Merry Christmas to all...

Dear readers,

In this day of Christian festivities but very secular commercial frenzy, as well as pagan remembrance, I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. It is a good milestone for this blog, as it is the first Christmas on this platform (Blogger). In this day, I would like to wish you all many good things.

First, I wish to everyone of you some wisdom. In our times of frantic flows of information, blur of images and multiple channels of communication, this essential quality, praised by the Ancient Greeks as well as modern philosophers, is probably one we need the most. Secondly, I wish you love. Love is no guarantee of hapinness, as I made myself the bitter experience, but it can help greatly. It soothes our pains and gives us motivation, this tiny bit of extra good will to make ourselves better, not for us alone but for someone else. Third, I wish you peace. I know how corny this may sound in our times of war and terrorism, but the peace I mean is also an inner one. It is this peace of mind that may help us to use our wisdom, hopefully, to love our kind even when they don't like us. It is a peace of the soul, if such a thing exists, of the spirit anyway, which can maybe contaminate others through us to make this world a better place. Because, you'd better believe me, it ain't any other, despite what false prophets might tell you in order to get your coins and your obedience.

On another note, I'd like to come bak on some of the items I commented here this year and that come back today by some irony of fate. Mario Scaramella, the man involved in the story around this poisonned Russian spy was indicted and jailed in Intaly yesterday in a (not so) completely different affair. I had mentionned both in this post.

Lebanese parties failed to reach an agreement under the lead of Amr Mussa, the Arab League general secretary. This is unfortunate for all Lebanese. After this sad news, Abu Jaafar posted on Blacksmith of Lebanon describing the ambiance inside the tent demonstration in Beirut and calling the Siniora government "blind". I understand his point of view, but I can only repeat what I said before on this topic. I am the first to recognize that the Lebanese Constitution is not helping in the present predicament the country finds itself in, but it exists anyway and what the opposition proposes is nothing else than a coup. It would be anti-democratic, unconstitutionnal and most of all simply playing the game of an external power (Syria) against the good of the country. As for the feelings of the Southern villagers present there and which would give them legitimacy, I would simply answer these two things: first it should give shame, not pride, to Hizbullah which provoked their pain by capturing Israeli soldiers and bombing Israeli villages. It is no excuse for the bloodbath Israel unleashed, but it is certainly not honorable for the pro-Syrians. Second point, the Lebanese government is not blind to the will of the people, it refuses to cede to a street protest. There is a huge difference there. And it has paid the blood price too, as it seems to me, when so many anti-Syrian Lebanese, including a Minister, have been assassinated in the last months. The current demonstration goal being to avoid a fair enquiry into these crimes, I can only praise the courage of the surviving Ministers in their noble stand against the crowd.

This said, I would like to wish you all again a peaceful Christmas time... And see you all soon in the bloggosphere! Or, who knows, maybe for real?

Japanese drawing culture

Dear readers,

As some of you might know, I am a huge fan of Japanese culture, especially pictural. Most people have at least heard of modern Japanese mangas, these cheap but often inspired comics, sometimes filmed. Many also know about the famous Japanese estamps, pure wonders of the two dimensional art of rending an idea on paper. Fewer have heard of the art of image books. Luckily for us, the New-York Public Library has a wonderful exhibition on this topic and Slate had an exclusive authorisation to reproduce some of these masterpieces... I can only encourage you to have a look, as it is really enlightning, and if you have the luck to live in New-York, don't hesitate and run to visit the place...

As I couldn't, for obvious copyright reasons, give you an idea of the images exposed, I preferred to show you an example from another piece of art of the same type. This one's copyright is mine, so if you want to use it, please ask me first. Thanks in advance.

What is religion?

Dear readers,

I admit it, the topic is catchy... But it was triggered in my case, on top of a heavy past, by the news in the French media that the Parliament had issued a third report on sectarian organisations. This is a typical French exercise. But not the soundest one, I think. This third issue, was focussing on an even catchier issue: children involved in sects and cults. The title was already announcing the content: "Stolen childhood, minor victims of sects". But the controversy was immediate... The Jeovah Witnesses, claiming they had not been consulted, accused the report of partiality, without having read it, while one of the French MP's having participated in the commission refused to sign the report.

