Monday's news: on Friday

Romania's constitutional court has confirmed Traian Basescu's re-election as president, turning down a rival's appeal for the vote to be quashed.
It had ordered 138,000 void ballots to be recounted after Mr Basescu won by a narrow margin of 70,000 votes.
Rival Mircea Geoana had called for the vote to be quashed, alleging fraud.
His Social Democrat party said it knew of 13,000 cases of multiple voting, and had received nationwide reports of bribery and vote-rigging.
"The constitutional court confirms that Mr Basescu is elected as president of Romania, having picked up the largest number of votes cast," said a statement released by the court.
"The court unanimously rejected a request by the Social Democratic Party to cancel the second round of voting held on 6 December."
Some 10.4m votes were cast from among 18m eligible voters in last weekend's presidential election.
Election observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said the vote had generally met commitments made, but urged authorities to investigate reports of irregularities.
The confirmation of Mr Basescu's election win means a new prime minister can be appointed and a new government formed.
Romania has been run by a caretaker government since October.
The presidential election is Romania's first as a member of the European Union.

[from the BBC news here]

Swiss minaret appeal goes to European Court

An appeal against last month's decision by Swiss voters to ban minarets has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
The appeal was lodged by Hafid Ouardiri, an Algerian-born Muslim and a former spokesman for the Geneva Mosque.
Mr Ouardiri wants the court to rule that the ban is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some 57.5% of Swiss voters and 22 out of 26 cantons - or provinces - voted in favour of the ban last month.
The referendum proposal was put forward by the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which said minarets were a sign of Islamisation.
Switzerland's federal government had urged Swiss voters to reject it, warning it would contravene religious freedom and human rights and could stoke extremism.
A lawyer for Mr Ouardiri, Pierre de Preux, said the appeal would lead to unusual proceedings in Strasbourg, with both sides effectively opposing the measure backed in the poll.
The Strasbourg authorities are expected to take up to 18 months to determine whether Mr Ouardiri's complaint is "formally receivable", the Geneva-based lawyer said.
Once the request is approved, it could take a few more years to reach a ruling, he said.
Switzerland is home to some 400,000 Muslims and has just four minarets.
After Christianity, Islam is the most widespread religion in Switzerland, but it remains relatively hidden.

[from the BBC news here]

75 thousand asylum seekers granted protection status in the EU in 2008

About 75 thousand asylum seekers were granted protection status in the EU Member States in 2008. This represents more than one-third of the world-wide decisions granting protection, and makes the EU the region with the highest number of asylum seekers who received a protection status.
The majority of the asylum seekers that lodged an asylum claim in the EU see however their claim rejected. Over 70 percent of all claims are rejected at the first instance of the asylum procedure.
More than 75 percent of those who in response to this rejection lodge an appeal are eventually rejected at the final instance.
Out of those who were granted protection last year more than 40 thousand persons were granted refugee status and 25.5 thousand persons received a subsidiary protection status.
11 thousand obtained an authorisation to stay for humanitarian reasons as provided under national legislation.
With 16.6 thousand persons, Iraqis were by far the largest group of beneficiaries of protection status in the EU last year.

- published by Eurostat here.

Crisis Group's Call for Support

Dear Crisis Group Supporters,

2009 has been another eventful year in international relations, and on behalf of all of us at Crisis Group, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for joining in our efforts to prevent deadly conflict. Whether by using our reports, engaging us in policy debates, or providing us with much needed financial support, you play a critical role in assisting our efforts in the pursuit of peace and security.

It has been almost six months since I took on the position of Crisis Group’s President, and I am constantly impressed with the calibre of all associated with the organisation—our Board members and staff, our Council members and supporters as well as Crisis Group’s interlocutors in the field and advocacy capitals.

Contributions up to a total of $500,000 made to Crisis Group before the end of the year will be doubled. Click here to help us meet the Matching Challenge.

I write today to provide you with a very brief update on some of this year’s key issues, a look towards 2010 and to let you know of an important year-end Matching Challenge.

We have continued to produce timely hard-hitting reports on a wide range of situations all over the world, often putting in the public domain ideas and recommendations that diplomats and political actors welcome privately and eventually incorporate into their policy orientations. Even when we do not succeed in preventing altogether recourse to unlawful deadly force in conflict, our engagement, in Sri Lanka for example, clearly serves to mitigate the devastation.

