thats 2817 new signatures since yesterday's Salon.

EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom has said she is fed up with the "reign of old men" in Brussels corridors, saying public opinion in Europe will not take lightly to the backroom scheming between EU hot-shots.

"An inner circle of male decision-makers agree behind closed doors on whom to nominate to EU top jobs," the Swedish commissioner said in an interview with Swedish daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet on Friday (8 February), the day of her 54th birthday.

"It is incredible that only men have been mentioned in the discussions, and that it is all discussed behind the scenes, she added.

The Lisbon Treaty, due to come into effect next year, comes with two new top posts in the union: a permanent president for the council, elected for a two and a half year period; and a 'high representative for foreign affairs', or foreign minister.

The Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, has been mooted as a possible candidate, as has Luxemburg's prime minister Jean Claude Juncker. Lately, there has been much speculation about whether UK former prime minister Tony Blair is interested in the job.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury comes under fire for suggesting parts of Shariah law be applied in the UK, the head of Germany's Protestant Church told Deutsche Welle a country needs a single legal system for everyone.

Speaking to journalists at the Deutsche Welle in Bonn, Wolfgang Huber, head of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, slammed the proposal by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams to introduce parts of Islamic Shariah law for Muslims in Britain. Williams also said introduction of some aspects of Islamic or Shariah law was "unavoidable" in Britain to promote social cohesion.

 

"Hoping to achieve integration through a dual legal system is a mistaken idea," Huber told Deutsche Welle in an exclusive interview. "You have to ask the question as to what extent cultural characteristics have a legitimate place in a legal system. But you have to push for one country to have one system."

German officials on Friday defended their refusal to send combat troops to more violent southern Afghanistan, which has been plagued by a Taliban insurgency. France, meanwhile, is meeting with Canadian officials to discuss a plan to send French troops to support operations in Kandahar.

 German soldiers arrange sacks of food in Afghanistan's Balkh Province, north of Kabul. Germany'S troop presence is limited to reconstruction work in the north. Officials at Germany's Foreign Ministry on Friday defended Berlin's refusal to send combat troops to violent southern Afghanistan. In an interview with German public radio station WDR, Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler dismissed the notion that the German and other European militaries are "quitters."

"We already have more than 20 dead to mourn from this work, so it isn't very safe," said Erler, a member of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). "It simply is not true to say that some are doing the hard work and others are quitters."

Germany has refused to send combat troops to the violent Afghani south, as have Spain, Turkey and Italy. However, the German military, the Bundeswehr, does have almost 3,300 troops stationed in relatively stable northern Afghanistan, and its Tornado reconnaissance jets are being used to help in the battle against the Taliban-led insurgency in the south. Germany is also sending a quick reaction force (more...) to replace a deployment of combat troops that Norway is withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo intends to proclaim independence next Sunday (17 February), Serbia said on Friday, saying it has information to back up the claim.

"The Serbian government has received more and more significant information that [Kosovo's prime minister] Hashim Thaci will illegally declare the unilateral independence of Kosovo on February 17," Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia's minister for Kosovo was quoted as saying by press agencies on Friday (8 February).

Mr Samardzic did not specify the source of Serbia's information, however.

The Serbian minister's comments came after a meeting with EU official Stefan Lehne, a special advisor to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Mr Lehne was in Belgrade to clarify the EU's plans to send a civilian mission to Kosovo, according to the Associated Press.

Serbia opposes the EU mission unless it is approved by the UN, seeing it as a step towards Kosovo's independence.

Vladimir Putin has used one of the last major speeches of his presidency to deliver a defiant message to the West, accusing it of unleashing a new arms race that left Moscow no choice but to retaliate in kind. Less than a month before presidential elections that his hand-picked successor is almost certain to win, the speech removed any lingering doubts that Russian foreign policy might become less aggressive after Mr Putin steps down.

"It's clear that a new arms race is unfolding in the world," said Mr Putin, one that Russia did not start. And he vowed that Russia would respond to the threats by developing newer and more modern weapons that were as good as if not better than those possessed by Western countries. "We are being forced into retaliating ... Russia has and always will have the answers to these challenges," he said.

