Ever since Nicolas Sarkozy became French president, he has been bewildering the German government with one controversial idea after another. The latest shocker? The new man in Paris has offered German Chancellor Angela Merkel French nuclear weapons.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy didn't mention the bomb right away. Instead, he took a little detour by way of atomic energy: Whoever is serious about averting global warming should build more nuclear power plants, he told Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier... Then came the surprise offer.

Seeing as they were discussing the benefits of all things atomic, the French president continued, he had another suggestion as well: Because the French nuclear umbrella protected France's neighbors as well as La Grande Nation itself, perhaps the Germans would consider taking a political stake in the French atomic arsenal?

Both the chancellor and her foreign minister were speechless. The idea of possessing nuclear weapons is taboo in Germany. Sarzoky's predecessor Jacques Chirac cautiously brought up the issue 12 years ago, but he quickly realized it was pointless to pursue it.

Steinmeier was the first to regain his composure, explaining that Germany did not seek to become a nuclear power, which is why the country had signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1975. Merkel offered a friendly smile and backed up her foreign minister.

Just what the world needs is more nuclear weapons proliferation.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - An EU court has upheld a European Commission decision to fine software giant Microsoft €497 million for abusing its dominant market position and to order the US-based company to share information on its programming systems.

The EU's second highest court - the Court of First Instance (CFI) - on Monday (17 September) went against Microsoft's appeal case to annul the EU executive's 2004 decision, with Brussels calling it an "important precedent" for other antitrust cases.

"The court...essentially upholds the commission's decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position," the CFI stated, adding that it had annulled certain parts of the decision relating to the appointment of a so-called "monitoring trustee", which it said had no legal basis in EU law.

The EU executive welcomed the ruling. Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said that the judgment "confirms the objectivity and the credibility of the commission's competition policy."

The German defense minister's comments about shooting down hijacked planes set off a burst of political squabbling. But the debate raises important issues, even if it's motivated by political maneuvering, observers say.

Politicians of all stripes have taken the opportunity to comment on German Defense Minster Franz Josef Jung's statement to Focus magazine on Sunday, Sept. 16, that he would give the command to shoot down a hijacked passenger plane, though such an order has been ruled illegal by Germany's highest court.

 

Leaders from the opposition Greens have called for his dismissal or at least for public chastisement while his colleagues in Christian Democratic Union (CDU) have tended to back him up by calling for a re-examination of constitutional questions in the face of a modern terrorist threat.

 

Also on Sunday, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the risk of a terror attack remains high in Germany, and that the country is "in the sights of Islamist terrorism."

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS - The EU ombudsman has criticised the European commission for not dealing with a citizen's complaint concerning the implementation of working time rules for doctors, a sensitive issue in several member states.

The case is almost six years old and concerns a German doctor who complained to the commission that Germany was breaching an EU directive on working time, particularly regarding doctors and their time spent on call.

The complainant argued that Germany was not respecting EU jurisprudence under which the time spent on call should be counted as working time.

Consequently, German doctors were overloaded and their health as well as the health of their patients were at risk, said the complainant.

The Dutch government is struggling to take a decision on whether to hold a referendum on the EU's Reform Treaty.

In a meeting on Friday (14 September), the Dutch cabinet decided to postpone the tricky decision by one week after discussing a key report by the Council of State, the Dutch government's highest advisory body.

The Council of State last week said in an opinion that there is no legal requirement for a referendum since the new EU treaty does not include "constitutional" elements.

Europe minister Frans Timmermans said after Friday's meeting that the government had had a "good discussion" on the Council of State report. "But good and very extensive advice also deserves a good and careful reaction," he stated according to ANP press agency.

A senior French official has raised the question of scrapping a clause in the French constitution which says that future enlargement of European Union should first be voted on in a referendum.

"Should we maintain or erase this clause?", Jean-Pierre Jouyet, France's state secretary for European affairs, asked last week in front of the Balladur committee - a high-level committee on institutional reform set up by French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

"This could put France into difficulty as regards countries which have an indisputable and undisputed vocation to join the EU, such as Macedonia or the Balkans", he said, Le Figaro reports.

"France would risk blocking [their] membership process, while all the conditions would be present", he went on to say.

The British government on Monday night stepped in to guarantee the savings of customers of the beleaguered Northern Rock bank as it moved to prevent panic from gripping the entire UK banking sector.

Alistair Darling, chancellor of the exchequer, pledged the government would fully guarantee people's savings and the Treasury said similar assurances would be available to customers of any other lender that ran into difficulty in the current turmoil.

Customers queued in their thousands to withdraw money from the mortgage lender for a third day and the stock market showed signs of fear spreading to other banks.

