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Raymond J. Learsy: The Pope, The Arts, A Nation in Crisis

2009-11-23T06:58:26Z

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed an America so filled with self-doubt. Doubt about our governing institutions, our schools, our health care, our industrial complex, our financial institutions, of who we are and who we have become. The spirit of fairness and shared destiny has descended into rancor and bitterness. For so many what had been a secure future, a decent home has turned into grim unemployment and loss of home and hearth.

The miasma that has descended on the land is palpable. Our sense of unease about the future has virtually done away with the sense of optimism that was the core of the American spirit.

This Saturday, in Vatican City, the Pope spoke before an audience of contemporary artists, but loudly and clearly enough for all of us to hear, to listen and take note. There he issued a clarion call to the assembled artists from all over the world to "be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty", continuing , "Do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who like yourselves consider they are pilgrims in this world and in history".

Who has not been greatly responsible is we, as a nation and government, to the deep spiritual healing and life force that the arts can bring us. Its joys, its shared experience, its sense of what and who we are. Just words? Not really, these are profound issues of a culture and a civilization.

Consider what little we have done to encourage the arts. Even this, under the guise of "helping the artist" as all too frequently being the frame of reference in which this issue is couched. Rather it is time for us as a people to call on those gifted with the vision and the creative impulse to help us once again to dream. To enlist and to engage them fully toward helping us achieve a renewed sense of nationhood and sense of pride.

To pinpoint the little we have done through our government:

Our national budget, now in the multi-trillions, has set aside for the institution most directly entrusted with the support of arts and the arts community, the National Endowment of the Arts a proposed budget of 161.3million. This, but a pittance of the monies that have been funneled to the multitude of other government programs.

Most tellingly, our 'stimulus package' of over $700 Billion set aside, almost grudgingly and with endless strings attached, but some $50 Million to help the arts community.

The sums speak loudly for themselves. It speaks, sadly, of a lack of understanding of what the arts are, and the ways they can assist us in this moment of melancholy.

It was not always this way. During the Great Depression the government had the vision to create one of the most effective government agencies in the nation's history, The Works Progress Administration (WPA) to carry out public works projects that included the construction of public service buildings, roads and fully integrating the arts by operating and commissioning large arts, drama, media and literacy projects. Almost every community in the United States has a park, bridge or school constructed by the agency. The budget provided the then enormously princely sum of $7 Billion from 1936 to 1939. Not all for the arts of course, but the arts played a vital and leading role in the program.

If then, why not now? With a meaningful budget the NEA could reconvene its artists peer panels, panels that were so shamefully dismissed during the 'culture wars' of the early 90's, to review and act on public art submissions and the like. We have great, underutilized talents that could respond to such a mandate and make it flourish.

It is both ironic and sad that the Pope should speak almost at the moment of the passing of a great artist and visionary, Jeanne-Claude who together with her husband Christo collaborated on what was perhaps the greatest, most wonderful, and most healing art project since the end of World War II, an example of what art can do for a nation and its people.

The work, "The Wrapping of The Reichstag" (1995) probably more than anything else brought East and West Germans together. Before the "Wrapping" and after the fall of the wall there were still two Germanys. One disdainful of the other, somewhat resentful of the enormous cost of rebuilding the East. The other unsure of itself, adrift in a new world of new rules and priorities for which they had neither been schooled and were sadly unprepared. Suspicion, mistrust bordering on enmity reigned.

And then Christo and Jeanne-Claude came to wrap the Riechstag. It was an event of such staggering imagination, such immensity and so communal that all of Berlin came to see and mingle on the Reichtag's grounds for weeks on end. First from East and West Berlin, and then from all over the Eastern and Western parts of the new Germany. The air was festive and the hard experiences of adjustment of the years since the fall of the Wall seemed to lift as people rejoiced in the sheer wonder of the wrapped Reichstag, their Reichstag. And for the first time in many, many decades one could justifiably say, East and West Germans shared a common sense of nationhood. What happened there and then could not have been bought nor paid for. It was the vision of two artists and the support of far seeing government agencies that permitted it to happen. And it changed the spiritual landscape of Germany forever. And our spiritual landscape badly needs some TLC!

US Seeks Up To 7,000 More NATO Troops For Afghan War

2009-11-21T23:44:06Z

U.S. and European estimates of the new troops they may get from NATO allies vary from 3,000 to 7,000. Those would complement the additional U.S. forces Mr. Obama is considering; those options range from 10,000 to 40,000, but U.S. officials have said a combination of combat troops and training forces totaling 35,000 has gained the most momentum.

Alan Black: Soccer's Worst Floppers

2009-11-19T12:07:10Z

Soccer is struggling to shake off the curse of flopping -- when a player dives through the air to win his team a penalty. Here's a list of the top soccer floppers.

Germany's Jurgen Klinsmann soared through the air like the Ride of the Valkyries, the uber-flopper of his generation. Had Nietzsche kicked a ball, on seeing Klinsmann, he may have concluded, "Fairness is dead. And you have killed it."

Catholic Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo (above), blessed by God as his divine soccer son, is nailed to the flopper's cross. With pout and glower on his immaculate face, he converts dives into penalties, and free kicks, from whence he scores. Millions follow and worship him.

The soccer ace, Arjen Robben, a fabulous Dutch striker, brings his Calvinist creed to flopping. I am pre-destined to get a penalty kick, and therefore absolved of any guilt in my pursuit of this end, through my fakery.

Andrei Shevchenko, an Eastern European goal raider, falls on his booty, and the referee points to the white penalty spot. Sheva, his nom du guerre, then boots his booty into the net. That's a lot of booty.

During the 2006 World Cup Final (above), Italian star, Marco Materazzi, cast Zidane's sister in a most horrible part, a whore! And then whispered it in his ear. What the hell was this? La Traviata? The insulted Zidane felled the villain with a world famous head butt. The Italian fell from his high horse, sliced on the grass, like a cut loaf. No applause for the pane, adulation for the butter.

Fabio Gross, a player from the old boot of Europe, was an Italian ace in the submarine fleet -- Dive! Dive! Dive! Cheating the Australians out of glory in World Cup 2006. He is unlikely to find any friends deep, down, under.

Goalkeepers: so often the flopper's victims, not here. Chilean goalie, Robert Rojas was down and bleeding. A missile hurled from the crowd lay several yards away. The game was stopped, and then abandoned, riots in the stands. Later, the TV cameras showed the razor blade he used to cut himself. The shell landed nowhere near him. Result: Banned for life. Banished from respect.

Alan Black is the co-author of the upcoming book, The Glorious World Cup -- A Balls Out Guide to South Africa 2010 (NAL/Penguin May 2010)

German Soccer Arrests: Ante Sapina, Four Others Reported Arrested In Berlin

2009-11-19T11:52:11Z

FRANKFURT — German police have arrested an undisclosed number of people suspected of fixing matches in major European soccer leagues.

