Europe – Page 50 – praag.org

French Front National sweeps to victory in local election

France’s Front National swept to victory over the country’s mainstream centre-right opposition in a closely watched local election on Sunday in a vote widely seen as presaging big advances by the far-right party in next year’s European and municipal elections.

In the decisive second round of the poll for a departmental council seat representing Brignoles, a town in the south of France, the FN candidate comfortably defeated his rival from the UMP, the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, by 54 per cent to 46 per cent.

The knockout blow came despite calls from President François Hollande’s Socialist party for its supporters and other leftist voters to rally behind the UMP candidate in a bid to block the FN. The left’s candidate in the poll, the incumbent Communist, was easily knocked out in the first round of the election last weekend.

Marine Le Pen, FN leader, called the vote “a great victory”. She cautioned that it was only a local by-election, but added: “This shows a desire for change among the French people, who are making their voices heard, who are mobilising. It augurs towns gained and hundreds, maybe thousands of municipal councillors [for the FN in next March’s local elections].’

The FN, riding on a wave of recession-fuelled disaffection with the two mainstream parties, is mounting its biggest campaign to date to make gains in both the local elections and the European elections that follow in May.

Last week an opinion poll for the first time put the FN ahead in the running for the European poll, with 24 per cent backing the party, giving it a two-point lead over the UMP and five points over the Socialist party.

Manuel Valls, the interior minister, told the Financial Times in an interview last week, that it was possible the FN would emerge as the leading party in the European elections.

Ms Le Pen, a charismatic figure, is seeking to take advantage of the record low popularity of Mr Hollande – a poll on Sunday showed his approval rating at 26 per cent – and deep national anxiety over high unemployment and an economy struggling to emerge from recession.

Jean-Francois Copé, who is currently president of the UMP, blamed the FN victory in Brignoles on the “disastrous” leadership of country by the left.

But the FN has also taken advantage of disarray within the UMP over the leadership of the party.

Mr Sarkozy has signalled he is sizing up a return following his defeat by Mr Hollande last year, but a number of other senior figures, notably his former prime minister François Fillon, are jostling him for supremacy.

The FN victory also owed much to the breakdown of the “republican front”, a previously shared willingness of the UMP and Socialist party to back each other in straight fights with the far-right. The UMP has abandoned the principle and leftist voters also appear increasingly reluctant to follow it, despite appeals from socialist leaders.

The first secretary of the Socialist party, Harlem Désir, said the Brignoles result showed the “overwhelming necessity for the left to unite” for the municipal elections. – FT

Hollande is like that ‘retard from the bush’

The visit of the white, neo-colonialist and very unpopular French president to South Africa is marked by vitriol against the already suffering white monority.

On Tuesday, Francois Hollande will visit a plant owned by French pharmaceutical company Sanofi, which manufactures its anti-retroviral and anti-TB drugs in South Africa, obviously hoping to boost his country sagging economy with South African state funds.

He will then head to Soweto, the Johannesburg township which was a hotbed of resistance against white minority rule, where he will visit Mandela’s former home.

Aides said this was a way of paying homage to the 95-year-old statesman, who is too ill to receive official visitors.

On the economic front, aides to Hollande said some agreements on energy and transport were in the final stages of negotiation but were not sure to be signed during the visit.

French companies are notably awaiting a decision on whether South Africa will go ahead with plans to build more nuclear power stations. Critics say that the visit was really to discuss kickbacks to government employees.

French-speaking Congolese immigrants in Johannesburg said Hollande is as bad as Julius Malema who is a “retard from the bush” working for ruthless colonial interests in trying to chase away local whites and destroying economic prospects for all.

France has a history of betraying minorities, their own, in former colonies.

Le Pen’s party wins big in by-election

Two far-right candidates in France have won 50 per cent of the vote in a single by-election.

The success on Sunday night was described as a ‘warning shot’ to mainstream politicians who are accused of letting ordinary people down over issues like immigration.

Front National (FN) candidate Laurent Lopez took 40.4 percent of the vote in the first round of voting in the south eastern town of Brignoles.

