Bush administration proposes listing polar bears as threatened species

WASHINGTON (AP) — Polar bears are in jeopardy and need stronger government protection because of melting Arctic sea ice related to global warming, the Bush administration said Wednesday.

Pollution and overhunting also threaten their existence. Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, while a quarter of them live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Wednesday proposed listing polar bears as a "threatened" species on the government list of imperiled species. The "endangered" category is reserved for species more likely to become extinct.

"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments," Kempthorne said. "But we are concerned the polar bear's habitat may literally be melting."

A final decision on whether to add the polar bears to the list is a year away, after the government finishes more studies.

(MORE)

Farmers and Conservationists Form a Rare Alliance

By JESSICA KOWAL
Published: December 27, 2006

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — The standoff here between farmers and environmentalists was familiar in the modern West.

With salmon and wildlife dwindling in the Skagit River Delta, some environmentalists had argued since the 1980s that local farms should be turned back into wetlands. Farmers here feared that preachy outsiders would strip them of their land and heritage.

This year, though, the standoff ended — at least for three longtime farmers in this fertile valley, who began collaborating with their former enemies to preserve wildlife and their livelihoods.

(MORE)

Slovenia Moves Gypsies To Military Camp

Slovenia's government has moved a Gypsy family to a military base outside Ljubljana amid villagers' threats against them, media said Monday.

The 31-member Strojan family, including 14 children, was moved Sunday to a military garrison to spend winter months until the government finds a lasting solution, probably in spring, Belgrade's B92 radio reported.

Two police patrols were stationed on Christmas Day along the only road leading to the fenced Roje military base.

On Slovenia's Web sites villagers posted threats of bombs to forcibly move the Gypsy family out of the military base before March, the radio report said.

On Thursday, local authorities demolished five small cabins on land owned by the Strojans at the village of Ambrus, east of Ljubljana.

The Gypsy family was moved from Ambrus late in October when local villagers threatened to kill them.

Every time the Strojans have tried to move in past months, vigilantes have prevented them from settling down.

© 2006 UPI

Cougar Fund Action Alert

ACTION ALERT:

Dear Cougar Fund Members and Friends,
Please Voice Your Concern on the Proposed Cougar Hunt on
Arizona’s Kofa National Wildlife Refuge

Comments are needed by December 29th, 2006.

Send your letters to:
J. Paul Cornes, Manager
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
356 W. 1st Street
Yuma, Arizona 85364
Paul_Cornes@fws.gov
Phone: 928-783-7861
Fax: 928-783- 8611

The Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Arizona plans to open the refuge to cougar hunting. The proposed cougar-hunting season would allow one cat to be taken per year from the refuge and adjacent lands.

BASED IN SCIENCE?

The Arizona Game & Fish does not have accurate and consistent scientific information regarding cougar population and densities to demonstrate that there is a biological necessity for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to institute a sustainable hunt. “At this time, insufficient data exists to determine the sustainability of the hunt beyond the harvest of one lion annually. Continued population monitoring is required to determine if births or immigration are sufficient to replace any lions taken by hunters.”

WHAT IS A REFUGE?

The Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is public land and one of the few places that cougars are protected from hunting. If wildlife is not safe on a refuge, where are they protected?

POLITICAL PRESSURE?

Much of the pressure to establish a hunt is coming from the Yuma Valley Rod and Gun Club, whose legislative chair is also the chairman of the Arizona Game & Fish Commission, which sets hunting regulations and policy for the state.

WHO PAYS?

If a hunt were to be implemented, the cost of this hunt, which is only one cougar, would be $24,000 annually. Funding for the Kofa Refuge ultimately come from federal taxes. That means you, the taxpayer, would be subsidizing the hunting of Americas’ Greatest Cat™ on our public lands.

YOUR LETTERS AND COMMENTS DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

BY ALSO REQUESTING AN EXTENSION TO THE DECEMBER 29TH DEADLINE, YOU CAN HELP MORE VOICES BE HEARD.

THROUGH PUBLIC INPUT WE ENABLE OUR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES TO MANGMENT WILDLIFE FOR THE BENEFIT OFALL.

Learn more about the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and the proposed mountain lion hunting season at:
http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/arizona/kofa.html

Sara L. Carlson
The Cougar Fund
PO Box 122610 W. Broadway, Suite 103
Jackson, WY 83001
307.733.0797
307.733.7129
http://www.cougarfund.org

Take action so grizzlies can rest easy this winter

Dear NRDC BioGems Defender,

Thanks to our legal action, we now have even more to celebratethis holiday season. Last week, a federal court rejected a planto expand destructive road-building in the Cabinet-Yaak andSelkirk wildlands that span Montana, Idaho and Washington. Theyare home to two of America's most imperiled grizzly bear populations.

But elsewhere in the vast, snow-covered ranges of the Rockies, anew threat to endangered grizzlies is looming. And we need your immediate online action to block it!

A major railroad company is plotting to use powerful military artillery to control avalanches along its railway in Glacier National Park. The deadline for public comments on this disastrous plan is December 29th, so please act quickly.

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/bears/takeaction and tell Glacier officials that you support their preferred alternative, which would protect human safety, while safeguarding the park's magnificent wildlife and winter tranquility.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad has proposed firing explosives and dropping bombs from helicopters at Glacier'ssouthern boundary, even though scientific research has shown that such earth-shattering explosions are likely to disturb grizzly bear denning.

Instead, the company should upgrade its neglected, century-oldsystem of snow sheds to include overpasses for wildlife. Over the past 30 years, trains traveling along the borders of the park have killed at least 42 grizzlies, which are attracted tothe vegetation growing in avalanche chutes by the tracks, as well as grain spilled by railway cars.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/bears/takeaction and urge Glacier officials to reject Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad's reckless proposal and adopt an avalanche control plan that protects Glacier's natural values.

Thank you for all your efforts to protect grizzly bears andother imperiled Rockies wildlife.

Sincerely,
Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/biogems_bears_1206

Gypsy fury over £2,200 Olympic clearance payout

Traveller families say they're being shortchanged as householders receive more compensation

Denis Campbell
Sunday December 24, 2006
The Observer

Several dozen Gypsy families who are being evicted to make way for the 2012 Olympics are furious that they will receive just £2,200 in compensation for losing homes they have occupied for almost 40 years.

Members of the 150-strong community living in what will soon be transformed into the £3.3bn Olympic Park claim that they are being shortchanged, unfairly treated and victimised because of their ethnic background. Some 450 other residents in the same area are receiving £8,500 in all: £6,300 to cover the loss of their homes and £2,200 to pay for removal fees and buying new household items. However, the 35 families of Irish and Romany descent will receive only the latter payment.

Alice Woodward, a 45-year-old mother of six who has lived in a caravan at Clays Lane in Newham - one of the two travellers' sites in the area - for 36 years, says: 'Two thousand, two hundred pounds is nothing, is it? That's terrible. The money thing is unfair. We should get the same £8,500 that people in there are getting. We pay rent and council tax, just like everybody else,' she added, pointing at a block of modern council flats opposite the site from which half the residents have already left. 'My kids were all born here, my mother and father died here,' she said. 'I've got a lot of memories, good and bad. They say we can't have compensation because we live in a caravan.'

Anthony Hogg, a 40-year-old scrap metal merchant, said the £2,200 would be nowhere near enough to cover the expenses involved in relocating the four trailers, three lorries, pick-up truck and Jeep which he needs to run his business. 'It's too little. I won't be moving for £2,200. It will take a lot more than that to move all these vehicles,' he said.

The London Development Agency, which is organising the clearance of the Olympic site and the relocation of the 600 people and 211 businesses currently based there, said the 450 council tenants were entitled to the full £8,500 because they were being moved out of their homes. But the Gypsies would only get the £2,200 'disturbance fee' because their homes - caravans and mobile homes - are moving location, explained an LDA spokesman. The sums were set by statutory guidance, he stressed.

The enterprise and regeneration body plans to spend £620m acquiring land in the area and on relocations. Some businesses will receive several million in compensation for leaving. Any firm which does not do a deal with the LDA to leave by next July will have a compulsory purchase order put on its property, while any individual who tries to stay will be forcibly removed if necessary. The Gypsy families will be rehoused in new, purpose-built sites not far from their existing homes, say the LDA.

But the Clays Lane travellers say they will not move to the place earmarked for them - in the middle of a public park a few hundred metres away on Major Lane. 'Some people don't want to move, but we've got no choice, have we?', said Joe Smith, a scrap metal merchant. 'We'll be moving somewhere else, but not into the local park, because it's a park we've used all our lives and us moving there would upset local people.'

