European Values (II)

BERLIN/WARSAW (Own report) – Whereas Berlin is attacking the Polish government because of its media law; massive criticism is being raised against the German public broadcasting. While German politicians are calling for sanctions to be imposed on Poland, because it is placing its public media under government supervision, a right-wing conservative former CDU minister has become Chair of an influential panel of Germany’s ARD public television channel. Observers note that, even after the Federal Constitutional Court’s intervention, state officials or individuals with close government ties exercise significant influence on the public broadcasting steering committees. Due to their structural relationship to the state, on the one hand, and the programs’ political orientation toward government policy, on the other, one could speak of “embedded journalism” in Germany, a former correspondent of the ZDF public television concluded a few years ago. The journalist went to work for the Swiss Television, because it does not have “a NATO state’s obligatory alignment.” The German public television’s foreign news reporting is even increasingly being accused of using falsifications.

Controlling the past in Romania

Romania is a country whose political life has been profoundly afflicted by a lack of morals from the fall of communism to this day. In this de-facto a semi-presidential republic, it is only the government that gets always criticized by the EU, although the president Traian Basescu himself is a man with a dark past and a contestable present. Basescu has thus been an informer for the Communist secret services, the Securitate, and here we publish the proof.

This week again, in Brussels, the spokesman of the Commission Mark Gray had harsh words for the  Romanian ruling coalition of Socialists and Liberals, after the parliament voted on Tuesday to boost the deputies’ immunity from prosecution.

Mansour and el-Sissi – the two men running Egypt

 Judge Adly Mansour has been sworn in as interim president in Egypt after Mohammed Morsi’s outing, but the real powerhouse is the military, which is led by General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

“I swear by God to honor the law and the constitution and to serve justice.” Barely 24 hours after President Mohammed Morsi had been ousted, Adly Mansour was sworn in as interim president.