The first headline I read today, "White House apologizes for abuses."

"The president is sorry for what occurred and the pain that it has caused," Mr Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan said afterwards.

Asked why Mr Bush himself had not apologised, he added: "I'm saying it now for him."

This is not only outrageous but very very sad.

Mr. Bush, it's all too obvious to those that haven't been indoctrinated, is unable to rise to the challenge of personal apology in any area.

Mentally and morally insensitive to the people of Iraq, the coalition soldiers that are there because they have to be and have not been dehumanized 'yet' by the conditions and horror of war and those that have died.

Will Mr. Rumsfeld pay the piper? Will his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee be just another smokescreen for those feeling a bit uncomfortable about un-American activities that have been happening in Iraq and reported back in January.

Asked whether the president thought Rumsfeld should quit in the wake of the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops, McClellan curtly replied: "No."

Asked whether Bush still had faith in his defense secretary, McClellan replied: "Absolutely."

"Not everything is perfect in a democracy," Bush said. "But in a democracy mistakes will be investigated and people will be brought to justice. We're an open society, willing to investigate what took place in the prison."

I challenge you to hear and feel the inadequacy of this statement to all of us but especially the Iraqi people and the Arab world. Do any actually believe the terror and abuse that has happened in Abu Ghraib can be twisted into a democracy lesson as Mr. Bush has tried to do. Text of Bush TV Interview

Bush boasted in an election rally yesterday that he has been successful in closing down Saddam's torture chambers. Hmm

Waleed Tabtabai, an Islamist member of the Kuwait parliament, said that when he first saw the pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners: "I felt that the Americans....are not really there to spread democracy and freedom but to impose the imperialist project of the American Empire."

"If Bush is really sincere that the torturing of the Iraqis does not represent American values then he should couple his talk with deeds. He should uncover what is going on inside Guantanamo (the U.S. detention center in Cuba)," he added.
Arabs Say Bush Interviews Too Little Too Late

It's a real concern that the people of America are not marching in the streets, as they most certainly would be in any other country around the world, concerning the actions of the current administration from the onset of the war on Iraq until today. What will it take?
The list of failures by this administration grows longer by the day. One never knows how the next headline will read but what we can be sure of, is it will not disturb the composure of Bush supporters.
The man can seemingly do no wrong. No act, no matter how heinous, can topple the kingdom these people have built for themselves.
We have watched acts carried out under the domain of these men which certainly call for accountability but there is none forthcoming.
They pass the buck and talk of punishment for those who have been stupid enough to be caught. One has to wonder that these human rights abusers and murderers felt so confident they took pictures of their abhorrent acts.
I have seen the pictures and become sickened. I have watched the video of men no longer armed and even wounded being blown up.
But, the Commander-in-Chief, Rumsfeld and others too numerous to mention had no idea the men and women under their command were acting so "un-American."
My daughter barely speaks a civil word to me because of my life and my stance on the current America. She is a healthy, young woman soon to be 22, perfect draft age. I'm not sure if she realizes one day she may receive a letter telling her she is called to fight for corporate America. I am sickened and frightened as I have never been before. There is nothing I can do but fight this man's re-election in every way I can.
Mr. Bush, the 'war president' who has never been inside a war zone except to eat turkey and then it was under cover, may revive a law putting my daughter in a place he refused to go. I'm enraged. This has nothing to do with "Give me liberty or give me death" so save your pretty speeches.
I'm surprised, by now, the American people are not screaming from the rooftops to be rid of men whose causes have to be fought with guns and paid for with human life. They should be screaming for relief by now. For America's sake give us a liberal whose causes or 'sin' issues can be fought with legislation and filibuster by politicians, with little bloodshed other than the tears of a few selfrighteous Christians.

"Not an hour goes by where there is not an allegation and unfortunately, the Congress in general and the Senate Armed Services Committee in particular has been, up until this morning, kept completely in the dark," Senator John McCain said.
Calling for accountability and transparency from the Bush administration? Unfortunately he answers only to his God who speaks to no one but him.
They will pass the buck just as Gen. Janis Karpinski has tried to do. She has been reprimanded and removed from command. Will this be the sentence for the Commander in Chief or Rumsfeld?
Don't count on it. They all should face criminal charges.

Under international laws of war, if a superior military officer knew or should have known that his subordinates were committing war crimes and did nothing to stop them, then the superior officer is as guilty as the people who committed the crimes.

Leaders in US Congress Condemn Mistreatment of Iraqi Prisoners

U.S. lawmakers demanded an explanation from the Bush administration regarding allegations that U.S. military police abused Iraqi prisoners.
Lawmakers condemned the alleged mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in the strongest terms and called for a congressional investigation.

The Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services Committees held closed-door briefings with Army officials to discuss the matter.

Emerging from the Senate briefing, Senator Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said suspected abuses may have occurred elsewhere in Iraq or in Afghanistan as well.

“It seems that this whole incident is not just limited to one particular prison, but has a broader application,” he said. “I think it is imperative that there be a complete investigation, not only of that prison and not only of the American servicemen, but also the private contractors.”

Many lawmakers want to know why they were not told of the matter by administration officials much earlier. Senator John McCain is an Arizona Republican. “Not an hour goes by where there is not an additional allegation and unfortunately, the Congress in general and the Senate Armed Services Committee in particular has been, up until this morning, kept completely in the dark,” he said.

Army Vice Chief of Staff General George Casey told committee members those who are found guilty will be punished appropriately. “We are fully committed to getting to the bottom of this and holding accountable those who we find guilty through the judicial process,” he added.

Lawmakers called for swift accountability. Congressman Doug Bereuter is a Nebraska Republican. “What has allegedly happened is so foreign to our country's principle and tradition and those of our armed forces, that these people conducting or condoning such abuse do not deserve to be called Americans,” he stated.

Photos widely televised showed Iraqi detainees apparently being sexually humiliated and physically abused have prompted outrage around the world.

Lawmakers expressed concern the alleged abuse could complicate U.S. efforts in Iraq and incite more violence against U.S. troops there. VOA

Accountability at Issue in Abuse of Prisoners

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the civilian and military leadership of the Defense Department should be called before the committee to answer questions about the treatment of prisoners not only at facilities in Iraq, but at military prisons around the world.

"It is not clear at this point who should be held to account," Byrd said. "No one has stepped forward to take responsibility for the conditions in Iraqi prisons. Instead, fingers are being pointed in every direction," Byrd said in a statement. "With whom does this buck stop?"

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he was not pleased with how the abuse allegations have been handled by the military, noting that a battalion commander received a letter of reprimand.

"He will be taken off the promotion list, but he can, apparently, still remain in the Army," Warner said. "And I must say, speaking for myself, I find some concern in that level of punishment."

Under international laws of war, if a superior military officer knew or should have known that his subordinates were committing war crimes and did nothing to stop them, then the superior officer is as guilty as the people who committed the crimes.
LA Times

A blast from the past...On December 22, 2002 Iraq announced that it would permit UN inspectors to interview Iraqi scientist without government officials present. Amir al-Saadi, invited the US to send CIA agents into Iraq to lead inspectors to the alleged weapons sites. "We do not even have any objection if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites." The Bush administration dismissed the offer as a "stunt."

Why being right on WMD is no consolation to Iraqi scientist labelled enemy of America

Chief link to UN weapons inspectors held in solitary confinement for year

Jonathan Steele in Baghdad
Wednesday May 5, 2004
The Guardian

By any measure Amer al-Saadi ought to feel vindicated. The dapper British-educated scientist who was the Iraqi government's main link to the United Nations inspectors before the US invasion repeatedly insisted that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction years earlier.
David Kay, the American inspector who headed the Iraq Survey Group and was sure he would find such weapons when he went to Iraq after the war, now accepts Dr Saadi was right. So does Hans Blix, the chief UN inspector, who up to a month before the war still thought Iraq might have had WMD.

Yet, astonishingly, Dr Saadi does not know of their change of mind or of the political fallout their views have caused in western countries. He is like a lottery winner who is the last person to be told he has hit the jackpot.

Held in solitary confinement in an American prison at Baghdad's international airport, Dr Saadi is denied the right to read newspapers, listen to the radio, or watch television.

"In the monthly one-page letters I am allowed to send him through the Red Cross I cannot mention any of this news. I can only talk about family issues," says his wife, Helma, as she sits in the couple's home less than half a mile from US headquarters in Baghdad.

Barely three days after the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by US troops in central Baghdad Dr Saadi approached the Americans and became the first senior Iraqi to hand himself in. It was the last time his wife saw him.

He was sure he would soon be released, Mrs Saadi says. He was a scientist who had never been part of Saddam's terror apparatus, or even a member of the Ba'ath party.

CIA interrogators have repeatedly interviewed him. Had there been any WMD to discover Dr Saadi would have had an obvious incentive to reveal their location once the regime had collapsed. But from the reports of the Iraq Survey Group it can only be assumed that he has maintained his line that they were eliminated long ago.

