UK frustrated in bid to deport radical Islamist

LONDON — An extremist cleric who has avoided Britain’s efforts to deport him to Jordan for more than a decade was told Thursday he may have dealt a new blow to the country’s exasperated government.

British lawmakers were told a new appeal lodged Tuesday by the Palestinian-Jordanian preacher Abu Qatada, who has fought attempts to expel him from the U.K. since 2001, is likely to be considered by the European Court of Human Rights.

An advisory note sent to Britain’s Parliament by the Council of Europe – which is responsible for the court – said the cleric had submitted his latest effort to contest his deportation “just in time” to beat a deadline.

“I sometimes wish I could put him on a plane and take him to Jordan myself,” Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday, reflecting widespread frustration over the case. “But government has to act within the law.”

Cameron acknowledged he was growing alarmed at the delays that have prevented Britain from removing a man identified in court hearings as having been the late Osama bin Laden‘s spiritual envoy in Europe.

The British leader‘s anger comes after he believed his government had finally succeeded in drawing the protracted legal saga to a close.

Kosovo – referendum, barricades and EU plans

Belgrade Annual Session 2011 (Photo credit: oscepa)

Posted on February 13th, 2012 in the category Kosovo by TransConflict

Ahead of a referendum in the north on attitudes towards Pristina, there are growing signs that a number of actors – particularly KFOR and the EU – are beginning to grasp the realities of the north, including the need to treat the local leaders as legitimate interlocutors.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

The snows are piled deep throughout the Balkans leaving many stranded and dealing with the cold and electricity shortages. Scores have died including an entire family – minus a young survivor – in an avalanche in southern Kosovo.  Kosovo issues, however, seem not to be taking any winter leave, with a vote due this week in the north on attitudes towards Pristina, continued focus on the Kosovo Serb barricades and EU consideration of the continued role of EULEX.

The northern Kosovo Serbs says that they are ready for their “referendum” to be held February 14-15. It will reportedly ask for a “yes” or “no” response to a single question – “do you accept the institutions of the so-called Republic of Kosovo?” Much has been made of this vote – essentially a poll unlikely to produce much surprise and with no legal or operational result. Now, the UN has jumped into the fray – reportedly saying the vote is contrary to law and that UNMIK will have no role in it. The Kosovo police, however, plan no special measures and KFOR’s concerns seem more about the vote provoking violence against Kosovo Serbs south of the Ibar.

Against the general backdrop of EU and German pressures on Belgrade over Kosovo, the International Crisis Group braved the snow and cold to travel through the north to look at the barricades there. ICG found official crossing points open but unused, with travel continuing across the boundary through alternative routes. ICG’s conclusion: “Trying to use issues like freedom of movement – or the rule of law – as tools to change locals’ minds about sovereignty issues, rather than as ends in themselves, just damages the tool. The dispute isn’t a technicality and cannot be resolved as though it were.”

Meanwhile, the Pristina newspaper Zëri reports that UNMIK appears to have negotiated a “gentleman’s agreement” to allow EULEX access through the barricades. UNMIK reportedly told the paper that it was “actively engaged” in discussing “unconditional freedom of movement” in the north with “northern Serbs, as well as officials in Belgrade” alongside KFOR and EULEX efforts to do the same. No details but perhaps the “gentleman’s agreement” allows EULEX to travel on the assumption they would not be conveying Kosovo Customs to the boundary crossings? In its trip report, however, ICG reported that the northerners are still watching the roads.

There is further reporting on the EU’s plans for “reformatting” the EULEX mission later this year “taking into account the progress made by Kosovo authorities in the rule of law and the needs of changing the mission.” This would be in-line with plans announced by the Quint last month to move toward ending “supervised independence” of Kosovo. A spokesman for prime minister Thaci told Balkan Insight that “we expect that in regions like in Mitrovica and Prizren, no EULEX police officers will be stationed due to the good performance of the police…[and] the same goes for customs.” Such changes would seem to take EULEX out of its peacekeeping role in the north – where it has taken the UN’s place on crucial rule of law issues including the police, courts and customs.

Germany – Cops ‘quizzed neo-Nazi terror cell woman’ in 2007

Published: 29 Jan 12 12:38 CET

Police questioned a member of a neo-Nazi terror cell just months before the gang killed a policewoman – but asked her about water damage to a flat, having no idea she was connected to a string of shootings, it emerged on Sunday.

In what will be an embarrassing revelation for the authorities, Der Spiegel magazine reported that officers questioned Beate Zschäpe in 2007, but did not realise that her inconsistency could have been connected to anything sinister.
She is considered a crucial member of the self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU) which claimed responsibility for killing nine small business owners and workers between 2000 and 2006. Eight of the victims were of Turkish origin and one was Greek.
The gang are thought to have shot a policewoman to death and stolen her weapon in 2007, three months after Zschäpe was questioned.

