Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Politic, Sex & Whatnot: Canada: A squall of Homo-newsbits to go with the Novembroid weather & the Fall of LibGovt Canada

I found a site, referred by an Evangelical site, with this salient but, for me, ambiguous post, I am not heterosexual, says Berek.net. What Berek doesn't contain within his Net is the direct affirmation, "I am a homosexual." So, while I can say what Berek says, in the interest also a full disclosure, I am not a homosexual: I find it less satisfactory than what I do say from time to time: I am homosexual. (Notice the absense of an indefinite article "a." I am a Christian, and to me that is the most important thing, at the same time a responsilibity I wish I had fulfilled much better all thru my longish life (65 years now). I'm taking it for now, that Berek is telling us his sexual orientation is heterosexual, but he is not "a heterosexual." He is a much more fully-aspected, splendidly-rainbowed diversity of dimensions as one of God's human kind of creatures.

Now we make a turn to politics. The political scene in Canada is portentous: just yesterday the minority Liberal government has fallen, with all three opposition parties in the Federal House of Commons lining up to fell a government for sheer Non-Confidence for the first time in Canadian history (as against the rejection of a hi-order piece of govt-proposed legislation.
Paul Martin is out of office, or rather reduced to some caretaker functions, like decidingt the actual date of the election within constitutional parameters. But essentially out. And that's for the good, I say, on the basis of a litany of reasons I won't recite here.

But, in any case, we are bracing ourselves for a bitter election campaign in the bitter cold of a global warming of Season's Greetings, over the Christmas Holidays, past New Year's Day, and into the new year as far as said Martin determines. In that time, we expect a program of demonization on the part of candidate Martin to get himself re-elected with sufficient Commons to return at least to largest minority status in that Chamber of Parliament, and hence acquiring the privilege of forming the govt once again. All thru the campaign, out or covert, sex and marriage and religion will be political themes. Here's some specifics to indicate why.

Let's start with the once-Tory turncoat who turns up as Liberal tyro. Scott Brison, Member of Parliament, could be said to be homo but adheres to a particular ideology of his sexuality, and that ideology's political agenda, and thus prefers to be designated as "Gay" (an terminological important point, to me). True to that ideology, in his parachuted capacity as Minister of Public Works (a post he received in exchange for crossing the floor from the Tory seats to the Liberal government's side), announced that his Ministry would no longer hire white men, as he'sa devota ta quota. Of course, the hue and cry arising from the public, not least of all Canadian white males without jobs and seeking employment, perhaps in Public Works, forced Brison to bison. He rescindeth! And goes to dinna.

Well, one day or evening at dinna, presumably properly inscribed on his Ministerial expense account, a longtime Liberal loyalist spotted him in the restaurant and gave him in dulcet but in no-uncertain terms a piece of her mind. Being full already, Scott let loose on her in a most Gaughty manner ( = a manner most Gay, naughty, and haughty). Again, the lady's fury led to another hue and cry, and again the Minister Most Gay rescindeth! Longtime Liberal loyalist demands Brison apologize after restaurant spat.

But, as trouble is folklorickly said to come in threes, Scot the Bison of Gay Bull run amok in the Cabinet, tried to surmount the leader of the Official Opposition (who moved The Fall Motion), B outdid himself: Brison attacks Harper as anti-Charter, anti-Gay. The Charter here is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (not "and Responsiblities," note) which is appended to the repatriated former British North-America Act of the British Crown. This appendage nowhere says that there is a rite to demote the traditional definitoin of marriage, to make it just another indistinct something-or-other alongside all sorts of other kinds of intimate unions (and we don't know yet how many kinds the courts will ultimately find there; but it must be said that Stephen Harper acceded to claim for some recognition of "same-sex unions" in the alternative legislation he proposed, while trying to maintain the traditional defintion, the distinctness of 1woman1man unions, and the priority standing of the latter from the stanpoint of the interests of the Canadian state. Harper is obviously neither anti-Charter, nor legal recognition of 2women or 2men intimate unions for purposes of property transmission, insurance and pension benefits, etc., but separately from the distinctiveness of traditional marriage. I can't recall for sure as I write whether the the braying Brison triplicated - did he again rescindeth? Oh yes, Owlie Scowlie has brawt me the URL in our research collection, Brison apologizes to Harper. So, for the third time, he rescindeth!

On another related note, Owlie Scowlie (full discolusure: a relative, to be exact - a nephew and a very helpful researcher hatched from the egg of nepotistic fictojournalism), That the social conservatives on the issue Traditional Marriage vs Generic "Marriage" (gmarriage) do not seem to be able simply to drop what Scott and Paul hath wrought (spelling should be "wrawt," if we're serious about the inner reformation of English orthography). Paul is said to have asked Scottie, now that the law is in place, when is the Public Works Minister going to get married? Think of the photo ops offered where Paul Martin in his campaign could wrap himself not only in the flag and the Charter, but also in gmarriage wedding cake. Well, as a matter of principle and perhaps also as a matter of extreme distaste, two former Members of the Commons, one a Liberal and one a Conservative, have announced their formation of a Marriage Defence Committee to campaign against the parties of destruction of the uniqueness and priority before the law of traditional 1woman1man marriage. Politicians to fight same-sex marriage (but oh how I dislike the faux terminology of "same-sex marriage" for its abstractness to the point of fictionalization of what actually are two distinct phenomena, either a 2woman intimate union, or a 2male intimate. "Same-sex" linked to "marriage" is logical basket-case, an avoidance of facing two distinct kinds of societal realities, and an info-deprived cover-up (but, be that as it may). I notice how the Defence Committee's campaign is styled after that of the Boat Vets campaign against Sen John Kerry in the last American Presidential election, altho on a much smaller scale.

I hope the Opposition candidates and particular that of the Official Opposition, as well as the Marriage Defense Committee, are all thick-skinned and steady on course and sufficiently financed, because we've already gotten word of the Martin Libs' strategy and tactics thru the Winter of our discontent: PM plans super-negative election campaign.

This will have special meaning in Quebec where the populace is appalled at how the Libs tried to buy public opinion, while systematically misappropriating funds, slushing some out outright and receiving some government-originated money in kickbacks to the federal Liberal Party in Quebec (what's this called in the entertainment industry? - payola?).

Well, now the payolateers will be aiming their dollars, from whatever misbegotten sources, at a Quebec provincial party in order to smear the federal sister party that is close to the former in ideology. Le Parti Quebecois has just elected a homo (doesn't seem much straitjacketed by the Gay ideologies) who has also acknowledged that earlier in his career he had snorted cocaine sometimes. Now, this is exploitable, right? Yes, if Martin can transfer over from an independent separatist party on the provincial level there the inevitable moral concerns of some (mostly outside Quebec, where mores are different from those prevailing in English-speaking Canada) to the federal Quebec-separatist party Le Bloc Quebecois and its leader Gilles Duceppe, who joined the other two opposition parties in axing the government. Take a gander at this: Demonizing new PQ leader is a doomed strategy, New Brunswick premier warms.

If you read French, also gander these two entries in blog Polyscopique which are most informative evaluations of the Quebec situation: Andre Boisclair et la cocaine and Boisclair, le PQ et les gais, plus a set of three froncophone blog entries, this time in Le sphere des idees de J. H. [Jacques Hamel] which together are quite a must-read. Hamel's three I list in chronological order - Boisclair, l'elu! [Boislcair, he's elected!, Nov15,2k5]; [Boisclair, a dynamic speaker, Nov19,2k5]; and the third in the set, one that raises questions of the more mainstream kind, Boisclair dit: "Le PQ doint etre a la gauche" [Boisclair declares: "The Parti Quebecois must be on the Left!," Nov19.2k5]. What's involved here is the fact that the provincial Liberal Party of Quebec under former Fed Tory leader Jean Charest has moved to the Right somewhat, so in appeasing PQ members of the Left and scrambling to position the PQ coalition in provincial politics on all matters other than separatism, Boisclair is doing the typical pragmatic thing in his call for a move to the Left somewhat. It's all a matter of how much, how far.

Now, again, if you read French and you do get to Hamel's blog, look up a fourth blog-entry of his [A Republic deprived of moral values?, Nov20,2l5] in which he interestingly raises the question of what a separatist government of Quebec would do (should it be able to transform the society's state from a province of Canada to that of an independent Republic) in regard to its own moral tone, and the impact of such a state's moral tone on the wide ranges of the society and its various societal spheres of life. This question does carry some weight perhaps, in the light of recent events, in directing at least a few votes away from the provincial Bloc Quebecois to the Conservatives in the upcoming Federal election (for some the motivation to change voting pattern would be guilt by association, no doubt). Byt a more thawtful approach to vote change is also possible. At least, so I would think and hope. Yet:

Yet #1 - Gay ideology seriously mispresents Boisclair when an American Gay ideologue to whom Hamel informatively links in his November 20 blog-entry, where the Gay imperialist fantasist says the following:

My normally hyperactive imagination has gone into overdrive. Surely the election of an openly gay man to head Quebec's Separatist Party must be sending shock waves through the White House and other parts of this increasingly intolerant and backward country.

Andre Boisclair's triumph puts him on a fast track to be Quebec's next Premier, and if, against the odds, Quebec voters ultimately decide to separate from English-speaking Canada, we would actually have the first openly gay head of state! Yikes. Unlikely, but well within the realm of possibilities.

Imagine a gay country on our northern border. A sort of North American Gay version of Israel.

Regardless of how it turns out, Boisclar has just shattered yet another barrier in the history of gay liberation.