What caused such a trouble? France is probably the most secular country in the World, and that is one of the reason. More than 60% of the French view themselves as atheist or agnosticist, and if most of them are nominally Catholics, the whole country has a strong and proud tradition of anti-religious institutions and mentality. A current debate in French philosophy is to define it as the studying of salvation without God (Luc Ferry). French State and religion are legally separated in the strictest ways, at least in theory, and various laws as well as the constitution are making sure that they stay that way. This is all good, in theory, and as a product of such a society, I certainly approve.

This said, the government method as well as its approach of "fringe religious organisations" seem to me extremely dangerous. First, I already said on this blog that I consider freedom as absolutely paramount and for this reason, freedom of religion (even a religion of wackos) should be protected absolutely. France is far from this in many ways, and not the least because some religions are better protected than others. Namely, Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism are protected and favored. Islam is discriminated in many subtle ways, and other religions are simply considered as nefarious, suspect a priori. In my book, religions in general are suspect, and for this reason the State should ignore them all without any distinction. Anything else is discriminatory. French language ignores the distinction English makes between sects and cults. Anything outside the four religions previously quoted is considered a sect in France, and fought with zeal. There is even a special commission of the Parliament (the one which produced this report) to list and file all sects on the French territory, monitor their activities, etc.

Second, the method used by this commission is ridiculous. Most of its activity has been reduced to the sending of a questionnaire to several religious groups, a (very mediatised) visit to one of them, where children are raised outside the rest of the world and... that's it. No contradictory debate, no other intervention than from people opposed to these groups (the usual suspects were of course present, including the infamous "doctor" Abgral, a well known lunatic) and no legal discussion were really included. This commission has, from the beginning, taken an ideological point of view, based on feelings rather than rational, hearsay rather than legal facts.

My point is that, children involved or not, an ideological group, religious or not, should be assessed by the authorities of a democracy based on the sole facts. Is the group, as such (a moral person) breaking the law or not? Are some of its members (prominent ones or secondary characters) breaking the law or not? Are some abuses being committed? If yes, the group should be banned or dissolved, or the members in question prosecuted. Point. All the rest is clear violation of Human Rights as well as the Constitution...

French News

Dear readers,

Enjoying a prolonged medical leave in France, I have unfortunately the occasion to be submitted daily to the French TV evening news. In my case, there is a twist, as we don't have access to anything else than the normal analog TV channels (6 in France), without any cable, numeric broadcast or satellite connexion. Which means I have the choice between TF1 and France2 for a half hour news, Arte or M6 for a short 6 to 8 minutes news or France3 for the regional 20 minutes news. The choice is easy as none is very satisfying. At least, the shortest ones focus on really important news (where the risk of mistake is minimal) and the regional news are limited obviously to the area around my parent's place, which means I don't need it, because I don't live there. So what about the long (national) ones. Well, it is awfull. International news (usually limited to one or two topics about the Middle-East or Russia) are brushed aside, while national politics are usually discussed in annoyingly useless details (like the color of the skirt of the socialist candidate)... The whole rest is boring topics such as how mobile phone can be recycled or the replanting of trees in a park after a tempest. 20 minutes of nothingness, full of language mistakes, poor vocabulary and condescending stupidity.

I am not a snob, I think, but I believe TV can be better than this. French media are usually very critical of Anglo-saxon press, and I often agree. But for TV news, they should rather attempt to inspire themselves of what is done on the other side of the Channel or even the Atlantic Ocean. If French newspaper have nothing to learn from English or American ones, French TV channels have a lot to do before they can dream of reaching the level of US or UK information news channels. And it is not going to happen soon when one see the level of competence of Fench TV "journalists"...

EUobserver - Cyprus plays hard...

Dear readers,

I have been away for a while, for medical reasons, and will be away again for a couple of weeks. No worries, just a small issue, but annoying nonetheless.

