In the Rome envisioned by Virginia Raggi, who is vying to become the city’s next mayor, a new fleet of buses drive in delegated “fast lanes”, traffic flows seamlessly thanks to “smart” traffic lights, rubbish is picked up diligently, and public service contracts are carefully vetted and managed.
It may not sound like a particularly ambitious agenda for a major European capital. But for residents of the Eternal City, who know only too well the vast gulf that exists between the romantic view of the city and the everyday reality for people who live here – the overflowing rubbish bins, unreliable public transport, rampant illegal parking and overgrown public parks – it is nothing short of revolutionary.
“Our vision is of a city that is livable, first of all, which it is not at the moment, for all the Romans who live here and the tourists who … find themselves in front of a city that is devastated and very difficult,” Raggi said.
The insurgent 37-year-old lawyer and former member of Rome’s city council has emerged as one of the favourites in the election which is expected to be held in June, eight months after Ignazio Marino, the former Democratic mayor and transplant surgeon who promised to revive the city, was forced out following a scandal involving his expenses.
Former mayor Ignazio Marino promoting a bike scheme
If she wins, Raggi would not only be the first woman to lead the city but she would also score a significant victory for the Five Star Movement, the populist Eurosceptic party established by former comedian Beppe Grillo that now stands as the second most popular political party in Italy.
While Grillo’s M5S has long been seen as a protest party that was short on policy and more than a bit wacky, the ascendancy of polished politicians like Raggi across Italy marks an important turning point for the party and a sign that it might be moving beyond Grillo. It would also be a humiliating defeat for prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic party (PD).
Asked what she makes of the prime minister, himself a former mayor, Raggi did not hesitate in delivering her cool assessment: “[Renzi] is working for the banks and not the citizens.”
As for the other important man in Rome – Pope Francis – Raggi said she thought the Argentinian was probably a “Grillino” (derived from Grillo), ie a supporter of M5S’s views on environmentalism and stand against corruption. If elected, one of Raggi’s objectives would be to claim between €250m and €400m in allegedly unpaid taxes on the Vatican’s real estate holdings and other assets, which she claims have never been collected by the city’s administration for fear of taking on the church.
“I think that on this point, we could have a frank discussion,” she said, noting that the pope has raised the issue in the past.
In an interview with the Guardian in an office just a skip away from the prime minister’s residence, Palazzo Chigi, and in the middle of a race that has of late been dominated by a spat between rightwing rivals – about whether a mother could also be mayor – Raggi seemed delighted to talk up her three big priorities: mobility, transparency, and rubbish collection.
She rails against the particularly Roman phenomenon, “which practically doesn’t exist abroad”, of people who use public buses but do not pay fares (it is an honour system and checks are exceedingly rare).
“There need to be more controllers, and we’ll make it obligatory for people to get on in the front of the bus. We will do small things, of common sense, that have never been done,” she said.
“We have to bring legality back, something that in Italy, in Rome, isn’t there,” she said.
Raggi emphasises public transport: she wants to replace the city’s 15-year-old buses with a new fleet of hybrid electric buses and says she is not a fan of Uber, which she believes creates “unfair competition”. She is also seeking to reorganise the way lorries circulate the city, saying it is untenable for tens of thousands to be moving through Rome with only one or two packages to deliver.
But Raggi readily acknowledges that achieving anything in Rome will mean confronting the city’s rife corruption. While Rome was previously seen as a step above the unofficial capitals of organised crime in Italy – Sicily, Naples, Reggio Calabria – a neverending stream of scandals known collectively as “Mafia Capitale” has made it clear that almost every public service in Italy’s capital has been sullied by mismanagement and corruption.
Raggi’s response is for more transparency, more controls, and open data.
“There are staff in Rome who want to work honestly, heightening controls internally and externally,” she said.
It is an issue in which she clearly stands with her party leader, Grillo. But she hedges on other, controversial, views belonging to the party boss, who has been a cheerleader for Nigel Farage, among other anti-EU figures.
Asked whether she endorses his view that Italy ought to have a referendum on keeping the euro as a currency, Raggi said citizens ought to be able to “speak up” about the eurozone, but also acknowledged that Italy was better off in Europe than out of Europe.
