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Wouldn’t you think that even a dime of all that rock star money that pours into the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative might get to the three-year-olds who are having heart attacks and epileptic spells because of the lead-heavy areas his war displaced them to? Instead of helping where he has caused suffering, he looks far far away, toward Africa and even obesity, to look for causes to help. Meanwhile, he is killing hundreds of Roma children like Sara:

Madonna Booed During Romanian Concert Over Gypsy Remark August 28, 2009 7:13 a.m. EST Anne Lu - Celebrity News Service News Writer Bucharest, Romania (CNS) - Madonna's stance on equality was not warmly received in Romania. The pop superstar was booed during a concert after she mentioned discrimination of gypsies and homosexuals in the country. She told the "Sticky and Sweet" concert crowd in Bucharest, "I've never been to Romania before and I am happy to be here." "But I found out that there is a lot of discrimination against gypsies in Eastern Europe and that makes me very sad,...

BUCHAREST, Romania - At first, fans politely applauded the Roma performers sharing a stage with Madonna. Then the pop star condemned widespread discrimination against Roma, or Gypsies — and the cheers gave way to jeers. The sharp mood change that swept the crowd of 60,000, who had packed a park for Wednesday night's concert, underscores how prejudice against Gypsies remains deeply entrenched across Eastern Europe. Despite long-standing efforts to stamp out rampant bias, human rights advocates say Roma probably suffer more humiliation and endure more discrimination than any other people group on the continent. Sometimes, it can be deadly: In...

A respected jeweller has been given a police warning for 'racially offensive' conduct after banning gipsies from his shop in the wake of a series of raids by an Eastern European crime gang. Michael Plant, 62...reacted to the string of thefts with a sign in his shop window reading: 'Sorry, we do not serve Eastern Europeans or Gypsies.' Shortly after posting the sign, he was served with a warning from a senior police officer demanding he take it down, or face prosecution for possible race hate charges.Despite inquiries police have been unable to trace the thieves.... ... 'I've got a...

Gipsies and travellers should be given priority in NHS hospitals and GP surgeries, doctors have been told. They will be fast-tracked for doctors, nurses and even some dentist appointments above all other patients. GPs have also been told to see any travellers who simply walk in without an appointment, even if all consultation times for the day are full.

A woman who wrote a leaflet encouraging people to carry out jihad, or holy war, has been sentenced to a community order at Manchester Crown Court. Shella Roma, 29, of Oldham, had pleaded guilty to dissemination of a terrorist publication, and received a three-year order, with supervision for two years. Roma was arrested after a photocopy shop employee was alarmed by a document she had produced, and alerted police. The pamphlet contained an essay, "The Call", encouraging jihad. The eight-page essay mentioned the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, and repeatedly asked: "Will you go to Jihad (holy war)?"...

Dressed in their finest clothes and gold jewellery, thousands of teenage Roma girls were paraded around by their parents this weekend - at an open-air brides market. Wearing lots of make-up, the teenagers came to the traditional annual market in Bulgaria, hoping to find a husband - and preferably one willing to pay a large amount of money for his future spouse. 'We take our daughters to this gathering so they could get acquainted with boys, for we do not allow our children to go to discos,' explains Elena from Kapitan Andreevo. At the market in the village of Mogila...

This idyllic corner of England is where council chiefs want to put a new gipsy camp. When locals, protested, they branded them racists and threw out their complaints. So much for democracy... The spring bulbs are coming up a treat outside Huckleberry Cottage and the thatched roof looks as pretty as a picture. 'Would you like tea or a glass of lemonade?' inquires Frances Huckle, a slight white-haired woman who answers the front door. Mrs Huckle, a former nurse, and her 79-year-old husband Gordon, a retired engineer, have lived here in the same home in Stotfold, Bedfordshire, for half a...

First he encircled them with an 8ft metal fence. And when that failed to move the gipsy camp off his land, he dug a moat. Builder Francis Shiner resorted to the measures when two gipsy families set up home on the disused car park of a building site in Bedford.He asked them to move but they didn't. So he went on the offensive and managed to evict them within 48 hours. Mr Shiner said the gipsies were hindering work on the site owned by Bedford construction company SDC construction and action had to be taken. He said: 'We went...

2008-10-22 | Statement of the Kosovo Roma Diaspora on the occasion of the "International Roundtable on Roma, Ashakli and Egyptians of Kosovo: Challenges and Prospects of Sustainable Integration" 22 October 2008 - We, representatives of the Kosovo Roma Diaspora, would like to express our disagreement with the organisation of an international roundtable on the integration of Roma from Kosovo by the Project on Ethnic Relations in cooperation with the OSCE/ODIHR. We believe that this conference, which is taking place today at the headquarters of the OSCE in Vienna, has no other purpose than to set the basis for the forthcoming...

PHILADELPHIA (AFP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday thanked his Republican rival John McCain for urging supporters to be respectful and stop hurling abuse at Obama at his rallies. "Now, I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric yesterday in his town hall meeting and I appreciate his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other," Obama said.

"(CNN) -- Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Romany gypsy girls were laid out on the sand." "Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them. The Web site of the Archbishop of Naples said the girls were cousins named Violetta and Cristina, aged 12 and 13. Their bodies were eventually laid out on the sand under beach towels...

The gipsy mother who forced her daughter of 13 to marry a 14-year-old boy yesterday dismissed British values as irrelevant to her. Renata Gural said she was unconcerned by the outrage over the teenagers' Romany wedding ceremony at a pub in East London. Mrs Gural, 31, who is pregnant with her sixth child, said: "I'm not bothered what anyone thinks. "I'll be the one who decides if my daughter is old enough to marry. I got married when I was 14 in such a ceremony and it hasn't done me any harm. "Just because I live in Britain doesn't mean...

McALLEN -- A 28-year-old Mexican national pleaded guilty Monday to assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent last year during a failed arrest attempt. Juan Carlos Gonzalez Garcia, of Villa De Ramos, S.L.P., Mexico, faces up to 20 years in prison for the attack which left the agent with a fractured left shoulder. He told authorities he was one of three men in a pick-up truck stopped on Dec. 13 just outside of Roma, according to court documents. But when agents discovered he was in the country illegally and tried to arrest him, Gonzalez resisted, knocking himself and the arresting agent...

Paul Polansky, Head of Mission, Kosovo Roma Refugee Fund (KRRF) and Society For Threatened Peoples (GFBV), is one of the most important contemporary writers on the suppressed history and reality of Eastern European Gypsies. A native of Mason City, Iowa, USA, Mr Polansky has spent the last 15 years living with various Gypsy communities of Eastern Europe. Mr Polansky spoke to SHIV KARAN SINGH: How did you first get involved with the Gypsies of Kosovo? Because of my research in the 1990’s, documenting the stories of Gypsy survivors of World War II death camps in Czechoslovakia, which resulted in one...

Threat to deport Roma family of 54 camped on motorway Government to send out firm message: we will not give in to groups seeking welfare Henry McDonald, Ireland editor Sunday July 22, 2007 The Observer (UK) The Irish government is determined to deport a group of Roma Gypsies who are living on roundabouts and grassy areas on Ireland's busiest motorway, The Observer has learnt. Plans have been drawn up to allow the gardai to evict, forcibly if necessary, the 32 adults and 22 children from one extended family who have set up camps on the M50 between Dublin airport and...

ROMA, Texas (Reuters) - Dozens of paddlers took to the waters of the Rio Grande on Saturday to protest a planned security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that supporters say will stem the tide of illegal immigration from the south. "I don't think that the wall is a good option for our countries," said Raul Padilla as he briskly stroked his kayak down the river. "Instead of dividing, we must unite to combat social problems together." His boat was one of 10 from the Mexican side of the river to join 30 kayaks and canoes from the U.S. side for...

