Gordon Brown will warn Britain's European Union partners that he will not agree to any further "navel-gazing" internal reforms once the 27-nation bloc has approved a new governing treaty.

In Lisbon today, at his first EU summit since becoming Prime Minister, Mr Brown will tell his counterparts to end their long debate about EU institutions and start addressing issues such as job creation and climate change which matter to ordinary people.

Mr Brown will sign up to the new treaty tonight, which will streamline the EU's decision-making procedures, provided that Britain's much-vaunted "red lines" are preserved. These are designed to safeguard Britain's right to decide its own social and labour laws; common law, police and judicial processes; foreign and defence policies and tax and social security systems.

One minister said: "We will draw a line in the sand and say 'thus far, no further'. The treaty is needed but the EU will never win the support of its citizens if it embarks on yet another round of institutional reform."

Turkey's parliament has overwhelmingly approved a cross-border attack into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas - which would open another front in the war in Iraq.

The parliament in Ankara voted 507 to 19 in favour of ordering the army to launch an offensive across Turkey's south-eastern border in search of 3,500 PKK Turkish-Kurd rebels hiding in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Turkish move deepens the sense of crisis over Turkey's slow motion build-up towards an attack that has already helped propel the price of oil to $88 (£44) a barrel this week. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the government in Ankara to back away from its threats of military action without looking weak.

In Washington, President Bush spelled out US opposition to a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq. "We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq," he said. Nato, of which Turkey is a member with the organisation's second biggest army, and the EU also urged restraint.

Nicolas Sarkozy's iron will to face down trade unions and modernise France meets its first test today as a national strike threatens to paralyse public transport, shut down the Paris Opera and disrupt fans travelling to the Rugby World Cup.

Dubbed "Black Thursday" by unions, Parisian commuters face at least 24 hours of chaos and cities across France will be left without viable transport as workers take to the streets for the first time over the president's reforms.

Railway staff and other transport unions will lead 70 marches across France to protest at Mr Sarkozy's plans to axe the special pensions privileges enjoyed by certain state workers. These generous packages have allowed a number of employees at state-controlled companies to retire early on highly favourable terms. But Mr Sarkozy wants to end the special deals and streamline the costly state sector.

The president claims he has the "political courage" to reform France's work practices and will not cave in to strikes as his predecessors have done.

Top EU and Russian energy officials meeting in Brussels agreed to postpone a dispute over investment access in the gas and electricity sector and showed a united front on gas prices and secure supplies.

Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko, who was meeting with EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs in Brussels on Tuesday, Oct. 16, reiterated concerns over a European Union energy market reform plan that Moscow fears will hamper efforts by its gas monopolist, Gazprom, to expand into Europe.

 

Last month, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, proposed to disband major utility companies that control power supply, generation and transmission in a bid to boost competition and lower prices in the 27-member bloc.

 

The commission, however, inserted a clause in the proposed legislation to bar foreign companies from controlling European pipelines and power grids unless they adhere to the same rules as EU firms and their home country has reached an agreement with officials in Brussels.

Whether one is for or against Blocher is the question that now divides Switzerland: Should he stay in the government after the elections? Or is the Swiss model finished, with its principle of a coalition of all major parties across the political spectrum?

Blocher's Swiss People's Party, the SVP, has plastered his face across the country, on posters that read, simply: "Vote SVP! Strengthen Blocher!"

Breakdown of parties in Swiss parliament. Click to enlarge. Even his fiercest opponents, the Social Democrats, are obsessed with him. The cornerstone of their campaign for the past year has been to oust Blocher from office.

Violence broke out two weeks ago in Bern, the Swiss capital, when 500 left-wing activists attacked a demonstration staged by Blocher's SVP. Images of stone-throwers, water canons and burning barricades were broadcast around the world. The uproar even attracted the attention of Switzerland's neighbors, like Germany and France, who were so used to mild Swiss election campaigns that they might have been forgiven for thinking the Swiss had no election campaigns.

Although Switzerland's economy is thriving, crude issues in this election have ranged from the deportation of foreign criminals, the banning of minarets and youth violence. The main question on the minds of Switzerland's neighbors -- when it will join the European Union -- is nonexistent in this campaign; in fact there is so much resistance to EU membership among the Swiss that no party would make it a platform of its campaign. This is Blocher's work, in large part. His success on the issue of EU membership has been so complete that even his ouster from office would not change public opinion.

