Honduras media at growing risk

Wednesday, 7 December 2011
Marina Paz was reported to have received extortion threats
Journalists in Honduras are facing growing danger, the country's human rights commissioner has warned.

Ramon Custodio was speaking to the Spanish news agency, Efe, a day after a radio host was shot dead.

Luz Marina Paz was the 17th media worker to be killed in Honduras over the past couple of years, rights groups say.

Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world: 82 killings per 100,000 people, according to the UN.

Ms Paz and her driver were shot dead as they travelled through the capital, Tegucigalpa.

The journalist, who had a morning news programme, was reported to have received death threats for refusing to pay extortion money.

Hours earlier, gunmen had shot at the offices of La Tribuna newspaper, injuring a security guard.

"We are in more danger than ever, because we don't know where the attacks against journalists and media organisations are coming from," La Tribuna's editor, Adan Elvir, told Efe.

His comments were echoed by Human Rights Commissioner Ramon Custodio.

"The danger we all in Honduras are experiencing is intensifying in an important part of society, namely the media, which are suffering threats, attacks and murders," Mr Custodio said.

Police upheaval

According to rights groups, some 17 journalists have been killed in Honduras since 2009 when the military helped to overthrow the then president Manuel Zelaya.

Current President Porfirio Lobo, who was elected in November 2009, expressed deep regret at the news of Ms Paz's murder.

"There is no doubt that we are facing an escalation (in violence) and we have to identify clearly where it is coming from," Mr Lobo said.

"Given the difficult moments the national police is experiencing, there are some who are taking advantage of the latest upheaval."

Last month, dozens of police officers were sacked in a crackdown on corruption and organised crime.

The alleged involvement of officers in the high-profile murders of two students in November also increased calls for police reform.

The Honduran government has begun deploying troops to help combat criminal gangs and drug traffickers.
Source bbcnews

Norway Right Extremism rising

Membership of Norwegian Right Extremist organisations is increasing despite Anders Behring Breivik’s acts of terror.

Exactly one week following Breivik’s attacks, the PST issued an update threat assessment about Right-Wing extremists, stating, “Norwegian Right-Wing Extremists have not been very active in the last years. The environments are characterised by an absence of strong leader figures and lacking in organisational abilities.”

“Some individuals have had contact with like-minded people in Europe, but this does not appear as though it has had a significant effect on activity in the environment here. [...] The threat from Right-Wing extremist environments in Norway has not altered following the acts of terror. They could weaken recruitment to these further.”

Contradictory

Kari Helene Partapuoli, head of NGO the Norwegian Centre against Racism, says she thought this would be the case, but tells The Foreigner, “For some sick reason, it’s now going up.”

“People who used to be active are now inspired. The organisations are hell-bent on surviving. Some people say ‘we hate what he did, but he’s not going to ruin it for us’, using arguments about freedom of speech,” she continues.

Press spokesperson for the Norwegian Defence League (NDL), Ronny Alte, says to Klassekampen, “We had approximately 900 members up until 22 July. Many resigned in the days following [these acts] days but lately, the average daily increase is now larger than before.”

He alleges the NDL, a sister organisation to the European Defence League, currently has 1,233 subscribers to its private Facebook group. Several candidates for next month’s local elections from Progress (FrP), the Conservatives (H), minority Right-Wing Christian Coalition Party and Centrists the Democratic Party, as well as Labour (Ap), are NDL members.

Membership is also growing in another Norwegian Right Extremist group with international links, Stop Islamisation of Norway (SIAN). Police are currently investigating whether Anders Behring Breivik had any connections with these two organisations.

Three monkeys?

The Police Security Service (PST) has come under heavy criticism since mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik struck.

In the days following Breivik’s twin massacres, the PST remained silent, claiming this was because it had nothing to report.

According to Ms Partapuoli, “There has also been a debate that the PST has paid too little attention to reviewing right-wing extremist and anti-jihadist movements in Norway since 22 July.”

There was even a meeting between the Centre and the PST last year, but “we didn’t get very much out of it,” she says.

Nevertheless, security officials have now asked for help. Klassekampen reports her organisation will contribute with knowledge sharing.

“We see some tendencies and have contacts at grass root level which pick up information that a large and established organisation may oversee.”

“I also hope there will now be more communication between our two organisations as part of an extended outreach policy by the PST,” she tells The Foreigner.

Source: http://theforeigner.no/pages/news/norway-right-extremism-rising/

HR activists gather in Buenos Aires

Human rights activists have gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina to take part in Human Rights Defenders of Latin America seminar, Press TV reports.

The current political condition of Honduras, the situation of indigenous and peasants communities in Chile and Brazil and the violence against union workers in Colombia, are among the issues that have been discussed during the seminar.

As Bertha Oliva a Honduran human rights activist stated, persecution and assassination of human rights´ defenders in Honduras have reached alarming rates after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in 2009.

“Reporters, lawyers, teachers and peasants have been killed as a result of the struggle against human rights violations… the government has tried to show the world that everything has returned to normal and imposed legislation that goes against international treaties,” added Oliva.

