Greek Riots: Protests In Athens, Response To Austerity Bill

Following the sudden economic crisis in Greece, a commotion started amongst the public. These citizens commenced numerous riots and heavy protesting in streets in Athens and around the country as a whole. Riot police had to be called in by the government to break these groups apart by the use of pepper spray and tear gas as last resorts. Some officers even took the approach of using batons as shown in the video above. Approximately more than ten thousand people took to the streets in Athens at night in a very large protest against the newly passed austerity bill by the government. The austerity bill is part of the list of conditions given by the European Union. The EU is giving a bailout of $140 billion to Greece which must follow the austerity bill to be granted the money.

The austerity bill is clearly a way that the European Union wishes to compromise with Greece by. They will give money for the payments in return received from the austerity bill in function. The austerity bill raises taxes in Greece, cuts people's pensions, and civil servants' pay in an effort to save $38 billion dollars for Greece. The prime minister of Greece himself said it was a last resort for the country of Greece to stay out of bankruptcy. I feel that the public's riots and protests are not going to help their country in anyway. If anything, they should be trying to help by doing their share by following the higher stakes of the austerity bill as proposed by the Greek government. The Greek parliament is looking forward to the help of other European countries and needs the help of the International Monetary Fund as well. The citizens of Greece should, in my belief, also follow this and beleive that there is a way out through the austerity bill.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Greek_parliament_passes_austerity_bill?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campagin=Feed%3A+WikinewsLatestNews+%28Wikinews+Latest+News%29

http://www.nowpublic.com./tech-biz/greek-riots-protests-athens-response-austerity-bill-video-2614086.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZPQn7tsE3o&feature=player_embedded

Chilean boy kills brother in fight for PlayStation

An 18 year old boy turned on the PlayStation in their house without asking permission from his 16 year old brother, who became angry and stabbed his brother with a knife, telling police later that "things had gone out of control". Currently 5 years of prison may be granted to this youth today. The event took place last Thursday, on April 29th. A homicide investigator, Gilberto Opazo, found out that the boys had been orphans living for 10 years as wards of the state, because their mother had abandoned them. Then Valerie Michael, a Belgian woman, adopted them. According to sources, Michael was in Belgium, when this fight occurred.

It is truly shocking to see to what a negative position the media and techonology of today has gotten us to. In this age, when people fight over possessions, small or large, seems very childish and unnecessary. Especially when it is youth that fights over a small console that is worth much less than their blood relationship. It seems as if many children are more attracted to their possessions than their siblings. I feel that even having video-game consoles is very useless, especially in an orphanage. They should play more sports and outdoor games which socially connects people rather than raise anger amongst them over objects.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/7648387/Chilean-boy-kills-brother-in-fight-for-PlayStation.html

If aliens call, they better wear armour

In 1911 a rock fell from space and killed a dog in Egypt. UFO sighting were reported often after that. The rock was found to be from Mars later on. Stephen Hawking, one of the world's most famous astrophysicists, said that he believed that aliens existed but having contact with them would be dangerous. He says, somehwat like Earth, their resources were diminishing and they had to build spaceships to roam space looking for more. Hawking beleives they can be considered nomads looking to conquer other planets. He compared it to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America which didn't go well for the native americans. According to numerous surveys done, 20% of people beleive that aliens exist. The survey was done on 23, 000 adults across 22 countries and 40% + of Indians and Chinese beleived they walked among them in disguise. Paul Davies, a distinguished physicist and cosmologist, beleives that the aliens would be in trouble if they landed on Earth because humans are very intolerable to differences, even minor ones such as race, color, ethnicity. "The Vatican's chief astronomer said that there was no contradiction in believing in God and the possibility of 'terrestrial brothers'." It is strongly now beleived that both God and extraterrestrials exist as God created aliens too.

The existence of aliens has been in global media for so long now it is remotely apprehensible. Movies such as E.T. try to depict what aliens look line but these are only vast generalizations like humans have on other humans themselves. Davies's idea that humans are intolerable to everything is interesting but I feel that it may not be correct in the idea of aliens vs. humans. Although humans can become violent based on minute differences, the idea of aliens would scare humans and now it's not about being different, its about imagining lasers, rays, huge spaceships and being abducted and so on. These fantasies take place in the form of fear and replace all differences. Instead of fighting more violently, I beleive we would be running while some major global economies like the United States would risk using nuclear technology to retaliate. Another interesting idea is that of the Vatican's astronomers. They beleive that although aliens may look different, they were still created and since all is created by God, aliens as well as God must exist.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/sunday-heraldsun/if-aliens-call-they-better-wear-armour/story-e6frf92o-1225861032758

Vatican under fire for linking gays to pedophilia

Pope Benedict's number 2, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's, statement came out as a shock to the gay groups and politicans in Vatican city On April 12th, 2009. He stated that homosexuality was linked with pedophilia. On a visit to Chile, Bertone had said this and now it is in mainstream Italian newspapers. The French foreign ministry and some Catholic blogs are against the Cardinal's remarks. Some members of the Catholic Church are asking for a review of the rule that prohibits priests from marrying because they would have a healthy sex life. Bertone told a news conference in Santiago: Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and paedophilia, but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia." Gay rights were outraged at this comment. The World Health Organization calls gayness a variation of human behaviour. Pedophilia is a crime, not homosexuality. This comment was made by Franco Grillini, a former parliamentarian in Italy. Meanwhile catholic blogs were saying that the French foreign ministry defined the link as unacceptable. Controversy was the last thing the Vatican needed. The Pope is now being told to clean up his man's job. Reverend Federico Lombardi tried to clean up the mess by saying Church leaders were not making general affirmations. He tried to prove it with statistics. The grand-daughter of Benito Mussolini, Alessandra Mussolini, criticized Bertone for his comments. ArcLesbica, Italy's main lesbian rights group said that the Vatican was using violent words. They said that Italian parents should not let their children attend Church-run institutions anymore. The Pope has decided to perhaps address the issue whe he visits Malta this weekend.

