Category Archives: A Few Euros More

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Milosevic is dead.

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CNN.com – Milosevic dies in prison cell – Mar 11, 2006

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands, according to the United Nations. He was 64.

Serbian radio says he hung himself, just like the Krajina president did. I must have misread something.

BBC says:

Steven Kay, Mr Milosevic’s lawyer, told BBC News 24 that he had been found dead in his cell on Saturday morning.
[…]
The tribunal last month rejected a request by Mr Milosevic to go to Russia for medical treatment. He had high blood pressure and a heart condition.

The Endless Journey

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The Endless Journey
One part of western culture that has been little recorded and also greatly repressed is that of the Gypsies.

Their culture remains one of the most misunderstood and underrepresented, and is often falsely stereotyped by other cultures. Some characteristics that permeate all gypsy cultures is the denial of citizenship, denial of being bound to any piece of land, except to the earth as a whole. Although some gypsies claim that their journey is in the search of a homeland, the truth is that they would rather hold steadfast to their heritage than give it up for a settled home. Gypsies who settle down, tend to absorb the culture around them and become members of the culture they join.

Parents of Kurdish political refugee murdered in Turkey

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There is some friction between Belgium and Turkey.

First there was the case of Fehriye Erdal, a far-left militant that was convicted last Thursday in Belgium for being a member of a criminal organisation (Turkish group DHKP-C or Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front). Trouble is, when Belgian authorities proceeded to arrest her she had disappeared. A big fuss ensued with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül demanding an investigation and the extradition of Erdal to Turkey.

Today another story has emerged in the Belgian press. The unlinkable VRT Teletekst reports on pages 157 and 158 that Flemish Minister of Foreign Policy Geert Bourgeois has written the Turkish ambassador to Belgium a letter asking an explanation for the murder of the parents of Derwich M. Ferho, the president of the Kurdish Institute in Brussels. Ferho’s parents were kidnapped last Thursday in Turkey and killed in what some people, notably the Kurdish Institute, suspect to be an assault by Turkish death squads and local security services. It seems that Ferho’s parents had previously been threatened by Turkish authorities because their two sons, both political refugees living in Belgium, had engaged in, and I quote from the unlinkable news item on VRT Teletekst, “anti-Turkish activities abroad”.

Geert Bourgeois has asked for an explanation and warned that there could be a problem if Derwich’s parents were indeed murdered by Turkish authorities, especially in view of Turkish negotiations to enter the EU. When Bourgeois himself was asked if there could be a link with the missing Erdal, he responded: “It would be too early to say, but I would not rule out that possibility”.

Since nothing seems to be confirmed yet… to be continued

My latest harebrained idea

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A Few Euros More is not quite on hiatus, but clearly on the backburner right now. I thought I’d use this opportunity to do a little experiment. Anyone who feels like it is invited to post on AFEM this week. Just drop me a line at editors at fistfulofeuros.eu and I will give you access to the blog. Yes, you heard me, anyone who asks gets to post, until we tire of you.

Bringing Down Europe’s Last Ex-Soviet Dictator

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Long NYT magazine piece on the Belorussian opposition.

“We go into these elections not because we believe in their fairness, but because this is a chance to go to the people, to conduct a campaign door to door,” Milinkevich explained through an interpreter. “I will not say that at every door people will become less fearful immediately. But very many people, when they see others who are not afraid, who dare to tell the truth, they will start to have more courage.” For now, many people react uneasily when they encounter him, as if he were an apparition. In the consciousness of a people saturated with state propaganda and ideology, he appears as the shadowy leader of a revolutionary cadre financed by big powers abroad and committed to the overthrow of the government.