Kmoze site help to build up your link Popularity and give you higher Page Rank. http://www.kmoze.com MOGADISHU, Somalia – A medical official in Somalia says five people have been killed in fighting after insurgents sent mortars toward the airport as the president was arriving. Ali Musa, the head of the Mogadishu ambulance service, says 11 others were wounded in the battles Wednesday. Witnesses say mortars were fired toward the airport around the time the president was landing. Police say the president was unharmed. Insurgents last week fired mortars at the airport as the president was boarding a plane, sparking battles that killed at least 24 people. Somalia's capital sees near-daily bloodshed as a powerful insurgent group with links to al-Qaida tries to overthrow the fragile government and push out 5,000 African Union peacekeepers. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Insurgent_mortars_again_target_Somali_president.htm 29th Oct,2009 MOGADISHU (AFP) - – Clashes broke out Wednesday in the Somali capital Mogadishu between government forces and insurgents, killing at least three people, witnesses said. The fighting was in a southern district near Maka al-Mukarama road but it was not immediately clear what prompted the clashes between members of the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab and government forces backed by African Union peacekeepers. "Two civilians and a member of a Somali militia combatting the government were killed in the clashes," Mukhtar Abdi Ismail, a local resident, told AFP. "I also saw six wounded people but the artillery fire from the African Union troops is likely to have hurt more," he said. Other witnesses in the area gave the same death toll. On October 22, an insurgent attack on the airport when President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was about to take off sparked an exchange of fire that left at least 21 civilians dead. Many of the victims died in the African Union's retaliatory fire. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Three_killed_in_Mogadishu_clashes.htm 29th Oct,2009 CONAKRY, Guinea – Tens of thousands of workers went on strike Wednesday to mark the one-month anniversary of a massacre in which troops fatally shot pro-democracy demonstrators and raped women in broad daylight, officials and workers said. Meanwhile, organizers said that dozens of people were going on a five-day hunger strike to protest the Sept. 28 violence in the West African nation. "I am tired, I am ashamed of what the women underwent at the stadium," said participant Halimatou Barry. "It is atrocious ... It is necessary that justice is done." Most of the capital's private businesses, shops and government offices were closed as part of the general strike Wednesday. Opposition member Mohamed Camara estimated that only 3,000 of some 97,000 government workers reported to work and said that many residents elsewhere in the country also heeded the call to strike. Guinea's government cautioned workers against causing unrest. The government supported unions' calls for two days of national mourning earlier this month but did not endorse Wednesday's strike. "We will not attack citizens, but we will not tolerate troublemakers," said anti-riot police force member Lt. Samoura Keita. Interior Minister Frederick Kollie, speaking on state media, said the strike was called by "troublemakers who wish for foreign intervention in the country." Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara, who seized power in a coup in December, has banned all protests and demonstrations. He has said that "uncontrolled" elements of the army carried out the rapes and killings at the Sept. 28 rally. A Guinean human rights group says 157 people were killed and more than 1,200 wounded when members of the presidential guard fired into the crowd of some 50,000 people at a soccer stadium. The government put the death toll at 57 and said most of the victims were trampled. One of the hunger strikers, Ousmane Bah, also accused government forces of killing at least 12 more people in the days after the massacre. Human Rights Watch said Tuesday that the violence was premeditated, and that dozens of women were seized from the stadium and driven in military vehicles to villas where they were gang-raped by uniformed men over several days. "We, the women of Guinea, are wounded in our souls and humiliated by the events of Sept. 28," said activist Diaraye Haidara. "A day of remembrance will certainly make us feel better but it will never heal our open wounds from these rapes." However, government worker Ibrahima Sano said he felt he could not miss work Wednesday. "One can also represent the female victims while working," he said. "I need to eat, and my children do too." http://www.kmoze.com/article/Guinea_strike_marks_1_month_since_bloody_massacre.htm 29th Oct,2009 LONDON (AFP) - – Al-Qaeda is using Somalia to train, regroup and plan further attacks, the Somali prime minister said Wednesday, warning it was also beginning to threaten regional stability. "Somalia has now clearly become a haven for the pariah that is Al-Qaeda," Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke said in a speech in London. "We cannot be certain of the precise size of their presence in our country but Al-Qaeda are here, they are training and planning in our land. Somalia is serving as an ideal place for them to re-group and redeploy." The Al-Qaeda inspired-Shebab group and allied hardline Islamists control large swathes of southern and central Somalia, and Sharmarke said defeating them was important not only to his country but "to the whole world". He said the insurgency was also spreading to other countries and "Al Shabab is now starting to threaten regional stability". "And Somalia does risk being taken over by Al-Qaeda, just as Afghanistan was the haven of Al-Qaeda in the 1990s," he told the Royal Institute of International Affairs think-tank at Chatham House in London. Sharmarke said that an exclusively military response would not work, saying strong government and regeneration was needed to provide an alternative. "An insurgency needs chaos, discontent and poverty and we must take that away," he said. Sharmarke is part of a Western-backed transitional government headed by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed that took over earlier this year, but has faced a renewed campaign by the hardline Islamist Shebab. Somalia has been gripped by civil wars and insurgencies and bereft of stable government since the overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Somali_PM_says_his_country_is_haven_for_Al-Qaeda.htm 29th Oct,2009 CONAKRY (AFP) - – Many residents of Conakry and other Guinean towns stayed at home Wednesday in a quiet protest at the army's massacre of opposition demonstrators exactly a month earlier. Opponents of the military junta in the west African country called on the population to stay at home to commemorate the massacre on September 28. At least 150 opposition protesters were killed by troops in a Conakry stadium as they gathered to urge junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara not to run in a presidential election he has slated for January. On Tuesday evening, the junta-appointed government had warned that the stay-at-home protest would be a "provocation" as the opposition and the junta had started talks with a regional mediator, Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore. In Conakry the port, banks and insurance companies and gas stations were closed. The Madina market, the largest in Guinea and located in a Conakry suburb, was also closed. However city life did not grind to a total halt, with inhabitants going out for their shopping to small shops and markets. In the public sector most services including schools were open. Observers in Guinea told AFP that this time not as many people stayed home as during the earlier protest on October 12 and 13. At least 150 people died when troops opened fire on thousands of protesters in a Conakry stadium on September 28, the United Nations says. Human rights groups put the toll at 157 dead and more than 1,200 injured, including women who were publicly raped. Camara's junta has admitted that 56 people died and 934 were wounded. In a damning report published Tuesday Human Rights Watch said an in-depth investigation into the events on September 28 showed the massacre was premeditated. "The manner in which the massacre appears to have been carried out -- the simultaneous arrival of the combined security force, the sealing off of exits and escape routes, and the simultaneous and sustained deadly firing by large numbers of the Presidential Guard -- suggests organisation, planning, and premeditation," Human Rights Watch said. "There is no way the government can continue to imply the deaths were somehow accidental," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "This was clearly a premeditated attempt to silence opposition voices." The United Nations has already announced it would set up an inquiry into the massacre while the International Criminal Court said it will hold a separate preliminary inquiry to determine if war crimes had been committed. Human Rights Watch called on the international community to fully support the inquiry and urged the Guinean authorities to cooperate fully. Next Monday, the Guinean opposition is due to meet Compaore in Ouagadougou for talks about the political crisis. It is not known if junta representatives will also be in the Burkinabe capital but in any case the opposition has made it clear it does not want to meet them. It has refused to talk to the junta until the army quits power. The opposition has proposed forming a new government of national unity to pave the way for elections. The junta seized power in the mineral-rich state on 23 December last year, just hours after the death of Guinea's longserving ruler Lansana Conte, who was an autocratic army general. http://www.kmoze.com/article/One_month_on_Guineans_protest_against_massacre.htm 29th Oct,2009 PARIS (AFP) - – French judges fined the Church of Scientology almost a million dollars on Tuesday for defrauding vulnerable followers but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France. Scientology's Celebrity Centre and its bookshop in Paris, the two branches of its French operations, were ordered to pay 600,000 euros (900,000 dollars) in fines for preying financially on its followers in the 1990s. Alain Rosenberg, the French leader of a movement best known for its Hollywood followers Tom Cruise and John Travolta, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined 30,000 euros on the same charge. Three more Scientologists received shorter suspended sentences and fines ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 euros for fraud, while two were fined 1,000 and 2,000 thousand euros for the illegal practice of pharmacy. France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and has prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but this case marks the first time the organisation as a whole has been convicted. "Religious freedom is in danger in this country," declared Celebrity Centre spokesman Eric Roux after the verdict, urging France to "recognise the legality of the Church of Scientology." The Scientologists' lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve said he would appeal, but that "the most important thing is that this association can continue to exercise its activities" in France where it claims 45,000 followers. The Paris case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom says she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for expensive products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy. A second claims she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enroll in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired. The Church of Scientology was ordered to publish the Paris court's ruling in half a dozen newspapers and magazines in France and abroad. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Olivier Morice, welcomed "a historic decision" that would help "future victims to be warned about the methods of Scientology" in France and elsewhere. Prosecutors initially asked the court to order a ban on the movement's French operations. But last month the court was alerted to a little-noticed legal change voted in by parliament in May, the month the trial began, which barred judges from dissolving an organisation convicted of fraud. Although the change has since been dropped, it was not retrospective, forcing the court to downgrade its sentence in the Scientology case. The head of France's interministerial body on cults, Georges Fenech, said the ruling was an important milestone, but said he was sorry that judges were prevented from tougher action. "I strongly regret that the law was changed discreetly during the trial, just before the trial, without anyone knowing," he told France 24 television. Judge Sophie-Helene Chateau argued "a very heavy fine" would be more effective than a ban that "would run the risk of its activities being pursued outside of any legal framework," suggesting the group could go underground. Catherine Picard, of the UNADFI anti-cult pressure group said it was "a fairly subtle and intelligent judgment that will undermine the organisation and allow greater control over it." Critics of Scientology had accused it of "infiltrating" the National Assembly to lobby for the legal change. Outraged by the allegation, the Scientologists had asked the judge to reopen the case to clear them of suspicion. Founded in 1954 by US science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is recognised as a religion in the United States and claims a worldwide membership of 12 million. But European officials in France, Germany, Greece, Russia and elsewhere accuse it of tricking vulnerable members out of large sums. The French ruling marks a new chapter in a global battle over the group's image, one that forced Wikipedia to block known Scientologists from editing entries at the communally-crafted online encyclopedia earlier this year. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Scientologists_convicted_of_fraud_in_France.htm 29th Oct,2009 LONDON (AFP) - – British energy giant BP said Tuesday that its third-quarter net profit sank 34 percent to 5.34 billion dollars (3.59 billion euros), hit by lower oil prices and despite higher production. But the company's share price surged 4.21 percent a cost-cutting pledge. BP said in an earnings release that total sales fell 37 percent to 67.9 billion dollars in the three months to September, even as output rose 6.9 percent to 3.92 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Net profit, excluding the effect of stocks, slumped 50 percent from a year earlier to 4.98 billion dollars. Excluding non-operating items and accounting costs, profits sank to 4.67 billion dollars -- but this easily beat analysts' consensus forecasts of 3.2 billion dollars. "These results demonstrate real operational momentum across the company," said BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward in a separate statement. "They show that even in the tough conditions that prevail in many of our markets, we can continue to deliver on our promise to invest in future growth while meeting our commitments to shareholders today." BP shares jumped 4.21 percent to 591 pence in morning trade after the group also revealed it would cut costs by 4.0 billion dollars this year. The group slashed its headcount by 3,000 people in 2008 and is on course to shed another 5,000 positions this year. "The fall in earnings was well-trailed but the numbers nonetheless have obliterated market forecasts, as evidenced by the spike in the share price in early trade," said analyst Richard Hunter at Hargreaves Lansdown stockbrokers. In recent days, oil prices have spiked to one-year highs around 82 dollars per barrel but they remain far below the record above 147 dollars struck in July 2008. According to BP, the average Brent crude oil price was 68.08 dollars per barrel during the third quarter of 2009, which was 40.8 percent lower than the 115.09 dollars recorded in the same period of last year. The results statement from BP also boosted shares in rival energy giant Royal Dutch Shell, which will report its third-quarter numbers on Thursday. BP's production was buoyed in the third quarter by major discoveries in Angola and Mexico. NCB oil market analyst Peter Hutton predicted that the company would likely upgrade its earnings forecasts after the "positive" results statement. "These are clearly a very positive set of results, not only convincingly beating forecasts on all key lines ... but also providing the basis for expected earnings upgrades beyond 2009 from the very strong delivery of cost savings," Hutton said in a note to clients. http://www.kmoze.com/article/BP_profit_slides_on_lower_oil_prices.htm 29th Oct,2009 PRAGUE (AFP) - – The Czech Republic's top court on Tuesday adjourned until November 3 its hearing on a challenge to the Lisbon Treaty by Eurosceptic senators. "The court will confer,"constitutional court chairman Pavel Rychetsky said during a televised hearing. "For this purpose, the court hearing is adjourned till Tuesday, November 3, 9:00 am (8:00 GMT)." The Czech Republic is the last EU member state that has not yet ratified the treaty, with President Vaclav Klaus vowing not to sign it before the court gives its ruling. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Czech_court_delays_verdict_on_Lisbon_Treaty.htm 29th Oct,2009 KHARTOUM (AFP) - – The kidnappers of a Franco-British Red Cross worker in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region are demanding a three-million-euro ransom, a senior Sudanese official said on Tuesday. Abdel Baqi Gilani, a state humanitarian affairs minister, said they have "demanded a ransom of three million euros (4.5 million dollars), but we will not pay a ransom, and the same goes for the Red Cross." Gilani added, without elaborating, that the government had ruled out any military option to free Gauthier Lefevre, 35, kidnapped last week in West Darfur state near the Chadian border. For her part, International Committee of the Red Cross spokeswoman Tamara al-Rifai said the kidnappers had asked for the ransom on Monday but stressed that the Red Cross did not discuss such demands. "The policy of the ICRC is not to pay a ransom," she said, without disclosing any figure. The ICRC said after a previous contact with the kidnappers that Lefevre was in good health. This was the fifth abduction of a foreign worker since March when Sudan's ties with foreign aid groups soured after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Beshir for alleged war crimes in Darfur. It is the first time a Red Cross employee has been targeted. Last week, two female aid workers -- Irishwoman Sharon Commins and Ugandan Hilda Kawuki -- were freed after being held hostage for 107 days in Darfur. An Irish newspaper quoted a Beshir advisor, Musa Hilal, as saying they were ransomed for 150,000 euros (225,000 dollars). Irish, Sudanese and Ugandan authorities denied they were freed in exchange for money. Hilal later denied the report, saying he was not involved in negotiations to release the hostages. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Darfur_kidnappers_demand_3_million_euro_ransom.htm 29th Oct,2009 MOGADISHU (AFP) - – Somali pirates said Tuesday they had hijacked a small sailing yacht with two foreigners on board, most likely a British couple reported missing since leaving the Seychelles last week. The hijacked yacht was heading back to the pirate lair of Harardhere in central Somalia but the pirates who spoke to AFP from there could not formerly identify the two hostages. "We don't know their nationality yet but I can tell you that we have a small boat with two people on board. They are coming to Harardhere, and only then can we start negotiating," Abdi Yare said. "This was an unexpected catch because nobody could have predicted that two people on their own would have dared to venture out in the Indian Ocean at this time," said Yare, speaking by phone from Harardhere. Another local pirate leader, who refused to be named, explained that the yacht was attacked by two pirate skiffs. "Thirteen pirates on two speed boats snatched this small boat very far from the Somali coast," he said, without specifying the exact date of the hijacking. The European Union's anti-piracy naval mission said it had spotted a yacht in the area. "We have spotted a sailing yacht in the Indian Ocean towing two skiffes generally used by pirates. We are not able to confirm that this is the same yacht we are looking for the last few days," said Lieutenant commander Daniel Auwermann. "They are heading to the coast line of Somalia, of which they are 200 miles away. We cannot confirm anything more. Investigations are still ongoing." The British foreign ministry earlier said it was urgently trying to locate a British couple whose yacht sent a distress signal while sailing near pirate-infested waters, and has not been seen since. Paul Chandler, 58, and his wife Rachel, 55, were heading from the Seychelles towards Tanzania in their 11-meter yacht the Lynn Rival when their emergency beacon went off on Friday. "We're in touch with the family in the UK and the Seychelles coastguard, which continues to monitor the situation and has conducted a search of the area," a spokeswoman told AFP. Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency said an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) was activated at 2200 GMT Friday. "They had left the Seychelles on October 22 and were going on a 150 nautical-mile passage southwest to the Amirante Islands, en route to Tanzania," the spokeswoman said. In a statement to AFP on Tuesday, the coastguard in Seychelles did not rule out a pirate attack, confirming that a search was underway for the sailboat. "We are monitoring the situation and at the present moment there is no confirmation that the Lynn Rival has been taken by pirates, even if the probability of hijacking is high," said coastguard commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rosette. On Wednesday the Chandlers said they were running in a replacement outboard motor, completing departure formalities and expected to leave the Seychelles the next day. "We probably won't have satellite phone coverage until we're fairly close to the African coast, so we may be out of touch for some time," they wrote. The hijacking of the yacht brings to eight the number of boats currently in pirate hands, together with more than 150 crew. Since last year a flotilla of foreign warships has been patrolling the piracy-plagued Gulf of Aden, one of the globe's busiest maritime trade routes. Pirates have since redeployed to the Indian Ocean, a much wider area very difficult for naval forces to patrol effectively. Since the start of October, subsiding monsoon winds have allowed pirates equipped with small skiffs to resume their operations in earnest after a lull that had seen the number of hijacked vessels drop to two. Among their latest catches are an Indian cargo ship, a Spanish trawler with a crew of 36, a Singapore container ship with 21 crew members and a Chinese bulk carrier with a crew of 25. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Somali_pirates_hijack_foreign_yacht_with_two_on_board.htm 29th Oct,2009 POLIGNY, France (AFP) - – President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a 650-million-euro aid plan Tuesday for France's subsidised but still struggling farmers, along with one billion euros in cheap loans. "I will not let French agriculture be swept away by the crisis," Sarkozy said, in a speech in an eastern cheese-making town in which he declared farming an integral part of the country's identity. "I have come to offer you an unprecedented plan of exceptional support for our agriculture which includes one billion euros in bank loans and 650 million euros of exceptional state aid," he said. France is the European Union's biggest agricultural producer and farming employs 770,000 people, but the heavily state-supported sector is reeling from a 15-percent collapse in prices over the past year. French farmers have in recent months mounted more of their famed protests, discharging gallons of milk in the street, blocking roads with slow-moving tractor convoys and erecting burning barricades on the Champs-Elysees. Reacting to their concerns amid falling opinion polls and rumblings in his own right-wing majority, the president said the crisis in agriculture was due "above all to a lack of European and global regulation". He called on the European Commission to limit market speculation on agricultural prices and to bring derivative financial products under control. "In the area of agricultural commodities markets, Europe should put in place proper regulation," he said. The new aid plan will be put into action "in its totality" by the end of the year, Sarkozy said in his speech in Poligny, a town in the Jura region on the Swiss border best known as the home of Comte cheese. A European Commission spokesman said the EU executive would decide once it had seen details of Sarkozy's plan whether or not it breaks competition rules. The main farming union, the FNSEA, gave the project guarded support but warned that a short-term programme of handouts was no substitute for the moves it has demanded to officially regulate retail food prices. A spokesman for the Small Farmers' Confederation expressed disappointment in the plan, arguing that it did not go much further than standard emergency measures in time of bad weather. "Nicolas Sarkozy appears to only now be discovering there are structural causes to this crisis and that European policy needs to be reformed. He tells us this one year after the French EU presidency," Philippe Colin said. Sarkozy declared agriculture to be France's most important economic sector, claiming "an annual turnover of 163 billion euros, far ahead of the industrial sector", although it was not clear if this included food production industries. Sarkozy said it was "unacceptable" that prices paid to farmers for their products had dropped by 20 percent over the last year while prices the consumer pays for food had fallen by only one percent. "This gap is putting our food production in danger," he said. He said interest rates on the new loans on offer would be 1.5 percent, with young farmers getting an even lower rate of 1.0 percent. That, he said, would allow every farmer to sort out his or her finances and invest for the future. France is the biggest beneficiary of the EU's massive farm subsidy system, the Common Agricultural Policy, receiving 10 billion euros last year, ahead of Spain with 7.1 billion and Germany with 6.6 billion. The French state has been rapped for systematically granting fruit and vegetable farmers funds intended to help cope with short-term crises, and was asked this year to recover 330 million euros paid out between 1992 and 2002. Paris has defended the practice and demanded more time to address the issue, amid threats of further protests by fruit farmers and market gardeners. Farmers in France and Germany have led Europe-wide protests over dairy prices -- which have halved in some countries since 2007. Twenty of the 27 EU countries now back efforts to increase prices for milk, butter and cheese. http://www.kmoze.com/article/France_s_Sarkozy_announces_1_65-billion-euro_farm_aid_plan.htm 29th Oct,2009 BELGRADE (AFP) - – Bosnian Serb ex-leader Biljana Plavsic returned to her home in Serbia Tuesday from a prison in Sweden after a UN court granted her early release from an 11-year jail sentence for war crimes. Plavsic, 79, landed shortly after 2:00 pm (1300 GMT) at Belgrade airport and immediately left for her apartment in the Serbian capital, accompanied by Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik. Upon arriving at her home, Plavsic, who also has Serbian citizenship, briefly said she would spend some time with her brother and sister-in-law, B92 television reported. "I am happy to be free after nine years," she said, adding that she would "soon" talk to the press. Dressed in a dark brown fur coat, a smiling Plavsic waived a kiss to journalists and briefly greeted several people who were waiting in front of the apartment building in central Belgrade. The release caused an immediate backlash in neighbouring Bosnia. The Croat chairman of the country's tripartite presidency Zeljko Komsic cancelled a November 4-8 official visit to Sweden in protest. "The Swedish government released Plavsic because it wanted to and not because it had to," Komsic said in a statement released in Sarajevo. The decision is "particularly unacceptable and embarrassing" as Foreign Minister Carl Bildt had acted as a witness for Plavsic's defence, visited her in prison and took part in the decision on her release, he said. Around 30 prisoners sewed their lips together in a protest at Bosnia's top security jail in the central town of Zenica. The prisoners, jailed for various criminal offences, were protesting Plavsic's early release while they were "deprived of that right for a number of years already," the prison said on its website. Plavsic is the highest ranking official of the former Yugoslavia to have acknowledged responsibility for atrocities committed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Related article: Plavsic: the Bosnian Serbs' 'Iron Lady' She was sentenced in February 2003 to 11 years behind bars after she admitted playing a leading role in a campaign of persecution against Croats and Muslims during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, which claimed about 100,000 lives and forced some 2.2 million people from their homes. Plavsic served her sentence at a women's prison in Sweden, where the government last week confirmed she would become eligible for release on Tuesday after serving two-thirds of her term, in accordance with Swedish law. She gave herself up to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague in January 2001 after she learned that she was the subject of a secret indictment for genocide, extermination, murder, persecution, deportation and inhumane acts. Plavsic struck a plea agreement with prosecutors in October 2002 in which she "admitted to supporting and contributing to achieving the objective of the permanent removal of ethnic populations by force." The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced in September that she would be eligible for early release from Sweden's Hinseberg prison after she expressed remorse and a report showed she had "exhibited good behaviour" in prison. "She has participated in the institution's walks and she also occupies herself by cooking and baking," it said. Earlier on Tuesday, Plavsic's sister-in-law Vasilija Plavsic told B92 radio the former Bosnian Serb president would not return to politics upon release. "I do not believe she would return to the political scene. She wants to spend her late years in peace and quietness," the sister-in-law said. Known as the "Iron Lady" for her ruthless leadership, the former ally of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was a fiery nationalist who during the war publicly supported the campaign of persecutions of non-Serbs. But the former biology professor underwent an extraordinary pragmatic conversion in 1996, which saw her cooperate with the international community, turning the tables on her mentor Karadzic -- now on trial for genocide -- who was forced to resign. It was this post-war conduct together with her surprise guilty plea to the tribunal that the judges considered to be seriously mitigating circumstances. Her release came on the second day of Karadzic's genocide trial in The Hague which the 64-year-old has so far boycotted, demanding more time to prepare his defence. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Bosnian_Serb_ex-leader_Plavsic_in_Belgrade_after_prison_release.htm 29th Oct,2009 PRAGUE (AFP) - – The highest court in the Czech Republic on Tuesday delayed until after an upcoming EU summit its decision on whether the Lisbon Treaty dovetails with the nation's constitution. Its one-week adjournment leaves on tenterhooks the fate of the treaty to overhaul EU decision-making, with eurosceptic President Vaclav Klaus refusing to sign it before the court hands down judgement. "The court will confer," constitutional court chairman Pavel Rychetsky said during a televised hearing on Tuesday. "For this purpose, the court hearing is adjourned till Tuesday, November 3, 9:00 am (0800 GMT)." The Czech Republic is the only one of the 27 EU member states -- whose leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday -- that has yet to ratify the treaty, which needs to be adopted by all nations before it can take effect. The case before the constitutional court in Prague stems from a complaint lodged by eurosceptic Czech senators and fears that the Lisbon Treaty means surrendering too much national powers to the European Union. "No matter what the outcome will be ... the Czech public must realise that the Czech Republic's independence is being handed over" to Brussels, senator Jiri Oberfalzer told reporters outside the hearing. Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, a Lisbon Treaty backer, said he had expected the delay and was not upset at all. "European politicians did not expect the court to decide today either," he said in an interview with Prima commercial television. The constitutional court has dealt with the Lisbon Treaty once before, last year, when it concluded that contested provisions within it respect the Czech constitution. But it failed to assess the treaty as a whole, leaving the door open for the latest complaint. Klaus angered his EU partners when he sought a Czech opt-out from the treaty three weeks ago, in what his critics took as a fresh attempt to delay its adoption. The proposed opt-out -- to ensure the treaty will not allow ethnic Germans forced out of the former Czechoslovakia after World War II for Nazi collaboration to reclaim their property -- is on the EU summit agenda. London and Warsaw already have opt-outs -- ensuring for Britain that EU laws and court will not prevail over its judicial system, and for Poland that it would not be forced to allow gay marriages. Czech EU minister Stefan Fule suggested last week the Czech exemption would be a general one, comprising a comma and the words "Czech Republic" attached to "Great Britain" and "Poland" in the treaty's protocol. Fischer, who will represent his country in Brussels, said talks on the exemption were "on the right track mainly owing to cooperation with the Swedish EU presidency." "An agreement on the text is beginning to shape up very nicely," he added. The European Union has been in suspense awaiting Klaus's signature, the last step in the Czech ratification process after parliament approved the Lisbon Treaty earlier this year. With the current impasse, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who won a second five-year term last month, is unable to nominate a new commission, because it is unclear what legal basis he should use to do so. The mandate of the current commission expires at the end of October, and a spokesman has said it would stay on in a caretaker role until the fate of the treaty is resolved. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Czech_court_delays_Lisbon_verdict_till_after_EU_summit.htm 29th Oct,2009 PARIS (AFP) - – A French court slapped jail terms Tuesday on the main players in a network that smuggled arms to war-torn Angola and included an ex-minister and the son of the late president Francois Mitterrand. Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkady Gaydamak was convicted in absentia for organising the 1990s arms sales and sentenced to six years in jail at the trial that exposed a ring of corruption at the highest levels of Paris politics. The huge Soviet-made arsenal that fuelled Angola's grim civil war included 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 170,000 anti-personnel mines, 12 helicopters, and six warships and was worth 790 million dollars. Only six of the 42 defendants were acquitted in the trial dubbed "Angolagate" that began last October after years of complex investigations. "Rarely have we reached such levels in the organisation and the dissimulation of criminality generating considerable profits," said judge Jean-Baptiste Parlos as the verdicts were handed down. He described Gaydamak, 57, as someone who "behind the mask of worthiness... scoffs at borders, laws and justice". French businessman Pierre Falcone, 55, was also sentenced to six years' jail for his role in the illegal trade and was immediately taken into custody by police at the courtroom, despite his plans to appeal. Ex-interior minister Charles Pasqua, 82, was ordered jailed for a year, plus two more years suspended, and fined 100,000 euros (150,000 dollars). Now a French senator, he was not in court but his lawyers said he intends to appeal. In a television interview with France 2, Pasqua said that former president Mitterrand knew that weapons were being sold to the Angolans. "The president was aware of the sale of arms to Angola. The prime minister was aware, most ministers too...I think the time has come to put the record straight," he said. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, 62, who was an advisor on Africa to his president father, was given a two-year suspended sentence and a 375,000-euro fine for receiving embezzled funds from the illegal arms sales to Angola. He accepted millions of euros in "consultant fees" on the sale of the weapons to President Eduardo Dos Santos's regime for use in the 1979-2002 bush war against UNITA rebels. The arms originated in the former Soviet bloc and were sent to Africa in breach of French law through a French-based firm and its eastern European subsidiary. Sales began when Mitterrand, a socialist, was in power in 1993 and continued until 1998, three years after conservative Jacques Chirac's election. Although no Angolan officials were indicted, court papers alleged that Dos Santos and his inner circle received millions of dollars in kickbacks. Angola pushed to have the trial abandoned, and Sarkozy was forced to fly to Luanda in May 2008 to mend ties strained by the case. The trial saw judges struggling to make sense of a labyrinth of murky deals linking French politicians, businessmen and public figures and a massive arms shipment to a war-torn African country. Profile of Russian-Israeli tycoon Arkady Gaydamak Several defendants insisted the trade was carried out in full view of French authorities but that Paris kept quiet to shore up a regional ally and protect an important source of oil. Despite a promise to come to Paris and explain his role, Gaydamak remained abroad and is believed to be currently in Moscow. The court heard that he used his contacts in Eastern Europe to get his hands on the Soviet-designed weapons that were shipped to Luanda. He was convicted on counts of selling arms, influence peddling and money laundering. Falcone, who holds French, Canadian and Angolan citizenship, was named Angola's ambassador to the United Nations Paris-based cultural organisation UNESCO in 2003 and attempted to claim diplomatic immunity in the case. He was convicted for influence peddling, arms sales and embezzlement, and Pasqua for influence peddling. Right-wing politician Jean-Charles Marchiani was sentenced to three years in prison, with 21 months of that to be suspended, for complicity in influence peddling and embezzlement. The French financier and best-selling author Paul-Loup Sulitzer got a 15-month suspended sentence for receiving embezzled funds. Jacques Attali, a former advisor to the late president, and magistrate Georges Fenech were acquitted. http://www.kmoze.com/article/France_jails_Angolagate_power_players.htm 29th Oct,2009 LONDON (AFP) - – The European Commission is expected to approve plans to break up and sell nationalised British bank Northern Rock in the wake of the financial crisis, reports said Wednesday. State rescued Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group will also be partially sold off in coming years in British government-backed plans to create more competition in the market, according to the Independent. "We are keen to see greater competition in the banking sector as soon as possible," an unnamed British government source was quoted by the paper as saying. The three British banks received huge government bailouts at the height of the global economic crisis. Authorities are concerned about state-backed banks having a stranglehold on the market. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is set to approve the split of Northern Rock into a "good" profitable section with no debt and a "bad" bank which will remain in state hands for the time being. A sale of Northern Rock's "good" assets as early as next year will be handled by UK Financial Investments which manages government holdings in British banks, the Daily Telegraph said. Virgin Money and National Australia Bank, owner of Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, were named in media reports Wednesday as possible buyers. Northern Rock, once Britain's fifth-biggest home loan provider, faced potential collapse in September 2007 as banks tightened lending criteria amid uncertainty over exposure to the collapsed US subprime home loan sector. The troubled group was forced to request emergency funding from the Bank of England -- which sparked the first run on a British bank for more than a century. The bank had vowed earlier this year to boost lending to struggling homebuyers over the next two years in recession-hit Britain. Lloyds is expected to face a forced reduction in its share of the retail banking market from 30 per cent to 25 per cent, with the disposal of more than a seventh of its 3,000 branches, according to the Independent. Lloyds, which is 43-percent owned by the taxpayer, has reportedly been trying to raise capital to keep it out of the government's insurance scheme for toxic assets. RBS, which is 70 percent owned by the taxpayer after it was saved from collapse by a government bailout last year, is working on plans to sell off several hundred branches, the newspaper said. http://www.kmoze.com/article/EU_to_back_split_of_UK_s_Northern_Rock_reports.htm 29th Oct,2009 PARIS (AFP) - – ArcelorMittal, the world's top steel maker, said Wednesday it had made money in the third quarter after a nine-month losing streak, an unexpected turnaround reflecting healthier demand and thousands of job cuts. The company posted a three months to September net profit of 903 million dollars (631 million euros), compared with forecasts for a loss of 53 million dollars from analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. ArcelorMittal suffered a second quarter net loss of 792 million dollars. It last posted a net profit, of 3.82 billion dollars in third quarter 2008, before the financial crisis brought the global economy to its knees. "We saw the first signs of recovery in the third quarter ... We should see a further improvement going into 2010 although the operating environment remains difficult," company