BREAKING: Discover How A Slacker Makes $100,000 A Year!

WEBMASTERS! Get Your Website To The Top Of Google

Obama Questioned On Rev. Wright’s AIDS Sermon

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Obama Questioned on Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s AIDS Sermon - Denies Evidence of Genocidal Conspiracy to Save Candidacy

Sandpoint, ID — Barack Obama critics are questioning the candidate’s sudden estrangement from his long-term minister and confidant, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who preached HIV/AIDS is a genocidal conspiracy administered by Anglo-American population controllers primarily targeting non-whites.

The transparency of this racial and political hypocrisy affords Americans a partial view into this closet of skeletons Washington wishes to ignore.

Speaking for the media’s mainstream, ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent, Jake Tapper, wrote (March 14, 2008), “Let’s just say it: some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s theories and sermons have been, well, shall we say ‘out there.’ Like, for instance, the notion that the U.S. government started the AIDS virus.” (1)

Obama, quickly closing the closet door between him offered, “I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,” (2)

Right wing opportunist John Hinderaker balked as though the candidate exchanged a pink elephant for an AIDS skeleton. “If a reader had to rely on Obama’s post,” Hinderaker wrote, “he would have no idea what statements” are at issue.

Hinderaker, with Claremont Institute’s conservative policy think tank continued, “What I’d really like to know more about, though, is Wright’s position on the AIDS virus. He writes that ‘We started AIDS;’ what is that supposed to mean?”

Answering his own rhetorical question, Hinderaker claimed, “Factually, it’s incorrect. I believe that AIDS originated in Africa.”

When has believing anything evidenced a fact? Western civilization once believed the world was flat!

But the show must go on.

Hinderaker-the-magician’s slight-of-hand came next so both Obama’s elephant and Washington’s skeleton suddenly disappeared: “It’s possible that the claim that ‘We started AIDS’ is intended as an indictment of the San Francisco bath house culture that did so much to spread the disease,” he wrote, “but I’ve seen no indication that this is what Wright has in mind.”

Stay focused on his hand. “In any event, San Francisco didn’t ‘start’ the virus. I don’t know how to interpret this claim that ‘we’ started the disease as anything other than an endorsement of the fable that the CIA invented AIDS in a laboratory so as to kill off African-Americans.”

“The AIDS virus originated in African chimpanzees,” admits Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz, author of the definitive tomb on this subject, Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola—Nature, Accident or Intentional? (Tetrahedron Press, 1998). “Zero candidates have the decency and integrity to discuss how American researchers working under National Cancer Institute contracts, abused chimpanzees from Africa, gay men from Greenwich Village, and Central Africans in Zaire and Uganda between 1972 and 1974. This first hepatitis B vaccine study clearly triggered the global pandemic according to the consensus of irrefutable evidence published in esteemed scientific journals.”

For nearly a decade Dr. Horowitz’s website http://www.originofAIDS.com has freely provided details and documents of these experiments, including his scientific publication in the respected journal of Medical Hypothesis—a peer reviewed periodical based in Britain. “I needed to go out of the United States to publish this scientific evidence,” he laments. “This alone evidences a conspiracy of silence.”

Not only does he argue American agencies, working with pharmaceutical companies, created vaccines tainted with HIV, but they have been suppressing potential cures including oxygenation therapies, chemotherapies using tetrasilver tetroxide (Tetrasil), and the new silver-oxygen hydrosol called OXYSILVER that became Google’s most popular website last week for people searching for natural alternatives to intoxicating vaccines following the government’s admission that inoculations can cause autism. http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2008/03/11.html

Classified government documents, and other incriminating evidence secreted for (allegedly) “national security” reasons by the National Cancer Institute were unearthed by the Harvard-trained public health expert during his three-year independent investigation of this conspiracy theory. Besides combing scientific journals, Dr. Horowitz also interviewed eyewitnesses from Bethesda and Uganda each evidencing related parts of a U.S. government military biological weapons program that develop “synthetic biological agents”—laboratory prepared viruses—identical to HIV by description and function, for the earliest experimental hepatitis B vaccine trials.