In the meantime, there was an excellent article again on the EU Observer, about Cyprus and Turkey. I think Cyprus used again its veto rights to block any positive move on the issue of Turkey, openly backed by Greece and probably Germany and France. This is shamefull, not only because it is obvioulsy the wrong way to obtain any results from Turkey and because it gives a poor image on the EU. But it might also be a very costly move for Cyprus. It is the second time (at least) that the Greek side of Cyprus blocks a deal to help the reunification of the island. But using a veto right for this is very dangerous. Cyprus is new to the EU, and its government probably ignores one of the oldest untold rule of the European Council. When one state vetoes a decision, it gets what it wants. But the next request it makes to the Council is traditionnally refused by the other members, even if all would have normally agreed.

Cyprus won today (and even this is disputable). But the other coutries in the EU will make it pay for it one day. I bet the UK will lead the blow, but some other countries could well join. Even without this, the stubornness of Greek Cypriots to block any compromise with Turkey is a sure way of losing their fight in the long term. Turkey has less to lose and much more clout and power than Cyprus. It's a fact of real politics... Something the nationalists in power in Nicosia seem to lack badly.

Lebanese lying poker

Dear readers,

I was reading an excellent article from Algérie-Monde.com about Lebanon, and I couldn't help but being sad about what this country is going through. Many French people like me feel a certain special sympathy for Lebanon, a beautiful country with one of the oldest civilizations in the world. A country whose current troubles my own land is unfortunately partially responsible for. The current Lebanese constitution is more or less the same than the one which was inherited from the French colonial past. And it is one of the Lebanese problems. Not the only one, not the worse probably, but one which Lebanon does not need.

Lebanon main problem is obviously the external influence of very "dominant" neighbours. Dominant like carnivorous (or even carrion-eater) animals only can be. But because these neighbours stir the religious and political divides of the country to help their interests, the sectarian based Constitution is increasing the problem instead of helping solving it.

On TV, yesterday, some of the people demonstrating in front of the Government building in Beirut were pretending they were representing the people of Lebanon. They were supporting Hezbollah (even some Christians...) and showing indignation when people were accusing them of playing the Syrian hand. But these people are either liars or manipulated. How can someone demonstrate for a specific (and religious) party and pretend representing the whole people? How can any demonstration, per definition a street crowd, pretend to represent the democratic will of the people. Some of the demonstrators were saying they were in agreement with an international tribunal for the killers of Hariri and Gemayel. How can they ignore that Hezbollah refuses such a tribunal? Are they naive? Are they paid? Are they threatened into this? I don't know, but it makes me sad...

The FSB lead

Dear readers,

Just as this incredible spy story seemed to reach its natural end, new developments appeared in the English press. The BBC quotes a Guardian info. Some ex-FSB agents, travelling to the UK under the false pretet of being football supporters, would have met Livtinenko before he was poisonned... The only question remaining seems to be "how did they do it?" (Livtinenko knew better than to agree sharing a meal with them). And who was giving the orders. One of these agents used to be working for Egor Gaidar, when he was Russian Prime Minister, as well as for some former oligarch...

And then we heard Egor Gaidar was poisonned too, but not with Polonium this time.

The Fourth Protocol

Dear readers,

This story is getting murkier every day. When I began mentionning it, I thought it was just another spicy piece of news. But I had no idea of the political involvments. And then, as anglo-saxons say, "shit has hit the fan"...

First, there was the death of an ex-spy, believed to be poisonned with thallium. It was already "nice" enough, but in a way relatively trivial. The two prime suspects being the head of the Russian state and its exiled and rich rival, there was not much left to our imagination, except the sordid details. But all this changed this week-end with a couple of revelations. First, the poison was not thallium but radioactive 210Polonium, a component usually found inside nuclear bombs and with very little civilian use. Worse, traces of this metal were also found on people who had visited the spy, as well as in the places they had been. This is not very surprising, but it is certainly frightening. Even better, I had mention Scaramella, an Italian involved in this strange case. Apparently, and according to La Reppublica, Scaramella had been asked two years ago by a friend of then Prime Minister Berlusconi to contact Livtinenko to try and prove that Romano Prodi, his left wing rival, had KGB contacts. And this is where things get even nicer. According to UKIP uncovered blog, Scaramella was also a friend of London UKIP member, Gerrard Batten. This looks more and more like a huge political manipulation, at European scale.

