Presseurop |

Latin America | The Spanish brain-drain (El País, Madrid)

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:17:27 +0100

Faced with record unemployment and poor job prospects, a generation of young Spaniards is decamping to the economic boomtowns of Latin America (Article)

Espionage | What are Colombian agents doing in the EU?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:38:56 +0100

EUobserver has revealed details of an alleged covert operation by Colombia’s secret service (DAS) to undermine the EU. According to documents seized by the Colombian Attorney General’s office, a DAS mission known as “Operation Europe” sought “to neutralise the influence of the European judicial system, the European Parliament's human rights sub-committee, and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”. News of the operation, which included wire-taps and email intercepts, first broke in Colombia in 2009, after which the then president Alvaro Uribe introduced legislation to investigate and overhaul the agency. While the European Commission has expressed faith in the current inquiry, several MEPs, NGOs and Brussels insiders critical of Colombia’s human rights record are concerned that the campaign to thwart Bogota’s critics in Europe is far from over. Paul Emile Dupret, a Belgian political advisor to the European Parliament’s United European Left group, aims to take a case against the Colombian agency this July along with victims of DAS wire taps and intimidation.

(News in brief)

Geopolitics | United, but not with Europe (Wprost, Warsaw)

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:41:12 +0100

The good news is that from Asia to the Americas, an increasing number of countries are coming together to create unions inspired by the EU. And the bad news? In the long term these entities may overshadow the EU on the world stage, worries Polish weekly Wprost. (Article)

Terrorism | A Jackal for a nuclear power station

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:51:56 +0100

Paris is apparently prepared to hand over Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as “Carlos”, to the authorities in Venezuela, where he was born 60 years ago. The Czech daily Lidové Noviny has this on information from Mnislav Zelený-Atapana, ex-Czech ambassador to Colombia, who says the quid pro quo is that Caracas buy a nuclear power plant from France, where “the Jackal” has been serving a life sentence for terrorism since 1994. The recently signed prisoner exchange treaty between the two nations should facilitate the transfer. According to Mnislav Zelený-Atapana, French president Nicolas Sarkozy had pledged to hand Carlos over to his Venezuelan opposite number Hugo Chávez in return for the latter’s efforts to get the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) to release its Franco-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt. But Betancourt was eventually freed by the Colombian army in 2008, so another bargaining counter had to be found for Carlos. And what better return for the terrorist than the radiant jewel of French high tech?

(News in brief)

Foreign policy | The peacekeeper's lament (Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Warsaw)

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:15:36 +0100

Diplomats, soldiers, policemen: from the Balkans to Afghanistan, the EU is deploying more or less ambitious peacekeeping missions. But in a report two experts assert that lack of organisation or commitment from member states means that the results often fall short of expectation, reports Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. (Article)

Organ Donations | Study calls for universal "presumed consent"

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:06:23 +0100

"Approximately 6,800 kidney transplants – or 10% of the total number of kidney transplants worldwide – are conducted for transplant tourists, who are willing to pay prices in excess of 100,000 euros per operation," reports La Vanguardia. The Catalan daily cites a pioneering study jointly undertaken by the Council of Europe and the United Nations, which should constitute a first step towards an international agreement to halt this phenomenon. According to the study, transplant tourism is largely the result of a lack of donors: in the EU alone, 4,000 patients die every year while waiting for organ transplants. "Those who have the means seek other solutions'" in Pakistan, India, China, the Philippines, Egypt and Colombia, notes the Global Observatory on Donation & Transplantation. Rafael Matesanz, the head of the Spanish national transplant organization and one of the authors of the report, suggests that the system of presumed consent, which has been established in Spain – where the rate of donations is the highest in the world – should be applied worldwide. This would "raise the number of donations worldwide from the current level of 100,000 organs per year to one million." The European Parliament has already voiced its support for the initiative.

(News in brief)