Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Burger King begins its takeover of Russia in Siberia

October 29, 2012 Julia Gribtsova, Vedomosti.ru

After 20 years on the sidelines, the fast-food chain is looking to make up for lost time by entering the Russian market in Siberia, where competitors have yet to venture.

Burger King begins its takeover of Russia in Siberia Burger King is targeting Siberia. Source: RIA Novosti / Vladimir Fedorenko

“We may be 20 years late into Russia, but we’re determined to become the market leader,” said Dmitri Medovoy, general director of Burger Rus.

In pursuit of this goal, the company is targeting Siberia. Until now, Burger King has only had a presence in Moscow, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg: a total of 70 restaurants in Russia, compared to 12,600 worldwide. “Siberia is a priority region for us — it has a high purchasing power and low competition,” Medovoy said.

Related:

Burger King gives boost to franchising

Finding a niche

The coming of America…to Moscow

Where to find an American steak in Moscow

The first two Siberian Burger King restaurants will open in shopping malls in the city of Surgut by the end of 2012, says Jose Cil, president of EMEA Burger King. Exactly how many restaurants the company plans to open in the next two years (particularly in Siberia), Cil and Medovoy did not disclose. Medovoy only stated that the company intends to set up shop in all the major cities of the region. In general, Burger King plans to open several hundred restaurants in Russia, and has not set itself a limit.

The investment required to open a restaurant under the franchise ranges from $314,500 to $2.65 million (depending on the lease and the cost of renovation), which includes an initial investment of $50,000, reads the Burger King Worldwide website.

The only international chains currently operating in Siberia are KFC and Subway. In the past decade, KFC has opened both its own restaurants and franchised outlets, said Ilya Politkovsky, director of external communications at Yum! Restaurants International Russia & CIS, without specifying a figure. Subway has 42 outlets in Siberia: a figure that is set to rise to 49 by the end of the year, according to the company’s press office.

McDonald’s Corp. has been in Russia for more than 20 years now, but, until recently, the company had never ventured east of the Ural Mountains. Khamzat Khasbulatov, president of McDonald’s in Russia and Eastern Europe, explained in April that the problem comes down to logistics and lack of suppliers. “We have signed agreements with suppliers, and they’re ready to work with Siberian outlets,” said Medovoy.

McDonald’s has since quickly changed its mind. “We’re now in talks with local mayors [in Siberia] and exploring the possibility of entering the region. The first outlet is due to open in Krasnoyarsk in late 2013 or early 2014,” said the company’s vice president for development in Russia, Viktor Eidemiller, in August.

Expansion into regions with low competition is the right strategy, believes Andrei Petrakov, who is the executive director of the consulting company Restcon. “It’s logical to focus more on remote areas, since there are few quality premises left in Moscow and St. Petersburg,” Petrakov said. “Lack of space really is a problem,” said Medovoy, agreeing. In his view, Burger King is ready to expand into other regions as well, if suitable sites can be found.

The first franchise under the Burger King brand was opened in 2010 by Burger Rus, which belongs to co-owner of the Shokoladnitsa chain of cafes, Alexander Kolobov. June gave way to the creation of a joint venture project to develop the chain: VTB Capital acquired 47.22 percent, with the rest of the shares going to Burger Rus and Burger King Europe.

First published in Russian in Vedomosti.ru.

Burger King begins its takeover of Russia in Siberia | Russia Beyond The Headlines

Monday, October 29, 2012

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: the new face of the French right

 Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day The Observer, Sunday 28 October 2012

At 22, she is France's youngest ever MP. Her grandfather, Jean-Marie, founded the rightwing Front National and came second in the 2002 presidential race. Her aunt succeeded him as party leader last year. Now Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is the newest face of the party ready to bring its anti-immigrant policies to a younger generation

Marion Marechal-Le Pen 

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, centre, and Front National MP Gilbert Collard arrive at the French national assembly on 20 June, 2012. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

One of the first times that Marion Maréchal-Le Pen took her seat in the Assemblée Nationale, the lower house of the French parliament, she was stopped by a male politician. "He looked at me and said: 'And whose secretary are you?'" says Maréchal-Le Pen.

In June, Maréchal-Le Pen became the youngest MP in modern French history, at the age of 22, after topping the poll in her constituency of Carpentras in the south-eastern region of the Vaucluse, with 49.09% of the vote. And yet the most disconcerting thing about her victory was arguably not her youth but her politics: Maréchal-Le Pen is an MP for the Front National and the newest face of the French far right. Her grandfather, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the political party which she now represents, a party which is anti-Europe, anti-globalisation and which believes in stringent immigration controls and national protectionism.

"Integration is no longer possible," she says. "When you're the single French person in the middle of 10 Tunisians, the majority will impose their way of life on the minority."

Blonde, slim and striking, Maréchal-Le Pen talks in a fluent and engaging manner. When we meet in her small, airless office in the headquarters of the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, her hair is swept back in a ponytail, her clothes are fashionable but discreet: a black top with zip detailing at the shoulders, tailored beige trousers, boots with a sensible heel. In a building filled with middle-aged men in grey suits, Maréchal-Le Pen stands out.

The fact is that she looks like a 22-year-old – albeit one in possession of an extraordinary degree of focus and ambition – and it is perhaps this that makes it difficult to believe she espouses some of the hardline views that form part of her personal and political heritage. She says she is used to people underestimating her.

"It happens," she shrugs. "People have said I'm a puppet, an instrument of my grandfather but I think they quickly realised that I'm my own person, that I have autonomy in my actions. I think they rapidly realised I could look after myself."

And yet however much she might try and distance herself from it, the Front National's grubby history casts a long shadow. Maréchal-Le Pen was born in 1989, two years after her grandfather claimed in an interview that the Nazi gas chambers were "a point of detail of the second world war" and six months before Front National supporters were accused of desecrating a Jewish cemetery in Carpentras, the town that would later become her constituency.

She grew up surrounded by far-right politics in a red-brick manor house called the Pavillon de l'Écuyer in the western Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud that is home to several generations of Le Pens. Behind the rows of oak trees and conifers which shield it from public view, the house continues to play host to the entire dynasty: Jean-Marie, the 84-year-old elder statesman, presides over events and has his office on the first floor. Marine Le Pen, the youngest of his three daughters, who succeeded him as party leader last year, lives above a former stable in the extensive grounds. Marion lives with her mother, Yann, Jean-Marie's middle daughter, on the second floor of the main house. Maréchal-Le Pen's divorced parents are both heavily involved in the Front National: her mother organises the party's rallies and her father, Samuel Maréchal, used to lead its youth movement.

It is partly as a result of this curious setup that many have accused Maréchal-Le Pen of being little more than a photogenic figurehead for a party seeking to ditch its thuggish past in search of more mainstream credibility. There are those who question whether she genuinely believes the policies she's pitching to the wider public.

"She speaks rather well," says the French cultural commentator Agnès Poirier, "but a little like a law student who has memorised her dissertation."

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, France’s youngest MP, and the latest in the family dynasty. Photograph: Rannjan Joawn/Observer New Review

And it is true that her presence on the political stage forms part of a broader attempt at rebranding the party. Maréchal-Le Pen's aunt, Marine, has been instrumental in dragging the image of the Front National into the modern era, moving away from racist rhetoric, reaffirming secularism and insisting that France should stand on its own two feet and leave the euro. In April 2011, Marine banned regional councillor Alexandre Gabriac from the party after a photograph of him giving the Nazi salute was leaked to the press, calling his behaviour "intolerable". In return, she has been rewarded with electoral success: the Front National is now the third largest party in France. When Marine stood as a candidate in the presidential elections earlier this year, she electrified the race by polling 17.9% in the first round – more than 6m votes – eventually finishing third behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. But it has not all been plain sailing: although her niece was elected to parliament in June, Marine Le Pen lost her bid to win a seat by 118 votes.

The party's parliamentary hopes now rest on Maréchal-Le Pen, who is seen as an astute, media-friendly young woman capable of mobilising widespread support and reinvigorating the immigration debate. But there are those who question her own commitment, believing that she is little more than her grandfather's mouthpiece.

According to Matthew Fraser, a professor at the American University of Paris: "The old man [Jean-Marie] is grudgingly fading away – and it is grudging, there is talk that he misses the spotlight. He's hardly in retirement. For now, the granddaughter is an attractive and young symbol – probably not a real power in the system."

