Monday, April 12, 2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Angela Merkel is traveling across America this week. It's a country she loves, but the German chancellor is still having trouble connecting with Barack Obama. Her political style couldn't be any more different from that of the US president. She's fighting to prevent the US from disregarding or dominating the Europeans.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling around the United States this week. She loves the country, but she has a few problems with its president, Barack Obama. Her political style is vastly different from that of the US president, but she also has something else to contend with: Washington's disregard for and attempts to dominate Europeans.
When Merkel is no longer Germany's chancellor, she will fly to America. She will land in California, rent a car, drive to the beach and gaze out at the Pacific Ocean. That, at least, was her plan in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she still clings to that vision: America, the Pacific and a long road trip across the entire country.
Merkel is in the United States this week, as chancellor, and she will hardly be in a position to satisfy her wanderlust. But at least she'll see the Pacific, when she visits Los Angeles and San Francisco after spending time in Washington.
She is traveling to a country whose stunningly beautiful aspects hold an almost childlike fascination for Merkel, but whose political realities represent a cause for concern. During her visit, she will encounter representatives of opposing camps in the country's deeply divided political landscape. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, Merkel will meet with protagonists of the American dream, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, filmmakers at Warner Brothers and some of the Silicon Valley's best and brightest. Tensions with Obama, But No Open Quarrels >>> Dirk Kurbjuweit | Monday, April 12, 2010
SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The European Union has hammered out a rescue plan for Greece. If Greece goes belly up, Germany will have to fork over 8 billion euros to the relief effort. The government doesn't want to hear about having "buckled." But there's no doubt that Angela Merkel's days as "Madame Non" are behind her.
Christopher Steegmans, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, decided that the best defense would be to go on the offensive. In a press conference held in Berlin on Monday, he declared that the state of the European Union's decision on whether to help Greece was "unchanged" -- lest anyone have a chance to claim the opposite beforehand. As he described it, discussions about the proposed €30 billion ($40.8 billion) rescue package for the crisis-plagued county were only about "hammering out technical details" but the time for talking about last resorts had yet to arrive. "The fact that the fire extinguisher is on the wall," he stated, "says absolutely nothing about the likelihood of its being used."
In other words: There's no reason to get excited. There's nothing to see here. Go on about your business, please.
But something about his hasty and unprompted justification elicited the feeling that something just wasn't right. Hadn't something happened? Hadn't Angela Merkel earned the moniker of "Madame Non" just a few weeks ago among EU heads of state and governments for being such a hard-nosed negotiator and blocking all moves to quickly provide the cash-strapped Greeks with some financial shots in the arm? And hasn't the conversation suddenly turned to very concrete sums running into the billions of euros that Berlin can use to give Athens a hand? 'Buckled?' >>> Philipp Wittrock | Monday, April 12, 2010
GALA.fr: Amoureuse. Liz Taylor est amoureuse, et elle pourrait bientôt se faire passer la corde au cou par un homme de presque 30 ans son cadet, Jason Winters.
On les voyait fouler les tapis rouge ensemble depuis de nombreuses années, (comme sur notre photo, au gala Macy’s Passport, en septembre 2008), ils sont désormais fiancés. Elizabeth Taylor, 78 ans, et Jason Winters, 49 ans, semblent prêts pour l’autel. Ce serait le neuvième mariage de l’actrice. >>> | Lundi 12 Avril 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Elizabeth Taylor denies ninth wedding rumours: Dame Elizabeth Taylor has denied that she is getting married for the ninth time. >>> | Tuesday, April 13, 2010
LOS ANGELES TIMES: As the Moscow bombings remind, the simmering insurgency and brutal crackdown in the Caucasus have left a landscape of damaged women, some all too ready to spread their pain to Russia's heartland.
Reporting from Balakhani, Russia
The last time Patimat Magomedova saw her daughter, she was puttering around the house, manicuring her nails and using henna to dye her hair bright red.
It's high time we take care of the garden, the mother remembers Mariyam Sharipova saying that Friday. Let's plant raspberries, cucumbers, greens. And we have to do something about the kitchen, maybe get some pretty new dishes.