More recently, Horowitz produced a feature length documentary showing freely, in its entirety, on Google called In Lies We Trust: The CIA, Hollywood & Bioterrorism. Released by Tetrahedron Films, the company’s website, http://www.inlieswetrust.com, shares files containing many incriminating documents that Washington insiders prefer to neglect.

“Mental midgets and yellow-press journalists like ABC’s Jake Tapper and National Review author Hinderaker ignore the fact that vaccines prepared in African chimpanzees were given to gay men in New York and Central Africans simultaneously between 1972 and 1974 according scientific publications,” Dr. Horowitz said. “That is a scientific fact, political dynamite, vaccine industry nightmare.”

This American origin of AIDS theory was investigated, and rebuked, by the Congress’ investigating arm, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) earlier this decade. Dr. Horowitz was among a handful of experts interviewed by GAO officials during their inquiry into the possibility that HIV, or its precursor, was constructed by biological weapons contractors during a “Special Virus Cancer Program” beginning in the 1960s. Their report entirely neglected Dr. Horowitz’s recorded statements.

Two weeks ago the international AIDS Community, hosted by the UNAIDS Secretariat to the UN Theme Group on AIDS considered censoring Dr. Horowitz’s works, his websites, along with a half dozen of his colleagues’ publications alleging lacking scientific support for their AIDS-origin claims.

In response, Dr. Horowitz sent them a copy of his Medical Hypothesis journal article and wrote, “For all we know, . . . the hepatitis B vaccine produced initially in chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys between 1970 and 1974, not the polio vaccine of the 1950s and later, MIGHT STILL BE FUELING THE AIDS PANDEMIC! Only a grossly-malfeasant blindly-biased sociopath would neglect this probability.”

Barack Obama is not the only one running for president that fulfills this criteria.

Have Your Say: Obama Questioned On Rev. Wright’s AIDS Sermon
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

At Least Four Arrests Made at STWC march

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Four people were arrested near Trafalgar Square around 1:15pm on Saturday during the Stop the war Coalition rally, accused of intimidating a Forward Intelligence Team. Officer XB92 ‘Wayne’ Rooney requested back-up from three van loads of the Met’s ‘Griffon’ squad - supposed to provide additional security against “the threat of terrorism” within the “Government Security Zone”.

Leaflets about the Campaign for Free Asssembly (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/393790.html) were seized as evidence, along with cameras, mobile phones and notebooks. The arrests were made under s241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, see below. All four were released on bail without charge after being held at Bishopsgate police station for 9 hours.

Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (c. 52)
Part V Industrial action

241.
Intimidation or annoyance by violence or otherwise.
— (1) A person commits an offence who, with a view to compelling another person to abstain from doing or to do any act which that person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority—
(a) uses violence to or intimidates that person or his wife or children, or injures his property,
(b) persistently follows that person about from place to place,
(c) hides any tools, clothes or other property owned or used by that person, or deprives him of or hinders him in the use thereof,
(d) watches or besets the house or other place where that person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be, or the approach to any such house or place, or
(e) follows that person with two or more other persons in a disorderly manner in or through any street or road.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or both.
(3) A constable may arrest without warrant anyone he reasonably suspects is committing an offence under this section.

Have Your Say: At Least Four Arrests Made at STWC march
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Wales 29-12 France

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

It was no doubt, a good night to be a Williams, be it Martyn or Shane. Or a Jones, a Jenkins, a Thomas or, indeed, vaguely Welsh and, in the case of the two men who choreographed this rousing Grand Slam, even a Kiwi or a Pom.Warren Gatland, who hooked for New Zealand and was turned away by Ireland as a coach, has embraced Wales as only an outsider can do: with a clear head and no baggage. It has been the saving of a team who looked beyond repair when they staggered home from the World Cup. Alongside him stood a jut-jawed northerner, a converted league man as well, whose loyalty is complete as he shuttles back and forth from his day job with Wasps. Shaun Edwards, who masterminds the defence, does not so much demand respect as take it for granted - and he has it completely from a side not unknown for internal ructions.

