Northern Ireland prison guard slain in gun ambush

November 01, 2012

DUBLIN (AP) — Suspected IRA die-hards killed a Northern Ireland prison officer Thursday in a gun ambush as he drove to work, the first killing of a prison guard in nearly two decades in the British territory.

Police said a gunman in a passing car shot David Black, 52, several times as he drove onto the M1 motorway southwest of Belfast. His car plummeted down a grassy embankment into a ditch. Police found the attackers' suspected getaway car burned out in the nearby town of Lurgan, a power base for two IRA factions opposed to Northern Ireland's peace process, the Real IRA and Continuity IRA. They said the car had Dublin license plates.

No group claimed responsibility. Politicians and police commanders said IRA militants were inevitably to blame and pilloried the various IRA splinter groups still in existence as politically pointless.

"These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in London. The government of the neighboring Republic of Ireland pledged to help hunt down those responsible.

"I know that I speak for every decent man, woman and child on this island, north and south, in expressing revulsion at this act," Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore said in Dublin. Gilmore said police in both parts of Ireland would crack down anew on IRA extremists, many of whom live in the Irish Republic near the border. "There will be no return to the dark and violent days of the past," he said.

In Belfast, the British Protestant and Irish Catholic leaders of Northern Ireland's unity government stood shoulder to shoulder to emphasize that no act of violence would weaken their 5-year-old coalition, the central achievement of the territory's 1998 peace accord.

First Minister Peter Robinson, a Protestant, lambasted the various IRA factions as "flat-earth fanatics, living in the dark ages, spewing out hatred from every pore." Standing beside him Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, nodded in agreement and declared that Black's killers "can't kill the peace process, and we are the proof of that."

McGuinness' Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, long a political pariah, received a share of power in Northern Ireland after the long-dominant Provisional IRA faction in 2005 disarmed and accepted that Northern Ireland's political status could be changed only by majority approval. Surveys since have consistently shown that most residents want to stay in the United Kingdom and build better relations with the Irish Republic.

Despite this, small IRA groups using myriad names continue to mount sporadic gun and bomb attacks. They usually fail because of British intelligence tipoffs or equipment failures. IRA factions have killed two civilian men this year in attacks involving turf wars over the drugs trade, and last killed a policeman in April 2011, when a Catholic recruit was blown up outside his home by a bomb hidden under his car.

The level of violence is nothing like the 1970s-'80s heyday of Northern Ireland's conflict, when typically around 100 people a year died in often tit-for-tat violence involving IRA factions and paramilitary outlaws from the Protestant side of the community.

Today about 4,000 British troops remain garrisoned in Northern Ireland — a third of their level a decade ago — but play no role in local security. Police still sometimes must patrol in armored vehicles and flak jackets, but they operate with few restrictions even in the most militant Irish nationalist districts, an impossible prospect before the Provisional IRA cease-fire.

The Northern Ireland Prison Service said Black, a married man with a son and daughter, had been a prison guard for about 30 years and was due to retire soon. Finlay Spratt, chairman of the Northern Ireland Prison Officers Association, described Black as "a very nice fellow to work with. He always ensured he did his job to the letter."

Spratt lambasted the weakening of security provisions for prison officers, who live in civilian areas and still face death threats from extremists on both sides of Northern Ireland's sectarian divide.

He said the Northern Ireland and British governments "have stripped away all the security around prison officers. They treat us now as if we live in normal society," he said. The victim worked at Maghaberry Prison, where more than 40 IRA inmates have been waging protests for more than a year, including smearing their cells with their own excrement. The prisoners chiefly want to overturn the prison's policy of strip-searching inmates.

The IRA factions particularly seek to deter Catholic recruitment into the once Protestant-dominated police force, a major achievement of peacemaking. But Catholic recruitment into the similarly Protestant prison service has been less successful, a problem highlighted in a recent British government appeal for more applicants from Irish nationalist communities.

Black was the 30th prison officer to die as part of Northern Ireland's four-decade conflict. Most were killed by the Provisional IRA, but the previous killing in 1993 was committed by the Ulster Volunteer Force, a paramilitary group rooted in the British Protestant side of the community.

Spratt said Black's killing was unlikely to be the last IRA attempt to kill prison officers — and was likely to deter people from seeking work as one. "Why would you come and work in the prison service now and chance your life for 18,000 pounds a year?" he said, referring to the starting base salary, equivalent to $29,000.

Hit by crisis, Greek society in free-fall

November 01, 2012

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A sign taped to a wall in an Athens hospital appealed for civility from patients. "The doctors on duty have been unpaid since May," it read, "Please respect their work."

