The Coming King of the North

RISE IN NEO-NAZI VIOLENCE

Far-Right Attacks Reached New Record in Germany in 2007

Last year a record number of attacks were carried out by right-wing extremists in Germany, a prominent anti-racism campaigner said. The problem is especially bad in eastern Germany.

DDP

Neo-Nazi violence has continued to rise, according to a new report.

A record number of far-right attacks were perpetrated in Germany last year, according to a former government spokesman turned campaigner. Uwe-Karsten Heye, the founder of pressure group Gesicht Zeigen! (Show your Faces), said about 600 people were attacked by neo-Nazis last year.

Speaking in Berlin Monday, Heye warned about a rise in right-wing extremism, particularly in eastern Germany. According to Heye, there were 11 attacks on businesses run by immigrants in the eastern state of Brandenburg in 2007. "Behind the attacks is a strategy by neo-Nazis to destroy livelihoods and drive out immigrants," he said.

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UPDATE on Last Week's Story

Jewish Council Attacks German Plans for New Iron Cross

Germany's Central Council of Jews is opposed to plans to reintroduce the Iron Cross as a new bravery medal for German solidiers. The decoration, they say, is tied too closely with World War II.

DPA

An Iron Cross dating from 1813, when the medal was first introduced.

Germany's Central Council of Jews has criticized German plans to introduce a bravery medal similar to the Iron Cross (more...), banished after World War II because of ist association with Nazi military aggression.

Stephan Cramer, the General Secretary of the Council, said he had no problems with such a medal per se and that it was overdue for Germany's modern army, the Bundeswehr.

"But one must clearly reject any plans to carry on the tradition of the 'Iron Cross'," Kramer said in a statement. "Introducing the 'Iron Cross' as a possible bravery medal for the Bundeswehr, as being discussed by some people including General Inspector (Wolfgang) Schneiderhan, would refer back to a disastrous tradition which led to humanity's greatest crime during National Socialism," said Kramer in a statement.

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Politics

Fuming Ferraro: 'White' Obama wouldn't challenge Clinton

Isn't This the same Liberal that claimed that there wasn't a Liberal Media Bias??? Sometimes this stuff is fun! 

As the only woman ever to be selected by a major political party for the position of vice president of the United States, Geraldine Ferraro is uniquely suited to comment on the political events of the day.

An outspoken advocate for women's issues and a staunch supporter of presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, Ferraro will offer her views on the state of the nation and the race for the White House at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Armstrong Theatre of the Torrance Cultural Arts Center Theatre in Torrance. The program is part of the American Perspectives series.

Speaking by phone from her New York law office, the 72-year-old former Democratic congresswoman outlined the themes that will dominate her talk. She also offered pointed observations

Former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro will speak in Torrance Sunday.

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Economy

Gas Prices Near Records, Following Oil

NEW YORK (AP) -- Gasoline prices were poised Monday to set a new record at the pump, having surged to within half a cent of their record high of $3.227 a gallon. Oil prices, meanwhile, surged above $108 to a new inflation-adjusted record and their fifth new high in the last six sessions on an upbeat report on wholesale inventories.

The national average price of a gallon of gas rose 0.7 cent overnight to $3.222 a gallon, 69 cents higher than one year ago, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Last May, prices peaked at $3.227 as surging demand and a string of refinery outages raised concerns about supplies.

That record will likely be left in the dust soon as gas prices accelerate toward levels that could approach $4 a gallon, though most analysts believe prices will peak below that psychologically significant mark. In its last forecast, released last month, the Energy Department said prices will likely peak around $3.40 a gallon this spring; a new forecast is due Tuesday.

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Iraq War

Iraq Costs US $12 Billion Per Month

By CHARLES J. HANLEY,

AP

Posted: 2008-03-10 16:57:47

Filed Under: Iraq News, Politics News

(March 10) -- The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion - or more - by 2017.

Iraq war costs

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

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The Coming King of the North

Vatican Lists New Sins

 

VATICAN CITY (March 10) - In olden days, the deadly sins included lust, gluttony and greed. Now, the Catholic Church says pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experiments are on its updated thou-shalt-not list.

Dario Pignatelli, Reuters

The Vatican has listed pollution, drug use and genetic manipulation among the sins being committed in the modern world. Pope Benedict XVI, seen here after celebrating Mass in Rome Sunday, has frequently expressed concerns about damage to the environment.

Also receiving fresh attention by the Vatican was social injustice, along the lines of the age-old maxim: "The rich get richer while the poor get poorer."

In the Vatican's latest update on how God's law is being violated in today's world, Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, was asked by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano what, in his opinion, are the "new sins."

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COVERUP!

Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR

KBR Told Victim She Could Lose Her Job If She Sought Help After Being Raped, She Says

(ABC News, "20/20")

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By BRIAN ROSS, MADDY SAUER & JUSTIN ROOD
Dec. 10, 2007

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A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

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Halliburton/KBR Employees: Company Covered Up Sex Assault and Harassment

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Jones described the container as sparely furnished with a bed, table and lamp.

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