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Prendiamo nota.
A federal inquiry into mortgage finance may recommend borrowers be required to put up a deposit of 20 per cent.
The parliamentary economics committee has called the snap inquiry into home lending as the number of people defaulting on mortgages continues to rise.
Despite low unemployment figures, economic growth and high consumer confidence, personal bankruptcies went up by 17 per cent in the 2006-07 financial year.
The chair of the committee, Bruce Baird, today said the inquiry would bring together banks, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), the banking regulator and consumer groups.
Discussions would focus on discovering the extent of the problem, the role of mortgage brokers and whether fierce competition between the banks was eroding prudent lending practices, Mr Baird told ABC Radio.
One outcome could be tighter controls on mortgage brokers, he said.
"Also some requirement there is adherence to a degree of equity, it's normally 20 per cent equity but if that's being eroded stricter controls can be brought in," Mr Baird said.
He said the inquiry would also consider whether the root of the problem lay with consumer attitudes.
"There's also the question of whether we have just normal greed coming in, where people want their McMansions."
The RBA had been concerned for some time about the ease of securing home loan credit and the abandonment of the normal prudential requirement of 20 per cent equity, he said.
"We are seeing that eroded and we are seeing more of a 100 per cent of the value of a house being borrowed," he said.
Falling house prices in areas such as western Sydney left many homeowners with negative equity, saddling them with a debt if they were forced to sell due to financial shocks such as job loss or pregnancy, he said.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
HAVANA: Fidel Castro said Wednesday the island's communist system has become plagued by "irritating inequalities and privileges" that have left the poor bitter and angry.
In pratica sta dicendo che alcuni poor sono diventati meno poor degli altri, invece di essere tutti ugualmente poor.
Turning a more critical eye on Cuban life than he has since falling ill and giving up power almost a year ago, the 80-year-old Castro said in an essay published in state-run newspapers "we are not a consumer society."
But he bemoaned that some Cubans use foreign currency sent from relatives abroad or brought to the island by tourists to set up illegal sources of profit. This while they continue to enjoy ration cards, free housing and health care and other social services.
Dai?
"Not everyone receives convertible currency from abroad, something which is not illegal but which at times creates irritating inequalities and privileges in a country that does its utmost to supply vital services free of charge to the entire population," Cuba's "Maximum Leader" wrote in the essay titled "self-criticism of Cuba."
"The real and visible lack of equality and the lack of pertinent information gives way to critical opinions, especially in the neediest sectors," Castro wrote.
Signed Tuesday, Castro's treatise was the latest in a string of "Reflections of the Commander In Chief" he has begun penning every few days.
The U.S. dollar was widely used in Cuba until 2004, when the government took steps to remove it from circulation and promote the convertible peso - which now trades at an official rate 8 percent higher than the American greenback.
A steep tax on changing dollars also was enacted. The moves sought to strengthen the island's regular peso, which is used for state salaries and most government goods and services but worth about 25 times less than a convertible peso.
Castro singled out "the juicy profits" some Cubans earn running unlicensed taxi services, which include fleets of classic (leggi: relitti) American vehicles.
"Unlicensed" taxi services...
Cuban officials concede the island's decrepit and overcrowded transportation system is on the point of collapse. Few Cubans are allowed to buy new or used cars, but can own hulking U.S. jalopies built before Castro's 1959 revolution.
Using scarce gasoline for profit "can compromise the independence and life of Cuba. We cannot fool around with that!" Castro wrote.
"Ooga! Booga!"
Recuperating in an undisclosed location, Castro has not been seen in public since announcing last July 31 that emergency intestinal surgery had forced him to ceded power to a provisional government headed by his 75-year-old brother Raul.
Quindi in conclusione siete nelle mani di due poveri vecchi rincoglioniti e delle loro seghe mentali.
Ma persino Castro è capace di fiutare il letame, quando l'odore più pungente giunge alle sue vecchie e rincoglionite narici:
Castro's "Reflections" have ranged from criticisms of U.S.-backed plans to use food crops for biofuels to hints about his illness and why his recovery has taken so long. His writings appear to show he is in little hurry to resume power.
Amen.
In pratica sta dicendo che alcuni poor sono diventati meno poor degli altri, invece di essere tutti ugualmente poor.
Turning a more critical eye on Cuban life than he has since falling ill and giving up power almost a year ago, the 80-year-old Castro said in an essay published in state-run newspapers "we are not a consumer society."
But he bemoaned that some Cubans use foreign currency sent from relatives abroad or brought to the island by tourists to set up illegal sources of profit. This while they continue to enjoy ration cards, free housing and health care and other social services.
Dai?
"Not everyone receives convertible currency from abroad, something which is not illegal but which at times creates irritating inequalities and privileges in a country that does its utmost to supply vital services free of charge to the entire population," Cuba's "Maximum Leader" wrote in the essay titled "self-criticism of Cuba."
"The real and visible lack of equality and the lack of pertinent information gives way to critical opinions, especially in the neediest sectors," Castro wrote.
Signed Tuesday, Castro's treatise was the latest in a string of "Reflections of the Commander In Chief" he has begun penning every few days.
The U.S. dollar was widely used in Cuba until 2004, when the government took steps to remove it from circulation and promote the convertible peso - which now trades at an official rate 8 percent higher than the American greenback.
A steep tax on changing dollars also was enacted. The moves sought to strengthen the island's regular peso, which is used for state salaries and most government goods and services but worth about 25 times less than a convertible peso.
Castro singled out "the juicy profits" some Cubans earn running unlicensed taxi services, which include fleets of classic (leggi: relitti) American vehicles.
"Unlicensed" taxi services...
Cuban officials concede the island's decrepit and overcrowded transportation system is on the point of collapse. Few Cubans are allowed to buy new or used cars, but can own hulking U.S. jalopies built before Castro's 1959 revolution.
Using scarce gasoline for profit "can compromise the independence and life of Cuba. We cannot fool around with that!" Castro wrote.
"Ooga! Booga!"
Recuperating in an undisclosed location, Castro has not been seen in public since announcing last July 31 that emergency intestinal surgery had forced him to ceded power to a provisional government headed by his 75-year-old brother Raul.
Quindi in conclusione siete nelle mani di due poveri vecchi rincoglioniti e delle loro seghe mentali.
Ma persino Castro è capace di fiutare il letame, quando l'odore più pungente giunge alle sue vecchie e rincoglionite narici:
Castro's "Reflections" have ranged from criticisms of U.S.-backed plans to use food crops for biofuels to hints about his illness and why his recovery has taken so long. His writings appear to show he is in little hurry to resume power.
Amen.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Russia's air force commander on Wednesday denied two of his long-range bombers intended to enter British air space on Tuesday, saying the planes were on a training flight unconnected to recent diplomatic tension between London and Moscow.
Britain's Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept the Tupolev "Bear" bombers as they headed towards British air space but a Defence Ministry spokesman in London said the bombers turned back long before reaching Britain.
"Our planes were flying planned flights over neutral waters," Russian Air Force Commander Col Gen Alexander Zelin told the Interfax news agency.
"Such flights have been carried out and will be carried out in line with a plan for training long-range aircraft crews."
The incident, with its echoes of Cold War military standoffs, came amid a furious diplomatic row between London and Moscow.
Britain has ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to extradite the key suspect in the murder of a Russian emigre in London last year.
Russia's Zelin said any suggestion that the bombers' flights were related to recent tension between the two countries was "sheer nonsense", Interfax added.
"We plan flights of bombers in line with a combat training program at least half a year beforehand," it quoted him as saying.
"We resolve our domestic problems in training flight crews and do not interfere in politics."
The Tupolev Tu-95, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, is Russia's equivalent of the US B-52 bomber and is a Cold War icon.
Originally designed to drop nuclear weapons, it has been adapted for a wide variety of roles including surveillance and maritime patrol.
Britain's Royal Air Force scrambled fighter jets to intercept the Tupolev "Bear" bombers as they headed towards British air space but a Defence Ministry spokesman in London said the bombers turned back long before reaching Britain.
"Our planes were flying planned flights over neutral waters," Russian Air Force Commander Col Gen Alexander Zelin told the Interfax news agency.
"Such flights have been carried out and will be carried out in line with a plan for training long-range aircraft crews."
The incident, with its echoes of Cold War military standoffs, came amid a furious diplomatic row between London and Moscow.
Britain has ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to extradite the key suspect in the murder of a Russian emigre in London last year.
Russia's Zelin said any suggestion that the bombers' flights were related to recent tension between the two countries was "sheer nonsense", Interfax added.
"We plan flights of bombers in line with a combat training program at least half a year beforehand," it quoted him as saying.
"We resolve our domestic problems in training flight crews and do not interfere in politics."
The Tupolev Tu-95, codenamed "Bear" by NATO, is Russia's equivalent of the US B-52 bomber and is a Cold War icon.
Originally designed to drop nuclear weapons, it has been adapted for a wide variety of roles including surveillance and maritime patrol.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
WASHINGTON, July 20 (RIA Novosti) - A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship and launch a war with Iran within a year.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, blasted Thursday a new Executive Order, released July 17, allowing the White House to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies and giving the government expanded police powers to exercise control in the country.
Roberts, who spoke on the Thom Hartmann radio program, said: "When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order], there's no check to it. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule."
"The American people don't really understand the danger that they face," Roberts said, adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party.
Old-line Republicans like Roberts have become increasingly disenchanted with the neoconservative politics of the Bush administration, which they see as a betrayal of fundamental conservative values.
According to a July 9-11 survey by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company, President Bush and the Republicans can claim a mere 31 percent approval rating for their handling of the Iraq war and 38 percent for their foreign policy in general, including terrorism.
"The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."
Roberts suggested that in the absence of a massive popular outcry, only the federal bureaucracy and perhaps the military could put constraints on Bush's current drive for a fully-fledged dictatorship.
"They may have had enough. They may not go along with it," he said.
The radio interview was a follow-up to Robert's latest column, in which he warned that "unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the U.S. could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran."
Roberts, who has been dubbed the "Father of Reaganomics" and has recently gained popularity for his strong opposition to the Bush administration and the Iraq War, regularly contributes articles to Creators Syndicate, an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, blasted Thursday a new Executive Order, released July 17, allowing the White House to seize the assets of anyone who interferes with its Iraq policies and giving the government expanded police powers to exercise control in the country.
Roberts, who spoke on the Thom Hartmann radio program, said: "When Bush exercises this authority [under the new Executive Order], there's no check to it. So it really is a form of total, absolute, one-man rule."
"The American people don't really understand the danger that they face," Roberts said, adding that the so-called neoconservatives intended to use a renewal of the fight against terrorism to rally the American people around the fading Republican Party.
Old-line Republicans like Roberts have become increasingly disenchanted with the neoconservative politics of the Bush administration, which they see as a betrayal of fundamental conservative values.
According to a July 9-11 survey by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company, President Bush and the Republicans can claim a mere 31 percent approval rating for their handling of the Iraq war and 38 percent for their foreign policy in general, including terrorism.
"The administration figures themselves and prominent Republican propagandists... are preparing us for another 9/11 event or series of events," he said. "You have to count on the fact that if al Qaeda is not going to do it, it is going to be orchestrated."
Roberts suggested that in the absence of a massive popular outcry, only the federal bureaucracy and perhaps the military could put constraints on Bush's current drive for a fully-fledged dictatorship.
"They may have had enough. They may not go along with it," he said.
The radio interview was a follow-up to Robert's latest column, in which he warned that "unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the U.S. could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran."
Roberts, who has been dubbed the "Father of Reaganomics" and has recently gained popularity for his strong opposition to the Bush administration and the Iraq War, regularly contributes articles to Creators Syndicate, an independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns for daily newspapers.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Tom Bawden in New York
Indovina?
General Electric became the latest group to admit defeat in America's sub-prime home loan market as it announced plans to sell its WMC Mortgage unit.
The sale would bring the number of mortgage lenders that have closed, gone into bankruptcy or been sold to more than 60 in the past 18 months as a trickle of defaults on high-risk subprime mortgages has turned into a flood. New Century Financial and ResMae are among the biggest subprime lenders forced into bankruptcy in recent months.
GE has been frantically selling WMC's loans since April, when it blamed bad debts at the unit for a $373 million (£183 million) decline in first-quarter profits at its financial services group.
The conglomerate also wrote down the value of its remaining home loans by $500 million and cut its workforce by about 1,000, or 40 per cent.
GE has since sold on about $3.7 billion worth of WMC's mortgage book, leaving it with about $1 billion in loans. Analysts said WMC could be of interest to a rival mortgage lender or a hedge fund, which could potentially repackage its loan book and sell it for a profit.
GE announced its disposal plans as the American Government sought to persuade the Chinese administration to prop up its mortgage market. Representatives of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development were in Beijing yesterday trying to tap China's $1.33 trillion of foreign currency reserves as the growing level of defaults continued to deter many traditional investors in bonds backed by subprime loans.
On Thursday, it emerged that mortgage banks were expected to foreclose on 1.8 million home loans this year, representing a 44 per cent increase on 2006. RealtyTrac, which made the forecast, blamed the escalation on subprime mortgages and suggested that defaults were likely to "spike" in the autumn.
The expected growth of foreclosures has increased nervousness about subprime loans among groups such as GE and the sell-off at rock-bottom prices of properties with a defaulted mortgage is expected to increase over the next few months. Meanwhile, lenders are making far fewer high-risk loans and finding it more difficult to package them into bonds and sell them on to hedge funds and institutions.
Suspicions that America's subprime woes had reached Asia heightened yesterday when Moody's, the ratings agency, announced it was investigating the region's exposure to high-risk US home loans, to see if any of its banks merited a credit rerating.
GE announced its disposal plans as it reported a 12 per cent rise in its second-quarter group profits to $5.4 billion, as sales rose by 12 per cent to $42.3 billion. GE Money, the group's financial services division, shrugged off its mortgage woes to report an 8 per cent rise in profits as revenues increased by 17 per cent.
GE also confirmed that it would double its share buyback programme, to $14 billion, with $12 billion of the stock to be repurchased this year.
Indovina?
General Electric became the latest group to admit defeat in America's sub-prime home loan market as it announced plans to sell its WMC Mortgage unit.
The sale would bring the number of mortgage lenders that have closed, gone into bankruptcy or been sold to more than 60 in the past 18 months as a trickle of defaults on high-risk subprime mortgages has turned into a flood. New Century Financial and ResMae are among the biggest subprime lenders forced into bankruptcy in recent months.
GE has been frantically selling WMC's loans since April, when it blamed bad debts at the unit for a $373 million (£183 million) decline in first-quarter profits at its financial services group.
The conglomerate also wrote down the value of its remaining home loans by $500 million and cut its workforce by about 1,000, or 40 per cent.
GE has since sold on about $3.7 billion worth of WMC's mortgage book, leaving it with about $1 billion in loans. Analysts said WMC could be of interest to a rival mortgage lender or a hedge fund, which could potentially repackage its loan book and sell it for a profit.
GE announced its disposal plans as the American Government sought to persuade the Chinese administration to prop up its mortgage market. Representatives of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development were in Beijing yesterday trying to tap China's $1.33 trillion of foreign currency reserves as the growing level of defaults continued to deter many traditional investors in bonds backed by subprime loans.
On Thursday, it emerged that mortgage banks were expected to foreclose on 1.8 million home loans this year, representing a 44 per cent increase on 2006. RealtyTrac, which made the forecast, blamed the escalation on subprime mortgages and suggested that defaults were likely to "spike" in the autumn.
The expected growth of foreclosures has increased nervousness about subprime loans among groups such as GE and the sell-off at rock-bottom prices of properties with a defaulted mortgage is expected to increase over the next few months. Meanwhile, lenders are making far fewer high-risk loans and finding it more difficult to package them into bonds and sell them on to hedge funds and institutions.
Suspicions that America's subprime woes had reached Asia heightened yesterday when Moody's, the ratings agency, announced it was investigating the region's exposure to high-risk US home loans, to see if any of its banks merited a credit rerating.
GE announced its disposal plans as it reported a 12 per cent rise in its second-quarter group profits to $5.4 billion, as sales rose by 12 per cent to $42.3 billion. GE Money, the group's financial services division, shrugged off its mortgage woes to report an 8 per cent rise in profits as revenues increased by 17 per cent.
GE also confirmed that it would double its share buyback programme, to $14 billion, with $12 billion of the stock to be repurchased this year.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
MOSCOW, July 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill to spend debt and back-tax payments to the budget by bankrupt oil company Yukos on 2007 social programs, the Kremlin said Friday.
The funds will go to infrastructure projects and social programs, including road building, maintenance and repair, improving housing conditions, renovation of apartment blocks, nuclear and radiation safety, and research and development programs, the Kremlin press service said.
Key assets of Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company, have been sold off at liquidation auctions to repay billions of dollars in back taxes. The company has virtually repaid its debts to creditors. The Yukos register of creditors' claims included 137 claims from 63 creditors totaling 709.512 billion rubles (about $27 billion). Analysts consider the assets to have been sold at a hefty discount.
The Finance Ministry said earlier it expected the budget to receive up to 450 billion rubles ($17.45 billion) from Yukos, and that the money would be used to overhaul the municipal sector, and finance development institutions, among other things.
Yukos was declared bankrupt on August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities. Its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Siberia for fraud and tax evasion.
Ogni cosa fatta sulle spalle di Khodorkovsky dev'essere per forza buona e giusta.
Peccato che non abbiano messo le mani su Leonid "Our People" Nevzlin.
The funds will go to infrastructure projects and social programs, including road building, maintenance and repair, improving housing conditions, renovation of apartment blocks, nuclear and radiation safety, and research and development programs, the Kremlin press service said.
Key assets of Yukos, once Russia's largest oil company, have been sold off at liquidation auctions to repay billions of dollars in back taxes. The company has virtually repaid its debts to creditors. The Yukos register of creditors' claims included 137 claims from 63 creditors totaling 709.512 billion rubles (about $27 billion). Analysts consider the assets to have been sold at a hefty discount.
The Finance Ministry said earlier it expected the budget to receive up to 450 billion rubles ($17.45 billion) from Yukos, and that the money would be used to overhaul the municipal sector, and finance development institutions, among other things.
Yukos was declared bankrupt on August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities. Its founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Siberia for fraud and tax evasion.
Ogni cosa fatta sulle spalle di Khodorkovsky dev'essere per forza buona e giusta.
Peccato che non abbiano messo le mani su Leonid "Our People" Nevzlin.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
L'impresa aveva utilizzato le telecamere del garage per dimostrare le inadempienze del lavoratore. Il caso è relativo a quello di un dipendente dell'Eni che era stato licenziato dopo la sentenza in appello a marzo 2005. Ora l'azienda dovrà reintegrarlo e pagargli gli stipendi arretrati. Tutti i pareri del Garante sui controlli negli uffici.
La vittoria degli scarafaggi e dei loro sindacalisti.
C'è una soglia che non deve essere mai valicata. Pure se il lavoratore è uno di quelli che di lavorare non ne vuole proprio sentire parlare. A dirlo è una sentenza della Cassazione che ha stabilito che "la vigilanza sul lavoro, ancorché necessaria nell'organizzazione produttiva" va "mantenuta in una dimensione 'umana' e cioé non esasperata dall'uso di tecnologie" che violano la privacy del dipendente stesso". Insomma il Grande Fratello nelle imprese non può andare in onda.
La sentenza 15892 della Cassazione, redatta da Paolo Stile, ha annullato su queste basi il licenziamento che era stato inflitto il 3 luglio del 2002 ad un dipendente dell'Eni Spa. Sergio P., a dire del datore di lavoro, aveva mostrato un "comportamento malizioso e ripetutamente inadempiente, o comunque idoneo ad ingenerare sfiducia". In particolare la sentenza fa riferimento all'uso che il datore di lavoro ha fatto delle telecamere all'interno del garage dove potevano parcheggiare i dipendenti per dimostrare le sue ingiustificate assenze e ritardi. Nella sentenza del giudizio d'appello emessa a marzo 2005, con il quale il dipendente era stato licenziato, si affermava che l'uomo "eludendo i controlli varcava altri accessi ed entrava nel garage o ne usciva con la sua auto privata".
La sentenza sembra muoversi in una direzione diversa rispetto alle precedenti pronunce e stabilisce che le imprese pure se si trovano di fronte all'esigenza di "evitare condotte illecite da parte dei dipendenti" non possono spiare la condotta del dipendente facendo un ricorso "esasperato a mezzi tecnologici" così da fare venire meno "ogni forma di garanzia della dignità e della riservatezza del lavoratore".
Per la Cassazione quindi, pure in presenza di un comportamento grave "svoltosi in maniera sistematica tale da avere spezzato il vincolo fiduciario", il dipendente va immediatamente "reintegrato nel suo posto di lavoro". Allo stesso tempo l'impresa dovrà un risarcimento al lavoratore per i danni pari alla retribuzione di circa 1.500 euro per quattrodici mensilità, ovvero dal giorno del licenziamento a quello della reintegrazione.
La Suprema Corte ricorda che sussiste il "divieto di utilizzazione di mezzi di controllo a distanza, tra i quali, in primo luogo, gli impianti audiovisivi sul presupposto che la vigilanza sul lavoro va mantenuta in una dimensione umana" stabilito dallo Statuto dei lavoratori. La richiesta dell'installazione di impianti ed apparecchiature di controllo, dai quali derivi anche la possibilità di controllo a distanza dell'attività dei lavoratori, può essere solo condizionata a "esigenze di sicurezza del lavoro". In ogni caso la installazione è "condizionata all'accordo con le rappresentanze sindacali aziendali o con la commissione interna, o in difetto, all'autorizzazione dell'ispettorato del lavoro".
D'altronde il diritto alla privacy del dipendente si estende anche durante le attività di lavoro in ufficio. Il Garante nella sua ultima relazione annuale ha ribadito, in occasione di un caso relativo a un lavoratore licenziato per avere consultato siti a contenuto religioso, politico e pornografico, che il datore non può copiare direttamente dalla directory intestata al lavoratore le pagine web senza informare preventivamente il lavoratore. Tale trattamento può essere effettuato senza il consenso solo "se necessario per difendere in giudizio un diritto di pari rango pari a quello dell'interessato della personalità o un altro diritto fondamentale."
Sempre in merito al controllo da parte dell'azienda dei movimenti dei dipendenti il Garante ha dato ad agosto un "sì condizionato" al progetto di una società che prevede l'uso delle impronte digitali per far accedere i dipendenti in determinate aree del magazzino merci dove sono depositati beni di particolare valore. "Le impronte digitali potranno essere usate solo per identificare in maniera certa i dipendenti della società abilitati all'accesso alle aree riservate e non per la rilevazione delle loro presenze. Scopo dell'installazione del sistema biometrico è quello di garantire una maggiore sicurezza delle merci ed evitare il ripetersi di furti di beni preziosi".
Quanto alle email la pratica del controllo sembra essere molto diffusa. Per Mauro Paissan, componente del Garante per la Privacy, "è giusto partire dal quadro normativo vigente (per quanto non specifico) che al momento punisce con una sanzione penale (art. 616 c.p.) chiunque violi una corrispondenza a lui non diretta, specificando che per corrispondenza si intende anche quella informatica o telematica. E' necessario trovare una soluzione che contemperi il diritto del datore di lavoro di mantenere il controllo dei beni aziendali con l'insopprimibile diritto, costituzionalmente tutelato, alla segretezza della corrispondenza e alla protezione dei propri dati personali. In ogni modo, su questo delicatissimo punto non c'è ancora una normativa specifica né una giurisprudenza consolidata."