Patients and their relatives glanced up briefly and moved on, hardened to such messages of gloom. In a country where about 1,000 people lose their jobs each day, legions more are still employed but haven't seen a paycheck in months. What used to be an anomaly has become commonplace, and those who have jobs that pay on time consider themselves the exception to the rule.

To the casual observer, all might appear well in Athens. Traffic still hums by, restaurants and bars are open, people sip iced coffees at sunny sidewalk cafes. But scratch the surface and you find a society in free-fall, ripped apart by the most vicious financial crisis the country has seen in half a century.

It has been three years since Greece's government informed its fellow members in the 17-country group that uses the euro that its deficit was far higher than originally reported. It was the fuse that sparked financial turmoil still weighing heavily on eurozone countries. Countless rounds of negotiations ensued as European countries and the International Monetary Fund struggled to determine how best to put a lid on the crisis and stop it spreading.

The result: Greece had to introduce stringent austerity measures in return for two international rescue loan packages worth a total of €240 billion ($313 billion), slashing salaries and pensions and hiking taxes.

The reforms have been painful, and the country faces a sixth year of recession. Life in Athens is often punctuated by demonstrations big and small, sometimes on a daily basis. Rows of shuttered shops stand between the restaurants that have managed to stay open. Vigilantes roam inner city neighborhoods, vowing to "clean up" what they claim the demoralized police have failed to do. Right-wing extremists beat migrants, anarchists beat the right-wing thugs and desperate local residents quietly cheer one side or the other as society grows increasingly polarized.

"Our society is on a razor's edge," Public Order Minister Nikos Dendias said recently, after striking shipyard workers broke into the grounds of the Defense Ministry. "If we can't contain ourselves, if we can't maintain our social cohesion, if we can't continue to act within the rules ... I fear we will end up being a jungle."

CRUMBLING LIVING STANDARDS Vassilis Tsiknopoulos, runs a stall at Athens' central fish market and has been working since age 15. He used to make a tidy profit, he says, pausing to wrap red mullet in a paper cone for a customer. But families can't afford to spend much anymore, and many restaurants have shut down.

The 38-year-old fishmonger now barely breaks even. "I start work at 2:30 a.m. and work 'till the afternoon, until about 4 p.m. Shouldn't I have something to show for that? There's no point in working just to cover my costs. ... Tell me, is this a life?"

The fish market's president, Spyros Korakis, says there has been a 70 percent drop in business over the past three years. Above the din of fish sellers shouting out prices and customers jostling for a better deal, Korakis explained how the days of big spenders were gone, with people buying ever smaller quantities and choosing cheaper fish.

Private businesses have closed down in the thousands. Unemployment stands at a record 25 percent, with more than half of Greece's young people out of work. Caught between plunging incomes and ever increasing taxes, families are finding it hard to make ends meet. Higher heating fuel prices have meant many apartment tenants have opted not to buy heating fuel this year. Instead, they'll make do with blankets, gas heaters and firewood to get through the winter. Lines at soup kitchens have grown longer.

At the end of the day, as the fish market gradually packed up, a beggar crawled around the stalls, picking up the fish discarded onto the floor and into the gutters. "I've been here since 1968. My father, my grandfather ran this business," Korakis said. "We've never seen things so bad."

Tsiknopoulos' patience is running out. "I'm thinking of shutting down," he said, "I think about it every day. That, and leaving Greece." JUSTICE On a recent morning in a crowded civil cases court in the northern city of Thessaloniki, frustration simmered. Plaintiffs, defendants and lawyers all waited for the inevitable — yet another postponement, yet another court date.

Greece's sclerotic justice system has been hit by a protracted strike that has left courts only functioning for an hour a day as judges and prosecutors protest salary cuts. For Giorgos Vacharelis, it means his long quest for justice has grown longer. Vacharelis' younger brother was beaten to death in a fairground in 2003. The attacker was convicted of causing a fatal injury and jailed. The family felt the reasons behind the 24-year-old's death had never been fully explained, and filed a civil suit for damages. Nearly 10 years later, Vacharelis and his parents had hoped the case would finally be over.

But the court date they were given in late September got caught up the strike. Now they have a new date: Feb. 28, 2014. "This means more costs for them, but above all more psychological damage because each time they go through the murder of their relative again," said Nikos Dialynas, the family's lawyer.

Vacharelis and his family are in despair. "If a foreigner saw how the justice system works in Greece, he would say we're crazy," said the 35-year-old. "Each time we come to court we get even more outraged," he said. "We see a theater of the absurd."

