The constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice.
The country’s reporters continue to face pressure and intimidation aimed at protecting economic, political, and criminal interests. The perpetrators often operate with impunity, leading to some self-censorship among journalists. Georgi Stoev, an author who had written several books on organized crime in Bulgaria, was shot to death by two men in April. He had recently told reporters that he was willing to testify against a major crime boss, but that prosecutors had shown little interest.
The popular state-owned Bulgarian National Television and Bulgarian National Radio are often critical of the government.
Large foreign media firms play a major role in the private print and television markets.
Many traditional media outlets have established a presence on the internet, which is unrestricted by the government and used by about 32 percent of the population.
The website Opasnite.net was closed on September 4 for publishing classified information regarding corruption among senior police and security officials. State security agents arrested the website administrator of Frognews the following day and questioned him about the investigative news outlet’s suspected links to Opasnite.net. On September 24, Frognews editor Ognian Stefanov was attacked by a group of masked men with hammers, leaving him with serious injuries. Stefanov and Frognews, which focused on investigations of security officials, had reported receiving threatening telephone calls.
Turkey's first hotel for nudists welcomes foreign guests to bare all !
Last updated at 11:36 AM on 26th April 2010
British holidaymakers in Turkey are being invited to shed their inhibitions and their swimming costumes with the launch of the country’s first naturist hotel.
Visitors to the Adaburnu-Golmar hotel on the country's Aegean coast, set to open on May 1st, will be able to work on full-body tans in the resort grounds and will also be able to take advantage of the hotel’s private nudist beach, a short drive away.
Guests will be able to dine 'au naturel' at beside the Turkish hotel's pool
Hotel guests will have to cover up indoors but can eat ‘au-naturel’ at the pool bar and outdoor dining terrace from 8am to 8pm.
The beach in front of the hotel, near the popular resorts of Marmaris and Bodrum, is a public area so off limits to nudists but the resort is offering guests the chance to sunbathe as nature intended on a private beach, located a 20-minute drive away.
"Nudism is allowed inside the hotel premises, but not on the nearby public beaches," Ahmet Cosar, bookings manager at the Adaburnu-Golmar hotel told local newspaper Milliyet.
The hotel's private naturist beach is located on the Aegean coast and will be open exclusively to foreigners
The private naturist beach will be open exclusively to foreigners and the hotel will spare any blushes by providing a free shuttle bus to and from the beach.
Facilities at the 600-metre beach include sunbeds, umbrellas, showers and a beach bar serving cocktails and food.
Nude sunbathers will, however, have to share their beach with the goats and chickens that belong to the hotel owners.
Waterslides, a fitness centre and hamman are all in the offing at the Adaburnu-Golamr hotel plus a shuttle service to a nearby naturist beach
The hotel, which is near the town of Datca and bills itself as a ‘lovely new family-owned hotel’, opens on 1st May. Other facilities at the hotel include a large pool with waterslides, a Turkish hammam, a fitness centre, boules and table tennis.
Which country leads censorship requests to Google by population - or internet users?
Always assuming, of course, that you don't include China in the 'censorship' figures released this week !
Surveillance. Photo by quinn.anya on Flickr. Some rights reserved
Google's 'censorship' tool, released this week in what it said was an attempt to make more open the instances where governments try to control what is on the web, is fascinating. The Datablog pulled all the data down into a spreadsheet (where you can find the original numbers such as data requests about users, and removal requests for content).
But the one big weakness of those raw numbers - showing demands to provide details about users, or to remove content (the latter often ordered by judges, who aren't exactly "government") - is that they aren't balanced by how many people live in those countries, or how many are actually online there.
So here's a mashup of that data - using population and internet penetration data from Internet World Stats and Wikipedia.
What is fascinating is how, once you allow for the level of internet connectivity, it's Brazil which was the biggest source of trouble for Google - principally because of its Orkut social network, which has taken off there and never given up.
Yet it's plucky Armenia which leads the content removal requests per million people connected - a fascinating wrinkle in the statistics that we'll be asking Google about when we get a moment.
Worth noting though that India and the UK are next up in data requests per million connected. That's rather worrying, because those are aimed at getting information about people, not removing content. Why is the UK so high in that? Who's making the requests? What for? (If you need a reminder of the meanings of the two, read the original story from Tuesday.)
