Europe – Page 47 – praag.org

Four out of five Britons do not want Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK

Picture of Romanian gypsies 'setting up cam' on London's Park Lane — Picture of Romanian gypsies ‘setting up camp’ on London’s Park Lane

The London Daily Mail reports that Romania’s prime minister has told Britain not to treat Romanians as ‘second-rate citizens’ when curbs on Romanian and Bulgarian workers are lifted on January 1.

Victor Ponta said last night that research showed no evidence that there would be large numbers of migrants moving from his country to the UK, despite mounting fears.

And he reiterated the claim, made elsewhere, that Romanians were more likely to seek work in southern European states like Italy and Spain, where the language is far more similar to Romanian.

David Cameron this week announced measures to toughen welfare rules for migrants from the European Union amid concern that migrants from Romania and Bulgaria would exploit the benefits system.

He has claimed that one million people from Central and East Europe are living in Britain with migration at a level not seen since wartime.

But, in a statement released last night, Mr Ponta slammed the move. He said people should be punished for abusing the welfare system, but restrictions should not be used to ‘generate or justify abuse or discrimination’.

‘We will not accept being treated as second-rate citizens,’ Mr Ponta said, adding that research showed ‘there is no reason for concern regarding a migrant wave’ from Romania to Britain.

Millions of Romanians had already chosen to work abroad in ‘southern Latin states’, referring to Spain and Italy which have a Latin-based language like Romanian.

He said he hoped Cameron was not trying ‘to attack the fundamental principles of the EU, among which the freedom of movement is one of the most important values’.

Mr Cameron’s benefits proposals were criticised on Wednesday by European employment commissioner Laszlo Andor as an ‘unfortunate over-reaction’.

Warning that Britain risked becoming the ‘nasty country of Europe, he said plans to curb benefits for migrants were were fuelling ‘hysteria’ and accused the PM of distorting the truth about immigration.

‘The point is that the British has not been given all the truth and the full truth about this subject,’ Mr Andor told Radio 4’s Today programme.

Brussels is facing a growing revolt over its no-borders immigration policy, with France and Germany also suggesting they want curbs on EU migrants’ rights.

Mr Cameron, who has been criticised for refusing to give an estimate of how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to Britain next year, has outlined plans to limit the rights of temporary workers to housing benefit, and a 12-month bar on those fund begging and sleeping rough.

The measures were announced shortly after the Daily Mail published the results of a poll which suggests that four in five Britons do not want unrestricted access to the UK for Romanians and Bulgarians. – dailymail.co.uk

French cannibalist ‘heard voices in head’

A former French soldier who served in Afghanistan and admitted to eating a man’s tongue and heart had been “hearing voices in his head”.

Jérémy Rimbaud, 26, who had served alongside British forces fighting the Taliban, has admitted breaking into the 90-year-old’s home in Nouilhan, southwestern France, on November 15, and beating him over the head with an iron rod before extracting part of his organs with a penknife.

Forensic experts later confirmed that cooked meat found on a plate with beans was indeed human, and presumably belonged to Lépold Pédébidau, the dead pensioner.

After he set fire to his victim’s house, the flames alerted the dead man’s son, who lives nearby, who discovered his father’s body, investigators said.

The case has shocked the tiny hamlet in southern France, which is home to just 200 people. The former soldier is accused of attacking another villager in France by hitting him against a tractor.

Rimbaud, has been transferred to a high-security unit for dangerous psychopaths.

He told investigators he had heard voices and “obeyed a message of higher origin” telling him carry out the gruesome act.

The killing took place only ten days after he left the army, in which he had served with at the Marine Infantry Tank Regiment, a light cavalry regiment of the French army and one of its most decorated.

A source at the regiment had said Rimbaud had “posed no problems during his stint” in Afghanistan between December 2010 and June 2011 and where he obtained the grade of corporal.

“The only thing I can tell you is that he never showed any worrying signs,” a superior officer told the Sud Ouest newspaper.

After leaving the army on November 5, his girlfriend told the newspaper that he suddenly started having fits of deliria. Scared of what he might do, she filmed one of these and has handed the footage to investigators.

The American Wavy Yard shooter, Aaron Alexis, who killed 12 people in Washington earlier this year complained about the same affliction. He was shot after het went on a shooting spree.

