Signalfire

New Delhi: A top Maoist guerrilla leader threatened to attack Indian cities such as Kolkata if the government does not immediately agree to hold peace talks, according to a news report on Sunday.

Kishenji, a Maoist leader in eastern India, said the Indian government has not responded to his call for a 72-day cease-fire to allow peace negotiations, the Sunday Times reported.

Kishenji, who uses one name, threatened in an interview to strike Indian cities and towns if the government does not begin talks immediately, the newspaper said.

So far, the insurgents have largely attacked security forces, government workers and train lines in rural areas.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said last month that the government would only hold talks with the rebels if they shun violence and there were no preconditions, such as a halt to the government’s “Operation Green Hunt” offensive aimed at flushing the militants out of their forest hide-outs.

Government officials also say the Maoists are not serious about peace talks and want to use a truce to regroup and rearm themselves. Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have fought for more than four decades for land and jobs for farmers and the poor.

About 2,000 people – including police, militants and civilians – have been killed in the past few years.

The rebels, who have tapped into the rural poor’s growing anger at being left out of the country’s economic gains, are now present in 20 of the country’s 28 states and have an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 fighters.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called them India’s biggest internal security threat.

Indonesian police have used tear gas and water canon to disperse about 2,000 anti-government protesters who tried to enter the parliament building in the capital, Jakarta.

The scuffles broke out on Tuesday as members of parliament began a debate over the possible impeachment of the country’s vice-president and finance minister.

The session had been called to hear the results of a parliamentary probe into the $700m government bailout of the privately-owned Bank Century in 2008.

But as police clashed with protesters outside, it became clear that the inquiry had failed to reach a conclusion.

The government led by Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, the Indonesian president, has defended the bailout of Bank Century, saying it was needed to prevent wider damage to the economy and protect Indonesia for the global financial crisis.

But the opposition has said the bailout drained money from state coffers that could have been used to boost infrastructure, while some of the money was diverted to Yudhyono’s political party.

His vice president, Boediono, and finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, approved the bailout and opposition leaders have demanded their resignation saying they must be held accountable for losses to the state.

The controversy over the bailout has been depicted as the latest battleground in a war between reformers and non-reformers, including some member of the ruling coalition, who are opposed to tackling corruption and overhauling Indonesia’s civil service, police and judiciary.

The scandal has risked being particularly damaging for Yudhoyono, who was elected in July 2009 for a second five-year term on a campaign promise to stamp out rampant corruption.

On Monday the positions of both Boediono and Indrawati appeared to be strengthened after the president said that he took personal responsibility for the decision to bail out Bank Century, now known as .

Fauzi Ichsan, an economist at Standard Chartered bank in Jakarta, said Yudhoyono’s announcement would likely prove problematic for the inquiry.

“I think [the inquiry team] will be confused now because they have to blame the president too, but that is going too far,” he told Reuters news agency before Tuesday’s parliamentary session.

“In terms of political strategy, this could actually benefit Yudhoyono. This is something that the inquiry team has not expected.”

A rebel ambush on a Philippine army patrol south of Manila has killed 11 soldiers, a military spokesman said.

A reconnaissance platoon was ambushed by about 60 guerrillas while on patrol outside Mansalay township on Mindoro island, a statement said.

The troops had been sent to the area to stop communist rebels of the New People’s Army extorting money from candidates ahead of May’s elections.

It was the army’s biggest death-toll in battles with the rebels this year.

Colonel Romeo Brawner said seven soldiers were also wounded in a three-hour gun battle, in which a number of rebels were also injured.

“The troops fought it out literally to the last bullet,” said Col Brawner.

He added that reinforcements backed by helicopter gunships had been deployed to track down the rebels, AFP reported.

The armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA has an estimated 5,000 members and has been fighting the government since 1969 in one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies.

Eight people were detained after hundreds of police officers swooped on addresses

Sporadic fighting broke out on the streets during the second day of demonstrations in the European capital.

Kurdish youths smashed a Turkish kebab shop front with wooden bats in one skirmish. However, police reported no major security incidents.

Eight people were detained last week after hundreds of police officers swooped on addresses throughout Belgium.

The raids followed a three-year investigation into the activities of Belgians accused of having links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

ROJ, a TV station which broadcasts to European Kurds, was also raided for its alleged links to the group.

The Belgian authorities detained people on suspicion of falsifying passports and providing funds to aid the recruitment of guerrillas for the PKK’s activities.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party accused Belgium of acting on the orders of Turkey.

It also claimed that the authorities had searched its offices.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 to wage a violent campaign for an independent Kurdish state in Turkey, where the group is outlawed.

The group is listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU and the US.

Hundreds of students from several campuses clashed with police in Makassar on Wednesday and Thursday, leaving three police posts and the student organization’s secretariat office damaged.

A clash also flared up between students and local residents in which either side hurled rocks at each other.

Thursday’s clash was a follow-up of Wednesday, when rallies held in the wake of the plenary session by the House of Representatives in Jakarta, turned violent with students blockading the streets and pelting stones, damaging traffic lights and government offices.

Wednesday’s riot left a police officer injured. In retaliation, several members of the 88 Special Detachment raided   the  secretariat’s office of  the Association of Islamic Students (HMI).

That evening, the South Sulawesi Police office and the HMI officials came to a compromise that the clashes were not institutional but personal.

While deploring the anarchist actions by the students, police chief Insp. Gen. Adang Rochjana expressed his concern over the assault on the HMI office and extended an apology.

However, not all students accepted the compromise, which led to Thursday’s flare-up of violent protests.

The students attacked the police posts with logs and stones. The mob also vented their anger by vandalizing billboards and traffic light. Traffic was redirected as the roads became strewn with rocks.

The students barricaded the main street by holding up two trucks, which cut access from
the city to the southern part of the province, and laid waste to a nearby police post that was unattended.

At one point, hundreds of local residents decided to take the law into their own hands and chase the students away. When the students regrouped and fought back, the local residents were themselves chased from the area.

The clashes took place in front of the campuses of the State Islamic University (UIN) Alauddin Hasanuddin University and University of Muslim Indonesia.

Anti-terror police were deployed to disperse the students, they fired tear gas to little effect as protesters continued to launch hit-and-run attacks on the police.

The police finally herded the students onto the university’s campus.

The students suspected police of provoking residents into clashing and playing part in event assaulting the police posts.

Police chief Adang promised stern action against those responsible for the commotion.

“I will act on whoever involved in anarchism from Wednesday and Thursday…be they students or police personnel,” he said.

[rough translation reposted from http://de.indymedia.org/2010/03/274858.shtml]

* Communique of Revolutionary Continuity Urban Guerrilla Organization for the bomb explosion at JPMorgan investment bank offices in Athens on the 16th of February 2010. It is the first action of this organization, the communique was sent to Eleftherotypia newspaper.

… In America two of the biggest banks, which belong to the billionairs Rockefeller and Morgan dominate on a capital of 11 billions Deutsche Mark …The Morgans used to have a high influence into the political life of USA. Many presidents and ministers of USA were the favorites of the Morgans …

Complete Writings of V.I. Lenin, tome 27

JPMorgan investment bank was since the middle-war a powerful monopoly stock company that used to control a large number of U.S. banks and industrial associations and companies. Such was for example the General Electric and General Motors, which until 2006 had annual revenues higher than the GDP of Ireland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Namibia, Nicaragua and Chad together. With the crash of 1929, which caused such things as the predatory mania of JPMorgan, promoting the well-known “economical bubbles”, this profit-speculative company smashed all the small economical groups, by merging them and asserting its sovereignty and its monopoly character.