Woodward added: 'We don't want to go there because we will be tormented because we will have taken green space away from people, and people will smash our windows, plus we don't want to have big high walls around us at any new site, which is what they're proposing.'

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gla/story/0,,1978628,00.html

Slovenia Pulls Down Gypsy Homes

Demolition teams Thursday pulled down homes of a Gypsy family at Ambrus, Slovenia, on land the family legally owned, local media reported.

The demolition was carried out under police protection after local authorities declared two small brick houses and three wooden cabins had been illegally erected on land the 31-member Strojan family owned, Belgrade's B92 radio said.

The family, including 14 children, was relocated from the village to a former military barracks 30 miles away late in October after local villagers threatened to kill members of the family.
Wherever the government tried to resettle the family, vigilantes blocked roads to their villages, the report said.

B92 radio reported that one woman with 10 children refused to leave the property even after their homes were demolished, saying they will remain on their land and live in a trailer and tents until the government finds a permanent solution to the problem.

© 2006 UPI

http://www.playfuls.com:80/news_10_5951-Slovenia-Pulls-Down-Gypsy-Homes.html

GOP misses chance to reshape environmental laws

By Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writer
December 15, 2006

If ever there was a Congress in which Republicans were positioned to remake the nation's environmental laws, it was the 109th. But by the time the session ended last week, the GOP's environmental agenda had been largely thwarted.

Whether it was rewriting the Endangered Species Act, opening up most of the nation's coastline to oil and gas drilling, or selling off public lands in the West, Republicans failed to enact a range of ambitious proposals.

"It was the best chance for Republican-shaped initiatives for as long we can remember," said Daniel Kemmis, senior fellow at the Center for the Rocky Mountain West at the University of Montana.

Republicans began the session with majorities in both chambers, a sympathetic president, and a tough-talking property rights champion in charge of a key environmental committee.

That they went home empty-handed, Kemmis and others say, is testament to a changing, greening West; the pitfalls of overreaching; and an emerging alliance between environmentalists and a traditional GOP base, hunters and anglers.

"The so-called hook-and-bullet constituency has become more concerned about protecting public lands, protecting open space in general. I don't think that's going to change," he said.

Though Republicans came close to opening up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, the goal eluded them.

(MORE)

Report: Serbia`s Gypsies have few rights

Dec 12, 2006, 16:35 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (UPI) -- Nearly half of Gypsies living in Serbia do not enjoy the rights to education, employment and healthcare, a minority rights official said Tuesday.

A recent survey among a group of 36,000 Gypsies, showed 46 percent of them could not register their residence addresses as they live in cardboard shanties, often without water or electricity. With no address they cannot get ID cards, which are needed in communications with any state body.

Petar Antic, of the Serbian Center for Minority Rights, said Gypsies live in a parallel world beyond Serbia`s system, Belgrade`s B92 radio reported. Antic warned if this problem is not solved, in the next 10 years Serbia will have the biggest security-threatening ghetto in Europe, the radio said.

The Serbian government has adopted plans to solve Gypsy problems but representatives of Gypsy communities say laws also need to be implemented.

About 80 percent of Gypsies are illiterate and about 60 percent don`t complete primary school.
Official statistics say there are about 150,000 Gypsies in Serbia but Gypsy leaders claim their number could top 500,000.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

Germany pledges racism crackdown

Sports Illustrated
SI.com
Posted: Monday December 11, 2006 11:42AM; Updated: Monday December 11, 2006 11:42AM

HEIDELBERG, Germany (AP) -- German soccer president Theo Zwanziger promised Holocaust survivors a crackdown on the surge of racism in the country's stadiums.

Zwanziger said Monday that a new task force will use the Internet to track incidents, with offending clubs facing the threat of fines, point penalties and playing in empty stadiums if they can't control their fans.

"With a new tracking system we want to know every weekend where there were problems with fans at the 80,000 matches, and which clubs have to be held responsible for the unbearable and sometimes open racism," Zwanziger said.

Zwanziger met with the Central Council of Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg -- which included Holocaust survivors -- after racist chanting was heard recently at nearby stadiums in Ulm, Kaiserslautern and Karlsruhe.

Since hosting the World Cup in June, Germany has been alarmed series of violent incidents, from the professional level down to youth and amateur matches played each weekend.

(MORE)

IRS case offers glimpse into Gypsy world

Portland clan - A judge must decide whether millions seized from a patriarch is his family's "sacred money" or an attempt to avoid taxes

Monday, December 11, 2006

The Oregonian
BRYAN DENSON

Internal Revenue Service agents carted off $2.7 million in cash from the patriarch of a Portland Gypsy clan last summer, leaving a federal judge to deliberate this month on who owns it.

Agents rummaged for two days through the home and safe-deposit boxes of Bobbie Ephrem, a 49-year-old auto dealer. Agents turned up clumps of currency in a makeup bag, jackets, purses, socks, wallets, bank sacks, luggage and a milk carton hidden under attic floorboards.

What followed was a drama pitting three of the world's most reviled professions -- tax collectors, lawyers and used-car salesmen -- in a dust-up over the dough. The backdrop for the piece is a mysterious cash-on-the-barrelhead society of Gypsies that operates under the radar of most Portlanders.

After seizing Ephrem's cash, the IRS issued him a rare "tax jeopardy assessment" that accused him of not filing income taxes for nine years. The IRS calculated that he owed taxes, penalties and interest totaling nearly $8.5 million.

Ephrem sued the federal government, saying the IRS stole his family fortune, including more than $1 million in inheritance money -- "sacred money," he called it -- owed to him, his three brothers and a nephew.

Ephrem's lawyers argued for two days before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman, saying their client's huge stores of cash prove only that he was the keeper of his family's finances, and there's no law against that.

An Ephrem attorney, Marc Blackman, steered testimony toward the historic persecution of Gypsies, a people frequently stereotyped as flimflammers, pickpockets and fortune tellers.

Was the money seized from Ephrem the misbegotten fruits of a currency-hoarding tax dodger or the sacred savings of an extended Gypsy family? Or was it perhaps a bit of both?

Mosman must decide.

Gypsy roots

Ephrem is the workaholic head of a large family, part of a vast, cloistered community of American Gypsies who call themselves Roma.

(MORE)

Protect Darfur Women from Abuse and Genocide

Click Here to sign the Darfur Petition!

Right now there is a terrible government-sponsored genocide taking place in Darfur, Sudan. Over 2.5 million people have already been driven from their homes and hundreds of thousands more have been brutally murdered by the Janjaweed, a government-sponsored militia.

Darfuri women and girls are under constant threat of rape and physical assault by the Janjaweed. Women and girls as young as eight risk being raped and attacked when they leave their homes or refugee camps to gather firewood and food. Hungry families face a terrible choice each day - do they send out their husbands and sons who may be killed, or their mothers and daughters, who may be raped and beaten? This is a choice no one should ever have to make!

Please join the Save Darfur Coalition in speaking up for these women and girls who have no voice. Sign the petition asking the UN Secretary-General and President Bush to take immediate steps to stop the genocide.

Tell the Bush administration not to log the wild forests of Hell Canyon

The Forest Service recently announced a proposal to log parts ofthe 5,900-acre Hell Canyon Roadless Area in Colorado's Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest. Hell Canyon is a pristine area, and an essential habitat for a wide range of wildlife, including mountain lions, black bears, elk, mule deer, wild turkeys, blue grouse and northern goshawks. Named by early explorers for its rugged landscape, the canyon also includes aforaging area for peregrine falcons and the headwaters forseveral streams; it also may contain ecologically valuable stands of old growth trees. Because the canyon has been left untouched until now, it remains a very special island of solitude, and most Coloradans, as well as Americans across thecountry, want these wildlands protected.

Although the Forest Service's overall proposal includes some important goals, including protecting houses on private landnear the forest from fires, most of the proposed logging in the roadless area is far from any homes, and is not necessary toprotect these or any other structures. Moreover, the proposed logging project could destroy important wildlife habitat and violate the Roadless Rule that protects roadless areas nationwide from harmful logging and road construction. Logging and roadbuilding could even increase fire risk by drying out the woods and increasing access for motor vehicles and people.

The Forest Service is accepting public comments on its proposed logging project through December 11th.

== What to do ==

Send a message, before the December 11th deadline, urging the Forest Service not to log roadless areas in Hell Canyon unlessthey are within 100 yards of buildings or private property.

== Contact information ==

You can send an official comment directly from NRDC's EarthAction Center at http://www.nrdc.org/action/

Or use the contact information and sample letter below to sendyour own message, and please include your own reasons why protecting these stunning lands from logging is important to you.

