A stark series of data released on Thursday certify the grim state of the European economy, with unemployment up, GDP sliding, and both economic sentiment and business climate indicators reaching all-time lows.

The eurozone's gross domestic product declined by 0.2 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared with the previous quarter, according to estimates from Eurostat, the EU's statistics office.

The EU performed middlingly out of the big three economies, with US GDP declining 0.1 percent and Japanese GDP down 0.5.

As was the case during last summer's Georgia crisis, the EU has once again responded to the first international challenges of 2009 by sending observers, this time to monitor the borders between Gaza and Egypt, and Russia and Ukraine to supervise the supply of gas intended for Europe.

Almost simulateneously, it emerged that the Union will dispatch observers to deal with the two crises in a bid to reassert the perceived success of Europe's so-called 'soft power'.

Firstly, the Union made known that it will dispatch observers to monitor the border between Egypt and Gaza, hoping to put the ongoing Gaza violence to an end (EurActiv 05/01/09). The border is laced with a network of hundreds of tunnels, bringing not only food and commodities to Gaza, but weapons too.

Next, yesterday (7 January) the EU finally agreed to send observers to monitor the supply of gas earmarked for Europe, amid a gas row opposing Russia and Ukraine whereby Moscow accuses Kiev of siphoning off gas destined for European networks. Analysts had been tipping Russia to suggest such a move for some time. At first, the EU appeared reluctant to get involved in what it saw as a bilateral dispute, but its position changed after the situation began to deteriorate (EurActiv 07/01/08).

Slovenia may call for a referendum over Croatia's accession to the European Union if a long-standing border dispute between the two countries is not quickly resolved to Ljubljana's satisfaction.

Slovenian Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Zbogar stated that if talks over the border dispute are not resolved in his country's interest, it would be "quite realistic" to expect a popular referendum on ratification of Croatia's accession treaty to the Union, the Croatian daily Jutarni List reported yesterday (7 January).

A spokesperson for Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told EurActiv that the Commission never comments on ratification procedures for international treaties, including accession treaties, in different member states.

The global financial crisis is wiping out the wealth and political influence of Russia's once-mighty oligarchs. Yesterday's kingmakers are now having to beg the Kremlin for loans.

Editor's Note: This feature is part of a SPIEGEL series that will continue all week on how the economic downturn is affecting people and companies around the world. No other downturn in history has hit as many of the world's economies. The current crisis is hitting migrant laborers in China, automobile workers in Detroit and even strong traditional German firms like the chemical giant BASF.

Judging by the furnishings, you would never guess that this office is where plans were made to launch Russia's economy into the modern age. The room is dominated by heavy furniture made of dark wood. Antique books are displayed in glass bookcases. Working from this office, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, intends to reduce his huge country's dependence on raw materials exports. To achieve this objective, his subsidiary Sitronics has built a cutting-edge semiconductor production plant on the outskirts of Moscow.

LIMERICK, Ireland: Dell said Thursday that it would cut 1,900 jobs at its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland, moving some of the positions to Poland and others to its contracting partners.

The move follows other news of job cuts and reduced forecasts that have battered the computer industry this week. For Dell, the cuts are part of a $3 billion program to reduce costs announced last year. They are set to begin in April and account for almost two-thirds of its employees in Limerick, the company said.

The jobs migrating to Poland will manufacture computer systems for customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

"This is a difficult decision, but the right one for Dell to become even more competitive, and deliver greater value to customers in the region," said Sean Corkery, vice president of operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

ALDE Group Leader Graham Watson has launched his campaign for the presidency of the European Parliament. Speaking about his ambitions for the Parliament's future, Mr. Watson said:

"For too long, Presidents of Parliament have been chosen through backroom deals in smoke-filled rooms. Mine will be the first ever public campaign for the presidency: in this I hope that I will set a precedent.

...

"I have written to every MEP informing them of my intentions, and next week I will unveil the priorities that would mark out my presidency."

