Two a penny

.France will follow the United Kingdom by imposing a new super tax on bonuses paid to its country’s bankers.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said world leaders must impose tougher limits on remuneration, particularly given that bonuses for 2009 have only been made possible through government support for the banking system.
Britain announced on Wednesday it was slapping a one-off 50 per cent tax rate on bonuses above 25,000 pounds ($43,000) to recoup cash spent saving the financial sector during the global financial crisis.
“We propose a long-term global compact that will encapsulate both the responsibilities of the banking system and the risk they pose to the economy as a whole,” they wrote.
France and Germany have for months been united in their attacks on excessive pay in the financial sector.
Mr Sarkozy has now also committed France to a similar tax.
Meanwhile, US investment giant Goldman Sachs says it will pay its 2009 bonuses for top executives in stock instead of cash under a policy adopted amid a growing furore over banker pay. .
In 2007, despite a looming mortgage crisis, the company’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, received a Wall Street record-setting $US68 million ($74 million) bonus payment on top of his annual salary of $US600,000.
The firm’s 30-member management committee will receive the shares, which cannot be sold for five years, under a new policy aimed at discouraging excessive risk-taking and to ensure employees are accountable for the impact of their decisions.
Goldman Sachs, an investment bank which became a bank holding company during the financial crisis, has already repaid the US government for a $US25 billion capital injection.

.Thousands of French internet users have flooded video sharing websites to enjoy a lampoon of their glamorous first couple, almost a week after they appeared on the US show, The Simpsons.
Cartoon caricatures of President Nicolas Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni starred in an episode of the animated show on November 15 in an episode entitled The Devil Wears Nada.
In the show, bungling paterfamilias Homer Simpson and his colleague Carl Carlson visit Paris and bump into Ms Bruni, a cigarette-smoking femme fatale in a stylish ballgown, at a high-society reception.
Their cameos passed largely unnoticed in France until Friday, when news websites started linking to pirated clips of the episode, creating a buzz which saw more than 117,000 fans linking to the DailyMotion site alone.”
Later, after Carl threatens to have Homer sacked, the hero declares: “You know that woman you’ve been playing hide the baguette with? That’s the first lady of France, Carla Bruni!
“If you fire me I’ll call President Sarkozy and he’ll be all over you like Truffaut on Hitchcock,” Homer warns, in a dig at French cinema’s supposed debt to American models.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the Bruni character throws herself into Carl’s arms and declares: “I want to make love, right now. .
When Carl doubts the threat, Homer calls Mr Sarkozy’s office and we see the French leader at his desk with a portion of camembert and his sultry wife.
But while Britain’s former prime minister Tony Blair and Fox network owner Rupert Murdoch recorded their own voices for their appearances and escaped with a gentle ribbing, the harsher Sarkozy parody appeared without their consent.
This is not the first time The Simpsons has mocked the French – the show famously popularised the taunt “cheese-eating surrender monkey” – or leading world figures.
-

.The 16 nations of the Eurozone have officially grown their economies by 0.4 of a per cent, meaning the zone is officially out of recession.
The new figure means that on average Eurozone countries have emerged from recession faster than earlier predicted, but the powerhouse nations of Germany and France have recorded a recovery below expectations.7 per cent and France just 0.
The German economy grew by 0.
The Spanish economy is trailing and is still in recession.2 per cent.
Though not in the Eurozone, Britain too is lagging behind other European countries and is still in recession after recording six consecutive quarters of negative growth. .
It is Britain’s worst result since quarterly figures were first gathered in 1955

