Around the world: Serbia, Sudan, Kenya, Cuba, Switzerland, and Germany

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Wait, you mean there are things going on in the world other than the presidential primaries in the U.S.? Sure, and here are some stories you might find interesting:

1) Serbia: The (deputy) leader of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radicals, Tomislav Nikolic, defied the polls and beat the incumbent, President Boris Tadic, in the first round of that country's two-round presidential election, 39 to 35. Nikolic and the Radicals are anti-European, pro-Russian, and basically pan-Slavic nationalists. They oppose independence for Kosovo. And their leader, Vojislav Seselj, is currently on trial in The Hague. If you're wondering, no, many Serbs haven't learned anything from their country's recent (and historical) travails. For some background, see here.

2) Sudan: One of the leaders of the genocidal Janjaweed militia in Darfur has been appointed to a high-ranking position in the Khartoum government. Hmmmm.

3) Kenya: It seems that some of the appalling violence that has rocked that country since its corrupt and contested presidential election was both "premeditated and organized," with both government and opposition elements stirring up ethnic hatred even before the vote. "It wasn't like people just woke up and started fighting each other," said Dan Juma, the acting deputy director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission. "It was organized." More echoes of Rwanda.

4) Cuba: Cubans went to the polls yesterday to "elect" 614 deputies to the National Assembly. Actually, there were a total of 614 candidates for 614 seats -- all ran unopposed. Fidel Castro was one of them. Good times.

5) Switzerland: One of the country's national foods is under attack from the E.U. It's called cervalat, it's a type of sausage, and it's made with cow intestine imported from Brazil. "Swiss butchers produce 160 million cervalet sausages per year, which works out to about 21 links per person." That's a lot of intestine. The E.U. imposed the ban a couple of years ago on the grounds that Brazilian beef intestines could carry mad cow disease, but Swiss stockpiles are just now running low. And the Swiss are pissed, not least because the European soccer championship is being held there this summer. "Switzerland has surrendered itself in the case of our national sausage to technocrats in Brussels, of all people," wrote one newspaper. "I simply cannot imagine Switzerland without the original cervelat," said one member of parliament. "We cannot stand for this," said one chef, "We have to fight for our sausage!" (Note that Jim Hacker brilliantly played the British sausage card against European technocrats on his way to #10.) By the way, the intestines are just the casing, but it seems that to the Swiss no substitute will do. I think we need to ask Clinton and Obama about this.

6) Germany: A prominent German historian has likened Tom Cruise's performance on that Scientology recruitment video to the propagandistic style of Joseph Goebbels. And he's right, to a point. It's not that Scientology is akin to Nazism in all ways -- and, as much as I dislike Scientology, I would hesitate to make such a comparison -- just that propaganda is propaganda, which is to say, all propaganda, and particularly all cult of personality propaganda in support of quasi-religious cults, is similar. There is, in my view, no good reason why Scientology should be taken seriously or even treated as softly as it is in and by the media. It is a cult of lies, and it should be laughed at, repudiated, and, where possible, exposed for the massive fraud it is.