EUOBSERVER / COMMENT - The recent nomination by incoming US President Barack Obama of senator Hillary Clinton as the next secretary of state and Susan Rice as the new US Ambassador to the UN confirms that more countries are choosing to appoint females to represent their countries in the international arena.

Commissioner Wallstrom wants more women in EU foreign policy jobs

Since Madeleine Albright became US secretary of state in 1996, the US has been represented overseas by a woman for eight years out of twelve. And in Africa, there are eight female ministers of foreign affairs.

The image of Carme Chacon, Spain's defence minister, inspecting the troops while eight months pregnant crystallised this image of change. But out of 27 defence ministers in the EU, only four are women. For foreign ministers, the gender balance is even worse, with only two females.

We may have accepted in principle that politics should include both women and men, but this has not been adequately applied to foreign and security policy. A recent report by Operation 1325, a Swedish umbrella organisation working for women and peace, revealed that nine out of ten civilians sent to work in conflict areas are men. Women are not regarded as having enough knowledge or competence in security questions and, as a result, European peace-making missions remain a project by and for men.

Strict new European rules on the use of pesticides are expected to be passed which could "seriously threaten" UK food production, say farmers.

The British government opposes the law, expected to be passed on Tuesday, which critics say would cause rising prices.

It could wipe out the carrot industry and seriously affect many other crops, the National Farmers' Union has warned.

However, the Soil Association backs the EU's bid to cut the use of chemicals it says can cause cancer and infertility.

A proposal to give French female ministers four months maternity leave received wide approval after justice minister Rachida Dati sparked a row in France by returning to work five days after giving birth.

The proposal by higher education minister Valerie Pécresse suggests passing an "institutional reform" that would make it the norm for ministers who give birth to be replaced by a deputy for a 16-week interim period. Four months, six weeks before birth and ten afterwards, is the legal amount of paid leave entitled to working French mothers but has not applied in practice to women politicians.

"In the current system, Rachida Dati didn't have the choice (to stay at home)," said Mrs Pécresse, a mother of three. "I would have done the same thing," she told Le Journal du Dimanche.

The new rule, she argued, was the best way to "attract the maximum number of women to politics and avoid them having to take inhuman choices in terms of their private lives".

Benoît Hamon, spokesman for the opposition Socialist party welcomed the proposal as "rather intelligent and commonsensical". It was also welcomed by members of the ruling right wing UMP party.

The year-long disagreement between Athens and Skopje over Macedonia's official name is not only detrimental to the two neigbours' bilateral relations, it is also jeopardising European Union and NATO stability strategies for the western Balkans, according to a report published on Monday (12 January).

Alexander the Great's ethnic origin is also part of the dispute between Greece and Macedonia.

"The main NATO-EU strategy for stabilising Macedonia and the region via enlargement was derailed in 2008 by the dispute with Greece over the country's name," says the International Crisis Group (ICG) in a new paper.

It explains that the EU membership perspective has been helping to unite Macedonia's two communities, the ethnic Macedonians and Albanians, especially since the end of the 2001 conflict between them.

But the recent escalation of the name dispute between Greece and Macedonia - which materialised in April last year when Athens blocked Skopje's NATO bid - "puts at risk the progress achieved," according to the ICG.

The EU's Development Commissioner says Israel is not respecting international human rights law in the Gaza Strip as the EU presidency calls for financial support to alleviate the dire humanitarian situation there.

The European Union's Czech presidency has called for an international donors' conference to deal with the urgent humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg would focus his efforts on "the cessation of hostilities and the achievement of a lasting ceasefire," the presidency said in a statement.

 

Earlier this month, Schwarzenberg led an EU mission to Gaza. The statement said he had been following the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip "with increasing concern."

 

"(He) believes that right now is the moment to seriously consider steps to be taken as soon as a ceasefire is reached," the statement said. "Therefore, the minister believes it is necessary to call an international donors' conference that will both address the urgent humanitarian needs of the Gaza inhabitants caused by the ongoing fighting and consider the reconstruction of Gaza in a longer-term perspective."

 

The Czech Presidency said it was prepared to assume this task as soon as possible, yet gave no precise date for the conference.

Russia resumed supplies of gas to Europe as observer teams began measuring gas flows through Ukraine in an effort to mediate the ongoing standoff between Moscow and Kiev. The EU welcomed the announcement.

Ukraine's Naftogaz said it had received a fax from Gazprom informing it 76 million cubic meters of gas had been sent through the pipelines "at 10 am Moscow time," news agency Itar-Tass reported.