Dyce GaytonArapaho-Roosevelt National Forest
Canyon Lakes Ranger District
2150 Centre Avenue, Building E
Fort Collins, CO 80526
Email: dgayton@fs.fed.us

== Sample letter ==

Subject: No roadless logging in the Hell Canyon Roadless Area

Dear Mr. Gayton,

I urge you to ensure that the Thompson River Fuels ReductionProject protects the Hell Canyon Roadless Area. According to the Colorado Division of Wildlife, Hell Canyon provides essential habitat to an incredible array of wildlife, including mountainlions, black bears, elk, mule deer, blue grouse, northerngos hawks and peregrine falcons.

I support legitimate methods to reduce the risk of forest fire,but logging activity in remote areas is unnecessary to protect homes from forest fires and may actually increase forest fire risk to local communities by creating slash and increasing access to the forest. Logging in this area also could damage theremaining old growth forest and key wildlife habitat. For these reasons, I encourage you to plan logging in the Hell Canyon Roadless Area only within 100 yards or so of private land with ahome or other occupied structure, where the owners are committed to doing their part to make the property fire-safe, and where the activities are unequivocally allowed by the 2001 Roadless Rule.

I also oppose the construction of any new roads for the project,whether they are designated permanent or not, and urge you to concentrate all activities on land immediately adjacent to private land with homes that need protection. This is the proven way to protect homes and communities, and should be the highest priority for the Forest Service.

Sincerely,
[Your name and address]

President Bush May Open Alaska's Bristol Bay to Offshore Drilling

Fishing groups, Native interests and Conservation groups send open letter urging the President to maintain protection for Bristol Bay.

The Wilderness Society

Anchorage (November 29, 2006) – A number of separate sources are confirming that President Bush plans to rescind the “Executive OCS Leasing Withdrawal” for Alaska’s Bristol Bay within the next few days. For years, the presidential withdrawal has prohibited offshore oil and gas development in this highly sensitive region of the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf.

In response, diverse organizations including fishing groups, conservation organizations and Native interests sent an open letter to the President today urging him to maintain protection for Bristol Bay. These groups are reflective of the many organizations representing millions of U.S. citizens that have recently voiced opposition to offshore oil and gas development in Bristol Bay via public comments to the federal Minerals Management Service.

As the letter states, “The presidential withdrawal, currently in effect until 2012, serves a vital role in protecting the world-class marine resources, sea life, fishing livelihoods, and resource-dependent coastal communities of the region from the potentially devastating ecological, economic, social, and cultural impacts of offshore oil and gas development.” (Copy of the letter pasted below end of release.)

The offshore area targeted for oil and gas development supports unparalleled fisheries including the world’s largest wild run of sockeye salmon. The area being considered also overlaps with critical habitat for the highly endangered North Pacific right whale. The region’s coastal wetlands, lagoons and sheltered bays serve as migratory hubs, staging areas and wintering grounds for huge numbers of waterfowl and shorebirds.

(MORE)

BLM broke environmental law, appeals court rules

Decision too late to save 400-year-old trees

Jeff Barnard Associated Press
December 5, 2006

SpokesmanReview.com

GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated environmental law when it sold old-growth timber in southwestern Oregon without considering the cumulative harm that so much logging was having on northern spotted owls and salmon.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed the ruling of U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan in Eugene, despite the fact that the trees in the Mr. Wilson timber sale had already been felled.

The panel sent the case back to Hogan with orders to have BLM revise the environmental assessment to take a "hard look" at past and future logging in nearby areas.

George Sexton, conservation director for Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, a plaintiff in the case, said it was too late to save the 400-year-old trees, but he hoped the ruling would make BLM stop cutting so much old-growth when much of the U.S. Forest Service is focusing on logging in less controversial second-growth stands.

"I think BLM has decided who butters their bread, and they are connected at the hip with the timber industry," Sexton said. "I don't see BLM ever reaching the point where they decide to hear the public's desire to see old-growth forest protected and move into a less controversial second-growth thinning program until they log all the old growth or the law is changed."
BLM did not immediately return telephone calls for comment.

In the majority opinion, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote that BLM had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider seven other past and future timber sales in the West Fork of Cow Creek watershed and what that would do to habitat for the threatened northern spotted owl and salmon.

The ruling noted that BLM's environmental analysis was based on broader looks at the impacts of logging that did not specifically address the harm caused by past, present and future logging.
It added that the BLM decided to log despite the fact that the environmental analysis found that four timber sales in the area would remove up 1,000 acres of old-growth habitat, and that future logging would remove some of the last old-growth in some sections.

The timber sale was an area designated for logging by the Northwest Forest Plan, which reduced logging on federal lands in western Oregon, Washington and Northern California. In a dissenting opinion, Judge A. Wallace Tashima agreed with Hogan that because the trees had already been cut, the case was moot.

But Goodwin wrote that if that were the case, BLM could just rush through logging projects before conservationists could get to court.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=162867

Time to get tough with animal importers

insideBayArea.com
Article Last Updated:12/04/2006 06:40:08 AM PST

YOU begin to see them more and more. Your friend has a pet iguana, the organ grinder at Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey has a Capuchin monkey. Perhaps you own tropical fish.
The market for exotic animals in the United States is staggering. More than 650 million of these animals — ranging from kangaroos to kinkajous — have entered this country, just in the past three years, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The popularity of these animals is growing, thanks to Hollywood stars like Paris Hilton and networks like Animal Planet. For some, it's cool to own these amazing creatures.

But it's not like getting a puppy at the local animal shelter. These animals, captured in the wild, can carry diseases that infect us, our families, pets and native wild animals.

Millions of these animals enter our country without any sort of inspection. The U.S. government has dropped the ball — there are only 120 full-time federal governament inspectors who record and monitor such animals for disease and illness. Juxtapose the number 120 against 650 million and you get the picture.

What about exotic animals coming into the U.S. illegally through the $10 billion-per-year international black market? The exact numbers are not known, but they're large.

The threat of diseases carried by these animals is so great that it could easily rival that of terrorist attacks. The AP reports we have seen the importation of hantavirus, tularemia, monkey pox, Asian bird flu, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and numerous other zoonotic diseases.

The Journal of Internal Medicine estimates that 50 million people worldwide have been infected with zoonotic diseases since 2000 and that 78,000 have died.

Did you know that five of the top six diseases that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers threats to national security are zoonotic diseases? The CDC, sensing the threat, opened a new center to better prepare to identify and counter the importation of these diseases. That's fine, but it merely scratches the surface.

It's clear that government must clamp down with tougher laws, restrictions and monitoring of the importation of such animals. Obviously, we must dramatically increase the number of inspectors who screen these animals, work with the CDC on training them to detect the diseases such critters may carry, their symptoms and what to do if diseases are suspected.

Importers need to bear the brunt of the increased cost of animal traffic. They are the ones who ultimately profit, so they should pay for the necessary permits, licenses, fines and fees. Since there is such a high demand for exotic animals, importers should be able to find a way to recoup additional costs.

True, this could foster more illegal smuggling of exotic animals into the U.S. And that means more manpower and training to combat such illicit activities.

Whatever it takes, the problem must be addressed. The threat is real.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/oped/ci_4768042

Auschwitz artwork, and Gypsy victims

Latimes.com
December 3, 2006
Print Edition - Opinion

Re "Art or a part of history?"
Column One, Nov. 29

Thank you for an informative and emotional article, which still haunts me. Valuable paintings of museum quality were taken from my mother's home in Krakow, Poland, at the beginning of World War II, but without proof of provenance, she has no power to claim them. It is not the worth of the art, but the principle that they belonged to her and were stolen goods, along with stolen lives and stolen futures.Dina Gottliebova Babbitt deserves to keep her paintings because they represent a part of her, of what she had to go through to survive — they are a symbol of her struggle. As an illustrator, I have found that high-quality laser prints are quite wonderful inventions. I would suggest that the Auschwitz museum invest a few zloty, make some copies for its exhibition and return the heart-wrenching but important pieces of art to their rightful owner.

MONA SHAFER EDWARDS
Los Angeles

Once again, no thoughts for the Gypsy victims. Their massacre during the Nazi Holocaust was as significant relatively as the Jewish losses and the Armenian Holocaust, and yet nobody seems to consider them victims to be remembered and memorialized. Are the Gypsies to be forgotten? Since the models and their families — who paid with their lives just because they were Gypsies after their portraits were made — are all dead, may I suggest that the true home for this art is in a museum dedicated to Gypsy victims.

