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
Car Plows Into Crowd Celebrating Dutch Queen
May 1, 2009
Car Plows Into Crowd Celebrating Dutch Queen
By MARLISE SIMONS
PARIS — Five people were killed and a dozen wounded Thursday when a car sped into a crowd at a festival in the town of Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, narrowly missing an open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and members of her family.
Dutch officials said that minutes later, the driver admitted that he had aimed his car at the royal family, but they gave no details as to a possible motive.
The authorities declined to provide the driver’s name, but said he was a 38-year-old Dutchman who appeared to have acted alone and carried no weapons or explosives.
The man was severely injured, probably as his car crashed into a stone monument, but police officers spoke with him as they tried to free him from the wreck. They said he was hospitalized in critical condition and could not be questioned further.
Television images of the festivities, traditionally held to celebrate Queen’s Day, showed police officers rushing toward injured spectators lying on the ground. Members of the royal household atop the open bus watched the scene, some clasping their faces in horror. The police said that 4 of the 12 wounded people had serious injuries.
Queen Beatrix, looking tense and shaken, later appeared on national television to offer her condolences to the families of the victims. “What began as a beautiful day has ended in a terrible drama which has shocked all of us,” she said. “We are speechless that such a terrible event could have happened.”
The attack raised a host of questions about how the driver could have broken through several police barricades, coming within about 15 yards of the bus carrying the royal family.
Security, which used to be lax in the Netherlands, has become stricter in recent years since several public figures, including the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, were killed on the streets. Numerous roads were blocked off before the parade, and about 700 police officers, many in plainclothes, were in the area, Dutch officials said.
Queen’s Day, held on the birth date of the queen’s late mother, Queen Juliana, is a national holiday in the Netherlands and is widely celebrated with street markets, concerts and parades.
After the deadly episode, some cities canceled events, but in Amsterdam, the capital, squares and canals were still filled with thousands of revelers.
Police officers spent hours combing through the home of the driver, who lived in a small town not far from Apeldoorn. They said the man had no police record. Neighbors said he lived alone and had recently lost his job.
Personal Comment:
My article for Current World Affairs this week is about the most important/impressive news story of this week.
On the 30th of April Dutch people all over the world celebrate Queensday. This is the main event of the year for the Dutch.
The Dutch Queen and her family visits a city on this day. This year Apeldoorn was the desitination for the Queen. During her tour through the city in a open bus suddenly a car came driving through the public in an attempt to hit the bus.
At the moment 7 people died and one is still in a critical condition in the hospital. Among the dead is the driver of the car.
This week I do not have a news story able to give a personal opinion. However I feel that for me as a Dutch the disturbance of the Queensday celebration is a big issue. This is the reason for me to share it with my fellow students.
Here is a link to a youtube video of the incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw1JbgrLYH8&feature=related
Car Plows Into Crowd Celebrating Dutch Queen
By MARLISE SIMONS
PARIS — Five people were killed and a dozen wounded Thursday when a car sped into a crowd at a festival in the town of Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, narrowly missing an open-topped bus carrying Queen Beatrix and members of her family.
Dutch officials said that minutes later, the driver admitted that he had aimed his car at the royal family, but they gave no details as to a possible motive.
The authorities declined to provide the driver’s name, but said he was a 38-year-old Dutchman who appeared to have acted alone and carried no weapons or explosives.
The man was severely injured, probably as his car crashed into a stone monument, but police officers spoke with him as they tried to free him from the wreck. They said he was hospitalized in critical condition and could not be questioned further.
Television images of the festivities, traditionally held to celebrate Queen’s Day, showed police officers rushing toward injured spectators lying on the ground. Members of the royal household atop the open bus watched the scene, some clasping their faces in horror. The police said that 4 of the 12 wounded people had serious injuries.
Queen Beatrix, looking tense and shaken, later appeared on national television to offer her condolences to the families of the victims. “What began as a beautiful day has ended in a terrible drama which has shocked all of us,” she said. “We are speechless that such a terrible event could have happened.”
The attack raised a host of questions about how the driver could have broken through several police barricades, coming within about 15 yards of the bus carrying the royal family.
Security, which used to be lax in the Netherlands, has become stricter in recent years since several public figures, including the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, were killed on the streets. Numerous roads were blocked off before the parade, and about 700 police officers, many in plainclothes, were in the area, Dutch officials said.
Queen’s Day, held on the birth date of the queen’s late mother, Queen Juliana, is a national holiday in the Netherlands and is widely celebrated with street markets, concerts and parades.
After the deadly episode, some cities canceled events, but in Amsterdam, the capital, squares and canals were still filled with thousands of revelers.
Police officers spent hours combing through the home of the driver, who lived in a small town not far from Apeldoorn. They said the man had no police record. Neighbors said he lived alone and had recently lost his job.
Personal Comment:
My article for Current World Affairs this week is about the most important/impressive news story of this week.
On the 30th of April Dutch people all over the world celebrate Queensday. This is the main event of the year for the Dutch.
The Dutch Queen and her family visits a city on this day. This year Apeldoorn was the desitination for the Queen. During her tour through the city in a open bus suddenly a car came driving through the public in an attempt to hit the bus.
At the moment 7 people died and one is still in a critical condition in the hospital. Among the dead is the driver of the car.
This week I do not have a news story able to give a personal opinion. However I feel that for me as a Dutch the disturbance of the Queensday celebration is a big issue. This is the reason for me to share it with my fellow students.
Here is a link to a youtube video of the incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw1JbgrLYH8&feature=related
Apr 26, 2009
Quote of the week
"It's a great ruling, and we're thrilled for Iowans. You can get married in Iowa, invite 100 people, and show us your slides when you get back. But when you get back to Illinois, in the eyes of the law, you are strangers."
Premier Wants Iceland to Join European Unnion
April 27, 2009
Premier Wants Iceland to Join European Unnion
By JOHN F. BURNS
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Buoyed by an election victory that gave a strong popular mandate to her three-month-old caretaker government, Iceland’s prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, told cheering supporters early Sunday that she would move to protect the country’s battered economy by applying for membership in the European Union as soon as possible.
Final results of the election on Saturday gave the two leftist parties in the caretaker government — ushered into power by street protests in January — 34 seats in the 63-seat Parliament. The conservatives of the Independence Party, the country’s traditional governing group, were punished for their role in the economic collapse by being reduced to 16 seats, the party’s worst performance since it was founded 80 years ago. As is usual here, turnout for the vote was high, at more than 85 percent.
Though the results gave Ms. Sigurdardottir’s Social Democrats and her coalition partner, the socialist Left-Green party, only a narrow parliamentary margin, the outcome was decisive in confirming the primacy of Ms. Sigurdardottir, the country’s first female prime minister and, Icelanders say with pride, the first openly gay politician to head any government in the modern world.
Her party’s dominant position in the coalition, with 20 seats to the Left-Green’s 14, appeared to give her a strong hand in resolving the parties’ differences over joining the European Union. Ms. Sigurdardottir, 66, argues that membership, together with abandoning Iceland’s currency, the krona, for the euro, would provide a shield for Iceland as it seeks to work its way out of the financial crisis.
With opinion polls showing views on European Union membership about equally divided among the 320,000 people in this remote land on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Ms. Sigurdardottir has linked her political future to gaining entry to the 27-nation union. She said Saturday at a news conference that applying for entry was an overriding priority for the Social Democrats, and that she hoped that terms for Iceland’s membership could be agreed to within 12 to 18 months.
“We want Iceland as soon as possible to join the European Union and adopt the euro,” she said. She added brusquely, “I should emphasize that this is a priority issue for the Social Democrats.”
That appeared to be a challenge to the Left-Greens and their leader, Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, a former truck driver and geologist with hard-left views who has served as finance minister since the caretaker coalition took office in January.
The Left-Greens’ reluctance to join the union is based on fears, widely shared in Iceland, that the country would lose control of its exclusive fishing waters off its coasts and of its other natural resources. It is an issue that has deep resonance in a country that has fashioned its national consciousness around a tradition of gritty independence and an ability to survive in one of the world’s toughest natural environments.
The party’s resistance to European Union membership has translated into an insistence on a drawn-out procedure that would have Icelanders approve any entry application in a referendum first, and then have a second referendum on entry terms agreed on with Brussels. The Social Democrats have insisted on a simpler and potentially much faster route, with an application for entry within weeks, and a single referendum on whatever terms are negotiated.
Mr. Sigfusson, the Left-Greens’ leader, has hinted that his party may compromise on the referendum issue to keep the coalition together, while retaining the option of campaigning against European Union entry when the issue comes to a vote.
As early election returns became known Saturday night, Ms. Sigurdardottir appeared to tighten the screws on Mr. Sigfusson by noting, in an interview on the state television network, that there would be “a parliamentary majority” in favor of European Union entry — a pointed reminder that the Social Democrats could turn to other pro-European Union parties for approval of the single-referendum formula if the Left-Greens tried to block it.
At the Saturday news conference, Ms. Sigurdardottir said her aim would be to seek to replace the battered krona with the euro within four years, the duration of the parliamentary term she secured in the election, assuming there was no new political crisis. The krona is currently trading at 40 percent and more below its value before the economic collapse, just one measure of a crisis that has seen Iceland plunge since last fall from giddying prosperity to widespread unemployment. Inflation is running above 15 percent, and mounting state debt in the wake of October’s banking collapse has left the government with foreign debts approaching $10 billion.
Ms. Sigurdardottir said that with European Union membership, Iceland, “the first country to have an economic crisis on this scale,” would also be the first to emerge. But she also said how “difficult” it would be to meet the demand from the International Monetary Fund for a one-third cut in the government’s annual budget within three years — one of the terms of a $2.1 billion emergency loan that helped keep Iceland afloat, together with $3.1 billion in loans from other Nordic countries, after the country’s three biggest banks collapsed and were nationalized last fall.
A cut of that severity in the government’s expenses, the prime minister said, would be hard to make while protecting the unemployed, pensioners and other underprivileged groups — precisely the constituency Ms. Sigurdardottir, the daughter of a prominent labor leader, made her own during her years as the country’s minister of social affairs. She hinted that the I.M.F. terms might be eased or offset by European Union assistance once Iceland was able to show it was committed to stabilizing its economy and paying its debts.
