Salut!

Indonesia: the shame of state murder exceeds the shame of drug dealing

Spared for now: from a Facebook support page for Mary Jane Veloso

The manufacture, distribution and onward supply of dangerous drugs is a scourge of society and affects most of the world.

No country should be pilloried for attaching huge importance to the need to combat the illicit trade and impose deterrent penalties on those who take part in it.

There's a but coming, of course.

Grudging plaudits to Marske United as Shildon's title hopes are dashed

Ernie and Sadie Randall on holiday in Scarborough (Sadie (Mum)'s sister, Jean, to Dad's right. My sister, Sandra, to their left

Late update: sadly, Shildon could not quite manage it. Read how the dream turned to nightmare at http://salutsunderland.com/2015/04/leicester-lose-but-shildon-fall-short-in-title-dream/ and - in much more detail - http://salutsunderland.com/2015/04/sixers-non-league-soapbox-shildons-celebrations-cancelled-by-dogged-terriers/

Oradour-sur-Glane and Villejuif: one church massacre recalled, another foiled

In a period of western religious history where atheists and agnostics seem to hold sway, there is still something especially depraved about wishing to head for one church, maybe two, and open fire on worshippers, priests and anyone else who happens to be around

But if the suspicions of French police, prosecutors and government leaders are well-founded, that is what Sid Ahmed Ghlam was intending to do until he accidentally shot himself in the leg in Paris on Sunday. His apparent hatred of the West did not, it seems, extend to wanting nothing to do with its emergency medical services; he called for an ambulance.

For those in peril on the Mediterranean: responses that fall short

A desperately sad story raising serious questions about policy and assumptions. It really needs no fuller introduction ...

As African migrants continue to risk dangerous voyages in search of lives free from conflict or poverty, Europe — their destination of choice — is torn by competing demands for humanitarian action and political pragmatism.

The latest disaster off Libya on Sunday, with the loss of more than 800 lives according to the United Nations, was quickly followed by further alerts in the Mediterranean between the North African coast and Italy.

Off the beaten track in France: (1) Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume

At the western edge of the sprawling French departement of Var lies Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, a town I have long meant to visit without ever quite getting round to it.

The name has lived in the consciousness throughout Monsieur and Madame Salut's 20-odd years in this part of France.

Faces of Cuba: from Raúl Castro, executioner turned peacemaker, to coffeemaking and rations

From the Flickr pages of https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/

My recent travels around Cuba - see http://www.francesalut.com/2015/02/cuba-towards-an-uneasy-rapprochment-with-the-usa.html - introduced me to a charming island and its friendly people. It has not always been a good idea to get on the wrong side of one or two of them, and Raúl Castro may be a good example. But that was then. Now the "Cuban Thaw" is under way with its promise of an end to the Cold War relic that has seen decades of US-Cuban hostility. This is my appraisal* of the president with the household surname, interspersed with images from my visit ...

Irène Némirovsky and Suite Française, a film with only an imagined ending

At the cinema in Hyères, in the south of France, there were just nine souls present for Suite Française, Saul Dibb's new film based on the remarkable but uncompleted novel of Irène Némirovsky, incomplete because she was dispatched to Auschwitz by France's Nazi occupiers and died there a month after her arrival.

The screening room holds 120, but I understand the low turnout since it was an afternoon showing.

I suppressed the thought that anyone who voted Front National in recent elections - and rather a lot did in this part of France - should be made to see the film. I did not suppress the thought that anyone who votes FN because he or she admires its creator and honorary president, Jean-Marie Le Pen, should be made to watch it over and again (I saw it as his daughter, Marine, was crying "not me!" after dad's repetition of his party piece that the gas chambers are a mere detail of Second World War history ... the whole wretched family is now in a state of warfare).

Minding our Language: the last words enshrined in history

The words column takes a look at the last words people utter. You may have other examples (as, of course, I did and would have mentioned with more space) ...

Nigeria votes for change: Muhammadu Buhari and the virtues of orderliness

I was asked to look at the life and times of Muhammadu Buhari*, the man who will on May 29 become Nigeria's new president, having beaten the wonderfully named Goodluck Jonathan in this week election. We'll soon see whether he has learnt from past excesses and errors ...

French Connexion: Le Pen's grotesque words aside, should loyalty become an obligation?

This is my latest column for The Connexion, the monthly newspaper for English speakers in France. It was written, of course, before Marine Le Pen's attempt to turn defeat in to victory in the departmental elections - though in truth, her wretched Front National pushed the unappealing but republican UMP of Nicolas Sarkozy close in many areas, including (I am very sorry to say) Le Lavandou.

It was also written before Jean-Marie Le Pen yet again trashed his daughter's best efforts to present the FN as a "party like any other", repeating his odious view that gas chambers were a mere detail of the Second World War. But while wondering how any decent person could vote for such a party, I recognise that the sort of community tensions that produce such support need to be addressed. I am just rather more even-handed ...