GREGORY T. PARKOS
Venice

Clinton visits tsunami reconstruction

By GRANT PECK, Associated Press Writer
Sat Dec 2, 9:59 AM ET

HIN LOOK DIO, Thailand - Touring a Thai gypsy village damaged by the 2004 tsunami, former
President Clinton on Saturday expressed concern that most of the people left homeless by the massive waves are still living in temporary shelters.

"Only 30 to 35 percent of the people have been put back into permanent housing," Clinton said of the nearly half-million homeless survivors in a dozen countries. "We have to do better than that."

Clinton, on his final trip to the region as the top U.N. envoy for the tsunami recovery effort, also promoted a conservation program to rebuild Thailand's Andaman Sea Coast, where the tsunami killed more than 5,400 people.

Noting that coastal deforestation significantly worsened the destruction from Hurricane Katrina, Clinton praised the villagers in Hin Look Dio for attempting to preserve their natural habitat. Known as the Moken, the gypsies are seafaring people who live in Thailand and Myanmar.

"This little tree is symbolic of a balanced life and how they (the Moken) help each other preserve their villages," he said as he planted a mangrove sapling.

Nearly a quarter-million people in 12 Indian Ocean countries died in the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami caused by a magnitude 9.3 earthquake off Indonesia's Sumatra island.

(MORE)

Museum’s position on issue of portraits, made in Auschwitz Concentration Camp by Dinah Gottliebova-Babbitt on orders of SS doctor Josef Mengele

(Visit Site)

Dinah Gottliebova, born in Brno, as a Jewish Czech was deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp with the transport of Jews from Theresienstadt. Together with her mother she was placed in one of the sections of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, the so-called Terezin Family Camp. Prior to the war she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and her skills of painting mastered there most probably saved her life. After her painting skills had been discovered in the camp (amongst others she painted on the walls of one of the camp barracks several scenes from Disney movies), Dr. Mengele - at that time the Chief Doctor of the so-called "Gypsy Family Camp," assigned her the task of painting the water-colors.

They showed Gypsies from various European countries. These portraits were supposed to be to Mengele a help and documentation of the criminal experiments and research on the Nazis’ theory of race, conducted by himself in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Dinah Gottliebova and her mother managed to survive.

After nearly thirty years since the end of the war she got to know about the fact that some of the water-colors she painted had not been destroyed. Just like in many similar situations these works survived by chance. In January 1945, three days after the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, one of inhabitants of the town Oświęcim, a teenager, came to the camp to take with him a bereaved Jewish girl from Hungarian transports, who got adopted by the boy’s parents. One of the survivors, touched by the boy’s behavior gave him as a sign of appreciation a roll of pictures.

They were six water-colors signed „Dinah 1944." The foster family loved and cared about the girl. Ewa graduated from a secondary school and then the Medical Academy in Cracow. Afterwards she started to work as a dentist.

In 1963 the Museum bought from Ewa six water-colors, the seventh was purchased in 1977 from another former prisoner. In the official record of the Museum Artifacts Purchase Committee from December 1963 it reads among others that: „The Committee members bought on purpose all paintings for the Museum collections as the portraits of Gypsies are closely connected with the camp history (Gypsy camp). (...) It has been determined that the portraits of Gypsies were probably painted in the concentration camp at the time of its existence, in all likelihood by a prisoner...."

Six years later the head (at that time) of the Collections Department of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum browsing through a book published by Otto Kraus and Erich Kulka entitled „Tovarna na Smrt" noticed a picture. It was signed the same way as the water-colours owned by the Museum. This way it was possible to determine the full name of the author: Dinah Gottliebova. At that time she was already living in the United States.

The moment the Museum found Mrs. Gottliebova’s address it made contact with her, informing on the existence of the works created by her in the camp. In January 1973, using the opportunity of being in Paris, Mrs. Gottliebova came to Poland and gave the Museum a testimony concerning her stay in the camp and the Gypsy portraits painted there. At the conclusion she said: "I am happy having survived the camp and I am happy to be alive. I would be grateful if I could obtain photographs of the Gypsy portraits, originals of which are in possession of the Museum and which I painted in the camp."

It was the first and the only Mrs. Gottliebova’s contact with the Museum until the second half of the nineties. In December 1973 a written copy of the recorded testimony was sent to the author and - according to her wish - two sets of photographs of the Gypsy portraits. Because the letter had not been answered and the package had not been returned either, during the next few years the Museum tried to get in touch with Mrs. Gottliebova by sending other letters. Also those letters remained unanswered and not returned by post. The Museum concluded then that Mrs. Gottliebova, in regard to tragic memories connected with the camp, did not want to stay in touch with the institution and recall the tragic past.

However the truth appeared to be different. For some time Ms. Gottliebova has been claiming back pictures painted by her, currently held at the Museum. In the light of law, the rightful owner of the seven Gypsy portraits is the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. In what regards the author property rights, they belong to Ms. Gottliebova. The Museum being the rightful owner, but without the property rights, is allowed to use them within the limits of permissible public use of protected artifacts, determined in regulation regarding author rights and relative rights.

The Museum fully understands the emotional attitude of Ms. Gottliebova to the works made in the past in conditions which undoubtedly influenced her life. However, realizing its statutory tasks the Museum is profoundly convinced that the water-colors should remain in Oświęcim. From the moment of its establishment, this institution has been – with great effort – collecting and preserving most various post-camp remains, doing everything for them to survive and certify about the crimes committed by the Nazis in the place they are most closely connected with. Both death certificates, prisoner cards, etc., produced in large number by scrupulous Nazi camp bureaucracy and works of art created in the camp, either made by prisoners on orders of the SS or illegally, are a unique document and piece of evidence, having the biggest meaning, significance and impact in the place of their creation.

Throughout the period of the camp existence hundreds of thousands of documents had been created. The majority of them is the creation of Nazi bureaucratic machine keeping registers of prisoners, and companies co-operating with the SS during construction works on both the camp and gas chambers.

Prisoners were forced to work in particular offices and camp departments and therefore a part of the documentation is signed. These are works of art as well as for instance technical plans of buildings or expansion of the camp, signed by prisoners who made them on the SS orders. These are also photographic portraits made by still living former prisoners employed in "Lagererkennungsdienst (camp identification service)." Part of the preserved suitcases, brought by the Jews who came to meet their death, is marked with the names and other data of their owners.

All these objects are closely connected with the place of extermination of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians and others. They are integral part of former Auschwitz Concentration Camp, which twenty years ago was included in the UNESCO list of the World Heritage. Every lost piece of this tragic world' s heritage is a tremendous loss to all the people who come here to commemorate the victims and to conduct historical research.

A theoretical question might be asked: what will happen if other former prisoners or their heirs start coming here and claiming back – which would be rightful in their opinion – works of art, pictures, suitcases, plans drawn in the camp or other objects belonging to them or to their relatives? An example would be the gate „Arbeit macht frei" which was made in the camp’s forge by the master of artistic smithing, then an Auschwitz prisoner Jan Liwacz.

How should behave the inhabitants of Brzezinka who even nowadays are able to recognize in the camp barracks doors and windows of their pre-war houses or posts of their fences with inscribed initials and dates of their creation? The Museum fully understands individual rights but it was established to serve all – as a place of memory and the only of a kind research center – and therefore, fully respecting the rights of people who created part of documents being held here, we believe that every piece lost from the collections of this memorial will be an irreparable loss.
Seven water-colors painted by Ms. Gottliebova is only a small fraction of the rich collections of the Museum. There are a few thousand artifacts – works of art – in the Museum’s Collections Department. About two thousand of them were made in the camp by the prisoners. They are both works made on the orders of the SS (the case of Dinah Gottliebova) and created at the real risk of one’s life (e.g. illegal works of art representing drastic scenes from the camp life).

Hundreds of thousands of other documents can be seen in the archives. The Museum is not, as a rule, an art gallery. Still, its statutory obligation is to gather all evidence of crime as well as all items related with the history of Auschwitz, including artwork. In this context the portraits of the Roma people are, regardless of any interpretation, a document. The Museum has also a duty to render all documents accessible to persons researching the history of the camp. And it does, making the documents available in its every day work. It goes both for the archives as the collections.

Original works of Dinah Gottliebova are on display in the first permanent exhibition of this kind in Poland and the second in Europe on the Destruction of the Roma, which opened in 2001 at the Museum. Apart from that one can see, for dozens of years now, copies of two portraits by Ms Gottliebova, placed in the section of the exhibition dedicated to experiments on the Roma people, carried out by dr. Mengele. Her works were also exhibited in Poland and abroad in temporary exhibitions, including Israel. The statements that her artwork in not available to public view and therefore this unique and important body of work is essentially lost to history are therefore simply not true.

