THE HANDSTAND

APRIL-MAY2008
 

EU News

Aime Cesaire, voice of French Black pride, dies

By Astrid Wendlandt
Thu Apr 17, 8:52 AM ET
 
PARIS (Reuters) - French Caribbean poet Aime Cesaire, founding father of the "negritude" movement that celebrated black consciousness, died in his native Martinique, the France's Ministry of Culture said on Thursday. Cesaire, 94, who was mayor of the island's main city Fort-de-France for more than half a century, was admitted to hospital last week suffering from heart and other problems.

His writings offered insight into how France imposed its culture on its citizens of different origins in
the early part of the 20th Century. The theme still resonates in French politics today, as the country continues to struggle to integrate many of its residents of African and North African origin.

In 2005, Cesaire refused to meet then French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy (now French president) over concerns that Sarkozy's conservative UMP party had pushed for a law which proposed to recognize the positive legacy of French colonial rule. The law was eventually repealed.

Cesaire and African intellectual Leopold Senghor -- later president of Senegal -- founded "The Black Student" in 1934, a journal that encouraged people to develop black identity. The Caribbean writer rose to fame with his "Notebook of a Return to the Native Land," written in the late 1930s, in which he says "my negritude is neither tower nor cathedral, it plunges into the red flesh of the soil."
His poems expressed the degradation of black people in the Caribbean and describe the rediscovery of an African sense of self. In his "Discourse on Colonialism," first published in 1950, Cesaire compared the relationship between the colonizer and colonized with the Nazis and their victims.

He was a mentor to fellow Martinican author Frantz Fanon, and their anti-colonial writings were a majorv influence in the heady intellectual climate of the 1960s and 1970s in France. The negritude movement was a counterpart to the Black Pride movement in the United States, though it has
been criticized for not being radical enough. Cesaire was also a friend of the French surrealist
poet Andre Breton who had encouraged him to become a major voice of Surrealism.

Cesaire's anti-colonial rhetoric did not prevent him from having a long-lasting political career.
After becoming mayor of Fort-de-France in 1945 at the age of 32, he was elected deputy of parliament a year later, a post he held until the early 1990s.

A graduate of the prestigious French Ecole Normale Superieure -- unusual for a black Martinican in the 1930s -- he remained a member of the French communist party until the Soviet Hungarian repression of 1956.

Cesaire was born in 1913 in the small town of Basse-Pointe in Martinique. He married Suzanne Roussi in 1937, a gifted writer in her own right, with whom he had six children.

(Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt; editing by Geert De
Clercq and Paul Casciato)

“No we can’t” - the collapse of the Italian left
By Mary Rizzo
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Apr 17, 2008,

Something totally unexpected happened in Italy Monday night. It officially became American.

In a country that boasted hundreds of parties (too many, for sure) and political factions, our parliament has eliminated all elements of the left from the parliament, including parties that existed from the founding moments of our Republic, and parties that, elsewhere in Europe, govern nations as large as Spain and Great Britain. There are no more Communists in the parliament. Socialists are gone too. The Greens have faded to black. What we have is the stew of a party that copies in slogan and in fact the US Democratic Party. “Si puň fare” was the slogan . . ."Yes we can.” Never catering to any kind of difficult analysis but being all smiles and handshakes, installing the idea of ‘change’ (but if they had governed for the past two years, what change were they asking us to believe in?) rather than in recognising that Italy is a country on the verge of collapse and if we don’t fix things quickly, we are going to feel it painfully.

And, I’m not surprised the self-styled ‘radical’ left was excluded by the vote. They had no imagination to go beyond inserting their politicians here and there, making sure that they maintained their positions, without ever raising a self-critical voice to the positions they had adopted during their two-year reign in power, including allowing US colonisation in this country, from the enormous extension of the Dal Molin US military base to the ‘mission’ in Lebanon and the refinancing of the Afghan war effort. They succeeded in raising hospital costs and sticking the union demands in a public offer to salvage Alitalia from certain bankruptcy and loss of jobs, all in the name of ‘protecting the national company,’ as if we really need a national airline!

They addressed a class that does not even exist, catering to the enormous category of state employees, taking advantage of social conflict between aspects of the disenfranchised, promising everything to everybody, from a minimum wage to a moveable salary scale that they can’t finance, to increased in pension funds. Band-Aid that is the only way Italy resolves its problems.

They did not face the ecological and social disaster of waste disposal, and true to form, if there is anything that needs doing, from putting out the forest fires that are now the leitmotif of our summers and the feeding of the poor or aid to immigrants, it is all passed off to the enormous league of the millions of unpaid volunteers, which has always been something Italy excels in, having this solidarity resource that covers up all the holes that otherwise would send our beautiful country to the bottom of a pit, never to crawl back up.