Alexis appeared to be suffering from “voices in his head”. He had filed a police report in Rhode Island before the shooting, in which he claimed to be the victim of harassment and that he was hearing voices in his head.

According to an FBI official, Alexis was under the belief that he “was being controlled or influenced by extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves”.

“Ultra low frequency attack is what I’ve been subject to for the last 3 months. And to be perfectly honest, that is what has driven me to this.” This message was obtained by federal authorities from Alexis’s thumb drives, phones and computers

Citrus farmers will have to look to BRICS

South African citrus farmers may have to find markets other than the European Union (EU) for their citrus exports. This follows the EU’s decision to ban this season’s citrus crop as a result of fungal black spot.

AgriSA president, Johannes Moller, says the EU’s ban on local citrus is an artificial trade barrier imposed at the request of European farmers fighting for a bigger market share.

South Africa is the biggest citrus exporter to the EU ringing up R13 billion sales a year.

But this year EU inspectors were on the lookout for black spots, fearing that it might spread to Europe’s citrus groves, especially in Spain. Before the South African season ended last month, 36 shipments were turned back and on Thursday a ban was placed on further exports this year.

The European Food Safety Authority is to release a decision next month about future exports. Letsitele farmers say they have exported citrus to Europe for the past 80 years without transmitting black spot.

AgriSA meanwhile says farmers will have to look for new markets regardless of whether the ban is maintained in the New Year. These will include South Africa’s fellow BRICS nations – Brazil, India, China and Russia.

While harmless to humans, citrus black spot causes unsightly lesions on the fruit and leaves, reducing both harvest quality and quantity.

Jihad against Serbs never reported

Indisputable evidence exists about horrific crimes committed against “Srebrenica Serbs” by Western backed Islamic fighters. The facts are still today suppressed or censored by Western governments, and by most of the MSM.

The Islamic fighters, or Bosnian army, reinforced by Mujahedin fighters from Islamic countries, literally wiped out hundreds of Serbian villages in the Srebrenica region. In their path of death and destruction they did not spare even the small Serbian children, women, elderly… not even the Serbian pets! They tortured and murdered over 3,500 Serbs- and mutilated, wounded and imprisoned many more…

Most of these horrific atrocities were committed in 1993, and what makes things worse, they were committed by the heavily armed and numbered Muslim paramilitaries coming from the (“supposedly” demilitarized) UN “safe heaven” of Srebrenica- which was under the control of UN and NATO authorities.

It is needless to say, that Srebrenica “safe heaven” was never demilitarized, and that UN and Western “authorities” just stood by, and did nothing to prevent genocide over Serbian people.

Such intolerable suffering of Serbian Christian population in the hands of Islamic paramilitaries warranted some military (re)action- due to inability or unwillingness of the West and the UN forces to react.

Military action came in July of 1995, when regular army of “Republika Srpska” liberated Srebrenica.

Mob feeds rival to pigs while alive

Mafia mobsters allegedly beat a rival gangster with metal bars and then fed him to pigs while he was still alive, it has emerged from an investigation by the Italian police, reported the Telegraph.

Francesco Raccosta was allegedly fed to the pigs, which are prized for their ability to dispose of most of a human body, as part of a bloody turf war between two clans belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta mafia of Calabria, in the far south of Italy.

Simone Pepe, 24, a rival gangster, was arrested this week for the crime.

He described the killing in chilling terms to a friend in a telephone conversation that was intercepted by police.

“It was satisfying to hear him scream…Mamma mia, how he squealed, but I couldn’t give a s—. Someone said a few bits of him remained at the end of it all, but I couldn’t see anything, for me nothing remained at all. I said, wow, how a pig can eat!”

Pepe is suspected of having carried out at least three other murders.

France adamant about separating state and Islam

Riots over a full-face Islamic veil, a woman losing her unborn baby in another similar confrontation and tensions flaring over a supermarket chain’s ad for the end-of-day feast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, are almost a daily staple for France.

France’s enforcement of its prized secularism is inscribed in law, most recently in a ban on wearing full-face veils in public. The policy instead may be fueling a rising tide of Islamophobia and driving a wedge between some Muslims and the rest of the population.

Yet ardent defenders of secularism, the product of France’s separation of church and state, say the country hasn’t gone far enough, AP reported.