HIDALGO — The U.S. Border Patrol turned over a fugitive believed to have ties to a powerful Mexican paramilitary group to agents in that country Thursday, federal authorities said. Miguel Angel Hernandez Barrón was wanted for deserting the army and separate gun charges, said Reynosa-based Judge Ayala Santos, with the Instituto Nacional de Migración, a federal immigration court. Hernandez Barrón is believed to be the brother of Victor Manuel Hernandez Barrón, a top member of the Zetas and the purported personal bodyguard of alleged Gulf Cartel leader Osiel Cárdenas, authorities said. Federal agents detained Miguel Hernandez Barrón on Wednesday in...

ROME - Work on Rome's Palatine Hill has turned up a trove of discoveries, including what might be the underground grotto where ancient Romans believed a wolf nursed the city's legendary founders Romulus and Remus. ADVERTISEMENT Archaeologists gathered Tuesday at a conference to save crumbling monuments on the Palatine discussed findings of studies on the luxurious imperial homes threatened by collapse and poor maintenance that have forced the closure of much of the hill to the public.While funds are still scarce, authorities plan to reopen some key areas of the honeycombed hill to tourists by the end of the year,...

"Holocaust against the Roma" exhibition in Warsaw 06.11.2006 The exhibition is very well documented- the exhibits: photographs, documents, identity cards come from several dozen institutions as well as private persons who are involved in the project. The genocide committed by Nazi Germany on the Roma community is largely forgotten in many European countries. This ignorance makes the long born stereotypes about the Roma community very much alive . The exhibition is composed of four parts which demonstrate the growth of the racial policy towards the Roma from the early persecution and isolation to mass extermination says the commissioner of the...

Romanticized and persecuted, celebrated and shunned, Gypsies have become a growing presence in the world music circuit since the fall of Communism -- yet the everyday prejudice they face across Europe has persisted, and sometimes worsened. Even the word "Gypsy" is a misunderstanding, based on the notion that they are descended from Egyptians, though their ancestors actually migrated in the 11th century from Rajasthan in northwestern India. In recent years, the name they call themselves in the Romani language, Roma, has been increasingly embraced. By the 15th century, there were Roma communities in Eastern Europe, as well as the Iberian...

PODGORICA, Montenegro - Bedri Shala has his reasons for not wanting to go home to Kosovo. Back across the border, he said, are Kosovo Albanian men who in the aftermath of the war in 1999 kidnapped, tortured and raped him repeatedly, shot his brother dead, and tried to shoot Shala, too, as he ran away.

Uncovering the Past by Maria Husova 30 January 2006 World War II ended more than 60 years ago, but the Roma Holocaust in Slovakia is only now being recognized. Tens of thousands of Roma in Europe were among the victims of the Holocaust, but many Slovaks still don’t know that people other than Jews were victims of persecution during World War II. Only recently, moving stories of Roma survivors have begun to emerge. Those survivors are finally seeing their pain acknowledged in memorials, and some have even received compensation. The Roma Holocaust is called Baro Porrajmos in the Roma language,...

ROMA — A day after a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang was arrested in connection with the beating death of an immigrant smuggler north of here, Roel Ramirez said he feared for his family’s safety. He also worries about leaving people alone at his cattle and wildlife ranch nine miles north of here, where people from all over the world come to view and photograph birds. "It’s very, very scary," said Ramirez of the possible presence of the El Salvadoran gang, also known as MS-13. "I spend a lot of time at the ranch. (On Tuesday), my ranch...

Alleged gang member held after ‘coyote’ found dead ROMA — A group of Mara Salvatrucha gang members sneaking into the United States may have beaten one of their smugglers to death, according to Starr County Sheriff Rey Guerra. Smugglers were leading a group of 25 undocumented immigrants through Starr County early Wednesday when five men, believed to be members of the notorious El Salvador gang, MS-13, allegedly attacked one of the smugglers, or coyotes. The killing may have been in retaliation for another immigrant who was removed from the group along the way in Mexico. After other members of the...