The government's move, which goes far beyond the current scheme for protecting depositors, came amid signs that the crisis of confidence in Northern Rock was spreading to other lenders. Shares in Alliance & Leicester, Britain's eighth-biggest bank, plunged more than 30 per cent after fears - denied by the bank - that it had been forced to follow Northern Rock in calling on the Bank of England for support.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner says the world should prepare for war over Iran's nuclear programme.

"We have to prepare for the worst, and the worst is war," Mr Kouchner said in an interview on French TV and radio.

He was speaking ahead of a visit to Russia on Monday, during which Iran is likely to feature prominently.

Iran's nuclear programme will also be one of the main issues for the UN nuclear watchdog's annual conference, starting in Vienna on Monday.

Iran denies it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and says it only wants nuclear power to generate electricity for civilian purposes.

The authorities in Ukraine have approved a giant steel cover for the radioactive site of the world's worst nuclear disaster - Chernobyl.

Ukraine has hired a French firm to build the structure to replace the crumbling concrete casing put over the reactor after the 1986 accident.

The casing project is expected to cost $1.4bn (£700m).

It will take five years to complete and the authorities say they will then be able to start dismantling the reactor.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko hailed the project:

"Today is probably the first time that we can openly look into the eyes of the national and international community and say that a solution to the problem that has long been called the Chernobyl problem was formally found," he said.

BERLIN: In its latest bid to inject more competition into Europe's energy market, the European Commission plans to propose measures to make national regulators more independent so they can better resist an opposing push by companies for greater concentration.

The directive, scheduled to be introduced Wednesday by Andris Piebalgs, the European energy commissioner, would also include for the first time a "solidarity clause," which would strongly encourage - but not require - regional assistance for any EU member whose supplies were threatened.

Among other things, the directive also would require greater transparency about the share-holding structure of European energy companies and limit the term of a national energy regulator to five years.

The measures reflect a growing frustration on the commission's part that legislation it has introduced over the past five years has not yet led to a genuinely open and competitive market across the 27-country EU.

Key eurozone members are set to remind France it must cut its public deficit, a German press report said on Monday.

The eurozone countries, which were not identified, would send a written warning to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, pressing him to tighten the government's budget discipline, the Financial Times Deutschland said, without naming its sources.

The warning would take the form of a European Commission procedure, a so-called "political counsel," which the newspaper described as "declaration of war."

The recently adopted procedure is reportedly the most restrictive available to the commission with regard to countries that appear unable to meet fiscal rules laid down in the European Union's Stability and Growth Pact.

(Translation and errors mine)

More than a majority of French people (57%) believe that the government's economic policy is a good one, and 69% of them are favorable to France's special pension systems for retirees [régimes spéciaux de retraite], according to a BVA poll.

The proportion of individuals polls who were satisfied with the government's economic policy of François Fillon is the same as that recorded in the last survey conducted in June, noted a report for Les Echos and BFM Radio.

The proportion of those polled who were favorable to "a reform of the special pension systems for certain categories of civil servants in order to bring them into line with the general pension system" fell from 72% in April to 69%.

68% of those asked considered this reform "bold, for it shows well the government's desire to reform the country significantly ["deeply"]", though 69% think it "risky, for it could provoke strikes that risk paralyzing the country as in 1995."

This monthly* poll was conducted on September 14 and 15 over a sample of 1002 people, several hours before a speech that the president Nicolas Sarkozy was to deliver on social issues, in particular, on retirement.

*Not sure what baromètre mensuel meant.

Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read or write.

For those speaking German, read this op-ed and weep:

Grünen-Parteitag: Abschied von Fischers Außenpolitik - Politik - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten

No coalition with the CDU, what a tragedy. But Kleinert is right about the conservative reaction: the general secretary of the CDU's Bavarian  sister, the CSU, commented the event foaming at the mouth, declaring that the Greens "betrayed" Joschka Fischer!... He just can't think of a party not built as the feudal fiefdom of its leader (like his is).

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

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, apologised to the Iraqi government yesterday in an attempt to prevent the expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA.

The ministry of interior yesterday took the decision to expel Blackwater after eight Iraqi civilians were killed and 13 wounded in Baghdad when shots were fired from a US state department convoy on Sunday.

Diplomats, engineers and other westerners in Iraq rely heavily on protection by Blackwater. The Iraqi decision created confusion on the ground, with uncertainty over whether protection was still available and whether Blackwater staff should leave the country immediately.

Ms Rice called the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, to apologise for the shooting. They agreed to run a "fair and transparent investigation", according to a statement from Mr Maliki's office.

Thousands of people braved scorching sunshine in central Tokyo to hear speeches by the two men campaigning to become Japan's next prime minister in the oddest election in the country's recent history.

One of the candidates has already conceded defeat and the other says he is too old to be leader. But both say they are running because their party, which has governed Japan for half a century, is standing at the edge of the abyss.

