After snap elections marred by violence, Macedonian conservative leader Nikola Gruevski claimed overwhelming victory.

Based on a count of some 80 percent of the vote, Prime Minister Gruevski said his VMRO-DPMNE "For a Better Macednoia" coalition will have more than 60 mandates in the 120-seat parliament.

"This is an historic victory," said Gruevski in Skopje late Sunday, June 1. He promised improved ties to the EU and NATO.

Gruevski said he regretted the election violence that had led to death of one person and many injuries. Voting had to be stopped in 20 sites, mostly in minority-Albanian areas.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Graffiti artists played on violence theme

Gruevski said the vote should be repeated there.

EU accused of 'step back' in transparency - EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's transparency watchdog will today strongly criticise the European Commission's commitment to openness, saying its recent proposals on document access represent a "step backwards."

At a hearing in parliament on Monday afternoon (2 June) to discuss the proposed overhaul of public access to document rules, EU ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros will say: "The commission's proposals would mean access to fewer, not more, documents" and that the new code "ignores the lessons of the past."

The ombudsman, who oversees EU citizens' relations with the European institutions, has not been able to "identify any of the commission's proposals that would result in more documents being accessible than at present."

The criticism comes a month after the commission unveiled proposals to update a 2001 law on document transparency that has been subject to strong criticism by MEPs and NGOs for being too restrictive.

The majority of Turkish people today favour joining the EU despite worsening Franco-Turkish relations and a partial freeze on EU-Turkey accession talks.

Sixty two percent said they would vote "yes" to EU membership if there was a referendum, while 27 percent would vote "no," a May survey by Ankara's MetroPOLL research centre said.

 The "yes" vote was bolstered by political turmoil within Turkey, with the country's highest court currently threatening to ban the ruling, pro-EU, AKP party for breaking rules on secularism in state institutions.

Turkish support for the EU peaked at over two-thirds in late 2004. It declined after the opening of EU-Turkey accession talks in 2005, hitting lows of 30 percent in 2006, before creeping up to the 50 percent mark in late 2007.

"If it is constantly discussed in a general way whether Turkey belongs to Europe or not, then this will fuel Turkish people's feeling of not being wanted," Turkey's foreign minister, Ali Babacan, told German newspaper FAZ in an interview Sunday (1 June).

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government pressed for advanced French weapons Sunday, while France's top diplomat said French companies were private and free to make their own decisions about whether to do business in wartorn Iraq.

In a meeting with visiting Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "expressed Iraq's desire to supply its armed forces with advanced French weapons," according to a statement from his Baghdad office.

Kouchner, on a two-day trip to Iraq, said afterward that he supported increased cooperation between the two countries but could not force French companies to invest in Iraq.

"Unfortunately, French companies are private ones," Kouchner told reporters in Baghdad.

BRUSSELS: The European Union could hardly be hurt by a dose of ambition, leadership and a little brashness.

So along comes France next month, holders until 2009 of the EU's agenda-setting presidency, armed with the seeming requisites for putting Nicolas Sarkozy's mark on Europe and asserting French pre-eminence in steering its affairs.

How could the EU resist? Bland to the bone, some of its doubters say, Europe will find a way. Others see France already tangling its feet in the wires linking its own desire for the prestige of leadership with its difficulties in projecting French motives as open and selfless.

Traditionally, the rotating presidency of the EU has given its big countries a chance to assert their importance, or indispensability, as the motor of its destiny. They can try to do it through practical programs meant to create consensus and public appeal. A spritz of grandeur is not unwelcome.

BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition partners on Sunday accused her of a lack of leadership as internal tensions mount steadily ahead of national elections in 2009.

"The chancellor is not really present on the domestic front," the Social Democrats' parliamentary leader, Peter Struck, told Deutschlandfund radio.

"She does not lead, she does not step in," added Struck.

Struck and Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, also a Social Democrat, accused Merkel of portraying herself as a leader in the fight against climate change but allowing her Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to hinder progress in that regard.

"She often makes strong statements at press conferences but does little to stop her own party blocking progress," said Struck.

AN Italian businessman who was helping police break organised crime gangs that operate waste disposal rackets in Naples was gunned down in an apparent mafia hit, police said.

The latest killing in the southern Italian city, which in recent months has become as famous for its piles of trash as for its reputation for crime, came on a day that thousands of people attended a rally against plans to open new rubbish dumps.

Police said Michele Orsi, a businessman with mafia links who had turned informant, was shot three times near his home by assailants who were lying in wait.