All this is now reminding me of a pretty good book (which was also made a movie, as well as an antique video game): The Fourth Protocol. In this novel, it was the detection of polonium by a British agent which was leading to the uncovering of a plot by rogue KGB agents to blow a nuclear bomb on Western territory, by smuggling its components in from the East. We are getting all the elements of such a story here, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone else wouldn't mention the legendary Fourth Protocol. For the reader's info, such a treaty (preventing any nuclear power to smuggle a bomb on any other power's territory) is in fact a legend, inspired from the 1968 UN treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons... At least, none of the four countries supposed to have signed this protocol ever admitted it.

But let's face it, it is unlikely that anyone without extremely solid connections in a major nuclear power government has get its hands on any significant quantity of this polonium isotope... And if it is the case, it is a serious casus belli. As simple as this.

It's a dead spy

Dear readers,

As was unfortunately likely, Alexander Livtinenko has died. Medical experts are now questionning if it was thallium at all that killed him. Other experts (but of the intelligence world) are also questionning the involvement of the FSB or any other Kremlin controlled agency. A possibility could be that some agents belonging to the Berezovsky clan, exiled himself from Russia, could have tried to mark points against Poutine. It seems complicated, at best, but very possible. And it is true that Berezovsky was very quick to point fingers at the FSB...

Let's hope Scotland Yard will do its job and find who did what. Though I believe it unlikely.

BBC - Dutch elections won by SP

Dear readers,

Just a word about the Dutch elections. It was a bit strange yesterday night, when the first results were displayed on the Dutch 1st TV channel. The BBC and Le Monde reported rightly that, if the CDA has, as expected, won the parliamentary elections, there is an obvious shift of the electorate towards left wing parties and a more "social" society. This is going to make the negotitations for a coalition government extremely tense indeed.

On one side, you will have a CDA, nearly ensured of getting the Minister President position, while its ideas and policy are at least pertly rejected by the Dutch voters. Which should lead the party to ally with the Christen Unie and the PvdA (Labour Party). But ironically, the victory slogan of CDA was: "wij hebben goud". Which is as much "we won the gold (medal)" as "we got gold". Which is just what the voters reproached them. The CDA outrageously favoured its relatively rich, christian couple with children voters, while other less advantaged citizens felt left behind...

Marelles now on Technorati

Dear readers,

I finally thought it might be useful to be also on Technorati:
Technorati Profile

Let's see if it helps improving the numbers of you... ;-)

Bad weather for spies

Dear readers,

These days news are decidedly turning around Russian spies, ex-Russian spies or potential Russian spies. It looks like if we had gone back in time to Cold War 50's...

According to the BBC, a man was arrested in Canada, at Trudeau Airport, with forged IDs. The man has been convicted of being a Russiam spy, from the SVR this time. Contrarily to the FSB, similar to the US FBI or the French DST, the SVR is dedicated to external intelligence. The man, known under the alias of Paul William Hampel, would have spied for Russia for about 10 years, stealing especially economic secrets.

The funniest in this story is that "Hampel" will most probably be condemned to being expelled from the Canadian territory, towards Russia. Which is what he was just attempting to do by his own (illegitimate) means when he was arrested...

And another good guy goes down...

Dear readers,

They are falling like flies. Today it was Pierre Gemayel's turn.

Pierre Gemayel was the youngest Minister in the Lebanese cabinet and a member of the Phalangist Party (Maronite Christian, also called Kataeb). He was driving his car in a Christian area of Beyrut when another car rammed his. The murderer jumped out of it and fired a burst of bullets in Gemayel's vehicle. Pierre Gemayel died a bit later... He was the son of Amine Gemayel (who once was Lebanese President) and the nephew of Bashir Gemayel (assassinated in September 1982, a couple of weeks after having been elected President too). He was also and mostly, like all the previous Lebanese politicians and journalists assassinated in the last months, a vocal opponent to the Syrian domination in Lebanon. Last but not least, he was a relatively junior (translate by expendable...) in a government fighting for survival. The Lebanese constitution obliges a government to resign if at least a third of the Ministers resign. Six of them, all linked to the Hezbollah (a pawn in the Syrian game), resigned last week, hoping to force the government out to provoque new elections. The pro-Syrian parties had in mind to take advantage of the recent popularity of Hezbollah and Amal after the last war against Israel. To reach a third of the total Minister count, they made a cynical calculation: they need to kill three, or, by killing one, to freighten the others into resigning... The whole question will be wether this will give more popularity to the anti-Syrian parties.