I ask Maréchal-Le Pen if she discusses political strategy with her elders around the dining table in the family mansion. "No, not at all," she replies. "We are all able to have our private lives. We're lucky to have such a close family, with my grandfather and cousins around us. We're very blessed. I think because we've always been confronted by adversity from the outside so we've become closer because of that, because we've had to be a strong unit to withstand those blows."

She says she first developed an interest in politics at the age of 16 and supported Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential elections. But she soon became disenchanted by him and, at the age of 19, started to help out with campaigning for the Front National and volunteered for the youth wing of the party. She combined standing as an MP with her postgraduate studies in public law and is still a student at Panthéon-Assas University, a traditionally rightwing institution. Her grandfather, a former paratrooper who also went on to study law, was himself once the youngest MP in French politics when he was elected in 1956 at the age of 28. Is he proud of her carrying on the family tradition?

"I think so," she says. "I hope so. He is proud of those who seek to take back their heritage and is passionate about France and he's happy that young people are becoming engaged [Marion's electoral success was due in part to her popularity among voters aged 18-25]. I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with the essential spirit and of that he's proud. What he hates most of all is inertia, people who are spectators."

What, then, are her policies? She lists them, one by one, in rapid-fire – at one point, she is speaking so quickly that her adviser, Arnaud, has to remind her to slow down as French is not my first language.

"But dammit, I am speaking slowly!" she protests and then carries on at the same breakneck pace. On the economy, she wants France to abandon the euro and readopt the franc. She wants tighter regulation for financial institutions in the wake of the banking crisis and lower taxes for French businesses in order to regain consumer confidence. She is vehemently anti-EU – a position that has found favour with republican French voters who believe the integrity of their nation is endangered by federal government. And she claims that the Front National has taken a truly "feminist" stance on maternity leave by devising a policy that would give stay-at-home parents a salary. Although, when I ask if she considers herself a feminist, she replies: "No, not especially. I'm not obsessed with the rights of women, it can be a bit excessive. I want to put men and women on an equal footing. I think we are equal, but different." She is against positive discrimination or quota systems, believing that women should be treated on their own merits.

"Then, of course, we have our policies on immigration," she continues. "More and more communities are asking for the introduction of their specific religious law and that is a threat to secularisation. It's particularly an issue among Muslim communities. Not all Muslims," she clarifies, hastily. "Most Muslims in France are not fundamentalists. What is surprising is that the first generation of immigrants were very well assimilated. They didn't wear the veil in public. They kept their religion in the private sphere. Now whole immigrant communities are being created – because of past government policies – that are separate."

In France, where the divorce of church from state underpinned the French revolution, secularisation is viewed as a basic tenet of the country's progressive thought. Since April 2011, women have been banned from wearing the burqa or the niqab in public. In this context, Maréchal-Le Pen's comments are not especially controversial. But then she goes even further, outlining a plan to strip second-generation immigrants of citizenship if they commit a crime or refuse to learn French.

"Today, if someone is born in France, they automatically have French nationality even if they have made no effort to integrate," she says. "We believe that French people should be prioritised for social housing and employment opportunities, if they have an equal competence."

But what about the "genuine" French? If they commit a crime, will they too be stripped of their nationality?

"No. We're talking about people to whom we've done a favour," Maréchal-Le Pen leans forward, elbows on her knees, legs apart. She maintains eye contact and talks with a kind of easy charm that could, in the right circumstances, be quite hypnotising. "We've given them a certain number of privileges and if they haven't shown themselves to be worthy of French citizenship, then it's normal to take it back."

This is all so smoothly expressed, that it takes a moment for the impact of it to hit home: that the law, under the Front National, would mean one thing for those descended from immigrants and another thing entirely for what Maréchal-Le Pen views as the "true" French race.

Isn't her stance racist? "That accusation is largely used by our opponents to discredit us. I don't see how it's racist to prioritise French nationals. We're not talking about black or white. It's normal that French people who pay taxes should be prioritised, just as an Algerian who is naturalised will have priority [in social housing and employment]."

She points out that people from Martinique, for example, would not be subject to the proposed nationality restrictions because the Caribbean island is an officially designated region of France and goes on to name a number of Front National members from ethnic minority backgrounds, including Charlotte Soula, the office manager of Marine Le Pen who is of Algerian origin (and a convert from Islam to Catholicism).

"The racism argument is a very violent one but it works less and less," says Maréchal-Le Pen. "Now, on the ground, people don't think it any more of us. They understand it's a political tactic. Most people think we're right.

"It's a debate that stirs up emotions, of course it is. It's hard to talk about it because of the human dimension that affects people. We are not monsters. I have empathy, I am humane, I understand human misery. My grandfather always said: 'Don't be angry at the immigrants, be angry at the political class that created this situation.' I've nothing against people who come to France in search of a better life. If France had the means to welcome everyone, we would. We have that history [of tolerance]. But we don't have the means. We are in debt. Our welfare system is melting under the pressure. We have a colossal deficit. It's sad but we have to have the political courage to say 'stop'. And it's sad because, when we say 'stop', we are saying it to a man or a woman, but there we go."

Immigration, she concedes, "has also been good" for France. The problem, as she sees it, is that past government policies have failed, causing resentment among those who believe their country is being overrun by "outsiders". She goes on to claim that a number of Muslim women, who feel pressurised into wearing the veil within their communities, are also supportive of her position.

"There are women who say to me, 'I can't wear a skirt,' or 'I'll be insulted if I don't wear a veil or don't go to the mosque.' There's a pressure within the community imposed by others. Those people, more and more, are calling on us to act because we are the only ones who see secularism as fundamentally important."

Is the Front National becoming a political force to be reckoned with in France? The election of Maréchal-Le Pen in June, alongside fellow party candidate Gilbert Collard, gave the party a foothold in parliament for the first time since the mid-1980s, but the first-past-the-post electoral system is still weighted against smaller parties. As a result, the popularity of the Front National – especially in impoverished, semi-urbanised rural areas where unemployment is high – might be far more ingrained than the electoral results suggest.

As Hugh Schofield, a BBC news correspondent based in Paris, wrote in an article last April: "In this semi-urbanised countryside, people feel the hopelessness of a life in poverty uncompensated-for by the traditions and structures that would have made it bearable in the past.

"Shops are now in vast out-of-town zones; no one goes to church; work is a 50km drive away. And the cost of the two staples – cigarettes and petrol – has just shot through the roof.

"For these people, a Front National vote offers both a protest (against the wealthy; against the EU; against the establishment), but also a claim: for an identity and the right to a traditional 'French' way of life."

In urban areas, too, there are fears about mass immigration – fears that were heightened by the 2005 riots by mostly French youths of north African origin from the suburbs of Paris and other major cities. The riots highlighted chronic tensions caused by immigration and unemployment and the mainstream parties began to adopt the rhetoric of the Front National. Sarkozy, who was interior minister at the time, referred to the rioters as racaille or scum – a term viewed by some as having implicitly racist connotations.

"Sarkozy won in 2007 by shifting to the right and stealing FN votes," explains Matthew Fraser. "In that sense, [Jean-Marie] Le Pen was ahead of his time – whether his views are despicable or not is a moral question, but what is certain is that they are electorally popular. And his adversaries understand this. Hence the paradox: they pretend the FN is ideologically unfrequentable, yet they steal the party's discourse and platforms to get elected. It's rather like borrowing someone's house to throw a party, but not inviting the owner."

France has a long history with the far right which has traditionally been allied with the Catholic church (even the former president François Mitterrand was, as a young man, involved in conservative nationalist movements) and Marine Le Pen's attempts to decontaminate the image of the FN have not been without success. "Today, the reality is that the extreme right is against us," she claimed in an interview for The Nation last year. "The National Front has evolved."

Despite a recent groundswell of support in provincial France, however, the party is still viewed with outright distaste among the Parisian chattering classes.

"In France it is acceptable, even fashionable, to espouse far-left political convictions, but absolutely unacceptable to belong to the far right," says Fraser. "The explanation is largely historical. France has been living with the shame of the Nazi collaboration under the Vichy regime, after which the far right was marginalised from what are considered to be acceptable political values in France."

And there are those who caution against believing that a leopard can change its spots. Alain Jakubowicz, the president of Licra, the international league against racism and antisemitism, puts it this way: "Today, the party is represented by a young woman with a modern and normal appearance [but] the FN remains the same, with its xenophobic, racist and antisemitic DNA."