Germany's Social Democrats reformed the national system of unemployment benefits while they ruled with the Greens between 1998 and 2005. Now their leader Kurt Beck wants to backtrack on the reforms. His main critic, Franz Müntefering, has given in, and German papers fear the worst.

 SPD leader Kurt Beck, right, and his party colleague Franz Müntefering, Germany's Vice Chancellor, have not been on good terms. Kurt Beck, the leader of Germany's Social Democrat Party (SPD), caused a stir several weeks ago by announcing his intention to revoke significant parts of Agenda 2010, a welfare-reform package introduced under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2003. The announcement led to a long dispute between Beck and German Vice Chancellor Franz Müntefering, who feels Beck's proposals endanger much of what the SPD has achieved. Now Müntefering has capitulated, recognizing the persistent unpopularity of Agenda 2010 among Social Democrat voters.

The declared aim of the Agenda 2010 reforms is to trim Germany's generous welfare state and stimulate the economy. One of the most controversial elements of Agenda 2010 is a new unemployment benefits regime known as Hartz IV. Hartz IV shortens the period of time during which full unemployment benefits are paid out. Beck wants to extend this period again, in accordance with a model developed by the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB).

Austria has granted asylum to thousands of refugees from the war-torn Balkans since the 1990s. In this case, Mr. Platter [Austria's interior minister] said, the government consulted United Nations officials who administer Kosovo, and was told there was no reason not to repatriate the Zogaj family. The fact that they would have less economic opportunity in Kosovo was not grounds for asylum, Mr. Platter said.

The problem, critics say, lies with Austria's asylum system, which has a backlog of more than 30,000 applications. Foreigners can live here for a decade or more before being told that they have to leave. At a protest on Tuesday, students wore placards with the names of other families facing expulsion.

Austria has so many asylum seekers, experts say, largely because it is so difficult to get in any other way. In a European Union-backed study of migration trends released Monday, Austria ranks near the bottom of 25 European countries in its openness to migrants.

A new law, adopted in 2006, raises the hurdles to reuniting immigrants with their family members and makes it harder to gain citizenship. Defenders say the measures are needed in a country in which more than 13 percent of the population is foreign-born and nearly 10 percent hold foreign passports.

Critics say the policy reflects Austria's refusal to accept that it is an immigration country, whether the immigrants are the young Czech women who work as nurses today, or the Czech refugees of a century ago.

Britain is facing the prospect of house price declines as severe as those suffered in the US following the crisis in the sub-prime mortgage lending, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Roger Bootle: House prices will fall

The sub-prime mortgage crisis in full

Mortgage lenders pull 40 per cent of deals

The Washington-based fund identified the UK as among the most susceptible economies in Europe to a housing market correction.

	IMF warns of house price correction

"Housing markets have boomed in a number of fast-growing economies, most notably Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with rapid price rises and sharp increases in residential investment relative to GDP [gross domestic product] exceeding even those observed during the US housing boom," the IMF said in its closely-watched world economic outlook.

"Given that rapid increases in some countries have raised concerns about possible excesses, some cooling seems desirable, if it does not go too far too fast. But could a housing correction in western Europe be as deep as in the United States? [Our analysis] suggests that the extent of house price overvaluation may be considerably larger in some national markets in Europe than in the United States, and there would clearly be a sizable impact on the housing markets in the event of a widespread credit crunch."

BRUSSELS, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's admission to the WTO should lay the groundwork for closer economic integration with the European Union, the EU trade chief said Wednesday.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said Russian President Vladimir Putin should clear the remaining obstacles for Russia's WTO membership and iron out trade issues with the European Union before his second, and last presidential term comes to an end next year.

"We should strive to resolve the remaining issues between us ahead of next week's EU-Russia summit in Mafra [Portugal]," he said.

Poland said Monday it could bar Russia's entry to the WTO if Moscow fails to lift the 2005 embargo imposed on imports of meat and agricultural products.

Russia imposed a temporary ban on meat products and fruit and vegetable deliveries from Poland in November 2005, saying Polish companies re-exported the products from third countries representing a threat to sanitary standards.

Demanding that Russia lift the embargo, Poland blocked talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between Russia and the EU. The current agreement expires in December.