In pratica vuol dire che, essendo impossibile togliersi dai coglioni gli scarafaggi, le assunzioni saranno effettuate in base a raccomandazioni e garanzie trasversali di varia natura.
Ricordate, bambini: la privacy vale solo per gli scarafaggi. Per voialtri evasori è lecito chiedere il conto corrente obbligatorio, i pagamenti tracciabili, ed altre amenità.
La vittoria degli scarafaggi e dei loro sindacalisti.
C'è una soglia che non deve essere mai valicata. Pure se il lavoratore è uno di quelli che di lavorare non ne vuole proprio sentire parlare. A dirlo è una sentenza della Cassazione che ha stabilito che "la vigilanza sul lavoro, ancorché necessaria nell'organizzazione produttiva" va "mantenuta in una dimensione 'umana' e cioé non esasperata dall'uso di tecnologie" che violano la privacy del dipendente stesso". Insomma il Grande Fratello nelle imprese non può andare in onda.
La sentenza 15892 della Cassazione, redatta da Paolo Stile, ha annullato su queste basi il licenziamento che era stato inflitto il 3 luglio del 2002 ad un dipendente dell'Eni Spa. Sergio P., a dire del datore di lavoro, aveva mostrato un "comportamento malizioso e ripetutamente inadempiente, o comunque idoneo ad ingenerare sfiducia". In particolare la sentenza fa riferimento all'uso che il datore di lavoro ha fatto delle telecamere all'interno del garage dove potevano parcheggiare i dipendenti per dimostrare le sue ingiustificate assenze e ritardi. Nella sentenza del giudizio d'appello emessa a marzo 2005, con il quale il dipendente era stato licenziato, si affermava che l'uomo "eludendo i controlli varcava altri accessi ed entrava nel garage o ne usciva con la sua auto privata".
La sentenza sembra muoversi in una direzione diversa rispetto alle precedenti pronunce e stabilisce che le imprese pure se si trovano di fronte all'esigenza di "evitare condotte illecite da parte dei dipendenti" non possono spiare la condotta del dipendente facendo un ricorso "esasperato a mezzi tecnologici" così da fare venire meno "ogni forma di garanzia della dignità e della riservatezza del lavoratore".
Per la Cassazione quindi, pure in presenza di un comportamento grave "svoltosi in maniera sistematica tale da avere spezzato il vincolo fiduciario", il dipendente va immediatamente "reintegrato nel suo posto di lavoro". Allo stesso tempo l'impresa dovrà un risarcimento al lavoratore per i danni pari alla retribuzione di circa 1.500 euro per quattrodici mensilità, ovvero dal giorno del licenziamento a quello della reintegrazione.
La Suprema Corte ricorda che sussiste il "divieto di utilizzazione di mezzi di controllo a distanza, tra i quali, in primo luogo, gli impianti audiovisivi sul presupposto che la vigilanza sul lavoro va mantenuta in una dimensione umana" stabilito dallo Statuto dei lavoratori. La richiesta dell'installazione di impianti ed apparecchiature di controllo, dai quali derivi anche la possibilità di controllo a distanza dell'attività dei lavoratori, può essere solo condizionata a "esigenze di sicurezza del lavoro". In ogni caso la installazione è "condizionata all'accordo con le rappresentanze sindacali aziendali o con la commissione interna, o in difetto, all'autorizzazione dell'ispettorato del lavoro".
D'altronde il diritto alla privacy del dipendente si estende anche durante le attività di lavoro in ufficio. Il Garante nella sua ultima relazione annuale ha ribadito, in occasione di un caso relativo a un lavoratore licenziato per avere consultato siti a contenuto religioso, politico e pornografico, che il datore non può copiare direttamente dalla directory intestata al lavoratore le pagine web senza informare preventivamente il lavoratore. Tale trattamento può essere effettuato senza il consenso solo "se necessario per difendere in giudizio un diritto di pari rango pari a quello dell'interessato della personalità o un altro diritto fondamentale."
Sempre in merito al controllo da parte dell'azienda dei movimenti dei dipendenti il Garante ha dato ad agosto un "sì condizionato" al progetto di una società che prevede l'uso delle impronte digitali per far accedere i dipendenti in determinate aree del magazzino merci dove sono depositati beni di particolare valore. "Le impronte digitali potranno essere usate solo per identificare in maniera certa i dipendenti della società abilitati all'accesso alle aree riservate e non per la rilevazione delle loro presenze. Scopo dell'installazione del sistema biometrico è quello di garantire una maggiore sicurezza delle merci ed evitare il ripetersi di furti di beni preziosi".
Quanto alle email la pratica del controllo sembra essere molto diffusa. Per Mauro Paissan, componente del Garante per la Privacy, "è giusto partire dal quadro normativo vigente (per quanto non specifico) che al momento punisce con una sanzione penale (art. 616 c.p.) chiunque violi una corrispondenza a lui non diretta, specificando che per corrispondenza si intende anche quella informatica o telematica. E' necessario trovare una soluzione che contemperi il diritto del datore di lavoro di mantenere il controllo dei beni aziendali con l'insopprimibile diritto, costituzionalmente tutelato, alla segretezza della corrispondenza e alla protezione dei propri dati personali. In ogni modo, su questo delicatissimo punto non c'è ancora una normativa specifica né una giurisprudenza consolidata."
In pratica vuol dire che, essendo impossibile togliersi dai coglioni gli scarafaggi, le assunzioni saranno effettuate in base a raccomandazioni e garanzie trasversali di varia natura.
Ricordate, bambini: la privacy vale solo per gli scarafaggi. Per voialtri evasori è lecito chiedere il conto corrente obbligatorio, i pagamenti tracciabili, ed altre amenità.
posted by Linucs (Link),
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ROMA - Un marsupio trasparente, antifurto. Lo dovranno utilizzare quasi quattromila operai della Luxottica, leader mondiale nella griffe degli occhiali. Da lunedì, in cinque stabilimenti industriali del gruppo (nelle province di Belluno, Trento, Treviso e Torino) lo zainetto fornito dall'azienda sarà "l'unico contenitore consentito" nei locali di lavoro. A breve, sarà distribuito anche ad Agordo, la sede storica del bellunese. E a quel punto, gli operai con il marsupio, saranno oltre ottomila. Servirà, comunicano i vertici del gruppo, a evitare i furti.
È tutto scritto in una circolare firmata dall'amministratore delegato Roberto Chemello e datata 18 luglio. Appena tre giorni fa. D'ora in poi sarà vietato entrare nei reparti con "borse, zaini, sacchetti, o qualsiasi altro contenitore diverso dal marsupio Luxottica". Un provvedimento necessario, scrivono espressamente i vertici dell'azienda, per tentare di arginare il fenomeno dei furti in fabbrica. "Solo nell'ultimo anno - spiegano - sono stati rubati cinquantamila paia d'occhiali. Episodi incresciosi e volumi importanti, che hanno richiesto un nostro intervento".
Ma questa nuova disposizione antifurto, ha scatenato la protesta dei lavoratori. "Ci trattano come ladri" accusano gli operai attraverso un documento sindacale interno. "Per colpa di pochi, si getta sospetto e discredito, su tutti. E questo non è giusto. Poi, perché lo zainetto è trasparente? Che significa? Vogliono vedere i nostri oggetti personali? Medicinali, assorbenti, trucchi, sigarette, portafogli. Merendine...".
Udite:
Il marsupio sotto accusa, poi, denunciano ancora i lavoratori "è in pvc, di produzione cinese e sprovvisto del marchio di uniformità della Cee".
Eh cazzo, potevi dirlo subito, così ci ammazzavamo tutti col gas per il senso di colpa.
Per lunedì, assicurano battaglia. Fin dal primo turno di lavoro, verso le cinque e trenta di mattina, raccoglieranno tutti gli zainetti assieme ai segretari dei sindacati di categoria, Filtea Cgil, Femca Cisl e Uilta Uil, per poi riconsegnarli all'azienda proprio nelle mani dell'amministratore delegato. "Solo dopo entreremo al lavoro come sempre - assicurano - con le nostre borse e i nostri effetti personali. Se, scatteranno provvedimenti disciplinari, apriremo un contenzioso legale, per far rispettare i nostri diritti".
Fatemi indovinare: siete gli stessi che stanno ben zitti quando vedono uscire i container pieni di roba, per solidarietà tra scarafaggi?
La protesta si svolgerà principalmente allo stabilimento industriale di Sedico, ma con il tam-tam sindacale, sono in fibrillazione anche le altre sedi. I dipendenti del settore produttivo della Luxottica sono in Italia oltre ottomila, distribuiti nei sei stabilimenti italiani del gruppo: Agordo, Cencenighe e Sedico (in provincia di Belluno), Lauriano (Torino), Poderobba (Treviso) e Rovereto (Trento). L'azienda è stata fondata proprio ad Agordo nel 1961 da Leonardo Del Vecchio allora giovane incisore milanese. Oggi è il primo contribuente italiano davanti persino a Silvio Berlusconi. Luxottica produce marchi importanti come Ray-Ban, Vogue, Persol, Chanel, Prada e altre firme alla moda. È quotata alla Borsa di New York dal 23 gennaio 1990 con la sigla Lux, e fa parte dell'indice S&P/MIB della Borsa di Milano.
"Siamo conviti, come sindacato, che Del Vecchio, non sappia nulla di questa imposizione del marsupio - assicura Giuseppe Colferai della Filtea Cgil - Lui un'offesa del genere ai lavoratori non l'avrebbe mai permessa".
Certo, se lo sarebbe fatto mettere al culo cantando celebrate diversity.
È tutto scritto in una circolare firmata dall'amministratore delegato Roberto Chemello e datata 18 luglio. Appena tre giorni fa. D'ora in poi sarà vietato entrare nei reparti con "borse, zaini, sacchetti, o qualsiasi altro contenitore diverso dal marsupio Luxottica". Un provvedimento necessario, scrivono espressamente i vertici dell'azienda, per tentare di arginare il fenomeno dei furti in fabbrica. "Solo nell'ultimo anno - spiegano - sono stati rubati cinquantamila paia d'occhiali. Episodi incresciosi e volumi importanti, che hanno richiesto un nostro intervento".
Ma questa nuova disposizione antifurto, ha scatenato la protesta dei lavoratori. "Ci trattano come ladri" accusano gli operai attraverso un documento sindacale interno. "Per colpa di pochi, si getta sospetto e discredito, su tutti. E questo non è giusto. Poi, perché lo zainetto è trasparente? Che significa? Vogliono vedere i nostri oggetti personali? Medicinali, assorbenti, trucchi, sigarette, portafogli. Merendine...".
Udite:
Il marsupio sotto accusa, poi, denunciano ancora i lavoratori "è in pvc, di produzione cinese e sprovvisto del marchio di uniformità della Cee".
Eh cazzo, potevi dirlo subito, così ci ammazzavamo tutti col gas per il senso di colpa.
Per lunedì, assicurano battaglia. Fin dal primo turno di lavoro, verso le cinque e trenta di mattina, raccoglieranno tutti gli zainetti assieme ai segretari dei sindacati di categoria, Filtea Cgil, Femca Cisl e Uilta Uil, per poi riconsegnarli all'azienda proprio nelle mani dell'amministratore delegato. "Solo dopo entreremo al lavoro come sempre - assicurano - con le nostre borse e i nostri effetti personali. Se, scatteranno provvedimenti disciplinari, apriremo un contenzioso legale, per far rispettare i nostri diritti".
Fatemi indovinare: siete gli stessi che stanno ben zitti quando vedono uscire i container pieni di roba, per solidarietà tra scarafaggi?
La protesta si svolgerà principalmente allo stabilimento industriale di Sedico, ma con il tam-tam sindacale, sono in fibrillazione anche le altre sedi. I dipendenti del settore produttivo della Luxottica sono in Italia oltre ottomila, distribuiti nei sei stabilimenti italiani del gruppo: Agordo, Cencenighe e Sedico (in provincia di Belluno), Lauriano (Torino), Poderobba (Treviso) e Rovereto (Trento). L'azienda è stata fondata proprio ad Agordo nel 1961 da Leonardo Del Vecchio allora giovane incisore milanese. Oggi è il primo contribuente italiano davanti persino a Silvio Berlusconi. Luxottica produce marchi importanti come Ray-Ban, Vogue, Persol, Chanel, Prada e altre firme alla moda. È quotata alla Borsa di New York dal 23 gennaio 1990 con la sigla Lux, e fa parte dell'indice S&P/MIB della Borsa di Milano.
"Siamo conviti, come sindacato, che Del Vecchio, non sappia nulla di questa imposizione del marsupio - assicura Giuseppe Colferai della Filtea Cgil - Lui un'offesa del genere ai lavoratori non l'avrebbe mai permessa".
Certo, se lo sarebbe fatto mettere al culo cantando celebrate diversity.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
RIMINI - Completamente ubriaco, ha sfondato la vetrata di un residence per seguire alcune ragazze che già aveva importunato, si è ferito gravemente, quasi amputandosi una mano, ed è poi morto dissanguato. È successo a Rivazzurra di Rimini, verso l'alba, e la vittima è un giovane turista lombardo: non aveva documenti ma è stato identificato a fine mattina dalla polizia.
STRIP NOTTURNO - Le ragazze, due svizzere e due olandesi, verso le 5, stavano chiacchierando con un amico davanti al residence quando è arrivato il giovane, visibilmente alterato e a torso nudo, che ha cercato di attaccare discorso. Battute e parole sempre più forti cui ha fatto seguito la continuazione dello strip: prima si è tolto i pantaloni e poi ha accennato ad abbassarsi anche gli slip. A quel punto il gruppetto si è ritirato nell'albergo, chiudendo poi le porte.
VETRATA SFONDATA - Il giovane, anzichè andarsene, ha incominciato a prendere a pugni e testate la vetrata che, all'improvviso, si è rotta travolgendolo. Il cristallo gli ha reciso quasi completamente la mano destra. Sono intervenuti il 113 e il personale del 118 che ha portato il ferito nell'ospedale Infermi dove è morto un paio d'ore più tardi. La salma è stata composta nell'obitorio dell'ospedale ed è ora a disposizione della Procura.
Darwin Award.
STRIP NOTTURNO - Le ragazze, due svizzere e due olandesi, verso le 5, stavano chiacchierando con un amico davanti al residence quando è arrivato il giovane, visibilmente alterato e a torso nudo, che ha cercato di attaccare discorso. Battute e parole sempre più forti cui ha fatto seguito la continuazione dello strip: prima si è tolto i pantaloni e poi ha accennato ad abbassarsi anche gli slip. A quel punto il gruppetto si è ritirato nell'albergo, chiudendo poi le porte.
VETRATA SFONDATA - Il giovane, anzichè andarsene, ha incominciato a prendere a pugni e testate la vetrata che, all'improvviso, si è rotta travolgendolo. Il cristallo gli ha reciso quasi completamente la mano destra. Sono intervenuti il 113 e il personale del 118 che ha portato il ferito nell'ospedale Infermi dove è morto un paio d'ore più tardi. La salma è stata composta nell'obitorio dell'ospedale ed è ora a disposizione della Procura.
Darwin Award.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Today an underground hacker team "web-Hack" from Russia released a whitepaper with results of iPhone firmware research. They reverse- engineered some functions and published this information. Results of a research shocked community. Russian hackers found a built-in function which sends all data from an iPhone to a specified web-server. Contacts from a phonebook, SMS, recent calls, history of Safari browser - all your personal information can be stolen. At present there is no additional information about this issue. Researches assume that this function either a debug feature or a built-in backdoor module for some governmental structures. Anyways this function can be used by a trojan-developers or activated by the AT&T. We will monitor all information about this accident and will publish it immediately.
Quasi quasi ci installo sopra pure ZoneAlarm.
Quasi quasi ci installo sopra pure ZoneAlarm.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Dal 2006.
* According to BBC, Kurdish soldiers were secretly trained by former Israeli commandos in northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations.
* Avivi, Israel's Ambassador to Ankara, told the Turkish academicians in USAK that Israel has done nothing in Iraq without informing Turkey. Avivi says Israel supports Iraq's unity and against a possible Kurdish state in the region.
* A number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport, Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli newspaper, had reported in 2005
* Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Newsnight Israel had not authorized any firms to do defense work in Iraq. Firms would be prosecuted if police found they had broken export laws, he said.
Melek DURBAKAN (JTW) and News Agencies
The BBC reports on Tuesday that former Israel Defense Forces commandos secretly trained Kurdish soldiers in Northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations.
Former Israeli special-forces soldiers crossed into Iraq from Turkey in 2004 to train two sets of Iraqi Kurdish troops, one of the former Israeli trainers told the BBC's Newsnight program. The former trainer, whose name was not disclosed, said IDF soldiers trained Kurds to act as a security force for the new airport in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil (Irbil), mostly populated Kurdish.
They also trained more than 100 Peshmerga (Pesmerge) or Kurdish fighters for "special assignments" that included how to use rifles and how to shoot militants in a crowd, he said.
The former soldier said he believed Kurdish officials knew the trainers were Israelis although the troops did not.
"My part of the contract was to train the Kurdish security people for a big airport project and for training, as well as the Peshmerga, and the actual soldiers, the army," the former IDF soldier told Newsnight.
"You know, day by day it's a bit tense because you know where you are and you know who you are. And there's always a chance that you'll get revealed," he added.
Iraqi newspapers have reported that Israeli soldiers have trained Kurdish troops but the Kurdish authorities deny allowing any Israelis into Iraq.
The Kurds' political enemies have long accused them of an alliance with Israel while Israel's critics suspect it wants to use the Kurdish region as a strategic base to get closer to its arch-enemy Iran.
Iraqi Kurdistan sits between Iran to the east and Turkey to the north-west. Both countries have significant Kurd minorities and are worried about a Kurdish state emerging in northern Iraq.
Newsnight also reported that an Israeli security firm called Interop and two Swiss-registered subsidiaries, Kudo and Colosium, were among the main contractors at Irbil airport, providing security fencing and communications equipment.
Khaled Salih, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, dismissed the former IDF soldier's claims.
"These are not new allegations for us. Back in the Sixties and Seventies we were called 'the second Israel' in the region and we were supposed to be eliminated by Islamist nationalist and now Islamist groups," he told Newsnight.
The former IDF soldier said he trained Kurds in "anti-terror lessons... how to shoot first, how to identify a terrorist in a crowd. That's clearly special assignments.
Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth: Israelis Train Kurds
Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronot had reported in 2005 that a number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport. According to the Yedioth Ahronoth report, dozens of Israelis with a background in elite military combat training have been working for 'private' Israeli companies in northern Iraq where they helped the Kurds establish elite anti-terror units.
According to the report, leading Israeli companies in the field of security and counter-terrorism have set up a training camp under the codename Z at a secret location in a desertic region in northern Iraq, where Israeli experts provide training in live fire exercises and self-defense to Kurdish security forces.
* La Stampa: Israelis in Northern Iraq under Fake IDs
Similarly the Italian la Stampa daily paper reported that many Israeli military men were in Northern Iraq under fake names (quasi come a Londra!) to help the Kurds to establish a strong army. According to the La Stampa's December 2005 report the first contacts between the Kurds and Israel were established by Dany Yaton, former head of the MOSSAD. The paper also published the picture of the Israeli soldiers in an Iraqi airport.
* 'Illegal and Secret Operations'
In 2006, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot reported that the Israelis in Iraq operated illegally and secretly. According to the Israeli newspaper, their operations were against even the Israeli laws.
It was understood that the Israelis did not only provide equipments but also intelligence to the Kurdish leaders. Most of the Israelis who helped the Kurdish military were retired officers according to the papers.
* The New Yorker: Kurds are Israel's B Plan
Seymour M. Hersh from the New Yorker was another journalist who revealed Israel'e secret activities among the Iraqi Kurds. Hersh says in his 'Plan B' article of 30 June 2004:
"Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel's view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel's clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports."
Israel has denied all these 'claims', and argued that there is no single official Israeli who helped the Kurds.
"Chi? Noi?"
Israel's secret operations in the region have mostly disturbed Turkey. Turkish press claimed that Israel had a secret agenda in the region arguing Israel aims to establish a pro-Israeli Kurdish state in Iraq. Turkey has been against separation of Iraq and has seen a possible Kurdish state as a threat to the regional peace and stability.
Pinhas Avivi, Israel's Ambassador to Ankara (Turkey), told the Turkish academicians and journalist in his lecture in USAK that Israel has done nothing special in Iraq without informing Turkey. Ambassador Avivi also said Israel is against a Kurdish state in Iraq.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Newsnight Israel had not authorized any firms to do defense work in Iraq. Firms would be prosecuted if police found they had broken export laws, he said.
Assoc. Prof. Dr.Sedat Laciner, head of the Ankara-based Turkish think tank USAK (International Strategic Research Organization) told the JTW that Turkey is not happy with Israel's Kurdish policy. "Turkish people think that Israel has secret plans to establish a Kurdish state in the region though the Israeli authorities refuse the claims" Dr. Laciner added.
Laciner further continued:
"Turkey-Israel co-operation is crucial for stability in the Middle East yet Israel's Kurdish policy undermines the relations as the American PKK policy has undermined Turkey-US relations. Turkish people do not want to hear any deny or any promise but concrete measures. If Israel and the US seek food relations with Turkey, I think the most crucial area is the PKK terrorism and Kurdish separatism. If Israel can persuade the Turks about its sincerety, it would be the greatest contribution to Turkish-Israeli relations".
JTW, 20 September 2006
* According to BBC, Kurdish soldiers were secretly trained by former Israeli commandos in northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations.
* Avivi, Israel's Ambassador to Ankara, told the Turkish academicians in USAK that Israel has done nothing in Iraq without informing Turkey. Avivi says Israel supports Iraq's unity and against a possible Kurdish state in the region.
* A number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport, Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli newspaper, had reported in 2005
* Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Newsnight Israel had not authorized any firms to do defense work in Iraq. Firms would be prosecuted if police found they had broken export laws, he said.
Melek DURBAKAN (JTW) and News Agencies
The BBC reports on Tuesday that former Israel Defense Forces commandos secretly trained Kurdish soldiers in Northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations.
Former Israeli special-forces soldiers crossed into Iraq from Turkey in 2004 to train two sets of Iraqi Kurdish troops, one of the former Israeli trainers told the BBC's Newsnight program. The former trainer, whose name was not disclosed, said IDF soldiers trained Kurds to act as a security force for the new airport in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil (Irbil), mostly populated Kurdish.
They also trained more than 100 Peshmerga (Pesmerge) or Kurdish fighters for "special assignments" that included how to use rifles and how to shoot militants in a crowd, he said.
The former soldier said he believed Kurdish officials knew the trainers were Israelis although the troops did not.
"My part of the contract was to train the Kurdish security people for a big airport project and for training, as well as the Peshmerga, and the actual soldiers, the army," the former IDF soldier told Newsnight.
"You know, day by day it's a bit tense because you know where you are and you know who you are. And there's always a chance that you'll get revealed," he added.
Iraqi newspapers have reported that Israeli soldiers have trained Kurdish troops but the Kurdish authorities deny allowing any Israelis into Iraq.
The Kurds' political enemies have long accused them of an alliance with Israel while Israel's critics suspect it wants to use the Kurdish region as a strategic base to get closer to its arch-enemy Iran.
Iraqi Kurdistan sits between Iran to the east and Turkey to the north-west. Both countries have significant Kurd minorities and are worried about a Kurdish state emerging in northern Iraq.
Newsnight also reported that an Israeli security firm called Interop and two Swiss-registered subsidiaries, Kudo and Colosium, were among the main contractors at Irbil airport, providing security fencing and communications equipment.