Wales play their best rugby when smiling - and they are positively beaming now, content and confident in their skills. ‘Every game isn’t perfect,’ Gatland said, reflecting on this match, which was not pretty, yet thrilled the senses. ‘You can’t control 80 minutes of rugby. But we have learnt from our mistakes. We talked about what we needed to do and they did it.’

And the future? Two games ago he said Wales would be ready for any team in the world in a couple of seasons. He might have to re-adjust his timetable, with a visit to South Africa coming up in June. ‘Where do you want us to go from here?’ he asked redundantly. ‘You’ve got to test yourself against the best in the world and South Africa are the number-one team, so…’

This, Wales’ 10th clean sweep, was even more clinical than their ninth, three seasons ago. Then, there was a suspicion they had caught everyone napping with their flair rugby; this winter, they were clearly the best and, yesterday, they proved it against the only team that had it in them seriously to threaten their dominance.

England might have done so in the first game of the championship, had they not gone to pieces in the second half. But, as you would be reminded if you had the temerity to suggest as much in the heaving bars around St Mary’s Street, they could not do it.

This was not the expansive showdown some might have imagined or wished for, but it was enthralling, a victory ground out with utter professionalism. At the epicentre of everything was Martyn Williams, try-scorer, inspired defender, scavenger and all-round great rugby brain. And he did not even want to be part of it at the start of the season. Hopefully for Wales, he will not have foolish notions like that again for a while.

Cardiff was awash with omens, anniversaries and statistics on the Ides of March. It is almost a century, to the day, since Wales won the first of their Grand Slams; it is 30 years since France came here and failed to stop a Welsh Slam - and 10 years since they succeeded in doing that in the old Arms Park.

How curious is it that Wales have not lost in the 12 internationals in which Tom Shanklin and Gavin Henson have started alongside each other? Henson knew it, as he is famously obsessive about such things. Shanklin, typically, did not. He is admirably uncomplicated and, yesterday, in his 51st game for Wales, had the back line ticking smoothly

Into this maelstrom of history and joy charged France, marshalled by a coach in the grand tradition of Gallic perversity. Marc Lièvremont, for reasons known only to himself, dropped Aurelien Rougerie for this game after the winger had played such a major part in their win over Italy last weekend. It is, of course, what passes for his rotation strategy, a rationale that has led him to discard eight of the players who turned out against England only a few weeks ago. During his first campaign, he has picked three number eights, three hookers, four scrum-halves, five locks and five props.

The ones he selected for this match repaid his weird brand of faith with passion, but not quite enough discipline - a performance from the French archives, in fact.

France needed to win by 20 points to steal the championship and from their first free-kick, they ran the ball from inside their 22. It came to nothing. Wales, as all their opponents have discovered, are now as tight as a drum without the ball, having conceded only two tries in the championship - two fewer than the record tackling effort of England’s mighty defensive wall in 2002 and 2003 - and they kept Les Bleus tryless with killing precision.

At the heart of their attack was James Hook, every bit as inspirational for Wales as Danny Cipriani looks like being for England. He too has to dislodge the established and quality No 10 in the national team, Stephen Jones, but Gatland is sticking to a policy of keeping them both in the frame.

The New Zealander has brought common sense and good judgment to the sometimes anarchic world of Welsh rugby in what has been a dream first season, and he has shown genuine belief in his players, rather than inducing anxiety and doubt in them, which must be the mood inside the French camp.

Lee Byrne, for instance, has been a revelation and had another fine game, especially under the high ball. And Martyn Williams owes Gatland a debt of gratitude for persuading him to extend his distinguished international career. The flanker has been inspired and was at the centre of every breakdown, scrapping and delving, while providing the connections off the second and third pass that gives Wales the confidence to go wide. That alone unsettled France as they struggled to allocate their tackling resources. They were their off-the-cuff selves with ball in hand, but stuttered - and, in the case of Gulgence Ouedraogo, shuddered. Henson’s stupidly late throat-buster did not escape the official’s attention and France dragged the deficit back to 9-6 at the end of a tight first half.

Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, as mouthy as scrum-halves are licensed to be, taunted Wales during the week with the assertion that ‘they were not the All Blacks’. Given that France beat the Blacks in the World Cup, this presumably meant they would not be doing the same to Wales - but Elissalde did his best, drawing them level just after the break. Curiously, he could not ignite his back line with ball in hand.

Shane Williams, meanwhile, has been able to score from just about anywhere on the pitch all season. He needed just one more to go with the five he has posted in this Six Nations to go beyond a career total of 40 and break the national record he shares with Gareth Thomas.

Then, on the very stroke of the hour, the Millennium Stadium was filled with almost unbearable happiness as every man, woman and child (even those who were French, probably) rose to applaud the little wizard’s kick and chase. He ran 40 yards, skipping clear of the snapping defence, and flopped on the ball over the line, as happy a record-breaker as there can ever have been in the principality. The championship was theirs now. The Slam too, surely. Twenty minutes to keep out the unpredictable French, 20 minutes before they could truly give vent to their talent for celebrating.

When Martyn Williams broke through for a try near the end, following the most exhilarating long break by Mark Jones, we were in heart-attack territory, such was the exultation.

This time, it would be even sweeter than in 2005, reckoned Shanklin on Friday, because they could believe in it, savour it. It might even begin another run, such as they had in the Seventies. Funny how history and tradition and all those other imponderables really do matter sometimes.

Man of the match: Martyn Williams

Truly magnificent. He may never have played a finer game for his country. He was everywhere - scavenging in the loose, backing up in attack, putting in the big hits. If he decides to announce his retirement again, his compatriots should beg him to change his mind.

Wales: Byrne; M Jones, Shanklin, Henson, S Williams; Hook (S Jones 71), Phillips; Jenkins, Bennett (Rees 56), A Jones, Gough (Evans 71), AW Jones, Thomas, M Williams, R Jones (capt).

Tries S Williams, M Williams Cons S Jones 2

Pens Hook 3, S Jones 2

France: Floch (Heymans 67); Clerc, Jauzion, Traille, Malzieu; Skrela (Trinh-Duc 63), Elissalde (Yachvili 67); Barcella, Szarzewski (Servat 44), Mas (Poux 62), Nallet (capt), Thion (Mela 75), Dusautoir, Ouedraogo (Vermeulen 62), Bonnaire.

Pens Elissalde 3, Yachvili

Referee M Jonker (SA)

Millennium Stadium 75,000

Kevin Mitchell at the Millennium Stadium
Sunday March 16, 2008
The Observer

Have Your Say: Wales 29-12 France
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Police: Put young children on DNA list

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.

Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.

‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database - the largest in Europe - but police believe more are required to reduce crime further. ‘The number of unsolved crimes says we are not sampling enough of the right people,’ Pugh told The Observer. However, he said the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics.

Civil liberty groups condemned his comments last night by likening them to an excerpt from a ’science fiction novel’. One teaching union warned that it was a step towards a ‘police state’.

Pugh’s call for the government to consider options such as placing primary school children who have not been arrested on the database is supported by elements of criminological theory. A well-established pattern of offending involves relatively trivial offences escalating to more serious crimes. Senior Scotland Yard criminologists are understood to be confident that techniques are able to identify future offenders.

A recent report from the think-tank Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) called for children to be targeted between the ages of five and 12 with cognitive behavioural therapy, parenting programmes and intensive support. Prevention should start young, it said, because prolific offenders typically began offending between the ages of 10 and 13. Julia Margo, author of the report, entitled ‘Make me a Criminal’, said: ‘You can carry out a risk factor analysis where you look at the characteristics of an individual child aged five to seven and identify risk factors that make it more likely that they would become an offender.’ However, she said that placing young children on a database risked stigmatising them by identifying them in a ‘negative’ way.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, denounced any plan to target youngsters. ‘Whichever bright spark at Acpo thought this one up should go back to the business of policing or the pastime of science fiction novels,’ she said. ‘The British public is highly respectful of the police and open even to eccentric debate, but playing politics with our innocent kids is a step too far.’

