An Egyptian bar owner in northern Sinai was shot to death in his establishment by four gunman, who fled after the attack. According to security sources, Islamic radicals are suspected to be behind the murder.
In other news, Giulio Andreotti, who was prime minister of Italy seven times and was repeatedly implicated in corruption scandals, has died at the age of 94.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Kitman, Seneca III, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Internet Tax is Just Another Revenue Grabber
In our states’ budgets, current taxes rates (income + sales) are set at levels appropriate to cover the calculations of their spending. 49 out of 50 states require a balanced budget. These states are fully aware of how much of their stated taxes are “avoided” (internet and out-of-state). Therefore, by passing this new internet tax, you are merely giving the states a free reign to add a tax without adding the political heat for it, under the guise of “fairness”.
Looked at it another way, it is unconscionable for Congress to pass this legislation without requiring that states lower their marginal rates so that the new tax makes everything revenue neutral. Marginal rates as they are already burden taxpayers. This internet tax doesn’t fix anything — because there is nothing in their budgets to be “fixed”. True tax reform means broadening the base and thereby reducing the overall burden of taxes. The internet tax is merely a back-door way for states to add a levy on their citizens. It’s a revenue grab.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy ‘Won’t Get More Time to Balance Budget’
Rehn rejects Fassina’s call for exemption to stoke growth
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Italy won’t be granted more time to balance its budget, a spokesman for European Financial Commissioner Olli Rehn said Monday. Deputy Economy Minister Stefano Fassina said Sunday the European Union should give Italy “another two years” to balance the budget in structural terms, at or slightly above 3% of GDP, for at least two years because of the need to spend to stoke growth.
Rehn said the 3013 target of 3% was a must because of Italy’s “very high” debt of 130% of GDP, the second-biggest in the eurozone after Greece’s.
Recent figures say Italy’s budget-to-GDP ratio should be 2.9% this year and 2.4% next, but this has not taken probable new government spending into account.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt to Move to Stop Unemployment-Benefit Budget Running Dry
Applications soar as recession continues to bite
(see related stories on economic situation) (ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — One of the first moves of Premier Enrico Letta’s left-right government will be to take action to stop the budget for unemployment benefits running dry, with applications soaring as the recession continues to bite, Labour Ministry Undersecretary Carlo Dell’Aringa said Monday.
Social-security agency INPS said Monday that CIG benefits to cover 100 million hours for people who had been laid off or had their hours reduced by firms in financial trouble had been authorised in April.
This was 3.1% higher than in March and 16.05% more than the 86.1 million authorised in April 2012.
“I think that some urgent measures will be taken and among those will be the refinancing of the CIG,” Dell’Aringa told Rai radio. The government needs to find around 1.5 billion euros to stop the CIG budget running dry in the next few months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Draghi Backs Tax Cuts and Spending to Balance Budgets
EU tax pressure too high
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi on Monday said governments should “mitigate” the recessive effects of balancing their budgets by “reducing current public spending and taxes”. “Taxation is already high by any international standard,” the EU’s central banker added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul: Federal Reserve Blows More Bubbles
Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.
The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.
Although many were up in arms when the Fed said it would buy $600 billion in government debt outright for the previous round, QE2, all seems quiet about the magnitude of QE3 because it doesn’t come with huge up-front total price tag. But by year’s end the Fed’s balance sheet could hit $4 trillion.
With no recovery in sight, where’s all this money going? It is creating bubbles. Bubbles in the housing sector, the stock market, and government debt. The national debt is fast approaching $17 trillion, with the Fed monetizing most of the newly issued debt. The stock market has been hitting record highs for the past two months as investors seek to capitalize on the Fed’s easy money. After all, as long as the Fed keeps the spigot open, nominal profits are there for the taking. But this is a house of cards. Eventually, just like in 2008-2009, the market will discipline the bad actions of the Fed and seek to find the real normal.
In the meantime, real families are suffering. While Wall Street and the government take advantage of access to the Fed’s new “free” money, the Fed claims there is no inflation. But who hasn’t paid higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, for tuition, for insurance? It’s bad enough that household incomes have stagnated, but real purchasing power has declined so much that one in seven Americans, 47.3 million people, are on food stamps. Five million are collecting unemployment insurance with 21.5 million afflicted by unemployment according to the government’s own figures. That’s 13.9 percent — close to double the 7.5 percent unemployment number reported last week.
We are certainly not in a recovery. We don’t see the long unemployment and soup kitchen lines like in the Great Depression, but that’s just because the lines are electronic now.
It is not surprising the Fed has decided to hand the American people more of the same failed policies. But it is disappointing. We know what the real solution is: allow the marketplace to work. Allow entrepreneurs the chance to create instead of stifling innovation with arbitrary regulations. Allow interest rates to rise to equal the risks in the economy. Allow bad debts to be liquidated so we can build on a firm foundation. Stop printing money to benefit the government and big banks. Restore sound money to the economy and the American people. Sound money is the bedrock for prosperity and the best check on big government and crony capitalism.
Former Congressman Paul’s article first appeared at the-free-foundation.org, the temporary home for his weekly column until his personal web page is up and running.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Have the Spanish People Not Revolted?
Infolibre Madrid
Five years of crisis, 6 million unemployed and thousands driven from their homes: Despite the heavy social toll, Spaniards suffer their fate without rebelling against the government or against the EU because they fear losing what little they have left, argues a sociologist.
Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca
The fifth year of the crisis is upon us. Unemployment, poverty and social exclusion are all on the rise; reports of malnutrition in children are cropping up; tens of thousands of families have been evicted from their homes; and wages continue to fall, which can’t be said for the costs of goods and services.
What’s more, people have grasped that this situation is not a passing phase and can still stretch on for a few years yet. Given all this, why has there been no social explosion? Why has the system not collapsed? How much can Spanish society endure without an uprising?
It is hard to think of a combination of conditions more favourable for bringing about an explosion. First, the effects of the crisis are terrible. How can a population survive with 6 million unemployed? The worst is that unemployment will keep growing as domestic demand is depressed. The savings and the subsidies that have kept many going so far are being depleted. Among those who do have work, many are earning subsistence wages in the underground economy.
Second, the savage austerity policies that Spain and the European Union are pursuing are only pushing the country onto the scrap heap and putting off the day of recovery. In place of consumption and state investment combatting the fall in household demand, the government is cutting administrative expenses across the board. This is not only worsening the crisis, but decreasing social coverage for the unemployed and the poor.
‘Internal devaluation’
Although it sounds a little brutal, the EU and the government have deemed that the road out of the crisis passes through the general impoverishment of the majority of the Spanish people. “Internal devaluation” does not mean anything else…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
60 Minutes Propaganda: “Counterinsurgency Cops” In Massachusetts
In the brazen propaganda piece below, CBS’ 60 Minutes lavishes praise on the latest gimmick in the militarization of police. Leslie Stahl travels to Springfield, Massachusetts to cover “counterinsurgency cops,” state police who have adopted COIN (an acronym for counterinsurgency) operations cloned from Iraq and Afghanistan to address drugs and gangs. Appropriately, the segment is subtitled “Military tactics fight street crime.”
In December, 2009 I wrote about an article published in Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement. The article, available as a PDF, argues that suspected criminals in the United States should be treated the same as “insurgents” are in Iraq. The author of the article, Donald J. Mihalek, suggests cops borrow tactics from General David Petraeus, who formulated an eight point counterinsurgency plan to deal with elements in Iraq opposed to the occupation of their country.
[Comment: Another brick in the wall of tyranny being built up right before your eyes. To be used against those who believe in the Consitution, such as those with bumper stickers saying “Don’t Tread On Me”…]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are the Republicans Helping to Cover Up Benghazi?
If an administration can abandon four Americans “serving their country” to protect their policy and ultimate agenda, what do you think they will do to you?
This week the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are resuming their Benghazi investigation where four Americans, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Sean Smith were killed by terrorists at a CIA outpost in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012.
The question is will Republicans like Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) remain firm, expose the Benghazi cover-up, and hold the Obama-Clinton regime accountable or will they cave like other Republicans already have? This critical question must be asked because a Benghazi whistleblower has stepped forward and already contradicted not only the Obama administration’s “official” Benghazi story but parts of the Republican Benghazi Interim report, released on April 23 that agreed with the Obama administration’s contention that no one was denied any help.
