by Joe Rebel
It's been three weeks since the death of the "self-proclaimed" King of Pop" Michael Jackson and the media will still not shut up about it. I am so sick and tired of seeing and hearing about that self-hating black pederest.
There's no doubt in any sane persons mind that Michael Jackson was a child molester. Though acquitted twice, it is rather ironic that each time he settled out of court. What the media failed to go into was his association with gay pornographer F. Marc Schaffel, who a year after the second child molestation charge, sued Jackson for $ 3.8 million for unrepaid loans and expenses.
Frankly, the comparison between Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley might actually be accurate, since both of them died by drug overdose. I'm no fan of Elvis either, but I have always wondered if Elvis Presley would have turned over on his grave when his daughter Lisa Marie married Michael Jackson, a black man.
Now here's where the race factor comes in. White actress Farrah Fawcett from Charlies Angels fame died exactly a few hours before Michael Jackson died, but she has only been mentioned a few times but nothing more. As soon as Michael died, that was it. He has been mentioned constantly even to this day and he will probably be talked about for the next few weeks as well.
This goes to show you that a want-to-be-white black pedophile is more important than a white actress. Sorry Farrah, you're just not important enough.
As if it wasn't bad enough that young white youth want to act out as black "gangstas and thugs" who rap about shooting cops and smacking ho's and bitches, white youth, male and female, are completely gushing about all about how Michael was their "inspiration" and all that. I remember exactly when Fox News said that Michael "touched" so many people in so many ways.
Just like Elvis and rap artists, Michael Jackson is a bad role model (unless of course you're a child molester). But still the Jewish media will always find excuses to present him as a wonderful person. Excuse me, but a person's achievement's does not justify his wrong doings.
Frankly, I could care less if Michaels overdose was accidental or foul play. I'm just glad he's dead so no more kids can get molested.
If you don't like what I just said , then maybe you should take Michaels same advice and "just beat it."
Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
ACU Ask FedEx For $2 Million Dollar Check
The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.
For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”
The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.
The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.
Maury Lane, FedEx’s director of corporate communications, said: “Clearly, the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought.”
ACU's executive vice president, Dennis Whitfield, said that neither the group nor David Keene, the chairman, took any money from UPS. Whitfield said the group has never received a response to its original proposal to FedEx. He said Keene endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU.
"Our position hasn't changed," said Whitfield, who was a deputy secretary of labor in the Reagan administration. "It won't change. I am fundamentally, philosophically opposed to doing what the Obama administration wants to do [to FedEx], and so is our organization."
FedEx and UPS, fierce competitors in the package delivery business, are at war over a provision under consideration in Congress that would expand union power at FedEx.
FedEx currently has one U.S. union contract for its entire express business. Under a change passed by the House and awaiting action in the Senate, FedEx — like UPS — would have to negotiate union contracts for individual locations, which FedEx claims would make it much more difficult to promise worldwide regularity for deliveries.
The American Conservative Union, which calls itself “the nation's oldest and largest grass-roots conservative lobbying organization,” took UPS’s side on Wednesday as part of a conservative consortium that accused FedEx of “misleading the public and legislators.” ACU's logo is at the top of the letter, along with those of six other conservative groups.
Just two weeks earlier, ACU had offered its endorsement to FedEx, saying in a letter to the company: “We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation.”
But there was a catch — an expensive one. ACU asked FedEx to pay as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for “an aggressive grass-roots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate.”
“For the activist contact portion of the plan, we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program,” the letter says. “If we incorporate the targeted, senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state” for an estimated 10 states. The total would be $3,397,550.”
The letter shows one reason why activists get so much junk mail, both on paper and electronically: Some groups that send it charge handsomely for the service.
Under the grass-roots program ACU proposed, “Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the 10 targeted states.” “Within 72 hours of an agreement on the whole plan, we can have the data sets delivered and the first round of e-mail ready for delivery,” the offer states. “Within seven days, the mail can be in the USPS system and the phone call delivered.”
Lane, the FedEx official, said the offer was refused. "The proposal didn’t fit with our strategy of taking a straightforward approach to discussing the issue,” he said.
After the rebuff, American Conservative Union changed sides. ACU Chairman David A. Keene was one of eight conservative leaders who signed a letter to FedEx Chairman Frederick W. Smith, a champion of capitalism who in the past has been a favorite of conservatives.