The activists have also agreed that impunity and the criminalization of social protests remain a common reality in the region.

According to Leidy San Juan, a Colombian human rights activist taking part in the seminar, “political systems [of the Latin American countries] and media condemn social protest while states fail to defend people rights.”

The experts, furthermore; have called for protection strategies, as the violation of human rights is still "widespread" in the region.

The Human Rights Defenders of Latin America seminar is organized by Argentina's Social and Legal Studies Center and is held in the Law School of the University of Buenos Aires.

The gathering opened on December 5 and runs for two days.
Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/214116.html

Protesters clash with police in Athens

A protester throws a petrol bomb toward riot police guarding the parliament in Athens' Syntagma (Constitution) Square on December 6, 2011.

Thousands of protesters have clashed with police in the Greek capital after a demonstration held to commemorating the a schoolboy shot by the police in 2008, Press TV reports.

15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos was shot dead on December 6, 2008 by two policemen in central Athens in an incident that sparked mass unrest and helped topple the conservative government of Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis.

About 20,000 students marched in Athens on Tuesday night outside parliament, where Greek MPs were debating the 2012 budget.

Some of them later hurled rocks, bottles, and fire bombs at police, who then used tear gas in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

After midnight on Wednesday morning, hours after the demonstrators clashed with police, Greece's coalition government passed an austerity budget meant to decrease the country's debts through a tax increase and spending cuts.

Three major parties supporting Prime Minister Lucas Papademos voted for the budget plan in the parliament.

The austerity budget package was drafted to persuade Greece's creditors in the so-called troika -- the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank -- to release its next tranche of aid money, eight billion euros (about 11 billion dollars), before the country goes bankrupt. 

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/214247.html

Rock Hill Pearl Harbor survivor recalls 'helping the living and collecting the dead'

ROCK HILL -- 

The bombs started falling and the machine guns started rattling. The sound crashed around the USS Pennsylvania at dry dock in Pearl Harbor.
Eighteen-year-old Lloyd Claud Rice, just off a night watch, came running up on deck to see what was going on.
The date was Dec. 7, 1941, and Rice - who had hitchhiked from his home off Cauthen Street in Rock Hill to Charlotte to enlist 11 months earlier - found himself a part of history.

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jstratakos@heraldonline.com - - L. C. Rice, a Pearl Harbor survivor, salutes during a ceremony December, 7, 2010 at Glencairn Garden Veterans Garden honoring those who fought and died during the suprise attack by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

• Gallery: L.C. Rice Pearl Harbor Survivor
• VIDEO: Pearl Harbor survivor L.C. Rice

