Switzerland generates a little more than 36% of its power through nuclear energy, at four separate plants which collectively host five operational reactors. Therefore it has a spent-nuclear-fuel problem, and a recent piece picked up by @news_suisse (with its own atomic-orange color-scheme) shows that country’s remarkable approach in addressing in particular the need for “deep geological repositories” to hold that stuff for eons:

The key phrase here is en lice. In French it translates to “in contention,” so the message is that only the two locations named (namely Jura-East and Zurich-Northeast) have made the cut to be considered further as long-term nuclear waste sites.

Just consider the value-judgment in plain sight here: “in contention” – those two places have beaten off four other candidates to make this short-list. That is, they actively want to host the sort of nuclear-waste site which in most other countries – certainly the US – inspires the most virulent of NIMBY (“Not In My BackYard”) sentiments!

Bizarre! Yet such has been the course of deliberations of Nagra, a company established collectively back in 1972 by all Swiss nuclear-waste producers for handling the disposal problem – and, naturally, subject to close governmental oversight. Even stranger, I combed this piece for some indication as to just what is in it for the winning site (or sites; it could be both), maybe some sort of generous financial remuneration to the local government – but nothing! Nothing but public frustration on the part of the losers already cut out of the competition:

The discontent [over Nagra’s pre-selection] is already palpable. The president of the Committee of Cantons, the Zürich State Counsellor Markus Kägi, could not hide his surprise at seeing only two sites retained.

Nagra boss Thomas Ernst justified his recommendations, emphasizing that only scientific and technical criteria were taken into consideration. “Reflections of a political or social order played no sort of role.”

But maybe there are a few other clues about what is going on. For one thing, this is a really long-term project: the Swiss Federal Council will make the definitive choice only in 2027. Then, and only then, will it be submitted to parliament, and possibly to one of those famous Swiss referenda. Clearly, this has been a technocratic exercise so far; the NIMBY-storm still has 12 years to develop.

It’s coming onto the second half of January and, like every year, that means the World Economic Forum, in the Swiss ski-resort of Davos, where the world’s most powerful and well-heeled come together annually to hobnob, look down from the summit (figuratively but also literally, given Davos’ height-above-sea-level) at the rest of us poor slobs and try to solve some of the world’s problems. Such a gathering of influential and monied types is sheer nirvana for advertisers and others who would seek to influence them in some way. (Including of course the fearless & topless banshees of FEMEN: going around half-naked in the January snow does not faze these gals!)

As you might imagine, the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) has an inside track when it comes to accessing Davos attendees. (I don’t mean just from its status as a prominent local bank; it also still likely aids many of those assembled to avoid taxes in their home countries via its no-name-but-number bank accounts.) This year it has come up with a real PR winner:

OK, what’s this about “6 kilometers”? It’s fairly simple: UBS is going to invite all WEF attendees to wear a rose-colored odometer during the time that they are there. If a minimum of 1,000 participants record having walked six kilometers during their stay, then UBS will donate 2,500 bicycles to poor African children for use in traveling to school. (more…)

Here’s the latest EU scandal – yes, with the new Commission not even a week old! – and it might be a biggie. It broke this morning:

Oooh, «accords secrets» – secret accords! They’re linked with that “343,” that’s the number of multinational companies to which the Luxembourg granted sweetheart tax deals to come and operate there. This has just emerged from a leak from the offices of Pricewaterhouse Coopers there, which itself earned handsomely in taking up the role of negotiating with the Luxembourg government on those companies’ behalf for these tax-breaks. According to the report cited in this piece in the Tribune de Genève,

While in Luxembourg the tax rate for companies is officially 29%, which is decent [honnête] in international terms, that often passes below 1% after negotiations with the tax authorities.

The important thing to remember here is that multinationals routinely distort their official accounts, through tricks that go under the general name of transfer pricing, to show as much income as they can as coming from a place like Luxembourg where it is subject to the least taxation. Of course, the income has really been overwhelmingly earned elsewhere, in other countries – and those countries thereby effectively have had legitimate tax revenues stolen from them, in often mind-boggling quantities.

