MEXICO CITY, Feb 5, 2010 (IPS) - Street stalls in the centre of the Mexican capital openly display books and publications that are sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, indicating that there is public demand for such items.

Along with the internet, the books - the most visible face of the neo-Nazi movement, which keeps to the shadows in Mexico - are its prime means of communication and dissemination.

The author of many of the publications is former Mexican journalist Salvador Borrego, who worked for the influential daily Excélsior during World War II. Borrego is Mexico's most prolific anti-Semitic writer and a leading Holocaust denier in the country.

"My works show the other side of the coin, the viewpoint of the defeated," Borrego said in an interview with IPS. "Both sides of the story must be presented, to let readers reach their own conclusions," added the writer, who has 44 volumes to his name, many of them neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda.

The National Socialist Party of Mexico (PNSM), which is not legally registered and is only active on the internet, bases its thinking on 14 principles referring to racial supremacy and its ethical and economic foundations, written in a pompous, disjointed, fanatic tone.

BUCHAREST, Feb 6, 2010 (IPS) - A textbook on human rights activism, being introduced in Romanian schools this year, steers away from preaching and uses interviews with global and local rights activists to suggest how young people may get involved.

The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mexican attorney Digna Ochoa and Czech playwright Vaclav Havel are some of the people interviewed for the book `Speak Truth to Power' by Kerry Kennedy, the rights activist daughter of former U.S. senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy.

Many of the interviews are included in the Romanian version of a rights educational package that is being prepared for use in some high-schools in the country.

Alongside interviews with prominent global human rights defenders, the Romanian book contains discussions with local activists fighting such issues as domestic violence and the rights of the Roma.

HAVANA, Feb 5, 2010 (IPS) - A neighbour started calling Andrea del Sol "Perseverance," and the name stuck. Since 1998, she and a small group of women from Alamar, on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, have been throwing their combined energies behind a common purpose: "changing things."

They faced plenty of difficulties, such as finding a space where they could meet, creating a library and cleaning up the surroundings. But all these needs were easy to fill compared with the daily gender violence that is the norm in Cuba's foremost dormitory town.

"People from more than 57 municipalities around the country live in my area. Everyone has their own customs, roots and religion, and this is something to bear in mind when conflict situations arise," del Sol, who has lived in East Alamar for 20 years, told IPS.

"We live with naked physical aggression, and with secretive domestic violence. We have battered women, fathers who throw their sons or daughters out of the house, and parents who don't pay their children enough attention. And increasingly, we are experiencing violence on the streets," she said.

Row upon row of nearly identical prefabricated apartment blocks, corroded by salt from the sea air, stretch for kilometres. Only basic health and education services, some shops and a very few cultural, sports or recreation facilities break up the endless housing project with its unfinished look.

East Alamar, where del Sol lives, covers an area of nine square kilometres and is home to about 38,000 people. This figure does not include a large number of unregistered residents from the provinces, or other areas of Havana.

On Tuesday the Upper House finally backed a 2008 Lower House vote in favour of the ban. "Indecent acts" with animals are now punishable with an 18-month prison sentence, and pornography involving animals is explicitly outlawed.

While the Lower House voted unanimously in favour of the bill, in the Upper House there were some who spoke out against a law against bestiality - notably from the conservative VVD and Christian Democrat parties.

VVD senator Sybe Schaap described the legislation as "unworkable", and the Christian democrats described it as "symbolic politics".

Opponents of the ban were concerned that vets and farmers carrying out artificial insemination could fall foul of the law. The original term "sexual acts" with animals was therefore changed to "indecent acts".

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The law was originally proposed by the Labour Party with the strong backing of the Animal Rights Party. It aims to put a stop to a flourishing trade in animal pornography based in the Netherlands. 

So people talk a lot about how insanely detailed this world is. But really, how detailed is it?

Says designer Yuri Bartoli:

Jim has always talked about a fractal layer of detail, where as you get closer to the world of Pandora, more and more levels of intricacy emerge to create a sense of reality. Just as in nature, there is always more structure than your eye can perceive. The color passes on the Banshee alone took me several weeks to complete, since including the necessary detail required multiple paintings 190 megapixels in size, as well as mapping them on the 3-D model to judge how these markings would look from the camera when wrapped around the creature.

Every weekend, Nicolas Norbert (20) and his friends from the Bondy suburb hit downtown Paris. One night, they will attend a one-off mega party, the next they visit one of its many nightclubs. "Everything is happening there," Norbert said.

Much to the amusement of his father, his current favourite is Le Gibus nightclub, near République. That is the exact same spot dad hung out 30 years ago. "Much remains the same in Paris," he offered.
The answer to the question if Paris is still bustling today depends on who you talk to. Eric Labbé, who organises dance parties and owns the popular music store, slash sound lab My Electro Kitchen, believes the party days in the French capital are over. "Paris is expensive and compact, the music scene is suffering from the economic problems and the dwindling tolerance of residents."

Deux hommes recouverts d'une burqa, selon les premiers éléments de l'enquête, munis d'au moins une arme de poing, ont braqué la Poste d'Athis-Mons (Essonne) samedi vers 10H30.

Croyant être face à deux femmes, un employé a ouvert le sas de la banque. Une fois à l'intérieur, les deux hommes ont relevé le voile et ont braqué les employés et les clients.

Comme le révèle Le Parisien, ils se sont fait remettre 4.500 euros, et, ajoute le quotidien, ont se sont enfuis à pied, vers le parking voisin.

Two men covered in a burqa, according to preliminary results of the investigation, have at least one handgun, have robbed the Post office in Athis-Mons (Essonne) Saturday around 10:30.

Believing be faced with two women, an employee opened the airlock of the bank. Once inside, the two men took up the veil and shine the employees and customers.

As revealed in Le Parisien, they did give 4,500 euros, and it said, had fled on foot toward the nearby parking.

A group of Belgian prisoners has started serving time across the border in the Netherlands. The Belgian government is renting 500 Dutch jail cells to reduce overcrowding in its own prison system. 

Thirty-five inmates from Wortel Prison in Belgium arrived at their new cells in the southern Dutch city of Tilburg on Friday. They are the first of at least 500 detainees expected to make the transfer.

This is all part of an agreement between Belgium and the Netherlands that allows Belgian prisoners to serve time in rented Dutch cells. Last October, the two governments signed an accord allowing for 500 cells at Tilburg Prison to be rented for a three-year period.

In January, Dutch lawmakers gave their final approval, and Belgium must now pay 30 million euros ($41 million) per year to use the cells. This equals about 164 euros per day for each prisoner. Meanwhile, Dutch inmates at Tilburg will be transferred to other prisons in the Netherlands.