North Africa and the Persian Gulf: Lingering Tensions, Different Stakes

Image via Wikipedia

Despite its proximity to Europe and its status as a major African oil producer, Libya‘s sparse population and relative isolation from its neighbors make the stakes of civil unrest much lower than in other regions of the Arab world. 

Libya returned to the headlines Saturday when a protest in front of the headquarters of the National Transitional Council (NTC) turned violent. A group of demonstrators in Benghazi broke into the building, vandalized and looted the property and reportedly drove NTC head Mustafa Abdel-Jalil to flee through a back exit. A leading member of the council has since resigned, and Abdel-Jalil has warned that the country risks heading toward civil war if protests continue to intensify. The euphoria many Libyans felt at the death of former leader Moammar Gadhafi last October has faded, and though elections for a constituent assembly are scheduled for June, it is hard to see a stable, democratic government on the horizon in Libya.

The young men at the protest shared a general feeling of discontent with Libya’s direction more than three months after Gadhafi’s death. But they also share another trait: they all live in Benghazi, the city where the NTC was formed and is supposed to have the highest level of support. Benghazi is where the Libyan revolution started, and many of the NTC leaders come from the city. In less than a year, the council’s self-appointed leaders — many are still involved in the governance of the country — have gone from beloved to vilified in the eyes of many who supported the revolution, including those from Benghazi.

How the Soviet Union Transformed Terrorism

By Nick Lockwood  Dec 23 2011, 8:30 AM ET

The USSR developed two tools that changed the world: airplane hijackings and state-sponsorship of terror

Pilot Juergen Schumann sits in the open door of Lufthansa airplane Landshut at the airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Oct. 15, 1977, prior to being killed by members of the Red Army Faction who had hijacked the flight / AP

This post is part of a 12-part series exploring how the U.S.-Russia relationship has shaped the world since the December 1991 end of the Soviet Union. Read the full series here.

In the 1960s and 70s, the Soviet Union sponsored waves of political violence against the West. The Red Brigades in Italy and the German Red Army Faction both terrorized Europe through bank robberies, kidnapping, and acts of sabotage. The Soviets wanted to use these left-wing terror groups to destabilize Italy and Germany to break up NATO. State-sponsored terrorism was a deeply Soviet phenomenon, but its practice did not stop when the Soviet Union ended. While state sponsorship continues, terrorism has mutated into something even harder for us to understand and respond to. But some of the roots of today’s terrorism go back to the Soviet Union.

 

Russia is the birthplace of modern terrorism. The Russian nihilists of the 19th century combined political powerlessness with a propensity for gruesome violence, but their attacks were aimed at the Tsarist state and ruling classes. Later, the Soviet Union and its allies actively supported terrorism as a means to politically inconvenience and undermine its opponents. The East German Stasi and the KGB provided funds, equipment, and “networking” opportunities to the myriad of leftist German terrorist cells in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The Red Army Faction and the 2nd June Movement in Germany, as well as the Red Brigades in Italy, shared Marxist philosophies, a hatred of America, solidarity with the Palestinians, and opposition to the generation, some of its members still in power, that had supported the Nazis and fascists. They were good foundations for a Cold War fifth column. It was not just Europe, either: Soviet equipment, funding, training and guidance flowed across the globe, either directly from the KGB or through the agencies of key allies, like the Rumanian Securitate, the Cuban General Intelligence Directorate.

Formal Global Interdependence – The Historical (and Western) Case for Global Governance

Image via Wikipedia

12 December 2011

NASA image showing the Arctic Ozone Loss

While calls for global governance gathered momentum throughout the 20th Century, its origins are steeped in history. Today, the ISN looks to the past to develop an argument for formal global interdependence.

By Peter Faber for the ISN

Global interdependence is a phrase we’ve all been overexposed to. But as the introduction to this week’s topic reminds us, it can mean different things to different people. To many it means developing a malleable and incorruptible form of cosmopolitan citizenship, while to others it means marching inexorably towards some form of formalized global governance. This latter march, although the European Union pilot project might suggest otherwise, is not a recently developed concept. Some argue it originates with Herodotus, but its modern roots actually lie in the shape-shifting church politics of the European Middle Ages.

‘Constantinianism’ – The term was a pejorative anti-papal one in the late Middle Ages, but it signaled the first steps away from the Christian universalism (the Christianopolis) of earlier church fathers. As an initial half-step towards the idea of extended secular communities, Constantinianism embodied growing papal claims to secular authority and, more generally, all forms of Church involvement in the secular government of the world. Dante Alighieri further aided in the blurring of Christian and secular constructions of community in his De Monarchia. As the title suggests, it was a pro-imperial text, but its concept of society and of sovereignty transcended other religiously-tainted political visions of the time. Yes, it endorsed the need for ‘big man’ leadership in politics, but it also advocated an extended society of civil peace, order and justice where everyone should be free to seek their individual and common good. That quest would be possible, or so Dante argued, because centralized rule would not be imposed by force, but by bringing out the best in others.