In the meantime, she said, the act of applying for European Union membership would create new confidence in Iceland abroad, helping to speed economic recovery.
Commentators in Iceland have given high ratings to Ms. Sigurdardottir’s performance in her 80 days in office, and in the election campaign, saying she has steadied the country’s faltering self-confidence in the wake of the banking collapse and turbulent January street protests, the first political violence in Iceland since protests over the country’s decision to join NATO in 1949.
Personal comment:
This article is about Iceland. The new prime minister wants the country to join the European Union. I have chosen this article for this weeks Current World Affair class because it shows a different result of the financial crisis.
During the first period of the financial crisis the situation in Iceland deteriorated on a fast speed, financially seen. Banks became bankrupt and a lot of the inhabitants lost their savings.
The people of Iceland blamed it on the government. During the new elections they choose for a different party. New insights and new ideas compared to the old government.
The new prime minister however wants to join the EU since it could stimulate the economy of Iceland. The locals feel that joining the EU could worsend their natural resources. Fishing waters have to be shared with different European influences.
For me as a European, i believe that it is a good thing if Iceland joins the EU. Ofcourse they have to meet all the standerds that the EU requires first. Iceland is different then a country like Turkey. There are less problems on the side of human rights. Therefore I believe that the new Iceland prime minster had the right ideas.
Premier Wants Iceland to Join European Unnion
By JOHN F. BURNS
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Buoyed by an election victory that gave a strong popular mandate to her three-month-old caretaker government, Iceland’s prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, told cheering supporters early Sunday that she would move to protect the country’s battered economy by applying for membership in the European Union as soon as possible.
Final results of the election on Saturday gave the two leftist parties in the caretaker government — ushered into power by street protests in January — 34 seats in the 63-seat Parliament. The conservatives of the Independence Party, the country’s traditional governing group, were punished for their role in the economic collapse by being reduced to 16 seats, the party’s worst performance since it was founded 80 years ago. As is usual here, turnout for the vote was high, at more than 85 percent.
Though the results gave Ms. Sigurdardottir’s Social Democrats and her coalition partner, the socialist Left-Green party, only a narrow parliamentary margin, the outcome was decisive in confirming the primacy of Ms. Sigurdardottir, the country’s first female prime minister and, Icelanders say with pride, the first openly gay politician to head any government in the modern world.
Her party’s dominant position in the coalition, with 20 seats to the Left-Green’s 14, appeared to give her a strong hand in resolving the parties’ differences over joining the European Union. Ms. Sigurdardottir, 66, argues that membership, together with abandoning Iceland’s currency, the krona, for the euro, would provide a shield for Iceland as it seeks to work its way out of the financial crisis.
With opinion polls showing views on European Union membership about equally divided among the 320,000 people in this remote land on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Ms. Sigurdardottir has linked her political future to gaining entry to the 27-nation union. She said Saturday at a news conference that applying for entry was an overriding priority for the Social Democrats, and that she hoped that terms for Iceland’s membership could be agreed to within 12 to 18 months.
“We want Iceland as soon as possible to join the European Union and adopt the euro,” she said. She added brusquely, “I should emphasize that this is a priority issue for the Social Democrats.”
That appeared to be a challenge to the Left-Greens and their leader, Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, a former truck driver and geologist with hard-left views who has served as finance minister since the caretaker coalition took office in January.
The Left-Greens’ reluctance to join the union is based on fears, widely shared in Iceland, that the country would lose control of its exclusive fishing waters off its coasts and of its other natural resources. It is an issue that has deep resonance in a country that has fashioned its national consciousness around a tradition of gritty independence and an ability to survive in one of the world’s toughest natural environments.
The party’s resistance to European Union membership has translated into an insistence on a drawn-out procedure that would have Icelanders approve any entry application in a referendum first, and then have a second referendum on entry terms agreed on with Brussels. The Social Democrats have insisted on a simpler and potentially much faster route, with an application for entry within weeks, and a single referendum on whatever terms are negotiated.
Mr. Sigfusson, the Left-Greens’ leader, has hinted that his party may compromise on the referendum issue to keep the coalition together, while retaining the option of campaigning against European Union entry when the issue comes to a vote.
As early election returns became known Saturday night, Ms. Sigurdardottir appeared to tighten the screws on Mr. Sigfusson by noting, in an interview on the state television network, that there would be “a parliamentary majority” in favor of European Union entry — a pointed reminder that the Social Democrats could turn to other pro-European Union parties for approval of the single-referendum formula if the Left-Greens tried to block it.
At the Saturday news conference, Ms. Sigurdardottir said her aim would be to seek to replace the battered krona with the euro within four years, the duration of the parliamentary term she secured in the election, assuming there was no new political crisis. The krona is currently trading at 40 percent and more below its value before the economic collapse, just one measure of a crisis that has seen Iceland plunge since last fall from giddying prosperity to widespread unemployment. Inflation is running above 15 percent, and mounting state debt in the wake of October’s banking collapse has left the government with foreign debts approaching $10 billion.
Ms. Sigurdardottir said that with European Union membership, Iceland, “the first country to have an economic crisis on this scale,” would also be the first to emerge. But she also said how “difficult” it would be to meet the demand from the International Monetary Fund for a one-third cut in the government’s annual budget within three years — one of the terms of a $2.1 billion emergency loan that helped keep Iceland afloat, together with $3.1 billion in loans from other Nordic countries, after the country’s three biggest banks collapsed and were nationalized last fall.
A cut of that severity in the government’s expenses, the prime minister said, would be hard to make while protecting the unemployed, pensioners and other underprivileged groups — precisely the constituency Ms. Sigurdardottir, the daughter of a prominent labor leader, made her own during her years as the country’s minister of social affairs. She hinted that the I.M.F. terms might be eased or offset by European Union assistance once Iceland was able to show it was committed to stabilizing its economy and paying its debts.
In the meantime, she said, the act of applying for European Union membership would create new confidence in Iceland abroad, helping to speed economic recovery.
Commentators in Iceland have given high ratings to Ms. Sigurdardottir’s performance in her 80 days in office, and in the election campaign, saying she has steadied the country’s faltering self-confidence in the wake of the banking collapse and turbulent January street protests, the first political violence in Iceland since protests over the country’s decision to join NATO in 1949.
Personal comment:
This article is about Iceland. The new prime minister wants the country to join the European Union. I have chosen this article for this weeks Current World Affair class because it shows a different result of the financial crisis.
During the first period of the financial crisis the situation in Iceland deteriorated on a fast speed, financially seen. Banks became bankrupt and a lot of the inhabitants lost their savings.
The people of Iceland blamed it on the government. During the new elections they choose for a different party. New insights and new ideas compared to the old government.
The new prime minister however wants to join the EU since it could stimulate the economy of Iceland. The locals feel that joining the EU could worsend their natural resources. Fishing waters have to be shared with different European influences.
For me as a European, i believe that it is a good thing if Iceland joins the EU. Ofcourse they have to meet all the standerds that the EU requires first. Iceland is different then a country like Turkey. There are less problems on the side of human rights. Therefore I believe that the new Iceland prime minster had the right ideas.
Apr 19, 2009
Venezuela’s Chavez plans to send ambassador to US
Venezuela’s Chavez plans to send ambassador to US
AP, PORT OF SPAIN Monday, Apr 20, 2009,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he was restoring Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, voicing hopes for a “new era” in relations after barely getting to know US President Barack Obama at a regional summit.
Venezuela’s socialist leader told reporters at the Summit of the Americas that he would propose Roy Chaderton, his current ambassador to The Organization of American States, as its new representative in a move toward improving strained ties with Washington.The announcement crowns a week in which Obama rejected 200 years of US “heavy-handedness” toward Latin America and raised the highest hopes ever for a rapprochement with Cuba, with which it severed ties 48 years ago.Chavez expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, in September in solidarity with leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales, who ordered out the top US diplomat in his country for allegedly helping the opposition incite violence.Washington reciprocated by kicking out ambassadors from both nations.Chavez announced his decision after a day of exchanges with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other US diplomats at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago.A State Department official said Chavez approached Clinton during the summit sessions on Saturday and the two discussed returning ambassadors to their respective posts in Caracas and Washington.Clinton “welcomes this development, and the State Department will now work to further that shared goal,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.The Americas director of the Carter Center, Jennifer McCoy, called Chavez’s announcement “surprising, but a very positive outcome of the summit.”She said Chavez may have realized he had little choice but to try to improve ties with the US given Obama’s overwhelming popularity in Latin America and elsewhere.“He can still criticize US policy,” McCoy said. “But it is much more difficult to criticize Obama the man.”Chavez had stormy relations with the former US administration and once likened President George W. Bush to the devil, but he has warmed to the new US president at the summit, though Obama has been critical of him for his alleged harboring of and financing Colombian rebels.On Saturday, Chavez gave Obama a book about foreign exploitation of Latin America and repeated in English during a luncheon speech what he told the US president the previous night at their first meeting: “I want to be your friend.”Chavez told reporters that he’d instructed his foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, to begin the process of making Chaderton his new US ambassador.“He’s my candidate,” Chavez said. “We have to wait for the United States to give the appropriate acceptance.”At the 34-nation summit’s inauguration on Friday, Obama won repeated applause with his promise to be an equal partner in the region and expressed his desire for a “new beginning” with Cuba, which has been suspended from the summit for 47 years.Chavez has led the charge for demanding that Cuba be reinstated and praised Obama’s Friday night speech.
Personal Comment:
My news story of this week is about Chavez, president of Venezuela. Less then a year ago he was in a fight with the USA and especially with Bush all the time. Calling them names in speeches or making jokes about the USA was normal.
Now Chavez wants to get a good relationship with the USA again. During a speech he even said he want to be best friends with Obama. The first way in wich he want to make his way back in to the US is by sending a ambassador again. About a year ago he kicked the US ambassador out of Venezuela.
To me this story seems to be a good thing. at the moment there are a number of disputes in the world with radical groups or countries (North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq for example). If the US can get on a good relationship with Venezuela it might mean less worries about this part of the world. Certainly because it seems like that Cuba and the USA are improving their relationship.