Today we are one more capitalist crisis that has been forseen, moreover inherent to the character of the capitalist model. It started for one more time in the so-called “country of prosperity”, America, with the poor middle American citizen who used to take house-loans, it was spreaded with the so-called ‘toxic’ financial products and escalated with mass redundancies of workers in multinational companies and factories, company closures, pressure against lower-income countries and the list is endless. Those companies which survived, succeeded with the money of taxpayers in any country while on the same time all over the world the voices that were asking the crisis to be paid by those who created it were becoming louder. Of course, injustice and oppression exist either the capitalist model is experiencing a boom or recession. Long before the crisis, to avoid loss of profits imposed by labor achievements, the large multinational companies transferred their capital and their production to countries of the so-called ‘developing’, according to their terminology, world, in order to achieve the lowest production cost. Some of them, such as Nike and Adidas and otherones, which have already transferred their production to developing countries, refuse to pay even the 87 cents per hour which are considered as necessary to cover the basic cost of living for the workers and avoid the risks of disease outbreaks etc. Instead, some of them pay only 13 cents per hour. At the same time there is another darker side. The American “leader” of the “free world” since the Second World War, decided to assume the role of exporter of the “Western democracy” by exporting war and oppression in ‘developing’ regions of the planet, such as the much-suffer countries of the Arab world while meanwhile supports economically and militarily some fascistic states, such as Israel. With this blatant arrogance of the powerful states and the market dominance on the planet collapsed the ideological investment of America which used to be self-appeared as Democracy.

The Greek state economically and strategically, was traditionally a slave to the capitalistic forces of Britain and America, and is still dependent on advanced capitalist countries in many forms, economically, militarily and culturally. Result of this dependency was the creation of a huge state, that operated and still operates as a processor of promises and financial transactions for the benefits of local and foreign oligarchies. In recent decades, there were distributed and given as a gift to magnates of wealth and to fops of social and political life huge amounts of capital funds from the Community Support Framework of the European Union even from the funds of Social Insurance System, with black money, loans free of conditions, fake competitions.

The public wealth was transferred to Greek and foreign monopolies together with countless privileges and tax-exemptions. In addition, tax-exemptions for big businesses and tax-cuts for high incomes was a key element for economic policy of Ronald Reagan the guru of neoliberalism. The theory was based on increasing entrepreneurship and expenditure of the rich people that would result the improvement of all social classes, event that never happened. The implementation of this model in Greece led to a huge accumulation of profits for the local and transnational capital.

For the benefit of powerful economic cycles was led to impoverishment the biggest mass of workers and were stuck the salaries and pensions on the level of hunger. The workers, the craftsmen, the small and middle market, the professional services, which are the main productive forces and have become the feeders of plutocracy, are crushed by unsustainable taxes, de-industrialization and the general decline. The public economic and social life has become a fiefdom of the cycles of the oligarchy. The majority of the population is under an unprecedented economic oppression, while on the same time hundreds of millions of euros are spent for the strengthening on friendly constructive compnies’ contractors and abusers of public life.

Behind the mask of “democracy” those who have the power engage in irresponsible exploitation against the produced by people (and for the people?) overvalue under the argument that this exploitation is the product and will of the majority of the people. It is, literally, a vicious circle, which has its roots in the early years after the fall of the hunta in 1974. When, after the fall of the US-led military dictatorship, appeared those who would operate the will of the people for freedom, fairer distribution of wealth and transparency. They said lies to people by repeating words which the people wanted to listen to, that, so, Greece will stop being a protectorate of the English and Americans, by creating the appropriate conditions to restore the autonomy of the country and as a natural consequence will come the improvement of living conditions. But those promises were just “dust in the wind, because “Western democracy” was doing a good job. Those who make the country work, the folk, are newcomers at their own land and various luminary brains speak on his behalf. Why the representatives of the Greek Industrialists Association should speak about the Insurance System, when their pre-eminent role is to safeguard their own individual interests? National Bank of Greece itself, the temporal abuser of public funds and copartner of the European Central Bank, admits openly that the largest proportion of public money which is flowing into funds of the State comes not from those who have the money, because they evade taxes, but from the over-loaned households which are forced through lending to become food for the bankers so they can respond to the state’s economical attack. Eventually, all that remains on topic in this ravaged place is that we work for the minority and the minority works for themselves.

But now the king is naked. The widespread corruption underlying the triangle of power, state-capital-mass media, can not be hidden. The economically weak majority of people gets widened, while at the same time they work-produce for the accumulation of wealth on the side of the economic elite. It is the economic oligarchy, which is the real power that plans, under silence and safety, the basic guidelines in public life and political decisions. The modern elite of the country, the bourgeois class, is constructed by a clearly defined circle of people who are sharing for their own the wealth of the country and have common characteristics among each other. They live in guarded by police and bodyguards areas, such as Kolonaki district, the rich north or south suburbs.They laugh together in luxurius places, such as Ekali Club, Athenian Club, and often or rare they visit destinations like Switzerland and exotic islands. They control an army of journalists who cover and legalize their actions, maximize their control in state matters and buy justice by possessing all the mass media. They control print and electronic media, banks, constructive and financial companies, industrial and telecommunications, the stockmarket, Palaces of Culture and big football limited-responsibilities’ companies. These crazy-happy-friends is extremely tight and there is solidarity both in joy and in sorrow. At the marriage of Vardinogiannis’ son, at the baptize of Chatzinikolaou’s son, at the funeral of Lamprakis the guests were almost the same, representatives of the contemporary ruling class, journalists, businessmen, politicians and, not to forget, the American ambassador. The same people who will announce in the mass media, that should become cutouts for pensions and wages, in the same time, when a bottle of wine on their table may cost more than a monthly wage.

It is on charts these days to read and hear complaints from the government and the media, that the Greek financial system and generally the southern European countries are under attack from different centers of transnational profiteers, from the markets, the Anglo-Saxon banks etc. All these complaints are completely abstract and never lead to individual persons, as if talking about a natural disaster. This is clearly a distortion of reality while the markets are constructed by profit-speculators who are people with a full name, with businesses’ owning titles. They are a relatively small number of people who form a transnational elite and exchange between each other the key-positions they owe.

The same people who work for the International Monetary Fund after some time can work for national central banks, become priministers and financial ministers, consultants in multinational companies, organizations such as NATO etc. Tony Blair after being Britain’s priminister and sidekick of the Americans during the invasion in Iraq, became a director of JPMorgan, that has under its control the newly established Commercial Bank in Iraq, controlling the economy of the country, through the trade finance exchanges and the oil. The president of the Italian central bank (Βanca d΄Ιtalia) Mario Draghi had served as vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs and now gets prepared to become president of the European Central Bank. John Lipsky, former manager of IMF, has also worked as vice president of JPMorgan.

About Greece the “savior” manager of public debt Petros Christodoulou had offered his services in the past both at JPMorgan and the Goldman Sachs, but also at Credit Suisse. Recently, in fact, we learned from the well-known leaks of EYP (National Information Service) to press, that were identified four profit-speculative companies that become richer by functioning against the Greek economy. It was not leaked, of course, that one of them named Fidelity was a shareholder in Tyletypos, the owning company of Mega Channel. Boss, for real, and a major cash-donor of journalists who every night are trying to convince us that everyone must pay for the crisis. The same company also had a 4.5% stake of the shares in National Bank. In another case during the last Greek bond sale-out among the banks that lent the Greek State under the usurious rate of 6.5% was also the National Bank and Eurobank.