Back in her office, Maréchal-Le Pen insists that the Front National's transformation is not simply a superficial public relations exercise.

"Of course the party has evolved," she says. "The problems are no longer the same, so evolution has happened naturally… When the Front National was created in the 1970s it was against the background of communism and the cold war. It was a real threat, now it's no longer the case… Now our main hobby-horse is anti-globalisation."

She insists that she has only ever encountered "a positive reaction" on the street. "Even people who don't share my politics, they say: 'I'm not Front National but I'm happy you're there because it creates debate.'"

Arnaud, her adviser, helpfully interrupts at this point to remind her that she recently went to a fashionable Parisian restaurant and was given a spontaneous round of applause by the diners. Maréchal-Le Pen looks embarrassed.

"The owner was very kind and he took me around and said: 'Tonight we're welcoming Mademoiselle Maréchal-Le Pen,' and everyone clapped," she says hurriedly. "It was really kind."

Does she ever receive hate mail?

"I've had one letter."

Arnaud interjects. "But if I get out all the ones that say how marvellous you are, how beautiful, there's no comparison," he gushes.

It seems incredible that she has only ever had one piece of negative mail. I tell her that in the UK, journalists get more than that in any given week.

"The most aggressive people are other MPs," she says. "Some of them are very aggressive, even though we've all been democratically elected." Jean-François Copé, the leader of the centre-right UMP party, has in the past refused to shake her hand. "He might refuse to shake my hand, but his electors will gladly do so," is her response. Spoken like a true politician.

I can see why Maréchal-Le Pen is electable. In person, she has an engaging, accessible manner. There is the occasional glimpse of humour – when we are talking about her party's maternity leave policies, the subject of children comes up. Does she want a family? She guffaws. "Yes, if I can find a suitable sperm donor."

At the same time, I find her charisma unsettling because it is being deployed in the defence of some dubious beliefs. As the interview draws to a close, I tell her I have one final question and it's a personal one. She nods, encouraging me to go on.

I am married to a man whose father came to the UK from Sudan, I say. If he lived in France under a Front National government, my husband would therefore fall into that category of second-generation immigrants who would have to prove deserving of a citizenship automatically conferred on others. Given this, I wonder what her position is on marriages between people from different backgrounds?

Maybe it's because I'm expecting a reaction that I think I see a slight flinch in her face. It is a tiny movement: the expression of someone who has effectively masked their surprise.

"I'm not against it," she replies. "For me, marriage is a very personal choice. The only thing I'd say is that I know, from people who've told me firsthand, that sadly mixed marriages can be a bit conflicted on everyday issues. For instance, the naming of children – Muslims need children to take Muslim names, often they want women to convert to Islam. The other surprising thing is that often, in a divorce, north African fathers take their children back to their country and the mother never sees them again. That causes problems. I don't judge, but it can cause conflict."

And yet she has judged, making a series of sweeping assumptions on the basis of very little actual knowledge about a particular set of personal circumstances. Perhaps Maréchal-Le Pen is right that immigration needs to be discussed and that MPs are wary of doing so in case they are accused of racism. Some of her opinions have the sheen of plausibility. She is not unlikable. But the tone of her last answer suggests a more disturbing set of beliefs at play beneath the surface: a whiff of something rotten at the core of her politics and a sense that the world is made up of people who can be divided easily into "us" or "them".

A family business: the Le Pen dynasty

Jean-Marie Le Pen

Jean-Marie Le Pen

Photograph: Chamussy/Sipa/Rex Features

1928 Born 20 June in Brittany, the son of a fisherman.

1972 Le Pen co-founds the Front National and presides over it for nearly 40 years.

1984 Becomes an MEP.

1987 Is found guilty of violating French law and fined 1.2m francs (£150,000) for remarks concerning the presence of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps. During an interview in September, he said: "I am not saying that the gas chambers did not exist. I haven't studied the questions specially. But I believe that it is a minor detail in the history of the second world war."

1996 While in Munich, Le Pen reiterates the 1987 remark, describing the concentration camps as a "detail" in second world war history. He is later convicted and fined by a Munich court.

2000 Suspended from the European parliament following conviction for the physical assault of Socialist candidate Annette Peulvast-Bergeal during the 1997 general election. This ultimately led to him losing his seat in the European parliament in 2003, although he was re-elected the following year.

2002 Achieves second place in the first round of voting in the French presidential election, winning 16.9% of the vote. He was subsequently defeated by Jacques Chirac in the second round by a large margin.

2005 Fined €10,000 by a Paris court for "inciting racial hatred" in anti-Islamic comments he made in an interview with Le Monde.

2011 Resigns as party leader of the Front National. Succeeded by his youngest daughter, Marine.

Samuel Maréchal

Samuel Marechal

Photograph: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma/Corbis

1967 Born 20 September, son of a Pentecostal pastor.

1985 First becomes active in the Front National and in 1990 becomes the director of the Front national de jeunesse (FNJ), the Front National's youth wing. Also party chairman in the Pays de la Loire.

1993 Marries Yann Le Pen, the second daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen. The couple divorce in 2007 after having three children together.

1995 Establishes the Association de recherche pour l'emploi des jeunes (ARPEJ), to promote priority for French people in the jobs market.

1995 Given an eight-month prison sentence and a fine of 5,000 francs for "assault and battery and conspiracy", after violence broke out between Front National militants and students in Gascony in March. In court, he is defended by his sister-in-law, Marine Le Pen. Later pardoned.

1998 Founds Générations Le Pen, now led by Marine Le Pen. His alliance with Jean-Marie Le Pen earns him the nickname "the son".

1999 States that France is becoming "a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society" and that "Islam is now France's second religion". He added: "So we need to organise a real political conquest."

2002 Organises Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidential campaign. He is responsible for Le Pen's communication strategy and is renowned for the infamous soundbite: "I'm socially left, economically right, and more than anything, nationally French."

2008 Marries Cécile Houphouët-Boigny, the great-niece of the first president of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

2009 Maréchal & Associés financial consultancy firm is launched. It has offices in both Paris and Abidjan.

Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen

Photograph: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images

1968 Born 5 August, the youngest daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

1986 Joins the Front National aged 18 and by 2000 is elected on to the party's executive committee.

1991 Graduates with a master of laws and a master of advanced studies in criminal law from Pantheon-Assas University in Paris, France's leading law school. Registered at the Paris bar association, she works as a lawyer between 1992 and 1998, before becoming a regional councillor in Nord-Pas-de-Calais and joining the Front National's legal department.

2003 Elected vice-president of the Front National, an office she holds for the next eight years.

2004 Becomes an MEP for the Ile-de-France region.

2010 Described by French journalist Guillaume Tabard as the "revelation of the year". He further described her as "first an electoral phenomenon" and "a media phenomenon after".

2011 Following her father's resignation, she wins the Front National party leadership in January with 67.7% of the vote. She is currently the party's president and its honorary chairman. She says of the party: "I refuse to accept as inevitable the fact that we are being consigned to the edge of political life."

2012 Runs as a candidate in the French presidential election, finishing third behind François Hollande and incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy. She won more than 6 million votes in the first round: 17.9% of all votes cast. On the campaign trail, she tells supporters: "Whatever happens in the coming two weeks, the battle of France is only beginning… we are now the only true opposition to an ultra-liberal and libertarian left wing."

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen

Photograph: Rannjan Joawn for the Observer

1989: Born 10 December, the daughter of Samuel Maréchal, niece of Marine Le Pen and granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Her childhood was spent in the Le Pen family mansion in the wealthy Paris suburb of Saint-Cloud.

2007: Joins the Front National at the age of 18.

2008: Enrols in a master's degree in public law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris.

2010: Runs unsuccessfully in the 2010 regional elections in Yvelines, Ile-de-France.

2012: Says: "Contrary to what everyone thinks, in my family we didn't talk about politics at home and we're free to make our own choices."

2012: Becomes France's youngest MP in modern political history, winning a seat for the Front National in Vaucluse, Provence, at the age of just 22.

Bryony Clarke

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen: the new face of the French right | World news | The Observer

Putin brands western media hyprocrites

David Hearst, in Novo Ogaryovo and Miriam Elder, in Moscow

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 October 2012 20.01 BST

Reaction to jailings of Pussy Riot trio and 'Innocence of Muslims' creator shows double standards, says Russian president

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused western media of hypocrisy over their Pussy Riot coverage. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AFP/Getty Images

Vladimir Putin has accused the western media of hypocrisy in its coverage of Pussy Riot saying the women had crossed a red line. The pro-democracy protesters "violated the morals of the people" and after the Stalin-era purge of Orthodox priests it was the Russian state's duty to protect the sanctity of the church, the Russian president added.

