NICE, France, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after the 22nd Russia-European Union summit that his country's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is final.

The Russian head of state said after the international talks in Nice, France, that there likely would be no revisions of his country's official recognition of the two runaway Georgian states, ITAR-TASS reported Saturday.

Medvedev said in addition to recognizing the two states, which he said had been targeted by Georgia in the past, Russia was prepared for other Caucasus settlement talks.

"We are ready for a further constructive discussion of settlement in the Caucasus. We are ready to discuss this directly, looking each other into eyes," the president said.

"Russia recognizes Georgia's territorial integrity taking into account the fact that it recognized independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia."

ITAR-TASS reported that Medvedev said thanks, in part, to the efforts of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his country was able to resolve the conflict in South Ossetia and enjoy fruitful talks with EU officials during the summit.

Gordon Brown says he is disappointed by "partisan talk" after the shadow chancellor warned his actions could lead to sterling's collapse.

George Osborne told the Times the PM's willingness to borrow his way out of trouble was "irresponsible".

Sterling has fallen sharply in recent weeks amid fears about a UK recession.

Leading voice in the European Parliament expresses anxiety about UN plan for the EU's mission in Serb areas of Kosovo.

A UN-sponsored plan under which the EU's police and justice mission in Kosovo would extend its reach into Serb-dominated northern Kosovo in return for as yet undisclosed concessions could lead the de facto `soft partition' of Kosovo permanent, a leading voice on Kosovo in the European Parliament has warned.

Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch member of the Green group in the European Parliament who is currently drafting a report on Kosovo, said that he was all in favour of "constructive ambiguity" - the use of terminology that can be interpreted in slightly different ways by different sides - to facilitate progress in Kosovo, whose self-declared independence is rejected by its ethnic-Serb minority. However, Lagendijk told European Voice that he feared that the UN plan could make permanent the current political and administrative divisions in Kosovo. To prevent that, Lagendijk said, the European Parliament should be prepared to use its powers over the EU budget, from which Eulex is funded, if the EU mission began to apply two sets of law in Kosovo or to follow two separate chains of command.

The world's 20 top economies reached a deal Saturday, Nov. 15 to better regulate hedge funds and create more transparency in mortgage-related securities in a bid to halt a global economic slide.

Negotiators agreed on a final declaration Saturday morning during the first-ever summit of the Group of 20 (G20) nations in Washington. Leaders will sign off on the agreement later Saturday, promising to close all gaps in financial regulation.

 

That includes regulating hedge funds and boosting transparency of some of the complicated mortgage-related securities created by financial firms, which have been blamed for sparking the current financial crisis.

 

Finance ministers have been given a deadline of March 31 to hammer out the specifics in 50 different areas, followed by another summit of the G20 leaders at a later date, according to the declaration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans on Monday to move forward with a bill that would give the auto industry access to the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program set up by the government in October to help ailing banks and other financial firms.

The Bush administration and many Senate Republicans disagree with such an approach. Instead, President George W. Bush late Friday urged Congress to speed up release of $25 billion in already approved loans to the auto industry. Mr. Bush asked Congress to ease requirements that those loans be used to help the industry retool to meet higher fuel-economy standards, a move opposed by many Democrats.

"We are now actively calling on Congress to pass legislation next week that will amend the loan program and accelerate much-needed funds to the auto companies," White House press secretary Dana Perino said. "It has become clear to us that the congressional Democrats...are choosing a path that will only lead to partisan gridlock."

Bernanke Refusal to Buy Genworth Paper Burdens Banks  By Bryan Keogh  

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke's decision to deny commercial paper financing to all but the highest-rated borrowers is forcing some companies to seek the credit of last resort, backstop loans.

Whirlpool Corp., American Electric Power Co. and AGL Resources Inc. chose to tap emergency bank lines negotiated before the credit crisis began rather than pay twice as much on commercial paper. The defections helped shrink sales of the IOUs in the past two weeks to the lowest in more than two years.

``You've got all these people taking loans that don't want loans. They want CP,'' said Christopher Low, New York-based chief economist at FTN Financial, a unit of Tennessee's largest bank. ``All of these programs have had unintended consequences elsewhere. Every time the government elevates one class of debt it displaces another.''

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AGL Resources Inc., the owner of Atlanta's natural gas utility, has repaid commercial paper by tapping a bank line with an interest rate of 28 basis points over one-month Libor, or about 1.69 percent. That compared with 5 percent to 6 percent for overnight commercial paper for the A-2 rated borrower, Chief Financial Officer Andrew Evans said.

