Spain is grieving for the 153 victims of Madrid's plane crash, as experts begin to look into why the jet crashed and burnt shortly after take-off.

The country's prime minister has visited some of the 19 survivors, while King Juan Carlos met relatives of the victims at a makeshift mortuary.

Three days of mourning have been declared and flags are at half-mast.

Of the survivors of the Spanair flight JK 5022 crash on Wednesday, several remain critically ill.

The temporary relocation of the European Parliament to Brussels next month from Strasbourg has reignited a row about where it should be based.

An EU official has confirmed to the BBC that the building in the French city cannot be used yet because part of its ceiling has collapsed.

About 200sq m (2,152sq ft) of the ceiling caved in on 7 August. Nobody was in the chamber at the time.

European law obliges the parliament to meet in Strasbourg 12 times a year.

British security services colluded in the unlawful detention and facilitated the interrogation of a UK resident detained in Pakistan six years ago, the high court ruled today.

Two judges found that the foreign secretary had a duty to hand over to Binyam Mohamed's legal team secret information that could support his case that he was tortured in Pakistan and Morocco before being sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones found that the British security service "facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the United States incommunicado and without access to a lawyer in Pakistan" (pdf) in 2002.

The detention was unlawful under Pakistani law, the judges said.

Economic growth has shown scant sign of returning to the eurozone in August with private sector output contracting for the third consecutive month, an influential survey revealed on Thursday.

Purchasing managers' indices suggested the 15-country zone remained on the brink of recession, with the performances of Germany and France deteriorating noticeably in August. However, improvements in Spain and Italy led to a modest improvement in the region's composite index, covering industry and services, from 47.8 in July to 48 this month.

Forty years ago this Thursday, the Soviet Union ended the so-called Prague Spring with a massive invasion of troops and tanks. Intelligence files from that era show that the largest military operation in Europe since 1945 took the West by surprise.

When it was over, Western officers, awkwardly, seemed surprised. Against their will they had to admit the camouflage hiding the march of Warsaw Pact troops into Prague had been "good," and the speed of their divisions "impressive." The way the Kremlin led units out of the western part of the Soviet Union "unnoticed" was also noteworthy. The enemy, in short, had scored a "tactical victory."

The museum of Communism in Prague had some interesting displays on this topic.

Ad astra per aspera

The European Union has announced it will boost its financial aid to the Palestinian Authority by €40 million in a bid to secure salaries for government workers.

"This extra package is a clear indication that we are continuing and reinforcing our commitment to the Palestinian people," EU's external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner said in a statement on Wednesday (20 August).

EU has decided to add extra €40 million on its aid cheque for Palestinians

The financial injection comes on top of €256 million provided so far by the EU this year by other instruments. It follows an international conference last December where various donors pledged €5.2 billion in aid to the Palestinians over three years.

But most of the package was earmarked for long-term projects while many Arab donors have not met their commitments, leaving the Palestinian government struggling to pay public employees over recent months.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Belarus on Wednesday (20 August) pardoned two more dissidents, Syarhei Parsyukevich and Andrei Kim, clearing its jails of major political prisoners in a bid to improve relations with the EU.

Mr Parsyukevich and Mr Kim had been serving two-and-a-half and one-and-a-half year sentences, respectively, after taking part in street protests in January.

Street protests in Minsk are a risky business

Their release comes just two days after Minsk freed opposition leader Alexander Kazulin, with no more long-term prisoners of conscience now left behind bars, despite some concern over a US lawyer, Emanuel Zeltser, arrested in March.

The latest move comes as Belarus heads toward parliamentary elections on 28 September, in which a handful of pro-democracy opposition figures are expected to gain seats in the legislature for the first time.

By Eric J. Lyman

ROME (Hollywood Reporter) - Television programs with medical and hospital themes get so many details wrong, according to a leading Italian medical group, that Italy's main broadcasters should refrain from airing them.

Annalisa Silvestro, president of the National Federation of Medical Colleges, said that offending programs include imported fare such as "ER," "House," "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scrubs," along with a host of Italian-made productions, several of which are scheduled to premiere with state broadcaster RAI or Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset when new schedules start in September.

