The Latvian parliament has elected a controversial anti-gay rights activist as head of its human rights committee.

Janis Smits, who is a member of Latvia's First Party, is a leading figure speaking out against the activities of gay rights groups.

He has campaigned against the introduction of legislation to protect people from discrimination on the grounds of their sexual orientation.

European gay rights activists have condemned the appointment.

The Kremlin has dismissed as "sheer nonsense" claims it was involved in the poisoning by thallium of a former KGB colonel living in the UK.

Alexander Litvinenko, 41, has been moved to intensive care at UCH hospital after a deterioration in his condition.

The critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin fell ill on 1 November after a meeting at a London sushi bar.

His condition remains serious but stable. Met Police anti-terrorist officers are leading the investigation.

Friends of Mr Litvinenko have alleged he was poisoned because he was critical of the Russian government.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "We cannot comment on the very fact of what happened to Litvinenko.

"We don't consider it possible to comment on the statements accusing the Kremlin because it is nothing but sheer nonsense."

The trial of Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister, on charges of corporate fraud at his broadcasting organisation Mediaset, is set to begin.

Prosecutors say a US firm sold TV rights to two offshore companies controlled by Berlusconi, who allegedly re-sold them to Mediaset at an inflated price to avoid Italian taxes.

Berlusconi had kept a low profile since April's general election defeat to Romano Prodi, but the case involving the broadcast company, controlled by his family, has returned him to the public's attention.

If convicted of the most serious charge, tax fraud, he could face up to six years in jail.

He denies any wrongdoing and has accused his critics of bringing the charges against him for political gain.

French readers, critics and literary-prize jurors are now paying special heed to these so-called Francophone foreign writers. And one conclusion is that outside voices -- and there are many more than this year's prize-winners -- are offering something absent in homegrown French fiction.

"It is not a coincidence," said Mr. Semprun, a Spanish-born Francophone novelist who is also a member of the Goncourt jury. "These writers are more open to the world, more universal, less navel-gazing than some French writers."

Mr. Audouard said that all too often French novels deal with "my suffering, my pain, my couple, my room."

For this he blamed the continuing influence of the Nouveau Roman, or the New Novel, which, from the 1950s through experimental writers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute and Claude Simon, emphasized style over narrative.

"For many in France, style is still the most important factor," he added.

Josyanne Savigneau, a literary critic at Le Monde, said that "compared to the 1960s, the French reading public wants to be told stories, but many French writers prefer to produce texts." For this reason, she noted, relatively few contemporary French writers are published in translation. "When you're following a story, it matters less how it is translated," she added. "But translation is complicated when the text is minimalist and poetic."

Conversely, the strong narrative content of much American and British fiction may well account for its popularity in France. Novels by John Irving, Danielle Steel and Ian McEwan are among current best sellers here, while Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, Jim Harrison, William Boyd and Paul Auster also have huge followings. In fact, along with the flood of new French-language novels, 207 novels were published in translation this fall.

Yet while American and British novelists fare well here, the number of living French writers who have had a major international impact of late is exactly one: Michel Houellebecq, whose books include, under their English titles, "The Elementary Particles," "Platform" and "The Possibility of an Island." For Ms. Savigneau, there is an explanation. "It's good to have someone who tells stories," she said.

Olivier Cohen, director of the French publishing house Éditions Olivier, also acknowledged that there was a message in this year's literary prizes. "Perhaps it reflects the fact that French culture is less focused on Paris and France and more on the French language," he said. "Some Francophone writers bring what Roland Barthes called `the exoticism of the little difference.' And it must have made a difference with the public and the prize juries."

But he added; "I think French literature is doing better and better. Fifteen years ago, it was in a bad state. But the past 10 years have brought great vitality." He mentioned Jean-Paul Dubois and Jean Echenoz among writers who reflect this new spirit.

Hmmm... my French friends here in Tokyo avid trade amongst each other recent novels by French writers that they pick up on their latest trip back home or receive from friends and family by mail... my impression from listening to them talk about these books was that contemporary French literature/fiction writing is quite active and dynamic: I even though, What a pity that more of these are not being translated into English!

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

More than 440 police officers are to be shifted to immigration duties as part of a drive against illegal migrants billed yesterday as an announcement of 800 "new immigration officers" by the Home Office.

The home secretary, John Reid, promised in July to double the number of immigration enforcement officers as part of a plan to rescue his department's immigration and nationality directorate, which was declared "not fit for purpose" after the foreign prisoners scandal.

