In the Financial Times on Wednesday, Chris Cook argues that British immigration laws are giving an unfair edge to soccer clubs with more money.

Clubs with deep pockets hire the small number of local and foreign gifted players available, while poorer clubs must make do with the remaining, potentially much weaker, local journeymen.

Not only that, he says, but the protectionist measures of allowing non-European workers only if the fit certain high-skill benchmarks also inflate wages for less-skilled Europeans, raising ticket prices.

Cook contends tougher competition would boost the English national team:

The impact of more foreign players on the elite band of players who might conceivably play for the national team is that they need to play better to keep their places in their club teams. So, they improve. The English team has markedly improved since foreign footballers started pouring into the country’s top league.

Would some British and European soccer players be pushed out of work if rules were liberalized? Probably, but a more competitive league would be worth it Cook says.

Consumers of an increasing range of products will soon feel the pain in their wallets already endured by so many fans on a Saturday afternoon, who routinely complain that they pay ever-greater sums to watch a football league dominated by just four clubs. What English football needs is fewer English footballers. 

Not knowing that much about the economics of the Premiere Leage, here's a question: If teams in the lower half of the standings became much more competitive, would it increase their revenues? Higher ticket sales? More advertising?  

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images 

In 2007, the London Review of Books published a piece entitled "Inconvenient Truths" about the conviction and subsequent appeals of Libyan intelligence agent Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan-Am flight 103. The article, written by Hugh Miles, explained that even at the time of the conviction there were many questions, and that al-Megrahi's appeal (which he withdrew in order to be released on medical grounds last week) had a chance of succeeding. 

Lawyers, politicians, diplomats and relatives of Lockerbie victims now believe that the former Libyan intelligence officer is innocent. Robert Black QC, an emeritus professor of Scottish law at Edinburgh University, was one of the architects of the original trial in Holland. He has closely followed developments since the disaster happened and in 2000 devised the non-jury trial system for the al-Megrahi case.

Evenbefore the trial he was so sure the evidence against al-Megrahi would not stand up in court that he is on record as saying that a convictio nwould be impossible. When I asked how he feels about this remark now, Black replied: ‘I am still absolutely convinced that I am right. No reasonable tribunal, on the evidence heard at the original trial, should or could have convicted him and it is an absolute disgrace and outrage what the Scottish court did.’

In this context the outrage over al-Megrahi's release by Scotland last week--because he has terminal cancer --might need to be reevaluated. The same goes for resultant anger over Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's visit to the U.N. and New York in September. Following up on the London Review of Books' blog this week, Glen Newey makes the astute, if impolitic point that the release, and drop of al-Megrahi's appeal, was likely best for the political fortunes of everyone involved:

It served nobody’s interests to have the Lockerbie bombing conviction debated in open court. Hence the great good fortune of al-Megrahi’s terminal prostate cancer, which sped his release from Greenock. With a ‘compassionate’ wave of the biro, the SNP administration has rid itselfof a high-profile prisoner with an unsafe conviction and enhanced, orcreated, its international profile. The UK government can keep in withthe Libyans and protect its commercial contracts, on the plea ofrespecting devolved powers. Meanwhile, in a rerun of the Cold War great game, we need to oil our way into the Colonel’s tent ahead of the Bear: recently Russia has been angling for a naval base in Benghazi. So even the Obama administration has reason to mute its complaints. It’s almost enough to make one believe in divine providence.

None of this, of course, is any consolation to the families of the bombing victims, but it gives a very plausible explanation for what might be going on behind the scenes.

To be clear, it is unlikely officials could fake the cancer diagnosis and Al-Megrahi does not look very well in the photos of his departure from Scotland. But well, who knows? Maybe he'll make a miraculous recovery at home in Libya.

DANNY LAWSON/AFP/Getty Images

The Moscow Times reports that Russia has issued new guidlelines to law enforcement officials about how to define extremism:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Winnie the Pooh share a dubious honor: Anyone who depicts either of them with a swastika can be punished under the law.

The Justice Ministry published the latest — and biggest — update to its list of extremist materials on its web site this week, and many of the 414 new entries are so vague or controversial that analysts say they threaten to discredit the list all together.

The list is important because police officers and other law enforcement officials use it in street checks, apartment searches and criminal cases.

Among the new entries, extremist material is identified as “a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a swastika,” “a self-made template for a future newspaper, comic or other print materials,” and “a flag with a cross.”

 And just when you thought that was all:

A closer look at the list brings other surprises. For example, item No. 402 is the LiveJournal blog Reinform.livejournal.com.