The question however is; How important are the words Chavez uses? To me he seems to be a person that can change his mind in a split second. And by saying something (stupid) he can worsen a relationship.
AP, PORT OF SPAIN Monday, Apr 20, 2009,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he was restoring Venezuela’s ambassador in Washington, voicing hopes for a “new era” in relations after barely getting to know US President Barack Obama at a regional summit.
Venezuela’s socialist leader told reporters at the Summit of the Americas that he would propose Roy Chaderton, his current ambassador to The Organization of American States, as its new representative in a move toward improving strained ties with Washington.The announcement crowns a week in which Obama rejected 200 years of US “heavy-handedness” toward Latin America and raised the highest hopes ever for a rapprochement with Cuba, with which it severed ties 48 years ago.Chavez expelled the US ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, in September in solidarity with leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales, who ordered out the top US diplomat in his country for allegedly helping the opposition incite violence.Washington reciprocated by kicking out ambassadors from both nations.Chavez announced his decision after a day of exchanges with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other US diplomats at a summit in Trinidad and Tobago.A State Department official said Chavez approached Clinton during the summit sessions on Saturday and the two discussed returning ambassadors to their respective posts in Caracas and Washington.Clinton “welcomes this development, and the State Department will now work to further that shared goal,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.The Americas director of the Carter Center, Jennifer McCoy, called Chavez’s announcement “surprising, but a very positive outcome of the summit.”She said Chavez may have realized he had little choice but to try to improve ties with the US given Obama’s overwhelming popularity in Latin America and elsewhere.“He can still criticize US policy,” McCoy said. “But it is much more difficult to criticize Obama the man.”Chavez had stormy relations with the former US administration and once likened President George W. Bush to the devil, but he has warmed to the new US president at the summit, though Obama has been critical of him for his alleged harboring of and financing Colombian rebels.On Saturday, Chavez gave Obama a book about foreign exploitation of Latin America and repeated in English during a luncheon speech what he told the US president the previous night at their first meeting: “I want to be your friend.”Chavez told reporters that he’d instructed his foreign minister, Nicolas Maduro, to begin the process of making Chaderton his new US ambassador.“He’s my candidate,” Chavez said. “We have to wait for the United States to give the appropriate acceptance.”At the 34-nation summit’s inauguration on Friday, Obama won repeated applause with his promise to be an equal partner in the region and expressed his desire for a “new beginning” with Cuba, which has been suspended from the summit for 47 years.Chavez has led the charge for demanding that Cuba be reinstated and praised Obama’s Friday night speech.
Personal Comment:
My news story of this week is about Chavez, president of Venezuela. Less then a year ago he was in a fight with the USA and especially with Bush all the time. Calling them names in speeches or making jokes about the USA was normal.
Now Chavez wants to get a good relationship with the USA again. During a speech he even said he want to be best friends with Obama. The first way in wich he want to make his way back in to the US is by sending a ambassador again. About a year ago he kicked the US ambassador out of Venezuela.
To me this story seems to be a good thing. at the moment there are a number of disputes in the world with radical groups or countries (North Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq for example). If the US can get on a good relationship with Venezuela it might mean less worries about this part of the world. Certainly because it seems like that Cuba and the USA are improving their relationship.
The question however is; How important are the words Chavez uses? To me he seems to be a person that can change his mind in a split second. And by saying something (stupid) he can worsen a relationship.
Apr 12, 2009
U.N. Council May Rebuke North Korea
April 12, 2009
U.N. Council May Rebuke North Korea
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — The major players on the United Nations Security Council reached a compromise Saturday to chastise North Korea for launching a rocket while avoiding tough new punishments that Russia and China had feared would drive the North away from negotiations over dismantling its nuclear program.
The Council may vote as soon as Monday on the American draft of a presidential statement, a step less forceful than a resolution, that would tighten existing sanctions by singling out specific North Korean organizations and expanding the list of banned goods related to its nuclear and missile programs.
After haggling all week, the five permanent members plus Japan agreed to the compromise in order to project unity, although the United States and Japan had initially pushed for a stronger response.
Russia and China, in calling for a measured reaction, publicly avoided characterizing the rocket launching as a ballistic missile test, and the word missile never appears in the statement. But it condemns North Korea for the event and warns the country against any further launchings.
“What the Council can do, and we hope will do, through the adoption of this statement is to send a very clear message to North Korea that what they have done under the guise of a satellite launch is in fact a violation of their obligations and indeed that there are consequences for such actions,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador.
Much of the world viewed the launching as an effort by North Korea to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile. North Korea has said the rocket was designed to propel a satellite into space.
A presidential statement must be passed by all 15 members of the Council. Although the United States considers it legally binding internationally, others deem it more of a recommendation.
Given the weight of those backing it, passage is almost assured. But Libya, a Council member, expressed reservations Saturday since it maintains that launching a peaceful satellite is the right of all nations.
American officials have said the satellite fell into the Pacific.
The Council imposed sanctions against North Korea in Resolution 1718 in 2006, after the North conducted a nuclear test and a missile launching. But the major powers focused less on enforcing the sanctions than on negotiations with North Korea, called the six-party talks, to try to dismantle the country’s nuclear program. Those talks remain the major powers’ priority.
The North had threatened to walk out of the talks if the United Nations punished it for the launching. But it has been silent on the subject recently, and analysts said Saturday that the Council response was measured enough that the North would likely continue to negotiate.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/world/asia/12nations.html?ref=asia&pagewanted=print
Comment:
After many hours of talking and negotiating the U.N. security council finally agreed on how to punish North Korea for there missile test. They decided to tell North Korea that they don't like the fact that they have launched a missile. And if they will do it agian there will be some punishment.
Too me it seems that they actually didn't had a agreement in the U.N. Security Council. Japen and the USA wanted to put a number of sanctions on North Korea. Ofcourse China and Russia didn't agree. The rebarke they decided upon is not powerfull and will not harm North Korea at all. They did it and they got away with it.
U.N. Council May Rebuke North Korea
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — The major players on the United Nations Security Council reached a compromise Saturday to chastise North Korea for launching a rocket while avoiding tough new punishments that Russia and China had feared would drive the North away from negotiations over dismantling its nuclear program.
The Council may vote as soon as Monday on the American draft of a presidential statement, a step less forceful than a resolution, that would tighten existing sanctions by singling out specific North Korean organizations and expanding the list of banned goods related to its nuclear and missile programs.
After haggling all week, the five permanent members plus Japan agreed to the compromise in order to project unity, although the United States and Japan had initially pushed for a stronger response.
Russia and China, in calling for a measured reaction, publicly avoided characterizing the rocket launching as a ballistic missile test, and the word missile never appears in the statement. But it condemns North Korea for the event and warns the country against any further launchings.
“What the Council can do, and we hope will do, through the adoption of this statement is to send a very clear message to North Korea that what they have done under the guise of a satellite launch is in fact a violation of their obligations and indeed that there are consequences for such actions,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador.
Much of the world viewed the launching as an effort by North Korea to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile. North Korea has said the rocket was designed to propel a satellite into space.
A presidential statement must be passed by all 15 members of the Council. Although the United States considers it legally binding internationally, others deem it more of a recommendation.
Given the weight of those backing it, passage is almost assured. But Libya, a Council member, expressed reservations Saturday since it maintains that launching a peaceful satellite is the right of all nations.
American officials have said the satellite fell into the Pacific.
The Council imposed sanctions against North Korea in Resolution 1718 in 2006, after the North conducted a nuclear test and a missile launching. But the major powers focused less on enforcing the sanctions than on negotiations with North Korea, called the six-party talks, to try to dismantle the country’s nuclear program. Those talks remain the major powers’ priority.
The North had threatened to walk out of the talks if the United Nations punished it for the launching. But it has been silent on the subject recently, and analysts said Saturday that the Council response was measured enough that the North would likely continue to negotiate.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/world/asia/12nations.html?ref=asia&pagewanted=print
Comment:
After many hours of talking and negotiating the U.N. security council finally agreed on how to punish North Korea for there missile test. They decided to tell North Korea that they don't like the fact that they have launched a missile. And if they will do it agian there will be some punishment.
Too me it seems that they actually didn't had a agreement in the U.N. Security Council. Japen and the USA wanted to put a number of sanctions on North Korea. Ofcourse China and Russia didn't agree. The rebarke they decided upon is not powerfull and will not harm North Korea at all. They did it and they got away with it.
Apr 5, 2009
Quote of the week
"The United States and Europe must approach Muslims as our friends, neighbours and partners in fighting injustice, intolerance and violence, forging a relationship based on mutual respect and mutual interest," he said.
Barack Obama
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7984762.stm
Barack Obama
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7984762.stm
Obamas’ Visit Eases Doubts of the Czechs
April 6, 2009
Obamas’ Visit Eases Doubts of the Czechs
By DAN BILEFSKY and HELENE COOPER
PRAGUE — The Czechs were skeptical. Some feared that the visit by President Obama less than two weeks after their government collapsed would bring out all the neuroses of their young democracy. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek had soured the mood by calling Mr. Obama’s economic policies “a way to hell.” Obama-mania seemed a foreign delusion.
That was until Sunday, when Mr. Obama addressed some 20,000 people in front of the imposing Prague Castle.
He spoke of the Velvet Revolution, which helped overthrow decades of Communism here in 1989, calling that moment of national pride “Sametova revoluce” in flawless Czech.
He invoked the memory of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the revered father of the first Czechoslovak state. Mr. Masaryk, the president noted, had spent time in his own hometown, Chicago.
The skepticism began to melt away. Even the younger Czechs, who had not grown up under Communism and were less instinctively pro-American than their parents, were transfixed.
Irena Kalhousova, 30, a lecturer in international relations, who woke up at 4 a.m. to make sure she could get a glimpse of Mr. Obama, said she had been struck by the contrast between the detached haughtiness of the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, 67, and the youthful vigor of Mr. Obama, who she said radiated “positive energy.”
“Our President Klaus looks bored, old and angry, while Mr. Obama is young, energetic and inspiring,” she said.
