Martine Aubry's narrow win over former presidential candidate Segolene Royal has further divided French Socialists. Aubry vows to take the Socialists further to the left than the more centrist Royal.

The current mayor of the northern city Lille has been chosen as the new leader of the French Socialists, ending the infighting that left the party unable to provide effective opposition to President Nicolas Sarkozy's right of center UMP party.

Martine Aubry, 58, won by a razor thin margin of only 102 votes out of 134,800 cast, the former socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal according to official ballot results made public on Wednesday, Nov. 26.

Aubry, a former labor minister best known for introducing the controversial 35 hour work week in France, is also the daughter of Jacques Delors, the former president of the European Commission.

Over the weekend, Aubry had claimed victory with an initial lead of only 42 votes out of nearly 137,000 cast, prompting Royal to cry foul and demand verification of the vote count. Then on Monday, a party commission convened to look at claims by both camps and by Tuesday, decided which candidate was the winner.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Bulgaria has irreversibly lost €220 million of pre-accession EU funding over its persistent failure to tackle corruption, the European Commission announced on Tuesday (25 November).

Brussels in July suspended close to €800 million in aid to Bulgaria over corruption and fraud concerns, out of which €560 million under the PHARE pre-accession programme aimed at improving the country's infrastructure and institutions.

Sofia has not done enough to fight corruption and fraud, Brussels says.

It also withdrew the accreditation of two government agencies charged with handling EU money under PHARE.

On Tuesday, the commission said it had decided to maintain the measures and not to continue the agencies' accreditation at this stage.

"After careful analysis done by the European Commission, we regret that we have to maintain the suspension of payments and we are also for the moment not in a position to restore the accreditation for the two implementing agencies," commission spokesperson Krisztina Nagy told reporters in Brussels.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Union sports ministers are set to consider French proposals for EU regulation of professional sports club financing later this week.

The French EU presidency is to unveil at a meeting of the ministers in Biarritz on Thursday (27 November) and Friday its plans to reform European sporting governance in a move that UK Tories are criticising as approaching a sports "super-regulator."

France is not looking for an EU sporting super-regulator, the presidency insists

Paris would like to see implemented at the European level a body modelled on France's national pro-sports regulator, the Direction Nationale du Controle de Gestion (DNCG), which oversees professional football in the country.

British Conservative MEPs say the proposals are the "culmination of a campaign by President Sarkozy" to govern the sector, noting the French leader had first announced similar plans in the European Parliament at the beginning of the French EU presidency.

UK Tory MEP Chris Heaton-Harris, the chair of the European Parliament's sports "intergroup," said an "EU sports super-regulator would devastate British sport."

An Irish parliamentary committee is to debate a report arguing that a second referendum on the EU's Lisbon treaty is legally possible.

The draft report, first seen by the Irish Times, has been discussed in a private session by the Subcommittee on Ireland's Future in the EU and is due to be presented to the joint Committee on European Affairs on Thursday (27 November).

Irish MPs are to debate a report suggesting possibilities for a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty

It argues that a second poll on the EU's new reform treaty - following the debacle in June when the Irish voters rejected the document by a clear majority - would be preferable, suggesting a vote on the same text but accompanied by clarifying declarations on controversial issues.

One concrete issue of the kind likely to be considered is a protection of the country's neutrality. Parliamentarians argued that a new procedure should be set up to boost national decision-making powers regarding military-related matters.

BERLIN: Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats will gather Monday in Stuttgart for their annual party congress. It will be far from a set-piece conference.

Merkel, after years of uncontested success, is facing massive pressure not only from other countries, but from within her own party, to beef up the German government's response to the financial crisis. She will have to give an outstanding speech to retain her reputation as a disciplined, calculating and determined leader.

"The speech is everything," said Philipp Missfelder, chairman of the Christian Democrats' young conservatives. "It does not matter what the stock markets do that day. What matters is that Merkel delivers a speech that gives Germans a perspective. The party needs it, and so does the public."

The speech Monday has become so important because Merkel has publicly shown little leadership during a crisis that seems to be turning more serious by the day. While often fiercely critical of plans by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and other EU leaders for protecting Europe against the meltdown, she has come up with no alternative. "Madame Non," the Parisian daily Les Echos dubbed her.