After this small reminder about the horrors of Middle-East politics, I would like to come back to my last post. I mentionned the character of Mario Scaramella. First, I would feel extremely nervous in his situation. Most of the people who seem to have information about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya or at least the involvment of the Russian services in it are disappearing. Violently... Who is next on the list? But it is also interesting to know who is "il professore Scaramella". I had the curiosity to search around. Mario Scaramella was until recently the head of the ECPP. The Environmental Crime Prevention Program is presented by Scaramella as a UN agency, but it is in fact an intergovernmental program. It regroups about 25 countries, the most active ones being Italy, Angola and the Samoa. Though its seat is in Washington, most of its activities take place in Naples. Scaramella presents also himself as a professor of the University of San Jose California, as well as an (unidentified) Colombian university. Unfortunately, there is no mention of his name on any website belonging to the famous American university. So who is Mister Scaramella?

He appears a couple of times in the Italian press (Il Corriere della Serra, as well as the weekly newspaper Espresso). He was a consultant in the Mitrokhin Parliamentary Commission, intended to study the consequences of the publication of the Mitrokhin Archives in Italy. In this position, he claimed that he could locate the nuclear mines that a "November" class submarine would have dropped in 1970 in the Naples gulf. The sub in question, the K8, was actually lost in the Bay of Biscaye the same year, and 20 of its torpedoes were indeed never found. For this, he said that he had the help of Russian officers who were responsible for the 1970 operation. Nobody knows really why and in which quality he was a consultant for Sismi in this Commission. As far as I know, his public references are limited to the use of satellite imagery for the monitoring of environmental crimes.

It's in this other quality that Scaramella was involved in another curious affair. He led an investigation on the illegal dumping of waste by a camorra clan in a lake of the Herculanum area. After this succesfull investigation, he went with two police agents to a suspected villa. There, the trio was actually shot at by camorrists. After returning fire, they managed to arrest one and to discover an important weapon cache in the villa. This episode led itself to many questions about what a simple consultant was doing there, in the company of armed agents in civilian cloths...

I have no other information on Mario Scaramella, but I think it is a somewhat colorful character. And a strange contact for Alexander Litvinenko in his research for the murderers of Anna Politkovskaya...

Russians again...!

Dear readers,

Russia is in the news again today, and unfortunately again for the wrong reasons. According to the EU-Observer, a man nearly killed Alexander Litvinenko around the 1st November, by poisoning him with thallium. Litvinenko was an ex-FSB colonel defector, living in London, where he had political activities related to Russia. He had recently tried to investigate the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Aparently, after having met an Italian businessman, supposed to be KGB acquaintance Mario Scaramella, he fell ill and was admitted into intensive care. The same week-end, two other persons related to the Politkovskaya investigation enquiry were assassinated. Oleg Gordievsky, who knew Litvinenko pretty well, claimed the assassination attempt had all the marks of the ex-KGB agents. The fact is indeed that the use of thallium is pretty much a signature for the FSB. Both Gordievsky and Litvinenko were considered under death threats from their former colleagues, after their defection. And while both were living relatively public lives (both wrote books about their former agencies activities in the UK and Russia as well as abroad), they were taking some understandable precautions... Interestingly enough, according to Gordievsky, Scaramella is most probably not the killer, but another (unknown) businesman is believed to have taken a tea with Litvinenko that same day. A businessman related to ex-oligarch and another of Poutine's ennemies, Boris Berezovsky...