The letter accuses FedEx of “falsely and disingenuously” labeling the rules change a “bailout” for UPS, since FedEx would become subject to the same arduous union structure.
The letter is also signed by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who is also on ACU’s board. FedEx is pushing its case with a website called www.BrownBailout.com.
The letter signed by the conservative leaders concludes: “To paraphrase the words of Ronald Reagan, ‘Mr. Smith, tear down this website.’”
Among the services ACU had offered to provide for the $2 million-plus price tag:
—Acquiring data of known conservatives in the targeted states (to be determined by FedEx), matching that data to an e-mail database and then incorporating those e-mail addresses with the current ACU e-mail database to create one targeted database of all potential activists.
—Sending a piece of targeted direct mail to these potential activists to ensure that they are well-educated prior to their contact with their senators.
—E-mailing the identified voter activists, in five rounds, in order to educate them on the issue(s) and to urge them to call their senators based on key dates. The ACU would include the phone number of their personal senators directly in the correspondence.
—Conducting targeted phone call campaign that will contact all voter activists to urge them to make a personal call to their senators. Each state would have a specialized message just for that state.
—Encouraging activists who live within 30 miles of a senator’s district office to consider making a personal visit to register their concerns at the office. ACU has proved that we can turn out well-informed, quality voters who present a good image to represent our concerns.
—As the vote for the legislation nears, distributing ACTION ALERT e-mails, and after the vote has taken place, distributing MegaVote e-mails to ACU’s members letting them know how their senators vote.
For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”
The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.
The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.
In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.
Maury Lane, FedEx’s director of corporate communications, said: “Clearly, the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought.”
ACU's executive vice president, Dennis Whitfield, said that neither the group nor David Keene, the chairman, took any money from UPS. Whitfield said the group has never received a response to its original proposal to FedEx. He said Keene endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU.
"Our position hasn't changed," said Whitfield, who was a deputy secretary of labor in the Reagan administration. "It won't change. I am fundamentally, philosophically opposed to doing what the Obama administration wants to do [to FedEx], and so is our organization."
FedEx and UPS, fierce competitors in the package delivery business, are at war over a provision under consideration in Congress that would expand union power at FedEx.
FedEx currently has one U.S. union contract for its entire express business. Under a change passed by the House and awaiting action in the Senate, FedEx — like UPS — would have to negotiate union contracts for individual locations, which FedEx claims would make it much more difficult to promise worldwide regularity for deliveries.
The American Conservative Union, which calls itself “the nation's oldest and largest grass-roots conservative lobbying organization,” took UPS’s side on Wednesday as part of a conservative consortium that accused FedEx of “misleading the public and legislators.” ACU's logo is at the top of the letter, along with those of six other conservative groups.
Just two weeks earlier, ACU had offered its endorsement to FedEx, saying in a letter to the company: “We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation.”
But there was a catch — an expensive one. ACU asked FedEx to pay as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for “an aggressive grass-roots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate.”
“For the activist contact portion of the plan, we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program,” the letter says. “If we incorporate the targeted, senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state” for an estimated 10 states. The total would be $3,397,550.”
The letter shows one reason why activists get so much junk mail, both on paper and electronically: Some groups that send it charge handsomely for the service.
Under the grass-roots program ACU proposed, “Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the 10 targeted states.” “Within 72 hours of an agreement on the whole plan, we can have the data sets delivered and the first round of e-mail ready for delivery,” the offer states. “Within seven days, the mail can be in the USPS system and the phone call delivered.”
Lane, the FedEx official, said the offer was refused. "The proposal didn’t fit with our strategy of taking a straightforward approach to discussing the issue,” he said.
After the rebuff, American Conservative Union changed sides. ACU Chairman David A. Keene was one of eight conservative leaders who signed a letter to FedEx Chairman Frederick W. Smith, a champion of capitalism who in the past has been a favorite of conservatives.
The letter accuses FedEx of “falsely and disingenuously” labeling the rules change a “bailout” for UPS, since FedEx would become subject to the same arduous union structure.
The letter is also signed by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who is also on ACU’s board. FedEx is pushing its case with a website called www.BrownBailout.com.
The letter signed by the conservative leaders concludes: “To paraphrase the words of Ronald Reagan, ‘Mr. Smith, tear down this website.’”