Another issue is the EU's plan to limit Russian business operations in its energy market.

Moscow said last Friday it will ask the WTO to protect its interests if the EU passes laws restricting Russian energy companies' operations on its territory.

EU officials said the bloc's trade relationship with China is "deeply unequal" and have urged Beijing to take action on resolving currency disputes and dismantling barriers for European imports.

European officials adopted an unusually strident tone this week on Chinese trade policies, saying Brussels may rethink its relatively soft approach towards China if Beijing doesn't move to correct a growing trade imbalance with the EU.

 

In a letter to the president of the European Commission, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson suggested that China took business in Europe for granted, the BBC reported on Wednesday, Oct. 17.

DutchNews.nl

Verdonk is 'Proud of the Netherlands'

17-10-2007

Former Liberal (VVD) integration minister Rita Verdonk has launched a new political movement with the name Trots op Nederland (proud of the Netherlands).

Verdonk, who left the VVD this week, said the movement would focus on social problems such as traffic jams, care of the elderly, education and immigration.

Now I need to update the Dutch political spectrum. Again.

After a poor result in the nationwide local elections, the Socialist Left Party (SV) has decided to change its line-up of government ministers.

SV, a minority partner along with the agrarian Center Party, in the Labour dominated 'red-green alliance', will make farmer party leader Erik Solheim Minister of the Environment, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports.

Aftenposten and NRK report the possibility of Solheim becoming a 'superminister' as he has made it clear that he does not want to leave his current post as Minister of International Development, and is so likely to get a post combining the two jobs.

President Hugo Chavez has proposed slashing Venezuela's working day to six hours to turn its socialist revolution into a paradise of leisure - with one exception.

Under a new draft constitution debated in congress this week everyone will have more time for recreation and relaxation. Everyone, that is, except Mr Chavez.

As part of the same package of changes presidential term limits will be abolished, allowing Mr Chavez, who seldom seems to sleep or take time off, to continue his hyperactivity for some time to come.

Critics say the two proposals are directly related: the six-hour proposal is a populist sweetener to ease the constitution's passage in a December referendum which will give the president the right to stand for continuous re-election. They have also criticised a proposal to suspend due process in "emergencies", allowing citizens to be detained without charge.

At what's believed to be the world's largest cemetery, where Shiite Muslims aspire to be buried and millions already have been, business isn't good.

A drop in violence around Iraq has cut burials in the huge Wadi al Salam cemetery here by at least one-third in the past six months, and that's cut the pay of thousands of workers who make their living digging graves, washing corpses or selling burial shrouds.

Few people have a better sense of the death rate in Iraq .

Dhurgham Majed al Malik, 48, whose family has arranged burial services for generations, said that this spring, private cars and taxis with caskets lashed to their roofs arrived at a rate of 6,500 a month. Now it's 4,000 or less, he said.

Malik said that the daily tide of cars bearing coffins has been a barometer of Iraq's violence for years. The number of burials rose and fell several times during Saddam Hussein's persecution of Shiites, and it soared again during the eight years of the Iran - Iraq war in the 1980s.

Then in the 1990s, the daily average fell to 150 or less, Malik said. With the current war, the burials again reached 300 daily.

In the early days of the war, some bodies brought for burial had been victims of Saddam, found by their families in unmarked mass graves. Later, there were surges; September 2005 marked a high point after a stampede during a Shiite Muslim festival killed hundreds on a Baghdad bridge. More than 1,300 were buried in a single day, Malik said.

A graph from AP via The Boston Globe:

Iraqi deaths fell by 50% last month US forces' toll lowest since August '06

President George W Bush today warned that world leaders risk helping bring about "World War Three" unless they do more to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons.

David Blair: No warmth or trust behind the handshake

Leader: Vladimir Putin in Teheran

In remarks timed to coincide with Russian president Vladimir Putin's visit to Teheran, Mr Bush said the Islamic republic must remain isolated until it drops its nuclear ambitions.

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel," Mr Bush told a White House press conference.

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Mr Bush's pointed statement follows the warm words exchanged by Mr Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, at an historic summit in Teheran this week.

After their meeting Mr Putin repeated Moscow's line that there is no evidence to suggest Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb, and pledged to continue helping the country develop its civil nuclear technology.

Britain plans to submit a claim to the United Nations to extend its Antarctic territory by a million square kilometres, the foreign office said on Wednesday.

