Six In The Morning

Gaddafi's son says he is innocent

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has told the International Criminal Court he is innocent of alleged crimes against humanity

• Reuters
• guardian.co.uk, Saturday 29 October 2011

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the fugitive son of Libya's toppled late leader, told the International Criminal Court he is innocent of alleged crimes against humanity, the court prosecutor said on Saturday.

The court, based in The Hague, has said it made informal contact with Saif al-Islam, the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and is seeking to arrest him and bring him to trial on the charges stemming from Libya's civil war.

The International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the contacts were through intermediaries, and Saif al-Islam maintained he is innocent and wants to understand what could happen to him if cleared of charges.

China holds Europe to ransom over £62bn bailout deal

Beijing plays down expectations of immediate cash 

injection

Clifford Coonan

Saturday, 29 October 2011

Eurozone leaders were left sweating last night after China played down expectations that it would quickly make a much-needed cash injection to the EU bailout fund.

The chief executive of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), Klaus Regling, was in Beijing yesterday with the hope of coaxing a speedy investment from the world's second-largest economy. But, despite hopes that the opportunity to take a leading role in managing global finances would prove a powerful incentive for Beijing, European observers were prepared for the Chinese to exact a heavy price in return for providing up to €70bn (£62bn) to the fund.

The Second Gilded Age

Has America Become an Oligarchy?

By Thomas Schulz

The Occupy Wall Street movement is just one example of the sudden outbreak of tension between America's super-rich and the "other 99 percent." Experts now say the US has entered a second Gilded Age, but one in which hedge fund managers have replaced oil barons -- and are killing the American dream.

At first, the outraged members of the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York were mainly met with ridicule. They didn't seem to stand a chance and were judged incapable of going up against their adversaries, Wall Street's bankers and financial managers, either intellectually or in terms of economic knowledge.

"We are the 99 percent," is the continuing chant of the protestors, who are now in their seventh week of marching through the streets of Manhattan. And, surprisingly, they have hit upon the crux of America's problems with precisely this sentence. Indeed, they have given shape to a development in the country that has been growing more acute for decades, one that numerous academics and experts have tried to analyze elsewhere in lengthy books and essays. It's a development so profound and revolutionary that it has shaken the world's most powerful nation to its core.

Palestinian bid to join UN agency puts US in a dilemma over funding

Steven Erlanger

October 29, 2011

PARIS: The Palestinian bid for full membership in UNESCO - the

 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation 

- has put Washington and the organisation in an urgent dilemma.

United States legislation dating back more than 15 years 

mandates a complete cut-off of US financing to any UN agency 

that accepts the Palestinians as a full member.

UNESCO depends on the US for 22 per cent of its budget, about 

$US70 million ($66 million) a year.

Egyptian activists try to bridge digital divide

A group of Egyptian activists are struggling to translate their online influence into real political action by taking the "tweets to the streets."

By Lauren E. Bohn, Correspondent

With one hand gripping the steering wheel and the other his Blackberry, IT entrepreneur Hassan Hamed accelerated up a steep unpaved road leading into one of Cairo’s sprawling, unplanned slum areas known as ashwa'iyat, Arabic for “random.” Before he unloaded stacks of “Don’t sell your vote” flyers from his trunk, he dispatched a note to his 6,743 followers on Twitter: “Getting ready to hit the streets for another #tweetshare3 round in Ezbet Khairallah.” His colleague, journalism student Salma Hegab shot back to her 12,280 followers, “Ahem, I’m here, I’m waiting!”

Telling the Story of 41 Years on the Run

By RAPHAEL MINDER and JAMES BARRON

Published: October 28, 2011

CASAS NOVAS, Portugal — George Wright, the fugitive murderer who was captured in Portugal last month, 39 years after hijacking a jetliner and demanding a $1 million ransom, said he figured authorities in the United States had given up the chase long ago. But, he said, he never stopped worrying that they would come knocking.

“Knowing the Americans, I always feared that they had their antennas up,” he said in a two-hour interview in this village outside Lisbon where he was arrested last month. Sitting at his kitchen table, he wore sweat pants, plastic sandals and the ankle bracelet ordered by a Portuguese judge who moved him from a Lisbon jail to house arrest while he fights extradition to the United States.