Slovenia's agreement to sign on to the South Stream pipeline project has dashed hopes by the European Union to reduce dependency on Russian gas. 

As the Slovenian and Russian energy ministers signed an agreement for the massive South Stream gas pipeline Saturday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin looked on in satisfaction.

The approval of Slovenia, the fifth country to do so, brings Russia closer to locking its control over the European gas supply.

South Stream, which is estimated will cost 20 billion euros ($30 billion) to build and is expected to be completed by 2015, would run under the Black Sea to carry natural gas to western Europe.

The European Union has supported the construction of an alternative pipeline, known as Nabucco, in an effort to counter Russian monopolistic influence by importing gas from Caspian Sea nations like Azerbijan and Turkmenistan. That project has been stalled, however, by a lack of supply agreements.

In Kosovo, voters are going to the polls in the first election organized after the breakaway Serbian province declared independence in 2008. Observers say security is not a concern, but turnout could be.  

Voters in Kosovo are choosing mayors and deputies for 36 town councils for the first time since the Albanian-majority region unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia in February last year.

"It's incredibly important for our country because it's not an international organization which is doing this, but Kosovo itself," said Driton Tafallari, a member of an NGO coalition called Democracy in Action, which is monitoring the election and the run-up to it.

Some 74 political parties, coalitions citizens' groups and independent candidates are standing in the election which, according to observers, is running smoothly, despite fears that Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovo's independence, could try to derail the vote or keep ethnic Serbs in the north away from the polls.

"There are some problems in that area, but overall the elections are going very well," said Tafallari.

After choosing former Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to lead the party, the SPD vowed to use its new role in the opposition to be a thorn in the side of Chancellor Angela Merkel's new center-right government. 

The gathering of some 500 delegates, coming about seven weeks after the Social Democratic Party (SPD) crashed out of power, is looking to overcome a crushing election setback and forge a united and coherent revival campaign that would battle Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Central in that campaign were promises to introduce a "wealth tax" while reducing the burden on middle-income earners.

The party's new leader, Sigmar Gabriel, said the outcome of the party congress in Dresden has been very positive.

"You have shown that those who thought we are finished were wrong," Gabriel told delegates. "We have embarked on a new beginning for social-democratic politics in Germany."

On Friday, the 50-year-old politician was elected to lead the Social Democrats at a time when morale among party members has hit rock bottom.

Controversy over Lord Ashcroft's donations to the Conservative party deepened last night after Labour MPs demanded an urgent meeting with Britain's elections watchdog.

Placing more pressure on the Tories, Labour MPs want to know why the Electoral Commission's official inquiry into an Ashcroft-controlled company, which has given £3m to the party, has dragged on for 10 months and threatens to run into the general election campaign.

If the commission rules that the company was not trading, the Tories could be asked to pay an equivalent amount to the Treasury. The explosive issue of Ashcroft threatens to engulf the commission, which has been criticised before for dragging its heels while investigating serious complaints.

John Mann, the MP for Bassetlaw, has written to Peter Wardle, chief executive of the commission, requesting an urgent meeting to find out why the inquiry has taken so long. He asked Wardle to investigate in January whether Bearwood Corporate Services, Ashcroft's company, is trading in Britain or is being used to funnel money to the Conservatives from overseas. By law, a British political party can only accept a donation from someone registered to vote in the UK or from a company "carrying on business" here.

[...]

The commission began making inquiries into Bearwood's donations in October 2008 after concerns were raised that the company may not be a genuine UK trading company. Bearwood gave the Tories £1,600,893 in 2008 alone, making it the party's biggest source of funds that year. The company is known to have one UK client, because in 2008-09 the firm received $300,000 (£181,000) in consultancy fees from BCB Holdings, another Ashcroft company based in Belize.

Opposition from four member states to a draft agreement between the EU and US allowing the use of banking data in anti-terrorist investigations is likely to delay a decision until after 1 December, drawing the European Parliament into the decision making process.

Citing data privacy concerns, Germany, Austria, France and Finland are opposing the text negotiated by the Swedish EU presidency and the European Commission allowing American authorities access to information from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) - the interbank transfer service.