Six In The Morning

As Mexicans protest, a new mass grave is found

‘It seems that we are like animals that can be murdered with impunity,’ says poet whose son was killed

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

MEXICO CITY – Fifty-nine bodies were found buried Wednesday in a series of pits in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, as people marched in protest against on going drug cartel violence.

The bodies were discovered near the site where suspected drug gang members massacred 72 migrants last summer, officials said.

Security forces stumbled on the site as they were investigating reports that passengers had been pulled off several buses by gunmen

in the area in what may have been an attempt at forced recruitment by a drug gang.

Divided and disorganised, Libyan rebel military turn on Nato allies

Feuding leadership of revolutionary forces fails to capitalise on coalition air strikes

By Kim Sengupta in Ajdabiya Thursday, 7 April 2011

General Abdel Fattah Younes was scathing in his condemnation of Nato. “They have disappointed us. Nato has become our problem. Either Nato does its work properly or we will ask the Security Council to suspend its work.”

That was on Tuesday night at a packed press conference in Benghazi. Yesterday General Younes was on one of his rare visits to the frontline, with an escort of Western security guards as the row over his remarks rumbled on. The head of the rebel forces apparently does not like travelling through risky areas without his recently acquired foreign protection team.

A Jewish renaissance in Poland

There are signs that Poles are discovering their lost Jewish heritage and that antisemitism is in decline

Jeevan Vasagar and Julian Borger

The Guardian, Thursday 7 April 2011

I n Kazimierz, once the Jewish heart of Krakow, signs of a revival are everywhere. There are restaurants with Hebrew lettering, a new community centre where students drop in for a Sabbath meal, and even a Jewish kindergarten. And once a year, this quarter is dominated by a celebration of Jewish music, theatre and film that attracts up to 13,000 visitors.

Krakow’s Jewish Culture festival is the most prominent symbol of an apparent rejuvenation in the shadow of the Holocaust. This is the nearest Polish city to Auschwitz, but it has also become a place where Poles are discovering their lost Jewish heritage

Missing Chinese artist to ‘pay price’

The Irish Times – Thursday, April 7, 20

CLIFFORD COONAN in Beijing

THE Global Times newspaper in China criticised western governments for demanding the release of disappeared artist Ai Weiwei yesterday.

In an editorial, the newspaper said Ai had been testing the bounds of China’s laws and would pay a price. The newspaper, published by the People’s Daily , marks the first occasion that state-controlled media have taken up the controversy over Ai, who was stopped on Sunday from boarding a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong and taken away by police.

An outspoken critic of the Communist Party, Ai (53) has not been in contact with his family since Sunday.

Arrested Journalist’s Book Claims Turkish Police Infiltrated by Islamic Movement

‘The Imam’s Army’  

By Jürgen Gottschlich in Istanbul  

Fikret Ilkiz makes an elegant impression, with his graying hair, slender facial features and his expensive suit jacket. The lawyer speaks succinctly, but with a precision that has an incisive quality.

Ilkiz represents Turkey’s most prominent detainee, the veteran journalist and writer Ahmet Sik. Sik was arrested on March 3, as was his colleague Nedim Sener. Both work at newspapers belonging to the Dogan group. Sik works for the left-liberal Radikal, while Sener writes for Milliyet, traditionally the newspaper of Turkey’s intellectuals. Both journalists became famous through their books.

Their revelations have made the two writers icons of investigative journalism in Turkey and won them many awards at home and abroad.

Government sets iodine standards for seafood



2011/04/07

Four days after fish caught were found to be contaminated with high levels of radioactive iodine, the government on Tuesday set the legal standard for iodine levels in seafood at the same level as vegetables of 2,000 becquerels per kilogram.

Japanese sand lance caught on Friday by members of the Hirakata fishing cooperative in Kita-Ibaraki had levels of iodine of 4,080 becquerels per kilogram.

Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plan to ask Ibaraki Prefecture to stop shipments of sand lance under the Law on Special Measures Concerning Nuclear Emergency Preparedness. It would be the first time such a ban has been placed on seafood.