They want to continue the cause of Voltaire helped and Victor Hugo, with a law targeting headscarves in the work place. Political pressure from a resurgent far-right has increased the tension.

A new generation of French Muslims — which at some 5 million, or about eight percent of the population, is the largest in Western Europe — are defending mosques, halal food and Muslim religious dress.

Women who wear Muslim apparel “are no longer safe,” said a 26-year-old mother of three living in Trappes, a town south of Paris known for its large immigrant population.

Women wearing Muslim headscarves, suffered three attacks in Reims and three more in Orleans. Investigations and court cases are underway.

Police clashed last week with crowds protesting the arrest of a man who allegedly attacked an officer after his wife was ticketed for veiling her face in public. Dozens of cars were set afire in two nights of unrest in Trappes and an adjoining town. A 14-year-old boy suffered an eye injury.

Weeks earlier, a man allegedly assaulted a pregnant woman and ripped off her veil— one of two separately accosted in the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. She lost her baby days later, although the link with the incident remains unclear.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls insisted that Islam and the French Republic are compatible and denounced “a rise of violence against the Muslims of France.” At a dinner celebrating the end of Ramadan at the Grand Mosque of Paris, he denounced “those who want to make France a land of conquest.”

People told a veiled woman who is of Algerian origin, “If you’re not happy, leave, go home,” she said. But, she pointed out, she was born in France.

Most French people are Catholic, but church attendance has been in decline for decades and secular ideals run deep. With the growth of France’s Muslim population, lawmakers have increasingly turned to legislation to try to stifle public displays of Islamic faith.

In 2004, a law banned “ostentatious” religious symbols in public schools, a measure clearly directed at Islamic headscarves. It has been enforced without resistance.

A two-year-old law banning burqa-style veils from the streets of France has met with more outcry, even though only some 2,000 Muslim women cover their faces. Most Muslim women in France wear neither, as Islam does not Islam does not require face veils or covered head

A report by the Observatory of Secularism, created in 2013 by President Francois Hollande, revealed that a handful of the 705 women stopped by police for covering their faces in public chalked up more than 10 tickets each – two of them more than 25 – suggesting that some are provoking authorities intentionally.

A local official in Nimes, posted on his Facebook account an ad by the Carrefour supermarket chain publicizing “oriental” dishes for the nightly breaking of the fast during Ramadan with the comment, “Our Republic, is it still secular? Everything is on the way out.” The post was hastily removed after an outcry from Muslims.

While several European countries embrace secular values, France has been at the forefront of enforcing them, with the separation of church and state enshrined in law since 1905.

“Laicite,” is the French word for secularism. Associations throughout France work to uphold it. Far-right groups use it as a mantra, and leftists embrace it as well. There is even a secularism prize.

Hicham Benaissa of the National Center for Scientific Research said today’s secularism “appears to be a sort of (protection) against the religious influence of Islam” when “its spirit is to protect the faiths.”

A pre-school has just fired a woman who refused to remove her headscarf. An appeals court ruling in March calling the firing illegal spurred a demand for laws protecting secularism in private companies that would govern, for instance, dress and schedule requirements for prayer time or religious holidays.

A resulting bill to regulate religion in companies, sponsored by the opposition conservatives, failed.

Another report, released in June by the Observatory, tried to tone down the controversy, suggesting that slights to secularism have been exaggerated and dialogue, not a new law, may solve problems.

Some Muslims believe they are being driven away from the mainstream, leading to the growth of private Muslim schools and propelling Muslims to open their own businesses.

The law and the media “with their constant finger-pointing at Muslims are the reason the French population has become aggressive,” one woman said. Because of her robes, she sells cosmetics from her home. “I myself couldn’t apply for a job in an office.”

‘Free Ukraine, not me,’ Tymoshenko urges EU leaders

Jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko called on EU leaders to drop all demands and sign a historic pact with Ukraine without any preconditions at a summit that opens Thursday.

The EU demanded that Ukraine boost the rule of law and free the jailed former prime minister before the two could sign a landmark political and free trade deal.

But last week President Viktor Yanukovych’s government stunned the West by halting all negotiations on the deal that would have set it on a path to EU membership, saying it wanted better terms.

