Those 1,260 Dutch soldiers now serving in Iraq – are they allowed to shoot if necessary, or not? Surprisingly, especially at this late point (after all, Dutch troops were sent to help out the Coalition forces there late last July), there has seemed to be some confusion on this point for a while now, which finally prompted the predominant house of the Dutch legislature – the Tweede Kamer – actually to interrupt its pre-Spring vacation yesterday to stage a debate on the matter, starring several of the key ministers involved.

That debate, and the affair generally, is covered well both in Het Parool (Troops in Iraq May Shoot) and the NRC Handelsblad (lead article: Chamber Swallows Ministers’ Explanation). Fortunately, it is still true (knock-on-wood) that there have yet been no Dutch casualties in Iraq. On the other hand, there has indeed been one case of those Dutch forces inflicting a casualty (and you truly get the impression that creating victims, for the Dutch, causes just as much shock and horror as becoming them themselves). That was back on 27 December of last year, when sergeant-majoor Erik O. shot an Iraqi looter in the back and killed him – so this was no ordinary trooper, as sergeant-majoor (just as the American sergeant-major) is the highest Dutch army enlisted rank. Sergeant-majoor “O.” was shipped back to the Netherlands and incarcerated there on 1 January – put at freedom a week later, though still under charges. (more…)

Here we go, as promised: the entry in the Danish newspaper Politiken’s series of cultural profiles on EU member countries on the United Kingdom, with the supposedly characteristic British poem, place, person, event, etc. chosen by fiction-author (and Booker Prize winner) A.S. Byatt. Be forewarned: She has taken off with her author’s license to make any choice she wants, to make some that truly have more to do with A.S. Byatt than the British. (more…)

Yes, I haven’t been around for a while. The reason is that I’ve been busy setting up my other weblog, SegwayEuroTour, a process which I confess is as yet still incomplete. Still, the writings over there is rather different from what you’re accustomed to finding here on EuroSavant, so I can make at least a theoretical case that I should be able to pursue both simultaneously. I’ve just had a brand new Segway HT (a p-Series, for those of you in-the-know) shipped over here to me in the Netherlands, you see, where such things are as scarce as hen’s teeth. I’ve already had great fun taking her (her name’s “Marleen,” by the way) out in public, and so far that has just been to take around to show to acquaintances! There are surely many more adventures to come, and they will be chronicled over at that other site.

In the meantime – just to be further selfish about things, but I guess this website here is also basically about me – I have some paid work translating from Danish into English, so I have this renewed interest in the Danish press. It’s lucky that I do, for an Internet-journey over there alerts me to a very interesting series currently going on in the webpages of the main Danish daily Politiken, called Europa XL. (What does that “XL” mean? I can’t quite tell: I suppose it could be Roman numerals for “40” – but that doesn’t seem to make any sense – or it could mean “extra large.”)

“We know the EU as a big bureaucratic system. Nations without any face, without body,” begins that introductory article. The point of this series is to do something about that for Politiken’s readers, to provide precisely that face to each of the EU’s fifteen current members (in articles appearing up to the big May 1, 2004, expansion date) and then to the ten new members (in articles after that). “How do these different lands see themselves? What are their special values? And how can each enrich a common European culture?” – Politiken intends to approach one “characteristic voice” from each country – generally a prominent cultural figure of that land – to provide the following concerning their respective country (with their commentary, of course): a painting, a photograph, a person, an object, a text, a piece of music or song, a poem, a food-dish, a place, and an event. (more…)

Here’s the latest on our favorite European dictator (come to think of it – the only European dictator left!), Belarus’ Alyaksandr Lukashenko, again from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline. The entry is short, so I’ll just go ahead and quote it in its entirety:

Belarussian President Signs Edict on Ideology Within the Workplace. President Lukashenko signed an edict on 23 February stipulating that the heads of companies and enterprises will be responsible for the ideological schooling of their workforces, Belapan reported. The edict specifies how many people can be employed by local “ideology departments” and the procedure for appointing ideology officers within organizations. A statement released by the president’s press office read: “An ideologist must enjoy the credibility of the staff, be able to explain issues of interest to his or her colleagues, and help [the workers] address their own problems.”