Later in the day, Mr. Obama met former President Vaclav Havel, one of Eastern Europe’s most celebrated former dissidents, whose inclusive brand of politics Mr. Obama has emulated. Aides said Mr. Havel warned Mr. Obama of the perils of limitless hope being projected onto a leader, noting that disappointment could boil over into anger. Mr. Obama smiled and said he was becoming acutely aware of that possibility.
The country also fell under the charms of Michelle Obama, with many Czechs saying her easy glamour and warm relationship with the president was a marked contrast to the more austere role of political spouse here. The first lady toured Prague’s Jewish Quarter, including the Old Jewish Cemetery, where she followed the tradition of depositing a wish on a small piece of folded paper near the grave of the legendary 16th-century rabbi Yehudah Loew.
She also stopped at the Pinkas Synagogue, inscribed inside with the names of Holocaust victims.
“This was a wonderful visit,” she said. “We’ll be back.”
Jan Krcmar contributed reporting.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/europe/06czech.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print
Personal comment:
The foreign policy of the United States of America is ofcourse a enormous operation. They are not only involved in trade. They are also active in almost every country in the world whether it is for help, war or for monitoring and advicing other nations.
To me the article above is also a form of foreign policy. A speach has in principle nothing to do with direct influence in a country. However, a speach like the one Obama has given in Prague seems to me as a way to win souls. To gain support form the locals or in this case the Czech people.
I remember thats months (maybe even a year) ago Obama gave a speech in Berlin. This speech was even for a larger audience and ofcourse a bit more controversial. To mo it seems to be some kind of 'propaganda' that is working perfectly. As you canr ead in the article. People admire Obama and his wife for who they are, and they do gain a lot of support for the USA by doing so.
Obamas’ Visit Eases Doubts of the Czechs
By DAN BILEFSKY and HELENE COOPER
PRAGUE — The Czechs were skeptical. Some feared that the visit by President Obama less than two weeks after their government collapsed would bring out all the neuroses of their young democracy. Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek had soured the mood by calling Mr. Obama’s economic policies “a way to hell.” Obama-mania seemed a foreign delusion.
That was until Sunday, when Mr. Obama addressed some 20,000 people in front of the imposing Prague Castle.
He spoke of the Velvet Revolution, which helped overthrow decades of Communism here in 1989, calling that moment of national pride “Sametova revoluce” in flawless Czech.
He invoked the memory of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the revered father of the first Czechoslovak state. Mr. Masaryk, the president noted, had spent time in his own hometown, Chicago.
The skepticism began to melt away. Even the younger Czechs, who had not grown up under Communism and were less instinctively pro-American than their parents, were transfixed.
Irena Kalhousova, 30, a lecturer in international relations, who woke up at 4 a.m. to make sure she could get a glimpse of Mr. Obama, said she had been struck by the contrast between the detached haughtiness of the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, 67, and the youthful vigor of Mr. Obama, who she said radiated “positive energy.”
“Our President Klaus looks bored, old and angry, while Mr. Obama is young, energetic and inspiring,” she said.
Later in the day, Mr. Obama met former President Vaclav Havel, one of Eastern Europe’s most celebrated former dissidents, whose inclusive brand of politics Mr. Obama has emulated. Aides said Mr. Havel warned Mr. Obama of the perils of limitless hope being projected onto a leader, noting that disappointment could boil over into anger. Mr. Obama smiled and said he was becoming acutely aware of that possibility.
The country also fell under the charms of Michelle Obama, with many Czechs saying her easy glamour and warm relationship with the president was a marked contrast to the more austere role of political spouse here. The first lady toured Prague’s Jewish Quarter, including the Old Jewish Cemetery, where she followed the tradition of depositing a wish on a small piece of folded paper near the grave of the legendary 16th-century rabbi Yehudah Loew.
She also stopped at the Pinkas Synagogue, inscribed inside with the names of Holocaust victims.
“This was a wonderful visit,” she said. “We’ll be back.”
Jan Krcmar contributed reporting.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/europe/06czech.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print
Personal comment:
The foreign policy of the United States of America is ofcourse a enormous operation. They are not only involved in trade. They are also active in almost every country in the world whether it is for help, war or for monitoring and advicing other nations.
To me the article above is also a form of foreign policy. A speach has in principle nothing to do with direct influence in a country. However, a speach like the one Obama has given in Prague seems to me as a way to win souls. To gain support form the locals or in this case the Czech people.
I remember thats months (maybe even a year) ago Obama gave a speech in Berlin. This speech was even for a larger audience and ofcourse a bit more controversial. To mo it seems to be some kind of 'propaganda' that is working perfectly. As you canr ead in the article. People admire Obama and his wife for who they are, and they do gain a lot of support for the USA by doing so.
Mar 22, 2009
Quote of the week
Quote of the week
(week 6)
“He confuses his personal opinions sometimes with those of the General Assembly,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile. Mr. Muñoz credited Mr. d’Escoto with trying to make the General Assembly relevant by focusing attention on matters like the global financial crisis and reform of the Council.
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/world/18nations.html
(week 6)
“He confuses his personal opinions sometimes with those of the General Assembly,” said Heraldo Muñoz, the ambassador from Chile. Mr. Muñoz credited Mr. d’Escoto with trying to make the General Assembly relevant by focusing attention on matters like the global financial crisis and reform of the Council.
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/world/18nations.html
U.N. Official Says Darfur Continues to Crumble
March 21, 2009
U.N. Official Says Darfur Continues to Crumble
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — The humanitarian situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate in the wake of Sudan’s decision to expel major foreign aid organizations from the country, a top United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday, with a majority of Council members sharply criticizing Khartoum for refusing to reverse its edict.
Critical areas of concern in Darfur include distribution of adequate food, water and medical care, as well as the safety of United Nations personnel and humanitarian workers who have been subject to stepped-up attacks, said the official, Rashid Khalikov, the director in New York for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“Our ability to help the people of Darfur and northern Sudan has been seriously compromised,” he said. “The current atmosphere of fear and uncertainty facing all aid organizations is affecting the assistance available to the people of Darfur.”
Western ambassadors uniformly criticized Sudan for its decision to expel 13 foreign aid organizations and close three local ones, which the country did after the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced more than two weeks ago that it was indicting President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on war crimes charges.
Expressions of concern about the fate of about four million civilians in Darfur were universal from all 15 members of the Council. Even friends and neighbors of Sudan, like China, Uganda and Libya, which support a deferral of the court’s indictment, expressed concern about the impact of the expulsions.
Mr. Khalikov sketched a grim portrait of what was happening on the ground. Although the government expelled only 13 of scores of foreign agencies operating in Darfur, he said those provided about half of the distribution and provision of aid.
Over the past two weeks, one United Nations peacekeeper was killed and three were wounded in three separate attacks, he said. There have been meningitis outbreaks, as well. The expulsions ended a mass immunization campaign.
The United Nations is also troubled by the Sudanese government’s seizing assets from aid groups, Mr. Khalikov said.
Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, delivered one of the most barbed speeches, holding Mr. Bashir responsible for the fate of all the people in Darfur. “President Bashir created this crisis,” she said. “He should rectify it immediately.”
She noted that the United States had donated about $4 billion in aid to Sudan and eastern Chad since 2004, including $1.25 billion in the current fiscal year, and that it would continue working with the United Nations and remaining agencies to deliver humanitarian assistance.
The two Sudanese representatives who spoke objected to the singling out of Mr. Bashir, saying that the expulsion was a government decision and that it was irreversible. One accused the West of creating a crisis over the aid groups in order to deflect attention from the real problem, which they said was the indictment.
The meeting on Friday was unexpected, prompted by the United States as a means to keep the spotlight on the crisis, diplomats said. Ms. Rice told reporters that the United States felt it was necessary because there had not been an open meeting on the subject in the two weeks since the expulsions.
The Security Council has failed to reach an agreement on what to do about the confrontation with Sudan, and no concrete proposals came out of the Friday meeting.
An even wider discussion is expected next week after John Holmes, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations, reports on a more thorough assessment of the aid situation being carried out in coordination with Sudan’s government.
The court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, appeared at the microphones outside the Council chamber to suggest that the easiest solution to the problem was for Sudan itself to act.
“The Sudan has to find the way to arrest Bashir and stop the crimes; that is the best way,” he said.
Personal comment:
The region Darfur in the country Sudan in Africa has been a news item for a long time. The news about the terrible situation in the country seems to keep on coming. This article shows again that the population of Darfur experiences a difficult time.
Luckely there are a number of non profit organizations that want to take care of the people. However, it seems from this aritcle that the president of Sudan named: Bashir, is working against the foreign organisations that are providing health care.The outbreak of new diseases even worsens the situation.
At the end of the article it is stated that the people of Sudan should try to find a way to get rid of thier president, because the UN is not able to take care of Bashir. I feel that their should be a way for the UN/the world to take care of the people without having to pay attention to a president that is not acting in the best way for its nationals.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/world/africa/21nations.html?pagewanted=print
U.N. Official Says Darfur Continues to Crumble
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
UNITED NATIONS — The humanitarian situation in Darfur continues to deteriorate in the wake of Sudan’s decision to expel major foreign aid organizations from the country, a top United Nations official told the Security Council on Friday, with a majority of Council members sharply criticizing Khartoum for refusing to reverse its edict.
Critical areas of concern in Darfur include distribution of adequate food, water and medical care, as well as the safety of United Nations personnel and humanitarian workers who have been subject to stepped-up attacks, said the official, Rashid Khalikov, the director in New York for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“Our ability to help the people of Darfur and northern Sudan has been seriously compromised,” he said. “The current atmosphere of fear and uncertainty facing all aid organizations is affecting the assistance available to the people of Darfur.”
Western ambassadors uniformly criticized Sudan for its decision to expel 13 foreign aid organizations and close three local ones, which the country did after the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced more than two weeks ago that it was indicting President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on war crimes charges.
Expressions of concern about the fate of about four million civilians in Darfur were universal from all 15 members of the Council. Even friends and neighbors of Sudan, like China, Uganda and Libya, which support a deferral of the court’s indictment, expressed concern about the impact of the expulsions.