We cover some 60 conflicts, some heavily mediatised, others that would be almost invisible among opinion makers but for our intervention. We increasingly use podcasts, videos, blogs and other interactive features online—all of which have helped Crisis Group improve its efficacy and expand its reach even further.

Crisis Group will continue to build on our achievements in 2010 as the authoritative source of field-based insights, analyses and recommendations and as a prime reference for international and domestic policymakers on conflict resolution. We will remain engaged in debates involving many actors in complex situations, such as Afghanistan/Pakistan, the Middle East and Sudan, while continuing to draw attention to preventive opportunities in situations that, if neglected, could enflame entire2 0countries and regions. Our current work on Guinea is a good example of our efforts to intervene early in less known but potentially deadly emerging conflicts.

We look forward to your continued support of our efforts. Maintaining a diverse funding base is critical to preserving Crisis Group's political independence and credibility, and it is with this in mind that we are pleased to announce a year-end Matching Challenge. Thanks to the generous initiative of Crisis Group Board member, Frank Giustra, contributions up to a total of $500,000 made to Crisis Group before the end of the year will be doubled. We hope that you will help us meet this Challenge as we, collectively, continue to rise to the challenge of the advancement of international peace and security.

Once again, thank you so much for your involvement with Crisis Group. I wish you and your family the very best in this holiday season and for the New Year.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Arbour
President

following up

Pristina/Brussels, 15 October 2009: Local elections on 15 November provide a key opportunity for Kosovo Serbs to choose their own representatives and push forward on decentralisation, if they do not heed Belgrade’s calls to boycott.
Kosovo: Štrpce, a Model Serb Enclave?,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, focuses on the Štrpce municipality, one of southern Kosovo’s largest Serb enclaves, to demonstrate how Serb communities can protect their interests within Kosovo’s constitutional order. In Štrpce good interethnic relations have survived the war, and the Brezovica ski resort and vacation areas offer real economic potential.
But like elsewhere in the country, local Serbs’ mistrust of the government has grown since Kosovo’s declaration of independence. Belgrade has fuelled the resentment by establishing a parallel municipal regime since May 2008. The Kosovo government on its side has so far refused to grant Štrpce the enhanced municipal competencies envisaged for Serb-majority areas by the Ahtissari plan. Štrpce now risks falling victim to the status dispute between Belgrade and Pristina, if local elections on 15 November do not give it a legitimate government.
“Štrpce offers Kosovo’s best hope of establishing a prosperous Serb-majority municipality”, says Marko Prelec, Crisis Group’s Balkans Project Director. “Belgrade, Pristina and the international community should encourage voting and thereafter equip the municipal government with the expanded powers and resources it needs.”
Štrpce’s economic prospects and good Serb-Albanian relations are endangered by the situation prevailing since 2008. The municipality has been governed by two competing Serb-led authorities: an official government appointed in the face of local opposition and a parallel regime elected in defiance of Kosovo law and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244. Even though local Serbs are instructed by Belgrade to cooperate with the parallel municipal government, it provides few benefits and is increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives. Serbia lacks the ability to provide meaningful government services in southern enclaves such as Štrpce.
Serbia’s government should stop supporting the parallel institutions, and encourage local Serbs to vote on 15 November. International actors and Pristina should explain the concrete advantages of voting, reassuring Serbs that their ties to Belgrade will not be imperilled. However, if Serbs boycott the vote, after consultation with Serb community leaders, executive appointments will be needed to establish a credible Serb-led government. The new municipal government will face important challenges such as privatising the lucrative Brezovica ski resort, the cornerstone for regional economic development, and regulating extensive illegal construction on prime national park land. It will be able to make the parallel government irrelevant only if 20it is able to solve these problems.
“Overcoming Serb distrust can only be done on the basis of tangible benefits in everyday life: responsible locally-led government, municipal services and economic growth”, says Sabine Freizer, Crisis Group’s Europe Program Director. “It is hard to see how Serb integration can work anywhere, if it cannot work there.”

free will experiments

Champions of free will, take heart. A landmark 1980s experiment that purported to show free will doesn't exist is being challenged.

