The PARITY DEMOCRAT



The PARITY DEMOCRAT

A monthly record of developments which enhance democracy through women's empowerment



Vol 8 No 5 £ 5 US$ 10 ISSN 1367-6946 May 2004

Introduction

In this 89th monthly issue of The Parity Democrat, I highlight the May 2004 dates from my four anniversary lists: 21 "Anniversaries of the Democracies", 10 of "Women's Empowerment", 5 "Centenaries of Women of History", and 1 new "Birthday of Distinguished Living Women". My attachment of the month is "A Seventh 100 Questions on Democracy" asked at head-of-government and similar meetings. All 700 Questions may be downloaded from the Shequality website by clicking successively on Documents, Questions, Democracy.

In the April issue of The Parity Democrat, I listed some 40 major anniversaries of the democracies in the coming years which I am already highlighting for commemorative action. Here I list the centenaries of some 40 distinguished women of history from late 2004 to 2007, to many of which I am already drawing attention. References are found on the "Documents" opening page of the Shequality website.

Year Country Woman of distinction Main Activity Lived Anniversary Reference#

(portrait*)

2004 France Colette (Sidonie-Gabrielle) writer novelist 28. 1.1873- 3. 8.1954 50.death EB*

George Sand writer 1. 7.1804- 8. 6.1876 200.birth EB JU*

Indonesia Raden Adjeng Kartini educator writer 1879-1904 100.death

Mexico Frida Kahlo painter 6. 7.1910-13. 7.1954 50.death

Spain Isabella of Castille stateswoman 22. 4.1451-26.11.1504 500.death EB

United Kingdom Jennie Lee founder Open University 3.11.1904-1988 100.birth WW

2005 Belgium/Sweden Astrid queen consort 17.11.1905-29.8.1935 100.birth

Czech Republic Agnes of Bohemia foundress saint 20.1.1205-2.3.1282 800.birth

France Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun painter 16.4.1755-30.3.1842 250.birth MWA* JU

Germany Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn pianist composer 14.11.1805-47 200.birth EB

Jamaica Mary Seacole nurse 1805-81 200.birth

Pakistan Ra'ana LIAQUAT ALI KHAN founder All Pakistan Women 13.2.1905-90 100.birth JU

South Africa Helen Joseph political activist 8.4.1905-92 100.birth EB

Mary Renault novelist 4.9.1905-83 100.birth EB

Olive Schreiner novelist feminist 24.3.1855-12.11.1920 150.birth EB JU

Sweden Greta Garbo actress 18.9.1905-15.4.1990 100.birth MCM*

United Kingdom Charlotte Bronte novelist 21. 4.1816-31.3.1855 150.death EB EV

United States Cecilia Beaux portrait painter 1. 5.1855-12. 9.1942 150.birth MWA* NAW

2006 France Irene Joliot-Curie 1935 Nobel chemist 12. 9.1897-17. 3.1956 50.death EB JU

Germany Hannah Arendt political philosopher 14.10.1906- 4.12.1975 100.birth EB

Henriette Sontag soprano philanthropist 3.1.1806-17.6.1854 200.birth

United Kingdom Elizabeth Barrett Browning poet feminist 6.3.1806-29. 6.1861 200.birth EB*

Josephine Butler social reformer 1828-1906 100.death CBW

Catherine Cookson novelist 20.6.1906-11.6.1998 100.birth WWW

*Kathleen Kenyon archeologist 5.1.1906-24. 8.1978 100.birth EB

United States Susan B Anthony suffragist abolitionist 15. 2.1820-13. 3.1906 100.death EB

Babe Didrikson Zaharias athlete golfer 26. 6.1914-27. 9.1956 50.death JU EB*

2007 Austria Angelika Kauffmann painter 30.10.1741- 5.11.1807 200.death

Chile Gabriela Mistral writer Nobel laureate 7.4.1889-10.1.1957 50.death EB*

France Madeleine de Scuderi writer 15.11.1607-2.7.1701 400.birth GF* EB

*Germaine Tillion ethnologist resistante 30. 5.1907- 100.birth JU

Germany Paula Modersohn-Becker painter 8.2.1876-20.11.1907 100.death EB

Hungary Elizabeth of Hungary saint devoted to sick and poor 1207-19.11.1231 800.birth JU

Italy Rosalba Carriera painter pastelist 7.10.1675-15. 4.1757 250.death CB

Sweden Astrid Lindgren children's author 14.11.1907- 2.2002 100.birth EB

Switzerland Angelika Kauffmann painter 30.10.1741- 5.11.1807 200.death MWA* EB*

UK/Canada Ishbel Aberdeen women's rights leader 14. 3.1857-18. 4.1939 150.birth EV

United States Katharine Hepburn actress 8.11.1907-29. 6.2003 100.birth CW

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Published by Raymond Lloyd Honorary Secretary Council for Parity Democracy

19 Mulready House Herrick Street Westminster London SW1P 4JL

Phone & Fax: + 44 20 7834 1309 Mobile: + 44 79 32 79 44 32 Email: raymond12 @

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The PARITY DEMOCRAT May 2004

ANNIVERSARIES of the DEMOCRACIES

extract from the writer's "2300 Target Dates for Consolidating and Enhancing Democracy 1988-2016"

Anniversaries for Celebration

Day & Date Location Democracy/Grouping Anniversary

Sat 1 May Wuerzburg Germany 1300 Foundation by missionary Willibrod in 704

Sat 1 May Arnstadt Germany 1300 Foundation

Sun 2 May Tacoma WA US / World 100 Bing Crosby 1904-77 singer humanitarian born

Mon 3 May Paris Unesco 10 World Press Freedom Day

Tue 4 May Derby Britain 100 Charles Rolls & Henry Royce begin car manufacture

Thu 6 May Oxford England World 50 Roger Bannister runs first 4-minute mile, in 3 mins 59.4 seconds

Thu 6 May Calais/Folkestone Europe 10 Channel Tunnel opening

Mon 10 May Pretoria South Africa 10 Multiracial democracy

Fri 14 May St Andrews Scotland 250 Golf formalized at Royal and Ancient Golf Club

Fri 14 May Washington United States 200 Lewis & Clark expedition to Pacific begins in 1804

Mon 17 May Topeka Kansas United States 50 Supreme Court vetoes segregation in Brown v Board of Education

Fri 21 May Paris / Zurich World 100 International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) founded

Wed 26 May Cardiff Wales 5 Inauguration of National Assembly for Wales

Fri 28 May Brescia Italy 100 First performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly in Teatro Grande

Fri 28 May Athens Greece 25 Treaty on 1981 entry to the European Economic Community

May Channel Islands Britain 800 Allegiance to British crown

May Rome Judaism 100 Construction of Central Synagogue

May London Britain 60 Butler Education Act provides secondary education for all

Occasions for Remembrance, Lustration, Reconciliation or Compensation

Sat 1 May Nelahoseves Czech Republic 100 Antonin Dvorak 1841-1904 composer died

Mon 17 May Dublin & Monaghan Britain 30 Security services aid in bomb massacre of 33 civilians

May Genoa Italy Germany 60 Nazis murder 246 Italian prisoners of war

ANNIVERSARIES of WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT

extract from the writer's "1000 Women's Anniversaries 1991-2010"

