Swiss businessman Max Göldi has been freed from a Libyan jail, potentially drawing a line under a tit-for- tat diplomatic dispute that has simmered between Libya and Switzerland. Swiss sources expressed confidence that Mr Göldi, who has been detained in Libya for almost two years, would be able to return home shortly.
Mr Göldi, country manager in Libya for ABB, the Swiss/Swedish electrical engineering group, was detained with Rachid Hamdani, a second Swiss citizen, in an apparent Libyan reprisal for the brief arrest in Geneva two years ago of Hannibal Gadaffi, one of the Libyan leader's sons. Mr Hamdani was later allowed to leave the country.
The Swiss foreign ministry late on Thursday night confirmed Mr Göldi had now been released from jail, where he had been held for almost four months for alleged visa and other misdemeanours. Previously, Mr Göldi and the other Swiss citizen held by the Libyans, had taken refuge in the Swiss embassy in Tripoli after an initial brief period of detention.
Bern specifically thanked the Spanish and German governments for helping to secure Mr Göldi's release. We are very happy that our fellow citizen Max Göldi has been released from jail. This is a step. Now it is for him to return home to his family as soon as possible', said the Swiss foreign ministry in a statement. We are confident that this can happen in the following days'.
It remained unclear on Friday morning when exactly Mr Göldi, who had barely started his ABB job in Libya before becoming unwittingly involved in the spat, would return home. He still needs documentation allowing him to leave Libya. Government offices were closed on Friday as it is not a working day in Libya.
#1
Looking at this sorry episode (and it is not over yet!), Israel made a major mistake when it did not resort to taking a high profile hostage like Henning Mankell.
They should have told the world that Mankell won't be released as long as Shalit is held, adding generic JihadSea Of Fire Masada/Samson rhetoric. Maybe they should have threatened to storm the Swedish or Turkish embassy.
Libya and North Korea are being amply rewarded for similar actions. Why not Israel?
Maybe they ran short of goats NEW Idea has denied rumors it has come under legal fire over a controversial story about the Duchess of York allegedly playing the part of an escort.
A source yesterday believed the gossip mag, which has climbed back up the ranks under the leadership of former OK! editor Kim Wilson, may have been served with a defamation claim after falsely reporting Sarah Ferguson once accepted a suitcase filled with $530,000 to accompany two Arab oil tycoons aboard a luxury yacht.
*shudder*
The yarn followed Fergie's News of the World sting and her bumbling Oprah interview.
"New Idea have stated any reports of Fergie engaging legal action against the magazine are absolutely untrue," a statement issued yesterday read.
#2
The Queen's rules are that she controls the purse strings of the other royals, who must live under her rules. Or they can fend for themselves. But in that case, she loses control over them.
Diana went too far, though, dating an Arab. As long as Fergie was discreet, she could get away with it. After all, a girl's got to survive.
#3
at least Diana picked a very rich arab look at what charles chose. And who would pay for fergie tooooescort them ? Damn you can pick uo something better looking at the local bar
Posted by: chris ||
06/11/2010 22:20 Comments ||
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Hungarian lawmakers have passed a bill equating Communist era crimes to the Holocaust and banned denying it under threat of imprisonment.
An amendment to the Criminal Code was passed by the parliament's majority center-right party FIDESZ (Hungarian Civic Union) on Tuesday, Itar-Tass reports. According to the new legislation, those denying, casting doubts on, or depreciating the crimes committed by the Communist regime will be facing from one to three years behind bars.
Earlier, in February this year, the former coalition of the left wing parties passed a law banning the denial of the Holocaust. Now the rightists -- who won over 68% of seats in the parliament in spring 2010 -- have struck a balance between Communism and Nazism. The decision is among the first crucial ones made by the Hungarian Civic Union since it came to power.
Russian Communists have labeled the decision as a provocation and said it is disreputable for a parliament to do so.
According to Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, the move is an echo of the Nazi regime, which terrorized Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.
"Back then, 23 European states were ruled by the Nazis and pro-Nazi regimes and Hungary was Hitler's first accomplice," he said in an interview with Echo Moskvy radio station. "This voting is a 100% provocation which humiliates our fathers, the victors of WWII. In the year of the 65th anniversary of the victory I consider it to be not just a provocation but a sign of a Nazi plague which is spreading across Eastern Europe," Zyuganov stated.
