Word: unionizers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Throughout the European Union, the E.U. Reform Treaty (a.k.a. the Treaty of Lisbon) is trundling toward ratification by each of the 27 member states. In the U.K., for example, the ratifying legislation has, with much acrimony, recently completed its passage through the House of Commons, and it will soon start its passage through the House of Lords. So, it is a good time to take a hard look at the nature of the treaty, and indeed to ask the question of what the E.U. is really all about...
...treaty is, of course, secondhand goods. Some three years ago, with much fanfare, the European Union Constitutional Treaty was launched, only to bite the dust when the French and Dutch rejected it in national referendums. This is its second coming. Although the form is different, experts are divided only as to whether 95% of the content is the same, or merely 90%. Since all the most important constitutional innovations of the earlier treaty have been carried forward to the present one, that is neither here nor there...
...also producing Africa's most wanted terrorist, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed - accused of masterminding the killing of 224 people as leader of the Somalia-based al-Qaeda allied group that bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. It might seem appropriate, then, at first glance, that the African Union on Tuesday responded with force to a threat by one of the islands, Anjouan, to secede. Comoran troops backed by an AU force composed of Libyan, Senegalese, Sudanese and Tanzanian soldiers invaded at dawn, under a barrage of mortars and gunfire, and by noon announced that they were in control...
...African Union leaders might be hoping their readiness to use force will demonstrate that the continent is serious about policing itself. In reality, it may send the opposite message. That the AU feels comfortable, albeit after more than a year of diplomacy and sanctions, about attacking Anjouan's airport and roaring into tiny Moutsamoudou town - the entire island has a population of just 240,000 and its biggest claim to prominence is as the world's premier exporter of ylang-ylang flowers - only highlights how uneasy the organization becomes in the face of stiffer opposition...
...that even such a limited military intervention "will have high diplomatic, human and financial cost implications for the AU, which it can ill afford. Besides, any sustained military intervention in the country will have to be followed by a robust reconstruction effort, which neither the AU nor the [Comoran] union government can afford." Elsewhere in Africa, AU operations are far more limited, deploying small, ineffective forces in Somalia and Darfur. While the AU did lead efforts to stem post-election violence in Kenya in January, it does little to quell unrest in other areas, such as Congo, Mali, Niger, Nigeria...