After getting heavily criticized for banning face veils, the nation of France again painted a target on its back for organizations and countries to throw darts at when it began to make deportation of illegal Roma (more universally known as Gypsies) a top priority. Today, the French government announced, among other things, it would continue deporting unwanted Roma back to Romania or Bulgaria.

The deportation policy includes the dismantling of numerous shanty-like, Roma caravan camps scattered on the outskirts of the cities of France. Already, authorities have scattered nearly sixty camps and plan to dismantle 300 more by October. Since August, more than 300 Roma have been repatriated from France.

The government offers a year-old “voluntary return” for the Roma. If a Roma adult volunteers to be deported, he or she receives €300 (around 380 US Dollars). Under the same program, a Roma child receives €100 (around 130 US Dollars). Through the “voluntary return”, France has sent nearly 10,000 Roma back to their homelands.

Voicing concerns about France’s policy regarding the Roma, European Union officials have started “an inquiry” to determine whether or not the deportation of Roma is legal. Pope Benedict XVI, who has been relatively quiet nowadays, spoke up in apparent defense of the Roma. The Pope and the Church encouraged the French to “accept human diversity”. Human rights organization, ECRI (European Commission against Racism and Intolerance), has condemned France for targeting an entire ethnic group. 

President Nicolas Sarkozy

Statesmen in France criticize the crackdown on the Roma as “unproductive” since many of the Roma once reaching their homelands attempt (and in many instances, successfully) to illegally return back to France.

Furthermore, many accuse French President Nicolas Sarkozy of concentrating on the deportation of the Roma just to tip the balance in his favor in time for the 2012 elections.

Stubborn in the face of growing ambivalence towards its policy, the French government has argued that the presence of “the majority of the Roma” constitutes not only a threat to French security but also an issue for “the entirety of Europe”.

According to French reports, there has been a shocking rise of over 100% in Roma-influenced crimes, mostly made up of pickpocketing. Although Romanian President Traian Basescu had agreed to tackle on the problem, the French government hinted that Romania could be barred from the Schengen zone if the traffic of the Roma isn’t brought under control.

Additionally, Romania’s Secretaries of State Mocanu and Fatuloiu met with French ministers today and announced that both of their respective countries will cooperate with each other to ‘handle’ the Roma immigrants.

 (Cover Photo: Reuters)

Five hours from yours truly in Northern Ireland, the town of Lurgan in the county of Armagh was struck by violence involving quite a few ’bombs’ late Saturday night. This latest incident is most likely to be part of the old feud, The Troubles, between the loyalists and the nationalists that stemmed from the ’60s or even before as both political and religious issues were never exactly…’worked out’. Many of us here consider our Troubles to have ended but while many of us do say we “tolerate” each other, Trouble stirs up again once in a while whenever loyalists or the nationalists “get out of hand”.

To those who don’t know, the loyalist side is often made up of Protestants; the Protestants believe Northern Ireland should forever be part of the United Kingdom alongside Scotland and Wales. At this point it should be obvious that the nationalist side is the absolute polar opposite of the loyalist side: nationalists are mostly Catholics whose political view holds that Northern Ireland should break away from the UK and join their bretheren down to the south.

Around this time of the year, the tens of thousands of Protestant Apprentice Boys hold their annual parades throughout the counties of Northern Ireland to commemorate historical events where Protestants were made victims or were victorious.

Apprentice Boys' parade. (ITN)

While planned parades went mostly undisturbed, Lurgan faced security problems. Yesterday night, police officers were anonymously tipped off that a pair of “suspicious devices” were seen in a specific area, a school.

As the police combed this area, a nearby bomb not quite in that area detonated showing authorities the anonymous tip was a malignant plan to purposely lure officers to their deaths.

While no police officer was wounded or killed, the same bomb hidden in a waste bin did graze two 12-year old children and one 2-year old infant. Though the injuries were not serious, many Northern Ireland communities and politicians were outraged at the bomb’s “audacious attempt to not only harm police officers, but innocent civilians as well” reported a local newspaper.

Catholic communities also condemned the bomb as “inhuman”. While police officers were distracted in Lurgan, rioters appeared throwing objects including petrol bombs at police and causing property damage in the city of Londonderry.

The past few weeks also saw some false bomb alerts in a few Northern Ireland towns which the police say is “coordinated by Republican dissidents”. As a result, many blame this latest violence on extreme nationalists working with any means for Irish reunification.