Let’s stop having doubts, their “western democracy” has nothing to do with the social power that is desired by society. It’s just a trick to keep people captive. What exists is the oligarchy of some powerful persons and the the majority of the people. The meaning of words is lost if there are no struggles for their maintenance. The challenge, then, is the resistance to unpopular projects. The response of the people must not be the inactivity but the confrontation with the options and mechanisms of the ruling class both on mass and individual level. As long as the reaction to all this is the passivity and individualism, so long territory will be given to the bosses to increase their exploitation conditions. The enemy is real and certainly not the immigrants, not the parts of the society who are fighting strongly and confrontationally, nor any other social groups who are aimed by the sovereign power. What is needed is to realize is that the most pieces of society face the same problems. We see our lives declining continuously.

What is necessary is to go into action. Even the conversation in our working place about how much ridiculous is the boss can be concidered as resistance. Gradually tolerance and fear and the imposed privetation will be removed and then will dominate the passion for justice and freedom, and the struggle of people to be saved from oppression. But where we should get is not to leave unanswered anything at all. Any change to worse situations for workers will result in cost to the bosses, from the verbal protest to violent actions. The December 2008 was not a deadlock firework, but an editorial part of the social struggles that are ongoing. In the social dialogue our own choice of armed struggle, is the immediate way to attack back against the plans of the state, the capitalists and the imperialists. It is the historical continuation of the struggles of the past with the ultimate aim of dialectic between us and the struggling parts of the society.

JPMorgan, proven, was caught red-handed stealing the money of the Insurance System, not through some financial tool of questionable legality , as they call them, but through the traditional gift-giving. And JPMorgan was interested in buying the financial bond only and only to have the ability to steal again in the future. According to the relations of IMF with JPMorgan, we easily conclude that the pressures of the IMF (and EU) for structural changes, for example in the Insurance System, have the ultimate aim of increasing the profits of financial institutions. Maybe this time, they have a better and not so easy to found out plan so they can put the cash on hands, but the objective remains the same, making it easy for them to control the economies and markets and profit speculatorly. The explosive mechanism at JPMorgan’s offices in Kolonaki district was a practical protest against its parasitic action.

The cops did not make it to evacuate the building despite the time of half an hour we gave them. We can not know if they were simply unable or had something else in mind.

On the same day that took place our action, Greek police killed Nikola Todi, 25 years old, with 9 bullets proving once again the zero respect that they have for human lives and disadvantaged persons.

Athens, 1st March 2010

REVOLUTIONARY CONTINUITY

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Friday expressed shock at the shooting dead of a young female refugee during a riot at one of the country’s refugee camps early this week.

The late refugee from an unnamed country was killed when police were called into Maheba refugee camp in the north west of the country to quell rioting refigees. Trouble began when 200 refugees staged a protest at the administration offices to prevent a new administrator who had been appointed to oversee them from taking office.

Some of the refugees were also demanding to be offered asylum to the United States of America, and in the ensuing confusion police were called in to stop the protest.

The police opened fire, killing the teenage refugee instantly.

UNHCR country representative James Lynch told journalists on Friday that the UN agency was shocked that live ammunition had been used on the refugees. He said although he did not support the actions of the refugees, it was saddening that deadly force had been used to break up the disturbance, leading to the killing.

He welcomed the commitment made by the Zambian government that it had instituted an investigation to establish how live ammunition was used to quell the riot.

APA

TAXI STRIKE
Cabbies appear set for a 48-hour stoppage next week
Taxi drivers are expected to go on strike again next week but this time they will stage a 48-hour stoppage on Tuesday and Wednesday, it emerged yesterday. Their union is opposed to government plans to make cabbies issue receipts, keep account books and pay tax according to their income. Under the current system, drivers pay just over 1,200 euros in tax each year, regardless of what they earn. Cabbies have already staged two 24-hour strikes this month and say they will keep protesting until the government changes its mind.
Trash protest
Landfills and waste processing centers around the country will shut down on March 6 and 7 as workers protest pay and conditions, it was decided yesterday. The Federation of Municipal Workers’ Associations (POE-OTA) also said yesterday that its members would strike on Wednesday and hold a rally in front of the Finance Ministry.
Youths mark Cretan teacher with swastikas
Police on Crete yesterday were seeking the two men who carved swastika symbols on the arm of a 27-year-old teacher on Wednesday night – the latest in a string of racist crimes on the island in the past two months.
The woman was attacked while getting into her car in the Halepa suburb of Hania by two masked youths who used a razor blade to carve two Nazi symbols onto the skin of her left arm and another three on her jacket sleeve. Police said they believe the perpetrators had targeted her as she had been offering Greek language lessons to the children of immigrants. Nikos Tzaras, a spokesman for the Cretan Migrant Forum condemned the attack as “barbaric and cowardly” and said he believed the assault and other racist attacks were being coordinated by “a center in Hania.” Wednesday’s attack follows a string of assaults on migrants and two attacks on a synagogue in Hania last month.

Ecuador – Indigenous representatives and leaders issued a call for an “uprising” to protest the Ecuadorian government’s development policies and press demands for a pluri-national state.

The president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or Conaie, Marlon Santi, speaking at a press conference Friday at the close of an extraordinary assembly in this central Andean city, announced the beginning of a permanent mobilization against the government, without providing a specific timeframe.

Santi also confirmed the rupture of a process of dialogue and reconciliation that Conaie had maintained with the government since the end of last September’s indigenous protests over oil, mining and water laws in which one Indian woman was killed, a death he called a “state crime.”

Forty police also were wounded in those protests carried out by members of the Shuar nation in the southeastern Amazon province of Morona-Santiago.

The Indians were protesting a water law that they said would lead to privatizing that resource. The government rejects that claim.

“This is an uprising that will be organized gradually. When we say uprising, this is a sacred word and a sacred action, a ritual. We are out to defend Pachamama (Mother Earth) and that’s what (the country) needs,” the president of Conaie affiliate Ecuarunari, Delfin Tenesaca, said.

The community leaders also called on all sectors of society to organize themselves and take “concrete steps” to mobilize against the extraction-oriented policies on mining and oil of President Rafael Correa’s government.

In the assembly, Conaie denounced the government “for not modifying the colonial state and continuing to strengthen the neo-liberal and capitalist system, betraying the Ecuadorian people,” Santi said. “Neo-liberal” is in Latin America a term used as a slur by leftists to describe advocates of free-market, laissez-faire economic policies.

Conaie turned against and helped bring about the ouster of former President Lucio Gutierrez in 2005, alleging he betrayed the poor with the austerity measures he imposed, and also helped force the resignation of another erstwhile head of state, Jamil Mahuad, in 2000.

The group on Friday called on indigenous nationalities to sidestep state authority and assume responsibility for education and health and the administering of justice and management of natural resources in their regions and declared the creation of a pluri-national parliament to achieve the “real” integration of indigenous peoples.

Conaie also announced that plans are in the works to take legal action at the national and international level “for the defense of collective rights that authorities refuse to recognize,” Santi said.

The statement, issued after two days of meetings, announced the end of a dialogue process with the government due to “lack of political will and the lack of respect for the rights of their peoples” and because of “the absence of results in the process,” he said.

“I call for unity. The real change and the real revolution begins now. Starting with the present and into the future,” Santi told more than 300 representatives of Indian groups from all regions of the country, who shouted slogans against the government and in favor of the indigenous movement.

