Islam: France; first Muslim state cemetery in Strasbourg
The largest Muslim community in Europe lives in France
Spain: Eta prevents prisoners from asking forgiveness
Greece: Fuel-Smuggling scandal flares up
Mix of corruption and politics a plague, Papandreou
Monday, 9 January 2012
(ANSAmed) - PARIS, JANUARY 5 - The first Muslim state cemetery of France will be built in Strasbourg, in Eastern France. This is the first Muslim state cemetery in France, where the largest Muslim community (at least 4 million people) lives. The building of the Muslim cemetery is regulated by a specific set of rules and regulations issued in the Alsace-Molsheim region concerning relations between the State and the Church. A law issued in 1905, providing for secularism of the French state, prevents state authorities from financing any kind of religious institution. The law was never applied in Alsace, where the 1801 Agreement remained in force. The Agreement is a law issued in Napoleon's times, allowing municipalities to contribute in financing worshipping activities. In the course of this region's troubled history (Alsace was long the bone of contention between Germany and France) , the law was never changed neither harmonized with other regions' legislation. For years now France's Muslim community has pointed out to the state authorities that there is a lack of areas for the Muslim in state cemeteries all over the county. In Strasbourg, where Muslim areas in state cemeteries are full, several families had to bury their dead in their country of origin. The city invested 800,000 euro to build the cemetery, which is then the first all-Muslim cemetery, whose inauguration is due to take place on February, 6th.
(ANSAmed) - MADRID 5 JANUARY - Eta requested its prisoners not to ask for forgiveness and not to offer compensation for the damage caused to the victims of terrorism. This is what Basque daily newspaper Deia stated, quoting the Ekia bulletin, the internal bulletin for detainees convicted on charges of belonging to the Basque separatist organization and imposing on the armed group's members "the position they should keep when they are in prison". The list of Eta's instructions includes "refusing to offer compensation for damage caused to the victims and asking for their forgiveness". According to the law, these conditions are compulsory in order to receive jail benefits .
According to Deia, Eta deems the Spanish state responsible for any damage caused by terrorism during the separatist conflict in the Basque Countries. According to the convicts' association, state authorities "transformed the victims into the Sherpa of repression and into conflict-feeders".
(by Demetrio Manolitsakis) - (ANSAmed) - ATHENS, 5 JANUARY - The much-awaited report that the two high-ranking Greek magistrates Grigoris Peponis and Spiros Muzakitis are due to submit to their senior colleagues should be released soon. Peponis and Muzakitis were assigned the task to fight financial crime, especially tax evasion. Some days ago, the two deputy prosecutors had asked to be relieved of their assignment because they maintained they "could not accept to be conditioned in their work". They also promised to publicly state the names of those who had tried to prevent them from fulfilling their duty.
This was an unusual decision for the country, whose corruption was publicly acknowledged even by former Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou. On December 10th, 2009, during an official dinner, Papandreou told his fellow guests that "this country is totally corrupted". According to a high-ranking EU official who was at the dinner, Papandreou "was very sincere". Moreover, according to the latest yearly report by Transparency International on the level of corruption at the global level, Greece is one of the most corrupted countries in the world. The fight against the plague of corruption has always been a pet subject for Greek political parties; however, the issue was tackled only during electoral campaigns. Costas Karamanlis, former Prime Minister and former leader of Nea Dimocratia (centre -right) won the 2004 elections by focusing his party's electoral campaign on the slogans "we will reform the State" and "down with corruption". In the end, Karamanlis was forced to dissolve Parliament and call for the 2009 elections (that were subsequently won by Papandreou), in order to save his MPs from being imprisoned on charges of involvement in a serious scandal. The Greek quote often and with a certain degree of irony a sentence by another Greek Prime Minister, Socialist Costas Simitis. When he was asked about corruption, Simitis used to answer: "Those who have evidence should go to court". In the end, two of his closest collaborators admitted they had taken money by German company Siemens. The first one said he had received one million euro to finance the Pasok party, while the second one, one of Simitis' ministers, admitted he had "accepted" 250,000 euro to finance his own electoral campaign. With the recent resignation of the two magistrates (resignations were, however, withdrawn after a few days), several scandals having involved the mechanisms of the Greek state have come up to the general public's attention again; for example, fuel smuggling and simulated sales in the Balkan countries. According to daily newspaper Ta Nea, exports to neighbouring countries have doubled in the last three years, increasing from 15% in 2008 to 30% at the end of 2011. Approximately 600 foreign tankers circulate every year on Greece's territory, without being checked by the police, the Customs Agency, the Sdoe (Greece's Financial Police). Six out of ten tankers do not carry the compulsory mark with the name of the company they work for, as provided by the law. According to the daily newspaper, six million tonnes of fuel officially exported and sold in 2011 free of tax in neighbouring countries were actually sold in Greece, where special taxes and VAT were added to the price. In the past few days, there were allegations regarding some Finance Ministry's officials concerning their involvement in this huge fuel-smuggling business. According to daily newspaper Ethnos, a Development Ministry official denounced that for one year, "the Finance Ministry, some tax agency and Customs agency officials, but also some fuel dealers have prevented the installation of a control system checking the quantity of fuel entering-exiting petrol pumps".
According to Greek newspaper, the installation of this system would have resulted in approximately one billion euro per year entering the State's Treasury. Certainly, the situation does not look better as for tax collection is concerned. According to Ethnos, judges proved that in one case a company fined for 620,000 managed to pay only 20,000 euro.
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