First, to be clear, there is a cover-up. How can I report that with certainty? Because if a Benghazi cover-up were not taking place why are there whistleblowers? Whistleblowers make public disclosures of corruption or wrong doing. An administration who has nothing to hide would welcome with open arms all witnesses who could provide any and all information on Benghazi to prevent such an attack from happening again. That is not happening here. Instead Americans with eye witness accounts, whistleblowers, have not been allowed to speak publicly, and are seeking protection from reprisals. Reportedly some have been threatened.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton is having trouble getting rid of splattered blood stains.
“With all due respect,the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided to go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?” — Hillary Clinton
“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” — William Shakespeare (1564?-1616), “Macbeth” Act V, Scene I
Last week White House Press Secretary Jay Carney observed that the murder of four Americans in Benghazi last fall occurred “a long time ago.”
Apparently eight months is a really long time to some folks. For such people “a long time ago” seems to serve as a catch-all phrase encompassing things like the Civil War, the Paleolithic era, and the killings in Benghazi. For those of us with a more nuanced sense of time and reality, however, last fall is not so very long ago.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi Insider Speaks Out and Backs Up Fox News Whistleblower
The Republican Benghazi Interim report (page 15), agreed with the Obama-Clinton regime, stating: “The House Armed Services Committee conducted a review of air assets available to respond to Benghazi. No U.S. government element refused or denied requests for emergency assistance during the crisis,” contradicting the explosive allegation reported about a month after the Benghazi attack, Jennifer Griffin’s Fox News “Exclusive: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say.”
However, in the latest FOX News exclusive by Adam Housley, a Benghazi whistleblower came forward and backed up the original whistleblowers’ accounts reported by Fox News and said: Special forces could’ve responded to Benghazi attack because the U.S. had highly trained forces just a few hours away in Croatia. He also said that he and others feel the government betrayed the four men who died in the attack…
When forces leave the ground, they may not know exactly where they are going or what they are going to do but as they are in the air and moving information is updated. These people needed to be put in motion, that’s the first deception. They were never put in motion. The Obama administration did not lift a pinky finger to put options in play. Sounds to me like CYA. The whole point was they did not give these guys an option — and that in itself is a failure of command at every level.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Comparison of GMO and Non-GMO Corn — the Real Statistics Will Astound You!
(NaturalNews) As Monsanto parades their genetically modified seed, throwing it out like candy into the fields, future generations are being subjected to nutritionally void, disease-causing food. As the government protects the GMO industry, with its recent signing of the “Monsanto Protection Act”, the republic’s health interests are being discarded.
A 2012 study, called the Corn Comparison Report, was recently released by Profit Pro and published on the website for Moms Across America March to Label GMOs — a group dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of genetically modified organisms.
The Corn Comparison Report detailed the nutritional deficiencies of GMO corn compared to regular organic corn. The report reveals the stunning levels of glyphosate in GMO corn and the amount of vital nutrients that have been drawn out.
The nutrition statistics for GMO corn are bone chilling.
- Organic corn has 14 ppm of manganese. GMO corn has only 2 ppm.
- Real corn has 7 times more manganese!
- Organic corn has 6130 ppm of calcium. GMO is stripped down to 14 ppm.
- Real corn has 437 times more calcium!
- Organic corn has 113 ppm of magnesium. GMO corn is vacant, with only 2 ppm.
- Real corn has 56 times more magnesium!
The amount of formaldehyde and glyphosate in GMO corn is unbelievable. To break it down, American EPA standards allow glyphosate in water of up to .7ppm. European tests indicate that animals begin experiencing liver damage at .0001 ppm of glyphosate in water. Putting these two statistics together, America’s water levels contain glyphosate that is 7,000 times greater than the amount required for animal liver damage!
GMO corn takes that statistic up yet another notch. GMO corn contains 13 ppm of glyphosate, or the equivalent of 130,000 times more toxicity than EPA water standards!
In a similar study on GMO corn, Dr. Huber found out that animals avoid GMO corn at all costs.When given a choice between both GMO and non GMO varieties of corn, animals always go for the real organic corn. Huber also found out that .97ppm of formaldehyde is toxic to animals. The GMO corn he tried to give the animals contained 200 times that amount!
This begs the questions:
- Why is something this toxic fed to humans?
- Why would humans touch the stuff in the first place?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Connecting the Dots: From United Nations to Your State Government
Proponents of Sustainable Development constantly tell us that their plans are just local. And they deride those who accuse them of imposing an international agenda. Kooks. Fringe Fanatics. Conspiracy Theorists. These are just some of the labels they pin on those fighting to expose Agenda 21. Moreover, they sarcastically ask, “how can an obscure twenty year old document be a threat to local policy? Tsk Tsk.”
Well, let’s take just one example and follow it through the process. Let’s get acquainted with the Earth Charter. If Agenda 21 is the blue print — the Earth Charter is the manifesto.
Below is a report, provided, in part, by Christopher Woodwardon detailing the Earth Charter, its history and its purpose. He writes…
“…The Earth Charter is an international declaration, which calls for “building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century.” It is a soft law document as opposed to a treaty (just like Agenda 21), backed by the United Nations. It has been launched onto the world stage through a UN operation called the Earth Charter Initiative. In its name, the UN is quietly building a grass- roots movement made up of Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals to bring its ideas and principles into national government and local communities. This is being carried out through various Task Force groups and volunteer networks of supporters who are working to implement the charter into different areas of life, including business, education and religion.”…
“This is the exact philosophy behind the purpose of Agenda 21, and in fact, the documents go hand in hand, much like the American Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution are inseparable as our nation’s founding documents. One, the Declaration, provides the philosophy behind the nation, the other, the Constitution, outline the way it is to be implemented. So too are the Earth Charter and Agenda 21. One, the Earth Charter, describes the philosophy, and Agenda 21 describes how is will be achieved,” points out Woodwardon…
Implementation at the local level
So how is all of that a threat from local government. Let me guide you through three documents to connect the dots. The first, of course, is the Earth Charter. You can read it on the web. Consider carefully its full impact, if implemented in your community or in state laws.
The second document is the ICLEI Charter. It boldly states ICLEI’s “mission.” “To build and serve a worldwide movement of local governments to achieve tangible improvements in global sustainability with special focus on environmental conditions through cumulative local actions.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Now Critical of Rice’s Benghazi Explanation, Amid More Damaging Evidence
Congressional Democrats on Sunday distanced themselves from the Obama administration’s explanation of the Benghazi, Libya, attacks in the immediate aftermath of the fatal strikes, amid mounting evidence that suggests the information was revised to intentionally mislead Americans.
The original explanation of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, was written by CIA officials, then revised by State Department and White House officials, according to news reports and witness testimony made available to Fox News.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DHS Whistleblower Says War on Terror is a Charade — Real Targets Are American Patriots
Julia Davis, a former Customs and Border Protections Officer, was falsely declared a domestic terrorist and subjected to retaliatory efforts against her by the Department of Homeland Security. Her home was raided by a 27 man “special response team.” She was twice falsely arrested and imprisoned, but later exonerated. She is now a national security expert and has put out a historical documentary titled Top Priority: The Terror Within. She claims that the War On Terror by the Department of Homeland Security is a charade and that the agency seems to be targeting concerned American patriots.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FDA Presumes Itself Omniscient and Consumers Ignorant
Do you think you are intelligent enough to decide for yourself the relative worth of scientific findings concerning the disease treatment and risk reduction effects of nutrients and foods? The FDA thinks you are not and that it must decide such questions for you in the first instance. Indeed, the FDA bans from the grocery store, the health food store, and online all commercial claims associating a food or nutrient with disease, regardless of whether the claims are supported by science. That broad prior restraint on speech contradicts the very premise of the First Amendment. As James Madison explained in defense of the First Amendment in his Virginia Resolutions aimed at challenging the Alien and Sedition Acts, while the law in Great Britain forbad prior restraints, the law of the United States as stated in the First Amendment went farther, forbidding the federal government not only from adopting prior restraints but also from banning speech after the fact.
The FDA’s prior restraint on disease treatment and prevention information in the market is thus directly contrary to the core purpose of the First Amendment. That prior restraint is a throwback to an age preceding the European Enlightenment Era when the state by decree of the Crown could ban any published work that the Crown deemed unfit for licensure. Likewise, in our day the FDA sits like an absolute monarch banning on pain of federal prosecution (and even incarceration) any utterance from a seller of foods or supplements to that seller’s customers concerning the therapeutic benefits of foods and supplements. The right to communicate therapeutic information is by statute and FDA enforcement the exclusive province of drug companies, thus giving those companies a monopoly.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fleeing Communism Only to Find it in America
As a legal immigrant, I came to America because it was “the shining city on the hill” where everything was possible if you were willing to work hard because everyone had the freedom and equal opportunity to succeed.
