In their obsession to fight old communist networks, Poland's ruling Kaczynski twins have even begun probing their own ranks. But their plan to stage a "moral revolution" is dividing the country.

With the second chamber of the Polish parliament currently in recess, Senator Zbigniew Romaszewski sits down in his office under a portrait of Józef Pilsudski. His sable at his side, the moustache-sporting marshal who led Poland into independence after World War I stares out into a cloud of smoke from Romaszewski's cigarette.

The rings under the senator's eyes are a visible reminder of his past hardships. As a dissident, he was arrested several times in the 1970s. "Once in November," he says, "I was taken to a basement cell. Someone opened the windows, and I was forced to endure freezing temperatures for the next 48 hours."

In 1981, when the country's communist government, under General Wojciech Jaruzelski, imposed martial law to stifle the protest movement led by the Solidarnosc trade union, Romaszewski was sent to prison for two years. He fled while on parole, hiding in friends' apartments and establishing the underground Radio Solidarnosc, and repeatedly managed to escape recapture. "But the fear of arrest was terrible," he says. The officer who was in charge of persecuting the dissident Zbigniew Romaszewski embarked on an illustrious career after the communist government was overthrown in 1989. He became a general in the country's border protection force, and later took the position of head of security at PKN Orlen, a Polish oil company. "This is typical of the situation in Poland today," says the senator. "Be it police officers, intelligence agents or judges -- the entire power structure of the communist regime was left untouched."

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, last night promoted his close ally Sergei Ivanov to the position of first deputy prime minister in his clearest hint yet that he regards Mr Ivanov as his most likely successor. Mr Putin elevated Mr Ivanov from the post of defence minister.

The shift puts Mr Ivanov in the same position as Dmitry Medvedev, also seen as a leading contender for the Kremlin's endorsement in next year's presidential elections. In a televised announcement last night Mr Putin praised Mr Ivanov lavishly, saying he "has fulfilled the tasks he faced as defence minister and fulfilled them successfully". Kremlin analysts said Mr Ivanov was likely to be made prime minister in six months' time, putting him one step away from the presidency.

Last night's reshuffle comes amid a sharp deterioration in relations between Russia and the west and follows Mr Putin's broadside last weekend in Munich against the US, which he accused of seeking to be the sole power centre in a "world of one master, one sovereign".

The 27 EU nations on Thursday moved towards a common energy policy, agreeing on cleaner fuel targets while watering down a proposal to force the break up of the sector into production and distribution operators.

"We have made a breakthrough and we have now adopted a draft energy action plan," said German Economy Minister Michael Glos, who chaired the meeting.

The energy ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels that bio-fuels should constitute at least 10 percent of fuels used in new vehicles by 2020.

But that 10 percent target will be subject to bio-fuels being available in sufficient quantities for commercial use, and for the necessary legal changes to be made.

"The binding character of this target is subject to production being sustainable, to second generation biofuels becoming commercially available and the fuel quality directive being amended accordingly to allow for adequate levels of blending," the ministers agreed.

Seeking to combat terrorism, cross-border crime and illegal migration, European member states on Thursday agreed on new plans to give each other access to their police databases.

German interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble hailed the decision as a major step to improve to police cooperation, security in freedom in the 27-member EU bloc, of which Germany is the current holder of the presidency.

The joint decision to set up a network of national crime records to improve data exchange will give all member states access to other countries' DNA and fingerprint data, as well as direct online access to vehicle registries.

Under the new rules, police services can ask their colleagues in another country to find out whether they have data matching the profile of a suspected criminal offender.

Info on terrorists, criminals and hooligans to be shared

It also includes the exchange of personal information about potential terrorists and about violent offenders, such as soccer hooligans traveling to matches in other countries.

Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and The Netherlands already adopted the rules in 2005.

Ségolène Royal suffered another setback in her campaign to become France's first woman president on Thursday after one of her top advisers resigned.

Ms Royal's aides said Eric Besson, the Socialist party's national secretary for the economy and tax, resigned after a disagreement over when to reveal the cost of her manifesto promises.

Mr Besson, who was responsible for putting a price tag on the manifesto, defied others in Ms Royal's team by announcing it would cost €35bn ($46bn, £23.4bn). Others in the campaign team had wanted to delay releasing the figure.

Her manifesto pledges increases for the minimum wage, small pensions, and education, health and justice, while upping state hand-outs for research, first-time housebuyers and the young.

Mr Besson said he wanted to spend more time in his constituency and the town of Donzère, where he is mayor. But a spokesman for Ms Royal said he left after clashing with François Hollande, her party leader, partner and father of their four children.

A far-right political party has objected to the appointment of two Muslims to the Dutch cabinet because they have dual nationalities, but withdrew the motion later.

Ahmed Aboutaleb and Nebahat Albayrak were to become the ministers for social affairs and integration respectively in the new government being formed by the prime minister.

They would be the first Dutch cabinet members who are Muslim.

An opposition member of parliament for the nationalist Freedom party, Sieste Fritsma, said the two should be barred because they have second nationalities - Aboutaleb also holds Moroccan citizenship, and Albayrak Turkish.

Fritsma said they "remain the servant of two different countries and that can lead to conflicting interests, and that's why it's necessary to oppose this."

His remarks were interrupted by an uproar of protest from MPs across the political spectrum until he was cut off by the gavel of the parliamentary chairwoman, Gerdi Verbeet.

Note that the city council of Amsterdam, owning over 24% of the shares, blocked the full liberalisation of Schiphol which (VVD) Minister Zalm was vehemently pushing. Schiphol is a good example of successful state-owned business, seems to me.

US Senate panel approves bill for visa-free travel for citizens from CEE (bne, sub. only)

A US Senate panel on Thursday approved legislation that could lead to visa-free travel to the United States for citizens from Eastern European nations, Latvian News Agency reported.

The bill endorsed by the Homeland Security Committee would allow U.S. President George W Bush to designate which countries to include in the visa waiver program based on their cooperation in the war on terrorism.

The bill still must be approved by the full Senate, and a similar measure must pass in the lower House of Representatives before Bush can sign it into law.

Ahtisaari to meet NATO officials
Appathurai said that "NATO is ready to take action and react if necessary". The North Atlantic Council is not concerned with the Kosovo status in political terms, but rather with "what may pose a threat to safety in the troubled province", he was quoted as saying.  

vbo: What bloody bastard means by "NATO is ready to take action"??? Didn't you have enough of ILEGAL bombardments of poor country probably hundred times weaker then your alliance?

Announcing a 3,200-troop boost in US forces in Afghanistan, George Bush bluntly warned Nato allies yesterday they must step up their commitment to the war there, ahead of an expected major Taliban offensive when the weather improves in spring.

Returning to the subject of the country which saw the first US military offensive after the 9/11 attacks, Mr Bush declared it was vital that Nato commanders had the wherewithal "to defeat the enemy wherever the enemy may make its stand". And "when [those commanders] said, 'we need additional help', our Nato countries must provide it".

In his speech, at the neoconservative stronghold of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, President Bush was clearly taking aim at the likes of Germany, which does not allow its troops to take the field in the south and east of the country, where Taliban forces are strongest. Nato forces "must have the flexibility and rules of engagement to be able to do their job," he said.

The latest troop increase will boost total US strength in Afghanistan to 27,000, the highest level since the 2001 invasion. Of that number, 15,000 will be deployed as part of the Nato force, with the remainder operating as special forces or as trainers of an Afghan army due to be boosted from the current 32,000 to 70,000 by the end of 2008.

T his weekend, buyers from across the Gulf states and the Middle East will descend on a huge arms fair in Dubai. Sheikhs, emirs, princes and kings will be buying anything from specialised sniper ammunition by the ton, to the highest-tech surveillance gear and even the odd British Aerospace gunboat or Eurofighter.

The Arab world will use the International Defence Exhibition (IDEX), to tool up for a coming confrontation with Iran, and to arm Sunni insurgents to fight Iran's allies in Iraq, the Shia militias.

Even the Bush administration will now admit, under its collective breath of course, that Iraq is in the throes of a full-blown civil war between armed groups of its Sunni and Shia Arab communities, triggered a year ago by the destruction of the al-Laskar mosque in Samara, a revered Shia shrine.

What the American authorities are reluctant to admit, however, is that there are signs that the Sunnis of Saudi Arabia and their allies - including Jordan - have been equipping and training Sunni extremists in Iraq for some time now. Critically, not all the weaponry and munitions have been used against the militants' Shia and Kurdish Iraqi enemies. Some of them - including lethal roadside bombs - have been aimed at US forces.

India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent of the world's population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War.

Foreign ministers from the three emerging giants met in Delhi yesterday to discuss ways to build a more democratic "multipolar world".

It was the second such meeting in the past two years and came after an unprecedented meeting between their respective leaders, Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, during the G8 summit in St Petersburg in July.

