Pope Francis visited one of Naples’ most violent and drug-infested neighbourhoods on Saturday and urged residents not to let organised crime and corrupt politicians rob them of hope.
Francis, on a day-long trip to the southern city, addressed a crowd in the notorious Scampia neighbourhood, a stronghold of clans of the Camorra, the Naples version of the Sicilian mafia.
He spoke in the shadow of a dilapidated sail boat-shaped housing project known as Le Vele, so dangerous that even police are sometimes afraid to enter, residents say.
The blighted area has often been the battleground of Camorra clans fighting each other for control of drug trafficking and extortion rackets.
“See to it that evil is not the last word. It (the last word) has to be hope,” he told a crowd of several thousand people as he was surrounded by children who rushed the stage to sit on the floor at his feet.
“Those who voluntarily take the road of evil rob a piece of hope. They rob it from themselves and from everybody, from society, from so many honest and hard-working people, they rob it from good name of the city and from its economy.”
Since his election two years ago, Francis - who renounced the spacious papal apartments used by his predecessors and lives is a small apartment in a Vatican guest house - has made the defence of the poor a key plank of his papacy.
Black box under analysis as Germanwings recovery operation continues
Latest update : 2015-03-25
The arduous search for the 150 victims of the worst aviation disaster on French soil in decades resumed at dawn Wednesday, as European leaders made their way to the site of the tragedy to pay their respects.
Germanwings flight 4U9525, carrying 144 passengers including 16 German teenagers returning home from a school trip, plunged for eight minutes before hitting the side of a mountain in the French Alps Tuesday with no survivors.
There was no response to desperate attempts by air traffic controllers to reach the pilots.
The cause of the accident remains a mystery but authorities have recovered one of two black boxes from the Airbus A320 at the crash site, where debris was believed to be scattered over four acres of remote and inaccessible mountainous terrain, hampering rescue efforts.
More than 300 policemen and 380 firefighters have been mobilised. Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini said a squad of 30 mountain rescue police would resume attempts to reach the crash site by helicopter at dawn Wednesday, while a further 65 police were seeking access on foot. Five investigators had spent the night at the site.
It would take "at least a week" to search the remote site, he said, and "at least several days" to repatriate the bodies.
Video images from a government helicopter Tuesday showed a desolate snow-flecked moonscape, with steep ravines covered in scree. Debris was strewn across the mountainside, pieces of twisted metal smashed into tiny bits.
'Totally destroyed'
The plane was "totally destroyed", a local MP who flew over the site said, describing the scene as "horrendous".
"The biggest body parts we identified are not bigger than a briefcase," one investigator said.
Bereaved families were expected to begin arriving at Seyne-Les-Alpes, the French town close to the crash site, on Wednesday.A crisis cell has been set up in the area between Barcelonnette and Digne-les-Bains along with an emergency flight control centre to coordinate chopper flights to the crash site.
The town’s mayor, Francis Hermitte, said locals had offered to host the families because of the shortage of rooms to rent there.
French President François Hollande, his German counterpart Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy were expected to reach the scene around 2:00 p.m. local time Wednesday.
The 144 passengers were mainly German and Spanish.
The New York Times said the audio showed one of the pilots left the cockpit and could not get back in before the plane went down.
“The guy outside is knocking lightly on the door and there is no answer,” an unnamed investigator told the Times, citing the recordings. “And then he hits the door stronger and no answer. There is never an answer.”
“You can hear he is trying to smash the door down,” the investigator added.
The retrieval of the recordings came as French President Francois Hollande, Germany’s Angela Merkel and Spain’s Mariano Rajoy travelled to the crash site in a remote French Alpine region to pay tribute to the 150 victims, mostly Germany and Spanish.
However, while Hollande promised that authorities would not rest until the causes of the crash were known, France’s BEA air incident investigation bureau said it was still far too early to draw meaningful conclusions on why the plane, operated by the Germanwings budget arm of Lufthansa, went down. “We have just been able to extract a useable audio data file,” BEA director Remi Jouty told a news conference at the agency’s headquarters outside Paris.
“We have not yet been able to study and to establish an exact timing for all the sounds and words heard on this file.” Jouty expected the first basic analysis in “a matter of days” but warned this read-out could be subject to errors and that more work would be needed for a full interpretation. Although he said “words” had been heard on the tape, Jouty would not confirm whether that meant the Airbus A320’s pilots were conscious and he gave no details of the recordings.