Chris Davis, of the National Primary Headteachers’ Association, said most teachers and parents would find the suggestion an ‘anathema’ and potentially very dangerous. ‘It could be seen as a step towards a police state,’ he said. ‘It is condemning them at a very young age to something they have not yet done. They may have the potential to do something, but we all have the potential to do things. To label children at that stage and put them on a register is going too far.’

Davis admitted that most teachers could identify children who ‘had the potential to have a more challenging adult life’, but said it was the job of teachers to support them.

Pugh, though, believes that measures to identify criminals early would save the economy huge sums - violent crime alone costs the UK £13bn a year - and significantly reduce the number of offences committed. However, he said the British public needed to move away from regarding anyone on the DNA database as a criminal and accepted it was an emotional issue.

‘Fingerprints, somehow, are far less contentious,’ he said. ‘We have children giving their fingerprints when they are borrowing books from a library.’

Last week it emerged that the number of 10 to 18-year-olds placed on the DNA database after being arrested will have reached around 1.5 million this time next year. Since 2004 police have had the power to take DNA samples from anyone over the age of 10 who is arrested, regardless of whether they are later charged, convicted, or found to be innocent.

Concern over the issue of civil liberties will be further amplified by news yesterday that commuters using Oyster smart cards could have their movements around cities secretly monitored under new counter-terrorism powers being sought by the security services.

Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana

Have Your Say: Police: Put young children on DNA list
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Scores of civilians and US military staff feared dead

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Scores of civilians and US military staff feared dead as huge Albanian arms dump explodes

Scores of people, including US military staff, are feared to have died after a Soviet-era munitions dump exploded at an Albanian army base yesterday. The blast injured more than 240 people, including many children – and the country’s Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, said he believed the death toll could be considerable.

The initial blast at the depot at Gerdec village, about six miles north of the capital, Tirana, set off a series of explosions, and ammunition continued to detonate for hours. The blast was felt 12 miles away and was heard at a distance of more than 30 miles. Many of the injured are civilians hurt by the enormous shockwaves that hit nearby villages and cars passing by on a nearby highway. Terrorism is not suspected.

A Reuters cameraman at the scene said: “Terrified people are leaving the area on foot along the highway, mainly women and children.” He described plumes of smoke and a series of explosions from the base.

“Cars with broken windows have been abandoned on the highway,” he added. Television pictures showed houses torn apart, their walls and roofs caved in. Unexploded shells were scattered round the area.

The explosions seemed to have begun when Albanian and US teams were moving obsolete munitions stored at the base, including 50-year-old artillery shells. Mr Berisha said: “The problem of ammunition in Albania is one of the gravest and a continuous threat. There is a colossal, a crazy amount of it since 1945.” The base is a central collection point for the arsenal amassed by Albania’s Stalinist-era dictatorship.

Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said: “The most dangerous area, where it is foreseen there will be dead, is the explosion site where no one has been able to go yet.” He added that army and police forces were some 50 meters from the site.

Five bodies have been found so far, but officials said they feared the worst for the three teams, each of 21 people, working there at the time. Several were reportedly US citizens.

David Randall

Have Your Say: Scores of civilians and US military staff feared dead
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Britain’s refugee shame

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Gordon Brown has strongly criticised Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, but now ministers are seeking to expel 1,000 desperate people back to Harare on the grounds that there is ‘no general risk’ to them. Emily Dugan and Robert Verkaik investigate

Ministers are preparing to expel hundreds of failed asylum-seekers back to the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe, seriously undermining Gordon Brown’s publicly declared tough stance on Zimbabwe.

