The Italian schoolchildren's drawings which illustrate a chilling hatred for Roma gypsies

The colours are bold and the lines simple, a typical drawing by a nine-year-old.

But the sentiments it reveals are shocking, a glimpse of the xenophobia creeping across Italy.

The picture is one of a number drawn by youngsters at a school outside Naples depicting firebomb attacks on a nearby Roma gipsy camp. Other children at the school exposed their hatred of the immigrants in written work.

(MORE)

Averige Gypsy's Life Lasts 10 Years Less Than Bulgarian's

Published on: 26.05.2008, 12:01
Author: Kristalina Ilieva

A project of improving the conditions and integration of minority groups in unequal position starts in Razgrad area (Northeastern Bulgaria).

The project is financed by the EU grant program FAR and Bulgarian Healthcare Ministry.

Medicine researches show, the people belonging to minority groups live average 10 years less than the other societies in Bulgaria.

Most threatening is the possibility of heart shock or brain shock in the age between 40 and 49.

The project's actions preview preventive examinations of the minority members by portative medicine cabinet, which will travel round the regional cities.

The campaign also includes 100 experts in different areas, each of them trained for the initiative in order to increase the attention towards health care culture in the gypsies' societies and increasing of attention towards health prevention.

Farm Bill Blurb By The Dollar Stretcher

I've been a long subscriber to The Dollar Stretcher (http://www.stretcher.com/index.cfm) and I have to agree 200% with what the editor, Gary Foreman, has to say about the idiots in DC.

Introduction
by Gary Foreman

Hello to all my Frugal Friends!

It's fairly obvious to anyone who's not sleepwalking that
higher food and fuel prices are really hurting most Americans.
Everyday I get emails from folks who are struggling with these
two bills. For many people, it's a real serious problem.

Maybe I'm just an optimist, but I figured that our elected
representatives would recognize the problem and try to do
something about it. Boy, was I wrong. Not only did they ignore
the food price inflation, but they actually found a way to
make it worse! They just don't seem to understand what it's
like for you and me to work to support our families. Last week
provided an excellent example. On May 14th, the House passed a
$307 Billion farm bill.

Now, I like farmers as much as anyone. In fact, Foremans were
Wisconsin dairy farmers. I was raised in the city, but spent a
lot of time visiting relatives who made their living on small
family farms. So I have the utmost respect for someone who
plants something and nurtures it as it grows bigger. And, I
want to help those people wherever I can. But, this bill
doesn't do that. It assumes that you and I are too stupid to
go beyond the name "farm bill." We must be too dumb to
recognize that it's not the small farmer who's being
protected. It's the large agri-business corporation and others
who have little (or nothing) to do with farming as you and I
would think of it.

First, look at the cutoff. A couple with a yearly income of
$1.5 million can receive farm subsidies. Call me Scrooge, but
I'd say that families making more than, oh, say $500,000 per
year probably don't need subsidies paid for by you and me. One
group reports that only 8% of the producers will get 78% of
the money: http://www.forbes.com/

Still think it could be a good piece of legislation? Take a
look at your grocery bill. You'll find that bread, milk and
meat have all increased in price. Dramatically. Why? In large
part because ethanol is consuming grains that normally would
go to feed us. Higher prices indicate that there's more demand
for corn than we can produce. Now you might think that
Washington would get the idea that their ethanol mandates
should be relaxed until the supply of corn can catch up with
the demand. Guess again. So why is the government subsidizing
ethanol production? Seems a little like pouring gas on the
fire of higher food prices.

Then you have the old Congressional shell game. That's where
they include spending that has nothing to do with the main
bill. After all, who wants to be against the family farm? So
let's throw in some money for horse racing and timber
interests. Those dummies back home will never know the
difference!

Rational people might have said that this was a good time to
limit a farm bill to helping those family farmers who truly
need help. "Farm net income is up 56% in the last 2 years"
(source: NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) There's "$40 billion in subsidies to
commodity farmers who already enjoy record prices." (source:
SF Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/14/MNIJ10M871.DTL&type=politics) We could have had a farm bill that took care of the small
family farm without causing additional grocery inflation. But,
that wouldn't have pleased all the special interests.

Guess I'm just mad. You and I are dealing with higher energy
and food prices. Instead of doing something to help, our
elected representatives (from both parties) are busy spending
our money buying favors for themselves. Adding "earmarks" to
every bill in sight. I really believe that it's time to put
Washington on a budget. And, force them to keep it. Whoever
said that they should be allowed to "earmark" anything? I
don't recall voting on it.

Much of the economic trouble that you and I face today is due
to the clowns (and I use the term intentionally) in Washington
that we call elected representatives. They set us up for this
fall. And, unless a camera is present, they really don't seem
to care too much about how much it hurts us. After all, things
are booming in the beltway. No recession there!

I was raised to respect the people who led our country. But,
it's really hard to respect someone when you know that their
back pockets are filled with money that at best was unearned
and, at worst, could be called bribe money. Maybe it's time to
let them know how little respect they've earned.

So the next time your elected representative says they're
against special interests ask them how they voted on the farm
bill. There were 318 yes votes (and only 106 no's) in the
House. The Senate voted 85-15. This isn't a partisan
Democrat/Republican issue. This is a question whether we can
trust the crazies on the Potomac not to bankrupt both the
government and you and me. If they voted "yes" on this bill,
it's probably time to vote "no" on their re-election this
November.

If you want to comment on the farm bill visit: http://community.stretcher.com/blogs/stretcher/archive/2008/05/19/congress-likes-higher-food-prices.aspx


Keep on Stretching Those Dollars!
Gary

MP expresses concern over gypsy sites

By Gazette Reporter

North Wiltshire MP, James Gray, has written to North Wiltshire District Council expressing his concerns over the current consultation with regard to the proposed permanent gypsy encampments within the constituency.

