Hilary Skeels
London
(THE GLOBE)
Britain has reached a new stage in it�s fight against racism - last week, the head of the Metropolitan (Greater London) police force admitted that his force was racist. The admission came after a report by Sir James Macpherson into the death of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence which accused the Metropolitan police of institutional racism. Sir Paul Condon, head of the Met, initially denied his force was racist, but later last week admitted it was guilty of �unwitting and unconscious prejudice against ethnic minorities�. The report, and Condon�s admission of police racism are being seen as a landmark in race relations.
Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, said that the murder of Stephen, an 18-year old student who was stabbed to death at a bus stop in south-east London six years ago, should �act as a watershed in our attitudes to racism�. He added that many countries envy the UK�s race relations record but �it plainly has not been enough�. The prime Minister, Tony Blair said that, as a nation, Britain should confront and find the will to overcome the racism that still exists within society.
Sir Paul Condon has resisted pressure to resign, and has the support of Tony Blair who says he wants Condon to lead the force through the reforms recommended in the 330 page report. Macpherson made 70 recommendations, many of them regarding education and public services other than the police force, such as the National Health Service. While bills and reforms have been implemented in the past after racial tensions have surfaced, for instance after the 1981 riots, few have been aimed at national institutions quite as resolutely as this report. Tony Blair told Parliament that the recommendations would deliver the most comprehensive agenda for improving race relations in the country for decades. They include extending the National Curriculum for schools to �value cultural diversity�, instant sacking of police officers found acting in a racist way, and setting targets for the recruitment, retention, and advancement of ethnic minority officers within the forces.
Politicians of all parties paid tribute to Stephen�s parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, and their determined campaign to uncover the truth behind their sons murder in 1993 and bring his killers to justice. Jack Straw said they had pursued their fight with enormous �dignity, courage, and determination�, and the Macpherson report is a testament to them.
By Alessandro RAIMONDI
LUGANO, March 14
(THE GLOBE)
This Alpine country is nowadays being watched by international observers to see how the Helvetic justice will handle two �hot� issues: one regarding a multi-million-dollar fraud, and one war atrocities.
In the first case at the end of 1998 a nephew of the former dictator of Paraguay general Alfredo Stroessner, Mr. Gustavo Gramont, has been extradited to Geneva from Asuncion, the capital of that Latin American country, charged of fraud against a consortium of 9 banks of that Swiss lake city.
Back in 1978 Mr. Gramont, former Stroessner�s itinerant ambassador, has obtained on the basis of false faxes two credits due to finance Paraguayan industrial projects from the Swiss consortium. Of course, the two projects have never seen a go ahead green light and the money has in the midtime disappeared.
Falling general Stroessner�s rule, his nephew, who prudently carries two nationalities, Uruguayan and Argentinian, has found himself exposed to investigations and to the reprimand of the following Paraguayan governments that refused to take those 2 credits into the national debts account, considering the whole operation a fraud.
According to figures published in South America the �bingo� should amount to some US$ 110,000,000, inclusive of interests since 1978.
Gustavo Gramont claims himself innocent, of course.
Not far away from Geneva, on the same Leman Lake, at Lausanne, a second delicate case is being dealt by military authorities. This second case has to do, instead, with the genocide of some 1,000,000 persons that took over in Rwanda between May and July 1994. According to the charge dropped in July �98, Mr. Fulgence Niyonteze, former mayor of Mushubati, in the Gitirama province of the African country, is suspected to have participated to the massacre.
The judging court, therefore, will be the Swiss military one and 35-year-old Niyonteze will have to defend himself from the charge of war crime perpetrator.
The trial will take place in Lausanne starting from April 12th and by the end of the same month it might be over. Witnesses will be heard, but just because of them the case has not been brought to hearing sessions before. In fact, having refused 24 out of 38 witnesses indicated by the lawyers of the alleged war criminal, colonel Jean Hertig, president of the military court, has objected to himself on the basis of the lawyers� claim.
Of course, justice will go on its way and col. Hertig will be substituted by colonel Jean-Marc Schwenter, general prosecutor of Canton Vaud, nevertheless such unexpected procedural problem has caused the trial be delayed.
Venue of the trial will be Lausanne Division 2 Court where, if found guilty, Mr. Fulgence Niyonteze may be condemned to life imprisonment.
16/03/1985 - �People� magazine listed the top 57 money-making show biz stars on this day. At the pinnacle was Paul McCartney, former Beatle and leader of the group Wings, whose music empire was said to be worth $500 million. Bob Hope made the list � with a worth of about $200 million.
17/03/1950 - scientists at the University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new radioactive element, which they named �californium.�
17/03/1951 - Was born Kurt Russell (actor: Executive Decision, Backdraft)
18/03/1813 - David Melville of Newport, Rhode Island, patented the gas streetlight this day. He celebrated by having the new lights installed in front of his house! (True!)
18/03/1931 - Schick, Inc. � the razor company � displayed the first electric shaver in Stamford, CT.
18/03/1986 - The U.S. Treasury Department announced that a clear, polyester thread was to be woven into bills in an effort to thwart counterfeiters. Today, other means of stopping the illegal duplication of currency include holograms, threads and a makeover of the portraits found on each bill. The advent of high technology color printers made for a whole new way to counterfeit bills. The Treasury Department has had to rethink its anti-counterfeiting plans.
18/03/1844 - Was born Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov (composer: Scheherazade, Song of India, The Flight of the Bumblebee)
18/03/1965 - the first spacewalk took place as Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov left his Voskhod Two capsule, secured by a tether.
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