EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - By 2025, the European Union will be a "hobbled giant" crippled by internal bickering and a eurosceptic citizenry. Eastern European organised crime could dominate one or more member state governments, and the bloc will likely be kowtowing to Moscow after having failed at all attempts to wean itself from Russian energy supplies.

The EU will have completed its institutional reforms, but will remain weak on the world stage, warns the NIC

This is the rosy view for Europe's future mapped out by the United States National Intelligence Council (NIC), Washington's main intelligence body. This agency of agencies, formed in 1979, brings together analysis from each of America's multiple intelligence organisations to develop mid- to long-term strategic thinking for the country's security community.

Every four years, the NIC peers into its crystal ball and produces a global trends review - a prediction of what the world will look like in around 15 years' time.

This year's report, Global Trends 2025: A World Transformed, foresees the EU in 2025 as likely having completed its institutional reforms and consolidated itself as a political entity, but infighting between member states with competing domestic interests and a European public alienated by a perceived democratic deficit will leave it a "hobbled giant", with massive economic heft but little genuine international power.

France's Socialist party will today hold a run-off vote for its next leader, as Ségolène Royal and Martine Aubry battle to become the first woman to head the biggest party on the French left.

In the initial vote yesterday, first place went to Royal, the former presidential candidate who is promising to modernise the troubled and divided party.

Despite a campaign by party heavyweights and members of the old guard, who dismissed Royal as a would-be messianic figure with a Joan of Arc complex, damaged by losing the last presidential election, she took 43% of the vote. But it was not a big enough majority to win outright.

Aubry, the mayor of Lille and architect of France's 35-hour week, came second with 34%. The MEP Benoit Hamon took 22% and was knocked out of the next round.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili demanded Thursday that his Caucasus republic be offered a timetable showing what it must do to qualify for membership in NATO.

Saakashvili was in Munich paying his first visit to Germany since his nation's war with Russia this summer.

"Not offering Georgia a plan of action leading to membership will send the wrong signal to the wrong people," he said.

Russia has strongly opposed Georgia being absorbed into NATO, insisting that the former Soviet republic is within its sphere of influence.

Timetables, or membership action plans, offer new entrants a transition period to reshape their military institutions to NATO standards. Both Georgia and Ukraine are believed to be on the cusp of receiving MAPs.

France's detention policies risk undermining Europe's standing on human rights, a European human rights commission report said Thursday.

Convicts serving time inside French prisons had to deal with overcrowding, a lack of privacy, dilapidated facilities and substandard hygiene, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg said in the report, which followed an inspection of the French detention system in May.

He said the fundamental rights of prisoners had to be respected and that France needed to come up with more effective solutions to these problems and, importantly, more funding, especially for inmates with mental disorders.

"Dangerousness, on the basis of which preventive detention is ordered, is not a clear legal or scientific concept," he said. "Harsh measures have to be applied in some circumstances in order to protect society, but their use should not become routine.

"They must remain the last resort and other recidivism prevention measures should be applied in the first instance."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The rapidly melting Arctic is a bonanza of oil, gas, fish and mineral wealth waiting to be exploited - so long as it is done in a sustainable manner, the European Commission believes.

Faster transit routes, including the fabled Northwest Passage sought by explorers for centuries, and expanded possibilities for polar tourism also provide exciting opportunities for businesses, according to the EU executive, which on Thursday

"We cannot remain impassive in the face of the alarming developments affecting the Arctic climate and, in consequence, the rest of our planet," said fisheries commissioner Joe Borg, while speaking to reporters after the publication of the policy document.

"The Arctic is an essential and vulnerable component of the Earth's ecosystem," echoed his colleague, external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Walder. "The effects of climate change are more advanced and more evident in the Arctic than in any other area of the world."

But this is no reason not to exploit the region, they both argued.

The Swedish parliament late on Thursday (20 November) adopted the Lisbon treaty by a sweeping majority, becoming the 23rd EU country to ratify the text.

The treaty was passed by 243 votes against 39 at 23:30 local time, with 13 abstentions and 54 deputies absent from the 349-seat legislature, the Riksdag.