Khaled Salih, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, dismissed the former IDF soldier's claims.
"These are not new allegations for us. Back in the Sixties and Seventies we were called 'the second Israel' in the region and we were supposed to be eliminated by Islamist nationalist and now Islamist groups," he told Newsnight.
The former IDF soldier said he trained Kurds in "anti-terror lessons... how to shoot first, how to identify a terrorist in a crowd. That's clearly special assignments.
Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth: Israelis Train Kurds
Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronot had reported in 2005 that a number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport. According to the Yedioth Ahronoth report, dozens of Israelis with a background in elite military combat training have been working for 'private' Israeli companies in northern Iraq where they helped the Kurds establish elite anti-terror units.
According to the report, leading Israeli companies in the field of security and counter-terrorism have set up a training camp under the codename Z at a secret location in a desertic region in northern Iraq, where Israeli experts provide training in live fire exercises and self-defense to Kurdish security forces.
* La Stampa: Israelis in Northern Iraq under Fake IDs
Similarly the Italian la Stampa daily paper reported that many Israeli military men were in Northern Iraq under fake names (quasi come a Londra!) to help the Kurds to establish a strong army. According to the La Stampa's December 2005 report the first contacts between the Kurds and Israel were established by Dany Yaton, former head of the MOSSAD. The paper also published the picture of the Israeli soldiers in an Iraqi airport.
* 'Illegal and Secret Operations'
In 2006, Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot reported that the Israelis in Iraq operated illegally and secretly. According to the Israeli newspaper, their operations were against even the Israeli laws.
It was understood that the Israelis did not only provide equipments but also intelligence to the Kurdish leaders. Most of the Israelis who helped the Kurdish military were retired officers according to the papers.
* The New Yorker: Kurds are Israel's B Plan
Seymour M. Hersh from the New Yorker was another journalist who revealed Israel'e secret activities among the Iraqi Kurds. Hersh says in his 'Plan B' article of 30 June 2004:
"Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel's view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel's clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports."
Israel has denied all these 'claims', and argued that there is no single official Israeli who helped the Kurds.
"Chi? Noi?"
Israel's secret operations in the region have mostly disturbed Turkey. Turkish press claimed that Israel had a secret agenda in the region arguing Israel aims to establish a pro-Israeli Kurdish state in Iraq. Turkey has been against separation of Iraq and has seen a possible Kurdish state as a threat to the regional peace and stability.
Pinhas Avivi, Israel's Ambassador to Ankara (Turkey), told the Turkish academicians and journalist in his lecture in USAK that Israel has done nothing special in Iraq without informing Turkey. Ambassador Avivi also said Israel is against a Kurdish state in Iraq.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Newsnight Israel had not authorized any firms to do defense work in Iraq. Firms would be prosecuted if police found they had broken export laws, he said.
Assoc. Prof. Dr.Sedat Laciner, head of the Ankara-based Turkish think tank USAK (International Strategic Research Organization) told the JTW that Turkey is not happy with Israel's Kurdish policy. "Turkish people think that Israel has secret plans to establish a Kurdish state in the region though the Israeli authorities refuse the claims" Dr. Laciner added.
Laciner further continued:
"Turkey-Israel co-operation is crucial for stability in the Middle East yet Israel's Kurdish policy undermines the relations as the American PKK policy has undermined Turkey-US relations. Turkish people do not want to hear any deny or any promise but concrete measures. If Israel and the US seek food relations with Turkey, I think the most crucial area is the PKK terrorism and Kurdish separatism. If Israel can persuade the Turks about its sincerety, it would be the greatest contribution to Turkish-Israeli relations".
JTW, 20 September 2006
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Suzy Jagger and Carl Mortished
What's the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?
Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.
E' un tema ricorrente.
This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.
Avete capito bene?
Christina Seid, whose family have been making ice-cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for 28 years, said yesterday that she expected to have to raise her prices, along with all competitors in the short term. "We are holding out as long as we can, but prices will rise," Ms Seid said.
Amy Green's Ivanna Cone ice-cream emporium in Lincoln, Nebraska, has already raised its prices for a small cone to $3.50 before tax, up from $2.95 a few months ago. She also estimates that she is paying $150 more a week for the butterfat that she uses in her ice-cream.
The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies - all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material - is set to tighten as the price of a gallon of milk in the US - up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states - is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.
Prices for dairy products have also risen because of increasing demand from China and the Middle East along with the drought in Australia, reduced subsidies in the European Union and the rocketing cost of corn.
Ricordate?
What's the connection between ethanol, the biofuel produced from corn, and a cherry vanilla ice-cream?
Answer: the first is responsible for pushing up the price of the other.
E' un tema ricorrente.
This month, the price of milk in the United States surged to a near-record in part because of the increasing costs of feeding a dairy herd. The corn feed used to feed cattle has almost doubled in price in a year as demand has grown for the grain to produce ethanol.
Avete capito bene?
Christina Seid, whose family have been making ice-cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory for 28 years, said yesterday that she expected to have to raise her prices, along with all competitors in the short term. "We are holding out as long as we can, but prices will rise," Ms Seid said.
Amy Green's Ivanna Cone ice-cream emporium in Lincoln, Nebraska, has already raised its prices for a small cone to $3.50 before tax, up from $2.95 a few months ago. She also estimates that she is paying $150 more a week for the butterfat that she uses in her ice-cream.
The squeeze on ice-cream makers, chocolate manufacturers and pizza companies - all of whom use dairy produce as a raw material - is set to tighten as the price of a gallon of milk in the US - up 55 per cent in the past 12 months in some American states - is now the same as a gallon of petrol, with dairy prices accelerating faster than the cost of fuel.
Prices for dairy products have also risen because of increasing demand from China and the Middle East along with the drought in Australia, reduced subsidies in the European Union and the rocketing cost of corn.
Ricordate?
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Ynetnews interviews Professor Alvin Rosenfeld, author of controversial article that noted growing trend of rhetoric resembling 'anti-Zionist hate speech employed by the worst anti-Semites' among progressive Jewish academics.
"Anche lòro òdia!!"
Noa Levanon
Published: 07.16.07, 16:20 / Israel Jewish Scene
Were you surprised by the controversy surrounding your article, "'Progressive' Jewish thought and the new anti-Semitism"? What do you think caused it?
The New York Times ran a story about my article entitled "Essay Linking Liberal Jews to Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor." It was really after this article that the furor began.
The article linked anti-Semitism with "liberal Jews", a term I had not used. That disturbed a lot of people, for perhaps 85 to 90 percent of Jews in America think of themselves as liberals.
Perché? Compitino per il lettore.
Additionally, the AJC was erroneously labeled a "conservative advocacy group," which it is not. So, unfortunately, the article played into the current culture wars in the United States between right and left, liberal and conservative opinion.
In an explanatory article that you wrote for The New Republic, you emphasized the fact that your choice of the word "progressive" was self-chosen by the individuals whose work you examined. Could you define some generalized characteristics of the term, and what distinguishes it from liberalism, in your opinion?
The terms "liberal" and "liberalism" have fallen casualty to the culture wars, so some now use "progressive." In some sense, "progressive" is a more radical version of "liberal." But, in many cases, it's merely an honorific adopted by people who want to be on the "right-thinking side of things".
For some, to be counted as a member of the progressive camp, anti-Zionism is a necessary part of the equation - as well as anti-capitalism, anti-globalization, anti-Americanism, etc. It's part of a whole ideological package.
In many respects, I regard myself as a liberal, especially on domestic US issues such as healthcare and public education.
Ovvero quando c'è da distribuire miseria.
But, when it comes to foreign policy, if being a liberal means being anti-Zionist, I'd quickly count myself out.
Ovvero quando si tratta di fottere soldi per i propri porci comodi.
Non l'avrei mai indovinato!
Some so-called "progressives" are pro-Israel, but the momentum right now is not with them. Instead, many who see themselves in this camp have become so radical as to routinely accuse Israel of rampant racism, ethnic cleansing, even genocide. They are angry and bitter in their denunciations of Israel.
In their work, we often see an extreme version of rhetorical inflation, which sometimes goes so far as to link Israel with history's worst regimes, such as Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. Some of their pronouncements resemble anti-Zionist hate speech employed by the worst anti-Semites.
How do you think the anti-Zionism of some progressive Jews relates to their Jewish identity?
Notare l'uso del termine identity, normalmente sinonimo di hatred e bigotry, ma non per i nostri allegri eroi. Indovinate perché?
It varies a good deal. For some, being anti-Israel defines their core Jewish identity. They feel the need to negate Israel in order to validate a newly affirmed Diaspora identity, similar to the rejection of the Diaspora in Israel, especially during the nation's early years.
Some of those in the leadership of the British effort for an academic boycott of Israel are Jews, including Israelis or ex-Israelis living in Great Britain. They dislike Israel intensely. Some also claim to be acting in accord with prophetic teachings and what they see as a higher Jewish ideal. They find their Jewish affirmations in opposition to the Jewish state.
Also, you find people who don't want any Jewish connection at all. Many Jewish academics who think of themselves as Marxists, for example, refuse to be associated with religious or national identities, either Judaism or Israel.
Within the political sphere, Marxism is by and large a spent force, but Marxist ideas and loyalties hang on in universities (indovinate perché?) and sometimes express themselves in fierce opposition to or outright rejection of Israel.
Moving from margins to mainstream
In line with these adversarial postures, Prof Rosenfeld alluded to a movement of extreme anti-Zionist thinking into the mainstream, noting that books by some of Israel's foremost Jewish detractors have been picked up by major publishing houses.
One example, which he cited in his original article, was British academic Jacqueline Rose's book, "The Question of Zion", published by Princeton University Press.
"What was disturbing about this," he said, "is that the book is full of egregious factual errors, as well as badly distorted by ideological bias.
"Rose claims Adolf Hitler and Theodore Herzl attended an opera by Wagner on the same night in Paris, which supposedly inspired both of their ideas, although Hitler did not come to Paris until 1940, long after Herzl had died. Rose also calls Israel to task for the 'razing' of Jenin, which never happened.
E le ambulanze in Libano si sono sparate addosso da sole, ricorda...
"The fact that such a book carries the Princeton University stamp may show a troubling movement of radical anti-Zionist ideas from the margins into the mainstream. And Rose's book is hardly alone.
Per il rasoio di Occam, dovremmo concludere che qualcuno è riuscito veramente a rompere i coglioni a tutti.
"Norman Finkelstein's most recent tirade against Israel was published by the University of California Press, and Jimmy Carter's best-selling tarring of Israel with the apartheid brush came out with Simon & Schuster.
"Quali altre leggi speciali possiamo farci scrivere su misura per evitarlo?"
"These are seriously flawed, deeply tendentious books, but they carry the imprimatur of some of America's most highly respected publishing houses. That's worrisome."
Can any legal recourse be taken, in light of such blatant factual errors?
I've been accused of advocating censorship, even of wanting to bring us back to the age of McCarthyism, but none of that is true.
"Noi? Noi no censura!"
Here, simply put, is what I believe: biased, erroneous, and irrational criticism must be met by all of the power of lucid argument and rational criticism. Any writer who publishes his or her ideas is subject to the latter.
Quindi possiamo abolire le leggi speciali su misura e tirar fuori tutta la carta dal cassetto?
What I and others are attempting to do is expose the poverty of some of these malicious ideas, including those that unfairly attack Israel and its supporters. But in the realm of public opinion, short of committing outright defamation, I don't think legal recourse can or should be taken.
Certo, altrimenti poi dovremmo rompere il culo ai Wilkomirski della situazione: sai che risate?
So, is that the way you believe we should combat the globalization and evolution, as you called it in your article, of anti-Semitism?
Let's separate between anti-Semitic acts and anti-Semitic utterances. The first are illegal, so if one is caught firebombing a synagogue or physically accosting Jews, those people are liable for prosecution.
Certo. Ma anche se ti beccano a dar fuoco ad un chiosco di gelati: il fatto è che "dar fuoco" è illegale a prescindere.
Anti-Semitic books, articles, and the like are something else altogether, especially in the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected.
(risate del pubblico)
If writers really think Israel resembles apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany, there is no question of throwing the legal book at them. However, those are scurrilous accusations, and they need to be exposed as such.
Con le... prove?
It's not easy, for we are involved today in a war of ideas, and there are some very bad ideas out there, many of them directed against Israel. It's imperative to combat them with good ideas. We need more people to step forward and show the errors in that kind of thinking.
Intellectually and politically, it's an intense war and will not quickly fade, and there are Jews on both sides. Hearing Israeli voices on the anti-Zionist side is especially troubling. Avraham Burg, for example, can now be cited by Israel's enemies as validating some of their most damning charges.
If a state can validly be compared to Nazi Germany - and Burg apparently makes such comparisons in his new book - its existence should be called into question.
I don't think Israel can be legitimately compared to the Third Reich or apartheid South Africa. But when some Israelis make these analogies, it becomes harder for those of us on the outside to contest them.
There have been parallel rises in violence on the streets and intellectual aggression against Jews. How much are these two trends related? If progressives ceased their verbal attacks on Israel, would you expect there to be less physical violence from anti-Semites?
It's best to look at this matter country by country. Within Europe, the most vociferous anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, on the street, in the public media, and in academia, are found in England and France.
Do I think anti-Semitic violence would disappear in those countries entirely, in the absence of anti-Zionist rhetoric? No.
But anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist utterances help to underwrite or abet anti-Semitic violence. Such hate speech provides a kind of license to street thugs to hit out at Jews, they feel freer to behave aggressively if they know public opinion in the countries in which they reside regularly condemns the Jewish state in the harshest of terms. It makes it easier for them to then target local Jews and Jewish institutions.
Non sarà mica per questo che la BBC chiama "jobless youth" ogni assassino demente che si cala dalla liana per accoppare qualcuno a colpi di machete?
Meditate.
So the more we can dampen down rhetorical abuse directed against Jews, the better the chances of containing violence against them.
Alvin Rosenfeld is a professor of English and the director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.
He has authored the books 'Imagining Hitler' and 'Double-Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature', as well as editing several books, including 'Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Weisel' and 'Thinking about the Holocaust after half a century'.
Ricordate il magico Elie?
"Anche lòro òdia!!"
Noa Levanon
Published: 07.16.07, 16:20 / Israel Jewish Scene
Were you surprised by the controversy surrounding your article, "'Progressive' Jewish thought and the new anti-Semitism"? What do you think caused it?
The New York Times ran a story about my article entitled "Essay Linking Liberal Jews to Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor." It was really after this article that the furor began.
The article linked anti-Semitism with "liberal Jews", a term I had not used. That disturbed a lot of people, for perhaps 85 to 90 percent of Jews in America think of themselves as liberals.
Perché? Compitino per il lettore.
Additionally, the AJC was erroneously labeled a "conservative advocacy group," which it is not. So, unfortunately, the article played into the current culture wars in the United States between right and left, liberal and conservative opinion.
In an explanatory article that you wrote for The New Republic, you emphasized the fact that your choice of the word "progressive" was self-chosen by the individuals whose work you examined. Could you define some generalized characteristics of the term, and what distinguishes it from liberalism, in your opinion?
The terms "liberal" and "liberalism" have fallen casualty to the culture wars, so some now use "progressive." In some sense, "progressive" is a more radical version of "liberal." But, in many cases, it's merely an honorific adopted by people who want to be on the "right-thinking side of things".
For some, to be counted as a member of the progressive camp, anti-Zionism is a necessary part of the equation - as well as anti-capitalism, anti-globalization, anti-Americanism, etc. It's part of a whole ideological package.
In many respects, I regard myself as a liberal, especially on domestic US issues such as healthcare and public education.
Ovvero quando c'è da distribuire miseria.
But, when it comes to foreign policy, if being a liberal means being anti-Zionist, I'd quickly count myself out.
Ovvero quando si tratta di fottere soldi per i propri porci comodi.
Non l'avrei mai indovinato!
Some so-called "progressives" are pro-Israel, but the momentum right now is not with them. Instead, many who see themselves in this camp have become so radical as to routinely accuse Israel of rampant racism, ethnic cleansing, even genocide. They are angry and bitter in their denunciations of Israel.
In their work, we often see an extreme version of rhetorical inflation, which sometimes goes so far as to link Israel with history's worst regimes, such as Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. Some of their pronouncements resemble anti-Zionist hate speech employed by the worst anti-Semites.
How do you think the anti-Zionism of some progressive Jews relates to their Jewish identity?
Notare l'uso del termine identity, normalmente sinonimo di hatred e bigotry, ma non per i nostri allegri eroi. Indovinate perché?
It varies a good deal. For some, being anti-Israel defines their core Jewish identity. They feel the need to negate Israel in order to validate a newly affirmed Diaspora identity, similar to the rejection of the Diaspora in Israel, especially during the nation's early years.
Some of those in the leadership of the British effort for an academic boycott of Israel are Jews, including Israelis or ex-Israelis living in Great Britain. They dislike Israel intensely. Some also claim to be acting in accord with prophetic teachings and what they see as a higher Jewish ideal. They find their Jewish affirmations in opposition to the Jewish state.
Also, you find people who don't want any Jewish connection at all. Many Jewish academics who think of themselves as Marxists, for example, refuse to be associated with religious or national identities, either Judaism or Israel.
Within the political sphere, Marxism is by and large a spent force, but Marxist ideas and loyalties hang on in universities (indovinate perché?) and sometimes express themselves in fierce opposition to or outright rejection of Israel.
Moving from margins to mainstream
In line with these adversarial postures, Prof Rosenfeld alluded to a movement of extreme anti-Zionist thinking into the mainstream, noting that books by some of Israel's foremost Jewish detractors have been picked up by major publishing houses.
One example, which he cited in his original article, was British academic Jacqueline Rose's book, "The Question of Zion", published by Princeton University Press.
"What was disturbing about this," he said, "is that the book is full of egregious factual errors, as well as badly distorted by ideological bias.
"Rose claims Adolf Hitler and Theodore Herzl attended an opera by Wagner on the same night in Paris, which supposedly inspired both of their ideas, although Hitler did not come to Paris until 1940, long after Herzl had died. Rose also calls Israel to task for the 'razing' of Jenin, which never happened.
E le ambulanze in Libano si sono sparate addosso da sole, ricorda...
"The fact that such a book carries the Princeton University stamp may show a troubling movement of radical anti-Zionist ideas from the margins into the mainstream. And Rose's book is hardly alone.
Per il rasoio di Occam, dovremmo concludere che qualcuno è riuscito veramente a rompere i coglioni a tutti.
"Norman Finkelstein's most recent tirade against Israel was published by the University of California Press, and Jimmy Carter's best-selling tarring of Israel with the apartheid brush came out with Simon & Schuster.
"Quali altre leggi speciali possiamo farci scrivere su misura per evitarlo?"
"These are seriously flawed, deeply tendentious books, but they carry the imprimatur of some of America's most highly respected publishing houses. That's worrisome."
Can any legal recourse be taken, in light of such blatant factual errors?
I've been accused of advocating censorship, even of wanting to bring us back to the age of McCarthyism, but none of that is true.
"Noi? Noi no censura!"
Here, simply put, is what I believe: biased, erroneous, and irrational criticism must be met by all of the power of lucid argument and rational criticism. Any writer who publishes his or her ideas is subject to the latter.
Quindi possiamo abolire le leggi speciali su misura e tirar fuori tutta la carta dal cassetto?
What I and others are attempting to do is expose the poverty of some of these malicious ideas, including those that unfairly attack Israel and its supporters. But in the realm of public opinion, short of committing outright defamation, I don't think legal recourse can or should be taken.
Certo, altrimenti poi dovremmo rompere il culo ai Wilkomirski della situazione: sai che risate?
So, is that the way you believe we should combat the globalization and evolution, as you called it in your article, of anti-Semitism?
Let's separate between anti-Semitic acts and anti-Semitic utterances. The first are illegal, so if one is caught firebombing a synagogue or physically accosting Jews, those people are liable for prosecution.
Certo. Ma anche se ti beccano a dar fuoco ad un chiosco di gelati: il fatto è che "dar fuoco" è illegale a prescindere.
Anti-Semitic books, articles, and the like are something else altogether, especially in the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected.
(risate del pubblico)
If writers really think Israel resembles apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany, there is no question of throwing the legal book at them. However, those are scurrilous accusations, and they need to be exposed as such.
Con le... prove?
It's not easy, for we are involved today in a war of ideas, and there are some very bad ideas out there, many of them directed against Israel. It's imperative to combat them with good ideas. We need more people to step forward and show the errors in that kind of thinking.
Intellectually and politically, it's an intense war and will not quickly fade, and there are Jews on both sides. Hearing Israeli voices on the anti-Zionist side is especially troubling. Avraham Burg, for example, can now be cited by Israel's enemies as validating some of their most damning charges.
If a state can validly be compared to Nazi Germany - and Burg apparently makes such comparisons in his new book - its existence should be called into question.
I don't think Israel can be legitimately compared to the Third Reich or apartheid South Africa. But when some Israelis make these analogies, it becomes harder for those of us on the outside to contest them.
There have been parallel rises in violence on the streets and intellectual aggression against Jews. How much are these two trends related? If progressives ceased their verbal attacks on Israel, would you expect there to be less physical violence from anti-Semites?
It's best to look at this matter country by country. Within Europe, the most vociferous anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, on the street, in the public media, and in academia, are found in England and France.
Do I think anti-Semitic violence would disappear in those countries entirely, in the absence of anti-Zionist rhetoric? No.
But anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist utterances help to underwrite or abet anti-Semitic violence. Such hate speech provides a kind of license to street thugs to hit out at Jews, they feel freer to behave aggressively if they know public opinion in the countries in which they reside regularly condemns the Jewish state in the harshest of terms. It makes it easier for them to then target local Jews and Jewish institutions.
Non sarà mica per questo che la BBC chiama "jobless youth" ogni assassino demente che si cala dalla liana per accoppare qualcuno a colpi di machete?
Meditate.
So the more we can dampen down rhetorical abuse directed against Jews, the better the chances of containing violence against them.
Alvin Rosenfeld is a professor of English and the director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.
He has authored the books 'Imagining Hitler' and 'Double-Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature', as well as editing several books, including 'Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Weisel' and 'Thinking about the Holocaust after half a century'.
Ricordate il magico Elie?
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
A video showing London Tube bomber Shehzad Tanweer has been aired on al-Jazeera television.
Tanweer, from Leeds, killed seven people on a train at Aldgate during the attacks on 7 July 2005.
He says on the video: "What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger."
Police said the release of the video on the eve of the bombings' anniversary was designed to cause "maximum hurt".
Tanweer says in a Yorkshire accent on the film that attacks will continue "until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq".
It is believed a third man who features in the 31-minute video refers to the Forest Gate raid of 2 June - proving that the video was collated by al-Qaeda in the last five weeks, according to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner.
Propaganda
The video, the release of which was announced on an Islamist website, includes a statement from Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's second in command, and American Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki.
Gadahn is believed by US authorities to be running al-Qaeda's propaganda operation.
The footage includes people igniting explosives and armed with guns, as well as images of an unidentified man circling points on a map of London.
It is very similar to a video of fellow bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan, released in September 2005.
Both bombers were dressed in a similar way, including headdresses, and the videos had the same "al-Sahab" logo, said to be a signature of al-Qaeda recordings.
The video is likely to add weight to the theory that al-Qaeda was behind the London bombings, Frank Gardner said.
The prime minister's official spokesman said Downing Street would not be giving a reaction to the video.
He said: "I think we want the attention to focus on the quiet reflection of the nation as a whole and I don't think anything should be allowed to get in the way of that."
Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman said police were aware of the video and that it would form part of their investigation.
