Jews outraged by Yushchenko’s praising of nationalists

Russian Jews have called the declaration of controversial nationalist leader Stepan Bandera a Hero of Ukraine “a provocation promoting the rehabilitation of Nazi crimes” and “a challenge to the civilized world.”

Outgoing President Yushchenko, who lost the presidential elections on January 17, signed a decree conferring Bandera, the head of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in 1941-1959, the status of a national hero.

Bandera’s supporters – mainly in Western Ukraine – claim he fought for Ukraine’s independence against both Soviet and German soldiers. However, many others in his country and Russia believe he was a war criminal who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and killed innocent people.

The Federation of Russia’s Jewish Communities, or FEOR, in a statement issued Monday, said Yushchenko’s move “insults the memory of the victims” of Nazi crimes.
full story

We are still in the shadow of the Holocaust

This Wednesday we remember the greatest crime ever inflicted by man against his fellow man. Holocaust Memorial Day allows us to reflect on the bleakest chapter in the history of the 20th century. And there is a special urgency in the call to remember this year, of all years - because the shadow of the Holocaust continues to fall over the world today.

Mass murder is still deployed as a political tool by tyrants, from Burma to Zimbabwe. Racism is returning to the streets of Europe, from St Petersburg to Antwerp. And, hard though it is to credit after the horrors of the last century, anti-Semitism is creeping back into the corridors of power.

We know that Nazi ideology still has the power to motivate evil men. From the Swedish fascist who tried to acquire the "Arbeit macht frei" sign which hung over the gates of Auschwitz, to the British fascists of the BNP, there is an ominous resurgence of extremist activity visible across our Continent.

It is because we face a new fascist threat, and because the extremism of the BNP is mirrored in the equally toxic ideology of anti-Semitic groups such as Islam4Uk and Hizb-ut Tahrir, that we need, all of us, to make an additional effort to remember how the Holocaust started. And where it ended.

The history of the Holocaust is the history of a society which blamed the Jews for its miseries, sought to push them to the margins and then sought, literally, to make them vanish from sight. In our time we can see the same trends returning. The calls for boycotts of Jewish thinkers at Israeli universities, the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on our streets, the inflamed rhetoric of vilification which culminates in the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map, are all connected.

As the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, has so presciently pointed out, anti-Semitism is a virus which mutates. Originally it was the Jewish people's religious identity which came under attack, and the Church led a programme of forced conversion. Then, as society replaced religion with science as a source of authority, anti-Semitism mutated so that the Jewish people came under attack on racial grounds. Now it is Jewish identity expressed through the right of Israel to self-determination which is the focus of anti-Semitism. Israel, like any state, makes mistakes. Sometimes grievous ones. But many of Israel's enemies now risk repeating one of the greatest errors of history by infusing anti-Semitism with a new and toxic vibrancy. We see it in some of those who have attached themselves to recent anti-war campaigns, with Britons marching through the streets of London declaring "We are all Hezbollah now" even though Hezbollah is a fascist organisation whose leader is a Holocaust-denier who believes the Jews are "grandsons of apes and pigs". And we also see the apparent mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in comments such as those of a former ambassador who recently objected to the composition of the Iraq inquiry team because two of its members were Jewish.

When prejudice is unleashed in this way we are all affected. As the chief rabbi has pointed out, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The Nazis targeted gay men and women, Roma, the disabled and Christians of conscience. The BNP are, similarly, as homophobic, Islamophobic and plain, downright racist as they are anti-Semitic.