German exports plunged in November to record their biggest fall in nearly two decades, new data shows, as the deepening world economic downturn hits Europe's biggest economy.

The Wiesbaden-based national statistics office said Thursday, Jan. 8, that the world's leading exporter posted in November a month-on-month 10.6 percent drop in exports when adjusted for working days and seasonal factors.

[...]

On an annual basis, German exports dropped by 12 percent in November, while imports recorded a steep 5.6-percent month-on-month decline and a 0.9-percent fall on the year.

The country's trade surplus narrowed to 9.7 billion euros ($13 billion) from 16.4 billion euros in October.

Cliffs are so last year...

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

MOSCOW, Jan 8 (Reuters) - A delegation from Russia's Gazprom is flying back to Moscow from Brussels and does not know when talks with Ukraine over their gas dispute will resume, Gazprom's deputy chief executive Alexander Medvedev said.

Medvedev told Reuters on Thursday talks on a multi-lateral monitoring system to ensure smooth gas transit collapsed on Thursday because Ukraine did not accept Russian proposals and Gazprom could not accept those of Kiev.

He said Ukraine had first refused to sign a protocol prepared by Gazprom and then Gazprom refused to sign a protocol proposed by Ukraine because Russian specialists or observers from European gas firms were not included among the monitors.

"It (the Ukrainian proposal) is a perverted version of the idea of multi-lateral control and can only serve the goal of public opinion manipulation. We do not intend to supply gas which is simply disappearing in Ukraine's gas transportation system," he told Reuters by telephone.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is ready to pay a market price for gas transit via Ukraine if Kiev pays a market price for supplies of Russian gas, the Russian prime minister said Thursday.

"We believe Ukraine should pay a market price, and we are ready to pay a market transit," Vladimir Putin told foreign journalists.

"The market transit [rate] in Europe is $3.4 for 1,000 cu m per 100 km," Putin said.

Russia paid $1.6 for 1,000 cu m per 100 km in 2008 in line with a contract valid until the end of 2010. In response to a claim by Ukraine's energy ministry, the Kiev economic court ruled Monday that Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz could not pump Russian gas westwards at a price of $1.6 for 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.

The premier said mechanisms to monitor Russian gas transit to Europe should be created as soon as possible to ensure the energy security of European consumers.

Putin showed journalists documents, drafted by independent foreign company SGS, proving Ukraine illegally siphoned off Russian Europe-bound gas.

"There is proof," he said and presented the documents, when asked what data Russia had on gas tapping by Ukraine.

Here, readers from some of the worst affected countries describe the struggle to keep their homes warm in sub-zero temperatures.

IVELINA NIKOVA, DOBRICH, BULGARIA

Both of my children won't go to school for an indefinite period of time. They went to school yesterday only to spend some time in cold classrooms before they were released to go home.

Only four schools in town will try using other means of energy. It's happy days for the kids, but not for us.

Right now we are, it seems, on some kind of limited gas supply regime. Yesterday we didn't have heating and hot water for the whole day. Supply was cut without any warning.

The heating started working overnight, again without prior information about it. We were only told that there will be a regime, but we don't know when and for how long the heating will be on.

Russian independent gas firms will be told to shut down their wells, becoming hostages to the Russia-Ukraine row, if the export problems facing giant gas company Gazprom lead to a serious domestic glut. Gazprom's exports to Europe are now half the usual volumes as no gas is flowing through pipelines across Ukrainian soil because of a pricing row between Moscow and Kiev, causing shortages that have hit 18 countries in Europe. Gazprom, the world's largest gas producer, has increased European exports via other routes but some 200 million cubic metres per day -- enough to meet the demand from Europe's top economy Germany -- are now locked inside Russia. With low domestic demand due to long New Year holidays and a sharp economic contraction, Gazprom, which controls all Russian gas pipelines, may soon face a choice of whether to shut down its own wells or stop accepting gas from third parties. "Independent producers, like Novatek, and oil firms producing gas will suffer most," said Ivan Mazalov, who helps manage $2 billion at Prosperity Capital Management.

