Jun 8, 2009
Disaffection Dominates European Voting
June 8, 2009
Disaffection Dominates European Voting
By STEPHEN CASTLE
BRUSSELS — Mainstream liberal politicians failed to turn the global economic crisis into new momentum in the European Parliament on Sunday, as voters across 27 countries tended instead to support either the dominant center-right coalitions or vent their dissatisfaction by voting for fringe groups.
Turnout at the end of four days of voting was a record low. Just 43 percent of about 388 million eligible voters participated, reflecting what analysts across the European Union were identifying as frustration and waning support for European integration.
Voters were selecting 736 deputies for the European Parliament, an institution with growing powers but still a low profile. Such votes are often seen more as barometers of support for individual national governments than as indicators of power shifts.
In Germany, Angela Merkel’s alliance of center-right parties was down from its performance in the last European elections in 2004 but well ahead of the Social Democrats, with gains for the liberal Free Democratic Party.
But France’s governing center-right party, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, increased its share of the vote 12 percent over 2004, with the socialist opposition slumping, early results showed.
Britain’s center-left Labor Party was braced for disastrous results, with its vote in some regions down 9 percent, further weakening the position of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, said two striking features of the elections were the failure of the left to make a significant impact and the advances by the far-right and other fringe parties.
“At a time of crisis,” she said, “people often lose faith in the established political parties, but they will typically move to the left when there is the prospect of higher unemployment, in the hope that the state will look after them.”
“This is a wake-up call to politicians,” she added. “People no longer believe the narrative, particularly from the left, of how to organize the economy and society.”
The center-left is in power in Britain, Spain and Portugal and in a coalition in Germany, and has therefore taken much of the blame for the economic crisis. In France and Italy, where it is in the opposition, it has struggled to overcome internal divisions.
By contrast, the far-right British National Party won its first seat in Britain, and the far right was making gains in the Netherlands, where the anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders won about 15 percent of the vote, according to early results. Exit polls predicted the Austrian far-right Freedom Party would double its vote from its showing in 2004, to 13 percent, while in Denmark the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party was also projected to double its 2004 tally.
In Italy, exit polls projected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right as having about 38 percent of the vote, a two-digit lead over the center-left, in spite of a campaign season dominated by speculation over the nature of Mr. Berlusconi’s relationship with an 18-year-old woman.
Within Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, the Northern League, known for its anti-immigrant rhetoric, made gains with a projected 10 percent of the vote.
The Greens boosted their vote in France, while Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to legalize file-sharing via the Internet and reform patent law, was predicted to win its first seat. Euro-skeptic parties prospered, including the U.K. Independence Party, which is seeking to take Britain out of the European Union.
In a whole swathe of policy areas, the European Parliament has equal power, with national governments, to make new laws for the bloc. But with political parties conducting largely national campaigns, the elections may have appeared irrelevant to many voters who know that their votes could not change the makeup of any national government.
Voters in Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain punished governing political parties to varying degrees for the economic downturn.
“These results do not alter the government, but we must seriously examine what the next day holds,” Greece’s health minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told the Mega Channel, a private television network, after the release of exit polls.
Personal comment:
The newsarticle above from the New York Times discusses the Europen Parliament elections of last week. First of all I want to say that the election was not only hold on Sunday. Some countries held the election earlier this week.
The outcome of the election shows that the voters in most countries are in general unhappy with their respected governements. The leading political parties lost some support. We can say that this mainly is triggered by the financial crisis and the economic decline resulted from it.
Furthermore the outcome of the election shows that throughout Europe right wing parties have gained support.
My personal feelings with the fact that the right wing gained support is because of the ongoing sturggle in for example Holland with foreigners who live in Holland. in for example Rotterdam, which is a big city in Holland, more then 60 % of the foreigners below 18years old have had a conflict with the police. This is a scaring high number.
In Belgium and France the numbers resemble the case of Holland. For me voters not only responded to the results of the financial crisis but also to the changing society with respect to the social problems throughout Europe.
Disaffection Dominates European Voting
By STEPHEN CASTLE
BRUSSELS — Mainstream liberal politicians failed to turn the global economic crisis into new momentum in the European Parliament on Sunday, as voters across 27 countries tended instead to support either the dominant center-right coalitions or vent their dissatisfaction by voting for fringe groups.
