Monday, December 8, 2014

Six In The Morning Monday December 8

In German City Rich With History and Tragedy, Tide Rises Against Immigration

DRESDEN, Germany — As it does every Advent, this history-laden city has erected the gift stalls, the glühwein stands and the Ferris wheel of Germany’s oldest Christmas market, around the Frauenkirche, the 18th-century church that was magnificently rebuilt after the Allies’ catastrophic bombing in 1945. But this year, there is tension behind the seasonal jollity.

For the past seven Mondays, people have taken up the battle cry of East Germans protesting their Communist government 25 years ago — “Wir sind das Volk!” (“We are the people!”) — and fashioned it into a lament about being overlooked by political leaders of the present.

Dresden’s demonstrators, echoing the populist fears coursing around Europe, are a motley mix of far right-wingers in the National Democratic Party, or N.P.D., young hooligans and ordinary folk who feel ignored as foreigners pour into Germany — at least 200,000 this year alone — seeking jobs or asylum.

Sudan

The Sudans: after the divide

Sudan is hungry for change, but who will take on Omar al-Bashir?

The regime has many critics but a fragmented opposition and harsh crackdowns by the state have left a revolution in need of a leader

David Smith in Khartoum

On a balmy evening in Khartoum, waiters glided across a clipped, floodlit lawn to serve a well-heeled crowd canapés of chicken, salmon and shrimp. It was the opening night of a film festival and, after some turgid speeches, guests gathered under the stars to watch a biopic of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence fighter who overthrew a brutal and despotic regime.

For some Sudanese members of the audience, the story struck a chord. “We don’t have anyone like that who can inspire people and lead the opposition,” said Hatim Musa Adulaziz, an administrator. “People say yes, the government is bad, but they don’t see an alternative. This gives lifeblood to the ruling party. If we had someone like Lumumba, it would bring opposition parties together and inspire and encourage the young generation.”

ROBERT FISK

Children are so often the forgotten victims of conflict – regardless of the perpetrators

Well, heaven preserve us: the most useless “peacemaker” on earth has just used an Arabic acronym for the greatest threat to civilisation since the last greatest threat. Yup, ol’ John Kerry called it “Daesh”, which is what the Arabs call it. It stands for the “Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant”. We prefer Isis or Isil or the Islamic State or Islamic Caliphate. Most journos prefer Isis because – I suspect – it’s easier to remember. It’s the name of an Egyptian goddess, after all. It’s the name of a university city’s river. And of course, it’s the name of Lord Grantham’s dog in Downton Abbey.

Many an American scribe has questioned why Kerry should be using this goddam Arabic lingo – although we use Fatah for the PLO. It, too, is an acronym which, translated, means “the Party for Palestinian Liberation”. And in 2011 we called Tahrir Square in Cairo “Tahrir”, only occasionally reminding readers and viewers that it, too, meant “liberation”. None explained why the place was important: because this was the square mile of Cairo in which was based the largest British barracks and into which the Brits – during their much loved occupation of Egypt – refused to allow any Egyptian to walk without permission.

Vatican bank’s sale of 29 church properties under legal scrutiny

Those who ran bank between 1989 and 2009 under investigation in relation to deals

Paddy Agnew

The Vatican’s controversial bank, IOR (Institute for Works of Religion), finds itself in the eye of yet another storm following Saturday’s revelation those who ran the bank between 1989 and 2009 are being investigated in relation to suspect real estate deals involving church property.

Senior Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi, on Saturday, said it had been the present management of the bank who had highlighted the current “problem” to the Vatican City state prosecutor’s office.

Media reports claim prosecutor Gian Piero Milano is looking into the sale of 29 church buildings between 2001 and 2008.

Asylum seekers on the doorstep of United Nations office in Jakarta with nowhere to turn

December 8, 2014 - 2:37PM

Michael Bachelard

Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media

Jakarta: For Sardar "Sammy" Hussein, barely more than a boy, the words he's whispering under his breath have become almost a mantra: "What should I do? What should I do?"

We're sitting on a doorstep across the road from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' office in central Jakarta, which has become the outdoor sleeping quarters of a shifting, multicultural band of asylum seekers with no money and nowhere else to go.

Hussein, a Hazara from Afghanistan, is the newest arrival. He's 15 and has bedded down here since arriving in Indonesia a week ago.

Hussein says he did not know when he left Afghanistan about Scott Morrison's new policy to ignore refugee applications from people who arrived in Indonesia after July 1. He knows now that he will never get his wish of resettlement in Australia, but says he probably would have come anyway. He feels he had no choice.

Uruguay accepts six Guantanamo Bay prisoners as refugees

The six men were cleared for release since 2009 but no country has been willing to accept them.

By Leonardo Haberkorn and Ben Fox, Associated Press

Six prisoners held for 12 years at Guantanamo Bay have arrived as refugees in Uruguay, a South American nation with only a tiny Muslim population, amid a renewed push by President Barack Obama to close the prison.

The six men — four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian — were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged.

They had been cleared for release since 2009 but could not be sent home and the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to take them.

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the men as a humanitarian gesture and said they would be given help getting established in a country of 3.3 million with a total Muslim population of perhaps 300 people.

Ignoring Asia