European Politics

Turkey sits around the table and acknowledges the force of PKK, makes concessions, PKK declares ceasefire from terrorist acts. One day later, Israel apologizes to Turkey for the events concerning Mavi Marmara, much to the appreciation of supporters of Erdoğan who continue to worship him like a sultan.

Coincidence ? I think not. Way to go being a puppet, my country. Way to go.
 
I am happy with these apologies. Finally a sign by Israel that they did something wrong. Thumbs up for Obama who organized this.
 
Lol, today I found out that in some parts of Germany it's forbidden to dance in the days before Easter (Good Friday or maybe also the saturday). A very old law. Every year there is more protest by (especially) youth against it, but the police is waiting to hand out fines of hundreds of euros.
http://nos.nl/video/490173-protesten-wegens-dansverbod-in-duitsland.html
(vid includes organized protest dances on the street and annoyed people from the church)
 
Gay rights activists, topless protesters greet P

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/08/us-russia-germany-idUSBRE93707J20130408
(Reuters) - President V P defended R treatment of homosexuals on Monday in Amsterdam, where 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to press home their protest.

Western nations need R for energy and as a market for exports but are uneasy about P's human rights policies and his treatment of opponents in his new Kremlin term.

P's visit to the Netherlands and Germany, Moscow's biggest trade partners in Europe, also comes at an awkward time after a wave of state inspections of foreign-funded non-governmental organizations in R that has been much criticized abroad.

In Amsterdam, Dutch and R companies signed a batch of energy deals and P met Queen Beatrix and Prime Minister Mark Rutte, while around 1,000 protesters blew whistles, played loud music, and waved the gay pride flag nearby in the city famous for its liberal attitude.

P, who laughed off a topless protest earlier in the day in Germany, said R did not discriminate against gay people.

"In the R Federation - so that it is clear to everybody - there is no infringement on the rights of sexual minorities," he said.

"These people, like everyone else, enjoy all the same rights and freedoms as everyone else," he told a news conference - held at Amsterdam's Maritime Museum in a nod to the days when Peter the Great worked as a young man in an Amsterdam shipyard.

R's parliament has given preliminary approval to a ban on "homosexual propaganda" targeting minors, which critics say would effectively ban gay rights demonstrations. The United States has said the legislation "severely restricts freedom of expression and assembly".

Many houses and bridges in the historic canal district of Amsterdam were draped with banners and the rainbow flag of the gay pride movement, protesting about what human rights organizations say is institutional repression of gays in R.

"P go homo," read one, echoing the message "P go home" on the front page of Friday's NRC Next daily newspaper.

continued in article:
 
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I don't know much about politics in general, but I know she was very influential in some big things not just in the UK which she will have positive reception for, but that she was hated for one very big reason - particularly up north - closing of mines.
 
It went a bit further than that, but yes. I shall say nothing more on the matter and continue watching Maiden England '88 :p
 
Even in Norway the view of Thatcher is very divided. Some see her as evil incarnated, others as one of the greatest politicians in modern-day Europe.
 
Crimson Idol said:
I don't know much about politics in general, but I know she was very influential in some big things not just in the UK which she will have positive reception for, but that she was hated for one very big reason - particularly up north - closing of mines.
Click to expand...

Thatcher is very well liked in the US and I would assume Eastern Europe. I have a very positive view of her .. primarily based on Foreign Policy, but also for her domestic program. She is clearly one of the most important British PMs post-war and one of the key world leaders in the latter half of the 20th Century.
 
I am not partying but I disliked her immensely. In fact, I don't remember any other Western European leader, that was so dislikable.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...south-africa-nelson-mandela-anc-terrorists#21
For Margaret Thatcher, few tears shed in South Africa

The late British prime minister once labeled Nelson Mandela's political group a terrorist organization. Three years after Thatcher left office, Mandela became South Africa's first black president.


JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — To Margaret Thatcher, the African National Congress under jailed leader Nelson Mandela was a “typical terrorist organization.”

When much of the world enforced sanctions on apartheid South Africa in the 1980s, Thatcher refused, instead pursuing a policy of “constructive engagement” with the country’s white minority government.

Now, after her death at age 87, the three-term British prime minister’s legacy is as polarizing in South Africa as it is in Britain, where the Manchester United soccer team decided not to hold a minute of silence before a Monday night game fearing the crowd response.

Thatcher’s rule began in 1979 and encompassed critical years before the release of Mandela and the collapse of the racist apartheid regime. While she always said she opposed apartheid, Thatcher has been dogged by criticism that her government’s efforts to counter it weren’t enough.

David Cameron, the current British prime minister, apologized for Thatcher’s policies on apartheid when he visited South Africa in 2006. Cameron said his Conservative party had made “mistakes” by failing to introduce sanctions against South Africa, and that Thatcher was wrong to have called the ANC “terrorists.”