Day & Date Location Democracy/Grouping Anniversary

Wed 5 May Lusaka Zambia 60 Lombe Phyllis Chibesakunda solicitor-general ambassador b 1944

Sat 8 May Katmandu Nepal 60 Shailaja Acharya political prisoner minister born 1944

Tue 11 May Tokyo Japan 70 Wakako Hironaka director general environment 1993 born 1934

Tue 11 May Cambridge Britain 50 Judith Weir composer born 1954

Wed 12 May San Salvador El Salvador 80 Claribel Alegria poet novelist born 1924

Sat 15 May Roseau Dominica 85 Eugenia Charles lawyer; prime minister 1980-95 born 1919

Sat 15 May Zakopane Poland 70 Zofia Fortecka glass-painting miniaturist born 1934

Fri 21 May Dublin Ireland 60 Mary Robinson president'90-97; High Com Human Rights'97-02 b 1944

Tue 25 May Hamilton Bermuda 95 Marjorie Bean educator senator conservationist born 1909

Tue 25 May Brooklyn NY U S A 75 Beverly Sills coloratura soprano born 1929

50- & 100-Year ANNIVERSARIES of DISTINGUISHED WOMEN of HISTORY

extract from the writer's "5500 Women's Centenaries 2004-2054" and "170 Centenaries for 2004"

Births

Born or Died Anniversary Woman of distinction Country Main Activity Reference

(portrait*)

See PD 73)

19 May 1904-13.10.1994 100 Elisabeth Karlinsky Austria painter AA

20 May 1754-13. 4.1833 250 Elisa von der Recke Germany poet traveler GF*

20 May 1904-30. 6.1966 100 Margery Allingham Britain detective-story writer EB

28 May 1904-10. 5.2000 100 Margaret Frances Harris Britain theatre designer WW LT*

Deaths

1879-11 May 1954 50 Rosa Sevilla Alvero Philippines educator feminist patriot

BIRTHDAYS of DISTINGUISHED LIVING WOMEN

new entries in the writer's "2400 Birthdays for 2004"

DoB Age in 2004 Woman of distinction Country "First", Other Achievements or Position Reference

26 May 1945 59 Jacqueline Allwood Britain glass engraver RL

COUNCIL for PARITY DEMOCRACY

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

19 Mulready House Herrick Street Westminster London England SW1P 4JL

Tel & Fax + 44 20 7834 1309 Mobile + 44 7932 79 44 32 Email raymond12@

Honorary Secretary

Raymond Lloyd

A Seventh 100 QUESTIONS on DEMOCRACY

asked at Head-of-Government & Other Meetings 2003-2004

26 March 2004 @ Raymond Lloyd

INDEX (continued on last page)

Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country *PD/CPD #Followup

26. 3.04 Brussels European Council Bertie Ahern Prime Minister Ireland PD

" " " " Gerhard Schroeder Federal Chancellor Germany PD

" " " " Pat Cox President European Parliament PD

18. 3.04 Dublin OECD Education Ministers Noel Dempsey Minister of Education & Science Ireland PD

9. 3.04 London Museums Funding Launch Nicholas Serota Director Tate Galleries & Museums PD

4. 3.04 London (2) 2003 Transition Report Jean Lemierre President European Bank PD

QUESTIONS

26. 3.04 Brussels European Council Bertie Ahern Prime Minister Ireland PD

Will the Irish emulate Thucydides, and begin the Preamble to the new Constitution, with

"We the Peoples and Democracies of Europe"?

26. 3.04 Brussels European Council Gerhard Schroeder Federal Chancellor Germany PD

On 15 November 2002 I asked Britain's Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs whether, as a further act of European reconciliation, Germany would be invited to the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landings in June 2004: now that this has been agreed, may I renew the question put to you on 28 June 2003, and to other German leaders, whether you will invite to Germany in 2005, and in subsequent years until the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic, those 80-year-old French, British, US and other servicemen and women, and civilian administrators, who liberated Germany from nazism and helped you build what has since become an exemplary liberal democracy?

26. 3.04 Brussels European Council Pat Cox President European Parliament PD

The European elections in June 2004, about which you have just addressed the European Council, will take place in the week following the 60th anniversary of D-Day: will some of the 80-year-old veterans, assembled in Normandy for perhaps the last time, be invited on to the European Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg, for us to thank them for the sacrifices they made to restore Freedom of Speech, and parliamentary democracy, to continental Europe?

18. 3.04 Dublin OECD Education Ministers Noel Dempsey Minister of Education & Science Ireland PD

One of the breeding grounds for terrorists in the contemporary world is the marginalization of minorities, a situation we are seeing now in Europe, where the Union's 12 million Arab and Moslem citizens have very few MPs or ministers as distinct, say, from Latin America, where persons of Arab descent have become, or are about to become, Presidents of Argentina, Ecuador and El Salvador: given that religious enlightenment is more likely to originate in democracies than in dictatorships, what steps are the OECD and the European Union taking in "Education for Democratic Citizenship", the subject of your lunchtime discussion, to target the children of Europe's marginalized minorities?

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* PD or CPD denotes the writer's accreditation as editor of the Westminster-based, 1997-founded, monthly

The Parity Democrat (ISSN 1367-6946), or as honorary secretary of the 1980-founded Council for Parity Democracy. Most questions were asked live, but where I was not recognized or allowed only one question, others were emailed, handed in or sent on.

# Denotes a 6- 14-page paper on women's advancement and democracy prepared before the meeting, and sent with a postscript of questions asked at the meeting. OP denotes number and date of letter in 1981-2002 series "Letters to Citizens and Leaders in Open Polities", anticipating or following up the question. The above list is complemented by eleven others, six earlier "100 Questions on Democracy", and five "100 Questions on Women's Advancement".

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

9. 3.04 London Museums Funding Launch Nicholas Serota Director Tate Galleries & Museums PD

In 2005, the bicentenary year of Trafalgar, there will be many SeaLife exhibits and events throughout Britain: how far are you planning ahead for similar anniversaries to attract visitors, for example, in 2007, the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade, in which all of Britain's port cities took part, and on which various sugar merchants, perhaps Tate and Clore, made fortunes?

4. 3.04 London (2) 2003 Transition Report Jean Lemierre President European Bank PD

Is the Bank using the 1 May accession of eight eastern European countries to the European Union as in any way a target date for turning some or all of those countries into net contributors to the Bank?

In 2003 the Bank signed nine projects for Serbia and Montenegro: has your lending taken into account the fragile nature of democracy in Serbia, including the US delay in committing funds until persons indicted as war criminals are handed over?

30. 1.04 Madrid FITUR / Tourcom Francesco Frangialli WTO Secretary General (France) PD WTO-2004

For some years now I have been expressing concern that there is no comprehensive international record of the individual names of tourists and travellers killed by terrorists, despite the fact that it is often only after their sacrifice that travel and tourism is made safer for us all: the US State Department publishes annually a list of terrorist attacks, but this also covers non-travellers, and no names are given. On the other hand, for at least ten years now, an excellent French group, Reporters sans Frontieres, publishes annually, in book form and on the web, the names of all the world's journalists killed or kidnapped in the course of reporting, and some moving memorials to murdered travellers have been created, for example, in Bologna railway station (1980 attack), at Lockerbie (1988), and one is promised for Luxor (1997):

so, may I challenge the tour operators here to create a group of Tourists sans Frontieres, or Travellers without Borders, which would publish names immediately, list all names annually, press for memorials analogous to those created for persons who gave their lives in earlier types of war, and also campaign for compensation from those political and religious bodies in whose names so many hundreds of tourists and travellers have been, and will be, murdered?