Orsi, who worked in the waste disposal business, had spent time in jail last year during an investigation into mafia involvement in the trade. He turned informant and gave evidence against a suspect at a court hearing two weeks ago.

"The case is even more serious than previous ones. This was a businessman from the Caserta area (of Naples) who, although he had colluded with organised crime, was helping investigations,'' said anti-mafia investigator Franco Roberti.

As world leaders gathered in Rome to discuss skyrocketing food costs, strikes among Europe's fishermen have tried to bring attention to high fuel prices which they say could destroy the industry.

Europe's fishermen say they have been left high and dry by increasing fuel costs. Since the beginning of 2008, marine fuel has jumped 30 percent.

French fishermen began launching work stoppages and blockades three weeks ago. Since then, fishermen in Italy, Spain and Portugal have also gone on strike. There have been calls for governments to abolish the tax on diesel to bring down the prices and for more subsidies.

In northern Spain, fishermen were in a dilemma. They can't continue to make a profit with high oil prices, but they also can't afford to stay home at the beginning of tuna season.

Tuna brings in 80 percent of the revenue, said Patxi Martinez, a local boat owner.

The right-wing SVP wanted to flex its muscles in a weekend referendum on immigration in Switzerland. Instead, the party's dramatic failure shows just how badly SVP figurehead Christoph Blocker miscalculated. The party could now be facing a slide to insignificance.

AP

Switzerland's alleged citizenship grab: A poster for a failed SVP proposal that would have allowed communities to vote on whether to allow foreign residents to become naturalized citizens.

Sunday was meant to be a triumph for the right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) and its new role as an opposition party. The party wanted to show that it could pull voters away from its political opponents. The party wanted to demonstrate that Switzerland could not be governed against it. Furthermore, the SVP wanted to show that the country's political elite had made a mistake last December by joining forces to vote Christoph Blocher, the party's figurehead, out of his justice minister position. That's what Sunday was meant to be.

Instead, though, it was a dark day for Switzerland's strongest political party -- and a day that raised new questions about Blocher's decision to steer the party into the opposition.

Internet users in Norway and the UK are the most valuable to advertisers in Europe, worth more than three times as much as those in France and Italy, according to a report released on Monday.

A survey by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe and PricewaterhouseCoopers found that an average of €133 (£104, $207) was spent on advertising for each web user in Norway, the highest in Europe, followed by €121 in the UK and €110 in Denmark. That compares to a European average of €81 per person online and a US average of €92.

Rob Noss, chief executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at MindShare Interaction, a digital advertising group owned by WPP, said that the report demonstrated that advertising budgets would move online as internet markets matured.

The UK attracts the bulk of European online advertising spend with 34.2 per cent of the total, followed by Germany with 22.3 per cent and France with 8.9 per cent. "The UK is punching considerably above its weight," said Mr Noss, given that broadband penetration of 57 per cent lagged some way behind the Netherlands and Norway, where 70-80 per cent of the population have high-speed connections, according to Mindshare's own figures.

A year after pitting herself against the world's leaders over climate change, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed down and gone silent on key environmental policies. It seems that the one opponent she can't bear confronting is the German voter.

The German chancellor in Greenland: Once a hero to environmentalists worldwide, Angela Merkel is faltering badly on climate change policy.

This is the so-called "climate chancellor?" This woman who, at the International Transport Forum in Leipzig, spoke enthusiastically about the nearby air freight hub, economic growth and the transport of goods? Who suddenly seems awkward and at a loss for words when it comes time to talk about climate protection? Who has stopped offering answers on the subject and only asks questions, like: Does it make sense to subsidize electricity from renewable sources? Is it fair to expect the owners of older cars with high CO2 emissions to pay higher taxes?

Icelandic and Norwegian companies have begun exporting whalemeat to Japan.

About 60 tonnes of meat from fin whales caught in the 2006 Icelandic hunt was reportedly sent with a much smaller amount of minke meat from Norway.

Industry sources told the BBC that the meat had already arrived in Japan, although a Japanese official said no request to import it had been received.

Conservation groups say the trade will damage attempts to bridge the gap between pro- and anti-whaling nations.

The 2008 hurricane season officially begins on Sunday, and active season could have serious implications for energy prices.

"Just the mere threat of a hurricane, if it comes from June to September 15, is probably enough to send prices up 25 cents or more just on the proviso that it could hit the U.S. Gulf Coast," says  Tom Kloza, senior analyst at the Oil Price Information Service.