The company names sampled in this brief piece are what you would expect: Apple, Amazon, Heinz, Pepsi, Ikea, Deutsche Bank, and also a handful of Swiss companies (as this Swiss newspaper notes): UBS, Credit Suisse, Lombard Odier private bankers (remind you at all of “odious”?), and others. Indeed, with respect to the American companies on this list, their management has to cheat governments out of taxes using techniques like these, in order to increase earnings – otherwise they can be sued by shareholders for breach of fiduciary duty! Behold the face of late twentieth-century/twenty-first century Capitalism!

What really makes this development juicy is of course the identity of the brand-new President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, who was Prime Minister of Luxembourg from 1995 to 2013 when presumably all or at least most of these sweetheart tax-deals were negotiated. Now, it’s true that it was pressure from the outgoing Commission that recently Ireland to close its notorious “double Irish” tax loophole (well, at least over the next four years) that enables multinationals to evade enormous amounts in taxes owed elsewhere. The legal justification wielded was that such generous tax terms in effect amounted to “state aid,” which is forbidden to EU member-states.

That same rationale can obviously be brought to bear now on these Luxembourgish arrangements. But will it? As @TeacherDude puts it:

Juncker is going to have to change his spots, and quick. This development is precisely the last thing the EU needs after last May’s elections that saw so many new MEPs elected from extremist parties, reflecting a souring on the EU on the part of the European electorate. Already Marine Le Pen, whose Front National is prominent among those extremist parties, is calling on Juncker to resign from his very new Commission President position .

Our old friend ex-Field Marshal and current Egyptian presidential candidate Abdelfatah Al-Sisi just recently gave a very revealing television interview to leading Egyptian journalists. I found out via a mention on German radio, but it was hard then to find some corresponding printed article about it, whether in the German press or elsewhere. Ultimately it was the Neue Zürcher Zeitung that came through (where few others did), and my admiration for them extends to their revealing headline, Sisi warns about freedom of expression..

The piece states that the interview was in fact for a “private TV broadcaster” (what – closed-circuit TV or something?), and of course it was conducted in Arabic, so that helps explain why it almost slipped by European attention. No doubt the good ex-Field Marshal wishes that it had: I usually don’t like to include extensive quotations, but the two first paragraphs just state things so clearly.

The Egyptian presidential candidate Abdelfatah al-Sisi warned of the dangers of too much democratic freedom. In a talk with news-editors he called upon them not to insist too much on freedom of expression or other rights, for national security could thereby be put in danger. Egypt cannot be compared with stable Western lands, and a full democracy is an “idealistic” goal that possibly can be attained in 25 years, the former military chief said . . .

Sisi demanded that the approximately 20 editors of Egypt’s biggest newspapers not “scare” people or supply “skepticism.” The press should contribute to people getting behind the “strategic” aim of “protecting the Egyptian State,” he stipulated. According to his assertion, there should be “a balance between practice and freedom and national security.”

Well, there you have it! More dictatorial dumbing-down of discourse here, straight from before World War II, if not earlier. Don’t scare the people with your freedom of expression! Full democracy is still 25 years away!

Does that latter mean – something that has been cited before in an Arab electoral context – “one man, one vote, one time”? The article does acknowledge Sisi’s promise during the interview to step down if Egyptians ever rose up against him – oh sure, but the over 1,200 death sentences recently imposed on regime opponents would seem to argue against this. (Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi apparently made the same “I’ll step down” pledge when he was elected president.)

In light of that interview, it is refreshing to see the following from Al-Arabiya’s English twitter-feed:

The linked article is of course also in English, and raises the question as to whether Egypt’s media landscape (or its population) is really as immature and in need of protection as the general asserts. It seems two Twitter parody accounts – one for Al-Sisi, the other purporting to represent his only rival in the presidential election, Hamdeen Sabahi – are going at each other with wild comic abandon. I’d love to give you a flavor of the repartee, but unfortunately they are in Arabic.

