Swiss voters have backed a change in health policy that would provide prescription heroin to addicts. Final results from the national referendum showed 68% of voters supported the plan. The scheme, where addicts inject the drug under medical supervision at a clinic, began in Zurich 14 years ago before spreading across the country. But in another referendum, the Swiss appear to have rejected the decriminalisation of cannabis.
Swiss voters have backed a change in health policy that would provide prescription heroin to addicts.
Final results from the national referendum showed 68% of voters supported the plan.
The scheme, where addicts inject the drug under medical supervision at a clinic, began in Zurich 14 years ago before spreading across the country.
But in another referendum, the Swiss appear to have rejected the decriminalisation of cannabis.
The Swiss have backed the government's drugs policy, including the prescription of heroin for hardcore addicts, but cannabis consumption will remain illegal. In a major upset in Sunday's nationwide ballot, voters came out in favour of a proposal to tighten legal provisions against paedophile criminals, extending indefinitely the statute of limitations. An early retirement scheme and plans to curb the powers of environmental groups were opposed by a clear majority.Final results show 68 per cent of voters approved a plan by parliament to enshrine in law the government's four-pillar drugs policy.The rightwing Swiss People's Party and a small ultra-conservative group had challenged the decision to a referendum and called for abstinence-based methods.
In a major upset in Sunday's nationwide ballot, voters came out in favour of a proposal to tighten legal provisions against paedophile criminals, extending indefinitely the statute of limitations.
An early retirement scheme and plans to curb the powers of environmental groups were opposed by a clear majority.
Final results show 68 per cent of voters approved a plan by parliament to enshrine in law the government's four-pillar drugs policy.
The rightwing Swiss People's Party and a small ultra-conservative group had challenged the decision to a referendum and called for abstinence-based methods.
We got rid of the policy under US pressure and now there is a serious problem.
I wish somebody would try legalisation of cannabis. Decriminalisation still keeps supply in the criminal community. I think the dutch ideas have suffered cos it's become a tourist trade and the proportion of self-destructive users bussed in is very high. these self-destructive people become a magnet for people who have worse things to offer.
Prohibition always creates more social problems with organised criminality than the social problems it supposedly cures. keep to the Fen Causeway
Early indications from the Romanian general election put the leftist Social Democratic party in the lead. Exit polls predict that the opposition Social Democrats have won 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year. The global economic downturn appears to have eroded support for the governing Liberal party. The Social Democrats, the successors to the communists, campaigned on promises to increase welfare payments. There have been no official results so far.
Early indications from the Romanian general election put the leftist Social Democratic party in the lead.
Exit polls predict that the opposition Social Democrats have won 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year.
The global economic downturn appears to have eroded support for the governing Liberal party.
The Social Democrats, the successors to the communists, campaigned on promises to increase welfare payments.
There have been no official results so far.
BRUSSELS, Nov 25 (IPS) - Senior European Union figures are portraying themselves as champions of sound ecological policies ahead of the international climate change negotiations that begin in Poznan, Poland Dec. 1. Stavros Dimas, Europe's environment commissioner, this week described a series of measures being considered by the bloc's 27 governments as "easily the most far-reaching legislative package on fighting climate change anywhere in the world."Green activists who have assessed the small print of these measures are less impressed, and believe that the EU's rhetoric is not being supported by solid action. One of the main reasons why the Union cannot genuinely claim to be displaying leadership, they say, is that it has so far been unwilling to undertake drastic cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas triggering climate change, within its own borders. In 2007, the EU's governments committed themselves to a minimum 20 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 2020. Yet the latest version of proposals on their table suggest that about 65 percent of those cuts would not actually take place at home. Rather they would be 'offset' by financing 'clean development' in other parts of the world.
Madrid aurait été informé des vols secrets de la CIA dès 2002 Le quotidien espagnol El Pais, qui s'est procuré un document officiel classé "très secret", affirme que le gouvernement espagnol alors mené par le conservateur José Maria Aznar était au courant dès 2002 des vols secrets américains transportant des prisonniers talibans de l'Afghanistan vers la base de Guantanamo. Le document, daté du 10 janvier 2002 soit quatre mois après les attaques du 11-Septembre, a été rédigé par Miguel Aguirre de Carcer, directeur général des affaires étrangères pour l'Amérique du Nord, après un entretien effectué avec un "conseiller politico-militaire de l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Madrid", selon El Pais.