TBILISI, Georgia -- A parliamentary hearing on the origins of the war between Georgia and Russia in August ended in a furor on Tuesday after a former Georgian diplomat testified that Georgian authorities were responsible for starting the conflict. Skip to next paragraph Related U.S. Presses NATO on Georgia and Ukraine (November 26, 2008)

Erosi Kitsmarishvili, Tbilisi's former ambassador to Moscow, testified for three hours before he was shouted down by members of Parliament.

A former confidant of President Mikheil Saakashvili, Mr. Kitsmarishvili said Georgian officials told him in April that they planned to start a war in Abkhazia, one of two breakaway regions at issue in the war, and had received a green light from the United States government to do so. He said the Georgian government later decided to start the war in South Ossetia, the other region, and continue into Abkhazia.

He would not name the officials who he said had told him about planned actions in Abkhazia, saying that identifying them would endanger their lives.

They often wore only army-regulation shorts and T-shirts to protect them from atomic explosions, and were stationed dangerously close to mushroom clouds or hosed-down contaminated equipment wearing just swimming trunks. The soldiers and civilians who worked on France's notorious nuclear tests in the Sahara desert and south Pacific have long fought for compensation for the cancer and long-term health effects they blame on the state's failure to protect them.

But for years France resisted, fighting veterans in the courts and building a wall of silence around the dangers of the controlled explosions.

Yesterday the French defence minister finally broke the taboo, saying a law would be introduced in January to compensate those suffering illnesses among the 150,000 army and civilians who worked on the tests in Algeria and French-owned Polynesian atolls.

Hervé Morin said France would draw up a list of health problems that could be linked to radiation exposure over the course of 210 tests from 1960 to 1996. He admitted that France lagged behind countries such as the US in failing to acknowledge long-term health effects, saying: "Today, we must recognise these victims."

"We were guinea pigs who have had no proper medical support," said Michel Verger, president of the veterans' pressure group, Aven. The group, which has about 3,000 members, surveyed more than 1,000 veterans and found 35% had one or two cancers and one in five were infertile. Verger said veterans suffered a range of illnesses, including cancers of the blood and cardiovascular problems, and their children and grandchildren were also suffering health complications.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has given Hungary the highest score in an annual assessment of economies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The EBRD gave Hungary a score of 3.96 on a scale of 1 to 4+ in its Transition Report 2008, which evaluates four areas - the corporate sector, the trade market system, the financial sector and infrastructure - based on nine criteria, among them privatization, competition policy, rate policy, bank reform and exchange rate system.

The EBRD projected Hungary's economy would grow 0.5% in 2009.

On Wednesday the European Commission will present a giant stimulus package to meet the looming economic downturn -- with an estimated €130 billion in initiatives. But Brussels has neither the money nor the ability to forge an economic program.

The situation is getting serious. Europe's industries are running out of contracts. Economists predict that next year will bring reduced working hours and layoffs and that times will get bleak. The US Federal Reserve and Treasury Department on Tuesday announced a new package totalling $800 billion to make it easier for small businesses, students and home buyers to borrow money. And in Europe, state economic stabilization policies that fell out of favor long ago have suddenly found many new backers.

 European commission President Jose Manuel Barroso On the European Commission, where European President José Manuel Barroso and 26 other commissioners direct the business of the European Union and where "the market" has been viewed as the best force to steer the economy for a long time, "the state" was supposed to keep its fingers out of everything. Now it's all different.

The states -- or, more precisely, their taxpayers -- have just been forced to rescue the global banking system because its leaders proved to be little more than incompetent gamblers. Now more tax revenues are supposed to avert -- or cushion -- a threatening crisis in the global economy. Taking their places at the head of this phalanx in the fight of "politics against recession" are Barroso and his commissioners. They plan to bring forward an enormous economic program on Wednesday full of prescription for battling the crisis.

"Temporary cuts in value-added (or sales) tax" is one of the proposals that could be "quickly implemented to give a strong fiscal impulse to promote consumption," reads one of the proposals. Additional caps should also be placed on the value-added taxes for certain labor-intensive services, like those performed by tradesmen, cooks or waiters. The Commission also intends to give tax concessions to especially climate-friendly products and to lower income taxes on low-income earners.

The European Commission is to allow member states to reduce their value added tax (VAT) rates to boost consumption during the recession, officials in Brussels said Tuesday, Nov 25.

The European Union's executive arm will also propose increasing investments in infrastructure and in key sectors such as cars, construction and green technologies as part of its economic stimulus package, due to be unveiled on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow we propose a coordinated EU fiscal stimulus, we will offer guidance to member states on the kind of measures to adopt," said Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia Tuesday in a speech in Brussels.