It is also interesting from the Al-Arabiya piece that the two parody accounts initially were @Alsisiiofficial and @HamdeenSabahi – too close to reality for someone, for they both quickly switched to the more truth-in-advertising handles @AlsisiParody and @HamdeenParody. Was that official pressure already? Whether it was or not, you know that Al-Sisi would shut them down – or at least the Al-Sisi parody account – immediately if he wasn’t in the middle of trying to fool all of the people all of the time in a presidential election campaign. You can be sure that, once he is elected, he’ll be in contact with the right officials at Twitter to do so.

The Al-Arabiya piece at least reports one recent tweet from the @AlsisiParody account in English (everything here is [sic]):

Those who will elect @HamdeenParody re-tweet this tweet…so I can jail you all once I become a president

Ain’t that the truth though?

UPDATE: The English site of Al-Arabiya has come through with an excellent piece about the interview(s) entitled Sisi’s electoral interviews: Was he a man or a marshal? The consensus among the interviewers – but not 100% – was “Yes, here we have someone just waiting to be a dictator.”

And let me give you the final paragraph:

This interview, and others to follow, will be the means by which Sisi’s program is made public, Mughazi [his campaign spokesman] added. “Sisi’s electoral program won’t be printed, but will reach the people through a series of interviews since interaction is always more effective,” he said. [Former president from the Muslim Brotherhood] Mursi “had a printed program that contained big dreams, none of which came true. Sisi, on the other hand, is a man of action.”

You’ve heard of Lenovo, right? Chinese company . . . bought IBM’s Thinkpad laptop division back in 2005 – right, that one. Ah, but you still don’t know the half of it, as reporter Henning Steier of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung found out in Beijing:

Zu Besuch bei Lenovo in Peking: Wie die Chinesen den Smartphone-Markt aufrollen wollen und warum das schwierig wird: http://t.co/s4PMencv2l

March 25, 2013 11:06 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@nzzdigital

Henning Steier

In the first place, with a 16% worldwide market-share as of QIV 2012 Lenovo is contending head-to-head with Hewlett-Packard for top position as the world’s largest personal computer-seller. Granted, that is equivalent to fighting the last war, considering that PC sales are now in steady retreat (with the new Windows 8 operating system doing little to stem the losses, as Steier mentions).

Far more impressive is what Lenovo intends to do in the area of smartphones, which these days is truly where it’s at commercially. In fact, they already sell them – maybe you’ve never heard of products such as the company’s flagship K900 smartphone (pictured), but that’s because they have mainly been active in the Chinese market (25 million sold in 2012; #2 there behind Samsung). and in other non-Western lands such as Russia, India and Indonesia (soon to include Ukraine, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria).

They will be coming to the US and European smartphone markets, to be sure, by 2014 at the latest. Get ready, because their ambition is to be at least #3 in smartphones worldwide within 18 months, and they will upping their yearly production of new models from last year’s 42 to do that. There’s even a rumor that they have their sights set on acquiring the ailing Canadian firm RIM, maker of the Blackberry; CEO Yang Yuanqing seemed quite annoyed when reporters at a Beijing press conference raised that possibility.

By the way, Lenovo sells phones using Android, but with three models coming out this year that run on the Windows Phone system. It also relies to a much greater degree than most other smartphone makers on Intel chips to power its devices – it already has a solid relationship with the California-based chipmaker for its computer business.

You know, it can be a tough life when you happen to have a lot of money at your disposal. Just ask Mitt Romney. Or nose around a bit in Geneva:

#Economie – Des fortunes de France vivraient l’enfer à Genève: Un reportage sur les exilés fiscaux français clou… http://t.co/9Fgmrp4d

July 25, 2012 1:17 pm via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@news_suisse

News Suisse

A little background: The new French Socialist government of François Hollande (dominating both the executive and the legislature) made it clear both pre- and post-election that it intends to substantially raise taxes on the rich. As a result, many of those rich are upping stakes and leaving, often just across the border to more tax-friendly but still francophone climes in Belgium or Switzerland, where they can escape French taxes if they live there for at least 183 days in the year.

