The European Commission is launching two new anti-competition investigations against US computer giant Microsoft.

The first will look at whether Microsoft unfairly ties its Explorer internet browser to its Windows operating system.

In a parallel investigation, the Commission will look at the interoperability of Microsoft software with rival products.

Microsoft agreed to comply with Brussels' previous ruling in October.

"This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of an infringement," said the Commission in a statement.

"It only signifies that the Commission will further investigate the case as a matter of priority."

Millions of Ukrainians have queued at banks across the country to claim compensation for bank savings lost in the collapse of communism.

Claimants braved freezing temperatures - with at least two pensioners dying in the process.

Each applicant is able to withdraw a maximum of 1,000 hryvnas ($198; £101).

They are being encouraged to put the money - the equivalent of a month's wages for the average Ukrainian - into a savings account.

Economists have warned that a sudden cash injection into the economy could worsen inflation in Ukraine, currently running at 16%.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The small Alpine Republic of Slovenia took over the onerous task of running the EU for six months on 1 January - but since then has had to contend with a lime-light stealing France and an agenda that must not upset the EU's treaty ratification process.

As the first of the member states to join the EU in 2004 to assume the six-month rotating presidency and having already been the first of these countries to adopt the euro, Ljubljana was proud of its fast-track European credentials.

But although it has some major issues to deal with, including settling the final status of the breakaway province of Kosovo, the thorniest foreign policy issue to face the bloc in years, it risks been upstaged by France and high-octane president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

Diplomats say it is telling that on the days that EU journalists travelled to Slovenia for the traditional get-to-know-the-new-EU-presidency trip, two major announcements emerged from France overshadowing the news coming from Ljubljana.

The European Commission is re-thinking draft rules on reaching the EU's target to boost biofuels amid strong criticism by green campaign groups and development NGOs that the goal could lead to environmental damage and social dislocation.

The commission is due on 23 January to publish legislation on the production of biofuels, aimed at promoting the use of these alternatives to oil.

In March last year, EU leaders agreed that 10 percent of transport fuels should come from biofuels by 2020, a goal the commission is now turning into concrete legislation.

But even before making the legislation public, several expert reports have highlighted the possible negative consequences of the target.

Last Friday, a group of 17 NGOs - including Oxfam and Friends of the Earth - sent a letter to EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, asking him to introduce much tougher standards for biofuel production or give up mandatory transport biofuel targets altogether.

A candidate campaigning for the Graz city council in Austria says it is time that Islam was "thrown back ... behind the Mediterranean," and alleges Muhammad wrote the Koran in "epileptic fits."

 Susanne Winter, campaigning for the Graz city council, called the Prophet Muhammad a child molester. Election campaigns, it would seem, are uncomfortable times for immigrants to be in Europe. First, it was Ronald Koch, the conservative politician in the German state of Hesse who turned up the rhetoric and began railing against "criminal young foreigners" in his country. Now, an Austrian politician has followed suit.

Susanne Winter, a right-wing politician with the FPÖ party running for a city council seat in the city of Graz, blasted Muslims on Sunday, saying that "in today's system" the Prophet Muhammad would be considered a "child molester," apparently referring to his marriage to a six-year-old child. She also said that it is time for Islam to be "thrown back where it came from, behind the Mediterranean." Not yet finished, she also claimed that Muhammad wrote the Koran in "epileptic fits."

In an interview with the daily Österreich published on Monday, Winter continued the onslaught saying that child abuse is "widespread" among Muslim men and that Graz is facing a "tsunami of Muslim immigration." In 20 or 30 years, she warned, half of Austria's population would be Muslim.

Serbian Foreign Minster Vuk Jeremic spoke with SPIEGEL about how his country is going to deal with any declaration of independence by Kosovo, and explained that the upcoming presidential elections are really a referendum on how much Serbia wants to be a part of the EU.

 Protesting Serbs in Kosovo have vowed not to accept any declaration of independence.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Minister, there is new government in Kosovo that is expected to declare the province's independence from Serbia. What will you do then?

Vuk Jeremic: It would be a bad decision. It would be a violation of United Nations resolution 1244 and also an infringement of Serbia's sovereignty. We would use all means at our disposal to oppose this, short of the use of military force, because no good can come of that. Over the past 16 years the people of the Balkans have often enough borne the brunt of physical violence. We will do what a country can do to defend its territorial integrity.

After 10 months of bitter bargaining and crippling strikes, Germany's train drivers have clinched 11 percent more pay and the right to their own, separate labor contract. That, say media commentators, spells trouble for Germany's system of collective wage bargaining.

 Job done: Engine-driver union GDL leader Manfred Schell has secured 11 percent more pay and key concessions from railway operator Deutsche Bahn. Germany's train drivers finally appear to have reached an agreement on pay and conditions with railway operator Deutsche Bahn after a 10-month dispute that brought chaos to the network.

The GDL train drivers' union and Deutsche Bahn said on Sunday they were close to reaching a deal and that only details had yet to be ironed out. German media commentators say the small GDL union has emerged the winner, having clinched an 11 percent wage hike, an €800 ($1,182) one-off payment and crucially, the right to negotiate separately from the country's two other, bigger railway unions. Deutsche Bahn managed to resist GDL's initial demand of 31 percent more pay but failed in its bid to keep the GDL locked into a sector-wide labor contract.

