Latvia's health minister has resigned after refusing to support spending cuts, needed to secure international loans to avoid the country going bankrupt. Health Minister Ivars Eglitis said in a statement that he had resigned because he refused to support cuts to spending for Latvia's health system, which could lead to job cuts and hospital closures. "As a doctor and a healthcare specialist I cannot accept this," Eglitis said in a statement. The health cuts are part of a wider package of measures approved by parliament on Tuesday. The Latvian government hopes to cut the budget by 500 million lats (715 million euros) to help it meet the terms of a 7.5-billion-euro bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union.
Health Minister Ivars Eglitis said in a statement that he had resigned because he refused to support cuts to spending for Latvia's health system, which could lead to job cuts and hospital closures.
"As a doctor and a healthcare specialist I cannot accept this," Eglitis said in a statement.
The health cuts are part of a wider package of measures approved by parliament on Tuesday. The Latvian government hopes to cut the budget by 500 million lats (715 million euros) to help it meet the terms of a 7.5-billion-euro bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Farmers angry at falling milk prices caused traffic chaos in the EU capital on Thursday (18 June) morning, in a distraction from the official EU summit agenda. Between 500 and 1,000 mostly Belgian tractors began snaking their way toward the Parc de Cinquantenaire in the heart of the EU quarter at around 8.30 am local time. The heavy policing gave the summit venue a warlike atmosphere The columns, moving at speeds of just 30 km/hour on all three lanes of the main E40 highway leading into Brussels, caused tailbacks over 20 km long. Disruption was also expected on the E411 and E19 roads. The farmers plan to make a tour of Brussels city centre before congregating at the park, where they aim to spend the night and to resume the protest on Friday.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Farmers angry at falling milk prices caused traffic chaos in the EU capital on Thursday (18 June) morning, in a distraction from the official EU summit agenda.
Between 500 and 1,000 mostly Belgian tractors began snaking their way toward the Parc de Cinquantenaire in the heart of the EU quarter at around 8.30 am local time.
The heavy policing gave the summit venue a warlike atmosphere
The columns, moving at speeds of just 30 km/hour on all three lanes of the main E40 highway leading into Brussels, caused tailbacks over 20 km long. Disruption was also expected on the E411 and E19 roads.
The farmers plan to make a tour of Brussels city centre before congregating at the park, where they aim to spend the night and to resume the protest on Friday.
I know that in the UK milk prices are hammered flat by the purchasing power of the supermarkets, dairy farmers are leaving the industry of going into value-added products like cheese and yoghurt. Basically their view is that if they can't get the milk from the UK, they buy it from europe, which is madness. keep to the Fen Causeway
Currently his business (with 85 cows) is losing money - however 2007/2008 were very good years for him, so he's not complaining too much.
An analysis by the Wagening University last month says that about 15 percent of the Dutch farmers, generally the bigger farms (80 cows or more), don't suffer. For farmers who just started, milk prices are starting to make life difficult.
The growing numbers of women in France who wear the burka, the head-to-toe Islamic veil, are causing concern among French lawmakers who want to set up a national commission to investigate the phenomenon. Close to 60 legislators signed a proposal Wednesday, June 17, calling for a parliamentary commission to look into the spread of the burka, a garment that they said amounted "to a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory." "Today, in many city neighborhoods, we see several Muslim women wearing the burka, which covers and fully envelops the body and the head, like a moving prison, or the nijab which allows only the eyes to be shown," said Communist MP Andre Gerin, a legislator and one of the leaders of the drive for the parliamentary commission. "We find it intolerable to see images of these imprisoned women when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. They are totally unacceptable on the territory of the French republic," Gerin wrote in a text outlining his proposal.
Close to 60 legislators signed a proposal Wednesday, June 17, calling for a parliamentary commission to look into the spread of the burka, a garment that they said amounted "to a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory."
"Today, in many city neighborhoods, we see several Muslim women wearing the burka, which covers and fully envelops the body and the head, like a moving prison, or the nijab which allows only the eyes to be shown," said Communist MP Andre Gerin, a legislator and one of the leaders of the drive for the parliamentary commission.
"We find it intolerable to see images of these imprisoned women when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. They are totally unacceptable on the territory of the French republic," Gerin wrote in a text outlining his proposal.