Mr. Khalikov sketched a grim portrait of what was happening on the ground. Although the government expelled only 13 of scores of foreign agencies operating in Darfur, he said those provided about half of the distribution and provision of aid.
Over the past two weeks, one United Nations peacekeeper was killed and three were wounded in three separate attacks, he said. There have been meningitis outbreaks, as well. The expulsions ended a mass immunization campaign.
The United Nations is also troubled by the Sudanese government’s seizing assets from aid groups, Mr. Khalikov said.
Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, delivered one of the most barbed speeches, holding Mr. Bashir responsible for the fate of all the people in Darfur. “President Bashir created this crisis,” she said. “He should rectify it immediately.”
She noted that the United States had donated about $4 billion in aid to Sudan and eastern Chad since 2004, including $1.25 billion in the current fiscal year, and that it would continue working with the United Nations and remaining agencies to deliver humanitarian assistance.
The two Sudanese representatives who spoke objected to the singling out of Mr. Bashir, saying that the expulsion was a government decision and that it was irreversible. One accused the West of creating a crisis over the aid groups in order to deflect attention from the real problem, which they said was the indictment.
The meeting on Friday was unexpected, prompted by the United States as a means to keep the spotlight on the crisis, diplomats said. Ms. Rice told reporters that the United States felt it was necessary because there had not been an open meeting on the subject in the two weeks since the expulsions.
The Security Council has failed to reach an agreement on what to do about the confrontation with Sudan, and no concrete proposals came out of the Friday meeting.
An even wider discussion is expected next week after John Holmes, under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the United Nations, reports on a more thorough assessment of the aid situation being carried out in coordination with Sudan’s government.
The court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, appeared at the microphones outside the Council chamber to suggest that the easiest solution to the problem was for Sudan itself to act.
“The Sudan has to find the way to arrest Bashir and stop the crimes; that is the best way,” he said.
Personal comment:
The region Darfur in the country Sudan in Africa has been a news item for a long time. The news about the terrible situation in the country seems to keep on coming. This article shows again that the population of Darfur experiences a difficult time.
Luckely there are a number of non profit organizations that want to take care of the people. However, it seems from this aritcle that the president of Sudan named: Bashir, is working against the foreign organisations that are providing health care.The outbreak of new diseases even worsens the situation.
At the end of the article it is stated that the people of Sudan should try to find a way to get rid of thier president, because the UN is not able to take care of Bashir. I feel that their should be a way for the UN/the world to take care of the people without having to pay attention to a president that is not acting in the best way for its nationals.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/world/africa/21nations.html?pagewanted=print
Mar 15, 2009
Quote of the week
“We just saw a big ship,” the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, said in a telephone interview. “So we stopped it.”
Sugule Ali, Somali pirate that seized a Ukraine vessel loaded with weaponry in September
2008.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/africa/01pirates.html
Sugule Ali, Somali pirate that seized a Ukraine vessel loaded with weaponry in September
2008.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/world/africa/01pirates.html
Dutch police arrest 7 suspected of planning attack
Dutch police arrest 7 suspected of planning attack
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 12, 6:25 pm ET
AMSTERDAM – Dutch police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.
Mayor Job Cohen said police were acting on an anonymous tip that warned an Ikea outlet or other stores in the southeast of the city might be targeted.
"It wasn't a regular bomb warning, but a warning of a planned action aimed at creating casualties in shops," Cohen said.
"Men were planning to put explosives in the shops and wanted to cause casualties in busy places," he said.
Police received the tip Wednesday night from an unregistered cell phone in Belgium. The tip also included names of one suspect and locations for police to search.
Early Thursday, authorities shut down a major Amsterdam shopping street near the ArenA soccer stadium and sealed off the nearby Ikea store. A concert by the American band "The Killers" was canceled.
District Attorney Herman Bolhaar said six men and one woman, aged 19-64, were arrested in Amsterdam. All are Dutch nationals of Moroccan ancestry.
"As far as we can tell, none involved has a history of terrorist involvement," he said at a news conference, though one suspect is related to "a person who exactly five years ago was involved in the attack in Madrid."
Police Commissioner Bernard Welten said the suspect's relative died shortly after the Madrid attacks "as a result of a suicide action."
Names of the suspects were not released.
Law enforcement officials in Belgium and the Netherlands have raided a number of houses in the investigation. Police declined to say whether any explosives were found.
The Dutch anti-terrorism coordinator's office said national threat levels had not been changed as a result of Thursday's events.
Welten said he believed the arrests had "reduced the immediate threat" of an attack in Amsterdam, but that further arrests could not be ruled out. He said the area around the Ikea store was likely to remain sealed Friday.
___
Associated Press Writer Mike Corder contributed to this story from The Hague.\
Personal comment:
The news story that I have selected for this weeks Current World Affair is about the Netherlands. Where a lot of people may think that it is a calm and small country that does not have to fear for any terrorist attacks, the story above shows it is not the case.
For the second time in a decade there has been a potential threat for bomb attacks in a crowded shopping area. Five years ago their was a bomb warning that there was a bomb hided in one out of ten IKEA stores in the Netherlands. After investigation it showed that there indeed was a bomb in one of the stores. It turned out that two Polish guys were responsable.
This time there was no bomb to be found. However, the seven people arrested show linkages with more threatning people/operations.
The problem I have with this story that I can not be 100% save even in my own coutry. Terrorist attacks do not only happen or threat the middle east or one of the bigger western countries. Even Holland some times have to deal with this kind of threats.
At the moment there is a large discussion going in Holland about the repsonse of the police to the threat of last week. Many people feel that the response was to big and to powerfull. Seven people got arrested and released again, and the entire potential bomb area was closed for more then a day.
I believe that the fact that a bomb has been found seven years ago shows that the government has to respond to this kind of threats with full power. Just in case there really is a bomb.
Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090312/ap_on_re_eu/eu_netherlands_terror_2/print
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 12, 6:25 pm ET
AMSTERDAM – Dutch police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.
Mayor Job Cohen said police were acting on an anonymous tip that warned an Ikea outlet or other stores in the southeast of the city might be targeted.
"It wasn't a regular bomb warning, but a warning of a planned action aimed at creating casualties in shops," Cohen said.
"Men were planning to put explosives in the shops and wanted to cause casualties in busy places," he said.
Police received the tip Wednesday night from an unregistered cell phone in Belgium. The tip also included names of one suspect and locations for police to search.
Early Thursday, authorities shut down a major Amsterdam shopping street near the ArenA soccer stadium and sealed off the nearby Ikea store. A concert by the American band "The Killers" was canceled.
District Attorney Herman Bolhaar said six men and one woman, aged 19-64, were arrested in Amsterdam. All are Dutch nationals of Moroccan ancestry.
"As far as we can tell, none involved has a history of terrorist involvement," he said at a news conference, though one suspect is related to "a person who exactly five years ago was involved in the attack in Madrid."
Police Commissioner Bernard Welten said the suspect's relative died shortly after the Madrid attacks "as a result of a suicide action."
Names of the suspects were not released.
Law enforcement officials in Belgium and the Netherlands have raided a number of houses in the investigation. Police declined to say whether any explosives were found.
The Dutch anti-terrorism coordinator's office said national threat levels had not been changed as a result of Thursday's events.
Welten said he believed the arrests had "reduced the immediate threat" of an attack in Amsterdam, but that further arrests could not be ruled out. He said the area around the Ikea store was likely to remain sealed Friday.
___
Associated Press Writer Mike Corder contributed to this story from The Hague.\
Personal comment:
The news story that I have selected for this weeks Current World Affair is about the Netherlands. Where a lot of people may think that it is a calm and small country that does not have to fear for any terrorist attacks, the story above shows it is not the case.
For the second time in a decade there has been a potential threat for bomb attacks in a crowded shopping area. Five years ago their was a bomb warning that there was a bomb hided in one out of ten IKEA stores in the Netherlands. After investigation it showed that there indeed was a bomb in one of the stores. It turned out that two Polish guys were responsable.
This time there was no bomb to be found. However, the seven people arrested show linkages with more threatning people/operations.
The problem I have with this story that I can not be 100% save even in my own coutry. Terrorist attacks do not only happen or threat the middle east or one of the bigger western countries. Even Holland some times have to deal with this kind of threats.
At the moment there is a large discussion going in Holland about the repsonse of the police to the threat of last week. Many people feel that the response was to big and to powerfull. Seven people got arrested and released again, and the entire potential bomb area was closed for more then a day.
I believe that the fact that a bomb has been found seven years ago shows that the government has to respond to this kind of threats with full power. Just in case there really is a bomb.
Source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090312/ap_on_re_eu/eu_netherlands_terror_2/print
Mar 8, 2009
Quote of the week! (week 4)
"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war,"
said the statement, carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_tension
said the statement, carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_tension
Medical Care in Romania Comes at an Extra Cost
Current World Affair
(week 4)
March 9, 2009
Medical Care in Romania Comes at an Extra Cost
By DAN BILEFSKY
BUCHAREST, Romania — Alina Lungu, 30, said she did everything necessary to ensure a healthy pregnancy in Romania: she ate organic food, swam daily and bribed her gynecologist with an extra $255 in cash, paid in monthly installments handed over discreetly in white envelopes.
She paid a nurse about $32 extra to guarantee an epidural and even gave about $13 to the orderly to make sure he did not drop the stretcher.
But on the day of her delivery, she said, her gynecologist never arrived. Twelve hours into labor, she was left alone in her room for an hour. A doctor finally appeared and found that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her baby’s neck and had nearly suffocated him. He was born blind and deaf and is severely brain damaged.
Now, Alina and her husband, Ionut, despair that the bribes they paid were not enough to prevent the negligence that they say harmed their son, Sebastian. “Doctors are so used to getting bribes in Romania that you now have to pay more in order to even get their attention,” she said.
Romania, a poor Balkan country of 22 million that joined the European Union two years ago, is struggling to shed a culture of corruption that was honed during decades of Communism, when Romanians endured long lines just to get basics like eggs and milk and used bribes to acquire scarce products and services.
