Telegraph | News | Berlusconi rattled as Left-wing president appointed

I missed this part when new Italian president Napolitano was elected.

Daniel Gross: Marc Champion writes in the Wall Street Journal about Eastern Europe’s belated interest in energy efficiency.

EU’s gender gap still wide open

An oldish but interesting (but depressing) little BBC News article. Via Michael.

Today marks the first anniversary of A Few Euros More*. While I don’t think it’s reached its full potential, it turned into a pretty good blog, and I think it was well worth the effort.

*You might have noticed that the archives go back much longer. Quicklinks, a sidebar semi-blog, was hardly the same blog as afem however.

Turkey & Kurdistan: shelling or selling? | Needlenose

Gypsies Gain a Legal Tool in Rights Fight

But now, some leaders of the Gypsies, or Roma, are looking to a new model to try to achieve equality: the civil rights struggle of black Americans. More and more, the Roma are going to court to secure their rights, and doing so where they think it will have the best chance for success — among the new East European members of the European Union and those trying to join, which are seeking to impress Western Europe with strict interpretations of their new antidiscrimination laws.

Germany and the Herero: What now? asks Ranry McDonald, guest posting on the Head Heeb.

Back on the 29th of August, The Globe of Mail of Toronto featured an article by Stephanie Nolen (”‘Forgive us our trespasses’”) that examined the contentious question of how–or even if–the Herero of Namibia should be compensated for their sufferings in the Herero Genocide of 1904-1907.

nhw: Note from Bulgarian history

How a carefully designed consociational power-sharing arrangement was subverted by a young mathematical politician.

languagehat.com: BO-VRIL.

Reuters report.

Villepin, crippled by a bruising defeat over a youth job law last month, issued the latest of his almost daily denials of guilt as the murky scandal rekindled speculation about his ability to stay in office.

The so-called Clearstream affair has derailed Villepin’s efforts to press on with reforms and fuelled a resurgence of the far-right ahead of 2007 presidential elections.

Le Monde on Wednesday published extracts from a leaked document the daily said proved Villepin knew more than he had acknowledged about an alleged dirty tricks campaign to smear Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, his rival for the presidency.

Le Monde’s article

Via Jerome, who says they ” blows open Villepin’s defense”.