Taro Aso, a former foreign minister, has admitted he has no chance of beating his rival, Yasuo Fukuda, and replacing Shinzo Abe, who is in hospital. "I have decided to run if only for the sake of holding an open election," Mr Aso told Japanese television.

For some conservatives, that admission was a huge disappointment. As Japan absorbed the shock of Mr Abe's abrupt resignation last week, Mr Aso was briefly the frontrunner to lead the Liberal Democrats (LDP) out of perhaps its worst crisis in 50 years. But the swashbuckling 66-year-old, as famous for his controversial bon mots as his obsession with manga comics, has been politically hobbled by his association with the deeply unpopular outgoing Prime Minister.

How Bush will get a very conservative man confirmed as new attorney general by a Democratic Senate:

1. Secretly pick a very conservative candidate.
2. Launch rumors of recommending other, more divisive and nutty candidates, Theodore B. Olson and Michael Chertoff, who have obviously no chance of being confirmed.
3. Let the Dems prance against those.
4. Pull out the 'compromise' candidate, retired federal judge Michael B. Mukasey
5. Let Fred Hiatt rant against the candidate for not being conservative enough.
6. Bribe a 'moderate' Democrat, Senator Schumer, to your side.
7. Point to the candidates 'terrorism experience'.
8. See the Democrats fold.

New report reveals 25% rise in murders of trade unionists

In 2006, 144 trade unionists were murdered for defending workers' rights, while more than 800 suffered beatings or torture, according to a worldwide survey released today by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The `Survey of Violations of Trade Unions Rights' uncovers a shocking increase in anti-trade union violence, with the number of murders rising from 115 in 2005 to 144 in 2006. The increase is due in part to the brutal treatment of trade unionists in the Philippines, now the second most dangerous place in the world, after Colombia. A total of 33 murders and 130 instances of trade union and human rights violations were reported in the Philippines last year.

The ITUC survey reveals that anti-trade union repression is taking place in every continent across the globe, including Europe. Nearly 5,000 arrests were reported along with more than 8,000 dismissals of workers because of their trade union activities. Reported anti-trade union repression represents the tip of the iceberg as the vast majority of suffering goes unreported for fear of reprisals, say the report.

Colombia remains the most perilous place in the world to be in a trade union, with 78 killings reported in 2006. Just one per cent of murders over the last decade resulted in conviction, showing the impunity with which the Colombian paramilitary death squads are able to operate. Between 1994 and 2006, of the 1,165 murders documented, only 56 perpetrators have been brought to trial and only 14 have been sentenced.

The ITUC report also identifies worrying developments in Europe. Less than one in ten European companies fully respect the right of unions to organise and engage in bargaining. Many governments in Eastern Europe, including Russia, Georgia and Belarus have recently enacted labour legislation to restrict trade union rights.

Leonard Cohen famously sang "First we'll take Manhattan, then we'll take Berlin." Now many New York artists are doing just that, turning their backs on excessive rents and the stifling conservativism of the post-9/11 city to carve out a niche for themselves in the thriving Berlin art scene.

When David Krepfle left his small hometown in Iowa and moved to New York in 1989, he had $100 in his pocket and dreams of becoming an artist. He found a loft in the Brooklyn neighborhood known as DUMBO ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass"). Back then, it was the kind of area where nobody cared if he used a chainsaw to make his art -- even if he did often get chased by thieves on the way home from the subway.

But over the years, as the neighborhood became the hippest place to live in New York, Krepfle's rent grew and it became a struggle to keep his home. Then he visited Berlin in 2001 -- and was so impressed that he joined the ranks of the New York artists making the exodus to the German capital.

Venice has decided to ignore its reputation for wedding romance by enforcing a ban on showering newly-weds with rice, in an effort to keep down the city's pigeon population.

Each year more than 1,000 civil marriages are registered at the historic Palazzo Cavalli. But, said the city's police chief Marco Agostini, "throwing rice at the bride and groom brings hordes of pigeons, who then wait around until the next ceremony. The situation has become unbearable."

Article continues There are caculated to be 40,000 pigeons in the historic centre. Besides the cost of cleaning up droppings, it has been discovered that pigeons are causing dangerous cracks in buildings. Offering them food spiked with contraceptives has produced scant results in cutting their numbers. A city spokeswoman said: "The rice ban was already on the books, but there will be no more turning a blind eye for weddings since it was calculated that every new-born Venetian is lumbered with an annual tax of €275 (£191) to clean up after pigeons."

The mayor, Massimo Cacciari, is also trying to ban the sale of grain to feed pigeons in St Mark's Square, despite opposition from animal rights groups and the sellers themselves, who have refused to move. "The square is not a hen-house and you can't have pigeon's droppings all over the place," Mr Agostini said. "The square is washed and cleaned up weekly, but it's not enough."