29. 1.04 email FITUR / Tourcom Pamela Conover President & COO Cunard Line PD WTO-2004

Do you plan, as I asked the Cunard agent Rony H Broun at the press launch of Queen Mary 2 in Madrid this morning, to time any 2005 sailing to Cadiz, so as to go the extra fifty miles to Cape Trafalgar, on Friday 21 October 2005, the bicentenary of Nelson's famous victory in 1805, which eventually was to guarantee freedom of the high seas for the next century?

29. 1.04 Madrid FITUR / Tourcom (2) World Tourism Organization panel PD WTO-2004

In the WTO booklet, page 3, you describe your mission as contributing "to universal respect for . . human rights and fundamental freedoms", yet among your 141 members listed on page 22, there are at least 16 democracies missing, including Australia, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and US, while you include at least 14 dictatorships and at least 2 terrorist-sponsoring states, North Korea and Syria: you repeat this emphasis on human rights in your Global Code of Ethics for Tourism, and also articulate a universal right to tourism: do you foresee suspending membership in the WTO in cases where state-sponsored terrorists kill tourists and travellers, for example, if North Korean agents bomb another civil airliner?

Another interesting characteristic of WTO membership is that your Associate Members include provinces or dependencies of countries which are not members, such as Flemish Belgium and Puerto Rico: does this mean that you would encourage Associate Membership from, say, the City or State of New York, and the Welsh or Scottish tourist boards, as well as tourist boards of provinces like Catalonia, Galicia, Val d'Aosta and Trentino, with minority languages and cultures, of countries like Spain and Italy which are already full members?

29. 1.04 Madrid FITUR / Tourcom (2) German Porras Secretary General Tourism Spain PD WTO-2004

(in Spanish) With the 400th anniversary in 2005 of the publication of Don Quijote, will Spain ensure that translations of this greatest of novels exist in all the languages of the new democracies of Europe, for example in Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Georgian, and also in all minority languages, such as Irish and Welsh, both for the pleasure of reading the great work, and also for visiting Spain?

Recently I have drawn up a list of some 43 major cities which are celebrating centenaries in the next fifteen years, including Segovia, Toledo and Santiago in Spain, and Santa Fe, Havana and Panama, founded by Spaniards in the New World (list given to Senor Porras): do you have a fuller list which would help in forging partnerships between Spanish and other cities celebrating centenaries in the same year?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

28. 1.04 Madrid FITUR / Tourcom Ousmane Masseck NDIAYE Minister of Tourism Senegal PD WTO-2004

(in French, extended in English) March 2007 marks the bicentenary of Britain abolishing the transatlantic slave trade and its subsequent enforcement by the Royal Navy: given that Dakar and Goree were major ports of origin, is Senegal planning to take part in this commemoration, for example, by reconstructing a slave ship, sailing it to the US, but now with Senegalese and other West Africans who have freely applied for visas, on to Liverpool where the Tate Gallery has an permanent exhibit on the slave trade, and then, on the third leg of the old triangular trade, back to Senegal, perhaps filled with donated technological equipment to help in programs to make your girls and boys computer-literate?

19. 1.04 London OndAzul launch Gilberto Gil Singer & Minister of Culture Brazil PD

This year is the 60th anniversary of Brazil sending 20 000 soldiers to Italy to fight for the freedom of Europe, the only Latin American country to do so: now that the surviving veterans are 80 years old, do you plan to dedicate a song, or concert, to their courage and sacrifice?

March 2007 marks the bicentenary of Britain and its Royal Navy ending the transatlantic slave trade: because Brazil was the recipient of the largest number of slaves, some four million before you abolished slavery itself in 1888, are you planning to take part in this major human rights anniversary?

In addition to yourself as Minister of Culture, there are or have been several cultural leaders who have taken on high political office, including the theatre director Vigdis Finnbogadottir as President of Iceland, the writer Vaclav Havel as President of the Czech Republic, the folklore historian Vaira Vike-Freiberga as President of Latvia, and now the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor of California: have you thought of calling such persons together, if not to Brazil, then in a teleconference, to exchange experiences on how artists and musicians turned political leaders can best promote your cultural heritage?

16. 1.04 Galway Employment Ministers Mary Coughlan Social Affairs Minister Ireland PD EU25a/WG71

At the European summit in Cardiff in June 1998, perhaps partly because I had put the question to the British Prime Minister well in advance, the summit declaration was also issued in Welsh: given that Galway is a centre of Irish speakers, will the recommendations of this meeting on employment and social policy also be issued in Gaelic or, as a Gaelic saying goes, have I opened my mouth so loud as to break my nose?

9. 1.04 London email Barbara Cassani Chief Exec London Olympic Bid 2012 PD

When Athens made its bid for the 2004 Games, great stress was laid on their plans to revive the Olympic Truce: will you similarly emphasize London's contribution to democracy, given that the 2012 Games fall midway between the 2500th anniversary of the first Marathon in September 2010, in what was in fact a run for freedom, and the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta in 2015?

1. 1.04 Dublin email Michael O'Leary Chief Executive Ryanair PD

Will Ryanair seize the opportunity of Ireland's current six-month presidency of the European Union, and the accession to the Union on 1 May 2004 of the eight new democracies of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, to inaugurate flights to one or more of Prague, Tallinn, Budapest, Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw, Bratislava and Ljubljana?

12.12.03 Brussels European Council All 28 Attending Heads of Government Europe PD EC24-03

Will the preamble to the new European constitution begin with

We the Peoples and Democracies of Europe

which would be an advance even on the "We the Peoples" preamble of the United Nations Charter, given that 70 of the UN's 190 member states have yet to become democracies?

question sent to the heads of government of the 15 current members of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom; the 10 acceding countries: Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia; and the 3 candidate countries: Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey; and to the presidents of the European Parliament and the European Commission.

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

12.12.03 Brussels European Council Giorgis Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC24-03

How far have you been successful, given your fine promotion of the concept during the past decade, in getting the Olympic Truce integrated into the Greek constitution, as an example to other member countries of NATO and the European Union? And similarly, how are efforts progressing to have the 2500th anniversary in 2005 of the birth of Pericles, the world's first great democratic statesman, celebrated throughout Europe?

12.12.03 Brussels European Council Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC24-03

Britain has two competent ministers who are also disabled, the blind Home Secretary David Blunkett and the wheelchair-bound Minister of Employment Maria Eagle: last week, at the closing conference of the 2003 European Year of the Disabled Citizen, I asked how many MEPs were disabled, and was told only one: has the European Year led any European political party to encourage the selection of disabled candidates, and do you expect that the European elections in June 2004 will bring more disabled MEPs into Parliament?