History teaches us many lessons, if we are willing to pay attention. And one of the most profound is that the best guide to the health of a society has always been how secure its Jewish community feels. Throughout history the freest societies, from 17th-century Holland to 20th-century England, have been those in which Jewish people have felt safest. And over the ages the surest sign that a country is moving away from liberalism has been a growing prejudice towards the Jewish community, whether Vienna a hundred years ago, Germany in the thirties or Russia in the last decade.
It is because that lesson of history is so important that Holocaust Memorial Day is so crucial. And it is because we must ensure the next generation learns those lessons that the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so vital. The Trust provides the tools for schools to communicate the lessons of the Holocaust – so that young people can understand the consequences of allowing prejudice to grow. The Trust provides schools with books, maps, images and artefacts from the past as well as a Bafta award-winning production containing the testimonies of survivors. And two students from every school in the country are given the chance to visit Auschwitz and see the site of mankind's most terrible atrocity with their own eyes.
As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and we face losing their vivid living testimonies, so the risk of forgetting grows stronger, and with it the risk of repeating history's mistakes. That is why the Holocaust Educational Trust's work has never been more necessary, the lessons of history never more relevant and the act of commemoration never more important. Whatever else may divide politicians, the lesson of the last century is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism requires us all to unite against this most poisonous of prejudic


Daily Telegraph

Turks Get a Hard Time In Germany

In the vestibule of Germany's largest mosque, identity is complicated. Zehra Yilmaz says her German passport will get her into a voting booth on election day, but her Turkish name and Muslim head scarf kept her out of apartments she tried to rent. She has lived in Germany since she was 2, but her home has been in Turkish enclaves segregated from the rest of Germany by language, culture and a mutual belief that one day the foreigners would go home. "I'm not really Turkish, and I'm not really German," says Zehra Yilmaz, 46. Inside the European Union's most populous country, a parallel society has grown. Muslim immigrants, mostly Turkish, flooded into Germany beginning in the 1960s, recruited by companies to augment the post-war work force. Yilmaz's father planned to stay five years, enough time to save enough for a car and washing machine.

The government granted them entry as guest workers. "The first generation came at a time when the economy was booming, and they expected to make money and go back. That hasn't happened," said Jochen Hippler, a political science and Middle Eastern studies professor at Duisburg-Essen University. Clustered in neighborhood enclaves, such as Marxloh in Duisburg and Kreuzberg in Berlin, the children and grandchildren of that first immigrant wave grew up in Germany without ever attaining citizenship.

Integration efforts began in earnest only recently, after the third generation of immigrants was born. Hampering those efforts is a distrust of Muslims heightened by the 9/11 attacks, an ethnic German population that abides foreigners warily, and an unwillingness among many in Turkish communities to break with their families and give up Turkish citizenship to become legally German. Until 2000, German law defined citizenship by ethnicity, rather than a person's place of birth.

original story

Row as French mayor puts up official picture honouring Nazi collaborator Petain in town liberated by Britain in World War II

French mayor has insulted the memory of hundreds of British soldiers who died liberating his village by displaying a portrait of a notorious Nazi collaborator.

Bernard Hoye, civic leader of Gonneville-sur-Mer, in Normandy, insists on honouring Philippe Petain, the Vichy leader who brought shame on his country during the Second World War.

This is despite the fact that British commandoes including the Royal Marines and SAS spent days fighting off the town's German garrison in the weeks after D-Day.

Now Christian Leyrit, the Lower Normandy prefect - or government representative - has written to Mr Hoye 'in the strongest possible terms' telling him to remove Petain's picture 'immediately'.

'This portrait cannot be placed alongside the official portraits hung in a town hall, which is a highly symbolic place for the French Republic,' Mr Leyrit wrote.

Mr Leyrit's words reflect growing disgust at an attempt by some French people to try and rehabilitate the memory of Petain, who was a Gallic hero during the First World War.

Petain was imprisoned after the 1944 liberation of France after setting up a pro-Nazi regime in the spa town of Vichy, effectively abolishing the French Republic to become a German slave state, collaborating in everything including the persecution of the Jews. Petain died in disgrace in 1951.
Daily Mail

Is this what the EDL call being British ? ? ?