The Home Office said yesterday the extra 800 staff would boost the number of immigration officers working on enforcement by 25% and would be mainly used in "intelligence-led units" in a drive against the employers of illegal migrants.

But Lib Dem and Conservative politicians complained that the headline figure of 800 new immigration officers was misleading as it included taking 400 police constables and 40 sergeants off the beat to be seconded to deal with the crisis in the immigration service.

But a Home Office spokeswoman said they would be acting as immigration officers after being formally seconded to the immigration service. The police would be vital in bringing their "sophisticated intelligence skills" into the drive against illegal migration. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) will also be involved in the drive to target the criminal gangs behind the trade in illegal migrants.

This is the "second" Poland, a diaspora of 800,000 Poles estimated by officials here to have left the country since it joined the European Union in May 2004. The exodus is believed to be one of the largest migrations by Europeans since the 1950s, when a wave of Irish crossed the Atlantic to escape poverty.

But in Poland, this huge movement of people has created a labor shortage so severe that the government may not be able to spend the money that is due to begin arriving in January from the European Union for projects like improving roads and the water supply.

"We have a fantastic opportunity to improve our infrastructure because we are due to receive billions of euros starting in 2007," said Bartlomiej Sosna, a construction analyst at the consultant group PMR in Krakow. "But how?"

The Polish Transport Ministry has already allocated some of those funds in its dedication of $38 billion to a road construction program slated to run from 2007 to 2013. But, Mr. Sosna said, "We do not have enough workers to build the roads."

And that, he says, could cost the country more than just improved roads.

"If we don't take up the E.U. funds over a certain period of time, we will have to return them to Brussels," Mr. Sosna said, referring to the site of the union's headquarters. "Do you know what this means? There will be a delay in the modernization of our country."

Going by statistics, it seems odd that Poland is grappling with such a problem. The economy is doing well and is expected to grow by 5 percent this year, while the official unemployment rate is 15.2 percent, one of the highest in the European Union. But as hard as employers advertise, they cannot find enough workers in the construction, engineering and medical fields.

Some of Europe's leading energy companies were on Monday warned that they faced hard-hitting action to reduce their dominance over electricity and gas markets.

José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, wants rules on the division of energy groups as part of efforts to ensure that the union's stifled power markets become more competitive. "We intend to propose new measures on ownership unbundling" in a drive to boost the EU's competitiveness and energy security, he told a Brussels conference.

Behind this is concern that when energy-generating companies also own transmission infrastructure, rivals struggle to enter the networks and users lack choice.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, wants to force the full break-up of integrated companies, a move that could hit influential groups such as Eon and RWE of Germany. But her colleague Andris Piebalgs, the EU energy commissioner who will draft the legislation, is considering other options, including suggesting Scotland's model as a pan-European template.

(...)

Mr Piebalgs has asked his officials to look carefully at Scotland, whose model came into force in 2005 as an offshoot of Britain's aggressive energy liberalisation programme. There, the two dominant generation companies continue to own power stations and transmission infrastructure.

But crucially they lease transmission assets to National Grid, an independent group that also operates Britain's gas pipelines. This situation means neither Scottish Power nor Scottish and Southern Energy can control access to bar rivals.

Call this reverse paranoia, but I found it strange that there was not a single mention of EDF or GDF in that articles (and others on the same topic in the paper). If they are not criticised, it must mean they have liberalised beyond the dreams of the liberalisers (because otherwise they'd be criticized for their gallic intereference).

Or there is some kind of jockeying under way before the German presidency starts in January.

I find it funny though that Scottish Power's model, which is essentially the same as that of EDF, can be seen as a good example.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

PARIS -- Sandrine Folet and Lucas Titouh have two children, a stylish Paris apartment and a 15-year-old partnership.

They have no intention of getting married.

"We don't feel the need to get married," said Folet, 36, who has known Titouh, 40, since she was a teenager. "I don't know many people in our age group who are married."

In France, the country that evokes more images of romance than perhaps any other, marriage has increasingly fallen out of favor. Growing numbers of couples are choosing to raise children, buy homes and build family lives without religious or civil approval of their partnerships. In the past generation, the French marriage rate has plunged more than 30 percent, even as population and birthrates have been rising.

"Marriage doesn't have the same importance as it used to," said France Prioux, who directs research on changing social trends for France's National Institute of Demographic Studies. "It will never become as frequent as it once was."