A deeper shade of blue
Tories are now drawing on a radical conservative past that foretold flaws in Thatcher's market dogma

When economic paradigms shift, ideology follows. Just as the Keynesian model broke down in the 1970s and ushered in the rise of Thatcherism, so the present crisis of neoliberal economics is precipitating a philosophical change in the Conservative party. The Tories are now speaking of sharing the benefits of growth and wealth, and the need for markets to generate fair outcomes. Moreover, they are distancing themselves from the current socioeconomic settlement because they recognise that it produces inequality and reinforces class barriers. They know that the community culture they want to resurrect was not only destroyed by the socialist state, but by the capitalist market. Say it softly, but the Tories could be poised to finally break with Thatcherism and its winner-takes-all monopoly capitalism.

(...)

 the much-derided new civic philosophy of conservatism is actually key to reversing all the malign consequences of the Thatcher-Blair years. A genuinely local economy requires not just freedom from the target-driven, ethos-destroying logic of the state, but also liberation from the corporate business model. Corporate norms have obliterated owner-occupiers of small businesses and have created clone towns where every high street is the same, or ghost towns where the economies of scale kill off local enterprises. A revived localism inspires a diverse ecology of agriculture, industry and innovation, and a renewed sense of regional identity, reversing an economic monoculture predicated on finance and the City.

There are signs, therefore, that this localism is becoming the fulcrum around which conservatism could change. One example is Cameron's frustration at Policy Exchange's recent report that, in a disturbing echo of the rightwing "mobility of labour" argument, called for the abandonment of northern cities for the job-rich south. Likewise, the Conservative campaign against post office closures and the "disappearing Britain" campaign to save local shops all suggest a new distaste for the homogenising consequences of neoliberalism.

Interesting - and worrying for the left. Should I front page this tomorrow?

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

In the past, these methods have led to appalling exaggerations of the numbers of people killed in conflict. In the Kosovo war of 1999, Human Rights Watch stated categorically that the number of people killed unlawfully by the Serbs was "certainly" more than 4,300. This was the number of bodies which had by then been exhumed. Moreover, Human Rights Watch claimed to have itself documented 3,453 killings, based on interviews. But the legal indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, refers to 564 killed, not thousands.
...Some of the evidence is clearly unreliable. One report quotes a man saying, "They blindfolded us ... and then they put us in Landcruisers with shaded windows." But how could he know the make of the car, or the colour of the windows, if he was blindfolded? The same man claims to have escaped alive from a mass grave, a story I have heard too many times in Kosovo to find easy to believe.

Sterling tumbled on Friday as official figures showed UK economic growth ground to a halt in the second quarter of this year, strengthening fears the economy is already contracting.

The Office for National Statistics revised its first estimate of second quarter growth by more than expected as it said output had been flat quarter on quarter, the lowest figure since the second quarter of 1992.

Gross domestic product was 1.4 per cent higher than in the second quarter of 2007, the lowest year-on-year growth rate since the end of 1992.

Investors pulled their money out of Russia in the wake of the Georgia conflict at the fastest rate since the 1998 rouble crisis, new figures showed on Thursday.

Russian debt and equity markets have also suffered sharp falls since the conflict began on August 8, with yields on domestic rouble bonds increasing by up to 150 basis points in the last month.

The moves come as President Dmitry Medvedev faces pressure from business leaders concerned that the impact of the global credit crisis is starting to be felt in Russia.

Credit conditions are to be discussed at next month's "summit of oligarchs", the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs meeting that former President Vladimir Putin held annually to discuss economic issues.

Police officers were on Friday morning beginning an investigation into how and why a data stick containing confidential data on up to 130,000 offenders and prisoners was lost earlier this week.

The Conservatives warned that taxpayers could foot a large compensation bill if any of the thousands of criminals affected by the blunder decided to sue the government.

The loss was a "massive failure of duty", said Dominic Gieve, shadow home secretary. "The British taxpayer will be absolutely outraged if they are made to pick up the bill for compensation to serious criminals," he said.

The names, addresses and expected release dates of all 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales were on the computer memory stick lost by PA Consulting, a contractor working for the Home Office.

Areva reactor project given all-clear

Areva's troublesome EPR reactor project in Finland on Wednesday received a clean bill of health after welding work overseen by Bouygues, the French nuclear group's subcontractor, was last week called into question.

Petteri Tiippana, assistant director of STUK, the Finnish nuclear safety authority, said that a government-commissioned inquiry into quality and safety allegations made by the environmental lobby group Greenpeace had found no evidence of transgressions.

The number of eastern and central Europeans registering to work in the UK has fallen to the lowest level since their countries joined the European Union four years ago, according to Home Office figures published on Thursday.

