Tag Archives: european

Gay marriage law strains Cameron's leadership

Posted on May 20, 2013

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron’s flagship gay marriage policy deepened a rift in his own party on Monday after many of his own MPs defied him in a sign of growing strains on his leadership and his coalition government.

Almost 40 percent of Cameron’s 303 MPs in the Commons voted for an ultimately unsuccessful amendment that would have allowed registrars to refuse to perform gay marriage ceremonies if they objected.

Scores backed another amendment that the government said would have sabotaged its efforts to legalise same sex unions.

Cameron’s failure to unite his ruling Conservative Party over gay marriage and over his other major policy – renegotiating Britain’s membership of the European Union – risks undermining his chances of being re-elected in 2015 even as the economy is showing signs of returning to growth.

“It’s a perfect political storm. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Cameron,” Iain Dale, a prominent gay radio presenter and conservative blogger, told Reuters.

The revolt, the second of its kind on gay marriage, is likely to damage Cameron’s credibility.

To compound his discomfort, he is also battling to squash a perception that he despises his own party members for being too conservative after newspapers quoted an unnamed member of his entourage as calling activists “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

The word “loon”, meaning a crazy person in British English, dates back to the 15th century and was used by Shakespeare in Macbeth. Conservative activists say they want an apology for being insulted. Cameron wrote to party workers on Monday to try to reassure them that he and his allies weren’t sneering at them.

Geoffrey Howe, the former foreign secretary who helped trigger the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, has accused Cameron of losing control of his party, deepening the sense of gloom.

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Gay marriage law strains Cameron's leadership

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Gay marriage law strains Cameron's leadership, government

Posted on May 20, 2013

By Andrew Osborn

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister David Cameron’s flagship gay marriage policy deepened a rift in his own party on Monday after many of his own MPs defied him in a sign of growing strains on his leadership and his coalition government.

Almost 40 percent of Cameron’s 303 MPs in the Commons voted for an ultimately unsuccessful amendment that would have allowed registrars to refuse to perform gay marriage ceremonies if they objected.

Scores backed another amendment that the government said would have sabotaged its efforts to legalise same sex unions.

Cameron’s failure to unite his ruling Conservative Party over gay marriage and over his other major policy – renegotiating Britain’s membership of the European Union – risks undermining his chances of being re-elected in 2015 even as the economy is showing signs of returning to growth.

“It’s a perfect political storm. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Cameron,” Iain Dale, a prominent gay radio presenter and conservative blogger, told Reuters.

The revolt, the second of its kind on gay marriage, is likely to damage Cameron’s credibility.

To compound his discomfort, he is also battling to squash a perception that he despises his own party members for being too conservative after newspapers quoted an unnamed member of his entourage as calling activists “mad, swivel-eyed loons”.

The word “loon”, meaning a crazy person in British English, dates back to the 15th century and was used by Shakespeare in Macbeth. Conservative activists say they want an apology for being insulted. Cameron wrote to party workers on Monday to try to reassure them that he and his allies weren’t sneering at them.

Geoffrey Howe, the former foreign secretary who helped trigger the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, has accused Cameron of losing control of his party, deepening the sense of gloom.

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Gay marriage law strains Cameron's leadership, government

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Gay marriage now law in France

Posted on May 18, 2013

Men in masks: A protest in Paris on Friday against legalising same-sex marriage. Photo: AFP

French President Francois Hollande signed a gay marriage and adoption bill into law on Saturday after it was cleared by the constitutional council, which turned down a challenge by the right-wing opposition.

Mr Hollande, who had made ”marriage for all” a key election pledge, made the announcement saying it was ”now time to respect the law and the Republic” after the top French institution cleared the bill on Friday.

The first gay wedding can be held 10 days after the bill was signed.

France is now the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage.

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Parliament approved the bill on April 23 but it was immediately challenged on constitutional grounds by the main right-wing opposition UMP party. The UMP had opposed what it said was a fast-track voting procedure and argued that gay marriage represented such a fundamental change that more than a law was required.

A Parisian socialite who goes by the name of Frigide Barjot and is the public face of the movement opposing gay marriage said the council’s go-ahead was a ”provocation”.

