Tag Archives: Europe and the world

Not Before Time

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Brighton College, a modest private school in the South of England, has announced that Mandarin Chinese is to become part of school’s core curriculum from September. Now all it needs is for the state sector to follow suit:

In a clear sign of China’s growing economic and political clout, a British school has become the first in the country to make Mandarin Chinese a compulsory subject for all pupils…..

“One of my key tasks is to make sure that the pupils at Brighton College are equipped for the realities of the 21st century, and one of those realities is that China has the fastest growing economy in the world,” Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, said.

“This year China replaced Britain as the world’s fourth largest economy. We in Britain need to face up to this challenge, see it for the trading opportunity that it is, and ensure that our nation’s children are well-placed to thrive in this new global reality.

“A better understanding of the language and culture of China will be hugely to the advantage of the children of Brighton College.”

Merkel In Moscow

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Fresh from asking G. W. Bush to put an end to Guantanamo, Anglea Merkel is now in Moscow. High on the list will be both Iran, and democracy in Russia. Quite timely really that someone who grew up in East Germany and can read the riot act to him in her most charming Russian should be catapulted into the front line like this.

Certain things seem to stand out:

Merkel………..agreed with U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday that it was time to refer Iran to the UN Security Council over its refusal to abandon uranium enrichment technology that could enable it to get atomic weapons.

Germany is the world’s top exporter of goods to Iran and would have much to lose if Tehran faced sanctions. It exported 4 billion euros of goods to Iran last year.

The chancellor, who grew up in Germany’s formerly communist East and speaks fluent Russian, is under pressure from the opposition to confront Putin on reports that the development of democracy and human rights in Russia is slowing down.

“It seems that Putin will agree not to vote no, but will abstain. A yes vote would be better,”

As Alex noted, Merkel has already “been impressively successful in building authority in foreign affairs”. Could this be anything to do with the fact that authority-building on internal matters is likely to be much more uphill work, or could it be that we are going to see a German Foreign Affairs Chancellor, restricting herself internally to arbitrating between the otherwise warring factions of her government? That could be one way to make it work I suppose.

Flu Virus Resistance Grows

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It’s Suday morning, and I don’t normally feel moved to post on a blog, but this news is disconcerting, and seems to merit the effort:

“The US government, for the first time, is urging doctors not to prescribe two antiviral drugs commonly used to fight influenza after discovering that the predominant strain of the virus has built up high levels of resistance to them at alarming speed.”

The drugs which are now virtually worthless are rimantadine and amantadine (with 91% of virus samples now showing resistance). The consequence of this is that stocks of two further drugs will now be used to replace them. And the names of the two new ‘front line’ treatments for routine influenza: Tamiflu and Relenza. Now these two ‘anti-virals’ had been being kept in reserve for use in the case of any H5N1 related outbreak. The consequence of this?

The discovery (of resistance) adds to worries about how to fight bird flu should it start spreading among people. …Now, because of the resistance issue, the newer drugs are being recommended for ordinary flu, increasing the chances that resistance will develop more rapidly to them, too, as they become more commonly used…..

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Julie Gerberding said the agency didn’t know how the resistance occurred, saying it may have been the result of a mutation in the virus or overuse of the drugs abroad, such as in countries that permit the drugs to be purchased without a prescription.

One flu expert, Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University, said the development was “disconcerting” as flu now has joined the ranks of other diseases, such as tuberculosis and HIV, that recently have acquired the ability to resist front-line medications.

Three Points to Remember

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February in Paris, 1983. A group of student leaders are ushered into the presence of President Mitterand by huissiers. They stay slightly more than an hour, discussing Marxism-Leninism, youth, and society with the ever-inconsistent, sometimes brilliant, sometimes crooked, sometimes socialist and sometime fascist president. Years later, one of them, Jean-Claude Cambalebis remembers the three questions Mitterand advised him to deal with if he wanted to “avoid becoming Minister of Public Works”.

They were as follows: the first, he said, was Poland, or more specifically that spiritual power had defeated political power there. The second was the way Britain would never be European and would always prefer to maintain ties with its favoured trading partners in the Commonwealth. For the third, Mitterand produced an electronic listening device (un puce electronique) from his pocket and remarked that such things would “turn the organisation of work upside-down”.

23 years down-range from that meeting with the UNEF executive committee at the Elysée Palace, and ten years on from Mitterand’s death, how do those part-predictions, part-suggestions stack up?

More in the geek hole..
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Avian Flu: Do You Want To Know Why……

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Do you want to know why the virus has spread so rapidly in Turkey? Do you want to know why a slow mutation process is occuring? Then look no further:

“The daily Vatan reported that former President Suleyman Demirel, who lives in a townhouse in a busy, central Ankara street, had a dozen chickens he kept in his backyard exterminated as a precautionary measure”.