The claim is one of five territorial requests planned by the Britain ahead of a May 2009 deadline and covers a vast area of the seabed around British Antarctica near the south pole, a spokesperson said.

"We are one of many coastal states who are submitting various claims," she told Reuters.

She said the four other claims would be for Atlantic seabed territory around South Georgia and the Falkland Islands, around Ascension Island, near the Bay of Biscay in the south-west Atlantic, and in the Hatton-Rockall basin off Scotland's coast.

The claim to extend British sovereignty in Antarctica could spark disputes with South American nations such as Argentina and Chile, who are likely to make overlapping claims in the region.

Few regional summits have drawn closer attention, by both the media and world governments, than this week's summit of leaders of Caspian littoral states in Tehran.

The two day summit, coinciding with twin nuclear crises and escalating US-Iran tensions relating to Iraq and the Middle East, is bound to be regarded as a milestone in regional cooperation, with serious ramifications for a broad array of issues transcending the Caspian Sea region.

Billed as a "great leap toward progress" by Mehdi Safari, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Iran's Caspian affairs, the summit has been a great success for Iran as well as Russia and the other participants (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), and Tehran is likely to capitalize on it as a stepping stone for full membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), considered a security counterweight to NATO and US "hegemony".

The number of new homes being built in the US fell by 10.2% in September - worse than had been expected.

And applications for building permits, seen as an indicator of future demand, also dropped sharply, down 7.2%.

Analysts say the Commerce Department report reflects ever-deepening troubles in the US housing market.

The data put the number of new homes constructed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.19 million units. Permit requests fell to 1.23 million.

Currency traders were given a green light to continue selling the US dollar on Wednesday, as the International Monetary Fund said the greenback "remains overvalued" and rejected claims the euro had risen too far.

Contradicting Rodrigo Rato, the outgoing IMF managing director, who last week said "right now the dollar is undervalued", the fund's staff conclude the dollar is still too high. The multilateral lender also forecast slower growth in 2008 at 4.75 per cent, compared with 5.2 per cent expected this year.

The IMF's new stance on the dollar will counter the arguments to the contrary made by France and some other eurozone members at this weekend's meetings of the Group of Seven leading economies and the IMF's governing body. They have been urging a change in language to temper the fall in the dollar, which dropped by more than 4 per cent against the euro in September alone.

The IMF, however, has little sympathy for struggling eurozone exporters hit by the currency's rise. It says that even after its recent rise, the euro "continues to trade in a range broadly consistent with medium-term fundamentals".

The Air Force has decided to relieve at least five of its officers of command and is considering filing criminal charges in connection with the Aug. 29 "Bent Spear" incident in which nuclear-armed cruise missiles were mistakenly flown from North Dakota to Louisiana, two senior Air Force officials said yesterday.

Although senior Defense Department officials have not been fully briefed on the results of an Air Force probe of the incident, the sources said that at least one colonel is expected to lose his position and that several enlisted personnel will also be punished as part disciplinary actions that could be among the toughest meted out by the Air Force in years.

The measures are expected to be formally announced tomorrow along with the detailed findings of an internal, six-week investigation into how a B-52 bomber crew mistakenly flew from one military air base to another with six nuclear warheads strapped to its wings. Air Force veterans have described the Aug. 29 incident as the one of the worst breaches in U.S. nuclear weapons security in decades.

A senior Air Force official familiar with the investigation said officers will be relieved at both installations involved in the incident: Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and Barksdale Air Force Base, La. A colonel commanding one of the Air Force wings is likely to be the highest-ranking officer to be relieved, the official said.

In addition, the official said, letters of reprimand will be issued to several enlisted service members. The personnel actions may be followed by criminal charges against one or more people, but that course of action is still being discussed at the highest levels of the Air Force, he added. The most likely such charge, he said, would be either dereliction of duty or willful disobedience of an order.

which reminds me... I forgot to post this story the other day....

U.S. Missile Goes Astray in Qatar

A U.S. Army unit mistakenly launched a Patriot PAC-3 antiaircraft missile from an American base in the Persian Gulf country of Qatar, U.S. military officials said.

The PAC-3 missile, an upgraded version of the Patriot, landed nearby on a farm and caused no damage, the Qatari military said, according to a statement carried by the Qatar News Agency. The land, about four miles north of the base at Camp As Sayliyah, may be owned by Qatari royal Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, said an official at Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.