In its history, Hungary experienced living under both the Nazi and Communist regimes. During the Second World War the country was a member of the so-called Axis powers. Collaborating with Italy and Germany back then, Hungary benefited territorially. Fighting on the Nazi's side, the Magyars took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the USSR.
After suffering tremendous losses in the battle of Stalingrad and realizing Hitler would likely lose the war, Hungary got involved in talks with Western allies in 1944 to seek an armistice. As a result, however, Hungary -- which turned from Hitler's friend into foe -- was occupied by the German forces. Under the occupation, up to 500,000 Jews living in Hungary died from maltreatment or were murdered. Only about a third of the Jews who lived in the country before the war survived the Holocaust.
After the war came the years of the People's Republic of Hungary and the Communist regime. In 1956, a student rally demanding reforms and political freedom led to a chain of events that resulted in what is known as Hungarian Revolution. The revolt was suppressed by Soviet tanks and troops which entered the country at the request of the Hungarian Working party. As a result, thousands of Magyars were killed and up to 200,000 Hungarian refugees fled the country.
The idea of equating the Nazi and the Communist regimes is not new for the former Iron Curtain states.
In November last year, Polish President Lech Kaczynski approved an amendment to the criminal code which outlaws the production, possession, spread and sale of items or recordings containing symbols of communism. A year before that a similar law was passed by the Lithuanian parliament which banned the display of Nazi and Soviet symbols, such as the swastika and the hammer and sickle.
#2
Well, there is only a mustache's worth of difference between the two.
Posted by: ed ||
06/11/2010 1:13 Comments ||
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#3
I read an article about Poland's law recently, the journalist poo-poohed the whole thing and said communism is just a phase kids go through, there is no point in comparing it to the world's worst evil. He was dismissive of the whole affair.
#4
This should have been done in the U.S. by George Bush I back when the wall came down. He was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the right series of events to have the mandate to de-communize America the way Harry Truman purged Naziism from the education industry and government grant receivers. Bush had enough popular sentiment to defund any grant receiving educator or artist, or any rent-seeking business which espoused communism, and to permanently stigmatize the concept in the eyes of the public using the bully pulpit of the presidency.
Not doing so was the greatest mistake of his presidency, worse by far than reneging on his tax freeze promise. The nation suffers hugely for his sin of omission.
Children in public schools are taught about the Nazi holocaust almost constantly but in almost all cases never even hear about the communist ones once in twelve years of schooling, because the leftists in teacher's unions and leftist administrators don't want kids growing up with the notion that people with left-of-center politics are capable of doing anything wrong or bad. They want the kids to believe that only the center/right is capable of doing bad or evil things, so they can produce voters who reflexively believe that anyone possessing center/right politics is the same as the Nazis, and that people whose politics are left of center are perfect, wonderful beings. The entertainment industry is similarly quiet on things like the gulag and the Cultural Revolution, for similar reasons.
Quite on purpose, they teach or portray nothing at all about the far greater atrocities of the left, so that the same sort of guilt by association cannot be used against their own political agenda.
Public education will be incomplete, broken, and irredeemably damaged in this country until every kid that graduates has been taught as much about the atrocities of Stalin and Mao as they have about Hitler's crimes, and reflexively holds the leftist monsters in the same contempt and horror as they do those right of center. The folks in the entertainment industry will always be failures as artists and human beings as long as they stigmatize only the Nazis and not communists (or even non-white fascists like the Japanese).
Given the politics of most public school teachers and entertainers, I'm not holding my breath for a fix any time soon.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
06/11/2010 6:12 Comments ||
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#5
no mo uro, this whole canard Nazis=right has. to. stop. Yes, Nazis were right of the commies, but ever so slightly. In the scope of the political spectrum, they still were on the left. While Komintern claimed to be internationalist (as long as the members heeded the Kremlin supremacy), Nazis were nationalist. One may say that in effect, the internationalist approach was just a ruse, the fealty direction was not to be in doubt.
