Since the start of NATO’s Operation Unified  Protector in March 2011, four of the five NATO governments that contributed military forces to the operation against Libya and, subsequently, faced elections or confidence votes have fallen. Only the Turkish government of Recep Erdoğan has survived a strength test. 

On the same day Frenchmen queued to vote in the first-round of that nation’s presidential elections, in the Netherlands, the People’s-Freedom coalition government collapsed. In both events the “far-right” played a pivotal role.

In France, poll watchers observed that the National Front of Marine Le Pen posted their best showing in that party’s history while, in the Netherlands, it was the abandonment of a fragile coalition by Party for Freedom (PVV) chief Geert Wilders that caused the government’s downfall. In this short chart we compare several of Europe’s “far-right” political parties by their positions on key issues, ranging from a fairly mainstream conservative manifesto (spiced with a dash of xenophobia) of the PVV to the more radical third-positionist worldview of Germany’s National Democratic Party, whose former leader Adolf von Thadden was an alleged agent of British intelligence. 

Was the detonation of a French nuclear weapon in the Sahara a desperate attempt to keep an atomic device out of the hands of rebel army officers?  On today’s date in 1961, Foreign Legion paratroopers captured government offices in Algiers, capital of the then French colony of Algeria, marking the opening of one of the most intriguing coup attempts in the 20th century. Three days later the nuclear weapon Gerboise Vert would be exploded in what was billed as a planned test. A draft of a new paper by Bruno Tetrais of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, however, claims the detonation was far from routine.  According to Tetrais’ research, the order to explode the French nuclear device was transmitted to the desert test site of Reggan from a desperate French leadership under siege in Paris and was followed by an ominous countermanding order from coup leader Maurice Challe: “refrain from detonating your little bomb - keep it for us, it will be … useful.” Tetrais goes on to claim that test site commander Gen. Jean Thiry debated a full day before deciding to support the De Gaulle government and explode Gerboise Vert. Even then, though, the safety of the powerful weapon was far from assured. Concerned that troops assigned to guard the laboratory in which Gerboise Vert was stored would join the rebellion, Thiry had the bomb transported the 50 kilometers to the test site in the trunk of an unguarded Citroen 2CV passenger car, while a decoy convoy of armored trucks left along an opposite route.  In assessing what lessons can be learned from the secret history of the 1961 coup,  Tetrais notes that “nuclear weapons can become instrumental in the consolidation of the primacy of civilian power over the military and of the primacy of the executive over the legislative branch, and of the popular legitimacy of the head of the State.” 
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Was the detonation of a French nuclear weapon in the Sahara a desperate attempt to keep an atomic device out of the hands of rebel army officers? 

On today’s date in 1961, Foreign Legion paratroopers captured government offices in Algiers, capital of the then French colony of Algeria, marking the opening of one of the most intriguing coup attempts in the 20th century. Three days later the nuclear weapon Gerboise Vert would be exploded in what was billed as a planned test. A draft of a new paper by Bruno Tetrais of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, however, claims the detonation was far from routine. 

According to Tetrais’ research, the order to explode the French nuclear device was transmitted to the desert test site of Reggan from a desperate French leadership under siege in Paris and was followed by an ominous countermanding order from coup leader Maurice Challe: “refrain from detonating your little bomb - keep it for us, it will be … useful.” Tetrais goes on to claim that test site commander Gen. Jean Thiry debated a full day before deciding to support the De Gaulle government and explode Gerboise Vert. Even then, though, the safety of the powerful weapon was far from assured. Concerned that troops assigned to guard the laboratory in which Gerboise Vert was stored would join the rebellion, Thiry had the bomb transported the 50 kilometers to the test site in the trunk of an unguarded Citroen 2CV passenger car, while a decoy convoy of armored trucks left along an opposite route. 

In assessing what lessons can be learned from the secret history of the 1961 coup,  Tetrais notes that “nuclear weapons can become instrumental in the consolidation of the primacy of civilian power over the military and of the primacy of the executive over the legislative branch, and of the popular legitimacy of the head of the State.” 

In observance of Thursday’s 2,056th anniversary of the assassination of Caesar by the diabolical Marcus Brutus, we present our list of The World’s Top Nine Most Diabolical Looking Politicians (nine instead of ten because nine is the opposite of six … as in 666!).In no particular order, they are (scroll through the gallery for photos of each of their diabolical visages): 

1. Winfried Kretschmann - Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg - Germany | Shouting and waving a clenched fist in the air is a little gauche for a German politician. 

2. Elio di Rupo - Prime Minister - Belgium | Di Rupo has his hands full running the Belgian government but still finds time to reanimate corpses in the basement of his castle. 

3. Nicholas Sarkozy - President - France | “Croyez moi!” 

4. Frank Lautenberg - Senator - United States | The social event of 1988 was Sentor Lautenberg’s 175th birthday party. 

5. Janet Napolitano - Secretary of Homeland Security - United States | Don’t let the mom jeans fool you. 

6. Geert Wilders - Member of Parliament - Netherlands | What came first, Geert Wilders or Max Zorin?

7. Eric Pickles - Secretary of State for Communities - United Kingdom | What came first, Eric Pickles or Auric Goldfinger? 