The European Union began as a coal community but has failed to put together a common energy policy. The latest dispute between Russia and Ukraine has once again exposed the need for such a policy with several EU member states struggling to cope with the interruption of Russian gas supplies in a particularly cold winter spell.

Yet the crisis - as a study by the Centre of European Reform concludes - could be doing Europe a favour by providing the catalyst to establish an integrated internal European gas market and other common measures to enhance EU energy security.

A similar disagreement between Russia and Ukraine three years ago provoked considerable panic throughout Europe. Individual countries intensified their efforts to reduce their dependence on Russian gas imports. They diversified their gas supplies by turning to sources such as Norway, Algeria or Libya. The richer EU nations stepped up investments in liquefied natural gas to diversify even further their gas supplies. They also expanded gas storage facilities while exploring alternative, renewable sources of energy as well as promoting the revival of the nuclear sector.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The shape of an EU-dominated monitoring team that is to end the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute became clearer on Thursday (8 January), while EU ministers agreed the problem has taken on a Europe-wide political dimension.

"We have an agreement with the EU that when the international observers are in place in Ukraine and have access to the transit stations, we will immediately restore gas supplies to Europe," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said in Brussels, as the Russian and Ukrainian diplomatic machines hit the EU capital.

The monitoring committee is to comprise European Commission officials, delegates from affected EU companies and staff from the Russian and Ukrainian energy ministries, with 10 EU firms having already confirmed they will take part, Mr Miller explained.

The Gazprom chief said he had given "a relevant document, a protocol" on the mandate of the monitoring mission to EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs. Ukraine officials said they had signed a formal invitation for European Commission staff to enter the country.

Frantic efforts to restore gas supplies to millions of European comsumers failed today after Russia flatly refused to turn the pipeline back on.

A European Union plan to send monitors to both countries, agreed in principle by Moscow and Kiev as a way of breaking the deadlock between them, faltered at the 11th hour when Russia demanded that its own inspectors should be sent into Ukraine alongside independent experts.

The row has has left 12 countries without any deliveries in freezing temperatures and seen hundreds of schools and factories closed to conserve fuel. Hundreds of thousands of people across the Balkans, the worst-affected region, found themselves without heating and some hospitals were forced to close in Serbia as the thermometer dipped below minus 10 degrees Celsius.

A senior US diplomat warned that Nato might have to intervene to help alliance members such as Bulgaria and Romania if the crisis drags on. "There is a commercial dispute at the heart of this, but this also has political overtones - we have seen Russia over time using such events to gain political leverage," said US Ambassador to Nato Kurt Volker.

The UN has said it is suspending aid operations in Gaza because its staff have been hit by Israeli attacks.

The suspension would continue "until the Israeli authorities can guarantee our safety and security", the UN said.

Meanwhile, the US, UK and France have dropped opposition to a UN resolution urging an immediate ceasefire, and Arab nations are studying a draft.

It comes on day 13 of an offensive by Israel aimed at stopping Palestinian militants firing rockets from Gaza.

Israel's war on Gaza has left more than 700 Palestinians dead - nearly a third of them women and children - and more than 3,000 injured.

But at the organisation's headquarters in Damascus, 100km miles from the territory, Musa Abu Marzouq, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told Al Jazeera why he believes his organisation is on the verge of victory against Israel.

Al Jazeera: Under what conditions will Hamas agree a ceasefire with Israel?

Abu Marzouq: We have three conditions for any peace initiative coming from any state.

First, the aggression of the Israelis should stop. All of the gates should be opened, including the gate of Rafah between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Finally, Israel has to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

We are not saying we will stop firing rockets from the Gaza Strip to Israel - we are only talking about stopping the aggression from the Israelis against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (IPS) - Consumed by coverage of the Nov. 4 presidential election, U.S. mainstream media ignored a key Israeli military attack on a Hamas target that some Palestinians claim marked the effective end of the ceasefire between the two sides and set the stage for the current round of bloodletting.