The New York Times quoted a senior military official involved in the investigation as saying the cockpit audio showed “very smooth, very cool” conversation between the pilots in the early part of the flight. The audio then indicated one of the pilots left the cockpit.
The survey, carried out by the market research firm GFK Verein, shows the level of confidence in the Euro has risen 19 percentage points since they last surveyed attitudes in 2013.
“The background reason for this result is low inflation,” Ronald Frank, Head of Studies at GFK Verein told The Local.
“The consumer reacts to the things he buys on a weekly basis. Because the oil price is low and this has a knock-on effect on the price of petrol at the pump – and the price for good such as butter, bread and even beer has not risen, people feel the low rate of inflation.”
The survey measures attitudes to public institutions in 26 different countries on a biannual basis. In Germany, the sharp rise in trust in the Euro made it the fifth most respected public institution.
It is still some way off public trust in the police which was recorded at 80 percent.
Frank told The Local that the other main influence on the Euro's rise in popularity was that the public believes it has weathered the storms that have battered it in recent years.
“In 2012 the media had a tendency to talk down the Euro, but a few years later nothing has happened.”
It has now been established in the public mind that the worst fantasies of the media will not come true and the Eurozone will indeed stay together.
The survey also identifies a rise in support for the government from 34 percent in 2013 to 40 percent today.
Frank pointed out that this could have reinforced support for the Euro since the measures taken to support on the European level to strengthen the single currency – the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) - came “significantly from Germany.”
But he warned that public attitudes on these issues can change quickly, saying that rising inflation or a large amount of tax money transferred to Greece as part of a deal on its debt could quickly see support for the Euro begin to fall away.
A former undercover police officer has told BBC News that Scotland Yard kept intelligence files on MPs during the 1990s.
Ex-Special Branch officer Peter Francis says he saw files on 10 Labour MPs which he and others regularly updated.
He says he personally gathered information on three MPs as part of his work infiltrating left-wing groups.
The MPs named, and Labour, have called for a forthcoming public inquiry into undercover policing to be widened.
Mr Francis operated undercover between 1993 and 1997 in the Met's now disbanded Special Demonstration Squad. He was told to embed himself in left-wing groups or causes that were deemed to pose a potential threat to security.
Pink file
He says that during this period he was told to gather intelligence on MPs and their activities if and when they featured in any of his operations.
That information, he says, was added to a special pink file that was available for Special Branch officers to read.
Between 1990 and 2001, he claims to have personally seen records relating to Diane Abbott, the late Tony Benn, Jeremy Corbyn, the late Bernie Grant, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman, Ken Livingstone, Joan Ruddock, Dennis Skinner and Jack Straw.
Four of the group became ministers during Mr Francis's time in Special Branch - including Jack Straw who was home secretary after 1997.
"When I was deployed undercover in the Special Demonstration Squad, any MP that I came across, such as on demonstrations, I would report back on them," he said.
Mr Francis says that the files not only contained the MPs' publicly-stated political views - but also intelligence on what was going on behind the scenes in the party or their group. He says some of the information would have been things said in private by the MP, depending on how close each undercover officer had been able to get.
Mr Francis said that when he first saw the files he understood that each had probably been created before the individual was an MP because of their personal involvement in radical causes or protests.
But he added: "When they became MPs these files carried on. It [was] your duty as an SDS officer to report back any intelligence that you come across.
Peter Hain: Monitored in his youth - monitored as an MP?
"I felt that it was OK to report back on MPs," he said. "I used to give myself a pat on the back, thinking 'I have done a good job'. These MPs were spied on and they should know."
"I don't think the police force should be monitoring MPs, full stop. I don't think we have any right to do that at all. It may be justifiable to say that the Security Service should be doing it - but I certainly don't think the police should be doing it."
Scotland Yard has refused to comment on the substance of the claims, but a spokesman said it had not shied away from serious allegations about the SDS. It said that Operation Herne, the internal police investigation into what happened in the unit, remained an ongoing investigation.
"Operation Herne maintains that without speaking to Peter Francis it is simply not possible to fully investigate allegations he makes," said a spokesman. "Operation Herne remains very willing to engage with him."
