Interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba’s resignation. According to reports by the Efe agency, the report was filed by the spokesperson of the ‘Sindicato Obrero Inmigrantes’ union (Soi-Ctm), Jesus Hidalgo, who hopes to see an investigation into the “selective dragnets” targeted against immigrant populations, which in his opinion were ordered as of 2008 to identify those lacking a residency permit in Spain. According to the filed report, four police unions confirmed that they received “orders for indiscriminate mass identifications in the street or in given locations, targeting people with physical characteristics which denote foreign origin”. The associations condemned the “illegal methods” adopted for the identification of immigrants, seeing that “the fact of being without a permit to stay is a purely administrative breach and not a crime that can be criminally persecuted”. (ANSAmed).
UK: Asian Postmaster Takes Immigration Stand by Banning Customers Who Can’t Speak English
An Asian postmaster has provoked the ire of race equality campaigners by banning customers from his branch who cannot speak English. Deva Kumarasiri claims all immigrants in Britain should learn the language so they can communicate properly with others here and embrace British culture. ‘If you come to Britain you have got to speak English,’ said the father-of-two, who moved here himself 18 years ago. ‘I am from a different country but when I came here I became British. My job is to give a service. I cannot give a service if they cannot tell me what they want.’ Mr Kumarasiri, 40, said he had banned about half a dozen customers from Sneinton Boulevard Post Office in Nottingham. ‘Some of them say, “You are not British,”‘ he said. ‘I keep telling them, “Don’t come here or I am not going to help you.”…
UK: French Immigration Minister Pours Scorn on UK Claims of Plan to Halt Migrants at Calais
Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has been humiliated after his French counterpart flatly denied his announcement that a joint Anglo-French detention centre is to be built outside Calais to deal with thousands of migrants trying to reach Britain.
In the surprise move yesterday, Mr Woolas claimed that he has held talks with his French counterparts over a secure camp.
He said he was trying to persuade them that it would be the solution to dealing with would-be asylum seekers trying to get into the UK.
But in an embarrassing rebuttal to Mr Woolas, French immigration minister Eric Besson insisted today there was ‘no question’ of a new centre being built…
Abortion: Spain; Soria, Ways of Church and Society Part
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 17 — The “path” followed by the Episcopal Conference with a campaign against a law reforming abortion policies “is different from the path followed by society,” said Health Minister Bernat Soria to the media today. According to Soria, right now, the social debate “is over whether or not there should be an acceptance or rejection of abortion” because this controversy took place in Spain 20 years ago. For Soria, it is about “adapting Spanish legislation to the European context” and to establish similar laws to “countries that we continually say that we want to resemble”. (ANSAmed).
Abortion Sparks Row of Government and Bishops in Spain — Feature
Madrid — For about a year, a relative peace had reigned between Spain’s socialist government and its Catholic bishops. But it has turned out to be short-lived. Government plans to liberalize abortion have put Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on a collision course with the Bishops’ Conference, which announced a “massive” campaign saying the rights of animals were protected better than those of unborn children.
The government wants to free women from having to justify their abortions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
The health ministry describes the measure as putting Spanish legislation in line with other European countries, but the church sees it as a head-on attack against Christian values.
Since Zapatero was elected prime minister in 2004, Spain’s generally conservative clergy has seen him as representing one of the Vatican’s main concerns: the galloping secularization of Europe.
Zapatero’s first term was marked by constant clashes with the country’s bishops, as he introduced sweeping social reforms.
Spain became one of the world’s first countries to grant homosexuals full marriage rights, prompting church representatives to attend massive rallies opposing the law.
Spain’s Catholic Church has also protested other reforms, such as fast-track divorce, stem cell research and downgrading religion as a subject in schools.
For the Vatican, Spain is a key battleground in its defence of the Catholic faith, not only because the country is a traditional Catholic stronghold, but also because of its influence in Latin America.