Trouble is, it’s not that simple, at least when it comes to Geneva, where for all their money these tax-exiles have to deal with substantial culture-shock. That @news_suisse tweet links to a piece in Geneva’s own Tribune de Genève by Dino Auciello, about how his own venerable hometown is somehow just so uncomfortable and, well, boring for these wealthy wanderers. It’s not difficult to detect Auciello’s thick irony just below the surface, as in his lede:

Poor French fiscal exiles! Those who flee from ever more oppressive fiscal authorities, now the promised land of Geneva reveals itself to them as a veritable hell.

Things are so humdrum there, he reports, that “aside from golf and adultery, distractions are rare.” (more…)

Wow: a $1 billion cash-and-stock pay-out (although there are rumors it could have been double that) for a firm with only 13 employees and a 17-month history! The spectacular cash-in of Instagram has eyes ringing like cash registers all over, and not just in the US:

Start-ups: Gründen per Mausklick – ein kurzer Vergleich von CH, D, USA und GB: http://t.co/SpTvVPyB

April 18, 2012 7:05 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@nzzdigital

NZZ Digital

Here, Juliane Leopold of the leading German-language Swiss paper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, takes a look at comparative conditions in her country, versus the UK and the US, when it comes to encouraging start-ups to thrive and to strive for a similar jackpot.

The short verdict: Switzerland has come a long way, but still lags behind. There happens to be a portal there designed to ease the way for start-ups, called StartBiz, but it won’t actually get your company registered – you’ll have to do that the old-fashioned, forms-and-visiting-offices way. The usual business form adopted, the GmBH, is also legally-speaking not as attractive from the standpoint of investors buying equity interests in a company as is, say, the Limited Company one can form in the UK.

Similarly, there are of course institutions set up in Switzerland to bring inventors and investors together, such as VentureKick (and what do you know, that site is even in English!). But there are similar set-ups in most other places. Compare that to the UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme, which offers tax-breaks to investors in start-ups. (The article also mentions a “Start-Up Pact” program there that supposedly grants £1,500 to new companies, but I was unable to find any on-line confirmation.) Oh, and it is true that one can do everything towards setting up one’s new company there on-line.

Then there is the US, specifically Silicon Valley. There is no tax-relief scheme in effect there to encourage start-up investments (that I know of; and none is mentioned in the article), but that is probably not needed in view of the many other advantages that continue to make this the world’s premier entrepreneurial hothouse. Foremost among these, as Leopold mentions, is the sheer quality of personnel that gravitate to the business scene there, whether one needs programmers, interface designers, or business executives. Added to that is the remarkably high tolerance for risk present – probably aided by the fact that, in the US, bankruptcy is often a badge of honor while in Europe it is a more devastating failure. There is also an ultra-open networking environment where – if Leopold’s article and the quotes she includes from those who have been there are to be believed – no one worries about whether their great new business idea is going to be stolen. Instead, everyone is just glad to offer a critique and encouragement.

Back for a moment to Libya. (From Letterman, Top Ten Thoughts That Went Through Herman Cain’s Mind During The ‘Libya’ Moment: 10. “Libya? I remember Lydia, but I don’t remember a Libya!”)

As in any revolution, people were called upon to make a serious choice one way or another: revolt or support Qaddafi? If your side did not emerge victorious, you were sure to be in serious trouble. That was most gravely true for Libyan residents, but other parties had a similar dilemma, especially once the tide started to turn against the rebels starting around March and the prospect of civilian massacres started to arise. Much of NATO – including, crucially, the Obama administration, although the lead was taken by France and the UK – then chose to intervene, and managed to get passed UN Security Council Resolution 1973 to justify (somewhat) that intervention. Others held back – and the most prominent of these was Germany, which made no contribution to that NATO military effort and in fact abstained in the Security Council vote on Resolution 1973.

Well, now Qaddafi is dead and gone, and the winners and losers are clear. Germany is a loser (although not as badly as the regime supporters). In that light, @swissbusiness has come up with a fascinating interview in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung:

«Die Nato ist keine Weltpolizei» http://t.co/Vz5Qoswd

November 15, 2011 11:42 am via dlvr.itReplyRetweetFavorite

@swissbusiness

swissbusiness

(more…)

The Arab Spring has turned upside-down considerations of who-is-in, who-is-out. Suddenly a whole array of politicians (e.g. Tony Blair, Nicolas Sarkozy) are red-in-the-face over their previous cozy relations with autocratic Arab rulers. That goes for entertainers, too: Beyoncé and Mariah Carey, for example, suddenly are not so proud anymore of exclusive concerts they performed for Muammar Qaddafi’s entourage.