head Lakshmi Mittal said in a statement. But the results left investors unimpressed, notably a forecast for a fourth quarter operating profit of between 2.0 and 2.4 billion dollars that was deemed to be "clearly disappointing" by analysts at Societe Generale. ArcelorMittal shares at mid-day were down 3.67 percent at 23.60 euros on a Paris market that was 1.76 percent weaker. The company said it expected to operate at 70 percent of capacity in the fourth quarter, having fallen to around 50 percent during the worst of the crisis. It said its rebound reflected the faster-than-expected implementation of urgent measures at the start of the global downturn. Fixed costs have been slashed by 2.2 billion dollars on an annual basis, savings that flowed in part from the elimination of 39,000 jobs in the past year -- through voluntary departures -- out of a workforce of 287,000. Net debt, which at one point appeared to call into question the group's financial soundness, has been cut by 11 billion dollars in the last 12 months to 21.6 billion dollars. Financial director Aditya Mittal said debt reduction was no longer a company priority. The group plans to boost investment to 4.0-5.0 billion dollars in 2010 from an expected 3.0 billion dollars this year, notably in emerging market countries and extraction projects. But Lakshmi Mittal insisted that despite improvements in demand and sales price levels, the company had not yet emerged fully from the crisis. Uncertainty continues to surround a rebound in China, far and away the world's leading consumer and producer of steel. While Chinese demand should limit the decline in world steel consumption this year to 8.6 percent, according to the World Steel Association, doubts persist about the pace, scope and durability of the Chinese recovery. The company added that that if inventory draw-downs in the United States and Europe were completed, a complete recovery in those markets would likely take several years. http://www.kmoze.com/article/ArcelorMittal_bounces_back_on_demand_gain.htm 29th Oct,2009 PARIS (AFP) - – Half of urban Europe endures noise pollution from road, rail and air traffic loud enough to disrupt sleep, impair learning and trigger hypertension at night, according to a report released. More than 41 million people in cities of at least 250,000 people from 19 countries that submitted road transport data to the European Environment Agency (EEA) deal with road racket averaging 55 decibels or higher -- the World Health Organization threshold for health impacts. Among capital cities, Bratislava is the noisiest, with nearly 55 percent of the population thus exposed, followed closely by Warsaw and Paris, the EAA reported. Some 3.6 million urban dwellers cope with an ear-splitting levels of 70 decibels or higher. Many European Union countries -- including France, Portugal, Belgium and Greece -- failed to provide complete data before a December 2007 cut-off date, leaving major gaps in the transport noise database published online Monday (http://noise.eionet.europa.eu/index.html). But earlier this year the EEA estimated that some 67 million urbanites in the 27-nation European Union are confronted with noise levels above the 55 decibel mark. "Besides disturbing sleep, there is increasing evidence that transport noise can effect the cardiovascular system, mental health and school performance," said Oscar Romero, a spokesman for the Copenhagen-based EU agency. Noise has gotten a "late start" compared to other forms of pollution, both in terms of regulation and public opinion, he said. "If you compare the level of awareness about air quality or greenhouse gas emissions to noise, I think we are still at an early stage," he commented by telephone. Scientists have also been slow to focus on how constant noise levels influence mental and physical health, as well in the classroom and the workplace, he pointed out. Air traffic noise pollution is affects a large number of people in the Netherlands, Germany and especially Britain, where more than 800,000 people are exposed to steady decibel levels ranging from 55 to more than 75. "We also have studies piling up about how noise is affecting wildlife," Romero said. In 2002, the EAA's 32 members adopted the Environmental Noise Directive, pledging to provide standardised data on noise levels from road, rail and air transport. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Europe_blighted_by_noise_pollution.htm 29th Oct,2009 FRANKFURT (AFP) - – Germany's biggest lender Deutsche Bank has struck a deal to buy Sal. Oppenheim, a Luxembourg-based private banking group, for 1.0 billion euros (1.5 billion dollars), Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday. "With this transaction, Deutsche Bank strengthens its position among high-net-worth private clients, especially in Germany," a statement said. "Sal. Oppenheim's Asset and Wealth Management activities will be maintained and expanded in the future under the private banks established brand and preserve Sal. Oppenheim's identity, values, culture and service quality." The transaction nonetheless marks the end of Sal Oppenheim's independence. The bank was founded in 1789 and billed itself as the largest independent private bank in Europe, but its finances have deteriorated sharply. "In the future Sal. Oppenheim will focus on their core asset and wealth management business," the statement said. Current shareholders in the bank will have the option of taking a long-term holding of up to 20 percent in the German subsidiary Sal. Oppenheim jr. and Cie. KGaA based in Cologne, the statement said. Deutsche Bank also planned to buy activities owned by Oppenheim for an additional 300 million euros. As of June 30, Sal. Oppenheim had approximately 135 billion euros in client assets under management, and employed roughly 4,400 people. Deutsche bank had total assets as of June 30 of 1.73 trillion euros and nearly 79,000 staff. Its private wealth management division controlled invested assets of around 171 billion euros, and once the deal is finalised "will become the market leader in Germany in the coverage of high-net-worth private clients, family assets and trusts." http://www.kmoze.com/article/Deutsche_Bank_strikes_billion-euro_takeover_deal.htm 29th Oct,2009 BERLIN (AFP) - – German Chancellor Angela Merkel formally embarked on a second term on Wednesday at the head of a new coalition pledging to make Europe's biggest economy emerge stronger from the financial crisis. After her general election victory on September 27, a majority of German MPs voted for a second term for Merkel, with 323 in favour, 285 against and four abstentions, meaning at least nine from her own bloc didn't support her. "I accept the result and thank you for your trust," she said, as lawmakers applauded and presented her with bouquets of flowers in the main chamber of the Reichstag parliament building. Profile of the world's most powerful woman Merkel, now 55, crowned a meteoric rise through Germany's male-dominated political scene to became Germany's first female chancellor in 2005 as well as its first leader from the former communist East Germany, and its youngest. In last month's general elections, Merkel was able to ditch her previous partners, the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), for a tie-up of her conservatives with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP). The new government has pledged to make Germany, accounting for a third of eurozone ou tput, emerge from the global downturn in better shape than before the financial crisis sent it into its worst recession since World War II. It has promised 24 billion euros (35.6 billion dollars) worth of tax cuts, effectively a third stimulus package, putting it in breach of European Union deficit rules for several years to come. Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the 16-nation eurozone and a candidate to become the EU's first full time president, said this week that Germany's debt mountain was "excessive and scarcely bearable for the next generation." Horst Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund and now holder of the mostly ceremonial post of German president, told Merkel on Wednesday that the government "has to reduce the national debt" and warned against "unrealistic growth expectations." Merkel has ruled out large reductions in government spending to reduce borrowing, saying this could jeopardise a fragile recovery, and that the growth the tax cuts would trigger would eventually help cover the cost. "In such a unique economic crisis the state must do the little that it can do to boost growth, financed by higher debts," Wolfgang Schaeuble, Merkel's new finance minister, told Stern magazine on Wednesday. "First what we have to do is to make it through the crisis -- afterwards we can consolidate." The Financial Times's Lex column on Wednesday described the tax cuts, which it said meant that Germany now had the largest fiscal stimulus in place in the eurozone, as a "worthwhile gamble." Merkel told ZDF public television on Wednesday that "once the crisis is over," budgetary discipline and bringing Germany's deficit back within EU limits would be "of upmost importance." But the economy is not her only challenge. Figuring highly will be Germany's increasingly unpopular mission in Afghanistan, with its about 4,200 troops based there facing an ever more tenacious insurgency and Berlin under pressure from its allies to do more. FDP head Guido Westerwelle used his first statement as foreign minister on Wednesday to stay that the international community had to stay the course in Afghanistan. The chancellor's first foreign trip in her new term was due to take her to Paris later on Wednesday for talks over dinner with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Merkel's SPD challenger in the election, said he was "astounded and outraged ... that (Merkel) is flying abroad and not being questioned by parliament on the content of her future policies." http://www.kmoze.com/article/Tax-cutting_Merkel_kicks_off_second_term.htm 29th Oct,2009 PRAGUE (AFP) - – An opt-out from the European Union's reform Lisbon Treaty is the last condition set by Czech President Vaclav Klaus in the ratification process, Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said on Wednesday. Klaus is the last EU leader holding out on signing the treaty designed to streamline decision-making in the 27-nation bloc, which must be ratified by all member states to take effect. "I have this guarantee, this assurance from Mr President, from our meeting on Tuesday evening, and I have no reason not to believe it," Fischer told reporters. "I think the president and the prime minister don't have to make out a contract signed by a notary," he added. Fischer will lead the Czech delegation at the EU summit in Brussels starting Thursday, expected to discuss the opt-out demanded by Klaus. The eurosceptic Czech head of state wants the opt-out to ensure the treaty will not allow ethnic Germans forced out of the former Czechoslovakia after World War II on charges of Nazi collaboration to reclaim their lost property. Britain and Poland already have opt-outs. London won guarantees that EU laws and courts will not prevail over its judicial system, while Warsaw cannot be forced to allow gay marriages. Fischer said he would not disclose the text of the Czech opt-out since it "is being hammered out by the Swedish (EU) presidency, and it is up to the presidency to publish it." But he said it was "the same opt-out that Poland and Britain had negotiated earlier." Klaus is also waiting with his signature for a verdict of the top Czech court, which is assessing the treaty's compliance with the country's constitution. On Tuesday, the court delayed its verdict until November 3. The European Union has been on tenterhooks awaiting Klaus's signature, the last step in the Czech ratification process after parliament approved the Lisbon Treaty earlier this year. With the current impasse, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who won a second five-year term last month, is unable to nominate a new commission because it is unclear what legal basis he should use to do so. The mandate of the current commission expires at the end of this month, and a spokesman has said it would stay on in a caretaker role until the fate of the treaty is resolved. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Lisbon_opt-out_is_Klaus_s_last_condition_Czech_PM.htm 29th Oct,2009 GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Police arrested a man Tuesday who they say headed the operations of the "La Familia" drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan. Abel Valadez Oribe, 32, was reportedly heading for a cockfight when police stopped his car and arrested him, authorities said. They said police were tipped to his whereabouts by several informants. Police said that Oribe, known as "El Clinton," was allegedly the mastermind behind several murders, including the assassination last year of Salvador Vergara, the 33-year-old mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal, a popular weekend retreat. U.S. authorities arrested more than 300 people Friday in a sting focused on La Familia. Also on Tuesday, Mexican police found dismembered remains of a man in plastic bags by the side of a road in Uruapan, another city in Michoacan, which is one of the areas most affected by drug gang violence. He was believed to around 30 years old. Cracking down on another cartel, police said Tuesday that they had detained five suspected associates of the Gulf drug cartel for alleged involvement in violent clashes that killed four people in the central Mexican state of Hidalgo last week. The Hidalgo state prosecutor's office said the suspects are affiliated with the Zetas, the drug ring's infamous hit men. It said the five had firearms and a grenade when police apprehended them last Thursday. A federal judge ruled they can be held for 40 days while authorities continue the investigation. Drug gang violence has surged in Mexico since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and ordered a nationwide crackdown on drug traffickers. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Mexico_nabs_man_called_drug_cartel_s_state_leader.htm 29th Oct,2009 HAVANA – The habanero peppers, oranges and peanuts cost more at Cuba's free-market "agros" _ farmers markets where vendors, not the government, set prices. But food stalls overflow with abundance not seen elsewhere on the shortage-plagued island. So when the Communist Party served notice that it plans to impose price controls at those agros _ ending one of Cuba's few capitalist experiments _ angry shoppers fearing yet more shortages turned on state inspectors in an unprecedented public rage. Police were called to one farmers market this month when customers shouted and chanted at state workers conducting a routine inspection. Two Associated Press reporters were escorted out of the same market Tuesday after their questions about the changes caused another shouting match. "It's going to be a mess. There will be less merchandise," said Antonio Gutierrez, whose farm cooperative outside the capital sells vegetables to vendors at Havana's 42nd Avenue and 19th Street agro, where the disturbances occurred. Price controls would end one of the country's few private business initiatives just as Cubans hoped the economy would loosen up under Raul Castro, who took power from his ailing brother, Fidel, in February 2008. "Control is now what the Cuban government is trying to lock up more than ever," said Bill Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The free-market agros, where the state allows vendors to set prices based on supply and demand, have been very successful in getting food into people's hands, Messina said. "But it does reduce government control of food," he added. With the proposed change, shoppers accustomed to tables piled high with lettuce, spinach, grapes and green peppers fear either the empty shelves or unbearable lines that are routine at government-controlled produce markets. At one such market this week, a chalkboard read "there are potatoes," meaning spuds could be purchased with Cubans' monthly ration cards. Besides that, a single produce stand sold only plantains, taro root and onions. "They want to make all the markets like this. Sad," the lone vendor said. Producers, sellers and customers said they heard from party officials that new price controls were set to begin Nov. 1 _ but were postponed until January after a public outcry unheard of under the totalitarian government. The government has not commented. But a member of Havana's municipal parliament confirmed the change had been scheduled to take effect next week. The official requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to international media. He said authorities did not take enough steps to implement the changes by Nov. 1. The would-be takeover is part of President Raul Castro's overall crackdown on corruption _ in this case on farmers who are required to meet government quotas but instead sell to free-market vendors through unlicensed truckers because they make more money. By law, small producers and cooperatives can sell leftover fruits and vegetables at their own prices after they meet production quotas _ usually around 