Another far-right party, the ‘Parti de France’, took 9.1 percent.

The centre-right UMP, France’s main opposition parliamentary party, came second with 20.9 percent.

The result led to Marine Le Pen, the leader of the FN – which wants to call a halt to new arrivals – today saying that her party is ‘already the main party in France.’

Its support has been rising consistently, with recent opinion polls suggesting it could take around 16 percent of votes in municipal elections scheduled for next March.

Analysts say economic mismanagement by the ruling Socialists, including record unemployment, have all contributed to the FN’s success.

But it is the contentious issue of immigration, especially from eastern European and Muslim countries, which the FN particularly focuses on.

It says that spiralling crime figures are the result of lax European Union policies which allow thousands of undesirables to enter France.

Shanty towns full of Roma gypsies have, for example, begun springing up on the edges of major cities like Paris and Marseille.

The spokesman for the Socialist party called for the left to unite against the rise of the FN. He said the by-election result was a ‘warning shot’ ahead of the municipal elections – the first real electoral test since President Francois Hollande’s Socialists came to power

David Assouline, spokesman for the Socialist party, called for the left to unite against the rise of the FN.

Mr Assouline said the by-election result was a ‘warning shot’ ahead of the municipal elections – the first real electoral test since Francois Hollande’s Socialists came to power last year.

‘It proves what we have been saying for months,’ Mr Assouline added. ‘When the FN stands strong and tall, the left must absolutely be united from the first round.’

The UMP will battle against the FN candidate in the second round of the Brignoles poll on October 13th.

The Socialist party had no candidate in the by-election and had publicly supported the far-left PCF party, which was eliminated in the first round.

Mr Assouline said his party now called on Brignoles residents to vote for the UMP candidate in the second round rather than let the FN in.

Annoyed at constant references to the FN’s extremism, Mrs Le Pen said last week: ‘We are absolutely not a party of the right. Those who think that are making a total analytical error.

‘I’m considering seeking a judicial ruling that the description ‘extreme right’ is a pejorative term deliberately used to damage the Front National. For journalists to label the FN like this is unethical, biased and intellectually sloppy.’

The two missiles that ended a confrontation in Syria

A well informed diplomatic source told a Lebanese newspaper that “the US war on Syria had started and ended the moment those two ballistic missiles were fired, leaving inconsistent information, as Israel denied and Russia confirmed, until an Israeli statement was issued indicating they were fired in the context of an Israeli-US joint drill and fell in the sea, and that they were not related to the Syrian crisis.”

The source further told the Lebanese daily As-Safir that “the US forces fired these two rockets from a NATO base in Spain, and were instantly detected by the Russian radars and confronted by the Russian defense systems, so one of them exploded in the airspace and the second one diverted towards the sea.”

In this context, the source pointed out that “the statement issued by the Russian Defense Ministry, which stated the detection of two ballistic missiles fired towards the Middle East, intended to neglect two points: the first was the location from which the two rockets were fired, and the second was their downing. Why? Because the moment the full military operation was launched, Head of the Russian Intelligence Service contacted the US intelligence and informed it that “hitting Damascus means hitting Moscow, and we have removed the term “downed the two missiles” from the statement to preserve the bilateral relations and to avoid escalation. Therefore, you must immediately reconsider your policies, approaches and intentions on the Syrian crisis, as you must be certain that you cannot eliminate our presence in the Mediterranean.”

“This unannounced direct confrontation between Moscow and Washington increased the Obama Administration’s confusion and certainty that the Russian side was ready to move until the end with the Syrian cause, and that the US did not have a way out of its impasse except through a Russian initiative which would save America’s face…” he added.

From this point, the diplomatic source clarified that “in order to avoid further US confusion, and after Israel denied knowing anything about the rocket firing in its first statement, which is the truth, Washington demanded Tel Aviv to adopt the rocket firing to save its face in front of the International Community, especially since these two rockets were the beginning of the US aggression on Syria and the announcement of the beginning of military operations, after which US President Barack Obama was supposed to go to the G20 Summit in Russia to negotiate the destiny of Syrian President Bashr Al-Assad. However, he went to find a way out of the impasse he’s in.”