Among the services ACU had offered to provide for the $2 million-plus price tag:
—Acquiring data of known conservatives in the targeted states (to be determined by FedEx), matching that data to an e-mail database and then incorporating those e-mail addresses with the current ACU e-mail database to create one targeted database of all potential activists.
—Sending a piece of targeted direct mail to these potential activists to ensure that they are well-educated prior to their contact with their senators.
—E-mailing the identified voter activists, in five rounds, in order to educate them on the issue(s) and to urge them to call their senators based on key dates. The ACU would include the phone number of their personal senators directly in the correspondence.
—Conducting targeted phone call campaign that will contact all voter activists to urge them to make a personal call to their senators. Each state would have a specialized message just for that state.
—Encouraging activists who live within 30 miles of a senator’s district office to consider making a personal visit to register their concerns at the office. ACU has proved that we can turn out well-informed, quality voters who present a good image to represent our concerns.
—As the vote for the legislation nears, distributing ACTION ALERT e-mails, and after the vote has taken place, distributing MegaVote e-mails to ACU’s members letting them know how their senators vote.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Power of Ethnonationalism
by Pat Buchanan
So grave was the crisis in western China that President Hu Jintao canceled a meeting with President Obama, broke off from the G8 summit and flew home.
By official count, 158 are dead, 1,080 injured and a thousand arrested in ethnic violence between Han Chinese and the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs of Xinjiang. That is the huge oil-rich province that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and several Central Asian countries that seceded
from the Soviet Union.
Uighur sources put the death toll much higher.
The Communist Party chief in Xinjiang has promised to execute those responsible for the killings.
In 1989, fear that what was happening in Eastern Europe might happen in Beijing produced Tiananmen Square. The flooding of Chinese troops into Xinjiang bespeaks a fear that what happened to the Soviet Union could happen to China. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, the Chinese, as they showed in Tibet, will wage civil war to crush secession.
Already, Beijing has struggled to ensure perpetual possession of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet — half of the national territory — by moving in millions of Han Chinese, swamping the indigenous peoples, as they did in Manchuria.
The larger issue here is the enduring power of ethnonationalism — the drive of ethnic minorities, embryonic nations, to break free and create their own countries, where their faith, culture and language are predominant. The Uighurs are such a people.
Ethnonationalism caused the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, triggered World War I in Sarajevo, and tore apart the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Ethnonationalism birthed Ireland, Turkey and Israel.
Ethnonationalism in the 1990s tore apart the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and broke up Czechoslovakia, creating two-dozen nations out of three. Last August, ethnonationalism, with an assist from the Russian Army, relieved Georgia of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia has its own ethnic worries in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, whose Moscow-installed president was nearly blown to pieces two weeks ago and where a Chechen convoy was ambushed last week with 10 soldiers killed.
The ethnonationalism that pulled Ireland out of the United Kingdom in 1921 is pulling Scotland out. It split the Asian subcontinent up into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are all threatened.
Persians are a bare majority against the combined numbers of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluch. Each of those minorities shares a border with kinfolk — in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
Turkey has fought for decades against Kurd ethnonationalism.
If one were to wager on new nations, Kurdistan and Baluchistan would be among the favorites.
And Pashtun in Pakistan outnumber Pashtun in Afghanistan, though in the latter they are the majority.
In Africa, the savage attacks on the Kikiyu by Luo manifest a resurgent tribalism, as did the horrors of Rwanda, where Tutsi in the hundreds of thousands were massacred by Hutu.
President Clinton may have apologized to the Africans for not sending troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda, but if the America of Obama is into interventionism to protect human rights, Africa in the 21st century should provide us plenty of opportunity.
Evo Morales in Bolivia, Ollanta Humala in Peru and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez are stoking the embers, goading the Indian populations, the indigenous peoples, to take back what the white
man took 500 years ago. They have met with no small success.
The contrast between insouciant America and serious China today is instructive. China is protectionist; America free trade. China is nationalist; America globalist. China’s economy is export-driven; America’s base is consumption. China saves; America spends. China uses its foreign exchange to lock up overseas resources; America uses foreign aid for humanitarian assistance to failed states. Behaving like ruthlessly purposeful 19th-century Americans, China grows as America shrinks.
Where Beijing floods its borderlands with Han to reduce indigenous populations to minorities, and stifles religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, America, declaring, “Diversity is our strength!” invites the whole world to come to America and swamp her own native-born.