Some commentators say the deal could spell trouble (more...) for Germany's system of industry-wide wage bargaining, a tradition that has been credited with ensuring relatively smooth industrial relations for decades. Both doctors and pilots have led the way in splitting off from larger, collective bargaining agreements. Now that the country's engine drivers have secured their own separate wage contract, other distinct job categories within the industrial sector may decide to follow suit, starting a trend that could lead to frequent labor disputes and crippling strikes.

Since Germany moved into the crosshairs of Islamist terrorists, a number of threats have been made against the country's infrastructure and people. The latest has been investigated and revealed as less than credible.

After receiving a threat of a possible attack against the Federal Justice Ministry last week, German security officials have scaled down their terror warning. Interior Ministry spokesperson Stefan Kaller announced during a press conference in Berlin on Monday, Jan. 14, that there was a "lower degree of seriousness" in terms of likely terror attacks on German soil.

 

The German press reported over the weekend that al Qaeda sympathizers were allegedly planning terrorist attacks in Germany following the recent arrest of a number of suspected Islamist terrorists.

LONDON: Surrounded by parrot fish, doctor fish, butter fish, Effa Edusie is engulfed by pieces of her childhood in Ghana. Caught the day before far off the coast of West Africa, they have been airfreighted to London for dinner.

Edusie's relatives used to be fishermen. But no more. These fish are no longer caught by Africans.

Under the waterlogged brown cardboard box that holds the snapper is the improbable red logo of the Chinese National Fisheries Corp., one of the largest suppliers of West African fish to Europe. Europe's dinner tables are increasingly supplied by global fishing fleets that are depleting the world's oceans to feed the ravenous consumers who have become fish's most effective predators.

Fish is now the most traded animal commodity on the planet, with a global turnover of more than 100 million tons each year. Europe has suddenly become the world's largest market for fish, each year worth more than €14 billion. Europe's appetite has grown as its native fish stocks have shrunk, so that 60 percent of fish sold in Europe now needs to be imported, according to the European Union.

"So much of fishing is motivated by consumer demand," said Rupert Howes, chief executive of the Marine Stewardship Council, a private global group. "The world wants more seafood at a time when 50 percent of stocks are exploited as hard as we can and 25 percent overexploited. There is a real disconnect."

BERLIN: You don't get much of an argument in Germany's halls of power against the proposition that Nicolas Sarkozy is Europe's most interesting politician.

What you get is a kind of leery smile.

And, with it, a story about a getting-to-know-you meeting between Angela Merkel and the relatively new French president. Back then, she told Sarkozy: "I learned from Helmut Kohl you have to work things out over time. About staying the course. You're the other way round. We are completely different people. Knowing this, we can work together."

Months later, here's a practical measure of how they have not: Merkel and Sarkozy were scheduled to meet in London on Jan. 29 at the invitation of Gordon Brown to discuss the impact of America's subprime crisis on Europe. At Germany's insistence, Romano Prodi of Italy was added last week to the original threesome.

Why? Because Prodi's presence assures Germany - Prodi doesn't like Sarkozy's challenges to the independence of the European Central Bank, and Sarkozy doesn't like him - that Merkel won't have to stand alone if the French talk up an outcome she insists hasn't taken place.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has condemned the actions of Corsican nationalists after seeing the island's fire-damaged parliament building.

He said the nationalists' actions were "delinquent" and "indescribable".

Several offices were damaged at the parliament in Ajaccio on Saturday, after nationalist demonstrators had broken into the building.

The office of regional council chairman Ange Santini was gutted. No-one was hurt and the fire was quickly put out.

Prime Minister Fillon, quoted by the French news agency AFP, vowed that those responsible would face justice.

On Saturday night shots were fired at the facade of the main justice building in Ajaccio.

The diplomatic crisis between the UK and Russia - stemming from the radiation poisoning in London of the former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko - escalated significantly yesterday as the Russian government retaliated after Britain decided to reopen two regional cultural offices in defiance of the Kremlin.

The head of the British Council in Russia, James Kennedy, acknowledged that his organisation had become the latest casualty of the Litvinenko affair, telling the BBC: "We regret that the British Council, as a cultural and educational organisation, has become involved in what is essentially a political dispute."

The Russian foreign ministry summoned Britain's ambassador to Moscow, Sir Anthony Brenton, to protest against the reopening of the council's St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg offices after the new year break.

"The ambassador was told that the Russian side sees such actions as a deliberate provocation aimed at inciting tension in Russian-British relations," the ministry said, adding that it would refuse new visas for British Council staff in the two cities.

The Seven Lakes of the snow-capped Rila mountains of south-western Bulgaria lie nestled in a valley just below Musala, the highest peak in the country. The ancient name of the mountains refers to an abundance of water; in addition to glacial lakes and hot springs, four major rivers find their source in these snow-capped mountains.