The speech in which he also condemned Nato expansion came as defence chiefs of the 26-nation alliance, increasingly alarmed by Russia's flexing of its military muscles, met in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, and urged Moscow to tone down its rhetoric.

President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday unveiled a long-awaited "Marshall Plan" for France's multi-racial suburbs but failed to make any clear commitments on levels of new spending.

The so-called "Plan Espoir Banlieue" - or "suburban hope plan" - also ignored a proposal that richer inner-city areas should share their local taxes with deprived suburbs. President Sarkozy's own "minister for the banlieues", Fadela Amara, said last month that the government's plan would "make no sense" without such a promise.

Mme Amara spoke then of a "€1 billion" development plan for the poorest districts over four years. President Sarkozy's speech to an invited audience of 1,000 yesterday failed to give any overall figure.

The president promised that €500m would be diverted over an unspecified period to improve rail links to poor, isolated suburbs. This money will be taken from an ambitious transport budget announced at President Sarkozy's "green" summit last year.

Two months away from a general election forced on the country by the collapse of Romano Prodi's unwieldy coalition, the left and right in Italy were doing their best yesterday to make a virtue of necessity and bring some coherence to a fragmented political scene in chaos.

The former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi seized the headlines with the announcement that he and the post-Fascist National Alliance party would be trading under the single name of Il Popolo della Liberta - the People of Freedom. One of the many floating fragments of the former Christian Democrat party may also come aboard. It marked a new attempt by Italy's richest and most charismatic politician to forge a disciplined electoral force. He has been appealing for allies to join him in "a single unified party" for years. As soon as a general election appeared inevitable, the right hastily buried its differences.

During the five years of Mr Berlusconi's last government, from 2001 to 2006, the components of the centre-right coalition bickered heatedly but not in the murderous manner of the nine separate components of Mr Prodi's coalition. And once again they have decided that they will do what it takes to cohabit, in the interests of victory.

Umberto Bossi, the leader of the Northern League, dined with Mr Berlusconi last night and is expected to opt for a looser connection to the new grouping. The centre-right heads towards the election with a solid lead in the opinion polls of 10 to 15 per cent.

The Queen and one of the richest men in London, the Duke of Westminster, are among the biggest winners from this year's payment of farm subsidies.

The Duke, who owns most of Mayfair and also Grosvenor Farms Limited, was paid £562,786, while the Duke of Marlborough, a member of the Churchill family, was paid £452,944 in subsidy for the Blenheim Farm Partnership based in Woodstock, Oxfordshire.

One of the largest payments went to the Mormon Church, which has become one of the biggest foreign landowners in English farming following a payment of £1.59m from the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Queen's Sandringham Farms were paid £408,970 in subsidies. Half of the land is let to tenants and the rest is turned over to two studs for her racehorses, forestry and fruit farms which produce apples and juice for the Windsor farm shop.

Labour MPs protested that the money was being paid to so-called "fat cats" who did not need financial support - at the expense of poorer farmers in the Third World who were facing unfair competition from the EU.

The full scale of a nationwide policy to bug British jails can be disclosed today after a whistleblower revealed that hundreds of lawyers and prison visitors had been secretly recorded.

Leader: Such surveillance tactics only harm

Your View: Is it ever justified to bug lawyers' conversations?

	Woodhill prison: listening devices were said to be hidden in tables

The covert eavesdropping of the MP Sadiq Khan is alleged to be just the first case in a far wider operation to bug terrorist suspects and other serious criminals introduced after the September 11 attacks.

Lawyers, including the human rights solicitors Gareth Peirce and Mudassar Arani, were allegedly "routinely bugged" by police during visits to see clients at Woodhill prison. Listening devices were said to have been concealed in tables at the jail.

Nationally it is thought that many more people may have been covertly recorded.