Yet #2 - I do take seriously the New Brunswick premier's warning not to demonize the Bloc in the vote for the Commons in reaction to the PQ's new leader Boisclair (in Quebec, the cocaine use is more disturbing to more people than is his nonideological homo status). Nevertheless, the stained fed Libs' leader is out there now trying to demonize the Bloc which seems not to have any scandal of its own to shame it. So, how will Martin make this stick, except by taking a Holier Than Thou attitude, when he's in no position to do so? You see, dear fellow anglophone readers, the charge of separtism itself just doesn't have the force it used possess, as we all learn in Canada that separatism in Quebec and Western Canada, too, is part of the heritage of the country. Separatism is as Canadian as maple syrup, and right now it has two French-speaking political parties, one on the provincial level, one on the Federal level. Demonization on this matter is just not an honest strategy; and plays into the hands of separatist vote-collecting, to which they are entitled under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of the repatriated Constitution of the Queen's Dominion of Canada. So, a sleaze slide to demonization on the basis either of use of cocaine by the leader of a provincial party (albeit separatist, and albeit with Hamel's quesiton about what moral tone would a free and independent Quebec Republic aspire to), or on the basis of said leader's being a not-so-Gay homo, neither should function much at all in a campaign of Federal parties.

As for me, I urge Boisclair to give up cocaine and booze, while amelioratively trying the pill form of maryjane :-); and ready himself for a vow of celibacy, accompanied by many buckets of cold water and a supply of ice cubes to fill his bathtub ;-|; In my old age, I'm able to maintain my celibacy comfortably without any cold showers at all. And for that, dear Lord, I'm most thankful, but as You and I know that isn't the path You have in store for every homo across the continent, as we do have different levels of libido. And the level varies with health and age, for most. J'ai fini. - Owlb

Monday, November 28, 2005

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Thursday, November 24, 2005

Labour: ILO & China Girls for Sale: Preventing trafficking in China

An estimated 94 million Chinese farmers migrated for work in 2002. The influx of such huge numbers of rural surplus labourers has created opportunities for those seeking to exploit the most vulnerable - specifically, children and young women. In April 2004, the Chinese authorities and the UN agency, International Labour Organization's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) started a new project to prevent trafficking in children and youth for labour exploitation. Hans van de Glind, Chief technical advisor of the project, sent ILO online the following report, which refWrite is digitally republishing:

GUIZHOU, China (ILO online) – Far away from the towering skyscrapers of downtown Guangzhou, the province of Guizhou offers what may seem a rural idyll. But the boom economy isn’t improving life for everyone in China’s remote countryside. It may be idyllic, but it’s dirt poor.

Last year, poverty and lack of local job opportunities and the belief of chances in the cities drove an estimated 120 million people to migrate within China, most of them to the country’s booming east coast. Though men constitute the majority of the migrant labour force, the percentage of women is quickly rising, especially in the younger age group.

“Many girls leave their rural villages at a rather low age. They drop out of school prematurely, do household chores and get bored with village life. Many try their luck and leave their villages, unprepared, and ill-informed of dangers or possible protection … thus putting themselves at risk of labour and sexual exploitation”, explains Hans van de Glind, Chief technical advisor of the ILO Project to Prevent Trafficking in Girls and Young Women for Labour Exploitation within China (CP-TING).

Xiaoqiu, a 17-year-old girl from Guizhou, is one of them. She came to Guangzhou with the wish to make more money. When she had nearly spent all her money but still could not find a job, she reluctantly bought the train ticket to return home.

As she had no money to pay for a hotel, she decided to spent the night on the square at the train station. But a young man who called himself Ouyang Jian persuaded her to come to a hotel telling her that the square was not safe for a young girl at night.

He brought her to the hotel, and after a glass or two, he first robbed Xiaoqiu, and then raped her. The next day her sold her to another man called Luo Tao for RMB 2500 (about US$ 300).

Luo Tao and two other men raped Xiaoqiu, and then forced her to become a prostitute by threatening her with a poisonous injection. A week later, Xiaoqiu found an opportunity to escape. She immediately reported to the police at Guangzhou Railway Station. The police arrested the suspects, and rescued more than ten other girls – the youngest of them was under 15.

Making migration safe

The CP-TING project aims to make migration channels safe for girls that want to leave their rural villages. It focuses on adolescent girls and young women and puts them in contact with decent employers that offer decent jobs. The preventive approach revolves around empowerment and education in sending areas, and job placement services and improved migration frameworks in sending and receiving provinces.

The project operates in three ‘sending’ provinces in central China (Anhui, Henan and Hunan) which have a combined population of 223 million inhabitants, and two major ‘receiving’ provinces, Guangdong province (in the Pearl River delta) – which currently hosts 31 million registered migrant workers – and Jiangsu Province (in the Yangtze River delta).

Initial activities revolved around clarifying the understanding of trafficking; that it is not just the kidnapping and selling of babies for adoption and women for marriage purposes, but also involves voluntary but unprepared and ill-informed migration that may turn into trafficking into exploitative work.

Advocacy work to date resulted in integrating ‘trafficking’ in a manual on safety issues for all children in primary and lower secondary schools of Anhui province, and in a Pan-Pearl River Delta agreement on labour issues among 9 provinces. More than 2,500 cadres of the women’s federation in Henan province were trained in ‘safe migration management’ as alternative to trafficking

A series of massive awareness raising events were organized at the time of International Migrant’s Day (18 December), Women’s Day (8 March), Children’s Day (1st June) and World Day Against Child Labour (12 June) in various provinces. These included speech writing, drawing and calligraphy contests involving thousands of children, events involving government officials that expressed their opinions on effective responses to trafficking, and massive local media attention.

Through a partnership with the All China Women’s Federation (ACWF) the CP-TING project has mobilized a range of relevant ministries, at both national level and in five selected provinces, to develop a comprehensive set of interventions to prevent trafficking in girls and young women, monitor progress and document lessons learned.

Employers’ and workers’ organizations also show commitment to address the issue. The Zhenjiang Women’s Federation (in Jiangsu Province) mobilized enterprises to provide funds to support migrant girls below 16, who are at risk of dropping out of school, to complete compulsory education. A company donated RMB 120,000 which was used to sponsor 50 poor girls to continue their education.

So far over 160 pieces of media coverage related to project interventions appeared on TV, radio and in newspapers in China – including government officials that speak out on trafficking, reaching out to millions of readers, viewers and listeners including female migrants workers and government officials.

While progress is being made enormous challenges remain. Within the sending provinces project partners are now preparing for large scale interventions in nine target counties with a population from 300,000 to 1 million. Efforts include putting in place village trafficking ‘alarm’ networks, reducing premature school drop-out of girls, increasing school enrolment levels for those under 16, and providing training opportunities and/or safe migration possibilities for those aged 16 and above. In receiving cities job placement services and improved access to basic services are under preparation.

The project and its partners will increasingly work on offering policy advice, contributing to the development of agreements on safe migration between sending and receiving provinces, procedures to license and monitor recruitment agencies, and a national policy plan to prevent trafficking.

“Concerted efforts among communities, government agencies, international organizations and a range of ILO departments and programs are necessary if we are to make a difference in the lives of girls at risk of trafficking”, concludes Hans van de Glind.


Good on ILO! Good on Communist China! Something in the way of a positive action, on the part of that government, to report for a change. - Politicarp

More from ILO on child labour, from World Day Against Child Labour, June 12, 2005:
This year World Day Against Child Labour (WDACL) called our attention to a form of work that is dangerous to children in every way. It is physically dangerous because of the heavy and awkward loads, the strenuousness of the work, the unstable underground structures, the tools, the toxic chemicals, and the exposure to sun and water. It can also be morally and psychologically risky given that mining often takes place in remote areas where law, schools, and social services are unknown, where family and community support may not exist, where "boom or bust" conditions foster alcohol abuse, drugs, and prostitution.

Quarrying occurs in most countries; child labour is found in quarrying in much of the developing world. Although children can be seen breaking stones alongside roads and cutting and hauling rock from pits that produce construction materials, no one knows just how many adults and children struggle to make a living this way.

Artisanal, small-scale mining employs approximately 13 million people worldwide - one million of these are children. The numbers are rising as economies falter; more people now work in small-scale mines than in the formal mining sector.


I'm not sure how Communist China fits into this particular picture of the mining and quarrying industries, but it should be noted that China permits no free trade-union organizations or movements. The All-China Federation of Trade Unions is a totalitarian organization that does the bidding of the Communist Party of China and often serves the interests of the Communist elites which now own much of China's system of business enterprises in the strange party-centered capitalism at the heart of the country's rapid economic growth these deays. But no one us likely to fault China's effort to alleviate the plight of girls sold for sexual and other forms of exploitive labour. - Politicarp

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Canada: government: Ministerial responsiblity compared to the responsibility of 1-man Commission of Inquiry conducted by Judge

About three weeks ago, Russ Kuykendall wrote in his blog Burkean Canuck an entry on the difference between the responsiblities of Ministers of the Liberal Government's Cabinet, in the wake of the Adscam [Le scandal des commandites], and that of the head of the investigating commission, Judge Gomery. Some commentators have gotten the mattern confused. So, with Kuykendall's permission, his remarks are digitally republished here, as the political landscape in Canada shifts toward a campaign and Federal election. Somewhere along the course of events, perhaps in February 2006, Gomery will deliver his final report. In the meantime, what is the responsiblity of the Cabinet Ministers of the Federal goverment who had previously served during the Adscam years, along with then-Minister of Finance, Paul Martin - Liberals all? - Owlb.