It also came only four days after Mr Putin stunned Western officials by railing against American foreign policy at a security conference in Munich.

Venezuela's president has warned that privately owned supermarkets and food storage facilities which hoard food or violate price controls could be nationalised.

Hugo Chavez has accused companies of holding back produce in order to artificially inflate prices.

"If they remain committed to violating the interests of the people, the constitution, the laws, I'm going to take the food storage units, corner stores, supermarkets and nationalise them," Chavez said during a televised broadcast. "So prepare yourselves!"

In recent months, basic goods such as sugar, pasteurised whole milk and meat have been in short supply in supermarkets.

Producers complained that price controls had left them unable to make their businesses profitable forcing the government to end value added tax on basic goods and announce subsidies for producers.

Warehouses raided

Venezuela's consumer protection agency and National Guard have raided warehouses and confiscated tons of food they say vendors were unwilling to sell at the official price. The seized food was then sold at low-cost markets and makeshift distribution centres.

Study Commissioned by AMD Reveals Scope of Annual U.S.
Data Center Energy Consumption: 45 Billion kWh, at Cost of Nearly 3 Billion Dollars

- AMD Calls for Increased Collaboration between Technology Industry and Government Officials to Track and Reduce Energy Consumption -

NEW YORK - Feb. 15, 2007 - In a keynote address at the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit in New York today, Randy Allen, corporate vice president, Server and Workstation Division, AMD (NYSE: AMD), revealed findings from a study that comprehensively calculated, for the first time, the energy consumed by national and global data centers annually. Addressing the need for thorough, credible estimates on data center power use, the study found that in 2005, in the U.S. alone, data centers and their associated infrastructure consumed five million kW of energy, the equivalent of five 1,000 MW power plants.
As a result of the study's startling findings and to demonstrate its commitment to lead the industry to energy-efficient computing, AMD is challenging stakeholders both within and outside the industry to step-up efforts to increase energy efficiency in order to reduce energy consumption and associated costs.

Supported by a grant from AMD and authored by Jonathan Koomey, Ph.D., staff scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor, Stanford University, the study calculates the total power used by servers both in the U.S. and around the world. The study builds on data from analyst firm IDC on the stocks and shipments of servers, as well as measured data and published estimates of the power per unit used by various server models.
The study found that in 2005, total data center electricity consumption in the U.S., including servers, cooling and auxiliary equipment, was approximately 45 billion kWh, resulting in total utility bills amounting to $2.7 billion, with total data center power and electricity consumption for the world estimated to cost $7.2 billion annually. The report also examines the growth in electricity demands since the year 2000, concluding that over the last five years server energy use has doubled.
"Though we have long known that data centers worldwide consume a significant amount of energy, AMD believes Dr. Koomey's findings are a wake-up call not just for the IT industry, but also for global business, government and policy leaders," explained AMD's Allen. "This study demonstrates that unchecked demand for data center energy use can constrain growth and present real business challenges. New generations of energy-efficient servers are now able to help provide IT departments with a path to reduce their energy consumption while still achieving the performance they require."
In his keynote address, Allen acknowledged that ongoing work between industry leaders and governmental agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is helping to identify meaningful steps to reduce IT industry energy consumption. Citing the study's findings, Allen challenged these groups to accelerate their efforts and suggested several next steps to help bring accountability and measurement into tracking the industry's efforts, including:

• Instituting an annual report on energy efficiency in U.S. data centers, to measure progress and determine new opportunities and challenges;
  
• Developing a mechanism to enable businesses, large and small, to measure their own data center efficiency; and
  
• Increasing alignment between government and vendor-neutral industry groups to foster the development of energy-efficient data centers for the future.
  

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) applauds AMD and this latest benchmarking effort to better understand the global impact data centers have on energy consumption," said Andrew Fanara, team leader, U.S. ENERGY STAR Product Specifications, EPA. "We are looking forward to continuing our work with the IT industry to forge new, energy-efficient solutions that benefit both consumers and our global environment."
Dr. Koomey's study was subject to peer review by IT industry, government and energy efficiency policy professionals. AMD plans to share the study's findings at an industry stakeholder workshop in Silicon Valley tomorrow, February 16th. Organized by the EPA, the workshop is designed to explore technical issues relating to a study mandated by the U.S. Congress and requiring the EPA, "to study and promote the use of energy-efficient computer servers in the United States."
"These issues, traditionally thought of as issues reserved for a company's IT department, need to be brought directly into the board room. Our hope is that this study will not only advance this critical industry discussion and help the EPA meet its mandate, but also significantly advance AMD's commitment to lead the industry to energy-efficient computing," said AMD's Allen.
To learn more about the study, please visit: http://enterprise.amd.com/us-en/AMD-Business/Technology-Home/Power-Management.aspx

On Wednesday, DaimlerChrysler announced it was cutting 13,000 jobs in the United States -- on the same day Mercedes workers received hefty bonuses. Even worse, company management may be heading to divorce court.