Officials told the DPA news agency this means giving governments a free hand in reducing their VAT rates -- but only as long as these cuts are temporary and that the standard rate is kept above the bloc's minimum level of 15 percent.

Current VAT rates on goods and services vary from 25 percent in Sweden and Denmark to 15 percent in Cyprus and Luxembourg. Member states can also apply reduced rates on certain products.

The global recession has thrown the world's shipping industry into a slow-motion collapse. The cost of shipping has plummeted.

As Somali pirates hold captive the Sirius Star, a Saudi ship with almost $100 million (€77.1 million) in oil on board, and Indian, British, Russian, and German ships battle pirates up and down the Gulf of Aden, one might imagine that the battle against piracy is the largest crisis faced by the merchant navy industry.

Shipping is caught in a nasty downturn. After all, since January of this year, some 580 crew members have been held hostage, according to data collected by the International Maritime Bureau, and many millions of dollars have been paid in ransom. Insurance rates are up, ships are trying to avoid the Suez Canal (which ships get to via the Gulf of Aden, along the coastlines of Somalia and Yemen), and crews from India to Britain are refusing to board ships that pass through that zone. "This sort of thing can't be shut down immediately," says an aide to Indian President Pratibha Patil, who advises her on naval affairs. India's navy has fought at least three different pirate groups in the last week. "To some extent, the world's navies have to flex their muscles, and that takes time."

But what's missing in the news reports about the modern-day pirates and the political repercussions is a simpler fact: The world's shipping industry is already on its knees and has spent the past six months in a slow-motion collapse kicked off by the . And the pirates, it would seem, are the least of the problem. Just six months ago, despite the fact that the economy in the US was already slowing down, the industry was steaming ahead. As ships of every flag, color, and size were crossing oceans, carrying in their often cavernous cargo bays the essentials of trade -- oil, steel, cement, iron ore, and coal -- shipping rates worldwide in June hit their highest peak ever. It cost nearly $234,000 a day to rent one of those large capesize vessels, the ones so big that they don't even fit through the Suez Canal.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her economic policies as the German parliament, the Bundestag, continues to debate the country's 2009 budget. She said enough aid is there, but it's not being used.

The second day of the Bundestag's budget debates centered on a speech by Angela Merkel, who laid out the principles behind the budget and admitted that the immediate economic and financial outlook was gloomy.

"2009 will be year of bad news," Merkel said. "That's why we're building a bridge so that things will get better by 2010 at the latest."

She also responded to criticism that the budget proposed by the governing Conservative-Social Democratic grand coalition does little to stimulate the economy, compared with plans envisioned by other nations such as the US and Britain.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Barack Obama will name former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to chair a panel to advise the U.S. president-elect on stabilizing financial markets and averting a painful recession, transition officials said on Wednesday.

The move is another step toward tackling the problems ailing the U.S. economy and is part of an aggressive effort by Obama to demonstrate that his administration will face the global financial crisis head-on when he takes over on January 20.

Obama's transition team said he would make an "economic announcement" at 10:45 a.m. EST at his third news conference of the week, following a similar event on Tuesday, when he presented his picks to head the White House budget office.

Transition officials said Obama policy adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist, would be the panel's staff director.

Northern Rock, the state-owned lender, has embarrassed the Government by increasing rates on its most competitive deals despite calls for high street lenders to pass on cuts in borrowing costs.

This morning, the bank, which was nationalised in February, increased interest rates on its fixed-rate deals by up to 0.3 percentage points, adding up to £40 a month to the cost of monthly interest-only repayments on a £150,000 loan.

Its most competitive one-year fixed mortgage has jumped from 3.99 per cent to 4.19 per cent.

In the last week, the Government and the Bank of England have warned banks it is vital for the economy that they boost lending and reduce interest rates in line with the falling base rate.

Luxury German carmaker Porsche says it is postponing moves to boost its stake in Volkswagen amidst signs the auto industry is facing tough times. But the delay doesn't mean Porsche's plans have been put on hold.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Nov. 26, Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking said that the company would not reach its goal of acquiring a majority stake in VW this year, but that a future takeover was still on the cards.

 

"We're sticking to our plan of acquiring 50 percent [of VW shares] and trying to get 75 percent," Wiedeking said. "But with prices so high, it doesn't make sense since inflated prices would necessarily mean write-offs for us, if we went purchasing. And we're definitely not doing that."