#6
The whole idea that Nazism == Right is made up out of whole cloth. The deliberate deception (aka lie) is in our schools, the MSM, and in Hollywood - both bastions of 'progressives' (aka socialists).
Much like Racism == Right or KKK == Right. When in fact the vast majority of KKK members were Democrats and it was the Democrats who wrote the Jim Crow laws and opposed the Civil Rights Act.
#10
Nazism and Communism; two sides of the same coin. Just as leftists, liberals, populists, radicals, statists, and progressives are different names for the same philosophical concepts. I call it hiding behind euphamisms. One can easily find TV or radio commentators who willing call themselves conservatives but try to find someone from the MSM who is willing to call themself a liberal or leftist. There is something wrong with that.
#12
Well, too bad they didn't cite radical Islam too, but given that the Saudis are making inroads in Magyarorszag and have been for sometime, this is not surprising.
CWCID I heard about this on NPR. The mind boggles and the heart breaks.
Russia has uncovered at least 495 skeletons, many with head gunshot wounds, in a mass grave probably dating back to purges under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the 1930s, municipal authorities said Wednesday.
At least 3.5 tonnes of bones were extracted from the site on the outskirts of the Pacific Ocean port of Vladivostok after it was discovered by workmen building a road, the city government said in a statement. 495 skeletons. 3.5 tonnes of bones. Must have had American size obesity problems in 30s Russia.
Experts were checking the hypothesis that the bodies were victims of Stalin's purges. Some experts
"Practically all of the skulls have bullet wounds," said Yaroslav Livanksy, the head of a group of volunteers who helped to excavate the site. Bullet wounds in skulls, that's a clue.
He said money and clothes from the 1930s had been found at the site. A crushed child's skull was discovered close to a bead bracelet and a small slipper.
1930s money. That lets the tsar off the hook.
Irina Fliege, a senior researcher with Russian human rights group Memorial, which collects information about Stalin-era killings, said she had no doubt that the victims were shot by Stalinist forces. A real expert.
She said far more bodies were likely to be found as adjacent sites are studied. Something to which to look forward.
"This happens all over the country, it's impossible to say how often," Felige said. "All we can to is put up monuments to remember the dead." And pray.
#2
The snarky comments here are in pretty poor taste, Nimble. There's nothing foolish about the reporting, and the larger story is one of the most tragic episodes of the last century.
#6
There was plenty of evidence for atrocities like these back in the 30's, 40's and 50's. I read widely in primary school, and adjusted my attitudes accordingly. Obviously others of my generation developed different attitudes.
The American Jewish community has been a steadfast supporter of Turkish interests for years, responding to Turkey's building of ties with Israel following Israel's destruction of Armenian terror group camps in Lebanon in 1982. Key joint projects have been preventing Congressional bills condemning the Armenian genocide, American arms sales to Turkey, and construction of an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to a Turkish port.
But the American Jewish community is no longer helping Turkey, after a tumultuous deterioration of ties between Israel and Turkey in the past four years.
The Memorial Day flotilla affair marks an end of Israel's more than 20-year strategic alliance with Turkey, and the resulting support from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
Barry Jacobs, the American Jewish Committee's former director of strategic studies in the office of government and international affairs, noted Turkey's critical stance toward Israel's 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon to root out Hezbollah terrorists attacking the Jewish state. "This started in 2006 when I remember one Israeli diplomat complained that Turkish support for Hezbollah had 'out-Arabed the Arabs,'" Mr. Jacobs said, adding that Turkey's unconditional support for Hamas since 2007, combined with Jewish discomfort with defending the Turks on the Armenian issue, led to a dampening of support.
"The major Jewish organizations decided in 2008 that the question of the Armenian genocide resolution was so sensitive we would no longer take public and private positions to oppose it," Mr. Jacobs said.
Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he thinks the Turks made a strategic decision to break with Israel during the Gaza war. He pointed to a heated exchange in 2009 at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of a session with Israeli President Shimon Peres, telling him: "When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill."
"We saw things deteriorating but it did not surface publicly until Davos," Mr. Foxman said. "Until then, the trade continued, the military continued. It did not happen till the Gaza war. My feeling is that Turkey made a geopolitical decision before, but it needed an excuse to turn so dramatically."