So what did the above ideological ‘tilts’ bequeath subsequent advocates of far-reaching, comprehensive governance? First, the growing secularization of human problems, but not at the expense of destroying the idea of human-wide community. Second, the influential De Monarchia established what is now a wide-spread belief – i.e., that the political answers to human problems are often structural ones. In Dante’s case, the required structural reform was the installation of a universal secular monarch. Only through his presence was the perfection of the earthly city possible. Third, Dante and several other fellow travelers helped bring peace down to Earth. In their view, peace wasn’t an expression or consequence of divine agency; it actually was the consequence of human arrangements. Marsilius of Padua then added one final piece to the then-cutting edge belief that peace, justice and harmony were most possible when connected to potentially large and secular political structures. In Defensor Pacis, he elaborated further on the nature of peace. His peace, however, was an instrumental and civil one; it wasn’t defined by end states. It depended, in other words, on governmental parts that functioned smoothly and interacted properly.

Kosovo’s Former Bank Governor Cleared Of Corruption Charges

Monday, December 19, 2011

Police escort former Kosovo Central Bank Governor Hashim Rexhepi (second left) after his arrest in Pristina last year.

The European Union’s mission in Kosovo has said that the former governor of Kosovo’s central bank has been cleared of corruption charges, more than a year after the accusations cost him his job.

The EU’s police and justice mission in Kosovo, EULEX, said a judge had dismissed all five counts against Hashim Rexhepi.

The charges had included abuse of office and fraud.

Italians fear revival of terrorism

Image by Jon@th@nC via Flickr

Letter bombs and bullets mailed to officials have prompted Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to warn of political violence returning to Italy

LORENZO TOTARO

Published: 2011/12/15 06:47:24 AM

LETTER bombs and bullets mailed to officials have prompted Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to warn of political violence returning to Italy.

Terrorism in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, a period of bombs and bullets dubbed the Years of Lead, claimed hundreds of lives.

An official with Equitalia, Italy’s tax-collection agency, was wounded in the hand and face by a letter bomb last Friday, a day after Italian anarchists said they had tried to injure Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann with a similar device. Letters with bullets sent to Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno and Justice Minister Paola Severino were found this week.

“Threats and intimidation represent strategies of other eras that can’t and mustn’t return,” Mr Monti said yesterday.

Justice & Home Affairs / MEPs call for review of EU counter-terrorism policies

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  Member states will have to report about the effectiveness of their surveillance methods (Photo: Flickr)

By Valentina Pop

BRUSSELS – The European Parliament on Wednesday (14 December) called on member states to submit reports on the cost-efficiency of their counter-terrorism measures and their impact on civil liberties, with the European Commission set to produce an EU-wide evaluation.

“Remarkably little has been done to assess to what degree EU counter-terrorism policies have achieved the stated objectives,” MEPs said in the non-binding text, which calls on the EU commission to make use of its powers under the Lisbon Treaty and to produce a “full and detailed” evaluation of such policies and the extent to which they are subject to democratic scrutiny.

The cost-efficiency report should include spending for online snooping, data protection measures, funding of counter-terrorism research and relevant EU expenditures set in place since 2001, such as the appointment of an EU anti-terrorism co-ordinator and his staff.

Iran Tries To Contain Diplomatic Rift With U.K., Europe

Friday, December 09, 2011

Some of those who stormed an office at the British Embassy in Tehran look through documents and other belongings on November 29.

Last updated (GMT/UTC): 03.12.2011 14:14

Iran says its crisis with London over the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran should not be an issue for other European countries.

The semiofficial Fars news agency quoted Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast as accusing the British government of “trying to extend to other European countries the problem between the two of us.”

“We have told European countries not to subject their ties” to the crisis, he added.

PHOTO GALLERY of the embassy incident in Tehran

Iranian diplomats were expelled from the U.K. and arrived home on December 3 to a crowd of some 150 people at Tehran’s airport, despite the government reportedly opposing any high-profile welcome.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague on November 30 ordered the diplomats to leave Britain following the closure of Britain’s embassy in Tehran, which was stormed and ransacked by protesters a day earlier.

French officials have told Western news agencies privately that Paris was temporarily downsizing its embassy in  Iran and would bring some employees and their families home.

Germany and the Netherlands have already recalled their ambassadors, and Italy and Spain summoned Iranian envoys to condemn the attacks.