My difficulty is that I am very wary about the extent to which women are obliged by an overtly misogynist culture to conform to male demands. After all, why not just a headscarf ? To my mind the difference is in the level of the woman's ownershop of her body and her own image. keep to the Fen Causeway
we have rules about clothing, that are just as illogical. try taking off your clothes in the champs elysee on a hot day...
when i visited afghanistan in '73, i bought a full-on burka, the top-to-toe one with the little grid to peer out of.
wearing it for a day was fascinating, everyone should try it just once.
but then i always liked those 'invisible man' shows! bandages wrapped around....nada!
personally, i think people should be free to attire themselves as they wish, including going nude if that's their fancy.
sometimes i think it would be horrid if europe went islamic, even moderately, they're so serious, but i suspect it could happen, for the simple reason that they don't fry their brains with alcohol, lol.
soberly they advance, fun-killers like all over-religious types.
but when i contemplate the drunken behaviour of young brits at home and abroad, it's no mystery that an equally extreme counter-force should appear.
i'd much rather my kid was an over-serious muslim, than end up blotto in an ibizan gutter.
how's that for a profound, equal-opportunity stupid and bigoted un-PC comment?
i'm sure there are plenty of amusing muslims too, i just never saw too many smiles on their faces, when i saw their faces at all. great dignity, great pride, (especially the afghans), great nobility, but almost sinister, the seriousness.
i wonder if i was raised a muslim, i would feel like westerners deserved to have people in their midst from the middle east dressed like caspar the ghost, freaking them out with the sheer anonymous weirdness of it, aaagh the muzzies are coming, payback time for all the shit we did to them.
silly to be paranoid though, che sara, sara. i'm sure there'll be a good side, it won't be the first time muslims educate us in europe after all. hopefully the secular/christian cultural pushback will make the more hyper-orthodox muslims modulate their bloodthirsty patriarchal control freakery side extremist practices, and if possible exalt us with the more delightful, creative side of islam, sufism.
zero was a great gift, so the mathematicians say... maybe we have more to learn from them than we think.
we've already figured out our pensions are Doomed if they don't come in and do our shitwork, like working in the poisoned, CAP-funded tobacco fields around here, fr'example.
I am confused about this stuff, i won't pretend not to be. so i'm letting out the different imps in my head out to play... secular society is safer in most ways.
wow, i swear i just felt a pretty big earth tremor. down boy! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
The point about you wearing a burka is that was voluntary, not a life sentence of social invisibility and societal inconsequence. Women in afghanistan are not allowed to work and old widows may actually starve to death if their family are not able to help. That's the implication of the burka. You can wear one (although nowadays you'd be killed if discovered, transvestism is a capital crime) but it is not freighted in the same way.
Islam used to be an intelligent religion, 8-900 years ago their civilisation was far in advance of ours. Their preservation of greek (and indian)maths and philosophy and their extentions of it gave us a step advance once we were able to tap into it. But then, under the stress of the Crusades and Mongol invasions, the Caliph of Baghdad issued decrees that placed religious proscriptions on intellectual endeavour and islam has since degenerated into the veneration of the rote and even occasionally the stupid.
I have a friend who keeps telling me about his visits to Thailand and how all the people are happy and how their viewpoint is so different from ours. So advanced and so much at peace with their lot. I keep gently suggesting that this might be a superficial reading given how so many very oppressive political systems thrive in these regions which suggests that venal humanity is able to sink below cultural prefereneces anywhere they get an opportunity. But he still tells me that Buddhism would prevent all the bad stuff that happens. Fine, but I think the bad ape will still win. keep to the Fen Causeway
Re: Europe ( / ) I'm pretty sure there's a happy and reasonable medium between absolute abstention and total 24/7 alcohol fuelled mayhem.
i agree.
Helen:
I think the bad ape will still win.
i wish i could be surer you're wrong, but luckily there are still people who are shining examples of selfless courage, so i can't agree with that, (yet!)
:=) ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Details of MPs' expenses claims were finally published by the House of Commons today - but with much of the detail that led to a public outcry blacked out. The release of tens of thousands of claim forms and receipts on the Parliament website more than a year after the High Court ordered their publication is likely to lead to demands for greater openness. It is impossible to identify many of the abuses which came out as a result of the earlier leak of the same material to the Daily Telegraph before crucial details were blacked out. There are no addresses for MPs' homes, meaning it would have been virtually impossible to identify so-called "flipping", whereby MPs switch the designation of their second properties to maximise their claims. Also redacted are the names and details of people and companies to whom payments were made using expenses.
The release of tens of thousands of claim forms and receipts on the Parliament website more than a year after the High Court ordered their publication is likely to lead to demands for greater openness.
It is impossible to identify many of the abuses which came out as a result of the earlier leak of the same material to the Daily Telegraph before crucial details were blacked out.
There are no addresses for MPs' homes, meaning it would have been virtually impossible to identify so-called "flipping", whereby MPs switch the designation of their second properties to maximise their claims.
Also redacted are the names and details of people and companies to whom payments were made using expenses.