The source further indicated that “after the US-Russia rocket confrontation, Moscow intended to increase its number of military experts in Russia, and added to its military units and destroyers to enhance its military presence in the Mediterranean. It also set a time for announcing about its initiative on stopping the aggression on Syria after the G20 Summit, after drawing a side scene on the sidelines of the summit which was followed by two successive visits for Iranian Foreign Minister, Hussein Amir Abdul Lahyan, and Syrian Foreign Minister, Walid Al-Moallem, in which a way out was agreed on with the Russian side, and it included a Syrian announcement on approving the Russian initiative regarding putting Syrian chemical weapons under international supervision and preparing Syria for joining the non-proliferation treaty.

Finally, the source pointed out that “One of the first results of the US-Russian military confrontation was the British House of Commons’ rejection to participate in a war on Syria. This was followed by European stances, most significantly, the German stance announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel.” – almanar.com

Russia considers ban om GMO’s

As one of the few nations in the world with a GMO-free platform, Russia does not allow any cultivation of GMOs for commercial purposes. Their regulatory agencies recently suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage. The Russian Prime Minister has now ordered the same agencies to consider a possible ban on all GMO imports into Russia.

The Russian Federal Environmental Assessment Commission has not adopted any commercialized GM varieties for agricultural use.

The recent decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row.

A growing body of scientific research – done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats.

Experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats – two years.

The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.

Russia’s consumer rights watchdog and Health Ministry, Rospotrebnadzor, announced one year ago that it had suspended the import and use of the Monsanto GM corn.

Now, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the relevant agencies to consider a possible ban of all imports into Russia of products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by October 15.

The order is addressed to Rospotrebnadzor, the Agriculture Ministry, and the Trade and Economic Development Ministry. They have been ordered to “submit proposals on amendments to the Russian legislation aimed at tightening control over the turnover of products containing components obtained from GMOs together with the relevant federal executive bodies.”

The aforementioned agencies are also ordered to submit proposals “on the possibility of banning the import of such products into the Russian Federation.”

A list of the prime minister’s orders was drawn up to fulfill the presidential orders issued after the meeting on the socio-economic development of the Rostov region held on September 18. Medvedev’s orders have been posted on the government website, Interfax news agency reported last September 25.

Russia is currently taking a hard line on GMOs — in August the first independent project for identifying whether Russian farmers are growing illegal GM crops started in the Belgorod region.

NAGS (The National Association for Genetic Safety) conducted the first checks of agricultural crops for the presence of GMOs. No GMO plants were found in any Belgorod fields.

According to the current law, 19 GM lines are allowed in foodstuffs, but the cultivation of GMOs is not allowed.

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Russia is being pressured simplify the procedure for registration of genetically modified products, seed and feed, to stop their safety checks, and to stop controls over their distribution.

Glyphosate is the world’s top selling herbicide, and Monsanto’s formulations Roundup is used with more than 80 percent of all genetically modified (GM) crops grown globally. But evidence of its extreme toxicity has been emerging within the past decade. Glyphosate was found to kill human placental cells at concentrations below that recommended for agricultural use and approved by our regulators, while Roundup was lethal at even lower concentrations.

The toxic effects of Roundup (R400) begin at 5 ppm, and the first endocrine disrupting action is already evident at 0.5 ppm, 800 times lower than the level of 400 ppm authorized by the US Environment Protection Agency in food or feed.

Denmark has imposed widespread bans on the spraying of glyphosate in response to research showing that the sprays have been contaminating the countrys groundwater.

The chemical has, against all expectations sieving down through the soil and polluting the ground water at a rate of five times more than the allowed level for drinking water, according to tests done by the Denmark and Greenland Geological Research Institution (DGGRI).