The fact of the inclusion of the Museum along with its post-camp documentation, artifacts and other remains in the List of the World's Heritage by UNESCO confirms our conviction that objects and documents found in the area of the liberated camp should remain in the Museum for ever and should be protected there.

It should be also stressed that our institution is not just a "regular" museum. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is unique of its kind. Every square yard of it is covered with blood of the victims of the Nazis: Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians and other people murdered here. The main objective of this site is to make it available to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims as well as researchers, and to document as widely as possible the crimes committed here.

The latter activity obliges us morally to preserve all evidence dating back to the wartime and related with the Auschwitz concentration and death camp and to prevent this evidence from being dispersed in any way. Once again we want to stress: every single loss of even the smallest part of the documentation will be an irreparable loss and a shadow on the memory of Auschwitz Concentration Camp victims. The water-colors are scarce surviving documents on the Holocaust committed on the Roma people. Both those Roma people who survived the mass murder and the representatives of European Roma organizations share our viewpoint that the portraits should remain in Oświęcim.

Everything that remained from Auschwitz Concentration Camp belongs to all people and is the evidence of crimes committed here. It is also a warning for the future generations. Neither documents nor proofs of Nazi criminal achievements based on the theory of destruction and extermination should and can be removed from here or placed somewhere else. Only here, in Oświęcim, they do serve the science, history and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims visiting this place every year.

Auschwitz Prisoner Fights to Recover Her Paintings

NPR (www.npr.org)
by Robert Siegel

All Things Considered, November 30, 2006 ·

In 1944, the notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele ordered Dina Gottliebova Babbitt to paint portraits of Gypsy prisoners at Poland's Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death," wanted portraits of Gypsies, or Roma people, to document what the Nazis saw as their "degenerate" racial characteristics. Photographs, which he had used previously, lacked color.

Now 83, Babbitt is trying to recover seven of the original works, which are in the museum at the site of the camp.

Roma family returns home, under Slovenian police escort

International Herald Tribune (www.iht.com)

AMBRUS, Slovenia: Members of a large Roma Gypsy family returned to their home Friday with a police escort, a month after they fled to escape their neighbors' hostility.

Seven members of the Strojans, a 30- strong Roma family, about half of whom are children, returned to the village of Ambrus in central Slovenia, which they left after local residents rallied and threatened to expel them, accusing them of theft.

The government then evicted them, saying the Strojans' home in Ambrus was built without permits and could not be made legal. "We decided to stay here until the government finds another place for us," Rajko Strojan told state television. "We are not afraid because the police are protecting us."

They had spent a month in three rooms at a former army barracks at Postojna.

The remaining members of the family remained there.

The government has promised to help find them a permanent settlement elsewhere in Slovenia, but its efforts so far have failed because of protests by local Slovenes.

About 100 Ambrus villagers gathered near the Strojans' house Friday but did not protest against their return. About 10 police vans were at the scene, a Reuters photographer said.
The plight of the Strojans drew criticism of Slovenia, a European Union member since 2004, from the Council of Europe's human rights watchdog.

"The police will ensure general safety of people and property," said a police spokesman, Leon Keder. He declined to say how many police officers were guarding the Strojans.

Last weekend the family tried to return home, where they had lived for 40 years, but around 1,000 angry villagers blocked the road and prevented them from coming.

One last chance to save horses! Call Dec. 5!

The chance to save America's horses is in the homestretch!

The U.S. Senate will be back in session for only a few days, and we must ensure that it will take action on the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act before adjourning for the year.

Our next, and likely final, National Call-In Day for Horses is this Tuesday, Dec. 5. We must flood Senate offices with phone calls during this short window, urging them to cosponsor S. 1915 and get it to the senate floor for a vote.

Mark your calendars now.

Here's what you can do to help:

(MORE)

Slovene villagers turn back Roma seeking to go home

International Herald Tribune - France
By Nicholas Wood / The New York Times.

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia: About 1,000 villagers have thwarted the return of a group of Roma to their homes in central Slovenia, a month after they first forced them to flee the area.

Fighting took place between riot police officers and local residents late Saturday afternoon when the Strojans, an extended family of 31 people, tried to return to Ambrus, a village 50 kilometers, or about 30 miles, southeast of Ljubljana, after four weeks in a refugee center.

The standoff prolonged a crisis that has dominated politics here for a month and has prompted criticism of Slovenia from the Council of Europe, the Continent's human rights watchdog, and from independent rights groups.

The Roma family, who are Slovene citizens, agreed to leave Ambrus on Oct. 28 when a mob surrounded their homes. Local residents demanded their removal after a fight between a man from Ambrus and a Slovene who was living with the Strojans, after which the villager fell unconscious.

The government said it was justified in moving the family to the refugee center, saying it acted to protect the Strojans. But human rights groups contend that ministers sanctioned the mobs' ouster of a minority from their homes.

The government had promised to resettle the group, but other communities have protested and stopped the government from sending the Strojans there.

The fighting Saturday began when the Roma group left an army barracks that had been their home since their expulsion from the village. Residents from Ambrus and surrounding areas set up a series of barricades across the approaching roads. The riot police were deployed and three people were injured in the scuffling that followed, witnesses said.

(MORE)

Ostracised Roma still struggle across Balkans

By Zoran Radosavljevic

POSTOJNA, Slovenia (Reuters) - Elka Strojan and her 30-strong Roma Gypsy family, forced to swap a house for three rooms in a former army barracks, highlight the precarious existence in the Balkans of Europe's largest minority.

"It's really bad here. This is not ours, this is for refugees and we are not refugees. We are Slovenian citizens with all the documents," the 55-year-old told Reuters in broken Slovenian, sitting on an old bed with two small dogs surrounded by a dozen of her grandchildren.

The Strojans, including Elka's four sons and their families, were asked by the government in late October to leave their house near Ambrus in central Slovenia after angry villagers threatened to expel them by force.

The Council of Europe criticised European Union member Slovenia for the move, but villagers said they had had enough of the Roma's misdemeanours, ranging from petty theft to serious fights.

"Some 600 of us gathered near their house. We wanted to burn and destroy everything but we came too late, the police were already deployed," said Joze Lindic, a pensioner.

"We've had nothing but trouble with them in the past 20 years and we just cannot put up with it any more. Let the state or the European Union take care of them. We don't want them here, ever again," he said, sipping a beer at a cafe.

The government has vowed to provide alternative permanent housing for the Strojans, but that announcement immediately roused protest from residents in potential new resettlements.

AMNESTY REPORT

A recent report by human rights group Amnesty International on the Roma in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia said they still live in extreme poverty and their children regularly face discrimination in schools.

"The barriers Romani children face in accessing education deprive them of the chance of fulfilling the true potential and perpetuate the marginalisation of Romani communities," it said.
Only two of the Strojans' dozen children went to school while they lived in Ambrus.

Access to education is even worse for Roma in Serbia, home to an estimated 500,000 Romas.
According to the 1991 census, 34.8 percent of Roma in Serbia are illiterate and just 20 percent have completed obligatory elementary education. Those who enrol children in primary schools often do so to qualify for state welfare.

"The society as a whole expresses no interest for their problems and needs," said a report by the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF.

"This could be caused by general indifference, intolerance and dominant stereotypes on the Roma caused by poor knowledge of Roma history, culture and tradition," it said.

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The three open caves of Gypsy Culture in Granada

By h.b. (Typically Spainish Spain News)
Fri, 24 Nov 2006, 07:19

EDITORIAL COMMENT -It’s said that people are hostile to what they don’t understand, or in some cases simply what they do not know.

For many it’s the origin of racialism and perhaps over the years it could be the reason why Gypsies have been marginalised in Spain.

Therefore any initiative to help open up the mysteries of the Calé community in Spain must be congratulated. Sometimes the opening up comes from inside the community itself.

At the start of the nineties a group of Gypsy women from Granada formed themselves into an association called Romi. One of their main goals has been to set up a museum to explain the culture of the Gypsey woman, and now that goal has been achieved.

Three caves in the Sacromonte area of Granada now hold the very first museum to ‘La Gitana’ in Spain. Help from the regional government in the form of a 350,000 € grant has set up the centre, and the Mayor of Granada, José Torres Hurtado, has said that he hopes the centre will become a new tourist attraction for the city.

The first cave looks at the history of how the gypsies left India and were subjected to particular laws under the Catholic Kings here in Spain. For example a law in 1499 condemned them to a lifetime of slavery. In the 1800’s they were still forbidden to speak in Caló or even wear their traditional dress.