I think generalization like this is wrong. Bertone seemed to believe the negative side of what psychologists and psychiatrists were saying. And even if Reverend Federico Lombardi's statistics are proven to be scientifically right, there is no need to express it in front of the public. I feel Bertone should have thought about what gay activist rights and other people might think before speaking, even if this information was a fact. Additionally it is good to see people are changing for the better. For example Alessandra Mussolini has completely different views than those of her grandfather Benito Mussolini. She realizes this comment was wrong and hurts certain people unlike her father who would have supported this and actually in fact did send gay people to camps and further on.

http://www.canada.com/news/Vatican+under+fire+linking+gays+pedophilia/2905297/story.html

Toronto 18 trial hears of 'jihadi flavour' paintball

This past week, a trial in Brampton Ontario was told of militant training camp participants playing paintball in a "jihadi way". They also heard that an alleged terror cell videotaped its activities in hopes of getting more information from jihadi leaders across the world. Three people from the Toronto 18 Group are on trial for terrorism. Fahim Ahmad is their accused leader who wanted to attack Parliament, nuclear plants, and electrical grids. Mubin Shaikh, being the first witness, said that Fahim had a training camp in Washington DC in December, 2005 to which the other two accused, Asad Ansari and Steven Chand attended. They did target practice, used obstacle courses and played paintball. The whole thing was a substitute for combat. Zakaria Amara decided to videotape the whole training camp thing to send over to jihadi leaders who could send their best people suited for a higher level camp in spring. A total of 14 people attended the camp. The men are pleading against all charges and the trial is continuing.

In a scenario like this I feel that maybe the court and all the accusers may be taking this too seriously. I doubt that this small group of 18 men had any motives to blow up the Parliament. Nobody in there right minds would be so naiive of themselves to think they could pull of such a stunt. Additionally calling their paintball games substitutes for combat with Muslims without any evidence other than possible racial profiling is wrong. Another point is if they are completely guilty they should realize that pleading against charges is not smart because they will be figured out.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/04/13/toronto-eighteen.html

Proposed Refugee Law Would Speed Process

Jason Kenney, the minister of multiculturalism and immigration in Canada, passed a new legislation allowing refugees to have hearings more often in front of the Immigration and Refugee Board. It used to be every 19 months, a refugee would have a hearing in front of the council to give his reasons for seeking a place in Canada illegally. Now this process will occur every 60 days. Additionally for claimants who do not pass the hearing, they will be made to leave the country within an year. Whereas the same process used to take 4 and a half years for failed claimants. As Kenney said: "These changes would result in faster protection for those who need our help and quicker removals of those who do not." The status quo is 15000 or more failed claimants who will shortly be asked to leave the country and 38000 or more unknown claimants who have not had claimants yet. The Canada Border Services Agency is on currently on the job of removing these refugees from Canada. Taxpayers in Canada currently pay $50000 per claimant who has not passed his or her hearing. The government wants to reduce this cost to about $29000 per failed claimant. This legislation created by Kenney is titled C-11 and he is still waiting for the government to change it into a law.

Jason Kenney's legislation is a very good proposal as it gets the job done fast and easy. Why should there be a whole 4 and a half year formal process of waiting and "discussing" about the refugees before any action is taken. The one year idea is very good but it is still too long to make a refugee leave a country. I think that once a claimant has failed his hearing, he should be made to leave within the next couple of weeks or month, no later. This will easily get the job of sorting out the 38000 or so refugees with unverified statuses. That is I find, one of the only problems with a democracy. It takes too long because there are so many formalities to cover in making a law.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/03/30/immigration-refugee-proposals.html

Canada In The Olympics

Although Canada came in 3rd place in the Olympics overall. As usual, the United States were in first place. However more importantly, Canada won the most number of gold medals in the Olympics and additionally broke the record for the most gold medals any country has ever won. They summed up their 14 gold medal count with the help of number 87, Sydney Crosby, of Canada's men's hockey team. Yesterday against they beat the U.S. in the men's hockey finals 7 minutes and 40 seconds into overtime breaking the 2-2 tie. Crosby's wristshot went past Ryan Miller into the right corner of the net coming from the left side. Before this goal the nervousness that was spreading through the Canadian crowd since the tie goal by the U.S., was suddenly broken.

I think this final match right before the closing ceremony for the Winter Olympics was the ideal match filled with enthusiasm, immense patriotic spirit and support for the Canadian team especially. It gives a sort of new identity to the Canadians, something they can be proud about and stories can be told about in the future. The U.S.A. has been a very big rival in hockey for Canada and now they can prove that they're better in some sense. Overall I think the Olympics have gone very good for Canada as they have also gotten gold medals on homesoil which was something they'd never done before.