Dr Saadi is described officially by the Americans as an "enemy prisoner of war". This allows them to detain him indefinitely without access to a lawyer or visiting rights from his family until George Bush declares the war to be over. Whether he is still held out of spite or to hide Washington's embarrassment is not clear. He has already been in custody for more than a year.

His CIA interrogators have finished their work and apparently feel awkward about his continued detention.

"My handlers have appealed to higher authorities for my release but it seems it's political and God doesn't meddle in politics," Dr Saadi wrote in one letter.

"It would speak well for them if they admitted they were mistaken. They would look human," Mrs Saadi says. German by birth, she and her husband have always conversed in English. They were married in Wandsworth register office in south London 40 years ago last October, when he was studying chemistry at Battersea College of Technology.

The prison letters she shares with the Guardian reflect the tenderness of a long and successful partnership. Despite the censorship they resonate with affection and occasional whimsical flashes of humour, as well as periods of depression.

"Leave the brooding to me. I have time enough. Be constructive," he urged her in one letter.

By a second cruel stroke of fate, she was in the UN headquarters last August, seeking help for her husband, when a suicide bomber blew it up. Twenty-two people died, including the woman she was talking to when the upper floor caved in. Mrs Saadi was unconscious for 48 hours and awoke in a US military hospital.

The couple's children have lived most of their lives in Germany. "We didn't want them to develop under the regime. He never saw his children grow up. It breaks my heart," Mrs Saadi says. She spent 20 years bringing them up in Hamburg and making only short visits to Baghdad. Dr Saadi was not allowed to go abroad except on official business. The regime urged him to divorce her but he refused.

In prison under US custody he is not even allowed pen and paper, except to compose his one-page Red Cross letter. He does crosswords by filling in the blanks in his head. His wife sent him a computerised chess set but was not allowed to provide replacement batteries when the first ones ran out. He has been teaching himself German. "If it were not for impressing the grandchildren, I wouldn't bother," he wrote last year.

Last month he joked about Paul Bremer, the top US official in Iraq. "Bremer I found out from the German lessons I am giving myself is a man from Bremen! Yet another German!"

Dr Saadi is kept in his cell all day except for an hour of exercise in a supervised area. His wife was able to send him running shoes.

In October he wrote that his conditions had slightly improved: "The awfully sagging bed has now a wooden board, and a plastic chair is provided instead of the back-breaking sitting on the floor on the very low bed which rolls you towards the centre with your bottom nearly touching the floor."

With a British PhD in physical chemistry Dr Saadi is essentially a rocket scientist. Now 66, he was awarded a scholarship from the defence ministry under the Iraqi monarchy to study in Britain, which meant he had to commit himself to work for the military later.

During the war with Iran, when Saddam's Iraq was being armed and helped by the west, he organised a team of scientists who developed a ground-to-ground missile with a range of 400 miles, capable of reaching Tehran. This prompted the Iranian regime to agree to a peace deal.

In 1994 he retired with the rank of lieutenant general but was appointed the next year as a scientific adviser to the presidency. He regularly met the UN weapons inspectors and when they resumed their work in November 2002 he was the government's main liaison man.

He became a well-known figure on TV, wearing a suit rather than uniform and speaking fluent English at press conferences. His wife insists he was never close to Saddam and last met him in 1995.

In his presentation to the security council in February last year the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, attacked Dr Saadi. He described his job as being "not to cooperate, it is to deceive; not to disarm, but to undermine the inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they learn nothing".

Dr Saadi rejected the charges and hit back, describing Mr Powell's speech as a "typical American show, full of stunts and special effects".

Mr Powell admitted recently that key parts of his presentation were wrong.

Dr Saadi's younger brother, Radwan, has worked in Iraq's oil ministry for 30 years and was reinstated by the US as head of its finance department. He tries to be hopeful. "The Americans are taking it case by case. There are various agencies who all have to approve anyone's release. Some detainees were released very early who were closer to the regime than Amer. It's like dealing with a black hole."

Dr Saadi is number 32 on Washington's most wanted list, and the seven of diamonds on the notorious deck of cards. Ironically, he now spends a lot of time with cards, playing patience in his lonely cell. Guardian

She will earn 6 times what she was earning in Poland and it will probably cost that much more to live in the UK. She will need the extra hours if she plans to save any money. Being resolute, practical and young are all in her favor. I wish her well. She sounds like a lovely young woman.