70 percent of everything they grow. But the state often takes more than six months to pay farmers, while the truckers offer cash on the spot, said Ismael, a cabbage vendor who only gave his first name because he admitted flouting the law. "We are bandits," he said. "But without us, none of this works." Bringing trucks loaded with fruits and vegetables into Havana without permission is illegal, but Ismael said, "we've got the police more or less paid off." The agros first appeared in the 1980, when food shortages forced a reluctant Fidel Castro to allow farmers to sell produce at prices driven, at least in part, by the free market. Castro shuttered them six years later to improve foundering state agricultural production. "They closed them for some of the same things we are talking about now: the black market, middle men making all kinds of money, the government unable to control the market, the food supply," Messina said. But the small dose of capitalism returned in 1994, when Cuba was again forced to allow more free-market enterprise to keep its people from starving after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which gave Cuba billions in annual subsidies. More than 300 farmers markets now operate nationwide. But over the years, most have shifted from market-based pricing back to state hands as the government worked to prevent prices from climbing too high and sellers from becoming too rich. After Hurricanes Gustav and Ike ravaged the island last year, the state froze prices on produce at all farmers markets and restricted sales to prevent hoarding. Free-market agros virtually shutdown because vendors preferred to stay home rather than operate at a loss. Permanent price controls could ruin fruit and vegetable vendors such as Pablo Miguel Saldivar, a 12-year veteran of the 42nd and 19th market who stacked green bunches of small bananas on a rusty metal tray. Fellow vendor Maria Elena, who didn't want to give her last name and be identified criticizing the government, is an agricultural engineer who makes more money selling papaya. "I'm 51 years old. Where will I go?" she said. When state officials arrived three weeks ago to close this market for inspection, rumors swirled that they were imposing new prices. Shoppers mutinied, yelling until the police arrived. "There was a misunderstanding, and the people reacted," Saldivar said. But the air at the markets remains tense. Retired beer factory worker Nancy Alfonso triggered bedlam Tuesday when she defended the proposed changes, saying, "the state doesn't rob, it's all of these people who do." Screaming on both sides got so intense, officials removed reporters asking questions. "Don't you know this is foreign press!" a market administrator angrily admonished Alfonso and other shouting customers as he ushered the AP out of the market. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Cubans_fear_more_gov_t_control_of_farmers_markets.htm 29th Oct,2009 UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly condemned the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, an annual ritual that highlights global opposition to the policy. This year's vote was 187-3 in opposition to the embargo, up from 185-3 last year, with only Israel and the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau supporting the United States. Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained both years. It was the 18th year in a row that the General Assembly has taken up the symbolic measure, with Washington steadily losing what little support it once had. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez ticked off a long list of grievances in his speech before the world body, saying the 47-year-old embargo _ which the Cubans refer to as a blockade _ had cost the island's fragile economy tens of billions of dollars over the years and prevented Cuban children from getting needed medical care. "The blockade is an uncultured act of arrogance," Rodriguez said. He likened the policy to "an act of genocide" that is "ethically unacceptable." One after another, global representatives stood to speak in opposition to the embargo, calling it a cruel anachronism that ran counter to international law and that only succeeded in hurting ordinary Cubans, particularly women and children. It was the first time the world body has taken the vote since President Barack Obama took office in January, promising to extend a hand of friendship to Washington's traditional enemies. The administration has loosened financial and travel restrictions on Americans with relatives in Cuba, and started talks aimed at restoring direct mail links. It sent a senior diplomat to Havana in September for unannounced meetings with Cuban officials that were believed to be the highest-level talks between the two countries in decades. Still, Washington has made clear it is not prepared to lift the embargo until Cuba accepts some political, economic and financial changes. Rodriguez said the question of the embargo represented a "test of character" for the U.S. and its new president. "President Obama has a historical opportunity to lead a change of policy toward Cuba and the lifting of the blockade," he said, but lamented that "since the election" of the new U.S. leader "there has not been any change in the implementation of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba." U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice reacted strongly, calling Rodriguez's statements "hostile" and "straight out of the Cold War era." Still, she said the Obama administration was committed to writing "a new chapter to this old story" by engaging with the Cuban government. "We hope they can be the starting point for further changes in the relationship," she said. http://www.kmoze.com/article/UN_vote_condemns_US_embargo_on_Cuba.htm 29th Oct,2009 JERUSALEM - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to the Middle East on Saturday in an attempt to help peacemaking efforts, Israeli and Palestinian radio stations reported on Wednesday. It will be Clinton's second visit to the region since U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January. A senior U.S. envoy, George Mitchell, has been shuttling between Israeli and Palestinian leaders every few weeks. Asked about the reports on Israel Radio and Voice of Palestine radio, an Israeli official would only say: "Israel is preparing to receive Secretary of State Clinton on the weekend." In the West Bank city of Ramallah, a Palestinian official said a schedule for a Clinton visit had not been received yet. The U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv had no immediate comment. Mitchell was expected to fly in on Thursday and stay on into next week, said an official involved in the planning. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Clinton_to_visit_Mideast_on_Saturday_reports.htm 29th Oct,2009 BEIRUT – Lebanese troops found and dismantled four rockets near the border with Israel on Wednesday, a day after a brief flare-up across the tense boundary, a Lebanese military official said. The Katyusha rockets, three of them ready to be fired, were discovered placed in a building under construction in the Houla area, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations. The border has been largely quiet since Israel and Lebanon's militant group Hezbollah fought a bitter war in the summer of 2006 that ended with a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, but occasional flare-ups occur. On Tuesday evening, Lebanon-based militants launched a rocket into northern Israel hitting near the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona. The attack drew a rapid response from Israeli artillery, which shelled the launch area. No casualties were reported on either side. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket launch. The Israeli military said it views the incident as "grave" and holds the Lebanese government responsible. The government in Beirut regularly criticizes both the firing of rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel and the Israeli retaliation. An official with the Hezbollah refused to comment on the rocket firing when contacted by The Associated Press. U.N. peacekeepers, deployed in southern Lebanon since the 2006 conflict, urged restraint on both sides and launched an investigation. Hezbollah has not claimed responsibility for any attacks since the end of the fighting, but smaller militant groups have launched rockets on several occasions. Tuesday's attack was the fifth this year. None have caused serious casualties. http://www.kmoze.com/article/Lebanese_army_dismantles_4_rockets_near_Israel.htm 29th Oct,2009