Recently, however, the quiet beauty of the region has been broken by the whine of chain saws carving away at the forest below the lakes. A network of dirt roads now provides access for earth-moving vehicles. Just above the first lake, aptly named "The Tear," excavation equipment clears the way for a new chair lift to bring in ski tourists. Beside the lift, one of the national park's backcountry chalets is being transformed into the "Edelweiss Resort," a benchmark construction for the ski area developers.

The Rila Mountain ski project reflects a national frenzy to cash in on an anticipated tourist boom in Bulgaria. In the last seven years, tourism revenues in the country have increased 18 per cent and arrivals are projected to grow from 4.8 million visitors in 2005 to 20 million by 2020. Property values in popular destinations have increased by 20 to 30 percent in the past year alone.

Here among the highest mountains of the region, the construction of a new ski complex promises jobs and economic growth in one of the poorer countries to join the European Union (EU). On the one hand it sounds as though business is riding to the rescue of an impoverished area in former socialist Eastern Europe. On closer inspection, however, the brave new world of free enterprise in Rila National Park looks more like a corporate scam that is taking advantage of compliant police and politicians, while causing massive environmental destruction.

Gordon Brown said yesterday that it would be a mistake to question Britain's EU membership at a time of global economic problems.

Recent financial turbulence was "a wake-up call" for every economy, the Prime Minister told an audience of business leaders.

He also urged the EU to focus on economic reform and to be open, flexible and outward-looking rather than protectionist.

Critics have questioned Brown's commitment to Europe, particularly after he arrived late last month in Portugal for the signing of the Lisbon Treaty, overhauling the EU's structures.

Britain was well placed to withstand the global financial turbulence expected this year because of low inflation and interest rates and record high employment, Brown said, adding public finances were "in a sustainable position".

Brown said the EU must act immediately to protect against financial turbulence. He plans to host a meeting this month with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to discuss stability measures.

The Spanish government called a General Election, firing the starting gun on a campaign widely expected to be one of the most fiercely contested in the country's 30-year democratic history.

With less than two months to go until the March 9 vote, opinion polls show that the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, 47, is facing a tough fight to secure a second term in office. His Socialist Party's lead over the conservative Popular Party in Opposition has shrunk to only three percentage points, according to the latest study by Instituto Opina, released yesterday.

Government strategists take heart in poll data showing that the Prime Minister remains personally far more popular than his principal opponent, Mariano Rajoy, 52. The Leader of the Opposition has long received low marks for likeability, despite recent efforts by image-makers to give the bearded and bespectacled politician a makeover.

The candidates have agreed to participate in two televised debates, the first in a Spanish national election since 1993.

European states are gearing up for a rearguard action against Brussels' green energy plan, just months after many of them signed up to placing the European Union at the forefront of the fight against climate change.

Just days before the European Commission is to unveil its detailed country-by-country targets for cutting emissions, leaders are already privately battling to water down proposals they fear will damage their economies. After the targets were agreed, it was left to Brussels to translate them into detailed policy.

The French government is currently in talks with German counterparts about building a common front against the proposals, much as the two joined forces to undermine Brussels' energy package last year.

Efforts to boost farm production in Europe have failed in spite of record market prices and a move by Brussels to let farmers use more of their land to grow crops.

The European Union last year scrapped a long-standing rule requiring farmers to set aside 10 per cent of their land in an attempt to increase output and cool prices. But data released on Monday showed that French and Germans farmers sowed less than 2 per cent more winter crops in spite of the measures.The weak response makes it likely that prices for wheat, barley, rapeseed and other crops will remain high.

The French agriculture statistics office reported a "modest" rise of 1.2 per cent in winter crop sowing, although it warned farmers could still increase their spring crops. France is the largest agriculture producer in Europe. Germany reported a mere 1.9 per cent rise in sowing.

Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.

The US-initiated programme, "Server in the Sky", would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the "war against terror" - the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy.

Biometric measurements, irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints, and other personal information are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world's most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects.

The FBI is keen for the police forces of American allies to sign up to improve international security. The Home Office yesterday confirmed it was aware of Server in the Sky, as did the Metropolitan police.

Britain faces a £1 billion black hole after the 2012 Olympics because of "ludicrous" property price projections backed by ministers, it emerged last night.

Today the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will, for the first time, vote against government plans to give the Olympics more money. Their move comes after a report for the London Development Agency (LDA) suggesting that the Government's estimates for the amount it will recoup in land sales after the Games are unrealistic. The shortfall will hit heritage, sports and arts projects already suffering from tight squeezes on their budgets.

Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, and Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, signed a memorandum of understanding last year stating that at least £1.8 billion would be raised in land sales after the Games. The LDA now fears that this figure, based on a 16 per cent per annum increase in land prices in Stratford, East London, over the next 15 to 20 years, is too optmistic. It told the London Assembly last week that it now plans to raise £800 million, leaving a £1 billion shortfall. About £675 million of this had been due to go to the National Lottery to repay money lent to the Games. This money could now be lost.

German train drivers are to receive an 11 per cent pay increase under an outline agreement with the state-owned railway operator, Deutsche Bahn - a move that could add to trade union pressure this year for large wage rises.