Your thoughts on what else this might mean are of course welcome. Google censorship demands from government and judiciary, adjusted for population and internet connectedness Country
Population
internet penetration %
data requests per million
removal requests per million
data requests per million connected
removal requests per million connected
Data sources: Google, Wikipedia, Internet World Stats Argentina 40134425 49.4 2.4 1 4.9 2.1 Armenia 3230100 5.8 0 3.1 0 53.4 Australia 20111000 80.1 7.7 0.8 9.6 1.1 Belgium 10999000 52.8 6.1 0.5 11.5 0.9 Brazil 181586030 34 20.2 1.6 59.3 4.7 Canada 31946000 84.3 1.3 0.5 1.5 0.6 China 1337080000 28.7 0 0 0 0 France 60200000 58.1 14.1 0.1 24.2 0.1 Germany 82491000 63.8 5.6 2.3 8.7 3.6 India 1068214000 3.7 1 0.1 26.8 3.6 Israel 7531900 52 4 0.7 7.7 1.3 Italy 57553000 59.7 9.6 1 16 1.7 Japan 127687000 75.5 0.3 0 0.5 0.1 Netherlands 16275000 85.6 4.1 0.3 4.8 0.4 Singapore 4987600 58.6 12.4 1 21.2 1.7 Switzerland 7391000 75.5 5.7 0.7 7.5 0.9 United Kingdom 59778000 76.4 19.5 1 25.5 1.3 United States 293655000 68.6 12.2 0.4
The attacks came during a period of political instability following Iraq's inconclusive election [AFP]
Up to 60 people have been killed and many more wounded in a series of attacks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, police say.
Two car bombs exploded at a market in Sadr City killing at least 39 people and injuring 56 others, while three separate car bombs and an improvised device killed at least 11 in the west and east of Baghdad, officials said on Friday.
Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the capital, said four of the attacks were in Shia areas and two of them in Sunni neighbourhoods.
"At this time it would appear that the attacks are being targeted at the civilian population in general, rather than any sectarian basis," Hanna said.
He said that the political instability following Iraq's inconclusive election seemed to have sparked a wave of attacks.
"Iraq had been hoping to celebrate its democratic elections, but at the moment everybody is deeply concerned about this period of instability which it appears is being filled by violent acts," he said.
Roadside bombs
Earlier on Friday seven people were killed and 18 others wounded after six roadside bombs exploded in Iraq's western Anbar province.
The bombs went off near the houses of a judge and police officers in the town of Khalidiya, about 83km west of Baghdad.
"Four homes were hit by homemade bombs and C4 [plastic explosive]," Lieutenant Khoder Ahmed al-Alwani, a police officer, said.
Judge Fadhel Mahmud Saleh escaped unhurt from the explosion at his house, but two of his sons were wounded.
"This is the second assassination attempt against me this month. They put a sticky bomb on my car but it was discovered," he told an AFP news agency correspondent at the scene.
Soldier killed
An Iraqi soldier was among the dead, killed when security forces responded to the initial blasts.
An Iraqi man stands in rubble after six bombs exploded in Khaldiya on Friday [AFP]
He died after he stormed a house that was filled with explosives, General Baha al-Qaisi, Anbar's police chief, said.
"There was an explosion this morning in a house belonging to the terrorists in the Khaldiya district," he said.
"When we entered the premises, there was a second blast which caused the death of a soldier."
The police chief said they discovered a large store of explosives, but had "yet to recover the remains of the terrorists who were in the building".
The rural Khalidiya area is dominated by Sunni Arabs and is the birthplace of the Sahwa, or Awakening, in which armed locals who once fought US forces switched sides to battle al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Al-Qaeda hunt
The blasts come four days after a string of blows against al-Qaeda by Iraqi security forces.
Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, announced on April 19 that an Iraqi intelligence team had hunted down and killed Abu Ayub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the purported leader of al-Qaeda's local affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq.
"It's impossible at this stage to say whether there is a connection between these killings ... and the bombings we are seeing in Baghdad," Al Jazeera's correspondent said.
"But at this stage it would appear to be an opportunistic attempt to take advantage of the ongoing political uncertainly because there is no agreement about forming a government.
Violence in Iraq has fallen in the last two years as the sectarian bloodshed that followed the 2003 US-led invasion faded, but tensions increased last month after a national election resulted in no clear winner.