“I think it would be difficult to leave Europe, but Europe needs to change,” she said.
While she defends a recent controversial move by Grillo in which he backed off a political agreement in which the M5S was going to support parental rights for same-sex couples as part of a broader bill on civil unions – the proposal had to be withdrawn – she said she personally supported rights for same-sex parents.
She also takes a different tone to Grillo’s sometimes xenophobic views on the migration crisis, saying Rome needed to more swiftly identify asylum seekers, but that the city ultimately had legal obligations to house migrants.
“We have to understand why these people leave – it is a war we all helped create,” she said.
For now, her candidacy has been clouded by a single controversy: her early work as an apprentice at a law firm of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s attorney, Cesare Previti, who was later convicted of bribing a judge.
She denounces the “debate and all this confusion”, saying it was an attack on “all category of lawyers”.
“The message it transmitted is that if you are a lawyer who defends a criminal, also the lawyer is a criminal. If you are a doctor that treats a mafiosi, are you a mafioso?” she said. Thanks for reading.
BREAKING: Senate Passes Controversial 2016 Budget
The Senate has passed the controversial 2016 Appropriation Bill presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 22, 2015.
Presenting a report on the budget, on Wednesday, Danjuma Goje, chairman senate committee on appropriation, said that the budget was “full of controversy”, but that the senate would not want to delay its passage by adding more controversies to it.
More to follow..............Thanks for reading.
Brussels suicide bombers identified as police hunt suspect caught on CCTV
Two of the suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the twin Brussels attacks that killed at least 31 people on Tuesday have been formally named by prosecutors, as police searched for a suspect captured on CCTV at Zaventem airport.
The Belgian federal prosecutor, Frédéric van Leeuw, confirmed media reports that Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, detonated one of two devices that exploded at Zaventem airport, killing himself and 11 others and injuring more than 90.
His younger brother Khalid, 27, was responsible for a third explosion, just over an hour later in a metro carriage at Maelbeek station on the rue de la Loi, near offices of the European commission, van Leeuw told a news conference. At least 14 people died in that attack, with more than 130 wounded.
Van Leeuw said the two airport bombs exploded within seconds of each other at 7.58am, near the check-in desks of rows 11 and two in the main departure hall. Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was identified by his fingerprints.
But two others from a group of three men caught on a CCTV camera wheeling loaded baggage trolleys across the hall have not been identified. One of these men was the second airport suicide bomber, the other a suspect who survived after leaving behind a suitcase containing a “very large explosive charge” and who is being actively sought.
Belgian media have suggested the surviving attacker was Najim Laachraoui, but reports that he had been arrested were later retracted.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which plunged the Belgian capital into a day-long lockdown, led to heightened security at airports across Europe, and drew swift and strong condemnation from other European capitals, the US and Russia.
Shortly after Brussels residents, EU staff including the president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and members of the Belgian royal family observed a minute’s silence in memory of the dead, van Leeuw confirmed the death toll from the attacks stood at 31 but was likely to rise further, with 270 injured.
A taxi driver had come forward after recognising CCTV images of the three airport suspects as men he picked up from an apartment block and dropped off at the airport, van Leeuw said, adding that police had subsequently raided the building in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek and discovered 15kg of explosives, detonators and a suitcase filled with nails and screws.
A series of other raids in the same street had led to one arrest, the prosecutor added, and the discovery in a rubbish bin of a computer containing a statement from Ibrahim el-Bakraoui in which he wrote of feeling “in a rush, not knowing what to do, being hunted everywhere, not being safe, and if this goes on, ending up in a cell”.
Van Leeuw said the two el-Bakraoui brothers, both Belgian nationals, had long criminal records but had not so far been associated with terrorism. It has emerged since the bloody attacks in Paris last November that killed 130 people, however, that they were part of that terror cell.
One el-Bakraoui brother is known to have rented a flat in the Forest area of south-west Brussels that was raided by police last Tuesday, leading three days later to the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the only known survivor among the 10 Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers who attacked the Bataclan concert hall, Stade de France and a string of cafes and restaurants in Paris.
