At an emergency summit in Berlin, German ministers have agreed to update data protection laws for the digital age in the wake of scandals that showed how easily personal details can be bought on the Internet.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble called the meeting of political and business leaders Thursday, Sept. 4, to bring Germany's data-protection regulations up to date for the digital age and to reassure consumers that their details were safe.

 

The conference comes in the wake of a series of privacy scandals. In mid-August, a former call center worker gave authorities a CD containing the bank details of 17,000 people whom he said his employer had procured from a lottery firm.

 

The whistle-blower claimed to possess had the details of another 1.5 million people. To test how easy it was to procure personal details, German officials turned to the Internet, and managed to buy 6 million items of personal data for just 850 euros ($1,230) in a matter of a few days.

Aleksander Dugin, a popular theorist in hard-line circles, advocates an alliance between the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. He says Georgia crisis could be start of a real conflict with U.S.
MOSCOW -- Writer, political activist and father figure for contemporary Russian nationalism, Aleksandr Dugin is the founder of Russia's International Eurasian Movement and a popular theorist among Russia's hard-line elite. He envisions a strategic bloc comprising the former Soviet Union and the Middle East to rival the U.S.-dominated Atlantic alliance. The Times interviewed Dugin this week at his Moscow office, a room draped with flags bearing the slogan "Pax Russica." The following are excerpts.

First of all, I advocate strongly a multipolar construction of the world. I think that the pretension of the United States to be the unique pole of the world . . . is completely wrong, immoral and unacceptable by the other great centers of power.

We support the creation of great space, a few great spaces, instead of only one point of decision, the United States' decision. We think Russia should be in the vanguard of this process.

We consider -- not only myself, not only I, but our political chiefs -- we consider that in Georgia, [President Mikheil] Saakashvili has committed not only a moral crime, but also he tested what is behind the Russian words, behind the Russian protests against American domination. They wanted to test up to which point is this only words, and what Russia could oppose directly, in concrete acts.

Politicians of the right and left blasted the magazine Paris Match today for publishing a photograph of a Taliban guerrilla dressed in the combat uniform of one of the ten French soldiers killed in Afghanistan last month.

The defence minister, Hervé Morin, accused the magazine of taking part in a Taliban "propaganda" exercise. The Green politician, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a leader of the French student revolt 40 years ago, said that Match was guilty of "abject voyeurism".

The photograph was taken by a Paris Match photographer a few miles from the scene of the ambush in which ten French paratroopers were killed 30 miles from Kabul on 18 August. It showed Taliban fighters, who claimed to be part of the force which attacked the French troops. One of them was entirely dressed above the waist in French uniform, helmet, goggles and bullet-proof vest.

Further pictures in the magazine's ten-page spread showed Farouki, the "leader" of the Taliban force amid seven young men holding assault rifles and other "trophies" taken from the bodies of the French soldiers. Anger and revulsion in France at the pictures was deepened when the newspaper Le Monde reported this afternoon that Taliban fighters had cut the throats of four of the French soldiers as they lay wounded on the ground.

Exclusif : nos journalistes ont retrouvé les talibans qui ont abattu les dix soldats français

UK workers are among the hardest working people in Europe, with only Romanians and Bulgarians putting in longer hours, new research shows.

UK workers in full-time jobs put in an average of 41.4 hours every week, one and a half hours more than the average for the 27 members of the EU.

The French and Italians worked the fewest hours - with an average of 37.7 and 38.4 hours per week.

The UK workers also get less annual leave than the average EU worker.

It is just like old times at Stormont with talk of deadlines, deadlock and dialogue.

Although the devolved administration may be in jeopardy, there is no apparent danger that the peace process - or the ceasefires - will collapse.

Indeed, the biggest threat comes not from the barrel of an IRA or loyalist gun, but, perhaps, from political complacency.

Only one in six professors in Germany is a woman. But Germany's Education Ministry is trying to redress the huge gender imbalance. It is giving 79 universities extra funding to employ more female lecturers and professors.

 There are plenty of women in Germany pursuing a Ph.D. Statistics show, though, that advancing any further is extremely difficult. Chancellor Angela Merkel may be running the country but for many other women in Germany the glass ceiling is firmly in place -- with one of the biggest gender pay gaps in the European Union and a glaring absence of women in top management positions. So it comes as no surprise that women also find it difficult to forge ahead in the male-dominated world of German academia.

While women make up 50 percent of the student body, they only account for 40 percent of those pursuing doctorates. Once you start going up the stairs in the ivory tower the presence of women becomes even rarer. Only 24 percent of university lecturers are women and a paltry 15 percent of the country's 38,000 tenured professors are female.