Alarm is growing in Brussels that Romania and other recent entrants to the European Union are undermining the bloc’s rule of law. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, published a damning report last month criticizing Romania for backtracking on judicial changes necessary to fight corruption. And Transparency International, the Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog, ranked Romania as the second most corrupt country in the 27-member European Union last year, behind neighboring Bulgaria.
Those who have faced corruption allegations in recent years have included a former prime minister, more than 1,100 doctors and teachers, 170 police officers and 3 generals, according to Romanian anticorruption investigators.
Romanians say it is the everyday graft and bribery that blights their lives, and nowhere are the abuses more glaring than in the socialized health care system.
Interviews with doctors, patients and ethicists suggest that the culture of bribery has infected every level of the system, sometimes leaving patients desperate.
One doctor said a patient recently offered him a free shopping trip to Dubai, an offer he declined.
The issue of health care corruption gained national attention in January when a 63-year-old man, Mihai Constantinescu, died of a heart attack in the waiting room of a hospital in Slatina, in southern Romania. Mihaela Ionita, the nurse who wheeled him from room to room trying to get a doctor to treat him, said in an interview that she believed he had been refused care “because he appeared poor and could not afford a bribe.” The hospital said Mr. Constantinescu had not seemed an emergency case.
Dr. Vasile Astarastoae, a biomedical ethicist who is president of the Romanian College of Physicians, which represents 47,000 doctors, blamed a pitifully low average monthly wage of about $510 for doctors for the bribe-taking.
“Patients don’t want to go to a doctor who is distracted thinking, ‘How will I feed my kids or pay the rent?’ ” Dr. Astarastoae said. “So there is a conspiracy between the doctor and the patient to pay a bribe.”
He said that unlike in many Western countries, where doctors are respected and handsomely rewarded for years of hard study, the medical profession here had been denigrated under Communist leaders who made workers in factories the country’s heroes.
A 2005 study conducted by the World Bank for the Romanian Ministry of Health concluded that so-called informal payments amounted to $360 million annually. When an illness requires hospitalization, patients typically pay bribes equivalent to three-quarters of a family’s monthly income, the study showed.
Some doctors say that the bribery culture is so endemic that when they refuse bribes, some patients become distraught and mistakenly conclude it is a sign that their illnesses are incurable.
Doctors and patients say the bribery follows a set of unwritten rules. The cost of bribes depends on the treatment, ranging from $127 for a straightforward appendix-removal operation to up to more than $6,370 for brain surgery. The suggested bribery prices are passed on by word of mouth, and are publicized on blogs and Web sites.
Victor Alistar, director of Transparency International’s Romanian branch, said public hospitals routinely exchanged “supplementary payment” lists to ensure that they had the same rates.
Dr. Adela Salceanu, a psychiatrist and antibribery advocate, recalled that one friend, a 42-year-old lawyer, recently broke two legs in a basketball game and was taken to a hospital for surgery. When he did not offer money to the orthopedic surgeon on duty, his procedure was postponed for a week; he finally received treatment, but only after paying the doctor an extra $510.
Mugur Ciumageanu, a psychiatrist who has practiced in public hospitals in Bucharest, said that when he was a young doctor, a senior physician forbade him to talk with patients for three months. She explained that by spending more time with patients than she was, and appearing more caring, he was putting a dent in her bribery earnings.
Marilena Tiron, 26, a recent graduate of a medical school in Bucharest, said the issue of bribery did not come up in her optional medical ethics class at the University of Bucharest’s Medical School “since the teachers were taking bribes themselves.”
Dr. Astarastoae, of the Romanian College of Physicians, acknowledged that bribery needed to be rooted out. He said that the college had the power to revoke the licenses of doctors implicated in a bribe but added that few patients were willing to identify their doctors for fear they could be shunned by other doctors.
The Ministry of Health has taken some steps to try to change the culture of bribery. It recently set up a free phone line for patients to report abuses. Within an hour, it was jammed with calls. Hospitals here are plastered with antibribery posters.
But Liviu Manaila, Romania’s secretary of state for health, said in an interview that the culture would not change fundamentally until doctors’ pay increased. While he said the government’s budget was too strained to raise wages, he proposed revamping Romania’s socialized medical system so that patients took on a greater burden of the costs. He said their payments could be used to pay doctors higher fees.
Ms. Lungu, Sebastian’s mother, said that whatever changes were made, they should start now, before other children suffer like her son, who will probably spend his life in a vegetative state.
"The problem is that all this black money absolves doctors of their moral responsibility toward their patients,” she said. “It has got to be stopped.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/europe/09bribery.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
Summary:
The article above from the Monday 9 march in the New York Times shows the state of the health care system in Romania. From the article it appears that the system is full of bribing. It is common to bribe a doctor in order to get the best service and treatment possible. The big problem is that the level of the bribes are so high that the poor people in Romania have to spend up to almost one month salary. Even then they are still not sure of the best possible treatment and service.The low salary for the medical personnel is given as a reason for the bribing. In Europe it is common for doctors to have a large salary. In Romania however doctors receive a relative small salary. Accepting bribes is the easiest way for them to increase their salary.
Personal comment:
This week the Current World Affair class is focusing on Tibet. The main problem in Tibet is the violation of human rights. The article about the healthcare in Romania made me think about human rights as well.Since the level of the bribes is getting higher and higher, less people can afford to bribe a doctor. This implicitly means that a number of patients will not get the medical treatment they need. I think that medical health care is a human right and it should not be based on a base of bribing. The practice in Romania at the moment shows that the medical system there is not on the level where it should be. In the 21st century you would expect that everybody should get the same attention when it comes to health care. The bribes in Romania however are a big obstacle.I want to emphasize that I completely disagree with the way it is going in Romania at the moment. However, I can understand that doctors are accepting extra money in order to take care of their family. Since Romania is part of the EU I believe that the EU should get involved in the problem. Since Romania wanted to join the EU, I think they are obliged to do something on their healthcare system and in this way make sure that all people get the same treatment.
(week 4)
March 9, 2009
Medical Care in Romania Comes at an Extra Cost
By DAN BILEFSKY
BUCHAREST, Romania — Alina Lungu, 30, said she did everything necessary to ensure a healthy pregnancy in Romania: she ate organic food, swam daily and bribed her gynecologist with an extra $255 in cash, paid in monthly installments handed over discreetly in white envelopes.
She paid a nurse about $32 extra to guarantee an epidural and even gave about $13 to the orderly to make sure he did not drop the stretcher.
But on the day of her delivery, she said, her gynecologist never arrived. Twelve hours into labor, she was left alone in her room for an hour. A doctor finally appeared and found that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around her baby’s neck and had nearly suffocated him. He was born blind and deaf and is severely brain damaged.
Now, Alina and her husband, Ionut, despair that the bribes they paid were not enough to prevent the negligence that they say harmed their son, Sebastian. “Doctors are so used to getting bribes in Romania that you now have to pay more in order to even get their attention,” she said.
Romania, a poor Balkan country of 22 million that joined the European Union two years ago, is struggling to shed a culture of corruption that was honed during decades of Communism, when Romanians endured long lines just to get basics like eggs and milk and used bribes to acquire scarce products and services.
Alarm is growing in Brussels that Romania and other recent entrants to the European Union are undermining the bloc’s rule of law. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, published a damning report last month criticizing Romania for backtracking on judicial changes necessary to fight corruption. And Transparency International, the Berlin-based anticorruption watchdog, ranked Romania as the second most corrupt country in the 27-member European Union last year, behind neighboring Bulgaria.
Those who have faced corruption allegations in recent years have included a former prime minister, more than 1,100 doctors and teachers, 170 police officers and 3 generals, according to Romanian anticorruption investigators.
Romanians say it is the everyday graft and bribery that blights their lives, and nowhere are the abuses more glaring than in the socialized health care system.
Interviews with doctors, patients and ethicists suggest that the culture of bribery has infected every level of the system, sometimes leaving patients desperate.
One doctor said a patient recently offered him a free shopping trip to Dubai, an offer he declined.
The issue of health care corruption gained national attention in January when a 63-year-old man, Mihai Constantinescu, died of a heart attack in the waiting room of a hospital in Slatina, in southern Romania. Mihaela Ionita, the nurse who wheeled him from room to room trying to get a doctor to treat him, said in an interview that she believed he had been refused care “because he appeared poor and could not afford a bribe.” The hospital said Mr. Constantinescu had not seemed an emergency case.
Dr. Vasile Astarastoae, a biomedical ethicist who is president of the Romanian College of Physicians, which represents 47,000 doctors, blamed a pitifully low average monthly wage of about $510 for doctors for the bribe-taking.
“Patients don’t want to go to a doctor who is distracted thinking, ‘How will I feed my kids or pay the rent?’ ” Dr. Astarastoae said. “So there is a conspiracy between the doctor and the patient to pay a bribe.”
He said that unlike in many Western countries, where doctors are respected and handsomely rewarded for years of hard study, the medical profession here had been denigrated under Communist leaders who made workers in factories the country’s heroes.
A 2005 study conducted by the World Bank for the Romanian Ministry of Health concluded that so-called informal payments amounted to $360 million annually. When an illness requires hospitalization, patients typically pay bribes equivalent to three-quarters of a family’s monthly income, the study showed.
Some doctors say that the bribery culture is so endemic that when they refuse bribes, some patients become distraught and mistakenly conclude it is a sign that their illnesses are incurable.
Doctors and patients say the bribery follows a set of unwritten rules. The cost of bribes depends on the treatment, ranging from $127 for a straightforward appendix-removal operation to up to more than $6,370 for brain surgery. The suggested bribery prices are passed on by word of mouth, and are publicized on blogs and Web sites.
Victor Alistar, director of Transparency International’s Romanian branch, said public hospitals routinely exchanged “supplementary payment” lists to ensure that they had the same rates.
Dr. Adela Salceanu, a psychiatrist and antibribery advocate, recalled that one friend, a 42-year-old lawyer, recently broke two legs in a basketball game and was taken to a hospital for surgery. When he did not offer money to the orthopedic surgeon on duty, his procedure was postponed for a week; he finally received treatment, but only after paying the doctor an extra $510.