By evening, the young woman had vanished from the house in this remote mountain village in the Russian republic of Dagestan. Magomedova didn't see her daughter's face again until somebody showed her a photograph of a decapitated head. At that moment, she said, "I knew there was no mistake."
Sharipova, 27, had traveled a thousand miles to Moscow and climbed onto a crowded subway train at rush hour with an explosives-packed belt strapped around her waist. She was accompanied by a 17-year-old girl, also from Dagestan, who blew herself up at another station.
In the Russian news media, the women were immediately dubbed "black widows." Their assault on the subway was taken as proof that the country had been shuttled back to the fearsome days when hollow-eyed female militants stalked Moscow and other cities far from the wars where their men fought Russian forces.
The subway bombings also sent ripples of unease across the turbulent, mostly Muslim republics strung along Russia's southern edge. There was angst over the slaying of civilians and fear of retaliation.
But it came as slim surprise that women were ready to die. This, after all, is a landscape of damaged women, grieving losses they dare not dwell upon.
The closer you get to the fighting in the Caucasus, the murkier it appears. The violence in Dagestan, and in neighboring Chechnya and Ingushetia, is not easy to classify -- it's a mix of rebels who want independence from Russia, Islamist extremists bent on waging jihad, local clan and gang warfare and sectarian strife.
And as the fighting intensifies, it is the men who disappear. Masked agents pound on the door and cart them off for questioning. They come back beaten, or not at all. Sometimes the men are rebels; other times, their affiliations are bafflingly vague.
It's the women who are left behind, their status and material comforts tangled up in the choices of their fathers, sons and husbands.
Sharipova lived in a spacious, gated house with grape trellises and dizzying views up the mountainsides. Her mother teaches biology; her father is a self-described "patriot of the motherland" who teaches Russian literature.
She was a serious young woman who studied mathematics, psychology and computers. She was also a homebody who, in the words of her mother, "didn't mix well." When not working as the deputy principal of the village school, she busied herself with home improvement projects, cooked pilaf and fussed over clothes.
The fighting crept into the village. Security forces periodically staged "cleanup operations," swarming Balakhani with armored personnel carriers, helicopters and legions of ground troops, cutting off access to the mosque and searching house by house for signs of rebels. >>> Megan K. Stack | Monday, April 12, 2010
LE MONDE: Les scandales de pédophilie qui secouent l'Eglise catholique sont liés à l'homosexualité, pas au célibat des prêtres, a déclaré, lundi 12 avril, le secrétaire d'Etat du Vatican, le cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
"De nombreux psychologues et psychiatres ont démontré qu'il n'y avait aucun lien entre le célibat et la pédophilie et beaucoup d'autres, m'a-t-on dit récemment, qu'il y avait une relation entre l'homosexualité et la pédophilie", a dit le numéro deux du Vatican lors d'une conférence de presse à Santiago, au Chili, où il est en visite. "Cette pathologie touche toutes les catégories de gens, et les prêtres à un moindre degré si l'on regarde les pourcentages", a-t-il poursuivi. >>> LeMonde.fr avec AFP et Reuters | Lundi 12 Avril 2010
ADVOCATE.COM: On Sunday, which marked the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, a program of events in Gainesville, Fla. honored gay victims of Nazi persecution.
Coordinators at B'nai Israel Jewish Center honored gay Holocaust victims as a reminder of the sinister forces that underlie all hate, including recent crimes in the community, according to The Gainesville Sun.
"Recent homophobic events in the city and the efforts to introduce bigotry and intolerance into the mayor's race showed us that this was a poignant time for us to introduce this topic," Holocaust Memorial Program committee member Phillip Schwartz told the Sun. Read on and comment >>> Julie Bolcer | Monday, April 12, 2010
ISRAEL MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: "Take heed... lest you forget the things your eyes have seen... and tell them to your children, and their children after them"
(Deut. 4:9)
Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration in Israel, on which the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized. It is a solemn day, beginning at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan and ending the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. Places of entertainment are closed and memorial ceremonies are held throughout the country.
The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem and are broadcast on the television. Marking the start of the day - in the presence of the President of the State of Israel and the Prime Minister, dignitaries, survivors, children of survivors and their families, gather together with the general public to take part in the memorial ceremony at Yad Vashem in which six torches, representing the six million murdered Jews, are lit.