Observing the lightning breakup of the Soviet Union, the Chinese take ethnonationalism with deadly seriousness. American’s elite regard it an irrelevancy, an obsession only of the politically retarded.
After all, they tell us, we were never blood-and-soil people, always a propositional nation, a nation of ideas. Our belief in democracy, diversity, and equality define us and make us different from all other nations.
Indeed, we now happily predict the year, 2042, when Americans of European ancestry become a minority in a country whose Founding Fathers declared it set aside for “ourselves and our posterity.”
Without the assent of her people, America is being converted from a Christian country, nine in 10 of whose people traced their roots to Europe as late as the time of JFK, into a multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural Tower of Babel not seen since the late Roman Empire.
The city farthest along the path is Los Angeles, famous worldwide for the number, variety, and size of its ethnic and racial street gangs.
Not to worry. It can’t happen here.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
So grave was the crisis in western China that President Hu Jintao canceled a meeting with President Obama, broke off from the G8 summit and flew home.
By official count, 158 are dead, 1,080 injured and a thousand arrested in ethnic violence between Han Chinese and the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs of Xinjiang. That is the huge oil-rich province that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and several Central Asian countries that seceded
from the Soviet Union.
Uighur sources put the death toll much higher.
The Communist Party chief in Xinjiang has promised to execute those responsible for the killings.
In 1989, fear that what was happening in Eastern Europe might happen in Beijing produced Tiananmen Square. The flooding of Chinese troops into Xinjiang bespeaks a fear that what happened to the Soviet Union could happen to China. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachev, the Chinese, as they showed in Tibet, will wage civil war to crush secession.
Already, Beijing has struggled to ensure perpetual possession of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet — half of the national territory — by moving in millions of Han Chinese, swamping the indigenous peoples, as they did in Manchuria.
The larger issue here is the enduring power of ethnonationalism — the drive of ethnic minorities, embryonic nations, to break free and create their own countries, where their faith, culture and language are predominant. The Uighurs are such a people.
Ethnonationalism caused the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, triggered World War I in Sarajevo, and tore apart the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. Ethnonationalism birthed Ireland, Turkey and Israel.
Ethnonationalism in the 1990s tore apart the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and broke up Czechoslovakia, creating two-dozen nations out of three. Last August, ethnonationalism, with an assist from the Russian Army, relieved Georgia of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Russia has its own ethnic worries in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, whose Moscow-installed president was nearly blown to pieces two weeks ago and where a Chechen convoy was ambushed last week with 10 soldiers killed.
The ethnonationalism that pulled Ireland out of the United Kingdom in 1921 is pulling Scotland out. It split the Asian subcontinent up into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Iran, Iraq and Pakistan are all threatened.
Persians are a bare majority against the combined numbers of Azeris, Kurds, Arabs and Baluch. Each of those minorities shares a border with kinfolk — in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iraq and Pakistan.
Turkey has fought for decades against Kurd ethnonationalism.
If one were to wager on new nations, Kurdistan and Baluchistan would be among the favorites.
And Pashtun in Pakistan outnumber Pashtun in Afghanistan, though in the latter they are the majority.
In Africa, the savage attacks on the Kikiyu by Luo manifest a resurgent tribalism, as did the horrors of Rwanda, where Tutsi in the hundreds of thousands were massacred by Hutu.
President Clinton may have apologized to the Africans for not sending troops to stop the genocide in Rwanda, but if the America of Obama is into interventionism to protect human rights, Africa in the 21st century should provide us plenty of opportunity.
Evo Morales in Bolivia, Ollanta Humala in Peru and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez are stoking the embers, goading the Indian populations, the indigenous peoples, to take back what the white
man took 500 years ago. They have met with no small success.
The contrast between insouciant America and serious China today is instructive. China is protectionist; America free trade. China is nationalist; America globalist. China’s economy is export-driven; America’s base is consumption. China saves; America spends. China uses its foreign exchange to lock up overseas resources; America uses foreign aid for humanitarian assistance to failed states. Behaving like ruthlessly purposeful 19th-century Americans, China grows as America shrinks.
Where Beijing floods its borderlands with Han to reduce indigenous populations to minorities, and stifles religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity, America, declaring, “Diversity is our strength!” invites the whole world to come to America and swamp her own native-born.