But experts say it could take up to three days for gas pumped from Siberia to reach Europe, where thousands of people have been left without heat in one of the coldest winters the continent has seen in a decade.

"It is only a portion of the necessary flows," a source in the company told Itar-Tass.

Russia supplies an average of 350 million cubic meters of gas to Europe in the winter months.

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS - The incoming Obama administration will step up its calls on Europe to close legal loopholes allowing Iran to pursue its nuclear activities, outgoing US ambassador to Brussels Kristen Silverberg said on Tuesday (13 January).

"Iran is still taking advantage of their economic ties here in Europe," Ms Silverberg said at a conference organised by the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think-tank.

President Barack Obama will not shy from being tough on Europe regarding Iran

The Obama administration is expected to raise the problem of Europe's loopholes in its sanctions regime, including "transport companies involved in supporting proliferation sensitive activities," stopping export credits to Iran and all financial assistance, she said.

Ms Silverberg, a political appointee of the outgoing Bush administration, has been in office for less than six months and will leave her posting next Monday, a day before the inauguration of incoming president Barack Obama.

She stressed that the president-elect had endorsed a bill in the Senate providing for very tough sanctions against Iran and that he called on Americans to pressure companies to cut their financial ties with Iran.

The number of passengers travelling on Channel Tunnel high-speed Eurostar trains rose more than 10 per cent to a record high last year.

The increase came despite a serious fire on board a Eurotunnel freight shuttle train in the tunnel last September - an incident that badly disrupted services.

The knock-on effect of the fire means that a full Eurostar service is still not running through the tunnel, but Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown said today that a full timetable should be in operation by early spring.

Eurostar, which runs trains from St Pancras in London to Paris and Brussels, carried 9.1 million passengers last year - 10.3 per cent more than in 2007.

Ticket sales in 2008 rose 10.9 per cent to £664 million and 92.4 per cent of trains ran on time or early during 2008.

Last year was the first full year of operation of High Speed 1 - the fast rail link running from London to the tunnel's opening at Folkestone in Kent.

A protest against economic reforms that drew thousands to Latvia's capital turned violent Tuesday as small pockets of rioters clashed with police and attacked government buildings.

Police responded by charging the crowd and shooting pepper spray as the rioters threw chunks of ice and rocks.

Three officers were seriously injured and 126 protesters were detained, Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sigita Pildava said. Emergency medical worker Vija Grigala told Leta news agency that 32 protesters were injured.

About 10,000 people participated in the demonstration, police said, the largest protest since Latvia became independent in 1991.

Tuesday's demonstration was focused against the government's tough reforms, including tax increases, to cope with growing economic problems that have led to rising unemployment.

Some videos can be found here. Quite a wild stuff.

Spain became the third Eurozone country to receive a warning from ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Monday (12 January) in a further sign of Europe's economic malaise.

Last Friday, both Ireland and Greece also received warnings from the ratings agency, a development that threatens to make government borrowing for the three states more expensive at a time when governments are increasingly turning to money markets to bolster diminishing tax returns.

Spain became the third Eurozone state Monday to receive a credit warning about it national finances

The Financial Times reports that other countries could also see themselves subject to similar warnings in the coming days or weeks as countries take on record debt levels, in part caused by new spending programmes intended to counteract the ongoing economic crisis.

Italy, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 104 per cent is seen as particularly vulnerable. So too Portugal, which is currently running a current account deficit of 12 per cent.

Figures announced last week show Spain's industrial output for November to be down 15.1 per cent on the previous year, the biggest fall on record.

The financial crisis has hit the wind power industry hard as credit has dried up. Will government spending provide the needed stimulus?

The green energy sector has a lot riding on 2009. Policymakers from Washington to Beijing have pledged billions of dollars in "cleantech" investment to jump-start the depressed global economy and create millions of new low-carbon jobs.

Wind power is losing steam. That should be a boon to the wind power industry, which is working to harness the world's second-largest source of renewable energy after hydroelectric. As with the solar industry, wind power has been hit by a sudden slowdown in private sector investment as credit has dried up and the price of oil has fallen from its mid-2008 high. The industry hopes public spending will help fill the gap until the global economy gets back on its feet.

The multibillion-dollar stimulus packages are particularly important for Europe, which remains the largest wind energy market worldwide and is home to six of the world's top 10 wind turbine manufacturers. Despite the Continent's dominant position, companies ranging from Denmark's Vestas, the global leader in turbines, to Spain's Iberdrola, the world's largest developer of wind farms, have been forced to cut back to meet the new economic realities.