"There can be no doubt that the release of the video at this time can only cause maximum hurt and distress to the families and friends of those who died on 7/7 and the hundreds of people who were injured in the terrorist attacks.
"We are sure that the overwhelming majority of all communities are united in condemning any attempt to justify last year's terrorist attacks in London," he went on.
A spokesman for the Leeds Muslim Forum, Arshad Chaudhry, said it was very sad that the tape had been released at the time of the anniversary of the bombings, which he called "tragic" for those affected.
"The Muslim community has been very badly affected by [the bombings], particularly in the Beeston and Leeds area," Mr Chaudhry said.
"This will just make life even more difficult, with all the media attention and the rest of the community pointing the finger, which is not justified."
Tanweer's family were made aware of the video by police on Thursday morning.
They refused to comment on it but a family friend, Irshad Hussain, said the tape's release had been timed to cause maximum damage.
He said: "It shows you what evil people are out there trying to cause anger and frustration.
"It is wrong what he [Tanweer] is saying and everybody knows that, but, unfortunately, there are people who may listen to what he says."
Mr Hussain said Tanweer's parents would be "devastated" to see their son in the video.
"They are still trying to come to terms with what has happened and to see their son on screen will be torture," he said.
Badombe> "Gadahn is believed by US authorities to be running al-Qaeda's propaganda operation."
"Adam Gadahn" un paio di coglioni: il quotidiano ha (stranamente) dimenticato un nome.
California Man Revealed as al Qaeda Leader
Adam Gadahn, who disappeared from California seven years ago, appeared unmasked on an al Qaeda tape made public on the internet today.
[...]
Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, Yayah
Adam Yahiye Gadahn is being sought in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States. Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to any specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this person.
[...]
Gadahn, the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, grew up in Riverside County before moving into his grandparents' Santa Ana home as a teenager in 1995.
He is the grandson of noted Santa Ana urologist Dr. Carl K. Pearlman and his wife, Agnes, who were among the first families to build houses on Westwood Avenue in the 1940s.
L'arabo cattivo che gestisce la propaganda di al-Qaeda.
Se la BBC cade un po' più un basso di così, magari trova il petrolio e risolviamo un problema.
Tanweer, from Leeds, killed seven people on a train at Aldgate during the attacks on 7 July 2005.
He says on the video: "What you have witnessed now is only the beginning of a string of attacks that will continue and become stronger."
Police said the release of the video on the eve of the bombings' anniversary was designed to cause "maximum hurt".
Tanweer says in a Yorkshire accent on the film that attacks will continue "until you pull your forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq".
It is believed a third man who features in the 31-minute video refers to the Forest Gate raid of 2 June - proving that the video was collated by al-Qaeda in the last five weeks, according to BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner.
Propaganda
The video, the release of which was announced on an Islamist website, includes a statement from Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's second in command, and American Adam Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki.
Gadahn is believed by US authorities to be running al-Qaeda's propaganda operation.
The footage includes people igniting explosives and armed with guns, as well as images of an unidentified man circling points on a map of London.
It is very similar to a video of fellow bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan, released in September 2005.
Both bombers were dressed in a similar way, including headdresses, and the videos had the same "al-Sahab" logo, said to be a signature of al-Qaeda recordings.
The video is likely to add weight to the theory that al-Qaeda was behind the London bombings, Frank Gardner said.
The prime minister's official spokesman said Downing Street would not be giving a reaction to the video.
He said: "I think we want the attention to focus on the quiet reflection of the nation as a whole and I don't think anything should be allowed to get in the way of that."
Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman said police were aware of the video and that it would form part of their investigation.
"There can be no doubt that the release of the video at this time can only cause maximum hurt and distress to the families and friends of those who died on 7/7 and the hundreds of people who were injured in the terrorist attacks.
"We are sure that the overwhelming majority of all communities are united in condemning any attempt to justify last year's terrorist attacks in London," he went on.
A spokesman for the Leeds Muslim Forum, Arshad Chaudhry, said it was very sad that the tape had been released at the time of the anniversary of the bombings, which he called "tragic" for those affected.
"The Muslim community has been very badly affected by [the bombings], particularly in the Beeston and Leeds area," Mr Chaudhry said.
"This will just make life even more difficult, with all the media attention and the rest of the community pointing the finger, which is not justified."
Tanweer's family were made aware of the video by police on Thursday morning.
They refused to comment on it but a family friend, Irshad Hussain, said the tape's release had been timed to cause maximum damage.
He said: "It shows you what evil people are out there trying to cause anger and frustration.
"It is wrong what he [Tanweer] is saying and everybody knows that, but, unfortunately, there are people who may listen to what he says."
Mr Hussain said Tanweer's parents would be "devastated" to see their son in the video.
"They are still trying to come to terms with what has happened and to see their son on screen will be torture," he said.
Badombe> "Gadahn is believed by US authorities to be running al-Qaeda's propaganda operation."
"Adam Gadahn" un paio di coglioni: il quotidiano ha (stranamente) dimenticato un nome.
California Man Revealed as al Qaeda Leader
Adam Gadahn, who disappeared from California seven years ago, appeared unmasked on an al Qaeda tape made public on the internet today.
[...]
Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, Abu Suhayb, Yihya Majadin Adams, Adam Pearlman, Yayah
Adam Yahiye Gadahn is being sought in connection with possible terrorist threats against the United States. Although the FBI has no information indicating this individual is connected to any specific terrorist activities, the FBI would like to locate and question this person.
[...]
Gadahn, the son of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, grew up in Riverside County before moving into his grandparents' Santa Ana home as a teenager in 1995.
He is the grandson of noted Santa Ana urologist Dr. Carl K. Pearlman and his wife, Agnes, who were among the first families to build houses on Westwood Avenue in the 1940s.
L'arabo cattivo che gestisce la propaganda di al-Qaeda.
Se la BBC cade un po' più un basso di così, magari trova il petrolio e risolviamo un problema.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Exclusive by Graham Brough 16/07/2007
The Dirty Bomb plotter was last night fighting for his life after fellow prisoners doused him with boiling oil and water.
Dhiren Barot, 35, is in intensive care with third degree burns after the attack in Frankland jail, Durham.
Inmates had previously made several death threats against Barot.
He is serving 30 years for plotting to plant radioactive, chemical or toxic gas bombs and pack limousines with nails and explosives in the UK and America. Al-Qaeda mastermind Barot had been moved from Belmarsh jail, South East London, after fears for his safety.
He was arrested in August 2004 and accused of conspiracy to murder. He admitted planning to bomb several targets including the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund HQ, and the World Bank. Barot, who recruited other bomb plotters, was sentenced to life in prison last November. It was recommended he serve 40 years but that was cut to 30 years on appeal in May. Barot was born in India then moved to Kenya with his family. They came to England in 1973 and his banker father had to work in a factory to support them.
Hindu Barot converted to Islam aged 20. He later travelled to Pakistan for al-Qaeda training and funding.
"Addio, piccola pedina scomoda, addio!"
The Dirty Bomb plotter was last night fighting for his life after fellow prisoners doused him with boiling oil and water.
Dhiren Barot, 35, is in intensive care with third degree burns after the attack in Frankland jail, Durham.
Inmates had previously made several death threats against Barot.
He is serving 30 years for plotting to plant radioactive, chemical or toxic gas bombs and pack limousines with nails and explosives in the UK and America. Al-Qaeda mastermind Barot had been moved from Belmarsh jail, South East London, after fears for his safety.
He was arrested in August 2004 and accused of conspiracy to murder. He admitted planning to bomb several targets including the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund HQ, and the World Bank. Barot, who recruited other bomb plotters, was sentenced to life in prison last November. It was recommended he serve 40 years but that was cut to 30 years on appeal in May. Barot was born in India then moved to Kenya with his family. They came to England in 1973 and his banker father had to work in a factory to support them.
Hindu Barot converted to Islam aged 20. He later travelled to Pakistan for al-Qaeda training and funding.
"Addio, piccola pedina scomoda, addio!"
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations has submitted a letter to the UN secretary general saying that Israel is fabricating evidence against Syria's supposed smuggling of weapons to Lebanon.
Non ci credo neanche se lo vedo!
Bashar Ja'afari told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Syria protests the fact that the UN "adopted the fabricated claims that it received by Israeli intelligence sources."
Non ci credo neanche se lo vedo su YouTube!
The letter also addresses a report submitted several weeks ago by Terje Roed-Larsen, the secretary general's envoy to Lebanon and Syria, on the implementation of UN resolution 1559. The resolution requires the full withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence operatives from Lebanon.
Larsen wrote in the report that weapons are being smuggled to Lebanon through Syria. Though other UN reports have made the same claim - including a secretary general report and an independent investigation on the Syria-Lebanon border - Ja'afari demonstrated pointed contempt for Larsen's report specifically.
Ja'afari requested that the information Israel passed on to the UN be discounted because it is "hostile" to Syria and occupies its land, he said. The fact that Israel has information on activities on the Syrian-Lebanese border, Ja'afari wrote, proves that Israel is violating UN resolution 1701, which ended last summer's Second Lebanon War, by flying spy planes over Lebanese skies.
Ja'afar demanded that the UN Security Council take steps against the alleged Israeli flights, which he said take place on an almost daily basis.
He wrote in the letter that Israel also photographs trucks carrying "vegetables or other goods," and then "markets" the photographs as documenting weapons smuggling.
Sources: UN estimates Shaba Farms span 20-40 square km
United Nations cartographer Miklos Pinter has determined that the Shaba Farms, an area on the slopes of Mount Hermon claimed by Lebanon and under Israeli control, spans 20 to 40 square kilometers, according to diplomatic sources.
The area of Mount Hermon that is under Israeli control extends to 70 square kilometers, and the entire Golan Heights is 1,250 square kilometers.
Pinter's report will not be released ahead of the upcoming UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Lebanon and an extension of the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. The United Nations has decided there is no reason to raise the issue in the absence of an agreement on a diplomatic process to resolve the dispute and transfer control of the territory. As Haaretz reported last week, Israel has warned the United Nations against releasing the Shaba Farms map, fearing it could reignite the conflict and give Hezbollah an excuse to renew hostilities.
Pinter is due to visit the Shaba Farms area before submitting his final report on the matter. His current findings are based on material submitted by the Lebanese government as well as his familiarity with the area from the period when he coordinated the mapping of the Blue Line border between Israel and Lebanon after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The Shaba Farms was pastureland of the Lebanese village Shaba, in a region that had been part of the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. The border between Syria and Lebanon, set in a 1923 agreement between the British and French mandatory powers, was not made completely clear. After the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from Lebanon, the Lebanese said Shaba Farms was part of their sovereign territory, and Hezbollah said its struggle with Israel was intended, in part, for "the liberation of the occupied land." Lebanon's claim was accepted by the Arab League, and forms part of the Arab peace initiative.
Israel convinced the United Nations in 2000 that the Shaba Farms are part of the Golan Heights and do not belong to Lebanon, and that the future of that area will be determined in Israeli-Syrian negotiations over the Golan. But the controversy has not abated, and after the Second Lebanon War last summer, the United Nations decided to map the area as a basis for determining who should have sovereignty over it.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected an American proposal during the war to transfer the Shaba Farms to the United Nations, saying that doing so would be rewarding terrorism. After the war, Olmert told UN representatives that he would agree to resolve the dispute as part of a package deal including the resolution of the situation along the Lebanese border. He even spoke about a state ceremony for the land transfer if the United Nations were to conclude that it belongs to Lebanon. However, the diplomatic sources said that over the past few months, Israeli interest in resolving the dispute has waned as Lebanon has become immersed in its own internal struggles.
Israel preparing for war with Syria, confirms general
A senior Israeli general on Monday confirmed that the army is preparing for a full-scale war with Syria in the very near future.
Speaking at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as deputy commander of Israel's northern forces during last summer's war in Lebanon, said that the army is “preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military's working premise” following the 34-day conflict with Hizballah that many Israelis feel their nation failed to win.
The general said that when war breaks out, Syria will be prepared to suffer mass military and civilian casualties, while at the same time playing on Israel's sensitivity to civilian losses by striking Israel's home front with as many missiles as possible.
Syria “will try to hit Israel's home front in order to win diplomatic gains in peace talks that will follow, and also cause another split in Israeli society,” Israel National News quoted Ben-Reuven as saying.
In order to deny Syria this victory, Ben-Reuven said the Israeli army is training for a swift and overwhelming invasion of Syria “to knock out the areas from where missiles are launched against Israel as quickly as possible.”
He lamented that if Israel had responded to Hizballah's rocket attacks in such a manner, the Second Lebanon War would have ended much differently.
Ovviamente lo sapevamo già. Basta sapere come ragionano i nostri allegri eroi, la minoranza oppressa che tùto mòndo òdia:
IDF carries out massive exercise on Golan
The Israel Defense Forces this week carried out one of the largest infantry exercises of recent years in the Golan Heights region, training for conflict with Syria and Hezbollah.
Supplies were air-dropped, tanks provided covering fire and infantry forces trained in nonconventional warfare and countering anti-tank missile attacks.
"We are training for every possible scenario. Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and terror organizations in the West Bank," an officer says.
The IDF said the exercise was not intended to signal any attack on Syria, a statement Damascus did not accept.
E' piuttosto semplice: ogni volta che dicono "chi, noi?" vuol dire che te lo stanno mettendo nel culo.
Reservists called up for Lebanon strike
The army was also calling up reservists. Only weeks ago, an entire reserve division was drafted in order to train for an operation such as the one the IDF is planning in response to Wednesday morning's Hizbullah attacks on IDF forces along the northern border.
Prima o poi qualcuno capirà il giochino e presenterà il conto: sarà sempre troppo tardi.
The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations has submitted a letter to the UN secretary general saying that Israel is fabricating evidence against Syria's supposed smuggling of weapons to Lebanon.
Non ci credo neanche se lo vedo!
Bashar Ja'afari told Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Syria protests the fact that the UN "adopted the fabricated claims that it received by Israeli intelligence sources."
Non ci credo neanche se lo vedo su YouTube!
The letter also addresses a report submitted several weeks ago by Terje Roed-Larsen, the secretary general's envoy to Lebanon and Syria, on the implementation of UN resolution 1559. The resolution requires the full withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence operatives from Lebanon.
Larsen wrote in the report that weapons are being smuggled to Lebanon through Syria. Though other UN reports have made the same claim - including a secretary general report and an independent investigation on the Syria-Lebanon border - Ja'afari demonstrated pointed contempt for Larsen's report specifically.
Ja'afari requested that the information Israel passed on to the UN be discounted because it is "hostile" to Syria and occupies its land, he said. The fact that Israel has information on activities on the Syrian-Lebanese border, Ja'afari wrote, proves that Israel is violating UN resolution 1701, which ended last summer's Second Lebanon War, by flying spy planes over Lebanese skies.
Ja'afar demanded that the UN Security Council take steps against the alleged Israeli flights, which he said take place on an almost daily basis.
He wrote in the letter that Israel also photographs trucks carrying "vegetables or other goods," and then "markets" the photographs as documenting weapons smuggling.
Sources: UN estimates Shaba Farms span 20-40 square km
United Nations cartographer Miklos Pinter has determined that the Shaba Farms, an area on the slopes of Mount Hermon claimed by Lebanon and under Israeli control, spans 20 to 40 square kilometers, according to diplomatic sources.
The area of Mount Hermon that is under Israeli control extends to 70 square kilometers, and the entire Golan Heights is 1,250 square kilometers.
Pinter's report will not be released ahead of the upcoming UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Lebanon and an extension of the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon. The United Nations has decided there is no reason to raise the issue in the absence of an agreement on a diplomatic process to resolve the dispute and transfer control of the territory. As Haaretz reported last week, Israel has warned the United Nations against releasing the Shaba Farms map, fearing it could reignite the conflict and give Hezbollah an excuse to renew hostilities.
Pinter is due to visit the Shaba Farms area before submitting his final report on the matter. His current findings are based on material submitted by the Lebanese government as well as his familiarity with the area from the period when he coordinated the mapping of the Blue Line border between Israel and Lebanon after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The Shaba Farms was pastureland of the Lebanese village Shaba, in a region that had been part of the French mandate over Syria and Lebanon. The border between Syria and Lebanon, set in a 1923 agreement between the British and French mandatory powers, was not made completely clear. After the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from Lebanon, the Lebanese said Shaba Farms was part of their sovereign territory, and Hezbollah said its struggle with Israel was intended, in part, for "the liberation of the occupied land." Lebanon's claim was accepted by the Arab League, and forms part of the Arab peace initiative.
Israel convinced the United Nations in 2000 that the Shaba Farms are part of the Golan Heights and do not belong to Lebanon, and that the future of that area will be determined in Israeli-Syrian negotiations over the Golan. But the controversy has not abated, and after the Second Lebanon War last summer, the United Nations decided to map the area as a basis for determining who should have sovereignty over it.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rejected an American proposal during the war to transfer the Shaba Farms to the United Nations, saying that doing so would be rewarding terrorism. After the war, Olmert told UN representatives that he would agree to resolve the dispute as part of a package deal including the resolution of the situation along the Lebanese border. He even spoke about a state ceremony for the land transfer if the United Nations were to conclude that it belongs to Lebanon. However, the diplomatic sources said that over the past few months, Israeli interest in resolving the dispute has waned as Lebanon has become immersed in its own internal struggles.
Israel preparing for war with Syria, confirms general
A senior Israeli general on Monday confirmed that the army is preparing for a full-scale war with Syria in the very near future.
Speaking at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as deputy commander of Israel's northern forces during last summer's war in Lebanon, said that the army is “preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military's working premise” following the 34-day conflict with Hizballah that many Israelis feel their nation failed to win.
The general said that when war breaks out, Syria will be prepared to suffer mass military and civilian casualties, while at the same time playing on Israel's sensitivity to civilian losses by striking Israel's home front with as many missiles as possible.
Syria “will try to hit Israel's home front in order to win diplomatic gains in peace talks that will follow, and also cause another split in Israeli society,” Israel National News quoted Ben-Reuven as saying.
In order to deny Syria this victory, Ben-Reuven said the Israeli army is training for a swift and overwhelming invasion of Syria “to knock out the areas from where missiles are launched against Israel as quickly as possible.”
He lamented that if Israel had responded to Hizballah's rocket attacks in such a manner, the Second Lebanon War would have ended much differently.
Ovviamente lo sapevamo già. Basta sapere come ragionano i nostri allegri eroi, la minoranza oppressa che tùto mòndo òdia:
IDF carries out massive exercise on Golan
The Israel Defense Forces this week carried out one of the largest infantry exercises of recent years in the Golan Heights region, training for conflict with Syria and Hezbollah.
Supplies were air-dropped, tanks provided covering fire and infantry forces trained in nonconventional warfare and countering anti-tank missile attacks.
"We are training for every possible scenario. Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and terror organizations in the West Bank," an officer says.
The IDF said the exercise was not intended to signal any attack on Syria, a statement Damascus did not accept.
E' piuttosto semplice: ogni volta che dicono "chi, noi?" vuol dire che te lo stanno mettendo nel culo.
Reservists called up for Lebanon strike
The army was also calling up reservists. Only weeks ago, an entire reserve division was drafted in order to train for an operation such as the one the IDF is planning in response to Wednesday morning's Hizbullah attacks on IDF forces along the northern border.
Prima o poi qualcuno capirà il giochino e presenterà il conto: sarà sempre troppo tardi.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
By Bryan Bender The Boston Globe
Published: July 16, 2007
WASHINGTON: Fifteen years after U.S. states were directed to share motor vehicle information in a national database, only nine states have done so, making it nearly impossible to identify hundreds of thousands of stolen vehicles - including a small but steady number that end up as car bombs in Iraq.
Guarda il caso: siccome in Iraq non ci sono automobili per costruire autobombe, è sufficiente rubarle negli USA, trasportarle fino in Iraq e farle saltare in aria.
FBI officials said they believe the database could help break up far-flung terrorist networks, which are using vehicles stolen and smuggled from the United States.
Certo.
Bought and sold on the international black market, cars and trucks help fund criminal operations and can be turned into the terrorist weapon of choice against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians: vehicles packed with explosives.
E due metri di cratere sotto. Se invece ci fosse il database nazionale...
The FBI declined to estimate how many stolen U.S. cars have turned up as car bombs in Iraq but said the number is believed to be at least in the dozens.
The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System was created in 1992 to thwart motor vehicle thefts, but it remains a patchwork repository at best.
Authorities say the system, which has the potential to track every car or truck in the country by its vehicle identification number, has languished because of years of local government inattention, a lack of urgency among state motor vehicle departments, and inconsistent federal funding.
"A car bomb is the absolute favorite delivery method of terrorists," said Special Agent Ryan Toole of the FBI's Major Theft Unit in Washington, who is working to get the database completed. "Tracing that VIN is very, very important" to identifying where the vehicle originated or determining how it ended up in terrorist hands.
Toole said American-made vehicles are particularly attractive to terrorists in places such as Iraq. Forensics specialists there have identified some bomb-rigged cars as vehicles that were swiped off American streets and sold overseas by criminal gangs and organized crime syndicates.
Terrorists desire a "vehicle like a Suburban because it can hold a lot but it also blends in," said Toole, who is leading the FBI's efforts to complete the database.
That particular Chevrolet SUV model is popular, he said, because "it looks like an American security vehicle" in Iraq and "they can get closer to their target than if it was a beat-up old Toyota."
The Justice Department is now mounting a campaign to get the database fully online. It is urging insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and others to report relevant information and is also offering federal grants to motor vehicle departments - up to $50,000 each - to help defray their start-up costs.
Authorities estimate that more than one million vehicles are stolen each year in the United States, yet only 35 percent of them are ever recovered.
Theft rings are also using sophisticated tactics to avoid detection. One method is known as "cloning," in which thieves replace the 17-character VIN number - fastened beneath the windshield by the car's manufacturer - with the VIN number illegally lifted from another, legally registered vehicle of the same make, model, and year.
Smugglers holding a stolen car with a cloned VIN number can command a premium for it on the international black market, while other stolen vehicles net just pennies on the dollar.
Vehicle identification has also proven valuable in terrorism-related investigations in recent years.
In 1993, when a truck packed with explosives detonated in a parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York, authorities cracked the case by tracing the VIN number of the vehicle to the Muslim extremists charged with the deadly attack.
More recently, the case against the suspected terrorist cell that allegedly plotted to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York includes evidence of falsified vehicle registration documents.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have uncovered a crime syndicate in Los Angeles that is believed to have shipped stolen vehicles to the breakaway Russian region of Chechnya, a hotbed of Muslim extremist activity.
Toole, the FBI agent, said stolen American vehicles continue to show up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
"There is a very strong link to terrorism," said Jerry Cox, an attorney for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which fights insurance fraud and vehicle theft on behalf of more than 1,000 insurance providers and members of the automotive industry.
"The people who profit are not just joy riders down the street," Cox said. "They are gangs. Some of those gangs are just thugs and some of them are terrorists."
Yet without a national database, most law enforcement agencies and customs officials have little chance of effectively intercepting stolen vehicles, which on first inspection can appear to be properly documented. The VIN is generally also stamped on car parts that are hard to get to and alter, such as an axle or the frame. At crime scenes, fragments from these locations can often reveal the identity of a car or truck.
Currently, 20 states - including Massachusetts and Vermont - contribute information to the national vehicle database, but authorities in those states cannot cross-check auto information against the data of other states.
Twenty-one other states and the District of Columbia are not linked into the system at all, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine.
California, which leads the nation with more 250,000 car thefts every year, is not linked into the national database. And many states that do participate do so only haphazardly.
Jason King, a spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which manages the database on behalf of the Justice Department, said the federal government must commit more resources to make the system function.
"States need the people to build the connections and the funding to pay them," he said. "That is something that has been lacking."
States that do not participate are considered "safe havens" for automobile theft, fraud, and cloning because state authorities are unable to identify most stolen vehicles once they are legally registered with fraudulent documents or VIN plates.
The database has proven highly effective in identifying stolen vehicles and falsified documentation.
Ricordate, bambini: le parole safe haven (come tax haven) indicano una cosa molto brutta che fomenta il terrorismo, e che naturalmente va combattuta con un database nazionale.
Published: July 16, 2007
WASHINGTON: Fifteen years after U.S. states were directed to share motor vehicle information in a national database, only nine states have done so, making it nearly impossible to identify hundreds of thousands of stolen vehicles - including a small but steady number that end up as car bombs in Iraq.
Guarda il caso: siccome in Iraq non ci sono automobili per costruire autobombe, è sufficiente rubarle negli USA, trasportarle fino in Iraq e farle saltare in aria.
FBI officials said they believe the database could help break up far-flung terrorist networks, which are using vehicles stolen and smuggled from the United States.
Certo.
Bought and sold on the international black market, cars and trucks help fund criminal operations and can be turned into the terrorist weapon of choice against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians: vehicles packed with explosives.
E due metri di cratere sotto. Se invece ci fosse il database nazionale...
The FBI declined to estimate how many stolen U.S. cars have turned up as car bombs in Iraq but said the number is believed to be at least in the dozens.
The National Motor Vehicle Title Information System was created in 1992 to thwart motor vehicle thefts, but it remains a patchwork repository at best.
Authorities say the system, which has the potential to track every car or truck in the country by its vehicle identification number, has languished because of years of local government inattention, a lack of urgency among state motor vehicle departments, and inconsistent federal funding.
"A car bomb is the absolute favorite delivery method of terrorists," said Special Agent Ryan Toole of the FBI's Major Theft Unit in Washington, who is working to get the database completed. "Tracing that VIN is very, very important" to identifying where the vehicle originated or determining how it ended up in terrorist hands.
Toole said American-made vehicles are particularly attractive to terrorists in places such as Iraq. Forensics specialists there have identified some bomb-rigged cars as vehicles that were swiped off American streets and sold overseas by criminal gangs and organized crime syndicates.
Terrorists desire a "vehicle like a Suburban because it can hold a lot but it also blends in," said Toole, who is leading the FBI's efforts to complete the database.
That particular Chevrolet SUV model is popular, he said, because "it looks like an American security vehicle" in Iraq and "they can get closer to their target than if it was a beat-up old Toyota."
The Justice Department is now mounting a campaign to get the database fully online. It is urging insurance companies, auto manufacturers, and others to report relevant information and is also offering federal grants to motor vehicle departments - up to $50,000 each - to help defray their start-up costs.
Authorities estimate that more than one million vehicles are stolen each year in the United States, yet only 35 percent of them are ever recovered.
Theft rings are also using sophisticated tactics to avoid detection. One method is known as "cloning," in which thieves replace the 17-character VIN number - fastened beneath the windshield by the car's manufacturer - with the VIN number illegally lifted from another, legally registered vehicle of the same make, model, and year.
Smugglers holding a stolen car with a cloned VIN number can command a premium for it on the international black market, while other stolen vehicles net just pennies on the dollar.
Vehicle identification has also proven valuable in terrorism-related investigations in recent years.
In 1993, when a truck packed with explosives detonated in a parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York, authorities cracked the case by tracing the VIN number of the vehicle to the Muslim extremists charged with the deadly attack.
More recently, the case against the suspected terrorist cell that allegedly plotted to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York includes evidence of falsified vehicle registration documents.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials have uncovered a crime syndicate in Los Angeles that is believed to have shipped stolen vehicles to the breakaway Russian region of Chechnya, a hotbed of Muslim extremist activity.
Toole, the FBI agent, said stolen American vehicles continue to show up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
"There is a very strong link to terrorism," said Jerry Cox, an attorney for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which fights insurance fraud and vehicle theft on behalf of more than 1,000 insurance providers and members of the automotive industry.
"The people who profit are not just joy riders down the street," Cox said. "They are gangs. Some of those gangs are just thugs and some of them are terrorists."
Yet without a national database, most law enforcement agencies and customs officials have little chance of effectively intercepting stolen vehicles, which on first inspection can appear to be properly documented. The VIN is generally also stamped on car parts that are hard to get to and alter, such as an axle or the frame. At crime scenes, fragments from these locations can often reveal the identity of a car or truck.
Currently, 20 states - including Massachusetts and Vermont - contribute information to the national vehicle database, but authorities in those states cannot cross-check auto information against the data of other states.
Twenty-one other states and the District of Columbia are not linked into the system at all, including Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maine.
California, which leads the nation with more 250,000 car thefts every year, is not linked into the national database. And many states that do participate do so only haphazardly.
Jason King, a spokesman for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, which manages the database on behalf of the Justice Department, said the federal government must commit more resources to make the system function.
"States need the people to build the connections and the funding to pay them," he said. "That is something that has been lacking."
States that do not participate are considered "safe havens" for automobile theft, fraud, and cloning because state authorities are unable to identify most stolen vehicles once they are legally registered with fraudulent documents or VIN plates.
The database has proven highly effective in identifying stolen vehicles and falsified documentation.
Ricordate, bambini: le parole safe haven (come tax haven) indicano una cosa molto brutta che fomenta il terrorismo, e che naturalmente va combattuta con un database nazionale.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 17, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT
Last modified: July 17, 2007, 9:40 AM PDT
A recent federal court decision raises the question of whether antivirus companies may intentionally overlook spyware that is secretly placed on computers by police.
In the case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger--call it fedware--to record the typing of a suspected Ecstasy manufacturer (non oso immaginare) who used encryption to thwart the police.
A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet.
Most of the companies surveyed, which covered the range from tiny firms to Symantec and IBM, said they never had received such a court order. The full list of companies surveyed: AVG/Grisoft, Computer Associates, Check Point, eEye, IBM, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Microsoft, Sana Security, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro and Websense. Only McAfee and Microsoft flatly declined to answer that question.
Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives. Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's OS X include built-in encryption.
Some companies that responded to the survey were vehemently pro-privacy. "Our customers are paying us for a service, to protect them from all forms of malicious code," said Marc Maiffret, eEye Digital Security's co-founder and chief technology officer. "It is not up to us to do law enforcement's job for them so we do not, and will not, make any exceptions for law enforcement malware or other tools." eEye sells Blink Personal for $25, which includes antivirus and antispyware features.
Others were more conciliatory. Check Point, (un nome a caso, ricordate?) which makes the popular ZoneAlarm utility, said it would offer federal police the "same courtesy" that it extends to legitimate third-party vendors that request to be whitelisted. A Check Point representative said, though, that the company had "never been" in that situation.
Io per sicurezza installo pure il firewall.
This isn't exactly a new question. After the last high-profile case in which federal agents turned to a key logger, some security companies allegedly volunteered to ignore fedware. The Associated Press reported in 2001 that "McAfee Corp. contacted the FBI... to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software." McAfee subsequently said the report was inaccurate.
Later that year, the FBI confirmed that it was creating spy software called "Magic Lantern" that would allow agents to inject keystroke loggers remotely through a virus without having physical access to the computer. (In both the recent Ecstasy case and the earlier key logging case involving an alleged mobster, federal agents obtained court orders authorizing them to break into buildings to install key loggers.)
Government agencies and backdoors in technology products have a long and frequently clandestine relationship. One 1995 expose by the Baltimore Sun described how the National Security Agency persuaded a Swiss firm, Crypto, to build backdoors into its encryption devices. In his 1982 book, The Puzzle Palace, author James Bamford described how the NSA's predecessor in 1945 coerced Western Union, RCA and ITT Communications to turn over telegraph traffic to the feds.
More recently, after the BBC reported last year on supposed talks between the British government and Microsoft, the software maker pledged not to build backdoors into Windows Vista's encryption functions.
Even if the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration or other federal police haven't tried to compel security companies to whitelist fedware, security experts predict that such a court order is just a matter of time.
What remains unclear, however, is whether police have the legal authority to do so under current law. "The government would be pushing the boundaries of the law if it attempted to obtain such an order," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated wiretapping cases. "There's simply no precedent for this sort of thing."
One possibility is a section of the Wiretap Act that says courts can "direct that a provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian or other person" to help with electronic surveillance.
"There is some breadth in that language that is of concern and that the Justice Department may attempt to exploit," Bankston said.
In theory, government agencies could even seek a court order requiring security companies to deliver spyware to their customers as part of an auto-update feature. Most modern security companies, including operating system makers such as Microsoft and Apple, offer regular patches and bug fixes. Although it would be technically tricky, it would be possible to send an infected update to a customer if the vendor were ordered to do so.
When asked if it had ever received such a court order, Microsoft demurred. "Microsoft frequently has confidential conversations with both customers and government agencies and does not comment on those conversations," a company representative said. Of the 13 companies surveyed, McAfee was the other company that declined to answer. (Two others could not be reached as of Tuesday morning.)
Some security companies refused to reply to the initial version of our survey, which broadly asked about fedware whitelisting. In response, we revised the question to ask if they would alert a customer to the presence of keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency "in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge."
Cris Paden, Symantec's manger of corporate public relations, initially declined to reply. "There are legitimate reasons for not giving blanket guarantees--one of those is a court order," he said at first. "There are extenuating circumstances and gray issues."
But after we altered the question, Paden replied: "Barring a court order to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, Symantec would definitely alert our customers to the presence of any malicious code or programs that we detect on their systems." He added that Symantec had "absolutely not" received any such a court order.
One danger with whitelisting fedware is that it creates a potentially serious vulnerability in security software. If a malicious vendor of spyware were clever enough to mimic the whitelisted government spyware, it would also go undetected.
Indovinate dove andrà a parare?
But if fedware becomes more common, savvy criminals could simply turn to open-source software that's less likely to have backdoors for police. ClamAV and OpenAntiVirus.org both offer open-source security software, and it's also possible to boot off of a CD-ROM and inspect the hard drive for malicious tampering.
At the moment, at least, there aren't any industry standards about detecting fedware. "CSIA does not currently have a position on this issue nor has the issue ever been addressed by its board of directors," said Tim Bennett, president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance.
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 17, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT
Last modified: July 17, 2007, 9:40 AM PDT
A recent federal court decision raises the question of whether antivirus companies may intentionally overlook spyware that is secretly placed on computers by police.
In the case decided earlier this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, federal agents used spyware with a keystroke logger--call it fedware--to record the typing of a suspected Ecstasy manufacturer (non oso immaginare) who used encryption to thwart the police.
A CNET News.com survey of 13 leading antispyware vendors found that not one company acknowledged cooperating unofficially with government agencies. Some, however, indicated that they would not alert customers to the presence of fedware if they were ordered by a court to remain quiet.
Most of the companies surveyed, which covered the range from tiny firms to Symantec and IBM, said they never had received such a court order. The full list of companies surveyed: AVG/Grisoft, Computer Associates, Check Point, eEye, IBM, Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Microsoft, Sana Security, Sophos, Symantec, Trend Micro and Websense. Only McAfee and Microsoft flatly declined to answer that question.
Because only two known criminal prosecutions in the United States involve police use of key loggers, important legal rules remain unsettled. But key logger makers say that police and investigative agencies are frequent customers, in part because recording keystrokes can bypass the increasingly common use of encryption to scramble communications and hard drives. Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's OS X include built-in encryption.
Some companies that responded to the survey were vehemently pro-privacy. "Our customers are paying us for a service, to protect them from all forms of malicious code," said Marc Maiffret, eEye Digital Security's co-founder and chief technology officer. "It is not up to us to do law enforcement's job for them so we do not, and will not, make any exceptions for law enforcement malware or other tools." eEye sells Blink Personal for $25, which includes antivirus and antispyware features.
Others were more conciliatory. Check Point, (un nome a caso, ricordate?) which makes the popular ZoneAlarm utility, said it would offer federal police the "same courtesy" that it extends to legitimate third-party vendors that request to be whitelisted. A Check Point representative said, though, that the company had "never been" in that situation.
Io per sicurezza installo pure il firewall.
This isn't exactly a new question. After the last high-profile case in which federal agents turned to a key logger, some security companies allegedly volunteered to ignore fedware. The Associated Press reported in 2001 that "McAfee Corp. contacted the FBI... to ensure its software wouldn't inadvertently detect the bureau's snooping software." McAfee subsequently said the report was inaccurate.
Later that year, the FBI confirmed that it was creating spy software called "Magic Lantern" that would allow agents to inject keystroke loggers remotely through a virus without having physical access to the computer. (In both the recent Ecstasy case and the earlier key logging case involving an alleged mobster, federal agents obtained court orders authorizing them to break into buildings to install key loggers.)
Government agencies and backdoors in technology products have a long and frequently clandestine relationship. One 1995 expose by the Baltimore Sun described how the National Security Agency persuaded a Swiss firm, Crypto, to build backdoors into its encryption devices. In his 1982 book, The Puzzle Palace, author James Bamford described how the NSA's predecessor in 1945 coerced Western Union, RCA and ITT Communications to turn over telegraph traffic to the feds.
More recently, after the BBC reported last year on supposed talks between the British government and Microsoft, the software maker pledged not to build backdoors into Windows Vista's encryption functions.
Even if the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration or other federal police haven't tried to compel security companies to whitelist fedware, security experts predict that such a court order is just a matter of time.
What remains unclear, however, is whether police have the legal authority to do so under current law. "The government would be pushing the boundaries of the law if it attempted to obtain such an order," said Kevin Bankston, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who has litigated wiretapping cases. "There's simply no precedent for this sort of thing."
One possibility is a section of the Wiretap Act that says courts can "direct that a provider of wire or electronic communication service, landlord, custodian or other person" to help with electronic surveillance.
"There is some breadth in that language that is of concern and that the Justice Department may attempt to exploit," Bankston said.
In theory, government agencies could even seek a court order requiring security companies to deliver spyware to their customers as part of an auto-update feature. Most modern security companies, including operating system makers such as Microsoft and Apple, offer regular patches and bug fixes. Although it would be technically tricky, it would be possible to send an infected update to a customer if the vendor were ordered to do so.
When asked if it had ever received such a court order, Microsoft demurred. "Microsoft frequently has confidential conversations with both customers and government agencies and does not comment on those conversations," a company representative said. Of the 13 companies surveyed, McAfee was the other company that declined to answer. (Two others could not be reached as of Tuesday morning.)
Some security companies refused to reply to the initial version of our survey, which broadly asked about fedware whitelisting. In response, we revised the question to ask if they would alert a customer to the presence of keystroke loggers installed by a police or intelligence agency "in the absence of a lawful court order signed by a judge."
Cris Paden, Symantec's manger of corporate public relations, initially declined to reply. "There are legitimate reasons for not giving blanket guarantees--one of those is a court order," he said at first. "There are extenuating circumstances and gray issues."
But after we altered the question, Paden replied: "Barring a court order to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, Symantec would definitely alert our customers to the presence of any malicious code or programs that we detect on their systems." He added that Symantec had "absolutely not" received any such a court order.
One danger with whitelisting fedware is that it creates a potentially serious vulnerability in security software. If a malicious vendor of spyware were clever enough to mimic the whitelisted government spyware, it would also go undetected.
Indovinate dove andrà a parare?
But if fedware becomes more common, savvy criminals could simply turn to open-source software that's less likely to have backdoors for police. ClamAV and OpenAntiVirus.org both offer open-source security software, and it's also possible to boot off of a CD-ROM and inspect the hard drive for malicious tampering.
At the moment, at least, there aren't any industry standards about detecting fedware. "CSIA does not currently have a position on this issue nor has the issue ever been addressed by its board of directors," said Tim Bennett, president of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance.
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Why did IntelCenter, the middleman between "Al-Qaeda" and the media, a group that has government and Pentagon ties, re-release old footage and why did the media report it as new when it had already aired twice before?
Indovina?
Indovina?
posted by Linucs (Link),
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By Kate Kelland and Luke Baker
LONDON (Reuters) - Exiled Russian ("russian") businessman Boris Berezovsky said on Wednesday British police warned him last month of a plot to kill him and he fled the country, escaping a threat he said bore the hallmarks of Russia's security service.
Berezovsky, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has blamed for the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, (proprio lui) said he left Britain on June 16 for a week, until police advised him the plot had been foiled.
Police confirmed they arrested a man on June 21 in connection with a plot to kill Berezovsky but released him two days later without charge, handing him to immigration officials.
Berezovsky, 61, said the man was deported to Russia, but that was not confirmed by police or interior ministry officials.
"I received a call from Scotland Yard police a month ago informing me that there was a plot to kill me and telling me to leave the country," Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum (nientemeno!) in Britain in 2003, told a news conference, at which several personal bodyguards and a unit of British police were on hand.
"The same people who were behind the Litvinenko plot, they want to kill me."
He said his news conference had no link to the deepening dispute between Britain and Russia, in which Britain on Monday expelled four Russian diplomats because of Moscow's failure to hand over Britain's chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder.
British prosecutors suspect that Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent, poisoned Litvinenko, also an ex-KGB agent, with the rare radioactive isotope polonium 210 in London last year, and want him extradited to face justice.
Moscow is expected to respond to the diplomatic expulsions within the next 48 hours.
Russia's ambassador to London said his government was not behind any alleged plot. A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government would not comment on speculation about security matters.
Berezovsky, who says he wants a "bloodless revolution" in Russia and the end of Putin's rule, said on Wednesday he had spent $300-400 million (146-195 million pounds) funding opposition groups in his former homeland since he went into exile in 2001.
Britain has refused to extradite Berezovsky to Moscow where he is being tried in absentia for theft. He said he had had many death threats in recent years and accused Russia's security service of being behind them.
Asked why he thought the Russians would want to kill him, Berezovsky, a colourful character who speaks broken English, ("mòndo òdia!") said it was because he was a key witness to Litvinenko's death and the main funder of Russian opposition to Putin.
Russia's ambassador to London, Yury Viktorovich Fedotov, dismissed any suggestion the Russian government might have been behind the plot. "That is excluded," he told BBC radio.
Asked what he thought of Berezovsky's comments he said: "That is quite strange information and I have nothing that could confirm it." He accused Berezovsky of links to "money laundering, corruption, and organised crime".
Lugovoy, a former KGB security agent, has repeatedly said he is innocent of murder charges. He says Litvinenko was probably killed by fellow Russian ("russian") emigres or British security services.
Enemy of the Kremlin
Mark Oliver
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Boris Berezovsky is unlikely to have been surprised when British authorities told him they had disrupted a plot to assassinate him at the Hilton on London's Park Lane.
The exiled billionaire is a bitter enemy of the Kremlin and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and a major protagonist in the diplomatic crisis between Moscow and London.
It was not always so. As a part of the inner circle of Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin, Mr Berezovsky helped Mr Putin's rise to power and was still backing him when he succeeded Mr Yeltsin in 2000.
"Poi skòperto che Pùtin òdia?"
But cracks in their relationship widened after Mr Putin took office. The president was anxious at Mr Berezovsky's political clout, (al contrario dei babbei inglesi ed "europei") and disliked his connections in Chechnya and his opposition to the second Chechen war, which started in 1999.
The Russian president also made it clear that he would pursue some of the group of oligarchs who are regarded by some Russians as robber barons of the "wild capitalism" days of the 1990s. The men, a group of business figures including Mr Berezovsky, made their fortunes as Mr Yeltsin privatised (tradotto: regalò) state assets in the mid-1990s.
It was during this period that Mr Berezovsky, a mathematician turned car dealer who had already become rich importing Mercedes cars to Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, took over the huge Sibneft oil company, which later changed its name to Gazprom Neft, with Roman Abramovich.
"Russo."
Mr Berezovsky also became the top shareholder in Russia's main television channel, ORT, which heavily backed Mr Yeltsin ahead of the 1996 presidential election despite concerns over his health and drinking.
Mr Berezovsky, who sold Sibneft in 1997, is estimated to have amassed an £850m fortune. He went into self-imposed exile in the UK in 2000 after he became the subject of a money-laundering investigation in Russia.
Observers have noted that Mr Putin has mainly cracked down on the oligarchs he sees as a political threat, with prosecutors citing real and sometimes invented illegal activities such as tax evasion. While Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch who had political ambitions, languishes in prison, (applauso) others have continued to enjoy free rein. Mr Berezovsky has become arguably the main figure in London's growing community of Russian dissidents, and in recent years has been an increasingly vocal critic of Mr Putin, styling himself as a pro-democracy campaigner.
Ha dimenticato di dire dove sono finiti molti amici di Khodorkovsky, tra i quali il povero Leonid. Strano!
In January last year Mr Berezovsky told a Moscow radio station that he had been planning a coup in Russia for 18 months and aimed to replace the "anti-constitutional regime". In response, the foreign secretary of the time, Jack Straw, said "advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state" was unacceptable and warned Mr Berezovsky he could be stripped of his asylum status.
Questa poi!
In April this year Mr Berezovsky told the Guardian that he was financially supporting people close to Mr Putin who were planning a coup. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure," Mr Berezovsky told the paper.
Stai dicendo che in UK dovrebbero linciare Levy e Blair?
Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct."
With the Kremlin demanding action be taken against him, Mr Berezovsky later insisted he backed a "bloodless" change of government in Russia, saying: "I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support violence."
"No òdia. Altri òdia!"
Mr Berezovsky was a friend and sometime benefactor of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was also exiled in London as an opponent of the Kremlin.
Litvinenko was murdered in London last November, poisoned with a rare radioactive isotope. ("mica una botta in testa come i cani!") Mr Berezovsky has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of involvement in his death.
E se lo dici tu...
The Crown Prosecution Service has alleged that Andrei Lugovoi, a Moscow-based businessman and former KGB agent, carried out Litvinenko's murder. Earlier this year Mr Berezovsky rubbished claims by Mr Lugovoi - formerly head of security at ORT - that Mr Berezovsky might be to blame for the killing.
Russian officials have refused to extradite Mr Lugovoi to the UK to stand trial, though there were some signals that they might consider a swap for Mr Berezovsky. Such a notion was never going to be agreeable to the British government - which granted Mr Berezovsky political asylum in 2003 - even considering the government's concerns over his outspoken attacks on Mr Putin.
Mr Berezovsky has escaped assassination attempts in the past. Russian mafia figures ("russian") blew up his Mercedes in 1994, leaving him with burns and killing the driver.
In Britain, he has long been prepared for some further attempt on his life. His estate in Surrey has fortress-like security, including bulletproof windows. He has a team of former French foreign legionnaires as guards.
Even before today's claims of an assassination plot, Mr Berezovsky said he believed he was a target of the Kremlin regime which, he claims, is prepared to kill anyone it regards as an enemy of Russia.
Si chiama "guerra preventiva", non ti piace?
Russian plot to kill Berezovsky foiled
A RUSSIAN hitman planned to execute an outspoken "enemy of Moscow" at the Hilton Hotel on London's Park Lane, The Sun can reveal.
He sought to shoot exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky - who has called for the violent overthrow of Russian president Vladimir Putin - in the back of the head.
The assassin was accompanied by a CHILD in a cold-blooded attempt to avoid raising suspicion.
"Bimbo òdia."
But MI5 and MI6 intercepted intelligence about the plot - due to have been carried out within the last fortnight.
Nota bene: questi riescono ad intervettare i pericolosi agenti russi, salvo poi farsi scappare quattro beduini dementi con lo zaino.
And the hitman was seized before he could open fire.
The murderous mission was revealed 24 hours after Britain ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats.
And its disclosure will plunge the cold relations between London and Moscow into the deep freeze.
Mr Berezovsky, 61, fled to Britain from Russia in 2000 and was granted political asylum three years later.
Today he mixes in the highest echelons of society ("russi?") and lives in a 172-acre Surrey estate he bought for £10million from radio DJ Chris Evans.
A soccer nut, he has a box at Arsenal's Emirates stadium and was a friend and business partner of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich before the pair had a spectacular falling-out in 2005.
Mr Berezovsky was also a pal of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko - poisoned with a lethal dose of radioactive Polonium-210 in a London sushi bar last November.
The targeted tycoon is at the centre of a hotbed of opposition to the Putin regime - and is the Russian president's fiercest critic.
He is understood to have offered cash, housing and support to a string of Russian exiles, including Litvinenko.
The hitman planned to strike after luring Mr Berezovsky to a meeting in a room at the Hilton.
But details of the plot were rumbled by Britain's security services.
Together with anti-terrorist cops from Scotland Yard, they mounted a round-the-clock surveillance operation to shadow Mr Berezovsky and the assassin.
They took over a room adjoining the meeting place and seized the hitman before he could open fire.
A source said: "The Russian suspect was monitored attempting to buy obvious weaponry for the planned mission.
L'agente russo acquista le armi sul posto. Strano che non abbia improvvisato una bomba utilizzando un po' di fertilizzante ed un escremento di cane raccolto dal marciapiede.
"Disturbingly, he was accompanied by a child in an attempt to blend into the background. This 'family persona' tactic is also thought to have been used in the murder of Litvinenko."
Security officials stressed there was no direct connection between the assassination plot and the row which has led to the expulsion of the Russian diplomats. The officials got the boot after Mr Putin refused to allow the extradition from Moscow of former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy, the prime suspect in the Litvinenko case.
But despite the lack of a link, a senior Government security source said: "We cannot tolerate a situation where Russian hit squads can roam the streets of London trying to take out enemies of their regime.
"Altri, invece, sono benvenuti." (Operation Kratos docet)
"In the case of Litvinenko, the lives of hundreds of Londoners were put at risk by the use of a radioactive substance.
"It is clear Mr Berezovsky has been a persistent critic of Mr Putin and his regime. It is our experience that the Russians have no compunction about taking action against their critics abroad.
"E senza neanche farsi scrivere una legge apposta!"
"We only have to look at the cold-blooded murder of Mr Litvinenko to see the lengths to which they will go."
Last night Mr Berezovsky said there had been a series of plots to murder him in Britain.
He told the BBC's Newsnight: "There were several attempts to kill me in this country."
He added: "Scotland Yard pay a lot of attention to my protection and I'm happy about that."
He also accused Mr Putin of killing Mr Litvinenko. He said: "I'm 100 per cent sure that behind this murder is not just Andrei Lugovoy but Putin himself. That's the reason Russia protects Lugovoy, because they are protecting Putin."
Mr Berezovsky built a fortune after the Cold War ended in car sales, oil and the media.
His estate is guarded by a squad of ex-French foreign legionnaires. The complex features bullet-proof windows, reinforced steel doors, laser monitors and spy cameras.
Even before the Putin era, he was in the sights of the Russian mafia (insiste!), surviving several attempts to kill him.
In 1994 his Mercedes was blown up by a car bomb, decapitating his chauffeur and leaving Berezovsky with serious burns.
When Putin came to power, he was at first a cordial friend of the new President. But they fell out over Putin's decision to probe how oligarchs like Mr Berezovsky made their money. The tycoon fled to Britain when charges of tax evasion and embezzlement were brought against him.
He now runs several businesses here while also plotting Putin's demise. He boasts of bankrolling a group in Russia who aim to bring Putin down by force.
Pensate se l'avesse detto un arabo a proposito di Bush.
Last night security expert Chris Dobson said the plot to assassinate him showed "Putin is behaving like the thug he always was".
Mr Dobson added: "The Russians have always believed it is their right to assassinate their enemies wherever they are. They take no notice of diplomatic treaties."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We cannot make any comment at this stage."
British Cops Arrest Man in Plot to Murder Russian Tycoon Boris Berezovsky
LONDON - British police confirmed Wednesday they had arrested a man on suspicion of conspiring to murder Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky - a Kremlin critic and friend of the poisoned KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
The Metropolitan Police said they arrested the man in central London on June 21 and handed him over to immigration officials two days later.
The revelation came as Britain said it would not accept a trial in a third country of Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent accused of using radioactive poison to kill Litvinenko.
"We want the trial to be in a British court, on British soil," said Michael Ellam, spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The spokesman earlier said only that the trial should take place in a British court - raising the prospect of a hearing in a third country.
Brown's Downing Street office said any confusion was unintentional and stressed it was seeking a trial in Britain.
Britain this week ordered four Russian diplomats to leave the country because of Russia's refusal to extradite Lugovoi, named by British prosecutors as the chief suspect in the killing of Litvinenko who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope in London in November.
Russia has threatened unspecified measures in response, leading to concerns that both sides are taking extreme positions that could make resolution of the dispute difficult.
Berezovsky, a one-time Kremlin insider who has fallen out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Wednesday that he fled Britain briefly last month because British intelligence services told him his life was in danger.
"I was informed by Scotland Yard that there was a plot to kill me, and they recommended to me to leave the country," Berezovsky told The Associated Press. He said he left Britain for about a week and returned when Scotland Yard told him the plot had been foiled.
Berezovsky was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003. His visibility has increased since Litvinenko's murder.
Scotland Yard confirmed Berezovsky's claim, saying they had arrested a man on suspicion of conspiring to murder the tycoon on June 21. Police said the suspect was handed over to immigration officials two days later.
Potremmo sapere nomi, cognomi e passaporti?
"Berezovsky is a very high-profile critic of the Putin regime, and history does show that it would appear that the Russians are prepared to take action against their critics abroad," said a MI5 domestic intelligence agency official, who demanded anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence work.
The official could not say whether British intelligence services believe Russia has tried to attack dissidents in London since Litvinenko's murder. But the official confirmed about 30 Russian spies are believed to be based in London to monitor exiles in the city.
"I am happy that British are very strong in protecting people in this country," Berezovsky said on BBC television.
"It's absolutely useless to fight against a state alone. I don't have any chance to be alive if not for the protection of the state which gave me asylum," he said.
Russian Ambassador Yury Fedotov told British Broadcasting Corp. radio said the alleged plot to assassinate Berezovsky was "quite strange information, and I have nothing that could confirm it."
He alleged that Berezovsky is linked "to many criminal international schemes of money laundering, corruption and organized crime."
Niente: ogni volta che un beduino demente sputa in terra ci fanno sapere quali scuole frequentò da pargolo, ma pare che questo caso richieda più discrezione.
RAF scrambles to intercept Russian bombers
Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for British airspace yesterday, as the spirit of the Cold War returned to the North Atlantic once again.
The incident, described as rare by the RAF, served as a telling metaphor for the stand-off between London and Moscow over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
While the Kremlin hesitated before responding to Britain's expulsion of four diplomats, the Russian military engaged in some old-fashioned sabre-rattling.
Two Tu95 "Bear" bombers were dispatched from their base on the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic Circle and headed towards British airspace.
Russian military aircraft based near the northern port city of Murmansk fly patrols off the Norwegian coast regularly, but the RAF said that it was highly unusual for them to stray as far south as Scotland.
Two Tornado fighters, part of the RAF's Quick Reaction Alert, took off from RAF Leeming, in Yorkshire, to confront the Russian aircraft, after they were shadowed by two F16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, The Times has learnt.
"The Russians turned back before they reached British airspace," an RAF spokesman said.
There was no evidence to suggest that the incident was connected with the diplomatic row over the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, the main suspect in the murder of Litvinenko.
UK fighters 'sent to meet Russian bombers'
From correspondents in London
July 18, 2007 09:28pm
ROYAL Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers heading for British airspace, The Times said today, prompting fierce denials of brinkmanship from Moscow.
The newspaper said two RAF Tornados from its rapid reaction force took off from RAF base Leeming in northern England to confront the two Tu95 "Bear" bombers after they were shadowed by F-16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
An unnamed RAF spokesman was quoted as saying that the Russian bombers, based near the northern port city of Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, turned back before they reached British airspace.
The Times, which said the incident happened yesterday, said there was no evidence to suggest it was linked to Britain's planned expulsion of four diplomats over Russia's stance on the Alexander Litvinenko affair.
Russia yesterday promised a "targeted and appropriate" response to Britain's move, prompted by Moscow's refusal to extradite an ex-KGB agent suspected of poisoning the outspoken dissident in London last year.
But the daily said it smacked of "old-fashioned sabre-rattling" on the part of the Russian military and revived "the spirit of the Cold War" in the North Atlantic.
No-one at the defence ministry in London was immediately available for comment when contacted by AFP but there were swift denials from Russia.
Air force colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky was quoted by the news agency Interfax as saying: "Claims that Russian bombers were headed for British airspace don't correspond with reality.
"Long-distance planes were making planned flights over international waters. These kind of flights have been and are carried out to train long-distance flight crews."
Air force general-colonel Alexander Zelin told Interfax that long-distance planes hold regular flight exercises, including bomb and rocket launches.
But he added: "We plan our bomber flights in international airspace according to our military preparation programme at least six months in advance. And we warn the relevant countries in advance.
"These aren't shows of force or sabre-rattling, but planned military preparations. What's more, we make timely applications to use international air corridors.
The Times e The Sun sono proprietà di un certo Murdoch, per chi volesse fare due conti.
LONDON (Reuters) - Exiled Russian ("russian") businessman Boris Berezovsky said on Wednesday British police warned him last month of a plot to kill him and he fled the country, escaping a threat he said bore the hallmarks of Russia's security service.
Berezovsky, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has blamed for the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, (proprio lui) said he left Britain on June 16 for a week, until police advised him the plot had been foiled.
Police confirmed they arrested a man on June 21 in connection with a plot to kill Berezovsky but released him two days later without charge, handing him to immigration officials.
Berezovsky, 61, said the man was deported to Russia, but that was not confirmed by police or interior ministry officials.
"I received a call from Scotland Yard police a month ago informing me that there was a plot to kill me and telling me to leave the country," Berezovsky, who was granted political asylum (nientemeno!) in Britain in 2003, told a news conference, at which several personal bodyguards and a unit of British police were on hand.
"The same people who were behind the Litvinenko plot, they want to kill me."
He said his news conference had no link to the deepening dispute between Britain and Russia, in which Britain on Monday expelled four Russian diplomats because of Moscow's failure to hand over Britain's chief suspect in the Litvinenko murder.
British prosecutors suspect that Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB agent, poisoned Litvinenko, also an ex-KGB agent, with the rare radioactive isotope polonium 210 in London last year, and want him extradited to face justice.
Moscow is expected to respond to the diplomatic expulsions within the next 48 hours.
Russia's ambassador to London said his government was not behind any alleged plot. A spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government would not comment on speculation about security matters.
Berezovsky, who says he wants a "bloodless revolution" in Russia and the end of Putin's rule, said on Wednesday he had spent $300-400 million (146-195 million pounds) funding opposition groups in his former homeland since he went into exile in 2001.
Britain has refused to extradite Berezovsky to Moscow where he is being tried in absentia for theft. He said he had had many death threats in recent years and accused Russia's security service of being behind them.
Asked why he thought the Russians would want to kill him, Berezovsky, a colourful character who speaks broken English, ("mòndo òdia!") said it was because he was a key witness to Litvinenko's death and the main funder of Russian opposition to Putin.
Russia's ambassador to London, Yury Viktorovich Fedotov, dismissed any suggestion the Russian government might have been behind the plot. "That is excluded," he told BBC radio.
Asked what he thought of Berezovsky's comments he said: "That is quite strange information and I have nothing that could confirm it." He accused Berezovsky of links to "money laundering, corruption, and organised crime".
Lugovoy, a former KGB security agent, has repeatedly said he is innocent of murder charges. He says Litvinenko was probably killed by fellow Russian ("russian") emigres or British security services.
Enemy of the Kremlin
Mark Oliver
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Boris Berezovsky is unlikely to have been surprised when British authorities told him they had disrupted a plot to assassinate him at the Hilton on London's Park Lane.
The exiled billionaire is a bitter enemy of the Kremlin and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and a major protagonist in the diplomatic crisis between Moscow and London.
It was not always so. As a part of the inner circle of Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin, Mr Berezovsky helped Mr Putin's rise to power and was still backing him when he succeeded Mr Yeltsin in 2000.
"Poi skòperto che Pùtin òdia?"
But cracks in their relationship widened after Mr Putin took office. The president was anxious at Mr Berezovsky's political clout, (al contrario dei babbei inglesi ed "europei") and disliked his connections in Chechnya and his opposition to the second Chechen war, which started in 1999.
The Russian president also made it clear that he would pursue some of the group of oligarchs who are regarded by some Russians as robber barons of the "wild capitalism" days of the 1990s. The men, a group of business figures including Mr Berezovsky, made their fortunes as Mr Yeltsin privatised (tradotto: regalò) state assets in the mid-1990s.
It was during this period that Mr Berezovsky, a mathematician turned car dealer who had already become rich importing Mercedes cars to Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, took over the huge Sibneft oil company, which later changed its name to Gazprom Neft, with Roman Abramovich.
"Russo."
Mr Berezovsky also became the top shareholder in Russia's main television channel, ORT, which heavily backed Mr Yeltsin ahead of the 1996 presidential election despite concerns over his health and drinking.
Mr Berezovsky, who sold Sibneft in 1997, is estimated to have amassed an £850m fortune. He went into self-imposed exile in the UK in 2000 after he became the subject of a money-laundering investigation in Russia.
Observers have noted that Mr Putin has mainly cracked down on the oligarchs he sees as a political threat, with prosecutors citing real and sometimes invented illegal activities such as tax evasion. While Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an oligarch who had political ambitions, languishes in prison, (applauso) others have continued to enjoy free rein. Mr Berezovsky has become arguably the main figure in London's growing community of Russian dissidents, and in recent years has been an increasingly vocal critic of Mr Putin, styling himself as a pro-democracy campaigner.
Ha dimenticato di dire dove sono finiti molti amici di Khodorkovsky, tra i quali il povero Leonid. Strano!
In January last year Mr Berezovsky told a Moscow radio station that he had been planning a coup in Russia for 18 months and aimed to replace the "anti-constitutional regime". In response, the foreign secretary of the time, Jack Straw, said "advocating the violent overthrow of a sovereign state" was unacceptable and warned Mr Berezovsky he could be stripped of his asylum status.
Questa poi!
In April this year Mr Berezovsky told the Guardian that he was financially supporting people close to Mr Putin who were planning a coup. "It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure," Mr Berezovsky told the paper.
Stai dicendo che in UK dovrebbero linciare Levy e Blair?
Asked if he was effectively fomenting a revolution, he said: "You are absolutely correct."
With the Kremlin demanding action be taken against him, Mr Berezovsky later insisted he backed a "bloodless" change of government in Russia, saying: "I do support direct action. I do not advocate or support violence."
"No òdia. Altri òdia!"
Mr Berezovsky was a friend and sometime benefactor of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was also exiled in London as an opponent of the Kremlin.
Litvinenko was murdered in London last November, poisoned with a rare radioactive isotope. ("mica una botta in testa come i cani!") Mr Berezovsky has repeatedly accused the Kremlin of involvement in his death.
E se lo dici tu...
The Crown Prosecution Service has alleged that Andrei Lugovoi, a Moscow-based businessman and former KGB agent, carried out Litvinenko's murder. Earlier this year Mr Berezovsky rubbished claims by Mr Lugovoi - formerly head of security at ORT - that Mr Berezovsky might be to blame for the killing.
Russian officials have refused to extradite Mr Lugovoi to the UK to stand trial, though there were some signals that they might consider a swap for Mr Berezovsky. Such a notion was never going to be agreeable to the British government - which granted Mr Berezovsky political asylum in 2003 - even considering the government's concerns over his outspoken attacks on Mr Putin.
Mr Berezovsky has escaped assassination attempts in the past. Russian mafia figures ("russian") blew up his Mercedes in 1994, leaving him with burns and killing the driver.
In Britain, he has long been prepared for some further attempt on his life. His estate in Surrey has fortress-like security, including bulletproof windows. He has a team of former French foreign legionnaires as guards.
Even before today's claims of an assassination plot, Mr Berezovsky said he believed he was a target of the Kremlin regime which, he claims, is prepared to kill anyone it regards as an enemy of Russia.
Si chiama "guerra preventiva", non ti piace?
Russian plot to kill Berezovsky foiled
A RUSSIAN hitman planned to execute an outspoken "enemy of Moscow" at the Hilton Hotel on London's Park Lane, The Sun can reveal.
He sought to shoot exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky - who has called for the violent overthrow of Russian president Vladimir Putin - in the back of the head.
The assassin was accompanied by a CHILD in a cold-blooded attempt to avoid raising suspicion.
"Bimbo òdia."
But MI5 and MI6 intercepted intelligence about the plot - due to have been carried out within the last fortnight.
Nota bene: questi riescono ad intervettare i pericolosi agenti russi, salvo poi farsi scappare quattro beduini dementi con lo zaino.
And the hitman was seized before he could open fire.
The murderous mission was revealed 24 hours after Britain ordered the expulsion of four Russian diplomats.
And its disclosure will plunge the cold relations between London and Moscow into the deep freeze.
Mr Berezovsky, 61, fled to Britain from Russia in 2000 and was granted political asylum three years later.
Today he mixes in the highest echelons of society ("russi?") and lives in a 172-acre Surrey estate he bought for £10million from radio DJ Chris Evans.
A soccer nut, he has a box at Arsenal's Emirates stadium and was a friend and business partner of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich before the pair had a spectacular falling-out in 2005.
Mr Berezovsky was also a pal of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko - poisoned with a lethal dose of radioactive Polonium-210 in a London sushi bar last November.
The targeted tycoon is at the centre of a hotbed of opposition to the Putin regime - and is the Russian president's fiercest critic.
He is understood to have offered cash, housing and support to a string of Russian exiles, including Litvinenko.
The hitman planned to strike after luring Mr Berezovsky to a meeting in a room at the Hilton.
But details of the plot were rumbled by Britain's security services.
Together with anti-terrorist cops from Scotland Yard, they mounted a round-the-clock surveillance operation to shadow Mr Berezovsky and the assassin.
They took over a room adjoining the meeting place and seized the hitman before he could open fire.
A source said: "The Russian suspect was monitored attempting to buy obvious weaponry for the planned mission.
L'agente russo acquista le armi sul posto. Strano che non abbia improvvisato una bomba utilizzando un po' di fertilizzante ed un escremento di cane raccolto dal marciapiede.
"Disturbingly, he was accompanied by a child in an attempt to blend into the background. This 'family persona' tactic is also thought to have been used in the murder of Litvinenko."
Security officials stressed there was no direct connection between the assassination plot and the row which has led to the expulsion of the Russian diplomats. The officials got the boot after Mr Putin refused to allow the extradition from Moscow of former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoy, the prime suspect in the Litvinenko case.
But despite the lack of a link, a senior Government security source said: "We cannot tolerate a situation where Russian hit squads can roam the streets of London trying to take out enemies of their regime.
"Altri, invece, sono benvenuti." (Operation Kratos docet)
"In the case of Litvinenko, the lives of hundreds of Londoners were put at risk by the use of a radioactive substance.
"It is clear Mr Berezovsky has been a persistent critic of Mr Putin and his regime. It is our experience that the Russians have no compunction about taking action against their critics abroad.
"E senza neanche farsi scrivere una legge apposta!"
"We only have to look at the cold-blooded murder of Mr Litvinenko to see the lengths to which they will go."
Last night Mr Berezovsky said there had been a series of plots to murder him in Britain.
He told the BBC's Newsnight: "There were several attempts to kill me in this country."
He added: "Scotland Yard pay a lot of attention to my protection and I'm happy about that."
He also accused Mr Putin of killing Mr Litvinenko. He said: "I'm 100 per cent sure that behind this murder is not just Andrei Lugovoy but Putin himself. That's the reason Russia protects Lugovoy, because they are protecting Putin."
Mr Berezovsky built a fortune after the Cold War ended in car sales, oil and the media.
His estate is guarded by a squad of ex-French foreign legionnaires. The complex features bullet-proof windows, reinforced steel doors, laser monitors and spy cameras.
Even before the Putin era, he was in the sights of the Russian mafia (insiste!), surviving several attempts to kill him.
In 1994 his Mercedes was blown up by a car bomb, decapitating his chauffeur and leaving Berezovsky with serious burns.
When Putin came to power, he was at first a cordial friend of the new President. But they fell out over Putin's decision to probe how oligarchs like Mr Berezovsky made their money. The tycoon fled to Britain when charges of tax evasion and embezzlement were brought against him.
He now runs several businesses here while also plotting Putin's demise. He boasts of bankrolling a group in Russia who aim to bring Putin down by force.
Pensate se l'avesse detto un arabo a proposito di Bush.
Last night security expert Chris Dobson said the plot to assassinate him showed "Putin is behaving like the thug he always was".
Mr Dobson added: "The Russians have always believed it is their right to assassinate their enemies wherever they are. They take no notice of diplomatic treaties."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "We cannot make any comment at this stage."
British Cops Arrest Man in Plot to Murder Russian Tycoon Boris Berezovsky
LONDON - British police confirmed Wednesday they had arrested a man on suspicion of conspiring to murder Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky - a Kremlin critic and friend of the poisoned KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.
The Metropolitan Police said they arrested the man in central London on June 21 and handed him over to immigration officials two days later.
The revelation came as Britain said it would not accept a trial in a third country of Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB agent accused of using radioactive poison to kill Litvinenko.
"We want the trial to be in a British court, on British soil," said Michael Ellam, spokesman for Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The spokesman earlier said only that the trial should take place in a British court - raising the prospect of a hearing in a third country.
Brown's Downing Street office said any confusion was unintentional and stressed it was seeking a trial in Britain.
Britain this week ordered four Russian diplomats to leave the country because of Russia's refusal to extradite Lugovoi, named by British prosecutors as the chief suspect in the killing of Litvinenko who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope in London in November.
Russia has threatened unspecified measures in response, leading to concerns that both sides are taking extreme positions that could make resolution of the dispute difficult.
Berezovsky, a one-time Kremlin insider who has fallen out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Wednesday that he fled Britain briefly last month because British intelligence services told him his life was in danger.
"I was informed by Scotland Yard that there was a plot to kill me, and they recommended to me to leave the country," Berezovsky told The Associated Press. He said he left Britain for about a week and returned when Scotland Yard told him the plot had been foiled.
Berezovsky was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003. His visibility has increased since Litvinenko's murder.
Scotland Yard confirmed Berezovsky's claim, saying they had arrested a man on suspicion of conspiring to murder the tycoon on June 21. Police said the suspect was handed over to immigration officials two days later.
Potremmo sapere nomi, cognomi e passaporti?
"Berezovsky is a very high-profile critic of the Putin regime, and history does show that it would appear that the Russians are prepared to take action against their critics abroad," said a MI5 domestic intelligence agency official, who demanded anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence work.
The official could not say whether British intelligence services believe Russia has tried to attack dissidents in London since Litvinenko's murder. But the official confirmed about 30 Russian spies are believed to be based in London to monitor exiles in the city.
"I am happy that British are very strong in protecting people in this country," Berezovsky said on BBC television.
"It's absolutely useless to fight against a state alone. I don't have any chance to be alive if not for the protection of the state which gave me asylum," he said.
Russian Ambassador Yury Fedotov told British Broadcasting Corp. radio said the alleged plot to assassinate Berezovsky was "quite strange information, and I have nothing that could confirm it."
He alleged that Berezovsky is linked "to many criminal international schemes of money laundering, corruption and organized crime."
Niente: ogni volta che un beduino demente sputa in terra ci fanno sapere quali scuole frequentò da pargolo, ma pare che questo caso richieda più discrezione.
RAF scrambles to intercept Russian bombers
Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian strategic bombers heading for British airspace yesterday, as the spirit of the Cold War returned to the North Atlantic once again.
The incident, described as rare by the RAF, served as a telling metaphor for the stand-off between London and Moscow over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
While the Kremlin hesitated before responding to Britain's expulsion of four diplomats, the Russian military engaged in some old-fashioned sabre-rattling.
Two Tu95 "Bear" bombers were dispatched from their base on the Kola Peninsula in the Arctic Circle and headed towards British airspace.
Russian military aircraft based near the northern port city of Murmansk fly patrols off the Norwegian coast regularly, but the RAF said that it was highly unusual for them to stray as far south as Scotland.
Two Tornado fighters, part of the RAF's Quick Reaction Alert, took off from RAF Leeming, in Yorkshire, to confront the Russian aircraft, after they were shadowed by two F16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force, The Times has learnt.
"The Russians turned back before they reached British airspace," an RAF spokesman said.
There was no evidence to suggest that the incident was connected with the diplomatic row over the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, the main suspect in the murder of Litvinenko.
UK fighters 'sent to meet Russian bombers'
From correspondents in London
July 18, 2007 09:28pm
ROYAL Air Force fighter jets were scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers heading for British airspace, The Times said today, prompting fierce denials of brinkmanship from Moscow.
The newspaper said two RAF Tornados from its rapid reaction force took off from RAF base Leeming in northern England to confront the two Tu95 "Bear" bombers after they were shadowed by F-16s from the Royal Norwegian Air Force.
An unnamed RAF spokesman was quoted as saying that the Russian bombers, based near the northern port city of Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, turned back before they reached British airspace.
The Times, which said the incident happened yesterday, said there was no evidence to suggest it was linked to Britain's planned expulsion of four diplomats over Russia's stance on the Alexander Litvinenko affair.
Russia yesterday promised a "targeted and appropriate" response to Britain's move, prompted by Moscow's refusal to extradite an ex-KGB agent suspected of poisoning the outspoken dissident in London last year.
But the daily said it smacked of "old-fashioned sabre-rattling" on the part of the Russian military and revived "the spirit of the Cold War" in the North Atlantic.
No-one at the defence ministry in London was immediately available for comment when contacted by AFP but there were swift denials from Russia.
Air force colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky was quoted by the news agency Interfax as saying: "Claims that Russian bombers were headed for British airspace don't correspond with reality.
"Long-distance planes were making planned flights over international waters. These kind of flights have been and are carried out to train long-distance flight crews."
Air force general-colonel Alexander Zelin told Interfax that long-distance planes hold regular flight exercises, including bomb and rocket launches.
But he added: "We plan our bomber flights in international airspace according to our military preparation programme at least six months in advance. And we warn the relevant countries in advance.
"These aren't shows of force or sabre-rattling, but planned military preparations. What's more, we make timely applications to use international air corridors.
The Times e The Sun sono proprietà di un certo Murdoch, per chi volesse fare due conti.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Monday, July 16, 2007
La posta dei lettori!
This was the harrowing moment when a young thug kicked another bus passenger in the head at the start of a sustained and unprovoked assault.
The thug waited until his victim was alone on the top deck. He then leapt on to his seat and - swinging on a hand-rail for extra force - began his relentless barrage of blows.
A few minutes later he strolled off the bus grinning.
His victim, 25-year-old Mark Sharp, had been on his way home after visiting his girlfriend. He was kicked and stamped on for at least two minutes and collapsed a few hours later.
He was taken to hospital but fortunately his injuries were not life-threatening. He was left with cuts and bruises and was badly shaken.
The imprint of the thug's trainer remained on his face for days.
Police released the disturbing pictures of the incident in Brighton at 11.15pm on April 7 in an attempt to catch the assailant.
Mr Sharp had boarded the number 1a bus outside a bingo hall in Edward Street.
He thinks the attacker got on at Churchill Square in the centre of the town with a group of girls.
Mr Sharp said: 'I was sitting on the top of the bus talking to a few people when they got on.
'The girls went downstairs as we got to Hove town hall and I think they were talking to the driver.
'This bloke just came flying in with his feet at my head. He kept kicking me for a couple of minutes. It left a mark on my face and left me feeling sick and dizzy.'
The thug was captured smiling to himself by on-board CCTV cameras as he left the bus.
PC Dave Muddle, of Brighton and Hove police, said: 'The attacker didn't know Mr Sharp or have any reason for the assault. He waited until they were alone and then lashed out with all his might.
'He repeatedly kicked and stamped Mr Sharp around the head for several minutes. It was horrific.'
Il lettore ricorderà che parole come "yob", "youth", "jobless youth" sono eleganti sinonimi per una categoria ben precisa di aggressore:
Police believe the attacker, who was black, aged about 19, and wearing jeans, a grey hoodie and dark jacket, probably lives in the Brighton and Hove area.
Those with information about the incident should call Hove CID on 0845 6070 999.
Signore e signori, ecco a voi il jobless youth di oggi:
Bongo, King of Congo.
Ed ecco a voi, nel suo più splendido pallore e nella sua miglior posa da Spartano Razzista e Colonialista:
"Harooh! Harooh! Harooh!"
Il sorriso sulla faccia del jobless youth indica la piena consapevolezza della propria totale impunità, cosa che - se gli inglesi si facessero finalmente crescere un paio di coglioni, e sarà sempre troppo tardi - si potrà risolvere elegantemente con una serie di linciaggi mirati a partire dal centro di Londra.
Ma, si chiederà il lettore, è proprio tutta colpa di Bongo, del nostro sfortunato jobless youth?
Giammai, signori: la colpa è anche del porco giornalista che si guarda bene, come sempre, dall'usare le parole race attack e hate crime, probabilmente dietro ordine del suo editore.
Provate ad indovinare perché, e provate a dedurre l'attendibilità delle statistiche sugli hate crime.
(lo sapete benissimo, è solo che dobbiamo giocare alla parte dei cretini altrimenti il giocattolo si rompe).
Se proprio non ci riuscite, valutate almeno l'utilità teorica di una revolverata in faccia quando qualche scimmia demente decide che è il vostro turno, o della vostra simpatica fidanzata.
This was the harrowing moment when a young thug kicked another bus passenger in the head at the start of a sustained and unprovoked assault.
The thug waited until his victim was alone on the top deck. He then leapt on to his seat and - swinging on a hand-rail for extra force - began his relentless barrage of blows.
A few minutes later he strolled off the bus grinning.
His victim, 25-year-old Mark Sharp, had been on his way home after visiting his girlfriend. He was kicked and stamped on for at least two minutes and collapsed a few hours later.
He was taken to hospital but fortunately his injuries were not life-threatening. He was left with cuts and bruises and was badly shaken.
The imprint of the thug's trainer remained on his face for days.
Police released the disturbing pictures of the incident in Brighton at 11.15pm on April 7 in an attempt to catch the assailant.
Mr Sharp had boarded the number 1a bus outside a bingo hall in Edward Street.
He thinks the attacker got on at Churchill Square in the centre of the town with a group of girls.
Mr Sharp said: 'I was sitting on the top of the bus talking to a few people when they got on.
'The girls went downstairs as we got to Hove town hall and I think they were talking to the driver.
'This bloke just came flying in with his feet at my head. He kept kicking me for a couple of minutes. It left a mark on my face and left me feeling sick and dizzy.'
The thug was captured smiling to himself by on-board CCTV cameras as he left the bus.
PC Dave Muddle, of Brighton and Hove police, said: 'The attacker didn't know Mr Sharp or have any reason for the assault. He waited until they were alone and then lashed out with all his might.
'He repeatedly kicked and stamped Mr Sharp around the head for several minutes. It was horrific.'
Il lettore ricorderà che parole come "yob", "youth", "jobless youth" sono eleganti sinonimi per una categoria ben precisa di aggressore:
Police believe the attacker, who was black, aged about 19, and wearing jeans, a grey hoodie and dark jacket, probably lives in the Brighton and Hove area.
Those with information about the incident should call Hove CID on 0845 6070 999.
Signore e signori, ecco a voi il jobless youth di oggi:
Bongo, King of Congo.
Ed ecco a voi, nel suo più splendido pallore e nella sua miglior posa da Spartano Razzista e Colonialista:
"Harooh! Harooh! Harooh!"
Il sorriso sulla faccia del jobless youth indica la piena consapevolezza della propria totale impunità, cosa che - se gli inglesi si facessero finalmente crescere un paio di coglioni, e sarà sempre troppo tardi - si potrà risolvere elegantemente con una serie di linciaggi mirati a partire dal centro di Londra.
Ma, si chiederà il lettore, è proprio tutta colpa di Bongo, del nostro sfortunato jobless youth?
Giammai, signori: la colpa è anche del porco giornalista che si guarda bene, come sempre, dall'usare le parole race attack e hate crime, probabilmente dietro ordine del suo editore.
Provate ad indovinare perché, e provate a dedurre l'attendibilità delle statistiche sugli hate crime.
(lo sapete benissimo, è solo che dobbiamo giocare alla parte dei cretini altrimenti il giocattolo si rompe).
Se proprio non ci riuscite, valutate almeno l'utilità teorica di una revolverata in faccia quando qualche scimmia demente decide che è il vostro turno, o della vostra simpatica fidanzata.
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
By Jonathan Brown
Published: 16 July 2007
The idea that money can't buy happiness has long appealed to those who get their kicks from the simpler things in life. Now it seems that having a large carbon footprint is no passport to contentment either.
Provate ad indovinare...
Despite living in an age of ever more energy-intensive consumer goods, bigger cars, imported exotic food and cheaper foreign travel, people are barely more contented than they were 40 years ago.
These are the findings of a new report, The (un)Happy Planet Index published today by the new economics foundation.
Researchers from the think-tank analysed relative levels of carbon use in 30 European countries in relation to the physical and emotional well-being of their citizens since the 1960s.
In what will make depressing reading for the Government, (pregasi notare) Britain ranked 21st in the league table behind Scandinavia, most of Western Europe and even Poland and Romania. Iceland, Sweden and Norway occupied the top three positions, with Estonia at the bottom of the table.
Indovinate perché?
The report's authors claim the findings undermine fears that reducing carbon emissions in the battle against global warming will destroy hard-won gains in the developed world's quality of life since the Second World War.
The report concludes that: "While Europe's [carbon] footprint has grown dramatically since the 1960s, levels of well-being have increased only at the margins. In some countries, subjective life-satisfaction even appears to have declined."
In Britain for example, the per capita carbon footprint has increased by 50 per cent since 1961 making it the fourth biggest polluter in the sample. However, levels of average life satisfaction based on how people rated their own happiness, had fallen by about 6 per cent, sending the UK sliding down the rankings.
The report acknowledges that the rapid technological advances of recent decades have transformed the economic and social landscape in the developed world. These have seen overall life expectancy rise alongside a "real, tangible improvement to material standards of living," it said.
However, the report adds: "The material standard of living in much of Europe was already very good indeed in the 1960s by comparison with the rest of the world. Such gains as have been made represent the 'icing on the cake' rather than the fundamental increases in welfare and have come at an unsustainably high environmental price."
Ma non avevi appena scritto transformed?
Scandinavia, with its high levels of state investment in health and education and strong environmental policies, perhaps unsurprisingly dominated the top positions. But it was the countries' move away from dependence on fossil fuels that secured their status as carbon-lite, contented idylls, the report said.
In Iceland, for example, geothermal energy from its 200 volcanoes, 600 hot springs and major hydropower schemes, massively shrunk the nation's per capita carbon footprint.
At the bottom of the table, people in Bulgaria reported the lowest level of life satisfaction, along with meagre GDP per head and a carbon-hungry energy sector. Estonia, one of the emerging Baltic economies, suffered high levels of inequality, high crime and a woefully inefficient energy sector, due to its reliance on oil shale, sealing its fate at the bottom, it was claimed
The report called for a three-pronged attack to make Europe deliver a better, carbon efficient, quality of life.
Governments should set legally binding targets for carbon reduction in each country to meet the EU's aim of limiting global temperature rises to below 2C above pre-industrial level. Policymakers should also work to reverse growing inequality in income, education, health and social opportunity. And employers must be encouraged to promote flexible working and allow staff to develop full lives outside the workplace, the study urged.
It concluded: "Rather than turn the clock back, we need to look to a post-consumption era that is aware of the false promise of materialism and utilises wealth and technology to deliver more efficiency, rather than just more."
Britain al ventunesimo posto. Ne volete sentire una divertente?
Does diversity make us unhappy?
By Mark Easton
Home editor, BBC News
It is an uncomfortable conclusion from happiness research data perhaps - but multicultural communities tend to be less trusting and less happy.
Oh, guarda.
Research by the Home Office suggests that the more ethnically diverse an area is, the less people are likely to trust each other.
The Commission for Racial Equality has also done work looking at the effect of diversity on well-being.
Interviewed on The Happiness Formula, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips accepts that people are happier if they are with people like themselves.
"We've done work here which shows that people, frankly, when there aren't other pressures, like to live within a comfort zone which is defined by racial sameness.
Segue logicamente che tutti i provvedimenti a favore dell'integrazione vadano contro le preferenze di tutti, minoranze oppresse comprese?
"People feel happier if they're with people who are like themselves. But the question is: what does "like themselves" mean?"
Prova ad indovinare.
Tapestry of life
To an extent, new immigrants are always seen as outsiders and threatening. It is not necessarily a matter of ethnicity.
The arrival of the Huguenots or the Jews into Britain brought significant social tensions which have largely disappeared.
"Bastava scrivere un paio di leggi all'uopo..."
Cultural difference eventually became woven into the tapestry of British life.
Globalisation has brought new challenges - a diversity of culture and ethnicity never seen before.
Ma questa non è una conseguenza della globalizzazione, bensì della tua politica e del confine sbracato.
There have been fierce arguments as to whether social well-being is enhanced by celebrating difference or encouraging integration, even assimilation.
Trevor Phillips believes the debate has become dangerously confused.
"Paura! Booga!"
"Our multiculturalism which started out as a straightforward recognition of diversity became a sort of system which prized racial and ethnic difference above all other values and there lies the problem."
So, if we want happy, stable communities, where should the balance lie between diversity and integration?
Trevor Phillips believes getting it right is vital: "We need to respect people's ethnicity but also give them, at some point in the week, (?) an opportunity to meet and want to be with people with whom they have something in common that isn't defined by their ethnicity."
"If we can find a moment, an idea, an activity which takes us out of our ethnicity and connects us to other people of different ethnicities and if only for an hour in a week (?) then I think we can crack this problem."
Social science is also trying to help make sense of the challenges.
Tradotto: abbiamo fatto il grande esperimento senza aver prima svolto i compiti a casa.
Building bridges
In the jargon, they refer to the factors that bind similar people together in groups as "bonding social capital".
But it is argued that happy societies also need what they call "bridging social capital" - strong links between different groups.
"A society that has only bonding social capital and no bridging social capital looks like Beirut or Belfast or Bosnia, that is tight communities but isolated from one another."
So says Harvard professor Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community".
He argues that working out how to grow bridging capital is the great challenge for Western society.
"This is the crux of the problem. The kind of social capital that is most important for the success of a modern, pluralist, multicultural democracy (Padre Pio Proteggimi) - the bridging social capital - is the kind that's hardest to build.
"Therefore we've got to go about the task of creating new opportunities for people to make connections to people different from them.
When bonding social capital drowns bridging social capital, conflict is inevitable.
Shared values
Trevor Phillips believes we saw it all too clearly in the disturbances in the Lozells area of Birmingham in the Summer of 2005.
A tight-knit Asian community came into conflict with a tight-knit black community because, Phillips argues, the ethnicity that binds each community together is stronger than the links between them.
Ovviamente la BBC si è ben guardata dall'usare le parole razzismo e hate crime. Ricordate?
"You have two communities who more or less faced each other across a single road. They are communities which have high levels of internal bonding.
E questo è male, motivo per cui bisogna sbracare i bonding. Vi ricorda nulla?
"But actually there wasn't and is very little bridging between these two communities and I think this is a perfect demonstration of what happens when people who are very different, look very different and think they are very different never touch, never interact."
Ma se non interagissero, testa di cocco, non si ammazzerebbero in mezzo alla strada. No?
What is required is a sense of identity that overarches creed, culture or ethnic background.
Nation states take different views on how this might best be achieved. The French model is to have a strict definition of Frenchness that, for instance, prohibits religious head-scarves in schools.
In the UK, citizenship ceremonies for new arrivals and lessons in schools are built around the ideas of shared values including an understanding of and respect for our democratic institutions.
Among those values is a tolerance of diversity and cultural difference.
But it is, perhaps, in sport that the efforts to build bridging social capital are most obvious.
Whether it be two football teams from different local communities breaking down barriers or an Olympic squad reflecting the multi-racial reality of modern Western society, (non Eastern, badate bene) competitive sport is seen as an important tool in binding together diverse nations and making people happy.
Mark Easton presents The Happiness Formula which is broadcast on Wednesdays at 1900BST on BBC Two
Chi è Trevor Phillips?
Trevor Phillips
Trevor Phillips OBE (born in London on December 31, 1953) is a Black British Labour politician and former political journalist of Guyanese origins. After supporting multiculturalism for many years, Phillips is now one of its most outspoken mainstream critics. He expressed fears that multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation" [1] and has argued for school selection to be amended to prevent segregation in British schools.[2].
Vi ricorda qualcosa, vero?
In 2006 he was appointed the head of a new organisation known as the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, which will be an organisation promoting equality issues across the full raft of ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, disability and other minority interests.[3]
Non oso immaginare... ventunesimo posto, mi raccomando.
("peché? non zo peché!")
Published: 16 July 2007
The idea that money can't buy happiness has long appealed to those who get their kicks from the simpler things in life. Now it seems that having a large carbon footprint is no passport to contentment either.
Provate ad indovinare...
Despite living in an age of ever more energy-intensive consumer goods, bigger cars, imported exotic food and cheaper foreign travel, people are barely more contented than they were 40 years ago.
These are the findings of a new report, The (un)Happy Planet Index published today by the new economics foundation.
Researchers from the think-tank analysed relative levels of carbon use in 30 European countries in relation to the physical and emotional well-being of their citizens since the 1960s.
In what will make depressing reading for the Government, (pregasi notare) Britain ranked 21st in the league table behind Scandinavia, most of Western Europe and even Poland and Romania. Iceland, Sweden and Norway occupied the top three positions, with Estonia at the bottom of the table.
Indovinate perché?
The report's authors claim the findings undermine fears that reducing carbon emissions in the battle against global warming will destroy hard-won gains in the developed world's quality of life since the Second World War.
The report concludes that: "While Europe's [carbon] footprint has grown dramatically since the 1960s, levels of well-being have increased only at the margins. In some countries, subjective life-satisfaction even appears to have declined."
In Britain for example, the per capita carbon footprint has increased by 50 per cent since 1961 making it the fourth biggest polluter in the sample. However, levels of average life satisfaction based on how people rated their own happiness, had fallen by about 6 per cent, sending the UK sliding down the rankings.
The report acknowledges that the rapid technological advances of recent decades have transformed the economic and social landscape in the developed world. These have seen overall life expectancy rise alongside a "real, tangible improvement to material standards of living," it said.
However, the report adds: "The material standard of living in much of Europe was already very good indeed in the 1960s by comparison with the rest of the world. Such gains as have been made represent the 'icing on the cake' rather than the fundamental increases in welfare and have come at an unsustainably high environmental price."
Ma non avevi appena scritto transformed?
Scandinavia, with its high levels of state investment in health and education and strong environmental policies, perhaps unsurprisingly dominated the top positions. But it was the countries' move away from dependence on fossil fuels that secured their status as carbon-lite, contented idylls, the report said.
In Iceland, for example, geothermal energy from its 200 volcanoes, 600 hot springs and major hydropower schemes, massively shrunk the nation's per capita carbon footprint.
At the bottom of the table, people in Bulgaria reported the lowest level of life satisfaction, along with meagre GDP per head and a carbon-hungry energy sector. Estonia, one of the emerging Baltic economies, suffered high levels of inequality, high crime and a woefully inefficient energy sector, due to its reliance on oil shale, sealing its fate at the bottom, it was claimed
The report called for a three-pronged attack to make Europe deliver a better, carbon efficient, quality of life.
Governments should set legally binding targets for carbon reduction in each country to meet the EU's aim of limiting global temperature rises to below 2C above pre-industrial level. Policymakers should also work to reverse growing inequality in income, education, health and social opportunity. And employers must be encouraged to promote flexible working and allow staff to develop full lives outside the workplace, the study urged.
It concluded: "Rather than turn the clock back, we need to look to a post-consumption era that is aware of the false promise of materialism and utilises wealth and technology to deliver more efficiency, rather than just more."
Britain al ventunesimo posto. Ne volete sentire una divertente?
Does diversity make us unhappy?
By Mark Easton
Home editor, BBC News
It is an uncomfortable conclusion from happiness research data perhaps - but multicultural communities tend to be less trusting and less happy.
Oh, guarda.
Research by the Home Office suggests that the more ethnically diverse an area is, the less people are likely to trust each other.
The Commission for Racial Equality has also done work looking at the effect of diversity on well-being.
Interviewed on The Happiness Formula, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips accepts that people are happier if they are with people like themselves.
"We've done work here which shows that people, frankly, when there aren't other pressures, like to live within a comfort zone which is defined by racial sameness.
Segue logicamente che tutti i provvedimenti a favore dell'integrazione vadano contro le preferenze di tutti, minoranze oppresse comprese?
"People feel happier if they're with people who are like themselves. But the question is: what does "like themselves" mean?"
Prova ad indovinare.
Tapestry of life
To an extent, new immigrants are always seen as outsiders and threatening. It is not necessarily a matter of ethnicity.
The arrival of the Huguenots or the Jews into Britain brought significant social tensions which have largely disappeared.
"Bastava scrivere un paio di leggi all'uopo..."
Cultural difference eventually became woven into the tapestry of British life.
Globalisation has brought new challenges - a diversity of culture and ethnicity never seen before.
Ma questa non è una conseguenza della globalizzazione, bensì della tua politica e del confine sbracato.
There have been fierce arguments as to whether social well-being is enhanced by celebrating difference or encouraging integration, even assimilation.
Trevor Phillips believes the debate has become dangerously confused.
"Paura! Booga!"
"Our multiculturalism which started out as a straightforward recognition of diversity became a sort of system which prized racial and ethnic difference above all other values and there lies the problem."
So, if we want happy, stable communities, where should the balance lie between diversity and integration?
Trevor Phillips believes getting it right is vital: "We need to respect people's ethnicity but also give them, at some point in the week, (?) an opportunity to meet and want to be with people with whom they have something in common that isn't defined by their ethnicity."
"If we can find a moment, an idea, an activity which takes us out of our ethnicity and connects us to other people of different ethnicities and if only for an hour in a week (?) then I think we can crack this problem."
Social science is also trying to help make sense of the challenges.
