PARIS: Of all the things the French do their own way, what truly distinguishes their country from its counterparts in Europe or the United States has been the reality that its politics can be decided in the streets.

The notion and expectation that demonstrations and strikes can overrule policy is unique here.

And so is recent governments' fear of street protests along with the generalized idea that this kind of confrontation constitutes fairly normal procedure.

Specific grievances, settled with less clamor elsewhere, sometimes coalesce with deep troughs of dissatisfaction in France, and a glorified old reflex - call it nostalgie de la rue - can quickly mass crowds and create stoppages and violence without French democratic tradition providing a powerful contradictory brake.

DUBLIN: Ireland convened diplomats from more than 100 countries Monday in hopes of negotiating a treaty banning cluster bombs, which have littered battlefields worldwide with potentially deadly "duds."

Each bomb, rocket or shell scatters "bomblets" that carpet enemy troops or armored vehicles. But some fail to detonate, creating unmapped minefields that kill or maim civilians - including children who can mistake the objects for toys - months or years later.

The negotiations, begun in Norway last year, seek to impose restrictions on cluster bomb manufacturing, sales and storage. But myriad arguments loom over defining what a cluster bomb is, and whether to exempt the most technologically reliable or precise systems.

If participants achieve a draft treaty in Dublin during the coming 12 days of negotiations, a formal signing ceremony would follow in Norway in December.

PARIS: The head of France's governing party called Monday for a definitive end to France's 35-hour workweek - but within hours he was contradicted not only by the government but by President Nicolas Sarkozy himself.

Ten years to the day after a Socialist government decided to shorten the workweek, the division at the top of the governing camp highlights how France's most disputed labor law continues to split the center-right.

Rather than scrapping a law that Sarkozy once called a disaster, successive governments have preferred to tinker with costly overtime.

So when the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement, Patrick Devedjian, announced Monday in unambiguous language that his party was "forcefully requesting the definitive dismantlement of the 35-hour week" and provisions to allow companies to negotiate their own work-time agreements, it did not take long for confusion and recriminations to spread through the ranks of the government.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Anatoly Chubais, architect of Russia's 1990s privatisation programme, has suggested that Moscow should re-channel its focus on feeding energy into European grids to serving its domestic market.

"I think that, in strategic terms, our priorities should not be Europe or China," Mr Chubais said in an interview with the Financial Times published on Sunday (18 May).

He underlined that rising energy demand in Russia should not be overshadowed by its ambition to export to Western markets.

"We have this western stream, northern stream, south stream. What I believe we need is a Russian stream. The Russian domestic demand is growing a lot. I think that Russia needs to restructure its strategy in this sector," said the man responsible for the liberalisation of the country's electricity sector.

Mr Chubais specifically referred to Gazprom, Russia's state-run gas monopoly.

EU farm ministers are meeting in Brussels today (19 May) for an emergency debate on the sharp rise in food and agriculture product prices on global markets, just a day before the European Commission unveils proposals for a review of the bloc's agrosector.

The Slovenian EU presidency put the food prices issue on the ministers' agenda "with a view to finding a solution to mitigate the adverse effects of such market price trends," Ljubljana wrote in an introductory statement for the meeting.

Despite a minor slowdown of the food price hikes, they still remain at historically high levels with wheat up 84 percent over one year, maize 21 percent, and butter 21 percent, according to media reports.

It is expected that the ministers will express a demand that the farm reform package - which EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel will present to MEPs in Strasbourg on Tuesday (20 May) - includes measures aimed at curbing the trend.

The EU's mission to Kosovo is unlikely to be fully operational by 15 June, as first planned, due to opposition by Serbia and Russia which are blocking the transfer of power from the UN to the EU and local authorities.

Under an initial plan, UN mission UNMIK which has been administering Kosovo since 1999, was to hand over the power to local authorities on 15 June.

After this, the EU would have stepped in to help with police and judicial work, while NATO forces would have continued to be responsible for hard security in Kosovo, according to the AFP agency.

However, this transfer of power has been blocked by UN members Serbia and Russia, which do not recognise Kosovo's unilaterally proclaimed independence of 17 February.

