European agriculture ministers agreed on Monday (23 June) to draft rules to restrict the use of pesticides.

The new rules, which represent a compromise reached after two years of negotiations, would totally prohibit the marketing and use of substances proven to cause cancer, gene mutation or harm reproduction.

The use of most dangerous pesticides is to be heavily restricted

Pesticides that mimic or disrupt hormones - so-called endocrine disrupters - will also be banned.

Farmers and chemical producers must now replace pesticide products that are hazardous with safer alternatives.

In exceptional cases, when alternatives do not offer sufficiently effective plant protection, hazardous substances may still be used, but only under strictly regulated conditions, with a transitional period that cannot last longer than five years.

The ongoing terror in Iraq is driving an increasing number of refugees to Europe. Now the EU is being forced to make some tough decisions: Who will be allowed to stay in Europe, and will Iraqi Christians have greater chances here than Muslims?

 A Catholic bishop gives communion to Iraqi Christians at a church in Baghdad: "People are getting more and more desperate."

Bassam persevered for five years, believing that he could live with the daily violence, the car bombs, the roadside bombs and the snipers. But the terror kept getting closer and closer.

At first, poverty and crime drove Bassam, a 45-year-old electrician, from his war-torn village deep in Iraq's south to the capital Baghdad, where he opened a stand selling ordinary electrical items like light bulbs, two-way adapters and hotplates. It was a miserable life, but bearable -- until Bassam became caught between rival militias. He was told to pay protection money, and eventually his little shop went up in flames.

Italy and Britain would rather not aggressively go after companies involved in bribery schemes, according to a report. Transparency International released a survey of 34 nations' corruption-fighting efforts.

Japan and Canada were also cited as among the four worst in the Transparency International report as being lax about investigating bribery of national companies. The report was released Tuesday, June 24 in Berlin.

The report said that using bribery to win contracts damages free competition at the international level. That's also the view of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD has taken a leading roll in the issue, monitoring bribery on both the national and regional levels.

In Italy, Japan, Britain and Canada there were "practically no investigations or extremely few," into bribery, according to Transparency International. That sets a bad example, said Max Dehmel, a Transparency expert.

"If countries backslide, they undermine the efforts of the other countries," he said.

Moscow has raised the prospect that "yet another impasse" over the EU's future institutional set up - caused by the recent Irish No vote to the Lisbon Treaty - could affect talks on a new pact of strategic partnership between the union and Russia.

"With the Lisbon treaty in force and a clearer picture of how the EU is organised, it would have been easier to negotiate the pact," Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said on Monday (23 June).

Russian president Medvedev - Russia says it is not gloating over the EU's institutional difficulties

Speaking to the Financial Times, Mr Chizhov expressed the "hope" that the 27-nation bloc finds a solution to treaty rejection so that long-delayed partnership talks with Russia do not face a new delay.

"Above all, we're not gloating. It's not entirely a sign of the EU's strength, of course, but we'll be close­ly following developments," the ambassador said.

Negotiations on a new "Partnership and Co-operation" pact are expected to get under way at the EU-Russia summit in Siberia later this week (26-27 June) - the first gathering under the leadership of recently elected Russian President Dmitrij Medvedev.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The group of major oil-exporting countries, OPEC, has ruled out a further increase in oil production, saying there is sufficient supply to the market and that other factors, including US foreign and economic policies, are to blame for record price hikes.

"All you need to do is look at the data to be convinced that the market is well-supplied in oil, that we have enough surplus capacity and we have enough stocks in the market," Chakib Khelil, the president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said on Tuesday (24 June).

One barrel of 'black gold' currently sells for almost $140

Speaking after discussion with the European Union in Brussels, Mr Khelil cited the recent US sub-prime mortgage crisis, financial market speculation, the weak US currency and worsening geopolitical situation as main factors behind the high prices.

One barrel of 'black gold' currently sells for almost $140. The price of petrol has passed from ten dollars in 1999 to 95 dollars last year.

When asked about how much the price will jump over the summer holiday season, Mr Khelil replied: "It is the sixty-billion dollar question".

France's Europe minister, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, has said that Europe has enemies in Washington, suggesting that neo-conservatives played a significant role in the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty earlier this month.

French daily Le Monde reports Mr Jouyet as saying that "Europe has powerful enemies on the other side of the Atlantic, gifted with considerable financial means. The role of American neo-conservatives was very important in the victory of the No."

Jean-Pierre Jouyet made the comments at a pro-Europe rally over the weekend

He made the comments at a pro-Europe meeting in Lyons over the weekend, just over a week after Irish voters rejected the EU's latest treaty by 53.4 to 46.6 percent.