Yanukovych said he would still travel to the two-day summit in Vilnius to continue negotiations but his government’s shock decision sparked the biggest rallies since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004.

“If Yanukovych takes a positive decision, I passionately ask you to sign the agreement on Friday without any hesitation and conditions including those that are related to my release,” Tymoshenko, 53, said in a message read out by her daughter Yevgenia late Wednesday.

“I thank you for steadfastly defending democracy in Ukraine. But today it’s necessary to release not just separate political prisoners,” said Tymoshenko who on Monday launched a hunger strike in solidarity with pro-European protesters.

“It’s necessary to free Ukraine. That means it’s necessary to sign the agreement if Yanukovych agrees to it.”

“By signing the agreement with him, you would help an entire nation to overcome a civilisational abyss created by erroneous ideologies and agressive empires, you would make another important step towards re-uniting the entire Europe.”

The Ukrainian government’s decision to scrap the EU pact has brought tens of thousands onto the streets since Sunday.

Setting up camp in central Kiev and led by opposition leaders including world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, protesters has staged mass rallies since Sunday.

Yanukovych has called for calm after the protests turned violent, with riot police firing tear gas and protesters hurling traffic cones and rocks at the security forces.

Yanukovych stressed he would wait for better EU terms including financial aid before considering signing the deal. He said the bloc offered insufficient compensation for the damages Ukraine would suffer by rupturing ties with historic master Russia.

The EU said it was still ready to talk about the deal but the ball was in Ukraine’s court.

“Our offer stays on the table,” said the EU’s Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele.

The debate over Ukraine’s future has turned into a heated diplomatic tussle between the EU and the Kremlin.

Russia wants its smaller neighbour to join a Moscow-led Customs Union which already includes the ex-Soviet states of Belarus and Kazakhstan. Moscow has repeatedly threatened Ukraine, which heavily depends on Russian natural gas, with economic retaliation if it signed the EU pact.

Top EU officials have said they “strongly disapprove” of Russian pressure on Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by advising “our friends in Brussels, my personal good friends in the European Commission, to hold back on the sharp words”.

Kiev’s move to scrap the deal with the EU came after parliament failed to adopt legislation that would have freed Tymoshenko.

Shortly after she lost to Yanukovych in a 2010 presidential election, she was sentenced to seven years on abuse of power charges that the West sees as politically motivated.

Ukrainian opposition leaders Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleg Tyagnybok are also expected at the Vilnius summit. – AFP

Paedophile rock singer pleads guilty to baby rape

A “determined and committed” British paedophile, the rock singer Ian Watkins pleaded guilty on Tuesday to the attempted rape of a baby, along with a number of other sex offences.

The 36-year-old, who had previously denied the allegations, made a series of admissions in a last-minute change of plea ahead of what would have been his trial at Cardiff Crown Court.

Other offences included making child pornography.

The prosecution described Watkins as a “determined and committed paedophile”.

Watkins was originally charged with rape, according to the Telegraph on Tuesday, but at the time he “insisted sex with the child did not take place during a drug-fuelled binge he says he was on at the time”.

The report details how “prosecuting QC Chris Clee gave details of a plot to turn babies into subservient sex slaves using hard drugs”.

Clee shared the court a series of text and online messages “between Watkins and two female co-defendants”.

According to the Telegraph, Watkins and Woman A “spoke of plans to blow crystal-meth smoke into the child’s face at a secret meet up in a Cardiff hotel”.

“And on March 23,” said the report, “Watkins sent the woman a message saying he wanted a ‘summer of filthy child porn’ and how he wanted to take things ‘to the next level’.

“Mr Clee also gave details of a sickening 17-minute video involving Watkins and Woman A. Mr Clee said camcorder footage was shot in a London hotel room, which showed Watkins perform a sex act on the child.”

Sentencing will take place on December 18.

Watkins’s top-selling band the Lostprophets burst onto the music scene in 2000, enjoying substantial success, but has since split up. – Sapa-DPA

English school threatens to permanently label white children as racists unless they ‘learn about cultures’

The headmistress at a primary school in a small town in England tried to order parents to send their children to a Nov. 27 workshop focused on Islam or else have the kids permanently labeled as racists for the rest of their academic careers.