Destiny is strange. Because a volcano erupted in Iceland, I ended up sitting in a Bushkill Township pizzeria across from Yane Yanev, a Bulgarian politician who told me his homeland is headed by a mobster and seems likely to slide back under complete Russian dominance unless the world starts paying attention.Not my usual column topic -- you'll recall I wrote about a dog park a couple of weeks ago -- but I could hardly pass on the opportunity to interview Yanev, an anti-corruption leader who was elected to the Bulgarian parliament in 2005 and heads a conservative political party called Order, Lawfulness and Justice. I was tempted to quip we had a number of TV shows by that name, but one worries about first impressions.Yanev has been on a working tour of the United States in recent weeks, advocating for his homeland in meetings with politicians, academics and immigrants in Washington, New York, Chicago. He was supposed to have flown home by now, but the volcano, as you know, has disrupted air traffic all over Europe. So Yanev and his two companions have been staying since Sunday with an old friend named Roumen Trahanov, who lives in Nazareth and is part of a small population of Bulgarian immigrants in northern Northampton County.Pizzeria owner Mehmet ''Mike'' Zimmer is also part of that population, so we met at his store, Original Dough Boys, where my conversation with Yanev evolved slowly through his translator, party member Zhivko Temelkov.It took time to make clear that I was a suburban reporter for a mid-sized newspaper and not the sort of heavy hitter who could do justice to a story about Bulgaria's precarious political state. But I promised to write as much about it as I could.It was fascinating. Bulgaria, like the rest of Eastern Europe, escaped communist domination two decades ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in Yanev's account, the main political players from communism's heyday merely slipped into new positions of power.That's left Bulgaria under control of Bulgarian oligarchs who are beholden to Russian ones, thwarting the transition to genuine democracy, Yanev said.''We want to get away from the cold hug of Russia,'' he said.''Of the Russian bear,'' added Atanas Semov, a professor of international law and vice president of Yanev's political party.To make matters worse, the country's prime minister, Boyko Borisov, is an associate of known mobsters and has been linked to nearly 30 unsolved murders, according to an investigation commissioned by a private bank and reported on two years ago by Congressional Quarterly.The Quarterly's story said Borisov -- a karate expert who worked as a bodyguard for Bulgaria's last communist dictator -- was a key player in the Bush administration's negotiations to base American forces in Bulgaria, a potential staging ground for a strike on Iran.Yanev suggested America doesn't want to risk that strategic asset by inserting itself in his nation's affairs, even though Bulgaria is a member of both the European Union and NATO.But in the long term, ''that practically assures the possibility that Bulgaria will be brought back under the influence of Russia,'' he said. ''If this tendency is kept up, Bulgaria will in fact play the role of Trojan horse [for Russia] in NATO and the European Union.''That's the impetus behind his U.S. journey, which included sit-downs with various members of Congress and think tanks devoted to Eastern European affairs.Yanev also mentioned a meeting with the FBI, but said he couldn't discuss it. At that point, I felt I had wandered far past my pay grade, so I asked Zimmer what he thought of his lunch guests.He nodded approvingly.''I told them, I know you very little,'' he said. ''But if you're good for the people, you're good for me.''
The government of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is facing increasing difficulties because the hopes of the Bulgarian people are fading away as the economic crisis is dragging the country into deep recession. Borishov enjoys the full support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel but since such support is not associated with cash, Bulgaria is getting in deep difficulties. The Bulgarian Premier, in order to keep control of the situation, is blaming his opponents and to this effect several people are being arrested in Sofia in an operation that the opposition claims to be intimidation. Indeed, in most cases accusations do not seem to be as sound and solid as they could be, and just in one case, the arrest of a former minister on corruption accusations, the judges refused to give a trial because there was no evidence of crime whatsoever. The information is wide-spread in Brussels, especially in the quarters that strongly supported Borisov’s election. Another issue of concern is the formation of the cabinet of the Bulgarian Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. She was “kindly invited” by the Commission services to appoint as Head of Cabinet Sabine Wey, a Commission official who worked close with Secretary General of the Commission, Catherine Day. Wey herself has appointed all members of Georgieva’s Cabinet, consulting only with the Commission services (call me Catherine) and this explains why none of the officials recommended by Sofia or other quarters, were included. Having kept Sofia away from the Cabinet of the Commissioner, Bulgaria can now count only on political interventions at high level. This, however, may prove not that easy since reservations are being expressed by the same people that supported Borisov and contributed substantially to his election. In this context it will not be surprising if the Bulgarian dossiers with OLAF, the Anti-Fraud service of the European Union which with various, not always orthodox, practices were closed, are to be re-opened. The Bulgarian dossiers were initially handled by Ruggero Perugini, a very efficient and impeccable OLAF investigator who in his records has, among others, been a substantial help to FBI in dismembering an important branch of Mafia in the United States. The work of Perugini, resulted in freezing payments of over half a billion Euro to Bulgaria three years ago. However, after the Commission, decided to de-freeze Bulgarian payments Perugini was kindly asked to retire. So he did and in the goodbye drink on his didmissal from the service, addressing his colleagues with a rather ironic tone said he was happy his dossiers were in …. “good hands.” When, however, the Head of A3 Unit Thierry Cretin was promoted to Director, and Unit A3 was temporarily assigned to Marco Pecoraro, the former right hand of the legendary OLAF investigator Alberto Perduca. When Pecoraro assumed duties as interim head of A3, in a rather strange move, all Bulgarian dossiers were passed to Elisabeth Sperber, the then Head of Unit for Agriculture in OLAF. In the meanwhile, the post of the Head of A3 Unit was opened in internal competition and, as anticipated by many, the position was given to Col. Alessandro Butice, former port-parole of OLAF. With the appointment of Butice, all Bulgarian dossiers returned to A3. All this means that the opening, closing, re-opening, re-closing and so forth of the Bulgarian dossiers, is not an issue of investigation but a political tool in the hands of the services. One last thing; it may be coincidental but all the Bulgarian dossiers under investigation have two common elements. They are all full of irregularities and in all such dossiers, in one way or another, German firms are involved.
EVN wehrt sich gegen Angriffe von Bulgariens Premier !