Anyone who thinks the EDL are a not a bunch of racist thugs should watch these videos



and

BNP FlashBack Video Report

In 2006 Sky news did a feature on Racism and the BNP. Here's a section of that report

Russian Race-Hate News

Neo-Nazi Gang on Trial in Nizhny Novgorod

A gang of seven neo-Nazi university and high school students face multiple murder and assault charges, according to a January 19, 2010 report by the news web site Newsru.com. The gang came to the police's attention after one of its members shot his professor dead in a dispute over his behavior in class. The gang allegedly killed four other people, mostly from the Caucasus, and also committed four assaults and several robberies, targeting either minorities or anti-fascist activists. According to police, the gang met in an extremist Internet forum.

Series of Attacks on Africans in Moscow
Two neo-Nazis killed a man in a village near Kaliningrad, Russia, according to a January 12, 2010 article in the Kaliningrad edition of the national daily "Komsomolskaya Pravda." The suspects allegedly hit their victim with metal pipes and then kicked him in the head repeatedly with heavy boots in Kosmodemyanskoe. The suspects reportedly confessed to the killing, stating that their motivation was that the victim was a drug addict and that they had decided "to cleanse the earth of that sub-human." Russian neo-Nazis usually attack ethnic and religious minorities, but have also gone after ethnic Russian homeless people and drug addicts.

Tver Prosecutors Charge Neo-Nazi Gang With Extremism
 Prosecutors in Tver, Russia have completed their investigation into a neo-Nazi gang and sent charging documents to a court, according to a January 11, 2010 report by the RIA-Novosti news service. Five members of the "Nordic Front" face extremism charges after being accused of pasting neo-Nazi leaflets and painting graffiti on buildings around the city. All the suspects are minors from prosperous families, an increasingly common phenomenon in Russia.

St. Petersburg Police Detain Neo-Nazi
Police in St. Petersburg, Russia detained a 17 year old neo-Nazi on unspecified charges, according to a January 11, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. While it is not clear what motivated the police to search the suspect's apartment initially, investigators found a variety of weapons in the apartment.

No Charges for Members of Antisemitic Mob in Moldova
Prosecutors in Moldova have refused to bring charges against members of an antisemitic mob that tore down a menorah in the capital Chisinau and put up a cross in its place while chanting antisemitic slogans, according to a January 6, 2009 report by Jewish.ru. Despite video clips seen all over the world on Youtube and other sites that show clear violations of Moldova's laws against inciting ethnic and religious hatred, as well as the faces of those who tore down the menorah, the prosecutor's office claims that it has found no evidence that a crime was committed. The incident generated widespread criticism from the international Jewish community, as well as the condemnation of the Moldovan government.

RACISM AND SCHOOL EXCLUSION

As the telephone interrupts us for the umpteenth time, Gerry German says he had planned to keep busy in old age, but not like this. Luckily, after years of ill health, he has a fair spring in his step for a man of 82. No time to slow down, he says, laughing as the phone goes again. A cluttered boxroom in east London – but for him, the eye of the storm. One wonders how such an amiable, softly spoken figure, a white man with a ready smile and a soft Welsh lilt, can excite such strong emotions, but the electricity is generated by the work. Schools – reeling, they say, from disruptive pupils – take the nuclear option and jettison their "trouble- makers" with permanant exclusions. In step German and the Communities Empowerment Network to champion those discarded pupils against the system and, in quite a few cases, get them back in. He's king of the appeals. It doesn't make him popular. "I've quite a few informants in the schools and they tell me stuff. My favourite was the head who would theatrically throw himself to the floor on learning we had taken on a case. We took that as quite a compliment."


There are no winners in this – think 8,000 permanent exclusions a year in England; 380,000 fixed-term exclusions. And there is, says German, a cultural ­dimension. White, working-class pupils have serious problems in terms of ­underachievement, but black pupils ­remain three times more likely to be ­excluded than white, he says, and face stiffer sanctions. These cases bring him 90% of his workload: 60 referrals a month, through word of mouth. "For the most part, I think the problem is race," German tells me. "Unwitting racism: a combination of negative ­prejudice, destructive stereo-typing and low expectations. We go shoulder-to-shoulder with the parents. Generally, they are single mothers." An incongruous sight they are – the mothers, the ­children, and their genial elderly representative, who says he is rescuing the ­discarded from the scrapheap. "I always ask them if they will permit me to act on their behalf," German says. "I never presume. That's crucial. I say we are the only ones left to fight for you. From where we sit, it's the truth."