Mr Francis said that he has refused to speak to Operation Herne because he fears being interviewed under caution as a suspect, rather than a whistleblower. Scotland Yard told the BBC that Operation Herne detectives would be prepared to speak to him as a witness.
He has, however, spoken to Mark Ellison QC who reviewed allegations about the SDS for the Home Secretary Theresa May - prompting her to launch a statutory inquiry. He says he will appear before those hearings.
'Infringes sovereignty'
Peter Hain, who was a leader of the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1960s and 70s and became an MP in 1991, said he now wants full answers from Scotland Yard.
"I was deeply disturbed to find that files were still being kept by the Special Branch while I and others were serving Members of Parliament," he said.
"That is constitutionally an outrage. It infringes the sovereignty of Parliament.
"I want to see the home secretary widen the scope of the inquiry into the SDS to look specifically at the surveillance of MPs and the fact that there were active files on us while we were serving Members of Parliament.
"This should never have happened and it should have been reported and properly authorised - and we don't know whether it was."
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper echoed the call for the inquiry to be widened in light of what she described as "extremely serious and disturbing allegations".
"While undercover policing remains a crucial tool in combating serious and organised crime it must not be abused," she said.
"There have now been a series of serious allegations about undercover policing - ranging from the treatment of Stephen Lawrence's family to police having long-term inappropriate relationships.
"We called some time ago for much stronger oversight of undercover policing and it is also vital to get to the truth about what has happened."
Mrs May announced earlier this month that Lord Justice Pitchford would lead the inquiry into the SDS allegations - but the precise shape of that inquiry is not yet clear.
A Home Office spokesman said the review by Mark Ellison QC had unearthed "serious historical failings".
"That is why the Home Secretary established a public inquiry to thoroughly investigate undercover policing and the operation of the Special Demonstration Squad.
"Lord Justice Pitchford will consult interested parties to the inquiry over the coming months on setting the terms of reference, with a view to publishing these at the end of July.
"Undercover policing is an essential tactic in the fight against crime but to improve the public's confidence in undercover work we must ensure there is no repeat of these failings in the future."
Russia’s ambassador to Denmark has said Moscow could send nuclear missiles against ships from the Scandinavian NATO country if it joins the alliance’s missile defense system.
Ambassador Mikhail Vanin’s comments, published in newspaper Jyllands-Posten Saturday, prompted an angry response from Danish Foreign Minister Martin Lidegaard.
“I do not think Danes fully understand the consequences of what happens if Denmark joins the U.S.-led missile defense. If this happens, Danish warships become targets for Russian nuclear missiles,” Vanin was quoted as saying by the daily.
Should Danes join “we risk considering each other as enemies,” he added.
Lidegaard said the comments were “inacceptable” and that Vanin had “crossed the line” by saying that “everyone who joins” the shield “in the future will be a target for Russian ballistic missiles.”
However, Lidegaard added that “it is important that the tone between us doesn’t escalate.”
There were no immediate plans for a meeting between Lidegaard and Vanin.
The Russian embassy couldn’t be reached for a comment.
East-West relations have worsened dramatically in the past year amid bitter tensions over Ukraine.
In August, Danes agreed to contribute to NATO’s shield with at least one frigate with advanced radar capacity. Russia strongly opposes the missile defense system, with bases planned in Romania and Poland.
U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford wrote on Twitter Saturday that Vanin’s comments “do not inspire confidence” or contribute to peace and stability.
“It never has and never had anything to do with Russia,” Lidegaard said about the missile shield, saying the defense system was aimed at protecting against rogue states or terrorist organizations, among others.
(AP)
Greece adopts ‘anti-poverty’ law despite alleged EU row (france 24)
The Greek parliament overwhelmingly adopted a "humanitarian crisis" bill on Wednesday aimed at helping its poorest people, ignoring apparent pressure from the European Union to halt the legislation.
Amid conflict with Russian-backed separatists in east, government is taking tougher line on oligarchs
March 25, 201511:44AM ET
Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko fired powerful tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky as a regional governor Wednesday in a move that could affect the country's internal balance of power and Kiev's fight against Moscow-backed separatists.
The 52-year-old Kolomoisky has been at the center of a political storm since armed men, apparently loyal to him, briefly entered the offices of the state-owned oil monopoly UkrTransNafta in the capital, Kiev, Thursday night after its director, his ally, was summarily replaced.