Whirlpool, the world's largest appliance maker, borrowed $800 million from a credit line to pay off outstanding commercial paper, opting to exit the market because of ``uncertainty concerning access,'' according to an Oct. 31 filing. The company, rated A-2/P-2, said the revolver has a rate of 0.35 percentage point over Libor.

Systemic Risk, Contagion and Trade Finance - Back to the Bad Old Days

We are now starting to see the contagion effects of the current liquidity crisis feed through to the real economy. We are about to go back to the bad old days. Whether the zombie banks are kept on life support by the central banks and taxpayers of the world is highly relevant to whether the zombie bank executives pay themselves outsize bonuses and their zombie shareholders outsize dividends with taxpayer money. It appears sadly irrelevant to whether the banks perform their function of intermediating credit and commercial transactions in the real economy along the supply chain. The bailout cash and executive and shareholder priorities do not seem to reach so far.

The recent 93 percent collapse of the obscure Baltic Dry Index - an index of the cost of chartering bulk cargo vessels for goods like ore, cotton, grain or similar dry tonnage - has caused a bit of a stir among the financial cognoscenti. What is less discussed amidst the alarm is the reason for the collapse of the index - the collapse of trade credit based on the venerable letter of credit.

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Fixing this problem shouldn't be left to the Fed. They aren't going to make it a priority. Indeed, their determination to accelerate the payment of interest on reserves and then to raise that rate to match the Fed Funds target rate indicates that the Fed are more likely to constrain trade finance liquidity rather than improve it. Furthermore, the Fed may be highly selective in its allocation of dollar liquidity abroad, prejudicing the economic prospects of a large part of the world that is either indifferent or hostile to the continuation of American dollar hegemony.

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If cargo trade stops, a whole lot of supply chain disruption starts. If the ore doesn't go to the refinery, there is no plate steel. If the plate steel doesn't get shipped, there is nothing to fabricate into components. If there are no components, there is nothing to assemble in the factory. If the factory closes the assembly line, there are no finished goods. If there are no finished goods, there is nothing to restock the shelves of the shops. If there is nothing in the shops, the consumers don't buy. If the consumers don't buy, there is no Christmas.

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If cargo trade stops, the wheat doesn't get exported. If the wheat doesn't get exported, the mill has nothing to grind into flour. If there is no flour, the bakeries and food processors can't produce bread and pasta and other foods. If there are no foods shipped from the bakeries and factories, there are no foods in the shops. If there are no foods in the shops, people go hungry. If people go hungry their children go hungry. When children go hungry, people riot and governments fall.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has invited leaders from automaker Opel to talks to discuss the company's financial status.

On Friday, the car company requested credit guarantees from the government, saying it wants the guarantees to counter a downturn in car orders.

However, the unit of General Motors Corp, which itself is seeking a US government bailout, said it was facing no liquidity problems.

"It is important that we consult about the proper steps to take so we can try to support the automobile industry," said Merkel on the sidelines of the global financial summit in Washington.

SHATI REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Gazans seeking food aid walked away empty-handed from locked United Nations distribution centers Saturday after a strict Israeli border closure depleted U.N. food reserves.

Israel sealed Gaza's borders nearly two weeks ago as part of a new round of fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers. Hamas rocket fire on Israeli border towns and Israeli air strikes on Gaza militants have eroded a truce that had largely held for five months.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to open the crossings to humanitarian aid and condemned the rocket fire on Israel. Measures that increase the suffering of Gaza's civilians "are unacceptable and should cease immediately," he said in a statement.

Large crowds have flocked to a memorial service in Johannesburg for South African singer Miriam Makeba, who died last weekend after a concert in Italy.

Musicians, poets and politicians paid tribute to the 76-year-old performer.

Arts minister Pallo Jordan described Makeba as "a woman whose name became synonymous with the worldwide struggle for freedom in South Africa".

Her family also attended the service at the Coca Cola Dome concert venue, which followed two days of national mourning.

They are expected to hold a smaller service for her cremation on Sunday.

The singer, who was known as Mama Africa, spent more than 30 years in exile after lending her support to the campaign against apartheid.

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (IPS) - Last April, top George W. Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between the Nouri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'a militias.

Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates suggested that there was "some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups." And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the "plentiful, high quality weaponry" the militia was then using in Basra was "recently manufactured in Iran".

But a U.S. military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story. The data collected by the task force in the previous six weeks showed that relatively few of the weapons found in Shi'a militia caches were manufactured in Iran.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

It seems to me that things are getting worse.

This week I was at the scene of a bombing, reporting a news story
about three explosions in Adhamiya. They were horrible explosions, all at the same time in a very crowded Shia neighborhood. I remember the smell of the blood, the flies all around and the injured people, the broken glass and the destruction.