Following news of her death, some South Africans on Twitter branded Thatcher an apartheid supporter, and took delight in the fact that Mandela, who is 94 and in poor health, has outlived her. Mandela was released from prison during Thatcher’s last year in office, and four years later became South Africa’s first black president.

“Mandela outlived Thatcher. 1-0 to FREEDOM! History is the ULTIMATE judge!” one tweet said.
more: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/...south-africa-nelson-mandela-anc-terrorists#21


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-africa-fela-kuti
Margaret Thatcher: no fond farewells from Africa

Perhaps the best way to remember the former British PM is to listen to the words of Fela Kuti and ask, Wat kind sense be dat?

Margaret-Thatcher-with-Ro-008.jpg

Margaret Thatcher with Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, in 1988. Photograph: Tim Ockenden/PA

Margaret Thatcher has died, and now the hagiographers and the demonisers can have their say. All by herself, apparently, Thatcher "reforged Britain", "transfixed the United States", and was "a great leader, a great prime minister and a great Briton." And how did England's 'Iron Lady' engage with the African continent?

While much attention will be paid, rightly, on her involvements with southern Africa, and in particular with the independence and liberation movements of Zimbabwe and Namibia and the anti-apartheid movements of South Africa, it should be remembered that Africa is more than its southern suburbs.

On one hand, as noted by Onyango Oloo, Thatcher was known as a strong woman who "had, at most, two women ministers appointed and who passed some of the most sexist policies which impacted the movement." Her commitments, both domestically and globally, were to free market and security, not to women or any other popular, much less disenfranchised or struggling, group. As RW Connell commented, "Public politics on almost any definition is men's politics… Leaders are recruited to office through men's networks. The few women who do break through, such as Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher, do so by their exceptional use of men's networks, not women's." The same is true for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, "Africa's Iron Lady": It's interesting how many commentators remark of Johnson-Sirleaf — and it's meant as a compliment — that the future president is 'not really a woman'. Or, as her supporters shouted, "Ellen, she's our man."

Other than the considerable accomplishment of breaking through a glass ceiling, Thatcher's ascendancy didn't mean a whole lot for women on the continent. Except in South Africa and the frontline states. There the story is worse.

In South Africa, the response, such as it is, to Thatcher's death is "mixed". On one side (predictably), FW de Klerk, the Democratic Alliance, and the Freedom Front Plus are glowing in their tributes.
Lesiba Seshoka, of the National Union of Mineworkers, has a different view: "She will be remembered as one of the harshest leaders the trade unions in Britain had to face, and many more in the formal colonial countries faced the wrath of her reign of terror."

Pallo Jordan, who remembers the days when Thatcher insisted that the ANC was a terrorist organisation, "I say good riddance. She was a staunch supporter of the apartheid regime. She was part of the rightwing alliance with Ronald Reagan that led to a lot of avoidable deaths. In the end I sat with her in her office with Nelson Mandela in 1991. She knew she had no choice. Although she called us a terrorist organisation, she had to shake hands with a terrorist and sit down with a terrorist. So who won?"

And Dali Tambo (son of late ANC leader, Oliver) remembers the "terrorism" charge as well: "My gut reaction now is what it was at the time when she said my father was the leader of a terrorist organisation. I don't think she ever got it that every day she opposed sanctions, more people were dying, and that the best thing for the assets she wanted to protect was democracy."

Some have 'credited' Thatcher's neoliberal policies, and policing, with contributing to the HIV-pandemic in Swaziland and elsewhere, in particular by forcing "cutting government spending on social services (such as public healthcare)". Others note that Thatcher's energetic opposition to sanctions and support for right wing forces in what became Zimbabwe and Namibia prolonged the state of violence across the breadth of southern Africa.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/09/margaret-thatcher-africa-fela-kuti
 
Ariana, would you tell a bit more about that?
I saw quite positive reactions from your PM and president but I am also curious about opinions by others.
 
I doubt that any political leader would say anything bad about her, especially after her death. Not many people would deny that she had leadership qualities and was a highly influential figure but I really don't think she was liked. As in most countries, I could say that opinion are divided at present. I don't really remember much about her back in the day but many people disliked her for her Euroscepticism. Many people here kept their left or leftish leaning in the years following the end of Communism and her policies were naturally frowned upon, to say the least.
 
I read an article in the Volkskrant (big national newspaper) about the stream of protest songs she evoked.
The article is titled "Punk rockers in the eighties driven on Maggie anger". There's a photo with four covers from singles and albums and Iron Maiden's Sanctuary is included! The band isn't mentioned in the article which is more about The Clash, Elvis Costello and Morrissey -acts that wrote songs about her-, apart from that they mention she had a main role on the cover.