I came to America because I wanted to pursue higher education, something that was very limited under communism as the children of the communist party elite had first choice at any college no matter how bad their grades were. I did not want to wait until I was 60 years old and had the approval of the communist party to pursue a doctoral degree.
I came to America because I wanted a better life for myself and my children. I did not want to toil day and night under the watchful eye of the totalitarian government who decided how much our labor was worth and how much we were allowed to eat, where to travel, or live.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Monsanto Protection Act Awakening the Republic
This new “Monsanto Protection Act” signed on March 26th, 2013, gives executive powers to the USDA that grant permission to companies like Monsanto to sell its genetically modify seed to farmers without any judicial accountability. The provision is written in a way to assure farmers a profitable and safe venture with GMO seed, but in reality, this law is designed to grant GMO producers like Monsanto legal immunity from the health problems their products will cause down the road.
This provision removes the judicial system from the picture, allowing Monsanto to dominate agriculture, selling genetically altered seed to farmers and damaging human genes — all without any real justice.
U.S. Senator and family farmer Jon Tester, spoke out on the Senate floor, “The United States Congress is telling the Agricultural Department that even if a court tells you that you’ve failed to follow the right process and tells you to start over, you must disregard the court’s ruling and allow the crop to be planted anyway. Not only does this ignore the constitutional idea of separation of powers, but it also lets genetically modified crops take hold across this country, even when a judge finds it violates the law,” Tester said.
Tester’s concerns were apparently disregarded. Five days later, Obama signed the Monsanto Protection Act into law, ignoring the scientific evidence GMOs have on human health. Now multinational corporations like Monsanto have legal permission to make farmers their serfs, and to use the population as a science experiment with their altered, disease-spreading seed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Urges Grad Students to “Reject” Warnings About “Government Tyranny”
President tries to align big government agenda with vision of founders
President Barack Obama gave a speech to Ohio State University graduates yesterday during which he urged them to “reject” warnings about government “tyranny” and to place more trust in the state.
“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,”Obama told the audience at the Ohio State commencement ceremony. “They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”
Calling on the students to dispense with “individual ambition,” Obama attempted to align his big government agenda with the vision of the founding fathers, lamenting the fact that less and less Americans trust the state.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ignore the bosses of information, education and culture. The more we do that, the more we win.
In the old Soviet Union the oppressed subjects of regime had a phrase used to describe the news media: “There’s no Pravda in Izvestia and there’s no Izvestia in Pravda.” In Russia, “Pravda,” the leading Communist Party periodical, means “Truth” and “Izvestia,” the principal state periodical, means “News.” The phrase meant that in Pravda there was no news and that in Izvestia there was no truth.
The bosses of the Kremlin had no interest in their subjects knowing anything about the world or having any honest opinions expressed. Instead the news media (also all cultural life, all educational institutions, all common means of ordinary people sharing anything together) was placed in the hands of bureaucratic flacks, well trained in determining what constituted news and who had the legal monopoly on truth…
Isn’t that the way things are in America today? The Leftist establishment media, which includes entertainment, education, and all the other conveyor belts of information and ideas ignore the vast ocean of muck which could affect the political bosses in Washington (more and more, our Moscow) and instead either present absurdly fluffy pieces intended to make sock puppets like Obama look good or portray the notional enemies of the people as vicious and corrupt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Radio Host to Lead Armed March on DC July 4th ‘To Put Gov’t on Notice’
Radio host and activist Adam Kokesh plans to lead an armed march from the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia all the way to the White House and back.
According to a Facebook event posted by Kokesh, titled “Open Carry March on Washington,” he plans to lead a peaceful march July 4th “across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge.”
On Monday, Kokesh joined Alex on his nationally syndicated radio show to discuss what the march aims to peacefully accomplish:
Kokesh states that “this is an act of civil disobedience,” but stresses “This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent.”
“There’s a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting.”
An update states that Kokesh is already coordinating with authorities in the DC area and is encouraging them to honor their oaths and help escort the march along their route.
Libertarian and political commentator Lew Rockwell, on the Monday edition of the Alex Jones Show, warned that the march is equivalent to entering the gates of Mordor, and agreed with Alex that the event could easily be provocateured to demonize the growing liberty movement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Senator: Big Sis Buying Ammo to Dry Up Supply
Inhofe: “I believe it’s intentional”
A US Senator has stated on record that he believes the Department of Homeland Security is intentionally attempting to exhaust civilian supplies of ammunition by buying huge bulk amounts, as documented by Infowars for some months.
Appearing on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on WABC in New York, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla. said that the Obama administration was attempting to “dry up the market” and deprive gun owners of bullets.
“We have in this country the Second Amendment that preserves the right to keep and bear arms, and the president doesn’t believe in that.” Inhofe said.
“President Obama has been doing everything he could to stop the private ownership of guns in America,” the Senator added. “Yet he’s been voted down in a big way by a large majority, and so my feeling is that he’s doing this to buy up [ammunition] so honest, law-abiding citizens here in the United States, like my son, can’t even buy ammunition because government is purchasing so much.”
“We had someone testify the other day the DHS has the ‘right’ — this is a bureaucrat who said this — they have the ‘right’ to buy as much as they want, and they’re planning to buy 750 million rounds,” Inhofe said, referring to a House committee hearing last week, during which the DHS’s chief procurement officer denied that the agency was stockpiling ammunition, while simultaneously admitting that the huge open orders had been submitted.
Inhofe pointed out that the amount of ammunition on order “is more than three times the amount our soldiers are using for training to defend our nation.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Andreotti: Italians Baffled by Criminal Charges
Tried for murder and Mafia — court said he helped Mob till ‘80
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Italians had for years grown used to headlines linking seven-time premier Giulio Andreotti — who has died aged 94 — to murky events in Sicily.
Hardly surprisingly, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to believe they’d been ruled for most of the postwar years by a criminal mastermind who’d stuck at nothing, not even murder and a deal with the Mob, to cling to power.
Not even when Mafia bosses broke their vows of silence and said so, claiming the unholy alliance was sealed by a kiss with Toto’ “the Beast” Riina.
Not even when his man in Sicily, Salvo Lima, was gunned down in broad daylight in alleged revenge for welching on the deal. And not even when, sensationally, Andreotti was given a 24-year jail term in 2002 for conspiracy to murder a bothersome scandalmonger.
Not surprisingly, the country didn’t need to breath a collective sigh of relief when the state’s highest appeals court in October 2003 overturned the murder verdict issued just a year previously.
Or when it followed suit on the Mafia charges a year later — albeit with the embarrassing coda that Mob dealings up to 1980 had not been proven.
Most Italians had really just kept on disbelieving anyway, in a philosophical state of denial, and the bluff old statesman (or convicted murderer) had kept on happily swapping seats on TV chat shows with a pew in Palermo trials for helping the Mafia.
Among the allegations in those trials — Andreotti got off first time round in 1999, a verdict upheld in May 2003 — was hearsay evidence from top turncoat Antonino Giuffre’ in early 2003 that “the old fox” argued with Mafia chieftain Stefano Bontade about “who was really running Sicily.” But the outcome of the trials, like the murder case, was never the issue. Most Italians would go on admiring the wry old gentleman on the small screen, some might admit he could have been wiser in his choice of political allies down south, and a minority would be unswerving in their conviction that he was the devil incarnate.
Some courts sometimes attempted to pin down this moving target.
The 2002 murder conviction in Perugia was based on the grounds that Italy’s consummate politician was also a ruthless criminal. According to court documents released in February 2003, he masterminded the Mafia slaying to protect his reputation.
The appeals court in Perugia found Andreotti guilty of ordering the murder of muck-raking journalist Mino Pecorelli.
The then 84-year-old life senator and five co-defendants had been acquitted of involvement in the killing by a lower court in September 1999 at the end of a three-and-a-half-year trial.
The 2002 sentence said Andreotti had a “strong interest in ensuring that Pecorelli didn’t publish certain shocking news stories, even in a toned-down version.” The murder “cannot but have been requested” by Andreotti, it said, although it stressed that no witnesses or Mafia turncoats had provided testimony saying the order was a “direct” one.
“Andreotti is an extremely cautious person, who has always tried to avoid direct exposure, to the extent that in cases much less serious than murder, he always made use of intermediaries to let his wishes be known,” the sentence said.
Right-wing investigative reporter Carmine (Mino) Pecorelli, 51, was shot in the head and back four times as he left his Rome office on March 20, 1979.