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I do not think I am more cautious or worried than most people. In Adhamiya I was the only woman on the street while the police were clearing away the remains of the explosion, the glass, blood, clothes
and the pieces of meat left over from restaurants.

But it seems to be that things are getting worse, and I am now being more careful to avoid crowded places and bazaars.
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In The New York Times's office I am the one who sits next to the whiteboard where we record explosions, shootings and other deaths in Iraq. Since two days before Barack Obama's victory I started to notice the board filling up again. There are many explosions. Many of them are small, but some days we have to start a new column. It was not like this even two weeks ago.

But my mother lives in a safe, Shiite neighborhood, and always sticks to her house. The reason she thinks the situation is becoming worse is because of what she hears speaking to friends and neighbors whose relatives were killed or injured.

Some people are saying that the Americans are making the bombings to make Iraqis believe that it is very important for them to stay in Iraq, that they are still needed. The Americans say that when they
withdraw from Iraq violence will increase. Is that a threat? You can read it as a threat, or you can read it as an expectation. Some Iraqis take it as a threat.

Some people are asking: "Are the Americans punishing us with bombings because Iraq has refused to sign the SOFA?" [Status of Forces Agreement]

Here that is a reality, people think it. I can see it in people's eyes when they say it to me. Real belief in what they are saying.
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Anwar J. Ali is an Iraqi journalist who works for The New York Times in Baghdad.

It seems like more than some people think all these bombings are from the Americans. At times it seems like everyone thinks so.

Just two days ago I went to cover a car bombing in what had been a relatively peaceful part of eastern Baghdad. The bomb exploded in a parking lot surrounded by doctors' offices and pharmacies. My colleague, Mudhafer, and I searched for one of the doctors, walking through bombed-out buildings filled with broken glass and overturned furniture. Finally, in one of the pharmacies we found Dr Daniel
Khafaji, a clean-shaven man in a pin striped suit.

"It is only the SOFA," he said casually, referring to the contentious security agreement being negotiated between the Americans and Iraqis. "This is all in the interest of the Americans. We are occupied."

He said that American troops were seen near the bomb only 10 minutes before it went off, a line that you hear so often it has almost become a formality, and he repeated the usual theory: the Americans said there would be violence if the SOFA, which sets the conditions for the Americans' continued presence in Iraq after the end of the year, didn't pass. It hasn't passed so here's the violence. If it makes sense it must be true.
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These next few months are not going to be easy.

The incoming National government will completely review the emissions trading scheme (ETS) - possibly including the science that says humans are to blame for climate change - as part of its support deal with Act.

But Prime Minister-elect John Key is still confident an amended ETS will be passed into law before the end of next year.

[...]

Under Act's support agreement a "special select committee" will be set up to review the current ETS and any proposed amendments "in light of the current economic circumstances".

A draft terms of reference for the review attached to the agreement, includes hearing "competing views on the scientific aspects of climate change" and looking at the merits of a "mitigation or adaptation approach".

It also includes looking at the merits of an ETS, as opposed to a carbon tax, and the timing of any future climate change interventions.

The deal requires the National government to pass immediate legislation delaying the implementation of the ETS until the review is complete.

In short, they've shitcanned it.  Fourth time wasn't so lucky after all.

My country is clearly not going to get serious climate change policy unless we are strongarmed into it by European trading partners.  So, any suggestions on how to make that happen?  Any way of getting EU green groups to run a hate campaign against NZ's backsliding?

A recently laid off high-tech employee allegedly opened fire late Friday afternoon inside the Santa Clara office where he used to work, killing three people and sparking a massive police dragnet that spread throughout the area.

Santa Clara police identified Jing Hua Wu, 47, of Mountain View, as the gunman who shot to death two men and one woman with a handgun before driving off in a silver sport utility vehicle, believed to be a rented Mercury Mountaineer.

(...)

Late Tuesday, police identified the two men killed as Sid Agrawal, the company's chief executive, and Brian Pugh, vice president of operations for the company. The identity of the third victim had not been released as of 11 p.m. Friday.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 14 (IPS) - "I don't see any investigation, only grief and despair," said Heyman Vázquez, a Catholic priest who runs a shelter for migrants on the border between the southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, referring to the recent kidnappings of 20 Central American women by groups of armed men.

"They promised to investigate, but no one has even come to make enquiries," Vázquez told IPS from Arriaga, where the women, most of them under 30, boarded a freight train heading north. A short distance from there they were kidnapped, in two separate incidents on Nov. 5 and 11.

Every day, dozens of Central American migrants en route to the United States arrive at Arriaga, some 500 kilometres from the border between Mexico and Guatemala, after having walked for up to 15 days.

