European Commission President José Manuel Barroso offered a public show of support to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in his first visit to Greece in three years, but warned that the nearly bankrupt country must make good on promises to reform.

"The key word here is deliver. Deliver, deliver, deliver!" Barroso said, adding he was convinced the Samaras government would make sure that the country would continue to benefit from a bailout administered by the `Troika' - the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

"Greece should stay in the euro as long as commitments made are being honoured," Barroso said in his speech.

Isn't that yet another threat of an extra-legal throwout?

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The 17 European economists brought together by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) for a council on the eurozone crisis have a gloomy outlook. Europe, they argue, is headed for a disaster of incalculable dimensions.

The INET think tank is financed by US hedge funds manager George Soros and works to develop new economic concepts.

...Enormous efforts are required for the single currency to be preserved, concludes the report. In the long term, structural adjustments would have to be made to iron out the mistakes made when setting up the single currency. Europe, for instance, would need a common banking supervision, a common deposit guarantee, a stronger centralized control over government debt and common risk free investment instruments, the experts suggest.

But first, a package of immediate analysis measures is needed to help the troubled countries of Europe's south to give them a chance to start economic reforms. The rescue funds demanding tough austerity measures are doing more to harm the economies of those countries than to help them, Voth and his colleagues believe.

The study, carried out with industry magazine Vêtements made in France, asked participants what their preferred ratification method was for the treaty.

Of the respondents 52% said they wanted a referendum, compared to 38% who wanted it to pass through parliament, and 10% who were unsure.

By contrast, 68% of the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of Left Front that includes the Communist Party of France, 72% of the Front National, and 43% of voters from the UMP, the party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, said they would prefer a referendum.

...In the study, 53% of participants said they would vote yes to the treaty in a referendum, and just 20% would tick no. Of Le Pen supporters 48% would vote yes and 38% no, and of Mélenchon supporters 48% said yes and 34% no.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls is to issue new instructions on giving residency papers to immigrants, accusing former President Nicolas Sarkozy of blaming immigration for France's problems. But, he says, no more people will be given official papers than under the former, right-wing government.

...Valls was the most right-wing Socialist to try and win the party's presidential nomination. But he denied the accusation that he is the Hollande government's "Monsieur Sarkozy" and accused the previous government of scapegoating immigrants and conducting a policy by which "the immigrant was held responsible for all the French people's problems".

The wartime spokesman of late strongman Slobodan Milošević is set to take power in Serbia today (27 July), telling the Balkans to forget the past and not fear the return of a political alliance that once led the country to war with NATO.

In a parliament debate that dragged into the night, Ivica Dačić dismissed concerns in the West that Serbia might veer from the pro-European Union path set by reformers who ousted Milošević 12 years ago and who now find themselves back in opposition.

But the Socialist party leader said he would not deal anymore with his country's dark past.

"If they say the word Balkan means 'blood and honey', there's been enough blood, it's time to feel the taste of honey too," the 46-year-old prime minister-designate told the assembly.

Private contractors are to take over the role of looking after the UK's nuclear weapons in Scotland.

The MoD has signed a 15-year contract with ABL Alliance to provide support for the Trident weapons system at HM Naval Base Clyde.

Under the new contract 149 MoD civilian posts will transfer to the alliance.

The jobs are in industrial and technical grades, warehousing and logistic support services, while supervisors and managers are also transferring.

Slobodan Milosevic's former spokesman became Serbia's new Prime Minister yesterday, promising to promote reconciliation in the Balkans, where there are fears about resurgent nationalism.

Ivica Dacic, nicknamed "Little Sloba", promised to advance Serbia's EU bid and press on with reform, telling MPs "there has been enough blood in the Balkans".

The unemployment rate rose in the second quarter to 24.63 percent and a huge 53 percent among the young, despite the start of the tourist season, figures from the national statistic office showed.

The increase in the overall jobless numbers was smaller than in the first quarter, with the number of eligible people out of work rising to nearly 5.7 million people.

Between April and June, 53,500 people lost their jobs, compared with 365,900 in the first quarter, the national statistics office said.

The unemployment rate rose from 24.4 percent recorded in the first quarter -- already the highest in the industrial world -- as Spain entered its third straight quarter of economic contraction.

Onward, austerian soldiers...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Facebook shares slumped to a new record low last night, after admitting it could not forecast when it will start to make the big profits investors have been hoping for.

The social network's first set of financial results as a public company turned out to be lacklustre at best, and a bullish performance from founder Mark Zuckerberg on his maiden conference call with Wall Street analysts did nothing to stem the slide in Facebook shares.

