From the desk of John Laughland on Fri, 2008-03-07 14:05
Dmitri Medvedev’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election in Russia has been resoundingly denounced in the Western press as a foregone conclusion. Commentators on left and right have attacked the Russian political system as undemocratic. But in fact it is they whose democratic credentials are in question, not the Russians.
From the desk of Soeren Kern on Fri, 2008-03-07 12:34
Voters in Spain will elect a new government on March 9. The highly competitive race pits the leader of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), Mariano Rajoy, against the incumbent Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The 2008 election is a rematch of the vote four years ago. Rajoy, 52, was first picked to run for prime minister in the 2004 elections by former Prime Minister José María Aznar. Rajoy led Zapatero, 47, throughout the 2004 campaign, until the March 11 commuter train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people.
Zapatero’s surprise victory three days after the attacks has been attributed to the hysteria fomented by Spain’s left-leaning mass media in the hours before voters went to the polls. Because of the questions surrounding the legitimacy of his 2004 win, many Spaniards have considered Zapatero to be an accidental political leader. Adding to their doubts is the fact that Zapatero failed to win an absolute majority, and thus has been beholden to a motley hodge-podge of leftists and nationalist parties to govern.
From the desk of Napoleon Linardatos on Fri, 2008-03-07 09:55
If you were spending 16 billion euros a year, would you like to know where the money goes? The nominally conservative government of Greece, after being in power for four years, has reached the point now that perhaps it’s time to look into it. Especially since that 16 billion represents something that approaches a fifth of its annual budget.
From the desk of George Handlery on Fri, 2008-03-07 09:36
Our age is a mosaic. Its small bits are easily missed as we are taught to focus on the big chunks. This column presents some overlooked details that deserve attention.
1. Russia has voted to elect her appointed President. This is penned in the hope that the reader will have recovered from the tension of the wait for the results. Be grateful. Imagine the tension of choosing between viable candidates and not the approval of the heir of a bequeathed crown facing carefully selected nobodies!
From the desk of Tiberge on Fri, 2008-03-07 08:48
A new anti-Semitic attack, reminiscent of the February 2006 murder of Ilan Halimi, has taken place in a suburb of Paris. This version of the event is from Gaelle Mann, based on Le Parisien.
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Fri, 2008-03-07 08:38
A quote from the C-Fam website, 6 March 2008
A split in the European Union (EU) over abortion continued to shape negotiations at the UN this week during the annual meeting of the Commission at the Status of Women (CSW) in New York. Last week non-EU member Norway, likely acting as a stalking horse for pro-abortion EU countries, proposed inclusion of the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” in the draft agreed conclusions. Norway’s move caused increasing dissent among EU members. […] While the majority of the EU member states strongly supported inclusion of “sexual and reproductive rights” in the document, Poland, Ireland and Malta broke ranks from their EU colleagues and called for the deletion of the Norwegian language.
From the desk of Michael Huntsman on Thu, 2008-03-06 22:22
There was an old codger called, I think, Samaranch, who ran the Olympics racket a few years ago who was said to expect to be treated with the ceremonial and deference due a Head of State whenever he made an imperial progress around the world. Nothing very much has changed, it seems.
The Times today tells us of the breath-taking scale of the demands for gas-guzzling limos that is being made for the Olympics Nomenklatura to effect their egress to and from the various venues for 2012, the smart restaurants, the banks, nightclubs and brothels of London. Three thousand, one hundred and forty five of them, no less, will be needed to ensure that transport appropriate to the importance and dignity of such as the 110 IOC members, 400 presidents and secretary-generals from the Olympic committees of the 200 competing nations and 450 senior executives from corporate sponsors and other hangers-on. In addition special settings for traffic-lights will be installed and dedicated lanes set aside for the swift transit of these swells to their fun.
Thus will London come to resemble not, as the plan is, a modern 21st Century City but rather Moscow in the 1970s or Pyong-Yang today. The smog element may well be the same too.
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Thu, 2008-03-06 18:07
A quote from The Local (Sweden), 6 March 2008
Sweden's state-run pharmacy chain Apoteket has announced that it is to begin selling sex toys in order to satisfy demand from customers.
From the desk of Fjordman on Thu, 2008-03-06 17:59
Kabul to Copenhagen
More than 200 lawmakers shouted "Death to the enemies of Islam" during an angry demonstration outside the Afghan parliament protesting the reprinting of a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad in Denmark and an upcoming Dutch film criticizing the Quran.
Copenhagen to Kabul
Danish aid is helping schools to re-open in Afghanistan, but critics say the curriculum is based on fundamental Islam.
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Thu, 2008-03-06 13:16
A quote from MaltaMedia News, 1 March 2008
Malta and Poland broke rank with the European Union (EU) on the question of abortion [...] The dissension occurred at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) [...] The reaction of Malta and Poland happened after the EU tried to shift the meeting’s agenda to include the right to abortion. [...]
