Greek police probe neo-Nazi hate speech

POLICE in Greece say they have opened an investigation after a report on Britain's Channel 4 television showed a Greek neo-Nazi threatening to turn immigrants into soap.

The statements were made by Alexandros Plomaritis, a 44-year-old who ran for parliament for the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn in last year's election.

"We are ready to open the ovens. We will turn them into soap ... to wash cars and pavements. We will make lamps from their skin," Plomaritis said of undocumented migrants, whom he also termed "miasma" and "subhuman".

Plomaritis was filmed ahead of the election handing out Golden Dawn tracts in an open-air market and chatting with his friends outside a cafe.

Golden Dawn dismissed the report as "grotesque".

"These views were stated to make people laugh," party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris said in a statement.

"The cafe regulars were making fun of the English," he said.

Golden Dawn, formerly on the fringe of Greek politics, has seen its ratings soar since last year in a country weary of austerity and political corruption.

The party saw 18 deputies elected to parliament in June for the first time in its history and is the third most popular party in opinion polls.

Rights groups have regularly accused Greek police of turning a blind eye to suspected Golden Dawn attacks against migrants and political opponents.

Kasidiaris will be tried on Thursday for allegedly providing a getaway car to five men who beat up a student at a university campus in 2007.

The investigation into the neo-Nazi candidate's hate language was instigated by a special police department on racist violence that was only recently set up following international pressure.

Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos gave a televised interview in May in which he denied the existence of gas chambers and crematoria during World War II.

He also called Adolf Hitler "a major historical figure of the 20th century."

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Angry Jordan MP goes for gun in parliament

A JORDANIAN MP, angered by a fellow deputy accusing the premier of corruption, has tried to draw a pistol during a session of parliament, but was circled by colleagues who talked him down.

Khalil Atiyeh, a deputy speaker, said MP Shadi al-Adwan was annoyed when fellow MP Zeid Shawakbeh accused Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur of corruption.

Videotapes of the incident showed Adwan reaching for his belt to pull out a pistol and then being surrounded.

Atiyeh said he suspended the session until Thursday, when the question of carrying arms inside parliament would also be on the agenda.

Last July, an MP got into an argument on a television talk show. He first took off his shoe and threw it at his adversary, then pulled a revolver from his belt and pointed it at him.

He eventually put the gun away.

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No Arafat poison probe results before May

THE results of a probe into claims Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned by polonium will not be known until the end of May at the earliest, the Swiss lab carrying out the tests says.

"There are two series of tests that have to be carried out. The first one is complete and we're going to start the second one, so there won't be and tangible results until the end of May," said Darcy Christen, spokesman for the Swiss University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne.

In December, Professor Patrice Mangin, the centre's head and the man in charge of the tests, said the findings were expected within three or four months.

Christen explained the delay was also due to a need to analyse the results in detail, then write an official report and submit it.

Arafat died in November 2004 in a French hospital, and there have been repeated claims that he was poisoned.

Last November, his body was exhumed from his grave in the West Bank city of Ramallah, enabling experts to take some 60 samples from his remains.

The samples were distributed among three teams doing separate analyses: the Lausanne lab, a French team carrying out a probe at the request of Arafat's widow Suha, and Russian experts appointed by the Palestinian Authority.

The investigations were launched after the Lausanne lab found abnormal traces of the radioactive substance polonium in Arafat's personal effects, which were examined at his widow's request.

There is no contact between the Swiss, French and Russian teams, Christen noted, underlining the choice was deliberate to ensure the independence of their findings.

The Palestinian Authority has said it will petition the International Criminal Court in The Hague if proof is found that the veteran leader was poisoned.

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US cardinals fall silent as secrecy grows

US cardinals in Rome have abruptly cancelled media briefings in a victory for pre-conclave secrecy as workers readied the Sistine Chapel for a historic ceremony to elect the next Pope after Benedict XVI's resignation.

"Concern was expressed about leaks of confidential proceedings reported in Italian newspapers. As a precaution, the cardinals have agreed not to do interviews," Sister Mary Ann Walsh, US Conference of Catholic Bishops spokeswoman, said in a statement.

US cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, had been due to address journalists at the Pontifical North American College in Rome as part of a series of congenial briefings which have drawn crowds of journalists.

Italian media earlier on Wednesday reported there were "sparks" flying at pre-conclave meetings between US and German cardinals, keen to have longer discussions ahead of the conclave, and Italian ones pushing for a papal election as quickly as possible.

The Vatican denied it had intervened directly to censor the electors, with spokesman Federico Lombardi saying: "It seems natural that the path towards the conclave lead progressively to greater reflection and discretion."

While all cardinals taking part in the pre-conclave meetings are bound to secrecy on pain of excommunication, there had been a growing openness among electors in general about the problems facing the Church and what the future may hold.

Though no date for the conclave has yet been set, preparations got under way at the Sistine Chapel, where builders in hard hats worked under Michelangelo's famous frescoes, laying a false floor and installing two black stoves which will be used to alert the world when a Pope is elected.

The stoves were attached to the Sistine Chapel's chimney: ballots cast by the cardinals will be burned in them on a daily basis once the conclave starts, with black smoke signalling a vote has taken place, while white smoke will tell the world that a new papacy has begun.

The Vatican has said it wants a new Pope in place by Easter, which this year falls on March 31.