A decade ago, the Danish environment minister Hans Christian Schmidt announced unprecedented restrictions on glyphosate, the country’s and Europe’s most widely used herbicide. – wakingtimes.com

Greece to draft ‘hate speech’ laws

The leftist Greek government said on Monday it would soon present a bill targeting “racist hate speech”, part of a crackdown on the Golden Dawn party after an anti-fascist rapper died.

“(The bill) will be submitted to parliament in a matter of days. It has symbolic and moral value,” Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters, adding that it would align Greek legislation with European standards.

Greece’s ruling coalition had been at loggerheads over whether it needed a new anti-racism law to deal with inflammatory talk used by Golden Dawn.

Venizelos’s Socialist PASOK party had pushed for a new law, while the main ruling conservative party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras had argued that current legislation was enough.

But the murder of rapper Pavlos Fissas on September 17 by a suspected Golden Dawn supporter prompted a crackdown on Greece’s third-most popular party, whose fierce anti-immigrant rhetoric has attracted support amid a severe economic crisis.

Golden Dawn leader Nikolaos Mihaloliakos and four other party lawmakers are due to appear in court this week to respond to charges of forming a criminal organization.

The government is also preparing another law that would suspend Golden Dawn’s state funding on the grounds that its leadership is facing prosecution on felony charges.

“Democracy can’t fund its opponents,” Venizelos said.

Prosecutors are investigating the party for links to about 30 violent attacks, including the killing of the rapper and a Pakistani immigrant.

The party has denied any connection to the rapper’s death and also rejects the neo-Nazi label.

An outright ban of a political party is difficult under Greek law. The government plans instead to undermine Golden Dawn by cutting its money flows and dismantling its leadership.

Swiss war game sees bankrupt French invasion

Hordes of bankrupt French invade Switzerland to get their hands on their “stolen” money — such is the imaginary scenario cooked up by the Swiss military in simulations revealed over the weekend.

Carried out in August, the apparently outlandish army exercise was based on the premise of an attack by a financially stricken France split into warring regions, according to Matin Dimanche, the Lausanne-based daily.

One of these, “Saônia,” corresponding to the existing Jura region, was preparing attacks on Switzerland to retrieve money it had apparently swiped from France.

Operation “Duplex-Barbara” went as far as imagining a three-pronged invasion from points near Neufchâtel, Lausanne and Geneva, according to a map published in the Swiss newspaper.

Behind the dastardly raid was a paramilitary organisation dubbed BLD, the Dijon Free Brigade bent on grabbing back “money that Switzerland had stolen from Saônia”.

“For its credibility, the Swiss army must work (to ward against) threats of the 21st century,” Antoine Vielliard, Hauate-Savoie councillor, told Matin Dimanche.

However, Daniel Berger, captain of the Swiss armoured brigade, sought to play down the specificity of the threat.

“The exercise has strictly nothing to do with France, which we appreciate” he told the Swiss press. “It was prepared in 2012, when fiscal relations between both countries were less tense.” “French towns were cited to provide soldiers with a real scale,” he said.

Famous for its bank secrecy laws, Switzerland often comes under criticism for allowing foreign account holders to hide their wealth from tax officials at home.

But these opaque laws are coming under increasing fire as France and the US, among others, are cracking down on tax evasion during a period of economic hardship.

This is by no means the first imaginary scenario dreamed up by the Swiss army. Last year, it carried out an exercise based on the premise that a huge wave of refugees crossed into the country after the implosion of the European Single Currency and ensuing chaos across the continent.

“Stabilo Due” centered around a risk map created in 2010 and envisaged internal unrest between warring factions as well as the possibility of refugees from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal.

Warning of an escalation of violence in Europe, defense minister Ueli Maurer said at the time: “I can’t exclude that in the coming years we may need the army.” The military is a hot topic in Switzerland, which has mandatory military service. Under Swiss law, all able-bodied men at age 19 have to undergo five months of training, followed by refresher courses of several weeks over the next decade.

A referendum held a week ago saw a large majority of Swiss voters reject plans to abolish conscription.

The current number of recruits stands at around 155, 000 — the biggest army in Europe relative to population size.