She is not a benefits scrounger, or a health tourist, or a prostitute. Ewa is just a Pole who wants to work here and return home
In Krakow, Poland, Cole Moreton meets one of the new EU citizens coming to Britain. She does not intend to stay

Stephen Castle

Ewa is nothing like the scoundrels that some newspapers and sceptics claim are preparing to flood Britain. They have been suggesting that those likely to head west now that our borders are open to 10 more European countries are beggars, scroungers or worse. Unlike the newspapers' fantasies, Ewa Zandman is real. She is an educated, thoughtful 23-year-old who will arrive here tomorrow eager to do a job that few of us will touch - caring for, and cleaning up after, the elderly and incontinent - because she wants to improve her English and gain experience. And earn money, of course.

Even on the minimum wage that she will be paid as a care worker in a nursing home, Ewa will get six times as much as she did last week, as a waitress in a vegetarian café in the Stare Miasto, or Old Town, of Krakow in Poland.

That job paid four-and-a-half zlotys an hour. There are around six zlotys to the pound. "If I earned 700 in a month, that would be very good," she says. But sharing a room close to work with her two sisters cost 400 a month. "I have learned how to live simply," she says. "Sometimes I went to the cinema. But not very often." A cinema ticket costs up to 35 zlotys.

Ewa trained as a physiotherapist in Krakow but could not find work. "There is no job for me in Poland. It's quite simple. People need physiotherapy, but the government does not have the money to pay for it." Then in February she saw an advertisement asking Poles to come to Britain under the new rules. "I knew what a carer was," she says. "I worked as a volunteer at a nursing home here. It is a difficult job, but so are many others."

One nursing home manager who was in Krakow last week to recruit workers described caring for the sick and elderly as like looking after a baby "with all the associated dirty jobs, only the baby is 25 stone". There is a shortage of British people willing to volunteer. "I know," says Ewa, smiling. "You don't want to do it. But I know how I would like to be treated if I were sick. And it is perfectly normal for us in Poland to look after our old people, and our families."

Ewa was born and raised in a village south of Krakow. She is unusual in seeking employment away from the British capital. "London is too big and too modern for me. I like beautiful places." She will be working in Torquay, Devon. "I have looked it up on the internet. I think it is beautiful. They call it the English Riviera, don't they?"

She does have a question, though. "Is it dangerous? No, that is too strong a word, but I have seen people on British television who had very strong opinions about the ones who are coming. They were very aggressive." She is reassured to learn they are in the minority. "That is good. I will do my best to be busy, a good colleague and a friend."

Westminster Health Care, a private company which is bringing 60 Poles over to Britain tomorrow morning, expects Ewa to work 48 hours a week. "And more if I want to, which I do. I want to work as much as possible and save money." There are said to be 200,000 Poles working in Britain, but some say as many again have stayed after their permits ran out, working illegally until EU expansion yesterday. Now anyone from their homeland can get on a plane and come to Britain to work - all they have to do is register when they arrive. The Government hopes these tax-paying newcomers will ease out other workers from countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, to whom strict permit rules still apply - not to mention providing a legitimate replacement for the many illegal workers without whose efforts the British economy would collapse.

Few of the three million unemployed people in Poland will be coming to Britain, however. Buying a flight in the hope of a job would be a hugely expensive risk in a country where even teachers earn little more than £150 a month. Instead it is the many young, highly educated Poles, people who are struggling to find work to match their skills at home, who will seek new opportunities abroad.

''Expectations are high," says Beata Jezierska, who runs an employment agency in London called Integra Link. "Flights from Poland are booked up until the end of May at least. A lot of people expect to get good jobs straight away, but it's not so easy. Their qualifications might not be recognised.

"I know of a woman who was a nurse for 24 years in Poland but who has been told by the NHS that her qualifications are not recognised and that she must retrain. I also know experienced Polish teachers who are working as plumbers and builders in the UK. They have no experience but they are young and intelligent, and they can learn the skills. People will accept any job in order to earn some money, because salaries for teachers in Poland are ridiculously low."

Bartosz Kaczmarczyk is one of two 27-year-old entrepreneurs who run ITC, their own agency, in Krakow.

"We are sending people to sectors that were previously closed: hospitality, food processing, care," he says. "Most of our carers have masters degrees. They are overqualified. They will finish their finals, go and work for a year abroad, then come back. The deal is good for both sides. We get our people back with language, experience, skills and money. You get the labour you need and you do not have to pay their benefits or educate their children."

The idea of throwing herself on the mercy of the welfare state makes Ewa laugh. "No, no. I will come back. I must. I have my family here, my friends, the places I know. I am sentimentally attached. It is going to be very difficult for me to be apart from all of that for a long time. But I will have my CDs with me."

So when she finishes a shift at the nursing home, Ewa will lie back, play the music of the saxophonist Jan Garbarek and drift away in her mind to the Tatra Mountains. "I go there often, whenever I can." They are one of the treasures of her homeland that she hopes to tell English people about. "Krakow is another. I love this city. And our cinematography and literature. Do you think they will be interested?"