Nearly 80 per cent of Spaniards still regard themselves as officially Catholics, though less than 30 per cent of the Catholics practise the religion outside social events such as communions or weddings, polls show.
Spanish clergymen have not spared words in criticizing the way society is evolving, describing abortion as an “abominable crime” and gay weddings as the worst thing that has happened to the Catholic Church during its 2,000-year history.
The government, on its side, has slammed the clergy as fundamentalist.
The deepening confrontation prompted the government to seek an ally in the Vatican, with Pope Benedict XVI reportedly advising the Spanish bishops to adopt a more conciliatory approach.
The government increased the amount of taxes that Catholics can voluntarily pay into church coffers, and laid aside some of its most controversial plans such as the legalization of euthanasia.
When Vatican secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone made a private visit to Spain in February, he was given a reception appropriate for a head of state.
The government was not, however, willing to shelve its plans to reform the 1985 abortion law, which technically regards abortion as a crime.
However, more than 110,000 pregnancies are terminated annually in Spain, usually on grounds of danger to the mother’s health.
Allowing abortion on demand in the first 14 weeks would let women take independent decisions about their pregnancies, and free doctors from the fear of prosecution, Equality Minister Bibiana Aido argued.
The new law is also expected to allow abortion up to 22 weeks in certain cases, such as a serious threat to the mother’s health or malformation of the fetus.
Aido also pledged to increase sexual education, the insufficiency of which is seen as one of the main reasons why the number of abortions has doubled in a decade.
The bishops’ campaign against the planned abortion law will feature nationwide posters, showing a child and a lynx, a protected species.
“And me? Protect my life!” the child says.
Environmentalists accused the church of despising animal rights, but the campaign won the sympathies of about 1,000 scientists and other intellectuals.
They signed a manifesto against the liberalization of abortion, arguing that an embryo consisting of a single cell was already a form of human life.
Opponents of the new law are especially upset about the possibility that girls as young as 16 years might be allowed to abort without their parents’ knowledge.
The main opposition centre-right People’s Party (PP), however, avoided siding too clearly with the church, aware that many of its voters did not want it to appear excessively conservative in social matters.
Football: Spain, Women Revolt Against Discrimination
(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 17 — They are the only individuals to suffer discrimination in Zapatero’s Spain, which recognises human rights for all, even chimpanzees. They are women, who in the 21st century, cannot play professional football, because according to the regulations of the Real Federacion Espanola, women are expressly forbidden from obtaining a professional license. But now women on the pitch have decided to make their voices heard. Leading the battle is the Caceres (Estremadura) women’s football club, a team from Group V of the first national division, which through captain Maria Angela Garcia, and President Maria José Lopez, has decided to shake this ancient prejudice to its very foundations. “We have sent several groups a legal study and we are drafting another one,” explained Garcia and Lopez to Publico daily. The objective is to destroy the legal barriers which in football as in other sports, do not exist in reality. “Many people are surprised by the situation, although the National Football Federation, to whom we have raised the issue on numerous occasions, has not paid attention to us,” said the representatives from Caceres. But they are determined to cross national boundaries and turn to the International Federation of Professional Football Players, headed by Spanish national Gerardo Gonzalez Movilla, who in October created an ad hoc study commission. “They have already drawn up a report, showing that they are worried about the issue,” observed Maria José Lopez. Over 24,000 women in Spain play football, where there is a rigid difference between professionals and amateurs. Sports laws recognise the Liga Bbva, first division, the Liga Adelante, in men’s football, and the Liga Acb for men’s basketball as professional competitions. Handball, in which Spain is champion at a world level, is not part of the exclusive circle. Female football players effectively have no rights as employees, and do not have a collective agreement. Only women’s basketball has been a pioneer in this field, having agreed upon a collective contract in 2008, which according to experts, represents an example that should be followed by other professional disciplines. In football, there is the case of Milene Dominguez, alias Ronaldinhà, the ex-wife of the Brazilian superstar, who declared revenue of 252,000 euros in the 2002-2003 season, mostly (216,000 euros) from image rights paid by sponsors. Ronaldinhà lost out on important offers, like a 60,000 euros salary offered by Torrejon, due to a ban on playing in professional competitions, but she was a pioneer in her own way, managing to convince the Federation to change its regulations, accepting two foreigners per team in the Superliga. “It is necessary to give women at least the same possibilities as men, then we will see what each individual manages to earn by working,” said Raul Polo, ex-player for Valladolid and coach of the Caceres women’s football team, saying that he is sure that “women demonstrate much more willpower and desire to play on the field than men”. (ANSAmed).