So what do we have here, in bright traffic-cone orange?

#monde ● Fête du président tchétchène: Hilary Swank “regrette”: “Je regrette profondément d’avoir assisté à cet … http://t.co/LrxxiQiC

October 15, 2011 12:17 am via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@news_suisse

News Suisse

Now it’s Hollywood actress Hilary Swank who is embarrassed! OK, this time it is not any Arab ruler, but rather President Ramzah Kadyrov of Chechenya whose 35th birthday party in his capital Grozny Swank attended last week, according to the article on the Swiss site 24 heures to which that @news_suisse tweet links. Oops! Turns out that Kadyrov has long been accused of permitting systematic torture and assassination within his country, in his capacity as the local Russian Federation puppet-ruler.

Well, Ms. Swank definitely is definitely sorry she showed up there now, saying in an issued statement “I profoundly regret having attended this event, which put into question my long-standing and deep engagement for the defense of human rights.”

Just a couple problems, though. For one, even if Ms. Swank could not be bothered to look up President Kadyrov’s record before accepting his invitation, the New York City-based Human Rights Foundation did send her a warning about him beforehand. But she went anyway – and was paid to do so, apparently. So if she’s so sorry, what does she plan to do with that money? HRF spokesperson Sarah Wasserman – and maybe the rest of us – wants to know.

P.S. The famed Belgian martial arts action-movie star was also at that birthday celebration, but hasn’t bothered to issue any declaration. Jean-Claude, it seems, doesn’t give a Van Damme.

UPDATE: Right then, here’s the story with that money she earned in Grozny:

Hilary Swank Giving Fees From Chechen Event To Charity http://t.co/V1QD73uS

October 15, 2011 4:40 pm via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite

@RFE_RLNEWS

RFE/RL News

The New York Times recently featured a piece particularly interesting to those of us obsessed with cataloguing US-Europe cultural differences, one by Elisabeth Rosenthal headlined Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Urban Policy. “The methods vary,” Ms. Rosenthal writes, “but the mission is clear – to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally-friendly modes of transportation.” Why, how dare they?

The article is datelined Zurich (sic; the place properly spells its name “Zürich”), and most details about this supposed pan-European conspiracy against the automobile do come from out of that city. But now Zürich has caught notice and offers a reply, in the form of this editorial by Martin Meyer in its flagship newspaper, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, for which the headline writer – probably not Meyer himself – latches onto the available racy double-meaning to craft the snappy title “Zürich, Red-Light District.”

Goodness sakes – to paraphrase the way Meyer starts out his piece – Zürich is front-page news on the International Herald Tribune*! How come? Why, it’s because of the “torture” (Folter) we impose on our drivers! Making them stop repeatedly at deliberately-unsynchronized red lights! Slowing them down to a snails’ pace – when they’re allowed at all – near main city squares! He remarks on the behutsam empörte Verblüffung (“circumspectly indignant bewilderment”) of Ms. Rosenthal’s writing-tone, saying that “like Gulliver in the Land of the Giants, she gradually submits to a morality that, in the name of a philosophical superiority, knows what is right and what is wrong.”

Then again – is Zürich truly in the avant-garde when it comes to “transforming cold asphalt on-the-move into blooming zones of [pedestrian] comfort”? as Meyer asks elsewhere. His civic modesty here is touching, but he also has a real point: other European cities would have made better case studies. (You have to pay just to drive into Oslo, for example, or into London for that matter!) In other words, there was really no need for Zürich to gain this minor, but still probably undesired international notoriety in the eyes of the IHT’s/NYT’s affluent, influential readers.

* Yes, it’s strange that Meyer mentions the IHT when in reality Ms. Rosenthal’s article originated with the New York Times, which provides most of the IHT’s content! Was it just a mistake, or can it really be that the IHT name still carries more prestige in European circles?

