He had the gun, on the plane, for ... self-defense reasons, nothing more.
Monday, 30 September, 2002
BBC
Sweden releases hijack suspect
The Swedish authorities have released from custody a man held on suspicion of trying to hijack a plane bound for Britain. Nothing in the investigation indicates that Chatty would have intended to crash the plane
Kerim Sadok Chatty, 29, was arrested a month ago at a Swedish airport after a gun was found in his hand luggage. But the authorities say suspicions that he was planning a hijack have weakened since then.
Despite his release, prosecutors say investigations into the incident will continue. They have imposed a travel ban on Mr Chatty, and ordered him to report to police regularly.
Fears
Mr Chatty - a Swedish national of Tunisian origin - was trying to board a Ryanair flight to Stansted Airport, north of London. His arrest raised fears of further suicide attacks, as it came almost two weeks before the first anniversary of 11 September attacks on the United States. The incident triggered a huge security operation.
But Chief prosecutor Thomas Haeggstroem said in a statement on Monday that the hijacking case had weakened in recent days. "Nothing in the investigation indicates that Chatty would have intended to crash the plane against any target in Sweden or in any other country," the statement added.
Mr Chatty has said he has no connection with Islamic militants. Suspicions against him increased after it was revealed that in 1996 he had briefly received training at a flying school in the United States - like some of the 11 September hijackers.
Following his arrest a court twice ordered that Mr Chatty should be detained for periods of two weeks, pending further investigations. The second detention period ended on Monday.
Mr Chatty has admitted to having the gun, but denies having planned a hijack.
sweden
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Guns and Voting
An interesting analysis.
Guns and Voting Rights reveal new cracks in the District
By: John Vaught LaBeaume
Special to The Examiner
05/05/10 8:21 PM EDT
It's been over a week since the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House scuttled D.C. voting rights. Much has already been bleated about this. (Washington CityPaper's "Loose Lips" columnist extraordinaire Mike DeBonis pointed to a singularly astute analysis, from Chad Pergram over at FoxNews.com's Speaker's Lobby blog: "This bill would have drained what political capital [House Democrats] had left in the bank. And in this election climate, the price was simply too high.")
There does remain something to be said for a bill that would have encoded freedoms for District residents on more than one front. But the political calculus that prompted the cause's unceremonious scuttling points to trends that look to shape the District's electorate in decades to come.
The shelved bill, as introduced by U.S. House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), would have - after nearly four long decades into Home Rule - granted United States citizens residing in the District of Columbia the simple right to elect a full-fledged Member of the United States House of Representatives, including full voting privileges on the House floor.
Glomming onto the legislation a bi-partisan rider amendment that would have gutted the District's restrictive gun control laws proved to be the bill's Achilles Heel. Skittish House Democrats - like amendment co-sponsor Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS) - elected from rural, culturally conservative districts have been eager for a chance to go on the record shoring up their Second Amendment cred as they face a cantankerous electorate this fall and this legislative Frankenstein offered those Members a vehicle to do that.
Voting rights advocates have admirably framed this undeniable inequity in time-honored patriotic rhetoric, foregoing the temptation to preach to the choir and couch the cause in trendy Lefty lingo. Reviving the Revolutionary War battle cry of "No Taxation without Representation" as their slogan reaches out to the DC-skeptical Middle American and appeals to his innate sense of basic American justice by drawing attention to the little known fact that District residents are among the only Americans who are subjected to the federal income tax with no means to say "no" when Congress tries to dig a little deeper into their pocketbooks.
Polling repeatedly indicates that support for D.C. voting rights remains popular across the District's demographic divide. This bill's demise, though, highlights a pointed contrast in the level of saliency that District voters in divergent demographic columns attach to the notion, especially when political circumstances force them to weigh the notion against competing values.