However some believe that the blame lies with the Protestants who have insisted on performing their annual parades that provoke the dissidents in Catholic-majority areas such as Londonderry. Regardless of who’s to blame, our Troubles aren’t quite over yet.

(Cover Photo: Independent Television News)

Lithuanian gas company Lietuvos Dujos insists to go on constructing the Amber Stream pipeline. In cooperation with Poland’s Gaz System, Dujos plans to build the pipeline at a length of nearly 285 miles (460 kilometers) which will be able to run 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year between Lithuania and Poland.

The proposed ‘Amber Stream’ pipeline is undergoing a study which is due by early 2011 to be handed into the European Commission. Research shows Poland’s demand for gas will have increased by 18 billion cubic meters of gas Gaz System’s representative stated the Amber Stream may be completed by late 2015 if all goes accordingly. This land pipeline is viewed as an alternative plan by the Baltic States and Poland to the controversial Nord Stream pipeline project much favored by Russia and its fellow beneficiaries, particularly Germany.

Russia’s Gazprom, which recently had a tense dispute with Belarus over the timing and method of payments for gas consequently leading to Gazprom’s threat of cutting off gas supplies, withdrew from the Amber Stream project after deciding the Nord Stream project looked much more favorable some time ago.

The proposed Nord Stream pipeline (at the cost of $11 billion) will run through the Gulf of Finland/Baltic Sea from Vyborg in Russia all the way to Greifswald in Germany by, perhaps, 2012.

 In addition, this pipeline will become the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world. Already, Nord Stream’s pipes are undergoing coating and other processes to be built despite protests that the project would devestate the waters environmentally; for example: by loosening up certain WWII relics (mines and the usual).

 However organizers of the project has already disarmed most of these protests by announcing all mines found in the pipeline’s way would be detonated underwater.

Critics argue that the Nord Stream pipeline will completely jump over transit countries Russia needs to deliver gas to those in Western Europe and other parts of the continent. Countries like Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine that are major transit countries will face a more powerful Gazprom and Russian government that don’t need to go through the transit countries to deliver gas to its consumers elsewhere. Many fear any disputes with its neighbors may have Russia wield gas as a fearsome political weapon without disrupting its business with other European countries forever changing the map of Europe, in energy-terms.

Although Finland, Sweden, and Denmark have already gave its blessings for the pipeline to pass through their territory, representatives from countries supporting the Amber Stream pipeline project or the addition of another Yamal-Europe pipeline will be visiting Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an attempt to persuade the PM to call it quits on Nord Stream. 

(Cover Picture: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

In the country where the eyes of the European market are anxiously observing, Greek truckers are continuing to lay their hands off the wheels and instead steer a nation-wide strike. More than 30,000 truckers in Greece went on the strike on Sunday and have been off of work up to today.

This latest strike is a part of the series of protests over the Greek government’s austerity measures that cut back on pensions, social programs, wages, and many other budgets in the public sector in an attempt to relieve its huge debt of over 200 billion euros.

The government agreed to measures proposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in cutting back. The actions of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement-led government under Prime Minister Papandreou angered the majority of the public and provoked millions into hitting the streets and protesting all over Greece.

Clashes between people and riot police have settled since the initial outbreak of riots but the mood of the public is still antipathetic towards the government. The truckers currently striking do not want the government to introduce a reform into the freight sector. The reform is intended to arouse competition in the freight business by decreasing license fees. Truckers who have already paid over 300,000 USD for their licenses take this as very unfair.

Greek truckers marching in Athens. (EPA)

The effects of the six day strike have been felt in many parts of Greece as supplies of fuel began to drop. Trucks that usually deliver the fuel are absent which meant the government had to put in a substitute until the strike is over.

Greek officials stated that the military’s trucks and ships along with other civilian vehicles were being used to deliver the necessary fuel to vital locations such as hospitals and airports.

Tourist hot-spots are especially hard-hit right now as roadblocks and lack of fuel have delayed the thousands of tourists. Businesses in need of trucks are in critical conditions. “Without trucks, there’s no gas, without gas there’s no cars, and without cars, we can’t carry them [passengers]“ lamented a cab firm representative. Already estimated amounts of billions of euros have been lost in spoiled produce, the tourist industry, and in other businesses.

The truckers say they do not intend to stop striking despite the government’s threat of revoking their licenses and prosecuting the truckers if they did not return to work; reports of fights between riot police and protesting truckers have been reported with a dozen or so injuries. While the situation has gradually cooled and been brought under control in Athens and a few other major cities, some other parts of the country remain largely without fuel. The government expects this “disruption” to “ease” by Monday.