One of the brothers is also known to have rented a hideout in Charleroi in Belgium where two more of the Paris attackers, ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud and Bilal Hadfi, who blew himself up at the Stade de France, met before heading to the French capital.
One of the el-Bakraoui brothers is also believed to have provided ammunition and weapons for the Paris attacks, RTBF reported.
Laachraoui, 24, is also suspected of involvement in the Paris attacks. He reportedly travelled to Syria in 2013 and was previously identified by his alias, Soufiane Kayal. He was travelling with Abdeslam in September 2015 when their car was stopped at the Hungarian border with Austria. Also in the car was Mohammed Belkaid, who was shot dead by a police sniper in a Forest raid.
Laachraoui’s DNA was also found at another apartment used by the Paris attackers in Auvelais. near the central Belgian city of Namur, and at another suspected hideout in Schaerbeek. RTBF said he could have been one of the bombmakers involved in the Paris attacks.
Belgium raised its terror alert to its highest level in the aftermath of the attacks. The airport will remain closed on Wednesday and Thursday and the metro will be running a reduced service, but schools were opening as normal.
The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, who was travelling to Brussels on Wednesday, urged the EU parliament to authorise a full Europe-wide passenger name record. “It has waited too long to adopt this text,” he said. “It must examine and adopt it in April. It’s time.”
The suspects
Ibrahim el-Bakraoui
El-Bakraoui blew himself up at Brussels’ main airport. He and his brother, Khalid, were well known to Belgian police because of their long history of involvement in organised crime. They had clear links to the Paris attacks and were among the suspects on the run.
The second bomber at the airport.
Khalid el-Bakraoui
Khalid el-Bakroui was responsible for the explosion in the metro carriage at Maelbeek station on the rue de la Loi, which killed at least 14 people and injured more than 130. Like his brother Ibrahim, the airport bomber, he had a criminal history and links to the Paris attacks. He had rented the flat in Forest, south-west Brussels, that was raided by police last Tuesday and where DNA traces of Salah Abdeslam, the surviving Paris attacker, had been found.
Najim Laachraoui
Laachraoui was identified as a key suspect in the Paris attacks the day before the Brussels bombings. His DNA was found in two hideouts used by Paris attackers and also on explosive material, prosecutors have said. Laachraoui was travelling under an alias with Salah Abdeslam in September last year when their Mercedes was stopped at the Hungarian border with Austria. RTBF reported that he could have been one of the bombmakers in the Paris attacks. Thanks for reading.
Alleged N852m Fraud: I Won’t Honour Your Invitation, Fayemi Tells Ekiti Assembly
A former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi has failed to appear before the State House of Assembly over allegations on misappropriation of N852 million Universal Basic Education Commission fund (UBEC).
The former Governor, now a serving Minister on Tuesday through his Personal Assistant, Tolulope Ibitola wrote the Assembly that he could not honour the invitation “due to prior scheduled state engagements”.
The Assembly had at its plenary presided over by Speaker Kola Oluwawole on March 9, in a resolution pursuant to Sections 128 (1)(2) and 129(c) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), ordered the Minister of Solid Mineral to appear before it on March 22.
He wrote, “The minister has however asked that I should draw your attention to the fact that all matters relating to his stewardship as Ekiti State Governor between October 16, 2010 and October 15, 2014 as well documented in his handover note, which was duly submitted to the government at the expiration of his tenure on October 15, 2014 as statutorily required.
“The minister will be pleased to respond to specific clarifications the House may wish to make further to your diligent examination of the handover note.”
However, the speaker said Fayemi could still be invited to defend himself over the UBEC fund, despite responding to the first summons of the House via a letter. Thanks for reading.
National Assembly To Pass 2016 Budget Today
The upper and lower chamber (Senate, House of Representative) would, today pass the 2016 Appropriation Bill presented by President Muhammdu Buhari on December 22, 2015.
The Senate Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, Senator Danjuma Goje said the Senate might possibly hold two sessions on Wednesday to enable it to pass the fiscal document.
He said, “We have perfected necessary arrangements to ensure that the budget is considered and passed before we proceed on recess tomorrow (Wednesday)”.