 

In late October, rumors about Porsche's takeover bid caused VW shares to rocket to more than 1,000 euros ($1,292). VW stock prices have since settled to a more reasonable level of around 200 euros, but the securities remain expensive and, many analysts believe, overvalued.

 

In addition, even Porsche is feeling the effects of the global financial crisis and Germany's economic recession.

NEW YORK (Nov. 26) - Non-banks will soon be able to bid for banks on the verge of collapse -- a change that should not only keep more troubled banks from failing, but also benefit companies looking to get funding through deposits and the government. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Wednesday it is establishing a "modified bidder qualification process" to "allow interested parties that do not currently have a bank charter to participate in the bid process through which failing depository institutions are resolved." As long as an investor has a compliant business plan, enough capital available, and managers that meet strict standards, the FDIC said, that investor can quickly get a bank charter and deposit insurance and bid for a failing bank -- without having an established bank already in place, a requirement of the past. With 22 bank failures so far this year and 171 banks on the FDIC's troubled bank list, the government is worried about more collapses. When a bank fails, it uses up taxpayer dollars. So expanding the list of potential bidders to non-banks could help stanch that tide. But there are advantages to non-banks, too. The desire to become a bank might seem counterintuitive to outsiders watching the companies take massive losses quarter after quarter from their risky loans. But it's the chance to gather deposits -- a good source of funding right now -- and possibly get an investment through the government's Temporary Assets Relief Program, which at this point is only available to commercial banks.

Zombie Economics

   Though Citicorp is deemed too big to fail, it's hardly reassuring to know that it's been allowed to sink its fangs into the Mother Zombie that the US Treasury has become and sucked out a multi-billion dollar dose of embalming fluid so it can go on pretending to be a bank for a while longer. I employ this somewhat clunky metaphor to point out that the US Government is no more solvent than the financial zombies it is keeping on walking-dead support. And so this serial mummery of weekend bailout schemes is as much of a fraud and a swindle as the algorithm-derived-securities shenanigans that induced the disease of bank zombification in the first place. The main question it raises is whether, eventually, the creation of evermore zombified US dollars will exceed the amount of previously-created US dollars now vanishing into oblivion through compressive debt deflation.
...
      The credit economy is dead and the dead credit residue of that dead economy is going where dead things go. It came into the world as "money" and it is going out of this world as a death-dealing disease, and we're not going to get over this disease until we stop generating additional zombie money out of no productive activity whatsoever. The campaign to sustain the unsustainable is, besides war, the greatest pitfall this society can stumble into. It represents a squandering of our remaining scant resources and can only produce the kind of extreme political disappointment that wrecks nations and leads to major conflicts between them.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is to stay on in charge of the Pentagon when Barack Obama takes office as president, according to US media reports.

Mr Gates was nominated to the role by President George W Bush in 2006 and has overseen a change of strategy in Iraq.

ABC News and Politico.com quoted officials saying Mr Gates would remain in the job for at least the first year of Mr Obama's administration.

Mr Obama will give his third news briefing in as many days on Wednesday.

The focus will be the economy, an aide said. In the previous news conferences, Mr Obama - who takes office on 20 January - named the new leaders of his economic team.

China has decided not to send representatives to Europe next month to protest scheduled meetings between EU heads of state meeting and the Tibetan spiritual leader. Things are tense between Beijing and Brussels.

China's non-attendance at the summit was announced by the EU in a statement on Wednesday, Nov. 26.

"The Chinese authorities have informed the European Union of their decision to request the postponement of the 11th European Union-China summit, scheduled to take place on Dec. 1," the statement said.

"They said their decision was due to the fact that the Dalai Lama will at the same time undertake a new visit in several countries of the Union and will meet on this occasion heads of state and government."

The Tibetan spiritual leader will be visiting a number of EU countries in December. At one major event, he is scheduled to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Poland at ceremonies commemorating the 25th anniversary of Polish labor leader Lech Walesa being given the Nobel Peace Prize.

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's President, is trying to hide the real extent of the cholera epidemic sweeping across his nation by silencing health workers and restricting access to the huge number of death certificates that give the same cause of death.

A senior official in the health ministry told The Independent yesterday that more than 3,000 people have died from the water-borne disease in the past two weeks, 10 times the widely-reported death toll of just over 300. "But even this higher figure is still an understatement because very few bother to register the deaths of their relatives these days," said the official, who requested anonymity.