Three members of the feminist punk band were sentenced to two years in prison in August after performing an anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral. One was released this month.

Referring to a performance carried out by one of the jailed women before Pussy Riot was formed, the Russian president said: "Maybe someone likes to have group sex in a museum. It's an insult to women when a pregnant woman has group sex. Does anybody like it?" Nadezhda Tolokonnikova took part in a group orgy at Moscow's natural history museum to protest the Russian leadership in 2008 as part of a guerrilla art group called Voina.

Speaking to the Valdai group of foreign and Russian academics and journalists, Putin said the western media was hypocritical in condemning the imprisonment of the three women, when they were silent about the fact that the man who made "Innocence of Muslims", Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was also in jail.

Nakoula is the Egyptian-born US resident thought to be a writer, producer, and promoter that sparked riots and protests erupted in many countries around the world – and particularly in Islamic countries. He is being held in the United States and faces up to three years in prison for alleged parole violations.

Putin also equated the Pussy Riot affair with the work of Russian neo-fascist groups that put posters in supermarkets and malls calling for the expulsion of Jews and foreign workers.

"They too should be convicted of social unrest. Do you really want to support such behaviour? Then why don't you support the man who is in prison and who made that movie?"

He was asked if the years of stability under his regime was in danger of turning into stagnation. In reply Putin listed the achievements of his first two terms of office, saying that average wages were six times greater than when he took over and that national debt was minimal.

Commenting on the protests that have shaken Russia since he announced his intention to return to the presidency, Putin said: "We changed our election system as a result of the protests, introduced direct democratic elections of governors and will so the same with senators in the upper house." Critics have said a recent decision to resume gubernatorial elections, a practice abolished by Putin in 2004, is meaningless because of the existence of a so-called presidential "filter" for candidates.

"About the opposition, I don't know. I believe the response of those in power should be to involve more and more people," Putin said. "The most important thing is not retaining power but making government more efficient. The work should be united and serious. If we can do that our citizens will appreciate that."

Commenting on state-run oil major Rosneft's recently announced takeover of Tnk-BP, Putin said he had "mixed feelings" about the deal.

Rosneft is expected to entirely take over the oil company in the next six months, after buying out BP's 50 per cent share this week and announcing a deal to buy out the remaining 50 per cent held by a consortium of Russian oligarchs.

"The government and I had mixed feelings when this project came up," Putin said. "The fact that a company with state participation was increasing its market share at the expense of its foreign partner was a minus."

Putin oversaw a vast campaign to re-nationalise some of Russia's main oil and gas assets during his first two terms as president. Rosneft, headed by his close ally Igor Sechin, was a middling oil company until it bought the main assets of Yukos at knockdown prices in a series of bankruptcy auctions held following the arrest of the company's CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in 2003. Khodorkovsky, who was found guilty of economic crimes and is serving his sentence in a remote northern prison, accused Sechin of orchestrating the campaign against him.

The Tnk-BP deal is due to make Rosneft the world's largest listed oil company. Putin said his blessing of the deal was prompted by a desire to dispense of the years-long shareholder conflict inside the company, even though it ran counter to supposed efforts to constrain the state's role in the economy.

"We tried not to get involved but when BP managers came to me and the government and said we want to cooperate with Rosneft we could not say no," Putin said. "We had a difficult choice. In the end we have agreed with the proposal of Rosneft and BP that they will work together."

Putin brands western media hyprocrites | World news | guardian.co.uk

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Medina: Saudis take a bulldozer to Islam's history

Jerome Taylor Friday 26 October 2012

Authorities are building a mosque so big it will hold 1.6m people – but are demolishing irreplaceable monuments to do it

 

Three of the world’s oldest mosques are about to be destroyed as Saudi Arabia embarks on a multi-billion-pound expansion of Islam’s second holiest site

Three of the world’s oldest mosques are about to be destroyed as Saudi Arabia embarks on a multi-billion-pound expansion of Islam’s second holiest site. Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, where the Prophet Mohamed is buried, will start once the annual Hajj pilgrimage ends next month. When complete, the development will turn the mosque into the world’s largest building, with the capacity for 1.6 million worshippers.

But concerns have been raised that the development will see key historic sites bulldozed. Anger is already growing at the kingdom’s apparent disdain for preserving the historical and archaeological heritage of the country’s holiest city, Mecca.  Most of the expansion of Masjid an-Nabawi will take place to the west of the existing mosque, which holds the tombs of Islam’s founder and two of his closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar.

Just outside the western walls of the current compound are mosques dedicated to Abu Bakr and Umar, as well as the Masjid Ghamama, built to mark the spot where the Prophet is thought to have given his first prayers for the Eid festival. The Saudis have announced no plans to preserve or move the three mosques, which have existed since the seventh century and are covered by Ottoman-era structures, or to commission archaeological digs before they are pulled down, something that has caused considerable concern among the few academics who are willing to speak out in the deeply authoritarian kingdom.

“No one denies that Medina is in need of expansion, but it’s the way the authorities are going about it which is so worrying,” says Dr Irfan al-Alawi of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation. “There are ways they could expand which would either avoid or preserve the ancient Islamic sites but instead they want to knock it all down.” Dr Alawi has spent much of the past 10 years trying to highlight the destruction of early Islamic sites.

With cheap air travel and booming middle classes in populous Muslim countries within the developing world, both Mecca and Medina are struggling to cope with the 12 million pilgrims who visit each year – a number expected to grow to 17 million by 2025. The Saudi monarchy views itself as the sole authority to decide what should happen to the cradle of Islam. Although it has earmarked billions for an enormous expansion of both Mecca and Medina, it also sees the holy cities as lucrative for a country almost entirely reliant on its finite oil wealth.

Heritage campaigners and many locals have looked on aghast as the historic sections of Mecca and Medina have been bulldozed to make way for gleaming shopping malls, luxury hotels and enormous skyscrapers. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of the 1,000-year-old buildings in the two cities have been destroyed in the past 20 years.

In Mecca, the Masjid al-Haram, the holiest site in Islam and a place where all Muslims are supposed to be equal, is now overshadowed by the Jabal Omar complex, a development of skyscraper apartments, hotels and an enormous clock tower. To build it, the Saudi authorities destroyed the Ottoman era Ajyad Fortress and the hill it stood on. Other historic sites lost include the Prophet’s birthplace – now a library – and the house of his first wife, Khadijah, which was replaced with a public toilet block.

Neither the Saudi Embassy in London nor the Ministry for Foreign Affairs responded to requests for comment when The Independent contacted them this week. But the government has previously defended its expansion plans for the two holy cities as necessary. It insists it has also built large numbers of budget hotels for poorer pilgrims, though critics point out these are routinely placed many miles away from the holy sites.

Until recently, redevelopment in Medina has pressed ahead at a slightly less frenetic pace than in Mecca, although a number of early Islamic sites have still been lost. Of the seven ancient mosques built to commemorate the Battle of the Trench – a key moment in the development of Islam – only two remain. Ten years ago, a mosque which belonged to the Prophet’s grandson was dynamited. Pictures of the demolition that were secretly taken and smuggled out of the kingdom showed the religious police celebrating as the building collapsed.

The disregard for Islam’s early history is partly explained by the regime’s adoption of Wahabism, an austere and uncompromising interpretation of Islam that is vehemently opposed to anything which might encourage Muslims towards idol worship.

In most of the Muslim world, shrines have been built. Visits to graves are also commonplace. But Wahabism views such practices with disdain. The religious police go to enormous lengths to discourage people from praying at or visiting places closely connected to the time of the Prophet while powerful clerics work behind the scenes to promote the destruction of historic sites.

Dr Alawi fears that the redevelopment of the Masjid an-Nabawi is part of a wider drive to shift focus away from the place where Mohamed is buried. The spot that marks the Prophet’s tomb is covered by a famous green dome and forms the centrepiece of the current mosque. But under the new plans, it will become the east wing of a building eight times its current size with a new pulpit. There are also plans to demolish the prayer niche at the centre of mosque. The area forms part of the Riyadh al-Jannah (Garden of Paradise), a section of the mosque that the Prophet decreed especially holy..