Allegations that some funding for the No side came from across the Atlantic also came up during the Irish debate preceding the referendum.

Libertas, an anti-treaty organisation campaigning on a platform of cutting Brussels red-tape, was on the receiving end of such accusations earlier this month.

The Italian Senate has approved a new decree which critics of Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, say is "tailor made" to save him from a possible prison sentence for corruption.

Mr Berlusconi claims his "security package" fulfils a campaign promise he made in April's election to crack down on crime, and denies it will apply to his own case. It now passes for a final vote to the Lower House, where he has a commanding majority and approval is a formality.

However, Italy's centre-left opposition claimed the main purpose of the decree was to help Mr Berlusconi evade corruption charges. A key clause suspends for a year trials for alleged crimes committed before mid-2002, with the exception of those involving violence, Mafia-related offences, and those carrying a jail sentence of more than 10 years.

Mr Berlusconi and his supporters say this is aimed at overhauling Italy's overburdened judiciary and clearing a trial backlog. A recent opinion poll in La Repubblica showed only 35 per cent of the public have faith in the notoriously slow and inefficient Italian judicial system.

Energy from industry could halve gas imports

Industries across the UK could generate as much electricity as 10 nuclear power stations and halve gas imports by installing or extending plants that generate energy while using the waste heat to warm local buildings.

A report by Pöyry Energy Consulting, commissioned by Greenpeace, analysing the UK's potential for combined heat and power units - which capture the heat from the electricity generation process and recycle it - found nine sites where CHP could be applied or extended.

These include the ConocoPhillips and Total refineries on the Humber estuary, which is already the site of one of the biggest CHP units in Europe. It could be extended from its current capacity of 730MW of electricity to produce another 2,550MW, the report found.

Other sites include the Petroplus refinery at Coryton, chemical and manufacturing facilities at Wilton on Teesside, the Stanlow manufacturing complex at Ellesmere Port, the Ineos refinery and chemical plant at Grangemouth and the ExxonMobil refinery at Fawley.

If all of these were developed, UK industry could produce 16GW of electricity - the equivalent of building 10 nuclear power stations, and enough electricity to power two-thirds of the country's households. Using the waste heat by pumping it to local buildings would also mean the UK would need to import only half as much gas as it does now.

Tim Warham, principal consultant at Pöyry, said: "We were surprised at the large technical potential for industrial CHP we encountered. Provided the policy framework is right, CHP could make a huge contribution to securing power supplies for the UK."

Businesses installing or extending combined heat and power units could also save £1bn ($2bn, €1.2bn) a year on their energy bills, according to a Greenpeace estimate based on the report, and could profit by selling excess electricity and recycling their waste heat.

Sharp's announcement also came on the same day that market intelligence outfit, Isuppli, released a report predicting that by 2010, "worldwide investments in the production of photovoltaic (PV) cells will rise to the same level as those for semiconductor manufacturing by 2010". And we all know how important semiconductors are.

Isuppli reckons that with such massive solar industry growth, production costs for solar panels could be slashed by up to 40 per cent by 2010. This could mean global grid parity, whereby photovoltaic electricity would cost less, if not the same, than power from the electrical grid. Grid Parity is predicted for sunny countries by 2012 and colder, rainier countries like Britain by 2018. So, when it comes to our energy woes, the sun really could come out tomorrow

PV as the new microchips...oi loik it!

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Italy and Nuclear, an Endless Debate : EcoWorldly

With escalating oil and gas costs and growing French electricity imports, Italy is changing is stance on nuclear power. The re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised on his campaign to recommit the country to nuclear power and an heated debate is now popping up from north to south.

The general impression is there is still strong local opposition for three main reasons: high construction costs, projected build times of one to two decades and no identifiable Italian community willing to see a nuclear reactor built in their neighborhood. Italy has also failed to resolve the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. A proposed dump in Basilicata region was shelved in 2003 after thousands of demonstrators staged road blocks, marches and hunger strikes.

Italy has not operated or built a nuclear power plant since it shut them all down after the Chernobyl accident of 1986. And recent problems at nuclear power stations in Slovenia and Japan have confirmed for many Italians that living close to a plant is a health hazard. The managing director of Enel, the government-backed firm most likely to build and operate the proposed reactors, warned that in order to proceed Silvio Berlusconi would need "new regulation and strong agreement on the plan within the country".

Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola recently announced a national energy strategy that includes the construction of new generation reactors within five years. Enel officials, though, noted that it would take seven to 10 years before they could actually bring a reactor on line. Politics believe nuclear power is the country's only viable option and that the amount of extra energy produced through wind, solar and geothermal is limited.

"Only with nuclear power we will be able to produce energy on large scale, in a safe way, at competitive prices and with respect for the environment", Scajola said. But Italy's nuclear critics are skeptical. The fourth-generation reactor that the Italian government has pledged to build has not yet even been fully designed so Italian nuclear reactors won't be the answer to any energy problem the country will be facing for one decade or more.

Environmental groups throughout the country are criticizing the idea to bring back nuclear power. Director of Greenpeace Italy, Giuseppe Onofrio, has pledged that he'll fight `tooth and nail' to keep Italy nuclear-free, while Vice President of the Italian Senate, Emma Bonino, said building nuclear plants would not meet current demand because they wouldn't be ready for at least 20 years.

In the meantime Enel is planning to build a coal-fired power station in Albania and is looking into nuclear opportunities there and in Italy, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said recently. "We are working with the Albanian government for the construction of a coal plant and we want to push for nuclear" told Fulvio Conti, Enel chief executive, pointing out that Italy imports some 20% of its electricity from France which is largely produced by nuclear energy.

This is a basic con, scam, swindle, grift, bunko, flim flam, stratagem, or scheme. Greed and gullibility are, as ever, essential ingredients.

According to papers lodged in Manhattan's District Court, the businessman told potential clients that the Vatican had formally appointed him to manage its financial affairs.

To bolster his claims he kept various ceremonial robes at his office in New York, including those of senior clergymen, according to witnesses cited by the prosecution.

Abroad - In Italy, More Basta Than Bravo for Cultural Diversity - NYTimes.com

... Rome, an ancient magnet for foreigners, is naturally more integrated than most Italian cities and, unlike most of the country, it has taken at least a few steps in recent years to come to terms with its multicultural reality, among them instituting a public library program to reach immigrants and provide Romans with books and lectures about foreign cultures. The question now is whether such efforts will continue. <...>

Italian culture certainly isn't diverse now. It subsists on an all-white, all-native, monoethnic diet of Italian game shows, Italian television mini-series, Italian advertisements on cable stations for improbable vibrating contraptions that promise to jiggle fat away, and Italian pop music. Even Roman schoolchildren no longer stray far from a spaghetti-with-ragú diet now that an intercultural city program to serve one international-themed lunch a month has been abandoned by the new center-right government, heeding some Italian mothers, who doubted the nutritional value of falafel and curry. <...>

Gabriella Sanna directs a multicultural library program here, which was started on a shoestring budget of about $120,000 in 1997. Today it survives on less, she said. ... She was diplomatic when the conversation turned to the recent election and whether her program would survive. "This is a new experience for us because we've always worked in a favorable climate," Ms. Sanna said. Her dour expression suggested she wasn't optimistic.

Confusion has marred French President Nicolas Sarkozy's farewell to Israel, after a soldier shot himself dead during an airport departure ceremony.

Mr Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, were rushed into their plane after the shot. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was also hurried to safety.

The incident at Ben-Gurion airport came at the end of Mr Sarkozy's three-day visit to Israel and the West Bank.

A police spokesman said the security officer had committed suicide.

Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the incident, which happened just as Mr Sarkozy and Ms Bruni were about to board their plane, had posed no threat to the visitors.

He denied reports that it might have been an assassination attempt on the French president. Other reports suggested the soldier may have shot himself accidentally.

French President says viable state for Palestinians with Arab east Jerusalem as its capital is priority for France.

 
BETHLEHEM, West Bank - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday spoke out strongly in favour of a Palestinian state after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem.

"The security of Israel is non-negotiable for France, but the creation of a viable, democratic, modern state for the Palestinians is a priority for France," he said as he wrapped up a three-day visit at a joint news conference with Abbas in the Biblical town.

"We will work towards the creation of your state. We will use the same strength, the same commitment we used in ensuring Israel's security," said Sarkozy, who on Monday had addressed the Israeli parliament.

Strong euro helps put European airlines in better position than U.S. carriers

LONDON -- With the dollar down and fuel prices up, U.S. airlines are fighting to stay afloat. But they're also fending off another challenge: increasingly powerful European rivals.

Analysts say European airlines are in a much better position to weather the current storm because of a strong euro, newer fleets and a recent wave of consolidation.

And it shows. As many U.S. airlines put expansion plans on hold, British Airways launched a premium subsidiary, OpenSkies, with direct flights between Paris and New York.

European airlines also might be in position to offer better deals to passengers, analysts say.

Long before the recent spike in the price of energy, environmentalists decried suburban sprawl a waste of land, energy and tax dollars. Governments from Virginia to California have in recent decades lavished resources on building roads and schools for new subdivisions in the outer rings of development while skimping on maintaining facilities closer in. <...>

More than three-fourths of prospective home buyers are now more inclined to live in an urban area because of fuel prices, according to a recent survey of 903 real estate agents with Coldwell Banker, the national brokerage firm.

Some now proclaim the unfolding demise of suburbia.

"Many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and '70s -- slums characterized by poverty, crime and decay," declared Christopher B. Leinberger, an urban land use expert, in a recent essay in The Atlantic Monthly. <...>

In a recent study, Mr. Cortright found that house prices in the urban centers of Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Portland and Tampa have fared significantly better than those in the suburbs. So-called exurbs -- communities sprouting on the distant edges of metropolitan areas -- have suffered worst of all, Mr. Cortright found.

Basic household arithmetic appears to be furthering the trend: In 2003, the average suburban household spent $1,422 a year on gasoline, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By April of this year -- when gas prices were about $3.60 a gallon-- the same household was spending $3,196 a year, more than doubling consumption in dollar terms in less than five years.

Over the last decade, even as spending on new military projects has reached its highest level since the Reagan years, the Pentagon has increasingly been losing the people most skilled at managing them. That brain drain, military experts like Mr. Kaminski say, is a big factor in a breakdown in engineering management that has made huge cost overruns and long delays the maddening norm. <...>

At M.I.T., a 2007 survey showed that 28.7 percent of undergraduates were headed for work in finance, 13.7 in management consulting and just 7.5 percent in aerospace and defense. The top 10 employers included McKinsey, Google, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Bain, JPMorgan and Oracle -- but not a single military contractor or government office.

The survey showed that the average annual starting salary in finance and high-tech was more than $70,000, compared with $37,000 at the Defense Department. The average in the military industry was $61,000.

M.I.T. does not have comparable survey data for 10 or 15 years ago, but officials there say the trend is unmistakable.

"Google calls me every other week looking for systems engineers," said Donna H. Rhodes, a systems engineering expert at M.I.T.

TOMSK, Russia -- On side streets all over this riverfront city are wooden buildings erected before Communism and now in various states of decay. As Tomsk prospers from the trade in the region's natural resources, pressure is growing for new real estate projects, especially in the commercial center. What to do about the gingerbread houses?

Some are already gone, demolished and replaced by the usual high-rise apartments and supermarkets and offices. Yet 1,800 or so remain, and their fate is emblematic of the struggle across Russia to balance the preservation of architectural treasures with the demands for development now that the economy is surging.

"This is the problem: preserving a unique layer of Russian culture that is disappearing, that is being pushed out by reinforced concrete and stone," Mr. Zakotnov said. "Actually, this is a problem for all Russian cities, having a downtown area that is being covered by modern structures."

Mr. Zakotnov is hoping that a third of the wooden buildings can be saved and restored, creating a historic district that might even lure tourists to Tomsk, which is four hours away from Moscow by plane. It is not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Plans require the buildings to be self-powered by horizontal wind turbines that spin between each floor to generate electricity. Solar power will be provided by photovoltaic cells on the roof of each rotating floor, 15 per cent of which will be exposed to sunlight at any one time.

TOMSK, Russia: The building at 32 Kartashov Street had had enough. It once served as home to a 19th-century merchant, a little log masterpiece with ornate doors and shutters carved like doilies and a structural swagger that said, "Look at me!"

But after the Soviet years, when the place became a woebegone flophouse, it was nearly dead. An engineer might have noted that its roof had wilted and rot was chomping at its beams. The neglect, though, seemed to go deeper, as if the building had all but given up after realizing that no one in this Siberian city could even be bothered.

A city official named Nikolai Zakotnov went past 32 Kartashov one day and vowed to rescue it. Here would stand an example of how Tomsk could defend an architectural heritage that is as charming as it is unexpected.

On side streets all over this riverfront city are wooden buildings erected before Communism and now in various states of decay. As Tomsk prospers from the trade in the region's natural resources, pressure is growing for new real estate projects, especially in the commercial district. What to do about the gingerbread houses?

Are Down's syndrome, blind and chemotherapy dolls a blessing or just a sick joke? Supporters say they help children

Take a look at the doll in the picture. What do you see? You'll probably notice almost immediately that its face is not as "regular" as the rosebud-mouthed, snub-nosed dolls that come as standard in toy shops. But if you picked it up and examined it more closely, you'd see that they are not the only features that you don't find on a "normal" doll: a horizontal crease in the palm of the hand, the ears set low on the head, a flattened bridge across the nose, a slightly protruding tongue.