In his letter, Mr Gray said that "The Government have set North Wiltshire District Council an unachievable task, namely to assess the need for such sites (unachievable since neither you nor anyone else has any means of knowing how many gypsy caravans may arrive in the county at any one moment); and then to make provision for permanent sites for those hypothetically arriving gypsies."

Mr Gray also commented that "The whole exercise seems to me to be sending out the wrong messages to the gypsy community as a whole. Those who may be contemplating breaking planning law in the way that those at Minety have done will be encouraged to do so on the grounds that it might lead to some other permanent site for them; and being forced by a foolish Government policy to build new gypsy sites in the way that is proposed will simply invite gypsies from as far as away as Ireland and Romania to come to Wiltshire."

3:21pm Friday 23rd May 2008

Museum celebrates Gypsy heritage

A CELEBRATION of Gypsy traveller heritage and culture is set to take place at Worcestershire County Council's County Museum in Hartlebury next month.

The special event, on June 15, has been put together by the county museum service and the Worcestershire Gypsy Roma and Traveller Partnership, which includes representatives of West Mercia Constabulary, Rooftop Housing, the Community Housing Group, Worcestershire Diocese and the West Midlands Traveller Education Service, pupils from Stourport high and Birchen Coppice, Stourport and Hartlebury primary Schools.

Visitors to the County Museum will be able to see and do the following things as part of the Gypsies - Who Are Ya! event:

See one of the largest displays in the country of Gypsy Vardos, including the recently-restored Esmerelda - one of the finest wagons on display

Meet Mary Horner, author and editor of the Romany Road journal and history society

Stalls to promote the partner organisations

Dance and exhibition displays by pupils from Stourport High School

Displays and demonstrations of traditional crafts

Meet wagon painters and restorers to find out how it is done

Have a their family photograph taken with wagons

Musical entertainment

Sue Pope, the county council's education and outreach officer, said: "This is a really exciting event, where we have opened our doors and embraced the wider community and partners to jointly organise something that celebrates the lives and achievements of Worcestershire's Gypsy, Roma and travelling communities.

advertisement"We are looking forward to welcoming plenty of people to the forthcoming one-day event."

People wanting to find out more should call Sue Pope, on spope@worcestershire.gov.uk or call the County Museum, on 01299 250416.

There wil be admission costs.

12:17 pm Saturday 24th May 2008 - The Shuttle

Urge Revocation of Dickerson Park Zoo's Accreditation

With your support, PETA will pressure the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to pull its accreditation from zoos that engage in outright cruelty to animals. We recently discovered that the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Mo., has sold or "donated" a giraffe, a kudu, five kangaroos, and two deer to Buddy Jordan—a notorious animal dealer who sells animals to exotic-animal auctions and breeders, unaccredited zoos, and even hunting ranches.

Babies born at the zoo should not end up as trophies on a hunter's wall. By taking action today, you can help us pressure zoos everywhere to provide a safe environment for the animals entrusted to their care. Please take a moment to do the following:

Sign the petition to the AZA and demand that it immediately yank the accreditation of the Dickerson Park Zoo for transferring animals to wildlife dealers and ranchers.

Help protect Glacier National Park

Two proposed mining schemes could despoil the Canadian
headwaters of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park -- one
of the wildest places in North America and part of our Greater
Rockies BioGem.

We need your urgent action to block these disastrous proposals,
which would pollute the pristine Flathead River with
contaminated waste and threaten the outstanding fish and
wildlife of Montana's Glacier National Park.

Please go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
and urge the Canadian government to prohibit industrial mining
activities and coalfield developments in the headwaters of
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Cline Mining Corporation is proposing to put an open-pit
coalmine just 25 miles upstream of Glacier National Park. The
mine would remove a mountaintop to create an open pit mine,
settling ponds and waste dumps in a pristine valley.

Meanwhile, BP Energy Corporation has proposed a massive coalbed
methane project (over 125,000 acres) that would require miles of
pipelines and wells producing hundreds of millions of gallons of
toxic wastewater. A dense network of roads would destroy prime
habitat for grizzly bears and other wildlife.

The Flathead River, which originates in British Columbia and
flows south into Montana where it forms the western boundary of
Glacier National Park, is one of the most wild, biologically
rich places in the world.

The Flathead valley and river form the heart of the Crown of the
Continent ecosystem, which is home to wolves, grizzly bears,
wolverines and lynx.

Go to http://www.savebiogems.org/yellowstone/takeaction
and tell the Canadian government to protect Waterton-Glacier
International Peace Park from damaging industrialization.

Thank you for helping to save one of North America's most
valuable wildlife habitats.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Opposition leader denounces attacks on Gypsy camps as gov't readies crime crackdown

ROME: Italy's top opposition leader on Monday denounced attacks on Gypsy camps, as Premier Silvio Berlusconi's new government prepared a crackdown on immigration and the European Parliament agreed to a debate on how Gypsies are treated in Italy.

Center-left leader Walter Veltroni, who lost to Berlusconi last month in elections, urged the government to balance security concerns with human rights.

Last week, attackers set fire to shacks where Gypsies lived on the outskirts of Naples, following an alleged attempt by a Gypsy youth to kidnap a baby from a home in a Naples suburb. The camps were evacuated.

There have been increasing calls by conservative politicians for harsher measures against foreigners in Italy. Surveys in the runup to the parliamentary elections that swept Berlusconi and right-wing allies into power indicated that many Italians blame immigrants for crime.

Berlusconi will lead a Cabinet meeting in Naples on Wednesday. Among measures expected to be decided at the meeting is a crackdown on illegal immigration and on foreigners who commit crimes.