The following morning, the ceremony at Yad Vashem begins with the sounding of a siren for two minutes throughout the entire country. For the duration of the sounding, work is halted, people walking in the streets stop, cars pull off to the side of the road and everybody stands at silent attention in reverence to the victims of the Holocaust. Afterward, the focus of the ceremony at Yad Vashem is the laying of wreaths at the foot of the six torches, by dignitaries and the representatives of survivor groups and institutions. Other sites of remembrance in Israel, such as the Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, also host memorial ceremonies, as do schools, military bases, municipalities and places of work. >>> | Monday, April 12, 2010
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Scientists believe that they have found a cure for skin cancer.
A vaccine being tested in the UK has helped been shown to help some patients fully recover from melanoma, even in its advanced stages.
It attacks tumour cells, leaving healthy cells undamaged and carries agents that boost the body's response to skin cancer.
Dr Howard Kaufman, of Chicago's Rush University Medical Centre, said: "Our study shows we may have a cure for some advanced melanoma patients and a drug which has real benefits for others.
"This will save thousands of lives a year."
Over the past 25 years, rates of melanoma in Britain have risen faster than any other common cancer and 2,000 die from the disease every year. >>> | Sunday, April 11, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: A council is considering banning the word “obesity” from its health campaigns for fear of offending overweight children.
Liverpool City Council believes the expression could stigmatise youngsters and wants to replace it with the phrase “unhealthy weight”.
If the idea goes ahead, the words “obese” and "obesity" would be dropped from all schemes and strategies aimed at improving children’s diets and health.
However, the plans have been opposed by anti-obesity campaigners who are concerned the new term could lead to the issue being trivialised.
Tam Fry, chair of the obesity prevention charity the Child Growth Foundation, said: “If you’re obese you’re obese. >>> Murray Wardrop | Monday, April 12, 2010
*Okay, Mr Councillor! Just call them ugly fat instead! That should do the trick. Fat, after all, is fat! – © Mark
LE TEMPS: Le pays bascule à droite et le grand gagnant du 1er tour des législatives hier est l’ancien premier ministre Viktor Orban, avec 53% des voix. En hausse avec plus de 16% des voix , l’extrême-droite entre au Parlement, talonnant désormais les socialistes
Le parti d’opposition de droite Fidesz a remporté une écrasante victoire dès le premier tour des élections législatives dimanche en Hongrie, tandis que l’extrême droite a réussi une percée et fait son entrée au Parlement.
Sur la base de 99% des bulletins de vote dépouillés par le Bureau national électoral (OVI), le Fidesz totalise 52,77% des suffrages et est déjà assuré de détenir au moins 206 sièges sur les 386 du parlement monocaméral. Le premier tour de scrutin a permis de répartir un total de 265 sièges entre les quatre partis représentés.
Il faudra cependant attendre le deuxième tour le 25 avril pour savoir si le Fidesz disposera de la majorité des deux tiers dans la nouvelle assemblée, ce qui lui permettrait de réviser la Constitution.
Son charismatique dirigeant, l’ex-Premier ministre Viktor Orban, âgé de 46 ans, a ainsi réussi à prendre sa revanche sur les socialistes et à mettre un terme à son purgatoire de huit années dans l’opposition.
«Les Hongrois ont choisi l’union, la sécurité et l’ordre, ils ont voté pour la Hongrie, pour l’avenir», a-t-il lancé sous les applaudissement de plusieurs centaines de ses fidèles dans le centre de Budapest dimanche soir. «Aujourd’hui les Hongrois ont vaincu le désespoir» a-t-il ajouté, tout en reconnaissant qu’il était conscient de «l’immense défi auquel (il allait) devoir faire face». >>> AFP | Lundi 12 Avril 2010
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: ÉTUDE | Une recherche publiée lundi aux Etats-Unis montre que les hospitalisations ont fortement baissé à Toronto suite à l'entrée en vigueur d’une loi anti-tabac en 2001 au Canada.
