Historic Berlin Wall Section Removed Amid Protests

Some 250 police guarded the site as builders removed the segements

A German property developing firm has removed parts of a historic stretch of the Berlin Wall amid heavy police presence, despite a week of protests.

Builders removed four segments of the so-called East Side Gallery stretch on Wednesday morning to open access to a building site for blocks of flats.

Some 250 police officers were deployed as the sections were dismantled.

The re-development project has sparked outrage among citizen groups, who say the site is a symbol of freedom.

Pope Francis to Wash Offenders' Feet on Maundy Thursday

Pope Francis will wash the feet of prisoners in a youth detention centre near Rome on Maundy Thursday.

The Pope held his first general audience
in St Peter's Square on Wednesday

Thousands of pilgrims and tourists are arriving in Rome to attend ceremonies during the holy week ahead of Easter.

The washing of feet on the Thursday before Easter is a Christian tradition commemorating Christ's Last Supper.

It is part of a papal calendar of events running up to Easter, the most important festival in the calendar of the Catholic Church.

UK Challenges New EU Demand for 2013 Budget Cash

The UK government says it will fight an EU demand for an extra 11.2bn euros (£9.5bn; $14.4bn) from member states to settle unpaid EU bills this year.

A new round of hard bargaining
looms over the EU budget

The UK contribution to that would be about 1.2bn euros(£9.5bn; $14.4bn) from member states to settle unpaid EU bills this year.

"You can be very clear we will fight it," a Downing Street spokeswoman said, reacting to the proposal from EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski.

MEPs back the Commission in saying the extra - called an amending budget - must be paid to cover the 2012 bills.

Germany Enlists Otto Rehhagel in Greece 'Charm Offensive'

Berlin has enlisted the help of Otto Rehhagel, a much-loved football coach among the Greeks, to make Germany popular again in crisis-hit Greece.

Rehheagel (right) is passionately known
as King Otto in Greece

Rehhagel, who led Greece to victory at the Euro 2004, is holding talks in Athens as a goodwill ambassador.

The 74-year-old was reportedly picked out for the delicate mission by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Many Greeks hold Mrs Merkel responsible for tough austerity measures being implemented by the Greek government.

Cyprus Banks to Reopen on Thursday After Bailtout Closure

Banks in Cyprus are to reopen on Thursday at 10:00 GMT, 10 days after they closed to prevent a bank run as a controversial bailout was negotiated.

Banks will open their doors between noon and 18:00 local time (10:00-16:00 GMT), the Cypriot central bank said.

Twice as many people are said to be using this
soup kitchen amid the banking crisis

Customers will also be limited to withdrawing 300 euros ($383; £253) a day, to prevent everyone fleeing with their savings.

Earlier, the boss of the Bank of Cyprus was sacked.

"I am telling you that all banks are definitely going to open tomorrow," the Cypriot central bank's Aliki Stylianou said.

Cyprus scraps bank levy in new bailout plan

Political leaders in Cyprus have dropped an unpopular levy on bank deposits in a new bailout plan.

There was outrage over an earlier plan to tax all bank deposits.

Cyprus' banks, which have been shut all week to prevent mass withdrawals, are to stay closed until next Tuesday.

Cyprus is required to find 7bn euros (£6bn; $9bn) to get a 10bn-euro EU-IMF loan. Cypriot officials now propose a state investment fund and special bond issue to raise 5.8bn euros.

Budget 2013: Ed Balls urges George Osborne to 'U-turn' on economy

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has urged George Osborne to make a swift economic "U-turn", after growth forecasts for 2013 were halved to 0.6% in the Budget.

Mr Balls said government policies had "sucked confidence" out of the economy and the plan was not working.

During the two men's tour of media outlets after the Budget, Mr Osborne defended his economic package.

He insisted his strategy was working, saying "we have to go on confronting these problems" and cutting debt.

Turkey Kurds: PKK chief Ocalan calls for ceasefire

The jailed leader of Kurdish rebels fighting Turkey, Abdullah Ocalan, has called for a truce after years of war.

Ocalan also urged his fighters to withdraw from Turkey, in a message read out to cheers during Kurdish New Year celebrations in the city of Diyarbakir.

The truce call follows months of peace talks between his PKK forces and the Turkish state.

More than 40,000 people have died in the 30-year fight for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in Turkey's south-east.

Pope Meets Other Religious Leaders, Pledging Respect

ROME — Pope Francis promised friendship, respect and continued dialogue with other religious leaders on Wednesday, pledging cooperation with Orthodox churches, describing the spiritual bond between Catholics and Jews as “very special” and expressing gratitude to Muslim leaders.