Nicolas Sarkozy's attempts to push Tony Blair as president of the new European Union is a stark contrast to previous French treatment of British prime ministers - and not much to the credit of either Blair or Sarkozy.

Two score years ago and five, Charles de Gaulle gave the doigt to Britain's prime minister Harold McMillan and vetoed his application to join the European community. Four years later, the general did it again for Harold Wilson who had succeeded to No 10 Downing Street by then.

Apart from payback time for all the humiliations that he saw heaped on France and himself by Britain - including the British failure to be occupied by the Nazis - De Gaulle's argument was that Britain would be a Trojan horse for American influence in Europe. To some extent he was right, even if his real motive was to keep out a rival for influence in Charlemagne's former realms. But it has taken Tony Blair to make him absolutely right about the Trojan horse.

On one level, it is, like Blair's Middle East position, yet another non-job designed to give a redundant statesman a sense of self-importance. But from another point of view, it is an insult to Europe. Symbolically, Blair for European president would be like running the Reverend Ian Paisley for Pope. Elected into office as a Europhile, Blair soon followed the Murdoch line of reflexive contempt for Brussels, while acting as Washington's agent in the continent, fulfilling all of De Gaulle's worst fears.

PARIS: While Americans have been saying for more than four years that their country is headed in the wrong direction, a poll shows that people in five major European countries share that pessimism about their own countries.

The poll, conducted by Harris Interactive for the International Herald Tribune and France 24, shows a broad range of discontent in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States, especially focused on the economy.

"This poll reveals an overall deep crisis of confidence in Europe and the United States," Patrick van Bloeme, chief executive of Harris Interactive France, said. "This feeling is probably enhanced by the emergence of strong, growing economies like India and China."

Europeans, in particular, have been worried about a loss of purchasing power as prices rise faster than wages.

SPIEGEL talks to American author Philip Roth about growing old, why George W. Bush is the worst American president ever and why he never gives out his cell phone number.

 Philip Roth is one of the most celebrated living American writers. Philip Roth, who will be 75 in March, is one of America's most critically acclaimed living writers. His 1969 novel "Portnoy's Complaint" brought him fame, and he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for 1997's "American Pastoral."

Many of his novels feature Roth's fictional alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman. Zuckerman appears again in Roth's latest work, "Exit Ghost," where he returns to New York after many years of seclusion in rural New England.

SPIEGEL talked to Roth about "Exit Ghost," the US election and the pleasures of rural life.

SPIEGEL: Mister Roth, how often have you tried to kill Nathan Zuckerman, the hero or narrator of so many of your novels?

Philip Roth: (laughs) I don't know -- do you?

SPIEGEL: Three times. Once in "Deception" ...

Roth: Oh, yes, I forgot that one.

FROM THE MAGAZINE Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication. SPIEGEL: And then again in "The Counterlife" at the age of 44. He's quite alive again, he is 71 now, but in your new book "Exit Ghost" you kill him once more.

Roth: I haven't killed him. I just sent him home.

SPIEGEL: "Gone for good" is what you write. Does that make a difference?

Roth: It certainly does.

SPIEGEL: Nathan Zuckerman is a writer who used to live in the countryside by himself -- a bit like the writer Philip Roth -- but then he returns to New York. Is he trying to escape old age, trying to become strong again?

Israel started cutting the amount of electricity it supplies to Gaza yesterday as part of a new economic campaign targeting Hamas that has drawn sharp criticism from human rights groups.

Power on one of 10 lines into the Palestinian territory was cut to hit back at militants firing rockets into Israel. Although the reduction amounts to less than 1% of the 124 megawatts that Israel sells to Gaza, further cuts are due in the weeks ahead as Israel seeks to "disengage" from Gaza.

There was little immediate sign it would halt the escalating conflict. Militants yesterday fired at least 20 makeshift rockets into Israel, damaging a factory.

The decision to cut electricity has been backed by Israel's high court, which this month turned down a challenge by Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups. Human Rights Watch said: "The cuts are seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed groups and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war."