Verily, the massive Wikileaks document-dump of thousands of US State Department confidential cable-traffic dispatches has turned out to be the sort of pre-Christmas gift that keeps on giving. Its sheer size militates against any “instant analysis” of what the materials mean, requiring instead ongoing examination to digest them properly and gradually (and with unpredictable timing) uncover the really interesting stuff. On the other hand, so far their effect has mainly been analogous to the classic case of a politician “misspeaking” – i.e. unwisely letting his guard down in public and actually speaking the truth that everyone knows or assumes, but which never was to be formulated publicly.

Take the “mystery” of Abelbasset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted for planting a bomb on the Pan Am flight that crashed over the Scottish town of Lockerbie back during Christmastime, 1988. He was released from prison by order of the Scottish authorities in August, 2009, free to go back home, because he had only about three months more to live before he would die from cancer anyway. Yet somehow as of this date he is still alive and living in a villa somewhere in the outskirts of Tripoli.

As reported now in the Neue Züricher Zeitung, American diplomatic dispatches unearthed by Wikileaks show that this was but a cover-story. First of all, it was top officials of the UK government in London, not Scottish officials in Edinburgh, who were actually in the driver’s seat in this matter (although al-Megrahi had indeed been convicted in a Scottish court and was incarcerated in a Scottish jail). Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi was aware of that from the start, for it was clearly a high-intensity campaign of threats and intimidation from him against these officials which is what sprung al-Megrahi. Whatever levers Qaddafi knew he had available to himself, he used – namely threatening (in case al-Megrahi should ever die in UK custody) not only to cut off all British economic activities in his country, but also to violate the safety and well-being of British nationals there, including diplomatic personnel.

Why would we be finding all of this out necessarily by means of American diplomatic documents? Well, clearly there was an American interest here, in that the vast majority of those killed on that ill-fated Pan Am flight heading to JFK airport in New York City were American nationals. In essence, American authorities were reliant on British/Scottish justice for the conviction and punishment of those people’s murderers. Naturally, then, there was outrage from the American side in August of last year when al-Megrahi was released, including rumors of Congressional hearings on the matter (which faced a substantial obstacle in the fact that the British officials US representatives most wanted to question were under no obligation, as foreign nationals, to appear before them). “He’s about to die anyway” was the main operative fig-leaf trotted out to try to tamp down the outrage – even while, as the released documents further show, no less than the then-UK Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, had secretly admitted the year before to US diplomats that al-Megrahi probably had at least five more years to live.

(This blogpost has been slightly revised from the form in which it first appeared in response to a useful suggestion e-mailed in from a reader.)

Let’s say you’re a big European polluter, content with the status quo you’ve been used to for decades that allows you to pump out as much CO2 into the atmosphere as you like at virtually no cost to your bottom-line. In 2010, though, it’s easy to see how this sort of laissez-faire is not long for a world ever-more aware and convinced of the detrimental effects of such emissions on the global climate. And while local/national measures to make you pay for your pollution are always unwelcome, the authorities who impose them will always be constrained by the fact that hampering companies under their jurisdiction this way raises their costs and so cuts down on their international competitiveness as long as other countries refrain from doing anything similar. No, the real threat to pollution-as-usual is any global anti-climate change accord.

What to do? Launching an appeal to your national or EU-level representatives – “Hey, could you slow it down a bit with the climate change stuff?” – isn’t going to work, since their job-description is the furthering of common interests over the parochial, and you and your CO2-emitting technology are definitely on the wrong side of History. But maybe there are some more imaginative measures available . . .

Consider today’s report from the French press-agency AFP (discussed among other places on the Swiss news website 24heures), on some innovative lobbying efforts being undertaken on the part of a consortium of leading European industrial firms – within the US federal government! Specifically, the article details how representatives in their employ have approached four US Senators famous for being global warming deniers to contribute money to their political funds, totalling $306,000 this year, to support their anti-climate change efforts – in the first instance their fight against any sort of “cap-and-trade” pollution-control regime. And then, in a nice cynical twist, these companies have then turned around to argue to European authorities that it makes no sense to push for any global climate-change measures now, because it is by no means certain that the US government will come on board!