There was more than enough to criticise them for, and they did not bother to look into this, therefore, losing millions of votes and consensus from their base. They never bothered to ask themselves what their base thought. From Parlato, the editor of the major leftwing newspaper, who supports the Israeli place of honour at the Turin book festival, to Turco, the health minister, who let certain categories such as dentists run a totally free market service with no limit or no alternative provided by the State, to Bersani, the economic development minister, with his new laws on selling property, which will do nothing but line the pockets of the ‘approved’ companies that inspect to updated ‘standards’ and will freeze a real estate market that is already on its knees.

The resolution of the conflict of interest in the mass media was not even on the agenda, and, rather, we got the national outlets that stopped any kind of criticism of anyone. Everyone was democratic, every party got its 2-minute blurb on the news, which was to state that the other parties were not right. A half-hour of The Family Feud every evening would turn anyone’s stomachs, as there was no space remaining to honestly state that “we are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it any more!” No, all of it became political salons and bla bla bla. And what is worse, the people most committed to social change abandoned the scene faster than anyone else.

I have always loved the fact that Italy had an enormous amount of major left parties and newspapers. Yet, in the two years the left was in power, it lost all sense of self-critique, and developed an idolisation of itself based on the assumption that people would trust that the politicians knew best. We stopped trusting a while back, as they betrayed us one day after the other.

I am, of course, unhappy about the complete absence in my country of a formal institutional representation of the left. I am of course unhappy about the prospect of another Berlusconi term, and I am terrified of the implications on foreign policy. I am unhappy that there was no internal mechanism of the left leaning parties that adjusted them to the sentiments of the people who are completely fed up with the governing left and miserable with the right. The minimum common denominator brought us the misery, and to be honest, it is not causing me pain as it did seven years ago. The failure of the system as a whole is the earthquake that perhaps we need to rebuild.


Emissions trading giving EU power companies huge windfall profits

http://euobserver.com/9/25932/?rk=1

07.04.2008 - 09:27 CET | By Leigh Phillips
Power companies in five EU member states could realise windfall profits over the next four years of up to €71 billion as a result of the handing out of emissions allowances for free, according to a new report.

The power sector in Spain, Italy, Germany, the UK and Poland is set to benefit from profits equivalent to over double the GDP of Slovenia, during the second phase of the European emissions trading scheme (ETS) – the EU's flagship market-based mechanism for a progressive reduction of carbon emissions.

The five countries chosen by carbon market analysis firm Point Carbon in a study for the environmental organisation WWF were picked to provide coverage across different areas of Europe and to reflect different power market structures.

Under the ETS, companies face fines if they emit carbon in excess of certain levels. Companies can avoid these fines, however, if they purchase emissions permits. This increases the cost of energy produced by these firms, making renewable sources of energy – which do not emit carbon and so do not require the purchase of emissions permits – comparatively cheaper.

This is an important aspect of the scheme, as it delivers additional revenues to low-carbon forms of power generation such as wind energy, which benefit from the increase in the overall price of power without having to incur any additional costs themselves by having to purchase pollution allowances.

Moreover, the higher power price should reduce demand for power and also boost energy efficiency measures, thereby targeting sectors that are not part of the emissions trading scheme.

However, under the current, transitional system, many companies are issued the permits for free, allowing firms to benefit from passing on the cost of the pollution allowances into the price of power regardless of whether they have been allocated allowances for free or if they have had to buy them.

"Handing free pollution permits to power companies is like handing them a cash bonus," said Sanjeev Kumar, the WWF's ETS coordinator.

This 'cash bonus' rings in at between €6 and €15 billion for power generation companies in the UK, €14 and €34 for their counterparts in Germany, €1 and €4 billion in Spain, €6 and €9 billion in Italy and €2 and €9 billion in Poland - so long as the latter's energy market is liberalised and energy prices are no longer set by the government.

Recognising the problem, the EU is currently negotiating how the ETS will work from 2013 onwards and has proposed that the power sector should have to buy all of the pollution permits it needs to cover emissions – something many companies are strongly lobbying against.

German utilities would gain the highest profits per mega watt hour as a result of, among other reasons, the high carbon-intensity of power generation in the country – a sector that is dominated by coal.

Across Europe, burning coal to generate electricity already accounts for about 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions per year within - or about 20 percent of all EU's greenhouse gas emissions.

The WWF is concerned that the ETS is financially rewarding some of the worst carbon polluters in the EU.

The report comes out as James Hansen, one of the planet's leading climate scientists and head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned that the EU's current emissions reductions target – the strictest in the world - is not strict enough.

Mr Hansen said that the EU target of 550 parts per million of CO2 should be cut to 350 parts per million.

At 550 ppm, global average temperatures would rise by six degrees Celsius. According to previous research, such a concentration of carbon in the atmosphere would only result in a rise of three degrees.


lisbon treaty 
"NO PROVISION OF THIS CONSTITUTION invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State that are necessitated by membership of the European Union, or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the said European Union or by institutions thereof, or by bodies competent under the treaties referred to in this section, from having the force of law in the State." (Emphasis added)
 
Mr.Declan Ganley of Libertas said that this clause was in itself sufficient reason to reject the Treaty.
 
"The Government's referendum bill makes it completely clear that after Lisbon, the EU will have the final say over nearly all major issues of importance to the Irish people. The Treaty extends the power of the EU Courts, the Commission, and the Council, and weakens Ireland's voice in those institutions.
 
I have no objection to a strong, accountable, European Union, which brings together all the people of the continent and empowers them to act as one to address the great issues of the day. This Treaty, however, confers absolute supremacy on the European Union, with absolutely no "checks and balances" placed on that power.
 
There used to be a saying, - "with great power comes great responsibility", - but in this case, the EU is gaining absolute power with absolutely no responsibility.

EU's Lisbon Treaty Means Dictatorship

A guest article by Lord Christopher Monckton.

Executive Intelligence Review

April 11, 2008

Vol. 35 No. 15

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Communist species of fascism has spread westward by stealth to infect the European Union, whose complex treaties—now hated and feared by the overtaxed, over-regulated peoples of Europe—more closely parallel the Soviet Constitution than they do any
constitution of liberty or democracy. ...

The new "President of Europe" (it may well be Tony Blair, who did his best to buy the job at UK taxpayers' expense by agreeing to increase the UK's tribute to the dismal empire of Brussels by a staggering $50 billion a year) will have all the powers of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The European Commission, like the Politburo to which it is functionally identical, has the sole power to propose and hence to reject European legislation. Like the Politburo, it is unelected and self-perpetuating. Any Commissioner (and it is neither joke nor coincidence that the German word for "Commissioner" is "Kommissar") has the power to issue an edict which has the immediate force of supreme law throughout the subject territories, no longer known as "member States" but as "regions"—effectively, regional Soviets subsidiary to, and now utterly subservient to, the Supreme Soviet in Brussels. The European Parliament, like the Duma or People's Congress of the Soviet Union, has no power to propose legislation, and its decisions can be (and often are) overridden by the Kommissars.

The Parliaments of the "regions," such as the UK Parliament, have no power to amend or reject any of the Kommissars' edicts, whose undemocratic nature may be deduced from their official
name—"Directives." On 200 occasions in the past decade alone, the legislative scrutiny committee of the House of Commons has rejected European directives, but the functionally-Communist regional gauleiters Blair and [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown have enacted every one
of the Directives, regardless of the will of the people's elected representatices.

Civil Rights Trampled

As of last December, the power which I once had as a Deputy Lieutenant of London to order the troops on to the streets to assist in civil emergencies or disasters was taken away by order of a Kommissar, and Britain no longer has the legal right put her army on to her own streets without that Kommissar's express permission. As of this year, under the pretext of compliance with a European anti-terrorist Directive, the right to a fair trial before a properly-constituted and impartial court was abolished in the UK for any criminal case defined as "serious": and even offences as trivial as dropping litter in public places are now treated by the regional gauleiters as serious. Without a hearing, without the right of legalrepresentation, the gauleiters can imprison any UK citizen for five years at a time, confiscate his house, freeze his bank accounts, close or compulsorily take over any business which he may own, or extradite him to any overseas country (including the most unspeakable dictatorships) even in the absence of any prima facie evidence whatsoever against him.

The news media say little about any of this, for it is now regarded as almost an offense to speak out against the gauleiters or against the European dictatorship, which in any event deploys an annual propaganda budget of $2.5 billion — an amount of which the late Dr. Goebbels could only dream. The BBC alone received $300 million from the Kommissars last year. It very seldom utters a word of criticism against the European Union. What do the British people think about this?

The few who know about it — and it is no coincidence that they are the same few who know what a false and dishonest scam the "global warming" scare is—are horrified. The people as a whole are now so uneasy about what is happening that, even though few know the full details, they are now making it clear in every opinion poll that they do not want the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, it is now certain that if there were a referendum on the Treaty in the UK, it would be crushingly defeated.

The two functionally-Communist parties in the regional legislature at Westminster—the majority Labour party and the "Liberal" "Democrats"—each made written promises in their manifestoes for the last national elections that they would give the British people a referendum on the Treaty before it was ratified.

Recently, the leaderships of both parties, knowing that any referendum would reject the Treaty overwhelmingly, have accordingly reneged on their promises, and samizdat debates are now being held on the question whether their failure to honor those promises and their consequent transfer of our own elected representatives' powers to the unelected hands of the alien power that the European Union has become constitutes treason.

It is indeed treason: but the UK courts are now mere rubber-stamps for the dictators. In the British constitution, the largest body of Members of Parliament not belonging to the governing party used to be known as "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition." However, the Conservative Party under its current weak, vapid, and policy-averse leadership has consistently failed to oppose the inexorable and soon-to-be-final extinction of what was once our democracy. In the absence of any Parliamentary opposition, millions of Britain's leading minds have already fled overseas, taking
their wealth and their talent with them, in a brain drain not seen since the ghastly days of Harold Wilson and the dominance of the Communist-led trades unions. I myself spent ten years overseas, but have recently returned and shall be doing my best to fight to regain my nation's independence and democratic liberties.

Britain Now a Police State

Britain is now a closed country—a police state, with a Secret Police to rival the KGB. Our Secret Police was secretly founded by the present Government in 1998, and now its privileged and untouchable members mount dawn raids just like the KGB and then lie through their teeth in court
to secure convictions against any citizen who has offended the regional gauleiters or the European Kommissars. There are "security" cameras every few inches—more of them than in any other nation. At current rates of growth, there will be a "security" camera for every UK citizen within
a decade. In a sinister sequence of more than 90 criminal justice Bills in ten years, the present Government has removed every last one of the rights and freedoms of which Britain was once justly proud. We are no longer allowed even to demonstrate outside Parliament. It was the
ninetieth of those Bills—passed with very little attempt at opposition—that took away the right of criminal trial.

Now, our "leaders" fawn as sycophantically upon our new, grim, European masters as their predecessors once did during the long and foolish period of appeasement that tempted Hitler to rearm unopposed and then to provoke the Second World War. This time, though, it is sycophancy by stealth. Not so long ago, a UK Cabinet Minister who refused to sign a European "Directive" was told by his own civil servants that if he did not sign it he could and would be stripped of his office and have all his possessions confiscated. Instead of resigning and going public, he cravenly and secretly signed. His story has never been made public. Another UK Cabinet Minister, who had agreed with a Directive and had written to congratulate the Kommissars on it, was summoned to Brussels and told that, although all the "regions" and the European Parliament had agreed the Directive, the Kommissars of Europe (who had proposed it, for they alone have the power to do so) had decided that it was not of any consequence and that it would not be enacted into law. When the astonished Minister was asked why, he was told that the Kommissars had wanted to make it clear to elected Ministers in all of the "regions" where the real power in Europe now lay—and it was not in their elected hands. He told me, "I had once been wholeheartedly in favor of the European Union. But it was at that moment that the scales fell from my eyes." He died an implacable opponent of the new Europe.

And my own view? I am in favor of European democracy, and therefore firmly opposed to the atheistic-humanist, bureaucratic-centralist dictatorship that the European Union for which I once voted has so stealthily become. In Scotland, where the current "regional" gauleiter wants us to be independent of Westminster (which makes one tenth of our laws) but still subject to the dismal empire of Brussels (which makes nine-tenths of our laws), I lead a small but rapidly-growing movement in the Highlands and Islands which is aiming for independence from both Edinburgh and Brussels, but continuing loyalty to the Crown. We want our freedom back, and we are quietly planning to take it back, whether the gauleiters of the UK or the dictators of Europe like it or not. We will rise up and be a nation again.

Let freedom ring!


--
Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7 41262296
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers 
The Lisbon Treaty amendment on EU harmonized taxes which has not been publicly mentioned so far in Ireland's referendum debate  
Article  2.79 of the Lisbon Treaty would insert a six-word amendment -"and to avoid distorton of competition"  - into the Article of the existing European Treaties dealing with harmonising indirect taxes.  The full amended Article would then read as follows: 

                                            Article 113
"The Council shall, acting unanimously in accordance with a special legislative procedure and after consulting the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee, adopt provisions for the harmonisation of legislation concerning turnover taxes, excise duties and other forms of indirect taxation to the extent that such harmonisation is necessary to ensure the establishment and the functioning of the internal market and to avoid distortion of competition." (The Lisbon Treaty amendment is underlined)  . . .Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
The significance of this short but important amendment is that it would enable the European Court of Justice, which adjudicates on competition matters, to decide that Ireland's 12.5% rate of corporation tax as against Britain's 28% rate and Germany's 30% is a distortion of competition which breaches the Treaty Articles dealing with the internal market - Art. 26 and Arts.101-9 TFEU -  in relation to which qualified majority voting on the Council of Ministers applies.  The Irish Government's veto under Article 113 would be irrelevant there.
The Commission, whose job it is to police the internal market, need only point out that these  big disparities in tax rates and Ireland's reluctance to accept a Common Consolidated Tax base which would tax company profits on the basis of their sales in different EU countries, at the tax rates prevailing in those countries, constitutes a prima facie "distortion of competition" under Articles 101-109.
If Ireland refused to cooperate with what the Commission wanted, the Commision could bring it before the Court of Justice - or another country or firm could institute proceedings against it - and the Court could declare the Irish Government's tax policy to be  unlawful as in breach of the EU's internal market provisions.    
Unanimity under Article 113 would certainly  be required to introduce any joint rates of company tax, but this Lisbon Treaty amendment would give the EU Commission and Court of Justice ample extra powers to erode Ireland's low rate of corporation profits tax, whether we liked it or not. There is no other possible reason for inserting this hitherto virtually unnoticed  six-word amendment by means of the Lisbon Treaty. 
By rejecting Lisbon and insisting on a Protocol in any new Treaty that would protect the principle of tax-competition between countries, we  make a stand for economic freedom and reject the attempt to impose an economic straitjacket on the EU Member States in the interests of Germany, France and Britain, with their high company tax rates.
                                                                                          Anthony Coughlan  Secretary
POLAND WANTS BEEFED UP MILITARY ROLE FOR EU

WARSAW: In a major shift in policy, Poland, long considered a close ally of the United States, wants the European Union to beef up its military role by having its own independent planning headquarters and more say over military issues, according to the Polish defense minister."We are in favor of a much stronger role for European defense, and that would include a military headquarters," said Bogdan Klich, who was appointed defense minister last year when the party of Donald Tusk, Civic Platform, defeated the nationalist-conservative government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski.But he said Poland would maintain its traditionally strong pro-U.S. stance."Those who say there is a contradiction between Atlanticist loyalties and European loyalties are wrong," Klich said in a recent interview. "We try to combine the two." He noted that Poland had more than 4,000 troops serving in NATO and EU missions.

Frédéric Bozo, political science professor at the Sorbonne in Paris, said the Polish position could create a more coherent EU military policy, particularly since other East European countries, which have looked first to the United States and NATO for security guarantees, might follow the Polish lead.Bozo said a change in tone by Washington and Paris may have convinced Poland that a stronger EU military policy would not damage the trans-Atlantic alliance.

The Bush administration appears ready to drop its suspicions about the pursuit of a bigger military role by the EU. The shift was suggested by a speech in Paris in February by Victoria Nuland, U.S. ambassador to NATO."Europe needs a place where it can act independently," she said, "and we need a Europe that is able and willing to do so in defense of our common interests and values."

Since becoming president of France last year, Nicolas Sarkozy has mended fences with the United States by supporting a stronger trans-Atlantic relationship anchored on the NATO military alliance. More than four decades since France left NATO's integrated military structures, Sarkozy has indicated a willingness to rejoin, provided France is given one of the senior military command posts.The French defense minister, Hervé Morin, who was in Warsaw this month, is doing the rounds of European capitals, explaining Sarkozy's plans for Europe's military policies once Paris takes over the EU's rotating six-month presidency July 1.

The Polish position is likely to delight some of its European NATO allies, particularly France and Germany, which have tried to nudge the EU toward developing military structures independent of NATO. Other countries, especially Britain, will be wary of the Polish ideas because they could undermine the cohesion of NATO.Henning Riecke, security analyst at the German Council for Foreign Relations, said it was inevitable that Europe head toward independent military planning structures. "The issue is whether the Europeans would be spending more on defense and improving its capabilities," he added.Pauline Neville-Jones, shadow security minister for the opposition Conservative Party in Britain, said calls for a separate military planning headquarters for the EU "would not result in anything significant when it comes to improving capabilities."She said the Europeans would simply not spend the money required."Europe must be integrated with the Americans if they want to have any worthwhile military capabilities," she added.

Klich said that Poland would even like to see the EU eventually have the equivalent of NATO's Article 5, which obliges members to come to the aid of an ally if attacked. "I believe this will evolve," he said.Poland also wants to give the European Commission, executive arm of the EU, far greater say in military issues. In that way, he said, Poland could have more influence."We are part of the six biggest countries in the EU," Klich said. "We want to have an impact on shaping future policies, but we are still a rather modest economic power. That is why we want more common policies. It would give the organization more coherence."

Member states have always shied away from giving the European Commission greater powers over military matters, because issues of war and peace get to the heart of national sovereignty.



*********************************************************************

German chancellor goes on guilt trip to Jerusalem
Germans 'feel shame' over Holocaust®
Al Jazeera  Tuesday, 18 March 2008
Tom Segev, an Israeli author who wrote a book on how the Holocaust® has shaped his country, said: "It is quite extraordinary that she radiates so much friendship and support for the government of Israel. "The public discourse in Germany is much more critical of Israel than she is.

  JERUSALEM — Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, has told Israel's parliament that her countrymen are "filled with shame" over the Holocaust® of the Jews. 


NO GELT WITHOUT THE GUILT: Puppet Chancellor Merkel 
begs forgiveness before an unforgiving Israeli Knesset.  

In a speech delivered in German, Merkel pledged on Tuesday that her country would stand with Israel against any threats, particularly from Iran. "The mass murder of Six Million [sic] Jews, carried out in the name of Germany, has brought indescribable suffering to the Jewish people, Europe and the entire world," Merkel said.

"The Shoah fills us Germans with shame," she said, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust®.

"I bow before the victims. I bow before the survivors and before all those who helped them survive."

Merkel was the first German Chancellor to address the Knesset and about 1,000 guests, including Holocaust® survivors, Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, former Israeli presidents and residents of Israeli towns targeted by rocket fire from Gaza, gathered to listen to her.

Walkout over use of German language
However, several Israeli politicians stayed away from the event, including one who said he could not bear to hear the language spoken by the murderers of his grandparents.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland in Jerusalem said that the speech was important and symbolic given that it came from a German leader  as Israel prepares for its 60th anniversary. 