(Cover Picture (Rep): AP Photo/Nikolas Giakoumidis)

Thousands of Italian police officers brought in 300 members of the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia in one of the biggest crime sweeps in Italian history after the sweep was launched around 3:50 A.M. The police promptly executed the sweep by ’cleaning out’ the members’ houses and workplaces. Arresting 300 members of the ‘Ndrangheta was no easy task. The firmly established crime ‘family’ thrives in Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy, mostly on drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and the usual mafia extortion.

The ’Ndrangheta (meaning heroism, derived from Greek) did not start humbly in an olive market as the Corleone family did in the romantic portrayal of the mafia in the Godfather trilogy. The ‘Ndrangheta’s history stretches all the way back to the tax evaders and thieves in the late 20th century until it evolved into a “legitimate” crime organization in the ’70s. In a baptism of blood, the ‘Ndrangheta made up of more than 130 clans began waging gang wars in its region and put substanial amounts of its funds into drug trade and abductions while constructing a friendship with cocaine intermediaries in Colombia.

It was the last straw for the Italian government when the ‘Ndrangheta defaced the historic wall of Italy’s 21st century with its high profile, 2005 assassination of Italian politician Francesco Fortugno, the Vice President of the Regional Assembly of Calabria who spoke out against the ‘Ndrangheta. 

Francesco Fortugno's funeral was attended by more than 8,000 individuals.

A painstaking undercover investigation of this criminal empire had to be carried out before any thoughts of arresting its members surfaced. The investigation itself had to be carefully planned; planners worried that the investigation could’ve failed because the rigid structure of the ‘Ndrangheta was laced with the famous omertà (code of silence) could wave away any undercover investigation.

 The police discovered through its investigation that one of the 300 men caught, 80-year old Domenico Oppedisano, was christened the boss of the ‘Ndrangheta during a 2009 wedding boosting the importance of Tuesday’s sweep.

 Authorities did not disclose statements regarding the success in the mafia’s attempts to corrupt politicians, local media, businessmen, and even the police. However authorities hinted that this sweep confirmed a “national emergency”.

Not only the information found in both the investigation and the sweep was damning for the 300 arrested criminals to be charged but an unbelievable amount of millions of dollars in property (illegally attained) was confiscated. Furthermore, caches of dangerous weapons and money were discovered. According to officials, the ‘Ndrangheta with its international branches rake in an amount of roughly 50 billion U.S dollars, in narcotics trade along with other illegal activities such as smuggling weapons, extorting, blackmailing for assets, financial investments, and of course, prostitution.

Now that the “heart” of the ‘Ndrangheta is taken, the Italian government hopes that in due time, the crime organization will be completely dismantled by both law-enforcement efforts and the lack of a leadership for the ‘Ndrangheta.

Massacre, genocide, atrocity, these are some words to describe what happened on the 11th of July just 15 years ago.

15 years ago, as the Bosnian War was waged in Bosnia and Herzegovina the United Nations tried to claim safe haven for thousands of refugees. Declaring Srebrenica a “safe area” impervious from armed conflict in the United Nations Security Council’s Resolution 819, masses of Bosnian Muslims gathered there.

A few hundred U.N peacekeepers, mainly Dutch soldiers, were stationed in Srebrenica to safeguard the refugees. However, the peacekeepers’ weapons and food supply were inadequate to keep up a long-term operation. At the top of the command chain, the U.N officials were overwhelmed by the number of refugees and misjudged in taking action.

Consequently, Bosnian Serb troops seized control of Srebrenica and took around 18,000 Bosnian Muslim men, teenage boys, and children. The U.N peacekeepers did not attempt to wrestle with the Bosnian Serbs over the refugees but merely watched as they were led away. The executions of the Bosnian Muslims began almost immediately after they were taken away with “no intention of harming them” according to the peacekeepers. As more than 11,000 Bosnian Muslims attempted to escape, they were “hunted down like animals” recalls one survivor.

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were blatantly killed by the Bosnian Serbs making the Srebrenica Massacre the worst genocide in Europe since the holocausts in World War II.

 To honor the memory of the fallen victims, hundreds of thousands gathered in Bosnia’s capital, Sarajevo. “Oh..oh! Wha-” lamented a woman as she sobbed while being comforted by her cousin who barely survived the massacre. Grief was everywhere as people mourned the recently exhumed remains of those who died in the massacre. Some men seemed to have no expression, just a cold look that observed the gathering. Other men who were more aged, sighed and covered their mouths. One aged man beat his chest with a clenched fist, crying silently.

