Despite the arrests, killings and beatings of protesters in Iran, Western leaders keep the invitation for the Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki at the G8 meeting in Trieste (Italy) next week. The Obama administration apparently still hopes the Iranians will help in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and so the Italians followed orders and did not withdraw the invitation.
According to EUobserver, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi explained on Friday at an EU summit that the invite was "in agreement with the US administration."
"We equally believe it is important to involve Iran in the stabilisation of Afghanistan," he said.
German foreign minister Frank Walter Steinmeier, who will also be present at the G8 meeting, also said that retracting the invitation would not help - not with the nuclear file, nor the current demonstrations.
"I think we must respect the US position in criticising strongly the reaction of Iranian authorities towards the demonstrators, but we must also realise that we won’t solve these conflicts just by withdrawing our foreign policy activities," said Steinmeier.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton broke her elbow and won’t be able to travel next week. Which makes it even less understandable why the US still wants the Iranian minister to be there. Wouldn’t it appear as if the West is accepting the brutal crackdown on demonstrators?
Yesterday’s record fine against US giant Intel - $ 1.45 billion - is yet another example of EU’s double standards when it comes to American companies and Russian monopolies.
Not that TransatlanticPolitics is contesting the accuracy of the EU commission’s findings - the bloc’s guardian of fair competition rules - but it is at least dubious that no probe has been launched into any Russian company/monopoly on the EU market.
"Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years," competition commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
"If we smell that there is something rotten in the state, we act."
It seems however that Gazprom’s actions on the EU market have no smell, despite its ownership of half of the trading floor in one of Europe’s major gas hubs in Austria - Baumgarten.
No formal inquiry has been launched by the EU into this matter, although Gazprom basically has free access to priviliged information about all the gas being traded there.
"Knowing, for example, that one company’s future contracts become mature on this particular date, another county needs gas on that date, if you know all the pricing information, you can undercut these limited opportunities that began to emerge at Baumgarten for more market-based pricing of gas giving this arbitrage a possibility. So, it’s crucial that the EU is examining the operation of that gas hub and information systems and make sure the information is not being used by one company or another company to undercut competition," US deputy assistant secretary of state Matt Bryza told EUobserver in April. Similar statements here.
Asked about this issue, a spokesman for the EU commission said the matter was not relevant, since Gazprom could only follow the amounts of gas currently traded and not influence any future transactions.
Hillary’s charm tour in Europe ended in a big mockery, as she found herself lost in translation. When in Geneva, Hillary gave Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a plastic button, after Joe Biden’s announcement last month that the Obama administration has to hit the ‘reset button’ in US-Russian relations.
"You got it wrong" - Lavrov said. Instead of "reset", the button read "overload" or "overcharge" in Russian. Whooops… Sorry, wrong button.
No problem, DeeDee, thank God you’re not the POTUS and don’t have a real button to play with.
And hopefully this embarrassment will put an end to such gimmick-diplomacy. What exactly was that button supposed to mean? A fresh start with Russia, based on what? Down at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, Hillary did not sound so much different than Condi. Hell, she even called Poland and the Czech Republic "visionary" for signing up for missile defense, a plan that really pisses off Russia.
Of course, her hawkish talk may have been just a way to soothe fears in Europe after that Obama letter offering to scrap missile defence in return for real Russian help against Iran. But one can hardly say what’s more naive: to think that such trade-off would really work or to believe that the Kremlin would buy this "fresh start" thing based on a gimmick which wasn’t even spelled correctly.
But the reset-button episode was not the only gaffe. While in Brussels, Hillary also managed to misspell two of her counterparts names during a press conference - she called the EU top diplomat Javier Solana a cream candy - ‘Solano’ - and the EU commissioner for external relations ‘Benina’ - when her real name is Benita. Both were standing right next to her and rolled their eyes thinking "oh boy, why can’t the Americans learn the names of the people they talk to?"
Maybe all of this is just a warm-up for gaffe-master Biden, who is in Brussels this week to convince Europeans to commit more troops to Pakistan. Sorry, Afghanistan. Or just call it AfPak, like most of the Obamites now do. Is much easier. Also solves the eternal question of how it’s spelled correctly - Iran or Iraq?
It’s common popular knowledge that Skype calls are allegedly un-spyeable. Investigative journalists frequently tell their sources to use this Estonian-designed computer-to-computer telephone system in order to avoid being wire-tapped. Provided the computer itself is bug-free, as well as the webcam/microphone used. And of course, with no mobile phone around, which can be used as an eavesdropping device, even if it’s turned off.
A recent decision of the European Union’s judicial coordination body - Eurojust - indicates that popular knowledge is not so far from the truth. Eurojust decided to support Italian prosecutors who claim that their anti-Mafia and drug dealers investigations would be so much easier if Skype allowed them to tap into conversations.
So far, VoIP programs are not subject to EU or US wiretapping or data retention legislation. Skype told EUobserver it had "extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement programme and capabilities" and said it did cooperate with police and prosecutors "where legally and technically possible."
German authorities apparently also tried to tap into Skype conversations and commissioned an IT firm to develop Trojans which could perform this task, according to documents obtained by Piraten Partei, an European movement promoting freedom on the Internet. However, the Bavarian’s efforts proved unsuccessful, as the German police publicly admitted.
Of course, Eurojust claims that wiretapping Skype and other voice-over-IP programs (VoIP) such as Yahoo messenger talk, InternetCalls etc, would only take place as part of criminal investigations, with a court order. But once they have the power and it is technically and legally possible, who can really guarantee that no abuses will happen?
Update: After some media frenzy on the matter, Eurojust decided to drop its plans and announced it had issued the statement "prematurely" and that it was "incorrect". Lovely EU institutions, aren’t they? Very professional and consistent…
n foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki at the G8 meeting in Trieste (Italy) next week. The Obama administration apparently still hopes the Iranians will help in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and so the Italians followed orders and did not withdraw the invitation.
When in Geneva, Hillary gave Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a plastic button, after Joe Biden’s 
Investigative journalists frequently tell their sources to use this Estonian-designed computer-to-computer telephone system in order to avoid being wire-tapped. Provided the computer itself is bug-free, as well as the webcam/microphone used. And of course, with no mobile phone around, which can be used as an eavesdropping device, even if it’s turned off.
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