In 1983, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet asked volunteers wearing scalp electrodes to flex a finger or wrist. When they did, the movements were preceded by a dip in the signals being recorded, called the "readiness potential". Libet interpreted this RP as the brain preparing for movement.

Crucially, the RP came a few tenths of a second before the volunteers said they had decided to move. Libet concluded that unconscious neural processes determine our actions before we are ever aware of making a decision.

Since then, others have quoted the experiment as evidence that free will is an illusion – a conclusion that was always controversial, particularly as there is no proof the RP represents a decision to move.

Sound decisions

Long sceptical of Libet's interpretation, Jeff Miller and Judy Trevena of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, attempted to tease apart what prompts the RP using a similar experiment, with a key twist.

They also used scalp electrodes, but instead of letting their volunteers decide when to move, Miller and Trevena asked them to wait for an audio tone before deciding whether to tap a key. If Libet's interpretation were correct, Miller reasoned, the RP should be greater after the tone when a person chose to tap the key.

While there was an RP before volunteers made their decision to move, the signal was the same whether or not they elected to tap. Miller concludes that the RP may merely be a sign that the brain is paying attention and does not indicate that a decision has been made.

Miller and Trevena also failed to find evidence of subconscious decision-making in a second experiment. This time they asked volunteers to press a key after the tone, but to decide on the spot whether to use their left or right hand. As movement in the right limbs is related to the brain signals in the left hemisphere and vice versa, they reasoned that if an unconscious process is driving this decision, where it occurs in the brain should depend on which hand is chosen. But they found no such correlation.

[the rest of this interesting piece, on the NewScientist.com]

charity: water & schools

School is officially back in full swing. At least it is for our kids.

But at half of all schools around the world, students are going to class without access to clean water.

No cold drinks at the water fountain.
No bathrooms.
No place to wash hands.

Millions of children with untold potential spend their mornings walking up to four hours to fetch water before school, then arrive to class late and exhausted. The water they find often makes them sick, causing them to miss even more valuable classroom time. Over the next few months, many students will fall too far behind in their studies to continue attending class.

We think that's a terrible cycle. A cycle that we're determined to break.

That's why this fall, we're launching Water for Schools, a student-led campaign to raise awareness and funds for water projects at schools in developing nations.

Last year, students from elementary schools and universities, swim teams and church groups raised over $160,000 to give water to schools in developing nations. This year as we launch the Water for Schools campaign, we're aiming to bring clean, safe drinking water, private latrines and hand-washing stations to at least 100 schools in developing nations in the first year.

It'll take $2 million to get there and we're going to need everyone's help to do it. In fact, you don't have to be a student to fundraise for clean water in schools. We've created a fundraising kit for all ages and it has everything you need to get started.

Clean water gives kids the opportunity to attend school and get an education. With education comes more opportunity and a chance for future generations to escape poverty. Clean water offers kids improved health, a better quality of life and hope for a brighter future.

Here's how you can help.

Students: start a campaign >
Parents: Ask your kids to sign up >
Teachers and school leaders: Sign up your school, group or team > or
write us here if you'd like to help us develop curriculum.

- the charity: water team

#Postcrossing: Smiles & Tears in the Inbox

Hello, [T.]~!

I am so happy to get your postcard from Romania today! Thank you! It's my 72th country postcard.

By the way, the typhoon hit south of Taiwan extremly. I am so sad and cried when i saw the news, would you please also pray for Taiwan too.

best regards,
[A.]

Many Roma in Europe are stateless and live outside social protection

[06/07/2009] There are Roma in a number of European countries who have no nationality. They face a double jeopardy - being stateless makes life even harder for those who are already stigmatized and facing a plethora of serious, discrimination- related problems. For those who happen to be migrants as well, their situation is even worse.
Many Roma lack personal identity documents which hinders their access to basic human rights, such as education and health services, and increases their susceptibility to continued statelessness. In fact, estimates indicate that thousands have no administrative existence at all. They often have never obtained a birth certificate and do not overcome administrative hurdles when trying to be recognised by the State. They live entirely outside of any form of basic social protection or inclusion.
This is largely a hidden problem. Naturally, it is difficult to establish facts in this area but too little effort has been made by state authorities to collect relevant data about the scope and nature of this systematic marginalisation. As repeatedly noted by the European Committee of Social Rights, states have an obligation to identify the dimension of the exclusion of vulnerable groups such as the Roma, including through statistical means.

