Highly charged polonium

Posted on by

“I have today concluded that the evidence sent to us by the police is sufficient to charge Andrei Lugovoy with the murder of Mr. Litvinenko by deliberate poisoning,” [UK] Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said, immediately setting off a diplomatic confrontation between London and Moscow.

This of course has gone over like the proverbial heavy-isotope balloon in Moscow, where authorities and lawyers have alternately blustered, denied, denigrated the British court system and pointed to the Russian constitution, which appears to make extradition a dead letter. Still, an EU-wide warrant is likely to follow, and Lugovoy’s travel prospects will surely be limited.

Foreign relations tests will come fast and furious in the early part of Gordon Brown’s term as prime minister…

Business Week loves immigrants

Posted on by

As long as they’re in Spain, that is..

Less snarkily, the article asks the very important question whether this is an answer to the problem of aging populations, and contrasts Spain with Denmark and Nicolas Sarkozy’s election campaign. And it even tackles Edward Hugh’s concerns that the Spanish construction boom may pop with unpredicted consequences.

Meanwhile, Margaret Hodge successfully bears out Barnett’s crack that the British and French are “fearful” on this. The story is here:

At present we prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement that others feel they have to resources in the community,’ Hodge writes. ‘So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded privately rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents.

‘We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.

To put it another way, more people should die of carbon monoxide poisoning in Rachmanesque squalor to save Labour/BNP swing votes in constituencies like…Margaret Hodge’s! You can’t begin to guess how much I despise this woman.

Bunkers of the DDR

Posted on by

British urban-exploration geeks report on their tour of a wealth of cold-war and Nazi bunkers in the former East Germany back in 2003. Thrilling and uncomfortable stuff—they were the first to revisit the ultimate DDR fortress, the bunker that was built as an alternate seat of government for Erich Honecker and the rest of the Zentralkomitee. That is merely tankerpunk, of course, but I thought this was very cool indeed..

After many hours beneath the surface, we emerged from the gloom and after thanking our guide, headed off to the next site, nearly 150 miles away, the former East German PTT (Post Office Telecom, basically) satellite uplink station ‘Intersputnik’ at Neu Golm to the south east of Berlin.

The site came into service 1976 as the first (and only) ground satellite station in the GDR. Then part of the integrated international telecommunications network, ‘Intersputnik’, (which has nothing to do with the Sputnik remote transmitter sites mentioned elsewhere in this report) was one of 15 INTERSPUTNIK sites which were in service in 13 countries. These sites used to transmit telephone, fax, TV and data signals. In the Former Times, this site‘s services were also used by the then West German PTT services for satellite links to the Soviet Union, i.e. it was a non-military complex. Later, it used the Soviet satellites Stationar 4 and 5 in geostationary orbit 36,000 km over the equator, but initially used the four Soviet Molniya satellites, which were in a non-stationary orbit, i.e. the dish had to be oriented towards each of the four in turn as they came into view for a 6-hour “period of duty”. The dish could rotate through 360° and was so finely balanced that a 250 W drive is sufficient to rotate it. However, the entire site is now a conference centre, even if the redundant original dish (12 m in diameter and weighing, with its base, 60 tonnes) is still on the roof.

Note especially that Deutsche Telekom shared the installation with the East Germans and the Russians, a fine example of what used to be called the DDR’s secret membership in the EEC, and the difficult moral position the West Germans were regularly pressed into – between doing things that would improve life in the East (but perhaps reinforce the regime) and the desire to put pressure on the DDR leadership.

Team Europe: World Police!

Posted on by

Over at the Small Wars Journal‘s blog, they’re wondering if part of the problem in dealing with failed states, the aftermath of wars, peacekeeping and the like is that it’s nobody’s job to provide a police force, and specifically a real civilian one that does things like investigating crimes.

This was, of course, a bitter problem in the Balkans, and one that was never really solved. To begin with, the job simply devolved on IFOR (and later, KFOR)’s provost units and whatever troops were nearby. Later, a UN police force was constituted for Bosnia, but the less said, the better – arguably it was the source of more crime than it solved, and it was eventually wound up and replaced by an EU police mission. Kosovo was a similarly bad experience.

However, John Sullivan writes, neither the US nor NATO-as-an-organisation have any answers. He praises the EU for setting up a (putative) rapid reaction police force that can call on member states for up to 5,500 cops. And it certainly seems like a task that the EU is suited to, whilst not touching too many of the constitutional pressure points. It’s not specifically military, it’s not “an EU police” although no doubt the Sun would call it one if any of its editor knew it existed, it doesn’t annoy the Poles or Russians specifically, nor does it touch on the subsidy world. It also fits nicely with the wide variety of governmental tasks the EU can take on, alone among international institutions.

Mind you, I have my doubts. European official circles, institutions, thinktanks and so on have been pushing this around the plate since Maastricht without making many decisions. It used to be fashionable enough that NATO also got in on it – I recall a briefing at NATO SHAPE in late 2000 which concentrated almost entirely on enlargement, policing, and civil operations, something borne out by the fact the briefers included a French gendarmerie colonel, a Polish air force officer, and a British civil servant.