The Government has started a mass removal programme that could affect more than 1,000 Zimbabweans who have enjoyed protection in the UK under a moratorium on deportations.

Letters sent by the Home Office to failed asylum-seekers last week inform the recipients that they are at “no general risk” in Zimbabwe and encourage them to leave the UK voluntarily.

One of the letters, seen by The Independent on Sunday, says: “Your claim for asylum has been refused… I am now writing to make sure that you know that the Border & Immigration Agency [BIA] is expecting shortly to be able to enforce returns to Zimbabwe. The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal [AIT] has now found that there is no general risk on return for failed asylum-seekers.”

It adds: “You have exhausted your rights of appeal and have no other basis of stay in the UK. You should now make plans to return home.”

Groups advising asylum-seekers in the UK said the change of policy follows an immigration appeals court ruling in 2006 that paved the way for mass deportations.

The first phase of the new asylum removal drive will target 500 failed asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe living in the north-west of England. In all, more than 1,000 people are likely to be affected in the near future, out of some 7,000 Zimbabwean asylum-seekers in the UK.

News of the letter could prove embarrassing for the Prime Minister, who has made political capital out of a possible Zimbabwe cricket tour ban and refused to sit next to Mr Mugabe at an international summit. Gordon Brown now faces accusations of hypocrisy over his dealings with the African state.

In his first speech as leader to the Labour conference last year, Mr Brown promised to stand up for those suffering persecution in Zimbabwe. He made direct reference to Mugabe’s regime, saying: “The message should go out to anyone facing persecution anywhere from Burma to Zimbabwe: human rights are universal and no injustice can last for ever.”

Last night Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said the deportations could not be justified: “With elections due to be held on 29 March, the timing could not be worse. Unfortunately the situation in Zimbabwe has if anything deteriorated. There is no justification for returning Zimbabweans into the hands of the Mugabe regime. It is typical but depressing that Gordon Brown can seek to gain the moral high ground by refusing to attend a summit with Mugabe, while his own Home Secretary seems desperate to deport Zimbabweans at the earliest opportunity.”

Kate Hoey MP, Labour chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, said it would be “ridiculous” if the Home Office tried to force mass returns of asylum-seekers. “The situation in Zimbabwe is worse than ever, and to send people back in a blanket way like this is not something that anyone with an understanding of the country would support.”

Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, said: “I do not believe it is safe to return asylum-seekers to Zimbabwe. The country is considered by many, including Amnesty, to still be in political turmoil. Opposition to Mugabe’s regime is still prohibited and political opponents vulnerable to excessive police force. I condemn the Home Office’s habit of sending people back to unsafe countries just to look tough.”

Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “We do not think it is morally acceptable for the Government to force people to return to Zimbabwe. There has been no improvement in the human rights situation there, which remains dire.

“We know most Zimbabweans want to return when it is safe and to contribute to rebuilding their country. We should be offering them a form of temporary status here allowing them to work and retain their skills so they’re fully equipped when the situation has improved.”

Beatrice Masina, 26, one of the 500 Zimbabweans who received a Home Office letter last week, faces being sent back – along with her seven-month-old baby, Leeroy – to people she said have already attacked her previously in Zimbabwe.

A supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), she distributed T-shirts and leaflets at party rallies. Early one morning in May 2003, a gang of 10 Zanu-PF militia kidnapped her. The men, armed with machetes and clubs, took her to a secret location, raped and then beat her. A day later, they dumped her by the road.

She sought protection at her uncle’s house but soon began to get threatening letters. “The letters said they knew where I was, and that they would come and get me,” said Ms Masina. It was then that she decided to flee, arriving in the UK in September 2003.

“If [Zanu-PF] know I’m back they might attack me again, and I might be killed,” she said. “I’m scared my baby would not survive the persecution. They [the Home Office] are being very unfair. I don’t think they’re looking at the dangers I’ll face. They just want to send people back regardless. If anything happens to me, they’ll have my blood on their hands.”