13.04.2010 | 19:03 | (Die Presse)
Hausdurchsuchungen in bulgarischen EVN-Filialen. Borissow wirft den Betreibern vor, viel zu wenig zu investieren. Wien (gau). Der Konflikt zwischen Bulgariens Regierung und dem niederösterreichischen Stromkonzern EVN scheint sich zuzuspitzen. „Gestern tauchten in drei Kundenzentren Herren auf, gaben sich als Staatspolizisten aus und forderten Unterlagen über Investitionen“, berichtet Sprecher Stefan Zach der „Presse“. Sie mussten mit leeren Händen wieder abziehen, weil „diese Vorgangsweise nicht den EU-Standards entspricht“. Im Übrigen seien Daten auf Anfrage erhältlich – in der Zentrale, aber auch beim staatlichen Regulator.
„Regulator setzt Preis fest“
Diese bulgarische Regulierungsbehörde sei es auch, die auf Basis der genehmigten Investitionen den Strompreis festsetzt, betont Zach. Damit entkräftet er die Angriffe von Premier Bojko Borissow, der den drei ausländischen Netzbetreibern „schmutzige Geschäfte“ vorwirft – weil sie den Endkunden zu hohe Preise verrechnen würden.
Wegen ihrer Budgetprobleme steigen die Begehrlichkeiten der Regierung, von Firmen mit Staatsbeteiligung Dividenden zu lukrieren. Seit der mehrheitlichen Privatisierung des Stromnetzes im Jahr 2004 habe die EVN aber alle Gewinne reinvestiert, sagt Zach. Durch die Gesamtinvestitionen von 317 Mio. Euro seien auch die Netzverluste um etwa ein Drittel zurückgegangen.
Borissow wirft den Betreibern vor, viel zu wenig zu investieren. Doch der Chefregulator Angel Semerdzihiev stellte am Dienstag der EVN ein gutes Zeugnis aus: Im Gegensatz zur deutschen E.On und der tschechischen ČEZ hätten die Österreicher das Investitionsprogramm für 2008 und 2009 zur Gänze erfüllt.
TU-154 (AFP Photo PAP/ Tomasz Gzell / Poland out).
Polish government planes old and shabby – mass media !
Published 10 April, 2010, 15:30
Airplanes used by Polish authorities are mostly old Soviet-made craft in poor technical condition, Polish mass media note.
The tragic death of top officials flying to Russia to commemorate the victims of the Katyn mass killing prompted the media in Poland to once again talk about the dilapidated state of the aircraft used by the presidential administration.
Read more
The Tupolev-154 craft used in this flight was made in 1990, and had been in use for almost 20 years. It had encountered technical problems earlier. In 2009, both presidential Tu-154s failed to function, and Lech Kaczynski had to take a regular passenger flight to New York. One of the planes underwent a long-term repair in Russia, but broke down just after returning to Warsaw. The other Tu-154M was in the repair workshop until November last year.
In December 2008, the presidential plane was disabled by -20C temperatures in Mongolia during a visit, and the Polish head of state had to take a charter to Tokyo, arriving eight hours later than scheduled.
In October 2008, Kaczynski had to book a charter for Brussels. At the time, the head of Prime Minister Tusk’s administration refused the president his right to use the plane to attend an EU summit. A charter cost around US$60,000.
http://rt.com / Bulgaria Today :::
Polish president in plane crash !
Apr. 10 - Russian officials say the Polish president Lech Kaczynski was among those killed in a plane crash near Smolensk.
Reuters / Bulgaria Today
:::
Polish president killed in air crash near Russia's Smolensk !
Published 10 April,2010,11:40
Edited 10 April,2010,16:22
All 96 passengers have died after a Polish presidential TU-154 plane crashed near an airport outside Smolensk in western Russia. The Polish president and his wife were among the killed.
TU-154 was serving a flight from Warsaw to Smolensk. Polish Foreign Ministry confirmed President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria Kaczynski were on board the plane and have been killed.
The president was heading for a personal visit to the Katyn memorial site where Polish officers were murdered during World War II.
In Warsaw people are bringing flowers to the Presidential Palace to pay their respects to late President Lech Kaczynski.
The Polish presidential aircraft, a Tupolev-154, was attempting to land at Severny airport in Smolensk in thick fog, a Russian investigative committee reports. It crashed 300-400 meters off the landing path 11am Moscow time, Itar-Tass news agency reports, citing sources in Russia’s Emergencies Ministry.
It’s reported that the pilot had ignored warnings not to land the TU-154 plane in foggy conditions and made four attempts to land before crashing, Polish television station Polsat reports.
Air traffic control in Belarus had apparently warned the captain to land in Minsk.
Bad weather, human error and mechanical fault are considered as possible reasons behind the crash, Russia’s investigative committee reports. The plane was piloted by a Polish crew from the presidential air unit.
A flight data recorder has been recovered at the crash site, a Smolensk region administration source reports.