When the rings were finally exchanged in November of 1998, Jürgen Schrempp, the chairman of the board for the brand new company DaimlerChrysler, gushed about the marriage as a "match made in heaven." On Valentine's Day this year, the two now look as though they might be eyeing divorce court.

The most immediate result of the relationship troubles is a massive cut of 13,000 jobs over the next three years at Chrysler in the United States. With more and more US car buyers turning to smaller and more efficient models from Japan, the US automaker has had difficulty turning a profit in recent years; Chrysler lost €1.1 billion in 2006 (about $1.4 billion). The company on Wednesday said it hoped the slimming down of the workforce would return Chrysler to profitability by 2008.

"We believe that this represents a solid plan to return to profitability and lay the groundwork for a solid future," Chrysler CEO Tom LaSorda told reporters in Auburn Hills, Michigan on Wednesday.

US historians have unveiled a cache of letters detailing how the father of teenage diarist Anne Frank tried to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Europe to the United States in 1941.

The 65 documents, which were found in a New York archive in 2005, show how Otto Frank tried desperately, but ultimately in vain, to flee the Netherlands, where the Nazis had already started deporting Jews to concentration camps.

"As far as I can see, the USA is the only country we could go to. Perhaps you remember that we have two girls. It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for," he wrote in one chilling letter.

"Our own fate is of less importance," he added.

Frank's youngest daughter, Anne, went on to chronicle the details of her teenage life hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam from 1942 until 1944, when she was arrested and transported to a concentration camp, where she later died.

Had she escaped, "Anne Frank could be a 77-year old woman, possibly a writer, living in Boston today," said Richard Breitman, professor of history at the American University, on Wednesday as he revealed the existence of the letters at New York's YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where they were found.

Archaeologists in Ecuador have found evidence that chillies were used in cooking more than 6,000 years ago.

They say that chilli grains found in south-western Ecuador show they were cultivated for trade and cooking much earlier than previously thought.

The findings show it was people in this area who first added the spice to cooking and not those in the highlands of Peru or Mexico as first thought.

The hot new research was published in the journal Science.

These ancient remains of chilli peppers have changed the way scientists think about prehistoric Latin American agriculture and cuisine.

At around 6,000 years old, the chilli grains show that peppers were among the oldest domesticated foods in the hemisphere.

The team of scientists who made the discovery in a tropical lowland area say the spice must have been transported over the Andes to what is now Ecuador as the chillies only grew naturally to the east of the mountain range.

The farmers in that ancient village would have been among the first to domesticate the plant.

TNO Press Release: Seawater: A growing source for drinking water

ATLANTA -- Government scientists struggled Thursday to pinpoint the source of the first U.S. salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter, the kid favorite packed into millions of lunchboxes every day.

Nearly 300 people in 39 states, including Washington and Oregon, have fallen ill since August. Federal health investigators said they strongly suspect Peter Pan peanut butter and certain batches of Wal-Mart's Great Value brand -- both manufactured by ConAgra Foods Inc.

And, no!, I'm not rethinking my stance -- it is NOT the peanut butter's fault!  It's the eeevil corporation! (but perhaps best not to eat any just for a bit...)

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

An oil trading company based in the Netherlands has agreed to pay almost $200 million to the government of Ivory Coast to settle claims that it illegally dumped toxic petrochemical waste in Abidjan last August.

The company, Trafigura, said the payment was not an admission of fault by any party.

Trafigura was a Marc Rich spin off

NEW YORK, Feb 12 (Reuters Life!) - Doing the laundry has taken on a new meaning for New Yorkers who can now watch their wash and spin cycles while listening to poetry and prose.

Instead of burying their head in a book or heading to the nearest coffee shop to beat the boredom of laundry, New York writer Emily Rubin has organised a series of readings called "Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose," at laundromats in New York.

"Just mixing laundry and writing seemed completely natural to me because truly in life and metaphorically as a writer, everyone has dirty laundry," said the Brooklyn native who started the series last year.