That’s right: We’re in effect talking here about the old Soviet concept of political commissars. In the 21st century. In a land that many place as being within Europe.

Belapan, by the way, is the “Belarussian Information Company.” I tried clicking on the link I found on that page (it’s the English-language homepage) to check out the article whose headline was “Belarus’ membership of EU not ruled out, British ambassador says.” (Hey, I like hysterical humor-writing as much as the next guy – whether it’s intentional or not.) But that revealed to me that you only get access to such articles if you pay for a subscription. Somehow a subscription to the Belarussian news agency is not something I have in mind, as much as that attitude could hurt what seems to have become this weblog’s on-going Lukashenko-watch. (Do I need to set up a separate “Belarus” category over there in the list in the left-side column, so interested readers can separate out the Lukanshenko articles from the rest?)

Sorry, it looks like I’m continuing here in a recent mini-trend of escaping what I’ve termed my usual €S “brief” and pointing out to you notable contributions in the (gasp!) English-language on-line media.

In this case it’s really a matter of an on-going “contribution,” i.e. an e-mail newsletter I can really recommend, namely A-Clue.com, written by Dana Blankenhorn, an IT business analyst of long experience. It’s weekly, and unfailingly a very informative and also entertaining read. And, I say again, it’s free.

What caught my attention in particular in this week’s issue was the following political commentary which, because Mr. Blankenhorn gives his subscribers permission “to forward this newsletter widely,” I assume he won’t mind my reproducing below:
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November 2

November 2 dawned clear and cold. But even where it rained, people took it as a bad omen.

Exit polls were out by 10 AM, on Drudge and the National Review. Despite a 40% approval rating, despite a 20% approval rating for Congress, President Bush and the Congress had been returned to power overwhelmingly. Senator Kerry, soon to be Senate Minority Leader Kerry, had won just two states, Hawaii and (ironically enough) Vermont. He had fallen in his home state of Massachusetts 53-47. Surveys indicated few found much real difference between the candidates. Both were Yale men, from the same secret society called Skull & Bones. Both were backed entirely by corporations. Why not go with the devil you know?

How could this be, people asked. And what happens now?

What would happen is that economics would take over where politics had failed. The dollar would continue falling and Russia would lead moves to start making more loans in the more-stable Euro. The economies of China and India would rocket along, the former beset by growing social unrest, the latter by religious strife, but all this allowing yet-more nations in Southeast Asia – like Vietnam and the Philippines – some time in the economic sun.

Australia and New Zealand processed a tsunami of visa applications from white Americans, many of them college-educated, all claiming a fear of persecution. In Canberra the Howard government urged continued processing, suggesting (sub rosa) that this would offset growing immigration from Asia and the Muslim world. In Auckland experienced LA techs took 1/10th their former salaries to work on Peter Jackson’s “King Kong,” hoping against hope he might sponsor their staying.

The “brain drain” of American intellectuals, who would not be replaced by foreigners for the first time, was hardly noticed at the time. But the air of American triumphalism would be short-lived. For it’s intelligence, the “high bandwidth mind” as they say at Microsoft, that is the great engine of economic growth in a post-industrial age. With fewer of these on-hand, American power, influence, and the American lifestyle would slowly wither away.

Even as the Republic was replaced by an Empire, the American Century had ended.

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Pretty interesting to read, at least for this American working and building a life in Amsterdam.