While the major U.S. news wire Associated Press (AP) reported that the attack, in which six members of Hamas's military wing were killed by Israeli ground forces, threatened the ceasefire, its report was carried by only a handful of small newspapers around the country.

The Nov 4 raid -- and the escalation that followed -- also went unreported by the major U.S. network and cable television new programmes, according to a search of the Nexis database for all English-language news coverage between Nov. 4 and 7.

But the military action, which was followed up by an aerial attack that killed at least one other Palestinian, appears to have dealt a fatal blow to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire that had taken effect Jun. 19 and largely held for some four and a half months.

In retaliation for the attack, Hamas launched some 35 Qassam rockets into Israeli territory Nov. 5 which, in turn, provoked Israel to severely tighten its then-17-month-old economic siege of the Palestinian territory.

RAMALLAH, Jan 8 (IPS) - An international chorus of condemnation has blasted Israel over its human rights abuses in Gaza. Operation Cast Lead, into its 12th day, has now claimed the lives of over 700 Palestinians.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) demanded safe access Thursday for ICRC officials and Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC) ambulances to evacuate the wounded. It accused Israel of deliberately delaying ambulances.

Rescue teams made several attempts to rescue the wounded and retrieve bodies in several areas of Gaza city but were refused entry by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers.

On Wednesday, however, after a week's intensive negotiations with Israeli officials, ICRC officials and PRC ambulance teams managed to reach some of the survivors in Gaza's Zeitoun neighbourhood.

The ICRC reported finding four starving toddlers next to the bodies of their dead mothers in one of the houses. The children were apparently too weak to stand. One man was found barely alive. Twelve bodies were found laid out on mattresses in the same house.

CAIRO, Jan 8 (IPS) - Egyptian authorities have almost fully sealed the border with Gaza, preventing delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid.

"The government has expressly forbidden the entry of aid convoys laden with food into the Gaza Strip," Emmad al-Din Moustafa, member of the Popular Committee for Aiding Gaza told IPS. "The continued border closure -- like the Israeli assault itself -- constitutes a crime against humanity."

Israel began a series of devastating air strikes on targets throughout the Gaza Strip Dec. 27, followed by a ground offensive launched Jan. 3. According to Israeli officials, the campaign, which has included thousands of air strikes and naval bombardment, comes in retaliation for rockets fired at Israel by Gaza-based Palestinian resistance factions.

Since the campaign began, humanitarian aid -- donated by sympathisers from across the Arab and Islamic world -- has flown into the city of Al-Arish, 40 km west of Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip. But according to local sources, Egyptian authorities are preventing the transportation of food and medicine into the besieged territory.

"The crossing has only been opened briefly five or six times to allow the entry of limited amounts of aid," Hatem Al-Bulk, political activist from Al-Arish told IPS. "About 1,000 tonnes of food have been delivered so far, but the population of Gaza needs an estimated 1,500 tonnes per day to survive."

The Israeli government says it has not yet given the go-ahead to increase the scale of the military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made the announcement during a visit to the Gaza Strip, where he was accompanied by Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

"We haven't yet reached that point and the army has not yet been asked to do everything necessary," he said.

His statement came as two Israeli soldiers were wounded on Thursday after a Palestinian rocket attack.

The attack happened during the daily three-hour suspension of bombing which Israel began on Wednesday, which is intended to enable the distribution of humanitarian aid to the territory.

While in Madrid at a press conference, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said that he hoped a series of rockets fired into northern Israel, from Lebanon, was an "isolated incident."

He noted that no Palestinian groups had claimed responsibility for the rockets which created panic on both sides of the border.

Hezbollah has denied any responsibility for the attacks.

Yesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that he would expel the Israeli ambassador in Venezuela. He, of course, did this in order to show his support for the Palestinians. Venezuela is very close to America, it is a neighbor of America. This is Chavez. He did this because of his humanity, his sense of revolution and, in this way, he dealt a severe blow to those who are now hosting the ambassadors of Israel in their capitals and do not have enough courage to even think about telling them to leave.  ...

Yesterday, an Egyptian official said something interesting. He asked 'Does the Security Council need more than 650 martyrs and more than 2,500 wounded to make its decision and act in a responsible manner?' These are nice words to hear and I would like to ask this Egyptian official whether the Egyptian regime needs more than 650 martyrs and more than 2,500 people wounded before it permanently opens the Rafah border crossing to help the people of Gaza stand with perseverance and achieve victory? The same question that you ask from the Security Council, I am asking you. I am here talking to the Egyptian official.

What is required from Egypt is only to open the border crossing, not to declare war. I was told by some of my colleagues yesterday that a group of Egyptian lawyers, who are loyal to the Egyptian regime, have actually filed a lawsuit against me personally. They filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice because of my speech on the first night of the commemoration of Ashura when I called on the Egyptian leadership to open the Rafah border crossing and called on the Egyptian people and the Egyptian army to pressure the Egyptian regime to take a positive step. They considered what I said as unjust and as a call for a revolution and the toppling of the Egyptian regime.  ...

We also heard yesterday from John Bolton, a Zionist who was formerly in the American administration and is now frustrated. John Bolton pointed out the real aim of the Americans and the Zionists. The real aim, as he said, was to destroy the Palestinian cause. He spoke about separating the West Bank from Gaza. He spoke about ending the two-state proposal by keeping the state of Israel and giving part of the West Bank to Jordan and giving the Gaza Strip to Egypt. ...

Turgid Version


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

BRUSSELS, Jan 8 (IPS) - Extreme poverty will continue to blight sub-Saharan Africa for another 200 years unless action to overcome it is intensified, a new report has suggested.

Social Watch, a network of campaigning groups, has devised a measure known as the "basic capabilities index" to assess the level of hardship throughout the world.

Its latest report finds that 80 countries -- home to half the world's population -- fare badly when three criteria are examined: the number of children who die before their fifth birthday, the proportion of children who complete primary education, and the proportion of births that are attended by trained midwives or other medical professionals.

Only 16 of these countries have registered considerable improvement since 2000. Although the countries making progress include India, home to 1.6 billion, regression has been recorded in others with a combined population of 150 million. The latter category includes Chad, Niger, Malawi, Benin and Yemen, while Bangladesh, Uganda, Nigeria, Madagascar and Ghana have been listed as stagnant.

While much of sub-Saharan Africa has recorded strong economic growth in recent years, this has not translated into a major drop in poverty levels. As things stand, the basic needs of millions of Africans will not be met until the 23rd century, with many governments struggling to fulfil pledges they have made. Zambia, for example, has undertaken to provide free basic health care for all citizens, yet continues to have one of the lowest rates of life expectancy on the planet.

Australia's military has warned that global warming could create failed states across the Pacific as sea levels rise and heighten the risk of conflict over resources, a report said Wednesday.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) analysis found the military could be called on to undertake more security, disaster relief and reconstruction missions as a result of climate change, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

"Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure," the analysis said.

"This is likely to increase demands for the ADF to be deployed on additional stabilisation, post-conflict reconstruction and disaster relief operations in the future."

The analysis, a summary of which was obtained by the paper using freedom of information laws, also noted the possibility of a serious conflict over the undersea oil and gas deposits of the Arctic as shrinking icecaps make these more accessible.

HONG KONG -- China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers. Skip to next paragraph

Multimedia  Back Story with Keith Bradsher

The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.