There are reportedly no survivors of the crash, Smolensk region governor, Sergey Antufyev said, speaking to Russia’s Vesti-24 news channel.
“At landing the presidential plane didn’t make it to the runway. Preliminary information has it that the plane became caught on the tops of the trees, crashed and disintegrated. There are no survivors of this crash,” Antufyev said.
The governor specified there were 85 people from the presidential delegation and the flight crew on board the aircraft.
Lech Kaczynski with his wife (AFP Photo / Janek Skarzynski / Files)
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry say there were 88 members of the presidential entourage and eight crew members on board.
The head of Poland's Central Bank, the deputy Foreign Minister and the Army Chief of Staff reported to have been among the passengers.
Earlier Russia’s Investigative committee reported there were 132 people at the plane.
Law enforcement officials in Smolensk region confirm there were no survivors of the crash, Itar-Tass news agency reports.
“At 10:50 am, connection with the TU-154 was broken on a flight from Warsaw to Smolensk. According to our reports, all have died. This was the plane of the official Polish delegation,” said Irina Andrianova, Russian Emergencies Ministry spokesperson.
Martin Voitovski, a journalist from the Polish presidential pool who is at the scene, has given RT his account of the tragedy.
“In Katyn, a memorial ceremony was about to start and all were waiting for the president. Journalists had arrived an hour earlier by another plane. We learned about the presidential plane having problems. We arrived at the airport and learned that the TU-154 could not land because of the heavy fog. The plane was advised to land in Minsk and all the delegation would go by vehicles to Katyn, but the pilot decided that they would land here, at Smolensk military airport. The plane just crashed,” he said.
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev has set up a state commission, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to investigate the accident.
“A tragedy happened. Russia’s President and the head of the Government have been speaking to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressing our condolences to him and all the Polish people and the relatives of those who died. We have created a government commission to investigate the causes of this tragedy. We’ll be doing our best to resolve all the issues as soon as possible,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Russian Emergencies Minister Sergey Shoigu and Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin are heading to the crash site.
Russian State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pligin says the investigation will involve all possible measures and will be transparent.
“No doubt the investigation will not be a top-secret investigation. It’s a big tragedy for both the people of Poland and the people of Russia, and all of us are interested in an open and professional investigation.”
Lech Kazcynski was a leader of Poland's conservative movement, and far from an easy partner for Russia over the years.
The Polish president was 60 years old and had been in office since 2005. For one of those years, he actually shared power with his identical twin brother, who was briefly Prime Minister of Poland.
Before that he was the mayor of the capital, Warsaw, for three years.
Kaczynski was strongly critical of Russia, contributing largely to a deterioration in relations between Moscow and Warsaw.
From 1989 onwards, Lech Kaczynski had often used anti-Communist rhetoric, insisting those involved in what he considered Communist crimes should be prosecuted.
Both Kaczynski brothers pushed for a strong military alliance with the United States – a stance which often led to clashes with Moscow and Germany.
And following Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia in 2008, Kaczynsky went to Tbilisi to show his support for President Mikhail Saakashvili.
One of his most controversial moves came as mayor however. He was behind a decision to rename a Warsaw square after Dzhokhar Dudaev, the leader of Chechen militants fighting against Russian forces.
On the domestic front, Kaczynski tried to combine modernization alongside his traditional values, and was a close ally of the first Polish President Lech Walesa.
Kaczynski's wife, Maria, who also died in the crash, was an economist. They leave behind a daughter, Marta, and two granddaughters.
WikiLeaks has posted a video on its website which it claims shows the killing of civilians by the US military in Baghdad in 2007. The WikiLeaks site campaigns for freedom of information and posts leaked documents online. What are the rules of engagement and is this kind of violence justified?
Karzai drug claims prompt questions about President’s state of mind !
Jerome Starkey,Kabul
Controversial claims by a former UN ambassador that Hamid Karzai has taken drugs are based on a classified report about life in the presidential palace in Kabul, western officials have told The Times.
Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, told the US network MSNBC about the UN report and the allegations in it concerning the Afghan President.
Although Mr Karzai’s war-ravaged country is well known for its bumper opium harvest — much of which is converted into heroin before it is exported — The Times understands that Mr Galbraith’s remarks do not refer to heroin.
Asked to corroborate his claim, Mr Galbraith said only: “There are reports to that effect but, whatever the cause is, the reality is he can be very emotional.”
Two officials who have seen the report said that it detailed the President’s likes, his dislikes, whom he trusts within his inner circle and how he relaxes. The document, which amounts to old-fashioned espionage, was compiled by Western analysts at the personal instigation of Mr Galbraith during his brief tenure in Kabul, the officials told The Times.
Although the allegations are unlikely to cause much of a stir in Afghanistan, where smoking drugs is as commonplace as having a drink after work, it will raise further questions about Mr Karzai’s state of mind days after a series of vitriolic outbursts against his western paymasters. Mr Karzai has a reputation for being loyal, both to his brothers who helped to raise him and to the American bodyguards who once saved his life, but he is also notoriously highly strung. Mr Galbraith said: “He’s prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively.”
