The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Bomb explodes at offices of Greek ultra-right party, no casualties
- Australian motorcycle gang challenges criminal law in court
- Japan candidates hit streets in first national vote since Fukushima disaster
| Bomb explodes at offices of Greek ultra-right party, no casualties Posted: 03 Dec 2012 08:24 PM PST ATHENS (Reuters) - A bomb went off at the offices of a Greek ultra-right group near Athens early on Tuesday causing damage but no casualties, a police source said. The explosion occurred at the local offices of the Golden Dawn party in the Athens suburb of Aspropyrgos. "It was a powerful blast that caused a lot of damage," said a police official who declined to be named. Riding a wave of public anger at austerity, corrupt politicians and illegal immigration, Golden Dawn has come out of nowhere to become Greece's third-biggest party, according to the latest opinion polls. A survey by VPRC, an independent polling company, put its party's support at 14 percent in October, compared with the 7 percent it won in elections in June. Several Greek observers and politicians said Golden Dawn should be declared illegal because its rhetoric and emblems resemble the Nazi party and Greece's 1967-1974 military junta. The party, however, denies any such resemblance. (Reporting by Harry Papachristou; Editing by Eric Walsh) Copyright © 2012 Reuters |
| Australian motorcycle gang challenges criminal law in court Posted: 03 Dec 2012 07:55 PM PST CANBERRA (Reuters) - A motorcycle gang in Australia, where such groups have been targeted over violence and drug trafficking, has challenged the constitutionality of a law that would make it easier to declare them a criminal gang. Leaders of the Finks, whose motto is "Attitude with Violence", have asked Australia's highest court to overturn laws they say are draconian and threaten civil freedoms. Under the laws, police in tropical Queensland state have sought to have the Finks declared a criminal gang. Similar laws have been used elsewhere in Australia. "This legislation can be used against any organisation which the police or the government may target to say they are criminal in nature," Finks lawyer Bill Potts told reporters ahead of the two-day challenge in the High Court of Australia. "We say it's a law too far, it's a law that's unnecessary. We say that in total that large sections of it are in fact unconstitutional," he said. The laws have been successfully challenged by other gangs, including the Hells Angels, in two other states, New South Wales and South Australia, frustrating governments who have tried to link rival gangs to the illicit drugs trade, trafficking of illegal firearms, robbery, murder, extortion and prostitution. New South Wales and South Australia subsequently recast their laws after the High Court decided that new powers allowing lower court judges to hear evidence in secret and to prevent legal appeals went too far under the Australian Constitution. In their latest challenge, the Finks said the new laws were unnecessarily punitive because existing state laws were sufficient to deal with criminal behaviour. The most recent count of "outlaw" motorcycle gangs by the Australian Crime Commission said there were around 39 clubs across Australia with a rising membership of around 4,000. The Finks have several hundred members. The Finks' lawyers told members to wear business suits rather than club leathers to the High Court, cover up tattoos and leave their high-powered motorcycles at home. Another legal loss would be a setback for Australian authorities anxious to crack down on gang crime, which has been on the rise in recent years. Motorcycle gangs gained notoriety, and have been under increased scrutiny, since six gang members and an onlooker were killed in a 1984 shootout in a Sydney hotel carpark known as The Fathers Day Massacre. In 2009, members of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club and the Hells Angels clashed violently at Sydney's main airport, with one bashed to death in front of horrified onlookers. The court will not hand down a decision until early 2013. (Editing by Paul Tait) Copyright © 2012 Reuters |
| Japan candidates hit streets in first national vote since Fukushima disaster Posted: 03 Dec 2012 07:38 PM PST FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Candidates hit the streets on Tuesday at the official start of a campaign for a parliamentary election that is expected to return the opposition Liberal Democrats to power but risks furthering the policy stalemate plaguing the world's third-biggest economy. In a sign that last year's nuclear crisis still weighs on Japan's national psyche, both former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader, and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda kicked off the campaign in the northeastern prefecture of Fukushima, site of the world's worst radiation disaster in a quarter century. The role of nuclear power is one hot topic in the first national poll since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing meltdowns, forcing 160,000 people to flee and destroying a myth that atomic power is safe, cheap and clean. Voters are also focused on how rival parties plan to rescue Japan's economy from what looks like its fourth recession since 2000 and cope with a rising China, ties with which have been chilled by a territorial feud that is feeding nationalist sentiment in both countries. "Our mission is to protect the safety of our children and the public, to protect our territory and beautiful waters," Abe told a crowd in a city square in Fukushima City under cloudy skies. "We are determined to win a majority with (LDP ally) the New Komeito party and take back power. "We just cannot afford to lose," he said to applause, though one listener carried a placard targetting the LDP's decades-long promotion of nuclear power saying, "It is the LDP that built nuclear plants in Fukushima". Media opinion polls suggest that of the 12 parties running some 1,500 candidates, the LDP will win the biggest number of seats in parliament's powerful lower house. POSSIBLE PARTNERS That would give Abe, who quit suddenly in 2007 after a troubled year in office, the best shot at forming the next government, probably with long-term ally, the New Komeito. But surveys published on Monday also show that the LDP's lead over Noda's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has narrowed, increasing the possibility that the main conservative opposition party will need a third partner to form a government. If so, the LDP would be eyeing potential post-election allies. Options include the newly launched, right-leaning Japan Restoration Party founded by popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto in a bid to woo voters fed up with the two main established parties, or other small groups, or even a chastened DPJ. "Our economic policy is simple," Hashimoto told a crowd in Osaka, western Japan. "We will destroy the vested interests who until now have skimmed off all the cream." Abe insists he will give no ground in a row with China over rival claims to tiny, uninhabited isles in the South China Sea and wants to spend more on defence and loosen the limits of Japan's pacifist constitution on the military. He wants to pressure the Bank of Japan to ease its already hyper-loose monetary policy and to gear up public works spending to rescue the economy, steps Noda has criticised as irresponsible given Japan's mammoth public debt, already the worst among advanced nations at twice the size of the economy. The pro-nuclear LDP says it will gradually restart off-line reactors judged safe, while thinking about Japan's best energy mix over the next decade. The Democrats aim to exit atomic power by the 2030s, although some sceptics doubt their commitment. How any of the parties would secure lasting growth while reining in a ballooning social security bill in Japan's fast-ageing society remains unclear. The Democrats surged to power for the first time in 2009, promising to put politicians, not bureaucrats, in charge of governing and to pay more heed to the interests of consumers than corporations in designing policies. Critics say the fractious party honoured its pledges mostly in the breach. "This election is about whether we will move forward with what we must do, or turn back the clock to the politics of the past," Noda told a crowd in Iwaki, also in Fukushima prefecture. Noda, the party's third premier in three years, enacted - with opposition help - a sales tax rise to curb public debt. But that step sparked a stream of defections from the party. Many voters have yet to decide how to vote. "The LDP looks set to assume power. But I don't think things will change drastically under LDP rule," said a 62-year-old public servant after listening to Abe's speech. "If you live in Fukushima, you would want quicker reconstruction and decontamination rather than constitutional amendments and military buildup." (Additional reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada in Osaka; Writing by Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Editing by Ken Wills)
Copyright © 2012 Reuters |
| You are subscribed to email updates from The Star Online: World Updates To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan