Traditional ‘Europeans’ are worried. It’s not only fear of strangers: it’s the  redefinition of ‘our’ space and  uncertainty about ‘our’ future. Future developments, largely unexpected, let us stress that once again, will force us to redefine choices and policies that previously had been (differently in different countries) seen as ‘ours’ by definition. But now it seems that ‘immigration policies’ will have to be designed and ‘immigrants’ dealt with in a very different context. 

Attention at present is primarily  focused on France and Italy and the policy responses and  ‘messages sent out’ by governments under the pressure of people flow, prompted by the violent confrontations with dramatic  human costs in North Africa and the Middle East. What we are facing now is a process of change that ought to bring us, traditional ‘Europeans’, to reconsider how the Mediterranean space is defined, and how we are related to and confront political contexts and peoples that we had seen as far apart, different, actually as others. 

How these events (ongoing conflict in Libya in particular) have been handled by the Italian Government is a widely discussed theme in our political sphere, public  discourse and in the media. It all began with growing numbers from the other side of the sea reaching the island of Lampedusa. Within a very few days, the anticipation of further arrivals, difficulties in facing that, graphic images in the media had come to be regarded as a highly visibile challenge. A core concern for those in power was how to handle this in terms of domestic politics (elections were close, the Lega Nord was extremely vocal in its opposition to all forms of asylum). The EU was regarded as a major source of support, and the Italian Government had recourse to the EU at the very beginning. It immediately announced that money would be made available. 

However, lack of adequate planning at the European level triggered a round of international debate.  Back in Italy, the main problem was how to tackle the immediate challenge while anticipating further developments. Various arrangements were put in place, trying to face the immediate needs of those, in extremely distressed circumstances, who continued to arrive. 

But accommodating these people raised a further issue - of increasing numbers of newcomers, not only from the Mediterranean area, but from other African regions. Immigrants from all over the world had reached Egypt in particular. A much more profound process of global mobility was thus for once made visible. This was immediately seen as having a ‘European relevance’,  and dangerous implications. 

Of course there were voices in some sectors of public opinion and in some political groupings, who made it clear that giving support to these people in their political struggle and solidarity in their present (and future) difficulties were crucial choices, reflecting fundamental values. 

But political leaders  and the media insisted that there were far too many of them and that they had to be sent back to their countries, or moved out of Italy (most of them towards France: Tunisians in particular were making it clear that this was their preferred destination). So the obvious next step involved granting  ‘temporary acceptance’ documents which would allow all to move freely within the Schengen area. Hence, out of Italy: this was the goal. 

The French Government immediately opposed this solution. 

Increasing numbers of ‘immigrants’ have tried to reach the Italian/French border nevertheless. The first reaction was to refuse all those travelling from Italy entry into France. International television channels showed how many people had to pass through days (and nights) without being given any adequate  assistance or any information. In the days that followed, controls were established at the border by French authorities. Those who did not have what was considered a sufficient amount of money were not allowed to move on into France. 

At the end of April, Sarkozy and Berlusconi met in Rome: their agreements and ‘solutions’ were announced. 

It is very clear that both feel the pressure from their ‘populist’ right-wing political rivals, Marine Le Pen in Front National  in France and the Lega Nord in Italy, together with large sectors of public opinion in both countries. But beyond that. Economic and social problems are to be expected in the  coming months (and years). Resistance to processes of change is to be expected. The sharpening of conflicting interests, and of course, forms of discrimination and growing xenophobia are one response. 

A scenario-in progress is what we have to face that had somehow not been anticipated in a ‘traditional’ European perspective, despite Europe’s intimate knowledge of how this dynamic can develop. 

So, we must work at redefining our near-term and longer-term future. 

Hopefully, also, we might finally learn how to live in diversity, while taking into account ongoing social and political pressures (and considering how unprepared Europe appears to be to face them). Two aspects in particular demand our urgent fresh attention, the rising populism in many EU countries, and the relevance for Europe of  present events  in North Africa and the Middle East. 

Just a brief comment looking at the past. In the post-war period, the project of adequate migration policies and institutions was seen as an important and feasible social and political objective in the Nordic countries, and in different ways and with different procedures in France, the UK, and Germany as well. ‘Newcomers’ were needed. Conditions of discrimination and inequality were present, but a variety of approaches and models to deal with this were developed in contexts which all had in common assumptions that a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, mutli-religious future settlement could be reached. 

Putting it briefly: those circumstances made living in diversity a possible European framework, a common goal which would, of course, require a shared project and continuous engagement. But suddenly, we find ourselves in very different circumstances. Now we face, all over Europe, growing ‘institutional xenophobia’ and a pervasive ‘politics of fear’. 

In many EU countries populist parties and a supportive public opinion have become a central political and social dimension (with somewhat different aspects and perspectives as to their future roles and positions). But common traits, which have been analyzed in a number of studies, are there for all to see: not only growing problems in the economy and in the labour market in particular; but increasing disaffection with the institutional machinery, national as well as European; and then there is the role of the media in stoking this fear. In all these different cases, the question of migration, and all the policies related to living in diversity have taken centre-ground, not lessening the fear and its attendant xenophobia, but adding to its thralldom.  

A highly visible new generation of political leaders, markedly different as to their backgrounds and their policy proposals, as well as their highly personal ways of presenting themselves (in Italy, Berlusconi and Bossi must both be seen as interesting examples) have built strong support from large sectors of the population who have felt that they have no voice.  

What is the alternative to their fear and xenophobia? Does ‘traditional’ Europe have an answer? 

I would like to wish you well next week for Europe Day and your investigation of the ‘Uses of Xenophobia’, and also congratulation on the tenth birthday of openDemocracy. This is indeed a timely discussion.

The culture-enrichers keep pouring into Lampedusa. Depending on which news story you read, 500, 800, 831, or 1,400 new arrivals landed on the island overnight.

First, two boats with 500 people:

500 Refugees From Libya Make Landfall in Lampedusa

(AGI) Palermo — Two boats that sailed from Libya with 500 refugees made landfall on the island of Lampedusa this evening.

The boats were sighted this afternoon by an aircraft of the Coast Guard. The disembarkment operations were concluded slightly before 10 pm this evening at the Favaloro dock, where a total of 500 migrants came on shore, including approximately thirty women and children, all of who originated from Sub-Saharan Countries.

Next, a total of five boats with 800:

More Than 800 Arrived Last Night in Lampedusa

(ANSAmed) — Lampedusa (agrigento), May 6 — Immigrants are arriving on Lampedusa in high numbers again: more than 800 in a single day. Another boat, the fifth in a few hours time, arrived last night just before midnight after it was intercepted by a patrol boat of the Italian Finance Police, 19 miles west of the island. The barge had 60 non-EU citizens on board, including one woman, almost certainly departed from Tunisia.

Seven more immigrants were detained last night by the police in Linosa, the smallest of the Pelagie islands, immediately after they landed. Most migrants who arrived yesterday in Lampedusa, and have been taken to the first reception centre, are refugees from countries in the sub-Saharan area, who had departed from Libya.

The number was later revised to 831:

Lampedusa Witnesses Arrival of 831 Migrants in 12 Hours

(AGI) Palermo — Last night, Lampedusa witnessed the arrival of a 5th migrant boat in just over 12 hours. Last night’s’ landings raised the arrivals total to 831. A bout of bad weather had put a temporary halt to migrant flows from Libya, now in full swing. Docking at Favaloro quay, of yesterday’s 5 landings, two boats alone accounted for some 500 migrants; two other boats accounted for 216 Libyans and 50 Tunisians. Nine other Tunisians are reported to have landed on the island of Linosa.

Steen sent an Italian TV news report about Lampedusa. I’m hoping for a translation later, maybe tomorrow, but the title of the clip refers to a total of 1,400 migrants.

Let’s pause for a moment and consider these numbers. We’ll use the median published figure of 800 migrants during the previous 24-hour period. The MSM reports (see below) are stuck on 25,000 as the total number of refugees that have arrived in Italy since January. However, three weeks ago the Italian government put the figure at 27,000, and I have seen more than 3,000 additional immigrants reported since then. So the correct number is at least 30,000, which is what I have been using for a while.

By agreement with Tunisia, Italy is allowed to repatriate up to sixty migrants a day. The most recent reports indicate that the Italians are not heaving out the Tunisians as fast as that; the average has been about thirty repatriations per day since they began in early April.

About five hundred Tunisians have managed to sneak across the border into France, and various other European countries have willingly accepted small groups of the North African migrants — the reported numbers seem to indicate that about six hundred have been shipped out so far.

So we start with 30,000, subtract 1,000 repatriations, and 1,100 relocations (official or otherwise), leaving roughly 28,000 recently arrived culture-enrichers in Italy.

And Italy just acquired 800 more over a single 24-hour period.

Let’s assume that those 800 arrive only sporadically, maybe once every four days. That would mean that an average of 200 refugees are being added every day. While that’s going on, an average of thirty per day are repatriated, and three per day are being sent to other European countries.

Which means Italy is gaining 167 culture enrichers per day, or roughly 5,000 per month.

Obviously, the current situation cannot continue indefinitely.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
In other “Camp of the Saints” news, Italy is now conferring with Malta over their common plight:

Frattini Speaks of Common Interest With Malta Over Migrants

(AGI) Palermo — Franco Frattini said that Italy and Malta have a common interest in the EU taking strong action over immigration. The foreign minister was speaking to journalists in Palermo. Following last Monday’s formal protest to Malta over a boat with 416 migrants on board that the Maltese didn’t assist after it sent an SOS when in Maltese waters, he assured, “It is an interest on which we will never be divided.”

Meanwhile, the head of the European Commission concedes that there may have to be some adjustments made to the Schengen Agreement:

Barroso Wants Schengen Rules Assessed Case by Case

(AGI) Palermo — At a press conference that followed the final day of the PPE study conference in Palermo, the president of the European Commission, Jose’ Barroso, has said “We will not abolish the Schengen Treaty” but apply the rules on a case by case basis as happened recently between Italy and France.

Barroso said he would immediately return to Brussels and had no plans to visit Lampedusa.

SwissInfo has more details on the proposed Schengen changes. Some excerpts are below; the full text will be included in the news feed.

Notice the article uses the 25,000 figure, as do virtually all the major MSM outlets. This shows that the media — and presumably the bureaucrats in Brussels — are not being honest about the extent of the crisis in Italy:

EU Moots New Schengen Rules

The European Commission has put forward new proposals to ensure the “better management of migration” in the wake of an influx of immigrants from North Africa.

The Commission has been pressed by Italy and France, who say reform is needed to “restore the faith of citizens in free movement”.

The proposals, outlined on Wednesday, are being submitted to European Union interior ministers and to the three non-EU Schengen member states, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

The 25-member Schengen area has scrapped systematic border controls between its members, allowing for passport free travel within the zone.

The Commission has now said the “temporary reintroduction” of limited border controls could sometimes be necessary “under very exceptional circumstances, such as where a part of the external border comes under heavy unexpected pressure”.

But the EU commissioner for home affairs, Cecilia Malmström, has stressed that any such measures must be temporary and geographically limited.

Switzerland, which has been a full member of the Schengen area since March 2009, will take part in the discussions of the new measures, but not have a vote.

The Swiss government will decide whether to apply any new rules on immigration and border controls.

Rethink

Many of the proposals are in fact updates of previous ideas which had been somewhat coolly received in EU capitals. But the row between France and Italy over the arrival of 25,000 migrants from Tunisia in the Schengen area has led to a rethink in many countries.

For example, France is currently exercising strict border controls at Ventimiglia (on its border with Italy) because of the influx of North Africans via the Italian island of Lampedusa, many of whom have said they want to go to France.

Until now, the only situation in which border controls can be reintroduced is when there is a serious threat to public order.

Any requests for the reestablishment of controls are assessed by the Commission. So far – about a dozen cases – it has always agreed.

[…]

“The answer to migration flows should not be a reintroduction of border controls or a change in the Schengen rules,” wrote former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt on the website of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, which he chairs.

“What we need is transparency and accountability: The Commission and parliament should be involved in the evaluation of the concepts of ‘public order’ inside the Schengen area to prevent unilateral decisions of re-introducing border controls.”

Both France and the European Union say that they do not intend to put these measures into action, but that they are regarded as a “deterrent weapon to force states to respect their obligations”.

But this is no easy matter for those who have large maritime frontiers. Greece, for example, has a problem controlling its long sea border with Turkey. The Commission says it should be given more help, in particular by increasing the funding for Frontex, the EU agency for external border security.

[…]

Malmström is clear that there should be no going back on Schengen.

“The free movement of people across European borders is a major achievement which must not be reversed, but rather strengthened,” says a press release from the European Commission.

The proposals will be now be discussed by the Schengen interior ministers. A decision will be taken by EU leaders at the end of June.

That’s today’s news from the Camp of the Saints. I’m sure there will be more tomorrow — in fact, I already have in hand a translation from the German.

Stay tuned.


Hat tips: C. Cantoni and Insubria.

I Saw The Devil
DVD & Blu-ray, Optimum

It's no big surprise that most film industries rely, at least in part, on crime-related movies; they can be made at all different budget levels and are full of impactful, life-changing events for the characters.

What's interesting is how how each nation has their own enduring signature: we have our mockney gangsters; France tends to explore corruption in the law; Japan and Italy deal in epically large, organised criminal outfits. But it's South Korea that perhaps has the most interesting: the revenge thriller. While you'd think the genre would be all played out by now, I Saw The Devil shows the strength in many of the familiar moves by pushing them to extremes. A pregnant fiancé of a government agent becomes the latest victim of a particularly cold and gruesome serial killer (Oldboy's Choi Min-sik). The agent dedicates his life not only to tracking down the killer but to also feeling the same helplessness and terror as his victims. To do this he has to accept that he will too become a monster, but when he makes his grief-stricken promise he has no idea how far (and far-reaching) things will become. Director Kim Ji-woon has proved with such previous films as the supernatural A Tale Of Two Sisters and the preposterously entertaining pseudo-western The Good The Bad And The Weird that he's a director who knows what he's doing, so you have to trust him and his full-strength delivery here.

Archipelago

British middle-class holidays at their most uncomfortable.

DVD, Artificial Eye

Blue Valentine

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in a messy, realistic romance.

DVD & Blu-ray, Optimum

The King's Speech

Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter in the Oscar-conquering George VI drama.

DVD & Blu-ray, Momentum

Upside Down – The Story Of Creation Records

Sixteen years of indie, with Alan McGee riding the ups and downs of signing Oasis, the Jesus And Mary Chain and Primal Scream.

DVD & Blu-ray, Revolver

Chico And Rita

Havana bebop jazz cartoon.

DVD & Blu-ray, Icon

Spiegel Online

Germany may subsidize e-car sales UPI.com "If it decides against the funding, the government should not pursue its goal of making Germany a leading market." The United States, France and Italy, nations with powerful car sectors that compete with the Germans, have already introduced purchase ... Germany and Hungary smooth relations after constitution spatMonsters and Critics.com Germany Daybook: Trichet May Signal Pace of Rate CycleBloomberg Germany extends mandate of its troops in KosovoEMportal The Canadian Press -IMarketnews.com -Christian Science Monitor all 39 news articles »

After initial elation, disillusion has set in at Fox News: O'Reilly is angry that Obama, not waterboarding, is getting all the credit

The euphoria surrounding the death of Osama bin Laden is quickly fading as Fox news hosts realise that it may not be the game-changer they wished for.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly, a longtime advocate of harsh interrogation methods, is growing increasingly frustrated with the Obama administration's reluctance to acknowledge what he has decided was the vital role that "coerced interrogation" played in locating Osama bin Laden (view clip). Even worse, he believes this reluctance stems from the left's inability to separate ideology from truth, so he vows to "stick to the facts" to make his case for the need to use techniques like waterboarding and other so-called enhanced interrogation measures.

Last night, on the [O'Reilly] Factor, we told you the truth that coerced interrogation – most likely, waterboarding – gave the CIA the first clue that led to Osama bin Laden's death. That is the truth. Yet, many on the left in America will not acknowledge it.

He was alluding to an argument he had the previous evening with left-leaning commentator Alan Colmes, who pointed out that even former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the courier source was not waterboarded or subjected to harsh treatment. The exact text of Rumsfeld's statement, according to Newsmax.tv, was as follows:

"The United States department of defence did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantánamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding."

But O'Reilly insisted that he was unprepared to accept any secondhand account of what the former defence secretary may or may not have said, and would question Rumsfeld himself before deciding what to believe. Before talking to Rumsfeld, O'Reilly pointed out that even CIA chief Leon Panetta has said that some valuable information may have been derived using harsh interrogation methods, but Panetta also upset the beleaguered host by adding that the question remains open as to whether or not those approaches were necessary. O'Reilly cut Panetta some slack, however, as he understands that he has to pander to his boss.

Because Mr Panetta works for President Obama, he has to say that. He has to hedge a bit. We don't know exactly how much information we might have got, could have, maybe, had we not dunked the guys in the water, the three guys. OK, I understand the game. I understand Mr Panetta's position, but again the truth is that enhanced interrogation does lead to life-saving information, despite what has been said!

To prove this "truth" that O'Reilly is already sure of, he interviewed Donald Rumsfeld and asked him to explain what he meant when he said that harsh treatment and waterboarding did not lead to beneficial information. Rumsfeld did his best to clarify his position by saying that his remarks had been taken out of context and that all he meant was that no one had been waterboarded at Guantánamo Bay, and that the three people who had been waterboarded (elsewhere presumably) were waterboarded by the CIA and not the military.

Although this response doesn't seem to shed much light on his prior statement, or offer unequivocal proof that waterboarding and so on works, it seemed to suffice for O'Reilly. Rumsfeld took a little detour, then, to make the much-debated point that waterboarding was not torture anyway, but O'Reilly, who was apparently satisfied that the truth had now been established, soon ended the segment.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity is growing increasingly disenchanted with the Obama administration for their reluctance to release Bin Laden's death pictures and their seeming inability to get their story straight (view clip). He discusses these issues with political commentator and former marine, Colonel Oliver North.

Look, I don't know how much, I don't care … we got Bin Laden – that, to me, is important. But they did say he was hiding behind a woman. They did say he was reaching for weapons. They did say they were being fired upon. All these things now have shifted and changed and I'm having a hard time understanding.

The colonel understood Hannity's frustration but explained that there are a "lot of filters" between the people who carry out these operations and the people who end up talking about them And as someone who has actually participated in these sorts of missions, North was able to sympathise with those involved. The Navy Seals were naturally more focused on getting their man and getting out alive than making an accurate transcription of the events as they unfolded in order to satisfy the relentless demands of the 24-hour news cycle. He also made the point that in these high-pressure situations, different people see things differently, which might account for some of the subsequent confusion over details. Hannity didn't seem inclined to disagree with a Marine over this and turned to the photo dilemma instead.

We're looking at these photos that Reuters had tonight. Yes, they're gruesome. We warned children not to watch them. A lot of blood, it's gory. I know he was shot in the head, but the rationale is what bothers me the most, Colonel, and the rationale seems to be that by releasing this photo, we will incite people that already hate us – and we put a bullet in the guy's brain. I think they already hate us!

Once again, North surprised Hannity by taking the administration's part in the argument. He explained that while the administration has a penchant for political correctness, they were wise to try to avoid inflaming al-Qaida extremists by flaunting gruesome pictures of their slain leader. Also, he didn't think it wise to release anything to the public that could possibly some day be used as evidence against one of the Navy Seals in an international criminal court. Hannity took his point, but still insisted that the world needed to see those photos and that the administration had gone overboard with their hyper-sensitivity. 

When you look at the burial on a warship, where they say he's not a Muslim but he gets, you know, Islamic custom – buried within 24 hours – dumped at sea after his body is washed; he's put in a shroud; 45-minute funeral, translated into Arabic … seems overboard to me.

These politically correct gestures seemed overboard to North also, and finally the two men found some common ground.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck had exhausted his celebratory mood over the death of Bin Laden by Wednesday, probably after overdoing it earlier in the week with marching bands and cookie parties (view clip and transcript). He didn't want to hear any more about death photos or about what he termed President Obama's "victory lap" of Ground Zero. Not for the first time, Beck felt himself to be the lone voice of reason, who recognised that there are far more important things to be talking about, such as America having lost her way in the world and, by now, most of her friends.

He went through a list of countries like Germany, France, Saudi Arabia and Israel that he feels were once our friends, but have now fallen into the undecided camp, at best. Japan would probably still be our friend, but since the nuclear thing, there's really nothing left of them. Brazil looks at us like a client. Canada can probably still be counted on, particularly now that they have elected a conservative government, but they're not exactly known for their "fighting prowess". Even England, with whom we have enjoyed such a "special relationship" in the past, may be reconsidering us.

England: things have been a little strained, you know, since we sent the bust of Winston Churchill back and gave the queen an iPod of his best speeches, but they're basically toast. They're still our ally, but, I mean, anybody who watched the royal wedding of – I don't know, Kate and Leopold – they were, they were walking down and somebody on TV said that could be the next king, and I thought, "yes, if there is another king."

Worst of all, the only person who can make the public aware of our impending doom is being slowly driven off the airwaves.

I earn well below the threshold for the repayment of my student loan, but debt collectors are after me

I've spent years trying to get to grips with money as I don't earn that much. I'm being asked for repayments by a debt collection agency for my student loan, but have always been paid less than the required salary needed before repayments start.

I graduated in 1994 and worked as a barman until 1997, when I had a breakdown. I left the UK and, until 2003, worked seasonally in France, Spain and Italy living in tents and mobile homes. I was always on the move and had no fixed abode either abroad or in the UK. Pay was always minimum national wage levels.

In 2003 I returned from Italy and managed to keep afloat until I found a more permanent PAYE role three years ago earning £17,500. Now the Student Loan Company has found me and debt collectors are after me. CH, Cheltenham

In 1998 the government sold part of the student debt book to Thesis Servicing, a division of LINK Financial Outsourcing. A LINK spokesman confirmed that your account was transferred to it in October 2008 but you clearly did not receive the notification.

Due to the value of the arrears, your loan was terminated in February 2011 and transferred back to Link's internal debt collection agency. Had you stayed in touch with Link, you would easily have been able to defer repayment as you earn well under the current salary threshold of £26,449. But, under SLC (and now Link), deferment is not automatic and has to be applied for annually, along with evidence of earnings. Those who do not defer are automatically liable to begin repayment.

The good news is that Link agrees that you are not in a position to repay your loan in full. "We remain committed to assisting him while he is in this period of financial difficulty and look forward to agreeing an affordable, sustainable repayment plan."

You must now take control of your financial affairs and communicate with Link.

We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@guardian.co.uk or write to Brignall & King, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number

There's a big advertisement in Haaretz Friday signed by 102 eminent Israelis. "The world is changing around us," it says, "but the government of Israel is stagnant and paralyzed." The "rejectionist policy" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is "extraordinarily dangerous" and "threatens to make Hamas more legitimate in the world than the Israeli government." It calls for recognition of a democratic Palestinian state as the basis for ending the conflict. Pressure is growing on Netanyahu, at home and abroad. Britain and France are indicating they might support a Palestinian declaration of independence at the U.N. in September. Hillary Clinton has pointedly refused to rule out that the U.S. will deal with a new Palestinian government, even if it includes Hamas.

Europe's inner circle meet to discuss possible debt restructuring for Greece as well as problems in Ireland and Portugal

Finance ministers from an inner core of eurozone countries were holding secret talks in Luxembourg tonight to discuss a possible debt restructuring for crisis-ridden Greece.

The single currency's leading creditor nations – Germany, France, Finland and the Netherlands – all attended the meeting, called amid concerns that Greece's problems were nearing breaking point.

Sources said negotiations centred on the mounting eurozone debt crisis, and included not just Greece but the terms of Portugal's bailout and Ireland's demands for easier repayment terms on its loans. But they denied reports coming out of Germany that Athens had floated the idea of leaving the single currency altogether.

The European commission was also at the talks at Château de Senningen, a site used by the Luxembourg government for official meetings, which involved the countries that have provided the bulk of the funds for the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Most of the governments from the 17-nation eurozone were kept in the dark about the talks, and said they knew nothing about the crisis negotiations. Greek media confirmed that a plane carrying the Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papaconstantinou, had landed in Luxembourg.

Angela Merkel's spokesman said a prearranged meeting was taking place, but it had nothing to do with the idea that Greece would leave the euro.

"There is a meeting of some finance ministers that has long been planned. Greece exiting the eurozone is not on the agenda of that meeting, and it has never been," Steffen Seibert said.

Instead, sources said the creditors were looking at a range of options for Greece including a fresh bailout, giving it longer to repay its debts or forcing banks to take a loss on Greek bonds.

On the foreign exchanges, reports that Greece would be the first country to quit the single currency led to a sharp sell-off of the euro against the dollar. Spiegel Online, quoting German government sources, said that Greece would leave the euro unless it was allowed to restructure its massive debts. Greek officials categorically denied the report with many describing it as a "joke".

"We are putting all our effort into resolving our indebted public finances precisely because we are in the eurozone and want to stay there," said one official, requesting anonymity. "What it is saying doesn't make any sense."

Others described the report's timing as "strange and suspicious".

In a statement – released only after other countries had rushed to deny the report – the Greek finance ministry said the government had repeatedly rejected such scenarios. "Such reports are provocations that undermine the effort of Greece and the euro and only serve the profiteering game," the statement said.

Reports in Greece have already talked about a "velvet restructuring" that could include extending outstanding debt and a voluntary agreement to modify repayment terms before 2012. The country wants to return to the debt markets early next year, even though its debt is expected to reach 160% of GDP by then. The country's borrowing costs have been rising as its rating has been downgraded eight times since January 2009, when it had an A rating. A year ago, just after the bailout, it was the first eurozone country to have its debt rating cut to junk when ratings agency S&P; had warned that bondholders could recover as little as 30% if the country restructured its debt.

Amadeu Altafaj Tardio – spokesman for Olli Rehn, the monetary affairs commissioner – would not confirm or deny the meeting. "I am not aware of any meeting in Luxembourg," he said. "We have no comment on the Der Spiegel report."

Sony Kapoor, managing director of Re-define, a Brussels-based thinktank, said: "It would be irresponsible for the creditor countries in the euro area not to be having serious and intense discussions about unresolved questions to do with ongoing problems with Greece, the Portuguese package and Irish demands for easier terms.

"However, it is most probably a vicious rumour or a wild Chinese whisper that Greece would have asked for a possible exit from the euro. This would be a disaster for Greece and the wider euro area."

But City analysts said the reports coming out of Germany were plausible. Jonathan Loynes, of Capital Economics, said: "If you are Greece and your country is in the mess that is in, and you are thinking about the next five years and the austerity measures you have to go through to stay in the euro, you have a responsibility, I would suggest, to think about leaving."

Gerard Lyons, chief economist at Standard Chartered bank, said pressure had been mounting from Berlin. "I think the Germans have been playing hard ball for a few weeks now. If Greece does go I don't think they will be the only one."

Spiegel Online said the meeting was being held under strict secrecy and that both the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, and his deputy, Jörg Asmussen, were attending.

It quoted from what it said was an internal German finance ministry paper that Schäuble was taking with him to Luxembourg, which warned that a Greek exit "would lead to a significant depreciation of the domestic currency versus the euro" and increase Greece's debt levels to 200% of GDP.

"The government has raised the possibility of leaving the eurozone and reintroducing its own currency," the report said.

*wink wink* *nudge nudge*

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Libya and the announcement of the death of Osama bin Laden, and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved.” Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross.” The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance.” The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.

The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards.” They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide.” The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender.” The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France ‘s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.

Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing.” Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides.”

The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs.” They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbor” and “Lose.”

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels .

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Australia , meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be alright, Mate.” Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is canceled.” So far no situation has ever warranted use of the final escalation level.

– John Cleese – British writer (of Monty Python fame), actor and tall person”

 

It would seem that the international community is reconciling itself to considering Hamas as part of the official Palestinian government.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. government could accept a Palestinian government with Hamas if the group renounced violence and recognized Israel. The New York Times reports:

“There are many steps that have yet to be undertaken in order to implement the agreement,” she said. “And we are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means because there are a number of different potential meanings to it, both on paper and in practice."

Even Netanyahu has an extended an olive branch saying Israel could support a Palestinian state before September, if the government agreed to peace with Israel. Haaretz reports:

"The idea is not to establish a Palestinian state to continue the conflict as Hamas wants – but to establish state so as to end conflict. What they want now is to form a state so as to continue trying to destroy us and pursuing the war on terror.”

"The expectation we have, and any fair minded person would have, is that we ask of anyone who says they want peace with Israel to abandon the goal of destroying Israel. We can make peace with an enemy but only an enemy who wants peace,” Netanyahu stressed.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshal said he is willing to work towards a two-state solution. The New York Times reports:

But Mr. Meshal was in no mood for concessions. In an interview in his Cairo hotel suite, he declined to swear off violence or agree that a Palestinian state would produce an end to the conflict — key demands of Israel, the United States and Europe. He defined his goal as “a Palestinian state in the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as its capital, without any settlements or settlers, not an inch of land swaps and respecting the right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel itself.

...He added that over the coming months that, as Hamas and Fatah work out their differences, “we are ready to reach an agreement on how to manage resistance.” He noted that Hamas had entered into cease-fires with Israel in the past and that it was ready to do so in the future. There is one in effect right now. “If occupation ends,” he said, “resistance ends. If Israel stops firing, we stop firing.”

Rifts also seem to be surfacing in the the Quartet on the Middle East, a consortium comprised of the UN, US, Russia and the EU established in 2002 to deal with conflict in the Middle East.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that if the peace process isn't on track in September France will "face up to its responsibilities" on recognizing a Palestinian state. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel categorically said unilateral decision would be "unhelpful" and stressed a return to peace talks between the warring states.

Don't Miss Israel's Response To The Hamas-Fatah Pact >

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• In Israel, Mixed Response To Hamas-Fatah Pact
• Politics In 60 Seconds: What You Need To Know Right Now
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President Nicolas Sarkozy of France says he will support a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence if peace talks with Israel do not restart by September, dealing a tough setback to Israel’s campaign to isolate the incoming Palestinian unity government.

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Middle East

• Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan survived an assassination attempt in northern Turkey, claimed by a Kurdish rebel group. 
• A suicide bomber killed 21 people south of Baghdad in an attack one official said may be retaliation for the death of Osama bin Laden. 
• Egypt's former interior minister was sentenced to 12 years in prison. 

Asia

• Japan is halting the construction of three nuclear reactors over earthquake fears. 
• Thousands of Afghans rallied to reject a government peace deal with the Taliban. 
• Eight members of Pakistan's Shia minority were killed in a bombing in Quetta. 

Americas

• Brazil's Supreme Court ruled that the country should recognize same-sex marriages. 
• Mexican President Felipe Calderon defended his government's war on drugs as a march against Mexico's ongoing violence reached the capital. 
• Inmates at a prison in Venezuela ended an eight-day hostage crisis. 

Europe

• Britain's Liberal Democrats suffered heavy losses while Scottish nationalists gained in local elections. 
• France expelled 14 Libyan diplomats.
• An inquest cleared London's emergency services of responsibility for deaths during the 2005 London underground bombings.  

Africa

• Alassane Ouattara is due to be sworn in as president of the Ivory Coast. 
• The wife of South Africa's intelligence minister was sentenced to 12 years in jail for drug trafficking.  
• The Sudanese government will create two additional states within Darfur. 

ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images

The flood of North African refugees continues to arrive in Lampedusa. Notice that the latest group does not consist of Tunisians:

216 Immigrants Land in Lampedusa With More Arriving

(AGI) Lampedusa — The first 216 immigrants rescued off the island have arrived in Lampedusa with 40 more arriving in the afternoon. They were all on board two vessels intercepted this morning. The boat escorted by the Financial Police also had six women and a minor on board. the migrants allegedly all come from sub-Saharan Africa and left from Libya.

Earlier this evening I posted a French news report about a battle between Tunisian “youths” and French police. That incident may have been part of a broader front, which included the arrest of 138 Tunisian culture-enrichers in France.

According to Reuters:

French Police Arrest Tunisia Migrants, Influx Grows

Paris May 4 (Reuters) — French police arrested 138 Tunisian migrants on Wednesday, clearing out an illegal squat in Paris as unease deepened in France over an influx sparked by the upheaval in North Africa.

About 250 riot police were deployed to evict the squatters, most of them Tunisians who entered Europe a couple of months ago via Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island that is one of the closest points for people fleeing North Africa.

“In all, 138 people were arrested, and their situation will be assessed on a case by case basis,” a police officer told Reuters television at the scene of Wednesday’s eviction in the northeast of the French capital.

According to charity groups, 400-500 Tunisians have arrived in France since a popular uprising in Tunisia led to the ouster of the former French colony’s long-time ruler in January, sending a wave of pro-democracy upheaval across the Arab world. [emphasis added]

It’s probably an underestimate, but, for the sake of analysis, we’ll assume that half of the 30,000 migrants who have arrived in Italy since the crisis began are Tunisians. If five hundred Tunisians have wound up in France, 500 ÷ 15,000 = 3.33%, so only one in thirty Tunisians has managed to make it into France. In other words, the Tunisian enrichment problem is still mainly Italian, and not French.

The flow of North African refugees has mainly washed up in Italy and Malta, but Greece has its own enrichment problems which predate the current crisis. The Greek islands have been favored landing places for illegal migrants for years, and many of the invaders now in Greece have crossed the border into Thrace from Turkey.

The Greek prime minister is complaining about the same problem that Italy has: once the culture-enrichers arrive, they cannot be gotten rid of:

Greece Powerless to Quickly Expel Illegal Migrants: Minister

Athens, Greece — Greece’s police minister on Thursday called for new detention centers to be built as the country is powerless to expel undocumented migrants seeking to cross into other European countries.

“Without detention centres in various parts of the country...we cannot solve the problem,” Citizen’s Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis told parliament.

“Nobody can arrest a migrant, whether they be illegal or legal, and throw them out. International rules do not allow it, the laws do not allow it, our country’s constitution does not allow it,” the minister said.

Greece has struggled for years to reach a coherent policy on hundreds of thousands of economic migrants and asylum-seekers from Africa, Asia and the Indian subcontinent who arrive seeking a better future in the West.

Many are kept in overwhelmed detention facilities under squalid conditions repeatedly criticised by rights groups, and eventually find their way to a life of poverty, labour exploitation or petty crime in the cities.

The majority are unable to even return home, and Greece is bound by EU rules to keep them from travelling on to other EU states.

Land and sea patrols by EU border agency Frontex has helped alleviate the pressure but there were still nearly 3,000 undocumented migrant arrests on the Greek-Turkish border in April, up from 2,000 in March, police data shows.

“The situation is dramatic, there’s no doubt about that,” said Papoutsis, who called on local authorities to drop opposition to the new detention camps.

“Local societies are against migrants. They want them out,” he said.

This week, residents of the western Greek port of Igoumenitsa blocked the harbour for hours, calling on the government to remove scores of migrants who have built makeshift camps outside the town.

Riot police moved in when some protesters began throwing stones at some of the migrants who had gathered on the scene.

Immigration concerns have also surfaced in Italy and France with the arrival of thousands of Tunisians after a revolution toppled Tunisia’s dictator in January.

EU authorities this week conceded that controls in the bloc’s border-free Schengen area could be tightened in exceptional circumstances as a bulwark against migration pressure.

So…

You can’t arrest them.

You can’t send them back.

You can’t send them on to Germany, where they really want to go.

In other words…

EU to Greece: DROP DEAD.

To add insult to injury, Pope Benedict XVI thinks that Europeans need to welcome the immigrants with open arms, in the spirit of Christian benevolence.

According to Deutsche Welle:

Pope Urges Europe to Welcome Migrants From North Africa

In his Easter sermon, Pope Bendict VI lamented the violence and conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East and called on Europe to accept more migrants from war-torn countries.

In his traditional Easter message to the world Pope Bendict XVI contrasted the joy of the Easter season with the violence and strife in North Africa and the Middle East and called on Europe to welcome more migrants from war-torn areas like Libya.

“Here, in this world of ours, the Easter hallelujah still contrasts with the cries and laments that arise from so many painful situations: deprivation, hunger, disease, war, violence,” he said in his “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world) address.

Ha! How many Tunisians and Somalis do you think the pope has living with him in his papal apartments?

There’s no end in sight to all this insanity. What new excesses of cultural enrichment will tomorrow bring?


Hat tips: C. Cantoni, AC, and Kitman.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he will support a unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence if peace talks with Israel don't restart by September, dealing a tough setback to Israel's campaign to isolate the incoming Palestinian unity government.

April 4, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

I suspect the recent upsurge in Old Testament names for boys expresses not so much a religious sentiment as it does a desire to be different (but not too different). This trend towards trendiness and away from tradition isn’t just an American thing. It’s also true in France, where parents have had a free choice of names for less than 20 years. Before that, there was a government-approved list parents had to choose from.

The government still offers new arrivals some advice on names.Bapiste Coulmont links to a list of “French” names the government recommends to immigrants who want to become French – a process called “francisation.”* The list has about 400 names that are “French or currently used in France.”

But the French themselves don’t seem to have much use for that list. When I checked the most popular names that actual French parents were giving their newborns (the most recent year I could get was 2006), for both boys and girls, three of the top ten names were not on the list of “French” names.

Enzo (1)	Ines (7)
Nathan (4)	Jade (9)
Tom (8)	Lola (10)

From what I understand, other unlisted names – Margaux, Apolline, and Victoria – have since climbed into France’s top ten.

Japan too. Several decades ago, when I was in Japan, nearly all girls’ names ended in either ko (子), a few in mi (美) or e (江). Now none of the popular girls’ names have these endings.

The trend isn’t universal. In Italy, all the top names are traditionally Italian.** Joseph and Mary (Giuseppe and Maria) top the list.

* The counterpart of Americanization. When the movie “The Americanization of Emily” was released in 1964, that name wasn’t even in the top 250, but the title was prescient. Thirty-two years later, Emily had climbed to #1, and she held that spot for over a decade.

** Italy has no list of approved names. But the law does allow a civil official to “advise and dissuade overly-creative parents” who propose names that are “ridiculous, shameful, or embarrassing.” (A newspaper article on this is here.) In the US, you can name your daughter Brooklyn no questions asked. But in Italy, tying to name your kid Testaccio might not go so smoothly.

PARIS, France - In an announcement made today by the French government, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome has been awarded a five-star classification of the highest distinction.

read more

Food security will soon be an issue for all nations (It is not just our communities they kill, but free markets too, 4 May). In a period of diminishing supply and increasing demand, four food retailers enjoy an increasingly powerful position. A credit crunch can be relieved in the short term by printing money; we cannot print food, it has to be grown, but why should farmers bother when the big four supermarkets have such a stranglehold on price? Our dairy farmers are again giving up at an alarming rate, egg producers are going the same way. Why should they make the expensive, long-term capital investment required to stay in production when the market is so skewed against them?

Our national policy of cheap food at any price, coupled with an unquestioning assumption that you cannot have too many branches of Tesco, is leading us towards a food crisis that could make the credit crunch look like a tea party.

James Gray

Winchester, Hampshire

• Peter Wilby writes about the impact of supermarkets on independent shops but it is possible for towns to fight back. Stroud in Gloucestershire was besieged by three superstores, but one of the first farmers' markets started to bring customers back into town, thanks to initial help from the town council. Environmental improvements make the town a good place for both young and older people to meet up, and on Saturdays the centres buzzes with life. Then a butcher opened up, followed by a delicatessen next door. A restaurant owner then started a food emporium specialising in fresh fish. As councils need financial incentives to look after independent businesses, the best way would be to charge supermarkets business rates that reflect the value of their car parks, and then enable councils to tap the proceeds for town improvements.

Nicholas Falk

Director, Urbed (Urban and Economic Development)

 

• Peter Wilby's argument is too simple. The causes of the decline of the British high street cannot be laid at the door of the supermarkets alone. He touches on what is almost certainly the main contributor: the rise of car-borne shopping. In many town centres, parking is difficult and expensive; the shopper has to go from one shop to another on foot, often in poor weather. Parents with young children, in particular, find this trying. When the alternative is "free" parking at a supermarket where they can buy everything they need under one roof, the choice is not difficult. You could also examine the rising rents in high streets (upward-only rent reviews imposed by landlords) and business rates. Supermarkets are not the only shops to have moved out of town.

My colleague Andrew Seth and I have studied supermarkets in some depth (see, for example, The Grocers: the rise and rise of the supermarket chains). Most consumers appreciate what supermarkets provide. It is a vocal minority who complain. But we would agree that, compared with France, our high streets are impoverished. The answer in France, and in other countries such as Italy that want to preserve the health of their artisan food providers, is legislation. If people really want supermarkets curbed, the government will have to legislate.

Geoffrey Randall

Rode, Somerset

• Supermarkets on the whole pay low wages and prefer shift-working that minimises their social obligations to their workers (sickness, holiday pay etc): why not change this employment law? The money goes straight out of the local economy rather than feeding and circulating within it. My butcher, fishmonger, baker, veg shop buy "locally", while most supermarkets buy (inter)nationally. Why not change these laws? My local shopkeepers are reporting a big downturn as people tighten their belts. Still it was noted in the deep snow that people walked to local shops. People use their cars and thereby consume petrol too much for shopping: why not a high local tax on supermarket carparks to compare with high cost of parking outside local shops?

Jan Fairley

Edinburgh

• We are pleased that Labour is considering how to give residents greater control over the future of their local high streets (Ed Miliband backs greater voice for locals on spread of supermarkets – 2 May). But we would urge Miliband to ensure he does not ponder the solution for too long and miss the opportunity presented by the localism bill, currently in the House of Commons and due to pass into the Lords in late May. The legislation aims to empower local people, including by reforming elements of the planning system. But it does not go far enough. If it really is to empower people it should rebalance the appeals system and be amended to include a limited community right of appeal – as the Lib Dems and Conservatives said they would prior to the election – when the legislation has its report stage later this month.

Fiona Howie

Head of planning, Campaign to Protect Rural England

• Peter Wilby complainsthat supermarkets are "forcing down prices and increasingly dictating to suppliers what they produce". But before 1964 in the UK, the boot was on the other foot: suppliers and manufacturers had the right, under resale price maintenance agreements, to stop supplying shops that sold goods below the agreed price, so supermarkets could not discount goods which consequently appeared at the same price in small shops and supermarkets. This system was abolished by the Tories in 1964, to the dismay of their small shopkeeper supporters, but was re-legalised in the US by the American supreme court case of Leegin Creative Leather Products Inc versus PSKS Inc (2007).

DBC Reed

Northampton

• Opponents of yet another Tesco store in the Stokes Croft district of Bristol have just cause for objecting to its opening (though not for the violence that ensued). The Gloucester Road – a short walk away from the Stokes Croft area – proudly hosts the following small independent businesses despite the presence of a Sainsbury's mini store and a Co-operative supermarket:

A bakery serving its own daily baked breads and cakes; a fish shop that also organises fishing trips; two fruit and vegetable shops; a delicatessen specialising in olives and unusual fare; two well stocked health shops; a "green" hairdresser using only organic products; a hardware shop with a comprehensive array of goods; numerous excellent cafes and bars, several operating as community resources with talks and activities for all age groups; and a lot more besides.

Need I go on? The area is buzzing and vibrant, attracting a cross-section of residents and visitors from across Bristol and elsewhere. Small is beautiful and dynamic and must be supported by government and customers alike so more such shopping outlets can thrive.

Helen Vegoda

Bristol

Peter Wilby expresses concern about independent shops and says that next to the motor car their loss has been the most radical cause of change to "the look and texture of our environment". As it is the motor car which is directly to blame for "clone-town Britain" and the fact that 97% of food is bought from the supermarket chains, Wilby's suggested remedies to free up the retail market will have no effect until the freedom to use the car is very severely restrained.

Daniel Scharf

Abingdon, Oxfordshire

PARIS, May 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- In an announcement made today by the French government, Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome has been awarded a five-star classification of the highest distinction. It has been named one of eight official palace hotels in France. (Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh

By Donna Deedy, special to ProPublica with Michael Grabell, ProPublica

In the late 1990s, U.S. policymakers approved a plan to turn plutonium from nuclear weapons into fuel for commercial reactors. The first-of-its kind plant, now being built in South Carolina, was intended to reduce the Cold War stockpile and the threat of nuclear material theft while supplying the country’s energy needs.

More than a decade later, the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant is running into mounting troubles, including long delays, soaring costs and the lack of utilities committed to use the new fuel in their reactors.

But there’s another aspect of the story that has received little attention. Two of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety reviewers for the project say the NRC has taken shortcuts on safety to avoid delaying the construction. Work on the facility was allowed to begin, they say, before some of the most essential questions were fully answered. They have been particularly concerned about the danger of chemical explosions, the adequacy of the ventilation and radioactive waste disposal systems and the way the plutonium will be tracked as it is processed.

Alex Murray, the lead chemical process engineer on the NRC review team, has said in public documents that he was removed from the project in 2007, after he repeatedly warned that safety plans to prevent a chemical explosion risk specific to this type of plant were inadequate and could lead to a significant release of radioactive material.

After Murray was reassigned, the NRC hired Dan Tedder, a chemical engineering professor from the Georgia Institute of Technology who had participated in technical reviews for the Department of Energy since 1979. Tedder said he resigned less than a year later because he believed that the plant’s chemical engineering plans were incomplete and felt that his concerns were brushed aside.

“I really don’t feel that the NRC is doing the thorough type of analyses that I believe are appropriate,” he said. “Their primary focus is staying on schedule and not doing anything to delay the applicant, rather than identifying dominant risks and safety issues.”

The NRC said the reviewers’ objections were considered and all outstanding issues resolved as part of the safety evaluation, which was finalized in December. Studying dissenting opinions is a built-in part of the licensing review and there was no pressure to speed up the process, the agency said.

“We wouldn’t allow or license a facility or a fuel if we didn’t think it was safe,” said NRC spokesman David McIntyre.

The MOX plant is the first new construction authorized by the NRC since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. It is located at the federal Savannah River Site, an old bomb-making complex near Aiken, S.C. Originally estimated at $1.4 billion, it is now expected to cost taxpayers nearly $5 billion. It won’t begin producing fuel until 2016 at the earliest, about a decade behind schedule.

The idea of using weapons-grade plutonium to fuel nuclear power plants surfaced after the end of the Cold War when the United States and Russia each agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium, the core material of some atomic bombs.

Lawmakers, the nuclear industry and some scientists pushed the United States to follow a technique being used in Europe – the reprocessing of spent fuel to make MOX. France and Belgium have successfully operated MOX manufacturing plants since the 1970s using plutonium from commercial reactor waste. But the U.S. MOX plant will be the first to mass-produce fuel using weapons-grade plutonium.

The NRC and some experts say operations can be adjusted to accommodate the different characteristics of the weapons-grade material. But others note that there has been a history of accidents in the United States when similar methods were used to process plutonium for military purposes.

At Savannah River, workers in a separate facility will extract plutonium from the weapons’ cores. The plutonium will then be transferred to the MOX plant where it will be purified, chemically processed, blended with uranium and turned into pellets. The pellets will be loaded into fuel rods for commercial reactors.

The plant is being built and will be operated by Shaw Areva MOX Services, a partnership of the Shaw Group, a large engineering firm based in Louisiana, and Areva, a company primarily owned by the French government that has worldwide interests in all phases of the nuclear industry.

In a blog post last month, Areva Inc. CEO Jacques Besnainou criticized the news media for sensationalizing the dangers of MOX, saying the fuel is safe and has been rigorously tested. He said the company values transparency and encouraged readers to “learn the facts of this issue.”

But Areva declined to answer ProPublica’s questions about the plant, as did Shaw and a spokesman for their partnership. Instead, they referred questions to the U.S. Department of Energy, which declined requests to interview officials in charge of the program. A department spokesman sent a statement saying the DOE will review “all aspects of the safety of nuclear technology” in light of the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant and that the MOX facility will comply with all requirements before going into operation.

The NRC set up a two-step licensing process for the Savannah River MOX plant. Construction would be authorized after it was determined that Shaw Areva’s design and safety plans provided reasonable protection against natural disasters and catastrophic accidents. The NRC would then verify that the plant was properly built before issuing an operating license.

But the NRC was under pressure from some lawmakers and the industry to streamline the regulatory process. It decided to defer some of the safety decisions until the operating phase. Both Murray and Tedder were troubled by that approach.

The MOX plant’s licensing process has also been criticized by a judge for the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which settles disputes for the NRC. In a 2008 hearing involving a separate but related matter, Judge Michael Farrar, the panel’s chairman, questioned whether “the constant pressure … to ‘do it faster’ ” could have a “substantive impact” on the NRC’s review and its safety culture.

“In my judgment, this proceeding has exposed matters that might indicate that that culture is being undermined,” he wrote at one point in the case.

As far back as 2000, the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear industry, had submitted comments saying the rules for the MOX plant safety review were “overly prescriptive.” Steven Kerekes, an institute spokesman, said in a phone interview that the industry was only encouraging the NRC to make its requirements more flexible.

Murray, the son of a prominent nuclear scientist, has worked at the NRC since 1997 and has a background in nuclear fuel reprocessing. He has been particularly concerned about the possibility of “red oil” explosions, an inherent risk in nuclear reprocessing. Red oil forms during chemical processes when an organic solution comes into contact with nitric acid. At high temperatures and concentrations, it can lead to runaway reactions and explosions.

Red oil incidents happened at the Savannah River bomb site and at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington in 1953 and again at Savannah River in 1975. One of the most serious accidents occurred in 1993 at a plant in Tomsk, Russia. A red oil explosion destroyed the building’s walls and sent a radioactive plume into the surrounding communities.

The NRC referred Murray’s concerns to a panel of agency staff and the federally funded Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, which both confirmed in 2007 that the MOX plant’s red oil safety strategies were inadequate. But they added that the matter could be deferred until the operating license review, and the NRC allowed construction to continue.

Murray has said in memos and e-mails to management that he felt his safety concerns were dismissed. After raising them, he noted that he was removed from the MOX project and reassigned against his will to other NRC projects. He was also appointed to an NRC task force charged with reviewing the agency’s safety culture.

“This redirection, isolation and ostracism have given the impression to some staff members that if one raises significant issues, there seems to be a potential for negative consequences,” Murray said in a September 2010 letter to NRC commissioners.

McIntyre of the NRC disputed that. “There has been no retaliation against anyone for raising safety issues,” he said.

Several years after Murray raised his concerns, Shaw Areva modified its red oil safety strategy. An independent analysis of the new plans by Brookhaven National Laboratory concluded in 2009 that red oil explosions would be “highly unlikely.” However, the Brookhaven study didn’t assess what might happen in the event of internal fires and outside events, such as earthquakes or power outages, which led to the crisis in Japan.

While the Savannah River Site is on a fault line, it’s not on the edge of a tectonic plate, as Japan is. Japan has suffered 10 earthquakes of 7.0 or greater magnitude in the past decade, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The last major earthquake to strike South Carolina occurred in 1886 in Charleston, about 110 miles east of the site, and was estimated to measure 7.3 on the Richter scale.

Vinod Mubayi, a nuclear physicist and one of the authors of the Brookhaven study, said in an interview that a red oil explosion would be unlikely even in the event of an earthquake or blackout. The plant has back-up generators and multiple layers of safeguards.

“I think they’ve taken a lot of precautions in making sure that the lessons have been learned” from previous accidents at other processing facilities, he said.

After Murray was reassigned in 2007, the NRC hired Tedder as a senior technical reviewer. A former researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tedder had expertise in plutonium chemistry and fuel reprocessing.

The first step in safely designing any chemical project, Tedder said, is establishing the quantity, rate and flow of material as it is being processed. Those calculations determine the size of equipment and serve as the basis for the plant’s configuration. The figures also are used for tracking plutonium. But Tedder said Shaw Areva hadn’t fully developed that formula when construction began. He said he was told it would cost too much money.

The NRC said that information has since been provided and that it meets regulatory requirements.

Three local groups that oppose the plant have also challenged Shaw Areva’s tracking plans for plutonium, and judges for the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board have agreed to hear their complaints.

In September 2008, Tedder’s allegations turned up in tce, a British trade journal for chemical engineers. The article quoted him as saying that he was shocked when he began work and discovered that basic design information was incomplete.

“The NRC didn’t want me to criticize the applicant and refused to forward my questions or request more information,” he told tce. “They harassed me about my reports and wanted me to water them down.”

The trade journal article led to an investigation by the NRC inspector general, who found no indication that agency management had “ignored” Tedder’s concerns. The report said a chemical engineering review team found that some of Tedder’s concerns weren’t relevant to the NRC’s safety evaluation. Other issues he raised were sent to other reviewers for analysis. The inspector general made no recommendations for corrective actions.

Tedder told ProPublica that when he met with the inspectors at a Starbucks near his home, they told him they would be investigating only whether the NRC was following its procedures, not the merit of his concerns.

The NRC’s jurisdiction, he noted, is narrow. The agency regulates hazardous chemicals produced from radioactive materials. But it does not identify and protect against all chemical hazards.

For instance, the chemical mixing and storage building that adjoins the MOX plant is regulated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The NRC says it’s responsible for any event that could affect the MOX plant, but safety reviewers said that dual setup could leave workers vulnerable if an accident occurred.

He said it’s also unclear how all the radioactive waste from the plant will be tracked and stored. Waste issues fall under the jurisdiction of the Energy Department, which is building a new plant where liquid waste will be treated, mixed into cement and packed into 55-gallon drums. But it has not been decided yet where the waste will ultimately be disposed of.

Although the plant’s operating license is still pending, the NRC finalized its safety assessment in December. Shaw Areva said it had spent $80 million developing safety analyses. The NRC said it had held 70 meetings, conducted 100 in-office reviews and submitted more than 600 questions to Shaw Areva for revised or more detailed safety strategies. The plant, both say, will operate safely.

Tedder and Murray are less confident.

“We need congressional hearings on this,” Tedder said. “The NRC review of MOX is not comprehensive. As a professional engineer, I find this position unacceptable and inconsistent with accepted engineering practices.”

WASHINGTON, DC -- Since May 3, 1991, World Press Freedom Day has been celebrated worldwide annually to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect it. Marking the 10th anniversary last Tuesday, an international conference was organized in Washington, DC, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the U.S. State Department to debate the "new frontiers" of the media. You can see the entire agenda here.

Online freedom and the changing media landscape had pride of place and I was given the opportunity to debate online censorship on May 2 as well as discuss the actual situation between "traditional" and "new media," as a representative of Reporters Without Borders. (Note that Reporters Without Borders also has a special World Day Against Cyber-Censorship focused entirely on online expression.)

In countries where online platforms are tightly controlled -- but also are some of the rare places to get uncensored information -- the lines between traditional and new media is very vague. It's possible that non-profit journalism websites (or sites where the news isn't a profit center) might help safeguard press freedom.

Reports from Malaysia, France

In Malaysia, Premesh Chandran had to adapt to the fact that advertisers were staying away because the info published on Malaysiakini.com was not fitting in with the control imposed on media by the government. Malaysia is ranked 141st out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. Without ads, Malaysiakini began to install a pay wall for its English version. The website thought it might take a non-profit business model but according to Chandran, "It became obvious that [they] had to become more professional." The subscription allows the core of an audience to support the news activities of the website. But Chandran acknowledges that "readers don't pay."

In France, OWNI.fr depends on the expertise of reporters and licensed content for their free website, but make money by sell journalism services to online publishers. (You can read more about OWNI in this story by Mark Glaser on MediaShift.)

"In terms of client acquisition, this is very helpful," according to OWNI's director of data journalism Nicholas Kayser-Bril. OWNI worked with WikiLeaks on a non-profit basis and organized the crowdsourcing for documents that were released. It is now an expertise that they can sell to other organizations. For this website, the content and features are a non-profit activity, because the income is generated by services instead. "This a way of adapting journalism to the technologies," said Kayser-Bril.

Open Source Software at AllAfrica.com

Convinced that mobile phones were making a huge impact on the way media are operating in Africa, Amadou Mahtar Ba, co-founder of AllAfrica.com, insisted that "traditional media need to adapt to technology. Many media organization are losing relevance and there is a fundamental growth of mobile phones."

"Media owners and operators need guidelines and principles, as journalists have theirs," Ba said.

AllAfrica.com is a news content publisher and relies on the development of systems based on free and open source software, such as XML::Comma, released under the GNU General Public License. It has become the entry point to a global, Africa-interested audience, as well as a pioneering set of technologies. Here again, journalism is a non-profit activity.

According to Richard Tofel, general manager of ProPublica, there is a role for non-profit journalism to take over the economic failures of the "traditional" media by taking the risks the latter could not afford anymore.

"We are going to a new territory based on a technological revolution," he said. "We need experimentation and a willingness to take risks almost every day to discover these new ways," said Tofel, when asked about the training journalists should receive to handle these different ways of making the news.

Press freedom is not only about journalists being killed and harassed and newspapers being forced to close by oppressive governments. It is also about guaranteeing independence -- independence from advertisers is no less complicated than independence from donors. At the panel discussion, one of the solutions was making money from readers and services. These publications do bring in money and are trying to get their readers to adapt to new technologies. Non-profit journalism, in the sense of news not being the profitable activity, is a way of helping to guarantee more editorial independence. This is one more possible safeguard for press freedom.

Photo of the Newseum by Clothilde le Coz

Clothilde Le Coz has been working for Reporters Without Borders in Paris since 2007. She is now the Washington director for this organization, helping to promote press freedom and free speech around the world. In Paris, she was in charge of the Internet Freedom desk and worked especially on China, Iran, Egypt and Thailand. During the time she spent in Paris, she was also updating the "Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents," published in 2005. Her role is now to get the message out for readers and politicians to be aware of the constant threat journalists are submitted to in many countries.

This is a summary. Visit our site for the full post ».

A TEACHER'S group hit Thursday Malacanang's announcement that it would release the third tranche of salary increase for government workers in June, instead of July as originally scheduled.

France Castro, secretary general of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), said President Benigno Aquino III's announcement falls short of their demand that the government should give the full amount covering the third and fourth tranches of the salary increase under the Salary Standardization Law-3 (SSL-3).

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Officially called Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, this small constitutional monarchy is nestled between France, Belgium and Germany. Luxembourg’s population of just over a half million reflects diverse cultural influences. German, French and Luxembourgish (which has similarities with both French and German dialects are the country’s official languages. Luxembourg is one of the founding members of the European Union. The capital city (and also the largest), Luxembourg, is home to several institutions and agencies of the European Union.

Passports & Visas

Passports are required to enter and leave Luxembourg. Visas are not required for US citizens for visits of less than 90 days. For longer visits, contact the nearest embassy.

Obtaining a US passport
The US Government Website is where to start.

Visa information
contact: The Consulate General of the Duchy of Luxembourg in New York

American Offices
Provides consular assistance to U.S. citizens
Luxembourg Embassy in the US

Luxembourg Tourist Information

Culture and History
Luxembourg in a Nutshell

Currency in Luxembourg
As part of the European Union, Luxembourg’s currency is the Euro (available in seven notes and eight coins). ATMS are available throughout Luxembourg, especially in more urban areas, and most machines accept debit cards bearing the Cirrus logo. Before you leave, be sure to call your local bank to find out if you can use your card in Luxembourg and if a special international PIN number is required to retrieve cash. All major credit cards are generally accepted for purchases made in Luxembourg. Banks in Luxembourg are typically open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch, and most are closed on weekends.

Driving in Luxembourg
For information on laws, speed limits and safety, see Driving in Luxembourg

Electricity in Luxembourg
Luxembourg operates on 220 volts electricity (as opposed to the United States, which uses 110 volts). Outlets take the continental two-round-pin plug (standard throughout Europe).

Emergency Numbers in Luxembourg
Medical emergency: 112
Fire: 44 22 44
Police: 113

Etiquette in Luxembourg
Meeting People: When meeting someone for the first time or upon arrival to a business meeting or social event, shake hands with everyone (men, women and children). Also shake hands when leaving. Good friends often kiss cheeks, one on each side (similar to France).

Body Language: Luxembourgers are friendly but personal space is to be respected. Do not put your hands in your pockets. Don’t chew gum in public.

Dining: Punctuality is essential for most social occasions except evening dinners, for which you should plan to arrive 15 minutes later than what is stated on the invitation. When finished eating, place your knife and fork side by side on the plate. To quietly signify that you are not finished or that you would like more food, cross your knife and fork in the middle of your plate. It is considered impolite to leave food on one’s plate.

Gifts: When invited to someone’s home, always bring a gift — bouquets of flowers (not chrysanthemums), good bottles of liqueur, or chocolates — to the hostess.

In General: Remain aware of Luxembourg’s individuality. Do not compare or lump the Luxembourgers together with the French, Belgians, or Germans.

Public Hours in Luxembourg
The majority of post offices in Luxembourg are open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with an hour off for lunch. Certain places have extended hours. Banks in Luxembourg are typically open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an hour off for lunch, and most are closed on weekends.

Safety in Luxembourg
The crime rate in Luxembourg is moderate as compared to other European countries. Travelers should take precautions against petty theft while in Luxembourg, especially in public areas where pickpockets tend to lurk. Luxembourg has many public parks that are safe during the daylight hours, though low-level drug vending has increased in some of the city parks. Tourists should avoid these parks after dark.

Time Zone
Luxembourg is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the United States. The country is in the Central European Time zone, which is one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time. During Daylight Saving Time, Luxembourg is two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

Tipping in Luxembourg 
A service charge of 15% is added to your food bill at a restaurant.  An additional tip isn’t required, but many people add a Euro or two for good service.

Taxi drivers typically receive a 10% tip; bellhops and doormen, €1.25-€2.50; movie ushers, coat & washroom attendants, €.50-€1.50.

Weather in Luxembourg
With a moderate climate, Luxembourg is a great destination any time of year. However, be prepared for a bit of rain. Traditionally, “in-season” has been defined as anytime from mid-April to mid-October. Peak season is July and August.

Main Sights In Luxembourg

History buffs and sightseers will enjoy Wenzel Walk, which takes you through Luxembourg’s oldest quarters (a UNESCO World Heritage site). Among other sights, you’ll see the Bock Promontory, Castle Bridge (built in 1735 from red sandstone), and the Church of St. Ulric (the city’s oldest church).

Created by Luxembourg-born Edward J. Steichen, “The Family of Man” is a permanent exhibition at the Castle of Clervaux with more than 500 black & white photos by 273 photographs from 68 countries. The theme of this powerful imagery is love and faith. Before its arrival to the Castle, the photos were on display at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art.

A visit to Mullerthal , the little Switzerland of Luxembourg is a real treat

Wine aficionados will enjoy the Grevenmacher Wine and Grape Festival in mid-September.

Schueberfouer is a traveling fun fair that visits the country every year for 3 weeks in the summer.

Getting Around Luxembourg

Luxembourg is home to excellent road, rail and air transportation facilities and services.

Air
Most major international carriers fly to Luxembourg’s airport (Findel International Airport – LUX) is 5km (3.5 miles) northeast of the city (journey time – 20 minutes). To/from the airport: Coaches and buses run regular services to the city. Taxis are also available (it takes approx.10 minutes to get to the city). A new passenger terminal at Luxembourg Airport opened recently.

Boats and Ferries
Car ferries run between the UK and Calais (from which you can drive to Luxembourg. From Calais, the quickest route is to take the highway to Brussels via Lille (A25, then head south through Namur along the E411 to Luxembourg). In total, the journey from London (including the ferry crossing) takes approximately eight hours.

Rail Passes
Benelux Tourrail will get you through Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. This pass allows for unlimited travel for any five days within a one-month period throughout the year.

InterRail is for European residents only, and offers unlimited first- or second-class travel in up to 30 European countries. Discounts are available for travelers under 26 years of age, and children’s tickets are reduced by about 50%. Available from Rail Europe.

Eurailpass is available to non-European residents (the passes cannot be sold to residents of Europe, Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia or the Russian Federation) and is good for unlimited first-class train travel in 17 European countries. Depending on the type of pass, it is valid for 15 days, 21 days, one month, two months or three months. The Eurailpass Saver ticket offers discounts for two or more people traveling together. The Eurailpass Youth ticket is available to those aged under 26 and offers unlimited second-class train travel. The Eurailpass Flexi allows either 10 or 15 travel days within a two-month period. The Eurail Selectpass is valid in three, four or five bordering countries and allows five, six, eight or 10 travel days (or 15 for five countries) in a two-month period. The Eurail Regional Pass allows four to ten travel days in a two-month period in one of nine regions (usually two or more countries). Children receive a 50% discount. All of the above is available from The Eurail Group (website: www.eurail.com).

There are plans to introduce trams in the capital city of Luxembourg and light-rail lines in nearby areas within the next few years.

Car Rental in Luxembourg
Several major car rental companies have stations at Findel International Airport. Car rental prices can be high,but fuel prices are lower than in most other EU countries. As is the case in any EU country, you’ll need a valid passport, driving license & international credit card to rent a car in Luxembourg. The road network has been significantly expanded and improved in recent years. There are now 147 km of motorways connecting the capital (Luxembourg) to adjacent countries.

Taxis
Taxis are quite expensive in Luxembourg. The standard fare is 0.80 Euros per km, but expect to pay a 10 percent surcharge at night, and a 25 percent surcharge on Sundays. Asking a taxi to wait for you will cost EUR0.21 per minute.
Taxis can be booked by telephone or hailed from a stand outside public buildings such as train stations.

Health

Personal Medications
No permit is required to carry medication in your luggage. However, you should pack your medication in its original containers and/or have your doctor’s prescription with you. Customs officials will have to be satisfied that you are not importing more than would be necessary for your personal use, taking into account the drug type and length of stay (for no more than three months).

Lodging in Luxembourg

Luxembourg offers every type of lodging from couch-surfing, to hostels and agritourism , to 5-Star resorts. Check here to find a hotel that will meet your needs.

Public Holidays in Luxembourg

New Year’s Day 1 January
Carnival February
Good Friday
Easter Monday
May Day 1 May
Ascension Day
Whit Monday 1st Monday in June
National Day 23 June
Assumption Day 15 August
Luxembourg City Fete 31 August
All Saints Day 1 November
All Souls Day 2 November
Christmas Day 25 December
St. Stephen’s Day 26 December

Telephones in Luxembourg

Public phone booths are conveniently located in Luxembourg. Coin-operated phones are quickly being replaced with ones that accept only credit cards and telecards, available at most newsstands, post offices, and major train stations.

Dialing Procedures
When calling Luxembourg from abroad, dial the local international access code, then 352 for the country code, followed by the number. When calling Luxembourg from the United States, the international access code is 011. Please note that there are no area codes in Luxembourg. However, phone numbers range from five to nine digits.

Useful Country Codes
USA and Canada 1
UK 44

Returning to the US

Customs,VAT & Duty Free
When you return to the U.S., you’ll need to declare everything you are bringing back that you did not take with you. If you are traveling by air or sea, you may be asked to fill out a Customs Declaration Form provided by the airline or cruise ship. Keep your sales slips. Try to pack the things you’ll need to declare separately. Read the signs in the Customs area; they contain helpful information about how to clear Customs.
For complete information on Customs, look at the U.S. Government Customs Website

Value Added Tax (VAT or IVA) Refund Information
If you are a U.S. or Canadian resident, you may qualify for a personal exemption which allows you to bring goods of a certain value into the country without paying customs duties, excise taxes, or Value Added Tax. You can be reimbursed for the VAT you pay on large purchases throughout your trip. Save your receipts from large purchases and be sure to visit the VAT office at the airport for refund forms and information.

Duty-Free Items
U.S. and Canadian citizens may bring goods into or from France and the rest of the European Union up to a certain value before having to pay custom duties, excise taxes, or VAT (Value-Added Tax). You should keep the following in mind:

U.S. and Canadian citizens aged 15 and over and traveling by air or sea may bring articles totaling 430 Euros (approx.$545) into France duty and tax-free. Land and inland waterway travelers can bring duty-free goods worth 300 Euros (approx. $380) in their personal luggage

Individuals over 17 may also purchase and import certain duty-free items from France up to a certain limit. This includes tobacco and alcoholic beverages, motor fuel, and medications. Fragrances, coffee, and tea may now be imported into the EU with no restriction on amounts, as long as the value does not exceed the monetary limits listed above. Limits for other items are (be sure to check and make sure these limits are still the same before you leave):

Cigarettes: 200 units
Cigarillos: 100 units (max. 3 grams each)
Cigars: 50 units
Still wines: 4 liters
Beer: 16 liters
Spirits over 22 degrees volume: 1 liter
Fortified wines, 22 degrees volume or less: 2 liters
Medications: Varies according to traveler’s health requirements
Motor fuel: Quantities equal to that found in a normal full fuel tank, or in an emergency can, not exceeding 10 liters.

Duty and tax exemptions are strictly individual. You cannot apply them to a group. Items worth more than the maximum exempt amount will be subject to duties and taxes.

You can bring personal items such as guitars or bicycles to France and not be charged any taxes or fees as long as the items are clearly for personal use. You may not sell or dispose of these while in France. All personal items declared to customs upon entry into France must be transported back with you.

Related posts:

1. The Netherlands Tourist Information
2. Liechtenstein Tourist Information
3. Belgium Tourist Information

Catalogue launched to help historians and families trace art looted during Hitler era

Despite a reputation for reaching for their revolvers at the merest mention of culture, the Nazis were among the most ruthless, avaricious and methodical art collectors ever to cast a greedy eye and thieving hand over other people's property.

"Use every means of transport to get all works of art out of Florence … [save] works of art from English and Americans," ran one of Heinrich Himmler's orders. "In fine get anything away that you can get hold of. Heil Hitler."

That appetite for the most beautiful and precious works of European art saw thousands of pieces stolen from their owners between 1933 and 1945 and entire collections raided, scattered and lost.

The quest to recover them and, where possible, return them to their rightful places has been under way for almost seven decades.

Now, thanks to a deal between some of the world's leading archives and museums, an online catalogue of documents has been created to help families, historians and researchers track down the missing artworks.

Under an agreement signed on Thursday by organisations including Britain's National Archives, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, the US National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) and Germany's Bundesarchiv, the records will be available through a single web portal.

The records include files documenting the systematic expropriation of Jewish property, Adolf Hitler's plans to establish a Führermuseum crammed with looted art in his Austrian hometown of Linz and the interrogation of art dealers.

The British documents, which cover the years 1939 to 1961, also lay out the efforts made to identify the stolen works and reunite them with their owners.

Among them is a report from a British art expert and RAF intelligence officer who was dispatched to Switzerland in 1945. The paper may have faded to yellow, but Douglas Cooper's exasperation with the Swiss authorities remains fresh to this day.

"Until I arrived here five weeks ago, practically nothing had been done," he writes. "And still no steps have been taken by the Swiss government to put the looted pictures in security. This means that it is still possible for any of the present holders to dispose of them."

Cooper concedes that "a new spirit seems to have made its appearance" since his arrival, but appeals for Foreign Office support in ensuring that dispossessed owners do not have to make individual claims through the Swiss courts "because the issue is a moral one".

The National Archives and the Commission for Looted Art in Europe have worked together for two years to catalogue and digitise more than 128,000 pages of information, ranging from seizure orders and inventories to images of looted works and reports of the transfer of stolen pieces to neutral countries.

All the original British government files have been scanned in colour and are searchable by name, place, subject and date.

The aim of the enterprise, according to Oliver Morley, chief executive and keeper of the National Archives, is to provide unprecedented access to the past.

"By digitising and linking archival records online, researchers will be able to piece together the stories of what became of cultural objects, be they books, paintings, sculpture, jewellery or any other stolen artefacts from evidence fragmented across borders and languages," he said.

Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, said that while records from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, the US, and Ukraine were now accessible online, other countries – including Switzerland, Poland and Italy – also held documents that could help families and historians.

"It's been enormously difficult for families to access these records because before you had to physically go to them," she said. "But now they're all digitised and you can search by the name of the victim, the perpetrator, the artist and the artwork. It will dramatically change the possibilities for people, but there's still more to come."

If we want a law of privacy, what should happen next? There are four possibilities

There are at least four possible "ways forward" for the new law of privacy which has been developed by the courts over the past decade and which has, at least from the point of view of sections of the media, been very controversial. These four possibilities are as follows:

(1) Active steps could be taken to abolish the law of privacy and return to the pre-Human Rights Act position.

(2) The current "judge made" law of privacy could be replaced by a new "statutory tort" of invasion of privacy.

(3) A special "privacy regime" for the media could be established under a statutory regulator.

(4) "Steady as she goes" – the law of privacy could be left to develop in the current way – by the judges on the basis of the Article 8 and Article 10 case law.

Each of these possibilities gives rise to different issues and potential difficulties.

Abolition of the Law of Privacy

The law of privacy has been developed by the judges as part of the common law and the common law can be replaced by statute. A simple one clause Abolition of Privacy Bill: "The tort of misuse of private information is hereby abolished" might be thought to be sufficient.

Unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated than that. The new law of privacy has been developed as a result of duty placed on the courts to act compatibly with convention rights imposed by section 6 of the Human Rights Act. So it would be necessary to amend that section as well – perhaps by the introduction of Lord Wakeham's almost forgotten proposal (which involved excluding the application of section 6 in disputes between two private parties).

However, these steps would, in turn, risk placing the United Kingdom in breach of its positive obligations under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights to protect privacy against media intrusion. It would, in turn, lead to adverse findings in Strasbourg and place the United Kingdom under an obligation in international law to re-introduce a law of privacy. In order to escape from this obligation it would be necessary to denounce the Convention and withdraw from the Council of Europe. As adherence to the Convention is a condition of EU membership it would also be necessary to leave the EU. These extreme steps may be popular with certain sections of the media but are unlikely to be practical politics in the foreseeable future and I will not consider them further. Outright abrogation of the law of privacy is not practical.

It is also difficult to see how a new "British Bill of Rights" would assist those who wish to abrogate the law of privacy. There are two points. First, simple repeal of the Human Rights Act would not, of itself, undo the developments in the common law which it inspired. It has been repeatedly emphasised that the basic values of the European Convention are the same of those of the common law. The common law has developed a law of privacy without a Human Rights Act in New Zealand, some Australian states and parts of Canada. It is unlikely to turn back in England without statutory intervention. Second, if the United Kingdom is to act consistently with its obligations under the European Convention Rights any British Bill of Rights could remove rights from the Convention: in the jargon, it cannot be "Convention minus" it must either replicate the Convention or be "Convention plus".

Critics of the new law of privacy sometimes talk of a "recalibration" of the Human Rights Act in favour of the media. This would involve an attempt to give Article 10 priority over Article 8 in media cases. It would, however, be inconsistent with the approach of the Strasbourg court. A statutory amendment which gave actual priority to freedom of expression in certain situations would be incompatible with Convention rights and would be likely to constitute a violation of Article 8 when applied in specific cases. Once again, the only way in which such a "recalibration" could effectively be carried out is if the United Kingdom were to renounce the Convention.

A Statutory Tort

The second possibility is the introduction of a statutory tort – a course favoured by a number of official inquiries bodies in the 1990s and the early 2000s (see the second post in this series) – presents no such practical difficulties. This approach has been taken in a number of different common law jurisdictions. Statutory torts of privacy have been introduced in four provinces of Canada. The Australian Law Commission has recommended the introduction of a statutory cause of action for a serious invasion of privacy containing a non-exhaustive list of the types of invasion which fall within the cause of action. It was suggested that in order to establish liability a claim would have to show:

(a) A reasonable expectation of privacy; and

(b) The act or conduct complained of is highly offensive to a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities (See Australian Law Reform Commission, "For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice", Report 108, May 2008, Recommendations 74-1 and 74-2, p.2584).

The Hong Kong Law Reform Commission proposed the introduction of a tort of invasion of privacy in the following terms:

"any person who, without justification, intrudes upon the solitude or seclusion of another or into his private affairs or concerns in circumstances where the latter has a reasonable expectation of privacy should be liable under the law of tort if the intrusion is seriously offensive or objectionable to a reasonable person." (HKLRC Report, Civil Liability for Invasion of Privacy, 9 December 2004).

A statutory tort of this form would be unlikely to cause difficulties with Article 8 and the Convention. The United Kingdom's positive obligation would be discharged by its introduction. The Article 8 rights of private parties would be protected by means of civil claims under this tort. The advantages of a new statutory tort are that it would enable clearer boundaries to be defined (although some flexibility would, of course, have to be retained). It would also give the privacy law the democratic legitimacy which the new judge made law of privacy is said to lack. It would, however, not alter the essential rules of the game: the courts would still be required to balance privacy against freedom of expression on the basis of "public interest" considerations.

However, as noted in Part 2, the Home Affairs Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport in its 2010 report, reached the conclusion that "for now" matters relating to privacy should be determined by the common law rather than set out in a statute. This was also the view of the government and – certainly until recently – of a substantial proportion (although not all) of the media. Despite David Cameron's recent comments it seems unlikely that there will be any political will to take this course and it is unlikely that such a tort will be enacted in the near future.

A Statutory Regulator

The third option – the establishment of a statutory regulator – is potentially the most radical. Such a regulator could take a wide variety of forms. The most cautious would simply be to replace the PCC with a statutory body – Ofpress – performing functions similar to those performed by Ofcom in relation to the broadcast media. This may or may not command greater public confidence but would not, of itself, affect the application of the new law of privacy to the press.

More radically, the new body could be given an "exclusive jurisdiction" – subject to appropriate appeal rights – to deal with privacy complaints against the press. It could be given powers to award compensation, order the publication of apologies or corrections and grant injunctions. Such a body could form part of the statutory tribunal system – with members from a list nominated by the media and other groups and a legally qualified chair. Tribunals have more informal procedures than the ordinary courts and less draconian costs regimes. The potential attractions for the media are obvious: less cost and a specialist tribunal. However, there are also obvious disadvantages – it seems likely that more people would be encouraged to make complaints. The "privacy code" imposed by a statutory regulator would have to be complied with – the "naming and shaming" by the PCC would be replaced by effective sanctions.

"Steady as she goes"

The most straightforward approach is, of course, do nothing. In other words, let the judges continue the development of the law of privacy on the basis of Articles 8 and 10. This course has the advantage of requiring no Parliamentary time or difficult drafting. It is nevertheless unsatisfactory because it means that the issues arising will not be the subject of proper public debate. The "democratic deficit" will remain.

Furthermore, the potential developments based on the Strasbourg case law under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights are radical in nature. This case law is developing at a rapid pace and, on the basis of the current approach of the English Courts, it will have to be "integrated" into the new law of privacy. Let me give three examples. First, the Court of Human Rights has, consistently, over recent years held that the publication of photographs taken in public places is an interference with Article 8 rights which requires "public interest" justification. Although in Von Hannover v Germany ((2004) 40 EHRR 1) there was an element of harassment, a series of subsequent cases have found violations resulting from the publication of single photographs, often in the context of criminal investigations or charges (see eg Gourgenidze v Georgia Judgment of 17 October 2006). The fact that a photograph has been previously published will not, of itself, justify its republication (Hachette Filipacchi v France Judgment of 14 June 2007). Second, the Court has extended the protection of Article 8 to the mere taking of photographs – without their publication (Reklos v Greece Judgment of 15 January 2009). Third, it is now clear that the positive obligation to protect private life under Article 8 includes an obligation to provide appropriate levels of compensation for "outrageous abuses of press freedom" in publishing private information such that the victim's distress is properly compensated and the press are deterred from future breaches (Armonienė v. Lithuania, Judgment of 25 November 2008).

In the absence of clearly defined domestic statutory rules and on the basis of the current approach to Strasbourg case law, the English Courts will be obliged to "absorb" these developments in the new law of privacy. Whether or not such developments of the law of privacy are thought to be desirable – doubtless there are radical differences of view on this subject – it is disturbing if they become part of domestic law without public debate via Strasbourg.

It is not necessary to adopt Lord Hoffmann's contention that human rights are national in application (in his April 2009 lecture The Universality of Human Rights) to feel disquiet about the abdication of responsibility for a key area of domestic law to judges from 47 different legal traditions, deciding issues which arise in very different contexts from that faced in the English media. Unfortunately, if Parliament will not legislate and the Supreme Court will not take on the responsibility of developing a "domestic human rights law" distinct from that of the Strasbourg court this is the only remaining alternative.

Conclusion

The new law of privacy has come a long way in a short time. Many issues remain unresolved or only partially clear. What is clear is that kissing and telling and "public photography" have become a lot more legally hazardous. The law of privacy is slowly having an impact on the staple fare of the British tabloid reader. We are gradually moving from a position where anything can be published unless it is forbidden to the opposite – a position where nothing about an identifiable individual can be published unless it can be justified. Under the influence of human rights case law from Strasbourg we are moving slowly but inescapably towards the stricter privacy protection of French or Italian law.

I made similar observations to those in the last paragraph in a lecture in 2009. Paul Dacre quoted them in his 2009 "Society of Editors" lecture and said that they "should chill us all". Chilling or not, they are I believe accurate. Furthermore, such developments are not out of line with the views of the majority of the public which approves of clear rules being imposed on the media in relation to the publication of private information (see the 2010 Reuters report, "Privacy Probity and the Public Interest", discussed by us here).

The alternatives are stark. Assuming that the United Kingdom remains party to the European Convention on Human Rights, the only alternative to abdicating responsibility for the development of privacy law to the Strasbourg judges is for the press and Parliament finally to accept that privacy is a proper subject for legislation. A statutory tort of privacy would enable parliament, after due public debate, to give guidance to the courts on how the balance between privacy and expression should be resolved. A statutory regulator would have the legitimacy and the powers which the PCC lacks and would serve the interest of both public and media by providing quick and effective resolution of complaints. The public, through its democratic institutions, needs to act to provide proper and effective protection for both privacy and freedom of expression. This is, I believe, the only principled "way ahead" for the new law of privacy.

Hugh Tomlinson QC is a member of Matrix Chambers and of the Inforrm Committee. He is also a founding editor of the UKSC Blog.

Should youths with dual-nationalties go to the back of the queue for academy places? The race row has raised tricky questions for France's authorities

Laurent Blanc's continued employment as France manager is in jeopardy because he conflated two issues in a way that was, at best, clumsy and, at worst, racist. The issues that he and other members of French football's top brass discussed at a meeting last November, whose contents were leaked by Mohammed Belkacemi and published last week, were ones that he and others had addressed in public many times before: what should the country's football authorities teach young players? And which young players should they teach? Both questions are obviously legitimate. But debate rages over the legitimacy or otherwise of the answers that they reportedly proposed, and the assumptions that may have underpinned them. One year out from a presidential election, the debate has become heavily politicised.

Since taking over as manager of Les Bleus last August Blanc has advocated concentrating on cultivating technique and intelligence rather than power and speed. In the leaked meeting he reiterated this philosophy and regretted that French academies seem to be populated primarily by youngsters chosen for their athletic prowess more than their football flair. He claimed that these youngsters tended to be black. "You have the impression that they really train the same prototype of players: big, strong, powerful … What is there that is currently big, strong, powerful? The blacks. That's the way it is. It's a current fact. God knows that in the training centres and football schools there are loads of them."

Although Blanc had stressed earlier in the conversation that a person's race was of no concern to him and that it would "suit me fine" to field a France team consisting entirely of black players if the best players happened to be black, the 'prototype' statement has been the focus of much of the furore, with many complaining that it could be construed as an endorsement of the cobwebbed racist notion that, basically, black people are physically superior but mentally inferior. Big and strong but blunt and dumb. Blanc, who has since admitted that he spoke maladroitly (he would surely have chosen his words more carefully if he'd known his comments were going to be published), professes to be "outraged" at this interpretation. Surveys and interviews suggest most people give him the benefit of the doubt, which seems reasonable as he has never previously been associated with bigotry and all visible actions in his playing and managerial career suggest race has played no part in his decisions. Indeed, one of the few players who has spoken publicly on the controversy is Alou Diarra, a black man and midfielder whom Blanc signed for Bordeaux and appointed captain of France. Diarra acclaimed Blanc for his open-mindedness, pointing out that when he was manager of Bordeaux he amended training schedules to enable Muslim players to observe Ramadan.

The second issue that Blanc and the Fédération Française de Football officials discussed, which was jarringly muddled with the first issue, is more interesting and also more difficult to resolve – not just for France but for all countries competing in international sport. To pit one nation against others, one has to determine who should represent a given nation and in increasingly diverse societies that is increasingly complex.

Consider this: a boy called, say, Marmaduke, is born in London. His father is Japanese, his mother is German. By his mid-teens he's such a good footballer that England U-16s are considering picking him and the FA is contemplating giving him a place in its elite training academy (this is the future, see, and England has such a thing). However, there is only one place available and there is another equally talented candidate, who was also born in London but to exclusively English parents and grandparents, which means that, unlike with Marmaduke, there is no prospect of him choosing to play for Japan or Germany at a later date (unless, of course, he goes to live there and acquires a passport under naturalisation laws). Which player should the FA give the place to? How should the decision be made?

In the leaked meeting the French officials discussed similar scenarios because many of the players in their country's training academies are like Marmaduke and many alumni – first, second or third-generation immigrants – have already chosen to play for countries other than France despite, in some cases, having won titles with France at youth level. "When people wear the jersey of the [French] national team at Under-16, Under-17, Under-18, Under-19, Under-20 and A level and then they go to North African or African teams, that bothers me enormously," Blanc said. "We have to limit that."

Although Blanc initially denied that he had ever heard any talk of imposing quotas, transcripts of the November meeting subsequently revealed that it was suggested no more than 30% of the places in French training academies should be filled by players who have dual nationality and could, therefore, one day declare for another country. Erick Mombaerts, the Under-21 manager, appeared to be in favour and the national technical director, François Blaquart, intimated that he had already given orders for it to be applied on the QT and has since been suspended pending the outcome of investigations by both the FFF and the Ministry of Sport. According to the transcripts, the one person at the meeting who objected to the introduction of such a plan – the Under-19 manager Francis Smerecki – complained that not only was it discriminatory but it might also mean investing in inferior players: if a Marmaduke could not take a place in an academy because the quota for people with foreign roots had already been filled, then the place may have to go to a less talented player: true, that player would not have the possibility of representing another country, but is he really the sort that France want to turn out for them?

A sinister undertone to the fallout of France's 2010 World Cup fiasco was the degree to which it became politicised. In particular, it fuelled the 'enemy within' strain of anti-immigration lobbying, with critics claiming that it was no surprise that many of the players behind the mutiny in South Africa were black or Muslim (or both) because such folk tend to be incompatible with France: their presence leads to discord. Football had already fanned that debate in France, most recently before a France-Tunisia friendly in Paris in 2008, when Tunisia supporters, many of whom had been born in France, booed the French national anthem and cheered for the opposition.

Blanc has never publicly subscribed to the notion that people of foreign origin are to be distrusted. After last year's World Cup fiasco he merely decried the lack of a team ethic and 'pride in the shirt', and since taking charge he has strived to address these perceived shortcomings. One method has been to insist that all players learn the national anthem.

At November's meeting he suggested that a way of ensuring that fewer France-raised players choose to play for other countries would be to reinforce their feeling of Frenchness. He intimated that respect for "our culture, our history" could be one of the criteria for admission to academies and that once in those academies players could be given "help" to "determine their identity". This was not elaborated on, at least not in the transcripts available so far.

Similar-sounding suggestions are common in the political arena, in France and elsewhere, but it would have been interesting to hear exactly how the FFF might have followed this up. When referring to "our culture, our history", was Blanc suggesting that 12-year-old aspiring footballers should only be admitted to academies if they can prove their knowledge of Napoleon, Voltaire and Johnny Halliday? Or did he mean football culture and history? Would this apply only to the children of immigrants? It is not certain but, with a presidential election one year away in France and political point scoring a priority for many, it has been noted that the former might not be radically different from the loyalty tests that the National Front has campaigned to have foisted on the children of immigrants (or similar, perhaps, to the tests that immigrants to Britain must pass before being granted citizenship). Race and nationality are different things but that was not always clear in the FFF debate, just as it often isn't in political debates.

