Pope excommunicates mafia, urges expulsion from clan heartland

Pope excommunicates mafia, urges expulsion from clan heartland
Brazil’s President Rousseff launches re-election bid
RWMF a melting pot of cultures, music knowledge
One for all, all for one
Chin unperturbed by judicial review against party’s legality
Six national parks to be gazetted — Abang Jo

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 07:25 PM PDT

CASSANO ALLO JONIO, Italy: Pope Francis launched a scathing attack on organised crime during a trip to the heartland of a feared syndicate on Sunday, declaring all mafia members "excommunicated" from the Catholic Church.

The mafia "is the adoration of evil and contempt for common good. This evil must be beaten, expelled," he told worshippers near the hometown of a toddler killed in a clan war earlier this year.

"Those who in their lives follow this path of evil, as mafiosi do, are not in communion with God. They are excommunicated," he told the congregation.

People who are excommunicated are expelled from the Church, unless they repent, and are considered to be condemned to Hell in the afterlife.

The 77-year-old Pontiff was speaking at the end of a trip to the territory controlled by the powerful 'Ndrangheta mafia, where he comforted relatives of "Coco" Campolongo, a three-year-old who was shot dead in January in an apparent mob hit over money.

"It must never again happen that a child suffers in this way," the Pope said as he met Coco's father and grandmothers, according to a Vatican spokesman.

Francis visited the Calabria region despite fears that he might provoke the local underworld.

"I pray for him continuously. Do not despair," Francis said during a visit to Castrovillari prison, where several members of Coco's family are serving time for drug-related crimes.

He asked them to pass the message on to the toddler's mother, who was also in prison at the time of his murder and is now living under house arrest.

Coco was shot in the head in January, executed along with his grandfather and his Moroccan companion after a drug debt went unpaid.

The discovery of his body strapped to a car-seat in a burnt-out Fiat Punto sent shockwaves through Italy, as did the murder just two months later of another three-year-old in the nearby Puglia region.

The Pope's trip to what is the second-poorest region in the south of Italy aims not only to remember child victims but also highlight the problems the young have in escaping the pervasive grip of the wealthy 'Ndrangheta.

Unemployment among the under-25s in the region stands at 56.1 per cent – the highest in Italy in 2013 according to Eurostat – and local mobsters thrive by offering idle youngsters work, luring them into their networks.

According to Save the Children Italy, more than a third of all families in the impoverished south live in communities known to be under the control of clans.

Many of the inmates the Pope met at Castrovillari were serving time for mafia-related crimes.

Under a blistering southern sun, Francis clasped the hands of some of the 200 prisoners, several of them weeping and throwing their arms around him.

Francis stopped to speak with a group of disabled people in a large crowd of faithful outside the jail, before heading by helicopter to Coco's hometown of Cassano allo Jonio, nestled at the bottom of a steep mountain.

There the Pope, who was met with cheers and the release of dozens of yellow and white balloons – the Vatican colours – visited a hospice before sharing a lunch of spaghetti and meatballs with poor people and young drug addicts.

"Strong is he who, once fallen, manages to rise up again," the Pontiff told the addicts.

Francis then made a short stop to pray at the spot in the nearby town of Sibari where a priest was beaten to death in January with an iron bar in a failed extortion attempt.

At the mass attended by more than 250,000 people at the close of day he warned young people in the region that they "must say no" or risk being absorbed into the mafia world.

Francis's determination to rattle mafiosi has sparked warnings that he himself could become a target.

The 'Ndrangheta plays a leading role in the global cocaine trade and its Calabria bastion is a major transit point for drug shipments from Latin America to the rest of Europe.

It has benefitted in the past from historic ties to the Church, with dons claiming to be God-fearing Catholics and priests turning a blind eye to crimes.

But over the past 20 years numerous priests have taken part in the fight against the clans – sometimes paying for their bravery with their lives. - AFP

Brazil’s President Rousseff launches re-election bid

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 06:12 PM PDT

BRASILIA: Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff formally launched her re-election bid on Saturday, leading in opinion polls despite lingering discontent over World Cup costs.

Her leftist Workers Party (PT) approved her candidacy in a voice vote of 800 members meeting at a convention in Brasilia, with the popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on hand.

"It is time to move forward, it is time to make more changes," the 66-year-old leader told her party in a hotel convention hall decorated with red stars and posters of the president.

Rousseff's popularity has fallen but she leads her rivals ahead of the October presidential election, with 39 per cent of voters backing her candidacy, a survey by pollsters CNI Ibope showed Thursday.

She is well ahead of Social Democratic Senator Aecio Neves, with 21 per cent, and socialist ex-governor Eduardo Campos, a former ally, with 10 per cent.