(Note for the file: in July 2002 I had as my house guest in London the distinguished Chinese wheelchair-bound painter and MP QIN Bailan: despite my persistent efforts with the UK Secretary of Culture, I failed to have her paintings exhibited in Parliament - she held exhibitions in France, Germany and Austria, and had prepared the official calendar for the UN Womens Conference in Beijing in 1995 - but at least I obtained for her a tour of Westminster, where the ushers treated her with the kindness and intelligence she deserved)

6.12.03 Rome (2) Disabilities Conference Grazia Sestini State Secretary Welfare Italy PD

In 1981, during the United Nations Year of the Disabled, it was soon recognized that one year was too short a period to make a real impact in appreciating, rather than patronizing or stigmatizing, the handicapped, so the Year was changed into a Decade, which ran to 1992: whether or not there is yet time to transform the European Year into a Decade or a Quinquennium, could the current Disabilities Conference foresee a future Year, for example in 2009, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille?

How far has the European Year accelerated the replacement of resident institutions for the intellectually disabled by community-based opportunities for developing life and learning experiences? And what opportunities has the European Year created for self-run national bodies of the intellectually disabled to meet and learn from each other?

3.12.03 Naples 6th EuroMed Conference Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD EC24-03

In his address to the National Endowment for Democracy on 6 November 2003, President Bush stated that "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe . . . Therefore the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East": how far has this forward strategy of freedom found an echo in the current Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference, where most of the ten Arab countries taking part have authoritarian regimes, and two of them, Syria and Libya, are dictatorships?

10.11.03 London World Travel Market I Gde Ardhika Minister Culture & Tourism Indonesia PD

In 2006 we shall celebrate the centenary of President Theodore Roosevelt winning the Nobel Peace Prize for concluding the Treaty of Portsmouth to end the Russo-Japanese war: there are three areas of Indonesia - Aceh, the Moluccas and West Papua - where conflicts detract tourists from visiting your beautiful country: would you consider outside help in ending those conflicts?

17.10.03 Brussels European Council Jacques Chirac President France PD EC23-03

With the European Council meeting today in Brussels at the same time as the summit in Malaysia of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), will France, with its new National Moslem Council, send a message to the OIC that you hope to give a lead to other European countries that it is only by de-marginalizing your five million Moslems that they can claim their rightful place in the political structures of European democracy, and thus offer a peaceful alternative to the violence of islamist terrorists?

17.10.03 Brussels European Council Recep Tayyip Erdogan Prime Minister Turkey PD EC23-03

Turkey is the only country taking part in the two summits held today 17 October, those of the European Council in Brussels and the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia: do you and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul plan to deliver a common message to both of them, that the universalist ethics of Islam and women's advancement will flourish more in democracies than in dictatorships?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

17.10.03 Brussels European Council Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC23-03

Yesterday, to my question on beginning the preamble to the European constitution with "We the Peoples of Europe", you stated that the constitution derived also from governments: why not therefore begin with "We, the Peoples and Democracies of Europe Conscious....", which would also be an advance on the UN Charter? Also, how can as eloquent and sensitive a speaker as yourself allow the drafters or translators of the preamble's first paragraph get away with "mankind", rather than the more inclusive "humankind"?

16.10.03 Brussels European Council Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC23-03

In the leaflet "Panorama of the European Union", Parliament is described as the voice of "the peoples of Europe": can you not insist therefore that in the new constitution, after the quotation from Thucydides, the preamble begins with "We the Peoples of Europe Conscious that ours is a continent .... " and thus emulate the democratic origins of the constitutions of the United States and the United Nations?

16.10.03 Brussels European Council Tony Blair Prime Minister United Kingdom PD EC23-03

Today, 16 October, is World Food Day, three years since you, and several other European heads of government here, committed yourselves to the Millennium Declaration, and twelve years till your target date, of halving to 400 million by 2015 the number of the world's inhabitants currently suffering from hunger: will this European Council take the opportunity of World Food Day to renew your commitment to this Millennium Development goal?

13.10.03 London Greenpeace Lecture (2) Margot Wallstrom European Commissioner Environment PD

In the past, when Europe or the US cleaned up its act, as on sweeteners or baby foods, exports have increased to the developing world: are there legislative safeguards that this will not happen with chemicals phased out by REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals)?

Will REACH have any effect on summer ozone pollution, and increasing levels of asthma, in European cities?

4.10.03 Rome InterGovernmental Conf Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD

Is there still time to add to the preamble of the European Constitution, after the quotation from Thucydides, the phrase

"We, the Peoples of Europe Conscious that our continent . . ."

if only to demonstrate that we Europeans are at least as democratic as "We, the Peoples of the United States . . ." or "We, the Peoples of the United Nations . . ." ?

21. 9.03 Dubai Per Jacobsson Lecture Abdlatif Yousef Al-Hamad Chair Arab Fund CPD IMF9-2003

In at least three Gulf countries, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, and also, as you have just mentioned, in Morocco, there have been notable developments toward democracy: to what extent will future economic and social development depend on politically accountable governments, in particular in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt?

19. 9.03 Dubai IMF Annual Meetings Ian Goldin Vice Pres External Affairs World Bank CPD IMF9-2003

Before holding its annual meeting in Tashkent in May 2003, the European Bank (EBRD) did a thorough appraisal of democratic development and human rights in Uzbekistan, coming to an agreement with the government that freedom of expression would be guaranteed at the meeting, and that steps would be taken to lessen torture and harassment of political opponents: were similar steps taken by the World Bank and IMF before holding this meeting in the UAE, which Freedom House, for example, rates very low on political rights and civil liberties?

And will any such steps be taken before the September 2006 Annual Meetings in Singapore which, while rated highly on business integrity, is also known for harassing the political opposition?

6. 9.03 Riva European Foreign Mins Ana de Palacio Foreign Minister Spain PD Riva

Would you pass on to Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar my congratulations on himself imposing limits on his tenure of high political office, and this in an age when so many other politicians, including Thatcher, Mitterrand, Kohl, Craxi and Gonzalez, have stayed on till their tenure became compromised by scandal or losing touch with their citizens: and would you let him know that I consider his self-discipline one of at least four shining examples of the new Spanish democracy, the other three being Adolfo Suarez standing up in the Cortes to a military putsch, King Juan Carlos asking for forgiveness in 1992 for the expulsion of the Jews 500 years earlier, and Spain's offering honorary citizenship in 1996 to all foreign veterans of the civil war?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

6. 9.03 Riva (2) European Foreign Mins Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD Riva

On 9 September 2003, in three days' time, North Korea will mark its 55th anniversary, possibly declaring itself a nuclear power, in addition to its other criminal activities of missile proliferation, mass starvation, drug smuggling and counterfeiting US dollars: rather than Europe again stand by, could not Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has a flair for provoking thought while other minds remain comatose, suggest that one way out of the continuing stalemate would be for China to reoccupy North Korea, which would at least substitute an erratic, hereditary and hermit dictatorship with one committed to economic prosperity, and perhaps even to some political freedoms, if not in time for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, then by 2011, the centenary of Sun Yat-Sen's democratic movement?

For four years now Kosova has been in political limbo, with little external investment, and growing criminal businesses in people-trafficking, drug-smuggling and gun-running: will Italy, which perhaps suffers most from those criminal activities, take the initiative, during your presidency of the European Union, to set a deadline for Kosovan independence in 2004, somewhat as was done for Timor-Leste on 20 May 2002, with guarantees for Kosova's 100 000 Serbs, as was done for Macedonia's Albanians, and this, among other reasons, to show that Europe is a true partner of the United States, instead of merely hoping that panaceas or roadmaps will fall from heaven after the November 2004 US presidential elections?