On Wednesday, parents of children aged 8 to 11 received the stark warning in the form of a letter from Lynn Small, the headmistress at Littleton Green Community School in Huntington, Staffordshire — just over 20 miles from Birmingham.

The letter describes the field trip as part of a “statutory requirement” for kids “to learn about different cultures.”

“The workshop is at Staffordshire University and will give your child the opportunity to explore other religions,” Small pedantically explains. “Children will be looking at religious artefacts, similar to those that would be on display in a museum. They will not be partaking in any religious practices.”

Small then lays down the hammer for any parents who might be reticent about exposing their own kids to “other religions.”

“Refusal to allow your child to attend this trip will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child’s education record, which will remain on this file throughout their career.”

The headmistress also promises to investigate any absences closely “for their credibility.” She warns that anyone who skips the field trip had better produce a doctors’ note if they don’t want their kids tarred as racists for the next decade or so.

On top of all that, parents must pony up £5 (about $8) per kid for the Explore Islam trip.

The Daily Mail reports that parents in the Littleton Green Community School community aren’t very happy about Small’s attempts at intimidation.

“How dare they threaten to brand the children racist at such a young age?” asked Gillian Claridge indignantly. “It’s going to make them feel like little criminals.”

Stacy Waldron, the mother of an eight-year-old girl at the school, noted that her daughter would have nothing to do with any decision about going on the field trip.

“This is my choice, not hers,” Waldron told the Mail.

Local Parliament member Gavin Williamson agreed, calling the threat “bonkers.”

“The idea of attaching a ‘racial discrimination note’ to children’s education records saying it will remain on their file for the duration for their school career seems unfair, particularly when it is not the child’s decision whether or not he or she attends,” the MP told the Mail.

The story does end reasonably well. After the intense responses from parents, local government officials intervened and forced Small to apologize for her threatening letter. She has since written a second letter to parents kindly asking them to “disregard” the first missive, notes the Mail. – Daily Caller

Is France racist? Monkeys, bananas and a black minister

“Is France Racist?” That was the recent headline in a leading French newspaper, after a far-right magazine compared the country’s black justice minister to a monkey. The incident has triggered self-reflection in France, where the far-right National Front party is ahead is some polls, and figures show a 23-percent rise in reported racist incidents last year.

The front cover of the far-right magazine Minute earlier this month depicted Justice Minister Christiane Taubira with a caption that read: “Clever as a monkey, Taubira gets her banana back” – a play on the French slang for smile.

A Paris court has opened an inquiry into the publication.

Deputy Education Minister George Pau-Langevin described it as an attack on French values. She said she thinks all French people care about the republic because it was built on the rejection of discrimination and racism, and on the equality of all people. That’s why everything that goes against those fundamental principles of the republic harms the republic itself.

Christiane Taubira – who is from French Guiana, an overseas department of France – has been subjected to a series of racial slurs, including being compared to a chimpanzee by a candidate for the right-wing National Front. Taubira said she fears a threat to France’s social cohesion.

There has been a recent change of tone in public debate, said Rainbow Murray, an expert in right-wing French politics at Queen Mary University of London. “There’s always been an underlying racism in France shown by the difficulty in ethnic minority people finding employment. But there’s been perhaps more willingness to express that racism openly in recent months.”

Some observers trace France’s current racial tension back to 2005, when riots occurred in the suburbs of Paris and other cities. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, then France’s interior minister, described the rioters as “racaille” or scum – crossing a rhetorical line in describing the primarily immigrant communities.

Murray said France has never properly integrated its large immigrant communities. “One thing that’s unique about France compared to the UK and the U.S. and similar examples, is that they’re not multiculturalist. They’re integrationalist. So they deny the existence of difference even when it’s really there. And because of that they don’t have explicit policies capable of coping with race. They don’t even acknowledge race in census data.”

Author and blogger Priscilla Lalisse-Jespersen, an American from Alabama who moved to Paris with her French husband, traces the rise in racism to France’s economic woes. She spoke to VOA via Skype. “Unemployment is rising. The president’s approval is dropping steadily; he’s right now the most unpopular president in French history. France is also afraid of globalization, and they also have a national identity crisis.”