As high as energy prices are, traders have barely begun to factor in the risk of a hurricane, according to Kloza, and that could be a problem. 

The government is predicting as many as nine hurricanes this season, and Colorado State University's William Gray sees as many as eight.

At least six people died and more were injured in a car bombing outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan.

An officer at the scene said there were no diplomats among the dead and injured.

The suicide blast came from a car bomb, officials said. More than 30 people were injured, and a huge crater was left in front of the building, officials at the scene said.

Past protests about Mohammed caricatures

Several cars were destroyed by the force of the explosion, a reporter at the scene said. Security forces had roped off the attack site.

No one claimed responsibility for the bombing. In the past, radical Islamic terror groups have led similar attacks.

In early 2006, and then again in February of this 2008, caricatures of the prophet Mohammed published in the Danish media set off widespread protests in Pakistan. Denmark had recently downgraded the embassy and moved out most foreign staff due to threats from those earlier protests.

The UN nuclear agency has said that Syria is to allow inspectors to visit the country to investigate allegations that it was building a nuclear reactor.

The International Atomic Energy Agency says its inspectors are due in Syria between the 22 and 24 June.

The alleged nuclear site was bombed by Israeli jets in September 2007.

In April, the United States accused North Korea of helping Syria build a nuclear reactor that "was not intended for peaceful purposes".

Abu Dhabi: Syria has presented to Israel its vision of peace between the two countries and is waiting for the Israeli response, President Bashar Assad said here on Monday.

"The talks with Israel continue through the Turkish mediator and we have presented our vision for peace, based on the principles of land for peace and now we are waiting for the Israelis to respond," the Syrian president told Gulf News. "We will not offer any concessions. The conditions for peace are clear."

He was speaking in a meeting with the editors-in-chief of UAE newspapers in the second day of his visit to the UAE. On the first day of his visit, Al Assad held official talks with the President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan on ways to improve bilateral and Arab relations.

ROME: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Sunday he would seek to convince world leaders gathering in Rome this week that ethanol is not to blame for global food inflation threatening millions with hunger.
Brazil is the world's largest ethanol exporter and a pioneer in sugar-cane based biofuels, making it a target of critics who say ethanol is behind increases in world commodity prices. Lula said the U.N. summit on food security which begins on Tuesday would give Latin America's biggest economy an opportunity to shape the debate about biofuels -- and hopefully win over some sceptics.

"This gathering that the (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation) is promoting will be a great opportunity for Brazil," Lula told reporters in Rome ahead of the event. "I'm convinced that we're at the beginning a debate. ... It's up to Brazil, a centre of excellence in ethanol production, to prove that it's fully possible to make ethanol output compatible with the production of food." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has set up his own task force to find answers to the food security crisis, is expected to hold private talks with Lula in Rome on Monday ahead of the June 3-5 summit.

ISTANBUL: Airlines ratcheted up the pressure on governments Monday to roll back regulations that they argue are damaging their industry at a time when soaring fuel prices have pushed many carriers into a "desperate" situation.

At its annual meeting here, the global trade body for the airline industry, the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, warned of a significant drop in profitability and a collective loss of up to $2.3 billion due to the effects of high oil costs and the slowing economy in Europe and the United States.

Other issues that are vexing the industry include uncertainty about the approach by the European Union and national governments toward state aid and mergers and the exact role that airlines will be expected to play in emerging emissions trading projects.

"After enormous efficiency gains since 2001 there is no fat left and skyrocketing oil prices are changing everything," Giovanni Bisignani, the chief executive of IATA, said . "The situation is desperate and potentially more destructive than our recent battles with all the Horsemen of the Apocalypse combined."

THE International Monetary Fund has come under a withering attack from its own internal self-policing watchdog, which demanded far-reaching reforms to improve its effectiveness and accountability to member countries. The IMF was accused of failing to adapt to changing global realities, and of being widely perceived as both slow to respond to emerging world issues, and as ineffective in agreeing and delivering strategies to tackle these problems.

The charges were levelled in a report from the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office, the IEO, which called for action to bolster the legitimacy of the fund's top governing bodies and tougher international oversight of its day-to-day management, led by its managing director.

The report said that an overhaul of the fund's operations and governance also needed to go still further than a recent spate of reforms of its 185 member countries' voting rights, which gave some increasingly important emerging market countries a bigger say in decision making, reducing the traditional dominance of the United States and Europe.