Absence of data, only estimates available
There are no precise statistics on the number of stateless Roma. Estimates in South Eastern Europe indicate the following:
Bosnia and Herzegovina: 10 000; Montenegro: 1 500; Serbia: 17 000; Slovenia 4 090 (citizens of former Yugoslavia, many of whom are ethnic Roma).
According to the UNHCR the great majority of the persons referred to as stateless face problems being formally recognized as citizens of the country where they are habitually resident. This is because they lack proper registration and documentation and encounter many difficulties in their attempt to obtain proof of nationality.
Political developments in recent years have made Roma in Europe more vulnerable. The break-up of former Czechoslovakia and former Yugoslavia caused enormous difficulties for persons who were regarded by the new successor states as belonging somewhere else - even if they had resided in their current location for many years.
The Czech Republic used a citizenship law which made tens of thousands of Roma stateless (the intention was that they should move to Slovakia). This law was, however, amended after interventions from Council of Europe and others in 1999. Thereby the main part, though not all, of the problem was finally resolved.
In Slovenia several thousand persons, among them many Roma, became victims of a decision to erase non-Slovene residents from the Register of Permanent Residents. They had missed a deadline and had not sought or obtained Slovenian citizenship soon after the independence of the country. Many of them had moved to Slovenia from other parts of Yugoslavia before the dissolution of the Federation.
Croatia and “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” also adopted restrictive laws which made access to nationality very difficult. Again, this hit Roma people in particular. One consequence was that those who had migrated to other parts of Europe were in limbo; they were not accorded nationality either by their host country or by the new states which had emerged in the areas where they had previously lived.
The Kosovo conflict led to a large displacement of Roma people primarily to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” but also to other countries outside the region. While in Kosovo recently, I met with one NGO which is currently working on a large civil registration project, hoping to register the 10 000 to 11 000 members of the community who find themselves with no papers.
It is not acceptable that European citizens are deprived of their right to a nationality – a basic human right. It is necessary to address this problem with much more energy than has been done so far.
European host states where children of Roma migrants have been born and have lived for several years should do their utmost to provide a secure legal status to these children and their parents. Both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights stipulate that children shall have the right to acquire a nationality. In other words, the host country has an obligation to ensure that children do have a citizenship; the fact that their parents are stateless is no excuse.
When in Italy last January I was pleased to learn that the government was preparing draft legislation to provide Italian nationality to stateless minors whose parents had left the war-torn former Yugoslavia and where at least one of their parents was in Italy prior to January 1996. The government also announced that it would ratify the 1997 European Convention on Nationality without any reservation. A number of Roma stateless children will benefit from such legislative developments - when adopted.
Problems relating to nationality also affect many adult Roma. When in Montenegro, I learned about the impressive efforts of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who is trying to break the vicious circle caused by the absence of identity documentation. Without such papers individuals are hindered from asserting their most basic rights. The programme has already helped a great number of individuals including some who had left Kosovo.
I also noticed positive steps during a visit to “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”. Progress has been made to ensure that Roma can attain personal documents including birth certificates, identity cards, passports and other documents related to the provision of health and social security benefits.
These are the good examples. However, it should be remembered that such measures are an obligation. The Strasbourg Court has stated that the non-provision by states of proper personal documentation which would facilitate employment, medical care or providing for other crucial needs, may indeed contradict the right to private life, a human right protecting the individual’s moral and physical integrity.
The Council of Europe has been a pioneer in the field of protecting Roma rights. The messages coming from its various bodies emphasize that host states should employ all possible means to end the de facto or de jure statelessness of Roma and provide them with a nationality, in accordance with the standards of the 1997 European Convention on Nationality and the 2006 Council of Europe Convention on the Avoidance of Statelessness in relation to State Succession.
Both treaties contain general principles, rules and procedures of the utmost importance for the effective enjoyment of the human right to a nationality in Europe. Some core provisions are:
- respect for the overarching principle of non-discrimination in law and practice;
- obligation on states to avoid statelessness, including in the context of state succession;
- obligation to grant nationality to children born on their territories and who do not acquire another nationality at birth;
- restrictive conditions on loss of nationality by law;
- duty of states to reason and provide in writing their nationality- related decisions.
The problem of the stateless Roma must be addressed with determination. They often do not have the means to speak out themselves. A study recently published by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency showed also that many Roma do not know how to approach ombudsmen and other national human rights institutions.
National human rights action plans should pay attention to the urgent need to provide resources to facilitate legal work for stateless Roma. In Croatia a free legal aid scheme for Roma was put into place in 2003. This was a good step to promote the necessary legal empowerment. Many more initiatives of this kind are needed.