VIGILANTES In September, gangs of men smashed immigrant street vendors' stalls at fairs and farmers' markets. Videos posted on the Internet showed the incident being carried out in the presence of lawmakers from the extreme right Golden Dawn party. Formerly a fringe group, Golden Dawn — which denies accusations it has carried out violent attacks against immigrants — made major inroads into mainstream politics. It won nearly 7 percent of the vote in June's election and 18 seats in the 300-member parliament. A recent opinion poll showed its support climbing to 12 percent.

Immigrant and human rights groups say there has been an alarming increase in violent attacks on migrants. Greece has been the EU's main gateway for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants — and foreigners have fast become scapegoats for rising unemployment and crime.

While there are no official statistics, migrants tell of random beatings at the hands of thugs who stop to ask them where they are from, then attack them with wooden bats. Assaults have been increasing since autumn 2010, said Spyros Rizakos, who heads Aitima, a human rights group focusing on refugees. Victims often avoid reporting beatings for fear of running afoul of the authorities if they are in the country illegally, while perpetrators are rarely caught or punished even if the attacks are reported.

"Haven't we learned anything from history? What we are seeing is a situation that is falling apart, the social fabric is falling apart," Rizakos said. "I'm very concerned about the situation in Greece. There are many desperate people ... All this creates an explosive cocktail."

In response to pressure for more security and a crackdown on illegal migration, the government launched a police sweep in Athens in early August. By late October, police had rounded up nearly 46,000 foreigners, of whom more than 3,600 were arrested for being in the country illegally.

Police say that in the first two months of the operation, there was also a 91 percent drop in the numbers of migrants entering the country illegally along the northeastern border with Turkey, with 1,338 migrants arrested in the border area compared to 14,724 arrested during the same two months in 2011.

HEALTHCARE At a demonstration by the disabled in central Athens, tempers were rising. Healthcare spending has been slashed as the country struggles to reduce its debt. Public hospitals complain of shortages of everything from gauzes to surgical equipment. Pharmacies regularly go on strike or refuse to fill subsidized social security prescriptions because government funds haven't paid them for the drugs already bought. Benefits have been slashed and hospital workers often go unpaid for months.

And it is the country's most vulnerable who suffer. "When the pharmacies are closed and I can't get my insulin, which is my life for me, what do I do? ... How can we survive?" asked Voula Hasiotou, a member of an association of diabetics who turned out for the rally.

The disabled still receive benefits on a sliding scale according to the severity of their condition. But they are terrified they could face cuts, and are affected anyway by general spending cuts and the pharmacy problems.

"We are fighting hard to manage something, a dignified life," said Anastasia Mouzakiti, a paraplegic who came to the demonstration from the northern city of Thessaloniki with her husband, who is also handicapped.

With extra needs such as wheelchairs and home help for everyday tasks such as washing and dressing, many of Greece's disabled are struggling to make ends meet, Mouzakiti said. "We need a wheelchair until we die. This wheelchair, if it breaks down, how do we pay for it? With what money?"

Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki, Greece contributed to this story.

Eurozone unemployment rises to new record

October 31, 2012

LONDON (AP) — Unemployment in the 17-country eurozone hit a record high of 11.6 percent in September, official figures showed Wednesday, a sign the economy is deteriorating as governments struggle to get a grip on their three-year debt crisis.

The rate reported by Eurostat, the EU's statistics office, was up from an upwardly revised 11.5 percent in August. In total, 18.49 million people were out of work in the eurozone in September, up 146,000 on the previous month, the biggest increase in three months.

While the eurozone's unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past year as the economy struggled with a financial crisis and government spending cuts, the United States has seen its equivalent rate fall to 7.8 percent. The latest U.S. figures are due Friday.

With the eurozone economy fading, most economists think unemployment will keep increasing over the coming months and that the deteriorating economic picture will soon spook investors again after a brief hiatus.

"Financial markets have calmed somewhat, but we expect that the deteriorating economy will soon enough lead to more crisis headlines," said Tim Ohlenburg, senior economist at the Center for Economics and Business Research.

Five countries in the eurozone are already in recession — Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus — and others are expected to join them soon. The region as a whole is expected to be confirmed to be in recession when the first estimate of eurozone economic activity in the third quarter is published mid-November — a recession is officially confirmed after two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

"With surveys suggesting that firms are becoming more reluctant to hire, the eurozone unemployment rate looks set to rise further, placing more pressure on struggling households," said Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics.

Recession and unemployment make it more difficult for the eurozone to deal with its debt problem — governments need to pay more benefits to the jobless and receive fewer tax revenues. That could push countries to take even more austerity measures, which in turn weighs on economic activity.

Once again, Spain held the ignominious position of having the highest unemployment rate in the eurozone, at 25.8 percent. Greece may yet surpass that — its unemployment rate mushroomed to 25.1 percent in July, the latest available figure, and is due to increase in the face of what many economists are calling an economic depression. The country is forecast to enter its sixth year of recession next year.

Both countries, which are at the heart of Europe's three-year debt crisis, have youth unemployment above 50 percent. That risks creating a lost generation of workers and is straining the countries' social fabric. Extremist political groups in Greece and regional separatist parties in Spain have grown in popularity as the economy worsened.

Concern over the social impact of unemployment has also weakened governments and hobbled political decision-making. In Greece, the three parties in the coalition government have tried for months to agree on an austerity package that is necessary for the release of bailout loans to prevent the country's bankruptcy.

The lowest unemployment rate in the eurozone was Austria's 4.4 percent. Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has a jobless rate of only 5.4 percent. Separately, Eurostat reported that inflation in the eurozone fell modestly to 2.5 percent in the year to October, from the previous month's 2.6 percent. Inflation is still above the European Central Bank's target of keeping price rises just below 2 percent.

"High and rising unemployment, and relatively sticky inflation, does not bode well for consumer spending across the eurozone, especially as consumers in many countries are also facing muted wage growth and tighter fiscal policy," said Howard Archer, chief European economist at IHS Global Insight.

Above-target inflation has not prevented the ECB cutting its key interest rate to a record low of 0.75 percent, but few economists think financially strained consumers will get any more help from the bank at next week's monthly policy meeting.

Protesters greet Indonesian president in London

October 31, 2012

LONDON (AP) — Indonesia's president met Queen Elizabeth II Wednesday during a visit to Britain that was marred by protesters accusing him of human rights abuses.

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Indonesian first lady Ani Bambang Yudhoyono were welcomed by the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, in a ceremony at London's Horse Guards Parade. The two couples then took part in a state carriage procession to Buckingham Palace, where the visiting couple will stay during their three-day visit.

About 50 demonstrators holding placards that read "Stop killing Papuans" protested the Indonesian leader's visit outside Prime Minister David Cameron's residence at 10 Downing Street. They claim Yudhoyono has committed crimes of humanity against tribal people in West Papua.

Rights groups including the New York-based Human Rights Watch have said that Indonesia's military is responsible for some of the violence in the southeast Asian country's restive Papua province, home to a decades-long low-level guerrilla war. Yudhoyono has conceded that Indonesian security forces had overreacted at times, but said the attacks were "on a small scale with limited victims."

Later Wednesday, two human rights activists tried to reach Yudhoyono's car, but were stopped by police. Scotland Yard confirmed that they arrested one man for attempting to disrupt the leader's visit. The man, activist Peter Tatchell, was released without charge.

The queen, who along with her husband visited Indonesia 33 years ago, praised Yudhoyono for leading democratic change in Indonesia during a lavish state banquet she hosted in honor of her guests at a ballroom in Buckingham Palace.

The president is the first foreign leader to be welcomed in a state visit during the queen's Diamond Jubilee year.

2,000 sheep led through streets of Spain's capital

October 28, 2012

MADRID (AP) — Spanish shepherds led a flock of more than 2,000 sheep through central Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and modern agricultural practices.

Many tourists and residents were surprised to see traffic cut to allow the ovine parade to bleat its way across some of Madrid's most upscale urban streets. The right to use droving routes that wind across land that was open fields and woodland before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great metropolis it is today has existed since at least 1273.

Every year, a handful of shepherds defend the right and, following an age-old tradition, on Sunday paid 25 maravedis — coins first minted in the 11th century — to city hall to use the crossing. Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles (125,000 kilometers) of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer and more protected lowland grazing in winter.

The movement is called transhumance and in Spain up until recently involved close to a million animals a year, mostly sheep and cattle. Modern farming practices are however increasingly confining animals to barns, because shepherding is costly, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, which has been promoting the colorful annual Transhumance Fiesta in Madrid since 1994.

Madrid became an important urban center when King Philip II chose it as the capital of his vast empire in 1561. Some paths have been used for more than 800 years and modern-day Madrid has sprawled to engulf two north-south routes. One that crosses Puerta del Sol — Madrid's equivalent of New York's Times Square — dates back to 1372.

Spaniards are proud of their centuries-old sheep rearing traditions and hold the native Merino breed of sheep in particular esteem. Merinos have gone on to form the backbone of important wool industries in places such as Australia and South America.

Sicily vote provides test for national elections

October 28, 2012

MILAN (AP) — Sicilian elections on Sunday provided a key testing ground for Italy's political parties before national elections in the spring to replace the technical government of Premier Mario Monti.