He was the editor of a weekly called Osservatore Politico (OP) and, thanks in part to close contacts with the Italian secret services, frequently exposed sleaze and graft cases in Italian politics.
He had been planning to publish damaging revelations about Andreotti when he was killed. The ‘scoop’ allegedly concerned shady goings-on connected to the 1978 kidnapping of Christian Democrat (DC) leader Aldo Moro, the collapse of the Sir oil company, and the fall from grace of the Mafia-linked financier Andreotti once hailed as “the saviour of the lira”, Michele Sindona.
On the night of his death, he had just been forced to withdraw an edition of OP which showed Andreotti on the cover and alleged that the statesman had received kickbacks from a massive tax milking scandal in the 1970s.
At the end of the first trial into the murder case, Andreotti, a former giant of Italy’s now defunct DC party, was acquitted of all charges of involvement, along with Mafia boss Gaetano Badalamenti, who is serving a 20-year sentence in the US for drugs offences.
The Perugia court overturned these verdicts, finding Andreotti and Badalamenti guilty of commissioning the murder.
But it upheld the not-guilty verdicts against the alleged killers, a Mafia hitman and a member of Rome’s notorious Magliana Gang; the alleged intermediary, long-time Andreotti associate and former minister Claudio Vitalone; and another Mafia boss, Giuseppe (Pippo) Calo’.
The papers stressed that “the Mafia had no interest in killing Pecorelli.” “If Stefano Bontade (the old-guard Mafia chieftain) and Badalamenti decided to eliminate the journalist… they did so on an explicit request that can be traced back to the defendant Andreotti,” the sentence said.
The Perugia appeals court convicted Andreotti and Badalamenti on the testimony of the first big Cosa Nostra informant, the late Tommaso Buscetta, who only cited Andreotti after the mob slayings of crusading magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
During Andreotti’s first, 1996-1999 trial, Buscetta testified that Badalamenti told him Pecorelli had been killed by the Mafia as a favour to Andreotti.
Buscetta also claimed Andreotti met the Mafia boss and told him “we need men like you at every street corner in Italy.” Andreotti, who was universally praised for the quiet dignity with which he followed due process and resisted the temptation to rail against prosecutors, claimed the allegations were part of a plot, perhaps inspired by foreign secret services, to take revenge on the old political system and against those who were in fact most energetic in fighting the Mafia.
The conviction spurred outrage on the Right and unease even among Andreotti’s old sparring partners on the Left.
The most horrified reactions came from within the ranks of the governing centre-right coalition led by Premier Silvio Berlusconi, especially among centrist politicians who are the DC’s heirs.
Berlusconi described Andreotti as the victim of a “judicial system gone crazy” and said the judiciary needed to be taken apart and “reconstructed.” The sentence also spurred controversy because the alleged killers and suspected intermediary Vitalone saw their acquittals upheld, sparking press headlines such as “A Crime Without Killers,” “Absurd Verdict” and “Crazy Justice.” Pecorelli’s sister, Rosita, expressed indignation over the reactions to the verdict. “A bit of surprise was only to be expected after the sentence, but not that everyone would start closing ranks around the guy,” she said.
The late 2002 conviction did not, however, have the expected impact on Andreotti’s second appeals trial in Palermo for complicity with the Mafia, where he faced a ten-year sentence if the court overturned his previous acquittal.
Instead, in May 2003, the acquittal was upheld.
At that trial, he frankly admitted links to several controversial Sicilian DC players including his reputed lieutenant Lima, gunned down in 1992, but consistently denied informants’ allegations that he knew the Salvo cousins, a pair of Mafia-linked power brokers, or, in the most outrageous claim of all, that he exchanged a ritual kiss of honour with Boss of Bosses Riina.
There was a sting in the tail, however. In July, in explaining its verdict, the judges said Andreotti was “friendly” with the Mafia at least until 1980 but could no longer be prosecuted because of the intervening lapse of time.
This, in turn, appeared to cut no ice with the Supreme Court which in October 2003 demolished the Pecorelli prosecution case, stressing it was based on hearsay and speculation, and saying nothing could tie Andreotti to Pecorelli through the mysterious ‘Moro papers’.
But the top court went the other way a year later, upholding the acquittal but also the 1980 watershed.
But in any case, there was never any chance that Andreotti would find himself behind bars because of his age and because, as a life Senator, he had immunity from arrest.
If anything, the old stager seemed to enjoy his chance to return to the spotlight and deliver a few more dead-pan gags.
Asked what he thought about the unusually long sentence for the Pecorelli murder, he said he it was a “good omen” for long life.
And after his slate was wiped (virtually) clean on October 30, 2003, the elder statesman quipped: “Hats off to the court. I don’t know much about the law. My 1941 degree’s a bit musty. But I have one word for the first appeals sentence: horrendous.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
European Commission to Criminalize Nearly All Seeds and Plants Not Registered With Government
A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”
It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.
The draft text of the law, which has already been amended several times due to a huge backlash from gardeners, is viewable here.
“This law will immediately stop the professional development of vegetable varieties for home gardeners, organic growers, and small-scale market farmers,” said Ben Gabel, vegetable breeder and director of The Real Seed Catalogue. “Home gardeners have really different needs — for example they grow by hand, not machine, and can’t or don’t want to use such powerful chemical sprays. There’s no way to register the varieties suitable for home use as they don’t meet the strict criteria of the Plant Variety Agency, which is only concerned about approving the sort of seed used by industrial farmers.”…
“This is an instance of bureaucracy out of control,” says Ben Gabel. “All this new law does is create a whole new raft of EU civil servants being paid to move mountains of papers round all day, while killing off the seed supply to home gardeners and interfering with the right of farmers to grow what they want. It also very worrying that they have given themselves the power to regulate and licence any plant species of any sort at all in the future — not just agricultural plants, but grasses, mosses, flowers, anything at all — without having to bring it back to the Council for a vote.”
As a hint of the level of insane bureaucracy that gardeners and vegetable growers will be subject to under this EU law, check out this language from the proposed EU law:
[…]
RealSeeds.co.uk warns about any attempt to actually try to understand the law by reading it:
You cannot just read the first 5 pages or so that are an ‘executive summary’, and think you know what this law is about. The executive summary is NOT what will become the law. It is the actual Articles themselves that become law, the Summary has no legal standing and is just tacked on as an aid to the public and legislators, it is supposed to give background information and set the proposed legislation in context so people know what is going on and why.
The problem with this law has always been that the Summary says lots of nice fluffy things about preserving biodiversity, simplifying legislation, making things easier etc — things we all would love — but the Articles of the law actually do completely the opposite. And the Summary is not what becomes the law…
Nearly all varieties of heirloom vegetable seeds will be criminalized under this proposed EU law. This means the act of saving seeds from one generation to the next — a cornerstone of sustainable living — will become a criminal act.
[Comment: So, the summary says one thing and the actual law says another. It’s like watching an episode of “Yes,Minister”, but with a horrifying tyranical twist. This is another rung on the “control the people” ladder. Control the food and you control the people. In the future should EU citizen-comrades expect SWAT style raids for growing tomoatoes?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Italian PM Giulio Andreotti Dies
Prominent political figure of post-war Italy
“What do I want inscribed on my tomb? My birth date and date of death. Period. All the words written on tombs are the same. When you read one you think: well, if they are all good, where is the cemetery for the bad guys?” This is what Giulio Andreotti answered some time ago, when asked how he wished to be remembered. He is ironic, cynical and Machiavellian and likes to keep a low profile. However he is also a Statesman. The man with the secrets and mysteries belonging to the First Republic. “Belzebù” (the devil) with his famous kiss to Totò Riina, Moro’s kidnapping, just to mention a few.
When you speak about Giulio Andreotti, you are speaking about Italy. This is a man who has gone through two world wars, seven Popes, Monarchy, Fascism, the First and Second Republic as well as six trials for Mafia. It means tracing the profile of who has made the history (and mysteries) of our country. As he did this he was apparently detached and disenchanted, hiding a cynical determination, made even “lighter” with the “banter” which Andreotti had elevated to an art. “Power wears out those who do not have it”. “If you think evil, it is a sin but you may often be right”. “It is better to survive than to kick the bucket”. Knowing that for him “surviving” was much more than being swept away by events. If anything he directed events discreetly, even better if behind the scenes.
It is not easy to tell the story about one of the founding fathers of the Constitution, seven times Prime Minister, eight times Minister of the Defence, five times Foreign Minister, Minister of Finance and the Treasury, Minister of the Interior. Andreotti signed the Maastricht Treaty; he signed the law which made abortion legal and the nationalization of Totocalcio (football pools). He had a say in the decision which made Mameli’s Hymn the Italian national anthem.
