Tales of organ trafficking by the KLA during the Kosovo campaign  surfaced recently:

BELGRADE, Serbia: Serbia's war crimes prosecutor is looking into reports that dozens of Serbs captured by rebels during the war in Kosovo were killed so their organs could be trafficked, the prosecutor's office said Friday.

The Serbian prosecutor's office said it received "informal statements" from investigators at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, that dozens of Serbs imprisoned by Kosovo Albanian rebels were taken to neighboring Albania in 1999 and killed so their organs could be harvested and sold to international traffickers.

Bruno Vekaric, the Serbian prosecutor's spokesman, said later on B92 radio that Serbian war crimes investigators have also received their own information about alleged organ trafficking, but not enough for a court case. Vekaric said Serb investigators also received reports suggesting there might be mass graves in Albania containing the bodies of the Serb victims.

Serbian media reported that the issue was brought into the open in a book written by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that is to be published in Italy on April 3.

According to Serbia's Beta news agency, which carried parts of the book in Serbian, Del Ponte said her investigators had been informed that some 300 Serbs were killed for organ trafficking.

The Beta report quoted Del Ponte as saying in the book that her investigators were told the imprisoned Serbs were first taken to prison camps in northern Albania where the younger ones were picked out, and their organs were later sold abroad.

Here's the more detailed story from Belgrade's B92 and here is the story in Russia Today.
Update [2008-4-11 7:57:9 by talos]:: April 11, The Daily Telegraph has published the relevant excerpts from Carla Del Ponte's book and they're quite unsettling. Meanwhile Russia has apparently filed a request to the ICTY regarding this case.

Promoted by Migeru

A bit more than a year ago, noting Ramush Haradinaj's immense luck (a streak which, goes way back), I made the point that "the Haradinaj case is a litmus test for the impartiality of the Hague tribunal - at least as far as any credibility it might still have among Serbs".

The test results are in. They're negative.

Well I haven't been able to write much on events in Greece after the last elections, so here's a quick review of a very eventful past five months that has seen social protest, sex scandals, financial scandals, both mainstream parties struggling in opinion polls and the "hard"-left reaching unprecedented opinion poll ratings, while an international crisis is brewing concerning the name of Greece's "unspeakable" northern neighbor.

...today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.  
General Jack D. Ripper - Dr. Strangelove

Promoted by Migeru

On August 16, a day after the major Greek summer holiday and as mount Penteli and a part of Athens' Northern suburbs were burning, yet another fire in what was becoming a disastrous forest fire season (with the worse still to come), prime-minister Kostas Karamanlis, announced early elections for the 16th of September (today). The snap elections were of course widely expected, but the date chosen was the earliest possible. August is the holiday month in Greece and thus a majority of the electorate were relaxing, swimming or lying on some beach, a situation which was to last more or less (public servants' leaves were canceled - and a lot of people headed for their homes in a hurry) until the end of the month. Thus the pre-election period was shortened to four weeks - and for two of these weeks the major cities were half-empty. Then the huge forest fires in the Peloponnese and Evia erupted and for another ten days the country's attention was focused on the evolving catastrophe...

Polls until the great fire disaster were showing that the conservatives, Karamanlis' New Democracy (ND) Party, were holding a comfortable yet narrowing lead over the Socialists (PASOK) led by George Papandreou, despite a series of scandals, the largest of which was about corruption and mismanagement of public pension funds. Sensing that the pension funds scandal was not going away as details of the affair crept out slowly to Greek media, Karamanlis opted for the snappiest of snap elections possible, under flimsy pretexts (the proper scheduled date for the elections was March 2008), in an obvious effort to limit discussion and catch his opponents unprepared.