The German Education Ministry is hoping to make a dent in those figures, by paying the salary of between one and three female professors or lecturers at universities who prove a commitment to redressing this gender imbalance. On Wednesday Education Minister Annette Schavan, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, revealed the results of the first round of a competition for getting these extra funds.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament's top administrative body - the bureau - on Wednesday (3 September) recommended MEPs hold a second unusual meeting in Brussels following the ceiling collapse in Strasbourg.

The recommendation - to be rubber-stamped by political group leaders today - will see members stay in Brussels for the 22 September plenary as well, after already missing one Strasbourg session at the start of the month.

MEPs making their point in Brussels

The move comes as safety assessments and certification drag out in the Strasbourg building. A 10-tonne, wedge-shaped portion of the ceiling fell down in the main debating chamber as it stood empty in August.

The parliament's 785 MEPs do most of their work in Brussels. But the EU treaty obliges them to meet in the French city 12 times a year, in a perambulation costing €200 million and emitting 20,000 tonnes of CO2.

The Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, is to attend a football match in Armenia, his office says, signalling an apparent thaw in relations.

The Turkish and Armenian teams will face each other for the first time in a World Cup qualifier on Saturday.

The two countries have no official ties and their shared border remains closed.

Turkey has rejected Armenia's campaign for the killings of some 1.5m of its citizens, by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1917, to be classified as genocide.

Germany's Asse nuclear storage facility is to get a new operator who will be responsible to the federal environment ministry following revelations this week of serious safety violations at the site.

Germany's Federal Office for Radioactive Protection (BfS) is to take over the ailing Asse nuclear storage facility in the state of Lower Saxony after strong criticism of operators Helmholtz's German Research Center for Environmental Health in Munich for failing to alert the government to violations at the site.

 

At an emergency meeting on Thursday, Sept. 4, German ministers agreed that the site will now be treated according to nuclear laws and not mining laws as was the case so far. In future, the facility will be under the jurisdiction of the federal environment ministry instead of the research ministry.

 

The move comes after German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel this week slammed Asse's operators for depositing highly radioactive waste for decades at the site.

Tight Legislative Race Continues in Austria: Angus Reid Global Monitor

The Social-Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) and the Austrian People's Party (OVP) are practically tied, according to a poll by Gallup. 27 per cent of respondents would vote for the SPO in this month's federal election, while 26 per cent would support the OVP.

The Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) is third with 19 per cent, followed by the Greens (Grune) with 12 per cent. Support is lower for the Alliance for Austria's Future (BZO), the Citizens' Forum (BF), and the Liberal Forum (LIF).

The upcoming EU-Ukraine summit is heading for embarrassment as EU states continue to hold back an accession "perspective" for Ukraine, while a fresh row between Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko, and Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, may see yet another government fold.

EU diplomats on Wednesday (3 September) agreed a draft summit statement should say the EU acknowledges "the European aspirations of Ukraine" and "leaves open the way for further progressive developments in EU-Ukraine relations," AFP reports.

Ukraine has said it won't sign the deal in Evian without an EU accession statement

EU states were also willing to call a new bilateral treaty an "Association Agreement" - implying deep political links - and to start a dialogue on visa-free travel. But the statement will not see the EU recognise Ukraine's "European perspective" - a nod to potential accession down the line.

Ukraine diplomats in Brussels last week said the EU-Ukraine summit in Evian, France on 9 September will have some "deliverables" in the form of a joint declaration, but that Kiev would not sign the political chapter of the new bilateral treaty without the "perspective" phrasing.

The EU's Court of Justice on Wednesday (3 September) overturned a decision by member states to freeze the assets of Saudi businessman Yassin Abdullah Kadi and the Al Barakaat International Foundation established in Sweden.

The Luxembourg-based court found that EU governments had breached the rights of both parties - added to the United Nations blacklist of terror suspects in 2001 - by not telling them why their assets had been frozen.

The EU's anti-terror list was set up in the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks

It also concluded that they had not been given sufficient rights of defence or to effective judicial protection.

"The rights of the defence, in particular the right to be heard and the right to effective judicial review of those rights were patently not respected," the court ruling said.

Yassin Abdullah Kadi and the Al Barakaat International Foundation are both suspected of supporting terrorism by channeling their funds to al-Qaeda and Ossama bin Laden.

MEPs have called for a European ban on the cloning of animals for food in a resolution passed on Wednesday (3 September) by 622 votes to 32, with 25 abstentions. The members also pushed for an embargo on the import of cloned animals, along with offspring and any cloned food products.

Concerns focused on the high mortality rates of cloned animals.