Ever year, hundreds of corpses are excavated from scattered locations at the site of the killings. Some remain whole, while all that remain are skulls, bones, and tattered clothes…evidence of the Bosnian Serbs using bulldozers to cover up their crime.

A bound body from the Srebrenica genocide discovered.

Multiple forensic teams have so far identified more than 6,000 bodies. Today, officials announced that 775 more victims were identified. Representatives from various European nations including Croatia will be present at the burial ceremony of the 775 victims on the 15th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre.

Some media attention was brought to the Srebrenica massacre when retired U.S General Sheehan laid the blame of the massacre on “gay, Dutch soldiers openly serving in the military” which stirred nonplussed and outraged reactions from many people.

A memorial to honor the memory of the massacred victims is being constructed entirely of old shoes, each pair representing a fallen victim, a similar project to the shoes display at Auschwitz. Another memorial, the Srebrenica Massacre Memorial Wall of Names, already exists listing the names of those who died.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted General Radislav Krstić of aiding the genocide and sentenced him to 35 years in prison. Recently, three Muslim prisoners serving their sentence alongside Krstić assaulted the former general in Wakefield Prison, much to the satisfaction of many.

Ratko Mladić, the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army, is on the run; he is accused of ordering the genocide by the Interational Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Part of the Wall of Names for the Srebrenica Massacre.

(Cover Picture: World Bulletin)

- Article Contributed By: Jasper Ivo

Almost as unexpected as Libya’s Qaddafi call for jihad on Switzerland, authorities nabbed two al-Qaeda suspects in Norway preparing to carry out terrorist attacks and another suspect in Germany with the help of the German police. Norway is somewhat identical to Switzerland in terms of the country’s “neutrality”: one would not expect Norway, the host country of the Nobel Peace Prize, to be targeted by terrorists; this is probably the biggest threat to Norway in decades, even more serious than the MS Deutschland.

Joking aside, some individuals are actually surprised to discover that Norway has a military presence in Afghanistan though like many other Western nations, Norway had strongly supported Bush’s War on Terrorism which may explain why Norway is a potential target. Norwegian authorities revealed that three suspects were monitored for nearly a year in order to gain solid evidence and to thwart the media’s scent off the investigation.

In the end, the police decided to move in and arrest the suspects because an unknown media had picked up on the investigation and was about to herald it to the world.

One suspect held a Norwegian citizenship while the other two held permanent residency in Norway. The two holding permanent residency is of Uzbek and Iraqi origin. It stunned a few people that the third suspect was of Chinese Uighur descent, “what we see here is, perhaps, a pattern of different ethnicities coming under the banner of radical Islam, seeing ’Jihad Jane’ and now this 39 year old Uighur man may convince some that this pattern is ‘absolute’ and that terrorism is indeed in our backyards” speculated Roy Gellard, a historian for Middle Eastern studies.

Janne Kirstiansen addressed the public to "be calm".

Officials state the three suspects were “preparing terror activities” and was thoroughly prepared by Salah al-Somali, one of al-Qaeda’s leaders who fell victim to a U.S drone attack in Pakistan back in 2008. “We believe this group has had links to people abroad who can be linked to al-Qaeda” said Norway’s Janne Kristiansen, Chief of the Norwegian Police Security Service. 

The Norwegian government refused to disclose information regarding the targets of the 3 suspects’ planned attacks and the suspects’ names.

The three men (all in their 30′s) may have planned to attack Norwegian locations as the Norwegian government announced the suspects will not be extradited to another nation for trial, perhaps a retaliation against the three men for planning attacks in Norway. The three suspects had planned to use bombs made from peroxide in their attack. Norway’s Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg warned that the country “must be on our guard”.

The government of Finland officially made having Internet connections a legal right for Finnish citizens in addition to the traditional legal rights such as the citizen’s right to be represented in court by a lawyer. The government’s decision made Finland the first nation in the world to make broadband Internet a legal right.

In its decision, the Finnish government said all telecommunications companies will be required to provide all Finnish citizens with broadband lines that can only run at a minimum of one megabyte per second. Furthermore, the government swore that by the year 2015, 100% of the Finnish population (that are able to access the Internet) will be connected with a 100-megabytes-per second connection.

