Headline grabbers this week: Sarkozy-Dalai Lama meet, 2 million American jobs destroyed, US contempt for rule of law, cluster bombs

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Despite vulgar threats threats from Peking, President Nicolas Sarkozy keeps meeting with the Dalai Lama in Poland.

From Le Figaro: Première rencontre entre Sarkozy et le dalaï-lama First meeting between Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama

(Eric Feferberg / AFP)

[...] «Il convient de ne dramatiser aucun rendez-vous. Je suis libre de mon agenda», a tranché le président de la République, avant de s'entretenir avec le leader spirituel tibétain samedi en Pologne. [...] "There's no reason to over-react about any meeting. I'm free to do as I please", so decided the president of the Republic before meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader in Poland today.

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[...] C'est fait. Après des mois d'attentes, de polémiques et de menaces de Pékin, le président français Nicolas Sarkozy a rencontré le dalaï-lama, pour la première fois, samedi à Gdansk, au nord de la Pologne. L'entretien entre les deux hommes a débuté peu après 16h30 et se poursuit actuellement. Peu avant, lors d'une conférence de presse, le chef de l'Etat français avait affirmé qu'il convenait de «ne pas dramatiser» cette rencontre. [...] Done. After months of waiting, of controvery and of threats from Peking, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama met for the first time on Saturday (today) in the Polish town of Gdansk. The meeting between the two men began at around 4.30 PM and is still going on. More here.

Well, well... that will learn 'em Chinese not to go around threatening leaders of sovereign European states with whatever.

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Of course, it didn't stop Chinese authorities attacking France, qualifying Sarkozy's decision to meet with the Dalai Lama as opportunistic and hasty for not only ruffling Chinese feelings but also for weakening Sino-Franco relations. Frankly, who cares!

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On the other side of the pond, things are going from bad to worse. Reports have it that the US has almost reached the two million job loss mark for the year, the highest in the last 15 years. More than half a million jobs were lost for the month of November alone and still counting.

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From Le Monde: Le chômage aux Etats-Unis au plus haut depuis quinze ans The highest unemployment rate in the United States in the last 15 years.

Meanwhile in the :

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Roger Cohen writes about the "snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law."

[...] THE HAGUE: Of the many issues that have soured relations between Europe and the United States under the Bush administration, few have been as poisonous as America's refusal to join the world's first permanent war crimes court here. The snub symbol of U.S. contempt for the rule of law.

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In one of his last acts, Bill Clinton signed the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, but the signature never led to U.S. ratification. On the contrary, President Bush withdrew the signature.

.../...

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The effect of U.S. rejection of the court, combined with the trashing of habeas corpus at Guantánamo Bay, has been devastating. Allies from Canada to Germany that are court members have been dismayed by the U.S. dismissal of an institution they see doing evident good.

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Other smaller nations from Latin America to Africa, browbeaten by the United States on the issue, have looked elsewhere for lost military or financial support. The American idea, grounded in legal principles, has been undermined. [...] More here.

Human rights be damned? Let's hope the incoming US administration will prove to be as good as the world expects them to be.

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And the good news is from Oslo: Afghans sign treaty banning cluster munitions

In a surprising last-minute change of policy, the government of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan agreed Wednesday to join about 100 nations signing a treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, Afghan officials said.

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The decision appeared to reflect Karzai's growing independence from the Bush administration, which has opposed the treaty and, according to a senior Afghan official who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, had urged Karzai not to sign it.

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To the oppressive regime in China: We eat Chinese threats for breakfast!

The Chinese are flexing their muscles and are trying to pin down Pres Nicolas Sarkozy to the ground.

From Le Monde:

Le régime chinois veut imposer un rapport de force avec M. Sarkozy The Chinese regime want to impose their will on Mr Sarkozy

Pékin a décidé d'annuler la tenue d'un sommet UE-Chine, prévu le 1er décembre à Lyon, pour protester contre la prochaine rencontre entre le président français et le dalaï-lama. Peking has decided to cancel a UE-China summit scheduled on 1st December in Lyon to protest against a forthcoming meeting between the French president and the Dalai Lama.

The French president and the Dalai Lama are scheduled to meet on 6th December. The Tibetan spiritual chief is also awaited in Brussels next week.

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EU member nations are astonished by the virulent reaction of the Chinese, reports Le Monde:

INCOMPRÉHENSION
A Pékin, certains observateurs européens interprètent la décision chinoise avec un mélange d'incompréhension et de rancœur, estimant que le coup de colère en dit long sur la vision que se font les Chinois du reste du monde en général et de l'Union européenne en particulier : le principe de priorité, même à propos d'une question tibétaine particulièrement sensible pour la République populaire, aurait dû normalement faire passer les relations sino-européennes avant une irritation essentiellement dirigée contre la France. In Pekin, some European observers interpret the Chinese decision with a mixture of incomprehension and sadness, and believe that the tantrum shows how the Chinese view the rest of the world in general and the European Union more specifically: the principle of priority, no matter how senstive the Chinese are feeling about the Tibetan question, should have taken precedence and that Sino-European relations should have been been put first before their irritation that's primarily directed against France.

The French president and the Dalai Lama are scheduled to meet on 6th December. The Tibetan spiritual chief is also awaited in Brussels next week.

Peking has been very vocal about their opposition to a meeting between Sarkozy and the Dalai Lama since August and have threatened Paris firms doing business with Peking with sanctions should such a meeting take place.

Well, here's what I say to these old hooliganistic Chinese regime leaders: I am not particularly enamoured of the Dalai Lama but this is the last straw. You guys are now trying to export to the West your authoritarian attitudes borne of decades of suppression within your own walls so, I think, it's time to say, you can do it to your own but shouldn't tell us what we, the freedom loving people of the West, could or couldn't do.

You, the morally corrupt leaders of China, have been going on a murderous rampage in Tibet, have been suppressing Tibetan freedon, are still trying to cow the Tibetans into submission, are continuously wrecking the lives of Tibetans living abroad and you want us to kowtow to your desiderata?

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You may have lulled yourselves into believing that you are now poised to take over the world just because one of your debtor nations, America which is considered the mightiest and the most powerful on earth, cannot pay you back the hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars they owe you, and so you are starting to believe that the rest of the West has weakened, but guess what? You are kidding yourselves! As long as your corrupt, reppressive and murderous regime continues, there's no way the West will respect you.

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Communism is dead! There's no way you can export your communistic diktats to France, a nation that was borne of a revolution, long before you guys did the unthinkable when you murdered millions and millions of your own.

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The French are a civilised people but don't be fooled by the lip service because as a freedom loving people, there's no way we will accept your stupid childish diktats. You can take back your Chinese yuans and feed on them -- your threats are chicken feed to us. We eat Chinese threats for breakfast.

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This blog now officially supports a Free Tibet!
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