Holocaust survivors' lawsuit against Vatican proceeds Matt C. Abbott June 14, 2005 From a news release dated June 14, 2005: Vatican dealt another legal setback in Holocaust claims lawsuit The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has denied a Vatican petition for reconsideration and has shown no interest in a Vatican request for an extraordinary en banc hearing of the Ninth Circuit. This follows the Ninth Circuit's April 18, 2005 ruling that Holocaust survivors will be permitted to continue their claims against the Vatican for an accounting and restitution of the so-called Ustasha, or Croatian treasury, consisting of...

Police say at least 37 people have been arrested after a night of violence in the southern French city of Perpignan. The trouble started after a man of North African descent was shot dead. Hundreds of North Africans clashed with police, who responded with tear gas and baton charges. Tensions between North Africans and Romas have increased after another man of North African descent was beaten to death last week, allegedly by Romas. On Saturday, more than 3,500 people demonstrated in a tense atmosphere in memory of Mohamed Bey Bachir, who was killed on 22 May. French police say eight...

In its rush to proclaim its assignment a success, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo is ignoring - or covering up - a medical tragedy there for which it is directly responsible. At three camps built by the UN High Commission for Refugees, some 60 Gypsy children under the age of 6 have been exposed to such high levels of lead that they are highly likely either to die soon or to suffer irreversible brain damage. This number represents every child born in the camps since they were built five and a half years ago - children whose undeveloped immune...

Serbs, Jews Gypsies mark 60th anniversary of dismantling of Croatia's "Auschwitz" www.chinaview.cn 2005-04-18 12:02:16 BELGRADE, April 17 (Xinhuanet) -- Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic and about 3,000 people, mostly Serbs, gathered in Bosnia's northern village of Donja Gradina on Sunday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the dismantlement of the Jasenovac camp, Croatia's most notorious death camp in World War II. The Jasenovac camp, known as Croatia's Auschwitz and located about 100 km southeast of Croatia's capital Zagreb, was set up in 1941 by Croatia's pro-Nazi Ustasha regime. Donja Gradina used to be part of the Jasenovac camp complex. "In...

Budapest – If the European Union has its way, the Roma (also called Gypsies) will eventually emerge from their shantytowns and makeshift camps and shed the shackles of centuries-old dis- crimination. Although that day may be distant, Europe's conscience has become aware of the plight of the Continent's most deprived minority. To some, they represent the swarthy violinists in dimly lit nightclubs. But across Eastern Europe, misbehaving children often are warned "you'll be given to the Gypsies" — those beggars and petty thieves who travel from town to town in horse-drawn caravans and live in deep poverty. In Bulgaria, the...

A travellers’ website tells gipsies how to use the Human Rights Act to abuse planning laws, The Sun can reveal. Friends, Families & Travellers boasts a DIY page which tells them how they can flout the law. It actively encourages travellers to take over sites with no planning permission. And it tells them how they can use the Human Rights Act to get round the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. Details of the website come as petitions pour in from thousands of Sun readers angry at Deputy PM John Prescott over lax laws which allow gipsies to bypass...

Illegal traveller camps and squatters will escape eviction for months to come while judges decide if moving them on will breach their human rights. The length of the delay became clear yesterday in the case of the Maloney family, who have been evicted more than 50 times and cost the taxpayer an estimated £300,000. The Court of Appeal ruled that their local council was right to throw the Gyspy family off public playing fields, but then took the unusual step of sending the case to the House of Lords for a final decision. In a groundbreaking case, five members of...

Do the cameras tell us lies? Italian policemen, magistrates and soccer officials are examining images to determine whether Paolo Di Canio should face criminal charges for stirring old fascist leanings with his celebration of a victory for SS Lazio over AS Roma in the febrile Roman "derby" contest last Thursday. The so-called Roman salute - stiff right arm and flat palm - that this appears to be was not, according to Di Canio and his agents, at all a political gesture, and certainly not intended as incitement to the known neo-fascist faction of hard-core Lazio fanatics in the north stand...

The Roma PRISTINA, Kosovo As my car entered the camp in Zitkovac, a town in northern Kosovo, a taxi followed, with a coffin tied precariously across the roof. The camp was supposed to serve as interim housing for some of Kosovo's Roma, or Gypsies, displaced from their settlement in the nearby city of Mitrovica. But since 1999, it has become the birth place and final resting place for many. For more than five years, wind, rain, sun and snow have beaten down on the flimsy makeshift dwellings - made of nothing more than tin and clap-board, insulated by plastic sheets...