(MORE)

UN Dodges Gypsy Questions as Camps in Naples Burn in Seeming Blind-Spot

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 -- Gypsies and immigrants were attacked last week in Naples and elsewhere in Italy, and apparently no part of the UN system had anything to say about it. On May 16 at the UN's noon briefing, Inner City Press asked about " reports of mass arrests and also violence against immigrants in Italy, and in Naples, there was mob violence, and the Government has started deporting people very quickly. Has anyone in the UN system had anything to say about this?"

Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson Michele Montas replied, "No, not yet." But as Friday ended, there was still no comment. Over the weekend, the Spokesperson was quoted by UN News that Ban would go to Myanmar, then the Spokesperson's office demanded that UN News Service take down the article. Still no word on the burning of homes around Naples, nor the mass deportations. Nor on Monday. What gives?

The UN has been the venue of talks about the rights of gypsies, Roma and Sinti. Inner City Press has interviewed top officials of the UN's refugee agency, who said they are constantly monitoring and speaking out on attacks on immigrants. Why nothing on this one?

A month after Ban Ki-moon became Secretary-General, a group of Roma and Sinti came to the UN, including the Association of Roma in Poland, the Kiev-based International Charitable Organization of Roma Women Fund, the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center, the Council of NGOs of the Slovak Romani Communities, and the Committee for the Compensation for the Romani Holocaust.

Inner City Press asked what they would like the UN to do, and what they knew of Ban Ki-moon's position. Video here. In response, Romani Rose summarized the petition and requests the delegation was delivering, along with a book describing the "horrifying" refugee camps for Roma, including Plemetina, run by the UN in the Mitrovica region of Kosovo. The next day, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokeswoman for his position on the Roma petition. She said she couldn't yet say, they haven't received it. Video here. Is it still somehow missing?

Or could the UN be running scared, of criticizing certain countries? Italy's Berlusconi government has already bristled at a critique from Spain. Still, the UN Secretariat routinely expresses concern and calls for restraint. Why not here?

Music Review: Princes Amongst Men - Journeys With Gypsy Musicians

Written by Richard Marcus
Published May 17, 2008


It's now pretty much common knowledge that the people most of the world refers to as Gypsies originated in the northern part of India. When they began their western migration isn't exactly known, but it is known that from India they set out on a road that took them first to Egypt, then Turkey, and from there on into Europe. Even though they have spread throughout continental Europe as far west as the Iberian peninsula it is the East that most of us seem to identify as being where Gypsies live.

Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Balkan states that stretch from what was once Yugoslavia down to Greece are the primary countries associated with Gypsies. Roma, as they call themselves, have become part of their cultural fabric. This is especially true in Hungary and Romania, where the folk music of these countries is now irrevocably linked to Gypsy music. This hasn't stopped them from being treated like second class, or even third class citizens in the years since World War Two.

Despised by a great deal of the general population, and denigrated as thieves, only Jews have a longer history in Eastern Europe of being ostracized and persecuted and both have suffered horribly for it. Yet somehow they have managed to survive. From the persecutions of the Inquisition to the Death Camps of the Nazis, and the intolerance of repressive Communist regimes, the Gypsies have been marginalized almost since they set foot in Eastern Europe. Living within their own communities and following their own traditions, the only bridge that has been built between them and the rest of the world has been their music.

Garth Cartwright is from New Zealand but like so many other people fell in love with the romantic side of Gypsy life. It was that infatuation that brought him to the Balkans in 1991 to begin the travelling that would end up becoming the basis for his book Princes Amongst Men - Journeys With Gypsy Musicians.

The book recounted his meetings with the men and women who performed Gypsy music in the Balkans, specifically Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia. He chose those four countries for their "deep reservoirs of Gypsy music" and because their proximity allowed him to travel back and forth between the four countries with ease.

The book has been translated into a number of European languages, and is distributed by the Asphalt Tango record label in Germany, who specialize in the production and distribution of Gypsy music from Eastern Europe and Russia. So it's not surprising that they have just released a companion CD for the book.

Princes Amongst Men features the music of some of the best known performers from the four countries that Cartwright travelled through, performers that he spent time with and came to know personally.

While bands like Taraf de Haidouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia have achieved some name recognition in Western Europe and North America through touring and appearances in movies, (Taraf de Haidouks appeared alongside Johnny Depp in The Man Who Cried and he has become one of their biggest champions in the West), others on the disc won't be as well known to audiences outside of their own countries.

(MORE)

El Pais: Naples’ Mafia organizes Gypsy chase

18 May 2008 09:32 FOCUS News Agency

Rome. Italian authorities claim that the mafia group Kamora in Naples have organized the attack with Molotov cocktails against a Roma camp in the Ponticelli suburb and chased away its inhabitants, the Spanish daily El Pais reports.

At the beginning of the week a group of men, women and children attacked the camp, which houses about 100 gypsies from Romania, forcing them to leave the town under police escort. The reason for the attack is an attempt by a young gypsy girl to steal a baby from the home of an Italian woman. Other experts, however, believe that the Kamora group has interests in chasing the gypsies away since they intend to start construction on the same site where the camp was.

68% of Italians want Roma expelled - poll

Tom Kington in Rome
The Guardian
Saturday May 17 2008

· Government accused of stoking racial tension
· Yobs boast of ethnic cleansing after attacks

Sixty-eight per cent of Italians, fuelled by often inflammatory attacks by the new rightwing government, want to see all of the country's 150,000 Gypsies, many of them Italian citizens, expelled, according to an opinion poll.

The survey, published as mobs in Naples burned down Gypsy camps this week, revealed that the majority also wanted all Gypsy camps in Italy to be demolished .

About 70,000 Gypsies in Italy hold Italian passports, including about 30,000 descended from 15th-century Gypsy settlers in the country. The remainder have arrived since, many fleeing the Balkans during the 1990s.

Another 10,000 Gypsies came from Romania after it joined the European Union in January 2007, according to an Italian human rights organisation, EveryOne, part of the approximately half million Romanians believed to be in Italy.