The fall in the value of the pound and improved job prospects in their home countries appears to be reducing the appeal of the UK to migrant workers from the so-called A8 accession countries - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The number of A8 migrants registering to work in the UK fell by more than 27 per cent to just under 38,000 in the second quarter of this year, compared with the same period last year. It was the biggest year-on-year fall since the UK opened its borders to the new EU members.

More than 875,000 eastern and central Europeans, two-thirds of them from Poland, have registered to work in the UK since May 2004.

Russia told Nato today that it had suspended military cooperation activities with alliance countries until further notice, the Western military pact said.

"Russia has informed us through military channels that the minister of defence of the Russian Federation has taken a decision to halt international military cooperation events between Russia and Nato countries ... until further instructions," Nato spokeswoman Carmen Romero said.

Nato members Norway, Estonia and Latvia have already said they had received notice of the step, which emerged after the alliance agreed this week that normal ties with Moscow were not possible until it had withdrawn troops from Georgia in line with efforts to end the South Ossetia conflict.

At least 63 people have been killed and dozens injured in twin suicide bombings outside Pakistan's main munitions factory in the town of Wah, police say.

The attack is the deadliest on a military site in Pakistan's history.

Police say one man is in custody for the attack, which occurred some 30km (18 miles) north-west of Islamabad.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban said they had carried out the attacks, which he said were a response to army violence in the country's north-west.

Speaking to the BBC, Maulvi Umar of the Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan said the bombings in Wah were in retaliation for the deaths of "innocent women and children" in the tribal area of Bajaur.

He said more attacks would take place in Pakistan's major urban conurbations unless the army withdrew from the tribal areas.

At least 50 people have reportedly been killed in clashes in the Somali capital Mogadishu and the port of Kismayo.

Some 30 people have been killed in two days of fierce fighting between Islamists and a clan militia in Kismayo, a BBC reporter says.

Some mortars landed near the compound of President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is currently out of the country.

Another landed near a mosque in the busy Bakara market, killing at least six people, a witness told the BBC.

FDIC to modify IndyMac loans
The agency plans to cut interest rates and extend payments for some in hopes of limiting foreclosures.
By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 21, 2008
The regulators operating failed IndyMac Bank said Wednesday that they would try to modify about 25,000 troubled mortgages by slashing interest rates to as low as 3% for five years, extending payments over 40 years and in some cases charging interest on only part of the loan balance.

The plan, aimed at about 37% of IndyMac's seriously delinquent borrowers, is the start of a modification program that eventually could involve thousands of other borrowers at the savings and loan. Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said she hoped it would become a model for the reeling mortgage industry.

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Soon after it took over IndyMac, the FDIC said it was freezing foreclosures on the almost 40,000 loans still owned by the thrift. Those loans amount to 6% of the 637,000 existing IndyMac-serviced mortgages at the end of July. The FDIC also has broad powers to change the terms of 225,000 loans that were pooled to back debt securities under the IndyMac name.

But the remaining 372,000 mortgages serviced by IndyMac, nearly 60%, can't be modified easily because of complications in the terms under which they were sold to investors or bought or guaranteed by mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

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The borrowers, most of whom initially stated their incomes without proof, must fully document their earnings to obtain modified loans and sign a statement pledging to live in the home. They must have enough income to devote no more than 38% of their gross earnings toward principal and interest on a modified first mortgage, along with home insurance and taxes.

The fact that many borrowers took on hefty second mortgages and have credit card, automobile and other debts will also complicate the picture, FDIC officials said.

But the most difficult pill for borrowers to swallow may be the large majority who won't qualify for the program because IndyMac doesn't own all the loans it services. The FDIC will try to help those borrowers when they get in trouble on their loans despite not being able to use its standard model to modify them, Bair said.

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To achieve the 38% debt-to-income ratio, the FDIC may extend the loan term to 40 years and reduce the interest rate -- now typically 7.51% on IndyMac-owned loans -- to as low as 3%. After five years, the rate would rise by 1 percentage point a year until it reached the current Freddie Mac survey rate for conforming mortgages, now about 6.5%, where it would be permanently capped.

The FDIC also may suspend interest on a portion of the loan amount, although the principal not earning interest will still have to be paid off if the home is sold or the loan is refinanced. Michael Krimminger, a policy advisor to Bair, said that option had limited use because it tended to substantially reduce the value of loans.