Privatization calls find Greece caught between creditors and voters
EU expects Athens to sell off state assets, but the electorate wants to save the national patrimony
March 25, 20159:00AM ET
Maria Aroni isn’t entirely opposed to privatization, but she deems efforts by the Greek state to sell off public assets in order to pay down its debts as “a move of desperation.” And last spring, the businesswoman and former deputy mayor of the tiny island of Elafonissos helped lead a successful fight to prevent a soft-sand beach being sold off to hotel developers.
“This island, as beautiful as it is, simply cannot survive if it’s cut off from Simos beach,” she explained. “This beach is the source of life financially, supporting all the small businesses on the island, and encouraging the kind of small-scale tourism that brings out the best of Greece, like its natural beauty, its hospitality.”
The US House of Representatives
overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Monday urging President Barack Obama to
send weapons to Ukraine to help its fight against Russian-backed rebels. The US
has so far provided only non-lethal aid.
American lawmakers voted overwhelmingly
Monday to urge President Barack Obama to provide Ukraine with lethal
weapons to defend itself against Russian "aggression."
The US House of Representatives approved
the resolution in a broadly bipartisan 348-48 vote, heaping further pressure on
the Obama administration to end its delays in providing weapons and other heavy
military equipment to Kiev forces.
A blast at a coal mine in the eastern Ukrainian rebel stronghold of Donetsk killed more than 30 people, a local official said on Wednesday, with dozens more miners who were underground at the time unaccounted for.
Miners’ relatives were gathering at the entrance to the Zasyadko mine desperately trying to get more information, a Reuters reporter at the scene said.
Local officials said about 70 people were working in the mine when the explosion happened. One worker, leaving the mine in dirty overalls, said he had heard that 45 people were still trapped underground, though there was no immediate confirmation of this figure.
“According to preliminary information, more than 30 people were killed. Rescue workers have not yet come to the place of the explosion, they are removing the poisonous gas and then will go down,” said Vladimir Tsymbalenko, the head of the local mining safety service.
The cause of the blast in the Zasyadko coal mine was not immediately clear. An explosion at Zasyadko in 2007 killed 106 people.
The sister of one miner who was in the pit at the time of the explosion, Alexei Novoselsky, stood at the entrance to the mine, in tears.
“Tell me, are there survivors? Why are you concealing the truth,” she said as a local rescue services employee tried to calm her.
A welder at the mine, who gave his name as Oleg, said outside the entrance: “What I heard is that there are 45 people trapped. They got one out.”
Asked about the chances of rescuing more miners, he said: “I’ve been down the pit for 23 years, and this is the fourth explosion that I can recall. If they didn’t get them out straight away, then later they will only retrieve bodies. An explosion is a terrible thing.”
Some of the most powerful recreational drugs, including ecstasy, ketamine and magic mushrooms, were accidentally made legal in Ireland on Tuesday – but only for one day – thanks to a loophole in the law.
The Irish government is now rushing to pass through emergency legislation to re-criminalise thedrugs, but this will not be completed until Wednesday at the earliest.
The bizarre situation came about after the country’s Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday morning that a longstanding piece of anti-drug legislation – the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 – was unconstitutional.
According to Ireland’s Department of Health, this meant possession of drugs listed in the act such as ecstasy, benzodiazepines and newer psychoactive substances immediately ceased to be an offence.
“The outcome of this case does not affect existing laws regarding the supply, possession or sale of older drugs such as heroin, cocaine or cannabis,” the department said in a statement.
The case concerned the prosecution of a man for possession of a substance sold by one of Ireland’s so-called ‘head shops’, operators that sell substances often dubbed “legal” or “herbal” highs that the government sought to crack down on in 2010.
The stimulant, methylethcathinone, was added to the list of controlled substances by ministerial order in 2011, a move the court deemed to be unconstitutional as it had been done without any consultation with the Irish parliament.
As a result, all other drugs added to the list of controlled substances by similar government orders over the years also ceased to be illegal.
Irish Health Minister Leo Varadkar is set to introduce emergency legislation in a session at the Dáil, the lower house of the country’s parliament, on Tuesday evening.
However, once through the Dáil the bill will need to go before the parliament’s upper chamber, the Seanad, tomorrow, before it can become law.
“The emergency legislation I am introducing today will re-instate the status quo ante and re-control all drugs that were controlled prior to this judgment,” Varadkar said in a statement.
The euro and the dollar are nearly trading one for one, as the EU single currency continues to fall to new depths after the announcement of the ECB’s quantitative easing, the €1.1 trillion bond-buying program launched Monday.
In early trading Tuesday, the euro lost more than 1 percent against the dollar to $1.0586, its lowest since March 2003.
At the time of publication, $1 buys €1.06, whereas a year ago it bought 1.36, a more than 30 percent fall in value.
The euro has been on a steep decline since the European Central Bank announced its loose monetary policy in December. Since the start of 2015, it has lost more than 14 percent.
"It's the euro versus everything," Stephen Gallo, European head of FX strategy at BMO Capital Markets in London, told Reuters.
Against the pound, the euro dropped 1.15 percent, with one euro now buying only 70.18 pence, the weakest since November 2007.
"The way these moves look is if it's not just speculators piling into euro shorts, it's actually a net flow of capital out of the euro,” Gallo said.
Other factors affecting the euro which is used by 19 countries, is the looming possibility Greece may again fall into a sovereign debt crisis and possibly leave the eurozone, which would send the currency sinking even further. ECB officials, along with IMF and European Commission, visit Athens Wednesday to discuss terms of a bailout extension.
Another stressor is the resurgence of the greenback after it underwent its own quantitative easingfrom 2008-2014. Falling oil prices also contribute to deflation, or lower prices, across Europe.
The European Central Bank launched its €1.1 trillion bond-buying program on Monday. The program will pump new money into the economy via central banks buying sovereign bonds in order to jumpstart the EU economy and steer clear of deflation. Inflation is hovering close to zero and nowhere near the ECB’s 2 percent target.
Ukraine to receive $17.5bn from IMF to save economy
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has agreed to extend $17.5bn in loans to Ukraine in an effort to pull back the country from the verge of economic collapse.
Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, said on Wednesday that the new four-year extended arrangement will support economic stabilisation and wide-ranging reforms in Ukraine.
"The plan is to disperse about $10bn worth of financing during the first year," she said.
Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's finance minister, said earlier in the day that the government expected to receive $5bn from the IMF in the "coming days".
Credit is being extended on condition that the government in Kiev implements deep structural reforms and slashes government spending.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed off on legislative measures to drastically reduce spending and also approved changes to the tax system.
"This fully carries out Ukraine's side of the agreements that were reflected in a memorandum with the IMF," Poroshenko said Wednesday at a joint press conference in Kiev with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.
Lagarde hailed Ukraine's "strong commitment to reform".
"They have maintained fiscal discipline in very difficult conditions, allowed the exchange rate to adjust, and have increased retail end-user prices for gas," she said in a statement.
Lagarde said measures would be taken to help cushion the poorest from the impact of adjustments.
US support
In Washington, the White House welcomed the IMF's decision.
"The United States is working alongside international partners to provide Ukraine with the financial support it needs as it continues to take steps that will transform the Ukrainian economy and strengthen its democracy," Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, John Kerry, the US State Secretary, said on Wednesday the United States would provide an additional $75m of non-lethal assistance to Ukraine.
The US will also send 30 heavily armoured Humvees and 200 other regular Humvees, as well as radios, counter-mortar radars and other equipment.
All of the aid is non-lethal, and the drones are not armed.
UK trade deficit narrows in January on oil price falls
The narrowing of the deficit was mostly due to declining oil exports and imports
The UK trade deficit has narrowed to £616m in January from a five-year high of £2.1bn in December, latest figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.
The large decrease in imports was mainly due to a £1.3bn fall in the imports of fuels, specifically oil.
Imports of oil were £2.2bn in January, their lowest level since May 2009.
Excluding the impact of falling oil prices on the trade deficit, which also led to a decline of UK fuel exports, the balance of trade in goods excluding oil also narrowed to a deficit of £7.8bn.
That was the lowest monthly deficit in goods since June 2013.
The UK's goods trade deficit with the 28 EU nations narrowed slightly to £6.67bn.
The pound was ahead against the dollar after the ONS data announcement, with sterling strengthening by 0.44% against the greenback. BBC.
