Wednesday, 15 December 2010

Attempts to prosecute WikiLeaks endanger press freedoms

Violent clashes erupt in Italy after Berlusconi survives no-confidence vote

At least 50 police and 40 protesters have been injured as hundreds of students clashed with police near the residence of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy's capital on Tuesday. The riots came as parliament decided on the prime minister's future. Berlusconi secured a comfortable victory in the no-confidence vote at the senate, but survived a similar motion in the lower house by just three votes. Demonstrators marched through Rome's historic centre, throwing firecrackers that boomed as lawmakers cast their votes. Similar protests took place in other parts of the country

Kosovo PM is head of human organ and arms ring, Council of Europe reports

Hashim Thaci, prime minister of Kosovo. Photograph: Dieter Nagl/AFP/Getty Images

Kosovo's prime minister is the head of a "mafia-like" Albanian group responsible for smuggling weapons, drugs and human organs through eastern Europe, according to a Council of Europe inquiry report on organised crime.

Hashim Thaçi is identified as "the boss" of a network that began operating criminal rackets in the run-up to the 1999 Kosovo war, and has held powerful sway over the country's government since.

The report of the two-year inquiry, which cites FBI and other intelligence sources, has been obtained by the Guardian. It names Thaçi as having over the last decade exerted "violent control" over the heroin trade.

Figures from Thaçi's inner circle are accused of secretly taking captives across the border into Albania after the war, where a few Serbs are said to have been murdered for their kidneys, which were sold on the black market.

Legal proceedings began in a Pristina district court today into a case of alleged organ trafficking discovered by police in 2008. That case – in which organs are said to have been taken from impoverished victims at a clinic known as Medicus – is said by the report to be linked to Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) organ harvesting in 2000.

It comes at a crucial period for Kosovo, which on Sunday held its first elections since declaring independence from Serbia in 2008. Thaçi claimed victory in the election and has been seeking to form a coalition with opposition parties...

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Paul Lewis @'The Guardian'

Kosovo physicians accused of illegal organs removal racket

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Photograph by: Sergei Supinsky AFP/Getty Images
Ukrainian feminist movement FEMEN activists pretend to urinate in front of Ukraine's Cabinet Ministers building in Kiev on December 13, 2010 during an action called "The Cabinet is a men's room". The activists protest against the lack of women in Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's newly reorganized government.

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