Dutch "coffee shops" to ban foreigners

It will be interesting to see how this impacts the tourist numbers. A lot of people from all over Europe visit Amsterdam to get high so like it or not, those visitors do bring in cash. Maybe a lot of them are younger travelers who aren't spending a lot of money but it's not like a few stoners are going to be that rowdy. From what I have seen in Amsterdam since my first visit in the 1980s is that the harder drug business is widely available on the streets, with little reluctance to hide the business or the activity itself. The coffee shops seem to be the least of the problems of the drug business. Reuters:

The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

The Netherlands is well known for having one of Europe's most liberal soft drug policies that has made its cannabis shops a popular tourist attraction, particularly in Amsterdam.

Backed by the far-right party of anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders, the coalition government that came into power last year announced plans to curb drug tourism as part of a nationwide program to promote health and fight crime.

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Amnesty International: Martial law in parts of China

The bombings in China the other day still have not been explained well but they are probably not linked to this. CNN:

In an apparent response to days of protests, Chinese authorities have declared martial law in parts of the northeast's inner Mongolia autonomous region, according to Amnesty International.

The region has long been the scene of ethnic tension between Mongolians, who have lived in the area for centuries, and the Han people, who arrived in larger numbers after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Han people are the majority ethnic group in China.

In the report released Friday, Amnesty International detailed protests in and around the city of Xilinhot.

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US gay rights activist Dan Choi, others, beaten by police at Moscow gay pride. Choi publishes open letter to Sec. Clinton, asks others to sign on.

UPDATE:  We've joined Dan in publishing an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to condemn the violence perpetrated today in Moscow by the Russian government.  Dan is inviting you to co-sign as well, and he will personally deliver the letter, with your signatures, to the State Department when he returns the states in a few days.

Amazing tweet by tweet live coverage of Lt. Dan Choi (who was the first to handcuff himself to the White House fence to protest Don't Ask, Don't Tell) just got beaten and arrested by neo-Nazis and the Russian police at the banned Moscow Gay Pride rally.

We've got photos, video of the police attack, and more coverage over AMERICAblog Gay. Read the rest of this post...

Human error may be cause of Air France crash in 2009

As a person who doesn't often sleep well on overnight flights, this terrifies the heck out of me -- read the article, it's your worst nightmare. The full report is still a few months away but it now appears that human error may have been the reason for the crash. Air France generally has an excellent reputation in the airline industry for the quality of their pilots but they may need to update their training program.

Confronted with faulty instrument readings and alarms going off in the cockpit, the pilots of an Air France jetliner struggled to tame the aircraft as it went into an aerodynamic stall, rolled, climbed and finally plunged 38,000 feet into the Atlantic Ocean in just 3 1/2 minutes.

But the passengers on that doomed Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight were probably asleep or nodding off and didn't realize what was going on as the aircraft plummeted nose-up toward the ocean, the director of the French accident investigating bureau said after releasing preliminary data from flight recordings that provide new insight into the June 1, 2009, disaster.

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More deaths in Syria as protesters reach out to military

If the protesters can get the military to turn, Assad's security forces will have an increasingly difficult time. Al Jazeera:

An eyewitness to the early morning attacks in Dael told Al Jazeera that the secret police opened fire on a crowd of around 3,000 locals who were returning to town from a peaceful march to the army barracks on the outskirts.

He said the crowd was chanting, "The people and army are one hand".

The march had passed off peacefully, until the secret police opened fire on the crowd as tanks entered the town, he said.

Khodr, our correspondent, said the number of casualties had been low in comparison to previous Friday protests, "a sign that the Syrian government is realising that it cannot stop these protests by relying [only] on a security option" without dialogue.

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The Clash - Magnificent Seven

Of course, the incredible Norman Watt-Roy from The Blockheads played bass on this one.

We heard an interesting heated discussion next to us last night when we were out. (Remember that almost all French debates are heated.) The DSK story continues to be *the* topic of discussion everywhere here. Two women were arguing with their male friend over what may or may not have happened in that hotel room the other weekend. The women argued that they knew people who worked for Accor (the parent company that owns Sofitel and other hotel chains) and for them it was nearly impossible that a room cleaner could make the mistake of entering the room when a guest was still there. Something did not add up that a mistake like that could happen in a $3000 room.

Their male friend meanwhile argued that in a hotel it's not easy to tell who is there and who is in a premium room. When I worked in hotels (driving the airport shuttle and room service) back in the 1980s the housekeeping team had daily printouts of the rooms where guests were staying but I would imagine it's a lot more modern today. It does sound hard to believe that anyone in housekeeping would not know who is in a $3000 room versus a $250 room. Either way it does not prove one thing or another, but it just raises questions. As I have said before, it won't be a surprise to find that he is guilty or not guilty. Hearing the full story and finding the full truth will be interesting. Read the rest of this post...

Russia joins rest of G8, calls for Gaddafi to go

Russia was Gaddafi's Option B and there was no Option C. Time to move on.

Colonel Gaddafi has been left diplomatically deserted after Russia, his sole international interlocutor joined the rest of the G8 nations in declaring the Libyan leader had lost all legitimacy and had to go.

But continuing differences between Russia and the west prevented agreement on how to pressurise the Syrian regime to end its oppression; a planned reference to take the issue to the UN security council was removed from the G8 communique.

On Libya, David Cameron claimed there would be no attempt to reach a compromise deal, saying the only message to the Libyan leader was that he had to give up power. Cameron, who held a council of war with Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday night, claimed the war against Gaddafi was entering a second phase and the pressure on the regime was beginning to tell.

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