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob Update: with 99.54% of the precincts reporting, the final seat and vote tally is as follows:
ND (conservative) 152 41.84 % (-13 seats -3.52 percentage points re the 2004 elections)
PASOK 102 (socialist) 38.10 % (-15, -2.45%)
KKE 22 (old school communist) 8.15 % (+10, +2,26%)
SYRIZA 14 (antineolib left - greens - radicals) 5.04 % (+8 +1.78%)
LAOS 10 3.79 % (not in the 2004 parliament)
ND has a narrow parliamentary majority, PASOK reached its lowest parliamentary electoral percentage since 1977 and the combined left has had its pest result in years. The extreme right (some very disturbing characters among them) makes it after a very long time to the parliament...

I've been away on holidays for a few weeks (working holidays up to a point) and usually with not enough time or opportunity to post. However despite the saying that there are no news in August, two major events happened in Greece while I was away:

1. One of the greatest peacetime disasters in modern Greek history, as fires razed (and are still razing) >2000 sq. km of forest and farmland and something like 120 villages in the Southern Peloponnese and the island of Evia, killing 65 firefighters and residents and destroying livelihoods, affecting as many as 16.000 people directly. Fires were occurring simultaneously in Attica (the prefecture that Athens is part of), for the fifth time or something this season, Western Greece, a few islands and pretty much all over. (more below)

From the diaries - with format edit ~ whataboutbob

This is so bizzare yet scary a statement of the Commission's disdain for democracy, coming from so legitimate a source, that it should be more widely disseminated:

I quote from the rather unradical EUobserver:

The new EU reform treaty text was deliberately made unreadable for citizens to avoid calls for referendum, one of the central figures in the treaty drafting process has said.

Speaking at a meeting of the Centre for European Reform in London on Thursday (12 July) former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato said: "They [EU leaders] decided that the document should be unreadable. If it is unreadable, it is not constitutional, that was the sort of perception".

There is an audio file (mp3) of Amato's speech and he is being very open about it.

IEEE Spectrum has an excellent article, written by two Greek Computer Scientists (V. Prevelakis and D. Spinellis) about last year's wiretapping scandal, a scandal about which I reported here in the European Tribune at the time (1, 2, 3, 4, see also the relevant Wikipedia article, and former US diplomat's Brady Kiesling summing up of the affair)

The article provides an astonishingly detailed investigation on the technical aspects of the wiretap, and explains the highly sophisticated methods used. This highlights the fact that the operation was surely the work of highly skilled professionals, with intimate knowledge of Vodafone's and Ericsson's systems (Prevelakis and Spinellis mention in a sidebar the various scenarios circulating). It's also a great introduction to various technical aspects of mobile telephony BTW.

Update: One of the two authors (Dr. Spinellis) of the IEEE Spectrum article was kind enough to comment on the issue in the discussion thread.

Promoted by afew

The only facts you need to know to understand the enormity of what the following video shows is this: it was taped on a cell phone in a Central Police station in Athens, approximately a year ago. The two guys in blue and orange shirts are teenage Albanian immigrants (update: one Albanian and one Greek from Kazakhstan) arrested for armed robbery. The guy in black is a police officer. The two detainees are hitting each other because the police officer shown, orders them to do it. When the police officer thinks that they are not slapping each other hard enough, he beats the suspects. At the end the two immigrants are ordered to shout out loud "I'm an asshole", "I'm a big asshole", in Greek before hitting each other. The video is this:

The latest issue of Eurotopia [pdf file] - published on the Trans-National Institute's website - is about Public Services in Europe, their privatisation and the grass-roots efforts to build alternatives to it, all around Europe. It highlights the problems of accountability, democratic participation and efficiency that the privatisation process has created. It also showcases some of the (mostly but not totally) municipal-level grass-roots reactions to the privatization of the commons in Europe - thus its title: "Public Services in Europe: From privatisation to participation"

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob

New Left Review published two extensive articles on the Russian economy and the Putin regime's handling of it. Together they provide a summary of the economic and social situation in Russia, providing information not readily found in much of the western press - well beyond the usual stereotypes.

