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Final Vote Results Confirm Italy Deadlock

Investors took fright at the prospect of prolonged political instability in Italy following a resounding electoral rebuff to austerity measures, with a spike in bond yields and sharp sell-off in equities.
Official results of the parliamentary elections released on Tuesday confirm that the eurozone’s third largest economy is heading for months of political deadlock.
Italy’s political class was left reeling after the upstart anti-establishment Five Star Movement, founded only three years ago by the comedian-blogger Beppe Grillo, garnered 25.55 percent of the votes, the largest share for any single party.
But the nation was torn three ways between Grillo and his band of political novices, Pier Luigi Bersani’s center-left coalition and Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right alliance, raising the prospect of a second election within months.
While some politicians were already speaking of another poll to break the deadlock, others expressed the fear that the Five Star Movement would only gain in strength.
Together with their smaller allies, the center-left Democrats won 340 seats in the lower house, benefiting from the automatic premium guaranteeing the alliance that wins most votes 55 percent of the seats.
The center-right alliance won 124 seats, Grillo 108 and Mario Monti’s Civic Choice came fourth with 45 seats. In terms of share of vote, the Democrats and other centre-left parties won 29.54 percent, the center-right 29.18 percent, and prime minister Mario Monti’s centrist alliance won 10.56 percent.
But no alliance garnered the 158 seats necessary for a majority in the Senate, which enjoys the same legislative powers as the chamber of deputies but which allots seat bonuses on a regional basis. In the upper house, the center-right won 116 seats, the center-left 113, Grillo 54 and Monti only 18. Turnout was 75.2 percent.
The election’s outcome provided scant reassurance for Italy’s European partners, which want a stable government in Rome to pursue the economic reform course mapped out by Monti, the former EU commissioner who took power in 2011 at the helm of a cabinet of technocrats.
Instead, the fragmented Italian result adds to the uncertainty surrounding Europe’s efforts to overcome its sovereign debt and financial sector crisis and to restore economic growth to a region forecast to remain in recession this year.

Lankan Forces ‘Raped’ Tamils in Custody

Sri Lankan security forces committed crimes of sexual violence against ethnic Tamils in state custody, a new Human Rights Watch report says.
The study focuses on cases of rape of men, women and minors detained between 2006 and 2012 because of their alleged links to Tamil Tiger rebels.
Based on its report, HRW is urging Sri Lanka to open criminal investigations.
Sri Lanka’s government has consistently rejected allegations leveled against it by human rights organizations.
The country’s troops defeated Tamil rebels in 2009 after 26 years of civil war.
As many as 100,000 people are thought to have died as the government battled secessionist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for a separate homeland.
Both sides were accused of human rights abuses in the conflict’s final stages, when thousands of civilians were trapped in a thin strip of land in the north of Sri Lanka as fighting raged around them.
The report comes during a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, where a resolution against Sri Lanka’s human rights record and the army’s conduct at the end of the war is expected to be tabled.
The new HRW report says sex crimes committed by government security forces “sharply increased” following the ceasefire breakdown in 2006.
Most of the abuses were politically motivated, according to the report.
“Rape was one of the unlawful tools used by the military and police against suspected LTTE members or supporters to gather intelligence during the fighting and immediately after the conflict ended in May 2009, as well as to obtain information about any remnants of the LTTE since then, whether in Sri Lanka or abroad,” it says.
The findings focus on 75 cases of alleged rape of 31 men, 41 women, and three boys aged under 18, all arrested for suspected links to Tamil rebels.
HRW conducted the interviews over a 12-month period with former detainees in Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The research was carried out secretly because of government access restrictions, the organization says. As a result, it was able speak only to ex-captives and not to current detainees, whose “fate is of urgent concern”.