“Their excuse is they want to make more room and create 20 spaces in a mosque that will eventually hold 1.6 million,” says Dr Alawi. “It makes no sense. What they really want is to move the focus away from where the Prophet is buried.”

A pamphlet published in 2007 by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs – and endorsed by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz al Sheikh – called for the dome to be demolished and the graves of Mohamed, Abu Bakr and Umar to be flattened. Sheikh Ibn al-Uthaymeen, one of the 20th century’s most prolific Wahabi scholars, made similar demands.

“Muslim silence over the destruction of Mecca and Medina is both disastrous and hypocritical,” says Dr Alawi. “The recent movie about the Prophet Mohamed caused worldwide protests... and yet the destruction of the Prophet’s birthplace, where he prayed and founded Islam has been allowed to continue without any criticism.”

Mecca and Medina in numbers

12m The number of people who visit Mecca and Medina every year

3.4m The number of Muslims expected to perform Hajj (pilgrimage) this year

60,000 The current capacity of the Masjid an-Nabawi mosque

1.6m The projected capacity of the mosque after expansion

Medina: Saudis take a bulldozer to Islam's history - Middle East - World - The Independent

Disgraced Berlusconi threatens to bring down government

 

Silvio Berlusconi angry during press conference Photo: Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to remain in the political arena (Reuters: Tony Gentile)

Related Story: Berlusconi sentenced to four years in jail

Related Story: Berlusconi denies raunchy parties, underage sex

Map: Italy

A defiant Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to stay in politics to reform the very justice system that convicted him of tax fraud, and has threatened to bring down the government of the prime minster who replaced him.

On Friday a Milan court sentenced the 76-year-old to four years in jail - which was quickly reduced to one year under an amnesty law designed to tackle overcrowding in prisons - and banned him from holding public office for five years for tax fraud.

In a shock decision, the court ruled he had inflated the prices paid for television rights via offshore companies and skimming off money to create illegal slush funds.

The sentence came a week after Berlusconi denied in a separate case that he hosted raunchy parties and paid for sex with then 17-year-old exotic dancer Karima El-Mahroug, better known as Ruby the Heart Stealer.

The sex trial was one of the last in a series of scandals that helped precipitate Berlusconi's downfall in November 2011.

The three-time premier had announced he would not run in the next election due in the spring but did not say he was withdrawing completely from political life.

On Saturday Berlusconi told a news conference his centre-right bloc may withdraw its support from the government of Mario Monti, a move that could throw Italy into political chaos ahead of next April's national elections.

He also railed against the Italian justice system and labelled Friday's verdict "intolerable".

"Ours is not a democracy but a dictatorship of the magistrature... I feel obliged to stay in the (political) field to reform the planet justice," the media tycoon said.

"There are going to be consequences."

Asked about the legitimacy of someone who had been convicted to lead a crusade to reform the justice system, he replied: "It is not only just, it is a duty for someone who enjoys the high esteem of millions of Italians."

"[To ensure] what is happening to me does not happen to the citizens of Italy."

Political player

Italians protest Rome's austerity Photo: The No Monti Day demonstration protested against Mario Monti's austerity measures (AFP: Alberto Pizzoli)

Tens of thousands of people marched through Rome in a "No Monti Day" on Saturday, some throwing eggs and spraying graffiti to protest against austerity measures introduced by Mr Monti's government.

In an effort to capitalise on discontent with Rome, Berlusconi condemned the government for following the "hegemonistic" economic policies of Germany.

He also accused German chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy of "trying to assassinate my international political credibility" when he was prime minister.

"We have to recognise the fact that the initiative of this government is a continuation of a spiral of recession for our economy," he said.

"Together with my collaborators we will decide in the next few days whether it is better to immediately withdraw our confidence in this government or keep it, given the elections that are scheduled."

The Monti government of non-elected technocrats is supported by the centre-left, the centre-right and the centre.

It would lose its majority and have to resign if the entire centre-right, including Berlusconi's PDL party, withdrew support.

Mr Monti took office as prime minister last November when Italy's bond yields were soaring.

He has pushed through tax hikes, spending cuts and a pension overhaul to cut public debt which is running at 126 per cent of gross domestic product.

Unemployment in Italy has risen to 10.7 per cent, its highest level since monthly records began in 2004, and unions are locked in disputes with companies over plant closures and layoffs.

AFP/Reuters

Disgraced Berlusconi threatens to bring down government - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Former Italian Premier Berlusconi sentenced to four years for tax fraud

By Colleen Barry, Associated Press / October 26, 2012

The media mogul and former prime minister was one of four men convicted for scheming to avoid taxes on a movie-broadcasting deal. Berlusconi will remain free pending appeal.

In this Sept. 2012 file photo, Italian former premier Silvio Berlusconi reacts during a press conference in Rome. A court in Italy today convicted Mr. Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced him to four years in prison. Alessandra Tarantino/AP/File

Milan, Italy

A court in Italy has convicted former Premier Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud and sentenced him to four years in prison.

The conviction Friday was the 76-year-old media mogul's first in a long series of trials, but it did not mean he was going to prison right away. Cases in Italy must pass two levels of appeal before the verdicts are final.

His lawyers declined to comment immediately, but the billionaire businessman is expected to appeal. Mr. Berlusconi wasn't in the courtroom for the verdict on the case stemming from dealings in his Mediaset business empire.

A total of 11 people were on trial. Prosecutors had alleged that the defendants were behind a scheme to purchase the rights to broadcast US movies on Berlusconi's private TV networks in his Mediaset empire through a series of offshore companies and had falsely declared the payments to avoid taxes.

Berlusconi's designated political heir as the head of the center-right party he leads, Angelino Alfano, blasted the verdict Friday as "incomprehensible" and said he was confident an appeals court would throw out the conviction.

In this and other cases against him, Berlusconi has described himself as the innocent victim of prosecutors he contends sympathize with the left. Up until now, other criminal investigation probes against him on charges including corruption had ended in acquittal or were thrown out for statute of limitations.

Of the other defendants, three were acquitted, including a close associate of Berlusconi, Fedele Confalonieri, chairman of Mediaset. Berlusconi and three others were convicted, including a Hollywood producer, Frank Agrama, who received a three-year sentence.

Four defendants were cleared because statute of limitations had run out.

Berlusconi, along with other defendants convicted in the case, must deposit a total of €10 million ($13 million) into a court-ordered fund as appeals, which could take years, proceed.

The trial began in July 2006, but was put on hold by a now-defunct immunity law that shielded Berlusconi from prosecution while he was premier until it was watered down by the constitutional court. The trial also faced delays as Berlusconi cited conflicts with his schedule as premier.

In the same courthouse on Friday, another criminal trial against Berlusconi was being held. He is charged in that case with paying for sex with an under-age girl and trying to cover it up. He denies wrongdoing.

Berlusconi is not the first former Italian premier to be convicted of criminal charges.

Former Socialist Premier Bettino Craxi eluded an arrest warrant and turned up at his villa in Tunisia in 1994 after a court in Italy charged him in a massive corruption case. He was tried in absentia, convicted, and sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison. He never returned to Italy and died in exile. Mr. Craxi was considered Berlusconi's mentor, thanks to his opening up of private television in Italy from a state monopoly.

Former seven-time Christian Democrat premier, Giulio Andreotti, was convicted of involvement in a Mafia-murder, but he was cleared on appeal and never went to jail

Former Italian Premier Berlusconi sentenced to four years for tax fraud - CSMonitor.com

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

United States of Europe: can it ever be achieved?

Hans-Werner Sinn guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012 15.04 BST

A united Europe is a concept that many refuse to accept, because they do not believe in the possibility of a unified European identity

Actor Frank Samson (L) reenacts the 1813 Battle of Leipzig as Napoleon during the Napoleonic War

French actor Frank Samson (left) reenacts the 1813 Battle of Leipzig as Napoleon during the Napoleonic war near Leipzig, Germany. In the 1813 battle a coalition of Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Swedish armies defeated Napoleon in a raging, four-day battle that involved 600,000 soldiers, the most involved in a single battle in Europe until the first world war. Photograph: Marco Prosch/Getty Images

The motto of the United States of America is "E pluribus unum" (Out of many, one). The European Union's motto is "In varietate concordia", which is officially translated as "United in diversity". It is difficult to express the differences between the US and the European model any more clearly than this. The US is a melting pot, whereas Europe is a mosaic of different peoples and cultures that has developed over the course of its long history.

