The Basque militant group officially declared a permanent ceasefire today, perhaps bringing an end to a 50-year campaign that has claimed more than 800 lives. The announcement didn't get all that much attention in the U.S., where ETA tends to get lumped in with Greek Anarchists as quaint relics of a more violent era of European politics. While they were a force to be reckoned with in the '70s and '80s, these days, Europe faces a much more pressing threat from radical Islamist groups, rather than delusional nationalists in balaclavas, right?

Actually, no, according to the EU's latest data. The Vancouver Sun's Dan Gardner reports: 

The European Union's Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2010 states that in 2009 there were "294 failed, foiled, or successfully executed attacks" in six European countries. This was down almost one-third from the total in 2008 and down by almost one-half from the total in 2007.

So in most of Europe, there was no terrorism. And where there was terrorism, the trend line pointed down.

As for who's responsible, forget Islamists. The overwhelming majority of the attacks -- 237 of 294 -- were carried out by separatist groups, such as the Basque ETA. A further 40 terrorists schemes were pinned on leftist and/or anarchist terrorists. Rightists were responsible for four attacks. Single-issue groups were behind two attacks, while responsibility for a further 10 was not clear.

Islamists? They were behind a grand total of one attack. Yes, one. Out of 294 attacks. In a population of half a billion people. To put that in perspective, the same number of attacks was committed by the Comite d'Action Viticole, a French group that wants to stop the importation of foreign wine.

Here's the report.

To be sure, the numbers are a bit misleading in that Islamist terrorists tend to carry out attacks on a somewhat grander scale -- Madrid in 2004, London in 2005, the recent Stockholm suicide attack if it had worked -- than ETA, even in its heyday. (The maniacal viciousness of French wine snobs is another story.)

But still, during a week when we've been reminded that political violence can strike anywhere, good riddance to Basque militancy. Perhaps they finally took a look at the far more effective revolution happening in Catalonia. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted his pay slip on Facebook today, in what his office is billing as a step forward for government transparency. The picture reveals that Netanyahu makes approximately $120,000 a year, significantly less than President Barack Obama's $400,000 salary.

To me, the greatest surprise of this news was Israel's high income tax rates. Netanyahu's gross income was 43,952 shekels, but after tax deductions, his net income came out to 15,027 shekels. That's a tax rate of almost 66 percent! And I thought the Israeli socialist ideal was dead.

George Clooney's "anti-genocide paparazzi" seems to be dominating nearly every transmission coming out of south Sudan this week. Clooney, along with the Enough Project, Harvard researchers, and some of his wealthier Hollywood friends, have hired satellites to monitor troop movements along the north-south border, particularly the oil-rich region of Abyei. Clooney, active for years in the Save Darfur movement, has also become something of a celebrity spokesperson for the independence referendum. Naturally, the international humanitarian blogosphere's snark brigade is out in force.

Laurenist: "If you're anything like George Clooney, you lounge around on your yacht off the coast of Italy thinking up ways to save Africa."

Texas in Africa: "While John Prendergast, George Clooney, and other advocates who don't speak a word of Arabic have been raising fears about violence for months … the likelihood that a genocide or war will break out immediately seems to me to be slim to none."

Wronging Rights: "Clooney has described it as 'the best use of his celebrity.' Kinda just seems like he's trying to recruit a mercenary for Ocean's Fourteen."

Troubling as this morning's border violence is, there seems to be good reason for skepticism about the satellite project. The imagery the satellites provide isn't all that clear, showing about 8 square miles per computer-screen pixel, making it difficult to figure out just what's going on on the ground. That level of imprecision can be dangerous when trying to assign guilt or innocence in crimes against humanity. There's also the question of how much of a deterrent this type of monitoring really is. Laurenist again:

In 2007, Amnesty International and the American Association for the Advancement of Science launched “Eyes on Darfur,” a satellite project that monitored developments on the ground in Darfur. As you’ll recall, mere months later, Darfur was saved after millions of people updated their Facebook statuses with a link to blurry photos of sand.

But what about Clooney's presence itself? The actor's use of the paparazzi and basketball as analogies for horrific human rights violations might be grating to those who study these issues seriously, but isn't it worthwhile to bring attention to an often overlooked conflict? Here's UN Dispatch's Mark Leon Goldberg:

I know some people (cough, cough, Bill Easterly, cough, cough) have hangups about celebrity activism.  But does anyone really think that Sudan’s upcoming referendum would be covered on a National Sunday morning broadcast without George Clooney’s handsome face to greet viewers?

(Interestingly, Bono-basher-in-chief William Easterly doesn't appear to have weighed in yet.) 

Clooney has his own words for the haters:

“I’m sick of it,” he said. “If your cynicism means you stand on the sidelines and throw stones, I’m fine, I can take it. I could give a damn what you think. We’re trying to save some lives. If you’re cynical enough not to understand that, then get off your ass and do something. If you’re angry at me, go do it yourself. Find another cause – I don’t care. We’re working, and we’re going forward.” 

This kind of "at least I'm doing something" rhetoric drives development scholars absolutely bonkers and for good reason. But for now at least, it's hard to see how Clooney's presence as a cheerleader is really hurting. Once the referendum is over however, I hope he heads back to Lake Como. In international negotiations, a certain degree of obscurity can often be just as helpful as the media spotlight. Making a new country is a messy business anywhere, and in Southern Sudan, it's going to involve some very ugly compromises. (I wonder, for instance, what Clooney thinks about the Southern Sudanese government expelling Darfuri rebels in what seemed to be a conciliatory gesture to Khartoum.)

In the difficult weeks and months ahead, Southern Sudan will certainly need international help, but it should come from people with a slightly more extensive background in the situation. Most of all, it's probably not helpful for celebrities and the media to promote a narrative of the Juba government as the "good Sudan." Even in the best-case scenario, it's bound to be shattered pretty quickly.  