Thomas Hammarberg

Apollo 11's Bright Glare:

To understand how completely Apollo 11 dominates the history of the space program, consider for a moment the previous mission, Apollo 10. The astronauts on that one were . . . um . . . hold on . . . Googling as we speak . . . John Young, Eugene Cernan and Thomas Stafford.
All they did was get in a capsule atop a 30-story rocket, blast off the planet and fly all the freakin' way to the moon. Two of them then got into a contraption called the Lunar Module and descended toward the moon's surface. Down, down they went. But they didn't land, because this was just a practice run for lunar orbit rendezvous. The glory of the first lunar landing would be reserved for the next mission. Indeed, to ensure that no eager-beaver astronaut would say to heck with it and try to land, NASA didn't give the ascent module enough fuel to leave the moon's surface. The astronauts would have been stranded if they'd ignored orders.
And so they dutifully flew home, their mission soon lost in the glare of Apollo 11.
Forty years on, the space program is still struggling to figure out how to top the fabled moonshot of July 1969. Apollo 11 may have been the greatest achievement in space flight, but arguably it nearly killed the space program. Because what do you do after you shoot the moon?

...Keeping reading this super-nice Washington Post book review here.

Nairobi/Brussels, 17 July 2009:

Sudan must dismantle its system of impunity for atrocity crimes or there will be no peace in Darfur, and the North-South civil war could again erupt.
Sudan: Justice, Peace and the ICC,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the root cause of the country’s many crises, namely the reluctance of the long-ruling National Congress Party (NCP) to enact policies that would bring justice to the victims of its many conflicts. To end Sudan’s centralised, exploitive and unaccountable governance, the NCP must accept judicial reforms and transitional justice mechanisms as key elements of a Darfur settlement and at the same time fulfil its side of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), which halted decades of civil war.
more: in the International Crisis Group's report.

[more] from the mailbox:

Barack Obama made his first visit to Africa as United States president last week and he offered some welcome thoughts in a speech before Parliament in Ghana:

America has a responsibility to work with you as a partner to advance this vision, not just with words, but with support that strengthens African capacity. When there's a genocide in Darfur or terrorists in Somalia, these are not simply African problems - they are global security challenges, and they demand a global response.
And that's why we stand ready to partner through diplomacy and technical assistance and logistical support, and we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable. And let me be clear: Our Africa Command is focused not on establishing a foothold in the continent, but on confronting these common challenges to advance the security of America, Africa, and the world.

This is what Enough wrote to me, and here's the LA Times take on the story.

from the mailbox:

July 13, 2009

At Sundance and in specialized theaters around North America and Europe, the film The Reckoning has been educating audiences about the quest for an international justice system that began in Nuremberg after World War II and came into being as the International Criminal Court. [...]