Germany is a key trading partner and one of Israel's staunchest allies, avoiding public criticism of the Jewish state even at times when others take Israel to task for its policies toward the Palestinians.

"Germany will never abandon Israel but will remain a true friend and partner," Merkel said on Tuesday.

She also promised to be vigilant about Iran's nuclear program, saying that "if Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, it would have disastrous consequences".

Boycott of Palestinian leaders
Tom Segev, an Israeli author who wrote a book on how the Holocaust® has shaped his country, said: "It is quite extraordinary that she radiates so much friendship and support for the government of Israel. "The public discourse in Germany is much more critical of Israel than she is. I don't really remember a time when Germany so wholeheartedly and uncritically stood by the government of Israel."
Merkel did not meet Palestinian leaders during her three-day visit o the region but during her speech called "clearly and unequivocally" for the Hamas movement to stop rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.

http://english.aljazeera.net:80/NR/EXERES/55B073E7-8AC3-459A-9F65-E36BA345C38C.htm 
Continuing the fight for a better world —NEW ORDER
Dept E
PO Box 270486
Milwaukee WI 53227
http://www.theneworder.org
*******************************************************************

Paris fires a governmental officer for criticizing Israel
The vice governor of Charatet district in southern/western France, Brouno Ghig from his post for publishing an article expressing his "anti" Israel point of view.
Ghig wrote in his article that was published on March 13th on the Nation electronic site, saying that "Israel is the only state in the world where shooters target young girls on their way out of their schools", mocking Israeli prisons where torture is stopped by religious law, on the Jewish Sabbath". He added accusing the Israeli lobby for making the United Nation into an organization in the service of Israeli interests.
A source in the French ministry of interior said, Minister Elio Marie "was informed about the contents of the article on last Wednesday, and she decided on firing Ghig from his post, on the bases of his strong criticism. He shall be transferred to a civil administrative job.

The "Nation" site that the disposition of Ghig, who published several book among which: "The Middle East: A War of Words", that uncovered that France, which boosts that it is the state of freedom of speech doesn't allow those who follow its official policy to freely express their point of view, even if it is categorized und constructive criticism", expressing its sorrow for, "the disposition of an official that didn't do more then expressing his right in criticizing a foreign state policy without approaching its religion, ideology or race".

AFP / Middle East News – Assafir 26/3/2008



"Europe is in breach of international law"

Text of report by Italian popular privately-owned centre-right newspaper Corriere della Sera, on 24 February Interview with Italian Liberal Democrats leader Lamberto Dini, outgoing Senate deputy speaker and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, former prime and foreign minister, by Maurizio Caprara in Rome;

Rome - "Europe is in brweach of International Law" said Lamberto Dini, without beating about the bush and without hesitation. Dini is the chairman of the [Italian] Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that has come to the end of the line in this curtailed legislative term; he is also a former incumbent in the Farnesina [Italian Foreign Ministry] on behalf of the centre-left, and today he is an ally of the centre-right. "Was it really necessary to act so rapidly, with such haste?," he asked, adding: "In
some ways international law was breached by NATO with its military operationback in 1999."

[Caprara] But were you not the foreign minister of a government that took part in the NATO air strikes against Serbia back in 1999?

[Dini] Yes, but we had a "responsibility to protect" [previous three words in English in original], or what is translated as "humanitarian interference." There had been a carnage in Kosovo, a genocide.

[Caprara] What about today?

[Dini] Serbia has international law on its side. That means respecting the principle of a country's territorial inviolability. That principle has been set aside and no one can foretell the consequences that that will have. Writing in Corriere della Sera, [columnist] Franco Venturini called it "a mistake that could no longer be postponed" . In my view, it is a mistake, and it might have been possible to postpone it. UN Resolution 1244, to which also Russia has subscribed, provides for broad autonomy for Kosovo, but not for its independence.

[Caprara] Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema and also AN [National Alliance] Chairman Gianfranco Fini [former foreign minister] argue that if Italy had failed to recognize Kosovo, it would have had to withdraw the 2,600 troops that it has in the former Serbian province.

[Dini] That is probably true if there had been a statement of non-recognition. But it does not mean that immediate recognition was necessary. Spain has 1,650 troops in Kosovo and it states that it does not recognize Kosovo's independence, yet it is not announcing any withdrawal.

[Caprara] In your view, what should the Italian Government have done? It may be a subtle nuance, but the Prodi government, with the centre-right's backing, waited until the United States and France had recognized Kosovo first.

[Dini] The Serbian authorities were asking for something different: Before recognition, it would have been considered an act of friendship to allow about 20 countries to proceed. Belgrade's ambassador was received by D'Alema, by [Democratic Party (PD) member] Umberto Ranieri who chairs the Chamber of Deputies Foreign Affairs Committee, and by myself.

[Caprara] Is it clear to you exactly who has been pushing for Kosovo's independence?