• McClatchy - "Militants have expanded their violent campaign from Pakistan's ungoverned tribal areas to 'Pakistan proper' and they killed more people last year than they did in all the years from 2001 to 2006 combined," claimed senior American intelligence officials. "Al Qaida... is planning more attacks on the West in the haven it's re-established along the Afghan-Pakistani border. The assessments raise new questions about the wisdom of... Bush's decision to invade Iraq before American-led forces had defeated al Qaida in Afghanistan."

• NYT - "The Army has drafted a new operations manual that elevates the mission of stabilizing war-torn nations, making it equal in importance to defeating adversaries on the battlefield. [It is] the first new edition of the Army's comprehensive doctrine since 2001... Some influential officers are already arguing that the Army still needs to put actions behind its new words".

• NYT - "Military prosecutors are in the final phases of preparing the first sweeping case against suspected conspirators for the 9/11 plot... The charges, to be filed in the military commission system at Guantánamo, would involve as many as six detainees held at the detention camp in Cuba, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed... The case would bring new scrutiny to the military commissions".

• LA Times - "A federal appeals court today struck down a market-based effort by the Bush administration to regulate emissions of mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants, agreeing with critics that the Environmental Protection Agency had violated the Clean Air Act when it established the rule... The EPA had planned to establish a mandatory national cap on mercury emissions and then allow power plants that fail to meet their targets to buy credits from less-polluting plants."

• The Hill - "Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) ... lifted a hold on the Bush administration's pick for the No. 2 position at the Justice Department... Durbin had blocked [Mark] Filip's confirmation over... the Bush administration's use of waterboarding. Durbin wanted Attorney General Michael Mukasey to launch a criminal investigation into the controversial practice and promised to lift his hold on Filip only after his request was answered. Mukasey rejected the request". That'll show 'em!

• Reuters - "The Nebraska Supreme Court struck down the state's reliance on the electric chair for executions on Friday as "cruel and unusual" punishment, leaving no alternative method in its place... In its 6-1 ruling, the court said evidence proves that unconsciousness and death are not instantaneous for many prisoners and they could experience intense pain and 'agonizing suffering.'"

• NYT - "A veteran bridge inspection team for the Georgia Department of Transportation falsified checks of dozens of bridges in the metropolitan area, including 11 previously rated as needing repair or replacement, department officials said... The officials believe the deception... began about three months after a fatal bridge collapse in Minneapolis... David Simmons acknowledged falsifying 54 reports, but the officials suspect that as many as 68 more might have been faked."

• Star Tribune - Twin Cities' "Metro Transit recorded its highest ridership total in more than 25 years, reporting that it provided more than 77 million rides in 2007. That was up by more than 3.4 million rides over 2006 and the highest total since 1982, the agency said... Ridership is up 10.4 percent over the past two years."

• WaPo - "President Vladimir Putin said Friday that 'a new arms race has been unleashed in the world' as the United States moves forward with a missile defense system in Central Europe. And he dismissed American assurances that the system was not directed against Russia as nothing more than 'diplomatic cover.'"

• CS Monitor - "Kosovo's bid for independence edged a step closer this week with the news that the new state's constitution, flag, and national emblem are to be decided in parliament in coming days... Officials were adamant that Kosovo's flag would not resemble Albania's."

• WaPo - "French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday unveiled an ambitious plan to revitalize the country's riot-scarred suburban slums with new housing, education and jobs programs and tougher police enforcement, saying that France has to eradicate discrimination and provide better security for all of its citizens... He did not attach a price tag to most of his proposals, nor say how he would pay for them."

• IHT - Stéphane Urbain "is the chief sacristan of the Cathedral [of Notre-Dame]. As such, he is also the chief bell ringer... His musicality has led to a minor revolution in the way that the bells have been rung since he became the chief sacristan three years ago. This has put him in conflict at times with the caretakers of the bells... The caretakers want less music, to diminish wear on the centuries-old bells. Urbain wants more, to restore the art to what it must have been when the bells were young."