For a steadily growing segment of D.C.'s population, it was just too perfect a narrative: frothing redneck gun nuts conspire to deny the District of Columbia’s black majority a voice in Congress. This was the narrative entertained within the precincts of D.C. that are getting whiter and more liberal, more affluent and better degreed, convinced that they are the tolerant and cultured elite. No longer fashionably "bi-partisan," they are becoming almost uniformly partisan Democrats. This storyline permits them to slap themselves on the back for refusing to yield an inch on gun control, with the self-complacent satisfaction that in stymieing the nefarious Gun Lobby's power play.
Their fealty to their vaguely liberal notion of the Democratic Party's platform is more enduring than their dedication to a District renaissance. Washington, D.C. is just one stop in their career. After a stint on K Street or Capitol Hill, or trying to save the world on behalf of a public interest group, it's off to grad school, or the next job offer in Boston or Brooklyn.
This is manifested at the polls on Election Day. Each September's Democratic hotly contested mayoral primary is nearly always tantamount to election (though fmr. Republican At-Large D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz gave the Democrats a respectable run in four general elections). These transient white professionals turn out in embarrassingly modest numbers on that day. Contrast that fact with the lines larded with white faces that wended around the block last November, eager to help Barack Obama clobber Republican John McCain by the most lopsided margin since DC residents were granted three votes in the Electoral College. When these folks move on, Obama will still be their president. Adrian Fenty, Vince Gray and Eleanor Holmes Norton will be only a distant memory.
However, across the Anacostia River, D.C. Council Member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) was bluntly unsentimental about the efficacy of gun control laws: "There are not going to be legal guns committing these crimes, it's going to be illegal guns," Alexander said. "There are still going to be AK-47s, even without the gun amendment."
In comments that indicated she could maybe live with the gun rider if it finally meant D.C. got the vote, Alexander spoke up for her African-American constituents, a sizable chuck of whom proudly come from long lines of disenfranchised native Washingtonians starved for a vote in Congress.
Back in Adams Morgan, the AP quoted Adams Morgan's Betsy Cutler who voiced her cohort's priorities succintly: "As much as I want the vote in the city, I think the gun ban is hugely important." By November 2012, many of her neighbors will quit the District, while Alexander's constituents will still be raising new generations of Washingtonians in Ward 7.
guns
Guns and Voting Rights reveal new cracks in the District
By: John Vaught LaBeaume
Special to The Examiner
05/05/10 8:21 PM EDT
It's been over a week since the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House scuttled D.C. voting rights. Much has already been bleated about this. (Washington CityPaper's "Loose Lips" columnist extraordinaire Mike DeBonis pointed to a singularly astute analysis, from Chad Pergram over at FoxNews.com's Speaker's Lobby blog: "This bill would have drained what political capital [House Democrats] had left in the bank. And in this election climate, the price was simply too high.")
There does remain something to be said for a bill that would have encoded freedoms for District residents on more than one front. But the political calculus that prompted the cause's unceremonious scuttling points to trends that look to shape the District's electorate in decades to come.
The shelved bill, as introduced by U.S. House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), would have - after nearly four long decades into Home Rule - granted United States citizens residing in the District of Columbia the simple right to elect a full-fledged Member of the United States House of Representatives, including full voting privileges on the House floor.
Glomming onto the legislation a bi-partisan rider amendment that would have gutted the District's restrictive gun control laws proved to be the bill's Achilles Heel. Skittish House Democrats - like amendment co-sponsor Rep. Travis Childers (D-MS) - elected from rural, culturally conservative districts have been eager for a chance to go on the record shoring up their Second Amendment cred as they face a cantankerous electorate this fall and this legislative Frankenstein offered those Members a vehicle to do that.
Voting rights advocates have admirably framed this undeniable inequity in time-honored patriotic rhetoric, foregoing the temptation to preach to the choir and couch the cause in trendy Lefty lingo. Reviving the Revolutionary War battle cry of "No Taxation without Representation" as their slogan reaches out to the DC-skeptical Middle American and appeals to his innate sense of basic American justice by drawing attention to the little known fact that District residents are among the only Americans who are subjected to the federal income tax with no means to say "no" when Congress tries to dig a little deeper into their pocketbooks.