Les hospitalisations à Toronto pour des problèmes cardiovasculaires et respiratoires ont baissé respectivement de 39% et 33% depuis l’entrée en vigueur d’une loi anti-tabac en 2001 au Canada, selon une recherche parue lundi aux Etats-Unis.
Cette étude a été menée durant dix ans sur une base étendue de population dans ce centre urbain pour mesurer les effets de l’interdiction de fumer dans les restaurants.
"Des recherches mesurant précisément l’impact d’une loi anti-tabac sur les maladies cardiovasculaires et respiratoires pourraient avoir un énorme impact sur la santé publique étant donné que les maladies résultant du tabagisme pourraient faire un milliard de morts au XXIe siècle dans le monde", écrit le Dr. Alisa Naiman, de l’Université de Toronto et un des coauteurs de ces travaux qui paraissent dans le Journal of the Canadian Medical Association, et également publiés aux Etats-Unis. >>> AFP | Lundi 12 Avril 2010
TAGES ANZEIGER: Die Zeitung «Tribune de Genève» hätte die Polizeifotos des Sohns des libyschen Staatschefs nicht publizieren dürfen, befand der Richter. Das Urteil ist für Amnesty International «ein wichtiger Schritt».
Laut dem erstinstanzlichen Urteil sei die Persönlichkeit von Hannibal Ghadhafi durch die Publikation der Polizeifotos durch die «Tribune de Genève» verletzt worden, sagte Marc Hassberger, Anwalt der Genfer Tageszeitung. Der Anwalt hatte das Urteil am Montag erhalten. Laut Hassberger sei der Richter zum Schluss gekommen, die Zeitung habe mit der Publikation die verschiedenen Interessen falsch gewichtet.
Der Richter verurteilte die Zeitung deshalb dazu, das Urteil zu publizieren - sowohl in ihrer Printausgabe wie auch auf der Internetseite. Das Urteil publizieren muss auch der Kanton Genf. Drei Viertel der dadurch entstehenden Kosten gehen zulasten des Kantons, erklärte Hassberger. Der Rest müsse die Zeitung übernehmen. Kein Schmerzensgeld für Ghadhafi >>> vin/sda | Montag, 12. April 2010
WELT ONLINE: Die rechtsextreme Jobbik hat es erstmals ins ungarische Parlament geschafft. Auf WELT ONLINE erklärt deren Europa-Abgeordnete Krisztina Morvai, inwiefern sie die EU für undemokratisch hält, wie sie über Juden und Roma denkt und was ihre Partei mit der neu gewonnenen Macht in Ungarn anfangen will.
Wenn die rechtsextreme Jobbik (Die Besseren) ihre gut besuchten Versammlungen abhält, dann weht ein Hauch von Zwischenkriegsmitteleuropa mit seinen Freikorps und Bürgerwehren durch den Saal. Als Partei gegründet wurde die Jobbik im Jahr 2003. Die Gründung der Ungarischen Garde und die Hassrhetorik gegen die angeblich „kriminellen Zigeuner“ beschleunigten den Aufstieg der Jobbik, deren bittere Ressentiments sich auch gegen Juden und Homosexuelle richten. Mit 16,7 Prozent zieht die Partei nun erstmals ins Parlament ein. >>> Von Thomas Roser | Montag, 12. April 2010
LE FIGARO: Le juge espagnol Baltasar Garzon a fait appel aujourd'hui de la décision d'un juge du Tribunal suprême de le déférer en justice pour avoir voulu enquêter sur les disparus de la guerre civile espagnole et de la dictature franquiste en ignorant une loi d'amnistie générale, a annoncé son avocat. >>> AFP | Samedi 10 Avril 2010
ZEIT ONLINE: Spanien – Solidarität für Baltasar Garzón: Arrogant, stur, unbestechlich – der spanische "Superrichter" und Kämpfer für Menschenrechte hat viele Feinde in aller Welt. Sie wollen ihn jetzt zum Schweigen bringen. >>> Von Werner A. Perger | Montag, 12. April 2010
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Religious freedom has turned out to be a mixed blessing. The idea was once an article of faith with me, irreligious though I am. But my faith is beginning to weaken. Religion has turned out to be different from what tolerant people of my monocultural childhood understood by it — a system of private belief and devotion that did not intrude into the public space except through charity and uncontroversial good works.