Some 73.2 per cent of Swiss said “no” to proposals by the anti-military group, Group for a Switzerland Without an Army, to have either a professional army or one made up of volunteers.

Neutral Switzerland has not been invaded since the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century.

Recent scholars have questioned the belief that the Swiss military’s complex of underground bunkers deterred an invasion by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Some historians argued that Adolf Hitler left the Swiss alone because he wanted to use their banks. – The Telegraph

Controversies around Greece’s Golden Dawn party: a timeline

A protestor outside police headquarters in Athens holds a placard stating: 'Listen chief, listen again, you have ridiculed the system one more time - Golden Dawn of the Greeks' — A protestor outside police headquarters in Athens holds a placard stating: ‘Listen chief, listen again, you have ridiculed the system one more time – Golden Dawn of the Greeks’

Golden Dawn, the aggressive Greek right-wing party making headlines in the crisis-hit country after the murder of an anti-fascist musician, has gone from provocation to provocation in its short career in Greece’s parliament.

The party’s 18 lawmakers have been accused of using their parliamentary immunity to intimidate police and evade arrest, meaning that there are only a few cases of solid prosecution against them.

Until the murder of hip hop artist Pavlos Fyssas on Wednesday, police had failed to pursue most other cases of brazen aggression by suspected Golden Dawn members against migrants or political rivals.

– June 7, 2012: Golden Dawn party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, a former commando, strikes female Communist MP Liana Kanelli during a heated talk show debate. He escapes arrest by temporarily going into hiding. Parliament later lifts his immunity so Kasidiaris can face trial.

– June 12, 2012: Four Egyptian fishermen are attacked in their sleep in the working-class district of Perama by a gang of black-clad attackers. One victim is hospitalised with serious head injuries.

Six people arrested at the time denied involvement and were released. According to media reports, at least one of the assailants would take part in another beating of Communist party members in Perama a year later.

– September 7, 2012: Golden Dawn lawmakers George Germenis and Panagiotis Iliopoulos lead a black-clad detachment of party members to an open-air fair near Athens, where they proceed to smash the stalls of unlicensed migrant peddlers.

Another GD team headed by lawmaker Costas Barbaroussis carries out a similar operation in the western town of Messolonghi the following day.

Parliament has agreed to lift the immunity of all three MPs so they can be prosecuted.

– January 17, 2013: A Pakistani migrant is fatally stabbed in central Athens by two Greeks, one of them a fireman. Police later find Golden Dawn tracts at the one of the attackers’ homes.

– May 2, 2013: Athens Mayor George Kaminis bans a Golden Dawn food handout exclusively catering to Greeks as racist. Hours later, GD lawmaker George Germenis is detained after apparently trying to punch the mayor, and hitting a 12-year-old girl instead. Germenis’ immunity has again been lifted over the assault and he will be tried.

– September 12, 2013: Communists putting up posters in the working-class district of Perama are attacked by a large group of alleged Golden Dawn members bearing nail-studded clubs. Eight Communists are hospitalised but the attackers escape.

– September 18, 2013: Anti-fascist singer Pavlos Fyssas is fatally stabbed after an apparent ambush by suspected Golden Dawn members. The killer, George Roupakias, is immediately arrested and later confesses to police his Golden Dawn affiliation.

Golden Dawn continues to deny involvement and accuses its critics of slander, but pictures soon appear in the press, showing Roupakias participating in party events, wearing GD insignia. – AFP

Greek government arrests Golden Dawn leader and MPs

Arrested: Nikos Michaloliakos, the leader of Golden Dawn

by Hélène COLLIOPOULOU

Greek police on Saturday swooped on the Golden Dawn party, arresting its leadership and hunting for dozens of members across the country in a crackdown sparked by the murder of a leftist musician.

The arrests came a day after Golden Dawn threatened to pull its lawmakers out of parliament, a move that could spark a political crisis in the recession-hit country.

The party urged its followers to demonstrate against what it called an “illegal decision” on Saturday and by late morning several hundred faithful had gathered in front police headquarters in Athens.

