Media faces are candidates for Sakharov prize

Published on September 17, 2008

New Sakharov candidates

2008 is the twentieth edition of the Sakharov human rights prize at the European parliament. The committee, made up of socialist former president of the European parliament Josep Borrell, Green MEP Hélène Flautre and the popular Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, have selected eight candidates. Some of the faces are very media-friendly: take French-Colombian former FARC hostage Ingrid Betancourt, who won the Prince of Asturias Prize for Concorde on 11 September, the eternal aspirant the Dalai Lama and Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader to Robert Mugabe. In October, EU heads of state and government will decide who runs away with the prize

Srebrenica massacre: Holland is not responsible

The 1995 massacre was carried out by Bosnian Serb troops under the orders of war criminals Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. Accusations run that this happened under the passive gaze of the Dutch blue helmets, who were protecting the Muslim population of the Bosniac enclave on a UN mission at the time. The case was filed against the UN and the Dutch government by the Mothers of Srbrenica organisation European court of justice and court of first instance on 10 September. This means that the country won’t have to offer any compensation to the victim’s families. A future debate of interest is if the inaction of international troops in conflicts can systematically go unpunished

Euroskills2008

From 18 to 20 September, 400 young students and graduates will meet in Rotterdam to exchange skills. Each will demonstrate their own competencies across 49 fields like gardening, motorcycle maintenance, bakery or nursing. Promoted by the European commission, the aim of the meetup is to further valorise professional training  and to encourage it as lifelong learning

The mountain goes to Ukraine

They wouldn’t let the mountain go to Ukraine. However, since Russia’s impudence, the EU have been jolted into action, deciding to move towards their former soviet neighbour to brake Russian ambitions. On 9 September French president Nicolas Sarkozy and commission president Jose Manuel Durão Barroso announced the opening of negotiations from 2009 to sign an association agreement with Ukraine. As the latter’s president Viktor Yuschenko notes, every country which has signed an association agreement with the EU is either inside or is negotiationg accession to the EU

Translated from Candidatos mediáticos para el premio Sajarov