The second cave concentrates on the activities of the women’s group itself and looks at famous gypsies from history. You may be surprised to see references to Charlie Chaplin and Elvis Presley here.

The third cave has details of traditional gypsy health remedies handed down through the generations.

We send our congratulations to the Director of the Romi Association of Gypsey women in Granada, Loli Fernandez.

Asociacion De Mujeres Gitanas Romi
Pl. Rey Badis, S/N
18013 Granada
958 161 278

© typicallyspanish.com

Karachi’s bohemian allegory

The News - International

KARACHI: The desperate attempts of the downtrodden gypsies of Karachi to explore all avenues to earn a respectable living can be plainly witnessed in local ‘Sunday Bazaars’ and ‘Tuesday Bazaars’ where gypsy men, women and even children set up stalls to sell vegetables, fruits and other edibles. However, even in most of these makeshift marketplaces, gypsies appear to be no more than backbenchers occupying the last rows of stalls. Investigations reveal that the organisers of the Bazaars are not sympathetic to the plight of the gypsies and only constant persuasion and untiring efforts convinced them to allow gypsies to set up stalls initially only alongside the Bazaars and now, finally, in the main Bazaar itself. As a result, gypsies are seen selling different items in various locations of the city where these Bazaars are set up.

A gypsy man named Rohat told The News that there were some influential gypsies, who, having already set up their businesses, patronised their fellow community members in different markets. He said that these relatively clever and smart members did not exert pressure on anyone for the good of their fellow gypsies, but only acted when there was an explicit request from individuals from the community. They then use their influence to patronise these individuals in the business field. He also pointed out that gypsies could not expand their businesses due to inadequate set-ups, which meant less earnings chiefly because of the poor profit ratio associated with dealing in items of less importance.

A gypsy woman, Ranjn says, “We work hard for a few pennies and nothing more. Since we are unable to invest meaningful money to begin with, we don’t expect a lot of funds in return either. On the contrary, we only indulge in such activities to pass our time in these bad conditions.” Ranjn says that gypsies were also fed-up with price-hikes and the resultant increase in the cost of living. She said, “Although we don’t need electricity, costly water and other luxuries of life, we still feel that the cost of living has increased terribly with the depreciated value of the national currency.”

“Look, the value of a coin has lost all its validity. When it is given to a child, it is easily spent,” Ranjn commented.

An interesting aspect of gypsy belief is their concept of “good” and “bad” individuals and “good” and “evil” gypsies. An elderly gypsy laments that, “In the course of time, the gypsies’ values have been distorted and now there are many bad men who work for bad people such as the land grabbers.”

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Largest archive of Holocaust records to open

USA TODAY
By Arthur Max, The Associated Press

BAD AROLSEN, Germany — The 21-year-old Russian sat before a clerk of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate's office, describing the furnaces at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where he had been a prisoner until a few weeks previously.

"I saw with my own eyes how thousands of Jews were gassed daily and thrown by the hundreds into pits where Jews were burning," he said.

"I saw how little children were killed with sticks and thrown into the fire," he continued. Blood flowed in gutters, and "Jews were thrown in and died there"; more were taken off trucks and cast alive into the flames.

Today the Holocaust is known in dense and painful detail. Yet the young Russian's words leap off the faded, onionskin page with a rawness that transports the reader back to April 1945, when World War II was still raging and the world still knew little about gas chambers, genocide and the Final Solution.

The two pages of testimony, in a file randomly plucked off a shelf, are among millions of documents held by the International Tracing Service, or ITS, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

This vast archive — 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in a German spa town — contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence. But because of concerns about the victims' privacy, the ITS has kept the files closed to the public for half a century, doling out information in minimal amounts to survivors or their descendants on a strict need-to-know basis.

This policy, which has generated much ill-feeling among Holocaust survivors and researchers, is about to change.

(MORE)

The readers' editor on ... the treatment of gypsies

Stephen Pritchard
Sunday November 19, 2006
The Observer

What do Bill Clinton, Charlie Chaplin, Rita Hayworth and Shayne Ward have in common? They can all claim to be descended from gypsies - Scottish gypsy 'royalty' in Clinton's case. So does that make them fair game for sneers about caravans, horses and fortune-tellers? You might think so after reading The Observer last week.

We ran a light-hearted opinion piece headlined 'Oh, the homes that footballers make their goal' which compared the homes of Southend footballer Freddy Eastwood (whose goal sunk Manchester United) and Wayne Rooney. Eastwood, a gypsy, lives in a mobile home, Rooney in a £4.25m mansion.

Describing Eastwood as 'what less politically correct commentators would term a pikey', the piece claimed that he had failed to get planning permission for his home and that 'while gypsies trumpet the right to roam, they sometimes seem keener to stay still, often on someone else's land'. It went on: 'But you can hardly blame Eastwood for having a mobile home that isn't actually mobile: of course it doesn't have wheels - forget homes; no cars within five miles of a gypsy camp keep wheels for long.'

Several readers were incensed. 'Why allow such lazy bigotry in a quality newspaper, particularly one which normally would be falling over itself to dispel such brainless caricaturing?' was a typical question.

I put this to the editor, who replied that the piece was intended to be humorous. 'I think it is simply ludicrous that we cannot make jokes about a minority purely because it's a minority,' he said.

The Race Relations Act (1976) defines gypsies as a separate ethnic group, while the Commission for Racial Equality describes travellers and gypsies as 'some of the most vulnerable and marginalised ethnic minority groups in Britain'.

Last week, the Press Complaints Commission confirmed to me that it would treat gypsies as a separate race under the terms of Clause 12 of the Editors' Code of Practice, which states that 'the press must avoid prejudicial and pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any physical or mental illness or disability'.

So it would appear that The Observer was in breach of the code. However (and here is the paradox), the PCC would only act if an injured individual were to complain; it does not consider complaints from groups. The Editors' Codebook says the aim of Clause 12 is to protect individuals from discrimination, but it does not cover 'generalised remarks about groups or categories of people, which would involve subjective views, often based on political correctness or taste, and be difficult to adjudicate upon without infringing freedom of expression'.

The PCC upholds the press's right to make robust comment, as long, as in this case, it is clearly labelled as opinion, but snide stereotyping can hardly be described as 'robust comment' and it's too easy for the PCC to refuse to entertain complaints from uninjured parties while defending freedom of expression. Knee-jerk attacks on minority groups do nothing for social cohesion and have precious little to do with hard-won rights and freedoms. The editor was wrong to allow them in the paper.

Bid to stop site

By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

JOBS could be at risk if a new gypsy site in Huddersfield gets the go-ahead, a campaigner has warned.

Terry Wilson is a member of the Leeds Road Action Group which opposes the planned site at Old Fieldhouse Lane.

He claims nearby firms are threatening to leave Kirklees if the plan goes ahead.
He said: "I have given out more than 100 leaflets to local businesses and residents about this and no-one I've spoken to has been in favour.

"In fact some of the businesses said they will leave Kirklees if the plan goes ahead."
The Gypsy Council has applied to Kirklees Council for permission for a caravan site to house 23 families on land backing on to Huddersfield Broad Canal.

Mr Wilson is holding a public meeting against the proposal at The Peacock bar at Leeds Road on November 29.

Labour councillor Angela Ellam is due to attend. A previous meeting on November 8 was cancelled.

Bid to stop site

By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

JOBS could be at risk if a new gypsy site in Huddersfield gets the go-ahead, a campaigner has warned.

Terry Wilson is a member of the Leeds Road Action Group which opposes the planned site at Old Fieldhouse Lane.

He claims nearby firms are threatening to leave Kirklees if the plan goes ahead.
He said: "I have given out more than 100 leaflets to local businesses and residents about this and no-one I've spoken to has been in favour.

"In fact some of the businesses said they will leave Kirklees if the plan goes ahead."
The Gypsy Council has applied to Kirklees Council for permission for a caravan site to house 23 families on land backing on to Huddersfield Broad Canal.

Mr Wilson is holding a public meeting against the proposal at The Peacock bar at Leeds Road on November 29.

Labour councillor Angela Ellam is due to attend. A previous meeting on November 8 was cancelled.

Slovenia PM defends Gypsies relocation

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- Slovenia's prime minister said he plans to build a new settlement for a relocated Gypsy family once flaring tempers cool.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa told state-run Ljubljana Television the relocation of the 31 members, including 14 children, of the Gypsy family is the least-bad solution.