Marriage is in decline across much of northern Europe, from Scandinavia to France, a pattern some sociologists describe as a "soft revolution" in European society -- a generational shift away from Old World traditions and institutions toward a greater emphasis on personal independence.

But French couples are abandoning the formality of marriage faster than most of their European neighbors and far more rapidly than their American counterparts: French marriage rates are 45 percent below U.S. figures. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the marriage rate in France was 4.3 per 1,000 people, compared with 5.1 in the United Kingdom and 7.8 in the United States. The only European countries with rates lower than France's were Belgium, at 4.1, and Slovenia, with 3.3.

The trend in France is driven by a convergence of social transitions in both the demographic and cultural landscapes, including this generation's nearly universal estrangement from religion, especially the Catholic Church; massive migration to urban areas, where young adults are more independent from their families; and a society that has become not only tolerant but supportive of personal choice in lifestyles.

An on-going internal police investigation released its first report:

the report on the first riot, the storming of the state TV building on the night of 18/19 September. The names of those responsible are blackened out, but besides and above material and training insufficiencies, it is clear the commanders were totally inept. A map of one stage:

TÖMEG=crowd (on-lookers, thousands), "Támogató mag"=supporting core (those cheering on, 100-200), "Nagyon aggr..."=very agressive attacking groups (rioters, 50-100). Red is policemen. You see the symbol of thise trapped in the building, and you see that a supporting force tried to get there circling the building -- but the water cannon's water ran out...

The report says

• police leaders failed to make real action plans and acted ad-hoc, their plans seemed the reproduction of blueprints and contained false data;
• the TV building was missing on the list of buildings to protect, despite protesters' prior threats;
• information flow to lower-ranked was insufficient, most glaringly, an operation commander for the units around the TV building was chosen but none of the unit leaders learnt of that, and he himself didn't know who everyone should be under his command and gave up trying;
• most damagingly, forces were sent uncoordinated, leading to disintegration of units one by one, and even to silly episodes like a unit holding back the rioters on the front stairs being water-gunned by a unit inside the building...

Evidence on the police beating-up of an opposition MP.

As I reported, on 23 October, police pursued rioters 'into' the dispersing crowd of a rally by right-populist main opposition party Fidesz, and in the course of this, a Fidesz leader, Márusz Révész was rubber-bulleted unconscious and/or beaten with batons.

This case developed into an ugly controversy. On one hand, after the initial barely self-aware hospital interview, Révész switched into politician mode, and sought to get the most out of his case -- including wearing his bandages when it was no longer necessary, leading to accusations of faking from the government side. Meanwhile, selective leaks of police tapes implied that police in fact tried to hold back the crowd and called Fidesz leaders to get their protesters out of the way, leading to paranoid government-side claims that Fidesz wanted trouble on their crowd so that police and government can be demonised.

However, now a foreigner sent an amateur video to the attorney of Révész, which confirms the version witnesses told to Révész (who himself suffers from amnesia): it reportedly shows Révész approaching the policemen and protesting while showing his Member of Parliament card (which ensures immunity by law), but the policemen surround him and then beat him up, stopping only when a photographer approached.

Was someone killed on 23 October?

On the last day of riots, rumours spread that a young girl died from the effects of tear gas. Internet news site Index tried to track down the origin, and found it: a man who claimed his daughter died in the events, and got a compensation of €1,200 from his Austro-Hungarian firm. The man wouldn't tell details to the press, and there is no trace of the dead girl in hospital or cementery records, so this is most likely an insurance fraud...

European Cities Do Away with Traffic Signs

Are streets without traffic signs conceivable? Seven cities and regions in Europe are giving it a try -- with good results.

[European] traffic planners are dreaming of streets free of rules and directives. They want drivers and pedestrians to interact in a free and humane way, as brethren -- by means of friendly gestures, nods of the head and eye contact, without the harassment of prohibitions, restrictions and warning signs.

A project implemented by the European Union is currently seeing seven cities and regions clear-cutting their forest of traffic signs. Ejby, in Denmark, is participating in the experiment, as are Ipswich in England and the Belgian town of Ostende.

The utopia has already become a reality in Makkinga, in the Dutch province of Western Frisia. A sign by the entrance to the small town (population 1,000) reads "Verkeersbordvrij" -- "free of traffic signs." Cars bumble unhurriedly over precision-trimmed granite cobblestones. Stop signs and direction signs are nowhere to be seen. There are neither parking meters nor stopping restrictions. There aren't even any lines painted on the streets.