Naturally, these firms – among which the largest monetary contributions come from the German companies Bayer and BASF – wanted to do this all secretly, but their dastardly deeds have now been exposed by the Climate Action Network (CAN), a international umbrella-organization encompassing around 500 climate/ecology NGOs, whose researchers took the trouble simply to read the mid-October report from the US Federal Election Commission that details which candidates got how much money from whom, and then to do a little arithmetic. The CAN report even pins the blame for the failure of the COP15 climate summit last December in Copenhagen on a reluctance for any accord on the part of President Obama and his administration that supposedly had been cultivated by these underhanded lobbying efforts.

That last assertion, of course, is rather doubtful; I’ll need much further proof than that before I’ll start believing that Obama was, in effect, on the take at that Copenhagen summit. Beyond that, though, these CAN charges as publicized by the AFP ultimately fall rather flat under any sort of closer examination. For starters, that alleged amount of $306,000 in combined campaign contributions to four Senators in 2010 (an average of $76,500 per Senator) is rather low on the Washington political-contribution scale. It’s highly doubtful that they really got much in exchange for that amount, besides maybe a brief visit to the lawmaker’s Capitol Hill office, a post-on-your-wall photo shaking hands with the politico, and maybe a set of state-seal-embossed ink-pens. (Admittedly, there’s no mention in the article of the amounts they may have paid in previous years.)

Secondly, it’s clear that the lobbyists in the employ of these European companies are behind the times, that they have not kept up with the new political rules resulting from last January’s Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case that declared corporations equivalent to private persons when it comes to political speech, and thereby enabled unlimited and anonymous contributions to political campaigns – if not directly to candidates, then to “independent” political advocacy organizations ready to spend money and advertise on specific candidates’ behalf. The European companies could have given as much as they wanted to their favorite US senators, albeit indirectly, and would never have had to worry about anyone from the general public (European or American) hearing about it, if they only had been better-advised. For heavens’ sake, gentlemen, call Karl Rove!

The impact these CAN revelations should ultimately have is therefore much like watching a youngster steal from the Church collection-plate: it’s a trivial offense in itself, but does indicate in the perpetrator the sort of crooked disposition and intent that definitely bear further monitoring.

UPDATE: Look, Europolluters, let me help you out – or rather let former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson do so (in Foreign Money, National Security, and the Midterm Elections). He’s writing here about the Citizens United decision, of course; here are some extracts to give you a flavor:

We have effectively enfranchised foreigners in US elections. This is clearly and absolutely not what the drafters of the Constitutions [sic] had in mind. . . . And however you prefer to define our legitimate national security interests, how are they consistent with letting foreign citizens influence or even determine the outcome of our elections?

I’m afraid I now have to add my voice to those others critical of the Obama administration. But my particular objection concerns an issue not extensively raised heretofore: his spy-exchange policy.

The inspiration here comes – as it so often does these days – from a tweet:

RT @news_suisse Let's swap: Fidel #Castro will only free spy suspct in xchng 4 5 #Cuba spies held by US "like w/Russns" http://bit.ly/bu900P

July 31, 2010 10:06 am via Futuretweets V2ReplyRetweetFavorite

@EuroSavant

EuroSavant

The reference is to this article in the Swiss paper 24 Heures about ancient Cuban strongman Fidel Castro recently emerging in public to rail against his old bugbear, the US. Turns out the authorities there have been holding an American businessman for eight months now, whom they are still “investigating.” How convenient: maybe to get him back the US government would be willing to exchange five already-convicted Cuban spies, namely the so-called “Cuban Five” who were dispatched to Florida to infiltrate Cuban exile organizations, one of whom was then found guilty of “conspiracy to commit murder.”

Any six-year-old marble-trader (not to mention The Doors) could tell you what’s wrong with that deal: they want five of ours for just one of theirs! And why would Fidel believe that the US would even consider such an unequal transaction? Because no less than a month ago the Obama administration did accept precisely that in sending ten suspected spies back to Russia in exchange for only four in return! Shortly thereafter, VP Biden tried to downplay this disparity by asserting that “[w]e got back four really good ones.”