The old town in Stockholm

The opposition Left Party and Green Party had tried to build a 48-vote blocking minority to put off ratification for one year. But the four parties in the centre-right government coalition and the main Social Democrat opposition party pushed through the EU document.

The long debate, which started at noon and saw 36 members take the floor, concentrated on Sweden's collective labour agreements and transfer of sovereignty.

"Why can't Sweden ask for a legally-binding exemption for the collective bargaining model?" Left Party deputy Hans Linde asked, Swedish daily Aftonbladet reports.

EUOBSERVER / STRASBOURG - Member states need to assume more responsibility in correctly managing EU funds and follow up what happens in the national courts to the fraud cases investigated by the block's antifraud office (OLAF), commissioner Siim Kallas has told EUobserver.

With both the Court of Auditors and OLAF identifying structural funds - in which "member states decide who gets the money", he says - as those that are the most prone to irregularities and fraud, audit reporting from national governments is a necessary step to increase countries' responsibility in regards to EU funds, Mr Kallas said.

Commissioner Siim Kallas says OLAF's institutional arrangement is "schizophrenic"

He was speaking ahead of a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday (20 November) on the latest Court of Auditors report, where MEPs also called on member states to be "named and shamed" for the errors and fraud with EU funds.

Asked why only a few OLAF cases were followed up by the national judiciaries, Mr Kallas replied: "The priorities of national judiciaries are very different from the priority of handling European money."

"The European Parliament, the commission and the Council are all asking for vigorous action. But these actions are the competence of national judiciaries, which have enormous workloads," he explained.

The UN Security Council has extended the European Union's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia for one year. Since the war, the country has been under international administration, first under NATO and now under the EU.

The resolution was approved unanimously late Thursday, Nov. 20, and welcomed the EU's intention to retain its 2,100-strong military presence, known as EUFOR, in the country.

The Council also reminded Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs and Croats that it is primarily their responsibility to implement the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-1995 war.

Amsterdam is being forced to close 43 of its 228 cannabis-selling cafes to meet national regulations. The establishments, including the world famous Bulldog, are simply too close to highschools.

Amsterdam is being forced to close 43 of its 228 cannabis-selling cafes to meet national regulations, Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen announced Friday at the presentation of a memorandum on the city's drugs policy.

[...]

In an interview, Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen makes it clear that he is following the government's directive under duress. "It is possible that moving the coffee shops further away [from schools] will result in street trade and a growing number of drug runners. Young people could have easier access to drugs and it could also mean more work for the police," Cohen said.

Like the majority of mayors in towns where coffee shops sell cannabis, Cohen is happy with the existing policy on soft drugs but would like to see regulation of the whole cannabis trade. "I want an equal policy for soft drugs and alcohol," Cohen said.

The university professor was detained in connection with the opinion that he had expressed during a debate about the development of the Latvian economy and the future of the banking and credit system of Latvia, which was published in Ventspils' local newspaper Ventas Balss. The Mayor of Ventspils Aivars Lembergs also participated in the discussion.

"What happened is absurd. We wanted to find out an expert's opinion. He is competent and courageous, he has a degree, the knowledge and the experience," Imants Viksne of Ventas Balss commented on the detention of Smirnovs.

France will pay out €20 billion to protect its key industries in the wake of the global financial crisis via the creation of a strategic investment fund - the country's first sovereign wealth fund, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday (20 November).

Following up on his idea first brought up three weeks ago to protect French businesses from "foreign hands," Mr Sarkozy also announced the new fund's first €80 million investment would go to industrial supplier Daher, which works in the aerospace, defence, nuclear and automotive industries.

Mr Sarkozy does not want France transformed into "a simple tourist reserve."

According to the French president, firms that have "competences, technologies and jobs that are irreplaceable for the national territory" qualify as "strategic" ones and deserve special treatment.

"The day we don't build trains, aeroplanes, automobiles and ships, what will be left of the French economy? Memories. I will not make France a simple tourist reserve," he said.

The current financial crisis has some German experts worried about a cut in renewable energy funds. But industry professionals say that no matter which way the wind turns, the turbine blades will keep churning.

Skyrocketing oil prices and a greater attention to the problems created by greenhouse gases has helped the renewable energy market in Europe to boom over the last decade. Thanks to strict government regulations in Germany and lofty goals for cutting carbon emissions across the EU, solar and wind technologies have seen over a decade of innovation and created a new, profitable market.

 

According to the market research company New Energy Finance, 2007 saw worldwide investments in clean energy climb to $148 billion (118.2 billion euros).

 

Now with banks' money woes seeping into nearly every industry, some say that investors' love affair with renewable energies may be ending and Germany's place as an industry leader is threatened.

Everyone's talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters' minds, both discredited the G.O.P.'s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 -- namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

It's true that the interregnum will be shorter this time: F.D.R. wasn't inaugurated until March; Barack Obama will move into the White House on Jan. 20. But crises move faster these days.

How much can go wrong in the two months before Mr. Obama takes the oath of office? The answer, unfortunately, is: a lot. Consider how much darker the economic picture has grown since the failure of Lehman Brothers, which took place just over two months ago. And the pace of deterioration seems to be accelerating.

Most obviously, we're in the midst of the worst stock market crash since the Great Depression: the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has now fallen more than 50 percent from its peak. Other indicators are arguably even more disturbing: unemployment claims are surging, manufacturing production is plunging, interest rates on corporate bonds -- which reflect investor fears of default -- are soaring, which will almost surely lead to a sharp fall in business spending. The prospects for the economy look much grimmer now than they did as little as a week or two ago.

The number of indicators pointing to foul economic weather continues growing. A new index released on Friday testifies to increasingly empty order books. Experts predict that over 200,000 jobs are at risk. ANZEIGE
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The more economic data comes in, the worse the coming recession appears likely to be. According to a key German economic climate index released on Friday, industry in Germany is facing a difficult road ahead. The index, which measures the economic health of producers in Germany as well as the amount of orders they are receiving, dropped unexpectedly sharply in November relative to its already low October level. It now stands at 36.2, much lower than the 40.5 level many had expected, according to a Reuters survey.

Much of that drop comes as a result of a sharp falloff in exports, a branch that had much of the work in keeping the German economy humming in recent years.

The news comes on the heels of Thursday's announcement that the Ifo global business sentiment index dropped to its lowest level in 20 years. The index fell from an October level of 73.4 to November's 60.0.

Amid a debt-deflation spiral, the governments' greatest risk is enacting stimulus measures that are too little to fight the slump.

For more than six decades, through oil shocks and terrorist attacks, the world's advanced economies have managed to expand their collective output at least a little bit each year. But that long lucky streak is probably about to end, a victim of the severe global credit crunch. The International Monetary Fund is now projecting that 2009 will bring the first aggregate decline in economic output in advanced economies since at least World War II.

Going down. The IMF still expects China and other developing nations to grow next year as a group, but it warns that "downside risks to growth, even for the emerging economies, remain significant." Some economists are even gloomier. "There is a very severe deleveraging which you can't stop," says Anders Aslund, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "My guess is that (even) if we have good economic policies, the world will see a (gross domestic product) fall of 10 percent... . This is global, and it's fierce."

Even if things don't get that bad, it's clear that we're deep in uncharted territory -- or at least territory that hasn't been explored since the Great Depression. Economists and policymakers are floundering. Since they don't know how severe the recession will be, they don't know how extreme their measures to combat the downturn should be. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who has struggled to find a path for American policy, defended himself in a Nov. 18 op-ed article in The New York Times, saying: "There is no playbook for responding to turmoil we have never faced."

Repossessions in July, August and September jumped sharply by 12 per cent and, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, full year numbers are expected to soar by 70 per cent compared to 2007.

The number of repossessions that took place over the summer was 11,300, as an increasing number of homeowners are struggling to pay their mortgages. Today, the CML maintained its forecast that total repossessions for the year will reach 45,000, marking a 70 per cent increase on last year's total.

The latest figures from the CML also show that the number of mortgages in arrears by at least three months had jumped by 8 per cent.

The number of cases where people have fallen behind in their mortgage repayments by the end of September was 168,000, with lenders now suggesting that the total number of mortgages in arrears is likely to surpass previous forecasts of 170,000 by the end of the year.

Latvia has become the second European Union member state forced to seek emergency aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as from the EU's own coffers.

