Vive la Révolution! Haitians rebel in the Battle at Sainte-Domingue. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This week, the ghosts of colonial misdeeds returned to haunt France.

EU politicians and others wrote an open letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy, demanding that the French government compensate Haiti for a past wrongdoing, explains the Christian Science Monitor.

A petition signed by 100 artists, scholars, and EU politicians that was released Monday called on France to give Haiti $17 billion for earthquake reconstruction. The money would essentially reimburse a fee French King Charles X charged Haiti after a revolt that ended slavery there. King Charles justified the fee as compensation for the loss of slaves and other property.

In 1804, Haiti won a bloody independence from France. But the small Caribbean country was still economically shackled to France until 1947, when the Haitian government finally paid off interest from their lofty independence debt of roughly 90 million gold francs.

Today, that sum is worth about $17 billion — a chunk of change that could surely go to good use helping Haiti rebuild. Haiti remains knee-deep in rubble six months after the devastating earthquake killed thousands and left millions without homes or good health. Yet despite the petition's plea, French foreign ministry spokesperson Christine Fages stressed France's commitment to Haiti, when she spoke with the Christian Science Monitor:

France gives Haiti $25 million a year, has given $30 million in humanitarian aid since the earthquake in January that left some 250,000 dead, has erased a $72 million in debt, and plans a total of $420 million more in aid through next year.

Although President Sarkozy dismissed the petition, he recently stated, "Even if I did not start my mandate at the time of Charles X, I am still responsible in the name of France."

Let's hope so, Monsieur le Président.

Pigs in a crowded sty in Wieckowice, Poland. Photo: Wojciech Grzedzinski for The International Herald Tribune. visionshare (flickr)

Pork is a staple of the Romanian diet, and the country has become one of the largest producers of pig products in Europe. But it's not necessarily Romanians who are profiting from the growing industry.

U.S. agribusiness giant Smithfield Foods has carved its way into Eastern Europe's pork market, tapping European Union farm subsidies to set up shop in countries like Poland and Romania. Since its arrival in 1999, the Virginia-based Fortune 500 company has swiftly become Romania's top pork producer.

Smithfield has upended traditional ways of doing farming in Romania, one of Europe's poorest countries. The New York Times reports that 90 percent of the country's small farmers have lost their jobs in the last six years. Many have been forced to leave home in search of construction jobs in other EU member states.

The impacts of Smithfield's empire can be tracked all the way to West Africa, where the company exports cheap pork scraps to markets in Liberia, Equatorial Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire. In these countries, frozen offal sells at half the price of local pork — a bargain for consumers that again comes at the expense of local farmers.

“My farm isn’t working,” said Cote d'Ivoire farmer Patrice Yao, who told the The New York Times that he owns 45 hogs compared to the 100 he had three years ago."The Europeans are sending all their cheap meat to our market."

Latvia's government collapsed following weeks of financial instability. The New York Times explains some of the events leading up the resignation of Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis:

[T]he country’s export-driven economy, which burned red-hot when easy credit flooded the world banking system, has ground to a halt. Unemployment has rocketed in Latvia, while those who have managed to hold on to their jobs are receiving significantly less pay. Public discontent, unsurprisingly, is rising, while trust in the government has plummeted. Violence broke out in January after about 10,000 people gathered for a peaceful demonstration. Scores of protesters battled police officers and ransacked stores, and 40 people were injured.

Last month GDP shrank by 10.5 percent and is expected to shrink 12 percent by the end of 2009 — a number some analysts say is optimistic. Latvia is the first member country of the European Union whose government has fallen as a result of the economic crisis.

An unexpected side effect of the increasingly open borders in the European Union: language confusion.

The BBC reports that Irish police recently cracked the mysterious case of Prawo Jazdy, a driver who was alleged to have racked up dozens of speeding and parking tickets throughout the nation.

It turns out that "Prawo Jazdy is actually Polish for driving license and not the first and surname on the license," Irish police determined. Searching the file, Guardians of the Peace of Ireland determined that traffic officers had cited "Mr. Prawo Jazdy" over 50 times.

Poles are the largest ethnic minority in Ireland, according to the 2006 Irish census. The majority of them are recent arrivals who immigrated to Ireland seeking work after Poland joined the EU in 2004.

"If nothing else is learnt from this driving-related debacle," the BBC writes, "Irish police officers should now know at least two words of Polish."

A Palestinian man looks out towards destroyed buildings following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City. Photo: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi (flickr)

A stated aim of Israel's military strikes in Gaza was to destroy underground tunnels between Egypt and Gaza because they're used by Hamas to smuggle in weapons.

But Gazans argue that there are two kinds of tunnels running from Gaza to Egypt: militant and civilian. Hamas-controlled tunnels are "supposedly steel-ribbed and large enough for a car to pass through," according to Time. And unlike civilians, who dig in plain sight of the Egyptian border security and Israeli surveillance aircraft, Hamas members are more secretive and obscure about the location of their tunnels.

Gaza's civilians claim their tunnels are necessary. Israel essentially sealed Gaza's borders to everything but humanitarian aid after Hamas took control of Gaza in June 2007, making the tunnels the only means for transporting everything from medicine, cement, chocolate bars, and even lion cubs for the zoo, according to Time.

"It's a lie to say that we use these tunnels to only bring in weapons. We're bringing in the ordinary stuff that keeps Gaza alive. If the Israelis opened the border crossings, we wouldn't have to be doing this," a Gazan resident tells Time.

According to the New York Times, the tunnels are also a primary source of income for some 25,000 young men. Tunnel diggers can earn $100 for every meter they dig — making the tunnels one of the biggest sources of employment in the territory. And they were back to digging as soon as the truce was signed.

"If Israel keeps the borders sealed off, we'll keep digging and only Allah can stop us. Let the Israelis drop their bombs. Without the tunnels we can't survive anyway," says Aymad, a tunnel digger. "And if a bomb catches me underground, well, they won't have to dig my grave."