SOFIA: In a Cold War-style drama in one of the last places in Europe to tackle its Communist-era legacy, the sudden death of the man in charge of a key Bulgarian secret police archive that was about to be declassified has created a political uproar.

The man, Bozhidar Doychev, 61, had served since 1991 as director of the National Intelligence Service archive, which is believed to contain information about the 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II and the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, as well as records on current officials who may have worked for the secret police.

Doychev was found dead at his desk on Wednesday, shot in the head with his own pistol. But news of the death did not filter out until Thursday, when a London-based Internet news service broke the story. Only on Friday did Bulgarian officials confirm the report, calling his death a probable suicide.

Opposition legislators and commentators immediately contested the official explanation of Doychev's death and alleged that the failure to report it suggested a cover-up. They based their accusations on the fact that the Parliament is preparing to vote on declassifying all of the Communist-era state security files, including the archive of the foreign intelligence directorate overseen by Doychev.

Atanas Atanasov, the former director of the National Security Service and now an opposition legislator, said Monday that Doychev's death so close to the vote had raised "immediate deep suspicion" of foul play.

He said that he connected the death to the forthcoming opening of the files, adding, "Clearly someone is worried that it will become clear that some of them are missing."

Many people believe that Doychev's death was somehow related to destruction of files on behalf of people who want their participation in the former security services to remain hidden.

Bulgaria is the last country of the former Soviet bloc to have reached no consensus on how to deal with its Communist past, specifically the historical record contained in the archive.

Follow-up on Charles Rangel's call yesterday to bring back the draft.

The Times seems to agree with DoDo that a more general form of "national service" (Dodo's term: "civil service") should be available, of which military service would be one option.

Because of the dire situation in Iraq, the Army is indeed having trouble meeting its yearly quota of 80,000 recruits. Yet military leaders nevertheless oppose a draft. They believe you don't get a highly skilled Army by forcing people to serve against their will, and they are right.

The draft would not demonstrate to young people that everyone must do his or her fair share. It is more likely to convince them that the demand for sacrifice is made mainly on those too poor to avoid it. The volunteer force in Iraq has been a truer cross section of America than the force created under the last draft, which ended in 1973, before the end of the Vietnam War. The wealthy and well-connected could get deferments then or assignments to safe alternatives, and many did. While there are plenty of underprivileged in the current force, at least they are there by their own choosing.

The problem with the draft does not lie in the fact that it requires young people to spend some time contributing to the nation's well-being before they embark on their life careers. We wish the president had called for such sacrifices after Sept. 11, 2001, when so many Americans were aching to contribute.

For those young people who do not feel moved by patriotism or propelled by economics to enlist in the military, there should be other options for national service -- like AmeriCorps. These programs need money and attention. Some of the potential candidates for president in 2008 have said the United States should require all young people to devote a year or two to service after high school or college, and that idea should be debated during the upcoming campaign.

But the urgency of the Army's current needs requires a different solution. There are many ways for the armed services to meet their recruitment goals outside of general conscription. After all, the Army's annual quota of 80,000 recruits is barely a drop in the ocean of some 60 million Americans between 18 and 35. Forcing the issue, with a draft, is no solution.

Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said.

<...>

A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

<...>

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, [President of Executive Committee of North America Imams Federation, Sheikh Omar] Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

"I never felt bad in my life like that," he said. "I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It's terrible."

<...>

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation...

<...>

Hooper said the meeting drew about 150 imams from all over the country, and that those attending included U.S. Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, D-Minneapolis, who just became the first Muslim elected to Congress. Shahin said they went as far as notifying police and the FBI about their meeting in advance.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has not found conclusive evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, a US magazine has reported.

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker, cites a secret CIA report based on intelligence such as satellite images.

Correspondents say the alleged document appears to challenge Washington's views regarding Iranian nuclear intentions.

The article says the White House was dismissive about the CIA report.

The US and Europe say Iran is pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme - a charge Iran has strongly denied.

The CIA assessment, according to unnamed officials quoted in the article, casts doubt on how far Iran has actually progressed to making a nuclear weapon.

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mr Hersh wrote.

[...]

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino criticised the article, calling it an "error-filled" piece in a "series of inaccuracy-riddled articles about the Bush administration".

"The White House is not going to dignify the work of an author who has viciously degraded our troops, and whose articles consistently rely on outright falsehoods to justify his own radical views," she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

It says the agency based its conclusions on technical intelligence, such as satellite photography and measurements from sensors planted by US and Israeli agents.