8. Louise Hand - High Commissioner to Canada - Australia | The Australian High Commission in Ottawa is reportedly overrun by Hand’s 32 cats.

9. Javier Lozano Alarcón - Secretary of Labor - Mexico | His slicked-back hair and pin striped suits make Minister Alarcón look like a character out of “The Godfather”, instead of a character out of the romantic comedy “Mexico.” 

According to information contained in a confidential report … President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign received up to 50 million euros in secret funds from … Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Mediapart has obtained exclusive access to the document, written by Jean-Charles Brisard, who has notably served since 2002 as an investigator for lawyers representing relatives of the victims of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.
mediapart.fr
The U.S.’ First Trans-Atlantic, Encrypted Cable The U.S. National Security Agency last month released a 1991 historical summary detailing the U.S. State Department’s first use of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable to send an encrypted message, which was transmitted on November 24, 1866, from Washington to Paris at a cost of nearly $20,000. The astronomical expense of the cable - the State Department’s telegraph bills up to that point had averaged less than $100 per month - was due in part to the telegram’s incredible length of more than 3,500 words. That length, in turn, was necessitated by the cumbersome, “unbreakable” code the U.S. government had used for the preceding 63 years and prompted the introduction of a new, short code. The short code proved too difficult for recipients to decipher and was, in turn, abandoned in 1876. The State Department’s original, $20,000 telegram was a demand to Emperor Napoleon III for the timely evacuation of French troops from Mexico.
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The U.S.’ First Trans-Atlantic, Encrypted Cable

The U.S. National Security Agency last month released a 1991 historical summary detailing the U.S. State Department’s first use of the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Cable to send an encrypted message, which was transmitted on November 24, 1866, from Washington to Paris at a cost of nearly $20,000. The astronomical expense of the cable - the State Department’s telegraph bills up to that point had averaged less than $100 per month - was due in part to the telegram’s incredible length of more than 3,500 words. That length, in turn, was necessitated by the cumbersome, “unbreakable” code the U.S. government had used for the preceding 63 years and prompted the introduction of a new, short code. The short code proved too difficult for recipients to decipher and was, in turn, abandoned in 1876.

The State Department’s original, $20,000 telegram was a demand to Emperor Napoleon III for the timely evacuation of French troops from Mexico.

October is a busy month in the world elections calendar with balloting taking place, or scheduled, in Tunisia, Liberia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan and the Seychelles. We visit the “Parliamentary Powers Index”, a comparative ranking conducted in M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig’s 2009 text The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey. According to the Handbook, the world’s most powerful legislature is Germany’s Bundestag, while the world’s least powerful is Somalia’s Transitional Federal Council. The index assigns each legislative body a score of 0.0 to 1.0 based on the percent of powers constitutionally granted to it from a list of 32 common powers, including: immunity from dissolution, necessity for legislative ratification of treaties, the absence of decree-making power by the executive, etc. Higher scores are not considered inherently “good”, they serve only as measures of parliamentary power relative to other agencies of governance and the body politic. For instance, a legislature will score higher if statutes enacted by it are immune from judicial review, even though such a restraint is widely considered positive. Further, the index only assesses the constitutionally prescribed parliamentary powers and does not attempt a subjective evaluation of political realities.
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October is a busy month in the world elections calendar with balloting taking place, or scheduled, in Tunisia, Liberia, Mauritania, Cameroon, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan and the Seychelles. We visit the “Parliamentary Powers Index”, a comparative ranking conducted in M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig’s 2009 text The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey.

According to the Handbook, the world’s most powerful legislature is Germany’s Bundestag, while the world’s least powerful is Somalia’s Transitional Federal Council. The index assigns each legislative body a score of 0.0 to 1.0 based on the percent of powers constitutionally granted to it from a list of 32 common powers, including: immunity from dissolution, necessity for legislative ratification of treaties, the absence of decree-making power by the executive, etc.

Higher scores are not considered inherently “good”, they serve only as measures of parliamentary power relative to other agencies of governance and the body politic. For instance, a legislature will score higher if statutes enacted by it are immune from judicial review, even though such a restraint is widely considered positive. Further, the index only assesses the constitutionally prescribed parliamentary powers and does not attempt a subjective evaluation of political realities.

French ex-President Jacques Chirac, and presidential hopeful and former PM Dominique de Villepin were given $20m by African leaders … a lawyer alleges. Robert Bourgi said he was personally involved in handing Mr Chirac briefcases full of cash.

BBC

The news comes days after reports that President Sarkozy was passed envelopes stuffed with cash by L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Saying France was on the verge of “revolution”, MEP and leader of the French National Front Marine Le Pen spoke with RT about republicanism and French society.