Quran is Compatible With Modern US Values: Film
Despite being revealed some 1,400 years ago, Islam’s holy book is compatible with contemporary American values, Indian filmmaker Faruq Masudi argues in his new documentary that describes the Quran as a “matrix that leads you into a spiritual journey like none other.”
Quran Contemporary Connections, set to be released online in the coming months, is a documentary-type film based on research by a group of American professors who were asked to delve deep into the minds of Muslims and find out if the Quran is out of step with modern times.
“ In Islam, sex is a good thing. Allah is not a Muslim specific God; even Arabic speaking Jews and Christians use the word Allah in their liturgies. Polygamy is a blessing. Muslims do not worship Muhammad. Everybody is a born Muslim. “
Official website”In Islam, sex is a good thing. Allah is not a Muslim specific God; even Arabic speaking Jews and Christians use the word Allah in their liturgies. Polygamy is a blessing. Muslims do not worship Muhammad. Everybody is a born Muslim,” were among the panel’s findings according to the documentary’s website.
“The film talks about the major themes of the Quran, including the most controversial ones, like jihad, women, sex, polygamy, peace and violence,” Masudi told AlArabiya.net.
Masudi explained that the documentary places Islam in a modern context and refutes the view that Islam is out-dated by linking the Quran to modern concepts like democracy, charity and diversity.
“There are so many similarities between Islam and the West because the Quran was meant to be for all of mankind, Muslims do not have a monopoly on Islam, on the book or on Allah,” Masudi said.
U.S. to Sign U.N. Gay Rights Declaration
The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.
U.S. officials said Tuesday they had notified the declaration’s French sponsors that the administration wants to be added as a supporter. The Bush administration was criticized in December when it was the only western government that refused to sign on.
[…]
According to negotiators, the Bush team had concerns that those parts could commit the federal government on matters that fall under state jurisdiction. In some states, landlords and private employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; on the federal level, gays are not allowed to serve openly in the military.
Webster’s Dictionary Redefines ‘Marriage’
Now includes references to same-sex relationships
One of the nation’s most prominent dictionary companies has resolved the argument over whether the term “marriage” should apply to same-sex duos or be reserved for the institution that has held families together for millennia: by simply writing a new definition.
“I was shocked to see that Merriam-Webster changed their definition of the word ‘marriage,’ a word which has referred exclusively to a contract between a man and a woman for centuries. It has now added same sex,” YouTube user Eric B. noted to WND.
“The 1992 Webster’s Dictionary does not mention same sex at all,” he wrote.
Kurt Lundgren was a well-known Swedish writer, editor, and blogger who died on Thursday at the age of 64.
I’ve written so many times in this space about the OIC (the Organization of the Islamic Conference) that it sometimes feels like I do nothing but fisk Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (see the bottom of this post for a list of previous articles on Prof. Ihsanoglu and the OIC).
Regrettably, it seems that although the prophesies [sic] of the so-called clash of civilizations did not materialize in the real world, the essence of this thesis has, effectively, taken strong hold in the political discourse and popular consciousness against Islam and Muslims. It also has profoundly influenced the dominant trend which depicts Islam as the enemy of the West and as a danger which needs to be rebuffed and defeated.
As everyone knows, executives at the insurance giant are under fire for being paid lavish bonuses after their company was bailed out by the government to keep it from going under. President Obama is leading the charge against all this “greed”, and the company is under a virtual siege.