• Independent - "Two months away from a general election forced on the country by the collapse of Romano Prodi's unwieldy coalition, the left and right in Italy were doing their best yesterday to make a virtue of necessity and bring some coherence to a fragmented political scene in chaos. The former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi seized the headlines with the announcement that he and the post-Fascist National Alliance party would be trading under the single name of Il Popolo della Liberta - the People of Freedom."

• BBC News - "The Turkish parliament is expected to amend the country's constitution to ease the ban on women wearing Islamic headscarves in universities. The issue is deeply divisive in Turkey, where the state is strictly secular, and protests are expected. The government says secularism means many girls are denied an education."

• Spiegel - "Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suggested that Germany, which is home to 2.7 million people of Turkish descent, found Turkish-medium schools. The novel idea took Chancellor Angela Merkel by surprise... Erdogan also pleaded for existing German high schools to hire teachers from Turkey to ease the language barrier immigrants often face in their adopted country."

• Spiegel - "German energy giant RWE has plans to drill six new test wells deep into the bedrock off the German North Sea coast, five off the state of Schleswig-Holstein and one near the beaches of Lower Saxony... The Wattenmeer, a unique tidal flat biome, is a national park, which places it firmly under the protection of the toughest conservation laws in the Western world... and if the governments of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have their way, the Wattenmeer will soon be named a UNESCO biosphere reserve... There are up to 4,000 species in the saltwater wetlands of the North Sea coast, and 250 of them exist nowhere else in the world."

• Guardian - The British government "declared war on the traditional right of homeowners to cover their front gardens with asphalt, as part of a drive to save water and reduce the risk of flooding. New legislation will mean that only areas made of gravel or porous bricks or paving, which provide better drainage than hard surfaces, will not need planning permission."

• WaPo - "President Thabo Mbeki on Friday apologized for his government's failure to prevent crippling power outages across South Africa over the past two months. He warned that restoring a reliable electrical supply will require urgent generation projects combined with major cuts in usage by businesses and consumers... The shortages have long been predicted, as demand rose swiftly because of a post-apartheid economic boom. But the government, which was seeking to privatize power generation, has for years blocked Eskom's plans to expand supply to meet demand and extend access to electricity in black areas formerly without service."

• NYT - "Kofi Annan... said Friday that no deal toward a durable political solution had been reached, but that progress was steadily being made... Annan has spent the past week trying to nudge Kenya's government and top opposition leaders toward a compromise that could end the turmoil and violence that exploded in December after a disputed presidential election. More than 1,000 people have been killed, and Kenya's economy and reputation for stability have taken a beating."

• AFP - "Mizengo Pinda on Friday became Tanzania's new prime minister, a day after his predecessor was forced to resign from the post amid allegations of graft over an energy deal. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete named outgoing cabinet member Mizengo Pinda to replace Edward Lowassa. His nomination was swiftly endorsed by parliament, which is based in the administrative capital Dodoma."

• IHT - "The government imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew across much of Chad on Thursday after a coup attempt that nearly toppled the president... President Idriss Déby asked that the European peacekeeping force, planned for eastern Chad but delayed by the rebel attack, deploy as soon as possible to protect refugees living along the porous border with the volatile Darfur region of Sudan."

• LA Times - "Attacks on Iraqi security volunteers... have doubled since October... The U.S. military says the rising number of attacks is a sign that Sunni Muslim militants feel squeezed by the grass-roots security effort, which has grown to include at least 70,000 members of so-called concerned local citizens groups who stand guard at checkpoints across the nation. In return, they receive $10 a day from U.S. military funds."

• McClatchy - "Members of U.S.-allied citizen brigades, which are credited with helping to tamp down violence in many parts of Iraq, went on strike Friday in Diyala province, alleging that the provincial police chief there is running a death squad. A leader of the group said that brigade members, most of them Sunni Muslims, wouldn't resume working with U.S. and Iraqi government forces until the Shiite police chief resigns or is indicted."