The arrests, in Germany and abroad, came as part of an investigation into match-fixing supported by UEFA, according to a statement by the prosecutor's office in Bochum.

Paul Krugman: Germany's Jobs, Unemployment Miracle Can Teach US

2009-11-17T01:32:01Z

Germany's jobs miracle hasn't received much attention in this country -- but it's real, it's striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.

Dennis Rodman Temporarily Detained In Germany

2009-11-16T18:47:08Z

BERLIN — Former basketball star Dennis Rodman was temporarily detained in Germany for allegedly skipping out on a euro3,400 ($5,100) hotel bill for a post-game party, a prosecution official said Monday.

Senior prosecutor Juergen Bauer said Monday that Rodman had played in a "USA Legends of Basketball" exhibition game in the western town of Trier and threw a party afterward at his hotel.

Lord Weidenfeld of Chelsea: 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

2009-11-16T15:53:28Z

Neither rainstorms nor traffic jams dented the good mood of both the locals and prominent guests last Monday in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. The rows of VIPs, had they been quizzed, would all -- like the hallowed JFK -- have called themselves Berliners.

Twenty years ago I was also standing at the window of the Adlon Hotel near the Brandenburg Gate, watching there and on television the crumbling of the wall. I was fascinated to listen to what tunes the young people near and on the wall sang and danced: sentimental favorites of the past, tangos and American pop. The orchestras near the VIP grandstand played no military marches, not even classics by Haydn or Handel; no trace of triumph -- on the contrary, triste tones of Verdi's Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves. Nowhere else in the world would such a potpourri be thinkable on such a day.

Berlin 2009 was a bivouac of peace. From numerous conversations, table talk and podium discussions there sprang a feeling of relief -- relief at being able to leave a period of history behind. As for the future: the Germans are not aware that the Federal Republic, whether they want it or not, is today the most important power (the word the new generation hates) in Europe and will remain so for quite a while. The 'count me out' mentality of the last two generations is still strongly rooted in the German popular soul. In a country in which words such as Power, Volk and Fuhrer are taboo, although in every other language they are in daily use, it is difficult to enunciate and spell words even if the meaning may have changed.

Nor do people think too much about the great threats and perils from powerful hostile forces, whether they be Iran, the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or religious fanaticism, and above all they don't want to think about these menaces to the very logical end.

The leading figure of contemporary Germany is a woman well aware of all these perils and also prepared to spell them out. Her appearance before the U.S. Congress ushered in a new phase of American policy towards Europe and caused Germany to become, even though Washington elegantly avoids rubbing it in, the most important partner of the United States in Europe.

Who else could fulfill this role for Washington? At present Great Britain seems politically lame because Gordon Brown's Labour Government fights a tough battle for survival and the Tory Opposition pursues an absurd European policy which makes them everywhere unpopular or at best incomprehensible. France's president, in his thoughts and actions, is jumpily unpredictable, playing opera seria and opera buffa in turn. Italy's Berlusconi is a mixture of Borgia Pope and Frank Sinatra. The new Merkel Government has proven men of talent and force such as Wolfgang Schäuble, the brilliant Karl-Theodor Guttenberg and the coalition partner's leader Guido Westerwelle.

Two Russians representing very different, though not unrelated, versions of her post-Communist regime sat in the first row of the grandstand. Gorbachev, to whom one justly ascribes the main role in the drama of communism's overthrow, is the typical 'prophet abroad'; in truth he wanted to save the original Communist idea by sweeping reforms, and yet the system collapsed before his eyes. Medvedev, the current president, is still regarded as a moderate reformer although he can revert to threatening tones.

In the next weeks and days we'll see what sort of team of leaders in the spirit of the Lisbon Treaty will direct the Brussels power machine. But one thing is certain: in the future much of the power -- however uncomfortable the word may still sound for Germans -- will emanate from Germany, where it is strongly rooted. By the way, the only moment in all the ceremonies where any sort of patriotic pride was discernible was when the orchestra intoned the old music hall ditty praising the fresh and healthy 'Berlin Air.'

Germany: Man Convicted Of Marwa al-Sherbini's Court Murder

2009-11-11T11:32:28Z

DRESDEN, Germany — A Russian-born German man was found guilty Wednesday of murder and sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a pregnant Egyptian woman in court, an attack that triggered outrage in the Muslim world.

The Dresden state court said in its ruling that because of the particularly brutal nature of the crime defendant Alexander Wiens, 28, would not be eligible for early release.

Robert Scheer: Gorbachev's Sermon on the Mount

2009-11-11T03:41:19Z

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." That biblical quotation certainly applies to Mikhail Gorbachev, a man not honored enough for the example he set and whose past practices and recent cautions about Afghanistan should be heeded by Barack Obama. Or, on a secular note, if the Sermon on the Mount doesn't cut it for you, take German Chancellor Angela Merkel's praise for the former Soviet leader at the ceremony marking the fall of the Berlin Wall, which he helped destroy: "You courageously allowed things to happen, and that was much more than we could have expected."

The hero's reception granted Gorbachev when he accompanied the German leader across the Bornholmer Street bridge to mark the 20th anniversary of the end of the city's division was credit long overdue. As The New York Times reported: "More than 1,000 people lined the bridge Monday night under gray skies and a steady drizzle to hear the chancellor speak, but their loudest cheers came when she thanked Mr. Gorbachev for the reforming attitude he brought to the Soviet leadership that helped make the events of that historic night possible." The crowd, chanting "Gorby, Gorby, Gorby," understood that he had done something unique for a world leader: He admitted the error of his system's ways and radically reversed its course.

The surrender of immense political power, personal as well as international in scope, is something we never expect from leaders, but Gorbachev set a model of self-sacrifice for a larger purpose that one wishes others would follow. How rare in history for a leader of such great standing to surrender his position, along with its abundance of personal perquisites, for the larger common good. How unexpected for the leader of a military colossus to turn swords into plowshares.

That is what Gorbachev did, beginning with his bold outreach to Western leaders including Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, prompting the latter to say, "I like Mr. Gorbachev; we can do business together." The British prime minister influenced President Reagan to take a similarly open stance, and when Gorbachev reciprocated, the Cold War effectively came to an end. Gorbachev's words were followed by actions, beginning with suspension of the scheduled deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons. That was followed with an even bolder proposal to cut both the Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals by half and then act to eliminate them altogether. Most important for the current moment was Gorbachev's decisive moves to reduce the Soviet troop presence in Afghanistan, followed by his 1988 announcement of the full withdrawal of troops from that country.

Gorbachev drew on his experience in a CNN interview Sunday during which he again played the part of peacemaker, urging Obama to pull troops out of Afghanistan. "I think that our experience deserves attention," the former Soviet president said. He recommended that the U.S., in the hope of bringing an end to "the long suffering of the [Afghan] people," focus on "dialogue" and that "withdrawal from Afghanistan should be the goal."