A few more comments by people who were less happy with her:

PETER TATCHELL, CIVIL RIGHTS CAMPAIGNER
"Margaret Thatcher: extraordinary but heartless."
"Thatcher initiated policies that paved the way for the current economic crisis: the decimation of Britain's manufacturing base, the get-rich-quick business mentality, the promotion of the free market and the poorly regulated banking sector."
KEN LIVINGSTONE, FORMER LABOUR MAYOR OF LONDON, THATCHER FOE
"She created today's housing crisis, she produced the banking crisis, she created the benefits crisis.
"She decided when she wrote off our manufacturing industry that she could live with two or three million unemployed and the legacy of that (is) the benefits bill that we are still struggling with today."
"In actual fact, every real problem we face today is the legacy of the fact she was fundamentally wrong."
PAUL KENNY, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE GMB LABOUR UNION
"Mrs Thatcher was a powerful politician who will be remembered by many for the destructive and divisive policies she reigned over which in the end, even in the Tory (Conservative) party, proved to be her downfall.
"Her legacy involves the destruction of communities, the elevation of personal greed over social values and legitimizing the exploitation of the weak by the strong."
 
This thread should be renamed to "Russian and UK Politics".
 
I didn't think it was necessary to make a new topic, and even though it's also about a couple of nations outside Europe, I thought this could fit best here, simply because of the huge amount of European countries involved:


The well-being of children in 29 rich countries

State of children in rich countries

Report Card 11: Child well-being in rich countries, from UNICEF’s Office of Research, examines the state of children across the ‘rich’ world. As debates continue to generate strongly opposed views on the pros and cons of austerity measures and social spending cuts, Report Card 11 charts the achievements of 29 of the world’s advanced economies in ensuring the well-being of their children during the first decade of this century.
This international comparison, says the report, proves that child poverty in these countries is not inevitable, but policy susceptible – and that some countries are doing much better than others at protecting their most vulnerable children.

• Download the full report. (middle orange button, below)
• See interactive infographic for details by country.
• View video interview with Peter Adamson, author of the report:
The report finds that the Netherlands and three Nordic countries – Finland, Iceland and Norway – again sit at the top of a child well-being table, while four southern European countries – Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – are placed in the bottom half.

Child well-being measured
Report Card 11: measures development according to five dimensions of children’s lives – material well-being, health and safety, education, behaviour and risks, and housing and environment.
The study does not find a strong relationship between per capita GDP and overall child well-being. For instance, Slovenia ranks higher than Canada, the Czech Republic higher than Austria, and Portugal higher than the United States of America. ... more

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A league table of child well-being (which can be viewed better here:
http://www.unicef-irc.org/Report-Card-11/ --> click on the "rank" button, next to "map")

1 Netherlands 2.4 1 5 1 1 4
2 Norway 4.6 3 7 6 4 3
3 Iceland 5 4 1 10 3 7
4 Finland 5.4 2 3 4 12 6
5 Sweden 6.2 5 2 11 5 8
6 Germany 9 11 12 3 6 13
7 Luxembourg 9.2 6 4 22 9 5
8 Switzerland 9.6 9 11 16 11 1
9 Belgium 11.2 13 13 2 14 14
10 Ireland 11.6 17 15 17 7 2
11 Denmark 11.8 12 23 7 2 15
12 Slovenia 12 8 6 5 21 20
13 France 12.8 10 10 15 13 16
14 Czech Republic 15.2 16 8 12 22 18
15 Portugal 15.6 21 14 18 8 17
16 United Kingdom 15.8 14 16 24 15 10
17 Canada 16.6 15 27 14 16 11
18 Austria 17 7 26 23 17 12
19 Spain 17.6 24 9 26 20 9
20 Hungary 18.4 18 20 8 24 22
21 Poland 18.8 22 18 9 19 26
22 Italy 19.2 23 17 25 10 21
23 Estonia 20.8 19 22 13 26 24
24 Slovakia 20.8 25 21 21 18 19
25 Greece 23.4 20 19 28 25 25
26 United States 24.8 26 25 27 23 23
27 Lithuania 25.2 27 24 19 29 27
28 Latvia 26.4 28 28 20 28 28
29 Romania 28.6 29 29 29 27 29

(Australia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Japan, Malta and New Zealand have not been included in the overall league table of child well-being, as they have data for fewer than 75% of the total number of indicators used)

You can also browse the five dimensions, per country, on the left side of the screen.


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My, my, the United States are very, very low, especially in educational well-being. They do score best on alcohol risk, though! The Germans do best in the exposure to fighting category.

And the Netherlands -who've won this in the last 5 years or so- are not the best when it comes to health and safety (ranked 5th). Especially the infant mortality rate isn't that great (16th). I was especially focused on that because of my personal experiences, last year.
 
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