Getting shirty

Stuck in the mud

To Germany again, where Chancellor Schröder’s woes keep growing and growing.

Der Steuersong (‘The Tax Song’ – see Diary of 18 November) enjoys its third week at the top of the German pop charts. In just two weeks, 600,000 copies were shifted from the shelves.

Just imagine what it must be like for Gertie: every time he turns on the radio, or has his chauffeur turn it on for him, he hears ‘himself’ singing back at him. ‘We need a bit of dosh for the Fatherland,’ ‘he’ is saying. ‘We are as beloved as athlete’s foot … I’m getting every single bank note – your dough, your quid, your piggy banks … what about a bad weather tax, that would get me plenty of booty. Or a tax on hair colour – well, maybe not … I’ll strip you bare, you losers.’

A potential campaign theme song next time around?

‘I’ll be your Chancellor for a few years to come,’ the dirge promises. But is this likely? Speculation has been rife this week that the beleaguered Schröder won’t last the course. Reports in Bild and Frankfurter Rundschau suggested he had threatened to quit at an executive meeting of his ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD). ‘Anybody who thinks he can do it better, should do it,’ he said, provoking his colleagues to a swift dash to the exits.

In response, honouring his office as the driver of Europe’s engine, Gertie launched a full-scale playground spat with Elmar Brandt, his mimic on Der Steuersong. Opting for the dignified approach of a world leader, Schröder called Brandt a ‘parasite’ and a ‘freeloader’ after ‘The Tax Song’ made the cover of Stern magazine. Brandt played it low-key on prime-time TV, suggesting the Chancellor had lost his sense of humour.

Things look bleak. The SPD is languishing at 28% in the polls. Unemployment has risen above four million to 9.7% (17.6% in the east). Some Greens have broken rank over US use of German airspace. And the Schröders have had to publicly protest against hate mail, described by Gerhard as ‘beyond the pale’.

At last month’s NATO summit, Schröder just about managed to winkle a handshake out of the US President (not his biggest fan), but was then banished to the margins of a group photograph, a long way from the fiery Bush.

And now, following an Internet campaign, Schröder’s office is the recipient of tens of thousands of shirts. This somewhat strange protest is meant to signify how the thieving Chancellor even takes the shirt off your back. The website alone records 32,200 people claiming to have sent a shirt. ‘The moment has come that our citizens understand how deep our country is stuck in the mud,’ says Andreas Petzold, editor-in-chief of Stern. For the record, the Chancellery is giving the shirts away to charity.

In an editorial last week, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung suggested the country needs a revolution. Die Welt chose to sum up German public opinion in three words: ‘Schröder is stupid.’

(Some other sources: CNN, BBC, MSNBC, Newsweek.)

Con I try again?

Next, to Russia, and the strange story of Nikolai Chermodanov.

Chermodanov, a Muscovite, came within a whisker of conning the Russian government out of 500 million roubles ($15.5 million). If it wasn’t for an undisclosed ‘tiny mistake’, the criminal mastermind might have pulled off a fraud of epic proportions, and a con elaborate enough to make Lex Luthor green with envy.

The story appeared in the Moscow Times, detailing the lengths Chermodanov went to in his con. The 51-year-old spent months in the Russian State Library, studying legal documents and perfecting his forgery of official’s signatures. Then, in October, dressed in a smart suit, Chermodanov walked into the Property Ministry, and handed over official documents announcing the creation of a new federal agency called the State Directorate for Ferry and Sporting Fleet (modelled on the US Coast Guard).

The documents included a convincing presidential decree, apparently signed by President Putin, and a government order that seemed to bear the signature of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov. Chermodanov was to be given control of the agency and its imaginary workforce of 15,000. As well as the 15 million roubles for wages, he would be allocated a set of downtown Moscow buildings, worth $5 million.

Chermodanov then started his fake phone calls, pretending to be various Russian and foreign officials. In fluent English, he claimed to be the assistant to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In French, he faked identity as a ‘high-ranking French official’, calling to congratulate the Property Ministry on its new federal agency.

The authorities finally caught up with Chermodanov, and, after bugging one of his agency’s new buildings, arrested him once he had incriminated himself. He now faces up to five years in prison.

Of course, the authorities are claiming that they knew all along that Chermodanov was a fraud. But the Moscow Times is not buying it. They cite the testimony of Fillip Zolotinsky, spokesman for UBEP, the Moscow police’s economic crimes division. According to him, only the tiniest detail, noticed at the last minute, prevented Chermodanov from pulling off the multi-million dollar con. Unfortunately, he won’t say what it was.

Pressing issues

The European Union (EU) has issued its second reproach in the space of two months criticising Japan for restricting access to foreign journalists.

According to Glocom Platform, the European Commission is getting quite worked up by the lack of press freedom in Japan, especially its restrictive practices towards non-Japanese journalists.