He said the health ministry, which once presided over a medical system that was the envy of Africa, had been banned from issuing accurate statistics about the deaths, and that certificates for the fraction of deaths that had been registered were being closely guarded by the home affairs ministry.

WASHINGTON: The day before Joseph Biden Jr.'s birthday last week, Barack Obama surprised him after lunch with candlelit cupcakes.

Within hours, the photograph of the president-elect and his running mate, smiling over the dessert, was on the news.

The photograph, circulated by Obama's office, was meant to project unity, confidence and camaraderie. But while Obama has moved quickly to assemble his White House staff and the beginnings of a cabinet, he is lagging behind even the chronically late President Bill Clinton in bringing clarity to the role his vice president will play.

So far, Biden has not been given a defined portfolio, the way Al Gore was given the environment and technology in 1992. And Obama's aides say they do not expect Biden to assume the kind of muscular role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played over the last eight years, although he is expected to put out a number of fires.

"I'm sure that there will be discrete assignments over time," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the president-elect. "But I think his fundamental role is as a trusted counselor. I think that when Obama selected him, he selected him to be a counselor and an adviser on a broad range of issues."

BAGHDAD: Iraq's Parliament has delayed by at least 24 hours a vote on a security agreement with the United States that would lead to the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq in three years.

Iraqi lawmakers gave no immediate explanation for delaying the vote on Wednesday; it had already been postponed from Monday. But intensive last-minute negotiations were under way on Tuesday and earlier Wednesday as the agreement's proponents tried to corral enough votes for approval by a significant majority of Parliament.

MUMBAI, India -- Teams of heavily armed gunmen stormed luxury hotels, a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station in at least seven attacks in India's financial capital, killing at least 78 people and wounding at least 200, officials said Thursday. The gunmen were specifically targeting Britons and Americans and a top police official said the gunmen are holding hostages at two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels.

The gunmen also attacked police headquarters in south Mumbai, the area where most of the attacks, which began late Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning, took place.

"We are under fire, there is shooting at the gate," said constable A. Shetti by phone from police headquarters.

Hours after the first attacks, A.N. Roy, a senior police officer, said police continued to battle the gunmen.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai bluntly rebuked NATO on Wednesday for its faltering campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and demanded a timetable for the seven-year war here to end.

Mr. Karzai's remarks, at a news conference with the secretary general of NATO, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, reflected dwindling public support for the war here and Mr. Karzai's own political vulnerabilities. In the United States, however, the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama is planning a significant increase in the Afghanistan war effort as it scales back the American military deployment in Iraq.

"How long will this war go?" Mr. Karzai asked. "Afghanistan can't continue to suffer a war without end."

Mr. Karzai's comments echoed remarks he made here on Tuesday to a visiting United Nations Security Council delegation. They seemed to be part of a strategy he has adopted in recent months to appear more in control of the country and more assertive in his dealings with foreign powers, even if the populist tenor of his remarks risks alienating the foreign backers who have channeled billions of dollars into reconstruction and the counterinsurgency fight.

Amid worsening security and economic conditions, Mr. Karzai, who faces re-election next year, has been trying to counter rising dissatisfaction and criticism that he is little more than an ineffective puppet of foreign masters.

Cities across Holland are planning to grow their own cannabis crops in order to control the supply of the drug to the country's famous 'coffee shops'.

The "grow-your-own" idea has taken hold in Eindhoven, while Tilburg's city council has said it is considering starting up a "cannabis market garden" of its own to supply local coffee shops.

Others are expected to follow suit, as the Dutch government considers nationalising soft drugs production and sales in a bid to decriminalise the industry.

Forty mayors met at the weekend, with many in favour of legalising soft drugs, whose consumption is a major tourist draw for Holland.

Amsterdam's Lord Mayor, Job Cohen, said that he was in "full" support of the country's cannabis-selling coffee shops, as their survival would hlep to keep the trade out of the hands of criminals.

However, he told The Telegraph that the Eindhoven city council's plan to start an experiment involving the council actually growing cannabis for supply to coffee shops was going a "little too far".

Some of the world's most curious Christmas traditions can be found in Catalonia, where the idea of holiday cheer seems to involve some of life's more basic bodily functions.

Here are two factoids that one wouldn't necessarily expect to find in the same Wikipedia entry: "the infant Jesus is God in human form" and "everyone defecates."