Unfortunately, it seems from media leaks that President Obama is moving in the opposite direction. The speculation now is that he will increase U.S. forces by a number slightly less than the 40,000 that Gen. Stanley McChrystal has requested, a decision that would make no sense at all. If the goal is, as McChrystal's report defined it, to rebuild Afghan civil society from the ground up, something on the order of the half-million troops that were dispatched to Vietnam will be required. But that cannot be done without a draft, and we all know that outcome would not be politically acceptable to either the Democratic or Republican party.

Nor is such nation-building advisable, even if the American public and the treasury would support it. Our war in Afghanistan is no more warranted than the one the Soviets waged. Ironically, they were opposing Muslim fanatics we supplied with Stinger rockets and whose descendants we now blame for terrorism. In the name of fighting Soviet imperialism, our CIA recruited the worst of the worst and called them freedom fighters until we renamed them terrorists. We got it terribly wrong then, and yet we still insist that we know what we are doing in that country.

When Gorbachev came to power he, like Obama, inherited a war that was not in the interest of his nation. If the response of a Soviet dictator was to end it, might we not be justified in expecting the enlightened president of a democratic society to do the same?

Chris Weigant: Cold War's End -- The Wall Comes Down

2009-11-09T20:17:44Z

It must be a little hard to understand, for anyone reading this under the age of about 30 or so, the significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Because one event has become historical shorthand for an immense change in the dynamics of not just our country, but the entire world. We've all seen the pictures of an exuberant crowd at the Brandenburg Gate (or "Checkpoint Charlie"), seemingly tearing The Wall down with their bare hands. But it wasn't just one wall, or one city, or even one country that the events in Berlin were changing -- it was the entire political makeup of the planet. Because the fall of The Wall signified the fall of the Soviet Union, and an end to the Cold War. And while this was of enormous historical import, I fear that future generations won't really pay much attention to it. Truth be told, I can already feel it slipping away in the American consciousness. Which, while I understand the impulse, I still think is a shame. Because as the Cold War is forgotten, passing into the dusty pages of children's history books, we run the risk of forgetting some of its lessons.

The Cold War was a war of shadows. It only erupted into outright (or "hot") wars in limited ways and limited areas (Korea, Vietnam, various Central American and African skirmishes). The history books do a fine job of marking these flareups (since they have concrete facts like battles and dates), distilling them into a couple of paragraphs for bored schoolchildren to read. But these are mere trees; the forest left unseen was the national fear which every sane man, woman, and child felt for almost half a century -- the fear of instant and total annihilation from a massive nuclear strike. And that is the lesson which is in danger of being forgotten, at least in my humble opinion.

The single-most stunning political prophecy which has even been written in American history was written by a Frenchman. In the 1830s -- when the United States of America was barely a half-century old itself, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, as the final words to the first volume of Democracy In America (it sold so well, he went back and wrote a sequel later; at the urging of his publisher, no doubt) a fairly accurate description of the Cold War -- over one hundred years before it happened. What Tocqueville wrote, in the time of Andrew Jackson:

There are now two great nations in the world which, starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans.

Both have grown in obscurity, and while the world's attention was occupied elsewhere, they have suddenly taken their place among the leading nations, making the world take note of their birth and of their greatness almost at the same instant.

All other peoples seem to have nearly reached their natural limits and to need nothing but to preserve them; but these two are growing. All the others have halted or advanced only through great exertions; they alone march easily and quickly forward along a path whose end no eye can yet see.

The American fights against natural obstacles; the Russian is at grips with men. The former combats the wilderness and barbarism; the latter, civilization with all its arms. America's conquests are made with the plowshare, Russia's with the sword.

To attain their aims, the former relies on personal interest and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals.

The latter in a sense concentrates the whole power of society in one man.

One has freedom as the principal means of action; the other has servitude.

Their point of departure is different and their paths diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.

As you can see, this is a fairly accurate description of the latter half of the Twentieth Century, given the limitations Tocqueville faced in making such a prediction (he did not, you'll notice, foresee the rise of communism and overthrow of the czars). But his last sentence stands as the absolute gold standard of political prediction, for this country's history at least.

Because that was what the Cold War was all about. It was seen as a global struggle for territory, and for hearts and minds, between two "super" powers. Democracy and Communism were in the mightiest struggle this planet has ever seen, each competing to gain enough strength to destroy the other. And each side had nuclear weapons. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots of them. Thousands and thousands of A-bombs and H-bombs. Back then the term "ground zero" held only one meaning -- the point directly under a nuclear explosion. Not to be disrespectful, but it never would have entered our minds back then to cheapen this frightening term by applying it to anything less, no matter how horrifying.

All of America (and, one assumes without having too much data, all of the Soviet Union as well) lived with the constant fear that these bombs could drop at any time. The college I attended had, just to remind you (in those anti-nuke-movement days), little arrows painted here and there stating "9.2 miles to ground zero," since we had an Air Force base nearby. But virtually nowhere in America (where anybody actually lived) was truly deemed safe. Everywhere was a potential target for an atom bomb, for one reason or another. And, again, the bombs could have dropped any day during that time.

It's tough for younger readers who were not exposed to this mindset to understand what this meant in terms of daily life. I came of age in the later parts of the Cold War, and didn't even see the craziness of the early parts (the McCarthy era, the backyard bomb shelter craze, the Civil Defense air raid drills, and all the rest of it). By the time I came on the scene, most of these had faded. But the background anxiety remained. The Emergency Broadcast System was just beginning to be used for natural disasters, when I was growing up. It was created, of course, to warn us all that the bombs were coming. And it was tested frequently ("bee-eee-eee-eee-eep"), so you'd remember it was there. Likewise, the first of the month at noon the local neighborhood air raid sirens would be tested. And the knowledge that everything around you could be incinerated in a flash was always present.

Children today, thankfully, grow up largely without this awareness (even though the danger still does indeed exist, America and Russia have largely buried the hatchet -- at least for now -- so the danger is not viewed as imminent). They don't do "duck and cover" drills in elementary schools anymore, in other words. Truth be told, by the time I was in school, people had mostly figured out the ludicrousness of hiding under your desk when the whole building was likely to be vaporized in an attack, so I never experienced such drills myself.

America has so rarely been directly attacked on our own territory that such overreaction is understandable. There was 9/11, of course. There was Pearl Harbor and a few Aleutian islands during World War II -- back when Hawai'i and Alaska weren't even states, merely territories. And there was the War of 1812, when the British burned the original White House. But that's about it, not counting the Civil War (since it didn't directly involve foreigners). During World War II, both the East and West Coasts of America prepared for attacks and invasions, but thankfully they never came. We simply didn't have to go through anything akin to the Blitz in London.