But Army Lt. Col. Holly Silkman, a spokeswoman for the Central Command in Qatar, said she did not think the land was owned by Thani.

"It was an unexplained and accidental launch," she said. "It is under investigation."

Military officials were reluctant to discuss the incident, partly because it is embarrassing and partly because the government of Qatar prefers that the U.S. military maintains a low profile in that country.

"Goes astray."

Oops.  Again.

On Oct. 15, prices passed the previous all-time inflation- adjusted record reached in 1981, when Iran cut oil exports. The cost of oil used by U.S. refiners averaged $37.48 a barrel in March 1981, according to the Energy Department, or $84.73 in today's dollars.

How the hell have they calculated that?

Using September 2007 and March 1981 CPI, I get $88.40. (And using average spot prices, the actual maximum is April 1980, at $101.67 in Sep 2007 dollars.) I only get close using the annual 2006 and the April 1981 CPI. Or maybe they used another deflator?

Or some extra-strange typo? Note that $37.48 and $84.73 are mirror images.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Contemporary artists in Germany are showing their solidarity with Human Rights Watch by donating works for an auction in Berlin. The non-governmental organization hopes to raise upwards of €90,000 with the sale.

"Regenwald, Tropical Island" by Haubitz+Zoche is one of the works going under the hammer for a good cause. The starting price is €1,800. At the Berlin Art Fair this past September, the gliteratti were in full swing. Among the thousands of new artworks on display was a massive, wall-sized painting that showed various sized people -- modeled on photographs of African tribal figures -- inside a tiny architectural space. The painting, which was made by Jonas Burgert, 38, sold for €120,000 ($170,532).

Burgert was discovered in Berlin just over a year ago. His work is now collected throughout the world, from Denver to Dubai, making him one of the hottest young artists working in Germany today. But Burgert wants more than just fame. "I have experienced a lot of success recently," he says. "I want to give something back."

Using his little center in Oakland, Mr. [Van] Jones [who heads the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California] has been on a crusade to help underprivileged African-Americans and other disadvantaged communities understand why they would be the biggest beneficiaries of a greener America. It's about jobs. The more government requires buildings to be more energy efficient, the more work there will be retrofitting buildings all across America with solar panels, insulation and other weatherizing materials. Those are manual-labor jobs that can't be outsourced.

"You can't take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then have them do it and send it back," said Mr. Jones. "So we are going to have to put people to work in this country -- weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone who has not gone to college." <...>

"If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they'll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors," said Mr. Jones. "The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people -- while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country."

A Bavarian model-car manufacturer is dreaming big, planning to put the boxy East German Trabant back on the road with a new version. But is nostalgia enough to sell one of history's most-maligned cars?

Between BMW's new Mini, the Volkswagen Bug, and the recently announced comeback of the Fiat 500, the market for underpowered classics from the past has never been hotter. But is it hot enough to bring back the most-mocked, least-loved car to ever grace the autobahns of Germany?

A model manufacturer in Bavaria thinks the answer may be yes. Herpa, better known for its 1:87 scale models of sports cars and classic autos, is hoping to take advantage of the trend with an unlikely entry: a full-sized car based on the boxy East German Trabant.

"It's catastrophic!" Duncan McFetridge flings his arms out. "Look, can't you see the change?"

Several years ago, when I last came here to the Cleveland National Forest outside of Descanso, McFetridge's cabin nestled in a deep-shaded dell. His horse, pony, and mule didn't stray, at least through the heat of the day, from the cool of his coastal live oaks' canopy.

Now the mule stands dazed in the unremitting sun. But it's not the mule we're looking at. We're looking at the skeletons rising 60, 80 feet in the air. McFetridge's oaks. Nearly all dead.

"Welcome to the new normal," says McFetridge. "This is our future, right here.

"You see that ranch?" He points across the valley. Scattered forest grows up small mountains that lead your eye to the sacred peak of Guatay. "They've lost 80 percent of their oaks. It's been a die-off. We get 30 inches of rain up here. Down on the coast you get 10. The trees aren't stupid. Summer rain is why the forest is here. We always used to get summer rain. Now we're getting none. Once this forest went clear to the ocean. Now it's retreating upslope, following the moisture."