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March 20, 2013

The Rijksmuseum, Reborn

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT

AMSTERDAM

ON a wet day in mid-January, Wim Pijbes, the dapper general director of the Rijksmuseum, was showing a visitor a bit of the newly reconfigured institution that has long housed masterworks from the Netherlands’ wealth of grand artists.

Suddenly Mr. Pijbes, standing near the open walkway that will allow the country’s fanatical bicyclists to continue riding through it on their way around Amsterdam, saw something he didn’t like. City workers were starting to demolish parts of the street that is the roof of the underground entrance. Excusing himself, he raced to confer with some yellow-jacketed workers.

It was just the latest in a series of difficulties that have dogged the museum since the national government’s decision more than 10 years ago to upgrade and remodel the museum — a program that has ended up costing nearly $500 million.

The problems will have to be solved by April 13, when the 80-room museum, home to works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, van Gogh and hundreds of other artists, finally reopens at a black-tie gala hosted by Queen Beatrix at one of her last official events before she abdicates at the end of that month.

Mr. Pijbes and his staff say they believe that the renovated museum will attract two million visitors annually, roughly double the number who have been showing up yearly — even recently, when just 400 works remained on display.

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March 20, 2013

Northern Ireland: Judge Holds 2 Liable in Bombing by I.R.A. Splinter Group

By DOUGLAS DALBY

A Belfast judge ruled on Wednesday that two alleged leaders of the Real Irish Republican Army were liable for damages in the 1998 Omagh car bombing that killed 29 civilians and wounded 200 others. Justice John Gillen told a Belfast court the case against Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly was “overwhelming.” The police have failed to win any criminal convictions in the bombing, the most deadly single attack during the years of violence known as the “Troubles.”

The victims’ families say that both Mr. Murphy and Mr. Daly were members of the now-disbanded Real I.R.A., one of a number of republican splinter groups to emerge in protest of the signing of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord and the agreement by the I.R.A. to decommission its weaponry. Lawyers for the families said they would pursue damages from those who had been found responsible.

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March 20, 2013

Police Search I.M.F. Chief’s Home in French Financial Investigation

By NICOLA CLARK

PARIS — The French police on Wednesday searched the Paris apartment of Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, in connection with an investigation into her handling of a financial scandal when she was the French finance minister.

The investigation concerns Ms. Lagarde’s decision in 2007 to refer to an arbitration panel a dispute between Bernard Tapie, a French billionaire and supporter of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais. The panel ultimately brokered a settlement that awarded Mr. Tapie about $580 million, including interest.

A panel of investigating magistrates is looking into whether she was complicit in the embezzlement of public money in what critics say was an overly generous award to a presidential friend.

Ms. Lagarde has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has expressed her willingness to cooperate with any investigation.

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March 20, 2013

Berlin Won’t Join Effort to Ban Far-Right Party

By MELISSA EDDY

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right government said Wednesday that it would not try to ban a far-right political party deemed “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist” by domestic intelligence, choosing instead to focus on combating neo-Nazi extremism through other channels.

The decision comes as Germany’s main political camps stake out their positions ahead of a general election in September, in which Ms. Merkel is seeking a third term in office. The chancellor’s main rivals, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, who control the upper house of Parliament, announced in December that they would seek to have the far-right National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., banned on grounds that it violated the Constitution.

A separate filing submitted by Ms. Merkel’s government, alongside the one from the upper house, or Bundesrat, would have given political weight to the argument but was not necessary for petitioning the Constitutional Court.

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March 20, 2013

Pope Meets Other Religious Leaders, Pledging Respect

By JIM YARDLEY

ROME — Pope Francis promised friendship, respect and continued dialogue with other religious leaders on Wednesday, pledging cooperation with Orthodox churches, describing the spiritual bond between Catholics and Jews as “very special” and expressing gratitude to Muslim leaders.

“The Catholic Church is aware of the importance of the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions,” the pope said. “I want to repeat this: The promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions.”

Francis, who was formally installed a day earlier, greeted a diverse group of religious leaders in the ornate Clementine Hall inside the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican. Among them were Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, as well as other Orthodox leaders; representatives from different Protestant denominations; Jewish and Muslim leaders and advocates; and representatives of the Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu and Jainist faiths.

Latest update: 13/03/2013

Arming Syrian rebels a breach of international law, Russia says

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday said that arming the Syrian opposition would breach international law, after Western powers hinted at ignoring an EU arms ban and supplying rebels with military aid.