On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama predicted the possibility of trillion-dollar deficits "for years to come," even after an $800 billion stimulus package. Normally, China would be the most avid taker of the debt required to pay for those deficits, mainly short-term Treasuries, which are government i.o.u.'s.

In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.

But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus -- just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows. Regulators have ordered banks to lend more money to small and medium-size enterprises, many of which are struggling with lower exports, and to local governments to build new roads and other projects.

[A] a levy up to 1% of sales revenue shall be imposed on industries polluting the environment. On the basis of Article 2, the government shall, for protecting industrial exports, allocate sums for compensating some of the export costs related to capital and consumer goods, parts and accessories, and technical services.  ...

[T]he government is also obliged to adopt measures insuring that the difference between bank interest paid to the depositors and the facilities must not exceed 3%. ...

[G]overnmental corporations and organizations are obliged to give priority in purchasing to domestic manufacturers and settle the invoices of the sellers and contractors within 30 days. For protection of domestic products, the tariff of the SKD and CKD of mobile phones, home electric appliances and other electric equipment (expect cars and high tech industries) shall be respectively below 80%, and 10% the tariff of the CBU.

Turgid Version


Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Obama appears with new DNC chief - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama appeared Thursday at Democratic Party headquarters with his hand-picked incoming chairman, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, but his predecessor, outgoing chief Howard Dean, was nowhere in sight.

Dean, who has clashed with Obama's top aides and Democratic leaders in Congress during his four-year term, is stepping down Jan. 21.

"My understanding is that he's traveling, so he couldn't attend," said Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman.

Obama's transition officials, however, did not immediately respond when asked whether the former Vermont governor was invited to appear alongside the president-elect and Dean's successor at the news conference.

But Democrats with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the Obama team, say Dean won't attend the event at the request of Obama advisers.

[...]Recycling has become a global industry and China is the largest importer of the world's waste materials, taking in as much as a third of Britain's recyclables for example. Then came the slump, decimating the Chinese recycling industry and leaving Britain, the US and others grappling with growing volumes of recycled waste and nowhere to send it.

"It's a canary in the coalmine: it's the front and back end of industry," said Adam Minter, who runs the Shanghai Scrap blog and specialises in the metal trade. "Until about eight weeks ago, for example, the entire [US] west coast paper market was sent to China and most of it was sent south. It was processed and made into packaging for products that then shipped back to the US ... But when US consumer demand dropped off, that broke the cycle."

Across the scrap trade, prices have halved or worse in a matter of months. Each link in the chain is disintegrating, from factories to scrapyards to collectors such as Wu, 56, a former farmer who now plans to return to Hubei province.

Official media reported that four-fifths of China's recycling units had closed and that millions will eventually be left without employment.

Confronted with intense skepticism on Capitol Hill over the $700 billion financial rescue program, Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy F. Geithner and President-elect Barack Obama's economic team are urgently overhauling the embattled initiative and broadening its scope well beyond Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Geithner has been working night and day on the eighth floor of the transition team office in downtown Washington with Lawrence H. Summers and other senior economic advisers to hash out a new approach that would expand the program's aid to municipalities, small businesses, homeowners and other consumers. With lawmakers stewing over how Bush administration officials spent the first $350 billion, Geithner has little chance of winning congressional approval for the second half without retooling the program, the sources added.

That challenge is underscored by a report from a congressional oversight panel scheduled to be released today that hammers the outgoing Treasury Department for its handling of the financial rescue, including "what appear to be significant gaps in Treasury's monitoring of the use of taxpayer money." The report, moreover, faults the Treasury for failing to properly measure the success of the program or establish an overall strategy and skewers the department for not using any of the funds on foreclosure relief as Congress had directed.

PTSD Support: PTSD given mis-diagnosis by military -
[helping to reduce the cost for VA treatment and care-(RN)] (Army Times ~ May 04, 2007)

After several solders came forward claiming they were discharged for personality disorders but diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, officials at Fort Carson, Colo., say statistics show 56 of the 276 soldiers discharged with personally disorders in fact had PTSD.