Le quotidien espagnol El Pais, qui s'est procuré un document officiel classé "très secret", affirme que le gouvernement espagnol alors mené par le conservateur José Maria Aznar était au courant dès 2002 des vols secrets américains transportant des prisonniers talibans de l'Afghanistan vers la base de Guantanamo. Le document, daté du 10 janvier 2002 soit quatre mois après les attaques du 11-Septembre, a été rédigé par Miguel Aguirre de Carcer, directeur général des affaires étrangères pour l'Amérique du Nord, après un entretien effectué avec un "conseiller politico-militaire de l'ambassade des Etats-Unis à Madrid", selon El Pais.
Aznar's government was aware of dubiously legal transfers of prisoners since early 2002, says El Pais. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Romania's ex-communist Social Democrats appear to have taken the lead in the general election but the shape of the next government is far from clear. Exit polls predict that the Social Democrats will get about 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year. The global economic downturn seems to have hurt the governing National Liberals which are forecast to win 20%. Its former allies, the Liberal Democrats, are said to have won 31%.
Romania's ex-communist Social Democrats appear to have taken the lead in the general election but the shape of the next government is far from clear.
Exit polls predict that the Social Democrats will get about 36% of the vote in the first such election since Romania joined the EU last year.
The global economic downturn seems to have hurt the governing National Liberals which are forecast to win 20%.
Its former allies, the Liberal Democrats, are said to have won 31%.
P.S. I'm pre-emptively outsourcing any diary requests ;-) -- as my familiarity with Romanian politics is next to zero. Somebody up to it?
No referendums are on the agenda there (but a arguably broken promise to referendum the European constitution should be noted): The ruling party promised to referendum the EU constitution, but they decided against it on the justification that the follow-up (Lisbon treaty) was not really a constitution. Everybody knows they broke the promise for another reason: It would set a "bad example" for other EU countries (i.e., the country where the treaty was signed calling in a referendum). The referendum would be expected to pass very easily (both based on the popularity of the EU and the national pride of having a treaty called "Lisbon").
The election final results will be published on Tuesday morning, but it seems that PSD-PC coalition and the PDL have similar results, 33-34% each... So no matter who wins, the key for the new government is the PNL (with 18-20%), the party from the current Prime Minister, Calin Popoescu Tariceanu. The current President, Traian Bacescu, is from the PDL.
In any case, I´m not quite sure on the influence of the crisis on the results. in fact, many people considered that the PSD would be winning the elections, so the final results, with such a little difference between PSD and PDL, is not so possitive for the PSD as it might be expected.
Electoral participation was shamefully low: national average: 36%, in Bucharest, just 30%. But with no real sense of change, no real policical views on debate, no real solutions, only the social bargains offered, higher salaries for teachers, policemen or doctors that I´m not sure can be really implemented (budgetary conceptions were not explained).
Maybe US elections are too Hollywood, too many bottled emotions and pretty scenes... But 2008 Romanian elections lack even the illusion of fresh air that we all need to feel every now and then, they were just the opposite, a bureucratic phase to be performed... As many others, you would argue, and it might be roight, but the authomatism is usually more concealed. "If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none." (Fahrenheit 451)
NATO foreign ministers gather this week in Brussels, with the United States and Germany quarreling over just how much distance to keep from Georgia and Ukraine. The debate is ostensibly over the mechanisms through which Georgia and Ukraine will, at some point, become members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But the real debate is over relations with Russia, especially in the aftermath of its conflict last summer with Georgia. And those ties with Moscow are wrapped up in domestic politics, both in Germany and the United States. The administration of President George W. Bush, which has maintained close ties with Georgia and with pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, wants to give no concessions to what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia. It wants NATO to send a clear message that Moscow cannot intimidate the alliance and that it does not get to veto NATO membership. At her last NATO ministerial meeting, the main task for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be to give substance to a vague promise by NATO last April that Georgia and Ukraine would some day become members.
NATO foreign ministers gather this week in Brussels, with the United States and Germany quarreling over just how much distance to keep from Georgia and Ukraine.
The debate is ostensibly over the mechanisms through which Georgia and Ukraine will, at some point, become members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But the real debate is over relations with Russia, especially in the aftermath of its conflict last summer with Georgia. And those ties with Moscow are wrapped up in domestic politics, both in Germany and the United States.
The administration of President George W. Bush, which has maintained close ties with Georgia and with pro-Western politicians in Ukraine, wants to give no concessions to what it sees as a newly aggressive Russia. It wants NATO to send a clear message that Moscow cannot intimidate the alliance and that it does not get to veto NATO membership.
At her last NATO ministerial meeting, the main task for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be to give substance to a vague promise by NATO last April that Georgia and Ukraine would some day become members.
Readers sometimes complain that newspapers don't publish more cheerful stories. Eager to oblige, I would point out that, in a week of mostly grim tidings, from economic meltdown to terrorist carnage, there's one bright spot. Ahead of the Nato summit, the US government has said that it will no longer demand "fast-track" membership for Georgia and Ukraine.
It's good article, worth reading keep to the Fen Causeway
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili warned the European Union on Sunday not to make too many concessions to Russia in upcoming negotiations on a partnership agreement. "Russia's smaller neighbours would view a decision by larger European countries to accept Russian aggression as treachery," he told the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel in an interview released in advance of publication Monday. The president was speaking ahead of Tuesday's resumption of talks on a new EU partnership deal with Russia that were suspended after Russian troops marched into Georgia in August.
"Russia's smaller neighbours would view a decision by larger European countries to accept Russian aggression as treachery," he told the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel in an interview released in advance of publication Monday.
The president was speaking ahead of Tuesday's resumption of talks on a new EU partnership deal with Russia that were suspended after Russian troops marched into Georgia in August.
Russia's smaller neighbours would view a decision by larger European countries to accept Russian aggression as treachery
I wonder if Scheuneman is still feeding him his lines?
"Russia's smaller neighbours would view a decision by larger European countries to accept Russian aggression as treachery,"
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) begin a party conference amid deep divisions over how Germany should come to grips with the worst financial upheaval in decades. Merkel has called for a measured response to the crisis, saying the economic stimulus package enacted by her government, a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), should be given time to kick in before further action is taken. This is not enough for many in the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who want tax cuts to be introduced before the nation goes to the polls in a general election that's likely to take place on Sept. 27, 2009. Merkel is opposed to lowering taxes before the polls, pointing out that Berlin's prime goal is to reduce borrowing and balance the budget. Originally, the government had hoped to balance the budget by 2011, but that date was abandoned after Germany fell into recession and the government was forced to increase net borrowing for 2009 by eight billion euros to 18 billion euros ($10.3 billion to $23.1 billion).
Merkel has called for a measured response to the crisis, saying the economic stimulus package enacted by her government, a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), should be given time to kick in before further action is taken.
This is not enough for many in the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), who want tax cuts to be introduced before the nation goes to the polls in a general election that's likely to take place on Sept. 27, 2009.
Merkel is opposed to lowering taxes before the polls, pointing out that Berlin's prime goal is to reduce borrowing and balance the budget. Originally, the government had hoped to balance the budget by 2011, but that date was abandoned after Germany fell into recession and the government was forced to increase net borrowing for 2009 by eight billion euros to 18 billion euros ($10.3 billion to $23.1 billion).
But Angie, tax cuts are the only solution... What was the problem again? The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman
Strong South wind and high sea level caused the Adriatic Sea coastline to be flooded. Venice is alarmed, streets are flooded. Two-metre waves have flooded the centre of Rijeka and the area near the city market, Rijeka web site reports on Monday. Sea level is significantly higher than usual. Karolina Rijecka pier was also flooded. ... The Venice Tide Centre has declared an emergency on Monday due to the "aqua alta" phenomenon, because the sea is supposed to reach the level of 1.6 metres above normal, which is a record in the past 30 years, Hina Croatian news agency reports. ... The heaviest "aqua alta" dates back to November 1966, when Venice was flooded under 194 cm of water, while the entire Italian territory was struck by catastrophical floods.
Two-metre waves have flooded the centre of Rijeka and the area near the city market, Rijeka web site reports on Monday. Sea level is significantly higher than usual. Karolina Rijecka pier was also flooded.
...
The Venice Tide Centre has declared an emergency on Monday due to the "aqua alta" phenomenon, because the sea is supposed to reach the level of 1.6 metres above normal, which is a record in the past 30 years, Hina Croatian news agency reports.
The heaviest "aqua alta" dates back to November 1966, when Venice was flooded under 194 cm of water, while the entire Italian territory was struck by catastrophical floods.
Twas a big storm on the med, caping a week of strong and goofy weather, that's for sure. Never underestimate their intelligence, always underestimate their knowledge.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