The German government's partial nationalization of Commerzbank reflects the severity of the financial crisis. Berlin wants to use Commerzbank to jump-start stalled bank lending to companies, but it's paying a high price to do so.

It's a proud building with a height of 259 meters -- 300 meters including the antenna --making it the highest skyscraper in Germany and the third-highest in Europe. It was designed by Sir Norman Foster, the star architect. This building exudes the ambition of a company that wants to display its wealth and its power, and that wants to play in the big league.

 Commerzbank opted to take help from Berlin. But things have gone wrong for Commerzbank. Its proud tower is about to become the tallest branch of the federal government since last week's announcement that it will be partially nationalized.

Berlin is taking a €10 billion stake in Commerzbank, an investment that will it direct influence in the business operations and structure of a major German commercial bank. The government will also become the guarantor of the planned merger between Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank, acquired by Commerzbank in a deal arranged last year.

Germany's governing coalition has agreed on the details of the country's biggest economic stimulus package since World War II, worth a total of 50 billion euros. But critics say it won't be enough to combat recession.

Germany's ruling political parties agreed on a two-year €50 billion stimulus plan, the biggest since World War II, at a meeting on Monday night to help Europe's largest economy weather the financial and economic crisis.

Representatives of Germany's governing coalition met in the Chancellery and consulted late into Monday evening on the new stimulus package. The plan envisages €18 billion of new investment in the construction and repair of roads and the rail network and of schools and universities. Some of the money will also be used for faster Internet communication networks.

Taxes are also being cut, with the tax threshold being raised to €8,004 from €7,664, and the entry rate of tax will be lowered to 14 percent from 15 percent on July 1.

The German system of "cold progression," under which taxpayers are shifted into higher tax brackets even when real incomes have not grown, is also going to be changed, thus bringing tax relief. Under the current system, the tax brackets aren't adjusted for inflation.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned that a fiscal stimulus won't be enough to spur an economic recovery and that the government may need to buy or guarantee banks' tainted assets to revive growth.

"Fiscal actions are unlikely to promote a lasting recovery unless they are accompanied by strong measures to further stabilize and strengthen the financial system," Bernanke said in a speech today at the London School of Economics. "More capital injections and guarantees may become necessary to ensure stability and the normalization of credit markets."

Bernanke's remarks indicate he may be seeking to influence deliberations among lawmakers and President-elect Barack Obama's economic aides on how to deploy the next $350 billion of the financial-rescue fund approved in October. While some Democrats have focused on offering aid to troubled homeowners, the Fed chief's comments show he's more concerned about a continued choking off of credit to companies and households.

Hedge funds lost $350 billion globally in 2008, the most on record, as the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression crippled returns and caused investors to pull money out, according to an industry report.

The hedge-fund industry shrank by about a fifth to $1.5 trillion at the end of the year from a peak of $1.9 trillion, Eurekahedge said. Funds including Citadel Investment Group LLC suffered investment losses and client withdrawals. Some funds were forced to sell assets at fire-sale prices as the credit crisis forced banks that lent money to hedge funds to withdraw their loans.

As Barack Obama looks back to Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address -- the only other such address that came smack in the middle of an economic meltdown -- I hope he pays special heed to Roosevelt's words on America's bankers, who then as now had plunged the nation into an economic abyss.

"The money-changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization," Roosevelt proclaimed. "We may now restore that temple to ancient truths."

British economic confidence has been shattered by the financial crisis, according to a unique international poll published today. It shows that people here are now less likely to trust banks, the stockmarket or the government's economic management than people in comparable nations.

The research, carried out by WIN, an international network of pollsters including ICM in Britain, used professional polling techniques to assess public opinion in 17 countries, including the major G8 economies as well as China and India.

On most measures, British people emerged as among the most pessimistic of the 14,555 people questioned around the world.

Remarkably, confidence in the banking system appears lower in Britain - 4.2 out of 10 - than in bankrupt Iceland, which polled 4.6.

While around a third of citizens in developing economies such as India and China say the economic situation in their countries could improve in coming months, more than three-quarters of people in Britain expect it to worsen.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni talks to SPIEGEL about the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip and why she believes it is a mistake to negotiate with Hamas.

Israeli soldiers chant slogans after a briefing before entering Gaza on a combat mission Sunday.

SPIEGEL: Ms. Livni, has Israel achieved its aim of destroying the radical Islamist group Hamas?