At that time, though, nobody thought it was history. The only thought was survival and fighting back - and the emotions of rage, anger and betrayal.
"The damn Japanese was killing us right as we was there," recalled Rice, 88, who has been known for decades as L.C. and only L.C. "Just before they were playing nice, and here is ships on fire and people getting killed all over the place."
The Pennsylvania, because of repairs in dry dock, had no ammunition for its cannons and big guns. All the men on board could do was rush to help others. A seaman died in the arms of L.C. Rice.
"We assisted any way we could, helping the living and collecting the dead," said Rice. "You could say World War II was born that day. The devil was born. Wars are no damn good. This was no movie.
"You see so many people die, and you know that until a war is over, so many people you know are gonna die because of that day."
Among the 2,403 people who died that awful day 70 years ago today was Ardrey Hasty, 18, of Rock Hill.
Bill Lovelace, 18, of Rock Hill, lost a leg that day - one of the 1,178 who were wounded - but lived for decades afterward until 1983.
Rock Hill's Asbury Hoke and Ralph Martin survived and told their tales of heroism and survival for years until dying as old, honored men, a few years ago.
It is believed that in this area, L.C. Rice is the last surviving veteran of the Pearl Harbor attacks that started World War II, said Don Vinsack, commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2889 in Rock Hill.
"L.C. is, to my knowledge, the last living legend," Vinsack said.
The VFW and American Legion will hold a ceremony at 11 this morning at the Veterans Garden wall at Glencairn Garden in Rock Hill. Rice will place a wreath on the Navy insignia.
"I feel it is my duty to do it," said Rice. "I lived. So many people died. Not just that day, but in the war afterward. Thousands and thousands of men, dead in Europe and the Pacific.
"I spent my whole life trying to live up to them."
And what a life it has been for L.C. Rice, the Pearl Harbor survivor.
After the attacks, Rice was sent to a different ship to be delivered to the Russians - an ally in World War II.
The posting was so secret, he was gone so long, that his sister sent a letter to the Navy asking where he was. Was L.C. dead or what, the letter demanded. The Navy wrote back that it could not say.
Rice, a machinist, was sent to the Allied invasion of France, at Cherbourg, where his ship was sunk. So many men he knew died, again, around him. Of 10 ships in that group, eight were sunk with hundreds dead. Rice was wounded, his body riddled with shrapnel.
"Death followed me," Rice said, "but I ran too fast for it to catch me."
Then Rice was sent to the Pacific again, where the ship he was on was torpedoed at Okinawa in the last battle of the Pacific war.
"Fifty-four men died that day, right under our feet," Rice said.
In 1946, when the war ended and scientists took over the killing for a while, nuclear bombs were tested at Bikini Atoll, right between Hawaii and the Philippines in the South Pacific.
Rice was on a ship just miles away. Cancers that he fought and beat later in life he blames to this day on the radiation from those blasts.
"I was as close to the bomb as Rock Hill is to Fort Mill," Rice said.
But after he was done with the Navy, Rice did not file any lawsuit, or moan and complain. He did then what tough Rock Hill boys do: He enlisted in the Army.
Rice became a paratrooper, a drill instructor and fought in combat in Korea, where he had to kill so many men in horrors that are too brutal to talk about.
"Wars, killing, it is terrible," said this great old man. "You never get used to killing. Killing is what wars are. Not generals with shiny stars. Not admirals. It's men dead with their legs gone."
Then Rice was sent to Vietnam as one of those early "advisers" who were part of that horrible war.
It is unknowable how many men Rice trained, taught, seasoned over all those years, men who survived in those wars and became husbands and fathers, because of how tough and hard and disciplined he was.
"I figured if I could train someone," he said, "they might not die somewhere in a war, like all the death I had seen."
Finally - after more than 32 years of nothing but war or training people for war - L.C. Rice retired.
He spent time dealing blackjack in Las Vegas at the Dunes Hotel, owned and ran a small grocery store/filling station in Texarkana, Texas, then bought a boat and lived in Daytona Beach, Fla., for years.
Nobody in Rock Hill knew anything of his Pearl Harbor experience, or anything afterward.
It wasn't until 1978 that Rice came home to live. Rice became an instant legend who never would talk about what he did to earn it - but word leaked out.
Barside at the VFW and American Legion, Rice would put a foot on the rail and sip a cold beer that he sure had earned. People, veterans included, some combat veterans, too, would just stare at this tough son of a gun.
The last few years, Rice - twice a widower with no children - has spent his time with the Honor Guard of the VFW, and he accepts as many offers to talk about his experiences as he can keep.
"Doctor told me to give up the Honor Guard," Rice said. "I told him I would, but I didn't. I'm almost 89 years old. What am I gonna do, get old?"
To this day, word gets around anywhere Rice shows up in a rare appearance barside at the VFW or Legion hall for maybe one beer - his money is no good. One does not charge a legend.
The application to get Rice a few extra dollars a month on his disability, his veterans benefits, from the atomic blast exposure, is again being reviewed, with help from U.S. Rep. Mick Mulvaney's office and the York County Veterans Affairs office.
But L.C. Rice does not worry about what politicians do, what the government does.
He has prepared for today's 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks that started his 33 years of dealing with death and dying and killing and keeping young men from dying while teaching them that awful act of killing, and readies his Honor Guard uniform.
He shines the brass until it gleams.
He will wear the uniform today.
"The honor is for the dead and those who survived and everybody who was hurt and shot to pieces," Rice said. "You don't honor any war. You hope there never is any wars. You honor those who died in it, though.
"Pearl Harbor is where it started, 70 years ago. I was 18 years old. Grew up fast that day. We all did - those who wasn't dead."
Want to go?
Post 2889 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion Post 34 will hold a 70th anniversary Pearl Harbor service at 11 a.m. today at the Veterans Garden at Glencairn Garden. The event is open to the public.

Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/12/07/3580239/on-70th-anniversary-of-pearl-harbor.html#ixzz1fqj6elnv

1 hurt in blasts at Pattani banks

Violence continued in the southernmost province of Pattani with two bombs exploding simultaneously at ATMs yesterday morning, slightly injuring one person, Muang Pattani police superintendent Colonel Somporn Meesuk said.

The first attack took place at about 6.50am at an ATM of Krung Thai Bank in the middle of town near an intersection in Muang district. The blast destroyed one of four machines as well as lights and walls. A local woman, identified as Alisa Mumohali, 29, who was standing near the machine at the time, suffered cuts to her left leg from pieces of the machine.

The second attack was at a Bank of Ayudhya ATM at the intersection of Udomwithee and Piphit roads. No one was wounded.

Police collected evidence and suspected the bombs were detonated using timers.
Security camera footage showed a hooded man placing the bomb under the Krung Thai Bank machine. The explosion took place five minutes later, followed almost immediately by the blast at the Bank of Ayudhya.

Police also said they had information that two motorcycles would be used to bring bombs to residential areas in Muang Pattani between Sunday and yesterday, but had not discovered any such vehicles prior to the two explosions yesterday morning.
Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/1-hurt-in-blasts-at-Pattani-banks-30171387.html

MIGRATION | A world in motion

What drives millions of people to leave home every year? Some 3 percent of the world's population is made up of migrants who live abroad for economic and other reasons. Many of them look to Europe for a better future

Many refugees from conflict areas barely manage to escape with their lives. Conflicts in Somalia and Libya alone forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes, a huge portion of them took shelter in neighboring countries.