Ministerial responsibility

v. responsibility à la Judge Gomery

Guest article by Russ Kuykendall, Burkean Conservative

With respect to Mr. Martin and the current government who includes former members of the Chretien cabinet, Mr. Justice Gomery found:

The Responsibility of Other Ministers

On the evidence there is no basis for attributing blame or responsibility to any other Minister of the Chrétien Cabinet, since they, like all members of Parliament, were not informed of the initiatives being authorized by Mr. Pelletier and their funding from the Unity Reserve. Mr. Martin, whose role as Finance Minister did not involve him in the supervision of spending by the PMO or PWGSC, is entitled, like other Ministers in the Quebec caucus, to be exonerated from any blame for carelessness or misconduct (Mr. Justice Gomery, Who is Responsible? Phase I Report. Ottawa: Gomery Commission of Inquiry, 2005, p. 77).

But before he gets into assigning blame, the judge gives this qualifier:
The Fact Finding Report is not a judgment, and the conclusions do not establish the legal responsibility, either civil or criminal, of the persons and organizations singled out for critical comment or a finding of misconduct (Ibid., p. 73).
Okay -- so even before he gets around to exonerating Mr. Martin and his current cabinet colleagues from the Chretien cabinet, Justice Gomery pointedly eliminates "legal responsibility, either civil or criminal" from the sort of responsibility he does assign.


Justice Gomery was essentially exonerating Mr. Martin and his cabinet colleagues who were members of the Chretien cabinet from . . . what, exactly? Not "legal responsibility, either civil or criminal."

But what about the responsibility that Canadians and Parliament should be concerned about? What about the responsibility that doesn't fall within Mr. Justice Gomery's brief?

What about "ministerial responsibility?"

Yup, the judge has no jurisdiction over ministerial responsibility, even with his terms of reference. Ministerial responsibility is the brief of the House of Commons, and it takes two forms. Yes, yes -- in the words of Preston Manning, "Let's not get mired in minutiae." But this minutiae matters! Now, where was I? Oh, yes . . . as in Responsibility in the Constitution, ministerial responsibility takes two forms: "individual" and "collective." I summarize these two broad aspects of ministerial responsibility as follows:

Individual responsibility which is directed to the Crown and represented in the oath ministers take as they're sworn in to the Privy Council and into responsibility for their ministry;

Collective responsibility which is both directed to the Crown -- ministers are sworn into the Privy Council which is collectively responsible to the Crown -- and to the House of Commons. Under long-standing tradition and under the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, the cabinet is collectively responsible to the House of Commons. This is most explicit in question period ("oral questions") in which ministers answer questions from the opposition and the government backbenches on behalf of the government. The opposition may direct their questions to specific ministers, but the government is only expected to stand someone to speak on behalf of the cabinet (government) collectively.

Let me be Rocky-Mountain-spring-fed-lake-crystal-clear:

For every day that Paul Martin and members of the present cabinet sat on the government front bench -- the cabinet bench, they bear collective responsibility for every decision, policy, statute, regulation, and for all administration of federal government programs under the Chretien Government.

Justice Gomery not only wasn't in a position to assign "legal responsibility, either civil or criminal." Even if Justice Gomery understood ministerial responsibility, he would be in no position to rule on it. That's the House of Commons's job -- specifically, the Opposition's raison d'etre, er, reason for being.

The first time someone tries to tell you that the Opposition shouldn't assign responsibility where Justice Gomery refused, do Canada a public service, and offer an education in the rudiments of ministerial responsibility.

Don't let anyone try to tell you otherwise . . . Prime Minister Martin and every member of his cabinet who were members of the Chretien cabinet from the time the sponsorship program began are responsible.

Semiotics: antiSemitism: Massive antiSemitic, anti-American poster backgrounds Iran Prez speech in Tehran

Iran anti-Semitic poster [semiotics]

The Iranian government sponsored a conference in which its new President made his now-famous antiSemitic, antiIsrael speech, "A world without Zionism." The graphic design of the massive poster (in front of which the new Iranian President gave his Death-to-Israel speech) is especially semiotically-loaded, with an hour-glass depicted - thru the sands of which a ball (grain of sand) falls marked Israel by the sign it bears, the Star of David - while on the bottom of the lower chamber of the hour-glass, a ball signifying the USA, inert and broken into pieces, the two balls fallen and falling give us a message: once the USA is broken, then Israel will fall. Since the graphic elements (meaning here the non-textual elements of letters of the alphabet either in English, Arabic, or Persian), the non-alphabetic graphic elements of this system of signs in the poster lack the time-markers of verb-tenses occuring in lingual units (sentences, paragraphs), the semotics of the poster could be read in another tense as well, or both: The US is already broken, and Israel is falling now. This is a semotic praxis that brings to mind the massiveness of artist and film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda for Hitler's regime. - Anaximaximum

BACKGROUND; Politics: Iran: Amir Taheri provides profound religio-philosophical analysis of Iran's new President

Catholicism: Homo priests: Brian St-Paul, Crisis, says Benedict XVI's ruling on homo seminarians more liberal than pred


Yes, the editor of Catholic tradition-affirming Crisis magazine, Brian Saint-Paul, says in his latest email newsletter that, technically, Pope Benedict XVI's ruling on admission of homo candidates for the priesthood, to Catholic seminaries is more liberal than were the standards set by German Benedict's predecessor Polish Pope John Paul II. The difference? JP II was widely ignored by many seminaries, particularly in the United States, Canada, and certain countries in Europe.

...[I]t looks like the Vatican's statement on homosexuals and seminary admission will be released on November 29. According to those who have seen it -- including Italian newspaper, Il Giornale -- the document will prohibit those who are actively homosexual, participate in the homosexual culture, or demonstrate strong homosexual tendencies from admission. It will, it is reported, leave open the possibility of ordination for those who have same-sex tendencies, but have overcome them for three years.

Predictably, dissenting Catholics and gay rights advocates have gone nuts over this. And some in the media have jumped on board. Take Rachel Zoll of Associated Press, for example. In her story, "On eve of new Vatican rules, gay priests struggle with serving a church that considers them 'disordered,'" she manages to get through an entire article without ever quoting an orthodox Catholic. Indeed, it doesn't look like she even spoke with anyone who supports the Church's position.

But she does take the opportunity to get in a few editorial shots of her own:

"Researchers have estimated that thousands of homosexual clergy across the United States have dedicated their lives to a church that considers them 'intrinsically disordered' and prone to 'evil tendencies.'"

I'm sorry, but is that reporting?

Happily, other journalists have taken the time to get both sides of the story, and I've seen some balanced coverage of the issue in other outlets. A faithful Catholic, after all, doesn't demand media favoritism... just media fairness.

As for the policy itself, it would actually represent a liberalization of the official stance. In 1961, John XXIII clearly barred men with same-sex tendencies from the seminary. This new policy, on the other hand, would open the door for those who support the Church's teachings and have succeeded in living chastely. The key difference, of course, is that Benedict XVI will expect his guidelines to be followed.
Tuff luck!, Catholic would-be seminarians, you must practice celibacy sucessfully for a long period before you can apply for admission to a Catholic seminary to train for the priesthood. That's the canon law of the Latin-based worldwide mega-dnomination. That's that. Sorry! but the Roman Catholic Church and the alternate-rite Churches affiliated to the Pope's monarchical church-law rule has settled the rules. Find another job, or another avenue of Christian non-Church service. - Owlb

Subscribe: Crisis, traditional Catholicism

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Pollitics: France & North America: France's Autumn Riots - reverberations for USA, Canada, and Quebec

France's refusal to support the US/British strategy to overthrow Saddam Hussein, its games at the UN, its involvement in the UN Oil-for-Food scam, the hauteur of Jacques Chirac, President of the Republic and of his current dandy Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, his imposition of the secularist headscarf rule on young female Muslims in French schools, and the present riots thru-out France - with Chirac/de Villepin at loggerheads with Nicolas Sarkozy: American foreign relations with France have taken a beating, but not so in Canada. Apparently, the Autumn Riots 2005 caused the postponement of a state visit of de Villepin to Ottawa (and incidentlaly, the Gomery revelations and election scare caused a cancellation of the visit to Ottawa of the Heir Apparent to the Dominion's Throne, but the Royal Couple went right ahead with their tour de farce thru the former Colonies across from Canada's southern border).
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BACKGROUNDER: refWrite, France: Riots: Villepin pirouettes while Paris burns, Sarkozy deploys forces of law and order, Saturday, Nov5,2k5.
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Autumn Riots 2005: This protracted event of three weeks of car-burnings (not escalated to car-bombings or suicide-attacks, but certainly carrying the threat) was France's 9/11 (however nearly deathless it was, still it packed an analogous psychologie politique, the Riots were at one and the same time France's Sit-In Movement (but with no Rosa Parks and no Martin Luther King), and its Twin Towers / WTO (wrought, not with explosives and airplanes, but with cell phones and other hand-helds, including cigarette lighters, and gas cans) - the Riots were all these things condensed into one. And then some. Something unique, something way beyond France's student riots of May 1968 - which inevitably got a lot of citation in the media and blogosphere (including here at refWrite, as the Rejectionist Movement progressed, never clarifying its aim either as a Muslim Islamofascist movement (which some of the press tried to construct it as being), but neither as a poor peoples' incipiently neo-Marxist rebellion with clear class strategy and intent. No manifesto of socio-economic demands was produced; nothing was demanded around which the government could negotiate, as far as I am aware.