By News Wires (text)

 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Wednesday that arming Syrian rebels would breach international law, after Western powers dropped growing hints about giving military aid.
Speaking in London after talks with his British counterpart William Hague, Lavrov also reiterated that it was for Syrians to decide the future of President Bashar al-Assad.

Vatican denies Dirty War allegations against Pope

Argentinian Catholics have been celebrating the election of Pope Francis

The Vatican has denied that Pope Francis failed to speak out against human rights abuses during military rule in his native Argentina.

"There has never been a credible, concrete accusation against him," said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi, adding he had never been charged.
The spokesman blamed the accusations on "anti-clerical left-wing elements that are used to attack the Church".
Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, led Argentina's Jesuits under the junta.

Correspondents say that like other Latin American churchmen of the time, he had to contend, on the one hand, with a repressive right-wing regime and, on the other, a wing of his Church leaning towards political activism on the left.

Here is Jorge Mario Bergoglio as a priest in 1973

One allegation concerns the abduction in 1976 of two Jesuits by the Argentina's military government, suspicious of their work among slum-dwellers.

As the priests' provincial superior at the time, Jorge Bergoglio was accused by some of having failed to shield them from arrest - a charge his office flatly denied.

Judges investigating the arrest and torture of the two men - who were freed after five months - questioned Cardinal Bergoglio as a witness in 2010.
The new Pope's official biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that the Jesuit leader "took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them".
Another accusation levelled against him from the Dirty War era is that he failed to follow up a request to help find the baby of a woman kidnapped when five months' pregnant pregnant and killed in 1977. It is believed the baby was illegally adopted.
The cardinal testified in 2010 that he had not known about baby thefts until well after the junta fell - a claim relatives dispute.

Netherlands, Germany alarmed over Islamist extremists

BERLIN / NETHERLANDS

Fearing the spread of radical Islam across Europe, Netherlands raises terror threat level to ‘substantial,’ while Germany bans ultra-conservative groups due to threat of overturning democracy

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A German policeman faces Salafis leaving an abruptly ended demonstration in Berlin. Germany banned three Salafi groups. AFP Photo

The Dutch government raised its terror threat yesterday amid concerns that Dutch citizens traveling to Syria to fight in the civil war could return battle-hardened, traumatized and further radicalized.

The government cited the threat posed by jihadist fighters returning from Syria, where rebels are battling government forces, and signs of increasing radicalization among Dutch youth as key reasons for lifting its threat level from “limited” to “substantial.” The level is now the second-highest on the four-step scale, just below “critical.”

“The chance of an attack in the Netherlands or against Dutch interests abroad has risen,” the country’s National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism said in a statement. 

The warning comes just two months before hundreds of thousands of people are expected to descend on Amsterdam for mass celebrations for the abdication of Queen Beatrix and coronation of her son, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander.

Counterterrorism chief Dick Schoof said nearly 100 people had traveled from the Netherlands to Africa and the Middle East, mainly to Syria, to fight and warned that it was not just a Dutch problem. 

“These jihadist travelers can return to the Netherlands highly radicalized, traumatized and with a strong desire to commit violence, thus posing a significant threat to this country,” Schoof said in his statement. 

He said several fighters had already returned to the Netherlands and were being monitored.

Government terror experts also say political upheaval in North Africa and the Mideast were giving terror networks room to grow.

Germany bans three 'anti-democratic' Islamist groups

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Authorities in Germany have banned three Islamist groups, accusing them of being "anti-democratic" and seeking to impose sharia law.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the groups were seeking to "replace democracy"

DawaFFM, Islamische Audios and An-Nussrah all adhere to ultra-conservative Salafist doctrine.

Police mounted raids against the groups on Wednesday, but no arrests were made.

German officials have said videos produced by DawaFFM partly inspired the man who shot dead two US airmen at Frankfurt airport in 2011.

An-Nussrah was judged to be part of the Millatu Ibrahim organisation, which had been banned in June last year.

"Salafism, as represented by the groups banned today, is incompatible with our peaceful, democratic system," Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said in a statement.

"DawaFFM, Islamische Audios and An-Nussrah aim to change our society in an aggressive way so that democracy is replaced by a Salafist system and the state of law replaced by sharia," he went on.

Searches were carried out early on Wednesday morning at the addresses of 20 people in the states of Hesse and North-Rhine Westphalia, the interior ministry said.

Humble' Argentine cardinal becomes Pope Francis

© AFP

Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio on Wednesday became Pope Francis, the Catholic Church’s 266th pontiff, elected after two days of voting in the Vatican. Known for his simplicity and humility, the Jesuit is the first pope from the Americas.