The blog has not been suspended by LiveJournal’s abuse team and is being updated almost daily. Its owner wrote on its front page that he had opened the blog after seeing prosecutors mistakenly name the then-nonexistent blog as extremist.

With 414 items already on the list, it goes well beyond swastikas and I'm starting to get worried. Is Passport's entirely serious interest in shirtless Putin pictures extremist or patriotic? 

MJ Kim/Getty Images

It's a bad Friday morning for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Mona Juul, Norway's second-in-command at the United Nations in New York, wrote a confidential internal report for her country's foreign ministry, which is a major UN funder. In a memo, she castigates Ban for his lack of vision and leadership. She describes him as "spineless," a "passive observer" to the Myanmar situation, his work as "fruitless," and questions the damage he's done. 

The memo leaked.

Back in June, Jacob Heibrunn made a forceful argument to the same effect for Foreign Policy. Seems prescient, huh? 

Full text of the Juul memo below. 

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's fruitless visit to Burma in the beginning of July is indicative of a Secretary-General and an organization who are struggling to show leadership. In a time when the UN and the need for multilateral solutions to global crises are more needed than ever, Ban and the UN are conspicuous by their absence. During the last six months, where the follow-up to the many crises that left their imprint on the General Assembly during the fall should have brought the Secretary-General and the UN into play at full force, the opposite seems to have happened.

In relation to the financial crisis , neither the Secretary-General nor the General Assembly - despite the summit on the financial crisis during the end of June - have shown themselves to be the most important arena, and the vacuum is being filled by the G-20 and other actors. Ban's voice on behalf of the G-172 and the poor is barely being registered. And at times an invisible Secretary-General, in combination with a rather special president of the General Assembly, has to a large extent placed the UN on the sidelines and the organisation has not known when to act. In the environment/energy area  the UN also struggles to be relevant, despite the planned climate summit at the opening of the General Assembly in the fall. Even though the Secretary-General repeats ad nauseam that Copenhagen must "seal the deal", there is widespread concern that the UN summit will not contribute anything worth mentioning in the process towards Copenhagen.

In the many political/security-related  crises around the world the Secretary-General's leadership and ability to deliver on behalf of the international organization are also found wanting. Burma  is a shining example. There was no shortage of warnings that the Secretary-General should not go at this time. The Americans were among the most sceptical of him going, while the British believed he should. Special Envoy Gambari was also sceptical at the outset, but Ban insisted. Gambari noted that recent negative press (with headlines such as "Whereabouts unknown" in The Times and "Nowhere Man" in Foreign Policy) had made Ban even more determined to visit Burma. After a seemingly fruitless visit by the Secretary-General, the UN's "good offices" will be made even more difficult. Special Envoy Gambari will have major problems during the aftermath, after "the top man" has failed and the generals in Yangoon no longer want to meet with him.

Another example of weak handling by the Secretary-General is the war in Sri Lanka . The Secretary-General was a powerless observer to thousands of civilians losing their lives and becoming displaced from their homes. The authorities in Colombo refused to see the Secretary-General while the war was ongoing, but he was heartily invited - and accepted an invitation - as soon as the war was "won". Even though the UN's humanitarian effort has been active and honest enough, the moral voice and authority of the Secretary-General has been missing.

In other "crises areas" such as Darfur, Somalia, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and not least the Congo , the Secretary-General's appeals, often irresolute and lacking in dedication, seem to fall on deaf ears. Many would also claim that the handling of the investigative committee, following the war in Gaza , ended with an unstable and overly careful follow up.

More surprising, and all the more disappointing, is that Ban Ki-moon has been almost absent on the issue of disarmament and non-proliferation. This was an issue he himself held forward as a principal area of focus before he took over his post. The re-organisation of the department for disarmament into an office directly under the Secretary-General, run by a High Representative, signalled a major focus on this area, also given the Secretary-General's background on the Korean peninsula. With discussions of a new non-proliferation agreement in 2010 and a U.S. administration that have put the theme much higher on the agenda, it is discouraging that the Secretary-General is not to a larger degree involved.

What all these examples have in common is that a spineless and charmless Secretary-General  , has not compensated this by appointing high profile and visible coworkers. Ban has systematically appointed Special Representatives and top officals in the Secretariat who have not been visibly outstanding - with the exception of Afghanistan. In addition he seems to prefer to be in the center without competition from his coworkers and has implied quite clearly that press statements are for him exclusively. The result is that the UN is a less visible and relevant actor in various areas where it would have been natural and necessary for the UN to be engaged. An honorable exception is the appointment of Helen Clark as the new leader of UNDP . She has in a short time, done good things. It will be interesting to see if she will be given space to give the UN a profile in the area of development. As a woman from this side of the world, Clark could soon turn into a candidate for Ban´s second term.