Mugur Ciumageanu, a psychiatrist who has practiced in public hospitals in Bucharest, said that when he was a young doctor, a senior physician forbade him to talk with patients for three months. She explained that by spending more time with patients than she was, and appearing more caring, he was putting a dent in her bribery earnings.
Marilena Tiron, 26, a recent graduate of a medical school in Bucharest, said the issue of bribery did not come up in her optional medical ethics class at the University of Bucharest’s Medical School “since the teachers were taking bribes themselves.”
Dr. Astarastoae, of the Romanian College of Physicians, acknowledged that bribery needed to be rooted out. He said that the college had the power to revoke the licenses of doctors implicated in a bribe but added that few patients were willing to identify their doctors for fear they could be shunned by other doctors.
The Ministry of Health has taken some steps to try to change the culture of bribery. It recently set up a free phone line for patients to report abuses. Within an hour, it was jammed with calls. Hospitals here are plastered with antibribery posters.
But Liviu Manaila, Romania’s secretary of state for health, said in an interview that the culture would not change fundamentally until doctors’ pay increased. While he said the government’s budget was too strained to raise wages, he proposed revamping Romania’s socialized medical system so that patients took on a greater burden of the costs. He said their payments could be used to pay doctors higher fees.
Ms. Lungu, Sebastian’s mother, said that whatever changes were made, they should start now, before other children suffer like her son, who will probably spend his life in a vegetative state.
"The problem is that all this black money absolves doctors of their moral responsibility toward their patients,” she said. “It has got to be stopped.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/europe/09bribery.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp
Summary:
The article above from the Monday 9 march in the New York Times shows the state of the health care system in Romania. From the article it appears that the system is full of bribing. It is common to bribe a doctor in order to get the best service and treatment possible. The big problem is that the level of the bribes are so high that the poor people in Romania have to spend up to almost one month salary. Even then they are still not sure of the best possible treatment and service.The low salary for the medical personnel is given as a reason for the bribing. In Europe it is common for doctors to have a large salary. In Romania however doctors receive a relative small salary. Accepting bribes is the easiest way for them to increase their salary.
Personal comment:
This week the Current World Affair class is focusing on Tibet. The main problem in Tibet is the violation of human rights. The article about the healthcare in Romania made me think about human rights as well.Since the level of the bribes is getting higher and higher, less people can afford to bribe a doctor. This implicitly means that a number of patients will not get the medical treatment they need. I think that medical health care is a human right and it should not be based on a base of bribing. The practice in Romania at the moment shows that the medical system there is not on the level where it should be. In the 21st century you would expect that everybody should get the same attention when it comes to health care. The bribes in Romania however are a big obstacle.I want to emphasize that I completely disagree with the way it is going in Romania at the moment. However, I can understand that doctors are accepting extra money in order to take care of their family. Since Romania is part of the EU I believe that the EU should get involved in the problem. Since Romania wanted to join the EU, I think they are obliged to do something on their healthcare system and in this way make sure that all people get the same treatment.
Mar 2, 2009
Quote of the week
Current World Affair (week 3)
"The scientists split the atom; now the atom is splitting us"
Quentin Reynolds quotes (American World War II Correspondent, Writer and Editor. 1902-1965)
"The scientists split the atom; now the atom is splitting us"
Quentin Reynolds quotes (American World War II Correspondent, Writer and Editor. 1902-1965)
Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make bomb: U.S.
Article Current World Affair (week 3)
Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make bomb: U.S.
Sun Mar 1, 10:15 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States believes Iran has stockpiled enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said on Sunday.
"We think they do, quite frankly," Mullen said on CNN's "State of the Union" program when asked whether Iran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
"And Iran having nuclear weapons, I've believed for a long time, is a very very bad outcome -- for the region and for the world," Mullen said.
A watchdog report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency two weeks ago said Iran had built up a stockpile of nuclear fuel, raising alarm among Western governments that Tehran might have understated by one third how much uranium it has enriched.
The United States suspects Iran of trying to use its nuclear program to build an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it is purely for the peaceful generation of electricity. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which favors diplomatic engagement with Tehran to defuse the dispute over its nuclear intentions, called Iran's nuclear program an "urgent problem" the international community must address.
The IAEA report showed a significant increase in Iran's reported stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) since November to 1,010 kg -- enough, some physicists say, for possible conversion into high-enriched uranium for one bomb.
The IAEA later said Iran was cooperating well with U.N. nuclear inspectors to help ensure it does not again understate the amount of uranium it has enriched, suggesting the uranium accounting shortfall might not have been deliberate evasion.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090301/ts_nm/us_nuclear_iran_mullen/print
Personal reaction:
In the article above U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen states that he believes that Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make a atom bomb. To me this article says that the entire world is sin danger of an atomic war. This weeks Current World Affair class has made us focused on the threat of North Korea.
I feel that Iran can become the new North Korea. If they have the power to make an atom bomb they can use it as a bargaining or threatning tool in their relation with other countries. So there is no guarentee that when the issue with North Korea is resolved all the problems with atom bombs are resolved.
Iran is a country that can use their power to blackmail or destroy other countries. A number of articles this week in different news sources say that a number of countries are working on the Iran problem. However I feel that North Korea is the main target at the moment. Maybe Iran should get more attention in order to prevent it from becoming 'the new' North Korea.
More readings on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7917726.stm
Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make bomb: U.S.
Sun Mar 1, 10:15 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States believes Iran has stockpiled enough nuclear fuel to make a bomb, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said on Sunday.
"We think they do, quite frankly," Mullen said on CNN's "State of the Union" program when asked whether Iran has enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon.
"And Iran having nuclear weapons, I've believed for a long time, is a very very bad outcome -- for the region and for the world," Mullen said.
A watchdog report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency two weeks ago said Iran had built up a stockpile of nuclear fuel, raising alarm among Western governments that Tehran might have understated by one third how much uranium it has enriched.
The United States suspects Iran of trying to use its nuclear program to build an atomic bomb, but Tehran insists it is purely for the peaceful generation of electricity. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, which favors diplomatic engagement with Tehran to defuse the dispute over its nuclear intentions, called Iran's nuclear program an "urgent problem" the international community must address.
The IAEA report showed a significant increase in Iran's reported stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) since November to 1,010 kg -- enough, some physicists say, for possible conversion into high-enriched uranium for one bomb.
The IAEA later said Iran was cooperating well with U.N. nuclear inspectors to help ensure it does not again understate the amount of uranium it has enriched, suggesting the uranium accounting shortfall might not have been deliberate evasion.
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090301/ts_nm/us_nuclear_iran_mullen/print
Personal reaction:
In the article above U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen states that he believes that Iran has enough nuclear fuel to make a atom bomb. To me this article says that the entire world is sin danger of an atomic war. This weeks Current World Affair class has made us focused on the threat of North Korea.
I feel that Iran can become the new North Korea. If they have the power to make an atom bomb they can use it as a bargaining or threatning tool in their relation with other countries. So there is no guarentee that when the issue with North Korea is resolved all the problems with atom bombs are resolved.
Iran is a country that can use their power to blackmail or destroy other countries. A number of articles this week in different news sources say that a number of countries are working on the Iran problem. However I feel that North Korea is the main target at the moment. Maybe Iran should get more attention in order to prevent it from becoming 'the new' North Korea.
More readings on: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7917726.stm
Feb 23, 2009
Quote of the week
"I'm looking for a job!"
George W. Bush
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090222/ap_on_re_us/bush_store_greeter
George W. Bush
source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090222/ap_on_re_us/bush_store_greeter
Clinton Reshapes Diplomacy by Tossing the Script
February 21, 2009
Clinton Reshapes Diplomacy by Tossing the Script
By MARK LANDLER
BEIJING — On Friday morning, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the picture of a stern superpower diplomat, warning North Korea not to test a long-range ballistic missile. A few hours later, she was asked by a giggly Korean student how she knew she had fallen in love with her husband.
“I feel more like an advice columnist than a secretary of state,” Mrs. Clinton said with a smile.
Henry Kissinger, this isn’t.
On each stop of her Asian tour, Mrs. Clinton is redefining the job of secretary of state, fusing the weighty themes of regional security and nuclear proliferation with lighter encounters in which Mrs. Clinton is quizzed about her musical tastes or asked what it was like to raise her daughter.
She is also redefining herself to some extent. After going to Beijing in 1995 as first lady to deliver an impassioned speech on women’s rights, Mrs. Clinton has sidelined human rights on this trip, saying she does not want the topic to interfere with central issues like climate change or the economic crisis.
In Indonesia on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton appeared on a popular variety show, “Awesome,” on which she told the young host, somewhat sheepishly, that her favorite musicians were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She politely declined to sing, saying it would empty the room.
None of this is especially new to Americans. But it is novel to people outside the United States, who expect foreign ministers to stick to a diplomatic script.
As she neared the end of her maiden voyage as secretary of state with a two-day visit to Beijing, Mrs. Clinton said she was determined to make a connection to people “in a way that is not traditional, not confined by the ministerial greeting and the staged handshake photo.”
“I see our job right now, given where we are in the world and what we’ve inherited, as repairing relations, not only with governments but with people,” she said to reporters on Friday.
To do that, Mrs. Clinton is exploiting both her megawatt celebrity and her training during the presidential campaign. On Friday, nearly 3,000 female students packed an auditorium at Ewha Womans University in Seoul to hear Mrs. Clinton deliver a speech that ranged from North Korea’s nuclear threat to the challenge women face in balancing work and family.
A standing-room-only crowd at the University of Tokyo listened to Mrs. Clinton discuss how the United States should rebuild its ties to the Muslim world. Toward the end, a nervous young woman, who said she played on a baseball team, asked Mrs. Clinton how to become as strong as she was.
“Well, I played a lot of baseball, and I played with a lot of boys,” she replied, to peals of laughter.
Mrs. Clinton said she was skeptical that these appearances alone would lead to changes in the policies of foreign governments. But by connecting with people on a personal level, she said, she believes she can help mold public opinion, which, in turn, can influence governments.
“President Obama has an extraordinary capacity to do that because of the really positive feelings that he personally engenders,” she said. “To a lesser degree, I have some of the same capacity.”