This is a Down's syndrome doll, designed with the aim of giving Down's children a toy that reflects themselves as they are, and not the mainstream version of physical perfection trailblazed by the likes of Barbie and Baby Annabel.

They are not the only "disability dolls" available on the market. Far from it. You can buy dolls with prosthetic limbs, walking frames, hearing aids, "blind" dolls complete with guide dogs. When Mattel launched Becky - Barbie's friend in a wheelchair - it sold out within two weeks. In the past few years, the toy industry has been waking up to the fact that it makes good financial sense to cater for overlooked consumer groups.

LONDON (Reuters) - A Monet water-lily painting sold for 41 million pounds ($80.5 million) Tuesday, doubling the previous auction record for the artist and ensuring London's key art market season got off to a flying start.

"Le Bassin aux Nympheas" had been expected to fetch 18-24 million pounds, but after an intense bidding battle it smashed the previous Monet auction record of $41.5 million set in May.

It was part of the evening sale of impressionist and modern art at Christie's which raised 144 million pounds ($283 million), the highest total for an auction in Europe. All figures include buyers' premiums.

Olivier Camu, head of impressionist and modern art at Christie's in London, said the sale "illustrates the continuing strength and confidence of the art market."

Some experts have predicted a correction or even collapse in values due to deepening economic gloom caused by falling stocks, rising oil prices and the mortgage meltdown.

Girard's thinking, including textual analysis, is a sweeping reading of human nature, human history and human destiny. His contention is controversial: Religion is not the cause of violence, as many suppose; it was, in archaic societies, a way of solving it.

Here's why: People are social creatures, and their behavior is based on imitation to a much greater degree than generally supposed. How else to explain why a generation decides at once to pierce their tongues, or why stocks rise and fall? How to explain how a child learns language? Even our desires are not our own; we learn them from others. <...>

Envy and resentment are the inevitable consequences of this drive toward mimesis. These emotions, in turn, fuel conflict; it occurs whenever two or more "mimetic rivals" want the same thing, which can go to only one. It might be a woman, a presidency or a research grant. Many religious prohibitions are meant to regulate and control such conflict. <...>

"The first culture which rebels against that system is the Jewish culture," Girard said. He explains that the Bible is actually counter-mythical. Over a period of centuries, the books of the Old Testament begin to catch on to mankind's scapegoating mechanism. While they describe and even celebrate violence, they gradually begin to question and fight it as well.

For example, many of the psalms "show a narrator who is surrounded by a crowd of good-for-nothings, who are trying to encircle him and turn him into a victim." The story of Job also is revealing: "It's a small community, but he's been the dictator for years. Everybody loves him, he does no one any harm," Girard said at the Old Union lecture. "One fine morning he wakes up, and everybody is against him. His three 'friends' are ready to explain how bad he is now. And everybody is ready to explain how bad he is at the same time. He has turned from the absolute hero to the scapegoat of the community. Job is like a long psalm and shows you what happens to communities. No myth will ever show you that."

Reading that last paragraph, I could not help but be reminded of China's wheelchair-riding torchbearer in Paris, Jin Jing, who went from "golden girl [who] lifts a nation" after protecting the flame from a demonstrator in the Paris torch relay, to "cultureless, brainless stupid ... traitor" (and worse) for urging Chinese people not to boycott Carrefour out of consideration for the company's Chinese employees.

Same goes for images of Wang Qianyuan/Grace Wang urging calm at a Chinese student rally at Duke University in April, as well as images of Chinese demonstrators intimidating pro-Tibet and pro-human rights demonstrators in Canberra and Seoul.

... all progress depends on the unreasonable mensch.
(apologies to G.B. Shaw)

Oil, housing, dollar: the Blogs told you so.


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The tuk-tuk, seen on the streets of Bangkok, is a cabin tricycle which can travel at about 50mph (80km/h).

Mr Barker said as well as making his commute more enjoyable the tuk-tuk could travel 100 miles (161km) on a £5 tank of petrol.

With the money he has saved, Mr Barker plans to modify the tuk-tuk with alloy wheels and a spray paint.

1. If you saw the Netherlands-Russia match: what was your reaction to Hiddink celebrating while his own country lost (doing the opposite of what Lukas Podolski or Hakan Yakin did)?

2. What was the reaction of public opinion in the Netherlands to the same? (Any one of these if you have info: friends, relatives, pundits, polls)?