The Autumn 2005 Riots in France have shaken the French state, indeed the order of the entirety of the Fifth Republic and the man who heads the neo-Gaullist "conservative" party l'Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Populaire Movement - take a look at France's political spectrum), Jacques Chirac the head of state who went silent and couldn't be found for days on end.

Meanwhile his minions, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, stuttered and ahem-ed. The clearest voice was that of the Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, who had been the leading contender along with de Villepin to replace Chirac in the new election cycle next year. Sarkozy has made himself well-known for his break with the abject secularism which unites the French conservatives (neo-Gaullists) and the French Left (a fractious assortment of Socialists, Communists, and Left-tongued special interest groups). Sarkozy had positioned himself as himself secular-minded but not anti-religion in regard to state policy. This meant he had dropped the rabid anti-clericalism that took offense at anything Catholic (but the literate Catholics in France are often socialist, divided on abortion, and deeply anti-American as in the case of the main Catholic newspaper LaCroix). Sarkozy seemed to want to avoid the demonization and restriction of non-traditional Protestants in France, a demonization which sees little difference between a Pentecostal and a Scientologist, or a Raellian - they're all just brainwashing cultists. Sarkozy, without taking a fully libertarian position, wanted to make careful, case by case, analyses to determine which practices of which groups precisely crossed over the line to violate the mental decision-making capacities of that group's adherents.

But the implications of Sarkozy's position, the wideness of his desire to accomaodate an orderly Muslim presence in French society and its public institutions, had yet to be worked out - the upcoming campaign was to have been the occasion to do so. Obviously part of his agenda was to build alliances with pro-France Muslim leaders, intellectuals, and opinion-makers - to win them and those whose votes they could carry with them into the neo-Gaullist force against both the fractious Left and the ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant (and, therefore, anti-Muslim) Right led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.

So, when in the early days of the Autumn Riots, Sarkozy made his widely-quoted characterization of the car-burners as "scum," "rabble," and whatnot, the automatic reflex of the Left calling for his resignation fell mostly on deaf ears within the mainstream public. And among the neo-Gaullists, whether they sided more with Chirac/deVillipin or with the Interior Minister who employed the epithets on the rebels, they were secretly happy that Sarkozy (alone) had held the line against mass desertions from the neo-Gaullists to Le Pen's Nationalists with their obdurate racism.

And at the same time, I think currently that the Left just lost the upcoming 2006 elections in France. Sarkozy is the leading candidate for the leadership of the neo-Gaullists, the Chirac phase in party and nation is over, and Sarkozy has the best chance of becoming the next Monsieur le Président de la République de France

Sarkozy, if he comes to power, will speed-up the rappochement with the USA, and that will reflect the attitudes of a great current in post-Riots France, where the link between the car-burners and the worlwide Terrorist movement will relentlessly assert itself in the collective political unconscious. And, at the same time, pave the way for considerable reforms of ghettoized Muslim-descended youths in the country. The Bush administration, and its successor (whether Republican or Democrat, as now seems likely) will thereby have found a new opening in France to American foreign policy in general.

The one zone of North American orientation toward the coming changes in France that will be the most fascinating, will of course be the French-speaking zone of Québec. I think the separatist parties - the Parti Québecois on the provincial level, and the Bloc Québecois in the Federal House of Commons - will in part try to isolate their constitutencies from the developments in France. This stands to reason, because the overlayering of an already-complex independentist political milieu, where many indigenous policies must be decided simultaneously, becomes exceedingly unoptimal when criss-crossed by the causes of France's fractious Left, its shocked and divided neo-Gaullists in the course of their greatest transition since the end of the Algerian Colonialist War - all the while confronting a Rejectionist Movememnt of great strength within the Muslim and African immigrant population - how can the Quebec sovereigntists take all that on when they have sofficient quarrels among themselves already?

Yet, they must take it on because, the dream of a French-speaking separate, independent, sovereign state between Canada's Atlanatic provinces and the provinces from Ontario westward, cannot take on foreign policy quarrels of its own in relation to post-Riots France. Again, yet, such a French-speaking North American state would have to have a definite foreign policy of its own, ready at hand, on the first day of independence, a foreign policy toward France.

I think the developments in riotous France have been a setback to francophone separatism in Canada. I'd think Québec's best chance internationally at this point would be to work within the continental Canadian framework of an emergent new foreign policy toward France. Unless I am just too over-impressed with the importance of participation in an effective policy in that regard, influencing the Federal Canadian policy, one at once beneficial toward Quebec and the French cultural homeland, as well as in Canada's larger national interest, Quebec needs to draw closer to Canada, in the best interests of a strong and supportive policy to help France stabilize itself over the next decades. This stance does not preclude continuous separatist agitation and manoeuvering. Despite any contradctory elements, the two approaches could be maintained by separatists at one and the same time.

As to the separatists in Québec, I strongly object to Liberal leader Paul Martin's attempts to demonize them, especially now at election time. These independentist parties and groups and language-protection movements are themselves as Canadian as maple syrup. I've lived in this country too long and had too many friends among Québecois of all persuasions vis à vis their most divisive and passionate political issues, to join in marching out counter-eptithets like "Canada wreckers" and "traitors" either in regard to separtist thawt in Québec - or, for that matter Western Canada. It's how to live with them and all the Canadian people, in the everlasting interim that's important. Politically, we must learn to be be good neighbours, come what may in regard to how boundaries and status are determined, set, and reset. Nothing is absolute in this sphere except God's call to us to be good neighbours and practice justice for all.

This is also France's dilemma at the present moment, after all the decades of denial and hauteur from the Left and neo-Gaullists alike. - Politicarp

Background URLs [in ruffly reverse chronological order]:



1.) • Anti-riots emergency rules extended by 3 months
2.) • Riots drive recruits into arms of LePen
3.) • Next French revolution: a less colorblind society
4.) • French leaders tilt right
5.) • France on riot alert for holiday
6.) • French Police step up secuirity after tip
7.) • What makes someone French?
8.) • Riots ebb as citizens take stand
9.) • France to impose curfews, rioting spreads
10.) • Shots fired at police in France, says AlJazeeera (Eng ed)
11.) • France: Riots reach new peak, spread to other cities [Radio Free Europe / RadioLiberty]
12.) • Crisis talks over French riots [Nov5,2k5]
13.) • Vehicles torched in spreading French riots
14.) • Fiery riots spread beyond Paris [Nov4,2k5]
15.) • France's riots ... more
16.) • Paris in flames: the limits of repression
17.) • More unrest hits Paris streets [Nov3,2k5]
18.) • Shots fired as French riots esacalate
19) • Deep roots of Paris riots
20.) • Chirac appeals for calm
21.) • France struggles as unrest spreads
21.) • Chirac and Socialists reel after debate on Europe

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

US & Canada: Juridics: Comparing US & Canada on distribution of Supreme Court seats

In Canada, we're used to the concept of distribution of Supreme Court seats according to historically-significant factors of national diversity. Indeed, the very word "national" is a regionally-contested concept in Canada. A nation is not a country, but a "natus" (a group's birthline of descent) with large linguistic and cultural implications, and cross-reference of factors, however porous all these terms (with the concepts behind them) may be. The only non-porous concept is that of "country" - which is strictly geographical, referrring to the uppermost level of geography and, thus .legally, of jurisdication. So, "region" and "province" are basically geographical as well. Now, geography becomes kindred to demography in regard to the Canadian Supreme Court's distribution of seats.

Seats reserved to Québec should generally (that is, typically but not absolutely) go to persons who represent the francophone population (there's a legal factor here around the the idea of le Code civil (in contrast to the Common Law at the base of Britain-originated legal systems). The Civil Code approach influenced French law after the Revolution under the influence of the Enlitenment, and with some contradication the Enlitenment Imperium of the Napoleons (Bonapartism). But this legal factor is but an indicator of the larger civilizational influence of French culture, of political-economic thawt originating in Paris and its periodicals and now its cybersites, most of all its enduring books that set moods of the French intellect afoot in Montréal and the City of Québec from zeitgeist to zeitgeist. How many seats on the Canadian Supreme Court does "Québec" (conceived not just geogrpahically but jurisprudentially and civilizationally) get? At one time, another factor figured significantly in the Québec configuration just cited - Québec had better be represented on the Court largely by Roman Catholics. If not Catholic, a stray Justice taking a Québec seat would permissably be Anglican or perhaps, at the extreme, United Church. Never a Jehovah's Witness! - nor Pentecostal, nor Baptist. This legacy of the distribution of Canadian Supreme Court seats without a total disregard for religious affiliation brings us to the broader question today.

... [T]the question of who will succeed [Justice John] Major [of Alberta on the Supreme Court of Canada] has sparked an intense lobbying campaign, especially among aboriginal groups who are hoping for the appointment of a first-ever native judge to the court.

"The highest court in the land should reflect all of the founding legal traditions," said Dianne Corbiere, president of the Indigenous Bar Association.

She noted that three seats are already reserved for Quebec, with its French civil law, while the six judges from the rest of the country are schooled in English common law.

Native traditions, however, have never been recognized in the same way.

"There are legal concepts that exist in indigenous nations that you cannot learn in the law schools of this country," said Corbiere. "An indigenous person would know how to access (them)."

A number of non-aboriginal legal heavyweights, including Peter Hogg, retired dean of Osgoode Hall law school, have backed the campaign.

Others, however, have expressed concern that the lobbying effort is politicizing the appointment process and compromising the merit principle.