Turnout at the end of four days of voting was a record low. Just 43 percent of about 388 million eligible voters participated, reflecting what analysts across the European Union were identifying as frustration and waning support for European integration.
Voters were selecting 736 deputies for the European Parliament, an institution with growing powers but still a low profile. Such votes are often seen more as barometers of support for individual national governments than as indicators of power shifts.
In Germany, Angela Merkel’s alliance of center-right parties was down from its performance in the last European elections in 2004 but well ahead of the Social Democrats, with gains for the liberal Free Democratic Party.
But France’s governing center-right party, led by President Nicolas Sarkozy, increased its share of the vote 12 percent over 2004, with the socialist opposition slumping, early results showed.
Britain’s center-left Labor Party was braced for disastrous results, with its vote in some regions down 9 percent, further weakening the position of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Heather Grabbe, director of the Open Society Institute in Brussels, said two striking features of the elections were the failure of the left to make a significant impact and the advances by the far-right and other fringe parties.
“At a time of crisis,” she said, “people often lose faith in the established political parties, but they will typically move to the left when there is the prospect of higher unemployment, in the hope that the state will look after them.”
“This is a wake-up call to politicians,” she added. “People no longer believe the narrative, particularly from the left, of how to organize the economy and society.”
The center-left is in power in Britain, Spain and Portugal and in a coalition in Germany, and has therefore taken much of the blame for the economic crisis. In France and Italy, where it is in the opposition, it has struggled to overcome internal divisions.
By contrast, the far-right British National Party won its first seat in Britain, and the far right was making gains in the Netherlands, where the anti-Islam party led by Geert Wilders won about 15 percent of the vote, according to early results. Exit polls predicted the Austrian far-right Freedom Party would double its vote from its showing in 2004, to 13 percent, while in Denmark the anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party was also projected to double its 2004 tally.
In Italy, exit polls projected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right as having about 38 percent of the vote, a two-digit lead over the center-left, in spite of a campaign season dominated by speculation over the nature of Mr. Berlusconi’s relationship with an 18-year-old woman.
Within Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition, the Northern League, known for its anti-immigrant rhetoric, made gains with a projected 10 percent of the vote.
The Greens boosted their vote in France, while Sweden’s Pirate Party, which wants to legalize file-sharing via the Internet and reform patent law, was predicted to win its first seat. Euro-skeptic parties prospered, including the U.K. Independence Party, which is seeking to take Britain out of the European Union.
In a whole swathe of policy areas, the European Parliament has equal power, with national governments, to make new laws for the bloc. But with political parties conducting largely national campaigns, the elections may have appeared irrelevant to many voters who know that their votes could not change the makeup of any national government.
Voters in Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain punished governing political parties to varying degrees for the economic downturn.
“These results do not alter the government, but we must seriously examine what the next day holds,” Greece’s health minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, told the Mega Channel, a private television network, after the release of exit polls.
Personal comment:
The newsarticle above from the New York Times discusses the Europen Parliament elections of last week. First of all I want to say that the election was not only hold on Sunday. Some countries held the election earlier this week.
The outcome of the election shows that the voters in most countries are in general unhappy with their respected governements. The leading political parties lost some support. We can say that this mainly is triggered by the financial crisis and the economic decline resulted from it.
Furthermore the outcome of the election shows that throughout Europe right wing parties have gained support.
My personal feelings with the fact that the right wing gained support is because of the ongoing sturggle in for example Holland with foreigners who live in Holland. in for example Rotterdam, which is a big city in Holland, more then 60 % of the foreigners below 18years old have had a conflict with the police. This is a scaring high number.
In Belgium and France the numbers resemble the case of Holland. For me voters not only responded to the results of the financial crisis but also to the changing society with respect to the social problems throughout Europe.
May 31, 2009
Quote of the week
“Chávez does not have the support he thinks he has in the armed forces,”
Mr. Baduel
Mr. Baduel
Prime Minister’s Escapades Finally Raise Eyebrows
May 29, 2009
Prime Minister’s Escapades Finally Raise Eyebrows
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — When the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took to the front pages this month to announce that she wanted a divorce and accused him of dallying with very young women, it seemed like yet another storm that Italy’s most powerful man would easily weather. For years, Italy has winked at Mr. Berlusconi, where other nations might have glared.
But then things took a turn for the surreal.