The draft deal between the rail operator and the GDL train drivers' trade union, signed on Sunday, was welcome news on Monday for millions of German commuters, who have been hit repeatedly by rail strikes during a 10-month wage dispute.

Manfred Schell, GDL chairman, said he was "99 per cent sure" that there would be no further strikes. Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the breakthrough and called for a "quick resolution" of outstanding issues.

The deal represents a victory for the GDL, a splinter trade union that last year demanded a separate agreement withDeutsche Bahn, after the two main rail unions agreed a 4.5 per cent wage increase. The union has also achieved another of its core demands, for the right to negotiate a separate agreement on pay and working hours for train drivers.

The European Union's first full-time president may not be able to start work as planned on January 1 next year, because of delays in ratifying the treaty that creates the job, according to EU diplomats.

Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Sweden and the UK are five countries in which the ratification process could stretch well into the second half of this year, meaning that it would difficult to meet the January 1 target.

The European Union has wasted too much time squabbling over how to share power among its member states, when it should have been working to recoup economic and political influence in the world, says Felipe González, the former Spanish prime minister.

The EU asked Mr González last month to chair a committee that will ponder the future of Europe. The former premier, who took Spain into the EU in 1986, was surprised at his nomination."I have been excessively critical over the direction the EU has taken since at least the fall of the Berlin Wall," he said.

But now he has accepted the job, he intends to speak "with freedom and clarity". Mr González wants his report, which will be delivered in 2010, to be "a wake-up call" for a continent that is rapidly losing economic and geopolitical power.

GÖTTINGEN, Germany: The future of indigenous American studies in this historic German university town now lies partly in the hands of a 56-year-old Australian named Gordon Whittaker.

Whittaker is one of the last professors in Germany who cultivates the dying languages of native peoples in North and South America. At the University of Göttingen, where he has been a professor since 1990, he looks likely to witness the end of such work there.

This year, the university decided that students will be able to get degrees for the study of Africa and Southeast Asia, but not the Incas, Aztecs or the Sioux. Until he retires in 2019, Whittaker will continue his own work preserving the language of an American Indian tribe, the Sac and Fox Nation, but that is about it.

"Göttingen will no longer produce the next generations of scholars who keep these kinds of languages and cultures alive," Whittaker said. "It will simply stop."

The destiny of indigenous American studies in Göttingen - and the university's president protests that he is not trying to kill it off - underscores an historic change now taking place at German universities, institutions once known for cultivating of highly specialized fields of study in the humanities.

Swiss butchers have raised the alarm over a shortage of the Brazilian cows' intestines used to wrap the nation's favourite sausage, the Cervelat.

The Swiss Meat Association says dwindling stocks may run out by the summer, when football fans descend for the Euro 2008 championship.

Although Switzerland is not a member of the European Union, it does accept import rules handed down by Brussels.

And BSE fears have led to curbs on the purchase of the intestines.

A German court on Monday jailed the lawyer of a convicted Holocaust denier for calling the Nazis' World War II slaughter of European Jews "the biggest lie in world history."

Judges in the western city of Mannheim sentenced lawyer Sylvia Stolz to three and a half years in prison on charges that include inciting racial hatred, and barred her from practicing law for five years, a court spokeswoman said.

 

Stolz made the remarks in 2006 while representing "historian" Ernst Zündel, who was handed a five-year prison term in Germany last February for repeatedly disputing the Holocaust as a historical fact.

 

The 44-year-old also signed a motion during Zündel's trial with "Heil Hitler" and shouted that the lay judges deserved the death penalty for "offering succour to the enemy" -- leading the court to dismiss her.

Media organisations including the Guardian yesterday challenged a demand unprecedented in modern times - that witnesses at a forthcoming murder trial should be heard in secret, for "national security" reasons.

Such a trial would breach the common law principle of open justice and the principle of freedom of the press enshrined in the European human rights convention, Gavin Millar QC told an Old Bailey judge.

"There have been plenty of trials in the past in which issues have been raised about national security material. It is extremely rare for such cases to be heard in camera," Millar added. He referred to previous cases when allegations about the intelligence agencies had been made in court.

The government wants the trial of Wang Yam, 45, a financial trader from Hampstead, north London, to be held behind closed doors for what Mark Ellison, counsel for the prosecution, described yesterday as "reasons of national security", and to protect witnesses.

[...]

Yam denies murdering an 86-year-old recluse, Allan Chappelow. Chappelow's body was discovered at his Hampstead flat in London in June last year after £10,000 reportedly went missing from his bank account. Yam also faces charges of burglary and deception.

Hmmm, doesn't sound like an act of terror (or even "terror"). So it sounds to me like the govt doesn't want to disclose the means by which it gathered its information.

Does anyone have any background on this?

"Ideas or the lack of them can cause disease." - Kurt Vonnegut

France set to announce UAE nuclear deal

In a sign of accelerating interest in nuclear power, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France was expected to sign a deal Tuesday enabling Total, the big French oil company, to join forces with the reactor-designer Areva and the utility company Suez to build power stations in the United Arab Emirates.

The companies said Monday that they had reached a partnership agreement to submit a nuclear power plant project to the United Arab Emirates authorities and that local partners would take part. They said they would submit a proposal for an integrated nuclear power generation "solution" comprising two 1600-megawatt European pressurized reactors and fuel-cycle products and services.