Romanians were among the 268 immigrants rounded up in a nationwide police crackdown on prostitution and drug dealing this week, after new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's likening of foreign criminals to "an army of evil".

But Romanian officials have sought to distinguish between the Romanians and Romanian Gypsies entering Italy.

Flavio Tosi, the mayor of Verona and a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, said his city had the biggest Romanian community in Italy, 7,000 strong, "working as builders, artisans and domestics. And they themselves say the Roma are a problem," he said.

In a second poll, 81% of Italian respondents said they found all Gypsies, Romanian or not, "barely likeable or not likeable at all", a greater number than the 64% who said they felt the same way about non-Gypsy Romanians.

Young Neapolitans who threw Molotov cocktails into a Naples Gypsy camp this week, after a girl was accused of trying to abduct a baby, bragged that they were undertaking "ethnic cleansing". A UN spokeswoman compared the scenes to the forced migration of Gypsies from the Balkans. "We never thought we'd see such images in Italy," said Laura Boldrini.

"This hostility is a result of the generally inflammatory language of the current government, as well as the previous one," said EveryOne director Matteo Pegoraro. "Italian football stars at Milan teams assumed to have Gypsy heritage, such as Andrea Pirlo, are now also the subject of threatening chants."

Commenting on the attacks in Naples, Umberto Bossi, the head of the Northern League party said: "People are going to do what the political class cannot."

The defence minister, Ignazio La Russa, said yesterday he would consider deploying soldiers to Italian streets to help fight crime, while a group of Bosnian Gypsies in Rome said they were mounting night guard patrols of their camp to defend against vigilante attacks.

Europe's leading human rights watchdog urged the government to prevent attacks on Roma communities. Christian Strohal, head of Vienna-based OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said: "The current stigmatisation of Roma and immigrant groups in Italy is dangerous as it ... increases the potential for violence."

· This article was amended after publication on Saturday May 17 2008 to correct the figure in the eighth paragraph from 61% to 64%.

Anti-Gypsy sentiments out of control in Italy

by EveryOne Group
Friday May 16th, 2008 2:40 PM

The case of Angelica, the Roma teenager accused of attempting to kidnap a six-month-old baby in Naples, in the Ponticelli district, is a hoax.

Anti-gypsy sentiments out of control in Italy. The truth about the “kidnapping” in Naples.

The case of Angelica, the Roma teenager accused of attempting to kidnap a six-month-old baby in Naples, in the Ponticelli district, is a hoax. The version given by authorities and media is false. EveryOne Group has made an in-depth investigation into the episode that has triggered off an authentic “gypsy hunt” - which from Naples has spread like wildfire to the rest of Italy. “Right from the beginning the dynamics of the kidnapping appeared unconvincing, because those who are familiar with the building the crime supposedly took place in, know that it is practically inaccessible, both because of the gate and because of the careful surveillance by the building’s tenants,” say the leaders of EveryOne, Roberto Malini, Matteo Pegoraro and Dario Picciau.

“There are also discrepancies between the versions given by Mrs Martinelli, her father and the neighbours. When questioned the woman first declared that the door to her apartment had been forced, later she remembered leaving it open. After realising that the door was open, she went to check the baby’s cot and then returned to the landing where she caught – after at least twenty seconds had gone by – the young Roma girl with the baby in her arms. And not only that: she had time to catch up with her and snatch the baby away from her. Therefore the gypsy girl must have moved in slow motion, enabling the baby’s grandfather, Ciro, to catch up with her on the floor below, grab her and slap her. Some of the neighbours told the authorities that Angelica was still carrying the baby when they blocked her. And that’s not all, because in the days before this episode, the tenants of the building had got together several times with one item on their agenda: how to get rid of the gypsy families in the Ponticelli camp”. After careful analysis, EveryOne Group – who are able to count on activists and local organizations – carried out further checks, both on site and at the jail, where an official, after listening to the evidence that would clear the so-called child kidnapper admitted: “You’re right, it’s not easy for us either, because this case is not very different from many others but someone has transformed it into a nationwide case”.

The tenants of Ponticelli have closed ranks: they don’t want the Roma there any more. Some people, however, show signs of having a conscience, but are frightened to speak up, because a lot of pressure is being put on them and it is too dangerous to go against the Ponticelli “committee”. Angelica actually knew one of the families that live in Via Principe di Napoli, where the episode took place,” continue the activists of EveryOne. “She pressed the entryphone button and was spotted by some tenants. A few seconds later the trap was sprung and the fury of the tenants was unleashed on her – they caught up with her in the street, grabbed her, slapped her and handed her over to the police. There are witnesses who know the truth and two of them are willing to talk to the magistrate. It is important that Rosa Mazzei, the lawyer defending the Roma girl, does not allow herself to be intimidated and ensures the truth comes out in court.
One of the activists from Naples, however, imagines that her line of defence will be that of admitting to the theft but not to the kidnapping”. The consequences of the Ponticelli case (with the media reporting it in newspapers and TV networks) have been very serious - a clear indication of why it is necessary to abandon racism and xenophobia and rediscover the path of human rights “It is important that the local human rights organizations now watch over Angelica’s well-being, as she is subjected to intolerable and terrible pressure. Safeguarding the girl’s well-being means safeguarding the truth of the Ponticelli case, which is the tragic truth of yet another injustice, false accusations, other inhuman violence the Roma people in Italy are subjected to - people already hit by marginalization and segregation, persecuted by unjust measures”.

The activists of EveryOne conclude with some considerations that should lead people to reflect: “For years we have been sounding the alarm against the racist campaign underway in Italy. Thanks to the support of transnational political parties active in the field of human and civil rights we have obtained European Parliament Resolutions and guidelines from the United Nations which has reprimanded Italy for its racist policies. The Roma in Italy are not criminals, they are families living in conditions of great hardship. Out of the 150,000 “gypsies” present in our country, 90,000 are children. The average life expectancy of the Roma in Italy is 35 years, compared to the 80 years of the other citizens.