This gets murkier, but the cleaning up around the murder of Anna Politkovskaya is looking more and more political every day. And it is a double edged sword. It is probably very convenient for Vladimir Poutine to see his sworn ennemies falling like flies around him, but it is also making his whole work stink more and more at a time where he is attempting to do good business with the West. Especially the EU, but not only. According to Eastern European sources, the Russian Presidency and its allies (Gazprom people mainly) are trying to create a massive gas cartel around Europe, similar to the OPEC, to be able to impose semi-monopolistic prices. Algeria would be another member of the cartel, as both countries own most of the world reserves. Needless to say that some countries, depending on Russian gas, are not amused. Poland is leading the counter-attack by vetoing a planned EU-Russia agreement on energy. But other countries (more depending on Algerian gas, such as France) are closely following. This gets even more complicated, with "intermediary countries" crossed by gasoducs and trying to get the better of the situation. Moscow sees these countries (mainly Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia) as vassals who should be maintained in a salutary dependance... Ukraine and Georgia don't seem to appreciate this perceived involvement in their internal politics and are rearming as fast as possible.

Speak about a powder barrel...

Ségolène, Milton and the others...

Dear readers,

I have difficulties today to chose a topic. For this reason, you'll be treated with two in one... Isn't that great? The two main topics being related, that won't be this difficult. The first is the fact that Ségolène Royal was elected as Presidential candidate of the French Socialist Party for the 2007 elections. The second is the death yesterday of Economics Nobel Prize-winner Milton Friedman.

Ségolène Royale got an unexpected whopping 60.62% first round victory in the first ever primary elections ever organized in France. The significance of this is disputed, maybe as much as the candidate herself. The socialist new candidate is highly popular amongst French electors, and far beyond her own political party. However, it was suspected that she wasn't so highly regarded within the left leaning electorate. Indeed, what is known about her ideas (and that is admittedly not much) is much more social-democrat and centrist, some say "Blairist", than the official program of the "Parti Socialiste". So how did she manage. Some say (especially her supporters, including her spouse, the party's General Secretary) that she had simply more support than the left media would admit. My take in this is that it is not as simple as it may look. It is certainly true that a part of the media overestimated the influence of Laurent Fabius, the most leftist of the candidates in the Socialist Party. It is also very clear that some socialists wanted to punish him for having tried to exploit for his own interests the outcome of the negative answer to the European Constitution referendum. He presented himself as the most prominent "noniste" (as they were dubbed), but proposed an interpretation of this no which could only hurt the feelings of mainly pro-European socialist militants.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn proved a better contender for Royal, fighting her "on her own turf", which is the social-democrat field. But I suspect in the end that socialist militants put a very opportunistic vote in the ballot. They knew that the only chance for them to have a condidate present at the second round of the French presidential election was to send Ségolène Royal to the contest. She is the only left wing candidate to have any chance to beat the right wing UMP party rising star, Nicolas Sarkozy, current Interior Minister.

But what has all this to do with Milton Friedman? Well, the famous neo-liberal economist is publicly denounced by all socialists in France as the founder of a school of Chicago that they see as not only wrong but even morally evil... Friedman was the proud defender of less state intervention in the economy to provide growth as well very strict monetary policies to fight inflation. This is all what very Keynesian French socialists have ever opposed. Represented in France by economists such as Bernard Soulage, they believe in more regulation, more state and more redistribution of wealth. The fact that this has been proven wrong in 50 years of History is not enough for them to renounce this... at least publicly. Their electorate, totally ignorant in terms of economic policies, much as the French general public and media, would immediately vote them down if they would admit any change of line. This said, things are not that simple anymore. Surprisingly enough the assumed Blairism of Ségolène Royal, now freed of the socialist primary hurdle, could change the way French people understand economics, or at the very least blur the situation a bit. All for the better, one might hope...

BBC - Image recognition software

Dear readers,

Everyone knows about OCR (optical character recognition), which allows a computer scanner to "read" a text on a physical document, interprete it and restitute it as a formatted text file. Recent versions include image restitution within a given text, but if the text is indeed gramatically interpreted depending on the language, the image are not. They are restituted as they are, bits of color information on a two dimension surface. Which is what they are, as far as optics are concerned.

But this is all about to change, and sooner than we thought. The BBC announced today that a research team has created a prototype software able to actually interprete an image or movie. In other words, an optical recognition of objects on a multimedia document, coupled with a robust artificial intelligence system. The prototype is limited to certain types of scenes, but only raw power prevents the technology to be applied to anything, from your holiday pics to movie rush analysis...