5. 9.03 Riva (2) European Foreign Mins Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD Riva

With only six days before the second anniversary of the civilian massacres in New York and Washington, will this meeting of European Foreign Ministers send a message of solidarity to US Secretary of State Colin Powell and the American people for our joint fight against terrorism?

There were some 100 Europeans who died on 9/11 - names given on - and, while most were British, there were ten other European countries which lost citizens, including four Italians: Italy has several memorials to victims of modern terrorism, including those in Rome, near the Piramide, and in Bologna [for the

murder of 87 civilians at the railway station on 2 August 1980]: is there a plan to create a European memorial to the dead of 11 September 2001 [additional to the British one near the US embassy in London]?

31. 8.03 Venice European Culture Mins Viviane Reding European Commissioner for Culture PD Riva

2003 is the European Year of the Disabled Citizen: what steps have you taken in 2003, or plan to take subsequently, to increase the number of disabled actresses and actors taking on non-disabled roles in film and theatre, and I ask this in Venice, which I have long thought the most beautiful city in the world, but is most hostile to the disabled, with nine out of ten bridges not having ramps for wheelchairs and babycars?

7. 7.03 London Steinkraus-Cohen lecture Hans Corell (Sweden) UN Legal Counsel New York PD

The political scientist R J Rummel at the University of Hawaii has, over the past two decades, described the crime of democide, the mass murder by governments of their own citizens, some 200 million civilians in the 20th century, a crime much more pervasive than genocide: is the UN Office of Legal Affairs drawing up a convention against democide, or mass murders by governments, for example the government-created famines in Ukraine in 1932, China in the late 1950s, and North Korea today, crimes not covered by the convention on genocide?

6. 7.03 London emailed Jacques Rogge Pres International Olympic Committee

The 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester integrated some ten disabled athlete events into its programme: given the IOC's insistence on the elite character of Paralympic athletes, will the Committee encourage running totals of both Olympic and Paralympic medals during the Athens Paralympics in 2004, and publish an official combined medal total at the end of the Games?

2. 7.03 London emailed Margaret Beckett Secretary of State Food (DEFRA) PD FAO 11

In my FAO Campaign Letter 11 of 14 February 2003, brought round to you at Nobel House, copy attached and downloadable free from my Shequality website by clicking successively on Documents, Letters, FAO, I described the challenge of obesity faced by the industrialized democracies and created in part by agribusiness providing 500 calories more food daily today than thirty years ago: now that Kraft has decided to reduce the food portions it sells, essentially to obviate class action suits to compensate for obesity, will DEFRA follow a two-track policy with supermarkets, that of praising their present practice of maintaining prices for 25% extra salads, fruits and vegetables, but starting a new one of halving prices for 25% less of biscuits, sweets, snacks and other weight-additive foods?

30. 6.03 London BBC World Service Lyse Doucet Presenter Talking Point

Your programme on 29 June was about truth and reconciliation in Iraq: on 11 April 2003 the CNN News Chief admitted in the New York Times that it had suppressed some "awful things" about the Baathist regime, essentially in order to keep a CNN correspondent in Baghdad: what compromises did the BBC make, and where can we read about this truth?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

25. 6.03 London Russo-British Progress Elena Nemirovskaya Moscow School of Political Studies PD

May I ask about lustration, truth and reconciliation in democratic Russia, and this against a background where some 20 000 000 soviet citizens suffered death at the hands of Lenin and Stalin, and some 20 000 000 more under the nazis?

Already Russia has undertaken several acts of honesty and generosity: for example, from 5 to 25 May 2002 Aeroflot offered free flights to anywhere in Russia and Europe to World War II veterans and concentration camp survivors: in 2004 the Russian and Japanese navies will hold commemorative services in the Sea of Japan on the centenary of the Russo-Japanese war; on 12 October 1993 President Yeltsin apologized for the internment of 600 000 Japanese POWs in Siberia after World War II; and I am still hoping that Russia will rename Kaliningrad after its best-known citizen and one of Europe's greatest philosophers, Immanuel Kant, for the bicentenary of his death on 12February 2004

But recently I have asked three sample questions to which I have yet to receive an answer:

1. Have surviving Russian soldiers had an opportunity to express remorse at the individual shooting of some 25 000 Poles in Katyn forest near Smolensk, following an order signed by Stalin in March 1940?

2. Will Russia use the 60th anniversary on 23 February 2004 of Stalin's mass deportation of the Chechen population as a target date for a political settlement in Chechnya?

3. What lustration efforts will take place in 2005 to expiate what happened 60 years earlier before the Fall of Berlin, and recounted by Antony Beevor in his 2002 book with that title, namely the rape of some 2 000 000 women and girls?

21. 6.03 Chalkidiki Western Balkans Summit Giorgos Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC22-03

Some four of the five countries in the Western Balkans have engaged in war over the past decade: given your excellent work to promote the Olympic Truce, has Greece persuaded any country to incorporate the truce in their new constitution, either in the main text or as an additional protocol, before the Olympic Games begin in Athens in August 2004?

20. 6.03 Chalkidiki European Council (2) Costas Simitis Prime Minister Greece PD EC22-03

The preamble to the new European constitution begins with a saying attributed by Thucydides to Pericles, the 2500th anniversary of whose birth we celebrate in 2005: in what other ways will Greece use this opportunity to impart to the young citizens of Europe who will grow up under the new constitution that, while this great democratic statesman may have had later equals in, say, Washington, Bolivar, Lincoln, Garibaldi, Gandhi, Churchill and Mandela, in 2500 years of world history the integrity, courage, eloquence and administrative ability of Pericles, and his triumph over others' destructive envy, have never been surpassed?

In recent years Greece has done much to remind the world that the initial primary purpose of the Olympic Games was to reinforce the (Olympic) Truce, to replace war by sport: in 2010, when runs will take place throughout the world to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Marathon, will Greece be equally successful in pointing out that the first marathon was run, not for medals, but for freedom, to announce to Athens that Europe's first democracy, in September 490 BC, had survived the initial onslaught of Middle Eastern weapons of mass destruction?

20. 6.03 Chalkidiki European Council Gerhard Schroeder Federal Chancellor Germany PD EC22-03

On 26 July 2003 we will mark the 60th anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Hamburg, when some 40 000 civilians lost their lives: already, on 8 April 2003, I have asked President Bush if he will attend the commemoration, while earlier, on 15 November 2002, as a British schoolboy who took part in the first postwar exchange, that between Bristol and Hannover in 1950, I have asked UK foreign office and defence ministry officials if Germany will be invited to the 60th anniversary of the D-day landings in June 2004, which coincides with the European elections: for its part, will the German government encourage your citizens to welcome back to Germany in 2005 the 80-year-old veterans from North America and the European Union who fought to liberate the German people from the most murderous regime in Western Europe's history, and set you again on the path to Enlightenment pioneered by Kant and Beethoven?