Eugene Meehan, a former president of the Canadian Bar Association, agreed an aboriginal judge might provide a welcome perspective on issues like native land claims.

But breadth of experience is more important for a Supreme Court judge than specialized knowledge of one area, said Meehan.

"They have to deal with everything from A to Z, from abortion to zoning. If there is any court in the country where it is of supreme importance to get the very best person, this is the court."

Major came to the court from Alberta, and by tradition his seat will be filled from one of the Prairie provinces.

Now, regarding Ontario, we find that its Supreme Court seats historically could be assigned to Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists (the latter two were largely combined to become Uniteds), and at some point to Jews. Rarely, but more recently, Louise Arbour, originating from l'Ontario francophone (the Ontario French-speaking community, which still has its own schools, both general and separately Roman Catholic) was appointed to an Ontario seat on the Supreme Court of Canada, and is now High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Commission.

Today, no one would be surprised to learn that a Supreme Court Justice from Ontario or Québec was a devoted secularist, humanist, atheist. The full Monty. Less likely tho elsewhere in Canada. The Justices from the Atlantic provinces, and from Western Canada would likely be more in accord with traditional patterns of religious affiliation, belief, and ultimate rootage of their jurisprudential philosophy in their faith.

Of course, all the foregoing discussion has a certain dated quality. Let's say it is truer of the compact of 20 years ago, than it is of the situation today. Nowadays, most people would not be aware of any religious factor at all in the permissible configurations of factors relevant to the distribution of Supreme Court seats. But this lack of awareness has to do with a deeper lack of religious commitment of the kinds traditional to Canada on the part of those named to the Supreme Court (this is not to say Canada's SC today lacks a sense of freedom of religion in important respects). We do not know them as integral persons with non-secularist religious commitments at the root of their philosophy of law and sense of what a legal system functions-for.

In the USA, the situation on the Supreme Court is noticeably different. The difference became dramatic when President Bush tried to appoint a remarkably under-represented American demographic of both political and juridical significance - American evangelicals. He chose, in the first instance, to name a woman to replace a woman; and he chose an evangelical to make up the lack of an evangelical on the Court since the 1930s, as I understand. (He also chose, in the third instance, to make up for the lack of a business-law expert, a glaring deficiency of the present US Court. But that point has been already been made on refWrite a few months ago.)

Why is the appointment of an evangelical important to the US Supreme Court? Because secularist Justices cannot fathom the spreading war against the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. They don't understand what is at stake for Americans, of many religions and none, who believe God created the Heavens and the Earth, rejecting evolutionism-naturalism (which is an atheism) by such a huge majority that it is unust to bar the creation-by-God idea from science - and from the classrooms of their children.

Now, Bush and his nominee Harriet Miers must have known that his/their wisdom in appointing such a nominee was a gamble. They lost the gamble due to the Catholic/Evangelical coalition to apply a litmus test on the abortion issue. Many Conservatives don't give a rip about abortion, but the movement overall does because of the Consistent Ethic of Life tawt by the Roman Catholic Magisterium (again, I support Laura Bush's non-absolutist approach on abortion, don't agree with the litmus testing on this issue, and think less of the entire US Conservative movement for litmus-testing on this single issue - too obedient to the fixations of the Catholic Magisterium for this Protestant!

Of course, we know that Bush and Miers had a fall-back position. They had a short list, and plucked from it a candidate that better met all the academistic fetishes of critics than did the woman / evangelical / business-law expert upon whom they had gambled, in order to generate a Court better equipped for the practice of justice for the current situation in the country.

So, now in the US we have fallen back to a Court potentially consisting of 5 Catholics and others but no evangelicals at all (in short, a Court of Catholic vs secularist confrontation on key issues), rather than a Court consisting of 4 Catholics and others with 1 evangelical among them. Now, this initial statement is woefully lacking; it doesn't begin to tabulate the reduction of the female representation from 2 to 1, and that one a Liberal radical abortionist not balanced by a non-absolutist but anti-expansionist of abortuary practices to late-term hack-them-to-pieces-while-still-in-the-womb, and live-birth baby-left-on-the-table-to-die, abortionist practices. Harriet Miers would have been a powerful Justice against these threatening abortionist expansions. I can't see the new nominee accomodating these latter either, but it would have been better to have a second woman on the Supreme bench than another man, and Catholic man, and white man at that. So, the further tabulation of the expertise by diversity of the American Supreme Court has not been addressed in regard to a greater racial-ethnic spread (Black, Hispanic, Asian). I have limited myself to the factors of religion, mostly Christian; the idea of creation as opposed to evolutionistic naturalism-atheism (which creation-idea far surpasses in adherents the varieties of Christians in the American population - Jews, Christians, Muslims, deists, and many others; and, finally, the notorious non-representation of evangelicals on the Court.

Regarding the Jewish community/ies, there is the difference between Judaic belief and Jewish ethnic birthline of descent. Wikipedia's "List of Jews in Law" mentions incumbents Rosalie Abella, Canadian Supreme Court Justice; Stephen Breyer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1994- ; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice 1993- . It also mentions a number of past Jewish members of these Courts, but that is not in itself an indicator of Judaic worldview in comparison to a secularist humanist-atheist worldview or any sympathy for the creation-idea as against an anti-creation idea that follows from the no-God religion of evolutionism-naturalism.

But, the American situation is one in which these problems of under-representation and scope of diversity, coupled with the question of expertise, has at least been raised. Not so in Canada. - Owlb

Canada: Politics: Fed election shenanigans according to excellent politiblogger, Canadianna

It's great to see one of Canada's most dynamic political pundits back at her blog. Welcome back!, Canadianna (clickup her frontpage). I was missing her since she went on vacation, only to discover she'd already been posting for a while - it was my Blogrolling technology that was taking me to her last post before she went on what was actually a brief vacation / school-start hiatus (well, my BR technology is fixed! and I'm getting daily alerts from her postings). Well, our pundit seems quite rested and ready to have another extended round, especially regarding her forte - Canada's federal politics.

Recently Canadianna's come up with three opinions very much worth your attention:

1. "Why is a corrupt government suddenly a bad thing?," was the question she explored on Nov 10.

... [W]hy on earth is it suddenly so important for [the NDP's] Jack Layton to take the soap-box and claim moral superiority? If the Liberals aren't worth propping up now, it stands to reason they weren't six months ago. The Gomery report changed nothing. It is politically neutral. No one cares.
A trifle cynical? I find myself in agreement with this moment of cynicism regarding the Canadian electorate who, when push comes to shove seem to prefer sticking with a bunch of crooks, Canada's unnatural governing party.

I won't give away all her shimmering one-liners, provocations, and darn good sense in a realist mode.

2.) "I want an election, but..."

On November 14, she wrote with merciless candour:

Like many people, I'm sick of Liberal lies, excuses, utter incompetence, patronage, secrecy, scandalous indifference (to among other things-- veterans who didn't fill out the proper forms and have been unable to collect any benefits for sixty years because they are deemed 'never to have served'), and bribes (with our own money).

An election might rectify things, but I think not. I think they'll get a majority, but that's beside the point.

The 'united opposition' is trying to back Martin against a wall. They are trying to push him into making a mistake, but it's they who have blundered.
A zinger to be sure, dear reader, but don't stop with this single powerful quote from her complete blog entry for the day. And while your're at it, clickup her link to Political Staples where a Catholic political pundit of interest, works out the Liberal calender which projects an election at the end of Lent, April 10th. Such poor taste for a self-proclaimed Catholic Prime Minister who violates the Magisterium and who should therefore be excommunicated (in my opinion). Both Sunday-school teacher Canadianna (Protestant?, I speculate) and Greg Staples (Catholic) refer us to yet a third blogger at Sinister Thoughts, an NDP voice, indeed a sinistra (on the left) in italiano. But here, on a specific detail, an NDPer talks with utmost sanity and balance, and realism. On the other hand, not only Martin, but Layton too, seem to be doing a lot of foot shuffling about the timing of the upcoming campaign and vote, which (I agree with Canadianna) is six months overdue.

There's other good stuff in our lady's November 14 piece.

3.) On November 15 (yesterday), under the guise of claryifying the previous day's blog, she writes the powerful finale of this trilogy. "To clarify - I DO want an election." And in her text she adds: NOW!

As much as I have been following this (and I admit, it hasn't been with the rapt attention I had during the last session of the House) I have gathered that the opposition doesn't plan to call a confidence vote -- rather they plan to suggest the government commit suicide in January.

I have to say I'm with Martin on this one -- [the opposition parties should] have the guts to call a non-confidence vote and live with a Christmas election or leave it go with Martin making the call in February and live with an election date of March/April.

Yesterday's post (I want an election, but . . . ) was written with the understanding that the united opposition still has no plan to call a confidence vote. They are still banking on this wishy-washy un-binding motion. I wrote my post on Thursday -- Why is a corrupt government suddenly a bad thing? - because I believe that closing parliament with a whimper is the weak plan of an opposition that has less confidence in its own convictions than it does in this sham of a Liberal government -- and that is pathetic.

I DO want an election -- but I want it now.
And that's just her warm-up. - Politicarp

USA: military & religion: Petition for Prayer Rites of Military Chaplains

The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), headed by leading constitutional lawyer Jay Sekulow, has just sent out an SOS to gather signatures for its Petition to Protect Military Prayer. What's at issue is an effort to illegalize military chaplains who pray in the name of Jesus.

An ACLJ email newsletter outlines the situation:

We have joined a group of Christian Congressmen, led by Rep. Walter Jones, in calling on our President to enact an Executive Order protecting chaplains and their right to pray.