In fact, a sell-off that began well before the results came out accelerated in after-hours trading, and by the end of the day Facebook had lost 18 per cent of its stock-market value. What was already one of the most disappointing flotations ever seen in the technology industry has now turned into a complete rout, and the shares dipped last night below $24 for the first time, compared with the $38 which new investors paid barely two months ago.

Former American sprinter and gold medal winner Carl Lewis today waded into the row over Mitt Romney's comments about London's preparedness for the Olympics.

...Carl Lewis, who spoke to The Independent as the First Lady, Michelle Obama, arrived in London to lead the US delegation, said: "Every Olympics is ready, I don't care whatever he [Romney] said. I swear, sometimes I think some Americans shouldn't leave the country. Are you kidding me, stay home if you don't know what to say."

Mr Romney - who has faced criticism in the US as well as in the UK for his comments - met with Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Leader Ed Miliband yesterday.

Monks who played a vital role in Burma's recent struggle for democracy have been accused of fuelling ethnic tensions in the country by calling on people to shun a Muslim community that has suffered decades of abuse.

In a move that has shocked many observers, some monks' organisations have issued pamphlets telling people not to associate with the Rohingya community, and have blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching them. One leaflet described the Rohingya as "cruel by nature" and claimed it had "plans to exterminate" other ethnic groups.

The outburst against the Rohingya, often described as one of the world's most oppressed groups, comes after weeks of ethnic violence in the Rakhine state in the west of Burma that has left more than 80 dead and up to 100,000 people living in a situation described as "desperate" by humanitarian organisations. As state-sanctioned abuses against the Muslim community continue, Burma's president Thein Sein - credited by the international community for ushering in a series of democratic reforms in the country and releasing political prisoners such as Aung San Suu Kyi - has urged neighbouring Bangladesh to take in the Rohingya.

A UN human rights expert is calling on the Iraqi government to halt what he says is the possible imminent execution of up to 196 death row inmates in Anbar province.

The UN investigator on arbitrary executions said in a statement Friday that the execution of so many people in a single province was "extremely disturbing" and might breach international law.

Christof Heyns says capital punishment may only be used under tightly limited circumstances and accuses Iraq of "regrettable lack of transparency in the use of the death penalty."

BEIRUT, Jul 27 2012 (IPS) - Since its inception, Hezbollah's clout within its community has been solid. However, in recent weeks, the Party of God has been facing increasing difficulties controlling its support base and stymieing discontent. These developments have led analysts to question whether or not Hezbollah is losing its grip on its followers.

Last month, gunmen attacked the headquarters of local TV station, al-Jadeed, in Beirut. Setting tires ablaze, they surrounded the area, opening fire and hurling Molotov cocktails at the building. Local residents apprehended one of the gunmen after his clothes caught on fire. Local media reported that the suspect is a Shiite member of Saraya al-Moqawama, a special unit comprised of members of various Lebanese factions militarily affiliated to Hezbollah, but the party immediately denied the allegation.

Soon after, Lebanese daily An Nahar reported that Hezbollah supporters in the Rweiss neighborhood of Beirut's southern suburbs assaulted an Internal Security Forces (ISF) patrol after they arrested a gunman on a motorcycle, identified as Ali Shoaib.

Immediately following the arrest, members of the Party of God intervened and engaged in a dispute with the patrol. The party again denied the incident.

"There is a definite feeling that Hezbollah is not able to control its supporters and smaller contingents. Dahieh (Hezbollah's bastion in the capital's southern suburbs) is plagued by many security problems, from daily armed clashes between local families, to the increased trafficking of weapons and drugs, and prostitution," a high-ranking officer within the ISF admitted to IPS.

Member states have failed to reach agreement on a new UN treaty to regulate the multibillion dollar global arms trade, with some diplomats and supporters blaming the US for triggering the unraveling of the month-long negotiating conference.

Hopes had been raised that agreement could be reached on a revised treaty text that closed some major loopholes by Friday's deadline for action.

However, the US announced that it needed more time to consider the proposed treaty, with Russia and China then also asking for more time.

The UN General Assembly voted in December 2006 to work toward a treaty regulating the growing arms trade, with the US casting a "no" vote.

In October 2009, the Barack Obama, the US president, reversed the Bush administration's position and supported an assembly resolution to hold four preparatory meetings and a four-week UN conference in 2012 to draft an arms trade
treaty.

The gust of warm air that caused the unprecedented thaw in Greenland's surface ice also appears to have caused unusually high run-off from a glacier, wiping out a crossing near a key research and transport hub.

Scientists who fly in Kangerlussuaq, near the western edge of the ice sheet, have been keeping an eye on the Watson River bridge for years.

The bridge dates from the 1950s, but wasn't built for the magnitude of spring and summer melt of the last 12 years or so, said Jason Box, a glaciologist at Ohio State University who returned on Tuesday from a three-week stint in Greenland.

