Turkish Forum

Category: Europe

  • Even the UN’s Immunity Has Limits (Lawyer for the victims of Srebrenica)

    Even the UN’s Immunity Has Limits (Lawyer for the victims of Srebrenica)

    Axel Hagedorn, 53, is a German lawyer representing nearly 6,000 relatives of the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. He spoke with SPIEGEL about a Dutch court’s recent ruling that the Netherlands couldn’t be held accountable for the deaths and his intention to sue at the European level.

    German lawyer Axel Hagedorn (left) walks with a relative of a victim of the Srebrenica massacre outside The Hague.

    SPIEGEL: Last week, the district court in The Hague threw out the claim of the relatives of four Bosnians who were killed by Serbs in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. In all 8,000 people were killed. Dutch United Nations peacekeeping troops led by Thomas Karremans allowed the Serbs to enter the safe haven, but no one will be held accountable now. Does this mean the case is closed?

    Axel Hagedorn: Quite the contrary. Srebrenica was the largest massacre in Europe since World War II, and it will also enable us to answer the question of whether the United Nations is above all laws. At the end of the day, the UN’s credibility is at stake. The most recent decision dealt solely with the fate of individuals; lawyers from another law firm had brought a case exclusively directed at the Dutch state. The court ruled that the Dutch were not responsible because their soldiers were under the command of the UN. That was an easy call for the judge.

    SPIEGEL: How do you intend to make it harder on them?

    Hagedorn: We represent 6,000 relatives, which means that it involves almost all the massacre’s victims. For this reason, the issue of genocide will be put on the table as well. Above all, we aren’t just suing the Netherlands — we’re also going after the United Nations.

     

    SPIEGEL: The same court brushed you off two months ago. Its main argument was that people can’t bring a case against the UN because it has secured immunity for itself in its own charter.

    Hagedorn: These two verdicts in such a short space of time have made everyone realize that it would be perverse if all those involved were deprived of justice. And they won’t be able to, either, because there is a limit to the UN’s immunity. If the participation of UN soldiers in an act of genocide doesn’t cross this line, then tell me what does.

    SPIEGEL: But the UN has never been prosecuted in court.

    Hagedorn: The UN safeguarded itself with immunity in its 1946 “Convention on Privileges,” but at the same time it also committed itself to establishing its own jurisdiction. Over the last 62 years, it has utterly failed to do so.

     

    SPIEGEL: Do you believe that the UN can be forced to make up for that?

    Hagedorn: We first need to follow through with the legal process at the national level, with an appeal and a review. Then, if necessary, we can go before the European Court of Human Rights. For the judges there, we have a clearly defined question: Does the UN also enjoy absolute immunity in cases of genocide so long as it has failed to establish an alternative legal procedure? We might not win the case in the Netherlands, but we will on the European level.

    Spiegel 09/17/2008

    Interview conducted by Clemens Höges.

  • Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    Germany says U.S. to lose financial superpower status

    By Noah Barkin Reuters

    BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany blamed the Anglo-Saxon capitalist model on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis, saying the United States would lose its financial superpower status and have to accept greater market regulation.

    In unusually stark language, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck told parliament the financial crisis would leave “deep marks” and proposed eight measures to address it, including a ban on speculative short-selling and an increase in bank capital requirements to offset credit risks.

    “The world will never be as it was before the crisis,” Steinbrueck, a deputy leader of the centre-left Social Democrats, told the Bundestag lower house.

    “The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multi-polar,” he said.

    Steinbrueck lay the blame for the crisis squarely on the United States and what he called an Anglo-Saxon drive for double-digit profits and massive bonuses for bankers and company executives.

    “Investment bankers and politicians in New York, Washington and London were not willing to give these up,” he said. “Wall Street will never be what it was.”

    The collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers and financial woes of other financial institutions like insurer AIG has prompted the U.S. government to unveil a $700 billion rescue package for the country’s financial sector.

    Steinbrueck said it was neither necessary nor wise for Germany to replicate the U.S. plan for its own institutions.

    The German Bundesbank said earlier this week that the financial market turbulence would hit the earnings of Germany’s big commercial lenders, its publicly-owned Landesbanks and its cooperative banks.

    Tighter credit in the wake of the crisis could also constrain household consumption and corporate investment, increasing the likelihood the German economy will fall into recession this year.

    But Steinbrueck said German regulator Bafin believed German banks could cope with losses and ensure the safety of private savings.

    He said the crisis showed the need for a greater state role in setting the rules for markets and called the turmoil primarily an American problem.

    “The financial crisis is above all an American problem. The other G7 financial ministers in continental Europe share this opinion,” he said.

    “This system, which is to a large degree insufficiently regulated, is now collapsing — with far-reaching consequences for the U.S. financial market and considerable contagion effects for the rest of the world,” Steinbrueck added.

    (Reporting by Noah Barkin and Kerstin Gehmlich)

    Source: uk.news.yahoo.com, 24 September 2008

  • Spanish titles sell to Turkey, Middle East

    Spanish titles sell to Turkey, Middle East

    By Pamela Rolfe

    Sept 23, 2008, 10:22 AM ETSAN SEBASTIAN, Spain — In a first for Spanish product, Turkish production house Altioklar has picked up format rights to the hit Spanish series “7 Lives” for digital platform Digiturk, while Minema Media will make a Turkish version of “My Adorable Neighbors,” Spanish sales outfit Imagina International Sales announced Tuesday.

    Additionally, Imagina announced groundbreaking sales in the Middle East, with Sabbah Media picking up “Countdown” for Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Oman.

    All the shows are Globomedia productions, as are “Boarding School” and “Countdown,” which Vietnam’s VTC9 channel picked up ahead of MIPCOM to start airing in September.

    Source : The Hollywood Reporter

  • Italy: Solve Cyprus before Turkey joins EU

    Italy: Solve Cyprus before Turkey joins EU

    ATHENS, Greece: Italy’s president says the island of Cyprus must be reunited before Turkey is allowed to join the European Union.

    President Giorgio Napolitano made the remarks while on a three-day official visit to Greece.

    Rival Cypriot leaders are currently holding reunification talks on the Mediterranean island which has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974.

    Napolitano holds a largely ceremonial post. He made the comments Tuesday after talks with Greek President Karolos Papoulias.

    » Save up to 72% on morning home

    Italy: Solve Cyprus before Turkey joins EU – International Herald Tribune.

  • Orthodox patriarch backs Turkey’s EU bid

    Orthodox patriarch backs Turkey’s EU bid

    BRUSSELS, Belgium: The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians urged the European Union on Wednesday to take on Turkey as a member if it improves democratic and human rights standards.

    “Europe needs to bring Turkey into its project,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I told the European Parliament.

    “What I and the majority of the people of Turkey wish is full integration, full membership of the European Union, on condition that the criteria and preconditions that apply to all candidates are abided by,” he told a later news conference.

    Bartholomew, who is based in Istanbul, Turkey, is the spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide.

    He appealed to the EU not to make religious or cultural differences an obstacle to Turkish membership. Turkey’s population of 70 million is predominantly Muslim.

    Orthodox patriarch backs Turkey’s EU bid – International Herald Tribune.

  • Russia engages in ‘gangland’ diplomacy as it sends warship to the Caribbean

    Russia engages in ‘gangland’ diplomacy as it sends warship to the Caribbean

    Russia flexed its muscles in America’s backyard yesterday as it sent one of its largest warships to join military exercises in the Caribbean. The nuclear-powered flagship Peter the Great set off for Venezuela with the submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels in the first Russian naval mission in Latin America since the end of the Cold War.

    “The St Andrew flag, the flag of the Russian Navy, is confidently returning to the world oceans,” Igor Dygalo, a spokesman for the Russian Navy, said. He declined to comment on Russian newspaper reports that nuclear submarines were also part of the expedition.

    The voyage to join the Venezuelan Navy for manoeuvres came only days after Russian strategic nuclear bombers made their first visit to the country. Hugo Chávez, the President, said then that the arrival of the strike force was a warning to the US. The vehemently antiAmerican Venezuelan leader is due to visit Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, in Moscow this week as part of a tour that includes visits to Cuba and China.

    Peter the Great is armed with 20 nuclear cruise missiles and up to 500 surface-to-air missiles, making it one of the most formidable warships in the world. The Kremlin has courted Venezuela and Cuba as tensions with the West soared over the proposed US missile shield in Eastern Europe and the Russian invasion of Georgia last month. Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, said recently that Russia should “restore its position in Cuba” – the nation where deployment of Soviet nuclear missiles in 1962 brought Russia and the United States to the brink of nuclear war.

    Igor Sechin, the Deputy Prime Minister, made clear that Russia would challenge the US for influence in Latin America after visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba last week. He said: “It would be wrong to talk about one nation having exclusive rights to this zone.”

    Moscow was infuriated when Washington sent US warships into the Black Sea to deliver aid to Georgia after the war. Analysts said that the Kremlin was engaging in gunboat diplomacy over the encroachment of Nato into the former Soviet satellites of Georgia and Ukraine.

    Pavel Felgengauer, a leading Russian defence expert, told The Times: “It’s to show the flag and the finger to the United States. They are offering a sort of gangland deal – if you get into our territory, then we will get into yours. You leave Georgia and Ukraine to us and we won’t go into the Caribbean, OK?” He described the visit as “first and foremost a propaganda deployment”, pointing out that one of the support vessels was a tug in case either of the warships broke down.

    Latin America was one of the arenas of the Cold War in which the US and the Soviet Union battled for ideological dominance. Russia has agreed to sell more than $4 billion (£2 billion) worth of armaments to Venezuela since 2005 and disclosed last week that Mr Chávez wanted new antiaircraft systems and more fighter jets.

    Mr Dygalo denied any link with Georgia and said that Mr Chávez and Mr Medvedev had agreed on the exercises in July.

    Sea power

    — In the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 – the largest naval battle since Trafalgar – the Russian fleet sailed 18,000 miles (33,000km) to Port Arthur in the Pacific, where it was outmanoeuvred and destroyed by Japanese forces

    — During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Navy conducted 180 voyages on 86 ships to transfer weapons to Cuba

    Sources: Times Archive; russojapanesewar.com

     

    The Times  23 September 2008