The PT convention turned into a defence of the World Cup, with promises of changes in a new Rousseff administration following protests over hosting the tournament that began June 12 and ends July 13.

Party members chanted "one, two, three, Dilma one more time" and "Lula, warrior of the Brazilian people."

Some voices within the party called on Lula to run for president as Rousseff's popularity fell, but the former leader, who left office with an 80 per cent approval rating, has backed his successor.

"Many people have this feeling. But everything has its moment. Lula himself told us that she was the candidate. It's important we vote for her," said Nadia Araujo, 47, a PT member who was unable to enter the packed convention.

Brazilians held massive demonstrations during last year's Confederations Cup, a warm-up to the main football event, to protest the World Cup's $11 billion bill and demand better public services.

The protest movement has lost some steam, drawing smaller crowds during the World Cup but with sporadic clashes between riot police and masked radical protestors. - AFP

RWMF a melting pot of cultures, music knowledge

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 12:09 PM PDT

KUCHING: The Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) is not only about night performances, it is also about workshops where different cultures and music knowledge are shared with festival-goers.

The second day of RWMF had nine workshops running concurrently at three locations at Sarawak Cultural Village: Dewan Lagenda, Iban Longhouse and Malay House.

In 'So the Rivers Continue to Flow', local musicians Peter Sawal from Bisaya Gong Orchestra, Matthew Ngau Jau from Lan E' Tuyang, Roy Kulleh from Nading Rhapsody and Narawi Rashid from Gema Seribu talked about preserving their music heritage.

All the local performers are doing their best in preserving their music heritage through teaching the young ones. Festivals-goers also had a taste of Tanzanian dancing with a workshop led by a group called Jagwa Music.

The 'Ruka Na Jagwa' workshop was an interactive dance workshop led by Deborah Dickson Chambo, Mzee Rashidi Mbaraka and Kazimoto Jackson Aluta of Jagwa Music from Tanzania.

The workshops also gave a chance for RWMF performers to come together from different countries to join together and perform a series of short performances and demonstrations.

An example was Beat Boxes, which was a workshop on percussion instruments. In this workshop, percussionists from Blackbeard's Tea Party (England), Son Yambu (Cuba), Jagwa Music (Tanzania), Yayasan Warisan Johor and Gema Seribu (Malaysia), Ryuz (Japan) and Kharinthalakootham (India) jammed together with their percussion instruments.

Seven bands came together for the 'Different Strokes for Different Folks' to brief the attendees the many styles and techniques of playing bowed string instruments.

Among the instruments demonstrated during this workshop were the fiddle and violin from the Western culture, 'rebab' from the Malay culture, 'gaohu' and 'erhu' from the Chinese culture.

Other workshops were Foot Stomp, a workshop on interactive demonstration and lesson on clogging, The Voice (a workshop on Beautiful Vocals), Knock on Wood (an exploration on the Txalaparta of the Basque region), 'Awok Awok' (an interactive workshop in the body movements of the Malaysian Dikir Barat and Chehera Chitra), face painting rituals and tribal handicraft making of Kerala.

One for all, all for one

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 12:05 PM PDT

by Johnson K Saai, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on June 22, 2014, Sunday

PRS, SUPP, SPDP declare pact to defend their state BN seats allocation from Teras, to convey stand to top Barisan leadership that they won't budge

KUCHING: Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP) and Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) yesterday pledged to team up in defending their seats allocation in the state Barisan Nasional (BN) from being taken over by Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak (Teras) through elected representatives who resigned from their respective parties.

PRS president Tan Sri James Masing, at a news conference at his residence here yesterday said the three parties had agreed not to budge in holding to all 36, PRS (nine), SPDP (eight) and SUPP (19), allocated to them under the State BN power sharing agreement.

He said their common stand on Teras and seats allocation would be conveyed to the top BN leadership in the next BN Supreme Council meeting.

The press conference which was attended by SPDP supreme council members led by its acting president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing and SUPP central working committee (CWC) headed by the president Tan Sri Peter Chin, was held during a Ngiling Tikai ceremony to mark the end of Gawai celebration.

"This is the first time that we leaders of the three parties get together since they (former SPDP and SUPP assemblymen) joined Teras (Parti Tenaga Rakyat Sarawak) and we have all agreed to help each other when facing any kind of threat.

"What we are doing is defending Barisan Nasional (BN) because we are in full support of the Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) and Chief Minister (Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem)," he disclosed.

Masing added that Teras elected representatives who won their seats under SUPP or SPDP should have the moral to resign when they left the parties.

"They never stood as Teras candidates. In the last state election they were nominated either by SPDP or SUPP to represent BN."