• IHT - "Iran has begun to deploy a new generation of machinery to produce nuclear fuel, a development bound to intensify a roiling debate in Washington about whether a recent National Intelligence Estimate accurately portrayed Tehran's progress toward the ability to build a nuclear weapon... The development is expected to be included in a report this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran's nuclear progress".

• NYT - "Israel has begun reducing the amount of electricity it sells to Gaza as part of sanctions against continued rocket fire, Israeli officials said Friday... Israeli officials said the electricity had been cut by about one megawatt out of the roughly 124 megawatts that Israel provides to Gaza, and that an additional megawatt could be cut each week depending on the security situation and the needs of the Gazan population."

• WaPo - "Scotland Yard investigators have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by the impact of a suicide bomb blast, not gunfire... The... report concurred with the Pakistani government's earlier assertion that a head injury Bhutto sustained in the blast caused her death. However, contrary to earlier speculation that two men carried out the Dec. 27 attack, the British-led inquiry concluded that there was only one assassin."

• IHT - "Sherry Rehman, a spokeswoman for the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, said the party did not reject the report outright and would give a final reaction when it had fully reviewed the report, which was presented to the government and a lawyer for the Bhutto family on Friday. But, she said, the party was still pursuing its demand for a United Nations investigation and was now looking into hiring its own private international investigators."

• Guardian - "An Indian doctor suspected of being behind a kidney transplant racket was arrested in Nepal yesterday... Amit Kumar, 43, is accused of running a private hospital just outside Delhi which allegedly lured or forced hundreds of poor people into giving up their kidneys, and made millions by selling their organs."

• Times of India - "In a macabre display of mob passion that led to an unusually brutal political murder, suspected Shiv Sena supporters lynched a local Congress leader Gyaneshwar Sathawane at a public election meeting. Maharashtra public works minister Anil Deshmukh, who was also targeted by the crowd, had to be whisked away by police."

• Xinhua - "President Hu Jintao spent the Spring Festival, a traditional family reunion holiday for the Chinese, in southern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which was heavily hit by the worst winter storm in five decades... It was the fifth year in a row that the president spent the festival outside Beijing with ordinary citizens."

• Xinhua - "The heaviest and longest snow on record has caused tremendous difficulties in people's lives, but it may help the forestation on the southern edge of Takla Makan Desert, China's largest desert. The snow since mid-January has covered a remarkable area of 750,000 square kilometers in the south of the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region."

• Guardian - "With 200,000 new netizens every day, China's online population is on the brink of overtaking the United States as the biggest in the world. That landmark could come today, next week, or next month. According to the China Internet Network Information Centre, there were 210 million internet users at the end of last year, just 5 million behind the US. But China is adding 6 million new users a month - more than 10 times the pace of US growth."

• AP - "New Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej asserted Friday that he is truly Thailand's top political leader, and not the puppet of deposed Premier Thaksin Shinawatra that some critics paint him to be... The new Cabinet, led by Samak, has come under heavy criticism from the press and public for being unqualified, unsuitable and tainted by corruption charges."

• CS Monitor - "The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) now plans to spend $170 million to try up to eight [Khmer Rouge] defendants, a process it anticipates could take until March 2011, according to a Jan. 30 budget estimate. That's a big increase from the court's initial three-year budget of $56.3 million - an amount unfathomable to many ordinary people in Cambodia who live on less than $1 a day."

• BBC News - "One of Vietnam's best-known dissidents, Hoang Minh Chinh, has died at the age of 85 after a long illness... Hoang Minh Chinh was once a leading figure in the ruling Communist Party, holding several senior positions. But he became disillusioned with the communist ideology, and began calling for more democracy. He spent many years in jail and under house arrest."

• IHT - "The pho bo, however filling, is not the reason to visit the Pho Binh, or Peace Soup, restaurant. Instead it is a historic site as Ho Chi Minh City (don't say Saigon), along with the rest of the country, celebrates the three-day Lunar New Year holiday known here as Tet. This year's Tet holiday, which began Thursday, is the 40th anniversary of the Tet offensive launched against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces across what was then South Vietnam... Upstairs above Pho Binh, the Tet offensive was planned and ordered to begin."

