… and the cross is a symbol advocating crucifixions

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You will all recall, I’m sure, that Germany had a problem with nazis sixty or so years ago. After this problem had been cleared up (primarily by non-Germans), the Germans resolved that they didn’t want that sort of thing to happen again. And towards that end they enacted some laws.

One of those laws is § 86a of the Criminal Code. In pertinent part it reads:

Mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe wird bestraft, wer … im Inland Kennzeichen einer der in § 86 Abs. 1 Nr. 1, 2 und 4 bezeichneten Parteien oder Vereinigungen verbreitet oder öffentlich … verwendet.

(Any person who, on German territory, distributes or uses symbols of a party or association listed in § 86 para. 1, 2 and 4, shall be punished with imprisonment of up to three years or with a monetary penalty.)

The parties and associations in question include what the statute somewhat coyly calls ‘the former national-socialist organisations’.

Though nobody decent likes a nazi, a prohibition against displaying their symbols on pain of criminal penalty does rub rather against the liberal grain. Still, this is Germany, and one can understand why Germans feel they need to take a sterner line against this sort of thing than would, say, Americans.

Now you have all heard about the annoyance of skinheads and other excrescences of neo-nazi yoof culture in Germany. What you might not know is that there is also a countervailing and at times rather, ehh, exuberant anti-nazi cultural stream. This ranges from admirable young students acting earnestly against racism and xenophobia to beersodden neonhaired neopunkers who (one sometimes suspects) know as little about what they oppose as their fuzzy-skulled adversaries know about what they espouse, save that it pisses off their opposite numbers. Wherever on this spectrum of seriousness Germany’s young antifascists fall, many of them are united in the use of certain popular symbols to express their disdain for the brown. These symbols are typically displayed as buttons or on patches sewn (or quite often, safety-pinned) onto one’s bomber or biker jacket. You’ll find some pictures below the fold.

Whether idealistic antifascists or mohawked louts, these are not the sort of people, surely, that § 86a was meant to sweep up. Yet as the Frankfurter Rundschau reports, a few German prosecutors have been using this law against them, and some German courts are handing down convictions.

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The battle of Wobbly Knee: Dutch troops in Afghanistan

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The Netherlands is talking about sending an additional 1,200 troops to Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province. The Dutch already have 540 people working in Afghanistan under the umbrella of the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) peace mission and another 674 under the umbrella of Operation Enduring Freedom. For other Dutch international deployments look here.

Why is it hard for the Dutch to finally make good on a promise their government made back on December 22nd 2005?
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The Booming Czech Republic

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The Czech Republic is booming apparently. Both per-capita GDP and fertility are definitely on an upswing, although surprisingly perhaps, for once I am not going to try and suggest that these are connected:

The Czech republic has joined Slovenia among new member states with higher levels of wealth per capita than old member Portugal, according to European Commission statistics.

This raises interesting questions which I just touch on in this AFEM post here. (Incidentally, you can find a one-page set of economic statistics for the Czech Republic from the OECD here).

What is perhaps most interesting about the Prague Post article is the way they explicitly link the increase in preganancy to a recent reform in maternity provision (due to come into effect in April), and to the fact that the ‘postponement phenomenon‘ often leads to a spike in births as women who have postponed reach the new ‘childbearing age’.

“The Labor and Social Affairs Ministry recently launched its own reforms aimed at encouraging couples to have children. The reforms provide generous benefit packages and require companies to hold the jobs of employees on leave for up to four years, and, as of April, women will begin receiving a state subsidy of 17,500 Kč ($725) for each newborn child — more than double the current amount.”
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The Czech Growth Engine?

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Interesting news from the Czech Republic in this week:

The Czech republic has joined Slovenia among new member states with higher levels of wealth per capita than old member Portugal, according to European Commission statistics.

The central European country enjoyed gross income per capita of 73 percent of the EU 25 average last year compared to 71 percent in Portugal, according to the latest estimate by the commission’s statistical wing, Eurostat….

The results have left Slovenia and the Czech republic chasing Greece, on 83 percent, as the next old member state to overtake, with Slovenia set to draw level with Greece by 2007 and the Czech republic to narrow the gap further in the next two years, the study predicts.

This now raises some interesting questions. How will Slovenia’s future growth compare with that of the Czech Republic (remember Slovenia is about to join the eurozone on 1 January 2007 while the Czech Republic is in no particular hurry to join)? What is the relation between Portugal’s low-growth and eurozonemembership? Will the Czech Republic now overtake Greece?

We can also, I think, see more clearly some appropriate comparisons for testing the ‘euro has been a spectacular success’ hypothesis: we can look at the UK vs France, Finland vs Sweden and Denmark, and we can look at the Czech Republic vs Portugal.

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.

Will They, Won’t They?

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While Latvia is still arguing with the EU Commission over the spelling of eiro (or is it euro), the FT today asks the much more pertinent question: will the other baltic states even be able to join? On the backs of the energy hike Estonia and Lithuania are struggling to comply with the entry conditions, especially those on inflation. Slovenia is, however, expected to join on target on 1 January 2007.

Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia set themselves the target of being in the first wave of new euro members next January and of complying with most of the rules, including public debt levels, interest rates and budget deficits.

Estonia, however, is struggling to meet the inflation criterion, which is likely to be set at about 3 per cent this year, 1.5 per cent above the average inflation rates of the three countries with the lowest inflation….. Like in other former Soviet-bloc countries, energy has a bigger weighting in Estonia’s consumer price index because the country uses power less efficiently than the EU’s older members.

“We feel that it’s a shame that just when we need to qualify for euro entry, the world oil prices go up,” said Kylike Sillaste, adviser to the prime minister….

Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s monetary affairs commissioner, has said he will apply strictly the entry standards for the candidate countries, although the ultimate decision on enlarging the eurozone lies with member states.

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.