The Guardian

Riots at Stoke-on-Trent English Defence League march

Fifteen people were arrested at an English Defence League (EDL) rally in Stoke-on-Trent after trouble broke out.were injured and vehicles were damaged when EDL supporters broke through police cordons. Two of the officers needed hospital treatment.

About 1,500 EDL supporters were at the rally in Hanley to protest about Islamic extremism, police said.

Up to 300 members from the group Unite Against Fascism gathered on the other side of Hanley centre.

Supt Dave Mellor of Staffordshire Police said more than 600 officers had been deployed to the rally and disorder had been "sporadic".

One officer needed hospital treatment for an arm injury, another needed a facial injury to be examined by doctors. The two other injured officers returned to duty immediately.

BBC Midlands Today reporter Matt Cooke said said there had been few problems with the Unite Against Fascism demonstration.

He said there was trouble as the EDL crowd dispersed.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh faith leaders signed a pledge against all forms of racism, ahead of the event on Saturday.

original post
BBC

Rod Liddle puts potential editors job at The Independent at risk with another controversial blog post

Ron Liddle the Former BBC Radio 4 Today editor has once again drawn attention to himself through controversial views posted online.

In December 2009 he referring to the case where two teenage rappers tried to murder a pregnant 15-year-old, described the perpetrators as "human filth" before adding "It could be an anomaly, of course. But it isn't."

Then again he wrote in a blog for The Spectator
The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community.

Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North, stated at the time "It is obviously statistically false to say that the 'overwhelming majority' of the crimes listed by Rod are committed by young black men... The interesting thing is why he chose to post something which, if you chose another set of hysterical racial stereotypes and substituted Jew for Afro-Caribbean, would not have been out of place in a speech by Oswald Mosley.

On these occasions the has stated he was highlighting multi-culturism and not being racist.

Yet the following item was posted in the Guardian today.

Rod Liddle defends quip about Auschwitz on Millwall fans' forum

It began as a series of tasteless, vulgar conversations about race, religion and sex on a football fan website, but it could end with Rod Liddle, the former Today editor turned controversial columnist, being denied the chance to edit the Independent.

Liddle felt compelled to explain in the Jewish Chronicle today why he posted a comment on the fan forum Millwall Online complaining that he couldn't smoke at Auschwitz. In his article for the paper, Liddle described as "absurd" suggestions that he is anti-Semitic.

He has used Millwall Online, which has no official links to the south London club, to say: "It's fucking outrageous that you can't smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout. Also, I wasn't convinced by the newish Auschwitz Burger Bar and Grill."

Liddle used the Chronicle to claim: "My point … was that I felt it had been stripped of its awfulness and bleakness … festooned with no smoking signs and disabled access ramps."

His intervention came at the end of a week when his credentials as a possible editor of the Independent had been called into question.

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire who last year acquired a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard, is in negotiations to buy the Independent from its Irish owners. He is thought to have lined up Liddle, who writes for the Spectator and the Sunday Times, to replace the incumbent editor, Roger Alton.

Liddle has posted dozens of messages on Millwall Online using the pseudonym Monkeymfc, including, allegedly, derogatory comments about Somalis, insulting references to the ITV newsreader Mary Nightingale and racist comments.

Posting under the user name of

'Monkeymfc'

Rod Liddle has been attacked for comments he posted on a Millwall supporters website under the moniker Monkeymfc. This is what he is quoted as saying and his response:

What "Monkeymfc" wrote about black people: "On average a little under 10 per cent thicker than whites; 15 per cent thicker than east Asians. I thought everyone knew, too." What Liddle says: "Someone's hacked in [using Liddle's password].