This is going to revolution multimedia software. Imagine for instance a software like Picasa, but with the option of automatically adding relevant caption to each image, sorting them in a database in a couple of minutes, based on the actual content and topic of these images, without any human intervention... And think also, this is not only going to revolution your holiday pics, it is going to revolution intelligence work. Big time!

BBC - Al Jazeera English Channel launched

Dear readers,

Today is a good day in the History of free media and press in general. Al Jazeera, the famous Qatari TV station has launched an English speaking channel. The news is making the front page of many newspapers, as well as the BBC. Al Jazeera is famous for being the first (arguably independant) TV station to bring daily news and programs to the Arab world, investigate, report images and produce content in Arabic and for Arabs. The only taboo Al Jazeera ever accepted was about its "home country", Qatar, whose government is funding the station. But its audience in the Arab population (and more generally in the Arab understanding Muslim world) has made of Al Jazeera the CNN of the South.

Of course, the main question about the Qatari TV is: "Is it fair and balanced?" Or is it simply a pro-Arab biased, islamist station? Slate magazine online tried to answer this question by comparing with American famous 24hours channels, CNN and Fox News. According to Slate's journalist, Al Jazeera is actually a rather balanced channel. The TV station airs of course radical islam views, but also moderate Arab ideas as well as Western analysis and opinions. Of course, the Arab-Muslim way of thinking is privileged, which makes a lot of sense for a TV whose public is 95% Arab and Muslim. But, Slate argues, so are Fox News and CNN too. They broadcast news for an overwhelmingly Western public (or Western educated). So their views "pay lips service" to the Arab view and images, while reflecting their more or less democratic or republican agenda respectively. As an exemple of Al Jazeera moderate and balanced approach, I would point at today's coverage they made of the legalization of gay marriage in South Africa. The article presents both pros and against and leave any judgement to its public. It's fair to say such a public will most likely be horrified, but that will come from its own cultural bias, not because of Al Jazeera. And one can compare with the treatment of such a topic by, say, a Rush Limbaugh...

The question which remains though is wether (as the BBC puts it) Al Jazeera will keep the same editorial line in its English and Arabic version. If it does not, the English version will sadly lose most of its interest, which is obviously to give the Western world an accurate view of the Arabic and/or Muslim mind. Al Jazeera, nonetheless, has provided us with a fantastic first step towards intercultural understanding. More than any military might, this kind of initiative has more chance to bring peace to the Middle-East than any military force. Who said the pen was stronger than the sword?

Law and Order

Dear readers,

As promised last month, I would like to begin my discussion (with myself...) about politics. Again, please remember this is a personal description of an ideal system, voluntarily disconnected from any geographical or national reference.

Most political systems, especially written constitutions, begin with a reminder (one which has usually the highest legal binding effect) of the main rights and sometimes duties of citizens. It is called here "Bill of Rights", there "Human Rights Declaration", but it is a constant in constitutionnal law.

First, I'd like to criticize the idea a bit. It is great to have fundamentals, but how can we be sure they are not culturally tainted? Actually all of them are tainted. Even the UN Human Right declaration is clearly tainted with the Western civilization ideological bias. Not that I find this wrong, but it is an inconvenient when you try to find a common ground with someone with, say, a less individualistic background. Which means already that focusing on citizens only might be a mistake. It could be just as effective to have at least organisations mentionned (moral persons and not only physical persons, to use a legal term).

This said, I think we have to go back to basics. What is the goal of a government, of a political power? It is to protect its citizens and their families. To protect against what? Well, against other states, if need be, against other citizens, and eventually against nature's harshest inconvenients. Why did I say their families? Because, as Maslow showed, there are several steps in human developments. The first one is physiological (food, shelter, sex, health). The second is safety, but the third is love and belonging, which includes family. I believe any type of government shouldbe dedicated to allow all citizens to achieve not only the three first levels the Maslow pyramid, but also the two last ones which are (self-) esteem and self-actualisation. Most governments tend to provide for the first three levels only and either forget about the two last ones, or force them upon their citizens. Another common mistake by political powers is to forget that moral persons have different rights from physical persons, as well as different needs and to confuse them.