20. 6.03 Chalkidiki European Council Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha Prime Minister Bulgaria PD EC22-03

On 11 September 2003 we will mark the 25th anniversary of the murder in London of the Bulgarian-born BBC journalist Georgi Markov: will you use this anniversary to establish a Georgi Markov Fund to enable British broadcasters to visit Bulgaria to study the gentler forms of your history and culture?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

20. 6.03 Chalkidiki European Council Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD EC22-03

On 10/11 July 2003 we will mark the 60th anniversary, and for the 80-year-old survivors the last major occasion, of the Allied landings in Sicily and the beginning of the liberation of Western Europe from totalitarian rule: what steps is Italy taking during your coming presidency of the European Union both to welcome the 80-year-old liberators back to Italy, or even to set up a fund whereby young people from Brazil, Britain, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, the US and, unofficially, Ireland may come to appreciate the Italian heritage which their grandparents set once again on the road to freedom?

2. 6.03 Evian G8 summit (2) Junichiro Koizumi Prime Minister Japan PD G8-03

In 1906 the US President Teddy Roosevelt won the Nobel peace prize for drawing up, at his summer White House in Oyster Bay Long Island, the 1905 peace treaty between Russia and Japan: with that centenary soon approaching, does Japan plan to call on the good offices of the US presidency to conclude a post-World War II treaty with Russia?

8 July 2003, in five weeks' time, marks the 150th anniversary of Matthew Perry's visit to Tokyo, and 31 March 2004 the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of Kanagawa, which opened Japan to international trade, one result of which, at least over the past fifty years, has transformed the whole world into beneficiaries of the high quality of Japanese technology and industry: does Japan plan to use these 150th anniversaries as target dates for new measures to promote trade with Africa and other regions in the developing world?

2. 6.03 Evian G8 summit (2) George W Bush President United States PD G8-03

The attendance at this meeting for the first time of the populous democracies of Brazil, India, Mexico and Nigeria has demonstrated that there is now a good case for summit meetings which will be an advance on both the G8 and the UN Security Council, a meeting of all democracies with more than 100 million citizens, to include Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia and the US, with countries like Britain, France, Germany and Italy being invited when they chair European or other regional institutions: such a summit could serve as a Great Council of the Community of the Democracies whose second biennial meeting was held in Korea in November 2002, but a summit which above all would be representative, and address the concerns, of the vast majority of the world's citizens, thus obviating for at least the next quarter century the complaint by NGOs and others that existing summits are no longer representative: the next meeting of the Community of the Democracies is planned for Chile in 2004: will the US, which has inspired few representative institutions since the creation of the UN and Nato in the 1940s, now take the initiative in setting up such a Great Council before the Chile meeting, perhaps at the same time as you host the G8 summit in 2004?

When you hold the G8 summit in the US in 2004, do you plan to hold it in June (or earlier), when Ireland can attend as president of the European Union, a democracy which has never before participated in a G8 summit, rather than in July (or later), when the presidency will be held by the Netherlands, which has participated in two previous summits?

1. 6.03 Evian G8 summit Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva President Brazil PD G8-03

Will Brazil press for more permanent representation at these summits, both because Brazil is the G9 industrial democracy, and also because, in the next two years, we will commemorate the 60th and last major anniversary of Brazil being the only country in Latin America to send troops to fight, and die, for Europe's freedom [and later prosperity]?

16. 4.03 London Annual General Meeting Sir Bob Reid Chair Avis Rental Cars

2003 is the European Year for Disabled Citizens: is Avis doing something special to make its rental cars more disabled-friendly?

15. 4.03 London Iraq briefing (2) Senior Officials Foreign Office United Kingdom PD

On the wider implications of Iraq's liberation, we all know of Britain's support for Germany having a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, but Italy has just as strong a case, if not so widely known: given the contrasting positions which those two countries took on the liberation of Iraq, will Britain and the US always link both applications together in future?

After 1991 Kuwait effectively reimbursed the democracies for its liberation, and there is now talk of Iraq's reconstruction becoming the first self-financed Marshall plan: has serious work yet been done on how this might be achieved over, say, a thirty-year period?

11. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

As someone who worked with the International Red Cross on behalf of Hungarian refugees in Austria in

1956-57, may I first thank you for what you have just said on the bravery of Red Cross workers in Iraq: My question: during the liberation of Kosova, the Ministry of Defence invited representatives of the various allied forces to address us: when can we hear from the coalition's Commonwealth and European allies, from the Australian, Czech, Danish, Polish & Slovak forces taking part in the disarmament of Saddam and the liberation of the Iraqi people?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

10. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Iraqi Exiles Foreign Office U K PD

First may I say with regard to Zara Mohammed's account of her and her fellow Iraqi prisoners being forced to run the minefields, I had known of that from the other side, from a 1960s friend who served as matron in a Tehran hospital during the Iraq-Iran war, but who was determined that her son would not go through a similar experience and who came to Rome to protect her family, where I was able to offer hospitality before they built a new life in the United States:

what I would ask now is whether the five tortured exiles here - Zara, Hayfaa Abdul Karim, Nashat Ahmad, Maher Soltan and Dr Ossam Balal - know of the excellent work of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims , started 22 years ago in Copenhagen by an extraordinary woman, Dr Inge Genefke, and which now has affiliates in over 70 countries round the world, in Iran but not yet Iraq, and of which I have brought for you sample quarterly reports; and also whether any of the five have plans to take part in a truth and reconciliation, or similar lustration body, when they return to a democratic Iraq?

10. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Off-camera briefing Foreign Office U K PD

Does the Foreign Secretary plan to visit Iraq on his way to the Europe Accession signing in Athens on 16 April and, if so, will he go in company with, say, his Danish and Polish counterparts, from European countries which have also sent service personnel to help disarm Saddam and liberate Iraq?

Despite my little knowledge of the Middle East, dating back to work on behalf of Palestine refugees in 1959/60, I still think (or hope!) that the overthrow of the Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq could be followed by an uprising against the Ba'athist dictatorship in Syria: on 27 June 1960 the current president's father and uncle - again from a minority, this time the Alawites and then against the Sunnis - murdered 550 religious prisoners in Tadmor, and in February 1982 a further 12 000 persons were massacred in Hama: at that time, while primitive WMD may or may not have been used, those were certainly occasions of mass destruction: now that the younger Assad seems to have chemical WMD, do the Coalition Allies have contingency plans to answer any appeal for protection from the Syrian opposition if Assad's Ba'athist dictatorship resorts to such weapons?

8. 4.03 Belfast Iraq briefing (2) George W Bush President United States PD

#

(emailed) One reason why the German people have opposed the Iraq war is their fear of civilian bombing, both from the actual events in 1943-1945, and from the fact that the full extent of Allied bombings are only now coming to light, not only the well-known ones of 40 000 killed in Hamburg on 27 July 1943 and the 35 000 killed in Dresden on 14February 1945, but in the 10 000 killed in Darmstadt on 11 September 1944, the 20 000 killed in Pforzheim on 23February 1945, the 5 000 in Wuerzburg on 16 March 1945, and the thousands more in Hildesheim on 22 March 1945:

happily the bombing of Iraq has led to few civilian casualties, but one reason for this may be the bad conscience of the democracies in bombing German civilians 60 years ago: it will soon be time to rebuild bridges with Germany, both with the government and with the opposition who too initially opposed the war: would one way of doing this be to visit Hamburg on 27 July 2003, the 60th anniversary of the bombing, to express our relief to those persons 60 years and older who survived 27 July 1943?