So we can start by saying that Giulio Andreotti was born in Rome on January 14, 1919. The same year in which Fascism and Don Sturzo’s PPI began. “I am the only one still here, out of the three” he said with irony not too long ago. He was immediately interested in politics. He met De Gasperi and became his secretary. Indro Montanelli made a statement which photographs their relationship: “When they went to church together, De Gasperi would speak to God, Andreotti would speak to the priest”. At the age of 28 he was already Undersecretary of the Prime Ministry. It was the start of a series of offices that he will end up covering in all the governments of the First Republic.
From 1947 to 1953 he was Undersecretary to the Prime Ministry, in 1948 he was elected secretary of the DC (Christian Democrat party). For the first time in a long series, in 1954 he became Minister of the Interior. In the subsequent years, he changed office: first he was Minister of Finance, then of the Treasury, Minister of the Defence and of the Industry. He created the strategy of the two ovens which had the DC in the centre and which, from time to time, would have had to deal with the most convenient “baker” between the right and left wings.
In 1972 he became Prime Minister. For a very short time and after only 9 days, the government fell. However, after six years Andreotti was once again at Palazzo Chigi leading a one-party DC government with the abstaining Communists. We are talking about the time in which the historic compromise was taking place in Italy during the economic crisis and terrorism. But the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Aldo Moro suddenly changed the situation. It was the end of national solidarity.
Then the foreign policy phase began, one of the other great territories in which he acted. He was in office at the Farnesina from 1983 to 1989: from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, the work carried out by the Ministry was considered precious. These are the years in which Bettino Craxi ruled and with whom Andreotti had a very close relationship that was also marked by various contrasts. Andreotti’s ironic remark on the expedition sent to China by the socialist coalition is memorable: “They are leaving with Craxi and his closest ties…”. This is when the CAF (the Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani axis) was created which the then Christian Democrat secretary, Ciriaco de Mita paid the consequences for.
Tangentopoli (the corrupt Italian political system that came to an end in the early 1990’s) was fast approaching. In 1991 Andreotti formed a new government but by then it was time for the judicial trials to begin. In the mid 1990’s he was tried by two prosecutor’s offices: the one in Perugia and the one in Palermo. The magistrates in Perugia accused him of being the person behind the murder of the journalist Mino Pecorelli, editor in chief of the OP (Osservatore Politico), murdered on March 20, 1979. The Sicilians accused him of being in cahoots with the Mafia. But they never spoke about a conspiracy. He faced a long trial and never missed a hearing…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Andreotti: The Political Animal
‘Power grinds down those who don’t have it’, he quipped
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — In power for 40 sometimes rocky years until Bribesville scotched his seemingly unstoppable rise to the presidency, seven-time Christian Democrat (DC) premier Giulio Andreotti was the consummate political animal. Nothing if not smart, he made a virtue of pragmatism — though opponents said it bordered on cynicism.
Some said his ready, sometimes sardonic wit concealed a world-weariness that enabled him to take the toughest decisions with cold dispassion.
Critics even went as far as to claim his evident religious faith gave him the strength to dip into the murkiest waters of political life.
It clearly sustained him during his long trials for helping the Mafia and ordering the murder of a bothersome scandal-mongerer — charges which few Italians believed and which the courts eventually rejected, apart from an embarrassing coda.
His aura of omniscience, that sly, lopsided grin, his hunched but seemingly indestructible frame, and his lightning ripostes all contributed to the Andreotti legend, making him a symbol of Italy during the postwar boom.
They helped forge a survivor whose nickname was “Belzebu” (the Devil himself) and whose political longevity outstripped any other international stayers.
Born in Rome in January 1919, Andreotti rose through the DC ranks after a law degree in 1941, under the wing of historic postwar leader Alcide De Gasperi.
His precocious academic career was detailed in every glowing TV documentary.
One of the youngest members of the postwar Constitutional assemblies, he marked himself out as a rising star and was to become a multiple minister: premier seven times, defence eight, foreign affairs five, finance and budget twice, and interior once.
His tenure of such a wide variety of offices must give him at least some credit for the government-prodded growth that turned Italy from a laggard economy into one of the world’s biggest economic players.
The holder of countless records, including that of the shortest government (nine days in 1972), he found time to write a dozen books, mostly on 19th century Rome and pick up 12 honorary degrees from around the world.
Andreotti’s flexible Roman common sense and realism, something he proudly ascribed to his roots in the seen-it-all caput mundi, made it easy for him to take a lead role in coalitions of the most varied hues: from the rightish ‘bicolour’ alliance with the Liberals in 1972 to the late-70s left-leaning ‘national solidarity’ governments and on to a series of four-party and five-party line-ups.
Even when he wasn’t fronting things himself, most notably in the mid’80s with the long hiatus of the strong-willed Socialist (PSI) premier Bettino Craxi, he was always pulling most of the strings behind the scenes.
His acknowledged realpolitik, which extended to foreign affairs, was famously summed up in a 1951 quip resurrected whenever he was involved in some controversy: “Power grinds down those who don’t have it.” This clear-sighted or cynical philosophy enabled him to make deals with people with whom he had clashed or who had set out to loosen his grip on power — like Craxi for instance.
The two locked horns most publicly over the kidnapping and murder of Christian Democrat chairman Aldo Moro in 1978, when Craxi disagreed with Andreotti’s firmness, supported by the Communists (PCI), in not negotiating with the Red Brigades.
But it was also known that Craxi, a rising Socialist star determined to turn his party into a progressive force capable of replacing the PCI as top dog on the Left, was unhappy with Andreotti’s deals with the Communists and the left wing of the DC.
The burly, intimidating Craxi branded Andreotti “a fox,” adding: “Sooner or later every fox ends up in the fur shop.” Mistrust between the two was further fuelled on two occasions.
The first was in the late ‘70s when Andreotti invented his typically canny formula of “the two-ovens policy”: getting ‘bread’ from the Socialists and the Communists alternately, so as to avoid paying too high a political price to Craxi.
The second was in 1982, when Andreotti put all his considerable weight behind nominal reformist Ciriaco De Mita as new DC secretary in the full knowledge that it would further strain relations with the PSI.
But the following year Andreotti turned another of his somersaults and managed to land the job of foreign minister in Craxi’s executive, the first Socialist-led government in Italian postwar history.
The Andreotti faction in the DC’s broad church was always small numerically, despite a large and controversial power base in Sicily, but punched way above its weight in terms of strategy and pointing bigger groups in the direction its leader wanted.
After settling in the belly of what pundits dubbed the ‘White Whale’ in the ‘60s, Andreotti flirted with its liberal left wing in the early 70s before embracing De Mita in the ‘80s as pressure for reform grew. Moving back to the centre, he dropped De Mita and became premier for the last time in 1989.
Amidst the maneuvering, he notched up ministerial accomplishments. As defence minister he will be remembered for ordering the shredding of papers on a military secret service scandal in the ‘70s and overseeing the subsequent reform of the intelligence services.
In the early ‘90s, in what some saw as a tactical move aimed at distracting attention from the burgeoning Bribesville probes, he revealed the existence of NATO’s ‘Gladio’ Stay Behind network, seen by the Right as a secret patriotic brotherhood against Communist invasion but by the Left as a shady web implicated in efforts to keep domestic Communists at bay.
His record in his various stints as foreign minister showed a flexibility of mind, elasticity of principle and focus on national interest that would have done Henry Kissinger proud.
He was the architect of Italy’s pro-Arab policy and its efforts to solve the Mideast crisis — as well as a prime player in the resolution of the Iran-Iraq war — but also a staunch supporter of Italy’s allegiance to NATO.
In true Andreotti fashion, this didn’t get in the way of his policy of detente with the eastern bloc, even when the US was branding it an Evil Empire.
But he was perhaps the first to grasp Italy’s potential as a pivotal player between the blocs — despite its acknowledged limited sovereignty inside the US umbrella. In his latter years, before his less prudent southern Italian contacts came back to haunt him, admirers held up Andreotti as an ‘eminence grise’ of the DC.
Detractors — and he had plenty of them even before his judicial woes opened a Pandora’s Box — saw him instead as the grand puppet master, the man who knew where all the bodies were buried.
But it was really only those outside politics who pointed the finger.
Italy is a country whose lawmakers are sometimes seen as coming in two basic models: the idealistic, impassioned radical and the avuncular conservative with a brain like Richelieu and the apparent meekness of a country priest.
Andreotti was closer to the second type — but he managed to get along famously with the first.
He was adept at making friends even with those who should have been implacable ideological enemies, such as the charismatic Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer.
Much later, a common interest in home-town soccer club Roma helped him overcome the diffidence of another calculating customer, Berlinguer’s successor Massimo D’Alema, the first ex-Communist to lead Italy.
Even a gut leftwing supporter like the comic Roberto Benigni paid tribute to the status of Andreotti as some sort of national icon when, in 1979, he erected a statue to the veteran statesman, who’d been out of the premier’s office for four years then — an eternity for him.
“I felt sorry for him so I decided to commemorate him,” Benigni said, little knowing that Andreotti would be around for many years to come.
But the unemotional Roman was pleased with the satirical gesture by the madcap Tuscan.
Years later he was still telling dignitaries: “I’m the only premier who’s had his own statue put up while he’s still alive, you know.” As for the mounting mutterings against him, people might have called former British Prime Minister Tony Blair ‘Teflon Tony’ because no charge ever seemed to attach itself to him, but some similar term — “Anti-Stick Andreotti”, perhaps — should have been coined for the wily Italian.
Somehow, Andreotti always seemed to turn accusations against the accuser — even in a Bank of Italy bankruptcy-oversight affair where some suspected him of trumping up a case against senior executives so that a shady Sicilian banker, Michele Sindona, could get off the hook.
The Mafia-linked Sindona, whom Andreotti once called “the saviour of the lira,” died of a poisoned cup of coffee in jail while serving life for the murder of a brave insolvency investigator.
But it was Andreotti’s alleged links to other Mob-tainted Sicilian politicians and his alleged involvement in the 1979 murder of a muckraking journalist, Mino Pecorelli, which landed him in court.
According to Mafia informants, Pecorelli was about to spill the beans about something Moro told the Red Brigades a year before.
Unflappable as ever, and unlike some other, more recent politicians, Andreotti underwent his judicial travails in both cases with monkish discipline, sheafs of documents under his arm and wry one-liners ready for the press.
Only on one occasion did the then-80-year-old Andreotti betray some bitterness against his tormentors, after winning a 1999 acquittal in the Pecorelli case — overturned three years later with a 24-year sentence that sent Italy into a tail-spin.
“Who’s going to give me back these years?” he said, referring to a case that had already dragged on for half a decade.
“What if I’d died before,” he added dryly, remarking that relatives wouldn’t have been able to show off souvenir photos with global movers and shakers including Kennedy, Reagan, Adenauer, Kohl, Pope John Paul II and Moro, his old friend and rival.
The murder conviction had been quashed for “lack of evidence and motive” when Andreotti died, with the old stager having trooped gamely in for years to refute the turncoats. As for the wider Mafia charges, a 2000 acquittal was upheld to mostly widespread relief and jubilation three years later — though some nit-picking leftists noted the judges appeared to have accepted he had cozy ties to mobbed-up figures.
As ex-Lower House Speaker Luciano Violante of the Democratic Left said: “It’s much harder to prove criminal complicity than to show evidence of political complicity.” Throughout the judicial reversals and victories, Andreotti’s deadpan style and bloodless reactions served him well. But on the day of his Pecorelli acquittal in 1999, Andreotti showed the first chink in his armour of faith and irony. He clearly showed he believed he’d already served his term. Even in that moment of temporary victory, however, Andreotti kept his cool, as he had done through Italy’s 20 years of leftist and rightist terrorism, and on the terrible day Moro was kidnapped.
On that day, March 16, 1978, his sang froid little stirred by an event that sent shock waves across the West, the old political pro duly presented his “national solidarity” government, the first ever not to be opposed by the Communists.
Some said it was the fox’s finest hour.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Campania Waste-Trafficking Racket Busted, 32 Arrested
Anti-mafia department probe into textiles, clothes
(ANSA) — Naples, May 6 — Thirty-two arrests were made at dawn on Monday in relation to a probe into illegal waste-trafficking in the southern Italian region of Campania.
The probe by the local anti-mafia department concerned the trade in discarded textiles and clothing. The clothing was sold in a street market in Resina, a town located south of Naples. Police also seized assets worth more than 10 million euros, including businesses and vehicles.
The paramilitary Carabinieri police of Caserta, a city north of Naples, carried out the arrests.
Defendants face charges of racketeering related to waste trafficking.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Remembers Andreotti, ‘Victim of Leftist Attacks’
Seven-time premier ‘overcame ordeal with dignity’
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Former premier Silvio Berlusconi remembered seven-time premier Giulio Andreotti who died Monday, calling him “a man of government who made Italian history” and a victim of “an unjust battle” waged by the Italian left. “The left carried out a battle against him unworthy of civil society, based on demonizing the adversary and judicial persecution — an ordeal that Andreotti overcame with dignity and composure,” said the center-right leader.
Berlusconi, who has long blamed allegedly leftist magistrates for his ongoing legal troubles, was among the most vocally outraged when Andreotti was given a 24-year jail term in 2002 for conspiracy to murder a muckraking journalist, Mino Pecorelli, in 1979. At the time Berlusconi described Andreotti as the victim of a “judicial system gone crazy” and said the judiciary needed to be taken apart and “reconstructed”. The State’s highest appeals court in October 2003 overturned the murder verdict.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Just 9% of Swedes Support Euro
Support for the euro has dropped to a record low 9 percent in Sweden, according to an SOM-survey out on Monday. The Swedes have long been critical of moving the EU towards a kind of United States of Europe, but now just 11 percent say it is a good idea.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A ‘sexsomniac’ has been cleared of raping a 21-year-old after a jury heard he suffers from a sleep disorder that causes him to have sex without knowing about it.
Andrew Machin, 40, admitted the woman did not consent to having sex with him but claimed he was asleep at the time and had no control over his actions.
He is one of the first men in the UK to be acquitted of a rape charge after raising the defence of sexsomnia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Islamist Extremists Prime Suspects in Sinai Alcohol Vendor’s Murder
Cairo, 6 May (AKI) — Islamist militants are believed to have shot dead a man selling alcohol in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, local security sources were quoted as saying on Monday.
The man, named as 28-year-old Rami Ahmed, who ran a bar in the centre of El-Arish in the northern Sinai, died in a hail of bullets fired by four gunmen.
“We are still in the early stages of the investigation but we believe that radical Islamists are behind this incident,” the security sources were cited as saying.
Ahmed came from the Nile Delta area north of the capital, Cairo, a fact that prompted investigators to rule out a dispute between local tribesman as the motive for the killing.
Miliant Islamists have been gaining influence in the Sinai since the February 2011 ousting of Egypt’s longterm president Hosni Mubarak in a popular revolt.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s New Anti-Muslim-Brotherhood Militia
Egypt’s Black Bloc: Safeguard fellow freedom-fighters from their arch-enemies, the foes of democracy: President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas militia.
Egypt’s Black Bloc grew out of their struggle for liberation from an authoritarian system, only after non-violent civil efforts had failed. Ironically, the U.S. Black Bloc and Egypt’s Black Bloc are on opposite sides of the political struggle — one, in the U.S., a friend to the Muslim Brotherhood and doubtless trying to gain prestige through their nominal association with international fighters; the other, in Egypt, an enemy to the Brotherhood, and fighting for democracy and legitimate government.
Clad in black, faceless in black ski masks, the nameless Black Bloc soldiers lock arms to create a human shield in defense of pro-freedom protesters — the Black Bloc’s number-one priority — in the streets and squares of Egypt. Expert in martial arts and ostensibly military-trained, Black Bloc warriors only recently surfaced in Egypt to safeguard fellow freedom-fighters from their arch-enemies, the foes of democracy: President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas militia.