In any event, the Southern Sudanese themselves seem pretty nonplussed about Danny Ocean's presence in their midst:

“Who is that man talking?” a Sudanese journalist asked, gesturing to a white man with a group of reporters around him. When told it was George Clooney, a movie star, the Sudanese journalist looked confused and walked away.

For more on Southern Sudan, check out Maggie Fick on the dangers of referendum euphoria, view a slide show of Juba on the eve of independence, and read Robert Klitgaard on how the region's leaders are preparing to crack down on corruption.  

The U.S. and China have been vying for West Africa's sizable and largely untapped oil reserves for years, but less well-known has been Russia's growing interest in the region:

The president of LUKoil Overseas, Andrei Kuzyayev, met Ghana's energy minister, Joe Oteng Adjei, for discussions about the expansion of the company in Ghana, including the development of new projects, according to the latest corporate newsletter, Neftyanie Vedomosti. After leaving Ghana, Kuzyayev held talks in the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown, and LUKoil Overseas senior vice president Dmitry Timoshenko visited Liberia's capital of Monrovia.

Countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia, “which have just come through terrible civil wars … are today, with the interest of foreign investors, quickly resurrecting their shattered economies,” the company's publication said.[…]

The West African continental shelf is an interesting prospect for many international companies, said Valery Nesterov, an oil analyst at Troika Dialog. “I think almost all Russian companies will be looking at the West African shelf — including Rosneft and TNK-BP,” he added.

LUKoil's potential resources in the area currently consist of up to 35 million barrels. The company said in September that it might have more petroleum in West Africa than in West Siberia.

Between the increasing international competition for the region's oil resources, burgeoning nuclear programs, the promise of greater U.S. engagement, the fallout from the Ivory Coast's political crisis, elections in Nigeria, the beginning of Liberia's election cycle, and concerns over drug trafficking and terrorism bubbling just below the surface, this should be an extremely interesting and consequential year for West Africa. Thankfully, for the United States at least, Iran's efforts at engagement in the region appear to have badly faltered in 2009.

Yesterday, Thailand's red-shirt protest movement held its first major demonstration in Bangkok since a government state of emergency was lifted in December and the largest since the chaos of last May, during which at least 90 people were killed. Aside from some thrown water bottles, the rally seems to have gone peacefully and may reflect a new strategy on the part of the red-shirt leaders:

Jatuporn Prompan, a Red Shirt leader who avoided arrest because he has parliamentary immunity, vowed to hold "frequent and symbolic gatherings" twice a month- a change from the large sit-in last year that lasted 10 weeks and prompted a violent crackdown.

"We have learned a lesson that big gatherings will not lead to the result we want," Jatuporn said.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajjiva announced a series of new social welfare programs to go along with an optimistic economic outlook for this year. The Red Shirts, for their part, seem to have moved beyond support of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra into a more broad-based political movement, though one that hasn't always done the best job of articulating its political goals. In any case, yesterday's events are being interpreted as a sign that despite the long state of emergency and the arrest of its senior leaders, the movement is far from spent. 

Star of Baywatch David Hasselhoff arrives in a surf lifesaving craft during a promotion for the new 'Splice Real Fruit' ice block at Mt Maunganui Main Beach on January 6, 2011 in Tauranga, New Zealand.

I also like how BP is associating itself with a proven winner. More troubling photos from a very strange-looking event here.

Andreas Markessinis has an intriguing post on the Nation Branding blog wondering just what the new country that will likely be created next week will be called:

One possible option is ‘New Sudan’, but some oppose the idea as that name would associate the new country with the actual Sudan, which is considered a pariah state. For a weak, new country with weak influence, getting the world population to distinguish between ‘Sudan’ and ‘New Sudan’ would take aeons. Many people still confuse South Korea with North Korea and don’t remember which one is the rogue state, so any combination of names including the word ‘Sudan’ will probably be counter-productive to the new country, nationals say.

In fact, another suggestion most Southern Sudaneses don’t like either is ‘Southern Sudan’. They discard it because the name raises fears that this name would also confuse people, as many people would think that ‘Southern Sudan’ is the Southern region within Sudan, and not a different country.

But while there are ones who oppose the ‘Sudan’ word, there are others who don’t want to lose it. The latter consider their region to be the real ‘Sudan’, while the Northern part, which has become arabized and islamized, is not. They unpolish semantics to substantiate it. ‘Sudan’, they say, etymologically means in Arabic ‘land of the black people’, which is how fairer-skinned Arabs called the lands of conquered black tribes under their power. So this would justify that the name ‘Sudan’ makes more sense in the blacks-populated South than in the Arab-occupied North.

Other possibilites up for consideration include plays on the Nile river, the area's main geographic feature, such as Nilotia, Nolotland, or the Nile Republic. Cushitia or Azania -- archaic geographic and ethnic names -- are other possibilities, though also fraught with uncomfortable overtones.

I have a feeling that intertia may dictate that "South Sudan" stays, given that it's already how the international media is referring to the place.  But despite its past significance, I'd have to think that at this point dropping "Sudan" -- with its contemporary connotations of genocide and famine -- from the name would be a wise branding move. I doubt anyone in Bangladesh wishes today that the country had stuck with "East Pakistan" after independence. Most of all, Southern Sudan should be sure to avoid the nomenclatural abomination that is the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Nile Republic isn't bad, though as Markessinis notes, Egypt is pretty protective of the Nile brand, raising the possibility of a FYROM situation. Maybe the country could go the Altria route and just make up a name? Not the worst idea for a place badly in need of a fresh start.

Any suggestions?