Chinese authorities have raised the death toll from Beijing's floods to 77 from 37 after the public questioned the days-old tally. Some residents even compiled their own totals amid deep mistrust of the government's handling of the disaster.

The Beijing city government said 77 bodies had been found in the city as of Thursday. It said 66 had been identified, five of whom were local officials who died while helping disaster relief and rescue efforts.

No figures had been issued since Sunday, the day after Beijing's biggest downpour in 61 years overwhelmed drainage systems, swamped underpasses and caused flash flooding.

A judge has ordered a Spanish fishing company, its British subsidiary and the skippers of two boats that were caught fishing illegally in British waters to pay fines and costs totalling a record-breaking £1.6m.

The operation was accused of endangering stocks of ling and hake, two vulnerable species, and putting the livelihoods of other fishermen at risk by flooding the market with cheaper fish.

Passing sentence at Truro crown court, Judge Graham Cottle called it a "flagrant, repeated and long-term abuse of the regulations".

The operation came to light after the Royal Navy's patrol vessel HMS Tyne carried out a routine search of the fishing boat Coyo Tercero, owned by the Spanish company Hijos de Vidal Bandin, off the Isles of Scilly.

Total consumption was 261.5 TWh, 1.4% lower than last year. (They don't give total production of all modes, but from the percentages it was around 270 TWh, so there was net export.

Note: there won't be further nuclear shutdowns until 2015 (then a single reactor). So it looks like this year, renewables are on track to replace the rest of annual production capacity after the shutdown of eight reactors last year, and will then increasingly bite into fossil fuel market share or exports will have to increase.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

TOKYO (Reuters) - It's summer in Japan, which means shaved ice, cold noodles and parasols against the blinding sun - for men.

While women have used sun umbrellas, or "higasa," for centuries, power conservation and increasingly hot summers have sent sales of men's sun umbrellas sharply higher, with department stores across Japan scrambling for stocks.

"There's been a spike in demand for men's sun umbrellas of about three times since last summer," said Mayumi Mio, a spokeswoman at Takashimaya, a major Tokyo department store.

Unusually positive article on wind in the Telegraph. Am on phone only so can't provide quotes easily, but it's worth a read.

Wind power

The 2012 Olympics are historic for women in sports. Now that Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Qatar are sending female athletes for the first time, women will have competed for every Olympic country.

Saudi Arabia was the last country to give the go-ahead after Brunei and Qatar previously agreed to do the same.  Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani will suit up for the 78-kilogram category in judo while Sarah Attar, 17, will run the 800 meters for Saudi Arabia.

... The achievement is a long time coming. At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, 26 countries were yet to include female athletes. Twelve years later in Beijing, the number had dropped to three.

... With the inclusion of women's boxing and wrestling, women will compete in every sport the men will for the first time. In fact, with men barred from synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics, women will compete in more events than their male counterparts.

Say goodbye to the drug-fuelled raver and hello to the clean-living ecowarrior. Teenagers are changing and, for perhaps the first time in history, their parents approve.

Rates of drug- taking, drinking and smoking among children have plummeted in the past decade. Girls, it seems, are more likely to emulate the polite, studious Hermione Granger, played by Emma Watson, pictured right, in the Harry Potter films than wild-child party girls like Peaches Geldof in her heyday.

Among 11 to 15 year olds, the proportion who admitted to having taken drugs fell from 29 per cent in 2001 to 17 per cent in 2011. Regular smokers of at least one cigarette a week halved from one in 10 to one in 20. The number who said they had drunk alcohol in the past week was down from 26 per cent to 12 per cent.

Discovered in a cupboard 20 years ago, the only surviving police archive documenting the deportation of French Jews has been opened up to public view for the first time. The contents are a treasure trove for historians.

One of the most extraordinary documents on show is "Memo 173 - 42," dated July 13, 1942 and marked "secret." ''The occupying authorities," it reads, "have decided upon the arrest and grouping together of a carchertain number of foreign Jews."

Over nine pages, the head of the Paris police details his orders for the enactment of the Holocaust on French soil. Three days later, a few hours before dawn on July 16, French police operating in groups of two - one in uniform, one in plain clothes and accompanied by a German soldier - arrested more than 13,000 Parisian Jews.

Some chucklehead working for Microsoft thought it would be funny to slip a thinly camouflaged sexist remark -- "big boobs" -- into software code that connects the Linux kernel to Microsoft's HyperV virtualization product.

Naturally, someone noticed -- that was the intent (snicker, snicker) - and, as should surprise no one, criticism has ensued, since the vast majority of grownups have come to recognize that this kind of juvenile nonsense has no place in the business world.