In dawn raids, Greek anti-terror police arrested party leader Nikos Michaloliakos along with party spokesman and MP Ilias Kassidiairis, two other lawmakers and a dozen party members, police said.

The charges against them ranged from belonging to a “criminal organisation” to murder and assault, according to a source in the justice ministry.

The police sweep came after the country’s supreme court, which has been charged with investigating the group, issued arrest warrants for some 30 members.

Golden Dawn has faced a crackdown after a self-confessed neo-Nazi fatally stabbed popular hip-hop musician Pavlos Fyssas, 34, on September 18, a killing that sparked nationwide protests.

The party currently has 18 lawmakers in parliament and prior to the murder was the third most popular political grouping in the country.

“This government is determined not to allow the descendants of the Nazis to poison our social life, to commit crimes, terrorise and undermine the foundations of the country that gave birth to democracy,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras warned in a televised address a day after the killing.

Golden Dawn leader Michaloliakos has threatened to pull the group’s deputies out of parliament, a move that would prompt by-elections in 15 regions around the country.

“We will exhaust any means within our legal constitutional rights to defend our political honour,” Michaloliakos told reporters late on Thursday.

“If the country enters a cycle of instability, it is those who demonise Golden Dawn who will be responsible, not (us),” he said.

By-elections could hurt Samaras’s coalition government, which has a slim majority of 155 MPs in the 300-seat parliament, and could cast into doubt Greece’s ability to fulfil its obligations to creditors on multi-billion-euro bailouts.

Samaras’s conservative party is neck-and-neck in the polls with the radical leftist Syriza party that opposes Greece’s EU-IMF austerity bailout, and a strong showing by Syriza in by-elections could lead to the government’s fall.

Formerly on the fringe of Greek politics, Golden Dawn’s popularity has skyrocketed as it tapped into widespread anger over unpopular reforms in a country that is currently slogging through its sixth year of recession and where unemployment among the youth stands at a staggering 60 percent.

It went from 19,000 votes a few years ago to over 426,000 in June 2012 elections after pledging to “scour the country” clean of illegal immigrants.

The party, whose leader has denied the Holocaust, has sent black-clad squads to smash market stalls owned by migrants, held torch-lit rallies lambasting political opponents as “traitors” and “thieves”, and organised food donations exclusively for ethnic Greeks.

It has also been blamed for a series of brutal attacks on migrants and political opponents, though it strenuously denies any responsibility and claims to be the victim of slander.

This year, the party has consistently polled at over 10 percent, with its approval ratings even higher in the 18-44 age group, making them the country’s third-strongest political force.

Although the hip-hop artist’s murder has led to a dip in those ratings, analysts warn that the party’s popularity will make any efforts to outlaw it difficult and politically dangerous.

“The constitution makes no provision for the dissolution of a parliamentary group, even it there is proof that it is a criminal organisation,” Dimitris Christopoulos, an associate professor of law at Athens’ Panteion University, told AFP this week. – AFP

17 EU ministers condemn ‘racism’ against black Italian minister

Cécile Kyenge with the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, Joelle Milquet, to her right

Ministers from 17 EU member states on Monday (23 September) gathered in Rome to condemn the racism directed towards Italy’s integration minister Cecile Kyenge.

Ministers from 17 member states gathered in Rome to condemn racism.

The ministers called for a new pact to stamp out racism across Europe, which they see as on the rise.

“What has happened to the Italian minister is unacceptable but we’re talking about a widespread phenomenon,” Belgium’s deputy prime minster, Joelle Milquet, told reporters in Rome.

They signed a “Declaration of Rome,” which calls upon the EU to put together a plan for 2014-2020 on diversity and the fight against racism.

“Intolerance and discrimination, in whatever form, is reprehensible. We cannot ignore it and we cannot do nothing about it,” states the declaration.

The ministers want the European Commission to draft a report on racism before the European Parliament elections next May.

It notes that all member states should finalise the transposition of anti-discrimination legislation and put in place “judicial instruments” to help weed out attacks.