Alyaksandr Lukashenko is the name of the personage who is a Belarussian funnyman and at the same time the last remaining dictator in the European political space (although Vladimir Putin is making a strong run at providing some competition). Forget that “Alyaksandr”: that’s just one attempt at a transliteration from what is ultimately a name spelled in Cyrillic. No, to really give Lukashenko his due, you need to put a little line through the initial “L” of his last name, which makes it into the Polish L;, so you pronounce it like the Poles do: Wukashenka. While you’re reciting that silly word, for a silly but dangerous person (the president’s political opponents in Belarus have a habit of disappearing without a trace), it somehow seems appropriate to think of a clown.

Anyway, according to recent reporting from RFE/RL Newsline (Lukashenko Lambastes Kremlin for “Terrorism” – it’s English-language), this was President Wukashenka’s comment on his government’s recent dispute with the Russian energy company Gazprom over natural gas supplies to Belarus, in which the two parties have not been able to come to terms, so that the contract has lapsed: “I think it’s an act of terrorism at the highest level to take natural gas away from a country that is not totally foreign, from people half of whom have Russian blood in their veins, when it’s minus 20 degrees outside.”

That’s right: your opponents on the other side of what is turning into a nasty business dispute are “terrorists at the highest level.” Not to mention your political opponents – well, at present they’re still only “supporting the terrorists.” (And I’m by no means referring here solely to Belarussian politics.) And when people die in some political dispute (e.g. Palestinians in the occupied territories), it’s “genocide.”

Wukashenka’s crazy, and he’s got no one around him to inform of that or call him to account, but that only means that his use of this increasingly-common political tactic in these insecure times is particular blatant. Others do the same thing, but disguise it more subtly.

The issue of that proposed European Constitution – remember that thing? – simply will not go away, probably because it is said to be essential to ensure that the EU can continue to function after that 67% expansion (15 expanding by 10) that is due to happen on the upcoming May 1. Indeed, we’ve already passed the point at which it is inevitable that, even in the best-case scenario, that Constitution won’t be fully adopted and in-place until some time after the EU has expanded to 25. Fortunately, as The Economist recently reported (subscription required), some signs have arisen recently to give hope that that agreement over the Constitution and its adoption will happen sooner rather than later.

“Fortunately”? Actually, it’s useful to keep in mind the fact that the whole constitutional process is not just a matter of smoothing out the potholes and bumps along the way to a common goal everyone can agree is worth attaining. No, some folks out there just wish the whole thing would be canned, once and for all. Among these is in fact The Economist, which last June supplemented its article on Where to File Europe’s new constitution (subscription required) with a starkly eloquent cover-illustration (at least in its European edition): a filled-to-overflowing trash can. But The Economist is the English-language press, of course; and you rather look mainly to EuroSavant for the foreign-language press (although long-time readers will know that I dip into the British press on occasion).

No problem: There’s plenty of anti-EuroConstitution rhetoric there, too, especially if you want to be lazy (OK, I admit it) and head straight to the tried-and-true anti-Euro talking-shop as the housewife heads out for cuts of meat to her local butcher-shop. I refer here, of course, to Le Monde Diplomatique, the monthly sister publication to the leading French daily Le Monde. (more…)

Oh, the stories that have now sprung up about presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry! Calpundit points out that, while the infamous Matt Drudge first brought some of these stories to light, “the mainstream [American] media is too responsible to report this stuff.” He’s got a couple useful links to the British press for those who would like to follow these things nonetheless (the Guardian and the Sun: the first OK, the second one of those tawdry British tabloids whose “page 3 girls” are the only thing that ever interests EuroSavant, and which therefore I do not cover for this weblog – and you also don’t get the link from me, haha!).

Well, what about the Polish press? Good stuff there, too (although still exclusively from the two leading dailies, each to be cited in this entry). I guess that makes them “irresponsible.” (Or maybe it’s all OK when you’re passing on the reported dirt about people and goings-on which are, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, “far away, and of whom you know nothing.”) (more…)

Now we’re starting to gain a bit more understanding of just what it was that made Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin act so crazy last week – heading down to Kiev without telling his wife or anyone else, turning up five days later with a telephone call, amazed that people were worried about him, defensively asserting (to media interviewing him then) that presidential candidates, too, need to get a way every so often, turn off the clanging mobile telephones, and relax – even if in this case it happened to be just as the Russian presidential campaign was about to start in earnest.

