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Ambassador Howard Gutman forewarned a gathering of European Jews last week that he would challenge their assumptions on anti-Semitism. He started by recounting his own personal history as the Jewish son of a Holocaust survivor, and then explained why he felt it was important to differentiate between older forms of anti-Jewish hatred and a newer, growing anti-Semitism in Europe stemming from the tensions of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

“Classic bigotry” is being held in check, he said. But, citing the recent resignation of a Belgian professor and a racially motivated attack by several students on a young Jewish girl in Belgium, Gutman spoke of the “problem within Europe of tension, hatred and sometimes even violence between some members of Muslim communities or Arab immigrant groups and Jews.”

“It is a tension and perhaps hatred largely born of and reflecting the tension between Israel, the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab states in the Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem,” he said, according to a prepared text. A full transcript of Gutman’s remarks wasn’t made public and few journalists were in attendance.

The story gained momentum over the weekend, prompting the White House on Saturday to condemn anti-Semitism in all forms. Gutman issued a similar statement, but some Jewish groups expressed outrage. Republican presidential candidates including Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney demanded Gutman’s resignation.

Gutman’s critics have argued that by drawing a distinction between different types of anti-Semitic hatred, he implied the newer form was somehow less heinous or excusable. Others contested whether it was fair to point to Israel’s policies as a cause for the growth of anti-Semitism.

Still, Gutman described Muslim anti-Semitism as well as a “serious problem” that demands counterstrategies.

He said much of the responsibility lies with Israel and Arab governments to establish peace.

“The largest part of the solution remains in the hands of government leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories and Arab countries in the Middle East,” Gutman said. “It is the area where every new settlement announced in Israel, every rocket shot over a border or suicide bomber on a bus and every retaliatory military strike exacerbates the problem and provides a setback here in Europe for those fighting hatred and bigotry here in Europe.”

Gutman said this situation was unfortunate in that it affects people in Europe a continent away from the problem. But he argued that was fortunate because, unlike with the older anti-Semitism, a remedy exists. “Peace in the Middle East would indeed equate with a huge reduction of this form of labeled `anti-Semitism’ here in Europe,” he said.

His comments, which weren’t cleared by the State Department, have put the Obama administration in a bind. Officials have refused to condemn or endorse Gutman’s argument, repeating only its condemnation of anti-Semitism in all its manifestations. After the resignation calls from Romney and Gingrich, the State Department said it had full confidence in Gutman.

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One proposal gaining prominence would have countries cede some control over their budgets to a central European authority. In a measure of how rapidly the peril has grown, that idea would have been unthinkable even three months ago.

World stock markets, glimpsing hope that Europe might finally be shocked into stronger action, staged a big rally. The Dow Jones industrial average in New York rose almost 300 points. In France, stocks rose 5 percent, the most in a month.

More relevant to the crisis, borrowing costs for European nations stabilized. They had risen alarmingly in recent weeks – in Greece, then in Italy and Spain, then across the continent, including in Germany, the strongest economy in Europe.

The yields on benchmark bonds issued by Italy and Germany rose, but only by hundredths of a percentage point. The yield fell 0.1 percentage point on bonds of France, 0.14 points for those of Spain and 0.22 points for Belgium.

Allowing a central European authority to have some control over the budgets of sovereign nations would create a fiscal union in Europe in addition to the monetary union of the 17 countries that share the euro currency.

Some analysts have said would be a leap toward creating a United States of Europe. More delicately, it would force the nations of Europe to swallow their national pride, cede some sovereignty and agree to strengthen ties with their neighbors rather than fleeing the euro union during the crisis.

“The common currency has the problem that the monetary policy is joint, but the fiscal policy is not,” Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said in a meeting with foreign reporters in Berlin.

The monetary union has existed since the euro was created in 1999, but the European Union, which includes the 17 euro nations and 10 others that use their own currencies, has no central authority over taxing and spending.

Countries like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy overspent wildly for years and racked up annual budget deficits that have left them with monstrous debt. Italy holds euro1.9 trillion in debt, or 120 percent of the size of its economy.

A fiscal union could prevent excessive spending in the future. More important, it would be a step toward addressing today’s debt crisis: It could provide cover for the European Central Bank to stage a massive intervention in the European bond market to drive down borrowing costs and keep the debt crisis under control.

Enforced budget discipline might ease the ECB’s concerns about the concept known as moral hazard – essentially, that bailing out free-spending countries would only encourage them to do it again.

A fiscal union would also pose a practical problem – how to make such a body democratically accountable.

Another option is for the 17 nations in the euro group to sell bonds together, known as eurobonds, to help the countries in the deepest trouble because of debt. Germany has resisted such a plan, because it would raise borrowing costs for it and other nations that good credit ratings.

While Europe buzzed over the possible solutions, finance ministers of the euro nations prepared for a summit beginning Tuesday evening in Brussels, to be joined the following day by ministers from the rest of the European Union.

Italy readied an auction of bonds designed to raise euro8 billion, or about $10.6 billion – and steeled itself for the high interest rates it will have to pay.

In Washington, President Barack Obama huddled with European Union officials, and the White House insisted Europe alone was responsible for fixing its debt problems.

While Obama offered no specifics on how the U.S. might help, he said failing to resolve the debt crisis could damage the U.S. economy, which has grown slowly since the end of the recession in June 2009 and still has 9 percent unemployment.

“If Europe is contracting, or if Europe is having difficulties, then it’s much more difficult for us to create good here jobs at home,” Obama said at the conclusion of the day-long summit.

The euro appeared to be in increasing danger. Experts said the currency could fall apart within days without drastic action, with consequences rivaling those of the 2008 financial crisis.