Observing the lightning breakup of the Soviet Union, the Chinese take ethnonationalism with deadly seriousness. American’s elite regard it an irrelevancy, an obsession only of the politically retarded.
After all, they tell us, we were never blood-and-soil people, always a propositional nation, a nation of ideas. Our belief in democracy, diversity, and equality define us and make us different from all other nations.
Indeed, we now happily predict the year, 2042, when Americans of European ancestry become a minority in a country whose Founding Fathers declared it set aside for “ourselves and our posterity.”
Without the assent of her people, America is being converted from a Christian country, nine in 10 of whose people traced their roots to Europe as late as the time of JFK, into a multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural Tower of Babel not seen since the late Roman Empire.
The city farthest along the path is Los Angeles, famous worldwide for the number, variety, and size of its ethnic and racial street gangs.
Not to worry. It can’t happen here.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
Monday, July 13, 2009
"Alleged" Nazi Guard Charged With 27,900 Counts of Murder
MUNICH – Retired auto worker John Demjanjuk was formally charged Monday with 27,900 counts of acting as an accessory to murder — one for every person who died at Sobibor during the time he is accused of serving as a guard at the Nazi death camp.
The charges by prosecutors a Munich state court are one of the final steps before an expected autumn trial for the 89-year-old, who has been fighting a variety of Nazi-era charges since 1977.
Demjanjuk and his family have argued that he is in poor health. Photos taken in April showed him wincing in pain as immigration agents removed him from his home in Seven Hills, Ohio, where he had been living since 1993.
German doctors cleared the way for formal charges this month when they declared that Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk) was fit to stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day.
The state court must now decide whether to accept the charges — usually a formality — and set a date for the trial. Court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel it was unlikely to start until the autumn.
The defendant's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., described the charges as "a farce" in an e-mail to The Associated Press, writing that, "as long as my father remains alive, we will defend his innocence as he has never hurt anyone anywhere." Demjanjuk's lawyer, Guenther Maull, said he had no immediate comment because had not yet seen the charges.
Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.
But prosecutors accuse him of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. Nazi-era documents obtained by given to German prosecutors by U.S. authorities include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at Sobibor and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, Poland. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine.
"This is obviously an important step forward," Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said by telephone from Jerusalem. "The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator."
Demjanjuk gained U.S. citizenship in 1958. The U.S. Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship in 1977, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard, and it was revoked in 1981.
Demjanjuk was deported to Israel and tried on accusations that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.
That decision came after Israel won access to Soviet archives, which had depositions given after the war by 37 Treblinka guards and forced laborers who said "Ivan" was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.
Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored in 1998. A U.S. judge revoked it again in 2002 based on fresh Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials.
A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him in March.
They accused him in that warrant of being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases, representing the number of people who arrived there while he was alleged to be a camp guard based on his photo ID. However, that number was reduced in the charges because, of the people transported to Sobibor, "many did not survive the journey," said Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors.
Approximately 250,000 Jews, Gypsies and political prisoners died at Sobibor, which opened in 1942 and was razed a year and a half later.
Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany
The charges by prosecutors a Munich state court are one of the final steps before an expected autumn trial for the 89-year-old, who has been fighting a variety of Nazi-era charges since 1977.
Demjanjuk and his family have argued that he is in poor health. Photos taken in April showed him wincing in pain as immigration agents removed him from his home in Seven Hills, Ohio, where he had been living since 1993.
German doctors cleared the way for formal charges this month when they declared that Demjanjuk (dem-YAHN'-yuk) was fit to stand trial so long as court hearings do not exceed two 90-minute sessions per day.
The state court must now decide whether to accept the charges — usually a formality — and set a date for the trial. Court spokeswoman Margarete Noetzel it was unlikely to start until the autumn.
The defendant's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., described the charges as "a farce" in an e-mail to The Associated Press, writing that, "as long as my father remains alive, we will defend his innocence as he has never hurt anyone anywhere." Demjanjuk's lawyer, Guenther Maull, said he had no immediate comment because had not yet seen the charges.
Demjanjuk, a native of Ukraine, says he was a Red Army soldier who spent the war as a prisoner of war and never hurt anyone.
But prosecutors accuse him of serving as a guard at the Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. Nazi-era documents obtained by given to German prosecutors by U.S. authorities include a photo ID identifying Demjanjuk as a guard at Sobibor and saying he was trained at an SS facility for Nazi guards at Trawniki, Poland. U.S. and German experts have declared the ID genuine.