"Our evaluation finds that reforms have not kept pace with broader changes in the environment in which the fund operates," Tom Bernes, the head of the IEO, said. "In our view, if left unaddressed this could likely undermine effectiveness over time."

President Hamid Karzai has come under fire for not doing enough to stem corruption in Afghanistan. He speaks to SPIEGEL about the coalition forces' ties with warlords, rumors about his family's influence and why he believes dirty deals are sometimes necessary.

 Taliban militants are a resurgent force in Afghanistan.

SPIEGEL: Mr. President, much has been written about the failures of the international community in Afghanistan. But a good part of the so-called insurgency in the south and east of your country appears to have more to do with a protest movement against a bad government and corrupt elite. It doesn't seem like much of an exaggeration to talk about a resurgence of the Taliban. Is it not true that many Afghans are only joining the Taliban because they don't consider them to be corrupt?

Hamid Karzai: I disagree. That is absolutely wrong.

SPIEGEL: Some Afghan people say that the president himself, who is appointing high-ranking officials in Kabul and in the provinces, is fueling the insurgency with these personnel decisions. Is that there any truth in that?

Karzai: Governance has improved immensely in Afghanistan. For the first time in six years, the Afghan budget has become transparent, there are no longer any secret funds. Before, the governors did whatever they wanted. Now there is a reporting requirement and there are former governors who were criminal or corrupt who are now in prison, like the former governor of Baghdis province. Of course the country needs more time, but the problems we have in the south and east are not because of bad governance.

The depth of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the difficulty the next president will face in pulling personnel out of the country are illustrated by a handful of new contract proposals made public in May.

The contracts call for new spending, from supplying mentors to officials with Iraq's Defense and Interior ministries to establishing a U.S.-marshal-type system to protect Iraqi courts. Contractors would provide more than 100 linguists with secret clearances and deliver food to Iraqi detainees at a new, U.S.-run prison.

The proposals reflect multiyear commitments. The mentor contract notes that the U.S. military "desires for both Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense to become mostly self-sufficient within two years," a time outside some proposals for U.S. combat troop withdrawal. The mentors sought would "advise, train [and] assist . . . particular Iraqi officials" who work in the Ministry of Defense, which runs the Iraqi army, or the Ministry of Interior, which runs the police and other security units.

Iran's supreme leader has insisted it will continue its nuclear activities for civilian purposes only and will not manufacture nuclear weapons.

"No wise nation would be interested in making a nuclear weapon today. They are against rational thought," said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a speech.

The comments come a day after the UN's atomic watchdog urged from Iran "full disclosure" about its atomic work.

A referendum approving a new military-backed constitution for Myanmar has "washed away" the victory claimed by Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition party in 1990 elections, state media said Tuesday.

Her National League for Democracy (NLD) won by a landslide 18 years ago, but the military never recognised the result and has kept the Nobel peace prize winner under house arrest for most of the years since then.

The government mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar said Tuesday that the NLD's election mandate was "outdated" after the constitution was approved last month in a controversial referendum -- held while the impoverished nation was still reeling from the devastating effects of Cyclone Nargis.

Soaring gas prices are pushing more Americans to take public transit, with streetcars, trolleys and other light rail experiencing a 10.3 percent increase in ridership for the first quarter of the year, according to a report released yesterday by the American Public Transportation Association.

Americans took 2.6 billion trips on all modes of public transportation, including subways and buses, in the first three months of 2008, a 3.3 percent increase, or almost 85 million more trips than in the same period last year, the report said.

"There's no doubt that the high gas prices are motivating people to change their travel behavior," APTA President William Millar said in a statement.

(Some copy editor having fun with the deck hed there... gas prices "fuel" increased use of public transit, get it? Har har.)

Some 2,000 delegates from around the globe have descended upon Bonn, Germany, to open a two-week conference on global warming.

A fresh round of UN climate talks began in Bonn on Monday, June 2, aimed at building on the climate conference held in Bali in December last year.

Delegates from more than 150 countries and agencies are set to attend the two-week event, which is part of the process to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.

First, a British court awarded a man compensation because there were too many Germans in his holiday hotel. Now, the German press is firing back -- with tips on how best to avoid the English this summer. Hint: It involves football.

 German tourists having fun on the Spanish island of Mallorca. A court in Britain appears to have wounded German pride by awarding British tourist David Barnish £750 pounds (€948/$1,484) in compensation because there were too many German tourists at the Greek island hotel where he spent a family holiday last August.