President Francois Hollande has condemned the attacks on Taubira. Rights groups accuse him of a lukewarm reaction – and warn that taboos over public displays of racism are collapsing. – Voice of America

Trevor Noah’s show ‘The Racist’ touring Britain

The Edinburgh Festival is not the kind of place that tends to attract giggling groupies – but then it has never featured a comedian quite like Trevor Noah.

Not only was he mobbed by gaggles of signature-hungry fans after his debut dates there last year, he has, since then, become the first South African comedian to appear on The Tonight Show.

He also has a unique story to tell: the son of a black Xhosa mother and white Swiss-German father, Noah was ‘born a crime’ under the apartheid regime.

‘But I was lucky growing up,’ says the warm, softly spoken 29-year-old, ‘I was always allowed to question. Some kids were not afforded that luxury. I’m not an angry person by nature. It’s easier to be an abrasive comedian, to be very in-your-face, but I find disarming is more fun. I feel you can get more across if people are laughing with you.

Which is why, even though Noah’s show is called The Racist, white people needn’t be afraid of sitting in the front row when he takes it on tour around Britain next week.

‘I would love everyone to come,’ he says. ‘Everyone in history has some sort of link to racism, somewhere. I guess, in recent history, white people have had the most notoriety when it comes to racism. But funnily enough, racism is almost not a colour thing, but a people thing – people will always find something to be racist about.

‘As the world becomes more and more PC, we don’t tell each other how we really feel – but people are surprised how similar we all are, in terms of what we’re thinking. I live for those moments where I feel like, “ooh, I’m pushing my luck here”.’

The Racist sees Noah go on a journey of identity by attempting to re-invent himself as a black American (the coolest kind of black, in his eyes). It’s a tight, smart, astute show, with Noah oozing charisma.

Even though he seems a natural talent, Noah had to learn his craft his own way. With comedy practically banned in South Africa while he was growing up (‘the first time I watched any was Eddie Murphy on DVD, when I was about 20’), he looked closer to home for inspiration.

‘I definitely get my sense of humour from my mum,’ he smiles. ‘She is wild, she’s crazy, she’s a storyteller. And she laughs a lot.’

He worked as radio and TV host in his home country before focusing on comedy. In 2011, he was taken under Eddie Izzard’s wing after the legendary Europhile spotted Noah (who had ‘no clue who Izzard was’) performing at London’s Comedy Store. Izzard went on to produce Noah’s subsequent, storming stints in Edinburgh and London last year.

‘Stand-up in the UK is a very old art form,’ notes Noah. ‘It’s a very cultured comedy society, and very calmed down.

In South Africa, on the other hand, it has only been legal since the start of democracy, so there’s still a huge excitement – it’s very big, very boisterous.’

Now, Noah says, the country has a thriving, evolving comedy scene. ‘There’s a sense of belief now. The comedy is growing with the country, which is good – we are learning what free speech means. We haven’t gotten to the level of PC yet, so it’s still very raw and unrefined, which is great to watch and be a part of.’

Noah hopes that South Africa’s government leaders start thinking as progressively. ‘There’s still a lot of fixing to be done,’ he says, ‘but we’re waiting for a time when politics is less defined by race and history, and more about what the country needs going forward.’

Whatever the future has in store for South Africa, Noah’s looks glittering – but he’s also taking things as they come. ‘I never make plans that are definitive,’ he says. ‘The only plan is to be the best comedian I can be and to enjoy it. I feel that everything that comes after that is a blessing, a bonus. If I can pay my bills, live a good life and make people laugh while doing that, what more could you ask for?’

Trevor Noah’s British tour begins at Warwick Arts Centre on Nov 26. www.trevornoah.com – metrro.co.uk

Rescue workers among six dead in Latvian supermarket collapse

The scene overnight in front of the collapsed supermarket

Six people including two rescue workers were killed and 35 others injured on Thursday when the roof of a supermarket collapsed in a suburb of Latvia’s capital Riga, emergency services confirmed.

“Rescue efforts will continue through the night but it’s too early to name a cause or say whether there will be more victims or survivors,” emergency services spokeswoman Viktorija Sembele told AFP.

Two firefighters working at the scene to rescue trapped shoppers were among the six dead, she said, but was not able to immediately provide information about the age or sex of other victims.

Soon after midnight two people were pulled alive from the rubble, raising hopes that more survivors would be found.