"This is obviously an important step forward," Efraim Zuroff, the top Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said by telephone from Jerusalem. "The effort to bring Demjanjuk to justice sends a very powerful message that the passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator."
Demjanjuk gained U.S. citizenship in 1958. The U.S. Justice Department moved to revoke the citizenship in 1977, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard, and it was revoked in 1981.
Demjanjuk was deported to Israel and tried on accusations that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity but the conviction was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.
That decision came after Israel won access to Soviet archives, which had depositions given after the war by 37 Treblinka guards and forced laborers who said "Ivan" was a different Ukrainian named Ivan Marchenko.
Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship was restored in 1998. A U.S. judge revoked it again in 2002 based on fresh Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps from immigration officials.
A U.S. immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him in March.
They accused him in that warrant of being an accessory to murder in 29,000 cases, representing the number of people who arrived there while he was alleged to be a camp guard based on his photo ID. However, that number was reduced in the charges because, of the people transported to Sobibor, "many did not survive the journey," said Anton Winkler, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors.
Approximately 250,000 Jews, Gypsies and political prisoners died at Sobibor, which opened in 1942 and was razed a year and a half later.
Charges of accessory to murder carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison in Germany
Friday, July 10, 2009
Nick Griffin-"Sink Them"
The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC.
The MEP for the North-West of England said the EU had to get "very tough" with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".
Libya has long been a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe.
Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before.
But with the prospect of a new immigration and asylum policy being voted on this autumn by MEPs, Mr Griffin is advocating measures to destroy boats used by illegal immigrants to reach the EU's southern coastline.
'Combating the flow'
In an interview with this week's edition of BBC Parliament's The Record Europe, he said: "If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that.
Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World
Nick Griffin MEP
"But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over.
"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats.
"Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe' we will oppose."
The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."
Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya.
"But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World."
In May, the Italian government gave Libya three patrol boats as part of a deal aimed at combating the flow of illegal migrants making the crossing to Italy.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Lega Nord party, hailed the first 200 migrants picked up by the boats and returned to Libya as an "historic" moment.
But human rights groups have raised concerns about Italy sending migrants back to Libya without first screening them for asylum claims or to discover whether they are sick, injured, unaccompanied children or victims of human trafficking.
Libya has no functioning asylum system and is not a party to the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees.
'Influence'
Separately Mr Griffin, who will next week formally take up his seat in Brussels, has admitted that the BNP has failed to convince other like-minded parties to form an alliance in the new European Parliament.
Talks with France's Front National, Lega Nord, and other groups fell apart, with Lega Nord now joining the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, led by Britain's UK Independence Party.
Mr Griffin told The Parliament.com: "We needed at least 25 members from seven different member states to form a group. There is no doubt that we would have been able to wield a lot more influence if we could have formed a group.
"No one was prepared to commit themselves knowing that we had not got Lega Nord on board.
"Even so, we will continue to work together with these other groups and share ideas. We will have less access to things like speaking time and committee votes but it's too bad."
The BNP advocates British withdrawal from the European Union and an end to all immigration to the UK and last month won its first two seats in the European Parliament.
Mr Griffin and the party's other recently-elected MEP Andrew Brons will sit in the "non-attached" section of the Parliament, which means they will be entitled to less administrative and financial support.
You can watch the full interview with Nick Griffin on The Record Europe on BBC Parliament, BBC World and the BBC News Channel on Saturday and on the programme's website.
The MEP for the North-West of England said the EU had to get "very tough" with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".
Libya has long been a staging post for migrants from Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa wanting to reach Europe.
Nearly 37,000 immigrants landed on Italian shores last year, an increase of about 75% on the year before.
But with the prospect of a new immigration and asylum policy being voted on this autumn by MEPs, Mr Griffin is advocating measures to destroy boats used by illegal immigrants to reach the EU's southern coastline.
'Combating the flow'
In an interview with this week's edition of BBC Parliament's The Record Europe, he said: "If there's measures to set up some kind of force or to help, say the Italians, set up a force which actually blocks the Mediterranean then we'd support that.
Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World
Nick Griffin MEP
"But the only measure, sooner or later, which is going to stop immigration and stop large numbers of sub-Saharan Africans dying on the way to get over here is to get very tough with those coming over.