MEPs are concerned that cloning is harmful to animal welfare

"Cloning is an incredibly wasteful way of producing food, requiring the loss of many animal lives just to produce one successful clone," Green MEP Caroline Lucas told EUobserver. "It has been shown that the animals who do survive suffer more defects and die much earlier than non-cloned animals.

"Only eight percent of sheep involved in a cloning process result in a viable offspring or embryo. For cows this is 15-20 percent," she added, "goats less than three percent, pigs three to five percent, rabbits less than two percent."

Protagonists on both sides of the debate acknowledge that cloned animals are faced with a wide range of health problems, with a high death rate and a high incidence of disease.

BAKU: U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney said on Wednesday the United States had a "deep and abiding interest" in its allies' security in the Caucasus, while Russia said U.S. support for Georgia was stirring up instability.

The United States later announced $1 billion (560 million pounds) in aid for rebuilding Georgia after last month's five-day war with Russia, a move likely to further strain ties with Moscow.

On a visit to Azerbaijan, Cheney also said the United States must work with the oil-producing ex-Soviet republic to create additional energy export routes to Western markets.

Cheney made his comments on the first leg of a tour including Georgia and Ukraine which analysts say is designed to signal that Washington has not turned its back on former Soviet allies following the conflict in Georgia.

What a noble man.

EU pays for, then ignores study on copyright extension

The European Union wants to add 45 years to the current 50-year copyright on musical recordings, arguing that aging performers can't afford to be cut off from sources of income just when they need them the most. In defense of this plan, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's proposal said that no external expertise on the matter was required and, furthermore, that the (music-industry-provided) data he already had said the plan was a good one. Now, a prominent European academic is furious that his work--which the European Commission requested and paid for--has been totally ignored by the very Commission that signed off on the piece and published it.

Not Exactly Rocket Science : European genes mirror European geography

ommitment » European genes mirror European geography

Category: Genetics
Posted on: September 1, 2008 8:00 AM, by Ed Yong

Within a drop of blood, you can find all the information you need to reasonably guess where a person came from, without ever having to look at their face, name or passport. Small variations in our DNA are enough for the task. They can be used to pinpoint someone's place of origin to a remarkable degree of accuracy, often to within a few hundred kilometres.

The new discovery comes from a team of Swiss and American researchers led by  John Novembre at UCLA, who wanted to understand how the human genome varies on a continental scale. To that end, they looked at the genomes of over 1.300 people sampled from almost three dozen countries across Europe. The sample was originally collected by GlaxoSmithKline to hunt out genetic variations that influence the effectiveness of drugs and their side effects, but Novembre's team put it to use in understanding the links between genes and geography instead.

They analysed at single-letter differences in DNA ("single nucleotide polymorphisms" or SNPs) at about 200,000 places in each of the genomes. They compared this data to each person's country of origin as well as that of their grandparents if possible.

Oh my. I didn't think my jaw could drop that far.

Then went on to describe his numerous and huge success in international politics, including "the Olympics" -there I must admit I don't even have the faintest idea what he meant.

Of course, the next sentence by the journalist was "thank you Mr. Rafarrin". No suggestion that any of what had been said was utter bullshit.

"The womb that spawned that thing is fertile yet"

U.S. pushes through radar plans despite opposition in Czech Republic
The U.S. is to deliver the first funds to the Czech Republic for the construction of its controversial radar base at the end of this month according to reports in Czech media, The radar is to be linked to a missile base planned to be built in Poland. However, the majority of the Czech population remains opposed to the U.S. plan.
...On the 40-year anniversary of the Prague Spring, when communist Warsaw Pact troops rolled their tanks into the Czech Republic to violently suppress the country's liberalisation, the Czech people are very conscious of the parallels.

They regard the U.S. missile base on their territory as yet another invasion by a foreign power.

In early July protesters marched through Prague when Condoleezza Rice came to sign the final treaty with her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg. They held signs with the dates '1938, 1968, 2008', referring to what they consider the three invasions of the Czech Republic: by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President George Bush respectively.

...Neoral, who also happens to be a professionally qualified expert on radar, has independent reports which show that the harmful effects of the radar waves could extend as far as 100 kilometres.
...Just a while ago the Russians were moving their troops out of here with a lot of noise - our politicians were swearing that never ever again will there be a foreign army in our land. And look at us - just a few years have passed and our authorities are already pandering to the Americans, who just want to surround the Russians - it is obvious that it's against Russia!" said Rampa.