Vladimir Popov, in Russia Redux?, discusses Russia's "recent social and economic fortunes" that reveal "a number of problems that Putin's successor will inherit, presenting him with a difficult agenda".

Tony Wood from NLR, in Contours of the Putin Era, responds to Popov and "examines the geographical and social distribution of Russia's recent economic growth. What are the priorities and outlook of the emerging business-state elite--and whom will Putin's `stabilization' benefit?"

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob

Matt Taibbi has yet another excellent piece over at Rolling Stone magazine, this time about proposed new Bush tax cuts and what they mean for the average US taxpayer - as well as about the utter indifference shown by the corporate media to a story with great "shock value" - because it's the wrong value.

The story is brilliantly written and worth your while anyway, but the way it illustrates the economic facts (as given to MT by the folks over at rep. Bernie Sanders' office, the socialist congressman from Vermont) is impressive and should be emulated. And so should its tone, because what is being presented is the sort of information that in the not-so-distant-past made peasants and craftsmen grab bats, pitchforks and torches - and march menacingly towards the palace...:

Raed Jarrar has obtained a copy of the Iraq Oil Law that will be heading to the Iraqi cabinet for approval. Jarrar has translated the Law in Eglish [pdf here] and comments that:

...This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq's enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

From the diaries -- whataboutbob

So a few days ago Kosovo's former prime-minister Ramush Haradinaj, was called back to the Hague, after surrendering himself to the ICTY in 2005 (where he was indicted for crimes against Serbs, Roma and Albanians in Kosovo), and then being released and allowed to resume political activities in Kosovo.

As chance would have it, a key witness for the prosecution was killed yesterday in Podgorica, in what could be  murder or a stroke of exceptionally good luck for the indicted Kosovar Albanian politician...

As a crackdown against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), the Turkish Kurd armed revolutionary organization, that Turkey (and most of the West now) considers "terrorist", seems to be (had been?) unfolding in Europe (possibly with US backing), and over 10.000 Kurds from all over Europe demonstrated recently in Strasbourg for the release of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan... I'd like to recommend an excellent article on the Kurds, Turkey and Iraq from the NY Review of Books (titled The Uncontainable Kurds), which provides a good idea of the forces and attitudes involved in the greater Kurdistan area, forces that include Turkey, the Iraqi Kurdish leadership, the PKK (or whatever it calls itself nowadays), its Iranian Kurdish offshoot, the US, Iran and possibly Syria - not to mention assorted islamist groups, Shia and Sunni Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi insurgency/anti-occupation struggle.

The situation as it is currently unfolding doesn't seem to have a likely stable and peaceful long-term option...

From the diaries -- whataboutbob

This article on "Social Security's Contribution to the Fertility Crisis" is an exceptional example of - lying with statistics I'd say, but this goes far beyond lying, into such realms of ideological foolishness and self-deceit, that words fail to describe, but it does have a high entertainment value... OK, the fact that it is from the von Mises Institute prepares the casual reader for the usual statistical acrobatics - but this... this ought to win some prize.

It isn't worth the time to debunk point by point (an easy but colossal task), but I'd like to single out a few things:

First of all, the two graphs presented as supporting empirical data: notice that the time-series for European countries stops at 1997 and tells a rather different story for, say, Ireland than the author suggests (and misses the recent demographic uptrend in "socialist" - by the authors standards - France which now has a higher fertility rate than the UK or Ireland - a fact that the author is silent about)...

Another hair-raising piece documenting how the high priests of the Economic Faith look at Europe and the world through coloured glasses. Promoted by DoDo

On the aftermath of Christmas - and anticipating New Year's Eve:
...'Tis the season for some follies. A quick denouncement of the rotund commercialising icon in red, british parental concerns and the Perfect Christian Gift.

Via This is Not My Country, I repost the plea of the 225 detained illegal refugees at in the Greek Island of Chios:

To whom it concerned,

We as refugees in this camp have lost the hope even in complaining, so we take you as our only hope.