"Frankly, they need to sink several of those boats.
"Anyone coming up with measures like that we'll support but anything which is there as a 'oh, we need to do something about it' but in the end doing something about it means bringing them into Europe' we will oppose."
The interviewer, BBC Correspondent Shirin Wheeler, said: "I don't think the EU is in the business of murdering people at sea."
Mr Griffin replied: "I didn't say anyone should be murdered at sea - I say boats should be sunk, they can throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya.
"But Europe has sooner or later to close its borders or its simply going to be swamped by the Third World."
In May, the Italian government gave Libya three patrol boats as part of a deal aimed at combating the flow of illegal migrants making the crossing to Italy.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Lega Nord party, hailed the first 200 migrants picked up by the boats and returned to Libya as an "historic" moment.
But human rights groups have raised concerns about Italy sending migrants back to Libya without first screening them for asylum claims or to discover whether they are sick, injured, unaccompanied children or victims of human trafficking.
Libya has no functioning asylum system and is not a party to the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees.
'Influence'
Separately Mr Griffin, who will next week formally take up his seat in Brussels, has admitted that the BNP has failed to convince other like-minded parties to form an alliance in the new European Parliament.
Talks with France's Front National, Lega Nord, and other groups fell apart, with Lega Nord now joining the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy group, led by Britain's UK Independence Party.
Mr Griffin told The Parliament.com: "We needed at least 25 members from seven different member states to form a group. There is no doubt that we would have been able to wield a lot more influence if we could have formed a group.
"No one was prepared to commit themselves knowing that we had not got Lega Nord on board.
"Even so, we will continue to work together with these other groups and share ideas. We will have less access to things like speaking time and committee votes but it's too bad."
The BNP advocates British withdrawal from the European Union and an end to all immigration to the UK and last month won its first two seats in the European Parliament.
Mr Griffin and the party's other recently-elected MEP Andrew Brons will sit in the "non-attached" section of the Parliament, which means they will be entitled to less administrative and financial support.
You can watch the full interview with Nick Griffin on The Record Europe on BBC Parliament, BBC World and the BBC News Channel on Saturday and on the programme's website.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Australian Town Bans Bottled Water
SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian town is set to ban bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact, in what is believed to be a world first.
Bundanoon, a picturesque rural town with a population of just 2,000, was expected to vote heavily in favour of the move with a show of hands at a public meeting later.
"At the moment we've got a lot of community support behind it. We're confident the town is going to back it," said activist John Dee.
"We believe Bundanoon is the world's first town that has got its retailers to ban bottled water. We haven't found it anywhere else."
Local opinion was incensed when beverage company Norlex Holdings announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town, truck the water up to Sydney and then send it back in bottled form.
"The company has been looking to extract water locally, bottle it in Sydney and bring it back here to sell it again," said Dee.
"It made people look at the environmental impact of bottled water and the community has been quite vocal about it."
Dee, whose Do Something group was instrumental in a plastic bags ban in Coles Bay, Tasmania, said he hoped the ban would make people think twice about buying bottled water.
"It's possible it will extend to other places. The main idea is to get people thinking about their usage of bottled water -- we're spending about half a billion dollars on it here in Australia," he said.
Retailers in the New South Wales town, south of Sydney, have already agreed to stop stocking bottled water.
Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.
Bundanoon, a picturesque rural town with a population of just 2,000, was expected to vote heavily in favour of the move with a show of hands at a public meeting later.
"At the moment we've got a lot of community support behind it. We're confident the town is going to back it," said activist John Dee.
"We believe Bundanoon is the world's first town that has got its retailers to ban bottled water. We haven't found it anywhere else."
Local opinion was incensed when beverage company Norlex Holdings announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town, truck the water up to Sydney and then send it back in bottled form.
"The company has been looking to extract water locally, bottle it in Sydney and bring it back here to sell it again," said Dee.
"It made people look at the environmental impact of bottled water and the community has been quite vocal about it."
Dee, whose Do Something group was instrumental in a plastic bags ban in Coles Bay, Tasmania, said he hoped the ban would make people think twice about buying bottled water.
"It's possible it will extend to other places. The main idea is to get people thinking about their usage of bottled water -- we're spending about half a billion dollars on it here in Australia," he said.
Retailers in the New South Wales town, south of Sydney, have already agreed to stop stocking bottled water.
Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