A detailed profile with the headline “Karzai in his labyrinth”, published last August in The New York Times, painted a picture of a tortured leader cracking under the claustrophobic pressure of his job. “His friends told me he has health problems. He’s skin and bones. He always has a cold or a cough and takes effervescent vitamin C tablets compulsively,” wrote Elizabeth Rubin. “He snaps easily. Promotes flatterers. Kills the messenger. Hugs his enemies. Abuses his friends. And his twitching eye — a nervous tic, [friends] say — is unusually active.”
Although aides claim that Mr Karzai’s latest outbursts against America and the EU were misunderstood, he has described his temper as an asset. “When needed, my extreme toughness with our allies is an asset I want the Afghan people to have if they choose so,” he said. He does, however, cry a lot in private, sources told The Times.
Abdullah Abdullah, his second-placed presidential rival, said that he thought the President was behaving erratically. “I think he’s lost it,” he said.
Police clashed with thousands of anti-government protesters in the capital, Bishkek [AFP]
Opposition leaders in Kyrgyzstan say they have formed a new acting government in the country, after a day of deadly clashes between police and anti-government protesters.
Opposition party members made the announcement on a state television channel on Wednesday, shortly after protesters stormed and seized the channel in the capital, Bishkek.
RIA, a Russian news agency, cited the opposition as saying that the government had resigned and Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the president, had left the capital.
Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker, reporting from Bishkek, said Bakiyev flew to the country's south.
"We can confirm that the president has left the capital. He's gone south to his heartland ... where he's from," he said.
"We also understand that the prime minister has resigned and he was escorted safely from the White House, which is the Kyrgyz presidential administration building in the centre of the capital.
"So what appears to be the case is the Bakiyev government is no more in Bishkek. But the government has been effectively relocating to the south of the country."
Appeal for calm
Forestier-Walker said the news came after opposition members commandeered one of the main government television stations earlier in the day.
"They came on air and talked about the situation, appealing for calm and appealing for people to protect small businesses and shops from looters," he said.
"But most significantly, they described having formed a people's assembly and that they've appointed someone to take charge of Bishkek, which more or less means that they're saying, 'We're in charge. We're in control. We're now the government'."
The announcement came after hours of violent clashes in Bishkek, in which at least 40 people were killed and more than 400 others wounded, Kyrgyzstan's health ministry said.
But the opposition said at least 100 people had died.
Thousands of protesters angry over corruption and rising utility bills had earlier seized government buildings and clashed with riot police who fired tear gas, rubber bullets and flash grenades at the crowd.
Our correspondent said the protesters' grievances are a mixture of political and economic frustrations.
"When it comes to real frustration, it's the economic problems that really motivate people. The key turning point may have been the imposition of new utility bill tariffs," he said.
"People's energy bills doubled overnight in January and that caused serious consternation among a significant part of the population who are largely poor by international standards.
State of emergency
Authorities declared a nationwide state of emergency following the violence.
Wednesday's unrest came a day after thousands of people in the northwest town of Talas stormed regional government offices.
The protesters broke into a government building where they briefly took hostage Bolotbek Beishenbekov, the local administrator.
Hundreds of demonstrators then gathered around a local police station and threw Molotov cocktails at portraits of Bakiyev.
Omurbek Tekebayev, the leader of opposition party Ata-Meken, said the protest in Talas was part of a wave of rallies planned by the opposition to put pressure on Bakiyev to meet their demands.
Tekebayev demanded that Bakiyev urgently tackle corruption and fire his relatives from senior government positions.
Media crackdown
The unrest comes amid rising tensions between the opposition and Bakiyev's government, which they accuse of cracking down on independent media and fostering corruption.
Bakiyev came to power five years ago after street protests led to the country's so-called Tulip Revolution which ousted his predecessor.
Clashes between police and protesters spread to several cities in the north [Reuters]
Bruce Pannier, a journalist and Kyrgyzstan expert with Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty in Prague, said Bakiyev promised to reform the country when he came into office five years ago.
"[But] his fight against corruption hasn't really gone very far in the government," he told Al Jazeera.
"As far as him combating nepotism, the people in Kyrgyzstan know that Bakiyev appointed several of his brothers to state positions and that his son is actually running the Kyrgyz economy.
"As far as an independent media, Kyrgyzstan always had a fairly vibrant independent media ... but since the start of 2009, the situation has taken a definite turn for the worst."
Earlier this month, a Kyrgyz court shut an opposition newspaper and banned two newspapers close to the opposition, fining them $111,000 for allegedly insulting Bakiyev.
МОСКВА, 6 апр - РИА Новости. Российский МИД возмущен оскорбительными карикатурами по поводу терактов в московском метро 29 марта в южнокорейской газете Тhe Korea Times, южнокорейской стороне сделано соответствующее официальное представление, сообщает во вторник МИД РФ.