Such a project would be a first for Total, which has long been a force in the oil market and is the largest company in the euro zone by market capitalization. The Total chief executive, Christophe de Margerie, has emphasized the growing difficulty of obtaining sufficient oil to meet global demand growth, and he has signaled an interest in diversifying its business into nuclear power.

Article in IHT.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

The Liberal Democrats say it is the only answer. The Tories oppose it. The government is thinking about it. What would happen if Northern Rock were nationalised?

The government is now the single biggest creditor. The bank clearly cannot repay the £25bn or so it has already borrowed.

And more here:

BBC NEWS | Business | Northern Rock faces shareholders

Northern Rock faces a fight over its future as the beleaguered lender holds a key meeting with shareholders.

At the meeting in Newcastle, investors are getting their first chance to grill management since the bank ran into trouble last September. They are expected to demand a bigger say in the bank's sale process.

But analysts have warned that if they succeed, the lender is certain to be nationalised, leaving investors with little or nothing for their shares.

Daniel Barenboim, the world renowned Israeli pianist and conductor, has taken Palestinian citizenship and said he believed his rare new status could serve a model for peace between the two peoples.

"It is a great honor to be offered a passport," he said late on Saturday after a Beethoven piano recital in Ramallah, the West Bank city where he has been active for some years in promoting contact between young Arab and Israeli musicians.

"I have also accepted it because I believe that the destinies of ... the Israeli people and the Palestinian people are inextricably linked," Barenboim said. "We are blessed - or cursed - to live with each other. And I prefer the first."

"The fact that an Israeli citizen can be awarded a Palestinian passport, can be a sign that it is actually possible," he continued.

Former Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouthi, who helped organize Saturday's concert, said the passport had been approved by the previous government of which he was a member and which was replaced in June. The passport had actually been issued about six weeks ago, he added.

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- President Bush on Sunday described Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and called on Arab allies to help his administration curb the threat "before it's too late."

In a speech at an opulent, palace-style resort here Sunday, Bush accused Iran's militant Shiite Muslim government of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to foment instability in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, while ordinary Iranians face economic hardships and political repression.

"Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," Bush said. "So the United States is strengthening our longstanding security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it's too late."

But Bush appears unlikely, based on the regional reaction to his address, to find many Arabs to heed his alarms against Iran, a powerful neighbor and trading partner. Nor did many endorse his speech's other theme -- a vision of "free and just society" featuring broad political participation and a voice for moderate Muslims in a region where money and family are common keys to leadership.

The recent, and escalating, tension between Iran and the US in the narrow corridor of the Strait of Hormuz has once again drawn attention to the strait's international maritime status, and to the ramifications of this tension as a flashpoint in the Middle East.

In a significant raising of the temperature, US President George W Bush on Sunday accused Iran of threatening security around the world by backing militants and urged his Gulf Arab allies to confront "this danger before it is too late".

Speaking in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates during his seven-nation tour of the Middle East, Bush said the US is strengthening its "security commitments with our friends in the Gulf" and "rallying friends around the world to confront this danger". He also called Iran "the world's leading state sponsor of terror".

Tension spiked markedly last week when Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) speedboats were involved in an "incident" with three US Navy vessels, which claimed they were international waters.

Yet there is no "international water" in the Strait of Hormuz, straddled between the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. The US government claimed, through a Pentagon spokesperson, Bryan Whitman, that the three US ships "transiting through the Strait of Hormuz" were provocatively harassed by the speedboats. This was followed by the Pentagon's release of a videotape of the encounter, where in response to Iran's request for ship identification, we hear a dispatch from one of the US ships stating the ship's number and adding that "we are in international waters and we intend no harm".

On Tuesday, in Madrid, politicians, non-governmental organisations and civil society leaders from across the globe begin two days of dialogue aimed at addressing the growing polarisation between nations and cultures worldwide. The objective is not only to promote cross-cultural understanding, but also to create and develop partnerships and joint initiatives aimed at promoting an "Alliance of Civilisations".

Ehud Olmert is battling to keep together Israel's fractious multi-party government, amid rising tensions between the prime minister and his rightwing coalition partner over the current Middle East peace talks.

Mr Olmert is due to meet the leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party on Tuesday in a bid to maintain the backing of Avigdor Lieberman and his 10 fellow parliament members. The meeting was triggered by Mr Lieberman's opposition to the opening of talks on the core issues of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, such as the status of Jerusalem and the final borders of a Palestinian state.

Mr Lieberman, who has said in the past that such a move would cross a "red line" for his party, will announce a decision on whether to pull out of the government or not on Wednesday, his spokeswoman said. She added the party was also opposed to evacuating Jewish settlement outposts in the Palestinian West Bank, which have been erected without the backing of the government.

Growth in Asia's developing economies is likely to slacken this year because of the US slowdown and higher fuel prices, the president of the Asian Development Bank said on Monday. Haruhiko Kuroda told the Financial Times that the ADB's next set of forecasts, due to be published in March, would put regional growth - including China but excluding Japan - at "slightly less'' than 8 per cent.