The move by Riga comes after much speculation by analysts that the Baltic countries and other post-Communist states that joined the EU in 2004 would follow Hungary in needing an external capital boost to weather the financial crisis.

Riga's move has prompted speculation as to who will be next to call for an IMF rescue

"We have decided to start official talks with the European Commission and the IMF about funding to stabilise the economy," Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis told reporters.

The Baltic country has seen a sharp economic slowdown this year, with a contraction of 4.3 percent in the third quarter, breaking its previous record of being one of the fastest growing economies in the EU.

The financial crisis has made it hard for Latvia to obtain funds in its attempts to counterbalance its large current account deficit.

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has told France and Germany not to start a "subsidy race" with the US to save the car industry.

She said the European Union's existing mechanisms could help automakers, hard hit by falling demand.

General Motors has been seeking support from the German government for its local subsidiary, Adam Opel GmbH.

On Thursday the Congress told US carmakers to present a recovery plan if they want a $25bn (£17bn) rescue.

Poorly-handled subsidies would not solve the car industry's problems, Neelie Kroes said.

Citi's Fall Continues as Bank Weighs Options

NEW YORK -- Citigroup Inc.'s stock fell as much as 24% Friday to a new 15-year low, as the giant bank's board met to consider its options amid a deepening market rout.

Just two months ago, Citigroup was seen as a possible rescuer for a floundering Wachovia Corp. Now the bank, still freighted with troubled assets and facing mounting losses on consumer loans as economies around the world slide into recession, is facing a flight by investors worried it won't be able to stem its losses and turn things around.

While some executives are starting to consider contingencies that could involve selling off entire lines of business or even putting the bank itself on the block, the bank continues to insist it has ample capital and its strategic direction is sound.

President-elect Barack Obama plans to announce his economic team on Monday as part of an effort to reassure markets and will name New York Fed President Tim Geithner his nominee for Treasury Secretary, NBC News has learned...

"I would say the market is going to like it," said James Awad, managing director of Zephyr Capital. "[Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry] Summers was more controversial. People will view it as a safe choice, an experienced guy. There's a little bit of a question because he's associated with the bailout, and that's still a work in progress and not totally successful. There will be a few who'll be upset because he's associated with the TARP."

Can anyone fill in details about his economic ideas? Here's some quotes his Federal Reserve biography:

Timothy F. Geithner became the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, he serves as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation's monetary policy.

Mr. Geithner joined the Department of Treasury in 1988 and worked in three administrations for five Secretaries of the Treasury in a variety of positions. He served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1999 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.

He was director of the Policy Development and Review Department at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 until 2003. Before joining the Treasury, Mr. Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates, Inc.

Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its recession estimates, saying gross domestic product is declining at a 5 percent annual rate in the current quarter and will drop 3 percent and 1 percent in the next two quarters.

Unemployment will reach 9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009, Goldman economists led by Jan Hatzius wrote in a research note today.

(Via CR.)

Scary numbers.

Krugman also noted today that yields on the 3-month Treasuries hit .02% today.

Krugman and DeLong are both pleased with the economics-related appointments -- Geithner at Treasury and Orszag at OMB -- Obama has made so far.  At least there's that, I guess, but it'd sure be nice if we could move the inauguration up to, like, Monday.

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

Ecuador audit advises default on 40% of foreign debt.
Jeanneth Valdivieso, AP  AR Democrat Gazette, 11-21-'08 (link unavailable)

QUITO, Ecuador--A presidential commission recommended Thrusday that Ecuador default on almost 40% of its foreign debt after finding "illegalities and ilegitimacies" in the contracts.

President Rafael Correa said he would seek to halt payment on those debts and hold foreign investment banks and ex-government officials responsible, but fell short of declaring a default.

An audit made public Thursday advises Correa's government  to default on $3.9 billion in three types of bonds issued as part of a debt restructuring in 2000.  It says the negotiations lacked transparency and caused "incalculable" damage to Ecuador's economy.

The report also accuses former Ecuadoran officials and investment bankds including U.S. based J.P. Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney, now part of Citigroup, of profiting from the restructuring.

With the sharp stock-market decline for Citigroup rapidly becoming a full-blown crisis of confidence, the company's executives on Friday entered into talks with federal officials about how to stabilize the struggling financial giant.

In a series of tense meetings and telephone calls, the executives and officials weighed several options, including whether to replace Citigroup's chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, or sell all or part of the company.

Other options discussed included a public endorsement from the government or a new financial lifeline, people involved in the talks said.

The course of action, however, remained uncertain on Friday night, these people said, and other options may yet emerge. But after a year of gaping losses and an accelerating decline in share price, Citigroup, which has $2 trillion in assets and operations in scores of countries, is running out of time, analysts said.

Citi's going down...

Oh, well.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[Drew's WHEEEEE™ Technology]

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

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine - Patti Smith

BAGHDAD: More than 10,000 supporters of the radical anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad's Firdos Square on Friday to protest the Iraqi government plan to sign a security agreement which would maintain American troops in the country for up to three years.

With powerful symbolism, demonstrators hanged an effigy of President George W. Bush from the plinth that once supported the statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled after Baghdad to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003.

Preachers and political leaders supporting Sadr erected their podium in the same colonnaded traffic circle. The Iraqi crowd applauded the downfall of Hussein's regime. To drive home their point, the cleric's supporters placed a black hood over the effigy of President Bush. They put a whip in his right hand and, in his left, a briefcase on which were written the words "the security agreement is shame and dishonor."

The black hood was a reference to the execution of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 30, 2006.

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - The United States has asked four oil-rich Gulf states for close to 300 billion dollars to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait's daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday.

Quoting "highly informed" sources, the daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait.

Al-Seyassah said Washington sought the amount as "financial aid" to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession.

The daily said the United States plans to use the funds to help the ailing automobile industry , banks and other companies suffering from the global financial turmoil.

The four nations, all members of OPEC, produce together 14 million barrels of oil per day, around half of the cartel's production and about 17 percent of world supplies.

THE leading US intelligence organisation has warned that the world is entering an unstable and unpredictable period in which the advance of Western-style democracy cannot be taken for granted, and the US will no longer be able to "call the shots" alone.

Powers such as China and India, as well as independent entities including tribes and criminal networks, will grow in influence, it predicts.

The global trends review, produced by the National Intelligence Council every four years, makes sobering reading for Barack Obama as he prepares to take office as president in January.

It marks a dramatic shift from the review in 2004, which confidently predicted "continued US dominance" and said "most major powers have forsaken the idea of balancing the US".

Jewish settlers in Hebron spray-painted insults to the Prophet Muhammad on a mosque and defaced Muslim gravestones with the Star of David yesterday as they defied a court order to leave a disputed building.

The graffiti was the most recent in a spate of attacks by the town's settlers, considered the most hardline in the West Bank, as they prepared for potential clashes with security forces. Israel is nervously waiting an all-out battle similar to the eviction of settlers from the Gaza Strip three years ago.

"We will not leave. We cannot leave. If we give up this house, it will next be Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, our whole country they ask us to leave," said Ruth Hizmi, 50, a mother of seven, who moved her family into the building two years ago.

Earlier yesterday a soldier was lightly injured when a chemical substance was sprayed at him near the building, the army said. Government officials have described a "drastic rise" in incidents of vandalism while dozens of Palestinians have filed complaints of verbal and physical harassment in recent months. There was a semblance of normality in the building; mothers with young children on their hips and fathers pushing strollers calmly made their way inside carrying supplies to set up a new home. "We are not here for days or weeks. We are not here until the Government kicks us out. This is our home," said one young woman stacking soda bottles into a cabinet.

DHARAMSALA, India: In this Himalayan hill town, where Tibetan prayer flags flutter and red-robed monks study Buddha's call for forbearance, talk is brewing of kicking off the world's next separatist movement.

Posters around town advertise the word "rangzen" -- Tibetan for "independence." Not in years has it been heard so much in the streets here, falling from the lips of members of the Tibetan diaspora whose frustration runs as deep as the mountain ravines of their homeland. Decades of dialog with the Chinese government, they say, have failed.