Chaplains in our United States military are being reprimanded for ''using overtly Christian language'' in public settings.

These men of God, who hold an officer's rank, have been criticized and scolded for using Bible verses and invoking the name of Jesus in memorial services.

This is blatant religious discrimination ... a violation of First Amendment rights! And it must be stopped!
Sekulow reports that nearly 80,000 signatures have been gathered, but the goal is not less than 125,000.

Already the Air Force has introduced proposed guidelines that dictate how Christian chaplains can and cannot pray, says ACLJ, such guidelines ''could soon be the standard for all branches of the military.''
As Congressman Jones noted, ''Our chaplains should not have any second thoughts about how they should pray. Let their hearts speak with what God puts in their minds to pray.''
You can copy the petition's text (below) to sign it and mail/email it to the White House, or you can clickup the form online to join in a ''petition for redress of grievances'' pertaining to the growing violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution in this matter.

Petition to Protect Military Prayer

To the Honorable President George W. Bush

We are disappointed and gravely concerned to learn that the right of military chaplains to pray according to their faith is in jeopardy.

It has come to our attention that in all branches of the military, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian chaplains to use the name of Jesus when praying. We believe this suppression of religious freedom is a pervasive problem that must be dealt with and eliminated immediately.

Throughout our nation's history, chaplains not only have remained an integral part of our military, but they also have always prayed according to their faith's tradition. We believe that if chaplains are chosen to pray before a professional setting, they have a constitutional right to adhere to the religious expressions of their faith. Furthermore, such censorship of Christian beliefs is a disservice to Christian chaplains as well as the hundreds of thousands of Christian soldiers in the military who look to their chaplains for comfort, inspiration, and support, just as our military soldiers of other faiths look to their chaplains.

We respectfully request that you, as Commander and Chief, protect by Executive Order the constitutional right of military chaplains to pray according to their faith.
Make a positive move to counter the spread of bureaucratic secularism that disenfranchises Christians in the US military. - Politicarp

Monday, November 14, 2005

China: news censorship: Yahoo becomes tool of Hu Jintao in locking up critic of Internet censorship, Shi Tao

I won't write much of an intro to my compilation of live-links from editor J.D.McGuire's marvellous blog, China e-Lobby (plenty of live links below), nor at this time a response with thawts evoked as I reflect on the following items that develop a very important story, one news-hound McGuire has been pursuing for us over recent months. - Politicarp

China: Foreign investors & tech firms

China e-Lobby, November 14, reports an initiative by US investors in China and the international press-freedom organization, Reporters without Borders:

Investors call on technology firms to stop aiding Communist crackdown: Some major international investment corporations “representing over US$21 billion in holdings” (Epoch Times) called for “an increased commitment to freedom of information by major Internet and technology companies.” The statement, started by Reporters Without Borders, comes in the wake of Yahoo’s role in the Shi Tao arrest.
[As background to the above: Nine earlier items from past China e-Lobby daily editions referenced in the most recent item above, from his archives, by writer-editor McGuire].

1.) November 8: The China Support Network* prints in full, dissident Liu Xiaobo’s open letter to Yahoo Chairman Jerry Yang condemning the firm’s role in the arrest of Shi Tao. Gary Feuerberg, Epoch Times, reports from the Heritage Foundation’s forum on press freedom in Communist China. Brian Marple, also in Epoch Times, talks to Jung Chang, author of Mao: the Untold Story. Economist-turned-dissident He Qinglian details how Communist China's economy is fueled by debt, and will eventually drown in it (Epoch Times). *China Support Network

2.) October 25: More on human rights in Communist China: Matthew Forney, Time Asia, suggests, convincingly, that the Communists’ “white paper” on democracy* is more a deliberate rejection of outside calls for freedom than a false claim to providing it. Rebecca MacKinnon (Rconversation, Oct 21*) finds the cadres’ battle to control the internet is, sadly, going very well. Tom Zeller, New York Times (via International Herald Tribune), examines the latest surge in anger at Yahoo’s sellout of Shi Tao. Reporters Without Borders (via Boxun) rips the continuing imprisonment of Straits Times reporter Ching Cheong.

*Communist China issues “democracy” white paper (Oct 19, 5th item): The Hu regime showed some rhetorical ledgerdemain with a new white paper allegedly on “democracy and political reform” (BBC). However, the actual goal the Communists set out was “socialist democracy with its own characteristics” – i.e., Communist tyranny by another name. To those who do put faith in the Communists’ willingness to democratize itself, this quarter offers one word: Taishi. [A county in China where a mass protest was put down with a massacre of the population by the authorities. - Politicarp]

3.) October 4: More on Communist China and the Internet: Washington Post blogger Jefferson Morley comments on Yahoo’s collaboration in Shi Tao’s arrest. The Epoch Times reprints a paper delivered by Erping Zhang, Executive Director of Association for Asian Studies, on the cadres’ cyber war with the Chinese people. Shihoko Goto, UPI via Washington Times, writes on the argument over control of the world wide web, ignores the Communist China’s role, and thus scores the Ignorant Comment of the Day.

4.) September 19: Enlightened Comment of the Day: Today’s winners of this new prize are the editors of The Washington Post for their part-confession, part-missive on Yahoo’s abysmal behavior regarding Shi Tao):

This is not merely an abstract business ethics issue: Yahoo's behavior in China could have real consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Over the past two decades, many have argued – ourselves included – that despite China's authoritarian and sometimes openly hostile government, it is nevertheless right to encourage American companies to work there. Their very presence has been thought to make the society more open, if not necessarily more democratic. If that is no longer the case – if in fact, American companies are helping China become more authoritarian, more hostile and more of an obstacle to U.S. goals of democracy promotion around the world – then it is time to rethink the rules under which they operate.

5.) September 12: Yahoo still trying to spin its way through damning Shi Tao case: Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder, insisted his firm did nothing wrong in helping the Communists find and arrest reporter Shi Tao. Yang parroted the company line: Yahoo followed the law. That led to the Title of the Day, from Edward Lanfranco (United Press Int’l via Washington Times): “The China Yahoo! welcome: You've got Jail!” John Simpson, BBC, also weighed in (although the piece is subpar).

6.) September 9: Yahoo defense ripped: Yahoo’s rather pitiful defense of its action in the Shi Tao arrest led Human Rights in China’s Nicolas Becquelin to raise a second point with the firm: the role of Yahoo’s Hong Kong division. Becquelin notes that even Yahoo’s unethically flimsy defense falls apart if the Hong Kong office was involved, because: “In Hong Kong a company will not be under any legal obligation to collaborate with an investigation by mainland authorities” (Cybercast News). Of course, if the Hong Kong branch was involved, it would be evidence not just of corporate cravenness, but also of what this quarter likes to call one country, one-and-a-half systems.

7.) September 8: Yahoo tries to justify aiding in Shi Tao’s arrest amid boycott call: After getting ripped by Reporters Without Borders for helping Communist China find and arrest journalist Shi Tao, internet firm Yahoo meekly said it “must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based” (Cybercast News), i.e., since we’re in a police state, we’re going to help the police against dissidents. In response, Privacy International “called on Internet users to boycott Yahoo” (ZD Net, UK) – yours truly may very well change the e-mail address as a result. Meanwhile, RWB and Human Rights in China called on President Clinton – in Huangzhou for an internet conference – to raise the issue in his speech there (Cybercast News).

7.) September 7: Communist Chinese arrest of journalist aided by Yahoo! Reporters Without Borders blasted internet firm Yahoo! for “supplying information to China which led to the jailing of a journalist for ‘divulging state secrets’” (BBC). Yahoo! gave the Communists “information that helped link Shi Tao's personal e-mail account” to a computer from which he sent a message that “warned journalists of the dangers of social unrest resulting from the return of dissidents on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.” Shi Tao has been in jail since last November (Boxun).

8.) May 6: Follow-ups on Shi Tao and the Falun Gong-Hong Kong case: John Nania, Epoch Times, provides the background on the recent reversal of the convictions against Falun Gong practitioners demonstrating in Hong Kong. Xinfei, also in Epoch Times, does the same on the plight of imprisoned reporter Shi Tao.

9.) May 2: Media crackdown sends reporter to prison as 60 publications join banned list: Communist China’s General Administration of Press and Publishing ordered the shutdown of 60 newspapers and magazines, in addition to the 395 magazines and 282 newspapers where publication “has ceased” (Epoch Times) under Communist orders. Meanwhile, the cadres sent a financial reporter to prison for ten years for “illegally providing state secrets to foreigners."* His real crime was more likely his “Internet essays advocating reforms to China's one-party system.”

*May 1, 2005: Washington Times, Reporter sentenced for leaking secrets - Beijing, China - "A Chinese journalist who worked for a financial newspaper was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in prison on charges of giving state secrets to foreigners. ¶ "Shi Tao's family said the sentence was the minimum possible under his March conviction "illegally providing state secrets to foreigners." They said the maximum was life in prison.

"Shi worked at Contemporary Business News, a financial publication, and was convicted of leaking the contents of a confidential memo at the paper to a foreign publication. Besides working as a journalist, Shi also published Internet essays advocating reforms to China's one-party system."

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Politics: Religion: Istanbul Conference of Christians, Jews, and Muslims calls for tolerance

A landmark conference on promoting conciliation and peace in Southeast Europe is under way in Istanbul, according to Southeast European News (Kathimerini - 08/11/05; AP, Pravda - 07/11/05; Appeal of Conscience Foundation). The conference was held at the invitation of Patriarch Bartholomew I, the titular head of Eastern Orthodoxy which accords him the ancient designation "Ecumenical Patriarch" but which the Turkish government does not allow him to use.