Along the bottom of the valley below us, the Sweetwater River is just a green blush of growth. "This used to run all year round, till about five years ago," he says. "We have a drought, and yet people have been water-mining the mountains, pumping water out of places like Mount Laguna day and night [to sell to commercial water companies]. And the effect is absolutely measurable. The water table, the streams have dropped down."

McFetridge is a gangly, clean-jawed woodsman with heavy, overhanging Scottish eyebrows and a light gleaming out from his eyes that swings between engaging humor and righteous passion. He is a sought-out cabinetmaker who specializes in Chinese furniture, but he's most famous for being a pain in the butt for developers, county officials, planners, and pen pushers who want to expand exurbia into the countryside. He's also president of the never-cry-uncle organization Save Our Forests and Ranchlands.

"You just watch the trees struggle, day after day," he says. "And if you're not careful, you stop noticing. Then one day you see your animals sweating in the sun, and you know something big and bad is going on."

Some of the trees that are still alive weep a black goo, a sure sign the bark beetle and root rot are finishing them off.

The article is long but interesting, on the effects of global warming on flora and fauna in San Diego County, the cuts in water service to SD next year, and the current drought in the U.S. Southwest.

GALICE, Ore. -- A 1990s' truce that quieted the bitter wars between loggers and environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest is in danger of collapse.

With that truce, made final in 1994 by the Clinton administration, the northern spotted owl, a threatened species, seemed to be getting the breathing space it needed to regroup. While some land was opened to loggers, nearly twice as much was set aside for owls' hunting grounds. But more than a decade later, their numbers continue to decline faster than expected.

Now the truce, the Northwest Forest Plan, is in jeopardy as one of the parties to it, the Bureau of Land Management, is rethinking its participation. It is proposing a threefold increase in logging on its 2.2 million acres in western Oregon, with greater increases in the old-growth stands that are the owls' preferred territory. The land agency's action would reduce by 10 percent the territory covered by the Northwest Forest Plan.

With the agency's proposal, it seems that the timber industry, which never stopped pressing for access to more trees than the Northwest Forest Plan allowed, is getting what it had long sought in court.

[...]

But environmentalists and scientists argue that the agency's proposal will torpedo the whole Northwest Forest Plan, which encompassed 24 million acres, and damage the spotted owl's chances for survival.

Fear not, fellow Americans! In these dark days of war, pestilence and Paris Hilton, a new hero has arisen. She is none other than 75-year-old Mona "The Hammer" Shaw, who took the aforementioned implement to her local Comcast office in Manassas to settle a score, and boy, did she!

Oh. My. God.

I love this woman.

Activists arrested during an anti-terrorist sweep across New Zealand were planning a war in which white people would die, according to documents released Wednesday.

Police arrested 17 people on Monday and recovered several weapons during a series of raids targeting Maori and environmental activists.

At a bail hearing for one of the arrested men, Jamie Lockett, prosecutors said he had sent a series of text messages saying he intended to launch a war.

The messages, intercepted by police, were said to include "White men are going to die in this country" and "I'm declaring war on this country very soon."

[Prominent] Maori activist Tame Iti was also preparing to declare war, according to police documents reported in the Dominion Post newspaper.

Maori Say New Zealand Anti-Terror Raids Hinder Race Relations.

Which age are we living in?

The number I have is 0844 844 884 - though this is the German access, however, they might speak English. When there is the announcement you have to wait a moment until it is finished and then push 2 and tap in your phone number and # at the end - this should lead you to a technician. Thanks!

Barack Obama makes much of his varied heritage. His father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas. But there is one element of his family history that has remained obscure: his eighth cousin is Dick Cheney. The revelation that the man promising a new style of politics is related to a vice-president credited with an unprecedented attempt to consolidate the power of old politics was made by Mr Cheney's wife.

Lynne Cheney told an interviewer that she discovered the connection between her husband and the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination while researching a memoir of growing up in Wyoming, entitled Blue Skies, No Fences, although she did not include this fact in her memoir. She said that the two were both descended from a man who moved to Wyoming from Maryland.

Kann ein Schnellzug einen Achterbahn-Looping fahren? Wir haben sehr junge Ingenieure gefunden, die es beweisen

Integrity and fair-dealing are the basics of good business - fake that and you've got it made

It is quite refreshing.