That difference raises the question of whether it is worth striving for a United States of Europe – a concept that many refuse to accept, because they do not believe in the possibility of a unified European identity. A single political system like that of the US, they insist, presupposes a common language and a single nationality.

Perhaps the idea of a United States of Europe, the dream of postwar children like me, can never be realised. But I am not so sure. After all, deeper European integration and the creation of a single political system offer solid, practical advantages that do not require a common identity or language. These advantages include the right to move freely across borders, the free movement of goods and services, legal certainty for cross-border economic activities, Europe-wide transportation infrastructure, and, not least, common security arrangements.

Banking regulation is the most topical area in which collective action makes sense. If banks are regulated at the national level, but do business internationally, national regulatory authorities have a permanent incentive to set lax standards to avoid driving business to other countries and to lure it from them instead. Regulatory competition thus degenerates into a race to the bottom, as the benefits of lax regulation translate into profits at home, while the losses lie with bank creditors around the world.

There are many similar examples from the fields of standards, competition policy, and taxation that are applicable here. So, fundamental considerations speak for deeper European integration, extending even to the creation of a single European state.

The danger of following such a path always lies in the fact that collective decision-making bodies not only provide services that are useful to everybody, but also may abuse their power to redistribute resources among the participating countries. Even democratic bodies are not immune to this danger. On the contrary, they make it possible for majorities to exploit minorities. To counter this threat democratic bodies invariably need special rules to protect minorities, such as the requirement of qualified majority voting or unanimous decision-making.

The decisions taken by the European Central Bank are a particularly dramatic example of this problem, taken as they are by a simple majority of a body that is not even democratically elected. The ECB's decisions lead to a massive redistribution of wealth and risk among the eurozone's member states, as well as from stable countries' taxpayers, who have little stake in the crisis, to global investors directly affected by it.

The ECB has been providing virtually all of its refinancing credit to the eurozone's five crisis-stricken countries: Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ireland. All the money circulating in the eurozone originated in these five countries and was then largely used to buy goods and assets in the northern member countries and redeem foreign debt taken from them.

The US Federal Reserve would never be allowed to conduct such a regionally imbalanced policy. The Fed cannot even provide credit to specific regions, let alone states on the verge of bankruptcy (for example, California).

Now European Council president Herman Van Rompuy, backed by most of the troubled eurozone countries, is again proposing Eurobonds and debt-mutualisation schemes. These ideas go well beyond the American system. The kind of fiscal integration and centralised power that they would require do not even remotely resemble those in place in the US.

Van Rompuy's proposals are extremely dangerous and could destroy Europe. The path toward a union based on joint liabilities, against the wishes of large parts of its population, is not leading to a federal state in the true sense of the term – that is, to an alliance of equals, who freely decide to unite and promise to protect each other.

Nor can this path lead to a United States of Europe, simply because a large part of Europe refuses to follow it. Europe is not identical with the eurozone. It contains many more countries than those that use the euro. As useful as the euro could be for Europe's prosperity if its obvious flaws were corrected, the way that the eurozone is now developing will split the EU and undermine the idea of unity in diversity.

The assertion that the eurozone could be transformed into a United States of Europe is no longer convincing. The path toward joint liability is far more likely to lead to a deep rift within Europe, because turning the eurozone into a transfer and debt union that can prevent the insolvency of any of its members would require more central power than currently exists in the US.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2012.

United States of Europe: can it ever be achieved? | Business | guardian.co.uk

Egypt constitution decision referred to country's highest court

Associated Press in Cairo

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012 14.46 BST

Supreme constitutional court will decide whether to disband 100-member assembly writing charter

Judge Nazeh Tangho

The Egyptian high administrative court, which has referred upwards the decision on whether to disband the contitutional panel. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP

An Egyptian court has referred the decision on whether to disband the panel writing the country's new constitution to the highest court – a new twist in a dispute over the charter that could herald a showdown between Islamists and the top court's secular judges.

Egypt is near the final phase in the critical process of drafting a new charter after the uprising last year that toppled the autocratic president, Hosni Mubarak.

The work – and the composition – of the 100-member constitutional assembly tasked with writing the draft has been the subject of a fierce debate across the political spectrum.

Islamists and liberals are haggling over several disputed articles in the charter, some of which will determine the role of religion in the nation's affairs and the independence of the judiciary.

Supporters of the panel say it was set up by an elected parliament and broadly represents Egypt's political factions. Critics say the process is dominated by majority Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood from which Egypt's new president, Mohammed Morsi, hails, and more radical groups that will enshrine Islamic law as dominant in the constitution.

Instead of ruling on a petition challenging the legitimacy of the panel, which was submitted by liberals, Judge Nazeh Tangho of the high administrative court on Tuesday sent the case to the supreme constitutional court.

His announcement was welcomed by cheers and chants of "God is Great" from Islamist lawmakers, while liberal rivals shouted: "The people want to cleanse the judiciary."

Tangho gave no explanation for his decision and it remains unclear when the top court could rule on the petition. But experts say the court will look into a law signed by Morsi in July that gave the constitutional panel legal immunity.

The referral sets the stage for a showdown between the supreme constitutional court, packed with secularist judges, and Egypt's ruling and powerful Brotherhood. The same court dissolved the Brotherhood-led parliament, deemed the election law unconstitutional and turned down Morsi's attempt to restore it upon his election in June.

With the nation increasingly polarised, and mistrust between Islamists and other groups growing, Egypt's judiciary has emerged as a final arbiter for settling most disputes. More than 40 legal challenges have been presented to the country's top administrative court demanding the dissolution of the panel writing the charter.

Egypt constitution decision referred to country's highest court | World news | guardian.co.uk

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Egyptian court decides whether to dissolve Islamist-dominated assembly

Abdel-Rahman Hussein in Cairo

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 October 2012 00.30 BST

President's struggle with judiciary represents one of most significant moments since Mohamed Morsi came to power

Mohamed Morsi

If the court annuls the assembly it will be a failure for President Morsi in his attempts to rein in the judiciary. Photograph: Ho/AFP/Getty Images

The continued friction between Egypt's judiciary and its president, Mohamed Morsi, will come to a head on Tuesday as a court prepares to give its verdict on whether to dissolve the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly drafting the country's post-revolution constitution.

If the court annuls the assembly on grounds of the unconstitutionality of its makeup it will be a failure for Morsi in his attempts to rein in a judiciary that is refusing to acquiesce to executive will.

The struggle represents one of the most significant moments since Morsi came to power with Islamist backing following presidential elections this summer.

"We need a constitution that represents all Egyptians and not just Islamist forces. This Islamist hegemony does not allow for dissenting voices," said Hafez Abu Saeda, head of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights and one of the claimants of the case.

The issue of the assembly and the role of the judiciary has been a core battle for the president – and one that has been met with a fierce backlash from judges and other groups.

Morsi has found more success in removing the top generals of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military junta that oversaw Egypt's transitional period and was responsible for the constitutional declaration that governs the country until a permanent constitution is drafted. It is the arguments over the tenets of this document that has put Morsi, along with his Freedom and Justice party and its umbrella group the Muslim Brotherhood, at loggerheads with the judiciary.

"This struggle between the Islamists and the judiciary will continue because there is a general consensus that state institutions belong to the people and should not be controlled by Islamists," said Nasser Amin, head of the Egyptian Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary.

Morsi had sought to appease the judiciary by appointing the respected judge Ahmed Mekki as his minister of justice, who was a central figure in the judiciary's struggle for independence during the reign of ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak. Morsi also appointed his brother, Mahmoud Mekki, as his vice-president. Though both brothers are not affiliated to the Brotherhood, both are known to have Islamist leanings.

"The judiciary isn't independent or clean, yet what Morsi's trying to do is take over the institution rather than reform it. It's no surprise that those in the current institution are resisting that attempt. Morsi would have had more support had he been trying to restructure and reform the judiciary rather than take it over in its corrupt form," said journalist and blogger Wael Eskander.

There is also more at stake for the judiciary, with a released version of the current draft indicating that judicial powers will be reduced under the new constitution. Another article prohibits any amendments to the constitution for a period of 10 years.

If the court does not dissolve the constituent assembly on Tuesday, a final draft will be put to a general referendum in November, according to a statement by the Egyptian prime minister, Hisham Qandil. If it is dissolved, and in the absence of parliament, Egypt's current constitutional declaration declares that the president is able to pick the new assembly.