Religious figures must promote peace and conciliation, not conflict, Christian, Muslim and Jewish spiritual leaders said Monday [November 7, 2005] at the start of a three-day conference in Istanbul.

The forum, dubbed Peace and Tolerance II, focuses on inter-religious co-operation aimed at strengthening peace in Southeastern Europe, the Balkans and Central Asia.

The meeting is taking place at the initiative of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of some 250 million Orthodox Christians living around the world and a strong backer of interfaith dialogue, including efforts to heal the centuries-old schism between the Orthodox and Catholic churches. [But the actual diocese of Bartholomew I has been reduced to about 2,000 active persons due to the repression practised by the Turkish government and its unwillingness to hold to account criminal Muslim fanatics of the past, and those today of the same anti-Christian ilk. - Politicarp] The event is co-sponsored by the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an interfaith coalition of business and religious leaders promoting peace, tolerance and conflict resolution.

Speaking on Monday, Bartholomew stressed the need for different religions to search for their common ground and to co-exist peacefully for the sake of both believers and non-believers. He voiced hope that the meeting would 'unveil possibilities of understanding,' or at least of 'avoiding the participation of religion at large' in events that lead to strife.

Among those attending the forum, according to the Associated Press, were representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, the chief Islamic and Catholic representatives of Kosovo, religious leaders from the Caucasus and Central Asia, Turkey's chief rabbi Isak Haleva, the Armenian patriarch of Istanbul and the Turkish minister of religious affairs.

Rabbi Arthur Schneier, who founded the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in 1965, said one of the main objectives of the conference was to press governments to ensure that hatred is not taught at schools. Another goal is to take a stand against religious leaders who incite violence, to marginalise and isolate them.

Viewing freedom, democracy and human rights as the fundamental values that give nations their best hope for peace, security and prosperity, the foundation has been urging religious leaders worldwide to denounce terrorism, help end violence and promote tolerance.
World leaders sent messages:
US President George W. Bush, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso and Pope Benedict XVI have reportedly sent letters welcoming the event, which were to be read by their representatives.
Restating some of refWrite's blog entry by Politicarp earlier today, in regard to Germany's greenlite to Turkey toward its joining the EU: Altho negotiations between Germany's two leading parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, have yet not finalized the membership of the new joint cabinet, the parties are reaching working agreement on important policy matters - one of which is the stance the new government will take toward the proposed membership of Turkey in the European Union. The new head of government, leader of the Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, has backtracked from her former suggestion that Turkey not be welcomed into full membership, but be granted a second-tier status as a "privileged partner." For Merkel's CDU this would obviate the problem of the non-existent EU Constitution that the secularist élite of EU planners had refused to have burdened with even a mere reference to Europe's distinctly Christian historical heritage. Admission of Turkey as the first formally non-Christian Muslim-majority - or is that anti-Christian Muslim-majority? - country (with an officially secular state), into the constitutionally-unsettled EU, would foreclose an issue that Merkel's CDU and Christian Democrats of all countries anywhere simply cannot ignore.

But notice that the German parties, with other considerations still up in the air between them, have nevertheless agreed to require Turkey strictly to fulfill EU standards, while greenliting Turkey's program to qualify for full membership. We can expect this stance to dominate in the entire EU, and it should.

Underscoring the key terms: Under the deal, Germany would make sure that Turkey meets all requirements before it is allowed to join the Union, let's assume Turkey will meet all the requirements regarding human rites and civil rites, including freedom of religion. Let's help Turkey to meet those requirements.

Further, however, to Bartholomew I's initiative for Peace and Tolerance between religions, and Merkel's shift to support provisionally Turkey's full membership in the EU: there just is no avoiding the fact that Turkey, besides its historical record in committing genocide against the Armenian ethnic minority within and outside Turkey's borders (about which the present government and media are in abject and absurd denial, and which defnitely has its own Christianophobic element), the same Turkey has continued a long preceding practice and continues today to restrict the human rites and the restoration of its Christian minority. Turkey has conducted more recently attacks in the same genocidal spirit on its ancient Turkish Christian communities (not just the Greek Orthodox, but also the Syrian Orthodox), driving hundreds of thousands abroad as refugees over the last century - sometimes seizing churches, homes, schools, health centres, stores and other facilities of these communities (where the state provided nothing in the way of education, hospitals, and social services to begin with). The last great Turkish splurge against Orthodox Christianity ocurrred in 1955.

Now, 50 years later, we have an exceptional account of the catastrophe by Dr. Speros Vryonis, Jr., one of the world’s most eminent scholars of Ottoman and Byzantine history. His magisterial work, The Mechanism of Catastrophe: The Turkish Pogrom of September 6-7, 1955, and the Destruction of the Greek [Orthodox] Community of Istanbul, was published this year by GreekWorks.com of New York. It numbers over 700 pages. ...

In the introductory chapter Dr. Vryonis describes the Greek community of Istanbul on the eve of September 6, 1955 who numbered about 100,000. Under the terms of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne regarding the exchange of populations, the Greek population of Istanbul and the Muslim community residing in Western Thrace were exempted from the exchange process. From about 300,000 Greeks in Istanbul in 1922, the number in 1955 had fallen to about 100,000. They had achieved some limited success under exceptionally difficult circumstances and years of discrimination and harassment by the Turks who repeatedly violated the terms of the Lausanne Treaty.
But, when you look at the Christianophobic decimation that took place at the hands of organized mobs rampaging in the name of a nationalistic Islam under a "secular" government, with Turkey' government carefully turning its attention elsewhere, you undersand that 1955's consequences continued to unfold toward the completion of what was really a genocidist attempt. Turkey must acknowledge this utter failure to protect its Orthodox Christian populaton; in restitution, Turkey should hold the perpetrators and their institutional successors to account and proced to bring the guilty who are still alive to the bar of justice, also restoring the properties and funds seized and stolen. Families driven out, who want to return to Turkey, should be welcomed to do so.

A move is afoot to require Turkey to welcome back the survivors and descendants of this pogrom, with compensation. There is also a move afoot to require Turkey to return the world-famous Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom Cathedral in Istanbul), the center of public worship in ancient Constantinople before the Muslim conquest, a building which was promptly seized and had become a dusty museum of some sort.

And there is a move afoot to require the restoration to the Orthodox Church of Turkey the small island and seminary building on it, where Orthodox Christianity under the Ecumenical Patriarch (no longer even permitted to use his title) had trained its clergy from Turkey and abroad in the past. In 1971, the Halki Seminary was closed by the state (the island is called "Heybeliada" in Turkish). At present, not only is no seminary permitted to function, but the Orthodox Church in the country must limit its selection of priests, monks, and bishops to candidates who are born and educated in seminary-denied Turkey. An obvious Catch 22 situation with only a 2,000-some total of persons ready to be recognized publicly as Orthodox!

I suggest that Christians in Europe, Britain, North America, Australia, and New Zealand form a unified international Christian-political action organization to support the German proposal, to support Turkey's entry into the EU - subject to Turkey apologizing, restoring, welcoming back the exiles who want to return, and compensating for the losses of the Christian community to the government and the mobs.

The EU has, I just discovered, spoken favourably to some of the extant issues quite recently.

"The matters concerning Greece and Cyprus have been covered in a very satisfying manner," said [Greek] Foreign Ministry spokesman Giorgos Koumoutsakos. "For the first time, there is a special mention in an official EU document about the issue of casus belli" [in principle a declaration of war Turkey made against Greece regarding Cyprus].

Turkey is also called on to maintain good neighborly relations and to refrain from any act that could have a negative impact on the peaceful resolution of any differences.

The report calls on Ankara to protect the rights of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul and to allow the Halki Seminary to reopen. A US State Department report on religious freedom which was made public late on Tuesday also highlights the plight of the Patriarchate and the Turkish government's refusal to recognize Patriarch Vartholomaios's ecumenical status.
Yet another report I've just discovered, mentions a Turkish signal that the state may well allow the organization (headed by the said main Greek Orthodox bishop in Turkey) to designate itself as "the Ecumenical Patriarchate" in accord with Orthodoxy's practice since the 1300s, and the worldwide pratice of Orthodox Christians everywhere today.

The Turkish online media in the English language also reports, more clearly, the meeting in Istanbul between the Ecumenical Patriarchate where Bartholemew I (Vartholomaios I) spoke to the delegation from the European Parliaments's Christian Democrats and European Democrats Group, upon their visit to Istanbul. The October 21 report appears in TurkishPress.com. Knowing this now, I can't help but think that yesterday's news of Merkel's CDU shift in Berlin comes as result of the EU Christian Democrats' earlier consultation in Istanbul, Foundations for European Solidarity and Cooperation Making Enlargement Possible, with Vartholomaios I; the Merkel / CDU German shift also signifies that the Patriarch's more recent Peace and Tolerance II conference (co-sponsored by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation led by Rabbi Schneier), are part of a strategy of the Patriarchate to "seize the day" for religious liberty and restoration, as Turkey transitions into the European fold. Vartholomaios I is helping Turkey measure up and gain entry into the EU; in exchange, he should get Hagia Sophia for the celebration of the Eucharastic Liturgy. Istanbul will profit immensely from the pilgrims and tourists who want to come for a visit to the church, many just to see its restored art.