In a working-class area of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, a small crowd trailed Mrs. Clinton as she toured health and water-treatment projects financed by the United States Agency for International Development.
“People are very excited to see Hillary Clinton,” said Daniel Sitorus, 24, a lawyer in the neighborhood. “It doesn’t matter that she isn’t Barack Obama; she is one of the most famous women in the world.”
She is not just beguiling audiences. During her visit to Seoul, Mrs. Clinton raised eyebrows among journalists and analysts with a frank assessment of how a succession struggle in North Korea could undermine talks over its nuclear program. She said she was baffled by the reaction.
“I don’t think that it’s a forbidden subject to talk about succession in the hermit kingdom,” she said.
“Maybe this is unusual because you are supposed to be so careful that we spend hours avoiding stating the obvious,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “I think it’s worth, perhaps, being more straightforward, trying to engage other countries on the basis of the reality that exists.”
That said, Mrs. Clinton did reaffirm Friday that the United States would conduct negotiations with the government of Kim Jong-il “now, and for as long as he is the man calling the shots.”
And in a news conference with South Korea’s foreign minister, Yu Myung-hwan, she used time-tested diplomatic language in warning North Korea to stop its belligerence toward South Korea. “North Korea,” she said, “is not going to get a different relationship with the United States while insulting and refusing dialogue with the Republic of Korea.”
Mrs. Clinton, however, evinces little patience for running through talking points. In Beijing, for example, she said she would raise familiar issues with Chinese officials like human rights in Tibet, while she expected them to complain about American arms sales to Taiwan.
“We know what they’re going to say, because I’ve had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders,” said Mrs. Clinton, who first visited Beijing in 1995 for her speech on women’s rights and has written about how she made her Chinese hosts uncomfortable.
This time, however, she said human rights concerns should not derail discussions on big issues like the global economic crisis, climate change and North Korea. That has earned her sharp criticism from Amnesty International, which said Friday that it was “shocked and extremely disappointed” that human rights were not made more of a priority.
For all of her innovations, Mrs. Clinton’s schedule in Beijing on Saturday looks like that of any other secretary of state: meetings with President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and other senior officials.
On Sunday, before she flies home, she plans to attend church services, a small gesture to religious freedom in a Communist society. But she said she did not want to make a big deal of it. “I’m going to be there on Sunday morning, and I thought I would go to church,” she said.
The newspaper article above comes from the New York Times website. It was posted on February 21, 2009. I believe that the article places the visit of Hillary Clinton to Asia in a new daylight.
I had the believe that the visit to Asia was based on the goal of sheer economic interests. I expected that making new arrangements between the United States and Asia was the main goal. The reason for this is that Asia is developing constantly and is becoming more and more a important economic part of the world. I personally expected that the visit of Hillary Clinton as being the secretary of state was focused on communicating with leaders of the diverse Asian countries. And by doing so coming to new contacts and contracts in favour of the United States.
The article from the New York Times however describes how Hillary Clinton is not only trying to enhance the contacts with foreign leaders. During her trip she made a number of visits to public places where ‘normal’ people could ask her personal questions.
It seems to me that Hillary Clinton has tried to get in contact with the locals and in this way gaining some sympathy under the people for herself but indirectly also for her country. The way Hillary Clinton dealt with a number of personal questions only confirms the feeling. She tried to make jokes and answered almost every question. By using this strategy she attempted to getting people to like her.
Another fact that the article mentions is that she was not afraid to criticise North Korea on their atomic program. The human rights in Tibet where alse mentioned several times.
The trip from Mrs Clinton to Asia appears to me as a success. However, I feel that it was well planned and coordinated and the main goal was to gain some sympathy from the Asian world and repair the image of the US.
The Taipei Times has a article on the same subject. For further readings: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2009/02/23/2003436777
Clinton Reshapes Diplomacy by Tossing the Script
By MARK LANDLER
BEIJING — On Friday morning, Hillary Rodham Clinton was the picture of a stern superpower diplomat, warning North Korea not to test a long-range ballistic missile. A few hours later, she was asked by a giggly Korean student how she knew she had fallen in love with her husband.
“I feel more like an advice columnist than a secretary of state,” Mrs. Clinton said with a smile.
Henry Kissinger, this isn’t.
On each stop of her Asian tour, Mrs. Clinton is redefining the job of secretary of state, fusing the weighty themes of regional security and nuclear proliferation with lighter encounters in which Mrs. Clinton is quizzed about her musical tastes or asked what it was like to raise her daughter.
She is also redefining herself to some extent. After going to Beijing in 1995 as first lady to deliver an impassioned speech on women’s rights, Mrs. Clinton has sidelined human rights on this trip, saying she does not want the topic to interfere with central issues like climate change or the economic crisis.
In Indonesia on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton appeared on a popular variety show, “Awesome,” on which she told the young host, somewhat sheepishly, that her favorite musicians were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She politely declined to sing, saying it would empty the room.
None of this is especially new to Americans. But it is novel to people outside the United States, who expect foreign ministers to stick to a diplomatic script.
As she neared the end of her maiden voyage as secretary of state with a two-day visit to Beijing, Mrs. Clinton said she was determined to make a connection to people “in a way that is not traditional, not confined by the ministerial greeting and the staged handshake photo.”
“I see our job right now, given where we are in the world and what we’ve inherited, as repairing relations, not only with governments but with people,” she said to reporters on Friday.
To do that, Mrs. Clinton is exploiting both her megawatt celebrity and her training during the presidential campaign. On Friday, nearly 3,000 female students packed an auditorium at Ewha Womans University in Seoul to hear Mrs. Clinton deliver a speech that ranged from North Korea’s nuclear threat to the challenge women face in balancing work and family.
A standing-room-only crowd at the University of Tokyo listened to Mrs. Clinton discuss how the United States should rebuild its ties to the Muslim world. Toward the end, a nervous young woman, who said she played on a baseball team, asked Mrs. Clinton how to become as strong as she was.
“Well, I played a lot of baseball, and I played with a lot of boys,” she replied, to peals of laughter.
Mrs. Clinton said she was skeptical that these appearances alone would lead to changes in the policies of foreign governments. But by connecting with people on a personal level, she said, she believes she can help mold public opinion, which, in turn, can influence governments.
“President Obama has an extraordinary capacity to do that because of the really positive feelings that he personally engenders,” she said. “To a lesser degree, I have some of the same capacity.”
In a working-class area of Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, a small crowd trailed Mrs. Clinton as she toured health and water-treatment projects financed by the United States Agency for International Development.
“People are very excited to see Hillary Clinton,” said Daniel Sitorus, 24, a lawyer in the neighborhood. “It doesn’t matter that she isn’t Barack Obama; she is one of the most famous women in the world.”
She is not just beguiling audiences. During her visit to Seoul, Mrs. Clinton raised eyebrows among journalists and analysts with a frank assessment of how a succession struggle in North Korea could undermine talks over its nuclear program. She said she was baffled by the reaction.
“I don’t think that it’s a forbidden subject to talk about succession in the hermit kingdom,” she said.
“Maybe this is unusual because you are supposed to be so careful that we spend hours avoiding stating the obvious,” Mrs. Clinton continued. “I think it’s worth, perhaps, being more straightforward, trying to engage other countries on the basis of the reality that exists.”
That said, Mrs. Clinton did reaffirm Friday that the United States would conduct negotiations with the government of Kim Jong-il “now, and for as long as he is the man calling the shots.”
And in a news conference with South Korea’s foreign minister, Yu Myung-hwan, she used time-tested diplomatic language in warning North Korea to stop its belligerence toward South Korea. “North Korea,” she said, “is not going to get a different relationship with the United States while insulting and refusing dialogue with the Republic of Korea.”
Mrs. Clinton, however, evinces little patience for running through talking points. In Beijing, for example, she said she would raise familiar issues with Chinese officials like human rights in Tibet, while she expected them to complain about American arms sales to Taiwan.
“We know what they’re going to say, because I’ve had those conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders,” said Mrs. Clinton, who first visited Beijing in 1995 for her speech on women’s rights and has written about how she made her Chinese hosts uncomfortable.
This time, however, she said human rights concerns should not derail discussions on big issues like the global economic crisis, climate change and North Korea. That has earned her sharp criticism from Amnesty International, which said Friday that it was “shocked and extremely disappointed” that human rights were not made more of a priority.
For all of her innovations, Mrs. Clinton’s schedule in Beijing on Saturday looks like that of any other secretary of state: meetings with President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and other senior officials.
On Sunday, before she flies home, she plans to attend church services, a small gesture to religious freedom in a Communist society. But she said she did not want to make a big deal of it. “I’m going to be there on Sunday morning, and I thought I would go to church,” she said.
The newspaper article above comes from the New York Times website. It was posted on February 21, 2009. I believe that the article places the visit of Hillary Clinton to Asia in a new daylight.
I had the believe that the visit to Asia was based on the goal of sheer economic interests. I expected that making new arrangements between the United States and Asia was the main goal. The reason for this is that Asia is developing constantly and is becoming more and more a important economic part of the world. I personally expected that the visit of Hillary Clinton as being the secretary of state was focused on communicating with leaders of the diverse Asian countries. And by doing so coming to new contacts and contracts in favour of the United States.
The article from the New York Times however describes how Hillary Clinton is not only trying to enhance the contacts with foreign leaders. During her trip she made a number of visits to public places where ‘normal’ people could ask her personal questions.
It seems to me that Hillary Clinton has tried to get in contact with the locals and in this way gaining some sympathy under the people for herself but indirectly also for her country. The way Hillary Clinton dealt with a number of personal questions only confirms the feeling. She tried to make jokes and answered almost every question. By using this strategy she attempted to getting people to like her.
Another fact that the article mentions is that she was not afraid to criticise North Korea on their atomic program. The human rights in Tibet where alse mentioned several times.
The trip from Mrs Clinton to Asia appears to me as a success. However, I feel that it was well planned and coordinated and the main goal was to gain some sympathy from the Asian world and repair the image of the US.
The Taipei Times has a article on the same subject. For further readings: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2009/02/23/2003436777
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