"Support for independence will definitely increase," Dhondup Dorjee, 30, said, as he took a break from heated discussion with fellow exiles to grab lunch in the cafeteria of the Tibetan medicine hospital. "What are the pressures we can put on the Chinese? The pressures will come in any form."

The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, has called hundreds of representatives from the world's 150,000 Tibetan exiles to a crisis meeting here this week so people like Dorjee can speak their mind. Dorjee is vice-president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, an exile organization that wants independence from China. The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile, based here in Dharamsala, have long advocated autonomy under Chinese rule, not outright independence.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday.

Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation. Mr. Obama's office told reporters Thursday that the nomination is "on track" but Clinton associates only confirmed Friday afternoon that she has decided.

"She's ready," said the confidant. Mrs. Clinton was reassured after talking again with Mr. Obama because their first meeting in Chicago last week "was so general," the confidant said. The purpose of the follow-up talk, he added, was not to extract particular concessions but "just getting comfortable" with the idea of working together.

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement will be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was now ready to be sealed.

French, German and Hungarian physicists have finally confirmed the equation on mass-energy equivalence more than a century after the German-born theoretical physicist unveiled his e=mc2 formula.

Led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Center for Theoretical Physics, the group of physicists used some of the world's strongest supercomputers to establish the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

Proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, Albert Einstein's e=mc2 formula shows that mass can be converted into energy and vice versa. And although the theory has only now been corroborated, that hasn't stopped it from being used frequently, perhaps most notably as the basis for building atomic weapons.

He has met Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Che Guevara. He defended 'Carlos the Jackal' and Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie. Jacques Vergès, 83, is probably the world's most notorious attorney. His latest client is Khieu Samphan, the former head of state of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, who is on trial for war crimes.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Vergès, are you attracted to evil?

Jacques Vergès: Nature is wild, unpredictable and senselessly gruesome. What distinguishes human beings from animals is the ability to speak on behalf of evil. Crime is a symbol of our freedom.

SPIEGEL: That's a cynical worldview.

Vergès: A realistic one. Kai Jünemann

Jacques Vergès: "One of my principles is to have no principles."

SPIEGEL: You have defended some of the worst mass murderers in recent history, and you have been called the "devil's advocate." Why do you feel so drawn to clients like Carlos and Klaus Barbie?

Vergès: I believe that everyone, no matter what he may have done, has the right to a fair trial. The public is always quick to assign the label of "monster." But monsters do not exist, just as there is no such thing as absolute evil. My clients are human beings, people with two eyes, two hands, a gender and emotions. That's what makes them so sinister.

Almost one fifth of Amsterdam's cannabis cafés are to close because they are too near to the city's schools.

Amsterdam Council plans to shut 43 out of the capital's 228 popular marijuana-selling coffee shops in support of a Dutch Government bid to protect schoolchildren from drugs.

The cafés are a big tourist draw and resemble ordinary coffee bars but include a cannabis menu detailing several varieties of the drug.

The city's Labour Lord Mayor Job Cohen said the businesses due to close were all within an "unacceptable" 200 metres of schools.

Peter Veling, a spokesman for the Cannabis Union in the Netherlands, said the closures were unnecessary as coffee shop owners carefully monitored customer's ages, banning schoolchildren.

"They know a school aged customer found on the premises would mean instant closure of the coffee shop."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Attitudes towards gays and lesbians in much of Europe and around the world may have made remarkable advances over the last 20 years, even if some regions of the EU are more hospitable than others. But for transgender people, discrimination, marginalisation and outright hostility remain part of daily experience.

A transgender woman protests discrimination at a Paris demonstration

Transsexual people are often fired from their jobs when undergoing gender reassignment procedures. They are turfed out of their apartments, refused insurance and confronted with bigotry within the health community. Gender non-conformity is still used as an excuse for harassment, violence and even murder

A report on homophobia and sexual orientation discrimination in the 27-country bloc by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency published in June 2008 identified serious gaps in national legislation in regards to transgender people's rights

On Thursday (20 November), transgender people around the world observed the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, held to remember the murder of Rita Hester, a transgender woman from Boston, and all other transgender people who have been killed because they do not fit into the traditional mould. Ms Hester's murder - like most anti-transgender murder cases - has yet to be solved.

EUOBERVER / BRUSSELS - The number of marriages in the EU has been steadily decreasing over the years, while Europeans nowadays tend to wait more before saying "yes" if compared to 15 years ago, a European Commission study showed on Friday (21 November).

The age at the first marriage increased overall by 2.3 years for men and 2.6 years for women between 1990 and 2003, according to the Eurostat survey.

Europeans marry less nowadays, according to the Eurostat survey

While women used to marry at 24.8 years and men at 27.5 years in 1990, they did it at 27.4 years and 29.8 years in 2003.

The age of women giving birth for the first time has also been progressively increasing over the years and reached 31 years in 2006 in some countries such as Ireland, Italy and Spain.

In parallel, the overall number of marriages in the EU decreased by 30 percent between the years 1975 and 2005, going from 3.45 million to 2.4 million, the survey says.

(Los Angeles, CA.) - A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.

Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.

In the study, Austrian scientists performed several long-term feeding trials over 20 weeks with laboratory mice fed a diet containing 33% of a GM variety (NK 603 x MON 810), or a closely related non-GE variety used in many countries. Statistically significant litter size and pup weight decreases were found in the third and fourth litters in the GM-fed mice, compared to the control group.  

The corn is genetically modified with genes that produce a pesticidal toxin, as well as genes that allow it to survive applications of Monsanto's herbicide Roundup.

ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2008) -- Groove-like tracks on the ocean floor made by giant deep-sea single-celled organisms could lead to new insights into the evolutionary origin of animals, says biologist Mikhail "Misha" Matz from The University of Texas at Austin.

Matz and his colleagues recently discovered the grape-sized protists and their complex tracks on the ocean floor near the Bahamas. This is the first time a single-celled organism has been shown to make such animal-like traces.

The finding is significant, because similar fossil grooves and furrows found from the Precambrian era, as early as 1.8 billion years ago, have always been attributed to early evolving multicellular animals.

"If our giant protists were alive 600 million years ago and the track was fossilized, a paleontologist unearthing it today would without a shade of doubt attribute it to a kind of large, multicellular, bilaterally symmetrical animal," says Matz, an assistant professor of integrative biology. "We now have to rethink the fossil record."

[...]

With their find, Matz and his colleagues argue that fossil traces cannot be used alone as evidence that multicellular animals were evolving during the Precambrian, slowly setting the stage for the Cambrian explosion.

"I personally think now that the whole Precambrian may have been exclusively the reign of protists," says Matz. "Our observations open up this possible way of interpreting the Precambrian fossil record."

MOSCOW: One of the stranger questions to emerge after the August conflict between Russia and Georgia: Did Russians go to war in camouflage filched from Finland?

That, anyway, is the theory circulating among Finnish commentators, who have been examining such fine points of camouflage design as outline irregularity and light-to-medium-green ratios. Using photographs taken in Georgia, the Finnish authorities are trying to determine whether Russian armed forces are wearing M/05, a pattern that is based on digital photographs of Finnish forests and that is legally protected in the European Union.

The authorities in Finland looked into the similarities this month, and they decided not to take the matter up with Moscow, particularly since the legal protection does not extend to Russia.

But, said Captain Eero Karhuvaara, a spokesman for the Defense Staff of Finland, the chatter has continued in newspapers anyway - and not because the Finns have a special attachment to camouflage.

Word of the inquiry reached Moscow this week, prompting sardonic coverage in several city newspapers. A spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry flatly denied copying the Finnish pattern.

A photo of a concerned-looking Miss Dati was splashed on the front page of conservative daily Le Figaro, left hand held to her head during a debate at the Senate.

It was supposed to illustrate the serious side of the minister whom magistrates have accused of preferring Dior dresses to addressing their problems.

However, L'Express magazine found the original picture taken in June, which clearly shows she was wearing a huge diamond ring.

The jewel, a Liens model of "grey gold paved with diamonds" by the luxury Chaumet brand and costing 15,600 euros (£13,000), had been neatly airbrushed out of the Le Figaro picture.

The newspaper - owned by Serge Dassault, close to President Nicolas Sarkozy - was obviously keen to erase Miss Dati's glitzy side liable to irritate magistrates already furious with her reform agenda and high-handed manner.