First came a rare and inescapable torrent of speculation — in blogs, on television and radio, at dinner tables across Italy — about the nature and origins of his relationship with Noemi Letizia, a pretty blond aspiring model whose 18th birthday party he attended in Naples last month, and who has said she calls him Daddy. This was the party that caused Mr. Berlusconi’s wife to declare their marriage, one year older than Ms. Letizia, over.
More recent are allegations, potentially more damaging, that Mr. Berlusconi, 72, invited Ms. Letizia and about 40 other girls, some like her at the time younger than 18, to spend New Year’s Eve at one of his villas in Sardinia.
Much of Mr. Berlusconi’s success has stemmed from his uncanny ability to read the national mood. Now many wonder if he has finally miscalculated it and is pushing tolerant Italians too far, and whether his late-career reputation may increasingly resemble the Roman imperial decadence of Fellini’s “Satyricon.”
The prime minister has repeatedly denied anything untoward in his rapport with Ms. Letizia, who has posed in her underwear and said in a recent interview that she was a virgin. On Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi said he had “absolutely not” had “a relationship, let’s say steamy or more than steamy, with an under-age girl.”
The age of consent in Italy is 16, but people are considered minors until 18.
“I have sworn it on the life of my children,” he added. “If this were perjury, I would have to resign a minute later.”
The story is taking on political dimensions less than two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, and a month before Italy is scheduled to host the Group of 8 meeting of world leaders, and when Mr. Berlusconi is trying to secure his standing with the Obama administration.
Dario Franceschini, the leader of the center-left opposition, has been asking voters this question about Mr. Berlusconi: “Would you have your children raised by this man?”
Critics say the debate is not just about sex, but reflects an inattention to Italy’s deep problems, like the economy, or reconstruction after the earthquake that left 70,000 people homeless in central Italy. The leader of another opposition party recently compared him to Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. The Financial Times editorialized this week that Mr. Berlusconi was “a malign example to all.”
And yet, Mr. Berlusconi still governs virtually unopposed. “The problem is simply that the Italians can’t imagine who could replace Berlusconi at the moment,” said Tim Parks, a novelist and commentator on Italy. “It’s too dangerous and too much effort to replace him. So it hardly matters how bad the scandal is.”
Or, as the right-wing politician Francesco Storace said in a recent radio interview, “People don’t vote for Berlusconi because he tells the truth; they vote for him because they like him.”
In what many see as a sign of Mr. Berlusconi’s grip on the levers of power in Italy and the Vatican, the Italian Bishops Conference this week essentially gave him a pass, or at least a no comment, calling for “adult behavior,” but saying that each person’s conduct was a matter “of individual conscience.”
Things are completely turned upside down,” said Gianluca Nicoletti, a commentator for Il Sole 24 Ore radio. “Those who always represented the family and faithful couples are happy to justify hanky-panky,” he said. While some on the left, “which always professed a belief in total sexual freedom, are now like inquisitors with their fingers wagging.”
What has come to be called simply “the Noemi case” presents new elements in Italy’s long relationship with Mr. Berlusconi’s questionable behavior. For the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician’s personal life.
That campaign is being led by Mr. Berlusconi’s archenemy in the press, the left-wing daily La Repubblica. For the past two weeks it has published 10 questions for the prime minister, chief among them how he met Ms. Letizia’s father. Mr. Berlusconi has said he recently met Ms. Letizia through her father, Benedetto Letizia, a functionary for the city of Naples.
In recent weeks, Ms. Letizia’s father and mother have largely stood by Mr. Berlusconi’s accounts of how he met Ms. Letizia, while her former boyfriend and her aunt have contradicted them, creating a confusion that has prolonged the drama.
In an interview published by La Repubblica on Sunday, Ms. Letizia’s former boyfriend, who later turned out to have a criminal record, said that the prime minister first called Ms. Letizia last fall after seeing her picture in a modeling catalog.
He described Ms. Letizia’s relationship with Mr. Berlusconi as chaste and mentorlike. It was he who first said that she and a high school friend had been invited to spend New Year’s Eve at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa in Sardinia.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Mr. Berlusconi had told associates that Ms. Letizia had been at the party along with many other guests.
Mr. Berlusconi’s many supporters believe he is being unjustly attacked in election season and should be left alone.