JERUSALEM, Nov. 20 -- An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians.

Israel has long asserted that it fully respects Palestinian private property in the West Bank and only takes land there legally or, for security reasons, temporarily.

If big sections of those settlements are indeed privately held Palestinian land, that is bound to create embarrassment for Israel and further complicate the already distant prospect of a negotiated peace. The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that Israel plans to keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is private.

The new claims regarding Palestinian property are said to come from the 2004 database of the Civil Administration, which controls the civilian aspects of Israel's presence in the West Bank. Peace Now, an Israeli group that advocates Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, plans to publish the information on Tuesday.

This might make an interesting diary.  If I have time later, I'll try to find the Peace Now report.

Secrets of the CIA "rendition" programme, exposed through overseas investigations and damaging legal cases, have prompted an internal review of the policy and methods used by the US to seize and interrogate terror suspects abroad.

Human rights organisations are also adding to pressure on the US over its detainee policy, demanding that Washington account for scores of "disappeared" people whose whereabouts are unknown.

(...)

US officials privately acknowledge that they are trying to minimise political fallout from renditions, just as the US has been forced to confront the issue of torture, secret prisons and detention without trial.

(...)

In spite of denials by European governments of involvement in illegal abductions, Amnesty International has named seven governments that should be held to account for their part in renditions: Bosnia, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Sweden, Turkey and the UK.

The US Congress, to be under Democratic control from January, is getting restive. Senator Carl Levin, the next head of the armed services committee, promises action on renditions.

"I'm not comfortable with the system," he told reporters. "I think that there's been some significant abuses which have not made us more secure but have made us less secure and have also, perhaps, cost us some real allies, as well as not producing useful information. So I think the system needs a thorough review."

(...)

"Clearly they [the US] are chastened but they don't want to publicly admit they were wrong and won't do it again. They understand it is not good to be seen to be kidnapping," Mr Malinowski commented.

Read the whole thing.

Note that, like with our energy policies (where we're not trying to cut the problem, i.e. demand, but only tryign to build up supply), we are ignoring the problem (torture) and focusing on something else (the appearance of doing something bad)


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The fragile economics of solar power could be thrown into jeopardy by a severe global shortage of the basic material used to convert the sun's rays into electricity.

Industry experts warn that a worldwide shortage of poly-crystalline silicon will not ease in 2008, as some expect, but could continue for at least another five years.

Solar projects will either have to be abandoned, or governments will have to pay billions of additional dollars in subsidies.

(...)

Average polysilicon prices, which have doubled in the past 20 months, are expected by some to rise by about 30 per cent over each of the next three years.

(...)

Polysilicon, used to make silicon chips and photovoltaic (solar) cells, is in short supply because of the voracious demand of the booming semi-conductor industry and the rapidly expanding solar sector.

The latter has grown rapidly through large-scale government-backed solar programmes in Germany and Japan, and solar equipment now consumes about half the polysilicon produced.

Global production of solar batteries grew by 47 per cent by volume during 2005, and the pace is believed to have quickened in 2006.

(...)

Jeff Osborne, an analyst at CIBC World Markets, said the uncertainty of silicon supply threatened the economics of solar power for the rest of the decade, and predicted that its growth as an alternative energy source would be stunted.

"Expectations that the polysilicon supply shortage will ease in 2008 are overly optimistic and we do not expect supply/demand equilibrium until after 2010," he said.

Anyone know anything about the industrial process need to produce polysilicon?


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched a parallel government Monday and swore himself in as Mexico's "legitimate" president, a ceremony the leftist hopes will keep alive his protests to undermine the man who defeated him at the polls.

The inauguration ceremony is the latest chapter in López Obrador's unsuccessful battle for the presidency. He claims fraud and dirty campaign tactics were responsible for President-elect Felipe Calderón's narrow victory in the July 2 vote, and his parallel government could spend the next six years calling for street protests that have already dented the economy and prompted travel warnings from the U.S. Embassy.

While the red, green and white presidential sash draped across López Obrador's shoulders Monday lacks legal recognition, he hopes to assume the moral leadership of millions of poor Mexicans.