This compares with a forecast of 8.2 per cent in September, when the Asian lender raised its forecast for 2008 from 7.7 per cent and predicted that the region would weather any slowdown generated by the credit squeeze because of its reduced reliance on international lending.

The ADB's growing pessimism about the regional economy confirms that it has rejected the theory that emerged last year that Asian economies had "decoupled" from the rest of the world and could continue growing even in the face of a US recession. Mr Kuroda's warning came as Goldman Sachs lowered its growth forecast for the region to 8.3 per cent from 8.6 percent.

Growing skills shortages in Asia mean multinational companies operating in the region may, within five years, be forced to pay western-level wages to skilled scientists, IT specialists and engineers, according to the head of one of the world's largest recruiting companies.

A shift to higher value-added manufacturing in Asia is contributing to skills shortages and resulting in "a massive productivity hit'' for many companies investing in the region, Jeff Joerres, chief executive of Manpower, the US staffing company, told the Financial Times.

Many western companies, he said, were "clearly underestimating'' the challenge of finding adequate staff for advanced jobs, both in China and in younger manufacturing destinations such as Vietnam and Cambodia. "Companies will shift from facing a technology deficit to a talent deficit. They are trading off one productivity loss for another," he said.

Legal changes in the Asian labour market also make attracting and retaining staff more difficult, he warned. This month China introduced a labour contract that raises the compensation companies have to provide for dismissing workers. Strikes for higher pay are also becoming more common.

The Baltic Dry Shipping Index (BDI) is the key gauge of shipping rates for the world's busiest 24 key shipping routes.

Last Thursday, the BDI fell the most it since 1989 plummeting 384 points (4.6%) to 7,949. (single day change). The BDI is now 28% lower than its  Nov. 13 2007 record peak of 11,039.

The potential of a U.S. recession is starting to spread to othr contraries, all chatter of "decoupling" and "containment" notwithstanding. If this is foreshadowing a broader global decline, we should expect  commodity prices to suffer as well.

As Kenya braced itself for a third week of post-election unrest, analysts warned that the continuing standoff between President Mwai Kibaki and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, could have far more damaging repercussions for east Africa's biggest economy than initially forecast.

Kenyan schools, which had delayed reopening because of the violence, welcomed back pupils on Monday for the first time since the Christmas break and shops opened in Nairobi's central business district, so far untouched by the looting that has gutted other urban centres.

But an opposition call for three days of nationwide protest, starting on Wednesday, was expected to bring much of the country to a halt again, with clashes likely between demonstrators and riot police enforcing a ban on rallies.

The United Nations' in-house team of white-collar crime-fighters, threatened with closure despite identifying $600m of fraud-tainted UN contracts, has survived to fight another day.

In bargaining over the UN's budget at the end of last year, the UN General Assembly agreed to extend the mandate of investigators at the Procurement Task Force for another 12 months.

"I and others in the team are happy to be alive," said Robert Appleton, the former US federal prosecutor who heads the force, in his first public comments since the closure threat was lifted. He said he headed a dedicated band of international investigators, which still had 300 cases of potential fraud within the UN system on file.

The budget extension means the team, with fewer than 20 investigators, will have at least another year to pursue the kind of inquiries that last year led to the conviction of Russia's highest-ranking UN diplomat on money-laundering charges.

The team, set up two years ago in the wake of the scandal over the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, identified more than 10 cases of significant fraud involving contracts worth $610m. The loss to the UN through corruption was at least $25m.

A group of influential investors has warned 78 listed companies that they are breaching pledges to a United Nations agreement on society and the environment by failing to publish progress reports.

The investors, led by Morley Fund Management in the UK, have also praised a smaller group of mostly European companies for "notable" performance under the UN Global Compact.

The compact commits companies to principles on human rights, labour standards, the environment and corruption, with the aim of improving the "social legitimacy" of businesses.

According to the UN database of compliance, 904 companies - the bulk of them from emerging markets - have failed to produce the updates required by the scheme.

The investor group - which runs more than $2,130bn (£1,088bn) in total - has written to the chief executives of the biggest listed companies whose reports are late, urging them to comply.

Rich countries will struggle to achieve the rises in living standards their citizens think are normal unless they sustain faster increases in economic efficiency, according to a report on Tuesday from the Conference Board, the international business organisation. The board's international comparison of labour productivity in 2007 shows sluggish growth in advanced economies compared with rapid improvements in many emerging markets.

Although the EU scored slightly higher on growth in output per hour worked than the US for the second year in a row, the important difference says Bart van Ark, executive director of the Conference Board, is between increasingly sustainable productivity growth in countries such as China and much lower growth rates in advanced economies.

"With a projected slowdown in the growth of the labour force relative to the total population, advanced countries will need to raise productivity growth rates to well beyond 2 per cent a year over the next two decades to maintain current per-capita income growth rates," the report says.

As America's biggest banks prepare to announce tens of billions of dollars in fresh writedowns from the international credit squeeze, they are turning to unlikely rescuers.

Sovereign wealth funds - or state-backed investors - are expected to buy further stakes in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup as the banks try to repair their battered balance sheets. The funds' role may be unnerving for some in Washington. But their involvement is as welcome as it will be necessary if the US economy is to avoid a prolonged slump.