Others try to escape from discrimination and prosecution because of the color of their skin, their religion or political conviction. All in all, UNHCR counts 25 million refugees worldwide.

More people are going abroad, fleeing bad living conditions and the numbers are especially high in regions afflicted by famine, epidemics or natural disasters.

But even if basic needs are satisfied, young people still go abroad seeking more promising opportunities.

Many young people in developing countries face poverty and lack of opportunity to improve their lives

]

A good education, job skills or career prospects are often easier to find in more developed countries. In this respect, of course, other migrants play an increasing role: Their experiences in foreign countries attract others. And for their relatives and friends it is much easier to get at least a temporary visa.

Still, in Africa many unrealistic images about Europe circulate. Many migrants reaching the so-called "land of dreams" quickly find out that life here is far from paradise and that work is not easy to find.

Source: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15509030,00.html

Europe's radical right focuses on fighting Islam

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — As daylight broke on June 4, worshippers found a mosque in southern Denmark defaced with drawings of the Prophet Muhammad and slogans urging Muslims to "go home."

In late October, a dismembered pig was buried on the construction site of a planned mosque on the outskirts of Copenhagen.

Both acts were the work of the Danish Defence League, a year-old far-right group that claims it's not opposed to foreigners in general, just Muslims.

"We are not racists. We are not Nazis," insists Bo Vilbrand, the group's 24-year-old spokesman. As if to prove his point he says the Danish Defence League welcomes blacks and Jews.

The group and its larger English forebear represent a new crop of right-wing radicals who don't fit the mold of the boot-stomping, Jew-hating neo-Nazis. This movement claims its fight is against Islam, and uses crusader symbols instead of swastikas. It frames its mission as a cultural struggle, although opponents say it is little more than old-fashioned xenophobia hiding beneath anti-Islamic rhetoric.

European authorities were just starting to consider the far-right, anti-Muslim movement's potential for violence when Norwegian militant Anders Behring Breivik took it to unimaginable extremes on July 22, massacring 77 people in the name of an anti-Islamic revolution.

"Oslo was an eye-opener," says Hajo Funke, an expert on European right-wing extremism at the Free University Berlin.

Norway's PST security service highlighted the rise of the anti-Islamic groups in its annual threat assessment in March, although chief analyst Jon Fitje says the movement in many ways remains uncharted.

"There seems to be many people who share Breivik's general views, even though they of course condemn his actions," Fitje told The Associated Press. "But we don't know much about this. And we don't know how much we should know about it," because PST is not allowed to register people based on their political views.

Anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe is nothing new. Since the 9/11 terror attacks in the U.S. it has boosted anti-immigration political parties from Scandinavia to France. However, it started taking a more radical form in recent years, mostly online, but also with small groups organizing street protests against a perceived Islamization of Europe.

In France, the anti-Muslim Bloc Identitaire has emerged as one of the loudest voices on the extreme right fringes.

A key development came in 2009 with the creation of the English Defence League, which claims to be peaceful but whose anti-Muslim protests have ended in clashes with police and left-wing demonstrators. Two years after counting about 50 members, the group boasts its ranks have swollen to 10,000, though authorities say its fluid nature makes it hard to measure.

What is clear is that hundreds of people, including soccer hooligans, have turned up for the EDL's protests, and European police agency Europol in 2010 said its quick rise had raised the profile of right-wing extremism in Britain.

The EDL has spawned offshoots across northern Europe, with varying success. Most are Facebook groups only. A handful of people showed up for a Norwegian Defence League rally in April, and a Dutch version was disbanded earlier this year.

The Danish Defence League appears to have been more successful. Vilbrand says it has 200-300 active members and more than 1,000 supporters who pay membership fees but don't take part in activities.

Denmark's PET security service declined to comment on the group. Danish experts on right-wing extremism say the Danish Defence League exaggerates its size, but is growing — unlike many traditional far-right groups.

Danish blogger Margrethe Hansen, who spent three months infiltrating far-right groups online, says the Danish Defence League probably counts about 100 active members — a considerable number considering the group was founded last year — and has the potential to become the strongest far-right group in Denmark.

Last year, she spied on the Facebook pages of Scandinavian anti-Muslim groups, including the Danish Defence League, by creating a fake profile. Posing as a rabid nationalist, she says she found the anti-Muslim community has more in common with white supremacists than its leaders admit.

"Under the facade, when I was undercover on the Internet, I participated in closed groups where they are talking like racists: 'Immigrants are stealing our money, our women,'" she says. "But it's an easier message to sell if you say 'we are against extreme Islam.'"

Hansen says she lives at a secret address after receiving death threats from anti-Muslim extremists who see her as a traitor for embracing multiculturalism.

Using her fake profile, she even became Facebook friends with Breivik, but says his rhetoric wasn't particularly extreme and he didn't drop any hints of his plans to set off a bomb in Oslo and gun down youths at a left-wing party's summer camp.

"When I found out it was Breivik, I was totally shocked," she says. "I sometimes think, why didn't I see it coming?"