Infant mortality among Roma children is 15 times higher than that of other children. These figures are the result of persecution. As for crimes committed by Roma citizens, the figures are of little significance, as may be seen from the data published by the Ministry of the Interior, and assaults by Roma on Italian citizens are practically inexistent. The Giovanna Reggiani case was yet another deception, because the alleged murderer, Romulus Mailat is not a Roma at all, he is a Romanian of the Bunjas ethnic group which has no connection to the “gypsy” population. We informed the investigators and the media of this at the time but our dossier was ignored. Racism is a convenient decoy for a swarm of people, political parties, media, and organized crime, with an annual turnover of many billions of euros. On this point, we wish to point out that Roma citizens involved in crime are nearly always in the pay of the Italian Mafia, which – due to the conditions of hardship and segregation the “gypsies” live in – has reduced them to slavery. The authorities are aware of that, so are the politicians - and it is about time all Italians became aware of it”.

info [at] everyonegroup.com
http://www.everyonegroup.com

Gypsy camps destroyed as Italian intolerance flares

Richard Owen, Naples May 17, 2008

SMOKE rose yesterday from the smouldering ruins of a Gypsy camp attacked by vigilantes in a run-down industrial suburb of Naples in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.

The charred remains of the makeshift wooden shacks, mattresses and belongings at the site in Ponticelli crunched underfoot. Dogs scavenged through a pile of uncollected rubbish nearby.

Police guarded another squalid "nomad camp" beneath an overpass after the inhabitants fled during the night to avoid meeting a similar fate. Signs of their flight were everywhere, with doors to shacks left open and the ground strewn with clothing, shoes, bicycles, plastic bottles, pots and pans and children's toys.

Police launched a nationwide round-up of nearly 400 illegal immigrants this week from the Balkans and North Africa - the first step in a crackdown on crime promised by the new centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi. Almost 120 of those held in the operation, which stretched from Naples to northern Italy, were ordered to be deported immediately for offences ranging from drug-dealing and robbery to prostitution.

In Rome, where Gianni Alemanno, the new right-wing Mayor, has vowed to dismantle "nomad camps" to reduce street crime, police raided a Roma camp, taking the inhabitants by bus to detention centres. Mr Alemanno has promised to deport 20,000 illegal immigrants.

But in Naples local people pre-empted the crackdown and took the law into their own hands. Scores of youths on scooters and motorbikes wielded iron bars and threw Molotov cocktails at the Roma shanty towns. Their anger came to a head after a 17-year-old Roma girl entered a flat in Ponticelli and apparently tried to steal a six-month-old girl. The child's mother and neighbours gave chase and the teenager escaped being lynched only after police moved in.

Naples erupted in fury, with women leading the marches on the Roma camps to the chant of "Fuori, fuori" ("Out, out") and "Go home, dirty child stealers". Young men, allegedly on the orders of the Camorra, the Naples Mafia, set the sites ablaze, blocking attempts by the fire brigade to put out the fires. Exploding gas canisters completed the destruction. The women jeered at the firemen, shouting: "You put the fires out, we start them again."

Hundreds of Roma families fled for their lives, their belongings piled on to small pick-up trucks or handcarts. Some have been taken under police protection. Others have found refuge at Roma camps elsewhere in the Campania region, while a few have been taken in by Naples residents shocked at the outbreak of xenophobia.

The arson attacks come from festering anger over rising crime and urban degradation, much of it blamed on Roma gypsies and the estimated half a million Romanians who have emigrated to Italy since Romania joined the European Union. The Roma rights group Opera Nomadi says there are 2500 Roma in Naples, 1000 from Romania and 1500 from Balkan areas.

Late yesterday, the Berlusconi cabinet was to approve an emergency "security package" drawn up by new Interior Minister and deputy leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League Robert Maroni. It includes the dismantling of Roma camps, the appointment of "special commissioners" to deal with "the Roma problem", tighter border controls and speedier deportation of immigrants who cannot show they have a job or adequate income. Mr Maroni wants to make illegal immigration a criminal offence.

Romanian Interior Minister Cristian David arrived in Rome yesterday for talks on the crisis.

The Times

Roma gypsy camp set on fire in Italy after kidnapping claims

ROME, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - A crowd of angry Italians set a gypsy camp on fire in the outskirts of Naples following reports of an alleged kidnapping by a Roma girl, national media reported on Wednesday.

According to eyewitnesses, a crowd of several dozen people threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the Roma camp, forcing its inhabitants to seek police protection at a larger encampment.

The violence broke out following the alleged kidnapping of a local child by a 16-year-old Roma girl. According to the child's mother, the Roma girl entered the house while the door was unlocked, picked up the child and tried to escape, but was subsequently caught.

Italians blame immigrants, particularly the Romanian community, many of whom are Roma gypsies, for rising crime in the country.

The Roma camp in Naples was previously razed to the ground in 1999 when skinheads attacked the camp after a Roma driver hit two females riding on a scooter.

According to different estimates between 300,000 and 500,000 Romanians currently live in Italy, and their numbers have dramatically increased following Romania's entry to the EU.

In the most recent incident, Italy expelled 210 Romanian nationals with criminal records in an attempt to ease anti-Romanian feeling following the murder of the wife of a top navy commander near a Roma gypsy camp on the outskirts of Rome in November 2007.

Polar Bear to Be a Protected Species

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species Wednesday, saying it must be protected because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the last three decades and projections of continued losses. These declines, he told a news conference, mean the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future.

Kempthorne also said, though, that it would be "inappropriate" to use the protection of the bear to reduce greenhouse gases, or to broadly address climate change.