But if you navigate to the entry attempting an explanation of the fecal-centric Catalonian tradition known as el caganer, that is exactly what you'll find. Indeed, the tradition is a much-loved element of the Christmas celebration in Catalonia, despite its somewhat obscure beginnings.

A caganer -- or "pooper" -- is a small figurine of a person squatting down with lowered pants (or raised skirt) to answer nature's call. They have been around since the 17th century and can often be found hiding in an obscure corner of a Nativity scene.

Some say that the figurines originally became popular among farmers who believed -- quite practically -- that the caganer's "offerings" would make the soil rich and productive for the coming year. In somewhat vaguer terms, the Web site for the Association of Friends of the Caganer -- an organization founded in 1990 to celebrate the caganer tradition and which boasts 60 members spread across the world -- states that the figures were meant to add "a human side to the representation of the mystery of Christmas."

The Wikipedia entry mentions how the caganer might represent "the equality of all people" because "everyone defecates" or it may be meant to reinforce that "the infant Jesus is God in human form."

The consultation on the fine detail of how the ID card scheme will work in practice published yesterday also makes clear:

• The £30 initial fee for a standalone ID card valid for travel in Europe only is capped for the year 2009/10 when it will be compulsory for airport workers and on a voluntary basis for students. The regulations allow for this fee to be "modified" in future years including by 2012, when it is anticipated that mass rollout will take place with 5-6 million combined passports/identity cards a year expected to be issued. Passport fees will be on top of this basic charge.

• If it necessary to change any of the details held on the card, such as name or fingerprints which entail a new card being issued, a further £30 will be charged. Changes of address or other details which do not appear on the card will not be charged.

• Transgendered people: those "moving from their birth gender to an acquired gender" will be able to apply for two ID cards - one for each gender. The second ID card will use a different name, signature and photograph although they will be linked as one entry on the national ID card register. Nevertheless they will be charged two fees for the privilege of holding two cards.

• Homeless people and others who live "transient lifestyles" will also be able to register under the scheme. The Home Office expects to be able to agree with homeless people a suitable place to be registered as their residence - presumably even if it is only a railway arch. Those who move around frequently for work will be able to register their principal residence without notifying each move.

But the draft regulations also set out in detail the escalating series of fines for those who fail to keep their ID card register entry up to date or fail to correct errors on it.

The kind of details that must be provided within three months are a change of address, a change of name perhaps because of marriage or by deed poll, a change of nationality, a change of gender, or a significant change in an individual's face or their fingerprints perhaps because of an accident.

wtf

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

cienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008) -- Saturn's moon Enceladus may indeed hide an underground reservoir of water.

Scientists at Jet Propulsion Lab in California, the University of Colorado and the University of Central Florida in Orlando teamed up to analyze the plumes of water vapor and ice particles spewing from the moon. They used data collected by the Cassini spacecraft's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). Cassini was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in 1997 and has been orbiting Saturn since July 2004.

The team, including UCF Assistant Professor Joshua Colwell, found that the source of plumes may be vents on the moon that channel water vapor from a warm, probably liquid source to the surface at supersonic speeds.

The team's findings are reported in the Nov. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

"There are only three places in the solar system we know or suspect to have liquid water near the surface," Colwell said. "Earth, Jupiter's moon Europa and now Saturn's Enceladus. Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary systems phenomenon, then it gets really interesting."

Environment ministers preparing for next week's talks on global warming in Poznan, Poland, have been sounding decidedly downbeat. From Paris to Beijing, the refrain is the same: This is no time to pursue ambitious plans to stop global warming. We can't deal with a financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time.

There is a very different message coming from this country. President-elect Barack Obama is arguing that there is no better time than the present to invest heavily in clean energy technologies. Such investment, he says, would confront the threat of unchecked warming, reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil and help revive the American economy.

Call it what you will: a climate policy wrapped inside an energy policy wrapped inside an economic policy. By any name, it is a radical shift from the defeatism and denial that marked President Bush's eight years in office. If Mr. Obama follows through on his commitments, this country will at last provide the global leadership that is essential for addressing the dangers of climate change. <...>

The historical landscape from Richard Nixon onward is littered with bold and unfulfilled promises to wean the nation from fossil fuels, especially imported oil. What is different now is the need to deal with the clear and present threat of global warming. What is also different is that the country has elected a president who believes that meeting the challenge of climate change is essential to the health of the planet and to America's economic future.

A completely unexpected blessing from nature to feel thankful for here!

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.