• The second paragraph of this article has been amended. It previously stated that the court anulling the assembly would be a victory for Morsi. This has been corrected.

Egyptian court decides whether to dissolve Islamist-dominated assembly | World news | guardian.co.uk

Monday, October 22, 2012

France 24 journalist Sonia Dridi attacked in Tahrir Square

Abdel-Rahman Hussein guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 October 2012 18.40 BST

Reporter Ashraf Khalil describes how colleague was assaulted by a mob of men as she filmed live report on protests in Cairo

Sonia Dridi reporting in Tahrir Square

France 24 TV reporter Sonia Dridi on 19 October during her live broadcast in Tahrir Square in Cairo, just before she is seized by members of the crowd. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A journalist for France 24 has described how his female colleague was attacked and groped by a group of men while filming live during protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Friday night.

Sonia Dridi was surrounded while filming in the square, with the mob closing in on her as she was reporting. The news channel said in a statement that she was attacked at about 10.30pm.

Her colleague from the English section of France 24, Ashraf Khalil, was by her side waiting to do his spot next for the camera but cut her off midway and led her off as the crowd began to move in. All this was caught on camera.

"Usually one of us goes first then the other, Sonia does the French and I do the English," he told the Guardian. "Usually we don't do Tahrir live shots from street level, normally we're on a balcony. We had done an earlier live shot and even then the crowd was annoying.

"When we went back for the second live shot the crowd was worse, it was really hard to control the crowd. If you see the video you can see me popping up on the fringe telling people let her work. By the time it was finished everybody was too close and no one was listening to us. I told Sonia to just go straight to [the shop] Hardee's and wait for me because I didn't want her to wait with this crowd of feral youths."

But the crowd had already begun to close in as Khalil and Dridi made their way to the Hardee's branch at the corner of the square. By the time they made it to the shop Dridi discovered her shirt was open and was grateful that the "tight thick belt" she was wearing prevented worse happening.

"More frightened than hurt," wrote Dridi in French, according to the Associated Press, on her Twitter page on Saturday. Referring in English to her colleague, she tweeted: "Thanks to @ashrafkhalil for protecting me in #Tahrir last nite. Mob was pretty intense. thanks to him I escaped from the unleashed hands."

Khalil said: "I basically had her in a bear hug and we're doing this crab walk towards Hardee's surrounded by 30 guys and some were groping her and others were trying to help but it's impossible to tell who is who."

There had been protests in Tahrir that day against the Muslim Brotherhood, the president, Mohamed Morsi, and the Islamist hegemony of Egypt's future constitution. The Friday before that had seen clashes between members of the Brotherhood and anti-Brotherhood supporters that lasted for hours and resulted in 110 injuries.

Numerous incidents of violence and sexual assault against women have been reported over the past 18 months whenever throngs gather in the square, with not everyone necessarily there with the aim of protesting. Sexual harassment is an endemic problem in Egypt dating back to before the revolution.

Dridi has filed a police report about the incident and said on her Facebook page: "The crowd was out of control, [and] some guys took advantage of it. Some people tried to help but it was hard to know who to trust in the heat of the moment."

Dridi and Khalil's bags were stolen in the ruckus but Dridi's was returned by an Egyptian who managed to wrestle it back.

"What was depressing is that the employees inside Hardee's knew exactly what to do because this seems to happen all the time," Khalil said. "Some terrified woman running in one step ahead of a mob." The doors were bolted and later Khalil went out to hail a taxi and made it wait in front of the shop as Dridi was ushered out. Even then, it hadn't ended, with some men taking notice and banging on the hood of the car.

"Sexual harassment is a 20-year problem here, but now there's a feeling of impunity and the knowledge that the police won't do anything about it, it breeds this culture of lawlessness," Khalil said. "There are always good Samaritans in the crowd but crowds can be stupid and when it tips, it tips. [However] there were several other guys who helped and we couldn't have done it without them, we have to remember that."

At the height of the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, Lara Logan, a correspondent for the US network CBS, was sexually assaulted and beaten in Tahrir Square.

France 24 journalist Sonia Dridi attacked in Tahrir Square | World news | guardian.co.uk

Sunday, October 21, 2012

The Shriveling Scottish Identity

 by Derek Turner October 16, 2012

The Shriveling Scottish Identity

When Scotland and England were united formally in 1707, the Scottish Earl of Seafield remarked in smug satisfaction, “There’s the end of an auld sang.” But if the Scottish National Party has its way, soon there may be a new song and a new chapter in the auld ongoing saga of these connected, colliding countries.

David Cameron and the SNP leader Alex Salmond have just agreed that there will be a referendum on Scottish independence in the autumn of 2014—seven hundred years after Bannockburn. The wording has not been decided—that will be up to the administration at Holyrood—but there will almost certainly be a single question demanding a Yes or No answer to whether the devolved government should begin negotiating full independence.

Concerned about the possibility of defeat, the SNP originally sought a face-saving second question offering the possibility of “devo-max”—not a sexual practice, but a further increase in Scottish Parliamentary powers. But they were persuaded to drop this in return for London agreeing that 16- and 17-year-old Scots should be allowed to vote in the referendum—a demand that may rebound on the SNP, because even in Scotland most teenagers are probably more interested in The X Factor than the Cross of St. Andrew.

“In Scotland most teenagers are probably more interested in The X Factor than the Cross of St. Andrew.”

The referendum is a high-risk strategy for the SNP, because all the UK parties and most business interests are against independence, the polling evidence is at best ambivalent, and even a narrowly lost vote would be a colossal blow after decades of dedication. (The SNP was founded in 1934.) The SNP has sought to maximize its chances by cannily sidestepping pesky details—such small matters as whether an independent Scotland could sustain present welfare levels, how much of the UK’s deficit burden the new/old nation will assume, the economic impact of tens of thousands of public-sector and military jobs transferred out of Scotland, whether England would allow Scotland to keep all of the revenues from North Sea oil and gas, the new/old country’s currency, relations with the rump UK, and relations with the EU, IMF, and UN.

Not only pro-Union politicians are clamoring for clarification, but apolitical, actuarial observers. In January, Martin Woolf of the Financial Times pointed out that even the great black hope of North Sea oil could not counterbalance an overall fiscal deficit of 10.6% of GDP in 2009-10—and that the oil was a declining resource in any case. An independent Scotland, he added, could not hope to obtain a Triple A credit rating.

Last week, Scotland’s former Auditor General Robert Black queried how an independent Scotland could hope to finance a £4-billion backlog in road and public building maintenance, up to £500 million of travel concessions over the next decade, personal and nursing costs rising by 15% yearly, free prescription and optical tests costing £150 million annually, and yet other eye-watering invoices.

The SNP suggests that an independent Scotland would remain within the sterling currency area, but as Greece and other countries are presently proving, sharing a currency means sharing sovereignty. How strange that such ideological innumeracy should subsist in the land of Adam Smith.

It is even stranger that the Queen will remain as head of state, and England and Scotland will be “united kingdoms”—especially as Salmond was once a leading member of the SNP’s socialist republican caucus known as the ’79 Group, banned by the party in 1982 after Sinn Féin sought embarrassing fraternal contact. Salmond was against any association with Sinn Féin, yet his instincts remain strongly on the left, and the party is suffused with a Calvinistic political correctness that contrives to be simultaneously dour and neurotic. (As P. G. Wodehouse observed, “It is never difficult to distinguish between a ray of sunshine and a Scotsman with a grievance.”) But Salmond has always been a shrewd tactician, and he knows that if he is to have any chance of success in 2014 he needs to carry waverers as well as the readers of Waverley.

There seems to be no conservative or “right wing” nationalism in Scotland. There was once a faction of the SNP called Siol Nan Gaidheal (“Seed of the Gael”), darkly rumored to be “proto fascist” and which the SNP leadership accordingly proscribed in the 1980s. There is still an organization bearing this name, as their unexpectedly diverting site explains proudly:

In the New Year of 1997, a third manifestation rose from the glowing ashes of the old.

But if SNG ever was “proto fascist” in its first or even second manifestations, it would not seem to be today:

[W]e embrace identification with other dispossessed and disempowered peoples throughout the world and with the great leaders of the worldwide anti-racist and anti-imperialist tendency such as Mahatma Ghandi [sic] and Martin Luther King. Ergo, we are Scots, we are “black”, and we are beautiful.