For his part, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has also avoided clear statements on the matter so far, saying simply that the UN was taking note of the EU's wish to intervene.

Germany's Thomas Mirow was named the new president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development at the group's annual meeting.

The 55-year-old Mirow was selected on Monday, May 19, in Kiev to replace Frenchman Jean Lemierre who will step down in July after eight years in charge of the bank.

Mirow, a long-standing German Social Democratic politician and a deputy minister at the federal finance ministry, is the second German to head the EBRD. The group has always been led either by a German or a Frenchman since it was founded in 1991 to help ex-Soviet countries in Europe and Central Asia in their transition to market economies.

Firefighters battled overnight in the southern Italian city of Naples to extinguish dozens of blazes as angry residents set rubbish piles alight.

The city has some 3,500 tonnes of uncollected rubbish, piled up around its streets.

Italy's prime minister is due to hold a cabinet meeting in the city on Wednesday to address the crisis.

Silvio Berlusconi has hinted he may force local councils to accept new rubbish dumps, despite opposition.

FRANKFURT: Warren Buffett may be one of the few Americans who can still afford to come to Europe for a shopping spree.

Undaunted by the decline of the dollar against the euro, Buffett, the billionaire investor, arrived here Monday to begin a four-country tour of Europe, with a view to buying family owned companies.

"I would rather be doing this with the euro at 90 cents than $1.50," Buffett said to a crowded news conference at an airport hotel. But he added, "If we can buy good businesses with good people at a good price, I'm not going to pass it up because I think a currency is too high."

Buffett said he was making the rounds so publicly because he and his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, were less well known in Europe than in the United States, where the firm's annual meeting and homespun letter to shareholders have long served as a guide to his investment philosophy.

Poland plans to privatise hundreds of businesses in a move that will halve the state-owned sector's contribution to the economy and give a shot in the arm to the Warsaw stock market.

The state will retreat from large areas of the economy - including tourism, shipyards, publishing and construction - under plans to sell off 740 companies within four years, the Treasury minister has told the Financial Times.
Aleksander Grad said the sell-off would reduce the footprint of Poland's government-owned companies from 20 per cent of GDP to no more than 10 per cent. "The role of the state in the economy will be much more limited," he said.

The programme is expected to bring in about 30bn zlotys ($13.7bn, €8.9bn, £7.1bn) over four years.

The government has only a minority stake in about half the companies to be privatised and selling these stakes made financial sense, said Mr Grad. "We analysed whether it is better to sell the remnants or count on the dividends. We worked out that it is much better to sell."

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- A law extending a smoking ban in Turkey to most enclosed areas -- including taxis, ferries and shopping malls -- came into effect Monday in the nicotine-addicted nation.

Around 40 percent of Turks over the age of 15 are smokers, according to anti-smoking campaigners.

As of midnight, outdoor smoking was also banned in locations such as stadiums and playgrounds. A ban on lighting up in bars, restaurants and coffeehouses will be implemented next year.

Smoking was already barred on buses and airplanes and in larger offices. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government expanded the ban to most enclosed places as part of an attempt to reduce smoking rates in the country and the effects of second-hand smoke.

Around 40 percent of Turks over the age of 15 are smokers, consuming around 17 million packs a day, according to Yesilay, an organization devoted to fighting alcohol, drug and tobacco abuse.

The government says around 160,000 people die annually in Turkey from smoking-related ailments.

Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK.

A Home Office spokesman said the data is a "crucial tool" for protecting national security and preventing crime.

The European Central Bank has warned that the world economy is still in the grip of a "very serious market correction" and risks repeating the inflation debacle of the early 1970s if global authorities respond by slashing interest rates too soon.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB's president, said the credit crisis is still extending its shadow over the economy, but cautioned against any easy solution given the cocktail of threatening forces that have come together.

...

"We have this accumulation of the oil shock, the food and agro-products shock. In the first oil shock, when we took the wrong decision, we enshrined high inflation, and we created mass unemployment," he said.