A populist backlash against sovereign wealth funds may follow. Some US politicians, including Chuck Schumer, the influential New York senator, are worried that the biggest funds, owned by countries from China to the Gulf, could try to gain influence over US companies. They argue the funds are potentially susceptible to "non-economic" interests. So the closer they come to taking control, the greater the concern.

The main flaw in this argument is the absence of any proof to back it up. Because they lack transparency, there may be problems with the way sovereign wealth funds operate. But they have every financial incentive to be good stewards of the assets they buy. Their investment may even be an opportunity for US firms, as China's investment in Barclays, the UK bank, promises to be.

With a controversial nuclear deal with the United States now in limbo, India held out the possibility of civilian nuclear cooperation with China.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, on the last day of a visit to China, said the world's two most populous nations -- who have a decades-long history of mistrust -- should work together to develop their nuclear energy programmes.

"India seeks international cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear energy, including with China," Singh said, noting such cooperation could help the two countries meet their skyrocketing energy needs.

"The rapid growth of India and China will lead to expanding demand for energy. We have no choice but to widen our options for energy availability and develop viable strategies for energy security," he said in a speech at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He did not go into further details.

Singh's visit, the first here by an Indian premier in five years, comes as the two rising Asian giants try to strengthen ties and put their history of animosity behind them.

The prime minister made an appeal to what he called "the Asian way -- avoiding confrontation and building trust, confidence and consensus".

Singhʻs speech has been the main story on CCTV today, which has been very enthusiastic about the Indian prime ministerʻs visit to China.  The entire speech was broadcast live, and the parts theyʻre playing over and over are (in bold):

In pursuing these initiatives we will do it and we shall do it the Asian way - avoiding confrontation and building trust, confidence and consensus. It is only in an environment of peace that prosperity in Asia can be sustained. India and China have an important role to play in building peace, security and stability in the region. <...>

I look forward with optimism to the future and the role which India and China are destined to play in the transformation of Asia and the world as well. This optimism is based on my conviction that there is enough space for both India and China to grow and prosper while strengthening our cooperative engagement. History shows that our two civilizations, flourished for centuries, side by side, interacting and influencing each other.

PM ADDRESSES THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Fans of Nuremberg Zoo's polar bear cub have been knitting bibs for her and have sent in 15,000 suggestions for her name. In the meantime her keepers are calling her "Flocke," which translates as snowflake. She is putting on weight fast and is expected to open her eyes for the first time this week.

The five-week-old polar bear cub female now being hand-reared in Nuremberg Zoo is fast turning into a celebrity rivalling Knut. Wellwishers from around the world have been sending in letters and gifts such as hand-knitted bibs, and more than 15,000 possible names have been e-mailed to the zoo since it started calling for suggestions last Friday.

PHOTO GALLERY: 'SNOWFLAKE' THE NUREMBERG POLAR BEAR CUB

Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (11 Photos)
Proposals range from Käthe, Paula, Franka and Lina to Snow-White, Aicha and Yuki Chan. In the meantime, her keepers have been calling her Flocke, the German word for "snowflake."

Her weight has increased to 2.4 kilos from 1.7 kilos last week when the zoo decided to take her away from her restless mother Vera after another polar bear in the zoo had eaten her own two cubs. "We're very, very pleased," the zoo's director Dag Encke (more...) told reporters. "Every day we're becoming more hopeful that we will be able to rear her successfully."

Islam watchers blogged all weekend about news that a secret archive of ancient Islamic texts had surfaced after 60 years of suppression. Andrew Higgins' Wall Street Journal report that the photographic record of Koranic manuscripts, supposedly destroyed during World War II but occulted by a scholar of alleged Nazi sympathies, reads like a conflation of the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail.

The Da Vinci Code offered a silly fantasy in which Opus Dei, homicidal monks and twisted billionaires chased after proof that Christianity is a hoax. But the story of the photographic archive of

the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, now ensconced in a Berlin vault, is a case of life imitating truly dreadful art. It even has Nazis. "I hate those guys!" as Indiana Jones said.

No one is going to produce proof that Jesus Christ did not rise from the grave three days after the Crucifixion, of course. Humankind will choose to believe or not that God revealed Himself in this fashion. But Islam stands at risk of a Da Vinci Code effect, for in Islam, God's self-revelation took the form not of the Exodus, nor the revelation at Mount Sinai, nor the Resurrection, but rather a book, namely the Koran. The Encyclopaedia of Islam (1982) observes, "The closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Koran in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." The Koran alone is the revelatory event in Islam.

Wine, we know, gets better with age - but now it appears it tastes better the more it costs.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have shown that a person's enjoyment of wine can be heightened if they are simply told that it is an expensive one.

Twenty-one volunteers were asked to sample different bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and rate the ones they preferred.

The only information they were given was the price of the wine - but in a number of cases, they were not told the real price. In one case, the volunteers were given two identical red wines to drink and were told that one cost much less than the other.

Most described the "higher priced" wine as much more enjoyable.