Reflecting views recently expressed by President Bush, Kempthorne said the Endangered Species Act was "never meant to regulate global climate change."

He said the decision to list the bear includes administrative actions aimed at limiting the impact of the decision on energy development and other climate related activities.

(MORE)

Operation Climate Vote!

The Senate is set to vote on landmark global warming legislation in early June. We need your help to urge your Senators to seize this historic opportunity to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution.

Email your Senators our list of the top 5 reasons why they must act now.

Here's our list:

1. Every year we wait equals extra effort. If we delay this bill by just two years, we will have to make twice the annual cuts in carbon emissions to hit the same cumulative reductions by 2020.

2. The science is unforgiving. As the Earth warms, we approach a "tipping point," after which large destructive climate changes become inevitable.

3. The political opportunity is ripe. 78% of Americans want Congress to act on global warming. We need to take advantage of the tremendous momentum that exists today.

4. Someone is going to win the global race to reinvent energy. It should be us. Renewable energy promises to become one of the world's most profitable industries. But advances in renewable energy technologies will not be fully realized without a national cap on global warming pollution. The sooner we act, the sooner these new industries will start to flourish.

5. What legacy will the 110th Congress leave? When future generations look back at this moment, they will either praise the Senate for starting us down the path to solving the global warming crisis, or blame the Senate for squandering this opportunity.


You and I - and everyone we know - need to make sure that the Senate gets the message now.

With your support, we're keeping up constant pressure to make sure the Senate seizes this historic opportunity. As the Climate Security Act makes its way to the Senate floor for a vote next month, we must hammer these urgent points home.

Please email your Senators our top 5 list now.

Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

The Global Warming Team at Environmental Defense Action Fund

Judge stops demolition of Essex Travellers site

Jo Siedlecka

More than 50 Gypsy and Traveller families in Essex won a High Court fight on Friday, to stop the local council from evicting them.

The families bought the green belt land at Dale Farm, Billericay and Five Acres Farm, Wickford, about ten years ago. It had previously been derelict or used for storing scrap metal. The families pay council taxes and have gradually built up semi-permanent homes there. But they do not have planning permission.

Basildon District Council has been trying to evict them for several years. Last December, the council decided to use section 178 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, to enter the land, evict the residents and demolish their dwellings. This would have left them homeless, and the council would not have been able to offer alternative accommodation.

In a 26-page judgment, Mr Justice Collins said the eviction order could not stand and he ordered more time to investigate concerns on the needs and welfare of the families. He drew attention to the high degree of prejudice faced by Gypsies and Travellers and the discrimination they have suffered at the hands of local authorities. (There has also been a very one-side campaign in the local press and the Daily Mail). Judge Collins said sick and vulnerable persons, and children attending school had not been given proper, individual consideration, nor had anti-racist legislation been fully complied with. Any future decisions by the Basildon council would have to be based on these and other considerations, he said.

The judge warned the residents they would not be able to stay on the sites permanently, but said: "I think that the approach has been that the sites should be cleared, rather than a consideration of whether there are any individual families whose circumstances are such that in their individual cases eviction would be disproportionate."

Judge Collins gave the council permission to appeal against his decision, saying the case raised "important points" over what appeared to be the "insoluble problem" of providing sites for Gypsies and Travellers.

Traveller spokesman Grattan Puxon said in a statement that the ruling "represents a major legal victory for Britain's long harassed Gypsies and Travellers, many of whom have in recent years seen their homes mercilessly bulldozed. "

"This is a wake-up call to all councils," said Dr Keith Lomax, the solicitor representing Dale Farm's 132 households, comprising chalets, mobile-homes and caravans. "Those that don't provide legal living space will find they can't rely on enforcement powers."

A meeting of the Gypsy Council has been convened for 10 June at Dale Farm to consider the implications of the judgment.

Father John Glynn, Parish Priest at Our Lady of Good Council in Wickford, told ICN last night: "This judgment is a welcome stay of execution. The great thing is that it draws attention to the situation of these individual families. I hope this will now lead to a proper dialogue between all the parties."

Father John said the local Churches, have offered to help bring the sides together for talks.

On Friday, the Bishop of Brentwood, Bishop Thomas McMahon, the Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford, Bishop John Gladwin, and other Catholic and Church of England clergy visited Dale Farm, where a small cabin was opened recently to be used as a chapel and community centre.


Source: Roma News Service/ICN

© Independent Catholic News 2008

Gypsy families anxiously waiting for help

By Rizwan Ehsan Ali
5/9/2008
Rawalpindi

The smell of burnt household items was still in the air on Thursday morning as poor men, women and children of a ‘katchi abadi’ in Dhoke Ali Akbar searched for whatever left in ashes.

In a matter of five minutes, around 125 huts were destroyed when nine days ago fire broke out in the slum late at night after a burning candle fell in one of the huts that went unnoticed.

“Only 10 huts could be saved while the rest of them were completely destroyed,” Mohammad Ajoob, a resident of the ‘katchi abadi,’ told ‘The News’ on Thursday.

While those who matter like nazims and chairmen of various welfare committees visited the site a day after the incident, until Thursday evening hundreds of men, women and children were anxiously waiting for some real assistance.

The majority of these gypsies, who migrated from Bahawalnagar some 25 years ago, have been living in makeshift huts on a piece of land, measuring 18 kanals, in Dhoke Ali Akbar. The April 30 fire was the first in all those years.

When fire broke out in the slum, men and women ran for their lives, carrying their children. All of them took refuge in a nearby school.

Talking to ‘The News,’ a few residents claimed that they were promised financial assistance, but for the last nine days, nobody has come and asked them what had happened to their huts.

Most of the slum-dwellers collect cardboards and empty plastic bottles and make their livelihood by selling them. However now their main worry is their damaged huts and how to restore them.

