Egypt mourns 'headscarf martyr'

The body of a Muslim woman, killed in a German courtroom by a man convicted of insulting her religion, has been taken back to her native Egypt for burial.

Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Alex W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder. Husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife.

Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a "terrorist" because of her headscarf. The case has attracted much attention in Egypt and the Muslim world. German prosecutors have said the 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Alex W, was driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims.

Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power

The European project known as Desertec is nothing if not ambitious. It aims to harvest the sun’s energy — using a method known as concentrating solar power, or C.S.P. — from the vast North African desert and deliver it as electricity, via high-voltage transmission lines, to markets in Europe. Eventually, its backers say, it could satisfy as much as 15 percent of the European Union’s power needs.

The idea, which has been bouncing around for years, arises out of an alphabet soup of organizations, formal multinational partnerships and regional acronyms like TREC, for Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation; Eumena, or European Union, the Mediterranean and North Africa; the Union of the Mediterranean; and the Club of Rome.

As James Kanter reported in our Green Inc. blog, the project took a step forward last week when a consortium of German businesses announced plans to pursue financing and otherwise hammer out details for Desertec, which is expected to cost about €400 billion, or $555 billion.

Desertec would be the largest centralized solar power production project on earth. That such an ambitious, clean-energy megaproject should be taking a step forward, however incremental, might suggest that deep-pocketed investors have truly seen the writing on the wall with regard to legislated carbon abatement and the slow phase-out of fossil fuels.

But not everyone is convinced. Some scratched their heads at the idea of spending billions of dollars to harvest sunlight and transmit electricity thousands of kilometers, when it can be produced increasingly efficiently in European backyards. “It must once again be pointed out that the most successful method of harvesting solar power is with rooftop panels,” wrote the German daily Die Tageszeitung. “In just three to five years, power from the roof will be cheaper than electricity from the wall plug. The economic bar for desert power is, in other words, high. Solar power produced in a decentralized manner will likely always be the cheaper variety.”

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, meanwhile, quoted Frank Asbeck, the chief executive of SolarWorld, the largest German solar company, as saying, “Building solar power plants in politically unstable countries opens you to the same kind of dependency as the situation with oil.”

NYT

Merkel Slams Sarko's Med Union Scheme

The German Chancellor warns Sarkozy his proposal for a Mediterranean union of European, North African, and Middle Eastern nations would hurt the EU
German chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that French plans for a Mediterranean Union risk splitting the EU. Speaking at a conference in Berlin on Wednesday (5 December), Ms Merkel indicated that if French president Nicolas Sarkozy pushed ahead with his proposals for a union of countries from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa the "core" of the European Union would be threatened.

The chancellor said that "cooperation between some member states has to be also open to the rest and it has to be approved by all member states." It cannot be that some countries establish a Mediterranean Union and fund this with money from EU coffers, said the German leader. "This could release explosive forces in the union I would not like," she said, according to news agency DPA.

Mr Sarkozy floated the idea for such a union during his presidential campaign earlier this year. Since becoming president in May, he has elaborated on the proposal saying in October that "in the Mediterranean will be decided whether or not civilisations and religions will wage the most terrible of wars...whether or not the North and the South will clash".

Under the plans, the group would tie southern Europe with Northern Africa as well as Israel and its Arab neighbours and tackle topical issues such as counter-terrorism, immigration, energy, trade, water and sustainable development. Just seven EU states -- Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain -- are envisioned to take part.
Mr Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union idea -- he suggested on Wednesday that France and Algeria be the main axis of the Union -- has also raised eyebrows in Brussels. The European Commission fears it will undermine the 12-year-old Barcelona process, aimed at promoting dialogue between the EU and ten countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean.

There are also fears that it is a ruse to enmesh Turkey – which would be a member – into the process and detract from its current EU negotiations, with Mr Sarkozy being strongly opposed to Ankara's EU membership bid.

Business Week