Contrary to the second thawts of the esteemed professor, David Koyzis, there is plenty of international law on the restoration to a religious community of the properties it held and operated prior to hostile take-over by the state - seminaries, universities, schools, old folks homes, and historic pre-Communist churches some of which had been diverted to all sorts of inappropriate uses. It's time, David, for Turkey to return Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church in Turkey. It's time to welcome back to Turkey any of those forced to leave their homes, churches, and monasteries, and also any of their descendants, who want to adventure with a new Turkey of religious freedom. Presently, not even the Allawite Muslims are allowed an organizational existence. Even the Sufis are restricted. Peaceful communities should not be restricted, whereas fanatical opponents of religious freedom and pluralism who preach hate and terrorism should be restricted from doing so. The Rite of Return is not the same for the Orthdox of Turkey and the Palestinians, as in Turkey the Christian community had not entered into a state of war against their homeland; the restoration and compensation called for in Turkey, should not be compared to non-European situations, but to places like Hungary which returned properties to the Hungarian Reformed and Roman Catholic communities, after the fall of the Communist dicatatorship there. Where David says,
In common law jurisdictions there is a concept known as the statute of limitations, which imposes time limits on the opportunity for injured parties to redress grievances. Why? Because in its absence injustices would continue to multiply until they overwhelmed the mundane concerns of ordinary people, who would be unable to get on with their lives because they were so consumed with the desire to right the wrongs of an increasingly remote past. Eventually, their descendants would be stewing over crimes committed against forebears generations earlier, thereby poisoning lives that might be better lived if they could manage – as the cliché puts it – to forgive and forget.
I would point to the healing function of restoration, truth and reconciliation.

It is not the injured who redress grievances, but the authority which authored the injurious actions against which the injured are the grievors. The authorities redress the grievors who petition for redress of grievances. Injured parties cannot only grieve to the authority that injured them, but these injured parties can and sometimes do also complain and cry out to God and the whole world for justice - or should the Armenians just shut up? Rite now, a Rabbi from another country has been installed by an international agency in Krakow, Poland, near Auschwitz. Slowly, Jews - including those who have just discovered they are of Jewish descent (having been adopted by Catholics who perhaps necessarily hid the children's origins from these Jewish tots in a once-great centre of Jewish culture - such Jews too are coming to the modest new synagogue to study the heritage denied to them. Some older Jews from Israel are cominng back to Krakow to take a look, and some want to stay, perhaps to be buried near Auschwitz. Perhaps some of their children will also want to leave Israel to return to the ancestral land of Poland and the city which figures so large in the family's memory. In other places, synagogues seized by state authorities have been returned to nascent Judaic renewal groups.

Returning to the case at hand, equipped with ample precedent, Hagia Sophia has not been turned into a mosque; it's rather an inept museum with a treasure trove of religous art meant to adorn worship of the Almighty in an Orthodox Christian milieu. Let Turkey show it belongs in the European Community, and allow Orthodoxy to find its own proper place in a majority-Muslim society that is supportive of Turkey's de facto plural reality, rich with suppressed minorities anxious to live openly in peace alongside the majority. Let the return of Hagia Sophia be the symbol of all that. In the context of a new Turkey, the Orthodox Christians too will have to move over a bit, as there are now Evangelical and Pentecostal congregations dotted all over the Turkish national map. The Evangelicals have trouble getting building permits for their very modest churches, but hungry souls who were nominally Muslim are converting to Christ. At times these non-Orthodox Christian congregations and their members succeed in getting building permits because locally they are recognized as good neighbours. They should be protected and permitted to thrive as much as Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Allawite Muslims, Sufi Muslims, and Sunni Muslims who practice tolerance and preach neighbourliness. Let such a Turkey join the European Union, and no other. - Owlb

Politics: Religion: German cabinet negotiations greenlite Turkey into EU - with strict compliance to EU standards

Merkel joins in German call for Turkey's strict completion of EU requirements before membership: 'Main German parties reach agreement on Turkey's EU bid', Southeastern European Times (SETI), November 8, 2005.

Angela Merkel, leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union, the political party which gained the largest number of votes in the recent Federal elections in Deutschland, and thus the person most likely to replace the outgoing Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder of the Socioal Democrats, has shifted her earlier position on Turkey's membership in the EU. For religious-political reasons, I find this shift of great significance. The apparent underlaying concern of Merkel and many in the CDU (of which I am a critical supporter) was, in my opinion, the failure of the European Union to write a brief acknowledgement of God and the mention of Europe's historic legacy as a Christian civilization into its draft Constitution. This proposal was opposed by the secularist and atheist elites that dominate EU planning. In the referenda that ensued, both the French and the Netherlands voters turned down this Constitution which was, among other fawlts, unwilling to acknowledge Europe's Christian heritage. So the idea of an EU constitution itself is now in limbo. But, with such an acknowledgement, the European Union could neverthless conscientiously open its door to the officially secularist country of Turkey, which interestingly has hardly been touched by influences of the European Enlightenment - the heritage of Europe's secularists and atheists in competiton with the Christain heritage. It's the secular atheist Humanists who have generated the inner-European sitaution of a competition of heritages

Now, Turkey is n-o-t a secularism-dominated society like Europe; Turkey is nationalist and Islamic, but idiosyncratically ruled by an officially secular state. Nevertheless, of course, some of the Muslim citizens are, as one mite expect in any society, extreme in their expression of their religion. This "some" is a strong force in Turkey, and on the daily ground level, the state is constantly compromising with and holding the line against the pressure to advantage nationalist-Turkish Islamic privilege, pushed relentlessly by Islamicist organizations. In the past, various ethnic communities other than Turk have suffered greivously from this disadvantage that the state will not work to undo. Among the victimized communities are Greek-ethnic Jews and Christian Orthodox (who, in Istanbul, still maintain the honorary Ecumenical Patraitchate of worldwide Orthodoxy), Kurds (mostly Muslim, some of whom have supported their own nationalist-separatist terror organization), and Armenians (mostly Christians and perhaps some Jews, pardon my ignorance here - a community subjected to a full-scale genocide in the first half of the Nineteenth Century).

Back to Merkel: As mentioned, earlier before her party's becoming to the leading party and displacing the socialists at the polls, Merkel had expressed CDU ideas for welcoming Turkey to the EU but only with a special status. A major article by Allan Cove in the Southeast European Times (SETI), September 14, 2005, had the matter turning on Turkey's non-recognition of Cyprus, an important sticking point, to be sure.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded the island's northern half. Ankara wants the longstanding issue to be resolved through a UN framework, while the Greek Cypriots -- who joined the EU on 1 May 2004, gaining veto power within the bloc -- have increasingly sought to make it an EU issue. The Greek side rejected a reunification plan sponsored by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in part because of expectations it could obtain a better deal.

Although Turkey's EU bid has been a top priority for the Erdogan administration, there are limits to the concessions it is prepared to make. The prime minister faces political pressure at home, with nationalists charging he has already given away too much. With some EU political figures -- such as Germany's Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel -- appearing to rule out full membership for Turkey, many in the country wonder whether the odds are too high.

Subsequent to that and during the recent Federal campaign in Germany, Merkel kept before the voting public the CDU compromise proposal for a "privileged partnership" role for Turkey in relation to EU. This is not want what the Turkish government has wanted for 40 years. They want membership. During the campaign in Germany, Merkel fawlted her predecessor, Gerhard Schröder and his SDU, for undermining the partnership option.
EU begins screening process for Turkey, , according to SETI, October 20, 2005.

ANKARA, Turkey -- "The screening process under the EU accession negotiations with Turkey begins in Brussels [on October 20] with discussions about the science and technology chapter [of the proposed EU/Turkey agreement]. Ankara has voiced plans to close at least one chapter in the talks by the end of this year.

"Meanwhile, Angela Merkel, the next German chancellor, criticised Gerhard Schroeder for telling Ankara recently that the privileged partnership proposal is no longer an option. According to international media reports, Merkel accused the outgoing chancellor of 'going too far' and signaled that she might support some form of partnership with Turkey that falls short of full EU membership. (FT - 20/10/05; NTV, World Bank Web site - 19/10/05)"

But today comes new word on the issue in Germany and hence for the EU, on Turkey's elgibility for full EU membership.

BERLIN, Germany -- "The leaders of the German Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have reached an agreement on the future cabinet's policy towards Turkish membership in the EU. Under the deal, Germany would make sure that Turkey meets all requirements before it is allowed to join the Union. The launch of talks is no guarantee that they will be completed successfully, the parties decided. In a move likely to please Ankara, the document to be signed by Germany's top political leaders will make no mention of a "privileged partnership" -- an alternative to full membership which German chancellor-designate Angela Merkel has advocated in the past.

"Also ... it was announced [on November 7, 2005] that Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's President Rene van der Linden plans an official five-day visit to Turkey starting [yesterday]. The EU membership bid will dominate talks, though Cyprus will also be discussed. (AFX, AFP, Reuters, CoE - 07/11/05)"

However, the stringency, the strictness of Turkey's compliance with EU standards should not only include a proper course regarding Cyprus, where the Greek Cypriot government is also playing politics to the detriment of Turkish Cyprus - thus, affecting the line-up of both the Greek government and the Turkish. I tend to favour re-unification with the rights of the Turkish minority of Cyprus being strictly guaranteed.

But there are other issues in regard to Turkey's disastrous human rites record - which, I hasten to add, is not nearly as bad as that of other regimes in the region such as the former Iraq, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Assad clan's Syria, however, had not pursued as direct and vicious a stance toward its Christian minorities as such; rather Turkey's historic record up to the present day, is much worse. Stay tuned. - Politicarp