“Even our kitchen utensils were completely burnt. We have no vessel to cook food,” said Fatima Bibi.

The woman claimed that she had lost all new clothes and household utensils, which she had kept for marriages of her two daughters — Irshad Bibi and Gogi.

Some women in the locality, like Farida Bibi, believed that since they were poor maybe that’s why nobody is taking pain to come and see what had happened to them.

“Had this tragedy befell some rich people, their damages would have been compensated by now. But we are poor, who would listen to us?” Farida Bibi questioned.

Sakina Bibi, who cannot see, was more worried than others. Her son Ghulam Sarwar used a pushcart for collecting cardboards and empty plastic bottles from all over the city. Now as his pushcart had been completely burnt, Ghulam Sarwar has carry a big sack on his shoulders to carry on with his work.

“Who would come here? Do you have any idea?” Sakina questioned to this correspondent with tears in her eyes.

“When we have lost our source of income (a pushcart) how could we continue our lives,” she added in a sombre voice.

Poor men, women and children now have no other choice but to beg in streets of the nearby locality. They go door-to-door to collect household utensils and money.

While some succeed at the end of the day, the rest wait for another day in a hope they would get something for their children.

Polar Bear Breakthrough - SOS

Alaska's polar bears have moved one big step closer to receiving protection under the Endangered Species Act.

A federal judge just ordered the Bush Administration to stop dragging its feet and decide by May 15 whether it will safeguard America's polar bears from the threat of extinction due to rising temperatures and rapidly melting sea ice.

It took a lawsuit by NRDC, the Center for Biological Diversity and Greenpeace to force this latest breakthrough. The court ruled that the Bush Administration had violated the law by missing its January deadline and then proceeding to delay for months more.

While the Administration stalled for time, it rammed through oil and gas leases in some of the polar bear's most important Arctic habitat.

By ordering a May 15 deadline for this decision, the federal courts have thrown polar bears an important lifeline.

That's because the Endangered Species Act requires this momentous decision to be made solely on the best available science -- not politics -- and the science is absolutely clear that the polar bear urgently needs protection from the impacts of global warming.

With reports of polar bears starving and drowning...snowy dens collapsing on mother bears and their newborn cubs...and populations in decline, there is no longer any doubt that the climate crisis is taking a terrible toll on these magnificent creatures.

But despite the iron-clad evidence, there is no assurance that the Bush Administration will do the right thing on May 15. Given President Bush's pro-polluter agenda and relentless attacks on wildlife, it is still possible that the Interior Department will deny protection for the polar bear.

In that case, we'll be fully prepared to drag the Bush Administration back to court and fight in the legal arena until polar bears win the protection they so urgently need.

I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we get word of the Administration’s decision. In the meantime, if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to tell your senators to stop oil development in Alaska's prime polar bear habitat.

With Alaska's polar bears under siege, I am so grateful to have you working by our side to help ensure their survival.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

New Report Spotlights Ten Wild Places at Risk

Wild...For How Long? Ten Treasures in Trouble, looks at ten special wild areas from coast to coast, vulnerable today to mining, drilling, roadbuilding, logging, development and off-road vehicle abuse.

The report, issued by the Campaign for America's Wilderness, spotlights wild land at risk, but also those that are poised for wilderness designation, in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

The report also celebrates some of the local heroes working to protect these places they love. View the report [1] (5.8 MB).

Essex: chapel, community centre opened at beleaguered Gypsy camp

A small community centre and chapel was officially opened at Dale Farm Traveller and Gypsy camp near Crays Hill in Essex on Saturday.

The log cabin, which has been named after St Christopher, one of the patron saints of travelling people, will be used for community meetings, health projects, IT and literacy for children and a chapel for the site's Catholics. It was built with a £9,894 government youth grant fund from the Equality Council

The building was blessed by Father John Glynn of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Wickford. There were also speeches by Lib Dem peer Lord Avebury, Clive Mardner, director of the Equality Council, who sponsored the project, and site spokesman Richard Sheridan, Gypsy Council president.

The opening of the community centre has aroused controversy locally, and a hostile campaign in the Daily Mail. While the Gypsies and Travellers have bought the agricultural land at Dale Farm, and lived there for many years, Secretary of State Ruth Kelly has upheld Basildon's decision to evict the community. This Friday (9 May) Judge Collins is to issue his long delayed ruling in the judicial review in the British High Court into Basildon's policy towards some two hundred "illegal" families which it refuses to accommodate.

Eviction specialists Constant & Co., whose bailiffs have been accused of 'wanton destruction,' including the burning and looting of caravans during removal operations, are already believed to be planning to bid for the £2 million demolition of the Dale Farm township.

Lord Avebury said: "The bulldozing of Dale Farm would be a disaster." Richard Sheridan said: "If we are evicted it will be a traumatic experience for all the families who have nowhere to go."

Billericay MP John Baron has urged the National Lottery to stop funding the equality council because he claims it is "biased to travellers".

Essex Racial Equality Council, which sponsored the centre, has been threatened with a cut off of funding by Lord Haddingfield. His opposite number on Basildon council, Malcolm Buckley, has already ended ties with racial equality workers whom he accuses of a bias in favour of Gypsies.

Their leader, Clive Marden, said at the ceremony that he did not care what Tory MP John Baron said, he was proud to be involved with the Dale Farm project, which was going to benefit so many children and young people. "I'm happy to take the flak," Marden commented.

Next week, the Bishop of Brentwood, the Bishop of Chelmsford, and other Catholic and Church of England clergy will be paying their own visit to Saint Christopher's.