President Correa, meanwhile, said Friday that Conaie’s call for an uprising was regrettable, although he said their right to demonstrate would be respected as long as the Indians’ actions are peaceful and law-abiding.

“We can’t allow groups, no matter how important they are, to seek to hold the state hostage and act outside the law … that harms all of us,” the leftist president told Ecuavisa television.

The head of state, who previously enjoyed Conaie’s political support, said that if the Indians “are going to close highways, kidnap people, as they’ve done before, to threaten life, that will be put down, and more than put down, punished with the full weight of the law.”

Correa, a U.S.-trained economist who calls himself a leftist humanist and says he shares the aspirations of the indigenous population, one of Ecuador’s most marginalized groups, said he does not understand Conaie’s position.

According to the president, his administration is a government on the side of Indians and all the poor sectors of the country, but he said indigenous groups must understand that the law and the state’s institutions must be respected.

For her part, the minister in charge of coordinating policies, Doris Soliz, said that Conaie’s announcement is regrettable and that the breakdown in dialogue harms efforts to build the united pluri-national state established by the 2008 constitution.

“The decision would mean the loss of a process of joint construction of an inter-cultural and pluri-national state,” but it will not stop the government from continuing its work on behalf of indigenous rights, Soliz added.

BEIJING, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) — China’s Ministry of Public Security Tuesday urged police nationwide to take initiatives in cracking serious crime cases and solving social conflicts to ensure a safe World Expo in Shanghai.

Vice Minister Huang Ming said police should seriously crack down on illegal activities, including illegal use of guns and explosives, kidnapping of children and women, gang-related crimes and online pornography.

Police in Shanghai and its neighboring regions were asked to reinforce security measures and increase street patrols, and mobilize local residents to ensure a safe environment for the upcoming World Expo.

Huang said the police should learn from Beijing’s experience of successfully safeguarding the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2009.

Police were also asked to visit grassroot level communities and villages to find prominent problems and help relevant authorities settle disputes.

Shanghai’s neighboring provinces, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, Shandong, Henan and Hubei, would reinforce security checks in air flights and trains, Huang said.

Huang also urged the police to enforce the law in a reasonable and civilized manner and minimize disturbances to the public.

The World Expo, to be hosted by China for the first time, will run from May 1 to Oct. 31. To date, at least 192 countries and 50 international organizations have confirmed their participation in the event that will present the latest advances of architecture and engineering worldwide.

Police say a man who was found dead while in custody “died suddenly while drinking hot water”, the Chongqing Evening News reported today.

Wang Yahui was detained for alleged theft on February 18 in Lushan county, Central China’s Henan province. Three days later, his family was informed that he died in the detention center.

Wang’s family is suspicious of the cause of his death, saying his body suffered multiple injuries. His nipples were cut off and his private parts were also bruised, according to his family.

“(The police told me) He was in good conditions in the detention center but suffered sudden stomach ache when questioned. Then he died,” Wang’s wife reportedly said to local media.

Officials at the local police bureau confirmed the death but said they were not clear how Wang was injured in the detention center.

The four policemen who were involved in the incident are now under the control of local authorities, pending further investigation, the reported added.

AP
CONCEPCION, Chile – Heroism and banditry mingled on Chile’s shattered streets Sunday as rescuers braved aftershocks digging for survivors and the government sent soldiers to quell looting. The death toll climbed to 708 in one of the biggest earthquakes in centuries.

In the hard-hit city of Concepcion, firefighters pulling survivors from a toppled apartment block were forced to pause because of tear gas fired to stop looters, who were wheeling off everything from microwave ovens to canned milk at a damaged supermarket across the street.

Efforts to determine the full scope of destruction were undermined by an endless string of terrifying aftershocks that continued to turn buildings into rubble. Officials said 500,000 houses were destroyed or badly damaged, and President Michele Bachelet said “a growing number” of people were listed as missing.

“We are facing a catastrophe of such unthinkable magnitude that it will require a giant effort” to recover, Bachelet said after meeting for six hours with ministers and generals in La Moneda Palace, itself chipped and cracked.

She signed a decree giving the military control over security in the province of Concepcion, where looters were pillaging supermarkets, gas stations, pharmacies and banks.

The president, who leaves office on March 11, also said the country would accept some of the offers of aid that have poured in from around the world.

She said the country needs field hospitals and temporary bridges, water purification plants and damage assessment experts — as well as rescuers to help relieve workers who have been laboring frantically since the magnitude-8.8 quake struck before dawn Saturday.

Although houses, bridges and highways in Santiago were damaged, a few flights managed to land at the airport and subway service resumed.

More chaotic was the region to the south, where the shaking was the strongest and where the quake generated waves that lashed coastal settlements, leaving behind sticks, scraps of metal and masonry houses ripped in two.

In the village of Lloca, a beachside carnival was caught in the tsunami. A carousel was twisted on its side and a ferris wheel rose above the muddy wreckage.

In Concepcion, the largest city in the disaster zone, a new, 15-story apartment building toppled onto its side. Many of those who lived on the side that wound up facing the sky could clamber out; those on the other were trapped. An estimated 60 people remained trapped in the 70-unit apartment building.

Police officer Jorge Guerra took names of the missing from a stream of tearful relatives and friends. He urged them to be optimistic because about two dozen people had been rescued.

“There are people alive. There are several people who are going to be rescued,” he said — though the next people pulled from the wreckage were dead.

Rescuers worked carefully for fear of aftershocks. Ninety jolts of magnitude 5 or greater shuddered across the region in the first 24 hours after the quake, including one nearly as large as the earthquake that devastated Haiti on Jan. 12.

Firefighters in Concepcion were about to lower a rescuer deep into the rubble when the scent of tear gas fired at looters across the street forced them to interrupt their efforts.

“It’s sad, but because of the situation you have to confront the robberies and at the same time continue the search,” Guerra said.

The sound of chain saws, power drills and sledgehammers breaking through concrete competed with the whoosh of a water cannon fired at looters and the shouts of crowds that found new ways into a four-story supermarket each time police retreated.

One woman ran off with a shopping cart piled high with slabs of unwrapped meat and cheese. A shirtless man carried a mattress on his head. Some of the looters pitched rocks at police armored vehicles.

Across the Bio Bio River in the city of San Pedro, looters cleared out a shopping mall. A video store was set ablaze, two automatic teller machines were broken open, a bank was robbed and a supermarket emptied, its floor littered with mashed plums, scattered dog food and smashed liquor bottles.

“It was a mob. They looted everything,” said police Sgt. Rene Gutierrez, 46, who had his men guarding the now-empty mall. “Now we’re only here to protect the building — what’s left of the building.”

He said police had been slow to reach the looted mall because one bridge over the river was collapsed and the other so damaged they had to move cautiously.

Ingenious looters even used long tubes of bamboo and plastic to siphon gasoline from underground tanks at a closed gasoline station. Others rummaged through the station’s restaurant.

Thieves attacked a flour mill in Concepcion — some toting away bags on their shoulders, others using bicycles or cars. One man packed a school bus with sacks of flour.

Many defended the scavenging — of food if not television sets — as a necessity because officials had not brought food or water. Even Concepcion’s mayor, Jacqueline van Rysselberghe, complained that no food aid was reaching the city. She said the federal government should send troops to help halt the looting.

___

MADRID (AFP) – Spain’s interior minister hailed the arrest in France on Sunday of the suspected military chief of the armed Basque separatist group ETA.