Fifa rules stipulate which players countries can pick. Governments decide who can get passports. French football officials were debating whether to deliberately exclude people that both Fifa and the government allow them to pick. People in other countries often do the same. The debates about the mooted England call-up for Manuel Almunia showed that. Many fans were opposed on principle even though the government says he is entitled to citizenship, the England cricket and rugby teams would have had no qualms about selecting him if he were good enough and he has spent more time in the country than, say, Owen Hargreaves. Similarly, many Irish fans scoffed recently when Jermaine Pennant revealed that he was considering declaring for the Republic, the land of his grandfather. The reason many fans gave was that Pennant had not made his Irish roots known before and was presumably only doing so now because he had finally accepted that England were not going to give him a game. He is, therefore, an opportunist. But how could they know that? And even if they were right, so what? Is it wrong to go to the country that gives you the best opportunities? He would only be picked if he was the best man for the job. Isn't that how it should be?

Despite government assertions over its implementation, Rachid Nekkaz of the anti-ban lobby says no fines have been imposed

On 11 April, the day the French law banning face-covering veils took effect, two striking statements were made. The interior minister, Claude Guéant, a man accused by the socialist opposition of acting as if he were Nicolas Sarkozy's minister for the far-right Front National, assured reporters the new measure would be respected and applied. Emmanuel Roux, assistant secretary-general of a police superintendents' association, candidly admitted the ban would be "infinitely difficult to enforce" and seldom implemented.

If you listen to the government, it is Guéant's view that is holding sway. On Wednesday, his officials were directing callers towards a radio interview in which the minister asserted that "27 or 28" women had so far been fined the fixed-rate penalty of €150. One, he said, was an American citizen, resident in France, who readily uncovered her face when challenged at Charles de Gaulle airport but was fined all the same.

But if you then turn to opponents of the law, as represented by the lobby group Touche Pas à Ma Constitution – hands off my constitution – you get a different story. Rachid Nekkaz, the French-Algerian businessman behind the campaign, does not believe the official line. It was Nekkaz who created a €1m fund to pay any fines and legal costs incurred by women asserting what he sees as their democratic right to dress as they please. And he continues to insist that no case has yet led to a penalty.

On Thursday he is trying to goad the authorities into imposing fines in circumstances that can be captured by the media, at the same time embarrassing a government figure closely associated with the passage of the law.

At least two burqa-clad women, Nekkaz said, will take to the streets of Meaux, a city east of Paris represented in the Assemblée nationale by Jean-François Copé, secretary-general of the ruling conservative UMP, in the hope of being arrested.

Copé has been having a torrid time of late, not helped by his stewardship of last month's heavily criticised debate ostensibly on secularism but seen by many as an excuse to have a go at Islam in France. "It is his 47th birthday so this is our present to him – the chance to apply the first fines," Nekkaz said. "Our message to government is: where are your fines?"

But there was to have been an event of even more powerful symbolism in Paris on Wednesday, with a young Muslim woman from Marseille presented in public by Nekkaz as the first to collect a fine.

Marie Hassan, 23, born in France to parents with Yemeni roots, was approached by police outside her home on 21 April and told she would be fined for covering her face. Details were posted on Nekkaz's Facebook page.

On Wednesday, Hassan was due to join campaigners for a press conference in the five-star Hotel Bristol on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré before making the short walk to the Elysée palace to deposit a cheque discharging her presumed debt to society. But Hassan, a single mother of two, had martyrdom snatched from her. Marseille police informed her she was not being fined after all.

Hiding any disappointment, she promised to go on defying the law. Denied one useful burst of publicity for his campaign, Nekkaz hit upon the idea of the Meaux demonstration. Told of the government's statements, he challenged ministers or officials to produce the evidence, claiming that on at least two occasions before Hassan's case arrests were reported but led to no further action. "I am in touch with 288 Muslim women who wear the niqab, they in turn know others and I am sure there have been no fines."

One detail beyond much doubt is Nekkaz's desire to seize on a case he can pursue all the way to the European court of human rights. For its part, the government suggests that women may simply not wish to approach him for reimbursement.

But whatever happens on the streets of Meaux, it is hard to escape the thought that here is another example of French policy being made with an eye to the 2012 presidential elections and the threat from Marine Le Pen's far right. Sarkozy's sincerity, when claiming the head-to-toe burqa imprisons women "behind netting", is not an issue.

But even as a parliamentary committee plodded through the inquiry that led to the new law, plenty of French voices were warning that a ban would sit uneasily with France and Europe's high-minded attachment to human rights. If Nekkaz is right about the dithering, that unease may well have spread to those burdened with the task of enforcement.

WASHINGTON (AP) - From the heart of the shocking terror strike on America, President Barack Obama will try to bury the memory of Osama bin Laden by honoring those who died in the fiery Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In private talks with families and a somber ceremony at ground zero, Obama is out to let New York have its own moment of justice.

Obama heads to New York City on Thursday after sharply rejecting calls for him to release photos of a slain bin Laden so the world could see some proof of death. The president said he would not risk giving propaganda to extremists or gloat by publicizing grotesque photos of a terrorist leader shot in the head.

To those who keep on doubting, Obama said, "You will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."

His government, meanwhile, insisted the shooting of an unarmed bin Laden during a daring raid in Pakistan was lawful and in national self-defense.

Officials who were briefed on the operation told The Associated Press that the Navy SEALs who stormed bin Laden's compound shot and killed him after they saw him appear to lunge for a weapon.

Obama's New York visit is intended to have a measured tone - not a bookend to President George W. Bush's bullhorn moment, but more somber and private.

White House spokesman Jay Carney called it a "cathartic moment for the American people."

Obama does not even have scheduled remarks during his trip. Yet it is likely Obama will make comments during his time at the 9/11 memorial, where he will lay a wreath.

Obama will visit a bustling construction site that bears little resemblance to the pit that became ground zero in the months after Sept. 11, 2001. The emerging skyscraper informally known as Freedom Tower is more than 60 stories high now. Mammoth fountains and reflecting pools mark the footprints of the fallen twin towers.

Thousands of people climbed street signs and waved flags in celebration after hearing that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on Monday, which was Sunday night in New York.

Jim Riches, whose firefighter son was among the nearly 3,000 people killed at the World Trade Center, planned to meet with the president on Thursday.
"I just want to thank him, hug him and thank him and shake his hand," Riches said. "Father to father. Thank you for doing this for me."

The White House said Obama will meet privately with families of those killed in the attacks and with the emergency workers who rushed to help.

The president must also handle the moment without being seen as overly celebrating bin Laden's death or aiming to boost his own standing in victory.

"The president is coming here because this is the place where you can really feel what happened that day," said Joelle Tripoul, a tourist visiting Manhattan from Marseilles, France. "And I think he wants to come to say that bin Laden's death marks the end of this stage of our human journey after 9/11."

Al-Qaida terrorists hijacked jets and flew two of them into the World Trade Center's twin towers. Both buildings collapsed, trapping thousands inside and also claiming the lives of firefighters and others who had rushed to help them. A third plane slammed into the Pentagon. Officials have speculated that a fourth plane had been heading for the U.S. Capitol or perhaps even the White House when it crashed in Pennsylvania.

A few days later, Bush stood amid the rubble and spoke through a bullhorn. When one worker yelled, "I can't hear you," the president responded: "I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people - and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

All these years later, Obama said this is no time for gloating. "We don't need to spike the football," he said as he told CBS he would keep bin Laden's death photos sealed.

Obama invited Bush to join him Thursday, but the former president declined.
Heightened security put in place in response to the killing of bin Laden will remain for Obama's visit. Police officials said there are no specific threats against the city but also say they assume bin Laden's "disciples" might try to avenge his death with a terror attack.

"The ceremony will provide some closure to a horrific event," said Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, who was invited by the White House to attend Obama's ground zero event.

---
Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik and Colleen Long and videojournalist Bonny Ghosh in New York and AP writer Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.

Stephan Fruehling is a lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Program, ANU.

The Interpreter has carried several informed and informative contributions on Libya, especially on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine. But for the decision to intervene, R2P was only one among many factors. The latest post by Raoul Heinrichs misleads Interpreter readers by sorely lacking recognition of these factors. 

Raoul misrepresents the political dynamics that led to the war. Rather than Europeans inheriting 'a mess of Washington's making', Washington grudgingly signed up at the last minute, and with a clear understanding of European leadership. If there was a driving force, it was President Sarkozy, who recognised the rebels as the legitimate government of Libya seven days before the vote on Resolution 1973. Regime change is not 'mission creep', but has been the goal from the start. 

What Raoul calls Germany's 'wise' decision to stay out was an unreflective one made by its inexperienced foreign minister, who singlehandedly destroyed the decade-long aspiration of closer European foreign and defence cooperation. Sixty-two percent  of the German population supports the intervention, and across the political spectrum in Germany, the abstention in the Security Council is widely seen as one of modern Germany's biggest foreign policy blunders.

Libya is closer to Sicily than East Timor is to Australia. Illegal immigration from North Africa is a serious problem that threatens the political underpinnings of free movement within Europe, the Schengen accords. Millions of Arabs living in France, Italy or Spain mean that European governments cannot remain indifferent to societal convulsions across the Mediterranean. Srebrenica and the geopolitical cost of inaction is still on European minds. And the fact that the Libyan rebellion is part of a far wider wave of revolutions in the Arab world, with far-reaching consequences for the nature of future regimes in a region crucial to Europe's security, cannot be ignored — especially since even the Arab League was calling for an intervention. 

When diagnosing 'rookie errors', at least some discussion of this historical and geopolitical context should be expected.  

Raoul's assertion that Libya has 'no strategic value' to Europe would rightly be received with derision had a European made them with reference to Australia and Indonesia or the South Pacific.

And unlike Australia's neighbours, Libya is ruled by a famously unstable dictator who brutally suppresses his own people, killed hundreds of Europeans in bombings of aircraft and discos, armed terrorist scourges including ETA and IRA, produced or sought chemical and nuclear weapons, fired Scud missiles at Italy, mined shipping channels in the Red Sea, fought for decades to annex parts of Chad (including against significant French forces in 1978, 1983, and 1986) and organised the assassination of major Arab dignitaries including Musa Sadr of Lebanon and Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. 

Raoul's assertion that Libya has 'virtually no bearing on events through the wider region' is unsustainable. And given Qadhafi's track record, asking whether it would be 'better if Qadhafi wins' requires looking further than the fate of Benghazi alone.

Raoul states that the operation 'has become a fiasco'. Why? The onslaught of Qadhafi's forces on the rebels has been broken and, without the use of tanks and artillery, his forces are unlikely to prevail. Qadhafi is cut off from supplies and has no support in the Arab world. NATO can maintain the current level of effort for months or even years, enough time to arm and train the rebels or, should that be necessary, deploy ground forces to support them. The Libya operation is still far younger than NATO's 78-day war against Serbia in 1999, and even that was a remarkably short war.

Finally, Raoul flogs the dead horse of the 'Powell doctrine', demanding a clear exit strategy, vital interests being involved, and brief but overwhelming use of force as prerequisites of any intervention. This 'doctrine' is rightly forgotten by most today, because it does not meaningfully relate to most problems of the world. 

It has often been pointed out that countries 'cannot have an exit strategy from their neighbourhood'. One can elegantly derive 'vital' or 'strategic' interests from abstract first principles, but they remain value-laden and open to legitimate political contestation nonetheless. And using force in an overwhelming manner can often be quite disproportionate to the interest involved, have unintended consequences of its own, and involve costs in lives and treasure far greater than viable alternatives — the containment of Iraq before 2003 and France's war with Libya over Chad are apt examples.

Of course, the war in Libya is one of choice. There are good arguments for and against that choice. And adjustments will be made to goals and strategy, as they are in any war. But ultimately, those Western countries who actually have to live with Qadhafi thought it the right choice to support the rebels in getting rid of his regime. Their reasons may seem distant and obscure, but advice from Australia should still be nuanced and informed.

Photo by Flickr user Official US Air Force.

For eight years, researchers followed 3,681 Europeans—healthy middle-aged people who didn't have high blood pressure or heart disease. They observed each participant's salt intake by measuring the sodium in their urine and measured their blood pressure. What they found, published in a study in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, continues to stoke the flames of one of the biggest food fights: the assault on salt.

The investigators claim that the less salt people ate, the more likely they were to die of heart disease—and that a modest increase in salt did not appear to cause high blood pressure.

These results contrast with evidence showing the opposite effect, including the 1988 Intersalt study (below), which correlated high salt intake (on the x axis) with the percentage of the population exhibiting high blood pressure (on the y axis). Public health officials generally agree, and the Center for Disease Control openly criticized the most recent study, saying it should be "taken with a grain of salt."

This latest study just adds to the general confusion about how—and whether—people should regulate the levels of salt in their diets.

Here's the problem, as Gary Taubes eloquently wrote in Science magazine:

For starters, salt is a primary determinant of taste in food—fat, of course, is the other—and 80% of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, making it difficult to avoid. Then there's the kicker: While the government has been denouncing salt as a health hazard for decades, no amount of scientific effort has been able to dispense with the suspicions that it is not. Indeed, the controversy over the benefits, if any, of salt reduction now constitutes one of the longest running, most vitriolic, and surreal disputes in all of medicine.

Making things even more complicated, we can't even blame processed foods alone for our current salt intake since we were using similar amounts of salt to preserve meats, pickles, or ketchup thousands of years ago. In a 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine:

In an estimate of early usage, the average daily sodium intake in certain parts of China in 300 B.C. was reported to be nearly 3,000 mg/d for women and 5,000 mg/d for men. Multhauf estimated that, in France and Britain in 1850, the human culinary intake of sodium was 4,000–5,000 mg/d.

So if scientists can't agree on whether excess salt consumption is prematurely killing us, should we hold off on policies that cut salt? Well, as one researcher told Taubes, salt may be a case where the science actually destabilizes public policy; studies like the one published today shouldn't influence a broader preventative agenda.

And, as I've argued before, salt is often merely added to unpalatable, ultra-processed ingredients to make them taste like food. Eating fewer of these foods is probably a good idea—and not just because of they're salty.

Mohammed Belkacemi made secret tape of meeting in November 2010 where race quotas were discussed

The crisis over French football chiefs' alleged plan to keep non-white players out of the national squad has escalated after a senior official admitted blowing the whistle and secretly recording a meeting about race.

French sport has been shaken by claims that football bosses wanted to limit the number of young black players and those of north African origin emerging as candidates for the national team. The secret plan for ethnic quotas allegedly involved limiting non-white youngsters entering the selection process through training centres as early as age 12 or 13. The investigative website Mediapart ran extracts from a transcript of a meeting last year where football bosses wanted to set a cap of 30% on players of certain origins. The site concluded that officials felt there were "too many blacks and Arabs" in French football and not enough whites.

The scandal has revealed a deep malaise over race in football and the notion that "Les Bleus", despite the multiracial 1998 World Cup winning team, are not patriotic enough unless they have white skin.

Two investigations are under way by the French Football Federation and the government, which expects to announce its findings on Monday. Meanwhile, the national technical director of the federation, Francois Blaquart, has been suspended.

Mohammed Belkacemi, a respected official responsible for liaising with young players in suburbs and highrise estates, on Wednesday admitted he was the whistleblower who had recorded the controversial meeting in November 2010 where race quotas were discussed. It is believed he gave the tape to other officials rather than directly to the media.

The French national coach Laurent Blanc first flatly denied any discussion about quotas, then apologised for any offence about "certain terms" he used.

The recordings show officials were debating French players with dual-nationality who could train in France but leave to play for other teams. Several officials suggested limiting these players. Blanc reportedly talks about black players' morphology. He says of the training centres, which produced French champions such as Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka: "You have the impression that they really train the same prototype of players, big, strong, powerful … What is there that is currently big, strong, powerful? The blacks." He said other criteria should be used to bring in players "with our culture, our history".

The scandal comes after the French team's mutiny at the World Cup last summer was privately blamed by some on black or Muslim players, suggesting the team had fragmented because there was not enough "national identity".

The French sports minister, Chantal Jouanno, on Wednesday told French radio ethnic quotas would be illegal. She said training centres should teach national players how to "respect their team shirt".

Black French sportsmen expressed their disgust at alleged ethnic quotas. Yannick Noah, the French tennis player-turned pop star, said: "I've always thought these things existed, in clubs, leagues and in the federation. Now we need to tell the truth and have a real debate."

Lilian Thuram, the former World Cup defender, scorned the notion black players might not be patriotic enough. "I'm black, well dark brown to be precise, and I feel perfectly French. But I didn't know that skin pigmentation was what makes one feel French. Does that mean every white person, even Swedish, feels French?"

The French government announced that the telecoms regulator Arcep will open the bidding process for LTE spectrum by the end of this month, but operators will be limited as to how much spectrum they can bid for. France Telecom's rivals--including Vivendi's SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Iliad--had lobbied for the spectrum caps

The decision to impose caps was, according to the French government, to allow smaller operators to successfully acquire LTE frequencies and offer competition to the more established players. As reported by Reuters, Eric Besson, France's industry minister, said that the limit of 15MHz per operator would "protect effective and long-term competition to benefit consumers."

Dow Jones reported Besson as saying that the total 30MHz of spectrum to be auctioned would be split into four auction lots, but that one operator alone could not bid for more than 15MHz.

However, the move has been widely seen as a result of intense lobbying by France Telecom's rivals to stop the country's largest operator from gaining the bulk of the available LTE spectrum.

But this political manoeuvring might come to little given that the government has yet to set a minimum price for any of the LTE frequencies. While it is thought the authorities will want to gain €2 billion from the auction, Besson has requested two official agencies to make recommendations of where to set the entry price. If all goes according to plan, Arcep would like to issue LTE licences by the end of 2011.

For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this Dow Jones Newswire article (sub. req.)