Hansen says Danish police have questioned her on behalf of Norwegian police about Breivik's online communication and her insights into the anti-Islamic community.

The anti-Islamic movement's ideological roots can be found in the so-called "counterjihadist" community of American and European bloggers who on sites such as "Gates of Vienna" and "Brussels Journal" say Muslim immigrants are colonizing Europe with the tacit approval of left-wing political elites.

In his online manifesto, Breivik cited many of those bloggers, including a fellow Norwegian using the pseudonym "Fjordman" — who wrote chillingly that if governments don't stop Muslim immigration, Europeans must act to "protect our own security and ensure our national survival."

Breivik, who was recently declared criminally insane, also praised the English Defence League and other anti-Muslim groups, and reveled in the symbolic crusader imagery they use. The "Knights Templar" resistance movement he claims to belong to appears to be a figment of his imagination, investigators say.

Some of the American bloggers cited in Breivik's manifesto won devoted followings during the controversial 2010 attempt to base a mosque near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York. But despite the bloggers' high-profile roles and a recent surge in anti-Islamic hate crimes in the U.S., there is no clear evidence that dangerous U.S.-based extremist groups have pursued strong anti-Muslim agendas, experts in domestic extremism say.

"The main focus of American extremists like neo-Nazis and the Klan is still aimed at African-Americans and Latino immigrants," said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

In Europe, "counterjihadist" blogs as well as defence leagues and other anti-Islamic groups have rejected Breivik as a deranged psychopath. Investigators believe he plotted and carried out his mayhem alone.

Still, some analysts believe the rhetoric used in the anti-Islamic community is so aggressive it should come as no surprise that, eventually, someone would leap from words to action.

"There is something in the ideology itself which makes violence a logical result," says Oeyvind Stroemmen, a Norwegian Green Party member and writer who warned of violence from anti-Muslim extremists before the July attacks.

British researcher Toby Archer, who has also studied the anti-Muslim movement, said it wasn't surprising that sooner or later "there would be people seeing themselves as the movement's special forces or shock troops."

Others caution against drawing far-reaching conclusions from what happened in Norway. Breivik's violence was unprecedented in the anti-Muslim movement, and it's rare in terms of the far-right in general.

The last European attack on a similar scale blamed on right-wing extremists was the 1980 bombing of a railway station in Bologna, Italy, that killed 85 people. Islamist terrorists are still considered the biggest threat to European security.

Yet many experts say the anti-Muslim groups have a greater potential to grow than traditional far-right extremists, who are struggling to boost their numbers.

That realization has led some political fringe groups, like the British National Party and Belgium's Vlaams Belang, to shift from blanket opposition to immigration to a focus on Islam.

The manifesto of the BNP, whose leader has a conviction for racial hatred and has denied the Holocaust in the past, includes a "counterjihadist" chapter, saying Europe is being invaded by Muslims.

Even hardcore white supremacists are debating whether to stress the anti-Muslim message as a marketing tool.

In Sweden, where neo-Nazis committed a series of murders in the 1990s, the white power movement is split between those who say "Holocaust denial" won't boost their following and hardline racists who stick to their old ways, says Johan Olsson, an analyst at the Swedish Security Service.

Vilbrand, who uses the alias "Bo Rightwing" on the Internet, claims his group focuses on radical Islam, like when it patrolled an immigrant neighborhood in Copenhagen where a handful of fundamentalist Muslims said they wanted to introduce Islamic law.

But its "blitz mission" in June targeted a mosque that hasn't been associated with radical Muslims. It belongs to a small community of Ahmadiyya Muslims, who are considered heretics by some mainstream Muslims and have faced persecution in many countries.

The mosque's imam, Naimatullah Basharat, says that next to the Muhammad drawings were stickers with a Latin inscription saying "If you wish for peace, prepare for war" — the Danish Defence League's motto.

Basharat says he would like to explain his view of Islam to the group.

"We show our patience, also to those who do this kind of thing," he says. "Our motto is 'love for all, hatred for none.'"

Associated Press Writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Stephen Braun in Washington D.C., contributed to this report.

Source http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gsR_LFNq74Ky_4b_jEyS50s94avg?docId=8ae5073105fe42ffa463e144251ee316

Perus Shining Path admits defeat

Wednesday, 7 December 2011
The arrest of Shining Path founder Abimael Guzman in 1992 hastened the group's demise
Peru's Shining Path rebel movement has been defeated, one of the group's few active remaining leaders has admitted.

Comrade Artemio, who heads a group in northern Peru, said they were ready to talk to the government about ending their armed rebellion.

It is not known if other rebels would be prepared to give up their arms.

An estimated 70,000 people died in the conflict with the Shining Path, which was at the height of its powers in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Speaking to reporters from his jungle hideout, Comrade Artemio said the Shining Path had been defeated.

"I am not going to deny that," he said.

He said his group was prepared for dialogue with the authorities, but added that they would only surrender their weapons if the government were serious about wanting to end the armed conflict.

The Shining Path guerrillas launched their armed struggle in 1980 to remove what they saw as Peru's bourgeois democracy.

