AnimalsAsia Foundation (English, Deutsch, other languages too) has reacted to the brutal killing of over 50,000 pet dogs in Yunnan Province by meeting with the authorities and presenting suggestions of humane ways to approach rabies.

On their website is a sample letter / email (scroll down) – they want as many people as possible to write and complain to the authorities in China.

Protestbrief an die Behörden in China auf Deutsch (unter der Rubrik Töten von Haushunden).

I don’t know if this will help, but it seems the only way that might.

From an email from AAF:

bq. As you may have read from international news reports, government authorities in Chuxiong in Yunnan province, embarked on a 5-day dog killing campaign between July 25th and July 30th following the deaths of 3 local people from rabies. Over 50,000 dogs, including pet dogs, were brutally beaten to death, hung or electrocuted. Initially the government offered dog owners 5rmb (62 US cents) to kill their own dogs, but when this measure failed a special task force was set up to raid suspected homes and kill all dogs found. (Only military and police dogs were spared by the slaughter squads.)

bq. We are requesting urgent meetings with the authorities in Chuxiong to discuss far-reaching, practical and above all – humane – solutions and would like to request your help by voicing your protest to the Chuxiong authorities. Please go to:
http://www.animalsasia.org/dogcull.php

I know this weblog hasn’t got enough cat content, but the comments to the workplace bullying article indicate that at least one reader thinks money should go to animals instead of office bullying victims.

In a Financial Times article still online, the EU Savings Directive comes in for some criticism, particularly in connection with its having been translated into French and back again.

Council Directive 2003/48/EC of 3 June 2003 on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments

Richtlinie 2003/48/EG des Rates vom 3. Juni 2003 im Bereich der Besteuerung von Zinserträgen

The directive was intended to tax EU citizens’ offshore savings, but after it was agreed with all 25 EU member states and with non-members (Switzerland, Liechtenstein), it had so many loopholes that not much tax will be collected.

bq. EU officials speak of “appalling” translation errors as the English version of the text was rendered into French and then back into English. Loopholes were inserted, including the glaring exemption from the tax of trusts and foundations. “The amount raised from withholding taxes in these offshore centres is tiny, but not surprising,” admits one EU official.

Rather like the typist’s error known to law firms, it seems to me that the translator’s error means a drafting choice.

I don’t know what the process was in this case or whether translators were involved, but I refer again to the Clarity articles I recently mentioned.

Some details from William Robinson’s article:

the first draft is written by the relevant technical department and must be in either English or French, which is not the native language of most of the drafters, who may also have little drafting experience and are inclined for both reasons to follow precedents uncritically

it is then examined by lawyers – I don’t know if these revisers are called lawyer-linguists, but William Robinson was a translator and is a reviser now. Problems are short deadlines and possible deference to the original department. Sometimes a team of editors in the Translation Directorate-General is consulted, but not always

the text is translated into all the official languages – it may be a complete mess at this stage – correction by legal revisers is again possible, but only to a limited extent:

bq. Since the text has passed through extensive consultations, is often the fruit of difficult compromises, has been translated into all the official languages and is to be adopted in a matter of days, the revisers must confine themselves to correcting formal or terminological errors and ensuring that the legal scope is exactly the same in the different language versions.

Ian Frame (same edition of Clarity) says that the European Parliament’s ‘legal revisers’ are the Council’s ‘jurist-linguists’.

Thanks to Robin Bonthrone (on the finanztrans mailing list at Yahoo)

Since I mentioned this case recently and there was a discussion in the comments, I now add that it’s available online at the BAILII site.

The case summarizes the legal framework. It also contains some information on the claimant’s background and unhappy childhood. Examples of behaviour of others in the office are under nos. 70 ff. From no. 79 on, evidence from another woman who had experienced the same treatment as the claimant, and who referred to other cases too. From 107 on, information on problems with a male colleague.

This certainly sounds like a case that would have been interesting to hear, with the witnesses acting evasively, if one reads between the lines.

On Delia Venables’ website, there is a page with links to legal journals and newspapers with some or all content available free online.

The Solicitors Journal has just relaunched its website and is worth looking at. It’s not to be confused with the Law Society Gazette, the official journal of the solicitors’ professional organization.

In addition to Delia’s list, Semple Piggot Rochez publish Consilio, for law students.

Here is a list of American law reviews, which I haven’t investigated further.

Liseuse has a second weblog, Il quaderno dei vocaboli.

Mainly in Italian, with some English and German.

The sidebar has links to a large number of glossaries. Good stuff.