The Reckoning follows the first six years of the International Criminal Court, from the court's headquarters in The Hague, to the scenes of the crimes - in eastern Congo and northern Uganda - to the U.N. headquarters in New York, where the court has met some of its toughest critics. The Reckoning has a captivating way of weaving together the strong personalities of individuals into a gripping narrative, such as a young Ugandan woman who survived a rampage by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, passionate judges inspired by the work of establishing standards for global justice, outspoken critics of the Court, and a dynamic lead prosecutor who has become the face of the struggle to bring justice to victims in Darfur.

making choices for my machine:

Name

"Kubuntu", pronounced /kuːˈbuːntuː/ koo-BOON-too, means "towards humanity" in Bemba, and is derived from ubuntu "humanity"). The K at the beginning represents the K Desktop Environment, which Kubuntu runs. By coincidence, Kubuntu also means "free" (as in 'free of charge') in Kirundi.[3]

Differences from Ubuntu

A regular installation of Ubuntu will have the GNOME desktop, GNOME applications (e.g. Evolution) and GNOME/GTK+ admin tools (e.g. Synaptic Package Manager). A regular installation of Kubuntu has the KDE desktop, KDE applications (e.g. Kontact) and KDE/Qt admin tools (e.g.KPackageKit). In addition, Kubuntu is more likely to use packages from the KDE/Qt project rather than GTK+ toolkit-based applications. However, these are simply the default packages. For example, one may install Ubuntu and then add KDE, or even install the Kubuntu 'metapackage' itself. Therefore, one need not be restricted to one set of applications, but can mix and match by preference. (There is a slight disadvantage to doing so, namely the increased diskspace and memory requirements of running both Qt and GTK.)

from here.

from the mailbox:

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW MEDIA RELEASE
Thank You, Gareth Evans

Brussels, 30 June 2009: On behalf of the Board of the International Crisis Group, Co-chairs Lord Patten of Barnes and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering warmly thank Gareth Evans for his nine and a half years of outstanding service to the organisation as President and CEO.

In recognition of his contribution, the Board has decided to award Gareth Evans the title of President Emeritus of Crisis Group.

“Speaking for the Board and staff, we all owe Gareth a tremendous debt of gratitude for his tireless efforts since January 2000”, said Co-Chair Chris Patten. “He took a small organisation analysing some 12 conflicts with 25 staff and a budget of two million dollars, and he transformed it into the pre-eminent international NGO in conflict prevention and resolution, examining some 60 conflicts world-wide with 130 staff and a budget of over 15 million.”

“Under Gareth, Crisis Group established its unique mix of field-based research, experienced policy analysis and high-level advocacy that together make Crisis Group so well-respected”, said Co-Chair Tom Pickering.

Gareth Evans served with distinction as Crisis Group’s President and CEO since January 2000. He will return to Australia in July, from which home base he will be primarily engaged in his role as Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, a joint global initiative of the Australian and Japanese governments (www.icnnd.org). He will also remain on the Board of Crisis Group.

Gareth Evans will be succeeded as President and CEO of Crisis Group by the Honourable Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She will take up the post on 21 July.

Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50.

On the BBC.

fun news title of the week

Curry a day could keep dementia away

[well, week is a relative term right?..]

Netherlands gets tough on Bulgaria, Romania

A Dutch minister has asked the European Commission to consider activating safeguard clauses against Romania and Bulgaria should monitoring reports due this summer fail to acknowledge progress in fighting corruption. EurActiv Romania and Dnevnik, EurActiv's partner in Bulgaria, bring this report.
In a letter to Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot, Dutch EU Affairs Minister Frans Timmermans asks the EU executive to consider activating the safeguard clause in the judicial field should the upcoming monitoring report fail to register "enough progress" on judicial reform, according to Sofia and Bucharest media.
If activated, the clause would de facto invalidate court decisions in Romania and Bulgaria in the eyes of jurisdictions in other EU member countries.
The Dutch had until now considered sanctions to be counter-productive, but as the consequences could be "tremendous", the situation had to be treated "seriously", he said. The EU's credibility was at stake if Brussels was too lax with the newcomers, he warned.
These monitoring reports, which according to sources could be postponed until September, are prepared more thoroughly than the previous two Commission papers, the Romanian press writes. Several Commission delegations have visited Bulgaria and Romania for fact-finding, it adds.
Speaking to EurActiv, Bulgaria's Permanent Representative to the EU Boyko Kotsev confirmed the general content of the letter as described by the press. But he added that his country was hoping for positive monitoring reports, meaning that there would be "no need" for any safeguards.
"Bulgaria has achieved a lot, though there is still a lot of work to be done," Kotsev admitted.
He declined to comment as to whether his country was hoping that the Commission would be less inquisitive in the period preceding the second Lisbon Treaty referendum in Ireland.
The Dutch minister is part of the Labour Party, affiliated to the European Socialist Party. Both the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the Romanian Social Democratic (PSD) are key players in the two countries' governing coalitions.
This is not the first time that Timmermans has warned Bulgaria and Romania to step up the fight against corruption, but his letter to the Commission has set a precedent.
Bulgarian EU Affairs Minister Gergana Passy was quoted by Focus news agency as saying she believed the message of the minister's letter to be directed at the Dutch public rather than the Commission.
However, Passy admitted that unwelcome developments such as the release of several controversial 'businessmen' indicted by the judiciary, who then registered as election candidates, had not helped her country's image (EurActiv 29/05/09). In particular, she lamented that the so-called 'Galevi brothers', known as "the owners of the first private city in Bulgaria" (EurActiv 22/01/09), had recently been released from police custody to run in national elections, to be held on 5 July. Bulgaria appears to be a unique case where candidates for elections are given immunity from prosecution.
The Dutch government is under pressure from the far-right populists to adopt a tougher stance towards Bulgaria and Romania, especially since Geert Wilders's Freedom Party ranked second at the recent European elections, HotNews Romania writes. Wilders wants Bulgaria and Romania to be excluded from the EU, the agency recalls.

