Coastguard officials intercepted a US vessel Friday after it tried to defy a Greek ban on boats sailing to Gaza, as activists accused Israeli agents of a campaign harassment and sabotage.
The Audacity of Hope sailed without warning, leaving behind nine other boats supposed to be taking part in the 2011 international "Freedom Flotilla," after the Greek authorities announced their ban.
It was quickly intercepted by a coastguard boat with six masked, armed men on board.
As the news spread that the US boat had been stopped, activists slammed what they called an "out-sourcing of Israeli foreign policy."
The French "Boat to Gaza" organisation released a statement claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had thanked Greece and other leaders around the world for their stand against the "provocative flotilla".
Activists have also blamed Israel for the sabotage of two of their boats and for a campaign of harassment and dirty tricks against activists.
Continued on Page 47
Police in Spain have arrested two men for praising jihadi terrorism and making public threats on the Internet. The arrests took place in Seville and the men were identified only as an Algerian imam and a Spaniard.
The Interior Ministry says they have been under investigation since September for promoting the re-conquest of al-Andalus Spain and the torturing and killing gays and Jews, and of advocating submission unequal treatment for women.
Continued on Page 47
Fiscal policy based upon politically correct ideas and social engineering rather than sound economic principals.
Socialist ideals being implemented in a capitalist economic system in which people will look to turn a profit. Programs that work well in totalitarian regimes do not work in free market economies.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
07/01/2011 10:42 Comments ||
Top||
What can prevent such poorly conceived ideas from getting up? Robust, even divisive, public debate. No wonder elites hate it. No wonder it played no role in the decision to adopt the euro.
#6
IRRC CNN AM > BECKY ANDERSON Segment = Guest correspondent argued that YES, ITS TRUE, GREEK DEBT + EURO FUNDS ARE A HELLUVA "BLOODY MESS", BUT AT THE SAME TIME IS NOT INSURMOUNTABLE. THE REAL CRUX/ STORY UNDERLYING THE GREEK + EURO DEBT CRSES IS THAT EU MEMBER-STATES ARE STUBBORNLY REFUSING TO COMPROMISE WID THE OTHERS ON DEBT RELIEF FOR EU NATIONS NOT THEIR OWN???
[Bangla Daily Star] German politicians overwhelmingly approved on Thursday plans to shut the country's nuclear plants by 2022, putting Europe's biggest economy on the road to an ambitious build-up of renewable energy.
The lower house of parliament voted 513-79 for the shutdown plan drawn up by Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... 's government after Japan's post-earthquake nuclear disaster. Most of the opposition voted in favor; eight politicians abstained.
Lawmakers sealed for good the shutdown of eight of the older reactors, which have been off the grid since March. Germany's remaining nine reactors will be shut down in stages by the end of 2022.
By 2020, Germany wants to double the share of energy stemming from water, wind, sun or biogas to at least 35 percent. Until this year, nuclear energy accounted for a bit less than a quarter of Germany's power supply.
"Some people abroad ask: will Germany manage this? Can it be done? It is the first time that a major industrial country has declared itself ready to carry through this technological and economic revolution," Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen told politicians.
"The message from today is this: the Germans are getting to work," he said. "This will be good for our country, because we all stand together. So let's get to work."
The government hasn't put a specific price tag on the plan to shift to renewable sources.
"Of course it will cost something, but it won't overburden anyone," Roettgen said.
Thursday's vote completed a spectacular about-face on nuclear energy by Merkel's center-right coalition. Only last year, it had amended a previous center-left government's plan to abandon nuclear power by the early 2020s and extended the life span of Germany's 17 reactors by an average 12 years.
After Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, Merkel said the accident had prompted her to reevaluate the risks of nuclear power.
Opposition leaders taunted the government over its U-turn, which Merkel initiated less than two weeks before a pair of state elections in March.
"We are approving this out of full conviction, but you are doing it merely to preserve power," said Sigmar Gabriel, the head of the center-left Social Democrats.
Renate Kuenast, the co-leader of the Greens' parliamentary group, said she didn't care why Merkel had changed course.
"For me, it's enough of a historical irony that you now have to come close to what you fought for decades," she said.
"Now no one can deny that Germany wants an energy turnaround," added Kuenast. Her party has always opposed nuclear energy, which has been unpopular in Germany since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent radioactivity drifting over the country.
Still, she complained that the government's renewable energy target was "unambitious," arguing that Germany should be aiming for a share of well over 40 percent.
"The world is watching us now, and we will have to do justice to that," Kuenast said. "That is the scale of this task: We must show that this works for the (world's) fourth-biggest industrial country."
Parliament's upper house, which represents Germany's 16 states, is expected to endorse the plans next week, but much of the package doesn't formally require its approval.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11139 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Her party has always opposed nuclear energy, which has been unpopular in Germany since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster sent radioactivity drifting over the country.
Ignoring, of course, the radiation from the sun, which is the largest continuous nuclear reaction in the local neighborhood, and the cause of tens of thousands of skin cancer deaths annually. Then again, without the sun the availability of wind or flowing water would also be mute. There's a difference between 'there's nothing you can do about it' and 'safe'.
[An Nahar] A man grabbed French President Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... and was promptly wrestled to the ground by bodyguards on Thursday, television pictures showed.
The unidentified man seized Sarkozy by the jacket as he was greeting people gathered behind a barrier in the town of Brax, southwestern La Belle France, and pulled him forward, throwing the president off balance.
Sarkozy continued on his way as the man was restrained by security staff.
Police said later that a man was in jug in nearby Agen.
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.