The declaration also condemns political movements with racist and xenophobic positions and notes that the economic crisis has reinforced populism and racism.

Speaking to reporters after the declaration, Kyenge thanked her counterparts for their support.

Kyenge, an eye doctor born in the Congo, has faced racial slurs and jeers in her first five months office from far right Italian politicians and others. She has also faced death threats.

Right-wing Northern League senator Roberto Calderoli compared her features to that of orangutan. Italian Northern League MEP Mario Borghezio, who is a member of the civil liberties committee, described the Italian government as a ‘bongo bongo’ administration because of Kyenge.

In early September, members of the far-right Forza Nuova movement smeared blood on mannequins, which they placed outside municipal buildings in Rome. The act was in protest of Kyenge’s proposal to extend citizenship to Italian-born children of immigrants.

“I have never said Italy is racist, every country needs to start building awareness of immigration and Italy has simply arrived very late,” Kyenge said following the mannequin incident.

In August, a member of separatist group Veneto State, threatened to kill Kyenge on his Facebook page.

In another incident over the summer, Italian Councillor Dolores Valandro, was given a 13-month suspended sentence, a €13,000 fine, and a three-year ban from holding public office after she suggested Kyenge should be raped. – euobserver.com

Former Polish president talks Anschluss

The Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Polish president, whose Solidarity trade union played a key role in bringing an end to the Cold War, said the world had changed and needed new ways of organising itself.

“We need to expand economic and defence co-operation and other structures to create one state from Poland and Germany in Europe,” he said.

Speaking to Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency, Lech Walesa, 69, said national boundaries were not as relevant as they once were.

“We have travelled so far in our technical advancements that we are no longer located in our own countries,” he said, adding that this required changes to geographical structures, the economy and democracy.

Although few Poles have forgotten Germany’s invasion and brutal occupation of Poland in 1939, history should not be an obstacle to unity, Walesa said. “After the war, Germany fully confessed to all its dirty tricks,” he said. “It’s necessary to is draw a line under the past, even if people did something evil. Until we do, wounds won’t heal.”

Walesa’s calls for Polish-German unity exceed his previous support for closer European solidarity.

“At the moment different ways of doing things and different systems hold us back but gradually everything will align and states will become like Lego blocks,” he said in the Itar-Tass interview.

He suggested that current international systems were now defunct, saying the United Nations and NATO were the “ideas of an old era” and “badly organised”.

The comments on German-Polish unification will further enhance the former Polish president’s reputation for making frank and sometimes unorthodox remarks.

While Walesa said Poland could bury the hatchet with Germany, the situation was different with Russia, the other great historical foe of the Poles. He urged Moscow to follow the German example and atone for its sins committed against Poland in order to lay the foundations of a good relationship.

“We are too slow in solving our problems and reaching an understanding,” he said. “We must aim to make our relations as smooth as possible, since we are fated to be neighbours.” – The Telegraph

Daughter of British soldier said to be involved in Kenyan terror attack

Kenyan officials have given contradictory statements about whether a British woman may have been involved in the attack on the Westgate mall which has left at least 62 people dead.

Samantha Lewthwaite, a 29-year-old Muslim convert, nicknamed the “White Widow” is in the spotlight after a Kenyan minister said a British woman was among the Islamist attackers who shot dead dozens of people at a Nairobi shopping mall.

Her alleged involvement and South African passport was reported on a pro-Israeli website.

The Briton was married to Germaine Lindsay, one of four suicide bombers who attacked the London transport network in July 2005, killing 52 people.

The mother-of-three has been on the run in East Africa for around two years and is wanted by Kenyan police for alleged involvement in a terror plot.

Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told US public broadcaster PBS that a British woman was among those to blame, along with two or three American men.

“And she has, I think, done this many times before,” Mohamed said, without identifying her.

But Kenyan Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku earlier denied that any of the insurgents were women, saying some male attackers “had dressed like women.”

The British government refused to be drawn on suggestions one of its citizens was among the attackers.