“Everyone knows that if the eurozone crashes the consequences would be very dramatic and in the race after that there would no winners, just losers,” said Finland’s finance minister, Jutta Urpilainen.

For countries that decided to leave the euro group and return to their own sovereign currency, the conversion would be wrenching.

If Germany broke away, for example, its national currency could rise in value quickly because the German economy is stronger on its own than the European economy as a whole. But a stronger German mark would damage the German economy because Germany depends heavily on exports, and it would cost more for everyone else to buy German goods.

As for weaker countries that decided to leave, depositors would probably yank money out of their banks, fearing a plummeting currency. Savers would not want their euros replaced with, say, feeble Greek drachmas.

If countries tried to repay their old euro debts with their own currencies, they’d be considered in default and struggle to sell bonds in global financial markets. Corporations would face the same squeeze.

Overall, economists at UBS estimate, a weak country that left the eurozone would see its economy shrink by 50 percent.

Currency chaos and defaults by governments and companies would weaken European banks and also cause them to stop lending to each other. Because banks are connected globally, a credit freeze in Europe would spread. As it did in 2008, a credit freeze would cause stock markets to sell off worldwide, and another deep recession would probably follow.

Indiana Pacers forward, Danny Granger, who is currently playing for Team USA in Spain for the FIBA world championship, took to twitter to complain about European hygiene. Here is what he wrote on twitter.

“i’m dying over here ..how come nobody in europe wears deodorant? guess they didn’t get the memo – smellin like dead donkey..no joke”

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Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a “black Europe”.

Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe “could turn into Africa” as “there are millions of Africans who want to come in”.

Italy has drawn criticism for handing over to Libya migrants it intercepts at sea, without screening them first.

Far fewer now reach Italy from Libya.

European Commission figures show that in 2009 the number of people caught trying to enter Italy illegally fell to 7,300, from 32,052 in 2008. The data was collected under the EU’s Eurodac fingerprinting system.

Col Gaddafi has forged close ties with Italy since a friendship treaty was signed two years ago. It sought to draw a line under historic bitterness between Libya and Italy, its former colonial master.

Read more at BBC

Click here to view photos:

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A young woman has become the focus of death threats and hate messages after video of her throwing live puppies into a river was recently posted online.

Her identity is unknown, but some have suggested she may be from Bosnia.

VIDEO:
WARNING, GRAPHIC VIDEO

The disturbing video shows the young, blonde woman smiling as she picks several puppies out of a dirty bucket and viciously tosses them into a rapidly flowing river.

At one point, as the woman lobs a black-and-white pup into the water, she can clearly be heard saying, “whee.”

Online “investigators” have posted links to a YouTube page, as well as several Facebook profiles, accusing those people of being the girl or the person who filmed the video. It is unclear if the witch hunt has actually found those responsible, however.

The video was originally featured on YouTube, but has since been pulled because of its content.

This video is only the latest bit of animal cruelty captured on tape to spark outrage online. A woman in England was similarly hunted down and targeted for throwing a cat into a trash bin.

Text continues after Pictures of the Week gallery:

Read entire article at NYdailynews.com

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From the AFP:

PARIS — Historians and anti-racism campaigners are to urge the countries that oversaw and profited from the Atlantic slave trade to recognise it as a crime against humanity, opening the way for reparations.

Next week, activists are to send a letter to the leaders of Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain asking them to recognise the trade as an historic injustice a century and a half after it ended.

They have already convinced France to do so.

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The European Memorial Foundation for the Slave Trade will launch the appeal at the French Senate on May 10, backed by the French historian Louis Sala-Molins and John Franklin from the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.

“There are several reasons for this, including its symbolic value, to restore the memory of this crime against humanity,” Karfa Diallo, chairman of the foundation, told AFP.

“There’s also a question, shall we say, of justice,” he said.

The continuing problem of racism in a Europe that now has an ethnically diverse population that could be precisely traced back to the 16th and 17th century texts justifying and codifying slavery, he argued.

“Racism and discrimination persists in Europe. Young people of Caribbean and African ancestry are victims of it. And we know, historians have shown this, that racism was born in this story.”

Diallo’s group was founded in the former French slave port of Bordeaux in 1998.

It has found allies in other cities of Western Europe that grew wealthy on the profits of the trade, from Bristol in England to Porto in Portugal.

Click here to read more.

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From CNN:

The European Union will not lift sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his allies until the country improves its human rights record and moves ahead on a power-sharing plan, an EU official said Sunday.

European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel de Gucht spoke to reporters at the conclusion of a two-day visit about Mugabe’s calls for an end to the sanctions.

Under a power-sharing agreement last year aimed at ending months of turmoil and violence that followed the March 2008 presidential elections, Mugabe retained his office, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai became prime minister.

Called the Global Political Agreement, the accord spelled out a number of fundamental democratic reforms. But so far there has been no progress toward them, EU officials have said.

Click here to read more.

DUBLIN — Boxing legend Muhammad Ali is on a sentimental journey to see his little-known Irish roots.

Tens of thousands are awaiting the three-time world heavyweight champion’s arrival Tuesday in the western Irish town of Ennis, the home of Ali’s great-grandfather Abe Grady. Fans have adorned shops and streets with posters of Ali and red, white and blue USA bunting.

They plan to watch live on TV screens as the Ennis council names Ali as its first “freeman,” a civic honor.

Grady settled in the United States in the 1860s and married a freed African-American slave. One of their grandchildren, Odessa Lee Grady Clay, was Ali’s mother.

Genealogists established Ali’s Irish links in 2002, but Ali – who is 67 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease – has never visited Ennis before.