The International Monetary Fund and the European Commission have promised to act swiftly after Greece said it needed to activate a 60-billion-dollar rescue package agreed in principle last week. Correspondents say the IMF is likely to demand tough austerity measures. The crisis sparked from angry skirmish in Athens this evening. That's Malcolm Brabant reports.
The authorities here are on alert for social unrest. Seasoned left wing political activists acknowledged that 24-hour strikes in frequent demonstrations have failed to persuade the government to water down its austerity program. What we need, said one activist, are open-ended strikes, and occupations of factories and other places of employment. The socialist government has made it clear that they won't tolerate repeat of the riots of 2008 when city centers across the country were vandalized and buildings burned. The police have been ordered to be more robust with troublemakers.
Governor of American state of Arkansas Jim Breuer has signed a law, a bill tightening immigration hours after President Obama criticized it. The unprecedented state law gives new powers to local police to question people about the immigration status. Governer Breuer said the law would strengthen border controls in the state which neighbors Mexico. President Obama called the measure misguided and said he had instructed the Justice Department to investigate whether it violated the civil rights of Latinos and other immigrants.
A judge in the American state of Utah has sanctioned the execution of a convicted murderer by firing squad. Ronnie Lee Gardner would be the first person in the US to face a firing squad in 14 years. Gardner was convicted in 1995 of killing an attorney in the botch … Here is Madeleine Morris.
In signing the warrant for Ronnie Lee Gardner’s execution, a judge in Salt Lake City gave the convicted murderer the choice of death by lethal injection or facing a firing squad. Gardner chose the latter. The case has already reignited the debate in Utah about the use of firing squads. Oklahoma is the only other state to sanction them since capital punishment was reinstated in the US in 1976. But it has never killed anyone this way.
A pilot wrongly accused of involvement in the September 11th attack has won his legal battle for compensation. Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian born British resident was arrested in Britain shortly after the attacks. This report’s from our home affairs correspondent, Danny Shaw.
Lotfi Raissi was held in an maximum security prison for nearly five months before a judge ordered his release, saying there was no evidence to link him to terrorism. Two years ago the court of appeals said Mr. Raissi had been the victim of the heightened emotional atmosphere at the end of 2001 and ordered ministers to consider paying damages. The Justice Secretary Jack Straw has now declared that Mr. Raissi is eligible for compensation. The amount will be independently assessed but it is thought it could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
World News from the BBC.
|