If the holding of chickens is such an extensive custom in Turkey, then the human/poultry front line is enormous. Perhaps this only serves to highlight the erroneous assumptions the New York Times writer mentioned in this post was working on:

“the Ankara cases have the most alarming implications because….. it is a relatively well-off area, where it is not the norm for humans and animals to live under one roof. ”

Obviously not so, Ms Rosenthal, obviously not so.

The WHO and Avian Flu

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Well the WHO certainly isn’t thinking of taking half measures. The debate is now surely divided between those who say ‘don’t panic’, and those who want to be able to argue ‘don’t say you weren’t warned’.

The World Health Organisation on Thursday predicted governments would need to quarantine about 120,000 people to contain an initial pandemic flu outbreak of just 19 cases……Not only would such aggressive quarantining raise legal and human rights concerns, he said, but knowledge about how to use antiviral drugs as a preventative measure was limited.

Meantime the virus seems to have undergone a small mutation, while the firus itself seems in danger of becoming endemic in Turkey and spreading.

Benjamin Harvey seems to be blogging the situation from inside Turkey, but I can’t find his blog. Anyone got the link?

The Moldova Issue Rumbles On

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Little known Moldova has been in the news at Afoe recently (here, and here), and today the story continues:

Russia’s use of energy as a political tool was in the spotlight again on Wednesday as the European Union expressed concern about Moscow’s dispute with Moldova over gas prices…….On Wednesday the European Commission urged Russia and Moldova to return totalks over their gas price dispute.

“Like in the case of Ukraine and Russia, we very strongly encourage the sides to sit down again at the table to continue discussions and to reach an agreement,” said Commission official Hilde Hardeman.

Her remarks followed concerns this week from the Austrian presidency of the EU over the continuing interruption in supplies to Moldova, which has left it dependent on gas imports from neighbouring Ukraine. The EU stepped up its involvement in Moscow’s former domain last year when it signed a deal to help oversee a border between Ukraine and Moldova’s break- away region of Transdnestria…

The continuing interruption in supplies to Moldova is likely to add to concern in Brussels and EU member states over Europe’s growing dependence on Russian energy supplies.

The gas issue is far from over, it looks like all roads lead to the March summit, and it also seems that EU political debate is about to get a good shot of political realism:

Energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said energy supply has begun to play a key role in EU foreign policy in the past nine months, responding to criticisms of inaction from Polish MEP Bronislaw Geremek on Wednesday (11 January).

“Now, in exeternal relations, energy has moved up the agenda”, he said. “We clearly understand that energy is a priority, it’s always been a priority, but now it’s never missing off the agenda.”

Breaking The Seals

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Leafing through the comments on Brussels Gonzo’s last post, I can’t help getting the feeling that this news about Iran’s decision to resume its nuclear programme may well serve to focus our energy debate a little.

Britain yesterday vowed to report Iran to the United Nations Security Council, intensifying diplomatic pressure over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Responding to Iran’s decision to resume limited uranium enrichment research, Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, told parliament: “I think the first thing to do is to secure agreement for a reference to the Security Council, [if] that is indeed what the allies jointly decide, as I think seems likely.”

British, French and German foreign ministers meeting in Berlin on Thursday are expected to call for an emergency session this month of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’s nuclear watchdog, which would then discuss a referral of the dispute to the Security Council.

Did Russia come out ahead in the gas crisis?

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Expanding on (and slightly copying) my comments in Edward’s post below, I was really shocked to see the spin in the western coverage of the Ukrainian gas crisis. The part that didn’t shock me – just made me groan – is the spin of a western press that seems to have decided in advance that Russia must be the bad guy, so Ukraine must be the good guy. Russia may be the bad guy, but I don’t think is Ukraine is the good guy. From what I can tell from the press, Russian claims that Ukraine was siphoning off gas seem well founded – Russia had been complaining since summer about siphoning, Gazprom was willing to let third parties audit the difference between what was going into Ukraine and what was coming out, while Ukraine refused. Also, it seems that the Russians weren’t the only ones making allegations about siphoning. Yes, Russia’s intentions towards Ukraine are not honorable, nor is this some purely commercial conflict free of political meaning. But, that does not exclude the prospect that Ukraine was screwing Russia.

But what really surprised me was the claim that Russia was the loser here.
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Eurabia or Fantasyland?

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Victor David Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has written an open letter to Europe asking us to “reawake, rediscover your heritage, and join with us in defending the idea of the West from this latest illiberal scourge of Islamic fascism.” It is getting some play in the usual right-wing quarters, despite his extraordinary lack of knowledge about Europe – and that’s a kind interpretation; others might suggest (as does Gary Brecher, here, analysing his take on Iraq) that he is simply making things up.
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