He said if they were to contest in the next state election they should stand under the Teras banner and must not mislead voters into thinking they were contesting under BN.

"Those in Teras who contested in the last state election were nominated either by SPDP or SUPP and now they want to take the seats, definitely we don't want to let that happen to any of our BN component members.

"The State BN comprises four component parties, PBB, SUPP, SPDP and PRS. So if you try to touch anyone of them certainly we will all go after you. This is the BN spirit that we should have," he said.

When asked if Teras was backed by some BN leaders, Masing said he never believed that top BN leaders were behind the new party.

"Unless and until I have the concrete evidence we will never believe that. To us they are just rumours and I don't entertain rumours," he stressed.

Earlier, Chin and Tiong were given the honour to perform miring (Iban rituals) to mark the closing of Gawai.

Chin unperturbed by judicial review against party’s legality

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 12:03 PM PDT

KUCHING: Sarawak United People's Party (SUPP) president Tan Sri Peter Chin is confident the judicial review filed by a group of former leaders to challenge the decision of Registrar of Societies (ROS) – not to de-register the party on April 30 – will not affect the status of the party.

Chin said he was sure the Attorney General backed by a strong team of lawyers was capable of defending the ROS.

"Well, this is a suit filed by them against the ROS so it must defend themselves to say their decision was right. I am sure the ROS being a government agency will be defended by the AG.

"And I am sure the AG has a strong team of lawyers who are capable of defending the ROS decision," he told the media at a Ngiling Tikai (closing of Gawai) hosted by Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president Tan Sri Dr James Masing at his residence yesterday.

As such, he said the party would proceed with its Triennial Delegates Conference on Aug 23 and 24 at the party headquarters at Jalan Ong Kee Hui here.

He said SUPP had invited Prime Minister and BN chairman Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to officiate at the TDC.

Chin questioned the motive of those who filed the judicial review saying that they had bad intention towards the party.

"These guys are former SUPP leaders. Some of them were sacked, but some of them still remain with SUPP. We all love the party, why do you want to do this? The party has been going through a very bad stage for two and a half years. Now we are legal, why do you go ahead and ask for judicial review?"

The Kuala Lumpur High Court allowed former SUPP leaders to challenge the decision of the ROS on Wednesday. The case was brought by Datuk Dr Jerip Susil, Dr Johnical Rayong, Ranum Mina, Shiling Banggit, Datuk Tiong Thai King, Suzanne Lee Tze Hua and Penghulu Sia Jii Ming.

Dr Jerip had said this meant that ROS' decision made on April 30 in not de-registering the party could be overturned by the court and the ROS' decision may be rendered null and void.

With the case now in High Court, Dr Jerip said the legitimacy and existence of SUPP as a political party is still in question.

In January 2013, the ROS issued notices stating that two SUPP branches — Bekenu and Piasau — had been de-registered while the party central was slapped with a show cause letter, requiring it to explain why the party should not be de-registered.

In February this year, SUPP replied to the show-cause letter and on April 30, the ROS responded saying it had decided not to de-register the 53-year-old party.

Six national parks to be gazetted — Abang Jo

Posted: 21 Jun 2014 12:02 PM PDT

by Danielle Sendou Ringgit, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on June 22, 2014, Sunday

KUCHING: Six new national parks are in the planning to be gazetted by the state government, revealed Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg during a press conference at Sarawak Cultural Village yesterday.

Although he did not disclose where these six new national parks were going to be, currently there are at least 20 other National Parks across Sarawak.

"We will try to get about two thirds of our land mass still covered with green," he added.

In order to achieve the gazettement of these six new national parks, he said, we have to continue planting more mangroves. He hopes this greening initiative will create awareness of the importance of the ecosystem among the young generation and society at large.

"We feel that we have to do this not only to educate our own people on the importance of the environment but also collaborating as well as sharing with society at large on importance of this environment," Abang Johari said.

He also noted how much the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) has snowballed over the last 17 years and created interest among Sarawakians and Malaysians in general, resulting in the growth of a few local bands and their improvement in terms of presentation and quality.

"We have sent our groups to New Zealand, Australia and Europe and with that exposure, there has been a lot of interaction among the musicians," he said.

He also noted how social media Youtube had become a platform for local musicians to disseminate their music and also improve their music.

On the second year of the Borneo World Music Expo, designed as a platform to create networking between local and international musicians and music programmers, he hoped that by the third or fourth year, there would already be a certain policy direction between music producers as well as those in the business of music.

Promising young Sarawakian violinist Nisa Addina Taufik, 18, was also introduced during the press conference. Currently in the midst of promoting her debut album, Abang Johari said her musical education to the US would be sponsored by the government.