In its Priority Proposals, the Commission attacked Japan’s kisha club system. This is a system not unlike Britain’s lobby, in which access to press conferences is restricted to an elite set of reporters. The EU criticises the system as ‘a de facto competitive hindrance to foreign media organisations ... and, in effect, works as a restraint on the free trade of information’. It cited the Lucie Blackman murder case, the recent visit of Prime Minister Koizumi to North Korea and the BSE incident as examples of where foreign reporting has been hindered by restrictions to reporters.

The EU is calling for the abolition of the kisha club system. Elsewhere, criticism over the establishment bias in the Japanese media and its failure to act as an effective watchdog is beginning to appear.

(See Jonathan Watts in the London Guardian 29.11.02. Also, Reporters Sans Frontiers and Freedom House.)

Home front

A mysterious story appeared in the Washington Post this week. Apparently, residents in the Massachusetts Heights neighbourhood of north-west Washington are getting fed up with the strange explosion noises coming constantly from the house of Vice-President (V-P) Dick Cheney.

The Post reports sounds like sonic booms, rolling thunder, bombs and earthquakes emanating from the Naval Observatory, better known to Diary readers as Villa Dick.

The blasts last from three to five seconds apiece. They come two or three times a day. Sometimes at 7am. Sometimes at 11pm. No warning. No explanation.

Theories range from the building of a bunker for the V-P, to yet more Cheney efforts at drilling for oil. The blasting could last eight months, said observatory superintendent David Gillard. But ‘due to its sensitive nature in support of national security and homeland defense, project-specific information is classified and cannot be released.’

Santa science

Finally, to much-neglected England, and the town of Maidenhead in Berkshire.

A vicar of the local St Mary’s Church stunned a Christmas carol service congregation when he announced Santa Claus was dead. It was scientifically impossible, he said, for Father Christmas to deliver so many presents in one night. At the speed he would have to travel, the reindeers that pull his sleigh would burst into flames and burn to ash.

Fair enough, perhaps, only the congregation was littered with small children, many only five years old.

Sue Smee, an irate mother with devastated sons of five and nine years old, told the BBC, ‘Children are not children for very long and it is not his job to tell them things like this.’

The vicar, one Reverend Lee Rayfield, was disappointed at his pulpit performance. ‘I did not twig,’ he said. ‘I am mortified and appreciate I have put some parents in a difficult position with a lot of explaining to do. I love Christmas.’

Bizarrely, the BBC reported that Reverend Rayfield’s comments ‘came from an Internet story on how scientific research could dispel the myth of Santa.’ Does this mean that before he logged on, Reverend Rayfield thought Santa was for real? Perhaps the church should consider taking note of scientific evidence more often...

Familiar story of the week

A sense of déjà vu fell over the Diary this week when reading an article by Lynette Holloway in the New York Times (NYT), which then made the front page of the International Herald Tribune (IHT). ‘The omnipresent Jennifer Lopez’ asked if Latino pop diva JLo will survive her over-exposure, a question answered in June 2001 on openDemocracy by notorious celeb-stalker Caspar Melville in his scandalous but enlightening article, ‘Jennifer Lopez: My Part in Her Downfall‘.

To read the news in June 2004’s NYT and IHT, go to the openDemocracy homepage.

Quotes of the week

‘Scratch an anti-American in Europe and very often all he wants is a guest professorship at Harvard or to have an article published in the New York Times.’
Denis MacShane, Britain’s Minister for Europe, in the IHT.

‘The third attempt of the 2002 presidential election in Serbia failed at considerable cost to public confidence. The international credibility of Serbia undoubtedly suffered as well.’
Nikolai Vulchanov, head of an election observation team from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

‘Every time these sectors call a strike, it’s because they have a card up their sleeve, a hidden knife.’
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, on the general strike orchestrated by his opponents.

‘George Bush’s worst nightmare.’
Not Saddam, but Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, potential Democratic presidential candidate for 2004, as described by Kathleen Sullivan, New Hampshire Democratic chairwoman, in the NYT.

‘I’m a kind of guy who is capable of hugging somebody who lost somebody and crying with them, and laughing outrageously and going out and having a good time.’
Senator John Kerry, describing himself.

‘When people are feeling insecure, they’d rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right.’
Former US President Bill Clinton chiding his party’s failure to make the case for national security.

‘This is not an administration that shuts off its ears and its common sense.’
John H. Marburger III, assistant to the US President for science and technology.

‘I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.’
Republican Senate Leader Trent Lott, speaking at the 100th birthday party of the retiring segregationist Strom Thurmond. (See Seattle Times, and his apology as reported by the Washington Post and the NYT.)

‘Washington has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism.’
William Burns, US Assistant Secretary of State. The US announced this week that it planned to supply military equipment to the Algerian government, to aid its fight with Islamic militants.

Figures of the week

8%
The percentage of Tanzanians and Bulgarians who describe their quality of life as ranking above 7 in a scale of 0–10.

64%
The percentage of Americans who describe their quality of life as ranking above 7 in a scale of 0–10.

(Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in association with the IHT. For full results and methodology, including alarming trends in anti-Americanism, go to people-press.org.)

Contact the Diary Editor: dominic.hilton@opendemocracy.net