Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Greece - a fear of bugs

The Greek government is to introduce new laws penalising phone tapping after many top political figures found out their mobiles were bugged.

Vodaphone has some explaining to do more from the BBC...

Read more here...

Monday, February 13, 2006

EU - talking points

While EU officials try to square the circle of sounding sympathetic to those offended by the Danish cartoon row while not suggesting the EU will impose any kind of press restrictions the European Parliament has put off having any kind of extensive debate.

There may be a limited discussion next week but it's clear no-one wants to touch this issue until some sort of dialogue has been started with the EU's Muslim neighbours, more from the EU Observer...

Read more here...

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Turkmenistan - health worries

While other post-Soviet states saw their health infrastructure collapse Turkmenistan seems to have the unlucky distinction of seeing it's health-care system deliberately destroyed.

President Niyazov has been blamed by many outside observers for the current poor state of care facilities. Actions like replacing 15,000 health-care workers with army recruits in 2004 and threatening to close all Hospitals outside the capital, Ashgabat, in 2005 seem to support their view, more from EurasiaNet...

Read more here...

Monday, February 06, 2006

EU - no laughing matter

Faced with the uproar over the Danish cartoons the EU has so far done nothing. Is this wise ?

Adopting a wait and see policy may work in the short term but soon some sort of policy will have to be agreed more from the EU Observer...

Read more here...

Saturday, February 04, 2006

S.Korea - new history

No political system fits exactly into a 'left' and 'right' wing, but in general, in South Korea, the Grand National Party are written about as on the Right and that means strongly pro-US and anti-communist, while the Uri Party are of the Left and see anti-Americanism as overdue and feel the communist North will respond better to the carrot than the stick.

The bitterness with which their debates are carried out, and it's physical nature in Parliament, can seem a bit surprising to outsiders. The publication of a new version of a classic modern history of Korea may be the first sign that something more fraternal is just around the corner though.

The 'New Understanding of Post-Liberation History' will revise some of the received ideas of those on the Left as it updates a classic work from 1979. Some liberal commentators see this in the more balanced approach to issues like how much choice the first President, Syngman Rhee, had in accepting the division of Korea and think it a signal for a move towards the centre by all political movements - there's even talk of a 'third way' which will jolt the memory of any UK readers more from the Joong Ang Daily...

The conservative press also welcomed this revision and talked about a less divisive future more from the Chosun Ilbo...

Read more here...