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One of the European parliament’s most influential members, the German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok, has declared that Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the credit ratings of nine eurozone member states is part of a “currency war” being waged by the United States against the euro and Europe itself. Brok is a former chair of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and he is touted to reclaim that post when committee chairs are reassigned next week.
For details and background, see my new report at the Weekly Standard online here.
The Romanian news agency Mediafax reports that an Iranian refugee who has been condemned to death for “apostasy” in Tehran has had his request for political asylum in Romania refused by the Romanian Immigration Office.
For the details of the case of Christian convert Habib Bastam, see my new report at the Weekly Standard online here.
According to the Spanish daily ABC, a Libyan rebel commander who played a key role in overthrowing the rule of Muammar Qaddafi previously participated in the May 2010 attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza aboard the Turkish-owned vessel the Mavi Marmara. The operation famously culminated in a deadly clash between Israel Defense Force commandos and “activists,” armed with iron rods and knives, aboard the ship.
The paper’s source for the story is the rebel leader himself: Mahdi al-Harati…
See my new report on National Review Online here.
Leaked footage from a hotel security camera has revived rumors that former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the victim of a “conspiracy” to derail his French presidential aspirations in New York last May, when, on his account, he accepted a Sofitel maid’s generous offer of some quick oral gratification just prior to check-out – and famously found himself arrested and accused of sexual assault a few hours later….But if Strauss-Kahn was indeed the victim of a conspiracy in New York, then, in light of more recent developments in France, it is clear that the greatest beneficiary of this conspiracy will turn out to have been none other than his own Socialist party…
For the details of the latest “DSK affair,” see my new article at The Weekly Standard online here.
Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s Inside WikiLeaks has been billed as a “tell-all” exposé of the supposed “whistleblower” website. Given the darkness in which the history of the site is shrouded, such a volume would be welcome. But Domscheit-Berg’s book in fact tells very little of substance and virtually nothing that is verifiable. Far from providing anything like an exposé, Inside WikiLeaks appears essentially to have been written for fans of alleged WikiLeaks “founder” Julian Assange. Domscheit-Berg himself comes across as a starry-eyed Assange groupie or even, in the most cloying passages, a forlorn lover…
My review of Inside WikiLeaks was previously only available in the print edition of World Affairs. It is now available online here.
“It seems . . . that we are in fact dealing with a new form of right-wing extremist terrorism,” German interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich announced last month, following the revelation that a trio of neo-Nazis from Jena had been responsible for the murder of nine “foreigners” in Germany, as well as a police officer. But the only thing new about the case is the fact that it is now—no thanks to German authorities—finally solved. For years, despite the prima facie evidence, both German authorities and the virtual entirety of the German media refused even to entertain the possibility that the murder series was a matter of racist crime. Only the blundering of the perpetrators themselves revealed the truth.
For the details, including indications that the perpetrators had connections to German domestic intelligence, see my new article in The Weekly Standard, available online here.
(Incidentally, I already wrote about the murder series and its presumptive racist character in a short post in 2006. See my “Clueless in Germany” on Trans-Int here.)
Did Dutch architectural firm MVRDV recognize the resemblance between their controversial design for residential towers in Seoul and the World Trade towers on 9/11? A spokesman for MVRDV appears to be having trouble keeping his story straight…
See my new post on the Weekly Standard blog here.
Whereas once-upon-a-time Transatlantic Intelligencer was a traditional blog, I essentially use the site today to link to my articles that appear elsewhere. (For the full story, see the Trans-Int “About” page) If you would like to receive e-mail notifications when new articles appear, please sign-up for the Trans-Int Newsletter. The notifications typically consist of the same notice that is posted here on Trans-Int, including a clickable link. The sign-up form is in the right sidebar. If you prefer to follow on Facebook, the link to the Facebook page and the “like” button are also available in the right sidebar. Thanks for your interest.
The Dutch architectural firm MVRDV has issued an apology in English for a building design that clearly resembles the World Trade towers collapsing after the 9/11 attacks. “It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks,” the designers insist, “nor did we see the resemblance during the design process.” They did not see the resemblance? The problem is: They have admitted precisely the contrary in Dutch…
See my new post on the Weekly Standard blog here.
(PS. In the Weekly Standard post, I note that the MVRDV towers are supposed to serve as the gateway to a new business hub designed by Daniel Libeskind and that the hub greatly resembles Libeskind’s original “master plan” for the reconstruction of the WTC. In this context, MVRDV’s obvious allusion to the 9/11 attacks makes perfect sense – for, in fact, Libeskind’s WTC design was animated by the same macabre “spirit.” For a detailed discussion, see my 2004 article in Policy Review magazine here. And for related remarks by Libeskind, see my Feb 2005 post on the old Trans-Int blog here.)