The beautiful blacks in any case eschew politics to concentrate on really important matters:

[T]he bright burning concept of Templarism and the perfervid and yet fully rational belief that human spirituality can and does rise above the things of this earth, in order to make even simple sense of our condition as a species; this concept then has survived all the damage that ill-disposed Princes and their patronage could inflict. All the damage inflicted by successively and concomitantly the ascendant Bourgeoisie with their prerequisite pallid, trite and tedious respectabilities, the crass pseudo-intellectualism of the Gauchist revolutionary tendencies….

Back on our pallid, trite, and tedious planet, as the referendum nears, old resentments will reemerge on the Scottish side, because like all small countries adjacent to larger countries Scotland has historically been its powerful neighbor’s plaything and therefore a thronging nest of rebellion. Scotland has been handled roughly by Southrons at least since Hadrian tried to subdue the Picts before retreating sulkily to the Cheviots to build his wall. From then until well after 1707’s “union,” mayhem and mosstroopers, riders and reivers rampaged repeatedly across the “Debatable Lands.” It makes for a sad and stirring tale in a lovely landscape, perpetually being reimagined in Hollywood as well as Holyrood—Robert Bruce, William Wallace, Edward I (“Hammer of the Scots”), the 1513 catastrophe at Flodden when James IV and all his knights fell on the field, which Scottish sports fans still bemoan when they sing “Flowers of the Forest,” Mary Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Culloden, horror amidst the heather….

And after all that the “Clearances,” a blandly bureaucratic word belying a bleakness of clan cleansing, dispossession, embezzlement, and humiliation at the hands of outsider usurpers who in SNP minds are somehow connected with modern Conservatives (even Scottish ones) who long to visit “Dickensian nightmares” on Caledonia’s children.

There has always been and still is another story, a counter-narrative of Scots heading south, making good and making empire, but in even successful Scots there was often this nagging feeling that something special had been stolen—and as the empire dissipated this sentiment has strengthened. It strengthened further during the Thatcher era. Now with the recession, the Better Together campaign’s rhetoric about “contributing to and benefiting from the multi-national, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural United Kingdom” seems unlikely to sway many Scots.

Yet like all national identities, Scottish national identity is shriveling in the face of globalization, internationalism, and migration, and the SNP has no strategy to counter these corrosions. It would be the saddest of ironies if independence were one day to be won against the odds, only for Scotland to lose herself in the achievement.

Image of mouth courtesy of Shutterstock

The Shriveling Scottish Identity - Taki's Magazine

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Radovan Karadžić: I should be praised for peace efforts

Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 October 2012 09.57 BST

Former Bosnian Serb leader makes clear to war crimes tribunal he will blame Bosnian government for civilian deaths

Radovan Karadžić tells the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia he did all he could to stop war in Bosnia-Herzegovina Link to this video

Radovan Karadžić, the former Bosnian Serb leader on trial for his alleged role in the siege of Sarajevo and the murder of 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, has opened his defence claiming he should be praised as a "peacemaker".

Karadžić, switching from Serbo-Croat to English and back, told The Hague war crimes tribunal: "Sarajevo is my city, and any story that we would shell Sarajevo without any reason is untrue."

Outlining his case, the 67-year-old said he would be claiming – as other Serb officials have unsuccessfully tried to do – that the Bosnian government was the aggressor in the war, shelling and sniping at its own civilians.

"Instead of being accused, I should have been rewarded for all the good things I have done. I did everything in human power to avoid the war. I succeeded in reducing the suffering of all civilians," Karadžić told the court.

"I proclaimed numerous unilateral ceasefires and military containment. And I stopped our army many times when they were close to victory."

He added: "Everybody who knows me knows I am not an autocrat, I am not aggressive, I am not intolerant. On the contrary, I am a mild man, a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others."

Karadžić was arrested in 2008, after years in hiding, living in Belgrade in the guise of a new age health guru.

His remarks drew shouts from watching Muslim survivors of the war accusing him of "lying".

"It is difficult to even describe how I felt when I heard him saying this," Kada Hotic, a survivor of the Srebrenica massacre who lost 56 male family members, told Reuters after listening to his opening statement.

"I lost so many family members only because they were Muslims in a territory that Karadžić desired to turn into exclusively Serb land. Is that peacemaking?"

Karadžić, a former psychiatrist, is on trial over alleged war crimes committed during the Bosnian war from 1992-1995 in which more than 100,000 people were killed and millions displaced.

Conducting his own defence, he added that Muslims had faked two shellings of the Markale (marketplace) in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo during a siege by Serb forces in which more than 100 people were killed.

He described the shelling as being a "shameless orchestration", adding: "Obviously some people got killed by that explosion but we also saw mannequins being thrown on to trucks creating this show for the world."

Karadžić made the claim despite a previous Hague trial, that of the Bosnian Serb general Stanislav Galic, establishing that Bosnian Serb forces were responsible for shelling.

Fiddling occasionally with his glasses, Karadžić called as his first witness the former Russian liaison officer for the UN military mission's Sarajevo sector, Colonel Andrei Demurenko, who also provided a witness statement in the trial of Dragomir Milošević.

Echoing the claims of previous Serb defendants, Demurenko suggested a conspiracy existed among western UN officials, foreign journalists and the Bosnian government and its forces to portray Serb forces as the aggressors.

At the centre of the first day's evidence was Demurenko's claim that the shelling of the Markale was a "terrorist act" staged by Bosnian forces, as was a second a few days later.

In his statement, the Russian claimed he had been told by a Bosnian liaison officer that an order had been given to kill him after giving a statement to the press contradicting the findings of two UN investigations that accused Serb forces of responsibility for the marketplace bombings.

He added he did not recognise the picture of Sarajevo under siege by the Serbs presented by western media or military officials, who he accused of spreading "rumours".

Under cross-examination Demurenko was challenged that, in exonerating Serb forces from firing on the market, he had become confused by different scaling systems used by military investigators and visited the "wrong" firing locations.

The court was reminded that the tribunal – in the Milošević case – had ruled that Demurenko's evidence was "vague and evasive" on the question of whether he had visited too narrow a selection of locations to dismiss the possibility of the mortars having been fired from an area held by Serb forces.

Asked by the prosecution whether he accepted the previous chamber's ruling, Demurenko said he had "too much respect for the court to challenge its ruling".

He appeared to contradict himself on a number of occasions, saying at one stage his team had covered the entire slope of the mountain where the mortars could have been fired from and on another that he had only visited a small number of sites. He was also challenged that his evidence directly contradicted what he had told the previous trial.

Radovan Karadžić: I should be praised for peace efforts | World news | guardian.co.uk

Friday, October 12, 2012

Republican Congressman says evolution is 'lie from hell'

Guy Adams Los Angeles Tuesday 09 October 2012

Paul Broun: The Republican helps shape US government policy on science

AP

Planet Earth is "about 9,000 years old," and the study of evolution, embryology, and the Big Bang Theory is based on "lies straight from the pit of hell," according to a Congressman responsible for crafting US government policy on science and technology.

Paul Broun, a fundamentalist Christian who occupies a safe Republican seat in Georgia, found his grasp of modern science being subjected to unwelcome scrutiny yesterday, after video of him espousing Creationism during an after-dinner speech was uploaded to YouTube. 
“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell,” he told guests at a fieldsports-themed fundraiser for a local Baptist Church.

“It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a saviour. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”

Broun, who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and occupies a seat in Congress so staunchly Republican that local Democrats are not even bothering to oppose him, added that a literalist interpretation of the Old Testament informs how he governs. 
“[The Bible] teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society,” he added. “And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”

Broun’s spokesman  attempted damage limitation yesterday, claiming that he’d been speaking “off the record” about “personal beliefs.” The Church which organised the event where he made the comments meanwhile removed its video of his contentious speech from YouTube. 
Regardless of how they dovetail with mainstream science, the Congressman’s comments views may strike a chord with many right-leaning US voters. A recent Gallup Poll suggests that 46 percent of Americans think God made humans within the past 10,000 years, while only half the nation believes in evolution.

Broun, a medical doctor, is not the only Republican member of the House committee whose views are at odds with the scientific establishment. Also among its members is Todd Aiken, the Senate candidate who thinks women can’t get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” The committee’s chair is Ralph Hall, a Texan who (in common with most in his party) reckons man-made climate change is a hoax.

Republican Congressman says evolution is 'lie from hell' - Americas - World - The Independent