Monkeymfc on Swindon's black footballer Kevin Amankwaah: "**** off you spearchucking African ****." What Liddle says: "I was quoting what had been allegedly said to a black player from another team and JUSTIFYING why that player then said something very nasty indeed in return."

Monkeymfc on blogger Jo Owen. He wrongly assumes he is a woman: "Stupid bitch. A year eight sociology lecture from someone who knows fck all … Someone kick her in the cnt". Liddle [in reply to a blogger]: "I don't remember saying it and it certainly doesn't read like me, but it's quite possible that at some point I might use that terminology to make a certain point, perhaps the opposite to the one you imagine."

I let you be the judge of whether Mr Liddle is racist or not.

For the full story

The Guardian

BRITONS ARRESTED OVER ARSON ATTACK ON CRETE SYNAGOGUE (Greece)

Two British nightclub waiters have been arrested after arson attacks on a historic Jewish synagogue on the Greek island of Crete which have drawn condemnation from around the world. The men, aged 23 and 33, are in custody alongside a 24-year-old Greek man after the restored medieval in the port city of Hania, one of the most noted Jewish temples in Greece, was twice set alight this month. The fires, which destroyed 2,500 rare books and manuscripts, sparked alarm among the 8,000 Jews in Greece. The US state department said the attacks were "clearly intended to intimidate and terrorise Greece's Jewish community". The arsons were the latest of several incidents of antisemitic vandalism across Greece, including attacks on synagogues and cemeteries in Larissa, Volos, Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Athens. During the first fire, on 5 January, a bottle with flammable liquid was found, according to witnesses. That fire was extinguished. But another, on 16 January, destroyed books and computers as well as causing considerable damage to art work and to the interior of the building, which is Crete's only synagogue. The 33-year-old Briton, who has not been named, is accused of being the perpetrator of that second attack but denies the charges. The Greek man and 23-year-old Briton are accused of keeping watch. Two US citizens are being sought in connection with the first attack, with the three detained also accused of involvement, said local police.

The 15th-century synagogue was restored in 1999 after lying derelict since the Holocaust. By 1941 most of the Jews in Crete had emigrated, leaving only the Hania community of 269 people. They were deported by Nazi invaders in 1944 and died when their ship was bombed and sunk by the Allies. Now a cultural centre and museum as well as a house of worship, the building was renovated with help from the World Monuments Fund. As a derelict building it was seen by locals as "a monument to the success of the Nazis in obliterating 2300 years of Jewish life" but is now a "vibrant statement of Jewish life, vitality and values", according to its website. The men were reportedly arrested after the Greek co-accused confessed. Israel has called on Greece to better protect its Jewish heritage. Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, said: "We are worried, the Jewish community is worried."

Pope says Vatican helped Jews during Holocaust

Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations of indifference towards the Nazis' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII. On a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
The pontiff responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.
It comes amid Jewish anger at Benedict's moves to beatify Pius.

The Pope conceded that "unfortunately, many remained indifferent", to the suffering of the Jews, six million of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

But he said "The Apostolic See [the Vatican] itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way," without mentioning Pius XII by name.

His remarks came directly after the president of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, told him "the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah [Holocaust], still hurts because something should have been done".

"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz," he said.
Some in the Jewish community, including at least one senior rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, boycotted the event.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says some Jewish leaders have called on the Vatican to open up its secret archives to study the record of Pius XII in closer detail.
That this issue is souring otherwise increasingly healthy relations between the two religions will frustrate many on both sides, but it is an issue that is unlikely to go away whilst Pius' path to sainthood is under consideration, our correspondent adds.