• NZ Herald - "Waikato farmers have taken a beating with the region's record-breaking dry summer - with sheep farmers hardest hit as pasture and water become increasingly scarce. The economic powerhouse of the country's agricultural industry is likely to take a battering as drought turns formerly green pastures to dust. Sheep farmers... are selling their stock underweight and at a loss".

• SMH - "The apology to the stolen generations will be treated as a big event in Sydney and Canberra, with large screens to be installed in Martin Place and on the lawns in front of Parliament House for the historic broadcast. Thousands of indigenous Australians are expected to travel to Canberra for Wednesday's event. The number of visitors will be swelled by a protest against the intervention in Northern Territory indigenous communities planned for the lawns outside Parliament House on Tuesday."

• Independent - "New pictures expose the gory reality of Japan's so-called "scientific" whale hunt in the Southern Ocean, with a slaughtered adult minke whale and calf being hauled on board a Japanese factory ship. The release of the photos marks a significant shift in whaling politics, for they were taken not by the environmental activists who spent much of January harassing the whalers on their Antarctic hunt but by officials working for the Australian government."

• BBC News - "Japan's PM Yasuo Fukuda has called on sumo wrestling authorities to take action, after the high-profile arrest of a coach and three wrestlers. The four are alleged to have beaten trainee Takashi Saito to death during a violent practice session. The 17-year-old collapsed and later died in hospital."

• MercoPress - "Exxon Mobil Corp. won court orders in the U.S., U.K., the Netherlands and the Caribbean freezing more than $12 billion in Venezuelan assets amid a battle over the government's seizure of oil projects... Petroleos de Venezuela SA... seized joint ventures with foreign energy companies last year as part of President Hugo Chavez's program to bolster government control of Venezuela's resources. Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips abandoned the projects rather than accept reduced roles and profits."

• LA Times - "Unseasonal storms have been battering Bolivia, leaving thousands homeless and at least 49 dead. Mountain runoff has flooded the eastern lowlands, destroying dwellings, washing out roads and resulting in scenes of residents wading and paddling in what were once streets. Bolivian officials see a culprit: global warming, linked to greenhouse gases spewed by industrialized nations. Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca told reporters that First Word 'maltreatment of the earth' had sparked the crisis."

• AP - "Belize's opposition United Democratic Party won a landslide victory in general elections, ending Prime Minister Said Musa's 10 years in office. UDP leader Dean Barrow was to be sworn in as the country's new leader later Friday after his party won 25 of the 31 seats in the House of Representatives in Thursday's election."

• Bloomberg - "The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador's central Andes spewed more ashes today and may erupt again, according to the country's geophysical institute... A major blast may occur within days if tremors reach greater levels than in the past 72 hours. Tungurahua... means 'Throat of Fire' in the native Quechua language".

• AP - "Five police officers and two journalists were killed in Mexico, officials said, adding to a rash of murders across the country. The dead included Hidalgo city public security director Cristobal Juarez, who was shot to death as he sat in his car with his 2-year-old daughter... Gunmen killed another city public security director, Gilberto Castillo, and three of his police officers as the group stood outside a store in the city of Navolato... Just outside Mexico City, Bonifacio Cruz, director of the weekly newspaper El Real, and his son, managing editor Alfonso Cruz, were also fatally shot".

• Bloomberg - "Mexico's army seized more than 83,000 rounds of ammunition and 89 high-powered rifles from a stash house in a northern state yesterday, the second-largest seizure of weapons by the government, Reforma reported. Five men were arrested at a ranch in the city of Miguel Aleman in Tamaulipas state, the Mexico City-based newspaper reported today."

• CP - "The future of Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan has been tossed into the election incubator. The minority Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced a confidence motion Friday that proposes extending Canada's 'current responsibility for security in Kandahar' by almost three years... [It] sets up the Afghanistan question as a possible spring election trigger when the matter comes to a vote in Parliament next month."