(emailed) The democracies rightly consider chemical, biological and nuclear as weapons of mass destruction, but there is another weapon used by totalitarian regimes which is at least as devastating, with Stalin killing 5000000 Ukrainians in 1931-32, Mao killing 30 000 000 Chinese in 1958-62, Kim Jong Il killing 1 000 000 Koreans in the late 1990s, Saddam leaving 400 000 children vulnerable in 2003, and Mugabe now doing the same in Zimbabwe - the weapon of dictator-induced (DI) famine or malnutrition: will the US take a lead in declaring DI-famine a WMD, and at the same time undertake measures to tackle it, for example by fighter-escorted food drops as carefully targeted as is now the case with allied ordnance, and by encouraging voluntary groups such as Farmers without Frontiers to come to the relief of the starving?

And will you permit me to raise this question while you are in Ireland, where a bureaucracy- (not a military-) induced famine led to one million deaths in 1846-50, a famine for which Tony Blair had the grace to apologize on the famine's 150th anniversary, but which, as much as any other event in history, has created the tension in Ireland which you are now trying finally to help assuage?

8. 4.03 London Foreign Press Assn Ghassan Atiyyah Iraqi opposition leader PD

With regard to Iraq's long history, it is exactly 2600 years ago, in 597 BCE, that Nebuchadnezzar first brought Jews into exile in what is now Iraq, a community which by 1950 numbered 350 000, but which today numbers barely 35 individuals, with a similar number of abandoned synagogues: will a newly democratic Iraq, first, like Egypt and Jordan, make a peace treaty with Israel and, second, welcome back to Iraq, at least as visitors, some of the Iraqi Jews scattered throughout Israel and the wider world?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

7. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

Will Tony Blair present to President Bush in Belfast today the extraordinary pre-liberation address to the Royal Irish Regiment, some 40% of whose members come from the Republic, made by Lt-Col Tim Collins of Belfast?

31. 3.03 London Agra Europe Conference Franz Fischler European Commissioner Agriculture PD

Now that the Franco-German proposal not to use force to disarm Saddam has collapsed, will a similar fate overtake their initiative to postpone by five years the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, given the poverty-perpetuating effect which the postponement has had on farming populations in the emerging democracies?

28. 3.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

In 2000 the Ministry of Defence mounted a photo exhibition honoring the contribution made by ethnic minorities to the British armed forces over the past 200 years, not least from what are now Bangladesh and Pakistan, while in December 2002 the US appointed as a second deputy commander of Middle East Forces Lt-General John Abizaid, of Lebanese descent and fluent in Arabic: who is the highest-ranking officer of Middle East origin serving with the British forces?

21. 3.03 Brussels European Council Giorgos Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC21-03

Over the past ten years Greece has done much to revive the Olympic Truce, to provide a breathing space in man's inhumanity to man: at present the Swiss government and the International Committee of the Red Cross are re-examining the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977, not least to take account of modern terrorism: but there is another characteristic of modern conflicts undertaken by the democracies, that some result in more civilian casualties than wounded service personnel: could not Greece and Europe give a lead to other democracies by making it obligatory for victors to rehabilitate wounded civilians, perhaps starting with children blinded and crippled by war?

21. 3.03 Brussels European Council (4) Tony Blair Prime Minister Britain PD EC21-03

I have a Rwandan friend in the BBC who is trying to get recorded the names of the 800 000 individuals who were slaughtered between April and June 1994, the three months when David Hannay, Douglas Hurd and John Major succeeded in keeping the morally accountable word genocide out of Security Council resolutions: now that Britain under your leadership is helping free the Iraqi people from torture and murder, will you support the efforts of parliamentarians like Anne Clwyd and Emma Nicholson to record the names of all the Kurds, Marsh Arabs and other Iraqi civilians who were murdered by Saddam and his henchmen?

And when Iraq is liberated, will you visit Halabja, the village where 15 years ago, on 17 March 1988, some 5000 individuals became the first Iraqi victims of Saddam's chemical weapons of mass destruction?

Among the 15 current members of the UN Security Council, there are 6 totalitarian or other authoritarian regimes - Angola, Cameroon, China, Guinea, Pakistan and Syria - any or all of which might have thought twice about using force to disarm the Iraqi or other military dictatorships of weapons of mass destruction: given that these 6out of 15 are a reflection of 70 such regimes among the 191 UN member states, 40% as against 37% (see Annex A), and given the Damocles sword of the Chinese or other vetoes overhanging decisive UN action, should not consideration in future be given to seeking a majority in organizations of the democracies, if not Nato, then the new intergovernmental Community of Democracies which in November 2002 held its second biennial meeting in Seoul Korea?

The Canadian G8 summit in June 2002 was the first in 28 years attended by a Spanish-speaking democracy, thanks to the coincidence of Spain holding the presidency of the European Union: hopefully France will invite its economically G8 neighbour to the summit in Evian in June 2003, but would you in any case prevail on President Bush to invite to the 2004 summit a leader who, like himself and his brother Jeb, speaks the language of Cervantes, somewhat as in 1976 President Ford insisted on the participation of Canada?

21. 3.03 Brussels European Council Jacques Chirac President France PD EC21-03

There are many of us in Britain who love France and the French, and some who believe Joan of Arc is an English saint, even if we are not yet ready to confer that distinction on Charles of Gaulle: but would it not have increased our admiration if France had contributed to the military pressure which forced Saddam to re-admit the inspectors, and so obliged the anglosaxophones to accept your proposal to allow more time for the inspectors to verify Saddam's disarmament?

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Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

21. 3.03 Brussels European Council Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD EC21-03

This July marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Europe, with the landings in Sicily on 10/11 July 1943 of American and British forces: will you use this opportunity, which happily falls during the Italian Presidency of the European Union, to welcome back these 80-year-olds, both distinguished individuals such as US Senator Bob Dole and UK travel writer Eric Newby, and also other surviving veterans from Brazil, Canada, India, New Zealand, Poland and South Africa, to thank them for the sacrifices which helped make Italy and Europe the free and prosperous continent which we all enjoy today?

20. 3.03 Brussels European Council Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC21-03

With the European Parliament having only 3 or 4 MEPs representative of the European Union's 12 million Moslem citizens, is it not time for the Parliament to help set up a European Moslem Council, using as one analogy the National Moslem Council recently established by France?

16. 3.03 London London Book Fair Ingrid Elam Moderator Panel on New Swedish Fiction PD OP 103

2003 is the European Year for Disabled Citizens, while in December we commemorate the 1700th anniversary of Santa Lucia, Sweden's Christmas saint and the patron saint of the blind: at the Gothenburg Book Fair in June, will you make a special effort to feature books for disabled citizens, for example, talking books for the blind, by the two authors on this panel?

21. 2.03 Rome Rural Strategy Launch James Wolfensohn President World Bank Washington PD

In the past two years the European Bank (EBRD) has halted funding of new projects in Belarus and Turkmenistan in order not to strengthen their present dictators: yesterday FAO announced a $21 million cooperation program with Qaddafi's Libya which, while funded entirely by Libya, is nevertheless a country which many consider having a terrorist regime: may I ask whether any of the four agencies at this press conference, the World Bank, FAO, IFAD and the World Food Programme have, like the European Bank, drawn up a red list of countries where financing has been halted as a preventive measure against funds being diverted from rural development to the suppression of political rights and civil liberties, and the financing of terrorism?

