GUARDIAN– Britain is training Saudi Arabia‘s national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom’s human rights record is “a major concern”.

In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in “weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training”. The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.

The MoD response, obtained yesterday by the Observer, reveals that Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for “all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transport”.

Bahrain’s royal family used 1,200 Saudi troops to help put down demonstrations in March. At the time the British government said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of human rights abuses being perpetrated by the troops.

Read full article about UK Training Saudi Forces Used to Crush Arab Spring.

© 2011 Guardian

Photo by Flickr user US Army

RIA NOVOSTI– Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Saturday called for war with Italy, citing Italy’s ‘colonization’ attempts.

In a speech delivered at the Libyan state TV, Gaddafi said that he could not prevent war with Italy since Libyans wanted it.

“We are already in a war with Italy since Italians kill our children in 2011 as they did in 1911, that is why I cannot forbid Libyans to defend their lives and carry the military actions on the enemy’s territory,” Gaddafi said.

Libya was Italian colony from 1911 to 1941. In 2008 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed a so-called Friendship Treaty with Gaddafi. Under this pact Italy paid 5 billion euro reparations to Libya for its colonial rule.

In late February Italy suspended the Friendship Treaty.

“Italy insists on repeating the crimes of 1911, in keeping with the same colonialist policy. This is the violent face of Italy. My friend Berlusconi and the Italian parliament are committing a crime,” Gaddafi said.

Italy is one of the 14 NATO countries, taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes airstrikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.

Read more about Gaddafi Calls on War with Italy

© 2011 RIA Novosti

Photo by Flickr user coda

WALL STREET JOURNAL– For the second time, Icelanders voted down a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands billions of euros lost in the island nation’s 2008 financial collapse—at once a bold popular rejection of the notion that taxpayers must bear the burden for bankers’ woes and a risky outcome that will complicate Iceland’s efforts to rejoin global markets.

The money in question, about €4 billion ($5.8 billion), was placed by British and Dutch depositors in an Icelandic Internet bank called Icesave, and then lost when Icesave’s operator, Landsbanki Islands, collapsed along with the rest of Iceland’s big banks in October 2008.

Nearly 60% of 175,000 voters rejected a plan to compensate the British and the Dutch governments, who had stepped in to pay their own Icesave depositors when Iceland’s deposit-insurance scheme ran out of money.

The deal was the result of months of negotiation that saw Iceland win far better terms for the repayment. An earlier agreement was demolished—93% of voters said no—in a another referendum, in March 2010.

Read full article about Icelanders Rejecting Debt Repayment Plan.

© 2011 WALL STREET JOURNAL

Photo by flickr user Ezioman

NRC– The Dutch justice ministry has announced it will close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. A decline in crime has left many cells empty.

During the 1990s the Netherlands faced a shortage of prison cells, but a decline in crime has since led to overcapacity in the prison system. The country now has capacity for 14,000 prisoners but only 12,000 detainees.

Deputy justice minister Nebahat Albayrak announced on Tuesday that eight prisons will be closed, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Natural redundancy and other measures should prevent any forced lay-offs, the minister said.

The overcapacity is a result of the declining crime rate, which the ministry’s research department expects to continue for some time.

Belgian prisoners

Some reprieve might come from a deal with Belgium, which is facing overpopulation in its prisons. The two countries are working out an agreement to house Belgian prisoners in Dutch prisons. Some five-hundred Belgian prisoners could be transferred to the Tilburg prison by 2010.

The Netherlands would get 30 million euros in the deal, and it will allow the closing of the prisons in Rotterdam and Veenhuizen to be postponed until 2012.

© COPYRIGHT NRC, 2010

Photo by flickr user Mocvdleung