Polling repeatedly indicates that support for D.C. voting rights remains popular across the District's demographic divide. This bill's demise, though, highlights a pointed contrast in the level of saliency that District voters in divergent demographic columns attach to the notion, especially when political circumstances force them to weigh the notion against competing values.
For a steadily growing segment of D.C.'s population, it was just too perfect a narrative: frothing redneck gun nuts conspire to deny the District of Columbia’s black majority a voice in Congress. This was the narrative entertained within the precincts of D.C. that are getting whiter and more liberal, more affluent and better degreed, convinced that they are the tolerant and cultured elite. No longer fashionably "bi-partisan," they are becoming almost uniformly partisan Democrats. This storyline permits them to slap themselves on the back for refusing to yield an inch on gun control, with the self-complacent satisfaction that in stymieing the nefarious Gun Lobby's power play.
Their fealty to their vaguely liberal notion of the Democratic Party's platform is more enduring than their dedication to a District renaissance. Washington, D.C. is just one stop in their career. After a stint on K Street or Capitol Hill, or trying to save the world on behalf of a public interest group, it's off to grad school, or the next job offer in Boston or Brooklyn.
This is manifested at the polls on Election Day. Each September's Democratic hotly contested mayoral primary is nearly always tantamount to election (though fmr. Republican At-Large D.C. Council Member Carol Schwartz gave the Democrats a respectable run in four general elections). These transient white professionals turn out in embarrassingly modest numbers on that day. Contrast that fact with the lines larded with white faces that wended around the block last November, eager to help Barack Obama clobber Republican John McCain by the most lopsided margin since DC residents were granted three votes in the Electoral College. When these folks move on, Obama will still be their president. Adrian Fenty, Vince Gray and Eleanor Holmes Norton will be only a distant memory.
However, across the Anacostia River, D.C. Council Member Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) was bluntly unsentimental about the efficacy of gun control laws: "There are not going to be legal guns committing these crimes, it's going to be illegal guns," Alexander said. "There are still going to be AK-47s, even without the gun amendment."
In comments that indicated she could maybe live with the gun rider if it finally meant D.C. got the vote, Alexander spoke up for her African-American constituents, a sizable chuck of whom proudly come from long lines of disenfranchised native Washingtonians starved for a vote in Congress.
Back in Adams Morgan, the AP quoted Adams Morgan's Betsy Cutler who voiced her cohort's priorities succintly: "As much as I want the vote in the city, I think the gun ban is hugely important." By November 2012, many of her neighbors will quit the District, while Alexander's constituents will still be raising new generations of Washingtonians in Ward 7.
guns
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Mexico and US
U.S. lobbies a hurdle in Mexico drug war: Calderon
March 28, 2010
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Powerful groups in the United States appear to be blocking efforts to stem the flow of assault weapons fueling Mexico's drug war, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
Calderon, who has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police to fight drug cartels, told Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program on CNN that there was resistance in Washington to Mexico's demands that sales of such weapons be stopped.
"They (U.S. officials) say that they are facing strong opposition and there is powerful lobbies in the Congress in order to change that situation," Calderon said in a pre-taped interview in Mexico City.
[...]
Interesting. All those lobbyists still in DC. We need to do a good cleansing. The fact any American Congressman or White House does not step in to salvage the relationship between the US and Mexico and instead allows and permits these weapons of death to take not only Mexican lives, but also American is ... immoral.
Mexico
March 28, 2010
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Powerful groups in the United States appear to be blocking efforts to stem the flow of assault weapons fueling Mexico's drug war, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
Calderon, who has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers and police to fight drug cartels, told Fareed Zakaria's "GPS" program on CNN that there was resistance in Washington to Mexico's demands that sales of such weapons be stopped.
"They (U.S. officials) say that they are facing strong opposition and there is powerful lobbies in the Congress in order to change that situation," Calderon said in a pre-taped interview in Mexico City.
[...]
Interesting. All those lobbyists still in DC. We need to do a good cleansing. The fact any American Congressman or White House does not step in to salvage the relationship between the US and Mexico and instead allows and permits these weapons of death to take not only Mexican lives, but also American is ... immoral.
Mexico
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