“A very significant operation has taken place in France,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba told reporters after the arrest of alleged ETA leader Ibon Gogeascoechea Arronategui, 54, in the town of Cahan, in the Normandy region of northern France.

Spanish authorities called him the Basque separatist movement’s “most senior” member.

Arrested with him was Beinat Aguinalde Ugartemendia, 26, suspected of assassinating a socialist politician and a businessman in 2008, the interior ministry said in a statement.

The ministry initially identified a third suspect arrested as Gregorio Jimenez Morales, 55, a presumed member of an ETA commando unit which allegedly transports equipment for carrying out attacks.

But in a later statement it said police tests had “virtually ruled out” that the person is Morales and are attempting to determine his identity.

Rubalcaba had said the two “were part of a commando ready to enter Spain” to launch attacks.

The pair “came to say goodbye to the military chief, who gave them their final instructions as ETA has a habit of doing”, he added.

With 32 arrests in Spain, France and Portugal since the beginning of the year, ETA “has experienced the worst two months of its history”, Rubalcaba said.

“They have lost explosives, a logistical base in Portugal,” where authorities seized 800 kilos (1,760 pounds) of explosives in February, he added.

Despite the slew of recent arrests, “we do not rule out an attack by ETA”, Rubalcaba said.

French officials said the three suspects were arrested at their home in Cahan.

French and Spanish police also seized three firearms, false documents, explosives, money and computer equipment during the joint operation.

The latest arrests come amid stepped-up, cross-border cooperation by French and Spanish police against ETA, blamed for 828 deaths in its 41-year campaign for independence in the Basque region of northern Spain and southwestern France.

ETA figures on several terrorist blacklists, including those of the European Union and the United States.

Several members of the separatist outfit, mainly members of its armed wing, have been arrested in France in recent years.

In November 2008, police in France arrested the then military chief of the organisation, Garikoitz Aspiazu, and captured his successors Aitzol Iriondo and Jurdan Martitegui over the following months.

Last October, they also detained the suspected political leader of ETA, Aitor Elizaran.

A court in Moscow has sentenced nine members of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang to prison terms of up to 23 years.

The gang members, most in their late teens, were found guilty of a string of brutal and very public murders.

The skinheads targeted people of Central Asian origin and posted videos of their attacks on the Internet.

Russia has seen a surge of racially-motivated attacks in recent years. In 2009 alone, neo-Nazis are believed to have killed more than 70 people.

‘Wrong accent’

The nine neo-Nazis called themselves “The White Wolves”.

They sought out Central Asian migrants, and attacked them in Moscow’s back streets.

They clubbed some of their victims to death with wooden planks and killed others by repeatedly stabbing them with knives and screwdrivers.

In one case, a glazier from Kyrgyzstan was stabbed 73 times, as the gang members shouted “Russia for the Russians!” and filmed the murder on their mobile phones.

The jury heard the gang was responsible for at least 11 killings, possibly even more.

And so – after five months of deliberations – came the prison terms: Twenty-three years for the gang leader and up to nine years for the others – the maximum prison term allowed in Russia for underage criminals.

Human rights activists have welcomed the sentencing.

They admit that the police are now cracking down on skinhead gangs.

But even so, last year alone, dozens were killed, and hundreds injured simply for not looking Slavic, and for speaking with a foreign accent.

A group of unruly workers yesterday damaged a composite garment factory of Islam Group at Konabari in Gazipur demanding a hike in salary and other facilities, said police.

Abdur Rashid, officer-in-charge of Joydevpur Police Station, told The Daily Star that although the issue of salary hike was almost settled through a discussion between the management and workers on Saturday, some unruly workers vandalised the factory.

“Nobody was injured in the incident. We have arrested a garment worker and the process of filing a case with Joydevpur police station is underway,” Rashid said.

The agitating workers damaged machinery and the offices of textile, dyeing, finishing, weaving and knitting sections at around 8:00am, said Atiqul Islam, owner of the factory that has about 8,000 workers.

He said the vandalism was part of a well-thought-out plot as most attackers were outsiders.

Atiqul Islam, also a director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said initial losses hover around Tk 40 crore as all expensive machinery was damaged.

“The losses would have crossed Tk 100 crore if shipment of apparels had not been made from my factory on time,” said Atiqul.

He said it might not be possible to resume production in two months.

Atiqul claimed that they had not defaulted on salary, bonus and overtime of the workers.

“The workers were demanding a hike in salary which was under consideration,” he said.

Atiqul was recently made the head of a six-member BGMEA committee for probing the fire incident at the Garib and Garib Company, a Gazipur-based garment factory, where 21 workers were killed and 30 injured on Thursday.

However, Nazma Akter, president of Sammilito Garment Sramik Federation, said the workers got agitated when the management did not announce holiday on Eid-e-Miladunnabi on Saturday.

Nazma said the resentment among the workers led to the vandalism. But the workers could have discussed the issue with labour leaders and the management to reach a settlement.

After visiting the factory, BGMEA President Abdus Salam Murshedy said vandalism of such a compliant factory is a threat to the growth and sustainability of garment business in Bangladesh.

“We want assistance from the government to prevent such violence in ready-made garment factories,” Murshedy said.

Indo-Asian News Service, Imphal
India and Myanmar will conduct a “coordinated operation” against northeast separatist outfits taking shelter and setting up base camps in the neighbouring country, Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said here.

“A coordinated operation by the joint forces of India and Myanmar would be conducted in the jungles of the neighbouring country to flush out northeast militants camps,” Pillai told reporters here Saturday night after holding a meeting with top Manipur government officials.

The strategy for the joint operation was discussed with Myanmar officials during Pillai’s visit to Yangon Jan 19-21.

“All camps (in Myanmar) which are acting against the interest of India would be targeted,” the home secretary said refusing to divulge details about the proposed joint operation.

According to Pillai, quite a large number of separatist outfits belonging to northeast India have their camps across the border.

Pillai was here to review the law-and-order situation in Manipur and the development work being undertaken in the state.

Three northeastern states — Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram — share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar.

“We have given detailed information about the insurgent camps with specific locations to the Myanmar authorities,” the union home secretary stated.

“If any extremist outfit abjures violence, it would be a great potential for talks,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh in his speech during the internal security meeting in New Delhi earlier this month pointed out that the almost unchecked trans-border movement of Indian insurgent groups and the continued existence of their camps in Myanmar posed threats to the internal security of Manipur and other northeastern states.

“It is no secret that most arms and ammunition used against our security forces are smuggled in from Myanmar. It is also known that whenever our army, Assam Rifles and the state police launch operations, the militant groups take shelter in neighbouring areas of Myanmar,” Singh told the meeting.

Highlighting the positive outcome of the home secretary-level talks Jan 19-21 at Yangon, the Manipur chief minister asked the central government to consult authorities in Myanmar for ascertaining the dates convenient for the first meeting of the proposed series of meetings between the border liaison officers.

“The ability to control the cell phone switch—and through it, the cell
phone system—can be a tool of singular power in the search for infor-
mation superiority. To demonstrate as much, this chapter outlines a
systems concept of cell phone switch control and user registration,
illustrates how such control can be used to facilitate counterinsurgency
operations, and addresses issues associated with making the system
work in the interest of the government.
If, as noted, insurgencies are about individuals who choose to
align with or oppose the constituted government in greater or lesser
degree, then information about individuals at a fine-grain level is cen-
tral to countering insurgency. To know how people are moving and
interacting on a day-to-day basis, there is no information quite as rich
as that which the cell phone system routinely collects by the minute.
Every time someone makes a phone call, some switch, in the normal
course of doing its job, records who is calling, where the caller is, who
is being called, where the called party is, and how long the call lasts.”

