The Londoner

The gay marriage row is bringing the politics of division to a country more used to tolerance     George W Bush once declared that the problem with the French is that they have no word for “entrepreneur”. This story (told by Baroness Williams, who says she was told it by Tony Blair) was intended to ridicule the ex-president. But his overall conceit is sound: a country and its culture can be defined by its vocabulary, or lack of it. The Italians have no word for “leadership”; the Germans have no word for “small talk”; and the Eskimos have no word for “war”. Some concepts are simply alien to some cultures, which is why the British have no word for “Kulturkampf”. The practice of “culture wars” – dividing a nation into warring tribes and then exploiting that division – has been happily absent from our politics. Anyone visiting the United States during election time will watch, amazed, the bitter arguments

Mario Monti’s announcement last Saturday that he plans to resign his post as Italy’s prime minister earlier than was previously expected has thrown Italian politics, and the whole Eurozone, into renewed turmoil. Monti, a Yale-educated technocrat and former EU commissioner, took over in November of last year after market pressure forced Silvio Berlusconi to quit in order to prevent the ignominy of Rome having to apply for an international bailout. The plan was for him to serve the rest of the parliamentary term, until elections scheduled for no later than April 2013. But last week, Berlusconi’s PdL (People of Freedom) party, which had been backing the Monti government, pulled its support, just as its exceedingly controversial 76-year old billionaire leader declared that he would make one more run for the premiership (he has been elected three times already in the span of nearly two decades). This led directly to Monti’s announcement that he will go as soon the 2

  European governments neared a deal on Wednesday to give the European Central Bank new powers to supervise banks across the bloc after Germany signaled a readiness to compromise on the scope of the ambitious financial reform. Last week German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had clashed openly with his French counterpart Pierre Moscovici over key elements of the plan, but with time running out to meet a year-end deadline, they narrowed their differences, raising hopes of a breakthrough. Agreement on a common bank supervisor is a crucial first step towards a broader "banking union", or common euro zone approach to dealing with failing banks that in recent years have dragged down countries like Ireland and Spain. "We think that we have a good chance to reach a deal today," Schaeuble told journalists ahead of a meeting in Brussels with his European Union peers. "My intention is that we find a solution to the

Chancellor Angela was by all acounts relieved to see the back of Silvio Berlusconi when he stepped down in 2011. Now, however, she and other European leaders are horrified at the prospect of his return to the pinnacle of Italian politics. Not again! Just 13 months ago, European heads of state and government joined forces to usher Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi into retirement. Chancellor Angela Merkel and then- French President Nicolas Sarkozy marshalled all of their persuasive powers to clear they way for a reform government in Rome under the leadership of Mario Monti. Now, with Prime Minister Monti having said over the weekend that he would resign as soon as he pushes through a key budget law, Italy's least serious politician is back. And Europe is groaning in displeasure. The French leftist paper Libération wrote "The Mummy Returns," a reference

Adolf Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem Born in Solingen, Germany, Adolf Eichmann was the son of a businessman and industrialist, Karl Adolf Eichmann. In 1914.   Eichmann joined the Austrian branch of the NSDAP (member number 889 895) and of the SS, enlisting on 1 April 1932, as an SS-Anwärter. He was accepted as a full SS member that November, appointed an SS-Mann, and assigned the SS number 45326. For the next year, Eichmann was a member of the Allgemeine-SS and served in a mustering formation operating from Salzburg. In September 1934 Eichmann landed a position in Heydrich's SD, the powerful SS security service. There he started out as a filing clerk cataloguing information about Freemasons. Predictably, the Nazis believed that the Masons were assisting the Jews in their attempts to gain world domination. Eichmann's job was to compile information on prominent Freemasons in Germany. However he was soon assigned to the Jewish section, which w

Although Berlin was split into four sectors in 1945, the Soviets were determined to see a unified city under their control. Their tactics for undermining the other occupying powers ranged from seductive to brutal, and a desperate blockade backfired into a 40-year divide. The first edition of the Deutsche Volkszeitung , which appeared on newsstands in the devastated city of Berlin on June 13, 1945, brought some intriguing news. The newspaper contained the first postwar appeal by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany . It read: "The path of forcing the Soviet system on Germany would be wrong." The Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which had advocated a "Soviet Germany" until 1933, was now calling for the establishment of "a parliamentary democratic republic with all democratic freedoms and rights for the people." Of course, most Berliners gave little thought to the future structure of the nation as they wandered hun

The secrets of the Nordic model that has appeared immune to the crisis engulfing the rest of Europe The European Union’s southern member states – Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal – have become the sick men of Europe, helping to turn the EU into one of the sicker regions of the world. In contrast, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have stood out by keeping much of their reputation and self-confidence intact, as well as retaining decent growth figures. This has been achieved without swingeing budget cuts or reneging on social obligations. These countries still exhibit the combination of efficient production, high tax and high living standards that has been called a ‘third way’ or ‘Nordic model’ in the past, and which is now seizing attention again for its apparent crisis-busting properties. The misfortunes of Iceland – the smallest Nordic country – arguably prove th