Spain’s postnational local election?

Posted on by

Richard Corbett MEP directs us to this BBC report on Spain’s rash of political parties dominated by immigrants from other European countries, especially Germany and Britain. In one municipality, San Fulgencio, there are some three such parties, including one run by a former policeman that declares its opposition to immigration.

This immediately raises an interesting question of language. As Corbett points out, the BBC reporter refers throughout to “ex-pats”, who are apparently something quite different to “immigrants”. I am an expatriate, you are a local, he is an immigrant, they are bogus asylum seekers taking our jobs? I suppose it’s not surprising that these large, usually politically silent, communities should export their political preferences with them – one can well imagine people who fit into UKIP, the BNP, or the Tory hard right fitting into what Edward Hugh calls Spanish separatism.

Certainly, we can discern a progression through perhaps three phases. To begin with, these places were tourist resorts (hence the infrastructure problems that motivate much of this political activity, the lead times being long). Then they began to be retirement communities, with the demographic shift and the run-up of the property market. Now, interestingly, not only are the retirees living longer, but the expat (or immigrant!) population is getting younger, in a symbiotic process with the appearance of an expat economy.

Tourists are politically irrelevant, at least in the context of an open society. Retirement communities may have been thought to be so. If people have families and businesses, though, they can’t help but have interests that are affected by local politics. Corbett raises an interesting point when he postulates a British Polish Party. After all, they would be starting at stage three already, although the fact a lot of them intend to leave would be a countervailing force.

I wonder how many more extranational political parties the EU will see?

The Third Annual Satin Pajama Awards

Posted on by

I should give people a last chance to suggest blogs for the stin pajama awards.

The purpose of the awards is to recognize the efforts and contributions of Europe’s many talented bloggers, to maybe help build a sense of community among us, and, more than anything, it’s a chance for people to discover lots of new good blogs.

A blog is eligible if it’s written by Europeans or has a European (Czech, Catalan…) theme. Our own blogs aren’t eligible. Finalists are chosen based on the number of nominations as well as editorial discretion. So you want to nominate a favorite blog even if someone else already mentioned it.

The polls will open on Tuesday May 22.

Nominees for Best Southeastern European Weblog
Nominees for Best CIS blog
Nominees for Best Writing
Nominate Best Culture Weblog
Nominees for Best Personal Weblog
Nominate Best New Weblog
Nominees for Best European Weblog Overall
Nominate Best Political Weblog
Nominate Most Underappreciated Weblog
Nominees for Best Humor Blog
Nominees for Best German Blog
Nominees for Best French Weblog
Nominate Best UK Blog
Nominees for Best Expat Blog
Nominate Best Academic Weblog

Serbia: Day 109, and over

Posted on by

At the last possible moment, they pulled it out. Serbia has a new government.

Prime Minister Kostunica will stay Prime Minister. Some ministries will be shuffled; control over state security will be divided (since, in Serbia, nobody trusts a rival party to control this). Oh, and they’ll kick the Radical leader out of his position as Speaker of the Parliament.

The new government will probably be weak and consumed by constant internal bickering and backstabbing. But it’s still much better than the alternative of a Radical (opportunistic, vaguely fascistic populist-nationalist) government.

Also: 109 days to form a government. That’s pretty impressive. It’s much better than their previous record of 70 days from 2004. This one will be hard to beat.

Still, here’s a tentative prediction: just as the Italians have a habit of short-lived governments, the Serbs are going to have a habit of long post-election wrangling periods. I’d bet a euro that after the next election — two, three, or four years from now — the next government won’t be formed for at least 60 days.

Speaking of bets, seven weeks ago I bet that Serbia would form a new government at the last possible moment. I was right! But I also bet that before this happened, the UN Security Council would make a decision on Kosovo. I was wrong… Oh, well, that’s 1-for-2.

So, that’s sorted. On to Eurovision!

Consider this an open thread.

Witch Doctors of the EU

Posted on by

Orac reports on the curious case of a Bulgarian witch doctor, practising in Serbia in a creditable interpretation of the Bologna process, who advised a patient suffering from premature ejaculation to sexify a hedgehog. It turns out in comments that Bulgaria actually licences shamans.

Bulgaria is now a member state. I’d like to see the DG Education & Culture meeting where they try to define a Europe-wide qualification for necromancers.

Quick-Reaction Alert

Posted on by

So France gets a new president. So I’m jumping from the window, running to the AFOE control room..

Nicolas Sarkozy’s first act as President has been to go for a “retreat” in the monastic surroundings of a giant yacht belonging to media boss Vincent Bolloré, who claims to have no business with the French government. Well, well, well.

Except for this one, under which his SDV Group logistics firm gets the job to carry the French diplomatic bag. €5.6 million to you. Or this one, of indefinite value, under which his firm gets the job of transporting cash (and medals!) by air for the Ministry of Finance. That is, Sarko’s old job.

Or, finally, this one, under which SDV gets the contract to provide all the French Ministry of Defence’s air charters, for some €36 million. Hat tip to Arnaud Labrousse, and these guys.