Wednesday, hundreds of villagers in eastern Slovenia protested the government's decision to move the Gypsy family close to their village, while in Ljubljana hundreds of rights groups supporters condemned the government for the "pogrom and deportation" of the Gypsies.

Vigilantes blocked approaches to the Ambrus area, in eastern Slovenia, from where the Gypsy family was moved some 30 miles to a former military barracks late in October.

The government organized the move to the barracks after villagers in Ambrus threatened to kill the Gypsies.

Jansa said once the tempers return to normal the government is to build a "legal settlement" for the Gypsy family.

Animals Matter To Me” Campaign

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is asking for your help, ASPCA supporters. The UK-based group has launched the “Animals Matter To Me” campaign, which represents the biggest-ever global animal welfare initiative linking the entire animal welfare movement under one strategic goal—global recognition that animals are sentient beings, capable of feeling pain and suffering. As such, WSPA is seeking 10 million signatures to let governments of the world know that we are serious about achieving a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare at the United Nations.

The Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare maintains that:

1. The welfare of animals shall be a common objective for all nations;

2. The standards of animal welfare attained by each nation shall be promoted, recognized and observed by improved measures, nationally and internationally, respecting social and economic considerations and religious and cultural traditions;

3. All appropriate steps shall be taken by nations to prevent cruelty to animals and to reduce their suffering;

4. Appropriate standards on the welfare of animals be further developed and elaborated such as, but not limited to, those governing the use and management of farm animals, companion animals, animals in scientific research, draught animals, wildlife animals and animals in recreation.

Please lend your support—and your signature—today!

Rome police crack down on pedophilia ring preying on Gypsy children

(the Associated Press on www.iht.com)

Rome police on Monday broke up a pedophilia ring preying on children in Gypsy camps in the city, authorities said.

Twenty-eight suspects were arrested on charges of sexually abusing minors and four others were being sought on warrants, police told a news conference in the capital.

Police said social workers informed them that expensive gifts were circulating in the Gypsy camps, which are little more than shanty towns on Rome's outskirts, and that respectable-looking, professional, middle-aged men were visiting the camps in unusually large numbers.
Among those arrested were lawyers, doctors, teachers and an athletic coach, as well as parents of some of the children who allegedly allowed their offspring to be abused in return for the gifts, authorities said.

Family Policy Minister Rosy Bindi said the anti-pedophilia investigation "revealed that the crime is frequently interwoven in two worlds — on one side perpetrators without records, the so-called 'above suspicion' people with excellent social positions — on the other side very young victims" from extreme poverty impressed by the economic power of those who violate them.

In pictures: Serbia's Gypsy 'London'

'No electricity'

(VIEW)

A short drive from Serbia's capital, Belgrade, is the settlement of "Little London". Its inhabitants are Roma Gypsies and they have lived there for at least 30 years.

"No-one knows why it's called Little London," says Nikola, a Roma man. "Someone started using the name and it stuck."

"Life here is not very different to life in the other London," he says, "except we have rats and snakes - and no electricity".

Pictures: Srdjan Slavkovic
Words: Neil Arun

(VIEW)

Stand-in village for Borat's hometown furious

By Justyna Pawlak

Romania may not be a stop on Borat's fictional road trip, but Romanian villagers are furious their roles in this month's top-grossing U.S. film by a British comedian earned them a few laughs but little cash.

Nestled in a narrow valley in southern Romania, the village of Glod starred as Borat's hometown in Kazakhstan where, in the film, peasants live with cattle, horses are used to pull cars and brothers can share steamy kisses with their sisters.

Like many others who became extras in the film about an unwittingly offensive TV journalist from Central Asia, Borat Sagdiyev, traveling through the United States, poor villagers feel they were cheated.

"We want to sue them. They made the world laugh at us," said Marin Marcel, a 34-year-old Roma Gypsy, who along with his neighbors carves out an income by working in local quarries and picking forest fruit. "They taped us without paying us money!"

Behind him, a potholed asphalt road curves along bare hills and old women carry bundles of firewood, dodging large trucks, horse-drawn carts and cows. Lining the road are tiny houses draped in vine, some lack running water.

The Roma villagers said the film, which portrays Kazakhstan as a nation of horse urine-drinking misogynists, can only increase further discrimination they say they face in Romania and damage the country's image abroad.

ROMA STRUGGLE

Western observers criticize the Balkan state due to join the European Union next year for doing little to bring its large Roma population from the margins of society where they struggle to find jobs and rarely send their children to school.

"We have a bad image. They don't want us anywhere," said Luca Ionel, 30, referring to recent decisions by some Western European governments to limit the access of Romanians to their labor markets.

"And here in Romania, we are Gypsies, so when they built a bottled water factory in our area, they didn't let us work there."

Some Glod villagers said they were paid roughly $5-$7 for a day's work as extras during the filming of the movie, fully titled "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."

The film debuted two weekends ago as the No 1. film in North America, grossing more than $26 million in domestic sales.

To the local authorities, the movie represents bad publicity. "Those film-makers are crooks," said Petre Buzea, deputy mayor of a group of villages, including Glod. "They were looking for bad things to show."

"But my dream is for our area to become a tourist attraction ... We have already heard from investors who want to build ski lifts and we are getting cash from the EU."

Gypsy harassing mars Slovenia Europe image

AMBRUS, Slovenia, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- Slovenia has given in to demands by local residents and moved a Gypsy family some 30 miles away from the village that sparked the protests.

The Gypsy family, including 14 children, was forced to leave their two brick houses and a group of shanties on the edge of the village of Ambrus, close to Novo Mesto in southeastern Slovenia, The New York Times reported Monday.

Late in October, several hundred Ambrus villagers and other from nearby threatened to kill the Gypsies unless the government moved them away.

Riot police prevented violence and the government moved the Gypsy family to a former military barracks outside Novo Mesto, not far from the border with Croatia.

A European Roma (Gypsy) Rights Center official condemned the Slovenian government move as a serious violation of the basic civil rights, the Times said.

Rights groups officials criticized the Slovenian government for forcibly removing Gypsies, calling it one of the most serious incidents in Europe in the past 10 years. The groups expressed fears other neighborhoods may demand eviction of Gypsy communities, the newspaper said.

Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

DIRTY COAL ON THE RISE IN TEXAS

With all of the attention on the recent elections, you may have missed a story with serious implications for the future of our planet.

In Texas, the TXU Corporation plans to spend $10 billion to build 11 new dirty coal-fired power plants that will guarantee huge amounts of global warming emissions for decades to come. The company announced it is also considering major coal plant projects in the Northeast and Midwest. According to a recent New York Times article, opposition groups say "that TXU is embarking on its immense construction campaign without taking account of its role in an emerging environmental catastrophe." And the state of Texas is already the number one carbon emitter in the country. It appears that Governor Rick Perry is fast-tracking the permit process for TXU so that the plants can be built before federal laws will hopefully be put in place.

A growing number of Texas mayors are opposing the TXU proposal through the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition, including the mayors of Houston, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, and over a dozen other cities statewide from both political parties. Conservative Republican Robert Cluck, the mayor of Arlington, is leading the charge on global warming in Texas -- concerned for the environmental impact but as a medical doctor also for the public health impacts of dirty coal.

SPREAD THE WORD: "AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH" AVAILABLE NOW!

Movie critic Roger Ebert said, "In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film." Buy two copies of "An Inconvenient Truth" and donate one to a school. BUY DVD NOW

TAKE ACTION IN SCHOOLS

Teachers and Students: To learn more ways to take action at your school, visit the new Classroom section of StopGlobalWarming.org

TELL A FRIEND

By marching, you have taken the first step to be part of the movement to stop global warming. We are now over 517,000 marchers strong. The best way to grow the movement to stop global warming is to urge your friends and family to join the March too. CLICK HERE to invite friends to join the March.

Keep Marching!

Laurie David
Founder
StopGlobalWarming.org

Saving Doogie - Woman Arrested For Rescuing Dying Dog!

You may not have heard about this case, which took place in the ironically named "East Freedom, PA".

Tammy was arrested for rescuing a dying dog, chained in a yard and left.

As is the case with a wide variety of animal rights activists and environmentalists, she is being treated as tho' she is a terrorist.

The owners of the dog are the ones who should be arrested.

Please consider calling and writing in support of Tammy and Doogie.

http://www.dogsdeservebetter.com/doogie.html

Needs Help: Precious Lives Sanctuary

Any idea how we can help these guys? Maybe media?