Turns out that that telephone call, those interviews, were all made under compulsion. Reports attesting to this have now appeared in the Polish press in both Gazeta Wyborcza (Rybkin Won’t Withdraw From Elections, But Will Stay in London) and Rzeczpospolita (New Version of Ivan Rybkin’s Tale: I Was Kidnapped). Actually, I really wanted instead to go for a little variety and cover German reporting on Ivan Rybkin’s re-emergence and new explanation, but there was nothing! I guess the German press simply tuned out after he first turned up again in Kiev and it was clear that he was alive and (seemingly) well. (more…)

The US military may be present in Iraq on the open-ended plan, with no fixed terminal date, but that is hardly true of most of the other Coalition forces – including the Dutch battalion stationed in southern Iraq, whose deployment the Dutch Parliament (specifically, the dominant lower house, or Tweede Kamer) approved for only one year, until next July. As you can well imagine, that upcoming deadline for withdrawal evidently weighed heavily on Colin Powell’s mind on Monday as he met the new Dutch foreign minister, dr. B.R. (for “Bernard Rudolf”) Bot, for their first ever tête-à-tête “getting-to-know-you” lunch. (They had met once before in December at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. Bot is the new Dutch foreign minister in the first place because Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the previous one, was snatched up to become NATO Secretary General as of the beginning of December; his selection was covered on €S here.)

It’s a little early to be making definitive decisions about whether those Dutch troops are going to stick around for another murderous Iraqi summer (not to mention those murderous Iraqi insurgents – but there hasn’t yet been a Dutch casualty, knock-on-wood). That’s the opening message Bot is said to have delivered to Powell. That may also be why the meeting received relatively little attention in the Dutch press, basically getting it only from the top and the bottom, i.e. from the somewhat-tony NRC Handelsblad (Powell to Bot: Keep Army in Iraq) and from the popular-but-not-quite-gutter-press De Telegraaf (Powell to Bot: Stay Longer in Iraq). Ooooh, those headline similarities are spooky – but oh-so-commanding! (more…)

This story almost ran away from me – the big game of hide-and-seek came to an end yesterday when Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin telephoned his family and campaign staff in Moscow to say that he was alive and well and in a hotel in Kiev. That’s what I get for allowing myself to be distracted by the current controversy over George W. Bush’s performance of duty (or lack thereof) for the Texas or Alabama National Guard back in 1972 and 1973. But is the mystery over what happened to Rybkin really cleared up yet?

It’s too bad that I don’t read Russian very well. On the other hand, while gaining that facility would enable me to read Tolstoi, Dostoyevsky, Gogol and the like in the original (something worth being able to do, and I’m certainly not being ironic), it wouldn’t do much towards helping me read independent political commentary in the Russian press, since there’s precious little of that to be found anymore under Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. The Polish press is therefore a substitute that may very well be better than the original. Poland is close-by (much too close, in the historical sense, most Poles will tell you) and certainly has a free press. An additional advantage may be that that history brings forth a suspicious, even hostile attitude towards Russian motives that can’t help but foster an ultra-critical perspective towards any Russian government pronouncements.

(A disadvantage, though, is that, once again, really only Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita have anything to say on the Rybkin case. Isn’t there any other national newspaper out there, and on-line, that will deal with events beyond Poland’s borders? Sorry, Zycie Warszawy just doesn’t seem to cut it. Grzybek! Help!) (more…)

EuroSavant today briefly departs from its usual brief (i.e. the foreign on-line press; don’t worry, I’ve got a juicy additional entry of the more customary sort planned that I should be able to get in today, or else tomorrow), to eagerly join in the chorus that is starting to resound in the blogosphere about President George W. Bush’s National Guard (non-)performance in 1972 and 1973.