This leads me to say there should be a Declaration of Rights and Duties for the citizens, as well as an annexe or an appart declaration (subject to the first) for moral persons. Why Rights and Duties? It is because if citizens or moral persons only have rights, they will have the tendency to forget that the state is also there to protect other citizens against abuse of their rights. And worse, courts will have the tendancy to actually enforce their rights over the rights of other citizens rather than remind them of their duties.

Well, I think it is enough thinking for tonight, I need beer! ;-)

Sea & Navy - French Navy threatened in Lebanon?

Dear readers,

I'd like to react today on one of the week-end news. The French Defense Minister (Michelle Alliot-Marie, dubbed MAM), announced that Israeli F15 fighters, violating Lebanon air space, proceeded to fake attacks on French units, both Army and Navy. The fighter pairs went in mock dive bombing passes over a French fort in Southern Lebanon. Even worse, according to Sea & Navy, they did the same on a French frigate, the Courbet, as well as several German units patrolling the Lebanese coast. Why is it worse? Well, as for the Army units, serving Mistral anti-aircraft missiles, they had the choice not to take the threat seriously and avoid pulling the trigger (which would have certainly ended in a disastrous "border incident"). Which they did, receiving the order to abort launch a couple of seconds before firing.

The Navy units are a much more dangerous stuff. Indeed, to protect multi-million euros ships such as a patrol frigate, engineers have relied on their crews, of course, highly trained and motivated, but also on automatic response systems. These systems are set up to engage any target entering a certain dangerous "envelope" and destroy it, even if the humans on board haven't realized it. Which means, unless the crew has marked the aircrafts as "friendly", the onboard missile systems (Crotale anti-aircraft, similar to the US Hawks) will take them out. As it seems, the French crew had detected the Israeli aircrafts and made sure they were not shot by the frigate defense system. But one might wonder what would have happened if the F15 had actually surprised the Courbet! Unlikely as it may be, that is always possible, as the Argentinian Air Force proved during the Falkland War.

This is a huge political risk. It is absolutely unacceptable, of course, that Israel violates the Lebanese air space, but it is even worse that its Air Force targets allied units whose presence is actually intended to protect its own border. What is worse is that Israel is doing something which it wouldn't allow any of the said allies to do to its own units. This kind of arrogance is not only dangerous for the individuals involved, it is extremely damaging for the Israel position in the public opinion in France in particular and in Europe in general. Tsahal would do good to keep its men in controle...

EUobserver - European Democracy

Dear readers,

As usual, Peter Sain ley Berry (the editor of Europa World) has come out with a brilliant article on what he calls "A gaping lacuna at the heart of European Democracy". He refers to Jacques Delors' definition of European democracy, and underlines the lack of critical media focus in this definition (politic, socio-economic and civil society). He also goes on to explain that most European member state politicians are following (consciously or not) Delors definition. And, according to him, it is another reason for the current crisis of confidence the EU is finding itself in. If you prefer, he thinks that citizens don't trust the Union because there is no European Press to criticize it, analyse it, talk about it and serve as a way of expression about it for them.

I would certainly agree to such a statement. However, I think Berry is missing a most important point. Before there can be a power that can be criticized by an independant but truly European Press, there need to be actually a power. Any power. But that's the prerequisite now lacking in Europe. Delors in his definition brushes it slightly (but without daring to go any further) when he mentions the political criteria. Democracy means conflicts are solved in a political way. But most importantly, it is legitimacy which is at stakes. A democracy is a system of government where legitimacy comes from the people. This is exactly what Europe is missing. Before a European press to criticize it, we need a legitimate European power.

And what do we have? Traditionally, in a democracy, power is divided in three. Legislative, executive and judicial powers are separated and the three must have legitimacy. In the European Union, the legislative power is shared between the European Parliament and the European Commission. But only the European Parliament has legitimacy, as it is elected by the people. The executive power is shared between the European Commission and the European Council. But none of them has people's legitimacy. And the simple fact the EU Commission shares power with both also means that there is no true separation of powers. So the EU is actually adding up two of the main "sins" any democracy should avoid: no separation of powers and absolutely no legitimacy for the executive power. This is a recipee for disaster, as the last Constitutional debate has proven.