Positions:
Andreas Geiger, a partner in Brussels lobbying law firm Alber & Geiger, which until recently worked under contract to the Bulgarian interior ministry, told EurActiv that the demands by Timmermans were not surprising, considering the poor results of his party in the EU elections.
If there really was a political concern regarding Romania and Bulgaria, it would have to be voiced by heavyweights such as Germany, and not the Netherlands, Geiger said.

From EurActiv.com

One in four men in South Africa may have raped someone - with most of those attacking more than one victim, data from a new survey suggests.

The study, by the country's Medical Research Council, also found three out of four who admitted rape attacked for the first time while in their teens.
It said practices such as gang rape were common because they were considered a form of male bonding.
The MRC spoke to 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces.
The study found that 73% of respondents said they had carried out their first assault before the age of 20.
Almost half who said they had carried out a rape admitted they had done so more than once.
One in 20 men surveyed said they had raped a woman or girl in the last year.
Professor Rachel Jewkes of the MRC, who carried out the research, told the BBC's World Today programme the findings were "very shocking".
"The absolute imperative is we have to change the underlying social attitudes that in a way have created a norm that coercing women into sex is on some level acceptable," she said.
"We know that we have a higher prevalence of rape in South Africa than there is in other countries.
"And it's partly rooted in our incredibly disturbed past and the way that South African men over the centuries have been socialised into forms of masculinity that are predicated on the idea of being strong and tough and the use of force to assert dominance and control over women, as well as other men."
She said all the victims in the main survey were women, but the participants were also interviewed about male rape.
The survey found that one in 10 men said they had been raped by other men.
Some 3% of the men interviewed said they had coerced a man or a boy into sex.
South Africa's government has been repeatedly criticised for failing to address the country's rape epidemic.

From the BBC.

Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW BRIEFING

Pakistan’s IDP Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities

Islamabad/Brussels, 3 June 2009: Unless relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) are urgently improved, the army’s offensive against the Taliban risks leaving the extremists the ultimate winners.

Pakistan’s IDP Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities,* the latest International Crisis Group policy briefing, examines the operations against religious militants in Malakand Division and their impact on internally displaced persons (IDPs) and local communities. The army’s use of heavy force, failure to address the full cost to civilians and refusal to allow effective humanitarian access to conflict zones has already been counterproductive. Public and political support for action against the Taliban could erode if civilian casualties are high and the response to IDP needs is inadequate. The government should create mechanisms to make aid distribution accountable to IDP communities, demand greater civilian oversight and humanitarian access, and prohibit banned jihadi groups from participating in relief efforts.

Quotation #810 from Michael Moncur's (Cynical) Quotations

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite.