Giuliano Ferrara, a sometime adviser to Mr. Berlusconi, has urged La Repubblica to stop the inquisition, saying that “the only thing at stake” in the matter was “Berlusconi’s ego.”
Yet if Mr. Berlusconi and his wife, Veronica Lario, divorce, an inheritance battle is looming between his two children from his first marriage and three from his second to Ms. Lario, all of whom have defended their father.
The “Noemi case” has both deepened and distracted from other lingering black spots on the Berlusconi government. Last week, a Milan court issued its reasoning for convicting a British lawyer, David Mills, of accepting a $600,000 bribe from associates of Mr. Berlusconi.
Mr. Berlusconi was not on trial, having passed a law granting Italy’s top politicians immunity from prosecution while in office. He has repeatedly accused prosecutors of being left-wing ideologues out to get him.
Meanwhile, Ms. Letizia recently posed with a man identified as her new boyfriend for Chi, a magazine published by Mondadori, which is owned by Mr. Berlusconi. She discussed her personal life: “I haven’t yet taken that big step. Virginity is an important value. I believe strongly in God and am a practicing Catholic.”
Personal opnion:
This newsarticle from the New York Times is just another small stain on the image of mr Berlusconi. In the past years mr Berlusconi has been in the news a media tycoon, the director of AC Milan and as a man that does what thinks is right. As prime minister of Italy however man could reasonably expect mr Berlusconi to be more discrete. After a number of scandals involving the prime minister this seems to be just a new case. this time however there is a extra news story involved. The recent news of the diforce between the Berlusconi's makes the news story more interesting. A man who is 72 should not be involved with young teenage girls. Especially not since he is the prime minister.
Prime Minister’s Escapades Finally Raise Eyebrows
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — When the wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi took to the front pages this month to announce that she wanted a divorce and accused him of dallying with very young women, it seemed like yet another storm that Italy’s most powerful man would easily weather. For years, Italy has winked at Mr. Berlusconi, where other nations might have glared.
But then things took a turn for the surreal.
First came a rare and inescapable torrent of speculation — in blogs, on television and radio, at dinner tables across Italy — about the nature and origins of his relationship with Noemi Letizia, a pretty blond aspiring model whose 18th birthday party he attended in Naples last month, and who has said she calls him Daddy. This was the party that caused Mr. Berlusconi’s wife to declare their marriage, one year older than Ms. Letizia, over.
More recent are allegations, potentially more damaging, that Mr. Berlusconi, 72, invited Ms. Letizia and about 40 other girls, some like her at the time younger than 18, to spend New Year’s Eve at one of his villas in Sardinia.
Much of Mr. Berlusconi’s success has stemmed from his uncanny ability to read the national mood. Now many wonder if he has finally miscalculated it and is pushing tolerant Italians too far, and whether his late-career reputation may increasingly resemble the Roman imperial decadence of Fellini’s “Satyricon.”
The prime minister has repeatedly denied anything untoward in his rapport with Ms. Letizia, who has posed in her underwear and said in a recent interview that she was a virgin. On Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi said he had “absolutely not” had “a relationship, let’s say steamy or more than steamy, with an under-age girl.”
The age of consent in Italy is 16, but people are considered minors until 18.
“I have sworn it on the life of my children,” he added. “If this were perjury, I would have to resign a minute later.”
The story is taking on political dimensions less than two weeks before elections for the European Parliament, and a month before Italy is scheduled to host the Group of 8 meeting of world leaders, and when Mr. Berlusconi is trying to secure his standing with the Obama administration.
Dario Franceschini, the leader of the center-left opposition, has been asking voters this question about Mr. Berlusconi: “Would you have your children raised by this man?”
Critics say the debate is not just about sex, but reflects an inattention to Italy’s deep problems, like the economy, or reconstruction after the earthquake that left 70,000 people homeless in central Italy. The leader of another opposition party recently compared him to Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. The Financial Times editorialized this week that Mr. Berlusconi was “a malign example to all.”
And yet, Mr. Berlusconi still governs virtually unopposed. “The problem is simply that the Italians can’t imagine who could replace Berlusconi at the moment,” said Tim Parks, a novelist and commentator on Italy. “It’s too dangerous and too much effort to replace him. So it hardly matters how bad the scandal is.”