Now, by contrast, religion is constantly claiming attention in the public space and demanding special treatment. It is also abused in the name of divisive identity politics. All this makes even the most tolerant liberal think twice about freedom of religious expression.
Last week’s case of the self-styled “crucified” nurse is a perfect example of the problem. Shirley Chaplin, an experienced ward sister and devout Christian, discovered at an employment tribunal that — despite the support of seven bishops and a mention in the Easter sermon of the Archbishop of Canterbury — she had lost her battle to be allowed to wear a crucifix at work in the wards of the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital. Her crucifix is on a long chain and although she has worn it at work for many years, a recent hospital risk assessment found that it breached health and safety rules. This decision was upheld by the employment tribunal.
“I don’t use the word crucified lightly,” said Chaplin, “but in one sense I have been crucified by the system. Every Christian at work will now be afraid to mention their beliefs.” What on earth can she mean? The reverse is the truth. The hospital suggested to her as a compromise that she might indeed wear her crucifix openly at work, but pinned to her uniform rather than on a chain — rather as nurses wear watches pinned to their frontage for reasons of hygiene — thus publicly displaying her beliefs at all times.
One can, however, sympathise with something else she feels. Commenting that Muslim hospital staff have been allowed to continue wearing head coverings, she said that “Muslims do not seem to face the same rigorous application of NHS rules”. There’s certainly some truth in that.
At the end of March it emerged that female Muslim doctors and nurses are indeed to have special treatment on National Health Service wards. Non-Muslim staff in direct contact with patients must keep their arms bare to the elbow for important hygiene reasons — to make sure their sleeves do not become contaminated and so they can wash their hands thoroughly on ward rounds.
Their Muslim female counterparts, however, have been given a special dispensation by the Department of Health. Because some Muslims consider nudity of the female forearm to be immodest, Muslim doctors and nurses are to be issued with disposable sleeves, elasticated at wrist and elbow, to cover up the erogenous zone that lies between. This is absurd, unfair, wasteful and yet another example, as Chaplin and her episcopal supporters (and I) all feel, of the bias in favour of a vociferous religious minority. >>> Minette Marrin | Sunday, April 11, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: The euro surged to a one-month high and stock markets in Europe and Asia rallied today as traders welcomed a €30 billion (£26.5 billion) loans package for Greece, agreed by the currency's member countries to help the country tackle its debt crisis.
The euro surged to $1.3691 against the dollar, its highest level since mid-March, although concerns about the long-term nature of Greece's debt burden and worries about how the loans package would be implemented limited its gains.
The euro later dropped to $1.3574. Having fallen off sharply last week, it closed in New York on Friday at $1.3497.
"The euro is firmer as traders took heart from the Sunday announcement of the aid package for Greece,” said Daisuke Karakama, a currency analyst at Mizuho Corporate Bank. >>> Miles Costello, David Charter, Brussels | Monday, April 12, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Lech Kaczynski, the late President of Poland, returned home yesterday to a country struck dumb with grief and confusion.
The air crash that wiped out the head of state, the chief of the general staff, the chairman of the security services, the central bank governor and Solidarity heroes has left Poland reeling, unsteady and uncertain.
As the red and white Polish flag on the President’s casket flapped in the wind, the honour guard at Warsaw airport struck up the National Anthem. The president’s ashen-faced twin brother Jaroslaw, the Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, and parliamentarians fortunate enough not to have been on the doomed presidential plane, moved their lips to the words of the anthem: Poland has yet to perish/As long as we still live/That which foreign force has seized/We at sabre point shall retrieve.
Then, the casket made its way in a hearse through the streets of the silent capital. Tens of thousands lined the route, rushing in front of the police escort to place carnations on the road, snatching off their hats, dropping to their knees.
The only noise: the revving of hundreds of civilian motorbike riders, waving the national flag, who had decided spontaneously to follow the cortege, like seagulls in the wake of a ferryboat.
“It’s a group trauma,” said a catering entrepreneur, Kaja Burakiewicz, “we’re still struggling to understand.” >>> Roger Boyes, Warsaw | Monday, April 12, 2010
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