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p10 2_Layout 1 11/17/14 9:41 PM Page 1 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2014 INTERNATIONAL Israel bars Norwegian doctor, but denies life ban JERUSALEM: Israel has blocked barred Gilbert from Gaza for life. The a deadly 50-day confrontation between they don’t want the world to see what’s Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert from outspoken trauma specialist-who has Israel and Hamas militants in the tiny going on. If they feel threatened or entering the country and thereby worked in the Palestinian territories for coastal strip. attacked by the facts on the ground-the accessing the Gaza Strip, but denied yes- three decades-accused Israeli authorities numbers of killed and injured civilians, terday it had imposed a lifelong ban on of backtracking yesterday, following ‘Don’t kill the messenger’ the lack of water and supplies due to the the outspoken medic. “He has been calls from Norway to reconsider the ban. The war, which ended on August 26, siege, the bombing of hospitals and banned from entering Israel,” foreign “They have a little trouble explaining claimed the lives of around 2,200 ambulances-then change that, don’t kill ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson said, if I’m banned from Gaza or Israel,” he Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli the messenger,” he said. Hirschson, at categorically denying reports Gilbert said, adding that he was allowed into side. The letter in The Lancet described the Israeli foreign ministry, denied the had been blocked from entering Gaza. Israel in October but denied entry to Israel’s Gaza campaign as a “crime ban was a punitive measure, saying it Access to the Gaza Strip, which has been Gaza by Israeli soldiers and later against humanity”. Last week an Israeli was “exclusively a result of security con- under an Israeli blockade since 2006, is informed that the ban was “infinite”. foreign ministry spokesman said Gilbert siderations”. He did not explain further. possible only through the Erez crossing “They keep changing explanations all was a “Jekyll and Hyde” character who “The decision is exclusively a result of Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert from Israel, or the Rafah terminal on the the time, so I think they are fairly pres- uses his medical status to attack the a security consideration. It is not a pun- Egyptian border. surized by the reaction from the Jewish state. Gilbert replied that Israel ishment, and therefore it has no time pital during the 22-day war over New But Rafah has been blocked by Cairo Norwegian government and from the was trying to cover up the effects of its frame,” he said. “It is not ‘forever’ as some Year 2009 in which more than 1,440 since a deadly suicide bombing in the international outcry over denying entry ongoing blockade of Gaza and to stifle have implied, but for as long as the secu- Palestinians were killed. Last week, Israel northern Sinai on October 24, leaving to a medical doctor just because he’s criticism. rity considerations which have led to it said it would not cooperate with a Erez as the only point of entry to the criticizing Israel.” Gilbert was one of two “I am a medical doctor who speaks remain the same.” Gilbert, who works at United Nations inquiry into this sum- Palestinian territory. News of the ban dozen European doctors who signed a up about the conditions of the the University Hospital of North mer’s confrontation with Hamas, accus- was first reported last week by letter published in leading medical jour- Palestinian people which is my duty as a Norway’s Clinic of Emergency Medicine, ing it of “obsessive hostility against Norwegian media which said Israel had nal The Lancet in July, several weeks into doctor,” he said. “This is not about me, also volunteered in Gaza City’s Shifa hos- Israel”.—AFP Italy under pressure over Roma camps squalor and corruption ROME: As beetles scurry across the cracked comments by politicians on both the left and worn floor in the “Best House Rom”, it is and right quick to paint Roma as crooks. not hard to see why Italy has got into trou- The inordinate wealth of the ble with the EU over its treatment of ethnic “Casamonica” Roma and Sinti clan-the most Roma. In the windowless centre on the out- powerful organised crime group in the skirts of Rome that is a temporary home to region around Rome according to Italy’s some 300 people, families live up to eight anti-mafia police-feeds mistrust and resent- to a room and children are plagued by ment. Camp dwellers are prevented by sleep disorders and diseases Europe council regulations from applying for pub- thought it had consigned to history. lic housing even if they were born in Italy, The converted warehouse is one of trapping them permanently in fenced-off dozens of squalid and overcrowded camps centers far from schools, shops, health care around