Yes, Michael Moore termed our sitting president a “deserter,” but that’s the sort of heavily-laden word that really should have its full impact saved for application to people or events that truly justify it (it’s like “genocide,” for instance, only a bit less serious). So, even at worst, President Bush was no “deserter”: he did not abandon his military duties anywhere near the then-field of battle in Vietnam. Mr. Moore was merely indulging here in his usual hyperbole. On the other hand, it’s clear that there is a serious gap where there should be some sort of record of LT Bush, National Guard aviator, performing some sort of military duties in 1972 and 1973 to justify the expense taxpayers at the time undertook to train him to fly – not to mention the officer’s oath he took. Military service is a well-documented experience indeed, as I can tell you from personal (officer’s) experience – for what that’s worth; those documents just have to be there, if indeed there was anything happening during that period to actually document. (more…)

There was good, intriguing stuff on Saturday from what is perhaps a suprizing source: the Nederlands Dagblad (“Dutch Newspaper”), which with its slogan Christelijk betrokken (“Involved in Christ”) on the masthead of its Internet edition puts its religious affiliation front-and-center. The ND has taken its time in considering the State of the Union message and fiscal 2005 federal government budget George W. Bush delivered over a week ago, presumably the better to produce a more profound analysis to share with its readers. The main point of that analysis is found in the article’s title: How George W. Bush Threatens the World’s Economy. The US has gone from Bill Clinton’s $127 billion budget surplus to a deficit of $521 billion, and, so writes author Ruurd Ubels, that has earned the President “scorn and derision” in his own country. But troubles like that in the world’s biggest economy cannot help but spill over to others. (more…)

Egad, the German press again! You know I don’t like to concentrate overmuch on one country; even two-in-a-row from the same national press is usually too much, unless the two are related and there was a clear necessity for follow-up. But today’s entry, brought to you by some happy serendipity, is to me the deserved dessert to yesterday’s main course about the Abdelghani Mzoudi acquittal in Hamburg.

You might have heard about an incident at the end of the Super Bowl half-time show last Sunday in which Janet Jackson revealed rather more of herself than is generally deemed proper by American public broadcasting standards. Whether the same incident would have been too racy for European public broadcasting standards is another question; Wolfgang Koydl of the Süddeutsche Zeitung takes the incident as his point-of-departure on a riff about American attitudes towards certain body parts in American Prudery: Let Everything Remain Inside – That’s the Main Thing. (more…)

Yesterday a court in Hamburg, Germany, found a 31-year-old native Moroccan, Abdelghani Mzoudi, innocent of charges that he had been involved in the Hamburg-based terrorist cell behind the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington. Naturally, American officials are hardly pleased by this verdict. Turning first to the account you’ve all probably already seen in the New York Times establishes the basic facts here: presiding judge Klaus Rühle ordered Mzoudi acquitted not because he thought him innocent, but because not enough evidence had been presented to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And that was partly due to the refusal by American authorities to make intelligence information available to the German prosecutors working for Mzoudi’s conviction.

What does the German press say? (more…)

Yes, I’ve been “off-line” for a while, as my just-completed US trip went through its final, most-business-intensive phase. But, as of today, I’m back on-station in Amsterdam and prepared to plunge back fully into those national presses over here on this side of the water that I cover.

Remarkably, during the time that I was criss-crossing the US (from 19 January until yesterday) the Democrats have basically come up with their candidate to challenge George W. Bush in the fall for the presidency, demolishing one front-runner (Howard Dean, of course) and elevating another (John Kerry). Scanning the German press for coverage of this, Die Zeit does a particularly good job, all the more because this newspaper’s editors don’t let its status as a weekly get in the way of that coverage; there’s always the web-site, after all, to send an article to when it is timely and ready, even if the printing-presses are not, as with this article (“John Kerry Remains Favorite”), which appeared shortly after the conclusion of last Tuesday’s Democratic Party primaries in seven states. (more…)