[Dini] The US Administration. I would like to remind people, having had first-hand experience, that the United States made up its mind to push in the direction of independence, or was inclined to do so, as long ago as at the Rambouillet conference back in February 1999; this, for geopolitical and
strategic considerations. Indeed, as [former Italian Communist Party (PCI) member] Armando Cossutta pointed out, it now seems as though the United States is getting set to build a large military base in Kosovo.



[Caprara] Could the Italian Government have stood up to the US
Administration in a head-on clash?

[Dini] In connection with things like this, one does not take orders. Large countries like Italy can make political assessments. We are not Kosovo. By the way, did you know that fully 90 per cent of the heroin that hits our shores comes from there? It is to be hoped that the multinational force is
not there to protect the smuggling and drug trafficking that have been taking place to date under Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, a man who could have been deferred to the Hague tribunal [on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia]. It was the CIA that provided the Kosovo terrorists and rebels
with arms - that is a fact.

[Caprara] As Russia becomes increasingly less amenable towards various countries located to the west of it - one has but to look at the way it uses the gas supply tool with Ukraine - does it really make no sense to avoid pandering to a country with such close links to Moscow as Serbia has?

[Dini] The whole issue has unquestionably been a matter of a clash between the two powers. But Russia played a crucial role in bringing the conflict to a close back in 1999. If we look at Vladimir Putin's Russia, the time when the West could humiliate it is over. Russia is no longer prepared to be
humiliated.
Source: Corriere della Sera, Milan, in Italian 24 Feb 08

Europe needs a representative for human rights

14.03.2008 - 06:59 CET | By Peter Sain ley Berry
EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - This week the 50th anniversary of the European Parliament and the Spring meeting of the European Council coincide, but neither event, it seems to me, will leave much of a political footprint. The Parliament's triumph has been overshadowed by a squalid row over expense payments that has served only to draw attention to its size and cost as well as, yet again, the gesture politics of its monthly Strasbourg plenaries.

Nor is the Spring European Council expected (I write before it has begun) to generate much enthusiasm with its semi-technical discussions on the economy and markets, climate change and energy, important though these may be to our future well-being. Still, who could have imagined in 1998, when the Council met in Edinburgh, that ten years on a devolved nationalist government would be running Scotland, and a (then) barely established state running the European Union Presidency? How quickly some things change.

Others, however, do not. They endure generation to generation. The oppression of the weak, the role of women, the need to stand up and be counted; such threads spin from the dawn of human experience. We heard something of this last week, when an international conference of women leaders from all over the world met in Brussels

Among them was Margot Wallstrom who rehearsed Aristophanes' tale of Lysistrata. Concerned at the havoc wrecked by years of war among the feuding city-states of Sparta, Lysistrata and her sisters conclude that this martial activity by their menfolk is tiresome. So they engineer a sex-strike, forcing the generals to settle their differences amicably and return to hearth and home.

Though the idea is original and romantic, I suspect that it didn't work then, and of course hasn't since. That does not necessarily mean that the idea was faulty. Think of Leonardo's helicopter.

Mrs Wallstrom's, Lysistrata's, and indeed the conference's argument was that women ‘bring a perspective on politics, ........ which does not make distinctions between political rule and managing daily life; (and which) makes... social and political co-operation possible between women that cuts across class and nations.'

The conference may have been longer on aspiration than practicality but that it took place at all, with so many important figures present, is remarkable. Here was an attempt to move us forward along an agenda focused on the human rights of individuals and which cut across the mainstream concerns of markets, energy, defence and so on.

Naturally, this focus turned towards women. Violence and intimidation of men towards women disfigures even the most civilised of our European societies. Elsewhere, wars across the globe provide a seam of violence towards women so nightmarish that editors are reluctant to retell the awful details.

Then there is the violence in the name of religion, the so-called ‘honour' killings, the viciousness and prejudice of Sharia law, the compulsion on girls and young women to accept arrangements of behaviour, dress and marriage without pity or option. And not forgetting, of course, the evil trafficking of young women into the brothels of the developed world.

The release of women from traditional stereotyping and prejudice has enhanced European society. The European Union has contributed substantially to this process. But there is still a long way to go, even here in Europe to ensure that each and every woman is guaranteed the simple rights to which the law entitles her.

Nor is the abuse of human rights something that affects women alone. Our pluralistic European society comprises minorities of every sort. Discrimination and persecution on the grounds of race, religion (or apostasy), sexuality, appearance, gender, disability abound as do ethnic tensions. We, in Europe, are far from being the universal beacon of enlightenment that we would like other others to perceive.

We are fortunate in having a Court of Human Rights. Nevertheless, this body cannot speak out in defence of fundamental freedoms and against the flagrant abuse of rights in general wherever they occur. Which is why we need another institution.

Take for example the case of Mr Mehdi Kazemi, a student, who came to Britain from Iran to study. He happens to be gay and his boyfriend was recently executed by the Iranian authorities, simply for being homosexual, but not before he had ‘confessed' Mr Kazemi's name.