Visiting the scene while rescue efforts continued, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed that police had launched a criminal investigation to determine the cause of the roof collapse and said he would be holding an emergency meeting Friday morning.

Mayor Nils Usakovs announced he was cancelling leave and was also calling an emergency meeting of municipal and rescue services for Friday.

“As soon as rescue work has finished, construction experts will investigate the causes,” said a press release from his office.

Up to 13 emergency brigades and 17 ambulance teams were working at the site late Thursday with support from military personnel.

Run by the Lithuanian-owned Maxima chain — Latvia’s number two retailer after Rimi — the supermarket was built in 2011 and was nominated for an architectural award, according to local media reports, which also said it had recently been under renovation.

Maxima published a statement on its website overnight saying the company was “overwhelmed and shocked” by the disaster but that it was not yet aware of the cause and was providing “all the information at our disposal” to the authorities. – AFP

Spanish Court issues arrest warrant for ex-Chinese President

Spains’s National Court has issued an international arrest warrant for China’s former president Jiang Zemin, after it ruled that the Chinese leader may have been responsible for “genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and terrorism” against Tibetans during the 1980s and 1990s.

The case was reportedly brought to the court in 2006 by two Tibetan support groups and a monk with Spanish nationality, utilising a principle in Spanish law known as universal jurisdiction – whereby suspects of human rights abuses committed abroad can be tried when a Spanish victim is involved.

The National Court wrote in a ruling released on Tuesday that there were “indications of participation” by Jiang and four other Chinese officials in the alleged crimes, “given the political or military responsibility” they held at the time.

International human rights and pro-Tibetan groups have long criticised Beijing for what they call oppressive policies in Tibetan regions, where more than 100 monks and laymen have self-immolated in protest of Beijing’s rule. Beijing has argued that it has poured huge investments into the region to lift Tibetans out of poverty and have accused exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of inciting dissent to split Tibet from China. – Economy Watch

Britain denies resorting to gunboat diplomacy

Britain said Wednesday it was reviewing its military presence off Gibraltar following a lengthy stand-off between the Royal Navy and a Spanish ship, but denied it was resorting to “gunboat diplomacy”.

Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds said he wanted to de-escalate the situation but would not put up with “bullying and intimidation” of the British territory at the mouth of the Mediterranean.

Britain summoned the Spanish ambassador on Tuesday to explain the most serious incursion for months in the waters off Gibraltar, which Spain has long claimed as its own.

A Spanish state oceanographic research ship, backed up by three military Spanish police boats, ignored orders to leave for 22 hours before departing Tuesday, coming within 250 metres (yards) of Gibraltar’s harbour.

Gibraltar’s chief minister Fabian Picardo responded by urging Britain to deploy bigger military ships to deter similar incursions.

“We constantly review as to whether the Royal Navy’s deployment around Gibraltar is accurate. We are reviewing that at this current time as well,” Simmonds told parliament in an emergency debate on the incursion.

He said he wanted a “political solution” to the dispute, adding: “We do not believe that gunboat diplomacy and tit-for-tat escalation is in anyone’s interest.

“Bullying and intimidation, wherever it occurs, in unacceptable and that is what appears to be happening in relation to Gibraltar.”

Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain in perpetuity in 1713 but has long argued that it should be returned to Spanish sovereignty, and the territory remains a source of diplomatic tension.

The Foreign Office has recorded a huge surge in the number of incursions into British territorial waters since Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took office in December 2011, and has also summoned the ambassador three times.

There were demands in the British parliament on Wednesday for the ambassador to be thrown out, calls for “real action”, plus comparisons made with Iran and Spain’s Franco-era dictatorship.

One lawmaker called for the tit-for-tat measure of a special slow queue at London’s Heathrow Airport for Spanish passport holders, in response to Spain’s introduction of stringent border checks to enter Gibraltar in August.

Picardo said he would support anything that would have a “positive deterrent effect”, telling BBC radio: “I have discussed before the possibility of more senior assets from the Royal Navy.”

He said the situation was a long way from shots being fired, but warned of the possibility of misunderstandings resulting from Guardia Civil vessels entering Gibraltar waters.

Such ships “might then find themselves shot at because they are not identified as the vessel of a friendly nation… and they may be mistaken for terrorists”. – stratrisks.com