The Constitutional Court in Karsruhe has ruled that MPs must publicly document any supplementary income they receive if in excess of 1000 euros per month. The SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG comments as follows (04/07): “The sentence involves a reinforcement of parliamentary democracy. The reasons in favour and against the obligation to declare [supplementary income] are many. The main argument of its supporters is irrefutable: collateral activities – such as sitting on the boards of directors of big business – represent ‘particular risks for the independence’ of MPs”. “The sentence, however,… presents some disadvantages: the obligation to declare supplementary income will probably lead to a further decrease in future of businessmen and self-employed professionals presenting themselves as candidates….In other words: the number of professional politicians in the Bundestag will further increase, and the contact with the problems of the working population will tend to diminish”. And writing in the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG, Reinhart Müller comments: “The judges rightly point out that that it’s not only the self-employed professional who does not coincide with the constitutional model of the independent parliamentarian. But is this really the problem? What model is at issue here? How far can the legislator intervene in the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the mandate?”. “Al-Qaida has lost many of its more senior militants, but in their place a new wave of radicalised young men has arrived”, begins Jason Burke , expert on Islamic fundamentalism, in a comment on the recent terrorist attacks in the UK in the British daily THE GUARDIAN (03/07). He underlines that “the amateurishness of the attacks is a meagre consolation”. A link exists, according to Burke, “between the attacks in London and that in Glasgow”. “Some of the new adepts are young enough for 9/11 to be almost a childhood memory. Some are prepared to act, sometimes with extreme violence. Nobody needs direction as to what might make a good target any longer, and although skills training is useful, it is not essential. The point can be made without necessarily bringing down a passenger jet”. In Burke’s view, “with the US largely inaccessible, Britain has become a next best target” and “Bin Laden doesn’t needs to send anyone to Britain. There are enough people prepared to act who are already there”. “Keeping attention high” represents “only the first act. Actions are also needed, before the exodus [of Christians from the Holy Land] is tragically completed”, says Andrea Lavazza in an editorial in the Italian Catholic daily AVVENIRE (05/07), on the day following the demonstration “Let’s save the Christians”, promoted in Rome by the Moslem journalist of Egyptian origin Magdi Allam. The privileged means, according to Lavazza, “are relations between States and trade agreements”: this is the real lever “on which it is possible to act, adopting a stick and carrot approach with the objective of progressively extending those principles of tolerance that are denied in many countries. When for example funds are allocated to prevent the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, it would not be out of place to ask for greater protection for the Christians of Bethlehem and Gaza. Without forgetting that we have sent a sizeable peace-keeping force to Beirut and that in Kabul we are engaged in reconstructing the judicial system”. “On other tables, the lever will be the economic one: claiming guarantees for those who only ask for the freedom to profess their own religion is worth the sacrifice of some, even lucrative, commission. Only thus will yesterday evening’s voices reach their goal”. “Accusing individuals like Father Andrzej Koprowski SJ of collusion with the Communist secret services is a manifest injustice,” says Mons. Jozef Zycinski in an interview with the leading Polish daily “GAZETA WYBORCZA” (04/07). According to the Archbishop of Lublin, Father Koprowski’s contacts with the secret services of Communist Poland are of no significance and may not even wholly correspond with the truth. “In the documents of the services priests were often indicated as collaborators without them being aware of the fact”, points out the archbishop, and he underlines that, according to the testimonies he has received, the Jesuit “often risked his skin” for others. Archbishop Zycinski cites fragments of the report drawn up by one secret service official who described Father Koprowski as “someone who had no wish to collaborate, who entertained serious doubts about our plans and who was never enrolled as an informer”. The Archbishop of Lublin calls the opinions attributed to Father Koprowski about the chaplain of Solidarnosc, Father Jerzy Popieluszko, killed by members of the secret services, “untrue”, and reports testimonies according to which “the Jesuit never criticized the Masses for the country celebrated by Father Popieluszko in Warsaw, which perhaps were the cause of his death”.