Tony Blair put in an expense claim for almost £7,000 of roof repairs on his designated second home just two days before stepping down as Prime Minister, newly-published documents show. Mr Blair, who left Downing Street on June 27, 2007, submitted an invoice on June 25 for "roof repairs" which cost £6,990. The bill was dated June 8, suggesting that Mr Blair arranged for the work to be done after he had announced the date when he would be leaving parliament. The expense claim - which is one of more than a million documents published online today by parliament - amounts to yet another example of an MP taking the last available opportunity to exploit the system to repair or renovate their designated second home with thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money before leaving office.
Mr Blair, who left Downing Street on June 27, 2007, submitted an invoice on June 25 for "roof repairs" which cost £6,990. The bill was dated June 8, suggesting that Mr Blair arranged for the work to be done after he had announced the date when he would be leaving parliament.
The expense claim - which is one of more than a million documents published online today by parliament - amounts to yet another example of an MP taking the last available opportunity to exploit the system to repair or renovate their designated second home with thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money before leaving office.
The British political establishment faced another wave of public anger today after Commons authorities launched a new era of transparency on a sea of black ink. Tens of thousands of MPs' expenses claims - totalling more than a million documents in PDF format - were posted on the Parliament website at 6am, more than a year after the High Court ruled that MPs should not be exempt from freedom of information laws. As voters soon saw, the year has been well spent. Both the claims and the receipts accompanying them have been heavily "redacted" - censored - to remove personal details such as addresses, regular travel schedules or names of suppliers.
The British political establishment faced another wave of public anger today after Commons authorities launched a new era of transparency on a sea of black ink.
Tens of thousands of MPs' expenses claims - totalling more than a million documents in PDF format - were posted on the Parliament website at 6am, more than a year after the High Court ruled that MPs should not be exempt from freedom of information laws.
As voters soon saw, the year has been well spent. Both the claims and the receipts accompanying them have been heavily "redacted" - censored - to remove personal details such as addresses, regular travel schedules or names of suppliers.
the very lack of the most damning details actually makes things worse, not better. Pettifogging fools. keep to the Fen Causeway
i mean, how much money are we talking about in toto?
less than one medium size hedge fund's daily traffic, i imagine...
as for public outrage, i see that as manufactured too. a few letter to the editor, shocked, i tell you!
Iran is public outrage, britain is numb to this stuff by now.
mp's on the take, fancy that! pour me some more coffee, would you please, darling? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
But what is the crime of the expenses saga ? Most MPs are fairly honest about their expenses, truly the ranks of the dishonest or merely greedy is dwarfed by the hundreds who have done little or nothing except complain insufficiently about a system too ripe for plundering. Yet they will be punished along with the worst. We can laugh at the sheer stupidity of millionaires losing plum positions of influence over a few thousand here and there on expenses. Almost nobody (Geoff Hoon excepted) made themselves comfortably rich, even if more than a few lined their nests too well. At the bottom, this is an issue of trust. MPs are sent as our representatives to Westminster. Not to do what we tell them, but to do their best for us and the Country. Yet there have been too many examples of MPs and members of the Lords selling favours and peddling influence for cash. Brown envelopes stuffed with fivers are no theatrical cliche, they really happened. Equally parties are for sale, policies are too heavily weighted in favour of corporate interests which the public are beginning to recognise do not have their interests at heart. Just this year we have had issues involving inquiries into the expansion of Heathrow airport, coal fired power stations and nuclear power where the decisions were bought and paid for long before the public had their say. Equally there is an exasperation at the impossibility of change. The first past the post system has resulted in a politics of the lowest common denominator, where both parties pitch their policies for about 50 - 80,000 floating voters spread across 40 - 60 seats. Nobody else matters, and nothing ever really changes. Across the overwhelming majority of seats in the UK, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the same old party wins each and every time. Of course people don't say that when you ask them unless you explain it all first : They just know the system doesn't work, doesn't seem to work for most people. Just for the people at the top.
At the bottom, this is an issue of trust. MPs are sent as our representatives to Westminster. Not to do what we tell them, but to do their best for us and the Country. Yet there have been too many examples of MPs and members of the Lords selling favours and peddling influence for cash. Brown envelopes stuffed with fivers are no theatrical cliche, they really happened. Equally parties are for sale, policies are too heavily weighted in favour of corporate interests which the public are beginning to recognise do not have their interests at heart. Just this year we have had issues involving inquiries into the expansion of Heathrow airport, coal fired power stations and nuclear power where the decisions were bought and paid for long before the public had their say.
Equally there is an exasperation at the impossibility of change. The first past the post system has resulted in a politics of the lowest common denominator, where both parties pitch their policies for about 50 - 80,000 floating voters spread across 40 - 60 seats. Nobody else matters, and nothing ever really changes. Across the overwhelming majority of seats in the UK, it doesn't matter who you vote for, the same old party wins each and every time.