But officials say those PTSD cases were mild to moderate and the soldiers were discharged because of personality disorder issues.

Fort Carson soldiers have accused Army officials of everything from deploying them to Iraq with brain injuries to punishing them for behavior related to their combat injuries.

This is what war does: you go and break another country and in the process twist and break your own people that you enlist to do the job, and then when you bring them back you just discard them and leave them to fend for themselves. Woo hoo.

Support your troops - don't have any!

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

Investors wondering what happened to the $50 billion that disappeared in Bernard Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme need look no further than the fees charged by the hedge funds that marketed his money-making prowess.

Many investors left their savings in the Madoff-run funds, content in the belief that their nest eggs were doubling every seven years. Firms that sold the feeder funds, including Fairfield Greenwich Group, Tremont Group Holdings Inc. and Bank Medici AG, were paid fees every year.

A team of Ecuadoran and Italian researchers have discovered a unique species of pink land iguanas living on the Galapagos Islands, the scientist who wrote the report told AFP.

"It is surprising to have made a find of this magnitude in the 21st century," said Washington Tapia, head of research at the Galapagos National Park.

Researchers at first thought that the iguanas, which are pink with black spots, simply had skin pigmentation problems, Tapia said.

The first pink iguanas were discovered in 1986, and after years of research scientists concluded that it was a unique species.

Frosty weather continued to nip at Europe Thursday, with temperatures falling as low as minus 34.6 degrees Celsius in one part of Germany.

An Arctic chill continued to frost Germany on Thursday, with nighttime temperatures of minus 34.6 degrees Celsius (minus 30.28 Fahrenheit) reported at Funtensee lake in Bavaria, according to the weather service Meteomedia.

A US airline has completed the first test flight of a plane partly powered by biofuel derived from algae.

The 90-minute flight by a Continental Boeing 737-800 went better than expected, a spokesperson said.

One of its engines was powered by a 50-50 blend of biofuel and normal aircraft fuel.

Wednesday's test is the latest in a series of demonstration flights by the aviation industry, which hopes to be using biofuels within five years.

The flight was the first by a US carrier to use an alternative fuel source, and the first in the world to use a twin-engine commercial aircraft (rather than a four-engine plane) to test a biofuel blend.

Virtually all the dominant strain of flu in the United States this season is resistant to the leading antiviral drug Tamiflu, and scientists and health officials are trying to figure out why.

The problem is not yet a public health crisis because this has been a below-average flu season so far, and because the Tamiflu-resistant strain, one of three circulating, is still susceptible to other drugs. But infectious disease specialists are worried nonetheless.

Last winter, about 11 percent of the throat swabs from patients with the most common type of flu that were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for genetic typing showed a Tamiflu-resistant strain. This season, 99 percent do.

"It's quite shocking," said Dr. Kent A. Sepkowitz, director of infection control at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "We've never lost an antimicrobial this fast. It blew me away.

Tamiflu was also supposed to be the 1st line of defense in the event of an outbreak of avian flu.

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

HAVANA -- Sergio Morales's friends gently rib him about the dirt under his fingernails and the grease that fills every line in his 58-year-old hands. The grease has been there so long, they tell him, that it must predate Fidel Castro's revolution.

But Mr. Morales has heard all the jokes, and not a single one makes him look up from his work.

He just shifts his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other as his fingers twist and caress the tools in front of him, granting new life to one of the few Harley-Davidson motorcycles that remain in Cuba. Like Mr. Morales, and possibly the gunk on his hands, they too predate the 1959 revolution.

Mr. Morales is the last mechanic here making his living by fixing them the old-fashioned Cuban way, with homemade parts to preserve a nugget of Americana in the alleys of Havana.

[...]