It is common knowledge that it was a deliberate choice of the former US administration not to prefer an activist Secretary-General. The current American Administration  has not yet signalled any changes in its postition towards Ban, however, there are rumours that in certain quarters in Washington Ban is refered to as a "one term SG." It is understood that people in the circles of Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton are very negative to Ban, but neither of them has given any declarations. China  is also quite positive to him and it is primarily China who holds the key to Ban´s second mandate. Russia has for a long time been dissatisfied with the Secretary-General´s handling of both Kosovo and Georgia but also the lack of appointments of Russians to leading position at the UN. At the same time the Russians, however, have no problems with a not too-interventionist Secretary-General.

Half way through his term, one feels that the member states are increasingly negative towards Ban. Many considered that Ban should be given time and he would improve as he gained experience and any comparison with his charismatic predecessor was unfair. Among those, however, the tone has changed, and now the argument of his learning-potential  has expired and the lack of charisma has become a burden. The Secretary-General seems to function quite well when he sticks to a script and performs at larger meetings and arrangements. The problem arises when he is "on his own" and is incapable of setting the agenda, inspiring enthousiasm and show leadership- not even internally. The consequence of Ban´s lack of engagement and interest in studying well enough the problems, is that he fails to be an effective actor or negotiator in the many negotiation processes he is supposed to handle.

The atmosphere in the "house" is described as being less than motivating.  The decision making structure is hampered by the fact that all information both up and down is filtered by the omni-present chef de cabinet, Kim. After the latest round of negative media coverage, it is understood that the atmosphere on the 38th floor is rather tense . Ban has constant outbreaks of rage which even the most cautious and experienced staff find hard to tackle. The relations with the Deputy-Secretary-General Migiro are also tense and her marge de manouvre seems - if possible- to have decreased. There are constant rumours of replacements and reshuffling.  In addition to constant rumours about Migiro leaving, there are rumours that the overwhelmingly well liked OCHA chief John Holmes will be promoted to chef de cabinet and that Nambiar will leave. Same goes with the head of DPA, Pascoe - Holmes is also tipped as a candidate for his succession. The Brits are understood to want that position "back".  These are, however, only rumours and most likely Ban will continue with the same staff - at least until the end of the year. If that is enough to secure him another term, only time can tell.

Spanish Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez launched a new health campaign with recommendations to guard against the spread of swine flu by encouraging people to wash hands frequently, avoid sharing glasses and to refrain from kissing where possible. But just moments before she made her statement, the minister was caught kissing news conference assistants twice on the cheek. Though a common social custom, local media wasted no time in capturing the irony, as weekend papers splashed pictures of Jimenez failing to practice what she preached. To date, Spain has accredited 11 deaths to the virus, giving it the second highest fatality rate in Europe. 

PHILIPPE DESMAZES/AFP/Getty Images

European coast guards are currently investigating the hijacking and disappearance of a ship in what could be the first case of piracy in modern European history. The Independent reports:

The Arctic Sea, a Maltese registered, Latvian-owned ship with a 15-strong Russian crew, vanished with its £1m cargo at the end of July on its way from Finland to Algeria.

British coastguards were the last people known to communicate with the ship on 29 July as it passed along the Channel but it wasn't realised at the time that anything was wrong.

It is now thought that when the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) was in radio contact with the ship that the person speaking to them was either a hijacker or a member of the crew with a gun pointed at his head.

The circumstances surrounding its likely hijacking are as puzzling as its current whereabouts. Swedish authorities were told by the Finnish shipping line operating the vessel that on 24 July the Arctic Sea had been boarded by eight to 10 heavily-armed men while it sailed through the Baltic Sea. The crew, three of whom were injured, were tied up and the black-clad and masked men, who purported to be narcotics police, searched the ship.

After 12 hours the intruders left and, supposedly, allowed the vessel to continue on its journey having damaged the communications equipment. But after reaching the Portuguese coast, having sailed along the Channel to get to the Atlantic, the Arctic Sea disappeared from the radar and hasn't been seen since. Its destination had been the Algerian port of Bejaia which it was scheduled to reach on 4 August with its valuable cargo of timber.

No one is exactly sure when was the last time a hijacked ship managed to slip through the English Channel. The Swedish, Finnish and Russian coast guard's are all investigating the Arctic Sea's disappearace.

Modern piracy is typically thought of as a crime associated with failed states like Somalia that don't have the resources to patrol their own coasts. It now appears that half a dozen wealthy, stable European countries -- most of whom actively participate in anti-pirate operations in the Gulf of Aden -- allowed a major act of maritime piracy to happen right under their noses. 