Byting Back: REGAINING INFORMATION SUPERIORITY AGAINST 21ST-CENTURY INSURGENTS pp 43 ( RAND corporation)

Counter-insurgency warfare is by its very nature an intensive boots-on-the-ground endeavor, but that hasn’t stopped U.S. forces in Afghanistan from leveraging technology in the fight against the Taliban.

Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles prowl the skies over Afghanistan’s mountain passes, deserts and agricultural belts — including Marjah, in Helmand Province, where heavy fighting is now taking place — searching out insurgent groups and intelligence-designated targets.

Land-based high-resolution cameras with infrared and thermal capabilities scan the horizon around bases and isolated outposts for suspicious movement.

Troops on patrol, meanwhile, employ high-tech identification devices to help ferret out terrorist suspects.

“The greatest advantage the insurgent has is that he doesn’t wear a uniform and identify himself as a combatant,” said a senior Marine staff officer with Task Force Leatherneck in Helmand Province. “What this system does is provide an opportunity to identify them through the exploitation of biometric material.”

The Biometric Automated Toolset (BAT) is basically a laptop computer with separate plug-in units that record mug shots, fingerprints and retinal characteristics. Personal data — such as name, date of birth, home village, father’s and grandfather’s names — are entered into the laptop with the biometric data and transmitted to the United States, where the information is permanently entered into a database and cross-checked against previously entered files. Within that database are fingerprints taken from previously detained individuals or from seized arms and munitions caches and improvised explosive devices.

“If there is a match, just as in any criminal database, it would identify the person as a person of interest and whether or not he should be detained immediately,” said the officer who requested anonymity

Troops not carrying a BAT system use a HIIDE (Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment) unit which resembles a camera. A lens captures retinal details while fingerprints are obtained through the use of a top-mounted panel on the device. Troops have to take personal details with pen and paper, but these are later entered into the BAT computer along with the captured images.

Troops using either system download regular suspect watch-list updates.

“The HIIDE is like an iPod, you download your favorite music from a database and then go listen to it,” the officer said. “I take my HIIDE, plug it into the database and download the database and then I’m off and running.”

In Marjah, where thousands of U.S., British and Afghan forces are currently clearing out the last major Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province, BAT and HIIDE will come into their own when major clearing operations finish and troops establish a cordon sanitaire of patrol bases around its major population areas.

The details of adult males in villages will recorded and entered into the main BAT database by soldiers on their daily patrols, who will also take normal photographs of the men in front of their homes for easy, daily reference.

“It’s a good tool and no one since I’ve been here has objected to giving us their information,” Marine Corp. Caleb Owens, of Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines. “We tell them it’s so we can give them ID cards.”

Marines of 2-2 operate in the Garmser District of Helmand Province in Southern Afghanistan. They BAT or HIIDE virtually every adult male in their area of operation and later give them laminated identification cards.

Marines say the information and cards are important in helping them identify who belongs in their area and who doesn’t. And since improvised explosive devices are constantly being planted and found in their area of operation, recorded biometrics such as fingerprints could help turn up suspects.

In other areas of Afghanistan, troops are more selective about who is entered into the database and who is not. In Logar province, for example, soldiers late last year were only recording the information of individuals who acted suspiciously or gave suspicious answers when approached and questioned by soldiers.

In Helmand’s Nawa district, which is next to Marjah, Marines have used both approaches, depending on their unit and command instructions.

“This is not a criminal database by itself, it is a national database, so from this database you can produce all sorts of stuff which are basic population-control measures so you know what you’re up against,” a Marine officer said.

Afghanistan’s population is estimated at more than 28 million and few have any sort of government-issued identification.

The BAT system is not new. In Iraq 2.5 million people were entered into the database, military sources told DefenseNews last year. Included in that number were tens of thousands of Sons of Iraq (SOI) volunteers — many of them former insurgents — who later worked with U.S. and Iraqi troops as neighborhood guards.

Lisa Swan, with the U.S. Army’s Biometric Task Force, told DefenseNews that the BAT system resulted in more than 400 “high-value” suspects being arrested in 2008 in Iraq and Afghanistan.

MOSCOW – RUSSIA’S interior ministry on Wednesday accused journalists of sensationalism and printing ‘lies’ after a magazine alleged that elite riot police had kidnapped migrant workers to use as slave labour.

Media outlets are carrying out a ‘far-reaching informational campaign aimed at discrediting’ the OMON riot police, the ministry said in a statement distributed through the Interfax news agency.

‘Certain representatives of the media in their pursuit of so-called ‘hot stories’ print what they know to be lies,’ ministry spokesman Oleg Yelnikov said in the statement. Yelnikov said he was referring to The New Times, an opposition weekly that has printed two articles about abuse of power in the OMON riot police based on testimony from former and current officers.

The OMON have long been perceived as the elite of Russia’s police force and are known for breaking up opposition protests. In the latest article, published Monday, The New Times alleged OMON police in the Moscow region regularly seized migrant workers and forced them to work on police construction projects without wages, citing a retired officer.

The source for the article, retired dog handler Larisa Krepkova, said riot police had beaten and seized migrant workers who touted for work beside a highway. The workers were forced to carry out building and cleaning work at an OMON base in the Moscow region in 2006 and 2007, alleged Krepkova, who retired from the force in 2008.

Workers were also forced to work on dachas belonging to police chiefs, she alleged, saying she had seen migrant workers at the dacha of deputy interior minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky. The ministry ‘will examine the article for legal violations,’ Sukhodolsky said in a statement posted on the Interior Ministry website Tuesday. — AFP

ATHENS (Reuters) – A Greek guerrilla group claimed responsibility for the explosion of a makeshift bomb last week at the political office of the minister in charge of police, officials said on Wednesday.

The bomb, which went off outside the Athens office used ahead of the Oct. 4 elections by Citizen Protection Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis, damaged the door and blew out windows without causing injuries.

“Popular Will sent a CD to a newspaper claiming the attack,” said a police official who declined to be named. “It blames the minister for considering extremists just common criminals.”

In 2009, the group claimed responsibility for a bomb explosion at the building of an agency managing state property, about 250 metres from the Athens central police headquarters.

Last week’s attack was the latest in a series of blasts that have rocked Greece since the police killing of a teenager in December 2008 sparked the country’s worst riots in decades.

24 February
Tension continues to mount in war-torn Norwood, St. James which was the scene of a quadruple police-killing on Tuesday.

Residents of Ooga Lane led a fiery demonstration Wednesday morning claiming that two youths from the community, Kemar Henderson, 24, and a youth known only as “Keva” or “Nerd”, were killed by the police in cold blood.

From minutes after 10am, angry residents used all sorts of debris to block the Ooga Lane Norwood Mainroad intersection.

According to the residents, both youths surrendered to the police but were taken inside the house and killed.

“Why they couldn’t bring these two innocent youths in and investigate them like them bring in the wrong doer sergeant and held for the 18 guns and nearly 11,000 rounds of ammunition seized (on Munster Road in Kingston),” one resident asked.

Firefighters have put out the blaze.

In the meantime a Bureau of Special Investigation team visited the area to probe the police killing of the two youths and two others in the community Tuesday afternoon.

BRANDON, MAN. -­ Brandon police are beginning to lay charges against gang members allegedly involved in a planned riot at a provincial jail in the western Manitoba city about five months ago.

Police allege 27 inmates at Brandon Correctional Centre were involved in the Oct. 4, 2009, uprising.

So far, six have been charged, police said Wednesday.

Police said five men – two 19-year-olds, two 20-year-olds and a 26-year-old – are charged with rioting, failing to disperse and escaping lawful custody.

A 23-year-old man is charged with assaulting a peace officer, assault with a weapon and intimidation of a justice system participant.

More will be charged, police said.

The guards’ union blamed overcrowding conditions for the four-hour revolt.

At the time, officials said the jail housed 282 inmates and had a rated capacity of 157.

As of Thursday, it had 254 inmates and a capacity of 164, a Manitoba Justice spokesperson said.

The union is calling for the construction of a new 400- to 600-bed jail to ease the Manitoba-wide problem. The province hasn’t committed.

An 80-bed addition is being constructed at Brandon Correctional Centre.

Discussions regarding temporary units are ongoing between the province and union, a justice spokesperson said.

John Baert, spokesperson for the Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union, said operational changes have been implemented in response to the riot but he can’t disclose them due to security reasons.

Baert said it’s the union’s understanding the government’s internal review of the incident is ongoing.

The review will remain confidential but will contain operational decisions and measures to prevent further incidents, a justice spokesperson said.

Those allegedly involved in the riot are members of the same gang, officials said previously.

The uprising broke out during a routine lockdown to confirm inmate counts.

Inmates formed a line, walked towards staff and began tossing chairs and causing a ruckus.

Correctional officers locked the doors and locked down the rest of the jail.

Inmates trashed the unit, comprised of two sub-units, and broke through an exterior wall. One inmate suffered a minor injury. No guards were injured.

After negotiations failed, the corrections emergency response team entered the unit and used pepper spray to subdue and apprehend the inmates.

China has tightened controls on internet use, requiring anyone who wants to set up a website to meet regulators and produce ID documents.

The technology ministry said the measures were designed to tackle online pornography, but internet activists see it as increased government censorship.

A number of websites are now being registered overseas in an attempt to avoid controls.

China has the world’s biggest online population: more than 380m users.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday lifted a freeze introduced in December on registration for new individual websites.

Extensive censorship

But the technology ministry said would-be website operators would now have to submit identity cards and photos of themselves, as well as meeting regulators before their sites could be registered.

The freeze had been imposed by the state-sanctioned group which registers domain names, after complaints by state media that not enough was being done to screen websites for pornography.

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Beijing says that despite extensive censorship, the internet remains a surprisingly vibrant and critical environment in China.

Internet users have used it to highlight cases of injustice or to embarrass corrupt officials.

China’s web users often manage to stay one step ahead of government controls, says our correspondent.

The Chinese authorities have launched a number of campaigns against online pornography, with the government saying thousands of people were detained last year alone.

Maoist rebels have attacked a police camp in India’s West Bengal state, hours after a top Maoist leader offered a conditional ceasefire, police say.

Three rebels were killed during the clash in the Lalgarh area, police say. Activists say the killings were staged.

The government, which has launched a major offensive against the rebels, has asked for the truce offer “in writing”.

The rebels want communist rule in large parts of India. More than 6,000 people have died during their 20-year fight.

On Monday, rebel leader Koteswara Rao offered a 72-day ceasefire across central and western India – as long as a government offensive against them was halted.

Koteswara Rao, also known as Kishenji, did not however offer direct negotiations, saying the right atmosphere for talks must exist first.

‘No conditions’

Federal home minister P Chidambaram responded by saying he would like a “short simple statement” from the rebels “saying: ‘We will abjure violence and we are prepared for talks’.”

“I would like no ifs, no buts and no conditions,” he added.

Separately, senior West Bengal police official Manoj Verma told the BBC that the bodies of three rebels had been found after the attack on the camp in West Bengal.

“Villagers have told us that the escaping rebels dragged away two more bodies of their dead colleagues,” he said.

One of the dead was identified as Lalmohan Tudu, a senior leader of a Maoist-backed local militia.

Local human rights activists alleged that the police had staged the killing of the three men.

“The policemen entered a house where the three were having dinner and opened unprovoked fire, killing them,” rights activist Nisha Biswas said in a statement.

Analysts say the rebels may have offered the ceasefire to regroup and consolidate their defences in the middle of a major offensive by security forces.

The government said it would “disrupt” terrorists when it could not prosecute

A total of 201 people were arrested on suspicion of terrorism last year, 66 of whom were eventually charged, Home Office figures reveal.

The number is up on last year, when 178 arrests were made.

In total there have been 1,759 terrorism arrests since 11 September 2001, the figures show.

The number of people stopped and searched under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act fell to 200,444 in 2009, a 12% drop from 2008.

The figures relate to England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland publishes separate figures.

Of the 66 people charged, 17 were charged under terrorism legislation while seven were charged with terrorism-related offences in the period ending September 2009.

Possession of an article for terrorism purposes (30%) and fund-raising (14%), are the most common charges under terror laws since 2001.

‘Complex threat’

The figures show that since the US terror attacks on 11 September 2001, in the UK 383 suspects have been charged with terrorism-related offences, with 310 prosecutions completed. Of those, 74% were convicted.

Last year there were 29 terror trials, with 86% resulting in a conviction.

Policing and security minister David Hanson said the figures underlined the success of the authorities in disrupting terrorists, and the CPS in prosecuting them.

“There can be no doubt about the complexity of the threat we face and the aspiration of those intent on committing acts of terrorism.

“That is why the government is committed to wherever possible prosecuting those involved in terrorism. And where we can’t prosecute, we seek to deport or disrupt.”

But Alex Deane, of civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said the figures showed that actual terrorism-related charges were rare and demonstrated the relatively-small objective threat they posed.

“This shows that we should not have allowed our whole way of life to be changed by intrusive technology like ID cards and body scanners on account of government-manufactured hysteria about terrorism,” he said.

Stop and search

Meanwhile, the figures show the number of stop and searches in the second quarter of 2009-10 was down by 53% on the same period the previous year.

The arrest rate resulting from searches under Section 44, which must take place within a designated area, was just 0.5%, with 965 people detained.

The use of these powers was escalated after the failed terror attack at London’s Tiger Tiger nightclub in 2007, resulting in more than a quarter of a million people being searched in 2008-09, the highest on record.

It has been claimed that these searches disproportionately affected minority groups.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson ordered them to be scaled back following an outcry.

And in January the European Court of Human Rights ruled police who use anti-terrorism powers to stop and search members of the public without suspicion are acting illegally.

In a surprise ruling, the judges said Section 44 of the Terrorism Act violated individual freedoms.

Lib Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne welcomed the fall in the use of Section 44 powers.

“The police are getting the message, but ministers should tighten up the law after the critical European ruling. Random stop and search is arbitrary and discriminatory, and acts as a recruiting sergeant for radical Islamism,” he said.

Mr Huhne also called for intercept evidence to be used in court.

“This is a better option than undermining civil liberties through detention without charge, control orders and secret evidence,” he added.

Corinna Ferguson, a barrister at human rights charity Liberty, welcomed the drop in stop and searches saying it demonstrated a “growing understanding on the part of the police of the dangers of such a sweeping anti-terror power”.

“But Parliament now needs to do its job, respond to the damning Court of Human Rights judgement and tighten up the law without delay,” she said.