They may be. What is for sure is that most will have less clue about Poland than she does about England. Most of us think first of the shipyards at Gdansk and endless rain, which seems absurd when you sit at a café table in sunshine gazing up at the Gothic spires and towers of Krakow, one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Europe.

"Ben Nevis," says Ewa when asked what comes to mind when she thinks of Great Britain. "And Radiohead, for sure. The beautiful accent - that's what I want to have. Buckingham Palace. And Elizabeth I. She was an extraordinary woman."

Anyone who meets Ewa, or others like her who are coming through legitimate agencies to do jobs that need doing will be forced to question what they have been told about the new Europeans. A benefit scrounger? That's about as likely as an English 23-year-old knowing the name of one of the old Kings of Poland.

WHAT WILL CHANGE?

The enlargement of the EU across three time zones into the territory once occupied by the Red Army has significant and immediate consequences for its 450 million citizens.

For a start,people from the 10 new nations - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta - will be able to seek work in the UK, though there will be restrictions on benefits.

Similarly, Britons will not require work visas in the new member states. However, countries such as Germany and France are barring east European workers for up to seven years, and reciprocal restrictions apply.

Many other changes related to the enlargement have already taken place, such as the liberalisation of tariffs.

With 20 languages now recognised, the European Parliament is destined to become buried in documents translated into all the official languages. The European Commission and European Council, however, will continue working mainly in English and French (with some German).

There have been 25 EU leaders around the table for some time. Now each has a full vote, but they have already been flexing their muscles - last December, for example, Poland helped to block a deal on the EU constitution.

In June the new nations will elect full MEPs to the European Parliament, replacing their current "observers". Likewise in Brussels, ambassadors from the new nations have been sitting in the key committee that marshals EU business, known as Coreper. From Monday they move from the status of observers to formal participants and that is likely to mean more forceful contributions.

As one official put it: "So far, they have tended to keep a fairly low profile - until the topic of Russia is discussed, at which point they all want to speak." But if each national representative makes a two-minute introductory speech at a meeting, it will be 50 minutes before any serious business is done. Independent

Interesting, Sarkozy doesn't mention unemployment but wants to boost public confidence so that people spend more of their wages instead of saving them. What wages? What savings? His policies are obviously not directed at those of us who are unemployed.
How is there going to be economic revival with unemployment at 10%?

ANALYSIS-France's Sarkozy gambles reputation on economic revival
Reuters

By Brian Love

PARIS, May 4 (Reuters) - France's Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who would like President Jacques Chirac's job, put his reputation as an unstoppable political force on the line on Tuesday with a promise to sort out the nation's parlous public finances.

Sarkozy, renowned for his limitless ambition as much as his love of a challenge, held a 90-minute televised news conference to outline his economic strategy, securing the kind of media exposure that hardly anyone expects except for Chirac himself.

Sarkozy said he was determined to boost public confidence so that people would spend more of their wages instead of saving them, and thus give the economy a badly needed boost. He promised tax breaks for house repairs for example.

That bit was unlikely to go down badly with voters.

But he pulled in the opposite direction too, saying he would freeze public spending again in 2005 and that income tax cuts -- a promise made by Chirac -- could only continue if they were offset by equivalent reductions in public expenditure.

Experts said Sarkozy, no friend of Chirac since he supported a rival in presidential elections in 1995, must have had Chirac's blessing for announcing a change of tack on income tax.

He also firmly recommitted France to getting its public deficit back below EU limits in 2005, and to freezing government spending to help meet the target.

Politically, that could leave Sarkozy picking up the bill for Chirac in terms of policy changes or painful cutbacks, given the 47-year-old minister's profile in French politics.

Voters handed the left-wing opposition a landslide victory in regional council elections in March in anger over economic policy and unemployment, triggering the cabinet shake-up that landed Sarkozy in his new job.

As a reminder of how tough it is, an opinion poll released on Tuesday showed Sarkozy's popularity rating had already taken a plunge. The Ifop agency poll conducted in recent days showed his popularity rating drop to 60 from 67 percent.

Economists who watched Sarkozy's performance on Tuesday said he seemed to be nailing his colours to the mast as far as respecting EU commitments was concerned, even if respecting those commitments looked highly implausible.

They said it remained to be seen whether he would be nailed to the mast himself for trying to do so, because voters did not want to hear of belt-tightening, and were particularly sensitive at a time when the government is preparing a cost-cutting reform of the generous healthcare system.

Despite all the time he had to air his views on Tuesday, the finance minister scarcely mentioned unemployment, currently at close to 10 percent and well above the EU average.

TALKING UP A STORM

Sarkozy also said the government was determined to stem the rise in the national debt, which is currently one trillion euros ($1,206 billion). To help, he planned to sell stakes in the motorways and state-controlled groups like aero-engine maker Snecma.

Those kind of privatisations may not raise many eyebrows, but Sarkozy is also on the front line with plans to sell off a stake in the power utility Electricite de France.

In typically combative form, he went to meet EdF workers last week to explain the sale plan in person at the nuclear power plant in Chinon in the west of France.

He charmed some of his audience, not leastly when he said: "I don't give a damn about Anglo-Saxon economic liberalism".

But many believe Sarkozy's credit among voters will wear thin more quickly than he thinks, to the point that he may only see his finance job as a stop-gap job that he will soon leave behind.

He refuses to say he is merely biding his time and aiming to take the job of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who many believe is a spent force since the bruising defeat he and the conservatives suffered in regional elections.

That would be one place he could go for part of the time between now and 2007, when Chirac's second term as president comes to an end. Forbes

Frenchman Backs Use of Public Money

Paris - After hammering out a controversial deal last week to create an industrial icon for France, Nicolas Sarkozy, France's energetic new finance minister, seems ready to take on the world.

"He is fighting against windmills - the process of disindustrialization is inevitable," said Daniel Gros, director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, "Those countries who slow that process pay. The problem is not that there is disindustrialization in France, but that it isn't happening fast enough."

One reason ambitions for a coordinated European response to job losses stemming from globalization may falter, is that national governments - and France particularly - are loath to give more control to foreigners.

According to Frédérique Sachwald, and economist at the French Institute of International Relations, or IFRI, the governments new interventionist rhetoric has a distinctly political ring to it.
"The point is that we want industry that doesn't need to be subsidized all the time. For that we don't need 1980's style industrial policies. It's very French to defend existing jobs and forget that we may hinder the emergence of new businesses and jobs in the process."
more - IHT

Sarkozy Finds 20 Ways to Save French Economy

John Lichfield - Paris - In his first press conference since he was sent to the Finance Ministry last month, M. Sarkozy set out a sweeping programme of reforms, including a two-year spending freeze. But he also set out plans to boost consumption and create jobs, including tax breaks for parents and grandparents who give money to their children to buy large consumer items, such as cars.

In effect, M. Sarkozy said that the state, which is €1,000bn (£675bn) in debt, must go on a crash diet but that the government would remain as busy as ever. He said that he would create an "active" new industrial policy, to encourage investment and discourage French and foreign companies from moving jobs abroad. more - Independent

This is good news that I hope those with wisdom in the US will pay attention to. Will the opinions of former British and American diplomats make a difference to Blair and Bush? Will they be viewed as just another forum? At this point I'm skeptical of anything or anyone being able to stop the madness these two have perpetrated. But, the opinions of these and many others who have tried to bring Bush and Blair to heel will go down in the the history books. It will be a sorry legacy for their children to remember them by.

Tuesday 04 May 2004

Bush has damaged US credibility and prestige, say ex-diplomats

Around 50 former US diplomats have said President George Bush's Middle East policy was costing the United States credibility, prestige and friends, in an open letter to be soon made public.

The letter, which was obtained by Reuters, expresses the signatories' support for 52 retired British diplomats who also sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair last week.

"We former diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticising his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the United States," the US letter begins.

Harshly criticising Bush for his support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the letter said: "Your unabashed support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin-Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plans are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends."

According to Andrew Killgore, who served as US ambassador to Qatar from 1977 to 1980 and was coordinating the effort, the letter has been signed by several former ambassadors, including James Akins, who was US ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1973 to 1976; Robert Keeley who was assistant secretary of state for African affairs from 1978 to 1980 and later ambassador to Zimbabwe and Greece; and John Gunther Dean, ambassador to India from 1985 to 1988.

Killgore said the group intended to go public on Tuesday with a Washington news conference. He said so far there were around 50 signatories.

Other senior former diplomats said they were considering joining and were deeply disturbed by the recent direction of US policy, not only in regard to the Middle East but also on human rights generally.

"We're not the good guys any more and our foreign relations have been and are being damaged. We are viewed as hypocritical," said William Rogers, who was Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in the mid-1970s. Rogers said he had not decided whether to sign the letter.

The diplomats said they were deeply concerned by Bush's endorsement last month of Sharon's plan to withdraw unilaterally from Gaza.

The plan was rejected on Sunday in a referendum of members of Sharon's ruling Likud Party, but the Israeli leader said he still wanted to press forward, although he might change some of the details.

The letter said that by backing the plan, Bush had tossed away the rights of three million Palestinians.

They said Bush had placed US diplomats, civilians and military overseas in an untenable and even dangerous position by pursuing an unbalanced Middle East policy.
Al Jazeera

Diplomats slam Bush Israel stance
From correspondents in Washington
May 5, 2004

SIXTY former US diplomats have signed a letter to President George W Bush contending that his "unabashed support" for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is costing the United States "credibility, prestige and friends".

The letter expresses deep concern over Bush's April 14 endorsement of Sharon's proposal to pull out of Gaza but keep some Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"By closing the door to negotiations with Palestinians and the possibility of a Palestinian state, you have proved that the US is not an evenhanded peace partner," the letter said.

The number of diplomats who have signed the letter was disclosed by the office of Andrew I Killgore, who was ambassador to Qatar from 1977-80. A co-author of the letter was Richard H Curtiss, a former chief inspector of the US Information Agency. news.com.au

Bush refuses to mend fences with Arabs

US diplomats try and fail to set up reconciliation

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday May 5, 2004
The Guardian

The White House has frustrated diplomatic efforts to assuage Arab outrage at its Middle East policy reversal by declining to offer written assurances that it recognises the Palestinians have a territorial claim to the West Bank.
The decision was seen as a snub to Jordan's King Abdullah, who was scheduled to visit the White House tomorrow. It also undermines US discussions with other Arab and European representatives who had sought similar promises.

The veto was also a setback to efforts by the EU, the UN, and Russia to resuscitate the Middle East road map. Representatives met US officials at the UN yesterday to discuss Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza, which has won George Bush's backing, though not his own party's. Guardian

If any of you are under 35 or have children who will be between 18 and 34 next year, be sure to read this...

If the military draft comes after the November election as many now expect, the Bush administration may require all women up to 34 years old to register with the selective service system. Documents obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act by a Seattle newspaper reveal proposals that have been developed by the Bush administration to require women from 18 to 34 to register with the Selective Service System and to raise the maximum draft age to 35 for both females and males. Seattle Post Intelligencer

In case you haven't been keeping up with your window's updates run them now to protect your W2K/XP machines from the Sasser worm. The fixes from MS were released 3 weeks ago.

By Thom Hartmann feb 27 2003

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at our disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

Christian scholars gather to study dangers of Zionism

Over 600 Christian bible scholars, religious leaders and peace activists representing 32 countries, have gathered in Jerusalem's Notre Dame Centre to look at ways of challenging Christian Zionism.

The conference was organised by the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre, an initiative of Palestinian Christians to educate and work alongside Christians of the west. The Arabic name means "the way" and refers to the name given to first-century Christians in Palestine, who were called "the people of The Way."

The entitled "Challenging Christian Zionism: Theology, Politics, and the Palestine-Israel Conflict" addressed Zionism as a worldwide theological and political movement.

Zionism embraces extreme ideological positions based on selected scriptural texts and which, according to conference presenters, form a worldview that is detrimental to a just peace in the Holy Land.

Sabeel Jerusalem director, Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, said Christian Zionism "is a worldview where the Gospel is identified with the ideology of empire, colonialism, and militarism."

Over 20 presentations by international theologians, political scientists and legal experts covered a range of topics.

Catholic theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether, and co-author with her husband Herman Ruether of The Wrath of Jonah: The Crisis of Religious Nationalism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, criticized what she sees in Christian Zionism as the "language of apocalyptic warfare and messianic nationalism".

The Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, said she believes Zionism is an "enormously dangerous" theology that should be rejected.

The Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer, an Anglican and Chairman of the International Bible Society in the U.K. who is author of Christian Zionism: Justifying Apartheid in the Name of God, to be released this Autumn, helped to define Christian
Zionism. At its simplest, he said, it is a "political form of philo-Semitism" or just "Christian support for Zionism," meaning the political and expansionist aims of the State of Israel, its policies and its military.

Christian Zionists believe the Jewish people have "a divine right to posses the land of Palestine," Sizer stated. He noted that Christian Zionism can be considerably more complex, with some leading agencies committed to both a prophetic plan as well as an evangelistic plan for the Jewish people."

Sizer named groups such as Jews for Jesus, Churches Ministry Among Jewish People (CMJ), and the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, which sees Biblical Zionism as cutting edge theology for "the Last Days." Sizer claims that Christian Zionism has become the most powerful and destructive force at work in America today, shaping foreign policy on the Middle East and inciting hatred between Jews and Muslims.

Central to Christian Zionism is a literal reading of the Book of Revelation, popularised by the Left Behind series of fictional apocalyptic thrillers written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins about events following the Second Coming of Christ and the "rapture" in which Christians are taken up to heaven.

Conference presenter Barbara R. Rossing, Associate Professor of New Testament at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and author of The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation, says the rapture is theologically "all wrong." Rossing explored the bible sources of rapturist theology in her presentation as "modern literalist interpretations based on selective passages of the bible taken out of context."

Other presenters included Donald Wagner, professor of the Middle East studies at North Park University in Chicago; Dr. Gary Burge, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and Graduate School in Chicago; Gershom Gorenberg, associate editor of The Jerusalem Report and founder of the Israeli religious peace movement, Netivot Shalom; Marc Ellis, Director of the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas; Father Peter DuBrul, an American Jesuit teaching Scripture, Philosophy, and Cultural Studies at Bethlehem University, West Bank; and Father Michael Prior, CM, professor of the Bible and Theology at St. Mary's College, University of Surrey, U.K. who is author of Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry.

Palestinians from the West Bank could not participate in the Jerusalem conference because of military closures, so
organizers scheduled presentations in Ramallah and Bethlehem to take the conference to them. The Bethlehem trip had to be cancelled, however, as it fell on the day following Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Abdul Aziz Rantisi when access to Bethlehem was deemed too dangerous by conference planners.

Participants' in the conference committed to return to their respective countries to help pursue a political solution to the conflict in the Holy Land based on the enforcement of existing international law and United Nations resolutions. A conference statement is to be distributed by all participants in their respective localities explaining objections to Christian Zionism and calling upon Christians to liberate themselves from ideologies of militarism and occupation and instead to pursue the healing of the world. Discussions have also begun among the Sabeel leadership to form an international institute for the study of Christian Zionism. Ekklesia

Article at the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh gives more gruesome details on just how low humanity can sink in it's treatment of fellow human beings. How far up does the responsibility go?

For those that have the stomach for it Albasrah has more images.

Watching 10 new countries become part of the EU on television was exciting. I wanted to be part of the crowd. They even showed the first baby born in Lithuania. Most realize there will be little change in the short term but I think there will as time passes. I do hope these smaller countries are enriched by this union. I wasn't able to understand all the language but the happiness and excitement on the faces of those in the crowd was easy to translate.
I found little about this tremendous event on US news services. I was surprised since the US and the EU are the world's largest trading partners. Perhaps under a new administration interest in European affairs will again become part of mainstream thinking.

450 million people, 20 official languages: welcome to the enlarged European Union
By Stephen Castle in Dublin

Europe's leaders put the final seal on the reunification of a continent divided by the Cold War as the EU expanded to 25 nations, becoming the world's biggest free trade area.

Leaders of nations once under Moscow's iron grip will take their place as full members of the EU today, alongside their Western European counterparts, in a summit at Phoenix Park in Dublin. The enlarged EU will be one of 450 million people and 20 official languages, stretching across three time zones.

Today's accession of the 10 mainly former Communist states was celebrated with parties, concerts and spectacular fireworks displays across the continent. In central and Eastern Europe the EU's blue and yellow flag was hoisted in ceremonies to mark the final break with 50 years of Soviet rule.

In Warsaw, Lech Walesa, whose Solidarity movement toppled the country's Communist regime in 1989, said: "Poland's entrance into the European Union fulfils my dreams and lifetime work."

The EU's commissioner for enlargement, Günther Verheughen, added: "1 May will be a milestone in the history of Europe. It is an opportunity to heal the wounds of the past."

Of the 10 new countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were part of the USSR and a further five - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary - were Soviet satellites. Malta and the Greek-controlled half of Cyprus are also being admitted.

European integration began as an act of Franco-German reconciliation at the end of the Second World War, but the EU now faces an equally profound challenge as it tries to integrate its new members. The organisation, which began as a club of six, has expanded before, but never on such a scale. With the exception of Poland, all the additions are small and most are young democracies with immature political systems.

Economic growth is high but, apart from Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, all are poor. Poland's unemployment is around 20 per cent; according to some projections it will take Lithuania 57 years to catch up with living standards in France.

The mood of the EU these countries join is neither confident nor generous. The existing 15 nations have even failed to agree the modest reforms outlined in the draft EU constitution. Even if the deal is agreed, its ratification will mean a tough fight in nations, including the United Kingdom which is holding a referendum.

Its economy in stagnation, Germany, which traditionally oiled the EU with dollops of cash, is making it clear its generosity is at a limit. Farmers from the new nations will have to wait 10 years to get the same level of subsidy as their Western European counterparts; East European workers could have a seven-y