Immigration en France

En lisant Liberation, aujourd'hui je suis tombe sur ces mots de Sarkozy (dans cet article):

Nous voulons choisir ceux qui seront accueillis sur le territoire de la République (...), mais nous ne voulons plus de ceux dont on ne veut nulle part ailleurs dans le monde.

Ma premiere reaction en lisant ca a ete, mais ou vont ils aller maintenant que plus personne n'est pres a les accueillir, meme pas la France. Dans un deuxieme temps, je me suis dit qu'au vu des directions prises par la France actuellement ceux qui avaient une autre option s'empresseraient de la prendre.

Voila, fuite des etudiants Francais vers l'etranger une fois qu'ils ont fini leurs etudes (je suis dans ce cas ainsi qu'une proportion importante de ceux avec qui j'ai etudie apres ma maitrise), beaucoup d'etudiants etrangers choisissant d'autres pays, frein important aux mariages Franco-non europeens, reconduites en masse a la frontiere prevues pour 2006, apologie de la colonisation, refus de la constitution Europeenne, etc... La France d'aujourd'hui se replie sur elle meme, reve de son passe "glorieux" (pourquoi ne pas faire l'apologie de Petain aussi? ), et fait fuir ceux qui pourraient ameliorer son avenir.

Oui j'amalgame un peu tout ce qui m'a deplu recement, mais vu de loin cela ressemble vraiment a des exces de nationalisme, de securitarisme, et de ...

Illegal outposts...

I suggest you have a look at this Haaretz article. You'll tell me nothing new, everybody has known for ages that evacuation of illegal outposts in the west bank was never conducted because the people backing those settlements have too much political weight. The news is that they admit it now.
On a contiguous topic, I am wondering if Sharon's new political party could start to do the kind of moves that would make a real difference. As it is not from the left, everybody from the right will not vote against (actually a reasoneable part of the right will follow him), and he might get the left's help on a few important topics (like he got it for Gaza's withdrawal).
Many say that this party has no future after one term, but I don't think it really needs more than that to do the proper moves (like removing outposts that are illegal even by Israeli law, which should be a nobrainer seeing how quick they can buldoze houses when they want). Now knowing if Sharon is really ready to do it, and for everybody's benefit and not only his... that's another question.

Independance celebration ?

Yesterday it was the first time Lebanon was celebrating its independance since Syrian troops withdrawal. This was used as a good reason for a giant "fireworks" between Hezbollah and Israel.

Most of the press agencies report massive missile firing in the Sheba farm area (BBC , Le Monde), however Israeli press reports that all the Golan Border was under Hezbollah attack, including cities. The Metula news agency, which is located in Metula right on the border reports (in French, and you don't have to agree with their interpretations, but I doubt the facts are wrong) about the attacks with some pictures and details.

For the ones that don't read French:
15h 49
We just watched the launch of 2 Katiouchas batches from Kfar Kileh, 600 feet away from our desks, followed by nourished automatic weapons fire. Several injured victims were evacuated on the Israeli side.

15h 57
The place in Kfar Kileh where the rockets were fired from got hit by an Israeli missile and fire stopped (cf pic).

I just wanted to point at this, as shootings in Sheba farms happen all the time and people have been used to just ignore it (when I read it I just think "oh yeah, again..."), reporting a shooting there instead of reporting it actually touched cities (which hopefully is pretty rare) is misinformation. Usually Hezbollah attacks are over a disputed area (cf my post on it), this time it is targeted at Israel cities (it is in Israel on UN maps, while Sheba farms are showed as occupied Syrian land).

Just another proof that you can't be informed correctly if you don't read the press from all the sides (often I wish I could read arabic).

Tourist guide and politics

As some of you know my sister came to visit me here so I transformed myself into a tourist guide for 10 days. She's pretty much enjoying the visit, especially the desertic areas like the dead sea coast (the reason why the water is so clear on the picture is not because the sand is white but because the bottom of the sea is a thick salt layer).

There was a lot of diplomatic activity in the past days here, revolving around the 10years anniversary of Rabin's death and the 1 year of Arafat's. At this occasion while having tea in the Souk in Jerusalem we had the surprise to see the Clintons pass a few meters away from us while headed to the celebrations. Fifille's comment was that he is still very cute :).
It seems that all these efforts from the EU and the US are headed somewhere, Rafah crossing is supposed to be reopened soon under EU supervision, and talks about Gaza's airport and harbour reopening seem to move forward. I hope this is going to progress as it could end Gaza's current "prison" status.
On the pessimistic side, 10 days after my trip to Amman 57 people died in 3 hotels suicide bombings, Irak is still a giant bomb, Palestinian top militants get killed by IDF on a regular basis, noone knows how will Israel behave towards Hammas candidates in the next poll, Al Qaida is supposed to have finaly infiltrated Gaza, and the stream of bad news just never ends.
In the past 2 weeks the headlines were stolen by the French rioters, and many attempts were done here to compare it to the intifada. Most things I can say as I wasn'nt in France is that no rioter was shot/killed by the police as far as I know (quite different from what happens here), the ideology of the rioters was pretty weak (quite different from here too), Sarkozy gained more popularity by using extreme right words and actions (well this one is quite similar), nothing has been done to address the root of the problem in a civilized way and many ended up blaming muslims for it as well.

Hope

Sometimes you can come to think that there is no hope ever for peace here and that hearts are charged with too much hate because of too many loved ones killed. But some other days there are some signs of hope, Mr and Mrs Khatib I admire you and I share your sorrow.

CNN and geography

I suggest you have a look at this article from CNN.com talking about the urban unrest in France and enjoy their knowledge about French geography (thanks Totof for pointing at it). If you look well you can see that on the screenshot I took:

Notice that Seine Saint-Denis is adjacent to Paris and about 500km away from Switzerland, the mistake at the country scale is similar to putting Chicago in Florida.