Tax levels are hurting U.K. households, and the Conservative Party will streamline public services to pay for tax cuts if it wins the next election, leader David Cameron said.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown increased spending during his decade as finance minister without making public services more efficient, Cameron said today in a speech in Birmingham, central England.

``After a decade of reckless spending under Labour, Britain needs good housekeeping from the Conservatives,'' Cameron said. ``We need to start living within our means. We have reached the limits of acceptable taxation and borrowing.''

PARIS: France confirmed on Monday that it has been engaged in contacts with the leaders of Hamas, the radical Islamic group that is running Gaza, for several months to try to better understand its positions.

The Bush administration, which recently likened talks with Hamas to appeasement of the Nazis, quickly criticized the French for the contacts, calling them unhelpful. There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, who has said that he will not talk to Hamas, which he accuses of carrying out a bloody coup in Gaza last June.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner emphasized that there were no negotiations with Hamas, labeled a terrorist group by the United States, Israel and the European Union.

"These are not relations, they are contacts," Kouchner said on Europe1 radio. "We are not the only ones to have them," he said. "We must be able to talk if we want to play a role."

South Africa has been rocked by a wave of xenophobic violence that has sent thousands of immigrants in Johannesburg fleeing for shelter as mobs beat, stabbed, shot and burnt people alive.

The government was urged to deploy troops in and around the country's financial capital last night as the death toll climbed to 22, with more than 250 people arrested.

In scenes reminiscent of unrest during the apartheid era, gangs of men armed with clubs and jugs of petrol have been targeting Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Malawians and others who they claim are taking scarce jobs and houses and committing crime.

The country's Human Rights Commission supported by the opposition Democratic Alliance called on the ANC government to mobilise the army in the worst affected areas.

German special forces had an important Taliban commander in their sights in Afghanistan. But he escaped -- because the Germans were not authorized to use lethal force. The German government's hands-tied approach to the war is causing friction with its NATO allies.

Unlike their Delta Force colleagues, Germany's KSK special forces are not authorized to use lethal force in Afghanistan except in the event of an attack. The wheat is lush and green in the fields of northern Afghanistan this spring. A river winding its way through the broad valley dotted with walled houses completes the picturesque scene. Behind one of these walls, not far from the town of Pol-e-Khomri, sits a man whose enemies, having named him a "target," would like to see dead. He is the Baghlan bomber.

The Taliban commander is regarded as a brutal extremist with excellent connections to terror cells across the border in Pakistan. Security officials consider him to be one of the most dangerous players in the region, which is under German command as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan. The military accuses him of laying roadside bombs and of sheltering suicide attackers prior to their bloody missions.

He is also thought to be behind one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan's history, the Nov. 6, 2007 attack on a sugar factory in the northwest province of Baghlan. The attack killed 79 people, including dozens of children and many parliamentarians and other politicians, as they celebrated the factory's reopening.

The billionaire investor George Soros has given his gloomiest assessment yet of the state of the US and world economies.

In an interview with BBC business editor Robert Peston, Mr Soros said that while the "acute phase" of the credit crunch might be over, the fall-out and the impact on the real economy has yet to be felt.

He warned that the "financial bubble" of the last 25 years could well be drawing to an end and the post World War II "super-boom" era could be over permanently.

He says the slowdown will be "more severe and certainly longer" than most people are predicting.

And he said that the UK was worse-placed than America to weather to coming economic storm, because it had such a large financial sector and has had the biggest increase in house prices.

Venezuela has demanded an explanation from Washington after a US military aircraft violated its airspace.

The US ambassador in Venezuela's capital, Caracas, has been summoned to explain Saturday's event.

US officials admitted a naval plane on a counter-narcotics mission had "navigational problems" that led it to briefly enter Venezuelan airspace.

Tension has been rising in the region with both the US and Colombia accusing Caracas of financing Colombian rebels.

Very little of any substance was achieved at the EU Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) summit over the weekend, with the almost 50 heads of state failing to agree to any movement in trade discussions, one of Europe's main objectives in attending the summit.

The leaders said in a joint statement they hoped to "actively pursue" two free trade agreements. One between between Europe and Central America and the other between the EU and the Andean Community (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru).

Summit host centre-left Peruvian President Alan Garcia said the leaders of the Andean Community had agreed on more "flexible" free trade agreement negotiations.

"We're basically in agreement to move toward an accord at the next round of talks in Brussels on June 12,'' Mr Garcia said at the end of the summit.

However, fellow Andean leaders Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador said it was still too early to move toward any free trade agreement.

BERLIN, MAY 13, 2008: I know. I know. How this is the most important election in history, and why the next occupant of the White House will not only be answering the red phone at 3 AM but possibly be saving these not always United States from the decline that even TIME Magazine has announced the country is facing.

Yet, as I travel outside the country, I can't help but feel, or is it fear, that this logic leaves out some rather important considerations.

Like the fact that the US cannot unilaterally impose its will on the world anymore as our dollar falls and our credibility falls with it. Even a strategy of negotiation as opposed to confrontation is not a recipe for success because in a multi-polar world, other countries and power blocs like the Russians, the Chinese, the EU, The Persian Gulf and OPEC have their own interests. They will listen to our proposals but may reject them if they are at variance with their own needs.

We just don't have the power to impose our will even as we still suffer from "the USA is number one" syndrome and think that we can kick ass and take names if anyone stands in our way.

Whoever becomes President may not have the power he or she assumes goes with the office. (In fact, after the fact, in their memoirs, most presidents complain they often felt powerless, besieged by lobbyists, party factions and reticent bureaucrats at every turn. They see themselves constrained by institutional obstacles at every turn.)

In many ways, Mao was right, the occupant of the oval office is a paper tiger.

The commander of US troops in Iraq has been forced to apologise to local leaders after an American soldier used a copy of the Qur'an for target practice.

A bullet-holed and graffiti-scrawled edition of the Islamic holy book was discovered by Iraqi police last week.

The soldier responsible has been sent home. Before he went the unnamed staff sergeant apologised to the military calling his actions "shortsighted, very reckless and irresponsible -- but not malicious".

Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of US forces in Iraq, met with local tribal leaders and pleaded with them to "forgive me and my soldiers" promising that this type of incident would never happen again.

The swift and frank US apology appears to have been aimed at avoiding violent protests in Iraq.

It wasn't exactly pistols at 30 paces, but police say a security company supervisor and a restaurateur shot each other with Tasers in a "bonehead" confrontation over parking.

Officers said neither man needed medical attention after the Saturday confrontation, but Harvey Epstein, co-owner of Mamacitas restaurant, was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing and using a stun gun.

A police report said Epstein and Casey M. Dane, a supervisor for Colorado Security Services Inc., were arguing over a metal boot that one of Dane's guards had clamped on a wheel of a van parked behind Mamacitas.

A Tibetan monk, recently out of jail and still in pain from beatings by the police, said he reveres the Dalai Lama but also regards him as a political failure.

"We think the Dalai Lama has been too peaceful," he said. "There is a big discussion now about whether we should turn to violence." <...>

This impatience seems widespread among young Tibetans, and the rioting and protests across ethnic Tibetan areas of China in the last couple of months may be a turning point. Unless the Tibet question is resolved, we may see a Tibetan equivalent of the Irish Republican Army or Hamas.

A harsh crackdown is under way in greater Tibet, as I found when I slipped into these Tibetan areas in the back of a car with local license plates. China's heavy hand is adding to the antagonisms: the authorities are beating monks, confiscating pictures of the Dalai Lama, and forcing monks to attend "patriotic study" classes -- up to two hours a day, six days a week -- full of propaganda praising the Communist Party and denouncing the Dalai Lama.

"That just turns us against China more than ever," one monk said.

Australia's Tasmanian devil will be listed as an endangered species this week as a result of a deadly and disfiguring cancer outbreak, the state government said Monday.

The disease, a fast-growing head tumor which spreads over the marsupial's face and mouth and prevents it from eating, often killing it within months, has cut the island's devil population in the wild by as much as 60 percent.

...

The facial tumor is extremely unusual in that it is a contagious cancer, spread from devil to devil by biting.

N'YAWEH

Skennah Kowa