The Far Right Rise In Austria & The BNP

"We want power. We want to be number one. Austria first!” Nearly hoarse after a two-hour speech, Heinz-Christian Strache ended the new year’s gathering of the Austrian Freedom party (FPO) on a high note. The party is one of the rising forces of Europe’s far right, credited with 22% to 24% support in the polls, twice as much as the Greens. Above all, the party once led by Jörg Haider is catching up with its main rival among working-class voters, the Social Democrat party (SPO), which has fallen below 30% in voting intentions. In the Vienna Congress Centre last week, some 4,000 supporters waved Austrian flags. The better to defend western civilisation, FPO militants are demanding a ban on the construction of minarets, as in Switzerland. Strache got a round of applause when he referred to playgrounds where the few Austrian kids “no longer even dare speak German”. It was time, he said, to put an end to this “counter-society”, which the city council, led by Social Democrat Michael Häupl, had allowed to flourish for 16 years. A third of the capital’s population comes from abroad, mainly Turkey, central Europe and the former Yugoslavia.

Should we be worried about this so called Austrian Freedom Party, like many far right groups on the rise is not as it try’s to appear?

Obviously they have an anti-Islamic ideology (all the far right groups in Europe have jumped on this issue) but they also have a desire to legalise Nazi symbols and Strache has links to far right extremists. The fact that Lutz Weinzinger, a leading member of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) attended a candle light vigil at a fallen SS officers grave which is eerily on the same date of Kristallnacht, the ‘night of broken glass’ that in 1938 the Nazi’s notoriously attacked property held by Jews and also killed 92 who happened to be in their way.

And its no accident that Former Waffen SS officer and unrepentant Nazi Herbert Schweiger was a leading founder in the political party is a friend of Strache.

Yet at a time in Austrial when Muslim graves are being daubed with Nazi symbols and a group of Neo Nazi’s hoisted the Swastika (banned in Austria) in Hilter’s birthtown as a tribute to their fallen Idol, Nick Griffin leader of the BNP has created a friendship with the Strache.

After the FPO’s election victory, Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), sent a personal message to Strache.

‘We in Britain are impressed to see that you have been able to combine principled nationalism with electoral success. We are sure that this gives you a good springboard for the European elections and we hope very much that we will be able to join you in a successful nationalist block in Brussels next year.’

The greatest propaganda gift the BNP could hope for was electoral success as they had in the EU elections. It has given them an edge of credibility and success. Unfortunately many of the far right groups in Europe have bought into that false façade and have embraced them openly.

Little do they know as the majority in Britain know, the BNP are really a joke and as the saying goes “couldn’t organise a pi** up in a brewery”

BNP Leader Griffin's Race Hate Conviction Secrets Are Safe For Now

The CPS today refused to release details of BNP Fhurer Nick Griffin’s 1998 conviction for race hate crimes to the Guardian. They applied under Freedom of Information Act laws, but were informed that the ‘majority of information contained in the papers is personal data’, therefore releasing it publicly would breach Griffin’s rights under the Data Protection Act.

When the Guardian appealed, the CPS ­reiterated its view that Griffin's rights are not outweighed by the public interest in the disclosure of the information.

Although the DPA is a vital piece of legislation to protect confidentiality – if Mr Griffin wants to rule the country and has nothing to hide from the British people, why doesn’t he obtain the records himself and release them to the voters?

The Guardian has lodged a further appeal with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Guardian Story

Amerian Racist Group Plans to Run Candidates Nationwide

The co-founder of American white supremacist group ATP (American Third Position), William Daniel Johnson, has announced he intends to put forward as many candidates from this group to run for office this year.

Johnson, who prefers being called ‘racially aware’ to ‘racist’ once proposed that an amendment to the American constitution should be amended. That amendment would only have allowed whites “in whom there is no discernible trace of Negro blood” to be U.S. citizens. Hispanic whites, Johnson added in a generous moment, might also be granted citizenship, but only if their “appearance [is] indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe.”

Racism as political policy? No country in the world has ever been improved by a national policy of hatred and discrimination.

Full story here

Who Says Nazi’s Cant Dance, They Can But They Really Shouldn’t

A BNP supporter on the You Tube web site some time ago posted a video of the British National Party Greater London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook strutting his funky stuff at a function of some sort. Although this is a BNP supporters video, it has largly gone un-appreciated by us in the Anti-BNP lobby.