Gay rights groups hailed the decision as a watershed. It came as a European Union report said 66 per cent of Europe’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were still afraid to show their sexuality in public and 26 per cent had been victims of physical or verbal attacks in the past five years.

”Fear, isolation and discrimination are everyday phenomena for the LGBT community in Europe,” Morten Kjaerum, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, wrote in the report, which was released on Friday for the International Day Against Homophobia.

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Occupy London protesters ‘will go to European Court of Human Rights’ – Video

Posted on May 16, 2013


Occupy London protesters'will go to European Court of Human Rights' to see more videos here: http://www.youtube.com/NewsLiveEvents for copyright listed in the video. please no haters please like and subscribe in accident, American, case, country, crisis, demonstra… By: NewsLiveEvents

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Occupy London protesters ‘will go to European Court of Human Rights’ – Video

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EU Concerned by Recent Events in Jerusalem, West Bank

Posted on May 12, 2013

BRUSSELS, May 11, 2013 (WAFA) The European Union Friday expressed concern by the developments on the ground inIsraeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, warning that they might undermine peace efforts.

A statement by the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said that the developments over the past week in East Jerusalem and the West Bank have increased tensions on the ground and risk undermining current efforts to re-launch peace talks.

Ashton, who expressed concern by these developments, said it is important that those concerned exercise maximum restraint and refrain from any actions which could drive the sides to the conflict further apart.

The statement said Ashton was particularly disturbed by the events that took place during Orthodox Easter Holy Fire celebrations in Jerusalems Old City when Israeli police prevented thousands of Christians from reaching the Holy Sepulcher, the unrest in the area of the al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslim worshippers and Jewish fanatics backed by police, and the temporary detention of the Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein.

It is essential that access to the holy sites in Jerusalem for peaceful worship for all denominations is fully respected, she said.

Ashton also said she was very concerned by reports of the approval of settlement plans for 300 houses at Beit EL near Ramallah in the West Bank.

The EU has repeatedly declared settlements to be illegal under international law and to constitute an obstacle to peace, said the EU official.

The Palestinian Authority and world governments have also condemned the Israeli settlement expansion plan, which they said would undermine renewed efforts by the United States to revive the stalled peace process and re-launch Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

US Secretary of State John Kerry is planning to return to the Middle East in 10 days, his fourth since he took office earlier this year, in an effort to re-start peace talks.

M.S.

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G4S divests Israel West Bank operations

Posted on April 24, 2013

Britain’s G4S plc (LSE: GFS; OMX: G4S), the world’s largest security services company in terms of revenue, has confirmed it is planning to quit key contracts in Israel amid protests against its involvement in settlements within occupied Palestinian territories,” the “Financial Times” reported today.

“Financial Times” adds, “The company employs 6,000 people in Israel, where it provides and maintains screening equipment for several West Bank military checkpoints. It also manages security systems at the controversial Ofer Prison in the Occupied West Bank. But with sporadic international protests continuing both outside the FTSE 100s headquarters in London and internationally, the company said it would exit the contracts covering Ofer, the checkpoints and the West Bank police headquarters when they terminate in 2015.”

“Financial Times” reports, “Last week, 19 non-government organizations from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine called on Arab nations and the European Union to stop dealing with G4S. The Scottish Trades Union Congress also voted on Tuesday to support Palestinian calls for a boycott of the multinational.”

Having conducted a review in 2011, we concluded that, to ensure that G4S Israel business practices remain in line with our own business ethics policy, we would aim to exit the contracts which involve the servicing of security equipment at a small number of barrier checkpoints, a prison and a police station in the West Bank area, G4S told the “Financial Times”.

It adds, “The move will nevertheless disappoint protesters, who have called on G4S to end all dealings with the Israeli prison authorities. The security company will continue to service security systems in commercial and government sites inside Israel, including jails housing Palestinian inmates, after 2015.”

G4S operates in Israel through four business divisions for technology security and physical security of sites with guards. “The group earned 100 million in sales at its Israeli operations last year. But the division accounts for just 1% of global revenues, and 1% of profits at the global group, which employs 625,000 people in 125 countries,” says the “Financial Times”.

“Financial Times” says that G4S has established a risk committee and is conducting more formal reviews of the operational and reputational dangers of contracts worth more than 20 million. It has also stated its ambition to offload underperforming parts of the business.

The newspaper quotes Jeffries analyst Kean Marden as saying, G4S Israel may be next to be divested? The Israel/Palestine conflict has created reputational issues. In our view the potential disposal of G4S Israel could be announced as soon as the 25 June capital markets day.”

G4S said in response, “These are decisions made more than two years ago, and there has been no change in the decision since then.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on April 22, 2013

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John Kerry: Israel, Palestinians to push West Bank economy as step to peace

Posted on April 10, 2013

TEL AVIV, Israel Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that Israeli and Palestinian officials had agreed on a plan to boost the dismal economy of the West Bank, the first concrete measure to emerge from an ambitious new U.S.-led push to restart peace talks after a four-year deadlock.

Kerry said the plan called for moving very rapidly toward business expansion and private investment in the West Bank, though he declined to get into specifics, saying he didnt want the developing framework to come out piecemeal. He said that multiple U.S. government financial institutions, including the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the State Departments Agency for International Development, would be involved, along with private corporations and European allies.

Kerrys plans are likely to involve changes in Area C of the West Bank, where Israel has full civil and security control despite it being an area shared by Israelis and Palestinians. In recent years, Israeli authorities have delayed Palestinian-backed construction and tourism projects.

Kerry said the initiative would address the bottlenecks and barriers to doing business in the West Bank.

Economic growth will help us be able to provide a climate, if you will, an atmosphere, within which people have greater confidence about moving forward, Kerry told a news conference in the Israeli capital of Tel Aviv that wrapped up three days of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

Kerrys trip to the Middle East at first appeared to be an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute to an itinerary that focused on a G-8 foreign ministers conference in London and his first trip to Asia as secretary. Instead, Kerry unveiled what he called a quiet strategy toward setting conditions for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, a risky move that tethers the new secretary to a conflict thats bedeviled successive U.S. administrations.

This is the Obama administrations first serious consideration of the conflict. First-term Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shied away from tackling it and was preoccupied with the Arab Spring revolts, while Middle East envoy George Mitchell resigned in 2011 after failing to make any headway on the issue.

This effort has been dogged by good intentions and failed efforts at one time or another for a lot of reasons, Kerry said. I think weve all had enough time to analyze those reasons and understand some of the lessons we need to learn in trying to go forward now.

Still, perhaps keenly aware of the outcomes potential to shape his legacy, Kerry emphasized several times during his visit that he understood the complexities of the conflict, and he cautioned against too much optimism.

The president has not sent me here to propose or impose an American plan or to dictate to anybody the way forward, he said. Ultimately, this negotiation is between the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. We are not naive about the challenges before us, but we believe very deeply that it is our duty to give every effort we can.

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John Kerry: Israel, Palestinians to push West Bank economy as step to peace

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Hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners sets off clashes in West Bank

Posted on February 22, 2013

BEITUNIA, West Bank Hundreds of Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli security forces outside an Israeli prison near Ramallah on Thursday in the latest of a wave of demonstrations in support of four Palestinian prisoners who have been on extended hunger strikes to protest their incarceration.

The worsening condition of the prisoners has raised tensions in the West Bank and brought expressions of concern this week from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the European Union. Two of the striking prisoners were hospitalized Thursday, according to a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prisons Service.

If any of the prisoners die, it will set the occupied territories on fire, warned Ziad Abu Ein, the deputy minister for detainee affairs in the Palestinian Authority, who joined Thursdays protest.

With about 4,600 Palestinians in Israeli jails, the issue of the prisoners touches many Palestinian families directly.

Viewed by Palestinians as heroes of the struggle against Israeli occupation, the prisoners evoke expressions of support across the political spectrum. Thursdays demonstration was organized by the Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, but some participants wore the colors of the Islamist Hamas movement and smaller leftist groups.

As several hundred chanting demonstrators marched from the town of Beitunia toward the Ofer jail, they were met by a hail of tear gas canisters fired by Israeli border police lined up outside the prison, about 100 yards away. The crowd ran for cover as masked youths, some using slingshots, hurled stones and set up barricades of burning tires, provoking more volleys of tear gas and the firing of rubber-coated bullets.

As the clashes continued into the afternoon, ambulances ferried away casualties. The Palestinian Red Crescent later reported 27people injured and about 30others treated for tear gas inhalation.

Some of the protesters carried posters bearing the image of Samer Issawi, 35, who has been on an intermittent hunger strike for more than 200 days, taking only water and nonfood supplements, according to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups monitoring his case.

Sentenced in 2002 to 26 years in prison for several shootings and providing weapons for other attacks in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Issawi was released in October 2011 as part of a prisoner exchange that freed Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in the Gaza Strip by Hamas. Issawi, who lives in Jerusalem, was arrested last year for entering the West Bank in violation of the terms of his release. Accused of undisclosed security offenses, he faces possible imprisonment for the remainder of his original term, under amended Israeli military law.

Ayman Sharawna, who has been on an intermittent hunger strike since July, was sentenced to 38 years in 2002 for a bombing in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba that wounded 18 people. Released in the Shalit prisoner swap, he was rearrested last year for alleged security violations not disclosed to his lawyer. He too may face imprisonment for the remainder of his original jail term.

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The Brussels Business extract: Bilderberg chairman

Posted on February 17, 2013



The Brussels Business extract: Bilderberg chairman Elite ERT boss Viscount Etienne Davignon
Who drafts EU law? The Chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists decides, that's who. Butter wouldn't melt in Viscount Etienne Davignon's mouth Extract from the excellent documentary The Brussels Business put together by Olivier Hoedeman and Corporate Europe Observatory www.thebrusselsbusiness.eu corporateeurope.org The Brussels Business Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) In the early 90s two young men discover the enormous influence of lobbying in Brussels. One becomes the leading lobby-watchdog in Brussels, the other one becomes a top lobbyist on world trade issues, representing 50% of the EU's economy – banks, insurances, telecoms, touristic operators and a wide range of business federations. By following one's investigations and the other's career this film takes us on a journey into the corridors of power of the biggest economy on earth – the European Union. In the form of a docu-thriller, THE BRUSSELS BUSINESS tries to answer a question millions of Europeans ask themselves: Who runs the European Union?

By: PublicEnquiry

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The Brussels Business extract: Bilderberg chairman

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UN seeks funds to assist Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank

Posted on February 15, 2013

New York, Feb 15 :The United Nations agency assisting Palestinian refugees Thursday launched an emergency appeal for just over USD 300 million to provide vital aid to the most disadvantaged in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The largest component of the appeal – USD 78 million – is for food assistance to nearly three quarters of a million impoverished beneficiaries in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade for six years, said a news release issued by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“As political leaders and donors are called upon to respond to new disasters around the globe, the man-made humanitarian crisis right here in Gaza and in the West Bank remains and intensifies with no sign of abating after more than six decades,” UNRWA’s Deputy Commissioner-General, Margot Ellis, said at the launch event in Gaza.

The appeal will also fund temporary job creation and a cash assistance programme, as well as community mental health programmes, emergency health interventions and water and sanitation initiatives in Gaza and the West Bank.

The Director of UNRWA’s Department of Relief and Social Services, Martha Myers, said that Palestinians have “moved from being a second world country over the past 30 years to being a third world country in Gaza and outside the bubble of Ramallah in the West Bank.

“The descent continues unabated with the ability to produce and innovate stifled by the blockade – ruining lives, undermining a society and hope of political harmony, and debilitating the chances of a positive outcome.”

Israel imposed the blockade on Gaza for what it called security reasons after the Hamas group, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, ousted the Fatah movement from the Strip in 2007.

Senior UN officials as well as the diplomatic Quartet – comprising the UN, European Union, Russia and the United States – have repeatedly called over the past years for an end to the blockade, stating that while efforts to ease the closure were welcome, a full and immediate lifting was needed.

Established by the General Assembly in 1949, UNRWA is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some five million registered Palestinian refugees in various countries throughout the Middle East. Its services include education, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, health care and emergency assistance.

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