Of course people don't say that when you ask them unless you explain it all first : They just know the system doesn't work, doesn't seem to work for most people. Just for the people at the top.
with scandals like the blair/saudi, the build up to iraq, the payoffs from nukemeisters, subsidies to the City etc, that's real money, this is nothing.
if money's the issue...
if as you infer, the deeper issue is trust, then either this is the thin edge of the wedge, and the public demands total reforms, or it's just damage limitation spin to focus people on the green shoots and other such balderdash that the chinese found so knee-slappingly hilarious recently. lol.
but to expect serious follow through from a public that has already snoozily swallowed so much sleaze without reacting, well...
audacious hope in order? isn't this just a storm in a teacup, fanned to sell papers?
i hope you're right, and it is a last straw, a tipping point, so far i see just a hunkering down in the fetal position, as the public, as aware as animals before an earthquake, know something's badly wrong, and it surely isn't on the level of £7,000 roofing jobs! the moat thing was the giveaway.... far too obvious.
to be clear, it is shameful, as you brilliantly point out in your blockquote, for pols to break the public trust, what i wonder is, how little of that there's left for them to worry about anyway?
and if the people really were outraged about this chump change petty pilfering, why weren't they by much bigger scams? and what will change, lord knows it's not the first time mp's have given themselves an ex-lax, and buggered off to the estate to plan their speaking tours.
let's hope it's incremental, and at the end it could be a tiny thing that tips the scales. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
Growth in presidential spending 'seven times greater' than rest of stateSoaring French presidential expenses under Nicolas Sarkozy have come under blistering political attack - despite the absence of either duck pond or moat at the Elyseé palace. A report by an opposition MP claims the cost of running the presidency leapt by 18 per cent last year and that the cost of day-to-day expenses, such as food, jumped by more than 50 per cent to €500,000 (£426,000) a week. Less surprisingly, the cost of official visits by the hyperactive President rose by over 26 per cent. René Dosière, a Socialist deputy who has specialised in scrutinising presidential expenses for many years, accused President Sarkozy of breaking an electoral promise to make the traditionally secretive operation of the Elyseé Palace more transparent and less onerous for the taxpayer. He said that the increase in Elyseé spending in 2008 was seven times greater than the overall growth of state expenditure. "Spending restrictions imposed on all other departments, from which every state employee suffers in his daily work, do not extend to the presidency," said M. Dosière.
Soaring French presidential expenses under Nicolas Sarkozy have come under blistering political attack - despite the absence of either duck pond or moat at the Elyseé palace.
A report by an opposition MP claims the cost of running the presidency leapt by 18 per cent last year and that the cost of day-to-day expenses, such as food, jumped by more than 50 per cent to €500,000 (£426,000) a week. Less surprisingly, the cost of official visits by the hyperactive President rose by over 26 per cent.
René Dosière, a Socialist deputy who has specialised in scrutinising presidential expenses for many years, accused President Sarkozy of breaking an electoral promise to make the traditionally secretive operation of the Elyseé Palace more transparent and less onerous for the taxpayer.
He said that the increase in Elyseé spending in 2008 was seven times greater than the overall growth of state expenditure. "Spending restrictions imposed on all other departments, from which every state employee suffers in his daily work, do not extend to the presidency," said M. Dosière.
It takes a lot of persistence, and a willingness to make enemies of more than a few powerful people, but it is an invaluable work for democracy. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
A committee of the Dutch Lower House wants to make free downloading illegal, a futile attempt to stop the practice say internet users. MPs from the Christian Democratic party (CDA), the Labour Party (PvdA), the Socialist Party (SP) and the conservatives (VVD) presented their `copyright bill' in the Lower House on Wednesday. Currently only uploading is illegal. Debates in the Lower House showed that many MPs think downloading should also be punishable. The Lower House says the ban should only take effect when there are viable legal alternatives. These are practically absent in the Netherlands. The committee recommended the entertainment industry find a solution. Chair of the committee Arda Gerkens said "it is their own commercial problem. They should solve it, not the legislator." In 2007, the Dutch Justice Ministry announced it would step up its game against piracy but said it would focus on people who upload copyrighted material on a large scale. Ms Gerkens is quick to clarify that they "don't want to act against 13-year-old girls who download their favourite songs", but says that "we need to teach children that music and movies are not for free."
Letter reveals former PM was aware of guidance to UK agentsTony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal.The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not "be seen to condone" torture and that they must not "engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners".
Tony Blair was aware of the existence of a secret interrogation policy which effectively led to British citizens, and others, being tortured during counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal.
The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.
British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not "be seen to condone" torture and that they must not "engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners".