And watching Dicky Barnbrook gyrating proves one thing,

White Supremacists Can Dance, But I really wish they wouldn’t.

Email scams mar generous response to Haiti quake

LONDON (AlertNet) - Criminals attempting to cash in on an outpouring of public generosity towards survivors of the Haiti earthquake are using online scams designed to steal charitable donations, a charity watchdog said on Wednesday.
The scams include the use of fictitious appeal websites, email appeals that falsely use the name of genuine charities, or appeals from bogus aid groups, said the Charity Commission, the independent charity regulator for England and Wales.

"The Commission is urging the public to continue giving but to be vigilant," it said in a statement.

Images of crushed survivors trapped beneath the rubble of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince largely destroyed by last week's 7.0 magnitude quake prompted a rush of support.

Aid groups were quick to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook in fundraising efforts to deal with the impact of the worst quake to hit the Caribbean country in 200 years, as the death toll soared to tens of thousands.

People had donated $35 million within 48 hours of the natural disaster, the American Red Cross said, calling the response "unprecedented".

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was one of the first organisations to warn citizens about the risk of being duped by Internet fraudsters in an alert on its website, posted the day after the earthquake struck. The FBI said past tragedies and natural disasters had prompted individuals with criminal intent to solicit contributions purportedly for a charitable organisation and/or a good cause -- and urged a "critical eye".

"Fraud is a pretty nasty thing to happen to people in the best of times, but when you're taking food out of the mouths of people who are struggling for survival in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, it is pretty low," said Brendan Paddy, a spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation for 13 aid agencies.

Reuters

Finland Needs Tougher Hate Crime Laws

On Tuesday a Justice Ministry panel called for tougher, more specific laws against hate crimes, while anti-racism activists held a demonstration in Helsinki. In a report handed over to Justice Minister Tuija Brax on Tuesday, the working group recommends adding a new criminal charge be added to the law books, which translates roughly as aggravated incitement against a societal group. It also says the current laws on hate crimes be expanded to cover acts based on victims' sexual orientation or handicaps, and to make it possible to punish groups or associations found guilty of hate crimes. The panel wants more rules against online racism, for instance making it a crime to publish a link to a racist website.

YLE News

BNP flash back, Nick Griffin and Colonel Gadaffi

Nick Griffin and the BNP are well publicied as being extremely anti-Islamic.
In 1988 Nick Griffin whilste being a senior member of the National Front sought out financial funding from many extremist sources. Two of these such sources were Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and Libya's Colonel Gadaffi. The trip Libya was paid for by the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi. The trip occurred after a female PC was shot and killed by Libyan diplomats outside their London Embassy and after a ship was stopped of Ireland that contained weapons and explosives destined for the IRA’s terror campaign against the British sent by Libya. Remember this is also the country that the terrorist that blew up the flight over Lockerbie came from.

Rwandan genocide suspect arrested in France

A Rwandan doctor wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes has been arrested in France, police say.

Sosthene Munyemana, 45, who had been working in a hospital in Bordeaux for eight years, denies the charges.
His arrest on an extradition warrant from Rwanda comes weeks after France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties.

France had rejected an asylum bid by him in 2008, saying there were "serious reasons" to suspect his involvement in war crimes in 1994, AFP reported.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day massacre in 1994.

Mr Munyemana was released on bail, but must report to judicial officials until a court date is set.

He had been on the Interpol list of wanted men for a few years.

The arrest comes weeks after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made his first visit to Rwanda since diplomatic ties were restored in November. Relations between Paris and Kigali had been poor for several years but were severed in 2006 after a French judge accused President Paul Kagame and several senior officials of being behind the 1994 murder of Rwanda's Hutu President Juvenal Habyaremana.

The shooting down of his plane triggered the 1994 genocide.

Those suspected of being most responsible for the killings are being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania.