Tuesday June 18, 2013
Kaieteur News
Page 31
Berlusconi gets seven-year jail South Africans resigned over ‘critical’ Mandela sentence on sex charges (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi was handed a seven-year jail sentence on Monday for abuse of office and paying for sex with a minor, adding to the complications facing Italy’s fragile left-right government. The former prime minister will not have to serve any jail time before he has exhausted an appeals process that could take years, but the conviction angered members of his centre-right party who questioned whether he should continue to support the coalition. The 76-year-old media tycoon expressed outrage at the verdict which he said was politically motivated. “An incredible sentence has been issued of a violence never seen or heard of before, to try to eliminate me from the political life of this country,” Berlusconi said in a statement. “Yet again I intend to resist against this persecution because I am absolutely innocent and I don’t want in any way to abandon my battle to make Italy a country that is truly free and just.” Berlusconi’s lawyers announced they would appeal against the ruling that also banned him from holding public office. Berlusconi was found guilty of paying for sex with former teenage nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, better known under her stage name “Ruby the Heartstealer”, during “bunga bunga” sex parties at his palatial home near Milan. The panel of three women judges also convicted him of abuse of office by arranging
Silvio Berlusconi to have El Mahroug released from police custody when she was held in a separate theft case. The verdict closes a twoyear trial that has mesmerized Italy with its accounts of wild sex parties at the billionaire’s villa outside Milan while he was premier in 2010. Several members of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party have urged him to withdraw his backing for the government of centre-left Prime Minister Enrico Letta, which needs the PDL’s support. “It’s disgusting, a disgrace,” one of his most faithful lieutenants, senior party official Daniela Santanche, told reporters in front of the Milan court. She said the ruling would not impact the functioning of the government, but other Berlusconi allies were less conciliatory. “It is absurd to think that
the current government can continue to work calmly while the leader of one of the parties backing it is being massacred politically,” said PDL senator Sandro Bondi. Letta’s Democratic Party (PD), which was dealt its own blow yesterday by the resignation of Equal Opportunities and Sports Minister Josefa Idem over a tax evasion scandal, said the Berlusconi verdict should be respected and called on the PDL to show restraint. Berlusconi says the purported sex parties were elegant dinners where the female guests performed “burlesque” shows. El Mahroug denied having sex with Berlusconi. In the verdict, the judges said around 30 witnesses in the case, including Deputy Foreign Minister Bruno Archi, should be investigated for perjury for their testimony in favor of Berlusconi. In May 2010, the thenprime minister called a Milan police station to instruct officials to release El Mahroug, who was being held on suspicion of stealing a 3,000 euro ($3,900)bracelet. A Brazilian prostitute who lived with El Mahroug had called the premier on his mobile phone to tell him she had been arrested, prosecutors said. Berlusconi’s lawyers have said he made the call to avoid a diplomatic incident because he believed that El Mahroug, who is actually Moroccan, was the grand-daughter of Hosni Mubarak, then the Egyptian president.
Immigration bill passes key test vote in U.S. Senate (Reuters) An immigration bill endorsed by President Barack Obama easily cleared an important test yesterday when the Senate backed new border security steps seen as essential to the legislation’s fate. The border security amendment cleared a procedural hurdle by attracting more than the 60 votes needed, leaving opponents of the bill with few remaining opportunities for killing or further delaying passage of the legislation this week. The bipartisan legislation would bring the biggest changes to U.S. immigration law since 1986, granting legal status to millions of undocumented foreigners who also would be put on a
13-year path to citizenship. Last week, a small group of senators reached a deal on strengthening border security requirements of the bill by authorizing the hiring of 20,000 more law enforcement agents over the next 10 years and buying hightech equipment to help stop illegal crossings at the U.S. border with Mexico. The amendment, which is likely to be approved later this week now that the procedural block has been swept away, also calls for finishing construction of 700 miles of border fence. The steps were designed to attract more support for the bill from Republicans, who have been concerned that a “pathway to citizenship” for 11 million illegal immigrants would spark a new wave of
unauthorized border crossings. Republican Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota acknowledged that some members of his party in the House of Representatives have called for a more incremental approach to immigration reform than the Senate’s comprehensive bill offered. Hoeven helped write the border security amendment that could propel the immigration bill to a large bipartisan victory in the Senate later this week. But Hoeven said, “We have tried to come up with something that is bipartisan so that it can move in the House. Hopefully it (the amendment) will encourage them to move forward.”
(Reuters) - South Africans adopted a mood of sombre resignation on Monday to the inevitability of saying goodbye to former president Nelson Mandela after the 94year-old anti-apartheid leader’s condition in hospital deteriorated to critical. Madiba, as he is affectionately known, is revered among most of South Africa’s 53 million people as the architect of the 1994 transition to multi-racial democracy after three centuries of white domination. However, his latest hospitalization - his fourth in six months - has reinforced a realization that the father of the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation” will not be around forever. President Jacob Zuma, who visited Mandela late on Sunday with African National Congress (ANC) Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, reflected the national mood when he told a news conference that Mandela remained critical.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela “All of us in the country must accept that Madiba is now old. As he ages, his health will trouble him,” Zuma said, declining to give specific details about Mandela’s medical condition or other information from his hospital visit. “Given the hour, he was already asleep. We saw him, looked at him and then we had a bit of a discussion with the doctors and his wife,” Zuma said. “I don’t think I’m a position to give further
details. I’m not a doctor.” U.S. President Barack Obama is due to visit South Africa this week as part of a three-country Africa tour but Zuma said Mandela’s worsening state of health should not affect the trip. “Nothing is going to stop the visit because Madiba is sick,” Zuma said. Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe said the family was taking each day as it came and enjoying as much time as possible with a man who, to them, is simply a father, grandfather or greatgrandfather. “He is at peace with himself,” she told CNN. “He has given so much to the world. I believe he is at peace.” M a n d e l a ’ s deterioration this weekend, two weeks after being admitted in a serious but stable condition with a lung infection, has caused a perceptible switch in mood from prayers for recovery to preparations for a fond farewell.
Brazil’s Rousseff proposes political reform to quell protests
(Reuters) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff yesterday proposed a popular referendum to embark on a sweeping political reform in response to the country’s largest public protests in 20 years. Rousseff called for a public vote to eventually amend Brazil’s constitution as she sought to seize the momentum in a national debate set off by two weeks of increasingly disruptive demonstrations. The president also laid out an agenda to cut taxes on public transportation costs, accelerate investment in hospitals and crack down on political corruption - recurring concerns raised by Brazil’s nameless, leaderless protest movement. “The streets are telling us that the country wants quality public services, more
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff effective measures to combat corruption ... and responsive political representation,” Rousseff said in remarks to a meeting of governors and mayors. While vowing to crackdown on a violent minority that has looted stores and vandalized government
buildings, Rousseff praised the democratic spirit of most protesters and framed her agenda as addressing their concerns. Still, a sluggish economy has left Rousseff with little room to maneuver the federal budget and protesters are unlikely to see rapid improvements in their daily lives. A constitutional reform by referendum could take years as the government must arrange a public vote and compose a constitutional committee to debate the overhaul of Brazil’s representative democracy. Rousseff proposed an additional 50 billion reais ($22 billion) of investments to address the complaints about public transport that first set off the protests that have shaken markets and threatened her enduring popularity.
U.S. presses Russia on Snowden (Reuters) - The United States yesterday increased pressure on Russia to hand over Edward Snowden, the American charged with disclosing secret U.S. surveillance programs, and said it believed he was still in Moscow despite reports he was leaving for Cuba. Earlier Snowden, until recently a contractor with the
U.S. National Security Agency, had been expected to fly to Havana from Moscow, perhaps on the way to Ecuador, but he was not seen on the plane and Russian officials declined to say where he was. The U.S. State Department said diplomats and Justice Department officials were engaged in
discussions with Russia, suggesting they were looking for a deal to secure his return. Snowden flew to Moscow after being allowed to leave Hong K o n g o n S u n d a y, e v e n though Washington had asked the Chinese territory to detain him pending his possible extradition on espionage charges.