Researchers also managed to pass off a $90 (£46) bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon as a $10 bottle and presented a $5 as one worth $45.

A new, highly drug-resistant strain of the "flesh-eating" MRSA bacteria is being spread among gay men in San Francisco and Boston, researchers reported on Monday.

In a study published online by the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the bacteria seemed to be spread most easily through anal intercourse but also through casual skin-to-skin contact and touching contaminated surfaces.

The authors warned that unless microbiology laboratories were able to identify the strain and doctors prescribed the proper antibiotic therapy, the infection could soon spread among other groups and become a wider threat. <...>

The study was based on a review of medical records from outpatient clinics in San Francisco and Boston and nine medical centers in San Francisco. <...>

The San Francisco researchers suggested that scrubbing with soap and water might be the most effective way to stop skin-to-skin transmission, particularly after sexual activities. <...>

"This particular clone is resistant to at least three other drugs, clindamycin, tetracycline and mupirocin," Dr. Chambers said in a telephone interview.

Of the alternatives recommended by the C.D.C. and the Infectious Diseases Society of America, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (Bactrim), clindamycin and a tetracycline, "this strain is resistant to two of those three," he added. "In addition, the new strain is resistant to mupirocin, which has been advocated for eradicating the strain from carriers."

LOS ANGELES - Maila Nurmi, whose "Vampira" TV persona pioneered the spooky-yet-sexy Goth aesthetic, has died, coroner's officials said. She was 85.

Nurmi died Thursday afternoon at her Hollywood home, Los Angeles County coroner's Lt. Fred Corral said. The cause of death has not been determined, Corral said.

Nurmi created her Vampira character -- reminiscent of Charles Addams' spooky New Yorker cartoons -- to host horror movie broadcasts on KABC TV in Los Angeles in 1954.

With darkly mascaraed eyes and blood-red lipstick, Nurmi appeared each week in her revealing black dress and slinky fishnets to introduce such films as "Revenge of the Zombies" and "Devil Bat's Daughter."

"The Vampira Show" was canceled after about a year, but Nurmi remained a cult figure among B-movie buffs and is thought to have inspired the vampish Morticia Addams on "The Addams Family," which premiered about 10 years later.

But Nurmi's cultural resonance did not translate into long-term wealth. In 1989, she lost a $10 million lawsuit that contended Cassandra Peterson's late-night horror hostess Elvira pirated her character.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2008) -- The last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea.

But during this century, the sea's rich food web--stretching from Alaska to Russia--could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions.

[...]

At present, the Bering Sea provides roughly half the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide.

"The experiments we did up there definitely suggest that the changing ecosystem may support less of what we're harvesting--things like pollock and hake," Hutchins said.

While the study must be interpreted cautiously, its implications are harrowing, Hutchins said, especially since the Bering Sea is already warming.

"It's kind of a canary in a coal mine because it appears to be showing climate change effects before the rest of the ocean," he noted.

"It's warmer, marine mammals and birds are having massive die-offs, there are invasive species--in general, it's changing to a more temperate ecosystem that's not going to be as productive."

And a nice day to you all!

"Because he's hiding" — Aboard Air Force One, discussing my Osama Bin Laden was still at large, January 2005

The University Rector has refused to allow a sit-in demonstration tomorrow in front of the Aula Magna and has called for special anti-demonstration police units to preside the University during Ratzinger's visit.

Today I spent half day in Crossword, bookshop in glitzy new mall opposite Taj Krishna Hotel in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad.
Could not decide should I buy them considering that these books on South Indian history are difficult to locate in Delhi's bookstores. These include three books from Bombay Gazzetteer (History of Konkan, Early history of Dakhan and Dynasties of Kanarese District), history of Gujarat, history of Nayaks of Tanjore in Tamil Nadu, history of Travancore kingdom in Kerala and classical history of South India by Nilakantha Sastri. Besides I bought wonderful selection of writings on Mumbai from Penguin Books - Bomba, meri jaan, or Bombay my love.

Just read a little bit - funny and informative.

Aldous Huxley - "Architecturally, Bombay is one of the most appaling cities of either hemisphere". He usually (mis) quoted, as guidebook-writers omit word "architecturally".

In introduction by J. Pinto and N. Fernandes:

"Exploring the damp delights of Brussels one morning not so long ago, we made our way to the Cinquantenaire, a triumphal arch erected to commemorate Belgium's golden jubilee. We peered at its drizzly outlines for a few seconds and almost simultaneously reached the same conclusion: it was merely a bombastic version of the Gateway of India.
...
Bombay has none of the imperium of Delhi, the self-conscious stasis of Calcutta or the provincial self-satisfaction of Madras. It is ugly step-daughter city but Prince Charming must cut his heels off to win her hand. It is a city in which no one dies of starvation but the vast majority are forced to endure living conditions that no enlightened zookeeper would allow for his animals. Yet the exiles and arrivistas...never leave."

Nicely said. What about Hyderabad? This city is fascinating and intensively developing, at least in the city centre around Abids and in Banjara Hills poverty is not seen, only glitzy malls, PVRs, shops and offices. Tomorrow I'll explore old ruins of Hyderabad and surrounding forts.