.There is fresh evidence about the potential cause of an Air France Airbus crash which killed all 228 people on board when it plunged into the Atlantic while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The Airbus A330 disappeared on June 1, when it flew into a notoriously stormy area of the South Atlantic.
One of the biggest problems for investigators has been their failure to find the all important black box flight data and voice recorder.
But before the plane crashed it did send a routine maintenance message back to France.
It stopped transmitting a location signal a few days after the plane crashed and is now on the bottom of the ocean, probably four kilometres down.
They read the outside air pressure and convert it to measure the all important speed of the plane.
The message indicated a failure of the aircraft’s air speed indicators, known as pitots. .
As it headed into the stormy area, known as the inter-tropical convergence zone, it is possible the radar which is designed to pick up water droplets was blinded.
The kind of pitots used on Air France flight 447 were known to have problems icing up, particularly at the super cold high altitudes where modern jets like the Airbus fly to save fuel.
He said the Airbus had weather radar which picked up a lot of information.
Airbus vice-president of the flight test division, Fernando Alonso, admitted to Foreign Correspondent that the Airbus onboard radar could not “see” ice particles.”
If the plane did fly into an ice storm, blocking the pitots and giving a false air speed indication, it is possible the Airbus stalled.
But when asked if it was correct to say that the ice could not be detected as easily by the radar as rain, he said: “I believe that the ice could not be detected.
According to Air France pilots, the pilot would have had to wrestle not just with the plane, but contradictory advice on how to deal with a stall warning from the aircraft.
According to Air France pilots, the pilot would have had to wrestle not just with the plane, but contradictory advice on how to deal with a stall warning from the aircraft.

Watch Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8:00pm (AEDT) on ABC 1.”
Shortly after the crash the pilots threatened to strike if Air France did not change the pitots and they did, the next day.

.
AFP – France Telecom’s embattled chief executive won support Thursday from the government, which declared that Didier Lombard would see the company through a crisis over workplace suicides.

Opposition politicians called on Lombard to resign after a 51-year-old father of two jumped to his death from a highway overpass on Monday, becoming the 24th France Telecom employee to commit suicide in 20 months.

But after meeting the chairman and CEO, Economy Minister Christine Lagarde issued a statement asserting her full and complete confidence in Didier Lombard to lead the company through this difficult and painful period.

Union leader Patrice Dochet has denounced work conditions at the France Telecom branch in Annecy as unbearable.

Unions have blamed France Telecom management for the suicides and called on staff to stage a walkout on Thursday during funeral services for the employee who worked in the southeastern city Annecy. Unions say it has caused widespread stress.

A former state monopoly, France Telecom has undergone several major reorganisations in recent years.

The French state still owns 27 percent of the company, which employs 100,000 people in France. .

While the suicide rate among France Telecom staff is lower than for the general population, many of the victims killed themselves at work or have left letters blaming work conditions for their despair. He survived. Two days earlier, a male worker stabbed himself in the stomach during a meeting.

A group of shareholder employees on Thursday called on France Telecom to take decisive measures to tackle the suicide crisis such as halting the payment of dividends that it said was bleeding the company dry.

Lombard last month vowed to end the spiral of death at the firm by setting up a distress line, offering more psychological counseling and putting a freeze on all personnel transfers until October 31.

The ADEAS group, which holds a four-percent stake in France Telecom, said they wanted capitalism with a human face at the company.

The ADEAS group, which holds a four-percent stake in France Telecom, said they wanted capitalism with a human face at the company

.
An employee at France Telecom jumped off a bridge on Monday morning, bringing the number of suicides at the French group since February 2008 to 24, the company management confirmed. .

The action plan included delaying any relocation plans until October 31 and an internal inquiry into the suicides which have shocked France.

Further reading

&raquo Focus on the string of suicides at France Telecom
&raquo State intervenes as suicides mount at France Telecom
This latest death comes just over a fortnight after a suicide on September 11, after which the company, which employs around 100,000 people in France, bowed to governmental pressure, and agreed to adopt more humane methods of management.

Once entirely state-owned, France Telecom is now semi-privatised, though the state is the group majority shareholder.

Unions in France are demanding an end to site closures, redundancies and forced relocations, but the company chief executive, Didier Lombard, has said that the company’s big restructuring programme – brought on by the economic crisis – will continue.

France – suicide – telecommunication

.
AFP – US President Barack Obama marked the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Saturday with his administration stressing the commonality between American culture and the values of Islam.

As Muslims in the United States and around the world complete the month of Ramadan and celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, Michelle and I would like to extend our personal greetings on this joyous occasion, Obama said in a statement.

Even on this festive occasion, Muslims remember those less fortunate, including those impacted by poverty, hunger, conflict, and disease, he added.

In her own message, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed that Eid celebrations at the White House, pioneered by her husband Bill Clinton in 1996 when he was president, ensured that all faiths have a home here in the United States.

Obama highlighted Muslims’ commitment to collecting and distributing charity and said his administration was working to ensure that Muslims are able to fulfill their charitable obligations not just during Ramadan, but throughout the year.