Patson Muzuwa, chair of the Zimbabwe Association, said it had called an emergency meeting with solicitors to look at ways of fighting this change in policy. He said: “How come the Foreign and Commonwealth Office says Zimbabwe is bad on human rights, yet the Home Office wants to send people back?

“There doesn’t appear to be a link between the departments; the Home Office just wants to boast about how many people they’ve deported. There are continuous human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, and this seems to be deliberate timing by the Home Office ahead of the elections.”

David Banks, co-ordinator of the parliamentary group on Zimbabwe, said: “It’s baffling; the BIA doesn’t seem to put what it is doing into any context of developments in the country from where the asylum-seekers have come. I think these letters highlight the astonishing insensitivity of the Home Office. Most of their people have no understanding of the sense of fear and threat that people in this country live under.”

A spokesman for the BIA said last night: “The Home Office had agreed at a High Court hearing on 26 September 2006 to defer the enforced removal of failed asylum-seekers to Zimbabwe pending the outcome of the country guidance litigation. This position will be maintained until any application for permission to appeal the AIT’s determination is dealt with. We expect to be in a position to resume enforced returns of failed asylum-seekers to Zimbabwe very shortly.”

He added: “We will continue to do everything we can to ensure a better future for Zimbabweans: a democratic and accountable government, respect for human rights and the rule of law, and policies that ensure economic stability and development, not humanitarian misery. However, not every Zimbabwean in the UK qualifies for asylum and we believe it is vital that we continue to operate a fair and robust system, enforcing the removal of those not entitled to be in the country who refuse to leave voluntarily.”

A family at risk: ‘If I go back to Zimbabwe, they’ll kill me’

When Rose Moyo (a pseudonym) fled Zimbabwe in 2002 she thought she had secured a safe future. But now a letter from the Home Office has shattered the 35-year-old’s dream of life away from Mugabe’s militia.

Rose worked as a farm manager with her husband just outside Bulawayo when gangs of men from Zanu-PF began targeting them. The couple were well known for being MDC members, and visits became more frequent.

After the most violent of these attacks in October 2001, when the militia began whipping MDC activists, her husband disappeared. Rose has not heard from him since and fears he is dead. A month later the men came back again: this time they raped and beat her. “That was the worst day of my life,” she said. “And I will never be able to forget it.”

After more death threats, she decided the only option left was to flee, and her two children were forced to stay behind with her mother-in-law. But last year her mother-in-law also went missing and is believed dead.

Relatives managed to get her two children, Lucia, 11, and Blessings, nine, on a flight to the UK at Christmas, and for the first time in six years the family is reunited in safety. But now her dream of them living in peace is destroyed.

Choking back tears, Rose said: “When I got the letter I couldn’t believe it. If I go back to Zimbabwe they’ll kill me. The Home Office is just being cruel. Instead of helping people like me they are making our lives harder.

“If the Government doesn’t believe what I’m saying they should go there and see for themselves how bad it is.”

Emily Dugan

Have Your Say: Britain’s refugee shame
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

McCain Backed by Rothschilds - Washington Post

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Sen. John McCain plans at least one campaign event on his week-long congressional trip to Europe and the Middle East: a March 20 fundraiser in London. An invitation sent out by the campaign says the luncheon will be held at Spencer House, St. James’s Place, “by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon Nathaniel Rothschild.” Tickets to the invitation-only event cost $1,000 to $2,300. Attire is listed as “lounge suits.”

The fundraiser will be limited to Americans, as foreigners are not permitted to donate to presidential candidates.

McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said the campaign will reimburse Congress for the political portions of the trip, as well as the senator’s flight home, because he is flying separately from the congressional delegation.

“We are also paying for the fundraiser and his hotel that evening in London,” Hazelbaker said. “We will reimburse the Treasury for the cost of a flight to London.”

– Matthew Mosk

Have Your Say: McCain Backed by Rothschilds - Washington Post
Please read our posting guidelines before posting.
Alternatively you can discuss this report in our forum .

Related News

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 10:03 am and is filed under General, Human Rights, Latest News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Translate: