Contrary to popular belief, the European Union's expansion towards central and Eastern Europe has not sparked a massive influx of Polish plumbers or Bulgarian builders to the bloc's richest nations, figures due out Tuesd

According to the European Commission's latest report, more and more workers from the EU's 12 newest member states have been relocating to Germany or Britain since being allowed to move freely around the 27-member bloc.

 

However, their numbers remain small in relative terms. In fact, the EU's richer nations continue to receive a far higher share of foreign immigrants from the developing world.

 

For instance, the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who found a job in one of the EU's 15 older member states grew to 1.6 million in 2007, up from 1.3 million in 2006 -- when those two countries were not yet part of the EU. Most of them have headed to Spain and Italy.

 

But Bulgarians and Romanians still account for just 0.4 percent of the total population of the EU's richest nations, compared to 0.3 percent in 2006.

The suspected military chief of the Basque separatist group, Eta, has been arrested in southern France.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero called the arrest of Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, alias "Txeroki", a "severe blow" to Eta.

Mr Garikoitz Aspiazu is suspected of the murder of two Spanish civil guard officers in France in 2007.

Eta is blamed for the deaths of more than 820 people in its 40-year campaign for an independent Basque nation.

The arrest of Mr Garikoitz Aspiazu, 35, which took place overnight in the Hautes-Pyrenees region of France, follows the detention of Eta's alleged political commander, Javier Lopez Pena, in a joint Spanish-French operation in the French city of Bordeaux in May.

Fresh witness accounts have undermined Georgia's portrayal of its onslaught on the breakaway territory of South Ossetia as a purely defensive operation, and prompted authorities to launch a fightback to counter allegations that it is rewriting the history of its six-day war with Russia.

Amnesty International will today be the latest to challenge the Georgian narrative in an authoritative 76-page report which accuses Georgia and Russia of war crimes during the short, sharp war triggered by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on 7 August. The war, ended by French mediation after Russia invaded Georgia proper in a land, sea and air assault, triggered the most serious crisis in international relations since the Cold War.

The Amnesty report specifically accuses Georgian forces of having committed "indiscriminate attacks" on 7 August "causing deaths and injuries among South Ossetian civilians and considerable damage to civilian objects". It says: "Serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by all sides."

Ryan Grist, the head of the international monitoring group during the conflict, told The Independent that when the war started the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali "did still contain women and children" who should have been protected from the conflict which had built up over months.

Rents fell for the first time in five years between July and October as home-movers flooded the rental market with properties that they could not sell.

According to a new survey, 12 per cent more lettings agents said that rents had fallen rather than risen between August and October. That was a reversal from the previous three months, when nearly a third more agents said that rents were rising, figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) show.

It is the first time since 2003 that the gauge of rental yields has turned negative. James Scott-Lee, of RICS, said: "Many vendors have been forced to become amateur landlords, creating an inevitable downward pressure on rents."

This came as a report said that more than one in three landlords would be plunged into negative equity by the middle of next year as house prices continue to fall.

A law expanding the spying abilities of Germany's federal police has been criticized by police unions. They say the proposed law's aggressive online evidence-gathering measures are ill-conceived and open to abuse.

Less than a week after Germany's lower house of parliament approved new anti-terrorism legislation that would vastly expand the cyber-spying powers of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), two police trade unions and the German Judicial Federation demanded that amendments be made to the so-called Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations Bill.

 

The bill, backed strongly by Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition government, was passed in the Bundestag last week with 375 parliamentarians in favor and 168 against. The plan, if approved by the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, could go into effect in early 2009.

 

Among the most contentious points in the bill are those addressing the expansion of surreptitious online search capabilities and an increase in the BKA's powers to access information from the computers, telephone conversations and homes of suspected terrorists.

 

If enacted the plan would allow "remote forensic software" to search secretly through hard drives and send potentially incriminating evidence back to investigators. The measure does not, however, allow the police to enter a home in order to install monitoring equipment or software on a computer.

The Irish foreign minister, Micheal Martin has said that Dublin is in talks with other European capitals to see if the retention of a commissioner for each member state is viable - a key concern of No voters in the June referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

Mr Martin made the announcement on Monday (17 November) speaking to Irish public broadcaster RTE.

While abortion and gay marriage figured prominently amongst election literature, voters had other concerns about the treaty

"We've had a number of discussions over the last couple of weeks, and those discussions are ongoing and have intensified in recent times," he said.

Talks have looked at a range of issues, such as abortion, neutrality and taxation.

The question of Ireland's traditional neutrality, which No campaigners argued was under threat from a growing militarisation of the European Union was one of the main reasons people voted No, according to a post-referendum commission poll. Taxation figured equally prominently according to the Eurobarometer survey, as did the loss of a commissioner.

Abortion however did not figure prominently amongst people's concerns, being the reason for casting a ballot against the Lisbon Treaty for just two percent of No voters.

There are persistent differences across Europe in how long people live without major health problems, with both GDP and expenditure on elderly care of their home countries among the key factors influencing these trends.

A research team at University at Leicester has found that western Europeans live healthily on average 14 years more than their counterparts in the east of the continent, according to a report in UK medical journal the Lancet, published on Monday (17 November).

Elderly people in Denmark tend to live healthily the longest time, while Estonians the shortest

The study found that a 50-year-old man from Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden or Malta will live well until they are over 70 without disability or major health problems that would force him to limit his activities.

At the same time, his neighbours of the same age in Hungary, Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania would live healthy lives for ten years fewer, with the highest average age (73.6) recorded in Denmark, and the lowest (59.0) in Estonia - a difference of 14 years.

Moreover, Danish women tend to have the highest number of healthy years (74.1) compared to other European women, with the women with lowest number of healthy years coming from Estonia (60.4).

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Citizens from the western Balkans have mixed feelings regarding their countries' EU future, with Kosovars and Albanians being particularly optimistic, but barely a third of Croats consider EU accession to be "a good thing," a new survey has shown.

While those living in Kosovo and Albania back their countries' EU integration almost unanimously (89% and 83% respectively), only 29 percent of Croats think Zagreb's EU membership would be beneficial, while 26 percent say it would be a bad thing, according to a Gallup survey presented in Brussels on Monday (17 November).

Less than 30 percent of Croats think their country's EU membership would be beneficial.

Croatia is ahead of the other western Balkan countries on the road to EU membership, with the European Commission confirming earlier this month that it could conclude EU accession talks next year. Albania, on the other hand, is much less advanced, while Kosovo only declared unilateral independence from Serbia nine months ago.

But in Croatia, respondents' national pride and attachment to the country was particularly high, Robert Manchin, founder and managing director of Gallup Europe, told reporters while introducing the survey's results.

Additionally, it is "normal" for EU enthusiasm to decrease in candidate countries the closer they get to EU membership, as it is then when "painful reforms" carried by their governments in order to make the accession happen are most felt by the citizens, Fabrice de Kerchove of the Belgian King Baudouin Foundation added.

For years an Estonian government official has apparently been collecting the most intimate secrets of NATO and the EU -- and passing them on to the Russians. The case is a disaster for Brussels.

Communications between the suspected top spy and his commanding officer seemed like a throwback to the Cold War. Investigators allege that in order to send messages to his Russian contact, Herman Simm, 61, used a converted radio which looked like a relic from yesteryear's world of consumer electronics. But there was nothing old-fashioned about what Simm, a high-ranking official in the Estonian Defense Ministry in Tallinn, reportedly transmitted to Moscow over the years. It was the very latest intelligence information.

Although Simm was arrested with his wife Heete in the Estonian capital Tallinn on Sept. 21, this spy story -- which has been largely kept under wraps until now -- primarily concerns the European Union and NATO based in faraway Brussels. Since Simm was responsible for dealing with classified information in Tallinn, he had access to nearly all documents exchanged within the EU and NATO. Officials who are familiar with the case assume that "virtually everything" that circulates between EU member states was passed on to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR -- including confidential analyses by NATO on the Kosovo crisis, the war in Georgia and even the missile defense program. Investigators believe that Simm was a "big fish."

Estonian capital city Tallinn: For the former Soviet state, the scandal has become the downside of a political success story. Meanwhile, a number of investigative teams from the EU and NATO have flown to Tallinn to probe the extent of the intelligence disaster. The investigation is being led by the NATO Office for Security, which is headed by an American official. As investigators pursue their work, they continue to unearth mounting evidence pointing to the enormity of the betrayal. A German government official has called the situation a "catastrophe," and Jaanus Rahumägi, a member of Estonia's national parliament who heads the parliamentary oversight committee for the government security agency, fears "historic damage."

Nicolas Sarkozy's reformist government faces an outpouring of anger from French unions this week as airline pilots, train drivers, teachers, students and postal workers lead a series of strikes.

In a sign of public sector unease at Sarkozy's drive to liberalise the French labour market, union leaders urged ministers not to push through changes to working conditions at a time of rising unemployment and job insecurity.

"The public services have to accept the fact that they cannot just do what they like," said Bernard Thibault, the head of France's most powerful union, the CGT. "They cannot just unilaterally impose changes [on working conditions]."

Air France pilots, protesting against moves to raise their retirement age from 60 to 65, were the first group to register their dissent this week. Despite a promise from the government that such a step would be "optional", the four-day strike continued yesterday, leading to the cancellation of 40% of the airline's flights.

Meeting in the northern Italian port of Trieste on Tuesday, Germany's chancellor and her Italian counterpart focused on global economic problems -- but also had time for a quick game of hide and seek.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Tuesday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel favor a possible partnership between German airline Lufthansa and ailing Italian carrier Alitalia.

 

"We both view a collaboration between Alitalia and Lufthansa very favorably. In fact we hope it will occur," Berlusconi said during a joint news conference with Merkel in Trieste after surprising his German guest with a game of hide and seek at the beginning of their meeting.

 

As Merkel approached to greet Berlusconi, he hid behind a column and called out "coo-coo!". Merkel then turned to him, laughed and said "Silvio!" before embracing him, according to reports.

  

MEPs have overwhelmingly called on the European Commission to ensure that women are paid as much as men at work.

They complain that the existing legislation - now in place for some 30 years - is well out of date, and want the EU to ensure employers stop discriminating - possibly under the threat of fines.

The European Parliament on Tuesday (17 November) adopted a report 590 votes to 23 against requesting the EU's executive draft a legislative proposal revising the current law on equal pay.

Currently, women in Europe earn some 15 percent less than men on average across all sectors, and up to 25 percent less when they are not working in the public sector, and varying between four and 25 percent among the member states,

The report was adopted under a special procedure in which the parliament, having obtained an absolute majority, can call on the commission to bring forward a legislative proposal.

A police officer, more than a dozen soldiers, a vicar and a Chelsea pensioner have been named on a list purporting to comprise the entire membership of the British National Party.

They were exposed after bloggers posted around 10,000 names, together with home addresses, telephone numbers, jobs and even hobbies on the internet.

The leak led some BNP members to fear that they may lose their jobs or face other reprisals...

The publication of the list sparked panic among BNP members using anonymous internet chatrooms. Many expressed fears that they may lose their jobs or face disciplinary action as a result.

One user of a right-wing site wrote: "I'm also on the list, what the ---- is going on? I could lose my job."

Another said: "The reccession means many of us could lose our jobs, add this info to it and its a dead cert."

The publication of the membership list sparked jubilation among anti-racist groups and other critics of the BNP, which wants an immediate halt to immigration and the "voluntary resettlement" of existing immigrants.

The BNP leadership on Tuesday confirmed that the list was a broadly accurate picture of the party membership list for 2007. The party and said it had contacted police about the publication.

Labour backbenchers last night began to forecast a general election next summer after a day when the effects of the economic crisis slashed the Tory poll lead to three points and led David Cameron to abandon his commitment to match Labour spending plans if the Tories win power.

Cameron's move liberates him to offer tax or spending cuts, but left him isolated in opposition to the government's plans to use short-term financial help to boost consumer spending and help the economy.

The Tory leader claimed: "We cannot afford a massive tax giveaway." But his position was undermined as the Institute of Directors came out in favour of a £20bn stimulus, including a 3p cut in income tax, and the CBI also gave its support.

The Mori survey yesterday showed Cameron's advantage had collapsed to three points, with the Tories on 40 points, down five, Labour on 37 points, up seven, and the Liberal Democrats on 12, down two. Mori said the lead represented only a four-seat Tory Commons majority.

Labour is wary of fuelling speculation after the debacle of not calling an election last year, but said if polls went in the same direction over the winter, an election in June, the date of the European elections, becomes a serious option.

Swiss bank UBS axed bonuses for top executives on Monday and said it would introduce a more transparent pay system in the most far-reaching changes on pay at a top European lender during the credit crisis.

UBS, which is struggling in the subprime crisis and whose shares slumped to a new all-time low on Monday, said Chairman Peter Kurer, Chief Executive Marcel Rohner and other executive board members would not get any bonuses this year.

Starting from 2009, top managers' bonuses will be blocked for at least three years instead of being paid immediately and executives will receive variable pay if UBS results warrant.

Under the new system, the chairman will only be awarded a fixed salary.

Kurer's fixed-pay salary for this year was 2 million Swiss francs ($1.68 million), he said on Monday.

"UBS is fully committed to taking its responsibilities seriously and correcting previous errors," the bank said.

Tax rises are set to follow next week's tax cuts, ministers admitted yesterday as Gordon Brown raised the spectre of deflation in Britain for the first time.

David Cameron predicted a tax-raising "bombshell" after Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, spoke of the need for "structural adjustments later on" and Mr Brown himself accepted that the Pre-Budget Report (PBR) stimulus would be "temporary".

Their remarks reflected the strong Treasury view that next week's tax cut and spending package from the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, must be accompanied by evidence that he intends to get soaring borrowing back on course over the medium term. That should mean tax rises, spending cuts or both.

As the Prime Minister, reporting back to MPs from the Washington summit, predicted that governments across the world would soon be cutting taxes or raising spending, Mr Cameron told him to come clean and admit that his higher borrowing meant "higher taxes tomorrow".

At the financial summit in Washington, the international community was unduly respectful of the United States, neglecting to probe more deeply into the reasons for the crisis. Only one attendee was unruly -- German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück. Here's the message he didn't deliver to Bush.

First, the true part of the story: US President George W. Bush had invited the leaders of the world's 20 most important countries to a dinner at the White House last Friday evening. Because the financial crisis was the topic of discussion, each leader had the option of bringing along his or her finance minister. The first course, smoked quail, was to be served at 7:20 p.m.

Everyone was on time, except one man.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel had arrived in a Cadillac at 6:35 p.m., the Russian president in a Mercedes and the president of the World Bank in a Lexus. Everyone looked festive. A dinner in the West Wing of the White House is still one of the highlights of a politician's career.

But where was Peer Steinbrück?

The Netherlands, Spain and Poland were all keen to get invited to join last weekend's summit of world leaders to discuss the economic crisis. The competition for a seat reflected the historical importance of the meeting and the shift in the balance of power.

"I need my own chair," Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said last week, referring to his desire to go to the G-20 economic summit in Washington. The Dutch prime minister was also trying to get an invitation to the event. It was becoming a bit like the party game of musical chairs -- with more guests than seats.

 World leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero at the Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy on Saturday. The competition reflected the historical importance of the meeting and the shift in power politics. The meeting had to be small enough to allow dialogue but large enough to have the authority to speak on behalf of the world.

The host, US president George W. Bush, wanted to limit the guest list to those who attend the annual G-20 meeting: the Western industrialized countries of the G-7, the world's 12 developing economies and the European Union.

This did not go down well with Spain, which despite being the world's eighth-biggest economy, is not a member of the G-20. Bush kept the door closed but French president Nicolas Sarkozy offered a solution. He had four tickets for the front row: two for France, which is a member of the G-7, and two because of France's role as the rotating, six-month president of the European Union. He offered the latter two to Zapatero.

In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, discusses how the current financial crisis will dampen national initiatives to curb greenhouse gas emissions and why he still has hopes Kyoto targets can be reached.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. de Boer, since 2000, the industrialized nations have continued to increase their greenhouse gas emissions. Has the world failed in moving to protect the climate?

de Boer: I don't think so. We have released data from 2006 -- in other words, just one year after the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. Emissions keep rising, but they will start going down. The countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol are still in a position to reach their goals.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But it still seems like many of these countries, such as Japan, aren't paying much attention to their climate-protection obligations.

DDP

A wind turbine in front of a coal-burning power facility in the eastern German state of Brandenburg. de Boer: Japan certainly does have a long way to go before it reaches its goals. But the country is changing its policies, and it is also planning on purchasing international emissions rights. That's why I'm certain that Japan will reach its Kyoto goal.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: And how do things look with Canada?

de Boer: There's no denying that Canada has very significant problems. But, in this case, the situation is perhaps a bit strange. The country has said that it will not be able to reach its Kyoto goal, but it still says that it doesn't intend to abandon the treaty.

A classic scholar has proved the point, by unearthing a Greek version of the world-famous piece that is some 1,600 years old.

A comedy duo called Hierocles and Philagrius told the original version, only rather than a parrot they used a slave.

It concerns a man who complains to his friend that he was sold a slave who dies in his service.

His companion replies: "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!"

The joke was discovered in a collection of 265 jokes called Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which dates from the fourth century AD.

Who wrote the "Dead Economy" sketch?

Citigroup to slash 50,000 jobs worldwide
Citigroup said it would cut up to 50,000 jobs worldwide as the US banking giant struggles with the global financial crisis and four consecutive quarters of heavy losses.
...Citigroup has already announced plans for 22,000 staff reductions and has eliminated at least 13,000 so far this year, according to company figures.

A landmark investigation into the causes of Gulf War syndrome has concluded that the illness was caused by troops being given nerve gas pills and exposed to pesticides.

The study in the United States, mandated by Congress and described as one of the most wide-ranging undertaken on the subject, found that the most likely cause of the illness was pyridostigmine bromide (PB) in protection pills given to American and British troops to counter the Soman nerve gas Saddam Hussein could have used in the 1991 Gulf War. US soldiers were also affected by neurotoxins in pesticides extensively used in preparation for operations.

The findings led to immediate calls for official action on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, troops' welfare groups said the British Government must do more to help those affected and carry out its own comprehensive research. The British Government has insisted there is not enough scientific evidence so far to prove the existence of Gulf War syndrome. But it has agreed to offer war pensions to members of the forces who became ill after serving in the first Gulf war. About 6,000 British service personnel, out of 55,000 mobilised for the conflict, are reported to be suffering from the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome. Many were medically discharged from the forces and have had to give up subsequent civilian jobs due to ill health. The Royal British Legion demanded that a payment of £10,000 be made to each veteran suffering from the ailment in compensation for a failure of duty of care.

WASHINGTON -- New government figures show that almost 700,000 children went hungry in the United States at some point in 2007, up more than 50 percent from the year before to mark the highest point since 1998. And that's even before this year's sharp economic downtown, the Agriculture Department reported Monday.

The department's annual report on food security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more than double the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since 716,000 in 1998.

Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in 2006. That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn't have the money or assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives.

Almost a third of those, 11.9 million adults and children, went hungry at some point. That figure has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000. The government says these people suffered a substantial disruption in their food supply at some point and classifies them as having "very low food security." Until the government rewrote its definitions two years ago, this group was described as having "food insecurity with hunger."

Government wiretaps of opposition politicians usually remain secret, restricted to the ears of spooks and ministers. But in democracy Venezuela-style, everyone gets to listen in.

President Hugo Chávez has filled the airwaves with tapped conversations of his political foes to embarrass and apparently intimidate them in the run-up to regional elections. State TV has broadcast the recordings, enhanced with comic sound effects, in a barrage of attack adverts that would make even Karl Rove blush.

The prime target has been Manuel Rosales, an opposition leader who is tipped to become mayor of Maracaibo, Venezuela's second city. One advert features him discussing buying expensive jewellery, along with sound and visual effects of rings and a Cartier watch.

Another advert plays a conversation with Rosales negotiating the purchase of cattle, to a backdrop of mooing sounds and cartoon pictures of coins.

Other politicians, as well as journalists and diplomats, have found private conversations, as well as photographs and video images, broadcast on state TV.

Don't be put off by the sign, which reads "Cent al B ghd d Stat on."

And don't worry about the gun-toting men who emerge from the dark and board the train as it sits in predawn silence at the huge, domed station that has seen grander days.

They're there to protect passengers riding Baghdad's first commuter train, an experiment in urban renewal in a city as broken as the rusted station sign but struggling to pull itself together.

Since the commuter train service began about a month ago, ridership has been spotty. Few people seem to know it exists. After all, who would imagine such a thing in Baghdad, where going from one end of town to another was, not that long ago, an invitation to be killed?

But the Ministry of Transportation wanted to relieve Iraqis of the chaos of Baghdad's streets, where checkpoints, speeding convoys and almost daily bombings cause massive traffic tie-ups. Thus was born the Baghdad Metro, as the men who gather for each day's 5:30 a.m. departure have dubbed the service.

"If this succeeds, I think they'll open more lines inside Baghdad," says Thafir Salim, the engineer on the route, which leaves the main station and weaves about 15 miles through west and south Baghdad on just two round-trip journeys a day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

People who knew Tang Yongming say they never imagined he could do such a horrible, senseless thing. A few minutes after noon on Aug. 9, just 12 hours after the start of the 2008 Olympics, Tang, 47, savagely knifed a visiting American couple inside Beijing's 13th-century Drum Tower. Then he jumped 130 feet to his death from the ancient landmark's western balcony. Minneapolis businessman Todd Bachman--father-in-law of U.S. men's indoor-volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon--died of stab wounds. Bachman's wife, Barbara, survived, despite life-threatening injuries. Their guide, a young Chinese woman, was also hurt, although less seriously. Tang remains an enigma. "There was nothing abnormal about him, absolutely nothing," says Wang Yongxian, a prim, businesslike community worker who tried to help Tang find a new job five years ago, after his previous employer let him go. Wang's colleague Xu Guofang agrees: "He wasn't just 'relatively' ordinary. He was simply ordinary. Period."

Back in August, Tang's ordinariness was cause for relief: authorities quickly figured out that he wasn't a terrorist, and the Games went on. But the truth is perhaps more disturbing. The troubles that destroyed Tang--the loss of his job, the collapse of his marriage, heartbreak over his wastrel only child--are all too common across China.

The country is the world's most stressful: three decades of reforms have shredded China's safety net and transformed society beyond recognition. That's why, as Chinese leaders prepare to mark the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's capitalist reforms next month, they're also frantically pumping more than half a trillion dollars into their economy in hopes of staving off a downturn.

They have reason to worry. Economists say China's GDP has to grow between 7.5 and 8 percent a year just to keep up with the need for new jobs. Labor unrest has already broken out across the country: half of China's toymakers have gone bankrupt this year, throwing millions of factory workers into the streets, while cabbies angered by gas prices rioted and burned police vehicles in Chongqing a few weeks ago.

Tang shared their sense of frustration. Many who knew him are reluctant to talk about him publicly, fearing trouble with the authorities, and most requested anonymity before agreeing to be interviewed. But his story reveals tensions that seethe just below the surface in China.

Los Angeles Times - Somali pirates hijack another merchant ship off Africa

Pirates prowling the treacherous waters off the Horn of Africa hijacked another merchant ship Tuesday -- at least the second in four days -- amid growing international concern about a 21st century version of an ancient security threat.

The Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship Delight and its 25-person crew were captured late Tuesday morning off the coast of Yemen, Beijing's New China News Agency reported, citing the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center. It was hauling 36,000 metric tons of wheat to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, the news service reported.

Sky News - Somali Pirates Scare off Tankers

Norwegian Odfjell SE group has instructed more than 90 of its tankers to sail around Africa, rather than use the Suez Canal.

The US and other naval forces decided against intervening in the seizure of the supertanker Sirius Star, which was carrying $100 million in crude oil.

The pirates have since captured an Iranian cargo ship, the seventh vessel to be seized in 12 days.

Odfjell SE said it would "not longer expose our crew to the risk of being hijacked and held for ransom by pirates in the Gulf of Aden".

The Saudi Arabian owned Star was seized hundreds of miles off the coast of Kenya in the most brazen attack yet staged by Somali pirates.

BBC - India sinks Somali pirate ship

The Indian navy has said that one of its warships in the Gulf of Aden has destroyed a ship belonging to pirates operating off the coast of Somalia.

The INS Tabar opened fire on a pirate "mother ship" after it came under attack, a government statement said.

There has been a surge in piracy incidents off Somalia.

The Saudi-owned Sirius Star supertanker is currently anchored off the Somali coast after the vessel and its 25 crew were seized by pirates.

Vela International, operators of the Sirius Star, told the BBC no demands had yet been received from the pirates. The company also said all the crew were safe.

The biggest tanker ever hijacked, Sirius Star is carrying a cargo of two million barrels - a quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output - worth more than $100m (£67m).

Reuters Africa - Asians step up defense against Somali pirates

TOKYO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - India said it had destroyed a Somali pirate vessel in the Gulf of Aden and other Asian nations mulled sending their own navies to the area on Wednesday as attacks in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes become increasingly brazen.

On Saturday a Saudi-owned tanker carrying $100 million worth of oil was seized in the Indian Ocean, becoming the biggest ever ship to be hijacked, despite a large international naval presence in the area, backed by the European Union and NATO.

No ransom has been demanded so far for the Saudi supertanker.

An Indian warship destroyed a Somali pirate vessel in a brief battle late on Tuesday, the navy said. But the attacks continued apace, with a Greek carrier and a Thai fishing vessel becoming the latest to be captured.

South Korea is likely to add its own warships to the international naval operation, an official said on Wednesday. Japan is also considering sending navy vessels, a newspaper report said, but its plan faces the twin obstacles of its pacifist constitution and a divided parliament. India has already deployed a warship.

"We believe this is a very serious issue, to be confronted jointly by the international community," Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said in a telephone interview.

South Korean media said the Defence Ministry wanted to send at least one destroyer to the region. If parliament approves the measure, ships would likely be deployed early next year.

In the past few weeks, Somali pirates have captured a South Korean cargo vessel and held hostage South Korean sailors who were part of the crew of a Japanese ship.

India sent the INS Tabar to the Gulf of Aden last month following complaints from Indian shipping firms about the attacks, which are driving up insurance premiums, forcing ships to take detours and securing massive ransoms for the perpetrators.

For all the talk of naval intervention, there is little mention of finding an effective political solution.  A naval presence can make their life much harder, but a functioning government could snuff the problem entirely.

Russia has returned six medieval stained glass window panes looted by the Soviet Red Army in 1945 to a church in Frankfurt an der Oder, on the Polish border.

The 700-year-old windows were thought vanished or destroyed until 2005, when they were discovered by a Russian art historian at a cloister outside Moscow, under the jurisdiction of the Pushkin Museum.

 

The first 111 panels, which had been in the possession of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, were returned by Russia in 2002.

 

Another three years would pass before the remaining six panels dating back to the 14th century would be restored to their rightful home at the Marienkirche, the Church of Our Lady.

 

Completing the panel of 117 panes in the church's 20-meter (65-foot) high windows depicting scenes from the Old Testament, the panes were delivered by German Culture Minister Bernd Neumann and Russian Ambassador to Germany Vladimir Kotenev.

Lucy the four-year-old Shetland pony is just 19.5 inches tall and weighs around 100 pounds.

Her owner, Sandra Ponder, 63, who runs a veterinary surgery near St Albans, Herts, owns 14 miniature ponies in total.

Lucy is still dwarfed by the group. Her 'largest' pet pony measures around 34 inches.

But the tiny pony loves galloping around the paddock with the larger horses in the stable.

Lucy lives in a specially made stable that is so small it looks more like a children's wendy house.

MADRID: When the English monarch in Alan Bennett's novella "The Uncommon Reader" decides to write her memoirs, she takes the prudent step of abdicating first. Queen Sofia of Spain may be wondering whether she, too, should have waited for her husband, King Juan Carlos, to leave office before granting a Spanish journalist a series of uncharacteristically candid interviews.

The resulting book, "The Queen Up Close," has provided Spaniards an uncomfortably close look at their queen's conservative views. Her comments on homosexuality, gay marriage, euthanasia and religious education have outraged liberal Spaniards and tarnished an image of discretion that she had carefully tended for decades.

In the most notorious gaffe in the book, the queen said that she respected people's different sexual tendencies but did not understand why "they should feel proud to be gay."

"That they get up on floats and parade in the streets? If all of us who are not gay were to parade in the streets, we'd halt the traffic in every city," she said. She then added that while gay people had a right to unions, they should not be permitted to call them marriages.

Jeremy Clarkson has shown his feelings towards speed cameras by blowing one up with a rocket in his new DVD Thriller.

The Top Gear presenter declares "photograph this" before hitting the Fire button on his specially adapted Porsche 944 Turbo and blasting the camera to bits. Clarkson mounted a rocket launcher onto the side of the car for the stunt, which features on a promotional advert for the DVD.

A double-decker bus, bearing the sign 'Wasting Space And Causing Jams In Your Community', is also the focus of Clarkson's rocket rage.

The DVD is not part of the BBC series, which recently featured a stunt in which Clarkson was left in 'screaming agony' after driving a lorry into a brick wall.