After many screams and complains about our conditions here, no-one has paid any attention. We are about 225 people in this camp for two weeks and about 190 for one month, and we know this camp can shelter only 108 people; about 21 people in each shelter sleeping over each other; about 90 without shoes, shampoo and blankets; toilets are damaged and many rooms are filled with dirty water which prevent many people sleeping; diseases are increasing and sick persons are ignored and the police is satisfied in giving just "Panadol"; two meals is not enough, bread like stones and some food is damaged; the increasing number of people creates trouble unwillingly.

We feel that we are in an isolated prison, no one talks to us and when we inform the police he says that it is not his responsibility. So we pledge you to inform any power or institution to save us because things have become unbearable and our situations turn to be under zero.

We don't know what crime that we have committed to take this punishment and harsh treatment; we escaped war, poverty, oppression and genocidal attacks and came here to find shelter in this peaceful land.

We call all committees, Red Crescent, Human Rights, UN and every power. We call the Greek nation and the civilised Europe.

The Camp

The situation is desperate, one of the results of a Greek-Turkish refugee "exchange" war, in which Turkey puts the refugees on boats and Greece sends them back - and so on, many times. The human toll of this exercise is agonizing (and often deadly) for the unfortunates caught in the middle (of the Aegean).

Since the Greek Government reacts much more promptly to pressures from abroad - and very little to "bleeding heart leftists" at home, I urge any of you that find the time, to send some form of letter of complaint to both the Greek Prime Minister's office (pressoffice@primeminister.gr) and the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner (commissioner@coe.int) - or suggest any other meaningful recipient, and republish this plea wherever you can.

PS: Note the comment from a guy calling himself "Lawful European" in the original TINMC post. Exemplary fascism, eh?

Matt Taibbi, formerly of "The Exile" and now writing for Rolling Stone magazine, has a great piece on the whole "work harder to compete with China" meme, which I think most Eurotribbers will find close to their own hearts. Excerpt:

"Protectionism conveniently shifts the blame for trade-related hardships to foreigners, which is easier than adapting homegrown business practices to make America more competitive."
-- New York Times editorial, "Curing the Debt Addiction," Oct. 2

Well, that makes sense. According to The New York Times, what we need to do to compete with China economically is adopt commensurate "homegrown business practices" that will enhance our performance.

What do they have in mind? Eliminating the freedom of speech? Outlawing free trade associations? Legalizing child labor? Eliminating all environmental regulations and letting workers roll around in hazardous chemicals for fifteen hours a day for ten cents an hour? Ending all forms of corporate transparency? Come to think of it, we could solve our juvenile delinquency program and our trade competitiveness problem at the same time -- let's just lock up our high school dropouts in toy factories, get those little bastards making radioactive Lego sets six days a week for a buck a shift. Imagine the profits! Who'd be laughing then, Yunagjiang City?

I've been meaning to post a diary here about recent events in Greece, of which (with the local/municipal elections coming up in 10 days) there have been quite a few lately: things such as the Greek Teachers' strike, about to enter its fourth week, the scandal involving the local milk cartel and graft in the competition commission, in a country with laughably impotent regulators anyway, and the, already noted here, 25% GDP rise over the period of one day thanks to creative accounting taken to almost artistic extremes... I've been meaning to, but having a handful at the moment doesn't help...

Thus I present you Mike-Frank Epitropoulos' (A Greek American academic, who was active in the Green Party USA) review of recent events, who does the job for me nicely, in an article over at Znet, titled "Magic, Deception and stalemate in Greece"
He's pretty much spot-on, on most things, though his claim that:

"Greek teachers' starting salaries start at about €900 per month and the top of the scale, after twenty years of service reaches just under €1,500 per month, with the next lowest in the EU being €2,400 per month."

seems iffy: He certainly means to refer to the EU15 and not the EU25, but is it really true that top salaries in all of Southern Europe, say, reach at least 2400 Euros?

Promoted by Colman