Read Also: Rivers Re-run: Policemen Were Not Biased – IGP
The federal lawmakers, who had earlier slated last week for the submission of the report, postponed it because of fresh errors they said were discovered in the fiscal document. Thanks for reading.
Alleged Corruption: Court Adjourns Metuh, Badeh’s Trial Again
Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court in Abuja has once again adjourned the trial of the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh.
The case will continue on Thursday, the Judge ruled on Wednesday.
Mr. Metuh is facing a seven-count charge of alleged money laundering to the tune of N400 million.
He was expected to open his defence Wednesday.
Mr. Abang had adjourned the opening of Mr. Metuh’s Defence last Thursday, following an application by the PDP spokesperson for the case to be transferred to another judge.
The application, filed by Mr. Metuh’s lawyer, Emeka Etiaba, listed 16 reasons Mr. Abang should not be allowed to hear the case.
Also on Wednesday, Justice Abang also adjourned the trial of former Chief of Air staff, Alex Badeh to Thursday. Thanks for reading.
Alleged N32bn Fraud: Dasuki Refuses To Appear In Court , Stalls Trial
Embattled National Security Adviser, NSA, Col. Sambo Dasuki, retd, failed to appear in court on Wednesday, for the commencement of his trial on the 19-count money laundering charge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, preferred against him and four others.
The anti-graft agency had in the charge it filed before an Abuja High Court sitting at Maitama, alleged that Dasuki connived with the erstwhile Director of Finance in the Office of the NSA, Mr. Shuaibu Salisu and a former Executive Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Aminu Baba-Kusa, and diverted public funds to the tune of N32billion.
The EFCC had alleged that the N32bn was distributed to delegates that attended the Presidential Primary Election the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, held in Abuja, a process that saw the emergence of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan as the sole candidate of the party.
Trial Justice Hussein Baba Yusuf had on February 8, okayed full-blown hearing to commence on the matter but at the resumption of trial on Wednesday, the prosecutor failed to produce Dasuki.
EFCC lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, told the court that the former NSA who has been in detention since November 3, 2015, refused to be brought to court. “My lord, yesterday (Tuesday) the 1st defendant was notified that this matter will come up today (Wednesday) for hearing and that he should prepare. However, this morning, the 1st defendant refused to come to court on the ground that his lead counsels Mr. J. B. Daudu, SAN, and Ahmed Raji, SAN, will not be in court.
“We persuaded him to at least come to court first but he refused and insisted that he cannot be abducted. He said that nobody can ad but and bring him to court”, Rotimi added.
He argued that section 267(2) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015, allows the court to commence hearing on a case against a defendant who is not in custody, so far such person is permitted to have unfettered access to his lawyers.
“I asked the DSS whether any of his counsels ever made any attempt to see him and they said none of his lawyers ever did. My lord I submit that it is not the law that once a defendant is in custody his trial cannot go on. That is the misconception that the defendant has been given out.
“This recent action is a deliberate game-plan by the defendant and his counsel to ensure that this trial does not go on today. My witnesses are here and ready to testify. The blatant refusal by the defendant to appear in court amounts to misconduct”, Jacobs insisted. Nevertheless, the lawyer who announced appearance for Dasuki, Mr. Wale Balogun, told the court that he was not aware of any of the allegations the prosecution raised against his client. He contended that the onus was on the prosecution to produce the defendant who has been in its custody, in court for trial. ”We are not in custody of the 1st defendant, they are the ones that have him in custody.
We are not ordinarily allowed to see him, so there is no way we can confirm all the allegations. “It is elementary requirement of law that the defendant must be present during his trial, the prosecution has not made any application for his presence to be excused.
The allegation the prosecution raised are very serious. He said someone told him, that DSS officer ought to have deposed an affidavit. “The learned silk cannot give evidence from the bar. His allegations should have been supported by an affidavit duly deposed before this court”,
Balogun argued. Similarly, counsel to the other defendants agreed with Dasuki’s lawyer that EFCC ought to have backed the allegations with an affidavit evidence.
The judge, therefore agreed with the defence counsel on the need to adjourned the case. Consequently, Justice Baba Yusuf adjourned the matter till April 6, 2016 for the prosecution to produce the defendant in court. Thanks for reading.