Related Articles:
Report: French operators lobby for LTE spectrum caps to combat Orange
French LTE spectrum auction to raise €2bn, and cover 99% of country (eventually)
When it comes to LTE, Europe drives in the slow lane
Orange France goes quad-play to catch up

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will consider recognizing Palestine as a state if the stalled peace process with Israel doesn’t bear fruit. The two warring Palestinian parties, Fatah and Hamas, reached a landmark agreement Wednesday that will attempt to create a unified government for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not to support the deal, but Abbas defied him. Abbas plans to declare Palestine an independent state in September, and may have a strong ally in France.  —KDG

Al Jazeera:

“If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state,” Sarkozy said in an interview with L’Express published on Wednesday.

“The idea that there is still plenty of time is dangerous. Things have to be brought to a conclusion” before a UN gathering in September, he added.

Germany, meanwhile, stressed on Wednesday that it would not recognise a Palestinian state without Israel’s acceptance.

Steffen Seibert, a spokesperson for the German government, said Berlin’s position had not changed when asked about Sarkozy’s remarks.

“The policy of the German government remains what Chancellor [Angela] Merkel said after talks with Israel’s Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu in April: that in her view, a unilateral recognition would not contribute to the goal” of a two-state solution, he said.

US-brokered peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians in September broke down over Israeli settlement activity.

Read more

 

Related Entries

• May 3, 2011 The bin Laden Death Photo Debate

Researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the University of Valencia (UV) have looked into the dominant career patterns of regional politicians in Spain, France and the United Kingdom. The results show that the evolution of decentralisation in each of the countries has led to differences between them. In Spain, for example, only one out of every 10 autonomous region presidents cut their teeth in central government.

read more

Frontier controls proposed in passport-free Schengen zone for emergencies after demands from France and Italy

France and Italy appeared to have won the right to reintroduce border controls in emergency situations, after the European commission called for new rules to govern EU frontiers.

Countries in Europe's passport-free Schengen zone will be able to temporarily impose controls at their frontiers in the event of a sudden influx of migrants, according to proposals unveiled by the commission on Wednesday, after a surge in migrant numbers from north Africa across the Mediterranean.

"To safeguard the stability of the Schengen area, it may also be necessary to foresee the temporary reintroduction of limited internal border controls under very exceptional circumstances," the EU home affairs commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, told reporters.

The EU would also look to create a border patrol, intensify surveillance of Europe's frontiers and re-establish pacts with north African governments to control the flow of immigrants across the Mediterranean.

The commission announced the migration strategy after demands last week from France and Italy for a review of the Schengen agreement, which covers 25 European countries.

The government in Rome says Italy is being swamped with refugees from north Africa and is demanding other European countries take in some of those arriving on its shores.

Under the proposals, which will be discussed by EU home affairs ministers on 12 May, the commission itself would assess whether there was an emergency situation. Were a state within the Schengen zone to fail in its "obligation to patrol its part of the external border", the mechanism would permit a limited re-introduction of border controls to isolate that state.

Such moves would be "very limited" and done under "strict rules", Malmstrom said.

A number of northern states have called the commissioner to express their alarm at calls by France and Italy for a watering down of free movement within the EU.

Malmstrom, a liberal on immigration issues, warned against the attempted exploitation of the situation by anti-immigrant groups. "We do not need to give in to short-term approaches to border control and populist and simplistic solutions," she said.

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles, a network of NGOs, said it was less concerned about proposed changes inside the Schengen zone than the beefing up of the EU's external border and agreements with north African countries to restrict the flow of migrants, known as "mobility partnerships".

"This in effect is a return to the sort of pact Italy made with Libya before the Arab spring," said the council's secretary general, Bjarte Vandvik.

In recent years, southern EU governments had signed a series of agreements with north African regimes under which the states would prevent migrants, particularly from sub-Saharan Africa, from arriving in European waters. Such accords were in tatters after the uprisings in the region.

Vandvik added that the influx of migrants – an estimated 25,000, according to the commission in Brussels – has been blown out of proportion.

"People see black people in boats landing on a small island in Italy and it seems unmanageable, but this year has seen a 20-year low in the number of asylum seekers," Vandvik said.

"The largest number of migrants that have fled the fighting in Libya in fact headed to Tunisia.

"But Tunisia is keeping its borders open, has welcomed some 300,000 people and tried to treat them in the best manner. It is Tunisia that needs help handling its refugees, not Italy."

He compared the situation to the Balkan crisis in the 1990s, when western European states took in half a million refugees, with 350,000 in Germany alone.

"The EU is being hypocritical at best and racist at worst. How can Europe say they applaud the new democracy coming to north Africa and then, when people flee, we turn our backs to them?"

On May 4, the Contact Group for Libya meets in Rome. The summit is co-chaired by the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini and the Qatari prime minister and minister of foreign affairs Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani. Hillary Clinton will be there along with NATO secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the British and French foreign ministers as well as representatives of the Arab League and the Libyan Transitional National Council. In all there will be 23 countries, 7 IGOs and four observer countries.

Italy is a crucial player in the Libyan issue; Italy is Libya’s largest trading partner, its first exporter supplying 17.5% and taking 20% of Libya’s exports equivalent to 4.6% of Italy’s imports, almost all oil and gas, fifth after Germany, France, China and the Netherlands. Until the February crisis, Libya supplied Italy with a quarter of its oil and 10% of its gas. Unfreezing Libyan oil and assets is an important item on tomorrow’s agenda, especially for Italy. There are Libyan investments in the engineering giant Finmeccanica, the UniCredit bank, the formerly public energy company ENI and even the Turin football club Juventus. In 2008 Qaddaffi and Berlusconi signed a much trumpeted friendship agreement.

The two countries have historical links, as Italy was the colonial power from 1911 to 1943 and they are almost contiguous. Apart from the close mutual involvement of economic and security interests between the two countries, Italy is still an important player on the world stage. Its economy is seventh or eighth in the world. It is a major contributor to UN agencies both in money and peacekeepers and it is one of the EU’s big four. By just about any measure, Italy should be at the forefront of international affairs (‘the least of the great powers’ as it was once called) and should be leading the international community in its attempts to resolve the Libyan crisis. And yet this is clearly not the case. Since Douglas Hurd declared that Great Britain “punched above its weight” it has been a conceit of UK foreign policy that Britain achieves more than its hard power should give it. This may or may not be true for Britain but Italy undoubtedly punches well below its weight and the present Libyan issue is a perfect illustration.

The eternal problem is Italy’s lack of reliability. As Corriere della Sera commentator and former diplomat, Sergio Romano put it in 1993, Italy is equivocal and marked by “the anxiety to participate and the desire to avoid the rule of participation”. (Or as Bismark put it a century before “Poor Italy, such a big appetite but such poor teeth”).

With Italian planes flying combat missions over Libya, the Northern League first said that Italy should not be fighting and threatened to bring the government down if the Italian air force continued bombing Libya. As we know, this was posturing in view of the local elections on 15 May. But it does send out a very peculiar message to Italy’s partners and allies at tomorrow’s summit. There are three League cabinet members and if the League deputies voted against a motion in either house, the government would lose the vote (unless of course the opposition supported them, but that would still mean a minority government).

In the event, a compromise was reached and this morning, the League and the main government party, Berlusconi’s People of Freedom, voted for a motion which purports to put an end date to the military action and underlines Italy’s constitutional rejection of war. It and the League’s first draft could well have been written by pacifists on the left in the past while today, the centre-left and the centrist opposition support the NATO action against Gaddafi.

The whole Libyan crisis has been marked by ambiguity in Italy. The 2008 treaty still has not been revoked so, in law at least, Italy is committed “not to interfere in Libya’s internal affairs” and to “not allow its territory to be used for hostile acts against Libya”.

Two months ago, Berlusconi said that Gaddafi should not be disturbed and then that he was upset at the thought of a friend of his being attacked. Finally, he allowed Italian aircraft to fly combat missions even though it is almost certain that they were already doing so before the official order. Immediately afterwards, the government almost falls because half of them do not want to go to war.

It is easy to criticise the present government but the centre-left has been equally ambiguous or uncertain. In 1999, D’Alema denied that Italian aircraft were attacking Kosovo and Serbia (in order to protect his own left flank) while they were in fact very active. And in 2007, the Prodi government lost a vote on the financing of missions abroad and was only saved when the centre-right came to help. A year later, the government did actually fall, two years into its mandate, showing the world that long term cooperation was uncertain and difficult.

Then there are the personalities. Leave aside Berlusconi’s endless bricks, when his foreign minister, Frattini appeared on BBC Newshour during the first Libya Contact Group meeting interviewed by Jeremy Paxman, he showed why the US dispatches called him a messenger boy; not a figure to inspire confidence.

Three weeks ago, at an EU meeting in Luxembourg, three Italian ministers gave a hurried statement in a corridor and refused to take press questions, while other countries’ ministers were holding serious press conferences.  Only yesterday, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa was caught on camera during a talk show asking his gopher “Who is Lukashenko?” Thankfully, that was just for domestic consumption.

Other prime ministers, foreign and defence ministers have been better able to deal with the press and foreign colleagues but none have been able to overcome the fundamental unreliability of Italian foreign policy. So even tomorrow, when Italy should be at the centre of the ring, it will still be punching below its weight.

Green, incredibly alcoholic and some say mind-altering - these are the qualities that led to absinthe being banned in France almost 100 years ago. But all that's about to change, after the government voted to allow sales of the drink nicknamed the "green fairy".

"I will not be seen as a drug addict anymore," says Clement Arnoux, an absinthe drinker and enthusiast.

"It changes everything from the point of view of my friends and family," he said.

read more

· Translated by Catherine Lawlor

Originally Published at GlobalVoices:  http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/05/03/russia-who-is-restricting-the-russian-internet/

Tax-News.com: According to provisional figures recently submitted by the French government to parliament, the country’s controversial tax shield cost the state a total of around EUR591m in 2010, while the average sum reimbursed last year via the mechanism was estimated to be EUR40,908.

The demise of Laurent Gbagbo’s regime offers fresh opportunities to tackle Cote d’Ivoire’s intractable problems. Hundreds of people have lost their lives, about a million have been displaced from their homes, infrastructure and properties have been destroyed, and economic life remains precarious. Gbagbo’s continued hold on power would have emboldened leaders who lose elections to stay in office, dealing a blow to the region’s fragile democracies.

However, Gbagbo’s exit does not solve the problems of Cote d’Ivoire, which remains a divided country. Although Alassane Ouattara won the elections, almost half of the population voted for his opponent. The country’s 20 million people of 70 ethnicities form five regional clusters: the Akan in the eastern and central parts of the country; the Krou and allied groups in the southwest; the Southern Mandé in the west; and the Voltaic and Northern Mandé in the north. The southern groups tend to be Christian, and those in the north Muslim. The influx of migrants from predominantly Muslim Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea in search of work during the boom of the 1960s and 1970s changed the ethnic distribution in favour of Muslims.

As demands for competitive elections grew and the political elite that succeeded the founding president, Houphouet Boigny, sought to consolidate its rule, a xenophobic discourse of Ivoirité or indigeneity emerged that elevated the Muslim-Christian/North-South divide over other cleavages. Bold and creative efforts are required to drain the poison of Ivoirité from the body politic, manage the North-South schism, and develop a culture of shared citizenship.

Sierra Leone’s post-conflict experience offers lessons on national security, inclusive government and development.

Sierra Leone’s conflict was of course more destructive and less ethnic than Cote d’Ivoire’s. Still, Cote d’Ivoire will have to rebuild its divided army, disarm militias, and provide security to its traumatised citizens. In highly polarised settings, security sector reform should not be left to winners alone. In Sierra Leone, the government worked with the United Nations peacekeeping mission (UNAMSIL) and Britain in providing security for a number of years before full responsibility was transferred to national authorities. Fortunately, soldiers in UN peacekeeping missions in Africa today are largely drawn from the continent and other developing countries, avoiding the stigma of neocolonialism. In Sierra Leone, the bulk of the force was Nigerian. Britain’s military back-up to UNAMSIL mainly served as deterrence.

The UN may have to expand its mission in Cote d’Ivoire. Can France play a similar role in Cote d’Ivoire as Britain did in Sierra Leone? The French have been more forceful in carrying out regime change in Cote d’Ivoire than the British were in Sierra Leone. Surely, without French power, the stalemate would have continued and more lives would have been lost.

However, there are constraints on the use of the French military as deterrence because of distrust of French motives among sections of the Ivorian elite. Differences between British and French engagement with their ex-colonies may account for this. The British establishment has fewer social ties with African elites, whereas France has nurtured strong bonds with elites in its ex-colonies. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former French president François Mitterrand, and Martin Bouygues, head of the French industrial group, Bouygues, attended Ouatarra’s wedding in 1991. France retained military bases in most of Francophone West Africa and has often been accused of defending friendly authoritarian leaders. Today, partly because of weak post-colonial ties, most Sierra Leoneans consider Britain’s military presence in Sierra Leone as benign. The same cannot be said about elite attitudes towards France in Cote d’Ivoire.

The winner, Ouattara, also needs to form a government that is perceived as inclusive by those who did not vote for him. Again Sierra Leone provides useful lessons. The immediate post-war leader, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, reached out to sections of the country (the North and West) that disliked his party. He even incurred the wrath of party stalwarts in the South for insisting on a balanced cabinet. In the 2002 elections held just after the war, he recorded 70% of the vote as president, and his party won 18 of the 40 parliamentary seats in the North. Today there are a large number of Northern elites in his party; and at least 8 of the 19 candidates for the party’s 2012 presidential ticket claim to have Northern roots. The current Northern-dominated government has recently borrowed a leaf from that experience of inclusive government after some faltering steps that alienated Southern elites.

Finally, governments should avoid an incremental approach to reconstruction that privileges reconciliation and humanitarian assistance over development. This is because by the time the development phase is reached, confidence in peace improving the wellbeing of most people may have waned, forcing voters to turn against incumbents. If Kabbah’s government did well on reconciliation, it scored poorly on development, preferring to focus on small projects, such as rehabilitating schools, clinics, traditional courts, markets, and police stations that are essential in resettling populations but inadequate in moving economies forward. Issues of infrastructure development, energy provision, agricultural transformation and employment are only now being seriously addressed. Voters rejected the party in the 2007 elections.

The lessons for Cote d’Ivoire are clear: security sector reform, reconciliation, resettlement and development must work in tandem; and governments must ensure that the people, especially the youth, see improvements in their lives.

 

 

 

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan criticized the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden as an “unauthorized unilateral action,” laying bare the strains the operation has put on an already rocky alliance. U.S. legislators along with the leaders of Britain and France questioned how the Pakistani government could not have known the al-Qaida leader was

When footballers mention energy efficiency and grassroots, they are normally talking shop. But could Ferdinand be the man to bring the real green message to the masses?

"It's about the future … natural disasters, sea levels, ice melting, fires … people have to understand that's down to humans. Governments need to let the public know how we can become energy self-sufficient." From an environmental campaigner, that statement would hardly raise an eyebrow – but from a former captain of the England football team, it sounds altogether different. We've become used to musicians, film stars and celebrity chefs flaunting their eco-credentials, but green-minded sports stars are still few and far between.

Rio Ferdinand, the Manchester United centre-back who grew up on a south London council estate, seems very aware of the need for a different type of environmental messenger. Having recently become more interested in green issues, he's planning not only to reduce his own impact – and "to make sure my kids are aware" – but also to inspire regular people to do the same. "It all comes down to education. If people aren't educated, they're not going to get behind something. They need to understand it before they take a stand."

Ferdinand's green awakening started when energy company E.ON signed him up to be an advocate for their Energy Fit programme. The scheme organises competitions for local sports clubs to get energy-saving overhauls, and the community element appealed to Ferdinand. I met him in the clubhouse of century-old amateur team Alexandra Palace FC. Like Ferdinand's own home, the building has just had an "energy fitness" audit, and after the interview one of the club's staff proudly shows me their new light sensors and extra thick loft insulation.

Chatting in an upstairs office hardly big enough to accommodate his expansive frame, Ferdinand makes it clear that he's not about to become a green fanatic. "I'm not going to change my whole lifestyle overnight," he says. "I'm starting an educational journey." Judging from his passing references to unleaded petrol and the ozone hole, it seems his last period of eco-education was the 1980s. He doesn't mention climate change until prompted, but he's in no doubt that the stakes are high. When asked what's at risk if we don't look after the environment, he answers emphatically: "Trees, animals, humans … everything. Everything's endangered."

I ask Ferdinand whether he thinks the sports world – players, clubs and fans – have been slow to catch onto green issues. "It's not about that group," he replies quickly. "It's a social issue, and it's not been high on the agenda. It's not an ignorance in the sports sector but in society in general. Any walk of life is the same." But are there any other players who have taken green lifestyle steps? Ferdinand namechecks Gary Neville and David James, both of whom – like many other celebs – have dabbled in low-carbon vehicles. "Gazza's got a Prius and David James had a car powered by rapeseed oil."

By contrast, Ferdinand has started out by focusing on his home – which I rather admire, because while domestic energy efficiency is far less sexy than eco cars, it's just as important. Ferdinand, for one, seems quite fired up about it. "Little things like moving your sofa from in front of a radiator, changing lightbulbs. You get a better feeling about yourself, and the little things add up. It's like, how many pennies make a pound?"

Among many other things, Ferdinand's home energy auditors advised him to turn the thermostat down ("we just use the duvet more") and switch off appliances properly, which Ferdinand has found a way to get the kids to do ("we make it like a game – who can turn off all the switches before bed"). Another recommendation was to move the freezer, which was next to a radiator in the hottest room in the house, making it work much harder to stay cold. That's another good example of the need for education, Ferdinand says, recalling with raised eyebrows exactly the same issue in his childhood home. "I remember in my flat on the council estate, the radiator was behind the fridge. Basic things like that – you just don't see them until you're educated in the field."

