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European
Reporter European
Reporter headlines this month Budapest
museum dedicated to Nazi/Communist terror The
opening here on February 23 of a House of Terror in memory of the victims
of Nazi and Communist rule in Hungary will likely spark heated debates, as
neo-communists and far-right political figures seek respectability in the
relatively new democratic system. The opening of the museum was timed to
coincide with the middle of the election campaign... It brings down the
memory of terror into cheap political propaganda, charged historian Andras
Mink. Prime Minister Viktor Orban's liberal government decided to create
and finance the museum last year, shortly after introducing a state
memorial day for victims of communism on February 24, and one for victims
of the nazis on April 17. EU
ministers push global war on illegal immigration, terrorism SANTIAGO
DE COMPOSTELA, Spain EU Justice and Interior ministers agreed the basics
of a war on illegal immigration, and six of them said their countries were
pushing up implementation of a common arrest warrant by a year to fight
terrorism. An EU visa data bank containing computerized physical
information on visa seekers and joint visa-issuing offices are the
mainstay of the newly declared war on illegal immigration. The proposal
also covers readmission by non-EU countries, illicit asylum seeking and
trafficking in human beings, a burgeoning and thorny issue as the EU
expands eastward to as many as 25 members 2004. The plan included
provisions for traffickers in human beings to bear the cost of
repatriating illegal immigrants, as well as information exchange system in
which every visa granted would be registered, and possibly also requests
that are rejected. It would set up an early warning system; for exchange
among EU states and third countries of data illegal immigration and the
networks of middlemen& Sweden
may restrict immigrant marriages to stem honor killings Sweden
plans to place a ban on marriages of immigrant women under the age of 18
in an attempt to stem families marrying off their daughters against their
will, according to Immigration Minister Mona Sahlin. The country is still
reeling from the honor killing of Fadime Sahindal, 26, on January 21. We
find ourselves up against a new dimension where young girls live under the
threat and constraint of very strict, patriarchal, Sahlin said in a
statement The young Kurdish woman was killed by her father after bringing
a highly publicized court case against him for threatening to kill her for
having a relationship with a Swede instead of marrying a fellow Kurd. Her
killing was the fourth honor killing in Sweden since 1994. Haider
is an Arab and could convert to Islam: Kadhafi's Austrian
far-right strongman Joerg Haider claims descent from Arabic immigrants and
is considering converting to Islam, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son
claimed recently. He's Arabic, he's of Arabic origin. His family came from
Andalucia 400 years ago or more, and then they converted to Christianity.
They're Arabs. He told me the story, Seif al-Islam, the Libyan cultural
envoy told journalists in Paris. He told me he wanted to convert to Islam
and asked me for a copy of the Koran in the German language, he said. He
wants to be Muslim and Arabic that's why we have such good relations. Haider
is a former leader of the populist Freedom Party, which has campaigned for
a reduction in immigration to Austria and won a place in Austria's
governing coalition. He has courted controversy with recent visits to both
Libya and Iraq, and recently said he was planning a second humanitarian
trip to Baghdad despite criticism from Vienna and Washington. Teutonic
castle clings to collapsing hilltop Latvia
People are flocking in their hundreds to catch what could be their last
glimpse of a 13th century Teutonic castle in central Latvia as the hill it
stand on slowly collapses. Curious onlookers, kept at a safe distance, sat
in their cars sheltering from the rain apprehensively surveying Turaida
Castle and the swathes of hillside which have given way beneath it to form
disheveled mounds of earth and uprooted trees. We often come to folklore
festivals here, to dance and listen to music there aren't many castles in
Latvia and this is the most popular, said Inese, owner of a nearby summer
cottage, who with her husband and small son had managed to get past the
approach road which is totally blocked with debris. Austrian
motorbike maker roars Austrian
motorbike maker KTM, fresh from success in January's Paris-Dakar rally, is
planning to roar into the road bike market dominated in Europe by
Germany's BMW and the Japanese. The company, based in a small town in
Upper Austria a short drive from the Bavarian border, took the Paris-Dakar
motorbike crown for the second year in a row with Italian biker Fabrizio
Meoni leading a clean KTM sweep. The success has given it a turbo-charged
morale boost. In the long term we want to become Europe's biggest
motorbike manufacturer, said the company's boss, Stefan Pierer Berlinale
focused on German issues BERLIN
- This year's 52nd Berlin film festival, held last month, was marked by a
strong focus on German cinema and history under new festival director
Dieter Kosslick. Besides the fact that a larger percentage of German films
was presented than in previous years, he also got the sort of intense
debate that periodically flares in a Germany still trying to come to grips
with the excesses of its past. Several films, including non-German ones,
sought to understand the choices people made or didn't make in dealing
with Hitler's regime, a romanticized rendering of the far-left
Baader-Meinhof group that terrorized Germany in the 1970s was criticized
by reviewers for failing to condemn violent protest and distorting the
historical record of the era. Baader, directed by Christopher Roth, traced
the rise and fall of Andreas Baader, leader of the Red Army Faction. STOCKHOLM
- Historically neutral Sweden unveiled last month a new defense policy
formally endorsing cooperation with other countries to counter future
security threats, a shift that some experts said presaged Swedish
membership in NATO. The new policy, published by the Swedish Foreign
Ministry, states that while Sweden pursues a policy of non-participation
in military alliances; it was now apparent that "threats to peace
and our security can best be averted by acting in concert and in
cooperation with other countries. Guenter
Grass breaks taboo about German WWII suffering BERLIN
- Nazi Germany generated horrors, but ordinary Germans suffered the
horrors of war too. Not least among them, the millions of refugees who
fled rape and massacres inflicted by the Soviet army advancing from the
east. In
dealing with this theme, the new book by Nobel literature laureate Guenter
Grass breaks a long silence by German intellectuals. Clergyman's
daughter will not testify in Belgian mass murder trial BRUSSELS
- A key witness in the murder trial of Hungarian-born pastor Andras Pandy,
charged with killing six members of his family, will not testify. Timea
Pandy, 38-year-old step-daughter of the Protestant clergyman, does not
want to leave her native Hungary, to be confronted once again over the
issue, prosecutor Alain Winants said as the trial entered its second week
at the end of February. Ireland
claims Muhammad Ali as one of its own DUBLIN
- Boxing legend Muhammad Ali has Irish roots, according to researchers who
say his great-grandfather crossed the Atlantic to the United States during
the 19th century. The Clare Heritage Centre in Corofin, on Ireland's west
coast, says it has established that a man named Abe Grady from Ennis,
County Clare, who emigrated to Kentucky in the 1860s, is the
ex-heavyweight champ's great-grandfather. He had a son in Kentucky called
John and he was Muhammad Ali's grandfather", said genealogist
Antoinette O'Brien. Russian
prodigy sisters work on third university degrees SAN
FRANCISCO - Last September, with several suitcases filled with books and
family albums, the Kniazeva family landed in San Francisco with the high
hopes of anyone starting a new life. It was the first time the two
daughters of the family, Diana and Anjela, had traveled outside Russia,
but with their customary confidence they quickly settled into student life
in the small town of Palo Alto near here. With their bright cheerful
smiles, long blond braids and their backpacks full of books, the two
blended in. Russian
shamans spell out alternative to modern medicine ULAN-UDE,
Russia Had your car stolen? Call a shaman. Computer crashed again? Try
casting a spell. Liver playing up? Wife wants a divorce? See what the
spirits can do to help. The medicine men are back in Russia's mainly
Buddhist republic of Buryatia, wedged between Lake Baikal and the vast
plains of neighbouring Mongolia, returning in force after their years of
banishment under Stalin and his Soviet successors. Sacre
bleu! French to take cooking lessons from the English PARIS - A cultural revolution is brewing in France with the imminent publication of a book in which horror of horrors an Englishwoman presumes to administer lessons in cookery. Delia Smith a television superstar in Britain who has sold 14 million books across the English-speaking world has had a selection of her recipes translated into French, and they go on sale in May with the title La cuisine facile d'aujourd'hui - Simple cooking today.
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