John Kenneth Galbraith
US (Canadian-born) administrator & economist (1908 - 2006)

from here

Obama: Time Has Come for U.S. Science . AFP

April 27, 2009 -- President Barack Obama pledged Monday to return the United States to a "high water mark" of scientific achievement, announcing an aim to commit three percent of GDP to research and development.
Obama laid out a deck of initiatives in a speech at the National Academy of Sciences, where he vowed to implement what he described as the largest-ever US investment in scientific research and a dramatic reversal of ideology-driven policies of his predecessor George W. Bush.
The clarion call for the country to regain its position as the world leader in scientific research and innovation came as the Obama administration faced its first major global health crisis in the recent deadly outbreak of swine flu in Mexico and the United States that threatens to burst into a pandemic.
"At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities," Obama told hundreds of scientists, researchers and educators.
"I fundamentally disagree," he said. "Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been."
He said US health and science officials were "closely monitoring" the swine flu outbreak which has had 20 confirmed cases of the illness across five states, and prompted the federal government to declare a US health emergency.
Citing a plunge in federal funding of physical sciences as a portion of gross domestic product over the past 25 years, Obama warned that US achievement, particularly science and math study in US schools, dramatically lagged in the late 20th Century -- and threatened to fall even further behind other rapidly advancing nations.
Obama pointed to the US goal set in the 1950s to reach space and its commitment to leading the world in scientific innovation.
"That was the high water mark of America's investment in research and development. Since then our investments have steadily declined as a share of our national income," he said.
"I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race."
Obama announced creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA-E, a new initiative called dedicated to "high-risk, high-reward research."
He also put forward his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a group of scientists and engineers Obama said would advise him on "national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation."

as put on the Discovery News.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, Oct. 26, 1939
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) - here

Subject: [Oberlist] MD* media: violations of the right to access to information and attacks on journalists

Date: Friday, April 10, 2009, 3:08 PM

09.04.09/ Declaration of media NGOs from Moldova on the situation of the press, violations of the right to access to information and attacks on journalists.

Media NGOs are expressing serious concern about the recent deterioration of the media situation in Moldova, violations against the public right to access information and recent incidences of journalists' harassment by law enforcement officials.
Several reporters from the investigative newspaper "Ziarul de Garda," were harassed by police officers on the evening of April 8, 2009. The journalists' arms were physically assaulted and were told that their cameras would be destroyed. On the same day, while doing his job, Oleg Brega, a cameraman for the Internet news channel Jurnal TV, was beaten by several individuals wearing plain clothes who then seized two of his video cameras. Ziarul de Garda and Jurnal TV have gathered evidence from both incidents which could identify the perpetrators, and are willing to provide this evidence to law enforcement officials.

On Thursday, April 9, the social networking websites, Facebook.com and Odnoklassniki.ru were blocked for users in Moldova. The day before, administrators discovered that the server of the information portal Unimedia.md had been attacked several times. A number of online resources have been blocked for Moldovan users over the past 3 days. TV stations Realitatea TV and TVR 1 have been taken off the list of cable operators in Moldova. These stations disappeared on Tuesday night, at around 21.00. Cable operators have cited technical difficulties as the cause, but the rebroadcasting have yet to be restored. Consequently, Moldovans are being denied access to vital international sources of information.

The signatory organizations contributing to this statement vehemently protest the attacks made on working journalists by Moldovan law enforcement officials and demand an immediate end to these abusive and illegal practices. The victims' cases should be thoroughly investigated and those responsible for the attacks must be brought to justice.
In support of the constitutional right to access to information for all citizens through media, the signatory organizations call upon Moldovan authorities to ensure media freedom under the obligations incumbent to a member of the Council of Europe and to facilitate the public's access to information.

Independent Journalism Center

Association of Independent Press

Investigative Journalism Center

Young Journalist Center of Moldova

Union of Journalists of Moldova

Broadcast Media Association

"Acees-info" Center


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Quotation #23515 from Michael Moncur's (Cynical) Quotations:

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood.

Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts (1931) "Age and Death"
(1865 - 1946)

wish this wasn't the day's repetitive tune

Ours is not to question the reasons why
Crippled indecision repeats the path I once denied

motto of the day:

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems. John W. Gardner
as saved on #twitter
on: June 13th, 2008

the 'brilliant disguise' must be the darned bit, generally speaking;
but the 'insoluble' backs it up quite a bit,

spotted with #DestroyFlickr