Besides being outraged by his friend's execution, Mr Kazemi not unreasonably feared for his own life should he return to Iran and so applied for asylum in Britain - which was refused. So he fled to the Netherlands. Citing the Dublin convention, which says you have to claim asylum in the country in which you arrive, the Dutch are returning him to Britain.

Admittedly British immigration must be in something of a dilemma. They dare not contrive a situation in which an Iranian (of whatever persuasion) who turns up at Heathrow with a compromising photograph and gay porn in his luggage will be automatically granted asylum. Besides there are plenty of other brutal and homophobic regimes.

The problem here is not with Britain, but with Iran. And Europe should be saying so. For it is something that affects all Europe.

After all, our own past is littered with similar homophobic evil. So many ordinary and extraordinary lives tortured and extinguished by ignorance, prejudice, machismo. In this ocean of tragedy, the banal death of Federico Garcia Lorca, one of Europe's finest poets, shot by phalangists one sunny August morning in a field of cabbages and the corpse hurriedly buried somewhere still unknown, encapsulates the futility of this kind of hatred.

Of course we have seen far greater tragedies than the loss of a poet. Mass killings, in all their ugly forms, still blight many areas of the world. Persecutions, unjust laws, execution, stonings, torture, enslavement, imprisonment without trial, occur with such regularity as hardly to warrant comment.

Yet if Europe stands for anything it stands for human rights. Individual freedoms need to be promoted and protected from intimidation. Diversity, freedom of expression, are sources of strength, not weakness. But realising this strength requires a voice in elevated councils. That is why Europe needs a High Representative for Human Rights to speak up in defence of minorities everywhere, to investigate and expose abuse without fear or favour and not afraid to embarrass governments or religions. Wherever in the world, Mr Kazemi might feel safer with the eye of a High Representative upon him.

The author is editor of EuropaWorld

Brussels most boring city in Europe

13.03.2008 - 09:21 CET | By Leigh Phillips
Brussels, the capital of Europe, is the most boring city on the continent, despite its renown for its waffles, chocolates, and comic books, according to a survey of international travellers published on Wednesday (12 March).

The city just beat out Zurich and Warsaw for the title, who came second and third in the race for the most somniferous town in Europe.

The survey of some 1,400 travellers, conducted by travel firm Trip Advisor, also found London to be simultaneously the most expensive and the town with the best nightlife. Amsterdam and Paris also came tops in the latter category.

Despite its veritable production line of celebrity chefs in recent years, London was not on the list of towns with the best cuisine. Paris topped that line-up, followed by Rome and Florence.

But Paris and Rome also joined London in being among the dearest towns in Europe, while Prague, Budapest and Lisbon were singled out for being the best value for money.

Paris and Rome were also, unsurprisingly, found to be the most romantic of getaway destinations, along with the floating city, Venice.

They may not be romantic, according to the survey respondents, but Zurich, Stockholm and Copenhagen were described as the cleanest, while London, Paris and Rome were derided as the dirtiest.

Dublin has the friendliest, most helpful locals, while Parisians, true to stereotype, were viewed to be the least welcoming.

Some 65% of respondents are planning to travel to Europe in the next year, and though the American dollar may have taken quite a tumble, half the survey respondents from the US still plan to visit Europe in 2008, the same figure as a year ago.

"Americans are still drawn to Europe, despite unfavourable exchange rates and economic concerns," said Michele Perry, a spokesperson for the travel firm.

© 2008 EUobserver



Swedish pledge to fight EU protectionism

By David Ibison in Stockholm

Published: March 3 2008 18:22 | Last updated: March 3 2008 18:22

Sweden on Tuesday weighed into the growing debate over protectionism in Europe by pledging to make combating anti-free trade practices a cornerstone of its presidency of the European Union next year.In a speech in Sweden’s parliament, Ewa Björling, trade minister, accused unnamed EU member states of abusing trade policy to “stop imports rather than promote trade.Protectionism leads to resources being locked in activities that are not viable in the long term and to consumers being affected by more expensive goods and less choice,” Ms Björling said.

Her comments followed a warning in the Financial Times by José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, that protectionist pressures were increasing across Europe.

Great article

What the Brits always tend to forget is that they made life miserable for millions of people abroad and at home (find out how the working class lived in the slums before the WWII). They killed millions with weapons, disease and hunger. They enslaved many more.

The aggressive "democratic" Americans are just teenagers compared to the hypocritic, blood-thirsty, power-hungry British elite.

It is a sad fact. Unbelievably, most Soviet propaganda about evil capitalism was true.

We are getting into anti-utopian times, folk. Don't believe me? Well, 300 cameras that record you every day are just the beginning.

I thank Leo for the article. You see the situation like it is: the Americans and the Brits are again occupiers, murderers and oppressors of a small, powerless nation.

Did you know that drugs trafficking from Afganistan has trebled since the NATO occupied it for "democracy"?!

Posted by: Andrei