And, just as predictably, there are critics of the critics -- apologists and enablers for this chucklehead and others like him -- who insist on defending  the non-existent right to be just a little bit sexist, even at work, as long as it's just a little bit and as long as not too many people notice or are offended. Lighten up, you nags, is the operative message from these folks.

mjg59 | Microsoft's ill-chosen magic constants

At the most basic level it's just straightforward childish humour, and the use of vaguely-English strings in magic hex constants is hardly uncommon. But it's also specifically male childish humour. Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome. It's especially irritating in this case because Azure may depend on this constant, so changing it will break things.

We all feel like we've already seen the movie: "Downfall of the Feature Phones."  Our heroes are Apple and Samsung. They take over the world with their smartphones, while Nokia -- the stereotype of the bumbling rival -- ignores the early warning signs of smartphone ascendancy, spurns the lovely ingénue, Android, and ends up in bed with the Vamp of Redmond, Microsoft.

As simplistic as this plotline sounds, it's the narrative many in the industry have come to accept.

But here's the thing.  Have we actually seen how this movie ends?

I, for one, believe that the "Downfall of the Feature Phones" may have a surprising, alternative ending (but only in the Blu-Ray version).

As in any good thriller, it goes, something like this: Just about when we all thought Jason Bourne -- I mean, feature phones -- must be dead this time, boing! They spring back to life and come back as... "entry-level" smartphones.

I anticipate more switcheroo's in sequels ("The Feature Phone Ultimatum," "The Feature Phone Legacy," "The Feature Phone vs. Godzilla"), in which incumbents who choose to ignore the new "entry-level" category (`because it's too low end') are pitted against a host of newcomers who seize the opportunity to build a fortune on entry-level smartphones.  Incumbents could get clobbered.

A TYPICAL American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I've found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn't.

...

This debate matters. Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent. In the interest of maintaining rigor, we're actually depleting our pool of brainpower. I say this as a writer and social scientist whose work relies heavily on the use of numbers. My aim is not to spare students from a difficult subject, but to call attention to the real problems we are causing by misdirecting precious resources.

...

I WANT to end on a positive note. Mathematics, both pure and applied, is integral to our civilization, whether the realm is aesthetic or electronic. But for most adults, it is more feared or revered than understood. It's clear that requiring algebra for everyone has not increased our appreciation of a calling someone once called "the poetry of the universe." (How many college graduates remember what Fermat's dilemma was all about?)

Few would deny that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world -- but even fewer could say why. While his fans are happy to call him a miracle, the man himself is lost in a cloud of legends, hype and marketing.

Usain Bolt is coming to the London Olympics a defeated man, but apparently no one wants to believe it.

Bolt recently lost his first 100-meter race in two years in Kingston, Jamaica. Afterwards, he was suddenly wide-eyed and shaking his head, as if he'd just woken up from a dream. He, the fastest man in the world, had crossed the finish line one or two meters behind his teammate, Yohan Blake...

During the award ceremony, Bolt walked to the small winners' stand in the middle of the stadium surrounded by a cluster of people. Yohan Blake followed, walking alone. Blake's manager jumped around in front of the journalists, determined to remind them who had actually won that evening.

"Which one of you thought he could do it?" Cubie Seegobin shouted.

No hands went up.

"I'll tell you why," he continued. "You have been taken in by your own stories."

You've got to admire the spunk of Perla Ni over at GreatNonprofits for taking on Larry Ellison.

It's not exactly a path to success, as others who have taken on the Oracle CEO will be quick to tell you. But in recent weeks Ni has featured Ellison front and center on the nonprofit's blog, presenting the billionaire as the Silicon Valley pinup for those who are tightfisted with enormous wealth.

"It just stands out that one of the richest men here in Silicon Valley doesn't seem to be doing his part in philanthropy compared to some of his peers," she says.

See also: Why I don't do charity  by Jerome

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

Cape Coral man charged in shooting death of door-to-door salesman:

A man selling frozen lobster tails and steaks door to door Wednesday afternoon in Cape Coral was fatally shot by a homeowner before the gunman was ordered to the ground by an off-duty Collier County corrections deputy, according to Cape police and witnesses.

...

Gene Snyder, a former volunteer firefighter who lives across a canal from the shooting scene, said he witnessed part of the incident. He said his wife heard two gunshots, so he rushed to the house to help.

What happened next, he said, was horrifying.

"I went to bend over to help the guy on the ground, the victim, and out of the garage I heard something: `I'll kill everybody or shoot everybody,' Snyder said. "And he cocked his gun and thank God for the Collier County sheriff's (deputy), she probably saved my life and everybody else's life that was in the area," Snyder said.