Ten candidates were vying for governor of one of Italy's most important regions in the election, which was called following the resignation of Gov. Raffaele Lombardo amid concerns that the region risked insolvency and following his indictment on charges of Mafia association. He has denied the charges.

The region of about 5 million inhabitants and with an unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent is considered a barometer for national elections. Italian political parties are jockeying for strategies to retake power in Rome when the mandate for Monti's government expires.

Monti, who took power last year tasked with shielding Italy from the debt crisis, has said he will not run for another term, but has said he would be open to a second term under certain circumstances, which analysts have said would mean if no party wins a clear mandate or can put together a majority.

On the center-left, the Democratic Party and the centrist Union of the Center Party have united behind one candidate, testing sentiment for a possible repeat in the national elections. Ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Liberty Party, damaged by political scandals in the regions of Lazio and Lombardy, also is seeking to invigorate itself. On the eve of the vote and just days after saying he would not run in the spring for premier, the 76-year-old Berlusconi threatened to withdraw support for Monti's policies.

Berlusconi was convicted Friday of tax fraud, and sentenced to four years in jail. The sentence is not definitive until two levels of appeals are exhausted, which his lawyers have vowed to pursue. Meanwhile, he populist Five Star Movement launched by comic Beppe Grillo is proving a threat to the traditional center-right and center-left parties.

Ukraine ruling party claims victory in election

October 28, 2012

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's party claimed victory Sunday in a parliamentary vote tainted by the jailing of the country's top opposition leader.

Despite a strong showing of pro-Western opposition parties in the proportional portion of the vote, Yanukovych's Party of Regions was likely to retain its parliamentary majority as its candidates were expected to take the lead in individual races across the country.

With former Premier Yulia Tymoshenko in jail and widespread fears of election fraud, the West is paying close attention to the vote in the strategic ex-Soviet state, which lies between Russia and the European Union, and serves as a key conduit for transit of Russian energy supplies to many EU countries. An election deemed undemocratic by international observers could freeze Kiev's ties with the West and push Ukraine toward Moscow.

An exit poll conducted by three leading polling agencies showed the Party of Regions ahead with some 28.1 percent of the vote. Tymoshenko's Fatherland party is poised to get about 25 percent of the proportional vote, while the Udar (Punch) led by world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is set to get around 15 percent, according to the survey. The anti-government nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party and the Communists, Yanukovych's traditional allies, both look set to get about 12 percent. And even though the three opposition parties have more proportional votes than the Regions and the Communists combined, Yanukovych candidates are likely to win enough individual races to form a majority in parliament.

Official results were slow to trickle in. With the votes at less than 1 percent of all polling stations counted, Yanukovych's Party got 50 percent, Tymoshenko's and Klitschko's parties got about 15 percent each, Svoboda got 7 percent and the Communists 5 percent, according to election officials.

"We believe that this is an undisputable victory of the Party of Regions," Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said shortly after polls closed. "Above all, it shows the people's trust to the (policy) course that is being pursued."

Opposition parties alleged widespread violations on election day, such as vote-buying and multiple voting and an attack on a candidate who tried to document election violations. The Committee of Ukrainian Voters, an independent local election monitor, confirmed those problems, but said it remains to be seen whether the violations would significantly affect the overall elections results and how fair the vote-tallying will be. Authorities insisted the election was honest and democratic. Independent monitors will give their assessment Monday.

With Yanukovych under fire over the jailing of his top rival, Tymoshenko; rampant corruption and slow reforms, the opposition made a strong showing. "This clearly shows that the people of Ukraine support the opposition, not for the government," Tymoshenko ally Arseniy Yatsenyuk said.

Opposition forces hope to garner enough parliament seats to weaken Yanukovych's power and undo the damage they say he has done: the jailing of Tymoshenko and her top allies, the concentration of power in the hands of the president, the snubbing of the Ukrainian language in favor of Russian, waning media freedoms, a deteriorating business climate and growing corruption.

The strong showing by the far-right Svoboda party, which campaigns for the defense of the Ukrainian language and culture but is also infamous for xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric, emerged as a surprise and showed the widespread disappointment and anger with the ruling party.

It remains to be seen whether Tymoshenko's group, Klitschko's party and Svoboda can forge a strong alliance and challenge Yanukovych. The election tainted by Tymoshenko's jailing on charges of abuse of office has also been compromised by the creation of fake opposition parties, campaigns by politically unskilled celebrities, and the use of state resources and greater access to television by Yanukovych's party.

Yuras Karmanau in Kiev contributed to this report.