Tradotto: abbiamo fatto il grande esperimento senza aver prima svolto i compiti a casa.
Building bridges
In the jargon, they refer to the factors that bind similar people together in groups as "bonding social capital".
But it is argued that happy societies also need what they call "bridging social capital" - strong links between different groups.
"A society that has only bonding social capital and no bridging social capital looks like Beirut or Belfast or Bosnia, that is tight communities but isolated from one another."
So says Harvard professor Robert Putnam, author of "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community".
He argues that working out how to grow bridging capital is the great challenge for Western society.
"This is the crux of the problem. The kind of social capital that is most important for the success of a modern, pluralist, multicultural democracy (Padre Pio Proteggimi) - the bridging social capital - is the kind that's hardest to build.
"Therefore we've got to go about the task of creating new opportunities for people to make connections to people different from them.
When bonding social capital drowns bridging social capital, conflict is inevitable.
Shared values
Trevor Phillips believes we saw it all too clearly in the disturbances in the Lozells area of Birmingham in the Summer of 2005.
A tight-knit Asian community came into conflict with a tight-knit black community because, Phillips argues, the ethnicity that binds each community together is stronger than the links between them.
Ovviamente la BBC si è ben guardata dall'usare le parole razzismo e hate crime. Ricordate?
"You have two communities who more or less faced each other across a single road. They are communities which have high levels of internal bonding.
E questo è male, motivo per cui bisogna sbracare i bonding. Vi ricorda nulla?
"But actually there wasn't and is very little bridging between these two communities and I think this is a perfect demonstration of what happens when people who are very different, look very different and think they are very different never touch, never interact."
Ma se non interagissero, testa di cocco, non si ammazzerebbero in mezzo alla strada. No?
What is required is a sense of identity that overarches creed, culture or ethnic background.
Nation states take different views on how this might best be achieved. The French model is to have a strict definition of Frenchness that, for instance, prohibits religious head-scarves in schools.
In the UK, citizenship ceremonies for new arrivals and lessons in schools are built around the ideas of shared values including an understanding of and respect for our democratic institutions.
Among those values is a tolerance of diversity and cultural difference.
But it is, perhaps, in sport that the efforts to build bridging social capital are most obvious.
Whether it be two football teams from different local communities breaking down barriers or an Olympic squad reflecting the multi-racial reality of modern Western society, (non Eastern, badate bene) competitive sport is seen as an important tool in binding together diverse nations and making people happy.
Mark Easton presents The Happiness Formula which is broadcast on Wednesdays at 1900BST on BBC Two
Chi è Trevor Phillips?
Trevor Phillips
Trevor Phillips OBE (born in London on December 31, 1953) is a Black British Labour politician and former political journalist of Guyanese origins. After supporting multiculturalism for many years, Phillips is now one of its most outspoken mainstream critics. He expressed fears that multiculturalism could cause Britain to "sleepwalk towards segregation" [1] and has argued for school selection to be amended to prevent segregation in British schools.[2].
Vi ricorda qualcosa, vero?
In 2006 he was appointed the head of a new organisation known as the Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, which will be an organisation promoting equality issues across the full raft of ethnic, gender, sexual-orientation, disability and other minority interests.[3]
Non oso immaginare... ventunesimo posto, mi raccomando.
("peché? non zo peché!")
posted by Linucs (Link),
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By James Daley, Personal Finance Editor
Published: 16 July 2007
L'avreste mai immaginato?
One quarter of so-called socially responsible investment (SRI) funds sold in the UK have a higher carbon footprint than their more mainstream rivals, according to a report published by the environmental research organisation, Trucost.
The research assessed the carbon footprint of each company held within 185 investment funds' portfolios, giving each fund an overall carbon rating.
Although SRI funds tend to sell themselves on the premise that they invest more heavily in environmentally friendly companies - and screen out industries such as tobacco, gambling and nuclear stocks - Trucost's research revealed many SRI funds are not as green as they first appear.
Jupiter's Environmental Income fund, for example, was ranked 179 out of 185 funds surveyed, in spite of having a mandate which pledges to invest "in companies whose activities are compatible with sustainable development either through the products or services they provide or through the processes they operate".
Standard Life's UK Ethical and CIS's sustainable leaders' fund also both came within the bottom 25 funds in the survey.
However, the ethical investment industry backs companies whose activities do not contravene pre-defined criteria, though funds themselves do not set out to be carbon neutral.
Nevertheless, of the 185 funds reviewed, the three with the lowest footprints were all SRI funds: Prudential Ethical Trust, Axa Ethical and Sovereign Ethical.
The report found that the carbon footprint of funds varied dramatically, with the most carbon-intensive funds in its sample - Invesco Perpetual's High Income fund - having a footprint more than 10 times greater than the Prudential Ethical Trust. Simon Thomas, chief executive of Trucost, said: "There is a huge range of carbon footprints from the best to the worst funds in each category. So if investors want to invest in carbon-efficient funds - and the evidence is that they increasingly do - they are now able to assess whether the fund really is less carbon intensive than its peers.
"We expect the impact of carbon costs to increase in future years as regulation increases and this will inevitably have a negative impact on the performance of those companies with relatively large carbon footprints compared to their peers."
Emma Howard Boyd, head of socially responsible investments at Jupiter, said: "The Jupiter Environmental Income Fund invests in companies that are minimising their environmental and social impact. To select these companies we assess them against a broad range of criteria, not just its carbon footprint.
"Ahead of the report's publication we understand from discussions with Trucost that because of a decision to reduce exposure to utilities on financial grounds, the fund now has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all the funds they studied."
Published: 16 July 2007
L'avreste mai immaginato?
One quarter of so-called socially responsible investment (SRI) funds sold in the UK have a higher carbon footprint than their more mainstream rivals, according to a report published by the environmental research organisation, Trucost.
The research assessed the carbon footprint of each company held within 185 investment funds' portfolios, giving each fund an overall carbon rating.
Although SRI funds tend to sell themselves on the premise that they invest more heavily in environmentally friendly companies - and screen out industries such as tobacco, gambling and nuclear stocks - Trucost's research revealed many SRI funds are not as green as they first appear.
Jupiter's Environmental Income fund, for example, was ranked 179 out of 185 funds surveyed, in spite of having a mandate which pledges to invest "in companies whose activities are compatible with sustainable development either through the products or services they provide or through the processes they operate".
Standard Life's UK Ethical and CIS's sustainable leaders' fund also both came within the bottom 25 funds in the survey.
However, the ethical investment industry backs companies whose activities do not contravene pre-defined criteria, though funds themselves do not set out to be carbon neutral.
Nevertheless, of the 185 funds reviewed, the three with the lowest footprints were all SRI funds: Prudential Ethical Trust, Axa Ethical and Sovereign Ethical.
The report found that the carbon footprint of funds varied dramatically, with the most carbon-intensive funds in its sample - Invesco Perpetual's High Income fund - having a footprint more than 10 times greater than the Prudential Ethical Trust. Simon Thomas, chief executive of Trucost, said: "There is a huge range of carbon footprints from the best to the worst funds in each category. So if investors want to invest in carbon-efficient funds - and the evidence is that they increasingly do - they are now able to assess whether the fund really is less carbon intensive than its peers.
"We expect the impact of carbon costs to increase in future years as regulation increases and this will inevitably have a negative impact on the performance of those companies with relatively large carbon footprints compared to their peers."
Emma Howard Boyd, head of socially responsible investments at Jupiter, said: "The Jupiter Environmental Income Fund invests in companies that are minimising their environmental and social impact. To select these companies we assess them against a broad range of criteria, not just its carbon footprint.
"Ahead of the report's publication we understand from discussions with Trucost that because of a decision to reduce exposure to utilities on financial grounds, the fund now has one of the lowest carbon footprints of all the funds they studied."
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Written by Ashok Sharma
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
NEW DELHI: Television viewing in India could soon be a more expensive affair since the government is considering imposing a recurring annual 'licence fee' of Rs 500 for each color television set, and Rs 200 for a black & white TV, owned by consumers as a bailout measure for the cash-strapped Prasar Bharati.
Imposing the licence fee on consumers is among a slew of options before the government - others include making TV manufacturers and broadcasters pay up - all or some of which could be implemented.
Part of the money raised will go into providing government pay scales and other benefits for the 38,000-odd Prasar Bharati employees. The licence fee plan alone could raise an estimated Rs 23,871 crore.
The government can, in fact, impose such a fee by invoking section 17 of the Prasar Bharati Act as recommended by the Sengupta Committee report. A final decision on the issue is expected to be taken at the Group of Ministers' meeting on Wednesday.
The GoM is also likely to consider levying a 10% licence fee on television and radio manufacturers to raise an additional sum of Rs 896 crore as recommended by the Financial Restructuring Committee in 2005.
In India si stupiscono per così poco. In Italia siamo circondati dai leccaculo sostenitori della televisione pubblica che fa informazione pubblica a vantaggio del pubblico (ma l'avete mai acceso il televisore, pezzi di dementi?)
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
NEW DELHI: Television viewing in India could soon be a more expensive affair since the government is considering imposing a recurring annual 'licence fee' of Rs 500 for each color television set, and Rs 200 for a black & white TV, owned by consumers as a bailout measure for the cash-strapped Prasar Bharati.
Imposing the licence fee on consumers is among a slew of options before the government - others include making TV manufacturers and broadcasters pay up - all or some of which could be implemented.
Part of the money raised will go into providing government pay scales and other benefits for the 38,000-odd Prasar Bharati employees. The licence fee plan alone could raise an estimated Rs 23,871 crore.
The government can, in fact, impose such a fee by invoking section 17 of the Prasar Bharati Act as recommended by the Sengupta Committee report. A final decision on the issue is expected to be taken at the Group of Ministers' meeting on Wednesday.
The GoM is also likely to consider levying a 10% licence fee on television and radio manufacturers to raise an additional sum of Rs 896 crore as recommended by the Financial Restructuring Committee in 2005.
In India si stupiscono per così poco. In Italia siamo circondati dai leccaculo sostenitori della televisione pubblica che fa informazione pubblica a vantaggio del pubblico (ma l'avete mai acceso il televisore, pezzi di dementi?)
posted by Linucs (Link),
0 comments
Fuori uno.
By Sadie Gray
Published: 16 July 2007
The doctor who linked the MMR vaccine to autism and bowel disease in children is to go before the General Medical Council today, accused of serious professional misconduct.
Andrew Wakefield's findings, published in The Lancet in 1998, led to a slump in the number of parents having their children immunised. Dozens of studies published since have contradicted his findings.
Dr Wakefield and two colleagues, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch, face a string of allegations relating to investigations carried out on 12 children with bowel disorders between 1996 and 1998, when all three worked at London's Royal Free Hospital. The GMC stressed that the hearing will not assess the merits of differing MMR studies.
MMR scare doctor 'paid children'
The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR and autism paid children £5 (l'intero PIL dello Zimbabwe!) for their blood samples at his son's birthday party, a hearing was told.
Dr Andrew Wakefield and two colleagues face professional misconduct charges over their controversial research into the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
The General Medical Council alleges the trio acted unethically and dishonestly towards the Lancet medical journal.
They all deny the allegations in the case which could last several months.
Immunisation rates
The case centres on research carried out by Dr Wakefield, and colleagues Professor John Walker-Smith, and Professor Simon Murch, which raised doubts about the safety of the triple vaccine.
The suggestion of the 1998 research paper - published in the Lancet - was that MMR was linked not only to autism, but also to the bowel disorder Crohn's disease.
It led to falling numbers of parents immunising their children and a row over whether the then prime minister, Tony Blair, had vaccinated his son, Leo.
But the medical establishment has repeatedly argued that the triple vaccine is perfectly safe.
And a host of major studies has since failed to find any evidence of a link between MMR and autism.
The allegations against the doctors relate to investigations for their study on 12 youngsters with bowel disorders carried out between 1996 and 1998.
At the time, all three doctors were employed at the Royal Free Hospital's medical school in London, with honorary clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital.
It was also alleged that 11 children were subjected to a series of invasive tests, including colonoscopies, lumbar punctures, blood and urine tests and MRI scans.
This was contrary to their best clinical interests and Dr Wakefield did not have the "requisite paediatric qualifications" nor sought the right approval for the tests, the charge sheet went on.
Dr Wakefield and Prof Walker-Smith are also accused of acting "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in failing to disclose in the Lancet paper the method by which they recruited patients for inclusion in the study.
And it is alleged that a drug was administered to one child for experimental reasons.
The allegations that he took blood from children at his son's birthday party date back to prior to 20 March 1999.
Later on, he joked about the incident while giving a presentation at the Mind Institute in California, and said he intended to get samples the same way in the future, the hearing was told.
Another of the key allegations against Dr Wakefield is that he was being paid at the time for advising solicitors on legal action by parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR.
Deny
All three doctors are accused of conducting the study on a basis which was not approved by the hospital's ethics committee.
One example is that some of the children may not have qualified for the study on the basis of their behavioural symptoms.
In a statement ahead of the hearing Dr Wakefield's solicitor said: "Dr Wakefield continues to vigorously deny any allegation of wrongdoing."
The Lancet has disowned Dr Wakefield's 1998 paper, the editor admitting he would not have published it if he had known about what he called a "fatal conflict of interest".
The campaign group, Jabs, which believes MMR has damaged children, has been demonstrating in support of Dr Wakefield outside the GMC.
Archiviamo.
By Sadie Gray
Published: 16 July 2007
The doctor who linked the MMR vaccine to autism and bowel disease in children is to go before the General Medical Council today, accused of serious professional misconduct.
Andrew Wakefield's findings, published in The Lancet in 1998, led to a slump in the number of parents having their children immunised. Dozens of studies published since have contradicted his findings.
Dr Wakefield and two colleagues, Professor John Walker-Smith and Professor Simon Murch, face a string of allegations relating to investigations carried out on 12 children with bowel disorders between 1996 and 1998, when all three worked at London's Royal Free Hospital. The GMC stressed that the hearing will not assess the merits of differing MMR studies.
MMR scare doctor 'paid children'
The doctor who first suggested a link between MMR and autism paid children £5 (l'intero PIL dello Zimbabwe!) for their blood samples at his son's birthday party, a hearing was told.
Dr Andrew Wakefield and two colleagues face professional misconduct charges over their controversial research into the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.
The General Medical Council alleges the trio acted unethically and dishonestly towards the Lancet medical journal.
They all deny the allegations in the case which could last several months.
Immunisation rates
The case centres on research carried out by Dr Wakefield, and colleagues Professor John Walker-Smith, and Professor Simon Murch, which raised doubts about the safety of the triple vaccine.
The suggestion of the 1998 research paper - published in the Lancet - was that MMR was linked not only to autism, but also to the bowel disorder Crohn's disease.
It led to falling numbers of parents immunising their children and a row over whether the then prime minister, Tony Blair, had vaccinated his son, Leo.
But the medical establishment has repeatedly argued that the triple vaccine is perfectly safe.
And a host of major studies has since failed to find any evidence of a link between MMR and autism.
The allegations against the doctors relate to investigations for their study on 12 youngsters with bowel disorders carried out between 1996 and 1998.
At the time, all three doctors were employed at the Royal Free Hospital's medical school in London, with honorary clinical contracts at the Royal Free Hospital.
It was also alleged that 11 children were subjected to a series of invasive tests, including colonoscopies, lumbar punctures, blood and urine tests and MRI scans.
This was contrary to their best clinical interests and Dr Wakefield did not have the "requisite paediatric qualifications" nor sought the right approval for the tests, the charge sheet went on.
Dr Wakefield and Prof Walker-Smith are also accused of acting "dishonestly and irresponsibly" in failing to disclose in the Lancet paper the method by which they recruited patients for inclusion in the study.
And it is alleged that a drug was administered to one child for experimental reasons.
The allegations that he took blood from children at his son's birthday party date back to prior to 20 March 1999.
Later on, he joked about the incident while giving a presentation at the Mind Institute in California, and said he intended to get samples the same way in the future, the hearing was told.
Another of the key allegations against Dr Wakefield is that he was being paid at the time for advising solicitors on legal action by parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR.
Deny
All three doctors are accused of conducting the study on a basis which was not approved by the hospital's ethics committee.
One example is that some of the children may not have qualified for the study on the basis of their behavioural symptoms.
In a statement ahead of the hearing Dr Wakefield's solicitor said: "Dr Wakefield continues to vigorously deny any allegation of wrongdoing."
The Lancet has disowned Dr Wakefield's 1998 paper, the editor admitting he would not have published it if he had known about what he called a "fatal conflict of interest".
The campaign group, Jabs, which believes MMR has damaged children, has been demonstrating in support of Dr Wakefield outside the GMC.
Archiviamo.
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A 16-year-old girl was not discriminated against when she was banned from wearing a "purity ring" in school, the High Court has ruled.
Lydia Playfoot was told by Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, to remove her ring - which symbolises chastity - or face expulsion.
The school had denied breaching her human rights and said it was "delighted" with the outcome.
Miss Playfoot said she was "very disappointed" by the decision.
She said the ruling would "mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith".
'Tinged with regret'
Judge Michael Supperstone QC said the school, which had insisted the ring was not an essential part of the Christian faith, was "fully justified" in its actions.
He ruled the act of wearing a ring was not "intimately linked" to the belief in chastity before marriage.
"The claimant (Miss Playfoot) was under no obligation, by reason of her belief, to wear the ring, nor does she suggest that she was so obliged," he said.
He rejected the submission that the ring was a "religious artefact" and therefore exempt from the school's uniform policy which bans jewellery.
"Whatever the ring is intended to symbolise, it is a piece of jewellery," he said. "...she voluntarily accepted the uniform policy of the school and there are other means open to her to practise her belief without undue hardship or inconvenience."
Headmaster Leon Nettley said: "Whilst we are clearly delighted with the outcome of the court hearing today, our success is tinged with regret that proceedings have needed to progress to this level."
He added that the school is not anti-Christian and the Christian doctrine is reflected in the "curriculum and life of the school community in many ways".
"We have always respected Lydia's right to hold and express her views and believe there were many ways in which it was possible for her to do this during her time with us," he said.
Miss Playfoot was one of a group of 11 girls at her school who joined a movement called the Silver Ring Thing.
Originating in America, members wear a ring engraved with a reference to the biblical verse I Thessalonians 4:3-4, which translates as: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honour."
'Focus on sex'
Miss Playfoot said she should be allowed to wear the ring because Sikh and Muslim pupils could wear bangles and headscarves in class.
"Over two years ago, I was concerned at the number of teenagers who were catching sexually transmitted diseases, getting pregnant and/or having abortions," she said.
"The government's sex education programme is not working and the pressure on young people to 'give in' to sex continues to increase.
"This is often because of the media's focus on sex and the expectations of others."
The school said the ring contravened its uniform policy and when Miss Playfoot refused to take it off, she was taken out of lessons and made to study on her own.
At an earlier hearing at the High Court in London in June, human rights barrister Paul Diamond said the school was "forbidden" by law to set itself up as an arbiter of faith.
"Secular authorities cannot rule on religious truth," he said.
Mr Diamond, who also represented Nadia Eweida in the British Airways "cross case", argued that the school's actions violated Lydia's right to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
'Wider significance'
Miss Playfoot's first application to the High Court was turned down last year, but judges agreed to hear it after she appealed.
The teenager completed her GCSEs in May and has now left the school, but her father Phil, who is a pastor, said she wanted to pursue the case because of its wider significance for all Christians.
Mr Playfoot and his wife Heather are part of the volunteer team which runs the UK branch of the Silver Ring Thing from their church in Horsham.
The organisers of the movement say as many as 25,000 young people have joined so far in the UK and that numbers are growing.
Miss Playfoot received messages of support from politicians, including Tory MP Ann Widdecombe and was also backed by the Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF).
Her case was funded through individual donations gathered through the LCF's sister group Christian Concern for our Nation.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "This is entirely the correct decision.
"The case was a manipulative attempt to impose a particular religious viewpoint on this school and, presumably, on other schools if this case had been won."
The judge ordered Miss Playfoot's father to pay £12,000 towards the school's legal costs.
Miss Playfoot said she was now considering whether to appeal against the ruling.
Provate a cambiare il colore o la religione della ragazzina ed immaginate il titolo.
Lydia Playfoot was told by Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, to remove her ring - which symbolises chastity - or face expulsion.
The school had denied breaching her human rights and said it was "delighted" with the outcome.
Miss Playfoot said she was "very disappointed" by the decision.
She said the ruling would "mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith".
'Tinged with regret'
Judge Michael Supperstone QC said the school, which had insisted the ring was not an essential part of the Christian faith, was "fully justified" in its actions.
He ruled the act of wearing a ring was not "intimately linked" to the belief in chastity before marriage.
"The claimant (Miss Playfoot) was under no obligation, by reason of her belief, to wear the ring, nor does she suggest that she was so obliged," he said.
He rejected the submission that the ring was a "religious artefact" and therefore exempt from the school's uniform policy which bans jewellery.
"Whatever the ring is intended to symbolise, it is a piece of jewellery," he said. "...she voluntarily accepted the uniform policy of the school and there are other means open to her to practise her belief without undue hardship or inconvenience."
Headmaster Leon Nettley said: "Whilst we are clearly delighted with the outcome of the court hearing today, our success is tinged with regret that proceedings have needed to progress to this level."
He added that the school is not anti-Christian and the Christian doctrine is reflected in the "curriculum and life of the school community in many ways".
"We have always respected Lydia's right to hold and express her views and believe there were many ways in which it was possible for her to do this during her time with us," he said.
Miss Playfoot was one of a group of 11 girls at her school who joined a movement called the Silver Ring Thing.
Originating in America, members wear a ring engraved with a reference to the biblical verse I Thessalonians 4:3-4, which translates as: "God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. Then each of you will control your body and live in holiness and honour."
'Focus on sex'
Miss Playfoot said she should be allowed to wear the ring because Sikh and Muslim pupils could wear bangles and headscarves in class.
"Over two years ago, I was concerned at the number of teenagers who were catching sexually transmitted diseases, getting pregnant and/or having abortions," she said.
"The government's sex education programme is not working and the pressure on young people to 'give in' to sex continues to increase.
"This is often because of the media's focus on sex and the expectations of others."
The school said the ring contravened its uniform policy and when Miss Playfoot refused to take it off, she was taken out of lessons and made to study on her own.
At an earlier hearing at the High Court in London in June, human rights barrister Paul Diamond said the school was "forbidden" by law to set itself up as an arbiter of faith.
"Secular authorities cannot rule on religious truth," he said.
Mr Diamond, who also represented Nadia Eweida in the British Airways "cross case", argued that the school's actions violated Lydia's right to "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
'Wider significance'
Miss Playfoot's first application to the High Court was turned down last year, but judges agreed to hear it after she appealed.
The teenager completed her GCSEs in May and has now left the school, but her father Phil, who is a pastor, said she wanted to pursue the case because of its wider significance for all Christians.
Mr Playfoot and his wife Heather are part of the volunteer team which runs the UK branch of the Silver Ring Thing from their church in Horsham.
The organisers of the movement say as many as 25,000 young people have joined so far in the UK and that numbers are growing.
Miss Playfoot received messages of support from politicians, including Tory MP Ann Widdecombe and was also backed by the Lawyers Christian Fellowship (LCF).
Her case was funded through individual donations gathered through the LCF's sister group Christian Concern for our Nation.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "This is entirely the correct decision.
"The case was a manipulative attempt to impose a particular religious viewpoint on this school and, presumably, on other schools if this case had been won."
The judge ordered Miss Playfoot's father to pay £12,000 towards the school's legal costs.
Miss Playfoot said she was now considering whether to appeal against the ruling.
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