Originating out of a plan to protect women protesters from sexual assault, this huge band of men and women numbering in the thousands (the exact number is not known) form a dedicated and determined corps of combatants divided into local groups of 30-50 individuals in Egypt’s communities. Self-described as “anti-Muslim-Brotherhood,” and generated out of disgust toward years of police and military brutality, the Black Bloc is, for modern Egypt, a completely new phenomenon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libyan Gunmen Demand the Government Resigns
(AGI) — Tripoli, May 6 — Gunmen besieging the foreign and justice ministries in the capital of Tripoli demanded that the government resign. The militias were not satisfied with the approval on Sunday of a law that excludes all former Colonel Gaddafi loyalists still holding public office. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was likely to have to resign along with four other ministers unless the new law was interpreted differently. It would also apply to the president of the National Assembly, Mohamed Magarief. The premier and president were diplomats under the Colonel’s regime that began in September 1969 and ended on Oct. 20 2011 with his death. The two had defected to the opposition and gone into exile in 1980.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Asks Google to Revise Position on Palestine
Deputy foreign minister writes letter to Larry Page
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — Israel has asked Google to reconsider its decision a few weeks ago to stop using the term ‘Palestinian Territories’ in favour of ‘Palestine’, claiming it would have a ‘negative impact’ on efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. In a letter sent by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin to Goggle CEO Larry Page quoted by the media, Elkin said that ‘Google in this way recognizes the existence of a Palestinian state’. ‘I think the decision is not only a mistake but could have a negative impact on my government’s efforts to promote direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority’ .For this reason the deputy foreign minister asked the company to revise its decision given that, as a consequence, it could strengthen the position of Palestinians to try and pursue ‘their political objectives unilaterally rather than through bilateral negotiations and accords’. Elkin also proposed a meeting between an Israeli delegation and Goggle representatives ‘to discuss the issue’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
In Wake of US-Israeli Attack on Syria, UN Reveals Terrorists Not Government Used Sarin Gas
The reasoning behind recent US-Israeli attacks on Syria has been undermined further as the UN reveals Western-backed terrorists, not the Syrian government, deployed sarin gas during the 2 year conflict. Reuters reported in their article, “U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator,” that:
U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria’s civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday.
The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Source: Israeli Airstrike on Syria Coordinated With Al-Qaeda Militants
Israel’s airstrike on Syria was timed to precede an Al-Qaeda-led rebel offensive against President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces according to Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence sources, underscoring once again how jihadists are doing the dirty work of the very powers they claim to oppose.
“Israel’s air strike in Syria today was coordinated with Turkey, which in turn coordinated rebel attacks throughout Syria timed to coincide with the Israeli strike,” sources told WABC host and New York Times bestselling author Aaron Klein.
Although the Syrian rebels were not given advance knowledge of the Israeli attack, they were specifically told when to launch new offensives in order to take advantage of the airstrike, which according to reports killed at least 100 Syrian Army troops.
“Almost the moment the Israel Air Force departed was the moment the rebel advance began,” the Egyptian intelligence source told Klein.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Israeli Raid: Analyst, ‘Hezbollah Won’t Intervene’
Lebanon’s Saad Kiwan,’God’s Party has everything to lose in war’
(by Lorenzo Trombetta) (ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, MAY 6 — Tension in the Middle East is high after reports of a new Israeli air raid in Syria but Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, an ally of Iran and of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, doesn’t have either the interest or political and military prowess to open a new battle front in the south against Israel while supporting Damascus in the Homs region, according to Lebanese analyst and editorialist Saad Kiwan. Kiwan, an expert of Lebanon and of the anti-Israeli Shiite movement, told ANSA in an interview that ‘in the past few years Hezbollah showed significant political flexibility and that it was able to build a network of interests in Lebanon and in the region’.
‘In the current regional context, with the war in Syria, an open war with Israel would only damage the Party of God’, said the analyst. ‘On a regional level, a potential direct intervention of Hezbollah, would end up dragging into war Iran, its main sponsor’, noted the Beirut-based editorialist. ‘Because if Hezbollah attacks Israel, the latter is going to respond. And if it does, what will Iran do? After calling today for a common front against the Israeli enemy it could not sit still…but Iran has no interest in starting a war’.
On a strictly military and local point of view, Kiwan said, ‘Hezbollah would find itself at war on two fronts’. The Shiite movement has for months now been openly fighting alongside Assad’s militias in the Homs area to guarantee the regime’s control of Syria’s third city which could become part of the coastal region, a stronghold of Assad supporters which could then be connected to Lebanon’s Bekaa region, a stronghold of Hezbollah.
‘Bekaa is just two steps from the Syrian conflict while in 2006 it was the stronghold of Hezbollah’s resistance also because Syria was behind for support and protected the Lebanese militants’, noted the analyst. ‘Today Hezbollah would need to fight Israel in the south and Syrian rebels north-east’, who are supported on various levels by Gulf countries opposing Iran’s influence in the region. ‘It would be surrounded without having the strategic depth’ to respond.
On a domestic political level moreover ‘the Party of God is confronted for the first time in years with declining grassroots support due, among other things, to the fact that every day its ‘martyrs’ die in a war — Syria’s — which not many see as legitimate and instrumental in fighting Israel’, added Kiwan.
‘Moreover, in the 2006 war against the Jewish state, most of Lebanon sided with Hezbollah against the invasion of the enemy: from the help provided to refugees in southern Lebanon to the political issues involved. This time, where would people in the south flee? Syria (which in 2006 hosted many Lebanese nationals) is at war while Lebanon is instead facing an emergency because of the number of Syrian refugees’ in its territory.
The pro-Hezbollah government in Beirut resigned a few weeks ago and talks are ongoing to form a new cabinet. Premier designate Tammam Salam has already hinted he will not be following the political line of his predecessor Najib Miqati, who was close to Syria and Hezbollah’s ministers. ‘In Lebanon, Assad’s crisis is inevitably changing political balances and damaging the alliance dominated by Hezbollah’, said Kiwan. ‘The Party of God understands all this and cannot risk to lose at home. Hezbollah can only lose by responding to the air raids in Syria by taking action against Israel’.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey and Israel to Discuss Flotilla Compensation
(AGI) Ankara, May 5 — Israeli and Turkish delegations will meet on Monday for a second round of talks about compensation for Israel’s raid on the flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza, which led to eleven deaths in 2010. The meeting will take place in Israel, after that of Apr. 22 in Ankara, a diplomatic source explained. This will be the first visit to Israel by Turkish government officials for three years. The incident led to a sharp worsening of relations between the two countries, which began to return to normal after an apology from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit at the end of March.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
What Would War Between Israel and Syria Do to the Already Fragile Global Economy?
War is a horrible thing. Just ask anyone that has ever been in the middle of it. And in this day and age governments around the world possess weapons of such incalculable power that war should be unthinkable. In future wars, we could literally see millions of people killed on a single day. Nobody should want that or look forward to that.
Unfortunately, the next major regional war in the Middle East appears to be closer than ever. But nobody should want it to actually happen. During the next major regional war in the Middle East we will likely see death on a scale that is unprecedented. It won’t be like the wars of 1967 or 1973. It will likely be a fight to the death where nothing is held back. You see, the truth is that most Americans have no idea what is really going on in the Middle East. There are ancient grudges and ancient hatreds that go back for thousands of years. There is no “peace plan” that is going to suddenly make everything okay. The Middle East is a simmering volcano of hate and resentment that could erupt at any moment. That is why what is happening in Syria right now is so important. An Israeli airstrike in Damascus that reportedly was attempting to destroy a shipment of Fateh-110 missiles that Iran was sending to Hezbollah has brought Israel and Syria to the brink of war. In fact, Syria is calling the airstrike a “declaration of war” and is vowing retaliation.
The Syrian government is saying that “Israeli aggression opens the door to all possibilities”, but they have not provided any specifics about what they plan to do. Meanwhile, Israel has made it very clear that they will do whatever is necessary to keep Fateh-110 missiles from getting into the hands of Hezbollah.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Clashes Between Police and Islamic Fundamentalists: 22 Dead and Hundreds Injured
Thousands of Hefajat-e-Islam supporters blocked and isolated the capital, attacking police with machetes, bricks and stones. The police responded with tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and rubber bullets.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — At least 22 people were killed in Bangladesh in clashes between police and hundreds of thousands of Islamists. Since late yesterday afternoon until this morning, supporters of the fundamentalist group Hefajat-e-Islam marched through the streets of Dhaka, the capital, demanding the introduction of a law against blasphemy. On arriving in the city center they engaged in a real urban warfare with the police: the Islamic extremists attacked with machetes, bricks and stones at police who responded by firing tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.
So far, 11 bodies have been brought to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. They include many Islamic militants and a policeman, wounded in the head with a machete. The other 11 victims were transferred to three clinics close to the epicenter of the clashes.
It all started yesterday afternoon, as tens of thousands of Islamists blocked the main streets of Dhaka, isolating the city from the rest of the country. Then they marched to the center of the capital, demanding the introduction of a law on blasphemy and burning cars and shops were on their way.