AP, Feb 23

SYDNEY: Australia intends to impose tougher visa checks on people from countries considered at high risk for terrorism as part of a 69 million Australian dollar ($62 million) counterterrorism plan released Tuesday.
The new visa requirements, which include mandatory collection of fingerprints and facial imaging data for visa applicants from 10 countries, would help keep terrorists from evading detection, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in releasing the government’s counterterrorism “white paper” in Canberra.

“Terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia’s security environment,” Rudd said. “Prior to the rise of jihadist terorrism, Australia was not a specific target. Now Australia is such a target.”

Under the plans, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship would begin collecting the fingerprints and facial images this year, and cross-check them with immigration and law enforcement databases in Australia and overseas, the report said. It does not name which countries would be subject to the new requirements.

“We’re not identifying those countries until the rollout occurs,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. “There may be a diplomatic effort required in regards to some of those countries, as you would expect.”

While the report says the primary terrorist threat to Australia comes from a global jihadist movement, including al-Qaida, it also cites a rise in the number of terrorists born or raised in Australia. The government notes the 2005 London suicide bombings carried out by British nationals as an example of the growing threat of locally generated terrorism in Western democracies.

Of the 38 people Australia has prosecuted or are being prosecuted as a result of counterterrorism operations, 37 are Australian citizens, Attorney General Robert McClelland said.

“That is an indication that we are not simply looking at the possibility of a terrorist event occurring from overseas,” he said.

The government plans to establish a counterterrorism control center to coordinate Australia’s domestic and international intelligence efforts.

More than 100 Australians have been killed in terrorist attacks worldwide since 2001.

Feb 24

- Tens of thousands of strikers marched through Athens on Wednesday to protest against austerity plans aimed at wrenching Greece out of a debt crisis that has shaken the euro zone

The Socialist government meanwhile hit back at European criticism of Greece’s fiscal management, accusing European Union partners of double standards and poor leadership.

The 24-hour general strike grounded flights and disrupted services but stopped short of bringing Greece to a standstill. Scuffles broke out on the fringe of the protest, with police firing teargas to disperse groups of stone-throwing youths.

“No sacrifices, the rich should pay for the crisis,” demonstrators chanted as more than 20,000 marched on parliament in an otherwise peaceful protest.

In a sign of persistent market jitters, Greece’s borrowing costs rose on Wednesday after Czech Finance Minister Eduard Janota said Athens would find it impossible to slash its budget deficit as fast as promised.

Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos said Italy, France and Belgium had used the same techniques as Greece to mask their true deficits to qualify for the euro zone.

“You simply put some amounts of money in the next year … it is what everybody did and Greece did it to a lesser extent than Italy for example,” Pangalos told BBC World Service radio.

He said Germany was ill-placed to criticize Athens given its behavior during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War Two, including the looting of central bank gold reserves.

“EUROPE’S EYES ON US”

The public and private sector unions, which together represent half of Greece’s workforce of 5 million, want the government to scrap plans to freeze public wage, hike taxes and increase the retirement age.

“Today, Europe’s eyes are turned on us,” said Yannis Panagopoulos, head of the private sector union GSEE.

“We ask the government not to give in to the desires of the markets, to set people’s needs as a priority and adopt a mix of economic and social policies that won’t lead to recession but to jobs,” he told the rally.

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday downgraded the ratings of Greece’s four largest banks, expecting fiscal tightening to weigh on the economy and loan demand, hurting profits.

The strike coincided with a visit by EU officials assessing whether Greece is on track to cut its double-digit deficit. Greece’s debt crisis has shaken the euro and sent peripheral bond and credit default swaps markets reeling.

“The team of inspectors coming from the Commission, the ECB and the IMF … will get a taste of the dynamic reaction of the Greek workers to the huge pressures from Brussels,” center-left Eleftherotypia newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Under the scrutiny of EU policymakers and markets, the government has so far refused to give in to protesters’ demands. Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said on Tuesday the cabinet may decide on more measures to cut the deficit after talks with the visiting EU officials.

The first joint walkout by the two major labor federations was the biggest test to the government’s resolve since it won October elections. Opinion polls show most Greeks support government efforts to shore up deteriorating public finances that have rattled markets and worried European Union partners.

Workers and employers gave vastly different participation estimates. Government officials said only about 16 percent of public sector workers walked off the job, but public sector union ADEDY put participation at 90 percent.

Most shops in the capital were open, some banks were closed and others empty, and the capital’s chaotic traffic was quieter than usual. The Athens stock exchange operated normally.

All but emergency flights to and from Greece were grounded, ships stayed tied up in dock, and ministries, schools and monuments such as the Athens Acropolis remained shut. Street protests failed to attract more than the usual numbers.

In central Athens some said they saw no reason to strike.

“I don’t want to participate in the strike,” 62-year old gas station owner Dimitris Makrivellios said. “Aren’t people also responsible for this situation? Our economy’s problems concern us all. Why should we strike?”

Spanish workers unhappy about plans to raise the retirement age marched on Tuesday but the main protest in Madrid seemed relatively small in a sign that the country’s unions may be weakening.

SANTO DOMINGO – At least three people, among them a police officer, were injured in violent protests Monday, the second consecutive day of such disturbances in the Capotillo sector of this capital, the government said.

The violence has been erupting during protests over the death of a man who was allegedly shot several times by a police patrol on Friday and subsequently died on Sunday.

The demonstrators set up blockades and burned tires on the streets of the Capotillo neighborhood, which is in northern Santo Domingo,

The civilians injured on Monday were identified as Dario Amparo and Eduardo Arturo Duran, but the name of the police officer who was injured has not been made public by the authorities yet, a police source told Efe.

Amparo and Duran were admitted to Francisco Moscoso Puello Hospital in Capotillo, but the police officer was taken to the police force’s special hospital.

The protests began on Sunday night after the death of 28-year-old Jose Luis Estevez Familia, who was allegedly shot by police in the Capotillo neighborhood on Friday.

The police source said that on the first day of the protests three civilians were injured: Ana Peralta Almanzar, 33; Victor Manuel Acosta, 25, and Emilis Lizardo, 10.

Capotillo residents said that officers with the police command known as “Los Gavilanes” are the ones responsible for the man’s death, but the police reject that version.

Protest organizers told local television stations that the demonstrations will continue until the killers of Estevez Familia are brought to justice. EFE

QUITO – Organizations representing Ecuador’s indigenous peoples announced the rupture of the dialogue that they had been maintaining with government representatives and said they will await the decisions of the General Assembly of indigenous peoples set for later this week to call protest demonstrations.

Delfin Tenesaca, the president of the Andean branch of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, or Conaie, confirmed the situation to the Teleamazonas television station and blamed the government for the breakdown of the talks.

“Dialogues without a response and without decision-making power” and executive orders about mining exploitation were some of the reasons why the Indians declared the talks over, he said.

“The government has no interest in what the constitution guarantees to be a plurinational state. It doesn’t want to implement it and that excludes the indigenous sector,” Tenesaca added.

He also said that over the weekend, the Amazonian branch of Conaie also decided to support the rupture of the dialogue.

“Achieving our interests has always required mobilizations,” said the Indian leader, who added that the decision to move to a national mobilization will be taken “by consensus” starting on Thursday as the Conaie General Assembly.

The government and the indigenous sectors undertook several months of talks and dialogue after the protests last September that ended with one demonstrator dead and 40 policemen injured.

Then, the government and Conaie began a dialogue process in which, at different working meetings, they studied their disagreements on several issues including a water resources law, a mining law and the procedure for schooling in both Spanish and indigenous languages. EFE