Or, as the right-wing politician Francesco Storace said in a recent radio interview, “People don’t vote for Berlusconi because he tells the truth; they vote for him because they like him.”
In what many see as a sign of Mr. Berlusconi’s grip on the levers of power in Italy and the Vatican, the Italian Bishops Conference this week essentially gave him a pass, or at least a no comment, calling for “adult behavior,” but saying that each person’s conduct was a matter “of individual conscience.”
Things are completely turned upside down,” said Gianluca Nicoletti, a commentator for Il Sole 24 Ore radio. “Those who always represented the family and faithful couples are happy to justify hanky-panky,” he said. While some on the left, “which always professed a belief in total sexual freedom, are now like inquisitors with their fingers wagging.”
What has come to be called simply “the Noemi case” presents new elements in Italy’s long relationship with Mr. Berlusconi’s questionable behavior. For the first time in recent memory, the Italian press is shining a bright light into the dark recesses of a politician’s personal life.
That campaign is being led by Mr. Berlusconi’s archenemy in the press, the left-wing daily La Repubblica. For the past two weeks it has published 10 questions for the prime minister, chief among them how he met Ms. Letizia’s father. Mr. Berlusconi has said he recently met Ms. Letizia through her father, Benedetto Letizia, a functionary for the city of Naples.
In recent weeks, Ms. Letizia’s father and mother have largely stood by Mr. Berlusconi’s accounts of how he met Ms. Letizia, while her former boyfriend and her aunt have contradicted them, creating a confusion that has prolonged the drama.
In an interview published by La Repubblica on Sunday, Ms. Letizia’s former boyfriend, who later turned out to have a criminal record, said that the prime minister first called Ms. Letizia last fall after seeing her picture in a modeling catalog.
He described Ms. Letizia’s relationship with Mr. Berlusconi as chaste and mentorlike. It was he who first said that she and a high school friend had been invited to spend New Year’s Eve at Mr. Berlusconi’s villa in Sardinia.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that Mr. Berlusconi had told associates that Ms. Letizia had been at the party along with many other guests.
Mr. Berlusconi’s many supporters believe he is being unjustly attacked in election season and should be left alone.
Giuliano Ferrara, a sometime adviser to Mr. Berlusconi, has urged La Repubblica to stop the inquisition, saying that “the only thing at stake” in the matter was “Berlusconi’s ego.”
Yet if Mr. Berlusconi and his wife, Veronica Lario, divorce, an inheritance battle is looming between his two children from his first marriage and three from his second to Ms. Lario, all of whom have defended their father.
The “Noemi case” has both deepened and distracted from other lingering black spots on the Berlusconi government. Last week, a Milan court issued its reasoning for convicting a British lawyer, David Mills, of accepting a $600,000 bribe from associates of Mr. Berlusconi.
Mr. Berlusconi was not on trial, having passed a law granting Italy’s top politicians immunity from prosecution while in office. He has repeatedly accused prosecutors of being left-wing ideologues out to get him.
Meanwhile, Ms. Letizia recently posed with a man identified as her new boyfriend for Chi, a magazine published by Mondadori, which is owned by Mr. Berlusconi. She discussed her personal life: “I haven’t yet taken that big step. Virginity is an important value. I believe strongly in God and am a practicing Catholic.”
Personal opnion:
This newsarticle from the New York Times is just another small stain on the image of mr Berlusconi. In the past years mr Berlusconi has been in the news a media tycoon, the director of AC Milan and as a man that does what thinks is right. As prime minister of Italy however man could reasonably expect mr Berlusconi to be more discrete. After a number of scandals involving the prime minister this seems to be just a new case. this time however there is a extra news story involved. The recent news of the diforce between the Berlusconi's makes the news story more interesting. A man who is 72 should not be involved with young teenage girls. Especially not since he is the prime minister.
May 11, 2009
Quote of te week
“Both President Medvedev and I will decide what we will do — both he and I — depending on the results of our work,” he said. “As for him personally, you should ask him, but I repeat, I have known him for a long time and I know that he is a very decent man and he will look at his political future proceeding from the interest of the country and the results of our joint efforts. Time will tell.”
May 4, 2009
Quote of the week
And unlike the common types of seasonal flu, it appears to infect an unusually high percentage of young people. The median age of patients is 17.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, the interim deputy director for science and public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Anne Schuchat, the interim deputy director for science and public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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