Barnish had sued holiday company Thomson because it hadn't told him the Grecotel resort on the island of Kos was occupied almost exclusively by Germans -- more than 600 of them.

Only 25 of the 700 guests at the hotel were English. Barnish had paid £4,000 for the holiday. Barnich claims his family was unable to take part in entertainment or children's activities at the hotel because they were only organized in German.

This is the only song that brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it - for very personal as well social cohesion reasons. Apart from the lack of sisters, the lyrics express the ET philosophy - for me.

I don't like this tricksy video. The original track on the 'White City' album, with the intrusion from madman Ron Geesin 'It's all going to end in fire', is IMO definitive.

You can't be me, I'm taken

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Trunks-and-bikini-clad Europeans and foreign tourists will be happy to know that as they take to the seas, rivers and lakes of the continent for a dip this year, the water quality has remained high, according to the European Commission's annual bathing water quality report, issued on Monday (2 June).

The study, which is designed to be user-friendly for citizens - with an accompanying colour-coded online map system rather than a document legible only to denizens of the Brussels institutions - found that though water quality in Europe's bathing areas is good, there has been a slight decline on last year.

"It's not exactly as good as it was in 2006," said environment commissioner Stavros Dimas to reporters at the launch of the report. "We have notice a slight decrease in quality."

The UK in particular saw a ten-fold increase in areas not complying with European hygiene standards, with the number of 'dirty' beaches climbing from 0.4 percent in 2006 to 3.5 percent the last year.

FORTUNA, Spain: Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses - 54 of them, all built in the past decade and most in the past three years - give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with this picture of bounty: This province, Murcia, is running out of water. Spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development, swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert.

This year in Murcia farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting each other over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a burgeoning black market.

"Water will be the environmental issue this year," said Barbara Helferrich, spokesman for the European Union's Environment Directorate. "The problem is urgent and immediate."

"If you're already having water shortages in spring, you know it's going to be a really bad summer."

T-shirt with picture of armed robot endangers British aviation system | boing boing

This poor guy tried to board a BA flight at Heathrow terminal 5 but was turned back and told to change out of his t-shirt, which featured a Transformer robot carrying a gun -- a robot with a gun that apparently posed a threat to flight safety.

On 13 February, B&B was the first British bank to announce full-year results, stunning investors with £228m of charges for wholesale assets and financial instruments hit by the credit crunch. The writedowns and losses shook confidence in the banking sector, raising fears of massive losses at other lenders as results season unfolded. Though the numbers did not turn out as bad as feared at the time, the concerns were borne out later as Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS revealed big writedowns last month and announced rights issues.

Now investors fear that B&B's latest warning is a harbinger of things to come. This time, the Yorkshire-based bank's main problem is not caused by losses on exotic credit products at its Treasury operation. Instead, the country's biggest buy-to-let lender has sounded the alarm over old-fashioned arrears and bad debts from its stock of mortgages.

Dog-fighting is becoming more common as youths use the animals to try to assert their status on housing estates, according to the RSPCA.

More than 350 cases were reported to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 2007, compared with 137 the year before. In 2004, the figure was just 24.

Nearly a third referred specifically to youths or "hoodies" training their dogs to fight in the street or park.

You are Going to Confuse Everyone!!

It's not even June 3rd in Switzerland!  

Tomorrow has not happened yet!  

You can't report tomorrow's news today unless you have some special superpower!  

By the time tomorrow comes this will be yesterday's news!

Ach!

Maybe we can just put up the Salon for June 3rd, year 2360, for the benefit of people living in the future.  I don't think ET takes future people into consideration enough!  We're losing the future people audience!

Ach!

"This is nothing compared to how Putin rigged Eurovision."

The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, has said the corporation must be prepared to walk away from deals with its top presenting stars if they become too costly and that it should better cultivate new talent to replace them.

The BBC Trust today published its report into the talent costs of British television, which it ordered a year ago in the wake of public concerns about licence fee money paid to stars such as Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton.

However, the report concluded that there was no evidence that the BBC was paying more than the market price for leading talent compared with its commercial rivals.

Also, there was no evidence that the BBC was "systematically" pushing up talent prices, according to the trust.

The report, compiled by consultants Oliver and Ohlbaum at a cost of £165,000, did not name any stars or list individual salaries - a move defended by the BBC Trust, which said the information was commercially sensitive.

And I am sure that there are countries where it is already Tuesday, June 3rd. :-)