Tzipi Livni: No, but Israel has successfully weakened Hamas and dealt it a heavy blow. The operation was never about destroying Hamas -- rather our aim was to restore our deterrence capability. We took their leaders by surprise with our operation. They will think twice before they dare to fire the next rocket at Israel.

Hillary Clinton has pledged to use a "smart" mix of military and diplomatic power as US secretary of state, in testimony before a US Senate committee.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is conducting a hearing to confirm Mrs Clinton's appointment as secretary of state.

The former New York Senator has been greeted warmly by her ex-colleagues.

But they may ask tough questions about conflicts of interest triggered by her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Mr Clinton's charitable foundation has received a number of donations from foreign governments and multinational corporations.

Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk talks to SPIEGEL about how the US's Middle East policy will be different under Barack Obama and why the US needs to reach out to countries such as China and Russia.

 Barack Obama, seen here during his visit to Israel in July 2008, has the potential to reach out to both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Indyk, President-elect Obama has so far refused to comment on the Israeli attacks in Gaza. Is that a mistake?

Martin Indyk: Before he assumes the presidency, he can only talk but has no authority to act. Therefore, it is wise to remain silent.

SPIEGEL: What kind of Middle East policy do you expect from him?

Indyk: He will reach out to both sides. America is Israel's closest ally and will remain so. But Obama has the potential to develop much more influence in the region than his predecessors. His narrative as the son of a Kenyan father, his childhood in Muslim Indonesia, his middle name Hussein, his rise to power as the first African-American president on his own merits without wealth or a famous name behind him -- all that deeply impresses the Arabs.

WASHINGTON -- Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for Treasury secretary, failed to pay more than $34,000 in federal taxes over several years early this decade, and also faces questions about the employment papers of a former household employee, suddenly complicating what had seemed to be an easy confirmation process in the Senate.

Mr. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, huddled privately with members of the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday afternoon to explain that he had now paid the back taxes and interest. Senate Democratic leaders quickly released statements of support lest the controversy threaten the nomination.

Two senior Senate Republicans likewise gave endorsements, echoing the argument of Obama transition officials that Mr. Geithner's failures were innocent mistakes or technicalities.

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Health workers in Zimbabwe's government, municipal and mission hospitals will be paid in foreign currency, the Herald reported, citing a circular sent to hospital and clinic staff.

The government will help health workers to open foreign currency accounts in an effort to stop an exodus of doctors and nurses, the Harare-based newspaper said on its Web site today.

The Geneva-based Global Fund and other non-governmental organizations are helping the Zimbabwean government pay foreign currency salaries, the newspaper said.

Ending the emission of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide by 2050 will be necessary to avoid "catastrophic disruption to the world's climate," according to the Worldwatch Institute in its 26th annual assessment, "State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World," released today.

Yet, the independent research organization based in Washington, DC says opportunities abound in renewable energy and efficiency improvements, agriculture and forestry, and the resilience of societies for slowing and managing climate change.

"We're privileged to live at a moment in history when we can still avert a climate catastrophe that would leave the planet hostile to human development and well-being," said Worldwatch Vice President for Programs Robert Engelman, project co-director for State of the World 2009.

"But there's not much time left," Engelman said. "Sealing the deal to save the global climate will require mass public support and worldwide political will to shift to renewable energy, new ways of living, and a human scale that matches the atmosphere's limits."

While the West threw billions at global poverty, Esther Duflo tried to solve the problem with science. It has made her France's most fêted thinker, says John Lichfield

Everyone knows what a world-renowned, French intellectual looks like. There is the older sort, now rare, who has a squint and smokes cigarettes and haunts the cafés of the Paris Left Bank. There is the newer kind, who has flowing hair and an open-necked shirt and haunts television studios.

Wrong and wrong again. The new face of the world-leading French intellectual is a brisk 36-year-old woman with the pleasant but no-nonsense look of a primary school teacher, who climbs mountains in her spare time.

She is Esther Duflo and was recently named one of the 100 most influential thinkers in the world (she came 91st). She begins a season of lectures this week at the Collège de France, the Everest of French intellectual life: a kind of PhD-level OU with no students and free lectures for all.

ABU DHABI: With one of the highest per capita carbon footprints in the world, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates would seem an unlikely place for a green revolution.

Gasoline sells for 12 cents a liter, or 45 cents a gallon. There is little public transportation and no recycling. Residents drive between air-conditioned apartments and air-conditioned malls that are lit 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Still, leaders in the region know energy and money, having built their wealth on oil. They understand that oil is a finite resource, and vulnerable to competition from new energy forms.

