Global News Journal

Top 10 from my Nobel night

The Nobel banquet must be one of the most extravagant annual dinner events on the planet. Every year the organisers allow a few journalists to join the festivities and rub shoulders with prize winners, royalty and other notables. This year, I got to go. The food and wine were certainly fit for a king (a good thing, too, since there was a king dining among us), and there is really nothing quite like dancing to a 20-person brass band. In a time-honoured journalist tradition, I’ve made a “top 10 list”.

10. Bling. Everywhere. Jewel-encrusted handbags, gold tableware and all those tiaras. I was blinded.

9. And yet, humility. Dale Mortensen, an American economics laureate, thanked all his teachers and said winning the prize reminded him of a quote by Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.”

8. Numbers. How do you pull off a three-course, sit-down dinner for 1,350 people? With more than 260 waiters, 45 cooks, 7,000 pieces of porcelain, 5,000 glasses and 10,000 items of silverware (some which apparently go mysteriously missing every year).

7. Unconventional. Leave it to independent-minded Sweden to turn my culinary world upside down with its highly secretive Nobel menu. To my surprise, the truffled turbot paired deliciously with a California cabernet sauvignon (yes, red!).

6. Bold. I have always been baffled by the Swedish need to wear so much black in the dark of winter. Nobel night is a wonderful exception. Gorgeous gowns of every colour were set against a backdrop of freesia, gerbera and hyacinths — all flown in from San Remo on the Italian Riviera, where Alfred Nobel spent the last years of his life.

This year’s Nobel winner on the importance of a good read

The most important thing that ever happened to newly minted Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa? It wasn’t the news two months ago that he had won the prize for literature, or the first time he ever published a book. It was, he said, learning how to read.

Vargas Llosa came to Stockholm to give the traditional pre-award lecture and he told a throng of listeners how books enriched his life, breaking the barriers of time and space. He said writing them helped him create a parallel life where one could take refuge against adversity, where the extraordinary was natural and the natural extraordinary.

This winter has been one of the coldest on record thus far for Stockholm so literature lovers in the Swedish capital were eager to soak up some Latin warmth to brighten one of the darkest days of the year. The hall, adorned with tall gold columns and crystal chandeliers, was packed with academics, publishers and a sizable entourage of Spanish speakers.

The day before, at a news conference, Vargas Llosa spoke about how his life had “entered into a vortex” after clinching the award as he joined the ranks of Ernest Hemingway, Rudyard Kipling and Pablo Neruda. Answering questions in Spanish, English and French, he also took the opportunity to lament what he saw as modern society’s obsession with vacuous entertainment.

In his lecture, the professorial Peruvian said literature helps us orient ourselves in the “labyrinth” where we are born and compensates for the frustrations real life inflicts upon us.

“We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit — the engine of progress — would not even exist,” he told his audience.

Lapland’s part in EU foreign policy

Last weekend, Finland’s foreign minister gathered six of his colleagues and the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, in the frozen far reaches of Lapland for two days of talks on the future of European foreign policy.

As informal ministerial gatherings go, it was a rather jolly (if cold) affair, complete with a ‘family photo’ taken with a pair of nervous reindeer, a chance to see the northern lights and activities such as skiing, sledging and snow-mobiling. Some of the ministers even brought along their families.

But as well as a relaxing weekend staying in luxurious cabins 250 km inside the Arctic Circle in the village of Saariselka, what exactly is the point?

Alexander Stubb, Finland’s young and energetic foreign minister, well know for doing triathlons and for his near-permanent grin, says such retreats help foreign ministers get to know each other better and allow them to discuss critical issues without outside pressure. First, they don’t have to worry about reaching hard-headed decisions, and equally they don’t have advisers whispering in their ears or minute-takers holding them to their every word. It’s an open-ended chat among colleagues about topics close to their heart.

France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, and his Italian counterpart, Franco Frattini, certainly backed up that impression as they relaxed in jeans and open-necked shirts and chatted openly with a handful of journalists  also invited along. They went snow-mobiling and celebrated Frattini’s 53rd birthday. 

In terms of discussions, the participants — who also included the foreign ministers of Sweden, Spain, Turkey and Estonia — covered everything from the EU’s role in the world to sanctions on Iran, developments in the Middle East and the setting up of a European diplomatic corps. Over dinner of reindeer steaks and Lapland cloudberries, they sought to put the world to right.

But at the back of their minds, they were also worrying about their own futures.

EU President Sweden to lead by example on climate change

A lush green residential area in the south of Stockholm embodies Sweden’s determination to lead from the front in its efforts to combat climate change during its presidency of the European Union.

A decade ago, Hammarby Sjostad was a run-down industrial area with pollution problems. Today it is an environmentally friendly suburb which exemplifies the battle against climate change – one of Sweden’s priorities in its six-month presidency which began on Wednesday.

By 2018, Hammarby Sjostad will have almost 11,000 residential homes. Many are already built and 15,000 people already live in the tree-lined area next to a lake.

Most of the building materials are environmentally friendly, many have solar panels to heat water, and 50 percent of electricity and heat consumption comes from recycled organic and combustible waste. Waste water is also used in the heating system.

Expenses: They order this matter differently in Sweden

A scandal about expenses claimed by British members of parliament has damaged the already low standing of British politicians and helped Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party to its worst opinion poll showing since polling began.

The MPs argue that what they are doing is within the rules – correct, but missing the point that it is out of line with public sentiment especially at a time of national belt-tightening.

While some of the claims run into thousands of pounds for mortgage interest or home decoration, others are for trivial sums for items like dogfood or, bizarrely, a tampon claimed by a male MP. Hardly the stuff of kleptocracy.

But in some countries elected officials face savage retribution if their expense claims do not meet public standards.

Take Sweden. A prosperous, egalitarian country ranked joint 1st (with Denmark and New Zealand) out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual survey of corruption. Under constitutionally protected freedom of information rules, even everyone’s tax returns are in the public domain.

Elected in 1982 to Sweden’s parliament for the Social Democrats as the country’s youngest MP, Mona Sahlin rose quickly through the ministerial ranks. When in 1995 Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson announced his intention to resign, she was the sole candidate to replace him.

SUMMERTIME BLUES FOR EU REFORM TREATY?

European Union officials are thinking the unthinkable — they could hold a summit in July, during the normally sacrosanct summer break set aside for Brussels’ Eurocrats.

Diplomats say there is mild panic in the EU capital at the thought that the regular June summit — where the bloc is due to discuss the Lisbon treaty reforming the EU — could be chaired by Eurosceptic Czech President Vaclav Klaus.

The idea is that it would be better to postpone the discussions on the treaty until July, by which time Sweden will have replaced the Czech Republic as holder of the EU presidency.

Prague has not yet confirmed which of its officials will chair the June 18-19 Brussels summit after the collapse of the Prague government last month. But Klaus, who has described the Lisbon treaty as an irrelevance, could try to do so.

The aim of the Brussels summit is to agree a set of assurances to Ireland that the Lisbon treaty will not undermine its sovereignty — a move intended to help Dublin win a second referendum on the text slated for October.

Treaty backers say it will streamline the functioning of the 27-nation EU and give it a stronger voice in the world, for example by creating a more permanent EU president. 

Some of them say it would be better not to have Klaus trying to broker a deal to rescue the treaty if the summit talks become difficult. 

from MacroScope:

Winners in a trade war

Trade protectionism -- or at least the threat of it -- has raised it head as the global economy has declined, bringing with it all the historical fears about the Great Depression. Consider the flurry of concern about a "Buy American" clause in one of the U.S. stimulus bills.

It is traditionally assumed that widespread protectionism would most hurt the biggest economies, the United States and Japan. But Barclays Capital analyst David Woo says this is not so and that Russia, Canada, Australia and Sweden are the most vulnerable.

Woo studied various factors that would play on the effect of protectionism on a country, from openness and flexibility to its dependence on trade and it savings.

Japan turned out to be the least vulnerable. "Its relative closeness, relative flexibility of its labour market, and its terms of trade more than outweigh the negative contribution to its growth from a narrowing of its trade surplus in a global protectionist environment," Woo writes.

As for the United States, "the only reason why it failed to take first place is because of its extremely low saving rate, which will limit the scope for domestic demand to offset falling exports."

Mexico,  India and China took the third, fourth and fifth places, respectively. So it's not all about emerging markets.