Spokesman Federico Lombardi said all of the 115 cardinal electors - cardinals below the age of 80 - should be present in Rome by Thursday, when a decision about the conclave date may come.

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South Africa mourns custody death man

FRIENDS, family and supporters have held a memorial service for a Mozambican man who died in custody after being dragged behind a South African police van, an incident that has again thrown the spotlight on the much-maligned force.

About 1,000 mourners gathered at the sports stadium in Daveyton, the town east of Johannesburg where 27-year-old Mido Macia died on Tuesday last week.

The noisy remembrance was laced with anger, with the mix of Mozambicans, South Africans and other immigrants angrily booing police representatives out of the stadium.

Shocking footage showed the Mozambican taxi driver being manhandled, handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged hundreds of metres to a local police station.

Just over two hours later he was found dead in his cell.

A post-mortem found he died from head injuries and internal bleeding.

The bail hearing for the eight police officers charged with his murder will start on Friday.

Mourners at the memorial sang and held posters of Macia while several people carried a woman by her arms and legs, imitating the now infamous images of his abuse.

One man held a poster with the words "Police stop promoting xenophobia. Justice must take its course".

At one point the crowd sang Umshimi wami (Bring me my machine gun), a Zulu struggle song known to the many Mozambicans who have lived as migrant workers in South Africa.

The song is laden with symbolic meaning. Once a standard rallying song of President Jacob Zuma, it is now being employed against the ANC-led government.

News of Macia's death spread quickly online and sent shockwaves throughout the country, the latest in a long history of violent incidents involving South African police, including the killing of 34 mineworkers during wage strikes last August.

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Menstruation a forgotten development issue

AID agencies and governments must tackle the taboos surrounding menstruation as sidelining the issue undermines the quality of life of women and girls, chiefly in poor nations, a UN body says.

Poor education about menstruation, lack of access to sanitary napkins and painkillers for cramps, and inadequate washing and disposal facilities had a far-reaching impact on schooling, work and health, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council said.

"From the moment a girl has her first period, she then menstruates for almost 3,500 days throughout her lifetime, every month," program manager Archana Patkar said.

"This is the unspoken, silent hygiene and sanitation issue," she told reporters.

A major concern is that a lack of sanitary napkins and washing facilities meant girls miss school due to their bleeding, she said.

"This has a huge fall-out, and many implications. Not only for schools, but also in the workplace, in markets," she said.

"This is an issue that cuts across health, education, livelihoods and all development outcomes. It's centre-stage."

The council pointed to research in India showing only 12 per cent of girls and women have access to and use sanitary napkins, that many have a poor understanding of menstrual hygiene, and 23 per cent of girls drop out of school after puberty.

"There are two billion women worldwide in the menstruating age group, between 12 and 50. At any given moment, 340 million women and girls are menstruating. So the scale of this is pretty huge," Patkar said.

She criticised beliefs in some societies - notably male-dominated ones - that menstruation is "impure".

"Menstruation is a biological phenomenon which is responsible for future generations. We wouldn't be here without it. So it's really strange that we have all this silence, shame, secrecy and taboos around it," she said.

"This has huge psychosocial implications for a young girl which carry right through to old age. It's part of the disempowerment and disenfranchisement of women and girls."

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Sydney Uni workers to strike over workload

EMPLOYEES at one of the country's largest universities are expected to strike to keep limits on workloads and working hours.

The peak union body in NSW says it will support strikers at Sydney University on Thursday morning, and will send trade members to join them at three picket lines.

National Tertiary Education Union and Community and Public Sector Union members at Sydney University are expected to strike from 7am (AEDT).

Unions NSW secretary Mark Lennon said the future of tertiary education was at stake.

"Management at Sydney Uni want to abolish workload limits and remove restrictions on working hours," Mr Lennon said.

"They're effectively undercutting the very conditions that guarantee quality education.

"We can't allow our universities to become a production line for substandard degrees."

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Obama offers budget talks to Republicans

US President Barack Obama appears to be mounting a fresh effort to dislodge a long-running budget deadlock with top Republicans, with several unusual bipartisan meetings.

Top Republican Senator Mitch McConnell announced Obama would attend the Republican Party's weekly policy lunch at the US Capitol for the first time since 2010 on Thursday, March 14.

And there were reports Obama, who appears to disdain glad handing with politicians, will make a new overture to some Republican senators by inviting them to dinner on Wednesday night.

Obama has recently telephoned several Republicans seen as most open to dialogue on the deep ideological rift in Washington over taxes and spending, which triggered an $US85 billion ($A83.35 billion) dollar austerity hit last Friday.

But though the dialogue with Republicans may augur a change of tone, there were no signs it would lead to any imminent breakthrough.

And Obama's main challenge in advancing legislation on the budget and other priorities, including gun control and immigration reform, lies with the conservative Republican caucus in the House of Representatives.

Republicans refuse to agree to any new tax revenue increases to cut the deficit, demanding instead significant cuts to government programs, while Obama insists on a "balanced" approach of closed tax loopholes and targeted spending cuts.

Still, McConnell, leader of minority Republicans in the Senate, said that he appreciated that Obama had accepted his recommendation to hear from all his party's members.

"We have numerous challenges facing the country and Republicans have offered the president serious solutions to shrink Washington spending and grow the economy," McConnell said.

"And we will have an opportunity to discuss them with the president at the lunch."

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, said Obama had invited a number of Republican senators to dinner on Wednesday.

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

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