The rebels' avowed aim was to establish a communist government, of Maoist inspiration.

The arrest of Shining Path founder and leader Abimael Guzman, in 1992, and a fierce campaign during the government of President Alberto Fujimori all but dismantled the organisation.

Remnants of the guerrilla group are still active in Peru's cocaine-producing regions, engaging in sporadic clashes with police and soldiers.
Source bbc news

Italy mafia boss found in bunker

Mr Zagaria had been living in hiding since the 1990s
Italian police say they have discovered the notorious chief of a Naples mafia clan, Michele Zagaria, who has been on the run for 16 years.

Police said they had found him after digging through a secret bunker in his home town of Casapesenna near Naples.

Described as head of the powerful Casalesi clan, he was sentenced to multiple life sentences in absentia.

The Casalesi clan has been involved in drug trafficking and corruption in the construction industry.

There was jubilation among the security forces who finally managed to detain Mr Zagaria, the BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome reports.

"You won. The state has won," Mr Zagaria told anti-mafia investigators as he was being arrested, according to the AFP news agency.

Italian Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri hailed the arrest as "a huge success by the state", adding that it would be a blow "not only against the Casalesi clan, but against the entire Camorra organisation."

'Near home'


The Casalesi clan is one of a number of groups within the Camorra criminal network, which dominates the underworld in the Naples area.

Mr Zagaria had probably spent his years as a fugitive near home because mafia bosses "can only exercise their power if they're in an environment that protects them," anti-mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso told the AP news agency.

Mr Zagaria is thought to be the most senior figure in the Camorra who was still at large.
Source Bbcnews

Terrorist with a ‘healing touch’

After his cousin Riyaz Bhatkal, Yasin Bhatkal, 35, is Indian Mujahideen’s (IM) next choice for planning and executing terror attacks in India. Yasin is in charge of recruiting youth in South India. He brainwashes them and prepares them to sacrifice themselves for the cause, said the police.

He has sent promising youth to Pakistan and Dubai to learn advanced lessons in acts of terror.

“Yasin is brilliant. Most terror attacks carried out by IM 

in India were assigned to him and he succeeded in executing them to perfection. He is well connected with Arab businessmen to gatherfunds for attacks in India. He always carries a laptop wherever he travels,” a senior police officer said. Yasin was born and brought up in Bhatkal, Uttara Kannada district. Bhatkal’s brothers Riyaz and Iqbal are his cousins. Yasin came in contact with the IM along with the Bhatkal brothers.

Yasin was the main accused in the Pune German Bakery blast. He played a role in Mumbai and Delhi blasts too.He planned and executed the Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium and Pune German Bakery blasts.

But the man who masterminds terror can give the healing touch too. Yasin Bhatkal is an Ayurveda doctor and he is popularly known as Dr Imran in most places in Bihar where he was hiding for more than six months.

Recently, he married the daughter of another IM member, Mohammed Irshad Khan, 52, a resident of Delhi and native of Samastipur in Bihar.

He was staying in Irshad’s factory in Meer Vihar area in outer Delhi until the arrest of six IM terrorists by Delhi Police. The police believe he would not have escaped to any country after the arrest of his father-in-law and five others.

“Yasin Bhatkal is hiding in India. Riyaz and Iqbal, too, 

are in India, according to intelligence reports available with us,” a senior police officer said.The police in Delhi and Pune have been alerted and they are making efforts to nab Yasin. Yasin evaded the city police when he came to plant bombs around Chinnaswamy stadium on the night of April 16, 2010.

A police constable from Cubbon Park police station was patrolling Raj Bhavan Road (Cubbon Road) around midnight and noticed three people near Gate 12, where the first blast took place later.

He stopped them to check a bag in which he found a tiffin box. As the checking was

going on, two of them fled the spot.As the constable’s attention was drawn to the fleeing duo, the third one snatched the bag and ran away to join them. 

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_terrorist-with-a-healing-touch_1622490

The ‘hacktivists’ of Telecomix lend a hand to the Arab Spring

Carol Guzy/THE WASHINGTON POST - Andrew Lewis, 22, is a member of Telecomix, Western “hacktivists” helping protesters in the Middle East evade regime crackdowns. Lewis says he works from a conviction that Internet activity should not be censored.

On a rainy November morning in Northern Virginia, at a cafe where elderly women are meeting for pastries, Andrew Lewis is hacking into one of the most tightly controlled police states in the Middle East.

“The more you know, the more you can help,” he murmurs, as his scan of Syria’s cyberspace throws up lists of servers.

His 6-foot-6-inch frame hunched over his laptop, Lewis skims the codes at lightning speed and clicks on one of the servers that process and direct Syrian Internet traffic — but then he is asked for a password. He guesses it correctly on his second attempt.

Lewis, 22, is a member of Telecomix, an unconventional Western computer club that helps activists across the Middle East. During this year’s Arab Spring, pro-democracy protesters have used Facebook to promote rallies and Skype to avoid tapped cellphones, but their governments have in turn boosted online censorship and spying. Telecomix has tried to step in and provide the activists with tech support.

When Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s now ousted president, cut off the entire country’s Internet in January, Telecomix set up dial-up connections using two servers in Europe. The members then faxed the dial-up numbers to every Egyptian office, university and coffee shop they could find. In August, after extracting records from unsecured servers, the group discovered that Syria was using equipment made by a Silicon Valley company, Blue Coat Systems, to block certain sites. (The U.S. government is now investigating Blue Coat, which denies selling its products to a country under economic sanctions.) Telecomix has also helped activists in Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain.

Lewis has never been to the Middle East. He does not know anybody there, mix much with Arab Americans or speak a word of Arabic. When asked why he devotes days and nights to this lonely task, he simply says, “I have a strong conviction that the Internet should be open to everyone.”

This morning, Lewis is working on Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown against a nine-month-long uprising has left at least 4,000 dead, according to the United Nations. On his left, Lewis has an iPad logged in to Telecomix’s chat room. The forum uses encrypted Internet connections and servers owned by Telecomix members. Lewis collects anonymous protest reports from his Syrian contacts, whose code names include “the Major,” and broadcasts them on Twitter. His updates add to a grim thread of on-the-ground observations of security forces using machine guns and tear gas.

On his right, Lewis has a laptop for testing more encrypted connections, which activists can use to make their online activity harder to monitor. He also uses it for “mapping” — scanning Syria’s networks and servers for surveillance equipment. It is a fairly straightforward task for a techie, given the lax security around the networks in question. Lewis can see all the computers and surveillance devices on a certain network, but cannot access or tamper with them.

Lewis says he feels that cyber-activism is his best chance of making a difference in Washington. He isn’t robust enough for Occupy D.C.’s increasingly wintry anti-capitalist protest camp. His lack of a college degree excludes him from the city’s think-tank circuit. His teachers hoped his height would make him a star athlete, but he turned out to be a “mal-­coordinated” gentle giant.
“This is somewhere where I can help. I can do tech really well,” says Lewis, who, despite spending so much time at his laptop for Telecomix, still relaxes by playing video games. “Sometimes it’s easier to hide behind a computer screen.”Telecomix began five years ago, when a group of Swedish hackers came together to fight a proposed European Union law that would help Internet providers cut off users who were sharing copyrighted files. “The idea was that no company or country had the right to deny someone Internet access or watch them online,” says Christopher Kullenberg, a founding member who is a PhD student at the University of Gothenburg in southern Sweden.

As the Arab Spring took hold this year, toppling three autocrats and rattling several others, the group’s focus shifted to the Middle East. This mission drew ever more hackers. Today, Telecomix is a loose, leaderless movement, with members in Sweden, the United States, France and Germany. Kullenberg estimates that there are 20 full-time volunteers — the group does not make money and so does not pay wages — although many others dip in and out alongside day jobs. The number of chat room members has fluctuated this year between 130 and more than 500.

The size of the group’s following in the Middle East is purposely kept unclear to protect activists’ identities. Telecomix members estimate that they work with as many as 20 Syrian dissidents on a regular basis, but they do not even know the activists’ names. Several people could be sharing one code name, or one could be using several. The group wipes records of hits on its Web site, which could be used to trace activists.

Lewis, one of four core U.S. members, became a full-time volunteer in September. He stumbled on the group after quitting his job on an IT support desk at the Pentagon, which he took up via a contracting firm soon after finishing high school. A natural computer whiz, he progressed quickly.

“I was making a lot of money but wondering if I deserved it,” says Lewis, who has now moved back home and is living off savings. “I started wondering, ‘What am I doing with my life?’ ”

Telecomix is one of a clutch of Western groups trying to boost Internet freedom in the Middle East. Members of the Tor Project, based in Massachusetts, have this year held workshops for bloggers in Egypt and Tunisia. Originally developed by U.S. Navy scientists, Tor is now a free and popular tool for “anonymizing” Internet connections. An e-mail or Web site search sent using this software bounces among several servers, often in different countries, before reaching its destination, thus disguising the user’s IP address.

* * *

Lewis has almost finished his coffee and is thinking of moving on. During the day, he relocates to a new WiFi cafe every four hours to prevent his computer being tracked. Coffees are paid for in cash. He is trying to cut down on working at night, which he has to do in his parents’ basement.

Like many Telecomix members, he is nervous about the Syrian authorities tracing him or his contacts. The Assad family has ruled Syria for four decades and uses entrenched networks of human informants, a pervasive fear of phone-tapping and, increasingly, online snooping to stifle free speech. The country’s penal code prohibits “weakening national sentiment.”

“Syria is one of the worst in the region for surveillance,” says Nadim Houry, the deputy director for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. He says activists often keep several Facebook accounts in fake names and avoid using phrases such as “human rights” in e-mails, although old-school informants are still Assad’s main monitoring tool.

Many Arab governments are boosting their online surveillance efforts with Western technology, just as activists try to evade them using Western social media and hackers. The Blue Coat devices in Syria were one example of a wider trend — when regimes fell this year in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, online censorship and monitoring tools made by Western companies were found in their state security agencies.