Source: Roma News Service

© Independent Catholic News 2008

Friends of the Earth Blasts Bush Admin Railroad Routing Regs

For Immediate Release

For more information contact:
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748

Contact:
Fred Millar, 703-979-9191
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748


WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Bush administration published new regulations today that allow U.S. railroads to unilaterally select dangerous routes through or around major cities for chemical railcars that the federal agencies call “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder had the following response:

“These regulations are part of President Bush’s failed homeland security legacy. This rerouting policy leaves our cities vulnerable to attacks on trains carrying hazardous rail cargoes. It is an abdication of government responsibility in the face of corporate power that endangers millions of Americans.”

Fred Millar, rail security consultant for Friends of the Earth, said:

"Cities and states will need to protest these new regulations vigorously, and once again Congress will need to re-address the rail routing issue. This Bush administration pretense of regulation must be replaced with real protections for target cities."

OVERVIEW OF THE NEW RULE: SAME AS THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION’S LAST FAILED ATTEMPT

The new rule is nearly identical to the one Bush administration proposed December 21, 2006, and which Congress subsequently found inadequate. The previous rule and the new one allow railroads to pick hazardous materials routes using assumptions and calculations that are kept secret from the public. They also allow virtually no role for state and local officials in these selections and preempt state and local rerouting legislation. Eleven major U.S. target cities, beginning in 2005 with Washington D.C., and including St. Louis, Buffalo and Chicago, and two states (New York and Tennessee) have introduced new rerouting legislation, and many major media reports have shown the easy accessibility to dangerous railcars in cities and railyards.

The new rule utilizes the same flawed regulatory techniques as the last one, ensuring that virtually no protective rerouting will occur:

1. It puts individual railroads (including the 300 or so relatively new shortline railroads which often link major rail lines and the chemical company shippers or final customers for the dangerous rail cargoes) in charge of analyzing their own current routes and alternatives to these “over which they have authority to operate.” The Department of Transportation appeals in the regulation to the “good faith” of the railroads—a flawed approach.

2. Individual railroads are allowed to make the critical decision to “weight” the 27 new “factors” they must consider (in Appendix D) —DOT declines even to rank order the factors.

3. Railroads are told they should “work with” state and local officials, but the latter have no role in any of the important route analyses or selections.

4. The information on analyses and route selections must be “restricted” to those with “a need to know,” and specifically are not to be shared with the public.

5. The federal agencies will not approve route selections, nor set up any kind of new oversight, but leave it to the current cadre of overburdened inspectors.

6. The agency suggests that rerouting will entail increased safety risks and economic costs that will override potential terrorist risks. The example DOT uses for calculating the value of the rule is the accidental release of one railcar of chlorine in the tiny town of Graniteville, S.C.—much larger disasters are possible.

7. Even if a railroad identifies an alternative route as safer and more secure, it may continue to use the one through the target city by implementing some unspecified “remediation and mitigation” measures [p. 20762].

8. The interim final rule is not effective until June 1, 2008, and gives the railroads another full year (until Sept 1, 2009) to implement route analyses and selections.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

As CSXT suggested already in the federal docket, since 9/11 the public has reconsidered what is an acceptable risk:

“The support of the public, and of many policy makers, has greatly eroded since 9/11. Now the railroads are harshly criticized for transporting these [TIH, or “ Toxic by Inhalation” poison gas cargoes] …Our company’s reputation has been assailed…[and] vilified in the media. TIH cannot simply continue to move by railroad indefinitely…Even if the potential for ruinous liability were somehow erased, the widespread social disapproval of TIH transport by rail would remain.” http://dmses.dot.gov/docimages/pdf101/456287_web.pdf

In response to public concern, Congress enacted, and President Bush signed on August 3, 2007 a new toxics rail re-routing law that embodies this new bipartisan national consensus: we should protect our target cities by re-routing, wherever possible, the through railcar chemical “security sensitive” cargoes to go around "high consequence areas" onto non-target routes. [See H.R. 1, “The 9/11 Commission Act,” Section 1551,]:

"The Secretary of Transportation shall ensure that the final regulation requires each railroad carrier transporting security-sensitive materials in commerce to annually review and select the practicable route posing the least overall safety and security risk …." The new Bush Administration routing rule, on the other hand, provides the railroads an astonishing total of 27 new “factors” to consider in their routing decisions, and with only minimal federal oversight “in the most extreme cases.” Most of these factors are so entirely non-related to terrorism prevention [such as “safety” and “commercial practicability”] that they are clearly 27 ways NOT to re-route.

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Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org) is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 70 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has been at the forefront of high-profile efforts to create a more healthy, just world.


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Oppose Sham Global Warming Bill

Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) proposed legislation that would allow global warming pollution to increase for decades.

If you think global warming is a hoax, this is your bill.

Email your Senators today to oppose Senator Voinovich's sham global warming proposal.

The Senate has scheduled time the first week of June to debate and vote on global warming legislation, and this proposal may be debated then.

We need the Senate to seize this opportunity to cap and reduce America's global warming pollution with a meaningful bill, not waste precious time on delaying and denying the reality of global warming.

The Voinovich bill is dressed up as a way to take action, but in fact is a detailed prescription for doing nothing.

It would postpone meaningful action on global warming pollution for at least twenty years. It calls for weak, non-binding emissions reduction benchmarks – current levels in 2020 and 1990 levels in 2030 – while providing taxpayer-funded subsidies for favored technologies.

The Environmental Protection Agency could establish a cap and trade system to reduce emissions – but it could be suspended the cap on a whim, and it would come with an astonishingly low $5 per ton "safety valve" – an artificial price control on emissions reductions.

In the meantime, the proposal would take away state authority – confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA – to control global warming pollution. Dozens of states across the country, including California, Florida, and the Northeast members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, have set ambitious emissions reduction targets.

We need to do everything we can to defeat Senator Voinovich's sham bill.

Take action today: Email your Senators to urge them to oppose the Voinovich proposal.

Thank you for helping keep the pressure on for real global warming action this year.

-- The Global Warming Team at Environmental Defense Action Fund