Americans, to put it bluntly, are not used to having bombs dropped on us. And with the arms race which took place during the Cold War, all of a sudden one bomb could obliterate an entire city. And thousands of those bombs were in the hands of people we considered downright unstable, if not outright insane. The threat of a "first strike" was the biggest fear, because we, as a nation, demonized the Soviets until they were barely recognizable as human beings. This happens in any war, I should mention -- cold or hot. But these "evil monsters" were capable of such widespread and massive destruction that it literally changed the psychology of our entire country for almost 50 years.

And when the Berlin Wall came down, it symbolized the end of that era. The Soviet Union's disintegration meant America could finally take a deep breath and heave an enormous sigh of relief. We had won the long battle of wits. The Cold War was over.

That is what The Wall coming down meant. That is why it was important, beyond the boundaries of one city in Europe. It was the end of an era for the entire planet.

My personal Berlin Wall story, such as it is: I was in Berlin about eleven months after The Wall came down, in 1990. I visited Brandenburg Gate, but didn't see the statue of the horses on top, because they had taken them down to be cleaned. Oh, well. But on the site was an open-air bazaar of East Germans selling anything they thought the tourists would buy. You could buy as big -- and as graffitied -- a chuck of The Wall as you could afford. You could also buy all sorts of other things. The military mementos were simply stunning. I could have, for a hundred bucks or so, bought a full East German general's dress uniform -- although the medals would have run me a little extra. Because I couldn't really see a use for such a thing for myself, I took a pass. But I did buy one of those fuzzy Russian hats with the ear flaps, which were standard issue for their militaries. It had a big metal star on it (red, of course), with a hammer-and-sickle icon in the middle. Being a Californian, I don't have a lot of use for such a hat, but I did wear it recently (minus the big red star, I wasn't making any sort of political statement, just keeping my ears from freezing off) to Barack Obama's inauguration.

But back to Berlin. Being eleven months late for the party, we found no Wall at Brandenburg Gate. We got some advice, headed off on the U-bahn, and got off were we had been directed. It was a very strange place. Imagine, if you will, a city park. This park is long, but rather narrow, as it stretches and curves off into the distance. It seems like a grassy place where soccer fields should be, until you notice the oddity of the enormous light poles dotting the landscape. The Wall was gone -- but its ghost remained. You could easily see where it had been, and which side had wanted to keep an eye on it (in West Berlin, it ran right up to buildings and streets, because nobody cared how close to it you got in the West -- the dogs, the mines, the snipers, the floodlights and all the rest were all on the East side). We followed a line of other tourists, to a section of the Wall which hadn't been torn down yet. When we got there, we paid a few marks to some enterprising Ossies (who were much better at the whole capitalism game than the sad former soldiers at Brandenburg, selling off their former glory). They had little hammers and chisels, which they would rent to you (until you got tired), for a few marks.

So not only did I get to see the actual Wall, I got to chip off my own little chunks and flakes of it. I brought enough back from my trip to give one out to all the members of my extended family who were younger than I. All the cousins and nieces and nephews opened their holiday presents from me that December... and were likely profoundly disappointed in what they saw. A little flake of concrete, with a dash of paint on it. "This is what Chris is giving out this year?" I could almost hear them collectively say. I don't even know if any of them kept them, truth be told. But I wanted them to own a little piece of history, so they might understand a little bit of what all the kids who grew up before them had to live through. At the very least, I hope they got some "show and tell" points at school with them.

I did keep one chunk for myself, though. I have it here on my desk. I was extremely late to the party, as I said, but I like to think that I did my own tiny, tiny bit -- with a little rock collector's hammer and chisel, rented from a former communist -- striking my own little blow for freedom.

[Note: I couldn't really find a way to work this in to the story, as it would have been a distraction, but if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend Roger Waters' live performance of Pink Floyd's The Wall, which was staged and filmed at the Brandenburg Gate site the same year I was there (no, I didn't get to see it). It is the most surreal overlap of art and reality (which is imitating which?) I have ever seen, complete with East German military displays (as part of the staging), as well as cameos from a seriously eclectic group of artists (the only time, I would warrant, that Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, and Tim Curry ever shared a stage -- to name but three). If you've heard the album before, but never seen this "concert flick," I would urge you to do so as soon as possible.]

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

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Berlin Wall Anniversary (PHOTOS)

2009-11-09T15:40:06Z

Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall Monday. Here is a look at this historic day in photos.

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Stefan Sirucek: Remembering Kristallnacht in Berlin: The Story of Hans Riess

2009-11-09T08:35:51Z

November 9th is an important date in German history. It marks the day that the Berlin Wall fell, 20 years ago this month, physically and symbolically uniting a dissevered nation.

The reason it's not a national holiday in Germany, is that November 9th - specifically the night of November 9th - also marks a much darker anniversary: Kristallnacht, the so-called "Night of Broken Glass."

On that night in 1938 thousands of Jewish storefronts across Germany were smashed, hundreds of synagogues burnt, and roughly 30,000 Jews arrested and taken to concentration camps in a coordinated government action, while some 90 people were killed. Though preceded by a series of repressive laws, as the first large-scale campaign of violence and internment against Jews by the Nazi government it is often considered to be the beginning of the Holocaust.

Hans Riess, an 88 year-old resident of Wesley Hills, NY remembers the date well. He was born in Berlin in 1921. On November 9th, 1938 he was 17 years old.

"I was in school and I was the only Jew in the class,'' recalls Mr. Riess with a light German accent. "The other kids didn't know I was Jewish - blond, blue eyes and everything else.''

His teacher did know, however, and that day he asked the boy to see him after class.

He warned him to be careful and not to go home if he noticed anything strange. "He said he didn't know what would happen to Jews that night, but he'd heard something terrible would happen to Jews all over the country," says Mr. Riess.

That afternoon, Mr. Riess rode his bicycle to the family home in the Charlottenburg district, which doubled as his father's dental practice.

Normally a blue light outside the office signaled that his father was in his practice. Yet as he drew near, Mr. Riess saw that the light was out, which struck him as unusual.

"I noticed it and I didn't stop,'' he says.

What he didn't know at the time was that the Gestapo had already arrested his father. The Nazi officer had entered the dental practice and posed as a new patient, sitting in the waiting room until the last patient left, and then arresting Mr. Riess' father on the spot. In a remark that was either deeply cynical or surprisingly sympathetic the man instructed his father to "take a heavy coat and have a good dinner."

He was going to Sachsenhausen.

Instead of stopping, the young Mr. Riess cycled on until he reached a local grocery store owned by family friends. The family had a list of Germans willing to take in Jews for a week and Mr. Riess went to one these families to avoid arrest.

However that night, unable to contain his curiosity, he slipped out with his trusty bicycle and rode into the city.

"I was curious," he says simply.

"It was a full moon in November, a very nice night to walk around," recalls Mr. Riess, remembering a scene that in its grim context made for "a very strange picture of the city."

By that time most of the damage had been done. In the moonlight he saw the shattered windows of Jewish shops.

"They were broken with big bricks by the brownshirts," says Mr. Riess firmly, referring to the uniforms of the Nazi SA officers.