The Finnish Communications Minister, Suvi Linden, declared that the Internet is a vital part of Finnish society and it was the government’s job to provide for the people. “We considered the role of the Internet in the everyday lives of Finns…Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago, we realized that not everyone had access.” Additionally, the government expressed hopes that by 2015, Finland will be a more “beneficial” society as an example to the rest of the world.

Minister Suvi Linden.

The Finnish government may be the first of a kind that may arise this decade. The governments of Spain, Britain, South Korea, and many of the countries that have technology integrated into their societies already considered providing each house with an Internet connection.

The United Kingdom announced that a connection of a minimal 2 megabytes-per-second will be brought to every home. These countries however, do not currently view having access to the Internet as a legal right.

Already, approximately 97% of the Finnish population has online access. According to a recent report filed by the government, around 3,993 houses need to be connected under this new law. Many outside view Finland’s act as a great thing, “Legal right to have the Internet in your apartment? Lucky bastards!” exclaimed British citizen, Thomas Belden, 29. Yet, some are concerned that this new ‘legal right’ may backfire on the government in particular scenarios.

A gift arrived for Public Order Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis, however as a certain aide handled the package full of candy the gift exploded instantly killing the man. Giorgos Vassilakis was 52 years old, father of two children and was the chief of the security team for Chrysohoidis. The blast was powerful enough to shake the offices. The intended target, Minister Chryssohoidis, was unharmed but was obviously shaken in appearence to the press.

Mourning for the loss of his colleague, Chrysohoidis coldly swore the individuals responsible will “be brought to justice” and added that ”we must show that we are not afraid of them”. Officials including other ministers were very alarmed at the bombing; Prime Minister George Papandreou harshly berated the attackers as being “cowardly” at a time “when our country and our people are waging a daily battle to bring us out of the crisis.”

Public Order Minister Chrysohoidis

This recent bombing is certainly new in the manner which it was delivered and to whom it was delivered to. Many are pointing fingers of blame to the extreme-left and anarchy groups. The presence of anarchy groups has been prominent in the country of Greece for many decades, and was bolstered during the major unrest in December, 2008 when thousands across Greece beseiged and severely damaged all government buildings including police stations.

In the past, numerous bombs targetted places of business like banks. These extreme-left militants have claimed responsibility for most of these bombings.

The 2008 Greek Riots.

Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis undoubtedly could have been targeted for assassination by these ‘leftist-militants’ as he had recently led the crackdowns on the militant groups in Greece lately.

In the still defiant atmosphere against the Greek government, many Greek civilians worry that the latest ‘terrorist’ attack, even if it’s anti-austerity or anti-whateverelse, is going “too far” against the government. Riots had broken out in Athens followed by hundreds of protests over the Greek government’s austerity measures which was strongly encouraged by the European Union in exchange for the multimillion-euro bailout for Greece.

(Cover Picture: Sky News)

Imagine your surprise when you walk down the dairy products aisle, you want to reduce your blood pressure or become thinner or do whatever else; you decide to pick up yohgurt (ah the healthy food that’s been with us forever) and then you get the biggest shocker of your life: your face is on the yoghurt cups.

It’s what happened to a Greek man who, contrary to his face on the yoghurt must have had a very irritable expression instead of a smiling one, found out through his friend Anthanasios Varzanakos in Stockholm, Sweden who phoned him telling him about his surprise when he saw someone he knew on a foods product.

"Yoghurt Man's" friend, Athanasios Varzakanos: "I was surprised and I could not believe my eyes. It was a shock to see him there suddenly, someone I know. He didn't like it, he was upset and wondered how it had happened."

The yoghurt is made by Lindahls Dairy in Jonkoping, Sweden based on a Turkish recipe.

The Greek man featured on the yoghurt containers (his name was not given) immediately handed in a 40-page legal complaint that accused the dairy of falsely using his image in a Turkish context, specifically displayed as a traditional Turkish farmer…and we all know from the history books the Greeks don’t like being put together with their longtime rivals the Turks.

Naturally, the dairy’s chief executive Anders Lindahl was baffled and stated in an AFP interview that the dairy had “bought it from a photo agency, so we assumed that everything was in order.”

Well apparently not, the Greek man has sued Lindahl for approximately 6.9 million U.S dollars, an equivalent to 50 million Swedish kronors. This is either a very late April Fools or it’s simply one of those bizzare events that worms into our lives once in a while… Ah, life.

Luckily, this could not have come at a better time for the mysterious yoghurt man when Greece is going through all those riots over austerity measures.