Clinton Tells of Roma's Plight Sen. Hillary Clinton Addresses Throngs of Students at Low Library By Tanveer Ali Spectator Staff Writer November 09, 2004 While America speculated about her possible 2008 presidential bid, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), spoke to a packed Low Library crowd yesterday, shedding light on the discrimination and conditions that the ethnic Roma, or Gypsies, endure in present-day Europe. Clinton's speech was the keynote address in the Plight of the Roma Conference held in Low Library, which also included three panel discussions regarding the history of the issue and future solutions. The conference was the brainchild...

Don & Roma aren't all that's missing from WLS September 23, 2004BY ROBERT FEDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST With the nation at war and a presidential election around the corner, you'd think that Chicago radio's flashiest news/talk station would be operating at peak form right now. But WLS-AM (890) begins the fall ratings period today with no morning show, half an afternoon show, and cobwebs collecting in the vacant office of the general manager. These are tough times at the Disney/ABC-owned station -- made worse by absentee management that chooses to ignore how badly confidence and morale have eroded at one of...

Romany Gypsies came out of India Anna Salleh ABC Science Online Monday, 6 September 2004 A Romany woman dances in downtown Prague during the third annual Khamoro Festival of Roma music and culture (Image: Reuters/Petr Josek) Legend has it that European Gypsies came from Egypt but a new genetic study has shown they came from a small population that emerged from ancestors in India around 1000 years ago. The research, by Professor Luba Kalaydjieva of the University of Western Australia and team, looked at the origins of eight to 10 million people in Europe commonly known as Gypsies. Roma, Romani...

WARSAW (AFP) - Hundreds of Roma from across Europe walked through the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland to pay homage to the half a million gypsies who died in the Holocaust 60 years ago. The gypsies, many of them Holocaust survivors or relatives of victims whom had travelled from Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic, took the same path some 20,000 Roma on the night of August 2-3 travelled to Birkenau's crematorium five where they died. Known as the "Pharrajimos" in the Romani language, the Holocaust took the lives of nearly half a million gypsies in different...

Gypsies Scour Belgrade's Streets in 'Mad Max' Mobiles Fri Jun 25,10:00 AM ET By Fredrik Dahl BELGRADE (Reuters) - The Saciri family has an edge in their struggle to survive in Belgrade's dilapidated urban landscape. Many of Serbia's gypsies or Roma eke out a living by combing through rubbish for stuff they can sell on for recycling. It is a tough existence with cut-throat competition. Most push simple carts around the streets looking for paper and scrap metal. It takes 30 pounds of cardboard to earn $1. The Saciris and others have improvised a head start, stripping down old French...

Five Years of Ethnic Cleansing of Roma, Ashkaelia and Egyptians and others regarded as "Gypsies" from KosovoBudapest, 10. 6. 2004, 16:00, (ERRC) Today marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and other persons regarded as "Gypsies" from Kosovo. In the wake of the cessation of NATO action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in June 1999 and the subsequent return of predominantly ethnic Albanians from abroad, ethnic Albanians violently expelled approximately four fifths of Kosovo's pre-1999 Romani population -- estimated to have been around 120,000 -- from their homes. In the course...

Budapest, 10. 6. 2004, 16:00, (ERRC) Today marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the ethnic cleansing of Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and other persons regarded as "Gypsies" from Kosovo. In the wake of the cessation of NATO action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in June 1999 and the subsequent return of predominantly ethnic Albanians from abroad, ethnic Albanians violently expelled approximately four fifths of Kosovo's pre-1999 Romani population -- estimated to have been around 120,000 -- from their homes. In the course of the ethnic cleansing campaign, ethnic Albanians kidnapped Roma and severely physically abused and in some...