Hefajat-e-Islam (“Protector of Islam”) is one of Islamic fundamentalist groups that has sprung up like mushrooms in recent months and born within the numerous madrassas (Koranic schools) dispersed throughout Bangladesh. Supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Party) and its struggle against the verdicts of the war tribunals, since February these Islamists are the protagonists of hartal (strikes) and violence, which have fostered a climate of tension among the population an nation that shows no sign of abating amid general government indifference.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: West Java: Hundreds of Extremists Attack Ahmadi Homes and a Mosque
Yesterday at dawn, a mob wielding sticks, stones and other makeshift weapons attacked the Muslim minority. Police and army are now patrolling the area for fear of further violence. Ahmadis had just concluded a prayer meeting, reading passages from the Qur’an. Sectarian tensions remain high in the province.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Hundreds of people armed with sticks, stones and other makeshift weapons attacked a mosque and a group of houses belonging to the Ahmadi minority, causing serious damage to buildings. The raid occurred early Sunday morning in Tenjowaringing, Salawu Sub-District, Tasikmalaysa Regency, in the Indonesian province of West Java, confirming once more that the area is still one of the most violent and intolerant parts of the country, as evidenced by research conducted last year.
The blitz against the Muslim minority, deemed heretical for not recognising Muhammad as the last prophet and thus often the victim of persecution and abuse by orthodox Sunnis, occurred in the village of Tenjowaringing, about 80 km from the provincial capital of Bandung, at the end of a prayer meeting organised by the local Ahmadi community that included readings from the Qur’an.
Before the attack, unidentified groups of people had issued threats and warnings against Ahmadis, telling them not to conduct their activity. When that was not heeded, a mob of hundreds of people launched an attack yesterday at dawn, when religious services were already over, against the Ahmadi mosque and private homes.
Early reports indicate that no one was injured, but tensions remain high. To prevent further incidents, local authorities have deployed army and police.
The presence of the religious minority has been the source of controversy in Indonesia for quite some time.
The climate of hostility in the world’s most populous Muslim nation has worsened after some of the country’s most important Islamic groups, including the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the National Council of Ulema (MUI), accused the Ahmadis of not respecting the original and pure version of the faith.
The Ministry of Religious Affairs added fuel to the fire when it called on the Ahmadi minority to stop its religious services and practices because they were contrary to the doctrine.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Saudis Arrested’ Over Tanzania Church Bombing
Four Saudi Arabian nationals have been arrested in connection with a bomb attack on a Tanzanian church that the country’s president has called “an act of terror”.
The Vatican’s ambassador to Tanzania was at the Roman Catholic church in Arusha, which had just been built and was holding its first mass, when the bomb went off.
He was unharmed, but two people died and 30 were injured in the first significant such raid on Tanzania’s Christian community at worship.
Magesa Mulongo, the Arusha regional commissioner, said on Monday that six people had been arrested, two Tanzanians and four Saudis.
“Investigations are ongoing,” Mr Mulongo told the French news agency AFP in Arusha town, a popular tourist destination for visitors heading to the Serengeti or Ngorongoro wildife areas, or planning to climb Mt Kilimanjaro.
There have been a series of violent incidents between Tanzania’s Christians and Muslims, who make up roughly equal proportions of the population of 48 million people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
White Britons are ‘retreating’ from areas dominated by ethnic minorities, a study has revealed.
Analysis of census figures shows that white Britons are leaving areas where they are in a minority and are being replaced by immigrants and other ethnic minorities.
As a result, nearly half of ethnic minorities — 4?million people — live in communities where whites make up less than half the population, the study by the Demos think-tank found.
Demos said the survey showed a ‘spiral of white British demographic decline’ as white Britons choose to leave minority-dominated areas.
Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the findings should make us ‘a little anxious’, and were ‘not good news for the cause of integration’.
He said: ‘What ought to make us a little anxious is the “majority retreat” it has unearthed — white people leaving minority-led areas and not being replaced.’
In 2005, Mr Phillips warned Britain was ‘sleepwalking into segregation’ as the UK was dividing into ‘ghettos’ of particular races and religions.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, said: ‘This is extremely serious. It is undeniable evidence that we have indeed been sleepwalking into segregation as Trevor Phillips warned, and it is the clear result of Labour’s mass immigration policy.
‘Public dismay at the pace of change in our communities largely explains why so many voted as they did in last week’s local elections. The case for a sharp reduction in immigration is now overwhelming; we cannot possibly integrate new arrivals on anything like the present scale.’
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Integration Minister Sparks Controversy
Kyenge stance on citizenship for immigrants’ kids stirs reposts
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Italy’s Congo-born integration minister Cecile Kyenge stirred controversy on Monday for statements saying she would push for reform granting automatic Italian citizenship to the children of immigrants born in Italy.
Automatic citizenship is rare in Europe, with France providing the exception to the general rule of blood-based citizenship rules.
However, most European countries are less rigid than Italy regarding naturalization, and grant easier paths toward citizenship for the children of immigrants. “In this country, which is porous and transitory for immigrants, I believe automation is to be avoided,” said ex-international cooperation minister Andrea Riccardi on Monday.
Riccardi, who served under Italy’s outgoing technical government led by Mario Monti, explained that he would rather see citizenship granted after the children of immigrants had concluded a cycle of schooling in Italy.
Deputy Senate Speaker, Maurizio Gasparri, also objected, telling Radio IES that the proposed reform would “mean giving rights even to those who are born in Italy but never live there, so those who might return would have rights to things they never paid for through contributions that every Italian citizen makes”. Meanwhile, the governor of Puglia and leader of the Freedom Ecology Left (SEL), Nichi Vendola, likened Italy’s current, blood-based law to fascism.
Being born on Italian soil “is an essential ingredient for defining what should be citizenship,” Vendola said.
“Rights born from the basis of blood or race ties are rights that belong to an opaque climate and culture of fascist derivation,” Vendola declared.
“After a regressive cultural climate of intolerance and xenophobia that we have lived through under years of right-wing government and cultural hegemony, I think that to relaunch from (giving) the right to citizenship to everyone born in Italy is a necessary, indispensable, dutiful, un-postponable reparation,” Vendola said. Moroccan-origin journalist, author and ex-parliamentarian for Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom Party (PDL) Souad Sbai countered, “Someone should explain to Minister Kyenge that citizenship for immigrants’ children, in whatever form it may happen, doesn’t interest anybody”.
Sbai explained that the real issues are “work, housing, health and so many other anxieties for the life of a foreigner in Italy, not to mention to all Italians as well”.
Secretary of the populist Lombard League, Matteo Salvini, said, “To have a minister that arrived here illegally is something that could only happen in Italy. And if we go to other countries, they laugh behind our backs”.
The Wikipedia biography of Kyenge says that she arrived in Italy in 1983 as the recipient of a scholarship to attend medical school in Rome, but due to a mistake had to wait a year in Italy before she could begin her studies, which she then successfully completed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Two foreign rioters jailed for their part in England’s civil unrest two years ago have foiled attempts to deport them by citing their human right to ‘family life’.
The successful appeals by Ubong-Luke Nkanta, of south-east London, and a second man, who has been granted anonymity, defy the Government’s pledge to deport any foreign national convicted over the 2011 disturbances.
Critics say the decisions sharply contradict official efforts to take exemplary action against those involved in the outbreaks of violence in London and elsewhere that summer.
Government anger over the use of Article Eight of the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the right to a family life, has prompted Home Secretary Theresa May to draft new laws to stop foreign criminals avoiding deportation.
Ministers believe judges will be unable to ignore the new legislation, as they appear to have ignored rules introduced last July that they should only allow the use of Article Eight in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Gypsies and Transsexuals Given More Say in Running Bradford Council Services
GYPSIES, transsexuals and eastern Europeans are to be given more say in running council services after a local authority appointed an “equality tsar”.
Bradford Council has been stung by criticism that the ethnically diverse city is being run by mainly white senior managers.
Councillors have now drawn up an “Equality Action Plan” to forge links with the 433 gypsies, as well as the parents of 2,640 eastern European children. Bosses are also forging links with the gay, lesbian, and transsexual community whose interests it also wants to represent.
The West Yorkshire authority refuses to say how much the new tsar will be paid.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
Lava Hints at Earth’s Deep Carbon Cycle
Most of Earth’s carbon clusters deep beneath the surface, in hot mantle rocks that churn below the planet’s thin crust.
“Most people probably don’t recognize that the vast majority of carbon — the backbone of all life — is located in the deep Earth, below the surface — maybe even 90 percent of it,” Elizabeth Cottrell, a geologist at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. Cottrell is lead author of a new study examining how the mantle’s carbon cycle changes the chemistry of lava that forms new ocean crust.
At mid-ocean ridges, the gaping fractures that criss-cross Earth’s ocean floors, lava oozes out directly from the mantle. Studying this lava gives geoscientists clues to what’s going on thousands of miles below the surface.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |