'Some Aspects of Our Industry Seem Greedy'

The investment bank Goldman Sachs is back in the black. SPIEGEL spoke with the chief executive of its German operation about finance industry greed, the morals of banking and who should be blamed for the global financial meltdown.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Dibelius, bankers worldwide have behaved shamelessly and irresponsibly in recent months. Do you feel complicit?

Dibelius: Yes, and I also want to face up to the debate. In retrospect, some aspects of our industry seem greedy, self-centered and unrealistic, as if the industry had no concern whatsoever for the society around it. And I admit that we did not manage, on the whole, to cope with the expectations society has of us -- as individuals, as institutions and as an industry. Some decisions were made in the euphoria of booming markets. Hindsight is always 20-20. For that reason, it also makes sense that some of these decisions are now being sharply criticized.

much more if you can stomach it

Thomas Proctor | Paris | May 6

The Independent -

For the first time in almost 1,000 years, many of the legendary Byzantine treasures of Mount Athos in Greece are on view to women.

Almost 200 works of art from the male-only Orthodox enclave in northern Greece are on show at the Petit Palais in Paris until July. Most of the works have never previously left the peninsula, from which women – and even most female animals – have been banned since 1045.

The 20 monasteries of Mount Athos house one of the largest collections of Christian art in the world. Direct access to these treasures is notoriously difficult to obtain for men, and impossible for women.

But Paris has been granted the privilege of hosting this "world premiere", largely as a result of France's presidency of the EU last year. The Greek Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dora Bakoyannis, described the exhibition as a "cultural event of the first order".

"The treasures exhibited here are a part of European culture," Ms Bakoyannis said. "A large number of these relics are going 'beyond the walls' of Mount Athos for public viewing for the first time by men and women."

Pavol Stracansky | Bratislava | May 5

IPS - Human rights activists have warned of a "proliferation" of far-right groups in central and eastern Europe amid an economic crisis fuelling support for extremist movements and political parties.

They say more and more far-right groups are becoming "paramilitary", carrying out violent attacks on Roma and other ethnic or religious minorities, while extreme right-wing political parties see a surge in voter support.

"There has been a rise in right-wing extremism in eastern Europe, especially in Hungary and the Czech Republic where paramilitary-style groups have been formed," Georgina Siklossy, spokeswoman for the European Network Against Racism told IPS.

"There is a distinct danger that, in times of economic crisis as at present, right-wing extremism and right-wing groups will proliferate."

Analysts say that ever since the fall of communism across the former Eastern bloc, there has been a steady growth in right-wing extremism.

May 5

Spiegel Online - In a massive secret operation, Berlin sent members of its elite GSG-9 police force to Somalia to free hostages and a German freighter captured by pirates there, but the commandos were called off before the rescue effort could begin. The scuppered operation reveals deficits in Germany's security forces.

read more after the jump

Sophie Hardach | May 5

Reuters - True to their reputation as leisure-loving gourmets, the French spend more time sleeping and eating than anyone else among the world's wealthy nations, according to a study published yesterday.

The average French person sleeps almost nine hours every night, more than an hour longer than the average Japanese and Korean, who sleep the least in a survey of 18 members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Despite their siesta habit, Spaniards rank only third in the poll after Americans, who sleep more than 8.5 hours.

And while more and more French people grab a bite at fast-food chains these days or wolf down a sandwich at their desk, they still spend more than two hours a day eating.

** Study: Society at a Glance reveals evolving social trends in OECD countries
** Findings by Country

Angelique Chrisafis | Rome | May 4

The Guardian - The beleaguered French justice minister, Rachida Dati, faces another crisis today as prison officers launch a crippling four-day strike over a lack of resources to deal with France's fetid and overcrowded prisons.

French prisons, dubbed "the nation's shame", have one of the highest suicide rates in Europe. There are regular murders, escapes, drug-dealing and such acute overcrowding that prisoners often sleep on mattresses on the floor in buildings crammed to double capacity. There were 115 suicides in prisons last year and about 50 so far this year. Some prison officers have also taken their own life.

Failure to address France's prison crisis is one of the biggest black marks in what critics call Dati's disastrous tenure as justice minister. "The minister doesn't have the capacity to recognise the catastrophic state of our prisons and our working conditions," said Céline Verzeletti, of the communist-leaning CGT union.

Peter Popham | Rome | May 4

The Independent - Days after attacking him publicly for acting the emperor with a harem of young girls, Silvio Berlusconi's wife Veronica Lario has called time on her 19-year marriage and is seeking a divorce. "I want to bring down the curtain," Ms Lario was quoted as saying in La Repubblica. "I am convinced that at this point it would not be dignified for me to stop here. The road of my marriage is marked, I cannot stay with a man who surrounds himself with minors."

Berlusconi demands wife apology

Silvio Berlusconi has demanded an apology from his wife after she accused him of "consorting with minors" and said she wanted a divorce.

Zoltán Dujisin | Budapest | May 1

IPS - The situation of Roma in the Czech Republic has always been bad, but growing right-wing extremism has taken tensions to new levels, driving many to seek asylum in Canada.

Roma organisations have called on those Roma who feel unsafe in the country to leave. There are up to 300,000 Roma living in the Czech Republic, that has a population of 10 million.

Roma, often also called gypsies, are a people believed to have migrated to Europe from India since the 14th century.

At least 853 mostly ethnic Roma Czech citizens have applied for refugee status in Canada over the last year, and 84 have obtained it. But in only the first two months of 2009, there are already new 570 Czechs, mostly Roma, seeking asylum there. This is the second wave of Czech Roma seeking to flee to Canada after a similar wave in the late 1990s.

Czech media has claimed that the migrations are economically motivated and promoted by mediators who tell Romanies to exaggerate their experiences of racial discrimination in the Czech Republic and personally profit from their asylum applications.

Canada has asked the Czech government to investigate the allegations as the mediators are allegedly Czech and Slovaks émigrés to Canada.

Elizabeth Nash | Madrid | May 1

The Independent - Anyone planning to take a Mediterranean holiday in defiance of the plunging pound may be stung by something more painful than the exchange rate: the killer Portuguese Man o' War, one of the world's most poisonous jellyfish. The graceful glutinous creature, whose trailing tentacles carry a potentially lethal poison, was spotted this week off Spain's favourite beaches for the first time in 10 years.

Swept by westerly winds through the Gibraltar Strait from its north Atlantic habitat, Physalia physalis is set to colonise the Med and cause more pain to beleaguered holidaymakers.

Clusters of up to 50 Men o' Wars, which are not strictly jellyfish but floating colonies of microscopic hydrozoans, are drifting off the Murcian resort of San Pedro del Pinatar on Spain's Costa Calida. Scientists say they could soon invade waters around the Balearic Islands and advance towards the Catalan coast.

With a sting 10 times stronger than an ordinary jellyfish, it presents a more dangerous threat than the annual jellyfish invasion of beaches in Spain, France, Italy and North Africa.

Robert Marquand | Berlin | Apr 30

CSM - Spanish investigative judge Baltasar Garzón, known in international legal circles for his efforts to extradite Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, said Tuesday that he will open a preliminary investigation into the creation of the Guantánamo camp.

If followed through, the investigation could bring out in a European court many of the materials already uncovered in the United States – through congressional committee hearings, recently declassified CIA memos, and media outlets – on the sanctioning of extreme methods of interrogation that have widely been called "torture."

Judge Garzón, known as "the superjudge" in Spain for his high-profile indictments, appears to be focused less on those in the US who carried out extreme measures, and more on the conceptual legal "framers" of then-secret memos that enabled the interrogations.

The scope of Garzón's filing includes "any of those that executed and/or designed a systematic plan of torture or cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of the prisoners [at Guantánamo] that were under their custody."

Sources familiar with the case say that pressures by the Spanish government to slow or stop Garzón are intense, and that Spanish justice officials and even Garzón himself would prefer that the US administration carry out a serious investigation in line with the requirements of the 1984 Convention on Torture (of which the US is a signatory), which demands such an inquiry.

Juhan Tere | Tallinn | Apr 30

The Baltic Course -

At the public discussion on the environmental impact assessment report that was drafted on the Nord Stream gas pipe in the Ministry of Environment, Estonia researchers, particularly the member of the Nature Conservation Committee of the Academy of Sciences Ivar Puura, raised the issue of the quality of the survey.

Puura pointed out that the developers of the gas pipe have only researched the seabed under the gas pipe route at the depth of five centimetres whereas in order to achieve sufficient thoroughness, marine sediments up to 30 centimetres from the surface should be viewed.

"In such a case, the results would be more comprehensive; besides, the impact of dioxins has currently not assessed at all," explained Puura. He added that Russia's data have also not been included in the report, concluding that on the basis of information available, no adequate assessment can be made.

Angelique Chrisafi | Paris | Apr 28

The Guardian - Biopic recalls life of Jeannine Deckers, who once beat the Beatles to top of US charts

She was the bespectacled nun who beat the Beatles to the top of the US charts, sparking a worldwide craze for singers in wimples before either the Sound of Music or TV's the Flying Nun.

Now the tragic story of Jeannine Deckers, known as the Singing Nun, has been reclaimed by her native Belgium.

A new film, released tomorrow, tells the painful tale of the naive young sister from a Brussels suburb who eventually left her convent and took her own life.

Apr 27

BBC - Builders working near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp have found a message in a bottle written by prisoners, museum officials say.

The message, written in pencil and dated 9 September 1944, bears names, camp numbers and home towns of seven young inmates from Poland and France.

At least two survived the Nazi camp, an Auschwitz museum official said.

The bottle was buried in a concrete wall in a school that prisoners had been compelled to reinforce.

Apr 28

BBC - A court in French Polynesia has begun hearing complaints from former workers at France's nuclear weapons test sites.

The cases, being heard for the first time, relate to work in Mururoa and Fangataufa and seek recognition and compensation for ill health.

Eight cases have been lodged, although five of the workers have already died of what have been called radiation-linked diseases.

In March, the French government enacted legislation to allow compensation.

This could apply in cases relating to nuclear tests in the Pacific and Africa.

Nicholas Kulish | Tiszalok, Hungary | Apr 27

NYT - Jeno Koka was a doting grandfather and dedicated worker on his way to his night-shift job at a chemical plant last week when he was shot dead at his doorstep. To his killer, he was just a Gypsy, and that seems to have been reason enough.

Prejudice against Roma — widely known as Gypsies and long among Europe’s most oppressed minority groups — has swelled into a wave of violence. Over the past year, at least seven Roma have been killed in Hungary, and Roma leaders have counted some 30 Molotov cocktail attacks against Roma homes, often accompanied by sprays of gunfire.

But the police have focused their attention on three fatal attacks since November that they say are linked. The authorities say the attacks may have been carried out by police officers or military personnel, based on the stealth and accuracy with which the victims were killed.

Robert Marquand | Berlin | Apr 27

CSM - In the United States, teaching religion in public schools is political dynamite. In France, forget it. But in Germany they've done it for decades.

Except, that is, in Berlin, where postwar policies framed with help from the old Soviet Union have kept faith out of the classrooms.

But in a city that sociologist Peter Berger once called "the world capital of modern atheism," a surprisingly robust grass-roots Pro-Reli movement by churches is challenging the traditional ethics classes that they say are poor substitutes for the religion teaching offered to other German pupils.

The churches seem to have captured a moment – along with a whopping 256,000 signatures for a referendum on the topic. They flooded streets with posters asking for a "free choice between ethics and religion." The result is a hot battle over values and city identity.

Today, Berliners are voting on whether to keep the required ethics class or broaden the curriculum to include a required class on a religion – Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Judaism, and others. Ethics is one of the options.

"There is nothing wrong with ethics classes, if they are neutral," says Christoph Lehmann, a devout Catholic and lawyer who started the Pro-Reli cause at his living room table a year ago. "But religious tradition is about creating a standpoint in life, and we feel the ethics class doesn't do this as well."

At the forefront of the debate is the issue of integrating Muslims. Berlin now has more than 200,000 Muslim students – almost half the student body in some districts. Exposing Muslim children to the Koran from teachers accredited through the state is seen by many Berliners as a check on extreme readings of Islam; and this is a key selling point for the pro-religion cause.

Arjen Schreuder | Rotterdam | Apr 27

Spiegel Online - The mosquito, or "teen repellent," is intended to discourage groups of kids from loitering in the streets, making a nuisance of themselves or engaging in anti-social behavior. In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, its use has sparked a debate about the constitutionality of the controversial device.

"It sucks! It gives me a headache," 10-year-old Mohammed says, describing the "mosquito," a device that emits an annoying sound with a frequency that can generally be heard only by people under the age of 25. His friends Ercan, Anass and Nordin agree. "It's like when you've been listening to loud music for a long time and then you stop," he says. "This buzzing sound."

The kids all live in Oud Charlois, a neighborhood in the Dutch city of Rotterdam where mosquitoes first appeared a year ago. We take a walk from the Wolphaertsbocht to an interior court off Clemens Street. Within this small perimeter there are no less than six mosquitoes: they're installed above snack bar Marlena, the clothing shop Hans, a bakery and a supermarket as well as in the courtyard itself.

The mosquito, or "teen repellent," is meant to discourage groups of kids from loitering in the streets and making a nuisance of themselves. Opinions about its efficiency differ. "It hurts my ears, but I've grown used to it. We're still here," says one person who is part of a group of older kids willing to comment on the issue. "It's like swimming underwater, but we're used to it," says another.

John Lichfield | Paris | Apr 27

The Independent - Poll ratings soar for France's ex-president despite claims of embezzlement

France's most popular politician is facing the prospect of legal humiliation by the end of the summer. His new-found place in public affections is unlikely to be damaged. His name is Jacques Chirac.

The retired former president has soared to stratospheric levels of popularity in recent months – well beyond any support that he enjoyed in his four decades in French politics. However, M. Chirac's doubtful past is also catching up with him.

One of two criminal investigations into M. Chirac's alleged embezzlement of public funds to finance his rise to the presidency has been completed, according to judicial sources. Defence lawyers have until early July to ask for further inquiries. Once that period expires, the investigating magistrate, Xavière Simeoni, is expected to recommend that M. Chirac, 76, should be sent for trial.

The case involves the allegedly illegal hiring of political allies and friends as "special staff" of the Paris town hall when M. Chirac was mayor of the capital. Judicial sources say that, under questioning, President Chirac has accepted that he, not his senior advisers, should bear the blame for any illegal hiring. Publicly, he continues to deny any wrong-doing.

Apr 22

Asia Times - Putin gets to work on Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is demonstrating unprecedented outspokenness and persistence in standing up to Russia to defend its own interests, notably in efforts to evade the close embrace of energy giant Gazprom. In Moscow, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is taking notice.

Germans in groundbreaking Turkmen deal

German energy giant Rheinisch-Westfaelische Elektrizitaetswerk has entered what could become a breakthrough agreement with Turkmenistan on offshore gas field development and gas deliveries. Alongside a public clash on a pipeline explosion, it is a sign of a new era in Turkmenistan's policies.

Premier and his starlet minister learn the dark art of satire, reports Peter Popham

The Independent - Silvio Berlusconi's light-hearted dalliance with a television starlet whom he subsequently appointed to his cabinet has been made the subject of an oil painting in which both are shown in the nude.

Two years ago the Italian Prime Minister told the starlet, Mara Carfagna – and millions watching on TV – that he would marry her like a shot if he wasn't married already. His wife, Veronica Lario, demanded and obtained a public apology but last year Mr Berlusconi made her Minister of Equal Opportunities in his new government. Now Italy's most celebrated virtual couple find themselves together on a gallery wall near Savona in Liguria. Mr Berlusconi is depicted with a pair of giant wings extending protectively around his naked minister. Both wear sober, almost prudish expressions. Mr Berlusconi might be about to whisper sweet political nothings in his protegée's ear; Ms Carfagna, on the other hand, has her eyes directed towards the premier's (discreetly covered) genitals.
..
Mr Berlusconi has yet to comment. But he seems unlikely to buy the pictures: last year, he censored a bare nipple in a copy of a renaissance painting hung in the government press room.

Michael Hogan & Thorsten Severin | Berlin/Hamburg | Apr 14

Reuters - Germany will ban cultivation and sale of genetically modified (GMO) maize despite European Union rulings that the biotech grain is safe, its government said on Tuesday.

The ban affects U.S. biotech company Monsanto's MON 810 maize which may no longer be sown for this summer's harvest, German Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner told a news conference.

The move puts Germany alongside France, Austria, Hungary, Greece and Luxembourg which have banned MON 810 maize despite its approval by the EU for commercial use throughout the bloc.

"I have come to the conclusion that there is a justifiable reason to believe that genetically modified maize of the type MON 810 presents a danger to the environment," Aigner said, stressing the five other EU states have taken the same action.

Apr 9

BBC -

Moldova's president has accused neighbouring Romania of stoking the protests that erupted into violence in the capital Chisinau on Tuesday.

Romania has rejected the accusation as a "provocation".

Thousands of young protesters thronged Chisinau, fighting police and ransacking parliament, in protest at the results of Sunday's election.

Official results gave the ruling Communists about 50% of the vote in the Romanian-speaking ex-Soviet republic.

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, a Communist, was quoted by Russian agency Interfax saying: "We know that certain political forces in Romania are behind this unrest. The Romanian flags fixed on the government buildings in Chisinau attest to this."

He ordered that Romania's ambassador be expelled, recalled the Moldovan envoy from Bucharest, and said Romanians would in future need visas to cross into Moldova.

** Russia furious with EU over Twitter revolution

Maev Kennedya | Apr 8

The Guardian - The Aztec emperor Moctezuma was murdered by his Spanish captors, not by his own people, it will be argued in a new exhibition attempting to rescue a shadowy figure from the propaganda that portrayed him as a traitor.

The exhibition, at the British Museum, will challenge the traditional account of how the ninth and last great elected Aztec emperor met his end in 1520.

In 1519, a small Spanish army led by Hernando Cortés landed in the Aztec empire. They were initially received with friendship by Moctezuma, a renowned warrior who had ruled as emperor since 1502. The accepted version of events has the Spanish inside his capital, Tenochtitlan, by 1520 holding the emperor as a willing hostage. When he tried to quell a rebellion, the story goes he was stoned to death by his own people.

The truth, the British Museum will suggest, is that the hero who had received the Spanish with honour became a prisoner, and was murdered when he was no longer of use. The exhibition - giving the emperor's name as Moctezuma, closer to the original Aztec than the more familiar Montezuma - will display together for the first time two 16th-century manuscripts, one from Mexico and one owned by Glasgow University, which challenge the traditional account. Tiny figures among a wealth of detailed illustrations of the first encounters between Aztecs and Spaniards have only recently caught scholars' attention: both manuscripts, almost certainly by central American artists, show Moctezuma shackled or with a rope around his neck.

Madrid | Apr 7

DPA - Spain is marking the 400th anniversary of the expulsion of some 300,000 Moriscos - Muslim converts to Christianity - in what is being described as an early precedent for European operations of ethnic cleansing.

The anniversary on Thursday of the expulsion order, which was signed on April 9, 1609, follows a meeting in Istanbul of the United Nations' Alliance of Civilizations project, a brainchild of the Spanish and Turkish prime ministers, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Official commemorations expressing regret for the expulsion of the Moriscos would be in line with the Alliance of Civilizations, which seeks to increase understanding between the West and the Muslim world, novelist Jose Manuel Fajardo wrote recently.

Some events, including conferences, exhibitions and book launches, are indeed being organized.

On the whole, however, 'official and academic Spain has withdrawn into the fortress of a cautious silence, which reveals its obvious discomfort,' novelist Juan Goytisolo observed.

Apr 6

BBC -

According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake struck at 0132 GMT about 95km (60 miles) north-east of the capital, Rome, at a depth of 10km.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, but Italian media reports suggested some buildings had collapsed in the city of L'Aquila.

The earthquake was also felt in Rome; the BBC correspondent there said he was woken up by the shaking.

** Death toll in Italy quake on the rise

Buildings that had stood for hundreds of years lie in ruins after the 6.3 quake that has killed at least 92.