Until mid-2007 they came by train, but now they travel on foot or by bus, because the railway lines south of Arriaga are damaged and no trains are running.

On the night of Nov. 5, at a place called Las Anonas, a group of armed men in a 4 x 4 all terrain vehicle forced the freight train to stop and took away 12 Central American women. They have not been seen or heard from since.

Six days later at a nearby spot, a similar armed group burst into a small migration post and took away another eight women, according to eye witnesses.

Beijing (AFP) Nov 13, 2008
Enormous brown clouds of pollution hanging over Asia are killing hundreds of thousands of people, melting glaciers, changing weather patterns and damaging crops, the United Nations said Thursday.

Car traffic, factory emissions and indoor cooking are among the culprits for the "Atmospheric Brown Clouds", which are up to three kilometres (1.8 miles) thick, according the UN's Environment Programme (UNEP).

Releasing a landmark report on the phenomenon, the UNEP said getting rid of the clouds could help ease many environmental problems in Asia.

"The Atmospheric Brown Cloud is both complex and in need of a great deal more attention," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner told reporters.

Unlike greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, which take decades or longer to disperse, the clouds would disappear in a matter of weeks if the sources of the problem ceased to pollute, the report said.

Pittsburgh (UPI) Nov 13, 2008
U.S. scientists studying 10 of the world's most popular approved pesticides say, when combined, the chemicals caused 99 percent mortality in tadpoles.

University of Pittsburgh researchers said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved pesticides, when mixed together, can decimate amphibian populations even if the concentration of the individual chemicals is within limits considered safe.

Such "cocktails of contaminants" are frequently detected in nature, the scientists said, noting their findings offer the first illustration of how a large mixture of pesticides can adversely impact the environment.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Whoever thought that science was a dry subject might change their mind after learning about a new discovery in which tequila is turned into diamonds. A team of Mexican scientists found that the heated vapor from 80-proof (40% alcohol) tequila blanco, when deposited on a silicon or stainless steel substrate, can form diamond films.
The key to the surprising discovery is tequila's ratio of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, which lies within the "diamond growth region." The resulting diamond films could have inexpensive commercial applications as electrical insulators, say researchers Javier Morales, Luis Miguel Apátiga, and Víctor Manuel Castaño from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Morales is also with Nuevo León´s Autonomous University).

Originally, the scientists were experimenting with creating diamonds from organic solutions such as acetone, ethanol, and methanol. They found that diluting ethanol in water resulted in high quality diamond films. The scientists then noticed that the ideal compound of 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water was similar to the proportion used in tequila.

According to [French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin's] theory - shown in a computer model available at http://www.3ds.com/khufu - the builders put up an outer ramp for the first 140 feet, then constructed an inner ramp in a corkscrew shape to complete the 450-foot structure.

Seattle PI:  Architect claims to solve pyramid secret

Now here's a video illustrating the theory -- and possible evidence for it -- from a National Geographic documentary to be broadcast tonight in the U.S.:

Will be interesting to see if more investigations confirm the existence of that internal ramp.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

So they've honoured charles Darwin and his work on galapagos islands and the mockingbird. Except the bird pictured on the new note is a ....hummingbird.

Whooops - a - daisy

keep to the Fen Causeway

Feministing - Rick

People say that this is re-defining marriage, or is of some other cultural significance.

Saying this makes you seem ignorant of how language works.

A "bow" is the front part of a ship. A "bow" is a gesture made by bending at the waist. The letters are the same. The pronunciation is the same, but the words refer to very different things.

"Marriage" is a social institution. "Marriage" is a religious institution. "Marriage" is a legal institution. The letters are the same. The pronunciations are the same. But the words refer to very different things.

My parents have stated to their community that they intend to spend their lives together, the community recognizes them as a social unit. They thus have a marriage(social).

They both believe in a god, and their church has recognized this union as a holy bond between souls. Thus they have a marriage(religious).

They also signed a contract, designed, sustained and enforced by the powers of the state in which they live. This contract was created under state law and grants them certain rights and obligations towards one another. Thus they have a marriage(civil).

The problem with your position is you are watering down the meaning of marriage by conflating all the definitions with marriage(civil).

What the state grants, the state can take away. You're ascribing to the state the power and authority to break up not only my parents marriage(civil) but also their marriage(religious) and their marriage(social).

Prop 8 has no impact on what god does or doesn't do; the Govenator isn't quite that powerful yet. Nor can the state force you to recognize a given household arrangement as good or not good.

So, when people go, "It's not about law, it's about a social institution" I look at them with contempt.

Either you're so amoral that you look to what is legal to determine what is moral or you're playing linguistic games to disguise bigotry.

Either way, this is a position that deserves no respect