Syria had an estimated 4 million Internet users in 2010, or a fifth of its population, according to data from Freedom House, a U.S.-based think tank. Egypt had a 24 percent Internet penetration rate, while just over a third of Tunisians were online. All countries had seen their rates at least double since 2005, even though they remained behind the U.S. rate of 78 percent.

Despite taking on some big forces, Lewis is in good spirits — for once, he has had a proper night’s sleep. So he can chat with contacts in other time zones, he usually does his “first shift” from midnight until 5 a.m. He then takes a nap and works again from 11 a.m. onwards. At times, he has done 24-hour stretches subsisting on coffee and frozen pizzas.

“It’s much to the annoyance of my parents,” Lewis says. “They don’t want a freeloading son — they want me to do stuff around the house.”

Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-hacktivists-of-telecomix-lend-a-hand-to-the-arab-spring/2011/12/05/gIQAAosraO_story.html

Lieberman meets Occupy protesters outside Capitol Hill office

Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Connecticut independent

About a dozen Occupy protesters who drove through the night from Connecticut and spent hours camped out in front of Sen. Joe Lieberman's Capitol Hill office got what they came for: a meeting with their senator to press him on extending unemployment insurance and creating jobs.

The group had been waiting in a Hart Building hallway, across the street from the Capitol, for a few hours on Tuesday when a Lieberman aide came out and said the senator was rearranging his schedule to meet with them for 10 minutes.

The protesters, whose ages ranged from early 20s to late 50s, were part of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group, which is aligning itself with the Occupy movement and its protest of economic and social inequality.

The group is in Washington for the week as part of the larger "Take Back the Capitol" demonstration, involving thousands of Occupy protesters flooding the city to urge lawmakers to put the interests of struggling Americans before those of the wealthy.

The group headed into Lieberman's office with a handful of talking points: urge their senator to pass an extension of unemployment insurance before it expires at the end of the year, to make sure the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans "pay their fair share," and to push for passage of President Barack Obama's $447 billion American Jobs Act.

When they emerged 15 minutes later and reviewed how the meeting went, the group's unofficial spokesman said he wasn't happy. "We never got an answer to our question on the American Jobs Act. They would not commit to that -- at all," said John Murphy, political director for the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.

The group also lamented that Lieberman seemed to brush aside their calls to provide heating assistance to low-income families. Still, they said they were pleased he reiterated his support for extending unemployment insurance. 

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/214244.html

WikiLeaks launches new whistle-blowing platform

WikiLeaks also released a study covering companies developing surveillence products

WikiLeaks on Thursday released a study of the brisk global trade in surveillance products, which founder Julian Assange claimed exposes a broad risk to peoples' privacy, while also continuing work on a revamped submissions platform.

Assange said the study, which encompasses 160 companies in 25 countries, was undertaken as part of an obligation to sources for the whistle-blowing website, which has not accepted online submissions for more than a year following security concerns

Included with the study are 287 documents that Assange said illustrate "the reality of the international mass surveillance industry." WikiLeaks called the release "The Spy Files," and said it shows how Western countries are selling advanced tools that are used by repressive countries. More files will be released later this week and more earlier in the year.

The terrorist attacks of September 2001 in the U.S. have proved to be a license for European countries, the U.S., Australia, South Africa and others to develop "spying systems that affect all of us," Assange said.

"Who here has an iPhone?" Assange asked attendees of the press conference in London. "Who here has a Blackberry? Who here uses Gmail? Well you are all screwed. The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right now to countries across the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products."

WikiLeaks said the information was compiled with help from other media and journalism-related organizations, including ARD in Germany, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the U.K., The Hindu in India, L'Espresso in Italy, OWNI in France and The Washington Post in the U.S.

The files released by WikiLeaks comprise brochures, catalogs, manuals, presentations and other documents linked with developers of covert surveillance products. One document, from the company NetQuest, was a presentation given at ISS World Americas, a conference that took place in Washington, D.C., in October. The conference was aimed at law enforcement and intelligence analysts responsible for "lawful interception, electronic investigations and network intelligence gathering."

The Wall Street Journal recently published documents from the same conference, and Assange said that the "heavily redacted" material that the Journal released was only related to that conference. The "overwhelming" amount of material posted Thursday was new, Assange contended.

Assange said WikiLeaks is still developing a next-generation submissions system. He repeated WikiLeaks' concern with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocol, which enables computers to exchange encrypted information.

Assange said SSL is no longer safe and alleged that intelligence agencies have compromised Certificate Authorities (CAs). CAs issue digital certificates used for SSL. Hundreds of intermediate CAs can issue SSL certificates linked back to a root CA.

Several intermediate CAs have reported breaches in which hackers generated digital certificates for major websites including Google, which would give the hackers the ability to intercept communications.

Assange would not say when WikiLeaks will again have an online submissions system. The organization has developed an "offline component," he said.

"At the moment, we take things in a number of ways," Assange said.

Source http://www.macvideo.tv/distribution/news/?newsId=3323270&pagType=samechandate