India Opposition Demands PM Resignation, Paralyzes Parliament
For the fourth day in a row, the Indian Parliament was adjourned due to the insistence of the opposition in demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his alleged involvement in the irregular tender of coal mines.
In a scandal that adquires the form of a political crisis, the main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, reiterated that it will continue boycotting the legislative function until the head of government resigns.
The matter became public last Friday, when the Controller and General Audit (CAG) revealed that in recent years the government gave undue advantage to about 25 large private companies.
This caused that 194 coal blocks, with about 45 billion tonnes of ore reserves, were allocated with meagre payments, causing losses to the public tentatively estimated at 37 billion dollars.
Although the CAG ascribed the fraudulent operation to the lack of transparency in the allocation process, it did not accuse Singh or his office directly.
However, the vast majority of tenders were made between July 2004 and May 2009, when the current Head of government was leading the Coal Ministry.
The day before, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demanded in a statement a full investigation to attach responsibility for this large-scale corruption and stressed that all those responsible should be prosecuted or even prevented from holding high posts.
Norwegian Court Sentences Mass Killer Breivik to 21 Years in Prison
Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison at the Oslo District Court on Friday.
The court also found him to be sane, dismissing the prosecution’s request for an insane verdict.
Norway’s penal code does not have the death penalty or life in prison, and the maximum prison term for Breivik’s charges is 21 years.
However, inmates who are considered a threat to society can be held indefinitely.
District Court Judge Wenche Elizabeth Arntzen first read out the conclusion of the verdict and she will use the rest of the day to justify that the defendant is mentally healthy enough to be convicted of terrorist acts.
It will take judges about six hours to read the 90-page verdict.
After being brought into the main courtroom, the confessed Breivik was smiling and chatting with his lawyers and people behind him before the verdict reading started at 10 o’clock local time (0800 GMT).
Breivik once again raised his right arm, making what is believed to be a rightist gesture, as he did when the trial started on April 16.
Many in the packed courtroom gave a sign of relief when Breivik was announced sane. Norwegian prosecutors had demanded that he should be ruled as insane.
But Breivik’s defense lawyer Geir Lippestad, who met Breivik on Thursday for the last time before Friday’s verdict, said that Breivik would accept prison terms but would appeal an insanity ruling.
Psychiatrist Kjersti Narud said that it was the right of judges to make the judgment over Breivik’s mental state when he committed the criminal acts.
Breivik, a 33-year-old Norwegian on a mission to expel Muslims from Europe, set off a car bomb that killed eight people outside government headquarters in Oslo on July 22, 2011 and then killed 69 others in a shooting rampage on Utoeya island, where young members of the governing Labor Party had gathered for their annual summer camp.
Tore Sinding Bekkedal, who was on Utoeya island on that tragic day, said that Friday’s verdict was what he had hoped for.
Breivik has a “political madness,” but his case is not a psychiatric case, Bekkedal said.
“Now we can try to move on,” said Bekkedal, who wished neither side of the case would appeal.
Jamaica on Alert Because of Tropical Storm Isaac
Jamaica decreed the state of hurricane surveillance because of the closeness of Tropical Storm Isaac, which is now becoming stronger in waters of the Caribbean Sea, and threatens to become a hurricane.
Tropical Strom Isaac is located at 280 kilometers (173.9 miles) south-southeast of Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti, moving quickly at 13.6 miles per hour with maximum winds of 95 kilometers (59 miles) per hour according to the US National Hurricane Center.
The predictions said Isaac will go close to Haiti on Saturday, being transformed in a hurricane Category 1 in the Saffir Simpson scale.
Stumbled trees, floods and other minor damages in the homes and highways were provoked by Isaac in the Eastern Caribbean islands, which suffered the effects of a tropical storm that considerably destroyed parts of Trinidad and Tobago, killing two people.
The National Ocean and Atmosphere Administration said a whole season of hurricanes is expected in the Atlantic, with the formation of between 12 and 17 tropical storms and between 5 and 8 hurricanes.