the capital which local authorities centers or workplaces. It is this isolation of use to house a mixture of Italian-born a community essentially on ethnic grounds Roma, recent migrants from eastern Europe that is the primary concern of officials in and Sinti, a traditionally itinerant ethnic Brussels. “The conditions are worse than in group which has been present in Italy for prison. There’s a total lack of human rights, centuries. “There’s no air, the children suffer we cannot allow people to be treated like from respiratory disorders and anxiety,” said beasts,” Senator Manuela Serra of the Five Sherazada Hokic from Bosnia, who lives Star movement told AFP during a visit to with seven of her nine children in one room the “Best House” centre. and survives on food handouts she says often include rotting fruit. One ghetto to another The European Commission has warned The 300 or so residents have just 2.5 Italy it may launch infringement proce- meters square each of space at their dispo- dures, expressing concern the camps “seri- sition. Fluorescent strip lights flicker over- WARSAW: Polish police guard the Russian Embassy in Warsaw, Poland yesterday. Russian and Polish officials confirmed yesterday that they have ously limit fundamental rights” according to head, ceiling tiles are missing and there are carried out tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions in an espionage affair that highlights intensified efforts by Moscow to penetrateTO NA counties and extracts of a letter published last week by holes in the graffiti-daubed walls, yet Rome a new determination by the West to fight back. —AP pro-Roma group Associazione 21 Luglio. A city council pours funds into the centre, report by the European Roma Rights Centre forking out over one million euros ($1.24 (ERRC) in March found children raised in million) in 2013, according to 21 Luglio. In these camps-often under guard or video total, some 45 million euros of taxpayers In tit-for-tat, Russia expels surveillance-”are prone to a number of money are spent a year on the camps and severe and debilitating conditions” includ- Serra, a member of the Senate’s human ing “anxiety disorders, phobias and sleep rights commission, called for an investiga- disorders” as well as “poverty diseases” such tion into “where these enormous sums are several Polish diplomats as tuberculosis, scabies and lice. really going”. The money is given, without It also warned of daily discrimination tender, to 35 public and private associa- and violence against Roma in “an ever- tions who run the camps and offer sporadic growing climate of racism”, including services such as limited rubbish collection EU set for new sanctions repeated cases of local residents attacking or school runs. Critics say corruption is camps with Molotov cocktails while police inevitable and their suspicions of mafia MOSCOW: Russia expelled several Polish diplo- Mogherini said sanctions would be discussed called on the West not to lose hope in what may turn a blind eye. Although over half the involvement. Many of the families at the mats for spying yesterday, deepening the worst “for sure” in response to violations of a be a long struggle with Russia over Ukraine, but 170,000 or so Roma and Sinti people in “Best House” were moved there from the East-West crisis since the Cold War as the EU September peace deal in Ukraine and discredit- vowed that the Kremlin “will not prevail”. “We Italy are Italian citizens with regular jobs Cesarina camp, which was demolished at eyed fresh sanctions against Moscow over the ed elections held by separatists in November. need to have the necessary patience for an and houses, hate crimes against the poor- the end of last year, at which point asbestos violence in Ukraine. Fresh bloodshed in “But sanctions in themselves are not an objec- uphill battle,” Merkel said in a speech after the est strata are rife, fuelled by inflammatory was discovered underneath.—AFP Ukraine between pro-Kremlin rebels and Kiev’s tive. They can be an instrument if they come Brisbane summit. Western leaders at the sum- forces added to the tensions after Russian together with other measures,” she said. These mit, including US President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin left a G20 summit in included pushing Ukraine to adopt reforms and British Prime Minister David Cameron Brisbane early amid criticism from western carrying on dialogue with Russia, said denounced Putin’s “unacceptable” actions in leaders. Mogherini, the former Italian foreign minister Ukraine, warning of more sanctions to come Work resumed meanwhile to remove the whose appointment to the EU job was opposed unless he changed course. The West would debris of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 from by eastern states that saw her as too soft on keep up the pressure for years if necessary, to eastern Ukraine, paving the way for its return to Moscow.