"В связи с публикацией в газете Тhe Korea Times южнокорейской стороне МИД России было сделано соответствующее официальное представление. Посольство России в Сеуле потребовало от редакции газеты Тhe Korea Times официальных извинений", - говорится в сообщении на сайте российского внешнеполитического ведомства.
При терактах в московском метро погибли 40 человек, десятки были ранены.
"В то время, когда слова соболезнования, скорби и поддержки приходят из всех уголков мира, в том числе и от президента Республики Корея Ли Мён Бака, подобный циничный шаг южнокорейской газеты нельзя расценить иначе как глумление над памятью о погибших и оскорбление чувств россиян, переживших страшную трагедию", - отмечает российское министерство.
A number of buildings were destroyed by the powerful blasts in different parts of the capital [AFP]
At least eight explosions have rocked the Iraqi capital, killing at least 15 people and bringing down several buildings, Iraqi security sources say.
Another 75 people were wounded in the attacks targeting residential buildings in a mix of Sunni and Shia areas of Baghdad on Tuesday morning.
Police said two car bombs were detonated in Bajkouk, Khadamiya district, killing at least five people.
In Baghad's western Shula district, another car bomb was detonated, causing some buildings to collapse. Several people died in the explosion, Iraqi security sources said.
Residential targets
Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Baghdad, said those attacks took occurred in residential neighbourhoods of the capital.
"[Shila] is a mostly Shia neighbourhood. It used to be a former stronghold of the Mahdi Army, the armed wing of the Sadr movement," Khodr said.
Shula has been a relatively quiet neighbourhood, having not seen been the target of attacks in recent months.
Police said another of the blasts was carried out by a suicide bomber, who detonated explosives on Haifa street in the central Salhiya neighbourhood, near the national museum.
Khodr said it was not yet clear what the target of that attack was.
"We're getting conflicting reports on the target. Some reports say it was the public works ministry, other reports say he [attacker] blew himself up outside a popular restaurant," she said.
Al Jazeera has also received reports that a suicide bomber attacked a police station in southern Baghdad's al-Amel district, although it was not yet confirmed.
Tuesday's co-ordinated strike follow similar attacks just two days earlier. On Sunday, three suicide car bombsnear foreign diplomatic missions killed at least 30 people and wounded hundreds more.
The spate of violent attacks comes as Iraqi politicians continue negotiations to form a coalition government following last month's general elections.
The Sadr bloc was expected to announce who it would back for prime minister later on Tuesday.
One of the internet's biggest sources of classified government information has released video of what it says is a US helicopter firing at civilians in Iraq.
It said the footage filmed from a helicopter cockpit shows a missile strike and shooting on a crowded square in a Baghdad neighbourhood in July 2007.
The website said 12 civilians were killed in the attack, including two journalists, Namir Nour El Deen and Saeed Chmagh, who worked for the Reuters news agency.
The two men appear to survive the first strike and attempt to get away, but the helicopter returns a second and third time.
Probes clear soldiers
The Pentagon has not officially commented on the video and Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington, said military officials seemed "completely surprised" when informed of the release of the tape, and appeared not to have heard about the footage beforehand.
But she said Pentagon officials indicated to Al Jazeera that there was no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tape.
She added that the results of two Pentagon investigations given to her cleared the air crew of any wrongdoing.
A statement from the two probes said the air crew had acted appropriately and followed the rules of engagement.
According to the probes, the air crew had reason to believe the people seen in the video were fighters before opening fire, she said.
They added that it was not until after the fact that the soldiers knew there were reporters at the scene and could have even guessed that the people were carrying cameras and not weapons.
Ivan Eland, a defence analyst who has advised US congressmen on military and national security policy, told Al Jazeera that anyone who appeared to be helping hostile targets in a war zone can technically be considered a fair target.
"I don't think anybody tried to purposely kill anybody here but I think in this type of warfare it's not like in a conventional battle, you're not really sure who is in the insurgency and who is not ... and the real problem is in identifying the players and what they are doing in the war," he said.
Still, he said "there should have been some concern that this was not a hostile group because they saw this helicopter going around and around and didn't seem to be fearful of it".
"Insurgents would have either fled or used the rocket-propelled grenade launcher right off their backs," he said.
In the video, a voice can be heard saying there has been a shooting in the area. The unidentified person later receives permission to open fire.
Following the shooting, the footage shows troops carrying two injured children, as another unidentified person asks for permission to take the wounded out of the area.
A voice responds, saying, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."
Regret
Our correspondent said the military had released a statement at the time of the attack saying they had positively identified weapons and fighters in the strike.
"It's important to point out that at the time of this incident, the military was very specific," she said.
"They said that the children were injured by shrapnel and the people who were killed were identified positively as militants who had put the security of Iraq at risk and that they had ... weapons.
"The commanders at the time said that they really regretted that children were wounded in this and said that they had taken every step possible to make sure that innocent lives were spared."