This is the first action I have seen by Federal agencies that seems to move in the right direction, i.e., recognizing that the loans are worth only a fraction of their face value.

If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

US negotiators have not yet succeeded in getting Iraqi officials to agree to keep US troops well into the next US president's first term, the US secretary of state confirmed yesterday.

On a surprise visit to Baghdad, Condoleezza Rice, denied earlier reports this week that the two sides had ironed out the last disputes in a heavily-contested draft agreement that is due to replace the UN mandate covering the US occupation.

President Bush wants the pact to authorise a troop presence at least until 2011 so that he can trumpet it as proof of his policy's success. But the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, has adopted the rising nationalism in the Iraqi parliament and public and is insisting on a clear withdrawal timetable, the lifting of judicial immunity for US troops who commit abuses, and an Iraqi veto on US military operations, including the arrest of Iraqis.

Oil roared above the $120 a barrel level on Thursday and gold prices jumped amid mounting geopolitical tensions following Russia's decision to suspend military co-operation activities with Nato in response to a missile shield agreement between the US and Poland.

Nymex October West Texas Intermediate touched a session high of $122.04 before easing back to trade $5.89 higher at $121.45 a barrel while ICE October Brent rose $6 to $120.36 a barrel.

Moscow said it would respond with more than a diplomatic protest to a deal to place part of a US missile defence system in Poland. It also made it clear that it has no intention of bowing to calls for a withdrawal to positions held before the invasion of Georgia.

     It's one thing that US foreign policy wonks imagined that Russia would remain in a coma forever, but the idea that we could encircle Russia strategically with defensible bases in landlocked mountainous countries halfway around the world...? You have to ask what were they smoking over at the Pentagon and the CIA and the NSC?
      So, this asinine policy has now come to grief. Not only does Russia stand to gain control over the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline, but we now have every indication that they will bring the states on its southern flank back into an active sphere of influence, and there is really not a damn thing that the US can pretend to do about it.
     We could have spent the past ten years getting our own house in order -- waking up to the obsolescence of our suburban life-style, scaling back on the Happy Motoring, reconnecting our cities with world-class passenger rail, creating wealth by producing things of value (instead of resorting to financial racketeering), protecting our borders, and taking the necessary measures to defend and update our own industries. Instead, we pissed our time and resources away. Nations do make tragic errors of the collective will. The cluelessness of George Bush is nothing less than a perfect metaphor for the failure of a whole generation.

...

This must be an equally sobering moment for Europe, and an additional reason for the recent plunge in the relative value of the Euro, for Europe is now at the mercy of Russia in terms of staying warm in the winter, running their kitchen stoves, and keeping the lights on. Russia also exerts substantial financial leverage over the US in all the dollars and securitized US debt paper it holds. In effect, Russia can shake the US banking system at will now by threatening to dump its dollar holdings.
     The American banking system may not need a shove from Russia to fall on its face. It's effectively dead now, just lurching around zombie-like from one loan "window" to the next pretending to "borrow" capital -- while handing over shreds of its moldy clothing as "collateral" to the Federal Reserve.

Oil speculators held great sway over prices, data suggest

At one point in July, a Swiss trading firm is believed to have held 11% of futures contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange for profit rather than for lining up fuel supplies.

By David Cho, The Washington Post      August 21, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Regulators had long classified a private Swiss energy conglomerate called Vitol as a trader that primarily helped industrial firms that needed oil to run their businesses.

But when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission examined Vitol's books last month, it found that the firm was in fact more of a speculator, holding oil contracts as a profit-making investment rather than a means of lining up the actual delivery of fuel. Even more surprising was the massive size of Vitol's portfolio -- at one point in July, the firm held 11% of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange.

The discovery revealed how an individual financial player had gained enormous sway over the oil market without the knowledge of regulators. Other CFTC data showed that a significant amount of trading activity was concentrated in the hands of just a few speculators.

The CFTC, which learned about the nature of Vitol's activities only after making an unusual request for data from the firm, now reports that financial firms speculating for their clients or for themselves account for about 81% of the oil contracts on the Nymex.

Some lawmakers have blamed those firms for the volatility of oil prices, including the tremendous run-up that peaked earlier in the summer.

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CFTC documents show Vitol was one of the most active traders of oil on the Nymex as prices reached record levels. By June 6, for instance, Vitol had acquired a huge holding in oil contracts, betting prices wou