Today, far from being an asset for Turkey, the American Jewish community appears to becoming a potent foe of Turkish interests in Washington.
On Tuesday for example, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release calling on the State Department to designate the IHH, the Turkish charity that helped organize the free-Gaza flotilla as a foreign terrorist organization. In Turkey, the IHH has been praised as a group of peace activists and humanitarians.
The liberal Jewish organizations J Street and Americans for Peace Now declined to comment on the deterioration of Israeli-Turkish ties in Washington.
That's because they support ending the Gaza blockade, which is causing those poor, innocent Palestinians so much suffering.
Voter gullibility?
One day late last year, Blanche Lincoln held a news conference in the Senate. That sure doesn't sound like much of a headline, but at the time it was.
For much of 2009's heated health care debate, she avoided reporters like the plague.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Nice fluff article but the real reason was her opponents campaign pic - the smarmiest, most insincere smile I've seen on anyone not selling their body.
#3
The unions dumped $10 million into the race to beat on her because of her opposition to card check, according to the pundits. This didn't really fly in Arkansas, which is about as right-to-work as states get.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
06/11/2010 15:45 Comments ||
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#4
she's still got the stank of burnt toast on her come November
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2010 17:37 Comments ||
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Chaos and anarchy. That's what New York Gov. David Paterson is warning if he's forced to shut down the government in a few days. So how's that progressive/liberal agenda thingy working out for ya in the long run? And if you think it's bad now . . . .
The clowns in the state Legislature, now deadlocked for 71 days on the budget, are ready to take down the "big tent" and bring state government to a standstill. At least that's what Paterson thinks.
"No one knows the full ramifications of a government shutdown," said Paterson. "It would create unimaginable chaos around the state and the greater metropolitan areas."
Such chaos includes closing all state parks, motor vehicles offices, courts, and even the lottery. Public assistance payments would not be made and unemployment payments might also be held up.
The governor is in this pickle, in part, because wild cards like Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx) and possibly scandal-scarred Sen. Pedro Espada (D-Bronx) might not go along.
Sources said the next emergency bill from Paterson will have up to $350 million in cuts to human services and mental health. But Republicans, who could become Paterson's new allies in the budget battle, aren't satisfied with that. They want $750 million in new cuts like:
Delaying the 10 percent welfare grant increases
Withholding welfare from those who don't comply with employment requirements
Reducing the personal needs allowance of people in drug and alcohol programs
Diaz will not go along with that. "I am not voting for any more cuts. I understand that it is painful," said Diaz. "But the governor is leaving me no choice."
The other renegade, Espada, thinks there might be a budget deal in the offing, but, he said, "I would vote no if such a massive cut were included because the state needs a fiscal plan.
Paterson called both men "thugs."
Espada, like some in both houses of the Legislature, thinks lawmakers will find a way to avoid bringing the government to a grinding halt. "There will not be a shutdown on Monday. We've never wanted a shutdown," he said.
It's really too early to tell what is going to happen. Will Espada and Diaz back down? Will Paterson make a deal with the Republicans? Or will pigs fly?
#4
Let's do a scientific experiment. Shut down the govt for a little while and see what happens. Record the data. Slap a study on it. Find the good, bad, and the ugly. Write a report. Put it up on Rantburg in installments. Should be interesting reading. At least entertaining.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/11/2010 12:45 Comments ||
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#5
"Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria!"
#7
Sorry, Glomock. Bad as Albany may be, there are plenty of more wretched hives. Our very own New Orleans, perhaps. Or Detroit. Sacramento and Chicago, for sure. And what about the master hive itself - Washington, DC?
A Jordanian man said to have been jilted by his teenage cousin has been sentenced to death for stabbing her to death during her wedding to another relative, a court official says.
"The court condemned him to death by hanging and sentenced his brother, who has been charged with being an accessory to murder, to 15 years of hard labour," the official said on Thursday.
In 2008, the man, who was 26, stabbed the 16-year-old with a dagger five times in the chest and stomach at a court in the southern city of Karak where she was being married by a judge, according to the charge sheet.
"She refused to marry him, so he and his brother decided to kill her, with malice aforethought," it said.
Court permission is usually required for women under 18 to get married in the Muslim kingdom.
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.