• Globe and Mail - "Canadian employers added many more jobs than expected last month and the jobless rate tumbled to a 33-year low... The economy created 46,400 positions in January, quadruple forecasts, most of them in the private sector and full time, Statistics Canada said Friday. The unemployment rate slid to 5.8 per cent as a record number of Canadians headed to work last month."

• Bush has 345 days left. 3,952 U.S. and 4,264 total coalition confirmed deaths in Iraq. Over $492,772,000,000 has been spent on the Iraq invasion and occupation. The U.S. federal debt is now over $9,228,153,000,000.

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the pollution caused by producing these "green" fuels is taken into account, two studies published Thursday have concluded.

The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months as scientists have evaluated the global environmental cost of their production. The new studies, published by the journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy.

These studies for the first time take a comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development. The destruction of natural ecosystems - whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America - increases the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere because the ecosystems are the planet's natural sponge for carbon emissions.

"When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially," said Timothy Searchinger, the lead author of one of the studies and a researcher on the environment and economics at Princeton University. "Previously, there's been an accounting error: Land use change has been left out of prior analysis."

Women rarely make it into senior management in German corporations, but Microsoft Germany is now setting an example of how to systematically achieve equality for women. Shrinking populations in Europe are forcing companies to get serious about bringing women into the executive leagues. It's a step that is also helping them become more profitable.

 Microsoft Germany General Manager Achim Berg has created a woman-friendly environment at the company. Isabel Vogel was a little nervous when she arrived at Microsoft's German headquarters in Unterschleissheim just north of Munich for a job interview. You have nothing to lose, she told herself. She knew that making it this far was already a victory. Despite her stellar background, she wouldn't have stood at a chance at most other companies. For them, there would be one huge blemish on her resume: the fact that she is the mother of three young children.

Her twins had just turned two and she had another child who was three and a half. Despite her responsibilities as a mother, Vogel, a marketing assistant, wanted to work a 30-hour week. Preposterous, her friends said. "No problem," the man at Microsoft told her. "I have confidence in you; you'll make it," he said -- and offered her the job.

Every new drug licensed in Britain will be given a "suicide rating" under proposals for a big shake-up in the rules governing pharmaceutical development. European regulators are also to require pharmaceutical companies to include a comprehensive suicide assessment into trials of new medicines.

The reform, based on a system adopted recently in the United States, has been fuelled by a growing body of evidence that drugs that affect the brain can heavily influence behaviour through seemingly innocuous changes in body chemistry. Medicines to treat acne, swelling, heartburn, pain, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol, bacterial infections, smoking and insomnia have all been associated recently with psychiatric problems. There have been warnings about the potential side-effects of Acomplia, an antiobesity drug, Roaccutane, an acne treatment, and Champix, an antismoking medication, which together have been prescribed to more than 60,000 patients in Britain.

Acomplia, also known as rimonabant, is designed to suppress the appetite but has been reported to more than double the rate of suicidal symptoms. Champix (varenicline), a drug that negates the pleasurable effects of smoking, has also received 1,513 reports of adverse reactions, including 62 reports of suicidal feelings.

A turtle has been tracked on an epic journey almost 13,000 miles long to notch up the greatest distance yet recorded for the marine creatures.

The journey took the endangered leatherback turtle 12,774 miles (20,558km) from a beach in Indonesia to the west coast of the USA and part of the way back again.

It is likely that the swim would have been even more impressive had the satelite tagging device strapped to the turtle been able to continue to transmit data after 647 successive days. The battery ran out close to Hawaii.

During the journey the leatherback dived as much as 1,000 metres (3,300ft) beneath the surface of the waves into complete darkness.

"If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles." Sun Tzu

Police are searching for two men who ran off after crashing a hijacked beer lorry in west London.

The lorry was stolen in Bridge Road, Southall, at 1150 GMT and the vehicle then jack-knifed minutes later on Merrick Road.

A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said the lorry driver got out of the cab when two men flagged down the lorry or crashed into it.

The suspected thieves then lost control of the vehicle at a roundabout.