Another russian murder

It's dangerous to fight against those in power in Russia, as we've seen demonstrated again and again. Unfortunately, we've seen another example of this last Monday.

Russian human rights lawyer assassinated near Kremlin

Stanislav Markelov had fought the release of a colonel who killed a Chechnya woman. His shooting by a masked gunman means 'anybody can be killed . . . in broad daylight,' his supporters say.

Murder is just one of the tools they use; others include forced exiles, or trials of questionable fairness.

It's hard to see how this can changes in the current Russian climate.

Steve LeVine has more: Murder in Russia

Edit: Natalia Antonova at GlobalComment writes more: In Memory of Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov

The two later links via Matttbastard on Twitter

Jörg Haider killed in car crash

Right-wing politician Jörg Haider, who shocked the world when he became te leader of the Austrian government in 2000, has been killed in a car crash.

While his family has my condolences, I cannot find it in myself to feel sorry for the death of another bigoted politician.

BBC story
LA Times story

Election time

There have been a couple of elections in Europe lately.

In Poland Jaroslaw Kaczyński lost, and a more sane government is expected to form. You know that you're unpopular when both Russia and the EU is happy that you lost. Unfortunately, his twin Lech Kaczyński is still the president of Poland.

Switzerland also held elections, with the rightwing Swiss People's Party as the big winner, getting 30% of the votes. The largest block ever received by a Swiss political party. They have stated that they are going to form a broad coalition government, but there is no doubt that the result will pull Switzerland to the right, and towards harsher anti-immigrant measures.

And today the Danish prime minster announced that Denmark will have an election on November 13th. This was not unsurprising, as the government has risen in recent polls, and stands to win the election, with the help of their support party, Dansk Folkeparti.

Danish politics are quite confusing to outsiders, with parties spanning from the Anarcho-communist Enhedslisten (the Unity List, a coalition of a number of far-left parties), over the more traditional socialists, social democrats and conservatives parties to the right-wing, anti-immigrant Dansk Folkeparti (Danish Peoples' Party). However, the current political situation can be briefly be summed up thus:

Normally Danish politics is formed by consensus across a broad political spectrum, but during the current government, Danish politics is best characterized as block politics, with the right-winged government parties Venstre (literately translated as Left), a typical liberal party in the European sense, and Det Konservative Folkeparti (the Conservative Peoples' Party), being supported by the anti-immigrant populist party Dansk Folkeparti.

Against them stands a coalition of 4 center-left parties, will try to get the leader of Socialdemokraterne (the Social Democrats) elected as prime minister. There are some very big differences between the parties in this coalition, and if they win the election, it would probably mean that the new government would have to form consensus across the middle to the two current government parties on a number of issues.

Personally, I just about don't care what the results will be, as long as Dansk Folkeparti looses their influence. I consistently vote against them, and try to optimize my vote to have the greatest negative impact on their power. I'd rather have the far-left people in power, even though I'm pretty sure it would lead the country to bankruptcy if kept up for too long.

Scientology members charged in Belgium

Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.

Charges against Scientology in Belgium

After a ten-year investigation, Belgian prosecutors have charged twelve members of the Church of Scientology. The accusations include fraud, extortion, illegal practice of medicine, and infringement of privacy law, among others. The decision opens the way for Scientology to be considered a criminal organization.

Scientology is not recognized as a religious organization in Belgium. Not that it would have made any difference in the charges against them, though I am sure Scientology will play the "religious prosecution" card.

I seriously hope that they will be classified as a criminal organization. That could lead the way for rewoking their status as a religious group in other European countries, such as Denmark.

Tripoli Six freed!

The six medics jailed and sentenced to death in Libya for the wrongful conviction of deliberately spreading HIV to the patients they were treating, were freed today.

After their sentence got changed to life in prison, the Bulgarian government asked for the rest of their sentence to be served in Bulgaria. When the medics arrived in Bulgaria, they were pardoned by President Georgi Parvanov of Bulgaria, thus ending their sentence, after they had spent 8½ years in jail.

The medics, 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palistinian doctor, were freed as an result of the significant pressure put on Libya by the EU, and the hard negotiations between Libya and the EU. Libya got a treaty with the EU out of it, plus som financial aid for specific (medically related) projects.

The Palestinian doctor got a Bulgarian citizenship last month, enabling him to also serve the rest of his sentence in Bulgaria, and thus get pardonned by the Bulgarian president.

Medics Jailed in Libya Arrive Home (LA Times)
HIV medics freed after Libya-EU deal (Reuters)
Bulgarian Medics Pardoned (Sofia Echo, Bulgaria)
Libya Frees Bulgarian Nurses in AIDS Case (NY Times)

Europe's role in today's astronomy

ScienceDaily has an article about the subject of Europe's role in astronomy today.

Europe Plays Lead Role In New Age Of Astronomical Discovery

Astronomy is entering a new golden age of discovery led by breakthroughs in telescopes and instruments making them capable of observing distant events early in the life of the universe. There is now great optimism that one of the fundamental questions of cosmology, the origin of galaxies, will be resolved within the next decade or sooner. But the technology involved is expensive, for instruments have to be highly sensitive and some of the observation needs to take place from space beyond the interference of the earth's atmosphere, so an international effort is involved.

Europe is playing a key role in this global programme with three new instruments, including the €1 billion Herschel Space Observatory (HSO), and the European Science Foundation (ESF) has been helping to coordinate the effort by bringing many of the principle users of these facilities together at an international conference. Delegates included leading specialists in all aspects of galaxy and star formation.

Europe has always had a strong tradition for involvement in astronomy (many of the early pioneers were European after all), but it's good to see that Europe still keeps on investing money in such research.

The forced 'Germanization' of foreign children during WWII

As we all know, during the Nazi Reign, there was a sickening obsession about German racial purity. This lead to a reign of eugenics, where the whole society was geared towards promoting what the Nazis perceived as the 'übermensch' - the so-called Aryan race.

Today, I came across an article about how this affected some children in the occupied areas.

Aryan dreams - Nazi's attempts to build master race included kidnapping foreign children

On a sunny April morning in 1944, 6-year-old Alodia Witaszek was combed and scrubbed, sitting in the children’s home that had primed her for membership in Hitler’s master race.

Over the past year she had been snatched from her family, gone hungry in a concentration camp and been beaten for speaking her native Polish. Now she had a German name, “Alice Wittke,” and a new – German – mother.

“Guten tag, Mutti!” she called in flawless German to the young woman approaching her. Good morning, Mommy.

Only years later would she discover the full truth: that she was among some 250 children seized from their families as part of a Nazi attempt to improve the Aryan gene pool in pursuit of a mad dream of racial purity.

I recommend reading the article. It not only describes a rather uncovered part of the Nazi eugenic attempts, it also explains how it affected the children after the war.

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Speaking of Nazi Germany, I should probably use the chance to recommend Eric Muller's excellent posts about his Uncle Leopold, who died during the Holocaust. He has collected them all here

Shocking misogyny in Norway

Amnesty International in Norway has just released a survey that shows some shocking stats.

* Nearly half of all Norwegian men (44%) think that women at least partly responsible for sexual assaults, if they have flirted openly.
* One in five Norwegian men thinks that women are at least partly responsible for sexual assaults if they are known to have had several partners.
* One in three men thinks that women are at least partly responsible for sexual assaults if they are drunk or dress sexy.

The survey also looked into violence towards women, and while a large group of men (a third) consider violence towards women something that affects them, one out of ten consider it a private affair. 42% of all Norwegian men knows someone who has been violent towards women - 14% of these were at the scene when it last happened.
40% of all Norwegian men think that a women is responsible for violence towards her, if she doesn't break out of a violent relationship.

And what makes it even worse, it seems like older men are less misogynist than younger men.
* 50% of all men between 45-60 consider violence towards women an important social issue, while only 23% of all men between 18-29 do that.
* 79% of all men between 45-60 consider restricting social activites as a type of violence, while only 50% of all men between 18-29 do that.

The survey can be found here (.pdf), but it's in Norwegian.

Albania becoming more religious

The Chicago Tribute has an article about religion becoming more widespread in Albania.

Albania finds religion after decades of atheism

The Catholic cathedral that communists turned into a basketball arena for two decades is now busier than ever, drawing more than 2,000 people to a single Sunday mass. An ornate Albanian Orthodox church with three grand, peach-colored domes held popular midnight candlelit processions during the recent Easter season. Earlier, the latest of more than 50 mosques in the area opened with fanfare and a call to prayer.

In a country that once officially outlawed God, religion is back, but in a different way than before the long experiment in godlessness. Many Albanians have resumed spiritual practices with a faith strengthened by the years of suppression. At the same time, new practices and beliefs are being planted by foreign missionaries and money, making this tiny Adriatic country a remarkable example of the globalization of religion.

While I find it a good thing that people are free to practice religon, I find it troubling that foreigners are moving in and changing the religious landscape of Albania. Such foreign influence has a tendency to be fundamentalist in nature, and it seems that this might also be the case in Albania.
Given that the biggest religious group in Albania seems to be Muslims, I think most people can see why this might be a problem (I should add here, that I consider fundamentalists of other religions just as problematic, but Muslim fundamentalists are the one group who are mostly in the news these days).

Thankfully there seems to be a long history of inter-religious tolerance in Albania.

But there is concern about funding from Muslim extremist groups. Many people also say they worry that foreign influence is introducing conservative or radical thinking in other religions as well, at odds with Albania's history as a moderate, multifaith society.

For example, several large crosses erected in the hills outside Shkoder have created tensions, and at least one has been cut down. Many Muslims said they thought Christians from abroad might have put up the crosses, because the custom here -- long before the communists intervened -- was to be more discreet with religious symbols so they would not offend people of other faiths.

"I think it is a good idea to keep religious symbols inside," said Ndricim Sulejmani, the mufti of Shkoder.

Hopefully the moderate voices win out, and Albania becomes a shining example of how inter-faith relationship can work (even including atheists).