A mysterious, single page website, brennende-autos.de (Burning Cars of Berlin), shows the number of cars set alight and where the crimes occurred, revealing clusters in ‘‘richer’’ areas, or in suburbs where gentrification and redevelopment are changing the demographic of local neighbourhoods.

Here a link to the page. Weird stuff.

Hat tip: Boing Boing

In Britain, the battle over assisted suicide and right-to-die laws has been heating up over the past few weeks.

The country has no intention of making assisted suicide legal. But, in the past decade, hundreds of Britons have traveled to Switzerland, where clinics offer doctor-assisted suicides for the terminally ill. And thus far, the country has been reticent to prosecute and punish their family members for going with them or aiding them in the process, although assisting a suicide is a felony in Britain.

The gray area led to numerous calls -- from doctors, citizens, and members of Parliament -- for a clarification of the law. This month, a famous couple chose to end their lives in Switzerland, and a woman with multiple sclerosis appealed to Parliament as well.

And today, the House of Lords instructed the director of public prosecutions to do just that.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post arguing for the clarification of the law on class grounds. (See a rebuttal to my point from Felix Salmon here. Though I disagree with Felix -- the terminally ill are probably not capable of getting loans worth thousands of dollars and the process is expensive.) Assisted suicide in a foreign country is an expensive thing for Britons -- today, one doctor said he gave a third of the cost, 1500 pounds, to a terminally ill man who could not afford the trip to Switzerland without it.

And, today, the general practitioner called on Britain to prosecute him for doing so. The Guardian reported:

A former GP said today he hoped to be prosecuted for helping a terminally ill man to have an assisted suicide. Dr Michael Irwin, 78, said he wanted to highlight the "hypocrisy" of a system where the wealthy could pay to travel to Switzerland's Dignitas clinic for euthanasia but the poor could not. He will be questioned by police today after writing a cheque...

I don't want to make a point about whether assisted suicide itself should be legal. But this Irwin's case does make me realize I was imagining families -- not sponsors -- when I thought of those who might benefit from a clarification of the laws.

Although Britain's expenses scandal hurt politicians on both sides of the aisle, the Labour Party did bear the brunt of the blow, with several cabinet ministers resigning in the aftermath. The opposite may happen in Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel's health minister is under fire after her official car was stolen, but, fortunately for Merkel, the health minister is from the opposition.

The German health minister, Ulla Schmidt, has been criticised after her official car was stolen in Spain, where she was using it during her vacation.

The 90,000 euro (£78,000) Mercedes S-class was stolen in Alicante.

Mrs. Schmidt flew there at her own expense. Her chauffeur drove 2,400km (1,500 miles) to meet her so she could carry out some official business.

But opposition politicians want to know why she needed her car in Spain, when embassy vehicles are available.

Schmidt has filled the role of Health Minister since 2005, when Merkel's Christian Democrats formed a grand coalition with the opposition Social Democrats. Schmidt's scandal comes at a particularly poor time for her party, as Merkel's party has increased its lead in the polls to 12 points only two months before a new round of elections. 

Also, German ministers get a Mercedes S-class for official business? Snazzy.

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Elizabeth II has joined the ranks of the credit crunched.

Recent figures reveal that the Queen's estate, the Duchy of Lancaster, has lost £75 million as a result of the recession. Her private portfolio of land and property assets lost a fifth of its value and is now down to a paltry £322 million.

This is further bad news for her Highness, who has had her many, many requests for increases to the royal budget rejected by parliament in the last year. The monarchy's annual expenses currently run at £41.5 million, excluding an estimated £50 million in security costs. Nonetheless, Palace officials continue to engage in talks with the Treasury to elicit more funding for the Crown for, amongst others, planned household refurbishment and the 2012 diamond jubilee celebrations.

The Queen recently dipped into her now-dwindling private funds to pay for a few royal expenses, including Prince Harry's latest trip to New York.

Chris Jackson/Getty images

Also on board the President-Blair train is Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who described him as the "ideal personality" to be EU president. And, though he may now be looking elsewhere, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had at one time been a key proponent of both the creation of the presidency and Blair's bid in particular, saying:

He is intelligent, he is brave and he is a friend. We need him in Europe. How can we govern a continent of 450 million people if the president changes every six months and has to run his own country at the same time?

In past, British ministers have said that announcing a potential candidate is premature to the creation of the position itself. Unsurprisingly, it still is. The post of EU president is dependent on an October 2 referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty. 26 out of 27 EU member states have already approved ratification of the treaty, but Irish voters rejected it 53.4 to 46.6 percent in June 2008.