So even as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as the U.S. route out of recession, Gulf states like the Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are already making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2009) -- High caffeine consumption could be linked to a greater tendency to hallucinate, a new research study suggests.

People with a higher caffeine intake, from sources such as coffee, tea and caffeinated energy drinks, are more likely to report hallucinatory experiences such as hearing voices and seeing things that are not there, according to the Durham University study.

`High caffeine users' - those who consumed more than the equivalent of seven cups of instant coffee a day - were three times more likely to have heard a person's voice when there was no one there compared with `low caffeine users' who consumed less than the equivalent of one cup of instant coffee a day.  With ninety per cent of North Americans consuming some of form caffeine every day, it is the world's most widely used drug.

[...]

Lead author, Simon Jones, a PhD student at Durham University's Psychology Department, said: "This is a first step towards looking at the wider factors associated with hallucinations. Previous research has highlighted a number of important factors, such as childhood trauma, which may lead to clinically relevant hallucinations. Many such factors are thought to be linked to hallucinations in part because of their impact on the body's reaction to stress. Given the link between food and mood, and particularly between caffeine and the body's response to stress, it seems sensible to examine what a nutritional perspective may add."

Co-author Dr Charles Fernyhough, also from Durham University's Psychology Department, noted "Our study shows an association between caffeine intake and hallucination-proneness in students. However, one interpretation may be that those students who were more prone to hallucinations used caffeine to help cope with their experiences. More work is needed to establish whether caffeine consumption, and nutrition in general, has an impact on those kinds of hallucination that cause distress."

Mr Jones added: "Hallucinations are not necessarily a sign of mental illness. Most people will have had brief experiences of hearing voices when there is no one there, and around three per cent of people regularly hear such voices. Many of these people cope well with this and live normal lives. There are, however, a number of organisations, such as the Hearing Voices Network, who can offer support and advice to those distressed by these experiences."

The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all.

A task force created by 49 state attorneys general to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is not a significant problem.

The findings ran counter to popular perceptions of online dangers as reinforced by depictions in the news media like NBC's "To Catch a Predator" series. One attorney general was quick to criticize the group's report.

The panel, the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, was charged with examining the extent of the threats children face on social networks like MySpace and Facebook, amid widespread fears that adults were using these popular Web sites to deceive and prey on children.

But the report concluded that the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, poses a far more serious challenge than the sexual solicitation of minors by adults.

UOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A giant piece of art is managing to shock and amuse the normally staid corridors of power in Brussels by playing on the national stereotypes that still exist throughout the 27-nation bloc.

The piece, unveiled Tuesday morning (13 January), has instantly become the star attraction in the council of ministers building - arguably the drabbest and least lively of the EU's three main institutions.

Gaggles of EU officials, diplomats and journalists were to be found standing under the construction throughout the day trying to puzzle out where their country could be found.

Spain is depicted as slab of concrete in reference to its over-active construction industry. Lithuania has three statues peeing on Russia while Belgium is shown as a box of chocolates.

Meanwhile, tiny but rich Luxembourg is depicted as a gold nugget entirely covered by a "for sale," sign while Denmark takes the form of a lego piece.

LONDON -- As the death toll in Gaza mounts, the conflict is causing some collateral damage in an unforeseen area: the reputation of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair as an international statesman.

During his 10 years as Britain's prime minister, Mr. Blair played a prominent role in events ranging from the Northern Ireland peace process to the Iraq war. Now, though, as Middle East envoy for the Quartet group of the United Nations, the U.S., the European Union and Russia, he is finding himself marginalized while another European statesman, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, garners the headlines as a joint sponsor with Egypt of a cease-fire proposal.

Tony Blair in Cairo Monday in his role as envoy for the Quartet group.

Mr. Blair, charged with developing the economies of the West Bank and Gaza, has faced an uphill battle since his appointment in June 2007. Because of security concerns, he hasn't visited Gaza but has focused on negotiating with Israeli and West Bank officials on issues such as removing roadblocks in the Palestinian territories. Meanwhile, the economies of the territories have declined, leading many to question his effectiveness.

"If I am honest, I would say that his mission was a failure," says Mustafa Barghouti, a moderate member of the Palestinian parliament and a former minister. "In the West Bank ... he is irrelevant." Mr. Barghouti says that when Mr. Blair started his job, there were 521 Israeli checkpoints, and now there are 699.

Making progress toward peace in the Middle East was "unfinished business ... which he thought he would be able to round off," says Anthony Seldon, a biographer of Mr. Blair and political historian. "But he overestimated the ability of political leaders out of office to effect change."