ATHENS - The Greek parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.
Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens as black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament.
State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Shops were looted in the capital where police said 34 buildings were ablaze.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos denounced the worst breakdown of order since 2008 when violence gripped Greece for weeks after police shot a 15-year-old schoolboy. "Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won't be tolerated," he told parliament as it prepared to vote on the new 130 billion euro bailout to save Greece from a chaotic bankruptcy.
Seems like violence and destruction are indeed being tolerated...
Papademos told lawmakers shortly before they voted that they would be gravely mistaken if they rejected the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts, as this would threaten Greece's place in the European mainstream.
What place? Greece hasn't had a place in the European mainstream since end of Justinian's reign...
"It would be a huge historical injustice if the country from which European culture sprang ... reached bankruptcy and was led, due to one more mistake, to national isolation and national despair," he said.
The chaos outside parliament showed how tough it will be to implement the measures. The air in Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs. Terrified Greeks and tourists fled the rock-strewn streets and the clouds of stinging gas, cramming into hotel lobbies for shelter.
Ay Pee updates at 8:15 a.m.: the riots are over, fires in 45 burning buildings in Athens have been put out, streets are being swept, more than 170 civilians and 106 police were injured, 74 were arrested and 92 were detained by police, and the austerity bills passed 199 to 74.
#6
Well burning down your city is probably not in your best effort -
I'd be P.O.ed too if I was working class and they'd cut minimum wage from (US Amounts) $7 to $2.5
- and all my bills and rent went up..???
MADRID: Thousands of people rallied Sunday in Spains capital in support of the disbarred judge famous for taking on international human rights cases. Baltasar Garzon, 56, was convicted Feb. 9 by the Supreme Court, marking a spectacular fall from grace for the nations most prominent jurist. The seven-judge panel disbarred him for 11 years, effectively ending Garzons career unless he can have their decision reversed on appeal.
A large square outside the main gates of the Supreme Court filled with around 10,000 people, many carrying placards and banners calling for justice for the former judge and chanting, Garzon, friend, Spain is with you.
In Thursdays verdict, the court ruled that Garzon acted unlawfully in ordering jailhouse wiretaps of detainees talking to their lawyers, the court said, adding that his actions these days are only found in totalitarian regimes.
The case was just one of three against Garzon, who is still awaiting a verdict in another trial on charges of initiating a probe in 2008 of rightist atrocities committed during and after the Spanish civil war of 1936-1939, even though the crimes were covered by a 1977 amnesty.
Garzon is best known internationally for indicting former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and trying to put him on trial in Madrid for crimes against humanity. He also indicted Osama Bin Laden in 2003 over the Sept. 11 attacks and oversaw many rulings against Basque separatist group ETA and its political wing, Batasuna.
As a judge at Spains National Court, Garzon took on cases using the principle of universal jurisdiction the idea that some crimes are so heinous they can be prosecuted anywhere. He attempted to apply this legal doctrine to abuses committed in far-flung places like Rwanda and Tibet.
Strangely, he never prosecuted the King Leopold over the Congo...
Garzon was a hero to many left-leaning human rights activists, but was viewed with suspicion by conservative sectors of Spanish society, including many senior judges who saw him as attention seeking and egotistical.
Garzon faces more legal woes over ties with a big Spanish bank that financed human rights seminars he oversaw while on sabbatical in New York in 2005 and 2006.
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Posted by: Steve White ||
02/13/2012 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