OhMyNews: Al Qaida: The Iraq Trap (2006-11-18)

New book suggests terrorist group tricked the U.S into war

This brought the interviewer to ask about the top Al Qaida operative Iban al Shakh al Libby, who, when captured revealed the intelligence that Colin Powell presented to the U.N. in the run up to the Iraq invasion. Nasiri said that al Libby was accomplished in the training techniques of remaining calm and telling the enemy what they want to hear under interrogation. Evidence emerged recently that the intelligence from al Libby that formed the basis for the Iraq war was part of a confession extracted under torture in a CIA prison in Egypt. When Nasiri was asked what al Libby would do if tortured, Nasiri said, "he would lie."

Nasiri went on to suggest that, before the Iraq war, Al Qaida had wanted to draw the U.S into invading a Middle East Muslim country, and said that Iraq was believed to be the weakest. Given the long running battle between the U.S. and the U.N. as to whether Saddam's reluctance to cooperate with weapons inspectors was strong enough evidence that he was concealing an active WMD program, and given that U.S. neocon plans for an Iraq invasion since 1998 were almost common knowledge. It is easy to see that the intelligence al Libby provided on Al Qaida links with Saddam were --knowingly-- exactly what the enemy wanted to hear, and according to Nasiri, exactly what Al Qaida wanted the U.S to believe.

Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a Maronite Christian leader, has been killed in the capital Beirut.

Mr Gemayel, a leading anti-Syrian politician, was reportedly shot in the street in a Christian suburb and rushed to hospital, where he died.

His death comes amid a political crisis in Lebanon, following the resignation of six pro-Syrian cabinet members.

The government of Nepal and Maoist guerrillas have signed a historic peace accord, declaring a formal end to a 10-year rebel insurgency.

Under the deal, the rebels will join a transitional government and their weapons will be under UN monitoring.

Both sides have been accused of human rights abuses in fighting that has left more than 13,000 people dead.

BBC News: Ministers to sign fusion accord

An international consortium is set to sign a formal agreement to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor.

The multi-billion-euro project - known as Iter, or "the way" in Latin - will aim to produce energy from nuclear reactions like those that fuel the Sun.

The deal, to be finalised in Paris, follows years of talks between South Korea, Russia, China, the EU, the US, India and Japan.

The project will be based at Cadarache, France, and run for more than 30 years.

If all goes well, officials then intend to build a demonstration power plant before rolling the technology out to the world.

Microscale lenses and better materials move OLEDs closer to lighting our world.

n an advance that could hasten the day when energy-efficient glowing plastic sheets replace traditional lightbulbs, a method for printing microscopic lenses nearly doubles the amount of photons coming out of the materials, called organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs.

Stephen Forrest, an electrical engineer and vice president of research at the University of Michigan, says his technology increases the light output of the thin, flexible OLEDs by 70 percent. "They just create local curvature that allows light to pass through," he explains.

This means that OLEDs, which are currently used for superbright color displays in a number of applications, are getting closer to being competitive as white-light sources too. "It's a significant benefit, because the one big challenge in OLEDs is coming up with ways to get light out of them," says Vladimir Bulovic, head of MIT's Laboratory of Organic Optics and Electronics. "There's a lot of light in the OLED that never makes it out."

The benefits could be substantial. Sandia National Laboratory projects that if half of all lighting is solid-state by 2025--that is, made up of OLEDs and their technological cousin, LEDs made from inorganic semiconducting materials--it will cut worldwide power use by 120 gigawatts. That would save $100 billion a year and reduce the carbon dioxide emitted by electrical plants by 350 megatons a year. And OLEDs would offer more variety in lighting design, since they would take the form of flexible sheets.

Companies and investors around the world announced deals worth more than $75bn in a 24-hour period, driven by the commodities boom, the globalisation of financial markets and the protracted availability of inexpensive debt to finance takeovers.

From mining to commercial property to exchanges, entire sectors are being reshaped as deal volumes hover around their previous peak during the internet bubble six years ago.

(...)

The flurry of deals has bolstered revenues at investment banks that rake in large fees from advising on mergers and arranging financing for leveraged buy-outs.

However, there are concerns that the current dealmaking cycle may be unsustainable. In the event of an economic downturn, companies that were taken over by private equity groups may have trouble servicing their higher debtloads. Higher default rates could lead to a wider slump in the credit markets, whose strength has underpinned the M&A frenzy.

I have seen some truly insane transactions. Some of these WILL crash. The question is how many, and when.


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Great news roundup today!

For those who like a tipple, I'll pour youze all a glass of top notch homemade bulgarian rakia--to keep the chills away.

For those who'd rather something non-alcoholic, a cup of hot chocolate, or a nice cup o'tea (green or brown or any colour you prefer), or whatever you'd like.

Cheers all!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.