Mr. Morales's personal bike is a 1950 Panhead, christened El Indio, which he bought in 1986 for $1,000 after selling his 1945 Flathead. The bike, which would easily fetch $10,000 in the United States today, still carries nearly all of its original parts. The wheels, though, are borrowed from a Skoda -- the Czech automobile. Mr. Morales even fitted the bike with a sidecar, lifting the chassis from a Soviet Ural sidecar and designing a homemade copy of a Harley body.

Here's a picture of a courageous super-woman. No, it's not. It shows a bad mother and disgrace to the feminist cause. The argument has been raging since the unexpected return to work of Rachida Dati, the French Justice Minister. Only five days earlier, she gave birth to her first baby -- by  caesarean section. The father's identity remains a state secret. More on that below

Dati, 43, the glamour-figure of President Sarkozy's government, left her clinic in the 16th arrondissement yesterday morning. In freezing weather, the single mother showed Zohra, her baby, to admirers (picture below). An hour later, she turned up looking trim in stiletto heels and a tight suit for the weekly cabinet session. Sarko opened by contratulating "la jeune maman" -- the young mummy.

The very image-conscious Dati was pulling off one her stunts. Her decision to forego the standard three-month maternity leave was ridiculed by those who see her as a pushy, over-promoted favourite of the President. Her admirers saw her return as typical of the pluck that took her from a childhood on the immigrant housing estates to one of the highest government posts.

The rodents are believed to have gnawed their way through cables, sparking the blaze at the property belonging to former MP Lord Mayhew on Wednesday afternoon.

Firefighters battled the flames for almost two hours at the two-storey cottage in Goudhurst, near Cranbrook, Kent, currently inhabited by tenants.

Lord Mayhew told the Kent Messenger: "The fire broke out in a void behind an airing cupboard and the most probable cause was squirrels chewing through cables."

A spokeswoman for Kent Fire and Rescue Service estimated about 90% of the first floor and roof void had been "severely damaged".

http://proxyland.blogspot.com/
Financial Oxymoron of the Year:  The envelope, please.

As the year wore on, analysts warned of an Oxymoron Bubble. Nearly every two-word phrase on the business page seemed to qualify. To wit:

financial services
financial system
market discipline
government oversight
business judgment
free market

Let's throw in Federal Reserve. And is it too soon to add modern civilization? OMG, I need to get a grip.

"European Union"?

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

The Difficulty of Being an Informed American | 8 Jan 2009

It is the same propagandistic American print and TV media that have rationalized Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan based on seven years of lies and deception.

It is the same media that today provids only Israeli propaganda as "coverage" of the Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

It was the New York Times that spiked for one year the leaked information from the National Security Agency that the Bush regime, in violation of US law, was illegally spying on Americans without warrants.  The "liberal" New York Times agreed to suppress the story so that Bush would not face reelection under the cloud of his outlaw behavior.

Conservatives think the Washington Post is "liberal media" despite the fact that the  editorial and commentary pages are controlled  by neocons and their sympathizers.   ...

People who have access to television services that provide English language foreign broadcasts, such as Iran's Press TV,  Russia Today, or Al Jazeera, can get get news and insights from those parts of the world demonized by the US media.

The BBC World Service still reports facts while covering itself  by providing the views of the US, UK, and Israeli  governments.

Both the Asia Times and Israeli newspapers, such as Haaretz can be read online in English.  There are other such newspapers, and all of them provide information that Americans will never see in their own media.  Any American newspaper that was as truthful about the Israeli  government as Haaretz would be closed down.

The only US print source with which I am familiar in which some honest reporting can be found  on a regular basis is the McClatchy papers.

Americans addicted to print media must turn to alternative newspapers, which tend to be weekly or bi-weekly. However, the news and commentary provided are often superb....

I hope he feels better soon.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Is love just a chemical cocktail?

Writing in the respected scientific journal Nature, Professor Young argues that love can be explained by a series of neurochemical events in specific brain areas.

Unfortunately there are no effective painkillers to dull the excruciating experience of Brian Ferry.

You can't be me, I'm taken