97 Myanmar Asylum Seekers Die of Starvation

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They are widely regarded as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
The United Nations estimates the Rohingya population in Myanmar at 800,000, but the Myanmar government does not recognize them as one of the country’s 135 ethnic groups. Most are denied citizenship and have no passports, though many of their families have lived in the country for generations. Bangladesh also refuses to accept them as citizens.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees expressed concern on Friday over the rising number of deaths of Rohingya at sea and urged Myanmar’s government to promote reconciliation in conflict-hit Rakhine state and ensure them basic living conditions and eventual access to citizenship.
While commending the Sri Lankan navy’s quick response, UNHCR also said there were continuing reports of some countries in the region putting boat people back to sea. It asked countries to “keep their borders open to people in need of international protection ... (and) offer them temporary assistance and protection until durable solutions can be found.”
Shofiulla, 24, said 130 people were on the boat when the journey to Malaysia began on 10 January. They had paid $465 each.
After 10 days’ travel, he said the boat reached the Thai border and two boats from the Thai navy intercepted them. Shofiulla said the navy personnel took their engine.
“Then we (had) no food, no rations ... no water. We drank only sea water,” he said, adding that the bodies of the 97 who died over the next 25 days were put into the sea.
Colonel Thanathip Sawangsaeng, a Thailand Defense Ministry spokesman, denied the allegations.
“This is absolutely not true. The Thai navy officers would not have done that,” he said, adding that similar accusations have been made in the past, including claims that the Thai navy had abused refugees. “The Royal Thai Navy commander has previously made it clear that the Thai officers have treated the boat people according to humanitarian principles.
“There are two approaches in handling the Rohingya: giving them food and help before letting them carry on their sea journey or prosecute them for illegal entry. However, it’s not possible that the Thai navy would have done what they were alleged of doing.”
The Thai army said last month that it had suspended two senior officers pending an investigation into their alleged involvement in trafficking Rohingya people from Myanmar to other countries.
Shofiulla said he is a second-year student studying microbiology, but that his university was closed last July after the violence erupted. “We can’t go back to our country ... our government kills Muslims ... we are afraid to go back. We want to go to a safe place,” said Shofiulla, who appeared to be the only English-speaking person in the group.

UK Police to Review Sex Scandal at Lib Dems

British police said they would review accusations of sexual misconduct made against a former official of the coalition’s Lib Dems, intensifying a scandal that threatens to overwhelm the party ahead of a by-election.
Detectives from London’s police force will consider whether “criminal activity” took place relating to the allegations of sexual impropriety made against the party’s former chief executive Chris Rennard, the Metropolitan Police Service said.
Rennard, a member of parliament’s upper house, denies the allegations, but has stood down from party duties while they are investigated, Reuters reported.
The furor comes at a difficult moment for the party following the resignation of a former cabinet minister Chris Huhne this month after he admitted asking his then wife to accept a penalty for a speeding offence he had committed.
A local election to replace Huhne takes place this Thursday, with the Lib Dems, below 10 percent in national opinion polls, fighting a close battle with their Conservative coalition partners for the seat.
The Lib Dems’ stumbling response to the reports that Rennard inappropriately touched female party members and activists several years ago has put it on the back foot since they emerged in a television news report last week.
Lib Dem President Tim Farron, in an apparent criticism of party leader Nick Clegg, said the party had “screwed this up”.
Conservative-supporting newspapers have leapt on the crisis, putting Clegg, who serves as deputy prime minister, on the spot after he appeared to change his position on when and how much he knew about the allegations.
The Daily Mail accused Clegg of a cover-up after he disclosed he had been aware of “indirect and non-specific concerns” about Rennard in 2008.
Clegg denied hushing up the matter, saying his chief of staff had gone to Rennard at the time to put the concerns to him along with the warning that such behavior was “wholly unacceptable”.
“It is wrong ... to suggest that we could have acted further given that we didn’t have specific allegations five years ago. We have them now. That’s why we will act,” Clegg told Sky News.
The party has now announced two internal inquiries, one into how the party handled the allegations, and another into the allegations themselves.
“We don’t want there to be any no-go areas. If there are things which are criminal they need to pursued,” party deputy leader Simon Hughes told Sky News.

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