Blair is careful not to get ahead of himself. A spokesman for the current Middle East envoy later responded:

As we have said, time and again on this, there is nothing to be a candidate for since the job doesn't actually exist.

I have an article up on ForeignPolicy.com today about a subject which is a bit hard to sex up but is vitally important to countries and governments and people: youth unemployment. 

The point of the piece is that unemployment among under-25s has risen to frankly horrific levels in a number of European countries -- nearly 40 percent in Spain, 35 percent in parts of the Baltics, more than 20 percent in a dozen more.

Why's that so bad? Well, the obvious reason of financial hardship, for one. But there's also a plethora of economic research showing that young people suffer lasting damage from spells of joblessness -- in everything from weight gain to reduced earnings down the road. The effects aren't so pronounced or persistent in older workers.

I'll elaborate on the part of the article I found most interesting but unfortunately didn't get a chance to expand: a demographic phenomenon making the situation much worse in the ex-Soviet countries (now, emerging eastern Europe) which happen to be particularly hard-hit by the Great Recession.

These socialist governments used to encourage families to have children, keeping the birth rate and the population rising via social and economic policy. That ended when the Wall fell. Between 1989 and 1991, birth rates plummeted throughout eastern Europe, as economic uncertainty and political collapse and (in some countries) the easier availability of birth control options meant women started having smaller families.

So, say you visited a kindergarten classroom in Saint Petersburg in 1993 (so the children were born in 1988), and all its 20 desks were filled. If you returned in 1998 (for kids born in 1993), there would only be 12 kids there. That big of a phenomenon.

Fast forward to today. Those Saint Petersburgian kindergarteners from 1993 would be 21 -- in the work force or graduating from college this year. They represent a demographic peak, a blip, for the job market.

That is compounding the problem of youth unemployment -- which is happening for all sorts of reasons across Europe.

The upside? Starting soon, within a few years, as the recession lifts, there will be fewer and fewer school-leavers and other young workers in these eastern European countries, worst-hit by the recession. Which means the youth unemployment rate should drop as precipitously as it's risen.

To illustrate the point, I made a chart, above. It shows the 18-to-24 population of each country. Pretty crazy, huh? 

Frenchmen from both sides of the political aisle are united in support of a day of rest, as President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to open French shops on Sundays faces fierce opposition in the French parliament.

Parliament is due to pass a Bill tomorrow to ease France’s strict trading laws, but hostility to it is so widespread that some MPs in Mr Sarkozy’s own centre-right camp predict that it could unravel before becoming law.

The President’s plan to abolir le dimanche is being resisted by an unlikely coalition of interests, including the centre and left-wing Opposition, the Roman Catholic Church, the trade unions and small shopkeepers who fear losing their existing Sunday business to supermarkets. Up to 60 per cent of the public, according to polls, are also against a scheme that will reverse the century-old right to a day of rest.

The President has made Sunday shopping a personal crusade since he promised it in his 2007 election campaign under his slogan of “work more to earn more”. He pillories France as a backward exception to the rest of Europe and has said that he was ashamed when Michelle Obama wanted to take her daughters shopping in Paris on a Sunday last month — he had to arrange a special opening for her at a Left Bank boutique.

Interestingly, while Sarkozy claims France's laws to be backwards, Sunday shopping is still nonexistant or a novelty in many other European countries:

Although most shopping centres and non-food shops are closed, the French already work more on Sundays than most Europeans. Limited Sunday trading has been allowed in big French cities and tourist areas since 1993. Many other EU countries restrict Sunday shopping more or as much as France. Germany and Austria are only just getting used to the novelty of Saturday afternoon shopping. Belgium, which Mr Sarkozy has cited as a model, allows Sunday trading in only limited areas.

The only EU countries that allow unlimited Sunday opening are the Czech Republic, Sweden and Romania."

The Times of London could not resist adding, "Britain has restrictions but its citizens still manage to put in more work than in any other EU state." Thanks for letting everyone know. 

BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images

Yesterday, several Web sites posted a photograph of U.S. President Barack Obama allegedly, erm, well, checking out a passing woman (a teenage junior delegate from Brazil) while at the G-8 conference in L'Aquila, Italy.

This meant Christmas in July for headline writers at the New York Post, among other publications. Some sample phrases from its article: "Tail to the chief," "Baby got Barack," and, most memorably, "Yankee Doodle randy." (A phrase previously deployed for baseball player Alex Rodriguez, naturally.)

But today, ABC News posted a video exonerating the commander-in-chief. He was, in fact, turning around to help another woman take place on a set of steps for a photograph. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, though, looks a bit suspect.

See it for yourself, here.