"It was so bad that a lot of glass went into the street and the cars couldn't go anywhere," says Mr. Riess. "They were afraid to damage their tires."

Yet on his bicycle the 17 year-old was able to go where cars couldn't and he cycled on through the strangely silent, moonlit streets. People had come outside to see what was happening, he recalls.

"Lots of people were out there. Not doing anything. Simply looking - like I was.''

Everyone was very quiet.

The Nazi government claimed that Kristallnacht was a spontaneous eruption of violence against Jews in reaction to the assassination of a Nazi officer by a Jewish youth - in Goebbels' words the nation "followed its healthy instincts." Yet in truth it was a carefully staged and executed event, with specific orders given to the Nazi troops carrying out the attacks. In his account, Mr. Riess describes neither anger nor hatred, but shock and uncertainty as the prevailing emotions among those present.

"What I saw were people walking around, not throwing any bricks but just being surprised by what was happening," says Mr. Riess. "They were just civilians - German citizens. I looked at their faces and I could tell they really didn't know."

In the distance beyond the questioning faces, Riess saw the synagogue that his family belonged to - a distinctive building with three domes. "I could see it burning," he remembers.
Police and firemen stood nearby making sure the fire didn't spread to other buildings, but did nothing to quench the blaze. It was one of some 267 synagogues that would burn or be ransacked across the country that night.

It's difficult to capture an event like Kristallnacht. Mere numbers are too cold and while personal accounts convey the heartbeat of the moment they are by their nature incomplete - the information gathered by one set of eyes in one place at one time.

Mr. Riess' story is just that - his own. It is the story of a person who experienced a critical, terrible moment in history and escaped with his life and his optimism intact. Miraculously, his father would later get out of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and flee with his wife to Shanghai and Mr. Riess himself would escape Germany as part of the famous Kindertransport to England.

Yet despite the remarkable nature of the events in his life, in the foreword to his 2001 memoir - My Middle Name Is Israel - Mr. Riess stresses the shared nature of the experience.

"Yet I am sure that my story and the story of my parents is not that unusual. It is certainly not unique," he writes.

"There were many Jews like us."

(Hans Riess)

Clinton: Berlin Wall Festivities Not Just A Party

2009-11-08T22:59:07Z

BERLIN — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Europeans and Americans on Sunday to see the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall as a call to action against new global threats.

On the eve of celebrations marking 20 years since the collapse of the wall that divided East and West Berlin, Clinton said the hard work that went into ending the Cold War must be channeled to meet fresh challenges, including the fights against extremism and climate change.

Sarah van Gelder: People Power Brought Down the Berlin Wall

2009-11-08T22:44:37Z

What brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago?

Some argue that it was the Cold War and the escalation of military spending that was just too costly for the Soviet empire to maintain.

If that was the case, that should be a cautionary tale for the United States as we struggle to maintain a nuclear arsenal, support over 700 military bases around the world, develop expensive new weapons systems, and, of course, fight two wars - including one in a country where the USSR, also, met its match.

But military over-spending was only part of the reason the people of East Germany were able to bring down the wall, according to an article in Forbes by Konrad H. Jarausch, professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "Ultimately it was the spread of detente, helped by his personal rapport with the U.S. president that allowed [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev to ... set the satellites free," he says.

Another factor was just as important. The wall couldn't have come down without a nonviolent people power uprising.

A recent account from the Geneva-based Ecumenical News International (ENI) tells of the church-based protests exactly a month before the Berlin Wall's opening, that followed earlier days of protests:

"After the 9 October services in Leipzig, an estimated 70,000 people poured into the city centre, connecting in a full circle on a ring road around the downtown area. 'There were too many of us that night to arrest, the prisons were already full,' Jochen Lassig, one Leipzig reporter told ENI."

According to the article, there had been warnings in the communist-run media that force would be used to suppress demonstrations. "Local doctors and nurses reported that hospitals were building up blood reserves and being put on alert to deal with bullet wounds."

"Pastor Christian Fuhrer of Leipzig's St Nicholas' Church gave this account:
"More than 2,000 people leaving the church were welcomed by tens of thousands waiting outside with candles in their hands - an unforgettable moment. Two hands are necessary to carry a candle and to protect it from extinguishing so that you can not carry stones or clubs at the same time.

"In front of the Leipzig headquarters of the Stasi - the East German secret police - demonstrators gathered, laid candles on the steps, and sang songs. What few knew at the time was that inside the darkened building, most Stasi members were present and armed with live ammunition. They had orders to defend a strategic building. They had sandbags under the windows, still displayed today as it is now a museum.

"Irmtraut Hollitzer, once curator of the museum, said: 'One stone through the window would have been enough to set off a bloodbath.'"

Professor Jarausch concurs that it was people power that made the difference:

"It took a transnational grass roots movement of courageous Polish workers, Hungarian activists, German refugees and Czech dissidents braving considerable risks in order to revive civil society and regain space for public protest. ... The fall of the Wall was magical because it signaled the peaceful triumph of people's power over a regime that commanded enormous repressive force."

The combination of a leader who understood the need for change - President Gorbachev - with a popular uprising allowed change to proceed without violence, and much more quickly than anyone could have imagined.

So the question this anniversary raises for me: Can we build such a people power movement today, strong enough to overcome the power of global corporations and wise enough to collaborate across our many differences? Because that's what it will take to get on with the urgent business of stopping climate catastrophe, building sustainable economies, reorienting our societies away from violence and militarism and towards a world that works for all.

We have a forward-thinking president, but he - and we - can't get much done without powerful people's movements creating real change.

Sarah van Gelder is executive editor of YES! Magazine and YES! Online, which report on powerful ideas and practical actions for a better world.

Berlin Wall 20th Anniversary: Germany Celebrates Memory Of The Fall

2009-11-08T20:38:15Z

BERLIN — Ulrich Sauff and his wife stared at the mammoth domino pieces marking the path where the Berlin Wall once stood and reminisced about life in the barrier's shadow.

"It was like a prison," said Sauff, 73, who lived on the Western side of the wall. "For us 'Wessis,' the few kilometers from our old home to our new home (in the East) was unthinkable."

Jim Luce: Sweden's Queen on "Fire Souls" -- Leaders in Child Protection

2009-11-07T09:32:48Z

Ten years ago, Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden reached the point where she could no longer witness the appalling conditions of children around the world – especially child victims of sexual abuse and exploitation.

She took action and founded the World Childhood Foundation, known often as simply “Childhood.”

Today, the foundation has supported over 500 projects in 15 countries, including Brazil, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine, and the U.S.

Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, Founder of the World Childhood Foundation
(Photo: John Lee).

I heard Queen Silvia speak at the United Nations last week, was able to join a press conference with her, and then speak to her in person. What an incredible human being.

The symposium was co-sponsored by the United Nations Office for Partnerships and included an emotional and powerful keynote address by Ann Veneman, Executive Director for UNICEF.

The Childhood Anniversary Symposium was built on the theme of the Articles of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which forms the basis for Childhood’s work. This year, UNCRC celebrates 20 years of enormous impact.

Her Majesty Queen Silvia believes strongly in both the Rights of the Child and the Swedish notion, “Fire Souls.” People whose passion to better the world burns within them.

The World Childhood Foundation has two primary functions: to act as a Silicon Valley-like incubator for small NGOs helping disadvantaged children to grow large and connect with better established organizations, and to serve as a royal magnet to attract additional funding to support them.

The Queen is particularly interested in Fire Souls, who– through their passion – have devoted their lives to helping children.

Mats Agurén, secretary general of Childhood, Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, and
Charlotte Brandin, executive director, Childhood USA at United Nations press conference.

In her Opening Remarks in the ECOSOC Chamber, Queen Silvia said (excerpts):

Ten years ago I had a vision, a dream to reach out to the world’s most vulnerable children. To give them a real childhood. I had seen them during my travels, I had met them in the favelas, I had read the shocking statistics on the sexual abuse of millions of children around the world.

I knew that there was a need, an urgent need, but I had not yet formulated a plan on what could be done. Together, with those who became my co-founders, we were able to make my vision a reality.

Today I am proud to say that we together have built a solid structure working intensively to identify the most competent organizations with which to collaborate as well as the best practices to combat abuse and violence of children.

And I also take pride in what Childhood has achieved in the past ten years. I know that we have made a difference for children around the world. Our efforts, projects and results will be explored during this symposium.

Our project partners are what we call “fire souls” -- people who burn with passion and commitment -- people who have a strong belief in how to help and how to change the lives of street children, of children in institutions and of young mothers and sexually abused children.

In all these different areas we identified committed partners who are compassionate and who with Childhood’s support and collaboration make a difference as they reach out to the most vulnerable children. Childhood is proud to provide that support.

We often see the problems, the children who suffer, or statistics on children who have been exploited. At Childhood we see this as well.

But we also try to see the positive aspects – that we are able to help and that there, in the past ten years, have been positive changes in attitudes about children’s rights.

The sexual abuse of children or trafficking of children are crimes that today are well defined and governments cooperate in identifying the perpetrators as well as supporting initiatives to prevent child abuse.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is now high on the global agenda and there are few countries which have not ratified the convention.

However, we must continue talking, because raising the awareness of the rights of the child is the most important challenge we face.

For the child to be seen, we adults need to see them, and we need to hear them.

Let us therefore commemorate the upcoming anniversary of the Convention of the Rights of the Child on November 20th by ensuring that everyone we work with is aware of the Convention and its contents. This can be done in many ways.

In Childhood, we have chosen to highlight some of the articles of the Convention through very tangible, hands-on projects.

We want to be close to the children and through our work show concrete examples and best practices.

Many of our projects are run by small organizations that through their passion and dedication create models and methods – but which need support in illustrating and possibly replicating.

Most of all, our work is about prevention. We need to ensure that the child is not at risk, that a child is not used as a product in the trafficking market and that the child always has access to trusted adults.

In short we need to ensure that children have the right to a childhood in which they are allowed to grow in a natural way both physically and emotionally.

We must also recognize the critical role of the private sector in our work. It has only been possible to achieve my vision to launch Childhood because of the commitment of private companies and family foundations.

Without their compassion, their ability to see the need and their willingness to help fund our work, my vision could not have become a reality.

It is also the collaboration between the private sector and our “fire souls” – that has enabled Childhood to reach out to the most vulnerable children of our world.

H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden with a little girl at a Childhood project in Russia
(Photo: Jens Rötzsch).

A panel discussion with Childhood project and corporate partners – along with other representatives working with children at risk – focused on prevention and intervention approaches on how to spread public awareness about child sexual abuse and exploitation.

The panel discussed how existing as well as new stakeholders can provide sustainable intervention strategies for the well-being and protection of children who are victims of this kind of abuse.

Some of the speakers are Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman, Carlson Co., Jenny Bowen, founder of Half the Sky in China, Natasha Jackson, GSMA Mobile Alliance, and Mats Agurén, Secretary General of World Childhood Foundation.

Childhood has a generous group co-founders, each of whom contribute $1 million dollars.

These include The Axel Johnson Group, The Barbro E. Heinz Family, The Charles B. Wang Foundation, The Curtis L. Carlson Family Foundation, The DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund, Heimbold Foundation, The Oriflame-af Jochnick Foundation, SAP AG, and Skandia

Childhood has a focus on corporate responsibility and has over the last decade engaged a long list of corporate sponsors who have contributed not only through direct monetary donations, but through integrating Childhood into their advertising and branding strategies.

Major partner companies have each signed a three year cooperation contract with the foundation, working with Childhood in its cause-related issues. The Major Partners include Volvo.

Meeting Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden, Founder of the World Childhood Foundation
(Photo: John Lee).

During the press conference I addressed Her Majesty by stating that I wear two hats: I build orphanages and family care models around the world through Orphans International Worldwide, begun with the proceeds of my mother’s estate, and I write on Thought Leaders and Global Citizens, both of which epitomize the Queen.

She responded, “I can see your mother was a Fire Soul, and I see that you take after her.”

“We cannot do it alone, for the needs of children are a global issue. It is a global question of how best to respond. All of us – individuals, NGOs, governments – need to work together,” she told me.

H.S.H. Prince Albert of Monaco serves on the Global Advisory Board of Orphans International Worldwide, Duke Frantz of Bavaria has contributed to exploring the possibility of OI working in Romania, and I have met Princess Margarita in Bucharest to discuss the needs of Romanian orphans.

The Queen, and her youngest daughter, Royal Highness Princess Madeleine, are part of the pantheon of royalty who care so much for humanity. Prince Albert. Princess Diana. The Aga Khan.

No Fire Soul that I have met burns more brightly than the Queen of Sweden.

The United Nations Office for Partnerships serves as a gateway for public-private partnerships with the United Nations system, in furtherance of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

UNOP provides Partnership Advisory Services and Outreach to a variety of entities, including academic institutions, companies, foundations, government agencies, and civil society organizations.

The Office encourages investment in high-impact initiatives by assisting in the design of programs and projects; helping establish and manage networks; advocating the use of the MDGs as a framework for action; and advising on UN procedures and best practices.

Furthermore, the Office manages the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, established by the Secretary-General in 1998 to serve as the interface for the partnership between the U.N. system and the U.N. Foundation.

This is the public charity responsible for administering Ted Turner’s $1 billion contribution in support of U.N. causes.

Dolores The Bears' Mysterious And Sad Hair Loss (PHOTOS)

2009-11-05T13:59:06Z

As the German winter approaches, Dolores and her friends will not be bundling up -- the Leipzig zoo's bears have lost all of their fur. The scary part is that vets aren't sure why the sudden hair loss happened or if there is anything to do about it. The hairless bears have become something of a spectacle at their zoo as crowds flock to check out their rare condition. HuffPost Green wishes the poor animals a warm winter and a safe recovery.

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Steve Parker: Shocker! GM Cancels Opel Sale, But Why?

2009-11-05T01:42:38Z

On Monday of this week, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel met with President Obama in Washington and then addressed the US Congress, where she was warmly greeted, and made an impassioned address concerning the environment and global warming.

She was on top of the world when, just minutes later, she heard the news that General Motors had decided call off the sale of their European division headquartered in Germany, Opel.

And GM being GM, the company announced Wednesday that it will cut 10,000 jobs at Opel and their British division, Vauxhall, un-employing about 20% of the company's 50,000 workers.

Opel's GT was one of the first Opel vehicles sold in America; some compared it to a "mini-Corvette"

And boy, is Merkel pissed. She might not be making more warm and fuzzy speeches to Congress anytime soon. And European Union members share her feelings. Unions are all-powerful in Europe, and GM dropping the sale and the resultant job losses could wind up looking like a huge defeat for Germany and the entire EU at the hands of a recently bankrupt worldwide corporation.

In Europe's semi-socialist societies, people expect to train for good jobs, get good jobs and then keep those good jobs with benefits which would give a heart attack to the average Harvard-trained bean counter in this country. And they expect their governments to protect their rights ... and their jobs. For years, union members have been on the boards of directors of most large companies.

The sale would have needed approval from the Germans and the EU; apparently GM has had enough of dealing with national (and continental) governments and they cited the costs involved in the sale and the necessary waits for permissions from Euro entities as some of the reasons for their decision.

Opel started making cars in 1899; here's one of their first models

John Smith (wonder what name he uses when he checks into a hotel?), GM's group vice president for corporate planning and alliances, said other considerations in the cancellation were GM's and Opel's improved cash conditions.

The new Opel GT served as the basis for the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky

The plan for GM was to sell Opel to a consortium led by gigantic Canadian auto parts-maker Magna International which would be bankrolled by a Russian bank, Sberbank; the bank and Magna would each get 27.5% of the company, GM would keep 35% and the employees would own 10%. Ironically, Magna may get more work orders from GM because they're keeping Opel.

The sales cancellation move came as a shock to almost everyone in the worldwide auto business. Insider consensus was that GM would sell Opel as they've planned to for the past seven months, a move which would have infused many, many needed millions into GM's shaky coffers.

Canceling the sale is actually going to cost GM. They have to pay back a $2.3 billion bridge loan from the German government (meant to keep Opel open, up and running during the sales process) which they've already been paying back, but they still owe the Germans some $1.4 billion. GM plans to incur about $4.4 billion in restructuring expenses because of their decision to cancel Opel's sale.

Think Tank's Advice To Europe: Stop 'Fetishizing' American Relationship

2009-11-03T17:20:53Z

The council released a study on Monday called "Toward a Post-American Europe," based on wide-ranging interviews and research conducted in the 27 EU member states. In it, the authors make a clear appeal to European leaders: This "fetishization" of the trans-Atlantic relationship must stop, write Jeremy Shapiro and Nick Witney. It is high time that Europe declare a new, "post-American" age and do away with old myths about the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Lessons For US Economic Policy From The Fall Of The Berlin Wall

2009-11-03T09:46:03Z

The abrupt and miserable end of the socialist experiment--it all happened so fast, with East Germany getting absorbed into West Germany on Oct. 3, 1990, and the Soviet Union disappearing a year later, on Dec. 26, 1991--shifted the axis of the economic debate sharply rightward.

Remembering The Fall Of The Berlin Wall And Soviet Domination: Commentary

2009-11-02T17:20:32Z

I first saw the Berlin Wall in 1971. It was then about 10 years old and was the ugliest human structure I'd ever seen: gray, brutal, pitiless, unyielding. Unlike the walls built around ancient European cities (and the one being proposed for the U.S. border with Mexico), this one was not created to keep people out. It was to keep East Germans in. If they tried to leave the workers' paradise, they must go to the dungeon or the grave. Only Stalinists could have built this most vile symbol, people with hearts and minds made of concrete certainties.

CIA Rendition Plane Spotted In Birmingham UK

2009-11-01T20:27:46Z

An American plane named in an inquiry by the European parliament into alleged CIA torture flights landed at Birmingham airport last month and was met by British special forces helicopters.

Evelyn Leopold: UN Starts World's First Arms Trade Treaty: Will It Work?

2009-10-31T01:04:41Z

At least 2,000 people a day are killed with weapons by criminal gangs, bandits, terrorists, insurgents -- and their own governments. In Africa alone $18 billion is consumed through armed conflict, about the same amount as non-military foreign aid.

In an effort to regulate the arms trade, UN members approved a resolution on Friday setting out a three-year timetable for negotiations on the world's first-ever Arms Trade Treaty. The aim is to set standards for the global $55 billion export business in guns, tanks, attack helicopters, jet fighters, missiles and other conventional weapons. The United States, the world's largest arms exporter, voted in favor.

The UN General Assembly's disarmament committee (known as the first committee) voted 153 to 1 (Zimbabwe) with 19 abstentions. Adoption by the committee, which includes all UN members, is tantamount to formal approval by the General Assembly by the end of the year. The goal is a conference in 2012 for a final accord.

Easier Said Than Done

The project is fraught with difficulties but is a major step forward after years of dithering. The purpose is to set international criteria to prevent weapons from reaching criminals, terrorists and human rights abusers and level arms trade regulations for major exporters. But diplomats acknowledge one could not stop leakage into the black market entirely.

"We need to have a standard that everyone is applying," said John Duncan, the British ambassador for multilateral arms control and a key force behind the resolution. "We now have lots of emerging suppliers operating with different rules. Because of that disunity, we are ending up with things flowing to where they shouldn't be going."

Hopefully, he said, there would be a "name and shame" list if the treaty is adopted. "It's not going to be a panacea but you raise the economic and political threshold. Currently we have nothing."

Arms sales are a major business and large manufacturers in Western nations welcome a treaty as it might help them compete against lax rivals.

The United States has the world's tightest export regulations but there was no dent in its weapons sales abroad last year, even amid a worldwide recession. U.S. firms exported arms valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, over 68 percent of all global business. (Italy was in second place with $3.7 billion, see chart below).

America was also number one in the arms bazaar to developing nations with $29.6 billion in conventional weapons agreements or more than 70 percent of the world's total, according to a U.S. government report in September. In contrast, Russian arms sales to developing countries were $3.3 billion.

Clinton Speaks

Reversing the policy of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement on October 14 that:

[The treaty initiative] presents us with the opportunity to promote the same high standards for the entire international community that the United States and other responsible arms exporters already have in place to ensure that weaponry is transferred for legitimate purposes.

But she had a key condition -- consensus -- which gives nearly every country a veto. In practice it means Washington could demolish the treaty if it felt the standards were too low and would put its own companies at a disadvantage. (The proposed treaty already excludes any embargo on nationals bearing arms, thereby allowing the usual seepage of US weapons to Mexican gangs.) At the same time, however, countries who want to sell to human rights abusers can also block agreement.

In Friday's debate, Mexico, for example, noted that the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament was paralyzed because of the consensus rules and that all major treaties, including the key Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), had been adopted by majority vote. Ireland and Germany also had major doubts on consensus but in the end voted in favor.

Among the abstainers were Russia, China, India, and Pakistan, all arms producers, who wanted further discussion before serious negotiations could begin, indicating the process will be a tough one. But they are expected to join the talks, set to begin next July. Most nations in the Middle East abstained but nearly all countries in Africa and Latin America voted in favor.

Zimbabwe, which cast the sole negative vote on the resolution, is accused of using weapons for political oppression and has had some difficulty getting arms. In April 2008 a Chinese vessel carrying weapons destined for Zimbabwe was forced to leave the South African port of Durban with its cargo intact after dock workers refused to unload the shipment.

Active in the lobbying effort was a coalition of hundreds of non-governmental groups from around the world. "For too long, governments have let the flow of weapons get out of control, causing pain, suffering and death in some of the world's poorest regions," said Anna Macdonald of Oxfam International.

ARMS TRANSFER AGREEMENTS WITH THE WORLD, BY SUPPLIER (IN US DOLLARS)

2008-- Total $55 billion:
United States 37.8. billion
Italy 3.7 billion
Russia 3.5 billion
France 2.6 billion
Germany 1 billion
China 800 million
Britain 200 million
All other Europeans 3.2 billion
All Others 2.4 billion

Source: U.S. Government, Congressional Research Service Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2001-2008 by Richard F. Grimmett , September 4, 2009 (PDF).

Steven Hill: Health Care Cooperatives Can Work

2009-10-30T03:48:38Z

Watching the torturous turns of the health care debate in Congress is mind-numbing, even for the most savvy policy wonks, let alone for members of the public. Each side in this debate has its own set of facts and scare statistics, and the resulting FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt -- have led to a colossal misunderstanding about health care cooperatives. That is unfortunate, since these co-ops may hold the key to a substantive compromise.

For liberals, and especially for single-payer advocates, their line in the sand has been drawn at the government-run public option, and so health care cooperatives represent another degree of sellout. Picking up a whiff of this discontent, some conservatives are supporting co-ops merely as a foil that can siphon support away from the much-demonized public option.

Yet private, nonprofit health care cooperatives, properly designed, actually could offer quite a lot to both the left and the right, as well as to anyone who is interested in expanding health care coverage, reducing costs and improving care. If the Senate combined nonprofit cooperatives with negotiated fees for each health care service -- both components having been offered up individually in various Senate proposals but not yet combined into the same package -- the making of a deal would be in sight. Indeed, nonprofit co-ops might prove to be a gift on the proverbial silver platter, because they could be just as effective as the public option and yet they will be easier to pass because Obama has some of the conservative senators thinking that it was their idea to begin with.

To understand why co-ops can work, it's important to understand how the health care market works. Or rather, doesn't work. According to the American Medical Association, insurance markets lack vigorous competition in more than nine out of 10 metropolitan areas. In 16 states, a single insurer writes more than half the policies, and nearly three-fifths of hospitals have little competitive pressure in the markets in which they operate.

That's because dominant insurers in a local market often pay health care providers high reimbursement rates to discourage them from participating in rival insurance plans. That discourages other insurers from entering the market, which in turn frees the dominant insurer to raise its premiums charged to its patients to cover the inflated reimbursements. In other words, the insurance companies make out, the doctors make out -- but the patients pay for it all.

The most direct way to break this logjam is to introduce a nonprofit element into the health care market. And here's the beauty of it: If designed correctly, it matters little if that nonprofit element is provided by the government or by a private organization, such as a cooperative. The effect on market dynamics is substantially the same, if the nonprofit can produce quality care for less money.

To see how this potentially could work, look to Germany. Germany has more than 200 private, nonprofit health care companies, which cover 92 percent of its population. Germany does not use a single-payer system but instead uses a "shared responsibility" system in which individuals and employers each are required to pay a premium of 6-7 percent of the individual's salary to the nonprofit health care companies. That percent is much smaller than what U.S. employers pay for their employees' health care. Despite spending only about 55 percent per capita of what the United States spends on health care, Germany still gets much better results for the 74 million Germans who use these nonprofits.

But while having more nonprofit players is necessary, it is not sufficient. After all, Kaiser and Blue Cross/Blue Shield are nonprofits, but they rake in huge earnings and pay multimillion-dollar CEO salaries. Group Health actually is a nonprofit cooperative, and while premiums at Group Health have increased less compared to those of competitors, the increases still have been fairly significant, averaging 12.3 percent per year since 2000.

So that's why negotiated fees for service are an additional crucial component needed to rein in costs. The impact of negotiations is best illustrated by another German practice, where representatives of the health care nonprofits deal with organizations of physicians, nurses, technicians and other health care professionals. Patient representatives also are given a seat at the table, and together they determine fees and rate ceilings for every treatment, procedure and doctor visit.

That combination -- of nonprofit companies and negotiated fees for service -- prevents costs from spiraling out of control. This system is better not only for individuals and families but also for businesses, since it not only makes health care costs for Germany's employers lower than in the United States but also allows them to better forecast and plan for these costs.

To be successful, however, the co-ops would need to have enough clout to set rates with doctors and hospitals. To accomplish this, the co-ops likely would have to cut individual deals with each provider, instead of negotiating across-the-board terms. A bill that actually married co-ops with real negotiating clout -- the bargaining power of a public option without needing to involve the government -- might be the best way to get the votes needed.

The good news for both liberals and conservatives is that nonprofit health care cooperatives could substantially impact market dynamics, without increasing the size of government. Both sides can have some of their cake, and eat it too. For those liberals who want a robust nonprofit element in the health care market, they'll get that. For those conservatives who don't want government playing a bigger role in health care, they'll get that.

Senators, what are we waiting for?

Steven Hill is a program director at the New America Foundation. His next book, Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age, will be published in January 2010. A version of this article was published in the Washington Post and Salon.com.

Marwa al-Sherbini, Murdered Egyptian Woman, "Stabbed With Considerable Force"

2009-10-27T13:18:24Z

DRESDEN, Germany — A medical expert testified Tuesday that a knife attack on a 31-year-old Egyptian woman in a German court room caused serious injuries and left her with just minutes to live.

Christine Erfurt was giving evidence in the trial of alleged attacker Alexander Wiens, who is accused of smuggling a 7-inch (18-centimeter) kitchen knife into the same Dresden court room in July and stabbing Marwa al-Sherbini to death.