But anyone can see that that is far from true. In fact, all you need to do to disprove Biden’s assertion is examine the case of but one of those Russians, Anna Chapman (which, strangely, is precisely what Biden and his talk-show host Jay Leno then proceeded to do!). From the considerable value-added that has been derived from her already – like this, and also this – it’s clear that, in fact, Ms. Chapman alone should have been worth the return of ten of our own spies from Russian jails – at least.

But apparently Obama has rather less trading-savvy than any man-on-the-street, so the Russian spy exchange went through and Anna Chapman was gone – oh so irretrievably gone! That’s what makes Fidel think he can dangle a similarly lopsided sort of deal in front of US authorities and that they’ll go for it as well, but this sort of soft-headedness in the spy-horse-trading market has got to stop!

P.S. Interestingly, the latest English-language coverage I’ve been able to find so far on this Cuban spy issue, like this recent piece from the Associate Press, completely misses the agent-exchange point by focusing instead on Castro’s characterization of the treatment of one of those imprisoned Cuban spies by US authorities as “torture.”

That’s ridiculous! The United States does not “torture” – not like they do on the island of Cuba! Why, I can distinctly remember the last President, George W. Bush, saying precisely that.

Have you heard? The 2010 World Exposition will be held in Shanghai, China, from May 1 through October 31 this year. And yes, there will be a US pavilion there, even though through much of last year that issue was touch-and-go: it seemed no one really wanted to pay for one, least of all the US Government, but a solution was finally found involving a broad away of corporate sponsors.

But enough of that; the Neue Zürcher Zeitung has a truly mesmerizing article up now by Mattias Messmer about the preparations in Shanghai itself (Pajamas back in the closet). His key point: this is going to be a Chinese world exposition, after all, the first one ever, so you know it is going to be rather different from the last one (which was held in Zaragoza, Spain in 2008, in case you don’t remember) or indeed any other. As Messmer puts it, “In this country politics, national pride and cultural differences play a much more significant role, especially regarding great international events.” I should not surprise us at all – at least those of us who were paying attention during the 2008 Peking Summer Olympics – but it is clearly the aim of the Chinese authorities that this World Exposition be the biggest and indeed the best ever.

Also similarly to Peking two years ago, those authorities are also determined that from 1 May – and even before – Shanghai will present its best face to the world. Messmer’s article is basically devoted to describing the initiatives being taken to that end. Cost is no object: once again, whole streets are being ripped up (often because of the new subway lines being built under them), unsightly neighborhoods are being razed, often to be replaced for the most part with attractive parks, and in those neighborhoods allowed to continue to exist as before the house-facades are being spruced up.

But it doesn’t stop there. Those in charge are determined not just to make a new physical city, but also a new, improved sort of Chinese citizen to go along with it. That means that a behavior-modification campaign is now in place to “civilize” Shanghai citizens in preparation for all the encounters they are sure to have with visiting foreigners starting May 1, a campaign pursued through ubiquitous street-posters – usually featuring “Haibao,” the Expo’s little blue mascot, pictured above – reminding people to behave themselves, backed up by an enhanced police presence. These banners make it clear that there is to be no more spitting; no more littering, no more “wild jostling,” such as apparently is ordinarily the Chinese norm at bus- and train stations; and no more wandering around town in your pajamas. (Thus the title of Messmer’s piece, and it’s a shame: apparently middle-aged women wandering around town in their pajamas, with their hair in curlers and a lap-dog under their arm, is a proud Shanghai tradition.)

Interestingly, the Shanghaiers are also supposed to cut out the use of their local dialect (Shanghaihua) and just speak regular Mandarin. But that’s not all: bank clerks (presumably only the females) are being prepared to pretty themselves up for work during the Expo-period using the same uniform makeup arrangement, and it’s also said that other local young lovelies are being recruited to take over bus-ticket sales along certain high-traffic routes.

As usual, Messmer reports, the city residents are fine with all that. They’ll stop their spitting; they’ll put away their pajamas. They’ll even enter a state-sponsored contest on the theme “Knowledge of the Expo and Civilized Behavior” to get the chance to win free tickets to the event. Because, in the final analysis, they’re proud that the World Exposition is coming to their city.