What about bigger steps? High-specification insulation? Solar panels? "Yeah", he says – but those are jobs for the new-build he'll be moving into soon. "We're talking to the architects about that." In the meantime, he's sticking with small changes. The one that seems to have caught his attention the most is putting the right amount of water in the kettle. "At first I thought, how can that make a difference? But when you think about it, it's obvious." Has he now become super-vigilant on that front? "Yeah, man, if someone fills the kettle up they're gonna get …" he says, miming the punishment he has in mind.

Ferdinand currently has a Jaguar, though gone are the days when he thought of cars as glamorous. "These days I've got kids and it's just about getting them from A to B." Would he ever switch to an electric car? "Yeah, definitely." We agree that, at well over six feet tall, he wouldn't fit in a G-Wiz or some other supermini, but how about a Tesla or some such? "Not yet – all the price tags on them are crazy, aren't they? I saw one come up the other day for £2m." If Ferdinand can't afford a decent electric car then we have quite a long way to go.

In the meantime, how about eco driving? Having read that when Ferdinand was younger he lost his licence on multiple occasions for speeding, I can't help asking how he'd feel about driving more slowly to increase engine efficiency. "With maturity I started doing that anyway, so I should be already in that bracket," he says.

For an international sports star, though, flying is more problematic. "We travel week in week out. We're in France one week, Spain the next. How do you get around that? I'm yet to be told – unless you can enlighten me?" The only thing I can suggest is we have fewer of them. So now that Ferdinand is thinking about carbon footprints, how does he feel about the World Cup, say, or the Olympics, and the massive amounts of energy they consume. "I don't know – it's hard to say. It's difficult. Are you going to stop people being happy and going to big events because of the carbon footprint? Or should we make them more environmentally friendly so you're doing as little damage as possible? There's not really a right answer."

He doesn't just stop at the car and the house, either. "We grow organic food in the garden," he says, "we've got a little vegetable garden with a greenhouse where we grow tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and strawberries." Any tips for other green-fingered types? "Tomatoes are the easiest. Green beans as well. Just don't leave them out there too long or the kids start eating them." And the strawberries? "Nah. Strawberries are a no-go. Too hard!" What about the rest of his diet? Would he consider eating less meat and dairy, for instance? He looks a little bit pained and says he'd need to "get more knowledge" before thinking seriously about that. He adds, somewhat sadly, "I love meat, man."

No doubt Ferdinand's green efforts will be dismissed by some as tokenism or even greenwash. Here's a celebrity – and one who almost certainly has a fairly huge carbon footprint – focusing on little lifestyle changes rather than bigger ones, and doing so under the banner of an energy company that was until recently considered the UK's leading environmental villain. But that would, I think, be to miss the point. Popular concern about an issue can help bring about deeper political change – and Ferdinand surely has a much better chance than traditional environment campaigners of seeding that concern in as-yet unreached parts of society.

But should he be taking up a political stance on green issues as well as just tweaking his lifestyle? Ferdinand's not so sure. "That's a long way down the line for me." Without learning more, he say, taking too much of a political angle "would be just hanging myself out to dry". Returning to his favourite theme, he adds, "I think the government are trying to make a concerted effort, but it all boils down to education. People need to understand it … it has to start more grassroots." But should the government make policy changes to ensure that everyone is greener? "Yes, definitely. It's the government's duty to do that. The environment and the world we live in is changing dramatically after disregard over the years."

By: Joel Dreyfuss

Alain Dolium is almost an oxymoron: He's a black French politician. A businessman and candidate for France's National Assembly in 2012, Dolium is indeed a rare breed. Despite the country's rich mix of whites, blacks from Africa and the Caribbean, and an Arab-Muslim population of more than 5 million, the French political establishment is almost exclusively white.

There is currently just one black elected official representing a mainland constituency in France's National Assembly, and no nonwhite mayors or other local elected officials in the nation of 63 million. Dolium, a businessman whose parents are from the French Caribbean, is an outspoken critic of France's virtual taboo against discussions of race and racism. "We have a giant hypocrisy," he said in an interview with The Root. "People who bring up race issues are seen as anti-republic.”

Yet, says Dolium, social, political and economic power is concentrated in one community (France's white majority). One reason, he says, is a mind-set that defines France firmly as it once was. "France has created an imaginary country. We still refer to 'our ancestors, the Gauls,' " he says. "The stream feeding France -- the Maghreb, Africa and Antilles -- is rejected by the French."

Dolium, 43, was born in Paris and raised in the industrial suburb of Malakoff. He attended the Ecole Supérieur de Commerce in Amiens, north of Paris, and graduate school in Montreal. He is an entrepreneur: CEO and co-founder of Obad, a mobile marketing company with offices in New York and Paris. He is a member of Mouvement Démocrate, France's centrist third party, popularly known as MoDem, and has been put forward as the head of the party's candidate list for the Paris region in next year's elections. If MoDem ends up winning -- or, more likely, forms a coalition with the winning party -- Dolium could be a candidate for a cabinet post.

Not surprisingly, some pundits and media have referred to Dolium as the "French Obama." He rejects the label as a trap, an attempt to reduce his candidacy to his color, rather than addressing his political positions. Dolium says that the French political elite are not ready for diversity -- although he believes that ordinary French citizens will vote for a black candidate.

He is trying to avoid the fate of other high-profile blacks in French politics. When Sarkozy became president in 2007, he named several minorities to his cabinet. One was Rama Yade, a woman of African origin who was appointed secretary of state for human rights. Yade's standing was soon undercut by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who declared that human rights were already an integral element of French foreign policy.

Yade earned Sarkozy's disapproval by publicly taking stances counter to his policies and, finally, for declining his request that she run for the European parliament. In 2009 she was demoted to the sports portfolio. In his last cabinet shuffle, Sarkozy named Yade France's ambassador to UNESCO -- further marginalizing her -- despite her high standing in public opinion polls.

"Most of the time, black men and women are sought out by the parties in power, who put them in very high positions," says Dolium. "But they have not had any opportunity to build a political base, so when they leave government, they also leave political life." Dolium has avoided party assignments traditionally doled out to blacks -- youth, sports, troubled neighborhoods -- to focus on economic development and innovation. "I am one of rare black politicians who are dealing with national issues," he says.

Dolium believes that France needs to broaden economic opportunity and make sure that its masses of young people are properly educated. "We graduate 150,000 kids every year who have not acquired fundamentals in language and math," he warns. "They will fail." He describes his country as "determinist" with little real social mobility. "You become who you are on the basis of where you were born," says Dolium. A student from a working-class background is 16 times less likely to attend an elite grande école (the country's top universities) than is one from a middle-class family, he says.

France has tried to compensate with a tentative embrace of affirmative action called "positive discrimination." Some grandes écoles have altered their admissions process to draw more applicants from poorer families. Dolium says that more-vigorous efforts are needed to broaden opportunities in France. He notes that the children of the most privileged French attend just 100 elementary schools out of 16,000 in France, assuring their rise through the ranks. "It's clear that if you tell me where you are born and what elementary school you attend, I can tell you if you will be successful," he says.

Efforts to measure minority progress and discrimination are hampered by a ban on collecting racial data. Some minority leaders have lobbied for gathering such statistics, but Sarkozy is said to be opposed. "If we want to reduce the inequality of opportunity, which is a fact, we have to know more precisely who the victims are, why and how," says Dolium.

France has tried to encourage innovation by offering tax incentives to large companies that invest in startups. But Dolium says that these laws fail because they are administered by people who understand only big business. The result: "The laws asphyxiate innovation." Obviously, he believes that his own entrepreneurial experience can help address these failings. The first step will be the 2012 elections. If he succeeds, he might begin to like the "French Obama" tag.

Joel Dreyfuss is the managing editor of The Root.

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Al-Qaida pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks for approximately $500,000, according to the 9/11 Commission report. By the end of fiscal 2011 the U.S. will have spent $1.3 trillion, or 9% of the national debt, fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq according to the Center for Defense Information.

But when it's all said and done the total cost of the wars will make Bin Laden's 2,514,000:1 return at the time of his death multiply dramatically. It has been projected by Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and others that the lifetime cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will run to approximately $3 trillion, or over 20% of current federal public debt, when long-term medical care for the wounded and other costs are factored.

Bringing Bin Laden at long last to justice represents a real victory, and since 9/11 Al Qaeda has not executed a successful terrorist attack on American soil. However, in assessing the economic war Al Qaeda has conducted against the U.S. one can't help but conclude that Osama bin Laden has received fantastic bang-for-the-buck.

“We, alongside the mujahedeen,” bin Laden was reported to have said in a speech delivered right before the 2004 presidential election, “bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw [from Afghanistan] in defeat. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

“Every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs,” he added.

How Do You Bring Down The Most Powerful Nation in History?

In his biographies of the Rothschild banking dynasty, as well as The Cash Nexus and The Ascent of Money, Harvard Professor Niall Ferguson makes a strong case that a nation's ability to borrow in the bond market is a reflection, and perhaps key wellspring, of the state's power.

For example, the British Empire's ability to borrow more, and at cheaper rates of interest, was key in  its defeat of Napoleonic France. In contrast, her crippling post-WWII debt signaled the dawning of a new era for Britain which consisted of economic malaise, military impotency, and periods of currency instability which resulted in dramatic devaluations of pound sterling in both 1949 and 1967.

Today the U.S. Treasury market is the deepest, most liquid bond market in the world. It also serves as a cornerstone of the U.S. dollar's privileged reserve currency status. In times of panic, as we saw in the 2008 financial crisis, the world flees other assets for U.S. dollar denominated securities such as T-bills.

Whether or not the U.S.'s bond market is in fact the key pillar of American power is open to debate. What is irrefutable, however, is that displacing the dominant role played by the U.S. dollar and treasuries in the world's financial system would deal a huge, perhaps even mortal, blow to what remains of America's hegemonic power.

There are perhaps several different approaches, but one surefire way to weaken a nation state's currency and ability to borrow is for its government to run persistently large deficits, just as the U.S. has done for the past decade.

Whether Osama bin Laden's professed-in-2004 original aim for 9/11 was to entice America into engaging in protracted and costly Eurasian wars is revisionist history or the fact is unclear. Regardless, Al Qaeda deserves at least some of the credit for the U.S.'s large deficits, crippling debt load, and rapidly weakening currency.

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SYRIA: Britain, France and Germany pursue EU sanctions against regime Los Angeles Times Britain is working with European allies to impose limited sanctions on Syrian leaders in response to the ongoing government suppression of pro-democracy protesters, Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament on Tuesday. ... France, Germany Call for EU Sanctions on Syrian LeadersVoice of America France, Germany seek EU sanctions on Syria leadersmsnbc.com Germany - Minister of State Hoyer calls for EU sanctions against SyriaISRIA (registration) The Associated Press all 1,277 news articles »

Terrorist could easily attack coal mines and coal plants and trigger accidents that kill hundreds. It would just take lighting a match to the coal dust. Their problem would be that no one would be able tell the difference between the terrorist attack from business as usual.

Coal can have accidents and standard operation effects that are far more deadly than the equivalent effect of 100 mSv. 100 milli-sieverts has a 40 year risk increase of 1 in 1000 of cancer. 2 weeks of life expectancy impact. Coal and oil air pollution - without accidents take out 2 years from everyone's life expectancy.

Terrorist scenarios related to nuclear material are so shocking and worrisome because they are usually no deaths from that source. Coal and oil killing hundreds, wrecking towns, rivers, or large areas of land can happen multiple times in one year. A dirty bomb that killed a dozen people and made a hundred people sick and had an expensive cleanup... well that would be new. It would not be worse than what actually went on with coal or oil in that year and probably in that same week, but it would be new and a confirmation of fears. It is like the movie series Saw. It is not how many people are killed, it is that they are killed in a scary way.



List of coal mine accidents and pollution events

1. April 26, 1942: Benxihu Colliery disaster in Benxi, Liaoning, China.
1,549 workers died, in the worst coal mine accident ever in the world.

2. March 10, 1906: Courrières mine disaster in Courrières, France. 1,099 workers died, including children, in the worst mine accident ever in Europe.

3. November 9, 1963 Omuta, Japan. An explosion in a coal mine killed 447.

4. October 14, 1913 Senghenydd, Wales, Uk
The worst of the Welsh coal mining diasters killed 438 men and boys

5. January 1, 1960 Coalbrook, South Africa. 437 casualties.

6. June 6, 1972 Wankie, Rhodesia. A coal mine explosion kills 427.

7. May 28, 1965 Dhanbad, India. 375 miners die in a coal mine fire.

8. December 27, 1975 Chasnala, India. A coal mine explosion, followed by flooding kills 372.

9. December 12, 1866 Barnsley, England, UK. 361 casualties.

10. December 6, 1907 Monongah, West Virginia

361 casualties. The worst mining disaster in US history is said to have provided the origins of the first Father’s Day celebration. A woman named Grace Clayton asked her church to hold a Sunday memorial for the fathers lost in the mine. The commemoration was held in a church in Fairmont, West Virginia.


There are also atmospheric inversions like the London Fog (killed 14,000 in 1952) which continue to happen on a smaller scale.

There was also the London Killer fog of 1956 that killed over 1000 people

1948, October 30–31, Donora, PA: 20 died, 600 hospitalized, thousands more stricken. Lawsuits were not settled until 1951.
1953, November, New York: Smog kills between 170 and 260 people.
1954, October, Los Angeles: heavy smog shuts down schools and industry for most of the month.
1963, New York: blamed for 200 deaths
1966, New York: blamed for 169 deaths

160 deaths – Smog (London, December 12–15, 1991) (Car exhaust related)

When a latter-day smog enveloped London in 1991 the number of deaths shot up by 10 per cent, according to an unpublished report for the Department of Health. The figures suggest that the smog killed about 160 people. The episode presents the first direct evidence of deaths from air pollution in Britain for more than 30 years and has forced the government to order a review of its air quality guidelines.

The 1991 and other events show that pollution events are not just related to the history of before 1970.

For oil : December 2005, schools and public offices had to close in Tehran, Iran and 1600 people were taken to hospital, in a severe smog blamed largely on unfiltered car exhaust

Air pollution and daily mortality in London: 1987-92

Changing pollution levels have be linked to changes in daily mortality.

Ozone levels (same day) were associated with a significant increase in all cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality; the effects were greater in the warm season (April to September) and were independent of the effects of other pollutants. In the warm season an increase of the eight hour ozone concentration from the 10th to the 90th centile of the seasonal range (7-36 ppb) was associated with an increase of 3.5% (95% confidence interval 1.7 to 5.3), 3.6% (1.04 to 6.1), and 5.4% (0.4 to 10.7) in all cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality respectively. Black smoke concentrations on the previous day were significantly associated with all cause mortality, and this effect was also greater in the warm season and was independent of the effects of other pollutants. For black smoke an increase from the 10th to 90th centile in the warm season (7-19 µg/m3) was associated with an increase of 2.5% (0.9 to 4.1) in all cause mortality. Significant but smaller and less consistent effects were also observed for nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

Air pollution Events are happening in China and India now but are mostly unreported

From 1992 to 2002, surface coal mining in Appalachia damaged more than 380,000 acres of forest and 1,000 miles of streams. Six times more coal is mined around the world than in the United States.

So coal (and oil) pollution can get you immediately in the hundreds to thousands and can you kill you slowly in the millions

Worst case and expected business as usual cases.

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The murder and rape of Black African migrants in Benghazi (East Libya) reduces the value of anti-Qaddafi rebels’ claim to justice.

- Baruti M. Kamau (The Barutiwa Daily Times)

We should all responsibly cede that US President Barack Obama would not deliberately seek out and ally America with an army that used rape as a weapon for vengeance and psychological intimidation during non-conventional warfare. Yet, according to many newspapers throughout the world, this is true of the rebels our airstrikes over Libya currently support.

This pathetic farce has come to pass because The Obama White House rushed into war. They did so in a unilateralist, shoot-‘em-up, cowboy fashion. They made no effort to understand the indigenous culture or the situation on the ground. White House Spokesman Jay Carney gives us a glimpse of how this tragic misapplication of US force has come to pass.

Jay Carney, the White House’s spokesman, said on Thursday that the US government had reached out to Libyan opposition groups, but that it was still in the process of finding out “what their vision is, who they represent, what their ideas are and where they would take Libya in a post-Gaddafi future”.

(HT:Iamaghanian.com)

The White House, which is already leading bombing missions against forces loyal to Libyan Dictator Gaddafi, attempts now to meet The Libyan Rebels. It would be nice to find out who they are. The LA Times offers us some possible details of just who we risk the lives of our military personnel to support.

Across eastern Libya, rebel fighters and their supporters are detaining, intimidating and frequently beating African immigrants and black Libyans, accusing them of fighting as mercenaries on behalf of Kadafi, witnesses and human rights workers say.

(HT:LA Times)

So President Obama puts down The March Madness Brackets in a peeved fit of pique. He grows tired of being bugged by “That Woman” over at The State Department, or the finely-coiffed Cracker-Boy President of France. His Majesty dashes off a poorly-formulated order to fix this Bleep-Bleep Libya Mess in a manner reminiscent of a tippling English King telling his rake to rid him of “That Meddlesome Priest.”

Like Henry II, Obama I uttered his commands with no more thought to the outcome than I have when I swat a mosquito. This profoundly unpardonable dereliction of duty has put American Airmen in the line of fire as our President packed his bags for his latest “Diplomatic Mission” to paradise. In so doing, he displayed the baronial arrogance that this US President could just about trademark with the PTO.

But meanwhile, the Libyan Rebels remind us of why war must be carefully planned and thoroughly researched prior to opening the latches that secure Hell’s gates. Barack Obama failed to plan. He had a (redacted) tee-time or something. Taking his adorable children to see Mayan Pyramids was far more important than getting American foreign policy right. Our finest jet aircraft and Tomahawk Missiles fly in support of bigots, rapists and reprobates hunting down Black Africans. It makes one fine legacy for America’s first African-American President.