We know there is more that unites peoples of faith than divides us.

This time of self-reflection reminds us that the values of Islam — charity, community, cooperation, compassion — are values which we hold dear as Americans and which have contributed so much to American culture, Obama’s top diplomat said. So as Ramadan draws to a close, let us hold on to that spirit of community throughout the year to achieve our common goals of peace, prosperity, and stability.5 billion Muslims in Cairo in June.

Obama, who has Muslim heritage on his father’s side of his family, vowed to forge a new beginning for Islam and America in a landmark speech to the world’s 1.

.
Some 15,000 French churches, castles, hot springs, parks, archeological sites, and even the Moulin Rouge cabaret are opening their doors this weekend for the 26th annual European Heritage Days.

The national culture ministry, which organises the event in France, is even itself opening its doors. It will be presenting a special exhibition of a marble bust of Julius Caesar, discovered in the Rhone River in 2007 and usually housed in the Mus&eacutee D&eacutepartemental de l’Arles et de la Provence antiques. The ministry is promoting different kinds of accessibility to national monuments and other cultural sites. .

Europe – France – heritage
. This includes – and is free for young people – a series of events designed for the handicapped, and other events geared toward parents with children

.

Three New Zealand soldiers will be sent home for passing on a photo featuring a bomb plastered with an energy drink sticker and the words “dear Taleban, enjoy this”.

In the photograph the three soldiers are seen with what is thought to be a 2000-pound bomb of the type which can be fired from an F-16 fighter jet, and is used in airstrikes which have claimed civilian lives.

The photographs were sent to Demon Drinks, which runs competitions for consumers to send in humourous photos, and became widely distributed on email.

The bomb is plastered with the Demon energy drink’s “no limits, no laws” slogan. A subsequent investigation found two of the three soldiers guilty of an offence under the Armed Forces Discipline Act, and those soldiers were punished. .

“Irrespective of the investigation into whether the acts contravened military law, the NZDF sets and expects very high levels of professionalism and behaviour from its people – this is especially the case in an operational theatre where the protection of information is vital to the overall security of New Zealand interests and activities.

“The return home of these three personnel was a command decision,” said Commander Joint Forces NZ Air Vice Marshal Peter Stockwell.”

“Let me be very clear that this is not about a group of young soldiers just taking a photograph of themselves; soldiers have been doing this since the availability of cameras. On this occasion those standards have not been met and as a consequence these three soldiers will be returned to New Zealand at the earliest opportunity. These three are returning to New Zealand as a result of a series of actions and errors of judgment on their part that did not meet the standards we expect of our people.”

.
Civil rights groups have welcomed a decision by France immigration minister to scrap controversial DNA tests for residency-seekers wishing to reunite with their families in France. .

In an interview with the French radio station Europe 1 on Sunday, Besson said he would not sign the measure, declaring that it was too difficult to implement in time for the Dec.

Responding to Besson announcement, Jean-Pierre Dubois, head of French group The Human Rights League, also welcomed the latest moves to scrap a measure that was widely viewed as scandalous and inappropriate. Besson also admitted that the measure damaged France image abroad. 31 deadline and that confidentiality issues remained.

The measure was approved by the French parliament in 2007 as a means to prevent residency-seekers from making fraudulent family ties.

We could just give it up altogether, which is my preferred option, because in the end it serves no purpose other than to bring the image of France into disrepute, said Besson.

The original draft law, which was introduced by former French immigration minister Brice Hortefeux, also met with criticism across the political spectrum. But it required the signature of the immigration minister and the move was strongly criticised by civil rights groups.

The move would have allowed officials to propose to applicants that they take a test at their own expense to prove a biological link with other family members.

Concerns over implementation and confidentiality issues

Under the terms of the measure passed by parliament, DNA tests were approved for applications for visas of more than three months when there were doubts about an immigrant’s birth or marriage certificates.

One of the issues was that French consulates are not staffed with doctors, raising the problem of properly administering the DNA tests.

But the logistics of carrying out the tests at French consulates were another reason for rejecting the law.

French politics – genetics – human rights – immigration
.

Privacy concerns were another issue, with rights groups questioning whether the results of thousands of DNA tests could be kept confidential