Nabil Nour El Deen, the brother of the Reuters photographer killed in the shooting, condemned the attack as a "crime" committed by the US military.
"Is this the democracy and freedom that they claim they have brought to Iraq?
"What Namir was doing was a patriotic work. He was trying to cover the violations of the Americans against the Iraqi people," he told Al Jazeera.
"We demand the international organisations to help us sue those people responsible for the killings of our sons and our people."
'Military whistleblowers'
Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks.org,said there was strong evidence to suggest the video was genuine.
"There was a Washington Post reporter who was with that US military unit on the ground on that day," Assange told Al Jazeera, referring to David Finkel, a journalist who was embedded with the US military in July 2007.
"He wrote a chapter in a book, which was published last year, called The Good Soldiers, which correlates directly to the material in that video.
"Also, Reuters conducted a number of investigations and interviewed two ground witnesses at the time.
"That story wasn't really taken seriously, [with] nothing to back up the witnesses, but now we have the video that shows that those witnesses were correct."
"WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives," the website read.
"We have analysed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident."
Al Jazeera is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Unglaubliche Brutalität: Diesem Hund wurden alle vier Beine abgehackt / Foto: Ärzte für Tiere.
Die Tier-Hölle von Bulgarien !
Es sind Bilder, die das Leiden von Tieren in Bulgarien dokumentieren. Hunde werden auf offener Straße erschossen oder sogar an Brücken aufgehängt. Anderen werden alle vier Beine abgehackt.
Auch in bulgarischen Tierheimen werden Tag für Tag Tiere brutal und qualvoll umgebracht, wenn sie nicht zuvor wegen der mangelnden medizinischen Betreuung an Krankheiten sterben.
Sogar Kinder wurden bei den Erschießungen auf offener Straße schon verletzt. „Man könnte sich mit einem Gewehr im Stadtzentrum von Sofia postieren und zehn Straßentiere am hellichten Tag abknallen, zu befürchten hat man nichts – höchstens eine Anzeige wegen Lärmbelästigung“, sagt Dr. med. Rumi Becker, Vorsitzende des Vereins Ärzte für Tiere zu BILD.de.
„DAS IST WILLKÜR OHNEGLEICHEN!“
Es gebe in Bulgarien zwar ein Gesetz, dass die Tiere schützen soll. Doch das existiere nur auf dem Papier, sagt Becker. „Schade, dass viele Leute in Deutschland glauben, Bulgarien hätte ein tolles Tierschutzgesetz. Das Tierschutzgesetz sieht keinen Vollzug bei Missbrauch von Tieren vor.“
Schon oft war die gebürtige Bulgarin in so genannten Tierheimen ihre Heimatlandes, bekam dort Horror-Szenarien zu sehen.
„In einem Tierheim haben Tierschützer 45 Hundeleichen im Müll entdeckt. Der Leiter der Einrichtung ist ein Veterinär – und gleichzeitig Chef von einem Tierpark. Dort standen mal Hundeleichen in einer Schubkarre vor einem Löwenkäfig – plötzlich waren die Leichen weg.“
Die Strafe für die 45 Hundeleichen: 50 Euro für nicht gerechtfertigte Euthanasie. „Dort wurden auch Hunde in einen Bärenkäfig gesteckt“, berichtet sie.
In einem anderen Tötungslager hätten sich Hunde sogar schon gegenseitig aufgefressen. „Dort bezahlten wir die medizinische Behandlung , die Kastration und die Markierung der Tiere. Dann wurden sie wieder dorthin gebracht, wo sie gefangen wurden.“
Die Straße sei immer noch besser als die Tierheime, sagt Becker. „Außerdem bringen manche Leute Futter dahin, wo sich die Hunde aufhalten.“
Doch die Situation für die Tiere ist katastrophal in Bulgarien. Viele Menschen sehen Hunde nur als Dreck und Abschaum an.
An einer Autobahnbrücke in der Nähe von Sofia baumelt ein Hund – er wurde erhängt. Anwohner verspotten die Leute, die den Tieren helfen wollen, berichtet Becker. Es sei dort etwas Gewöhnliches. „Wir hängen den Abschaum sehr oft hier auf, damit die blöden deutschen Touristen was zu sehen haben“, sagten nach Angaben von Tierschützern die Anwohner.
Für den Vorfall kann es eine administrative Strafe von 250 Euro geben. Doch ob das Geld wirklich jemals bezahlt wird, ist fraglich. Die Hundeleiche lag anschließend in den Büschen am Straßenrand.
Rumi Becker kämpft um Gehör, sie will Bulgariens Ministerpräsidenten Bojko Borissow aufmerksam auf die schrecklichen Missstände machen. Sie will dem Leiden der Tiere ein Ende setzen und verlangt die Umwandlung der jetzigen Tierlager in humane Kastrationszentren.Dies sei nur auf politischem Weg mit der Beteiligung der EU erreichbar.
„Alle kommunalen Tierheime sind illegale Tötungslager“, sagt sie.
