Ebay’s design is a mess
What happened to eBay? The site that was meant to help every man and his dog buy and sell stuff over the Internet has morphed into a complicated and confusing monster. Case in point: try finding items you haven’t left feedback for more than 31 days after the transaction. Or paying eBay fees with a one-off payment rather than a permanent credit card order. Clearly with the latter they’re trying to convince people to hand over their CC details in perpetuity. Is that allowed? How can they get away with wilfully obscuring other payment methods?
EBay is based in the EU. Will the Commission now step in and fight for consumer rights?
Holiday
Mr. Sandman drops private plane plan
Here’s a snippet that never made it into yesterday’s private jet story:
“Best-selling comic book and science fiction writer Neil Gaiman canceled plans to fly New York to London by private jet after airports around the British capital reopened Wednesday and he was able to use tickets reserved for a regular flight, said his assistant Lorraine Garland.”
Swiss corporate bonuses
Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung has published a list of the managers who received the highest bonus payments for 2009. Here is the top 10:
- Daniel Vasella, Chairman of Novartis, CHF 42 million
- Franz Humer, Chairman of Roche, CHF 16.4 million
- Severin Schwan, CEO of Roche, CHF 12.1 million
- James Schiro, former CEO of Zurich Financial, CHF 11.8 million
- Paul Bulcke, CEO of Nestle, CHF 10 million
- Johannes de Gier, CEO of GAM Holding, CHF 7.8 million
- Peter Brabeck, Chairman of Nestle, CHF 7.5 million
- Alfred Schindler, Chairman of Schindler, CHF 7.4 million
- Hansjoerg Wyss, Chairman of Synthes, CHF 6.7 million
- Patrick de Maeseneire, former CEO of Barry Callebaut, CHF 6.2 million
3 good estate agents in Berlin
When buying an apartment in Berlin it’s important to deal with the right kind of estate agent: honest, knowledgeable, reliable, friendly. I’ve had the fortune of meeting mostly good estate agents in Berlin, but of course some are still better than others. Here are three that I can recommend without hesitation, even if I haven’t actually bought a property through them.
_ Ulrike Stübner at ImmoSky Berlin always has interesting apartments you won’t find advertised by others. She focuses on the north, particularly Tiergarten, Mitte, Wedding, Prenzlauer Berg.
_ Renate Schwarz seems to specialize in smaller apartments in the Tiergarten/Wedding area. Some very neat little 1930s flats in Bauhaus-style blocs. Tel.: +49 – 30 – 428 007 08
_ Britta Jakobs and her husband are a kind of knowledgeable couple who seem to cover Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Wedding. www.jakobsinfo.de
Berlin Buzz
Sunday Avalanche
Palestinians, allies reopen Gaza war crimes debate
The U.N. Human Rights Council will reopen the debate about alleged war crimes in Gaza later this week after Palestinians succeeded in gathering enough support to call a special meeting, officials said Tuesday.
The debate will start Thursday, a day after the U.N. Security Council in New York discusses the Goldstone report, which accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during their Dec. 27-Jan. 18 war.
Israel has rejected the report, claiming the investigators led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone were biased against the Jewish state and misled by Palestinian propaganda.
U.N. officials say 18 of the council’s 47 members signed a motion calling for the debate. The backers are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, said the two-day debate would examine the report as well as recent incidents of violence in Jerusalem.
It will be the sixth time that Israel has been the subject of a special session by the Geneva-based council. Each previous session has resulted in a resolution critical of Israel.
“We’ll wait to take a stance on the debate itself once it begins,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. “We still think that this report is very dangerous and is disconnected from reality. This report was based almost exclusively on Hamas propaganda.”
The 575-page report was based on about 180 interviews and 10,000 pages of documents. It accused Israel of applying disproportionate force, targeting civilians, destroying civilian infrastructure and using human shields in its offensive to stop militant rocket fire.
The report also criticized Gaza militants including Hamas for targeting civilians and trying to spread terror through rocket attacks.
Thirteen Israelis and almost 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the conflict.
The decision to call for a special meeting of the council marks a turnaround for the Palestinians. Under heavy U.S. pressure, Palestinian diplomats two weeks ago had asked for debate on the report to be delayed until March, resulting in protests at home.
Despite angry Israeli reaction and U.S. criticism, the Goldstone report has been widely praised by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and supported by countries in Europe and elsewhere.
The U.N. Security Council should require both Israeli and Palestinian authorities to prove they are carrying out independent, impartial investigations into the alleged war crimes, the report recommends. If they fail to do so within six months, the U.N. should refer the matter to prosecutors at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it suggests.
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About
Musings of a wire reporter in Geneva. Feel free to contact me with your questions about journalism, Switzerland, or anything else I write about on this blog.