By FRANCE 24  (text)

A conservative theologian known as the “archbishop of the poor”, the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is a man of many firsts.
He is the first Jesuit pope and the first to choose Francis as his papal name.
He is also the first Latin American “vicar of Christ” and, as such, the first non-European pope since Syrian-born Gregory III in the eighth century, and the third successive non-Italian pontiff – albeit with Italian origins.
The son of Piemontese immigrants with a reputation as “the archbishop of the poor”, Bergoglio is known for his humble lifestyle and pastoral leadership.
He was born in 1936 in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, a city he seldom left thereafter.
Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature, psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos Aires archbishop in 1998.

Berlusconi given one-year sentence in wiretap trial

© AFP

Former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday was handed a one-year prison sentence for making public the contents of a wiretapped phone call relating to a 2005 banking scandal, but will serve no time until all legal appeals have been exhausted.

By News Wires (text)

An Italian court sentenced ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday to one year in jail over the publication by his family’s newspaper of a transcript of a leaked wiretap connected to a banking scandal in 2006.
Italian justice system rules mean that the 76-year-old media billionaire would not have to serve any jail time until the appeals process has been exhausted, and a higher court may still overturn the ruling.
It came in the middle of a complex political impasse arising from an inconclusive election last week that left no party able to form a government on its own, although Berlusconi’s centre-right formation emerged as the second strongest in parliament.
Berlusconi is in the middle of a series of trials, with separate cases over charges of tax fraud and paying for sex with an underage prostitute due to wind up this month.
He has denied any wrongdoing in the case and the verdict was immediately criticised by his lawyer Piero Longo, who has frequently criticised Milan judges over the long series of trials Berlusconi has faced over the years.
“I’m not surprised, given that it’s Milan and it has to do with Berlusconi,” he told reporters after the verdict.
“But I am concerned and shocked because I’m quite convinced that the charges against Berlusconi were weak and contradictory and even completely lacking.”
Berlusconi’s brother Paolo, publisher of the family-owned Il Giornale daily, was sentenced to two years and three months over the same case, which centred on confidential wiretap transcripts related to a bank takeover which appeared in the newspaper.
The court also awarded 80,000 euros in damages to Piero Fassino, who was head of the main centre-left party at the time of the incident and whose remarks were caught on the wiretap and published in the newspaper.

Eurozone unemployment rises to record levels

Jobless rate rises to 11.9 percent in 17 countries sharing euro, up from 11.8 percent in December, data show. Last Modified: 01 Mar 2013 21:41

With about 19 million people out of work in January, expectations for the eurozone's economy are weak [Getty]

Unemployment in the eurozone rose to an all-time high in January, with an estimated 19 million people in the bloc out of work, the EU's statistics office said. January's unemployment rate rose to 11.9 percent in the 17 countries sharing the euro, up from 11.8 percent in December, with another 201,000 people out of work, Eurostat said on Friday.

Mass protests in Portugal over austerity cuts

Demonstrators hold marches in 20 cities denouncing government cutbacks aimed at pulling nation out of recession. Last Modified: 02 Mar 2013 21:03

Portugal is expected to endure a third straight year of recession in 2013, with a 2 percent contraction [AFP]

Many thousands of demonstrators have held marches in more than 20 cities in Portugal to protest against government-imposed austerity measures aimed at lifting the ailing country out of recession. Tens of thousands of people filled a Lisbon boulevard during Saturday's protests and headed to the finance ministry carrying placards saying "Screw the troika, we want our lives back".

Moldova’s Pro-Western Government Falls

By ANDREW ROTH

Published: March 5, 2013

MOSCOW — The pro-Western government of Moldova fell on Tuesday when Parliament passed a no-confidence motion, shattering a fragile political alliance that had put the former Soviet republic on a path toward integration with the European Union.

Militants from Russia's North Caucasus join 'jihad' in Syria
March 06, 2013 11:01 PM By
Thomas Grove, Mariam Karouny

In this late Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013 photo Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov, right, greets businessman Ruslan Baisarov during the opening ceremony of an all-season mountain ski resort in Veduchi, 100 km south of the regional capital Grozny. (AP Photo/ Musa Sadulayev)

MOSCOW/BEIRUT: Flanked by almost 20 men with rifles, Omar Abu al-Chechen kneels on a carpet and delivers a rousing speech urging fellow Muslims to support the 'jihad' against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Dressed almost entirely in black, the militant from Russia's Chechnya region declares an Islamist state is within reach. Fellow fighters from the brigade of foreign militants he leads translate his Russian words into Arabic.