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) - Disappointed and angry after Greek Cypriots rejected a U.N. plan to reunite Cyprus, the European Union pledged to start searching for ways to extend a hand of friendship to the island's long-ostracized Turkish side. The U.N. reunification plan required agreement from both sides of the island. But, despite American and European support, Greek Cypriots overwhelmingly rejected it and Turkish Cypriots endorsed it in referendums on Saturday. That means Cyprus will not join the European Union on May 1 as a united state and that EU laws and benefits will apply only to the Greek Cypriot side....

ERRC PHOTO: The Albanian riots in Vushtrri/Vucitrn were first directed at UNMIK under the slogan "Stop arresting liberators!", then turned against the former Orthodox citizens of the town now lying in this graveyard, and from there assaulted the only living non-Albanian community at hand, the Ashkaelia. Serbs and Roma were burned out of their houses in the summer of 1999, leaving behind only the local Ashkaelia, who have now also been burned out of their houses. European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) Letter of Concern to Kosovo and European Authorities over Violence against Roma, Ashkaelia, Egyptians and Others Regarded as...

Slovakian troops sent in to stop gipsy riots By Francis Harris in Prague (Filed: 26/02/2004) Slovakian troops were deployed on the streets yesterday for the first time since the fall of communism to stop looting by Roma gipsies protesting against welfare cuts. Thousands of police backed by 2,000 soldiers in the ghetto towns of eastern Slovakia appeared to have temporarily ended attacks by mobs forcing their way into food shops. Near 100 per cent unemployment has brought thousands of Roma gypsies out on the streets The rioting was the most serious social disturbance in the young democracy, forcing the authorities...

Nov. 21, 2003 Wiesenthal Center: Greece not fighting anti-Semitism By TOM TUGEND A travel advisory urging "extreme caution" for travelers to Greece has been issued by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in light of the nation's failure to take steps curbing growing anti-Semitism and hate propaganda. Citing a series of anti-Jewish acts, articles and statements in Greece, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean, warned, "Failing a dramatic change in attitude and policy, the current atmosphere of hate and vilification can only escalate and could also poison the environment leading up to the 2004 Olympic Games." Cooper noted that meetings with...

SIBIU, Romania - It was billed as the Gypsy wedding of the year. But the ceremony, launching a three-day party, got off to a bad start: The 12-year-old "princess bride" — daughter of a self-proclaimed king — stormed out of the church in protest in front of 400 guests. "Leave me alone!" Ana Maria Cioaba screamed at reporters Saturday, swearing at them as she sought shelter in a nearby house. Her bridesmaids chanted slogans against the groom. She returned to the church minutes later and — though she would hardly look at him — was duly married off to her...

ZAGREB, May 13 (AFP) - A pan-European human rights body representing the Roma people on Tuesday accused Croatia of practising racial segregation against children in elementary schools, and said it might take the case to the European Court. "By placing them in separate classes Romany children were given the message that they are not as good as white children and that message will have a lifetime impact," said Jean Garland, the legal director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Center (ERRC). The ERRC will go ahead with the suit if the country's constitutional court upholds the lower instances ruling on...

The Roma and “Humanitarian” Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo by Sani RifatiDissident VoiceOctober 13, 2002 I am a Rom (more commonly known as “Gypsy”) who was born in Kosovo, Yugoslavia, and lived in Pristina (the capital of the Kosovo region) for 27 years. In the summer of 2000, ten years later, I was only 30 miles away in Macedonia but I could not visit the town where I lived most of my life. This was more than three years after the “humanitarian bombing” by U.S.-NATO forces and escalation of ethnic conflict began in Kosovo on March 24th, 1999. But it was...

Commissioners to take final look at rural fringe growth plan Sunday, June 16, 2002By ERIC STAATS, emstaats@naplesnews.com Collier County commissioners are on the verge of adopting the most significant changes to the county's growth plan since it was created in 1985. Landowners opposed to the changes are expected to pack a meeting room Tuesday to protest the so-called rural fringe plan that would apply to some 93,000 acres between the urban area and Golden Gate Estates. The meeting starts at 5 p.m. The backbone of the new plan is a Transfer of Development Rights program that would discourage development on...