The daughter of a British soldier, Lewthwaite professed herself appalled when her Jamaican-born husband detonated a rucksack full of explosives and blew himself up on a London Underground train on July 7, 2005, killing 26 people.

She was pregnant with their second child at the time.

“I totally condemn and am horrified by the atrocities which occurred in London,” she said, describing Lindsay as “a good and loving husband and a brilliant father, who showed absolutely no sign of doing this atrocious crime”.

Lewthwaite had met Lindsay in an Internet chat forum when she was 17, having converted to Islam two years earlier.

Described as a bubbly teenager, schoolfriends said she had an ordinary upbringing in the market town of Aylesbury, northwest of London.

Kenyan police released wanted notices saying she was travelling on a false South African passport under the name Natalie Faye Webb, accompanied by her three children, a girl and two boys.

The children would be now roughly aged between seven and 12.

South African authorities said they were carrying out a “thorough investigation” into the passport issue.

Raffaello Pantucci, a terror expert at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, said Lewthwaite had acquired a “semi-mythical status”.

“I don’t think we’ve had any concrete evidence of her being involved in this incident,” he said.

“But the fact of her being mentioned in this context is not surprising because of her connections.”

Rumours abound that Lewthwaite is behind the Twitter handle @MYC_Press — Kenya’s radical Muslim Youth Centre — which regularly comments on Kenyan extremism, as well as entering into a war of words with rival Islamists.

American Islamist Omar Hammami — who fought in Somalia but was killed by former Shehab comrades this month — in April scoffed via Twitter that she was just “a girl in Kenya”.

MYC_Press in turn replied: “Sam Lewthwaite thinks ur (you are) a irritating obnoxious contemptible little Muj (mujahedeen) PRAT.”

MYC_Press — which has been notably silent since the attack began on Saturday — also told AFP in April that Lewthwaite had “returned to Luton”, a town outside London and close to where she grew up. – Sapa/AFP

Germany gets black members of parliament

A chemist and an actor — both with family roots in Senegal — have become Germany’s first black federal lawmakers, according to official election results released Monday.

They were among 34 lawmakers with immigrant backgrounds to win seats in Sunday’s election, up from 21 in the previous term, said the Migration Media Service, a group that provides facts and figures on immigration in Germany.

Although nearly one in five of Germany’s 80 million people are immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants, relatively few have made it into the federal legislature. Until now there were no black lawmakers in Parliament, despite more than 500,000 people of recent African origin believed to be living in Germany.

“My election into the German Parliament is of historical importance,” said Karamba Diaby, a Senegalese-born chemist who moved to the city of Halle in 1986 after receiving a scholarship to study in communist East Germany.

The 51-year-old, who gained German citizenship in 2001, said his priority would be to promote equal opportunities in education. “Every child born in Germany should have the chance to be successful in school regardless of their social background or the income of their parents,” he said.

The other black lawmaker elected Sunday was Charles M. Huber, a 56-year-old actor born in Munich to a Senegalese father and a German mother. Huber is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, which won the election with 41.5 percent of the vote.

Merkel’s party also now has its first Muslim lawmaker in the Bundestag. Cemile Giousouf was elected in the western town of Hagen. The 35-year-old was born in Germany to Turkish immigrant parents.

Several lawmakers of Turkish origin have previously been elected to the lower house, but most were with the Social Democratic Party, which Diaby represents, the environmentalist Green Party or the Left Party.

“Measured against the 630 seats in Parliament, some 5.4 percent of deputies now come from immigrant families,” the Migration Media Service noted. “In the population as a whole their share is more than three times as high, with about 19 percent. – AP

Hundreds of migrants storm EU fence

Hundreds of migrants from Morocco were trying to cross the southern EU border at Melilla, a Spanish exclave, on Monday before dawn.

Having torn down a part of a triple six-meter high fence, about 100 made it through, Spanish government officials in the territory said in a statement.

They were the latest of thousands of migrants who try to reach Spain from Africa across the fence or by sea, forced to leave by unrest in Northern Africa, most of them from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. – RT