Pass on please....http://www.preciouslives.com/index.html

The founder of Precious Lives gave up her home to turn into a Sanctuary for the animals. This is what the property was purchased for in 1994. This is in jeopardy and has been for about 2 years now. Our court case comes up in appeals court this week, March 14. She bought the 7 acre parcel 12 years ago and had 30 dogs at that time. Because it was zoned agricultural anything over 5 acres is exempt from how many animals you can house. The law states that any fur bearing animal is agricultural, the city says that because we are not breeding and selling puppies it is not considered agricultural. All animals live in the house.

They said we have until April 1st 2006 to move them. We have had animals poisoned, front doors kicked in, threatened with shotguns, all by the neighbors, and the city wants US to move the dogs. The ruling is in appeals right now! But that hasn't stopped the court order! Brimfield police have done nothing about our dogs being poisoned or the threat with the shotgun to our people that take care of the dogs at that location, and are they doing anything with the police reports that we made? NO, But what they are doing is ticketing people that take care of the dogs at the house on criminal charges, yes criminal charges, almost every day at $100.00 each ticket. And we have $250.00 a day in contempt of court every day that we have the animals at the house. We have even had to bail our employees out of jail because of dogs barking. This all started with one neighbor, then he got more neighbors to chime in.

The whole time a methamphetamine lab was right next door to our place, the police got the girl out of there, they had to take her two kids and seize her house. We had been threatened by the girl driving across the yard pretending like she was going to hit our fence where the dogs are. Of course she was one of the complainers. We even had to rescue her dog out of the street before it got hit. One night she was barking in the middle of the night on her front porch and called the police to say she heard barking and you know we got the ticket for barking dogs. You need know that the property is very pretty and well kept, all dogs are up to date on shots and spayed and neutered.

Call the Portage County Humane officer that was at the property to check it out, Marie at 296-4022. Call Chris Maduri and tell him how you feel about this at 330-297-3850, he is the portage county prosecutor. The Zoning inspector Dick Messner at 330-678-0739, who inspected the property and thought it was great and NOW is the one seen in court with the prosecutor. The Brimfield township trustees are the ones that are pushing the prosecutor, call them, there names are Mike Kostensky, Dan Tronge, Sue Fields at 330-678-0739.

Call Brimfield Police Chief Blough at 330-677-1234 ask why no one has investigated our police reports, and why are they arresting people at the house for dogs barking!

And of course we would like to stop the needless killing of animals, if we get enough support we could eliminate the need for the pound!

One more thing I would like to address, and that is the fact that we get over 100 calls a day asking if we can take peoples animals for various reasons. We are at capacity with the room that we have. We cannot take anymore animals unless they are injured and no one owns them. We rescue an average of 3 animals a week that are owned by no one mostly hit by cars and we cover all expenses for them.

We also rescue animals for the Tallmadge police department. And some of the Akron Police bring in strays to our facility. We house currently about 500 animals, just to feed and medically care for these animals it costs an average of $300,000.00 or more a year. Yes a year! We don't get any state or federal or city funding at all, it is all done by people like you that have made monthly donations for the six years that we have been open. If you would like to help our cause and believe in what we are doing, show it with a monthly donation. Or a one time donation. Or whenever you have extra money and could use a tax write off, think of us. We have had a hard time of it for the last six years, and the way to tell how much good work your doing is by how much resistance you get, so we must be doing really good things.

We are local and we care about your animals! And thank you and bless you from all of us at Precious Lives.

Help protect dogs and cats from Class B dealers

Last year, a microchip scan revealed that a dog slated for use in a University of Minnesota research laboratory was actually someone's pet. Echo, stolen from a backyard in Arkansas, was sold two months later to the university by a Class B Dealer from Michigan.

The supply of dogs and cats to research laboratories from shady "Class B Dealers" has inspired controversy since LIFE magazine published its expose, "Concentration Camps for Dogs," in February 1966. The magazine's photos of neglected animals in appalling conditions sparked public outrage that helped propel passage of the federal Animal Welfare Act, one of our country's cornerstone animal protection laws. But the battle to shut down the Class B Dealer pipeline still rages four decades later.

The Pet Safety and Protection Act (S. 451/H.R. 5229), introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and in the U.S. House by Representatives Phil English (R-PA) and Mike Doyle (D-PA), would prohibit Class B Dealers from selling dogs and cats to laboratories. These dealers acquire dogs and cats from "random sources" -- often by stealing pets or responding to "free to a good home" ads.

(LEARN MORE)

More Informtion: Valle de San Felix - Project: PASCUA LAMA

FYI on the Barrick Gold Corp. project in Chile -- this is their webpage
spin on the Pascua Lama project. More info on www.rainforest.org .

http://www.barrick.com/Default.aspx?SectionID=AE16ED96-78D3-4451-AB11-281B502746FB&LanguageID=1&ProjectId=8fadb7a7-1b99-4e7b-a37d-9da4b178f0b2

Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile - Project: PASCUA LAMA

We need to get the word out!

In the Valle de San Felix, the purest water in Chile runs from 2 rivers, fed by 2 glaciers.

Water is a most precious resource, and wars will be fought for it.

Indigenous farmers use the water, there is no unemployment, and they provide the second largest source of income for the area.

Under the glaciers has been found a huge deposit of gold, silver and other minerals. To get at these, it would be necessary to break, to destroy the glaciers - something never conceived of in the history of the world - and to make 2 huge holes, each as big as a whole mountain, one for extraction and one for the mine's rubbish tip.

The project is called PASCUA LAMA. The company is called Barrick Gold.

The operation is planned by a multi-national company, one of whose members is George Bush Senior.

The Chilean Government has approved the project to start this year, 2006.

The only reason it hasn't started yet is because the farmers have got a temporary stay of execution.

If they destroy the glaciers, they will not just destroy the source of especially pure water, but they will permanently contaminate the 2 rivers so they will never again be fit for human or animal consumption because of the use of cyanide and sulphuric acid in the extraction process.

Every last gram of gold will go abroad to the multinational company and not one will be left with the people whose land it is. They will only be left with the poisoned water and the resulting illnesses.

The farmers have been fighting a long time for their land, but have been forbidden to make a TV appeal by a ban from the Ministry of the Interior.

Their only hope now of putting brakes on this project is to get help from international justice.

The world must know what is happening in Chile. The only place to start changing the world is from here.

You Call This a Wetland?

From Field and Stream

Conservation Editor Bob Marshall reveals that the Department of the Interior's new claim of wetlands growth holds no water.
by Bob Marshall


The Bush Administration announced last week that the nation is no longer losing wetlands--as long as you consider golf course water hazards to be wetlands.

Really.

Thursday (March 30), Interior Secretary Gale Norton called a press conference to claim our long nightmare of wetlands loss had finally come to an end due to unprecedented gains since 1997 (click hear to read the report she cites). However, she then admitted much of that gain has been in artificially created ponds, such as golf course water hazards and farm impoundments.

The sporting community--from Ducks Unlimited to the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership--reacted quickly, and not favorably. Researchers long ago established that natural wetlands such as marshes, swamps and prairie potholes are far more productive than even the best-designed artificial wetlands. And sharp-edged water bodies like water hazards, farm ponds, and even reservoirs offer very little for wildlife. Putting man-made ponds in the same class as natural wetlands is like ranking pen-raised quail with wild coveys.

The boldness of Norton's claim was particularly galling given the Bush Administration's record on wetlands. President Bush, like other presidents before him, promised a policy of ìno net lossî of wetlands, but his administration has consistently supported rollbacks of the Clean Water Act to satisfy industry and development.

In fact, at the same press conference, the Fish and Wildlife Service reported a continued loss of 523,500 acres of natural wetlands during the same time period. So how could the nation have come out ahead if it lost more than half a million acres? Norton didn't try to hide the truth: The 715,300-acre ìgainî was mainly artificial ponds.

While saying the nation's wetlands picture remains ìprecarious,î Norton added that "even ponds that are not a high quality of wetlands are better than not having wetlands." Now there's ringing endorsement of the president's program.

Norton's announcement was likely an act of setting the table for more administration assaults on wetlands protections. It was probably no coincidence that three days earlier, the Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency proposed new regulations that encourage development of companies that build artificial wetlands used by industries that destroy the vital natural habitats. It's part of the wetlands mitigation banking concept--which gives companies permits to drain wetlands, as long as they produce ìnewî wetlands somewhere else.

Norton may think a water hazard is better than no wetlands but for fish, wildlife and sportsmen, but it may be even worse. That type of public policy provides an excuse for more permits to drain more natural and productive wetlands to be replaced by non-productive water hazards. Those might be good for real estate values along the 18th fairway, but for fish and wildlife that rely on wetlands ecosystems to survive, it's terrible.