6. 2.03 London Development Conference Neale Coleman Director Greater London Authority PD

For the Twin Towers redevelopment in New York, there were two architect competitions, and the chance for the public and critics to view the models: will a similar public process take place for future major developments in London, for example, if London bids for, and wins the competition for, the 2012 Olympic Games?

21. 1.03 London Islamic Finance Summit Iqbal Khan CEO HSBC Amanah Finance UAE PD

Next September, for the first time in nearly 60 years, the World Bank will hold its annual meetings in a Moslem country, in Dubai, while over the past 20 years, as was indicated in your presentation, there has been among the industrial democracies a growing interest in ethical investment: when we come to Dubai in September, are there any ethical investment initiatives which you can show to non-Moslem bankers?

9.12.02 Copenhagen European Council Anders Fogh Rasmussen Prime Minister Denmark PD

In the 1940s the European democracies, in order to defeat the aggressive evil of Hitler and national socialism, allied ourselves with the till then less aggressive evil of Stalin and soviet communism and, in the process, consigned eastern Europe to forty more years of totalitarianism: in the 1990s the Western democracies, in order to defeat the immediate evil of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, allied ourselves with authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which led to the growth and export both of islamist terrorism and gender apartheid:

now, twelve years later, as we prepare to disarm Saddam of weapons of mass destruction, will Europe take a moral and political lead in ensuring that, in the further compromises which may have to made with neighbouring Arab dictatorships, the democracies do not strengthen regimes which suppress political rights, civil liberties and women's advancement, with all the resentment, grievances and lashing out against the democracies which this could create in the coming decades?

Note for the file: question emailed, because writer had to forgo attendance at European summit in Copenhagen 12-13 Dec 2002, being temporarily (?) incapacitated by a deep vein thrombosis (DVT): earlier, in 1956, the writer flew to Vienna to volunteer with the International Red Cross for its relief work for Hungarian refugees, and in 1959 to Morocco and Tunisia for its work with refugees from Algeria.

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INDEX (continued from first page)

Date Place Occasion Person Addressed, Office & Country PD Followup

30. 1.04 Madrid FITUR / Tourcom Francesco Frangialli WTO Secretary General (France) PD WTO-2004

29. 1.04 email " Pamela Conover President & COO Cunard Line PD WTO-2004

" Madrid " (2) World Tourism Organization (WTO) panel PD WTO-2004

" " " (2) German Porras Secretary General Tourism Spain PD WTO-2004

28. 1.04 " " Ousmane Masseck NDIAYE Minister of Tourism Senegal PD WTO-2004

19. 1.04 London OndAzul launch (3) Gilberto Gil Singer & Minister of Culture Brazil PD

16. 1.04 Galway Employment Ministers Mary Coughlan Social Affairs Minister Ireland PD EU25a/WG71

9. 1.04 London email Barbara Cassani Chief Exec London Olympic Bid 2012 PD

1. 1.04 Dublin email Michael O'Leary Chief Executive Ryanair PD

12.12.03 Brussels European Council All 28 Attending Heads of Government Europe PD EC24-03

" " " " Giorgos Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC24-03

" " " " Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC24-03

6.12.03 Rome (2) Disabilities Conference Grazia Sestini State Secretary Welfare Italy PD EC24-03

3.12.03 Naples 6th EuroMed Conference Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD EC24-03

17.10.03 Brussels European Council Jacques Chirac President France PD EC23-03

" " " " Recep Tayyip Erdogan Prime Minister Turkey PD EC23-03

" " " " Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC23-03

16.10.03 " " " Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC23-03

" " " " Tony Blair Prime Minister United Kingdom PD EC23-03

13.10.03 London Greenpeace Lecture (2) Margot Wallstrom European Commissioner Environment PD

4.10.03 Rome InterGovernmental Conf Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD

21. 9.03 Dubai Per Jacobsson Lecture Abdlatif Yousef Al-Hamad Chair Arab Fund CPD IMF9-2003

19. 9.03 Dubai IMF Annual Meetings Ian Goldin Vice Pres External Affairs World Bank CPD IMF9-2003

6. 9.03 Riva European Foreign Mins Ana de Palacio Foreign Minister Spain PD Riva

" " (2) " " " Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD Riva

5. 9.03 " (2) " " " Franco Frattini Foreign Minister Italy PD Riva

31. 8.03 Venice European Culture Mins Viviane Reding European Commissioner for Culture PD

7. 7.03 London Steinkraus-Cohen lecture Hans Corell (Sweden) UN Legal Counsel New York PD

6. 7.03 London emailed Jacques Rogge Pres International Olympic Committee

2. 7.03 London emailed Margaret Beckett Secretary of State Food (DEFRA) PD FAO 11

30. 6.03 London BBC World Service Lyse Doucet Presenter Talking Point

25. 6.03 London Russo-British Progress Elena Nemirovskaya Moscow School of Political Studies PD

21. 6.03 Chalkidiki Western Balkans Summit Giorgos Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC22-03

20. 6.03 " European Council (2) Costas Simitis Prime Minister Greece PD EC22-03

" " " " Gerhard Schroeder Federal Chancellor Germany PD EC22-03

" " " " Simeon Saxe-Coburg Gotha Prime Minister Bulgaria PD EC22-03

" " " " Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD EC22-03

2. 6.03 Evian France G8 summit (2) Junichiro Koizumi Prime Minister Japan PD G8-03

2. 6.03 " " " (2) George W Bush President United States PD G8-03

1. 6.03 " " " Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva President Brazil PD G8-03

16. 4.03 London Annual General Meeting Sir Bob Reid Chair Avis Rental Cars

15. 4.03 London Iraq briefing (2) Senior Officials Foreign Office United Kingdom PD

11. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

10. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Iraqi Exiles Foreign Office U K PD

10. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Off-camera briefing Foreign Office U K PD

8. 4.03 Belfast Iraq briefing (2) George W Bush President United States PD

8. 4.03 London Foreign Press Assn Ghassan Atiyyah Iraqi opposition leader PD

7. 4.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

31. 3.03 London Agra Europe Conference Franz Fischler European Commissioner Agriculture PD

28. 3.03 London Iraq briefing Adam Ingram Armed Forces Minister United Kingdom PD

21. 3.03 Brussels European Council Giorgos Papandreou Foreign Minister Greece PD EC21-03

21. 3.03 " " " Jacques Chirac President France PD EC21-03

" " " " (4) Tony Blair Prime Minister Britain PD EC21-03

" " " " Silvio Berlusconi Prime Minister Italy PD EC21-03

20. 3.03 " " " Pat Cox President European Parliament PD EC21-03

16. 3.03 London London Book Fair Ingrid Elam Moderator Panel on New Swedish Fiction PD OP 103

21. 2.03 Rome Rural Strategy Launch James Wolfensohn President World Bank Washington PD

6. 2.03 London Development Conference Neale Coleman Director Greater London Authority PD

21. 1.03 London Islamic Finance Summit Iqbal Khan CEO HSBC Amanah Finance UAE PD

9.12.02 Copenhagen European Council Anders Fogh Rasmussen Prime Minister Denmark PD

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