Kosovo passport opens new doors
It's 200 days since Kosovo declared its independence, and its citizens are queuing up to be issued with their new passports. The dark blue document, sporting the Kosovan coat of arms and written in Albanian, Serbian and English, will be good for travel to the 46 UN member states that recognise the republic's independence. But Kosovars will have trouble if they try entering others.
...Among countries who don't accept the passport as a valid travel document and say they will never recognise Kosovo's independence are Serbia and Russia.

"In general this government is open to compromises, but the mood of the population is still towards protection of the country's territorial integrity," said the Serbian Deputy Foreign Minister, Vladimir Krsljanin.

Georgia begins life without Russia
Russia has closed its embassy in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and recalled its diplomats. It's the first time in post-Soviet history that Russia has cut ties with any nation.

When governments cut relations, it's part of a political game. But for ordinary people, such measures can often have serious consequences. Georgian residents have been queuing at the Russian embassy in Tbilisi. Each one has a personal connection to Russia.

For some it's relatives, for others it's business. But for every one of them the question is how to continue in this new reality.
...For years Georgia was part of the Russian empire. Then it was one of the wealthiest states of the Soviet Union. The ancient ties between the two peoples are deep and exist on many levels.
..."Now that martial law is lifted, there are a lot of questions that will be put on the table about Saakashvili's behaviour. We will speak loudly about him and I personally have some questions to ask him about the situation today. I am going to ask parliament to push for the resignation of Saakashvili's government. I think parliament has to act to create a new government," said opposition MP Professor Paata Davitaya.

And when the smoke of the war clears, Georgians will have to learn how to live without diplomatic ties with their largest neighbour for the first time in hundreds of years.

Russia may push forward with S-300 sales to Iran

MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia may proceed with plans to sell advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran under a secret contract believed to have been signed in 2005, a Russian analyst said on Monday. (Russian mobile surface-to-air missile systems - Image gallery)

Commenting on an article in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper saying Russia is using the plans as a bargaining chip in its standoff with America, Ruslan Pukhov, director of Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, said: "In the current situation, when the U.S. and the West in general are stubbornly gearing toward a confrontation with Russia after the events in South Ossetia, the implementation of a lucrative contract on the deliveries of S-300 [air defense systems] to Iran looks like a logical step."

The EU must redouble its efforts to build the $12bn Nabucco gas pipeline and reduce its dependence on imports from Russia in the wake of the Georgian crisis, its energy commissioner said yesterday.

The conflict in the Caucasus has led many experts to dismiss Nabucco, the planned 3,300km pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe via Georgia and Turkey. But Andris Piebalgs said the aim of diversifying energy sources and routes was even more important now.

"We need more political engagement to remove all the political obstacles to Nabucco to bring gas from the Caspian basin to the EU," he said in the face of evidence that the ambitious project to bypass Russia is foundering.

Piebalgs won backing from Nabuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, who said alternative import routes would enhance the EU's energy security and reduce its dependence on Russia. Russia provides 42% of the EU's overall gas imports and 30% of its oil but accounts for up to 80% of energy imports in some countries.

...The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law includes two mutually exclusive provisions - on the right of nations to self-determination, and on the inviolability of national borders. Naturally enough, the sides of conflicts around these issues simply choose the principle that suits them better.
...Meanwhile, the recent events connected with the recognitions of Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia have again revealed contradictions in international law that give strong countries an excuse for almost any action against weaker ones.
...In the case of Kosovo, international law has not played its positive role because of this very contradiction - between the right of nations to self-determination, on the one hand, and territorial integrity, on the other.

Dr. Anatoly Kapustin, a legal expert, maintains that NATO violated a whole number of principles of international law when it separated Kosovo from Serbia. NATO had no right to bring its troops to the former Yugoslavia, and then to separate Kosovo. "Serbia's partition is not legitimate in any event because under international law any decision must be based on consensus. So, as long as Serbia and some other countries do not agree to this, the state of Kosovo does not exist. It actually has no right to take part in international contacts," he said.
...Tuzmukhamedov believes that recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was a natural consequence of the Kosovo precedent. He explained: "Russia has warned that Kosovo cannot be viewed as an isolated case, that this creates a precedent.
...Kapustin believes that priority should be given to territorial integrity, although a clear-cut position of a nation should be taken into account.  

The market clearly doesn't know.

...

In tightening its lending conditions, Lex notes, the ECB seems to be adjusting its facility for the long haul, and this has once again spooked investors:

The ECB seems determined to make banks share a greater proportion of the pain they have inflicted on everybody else, and protect itself. If this view is shared by regulators, which may be emboldened to raise capital requirements significantly, tough times lie ahead for banks and their shareholders. The most recent bank rally may have been premature.

So tangible regulatory risk can now be added to the toxic pile of downside risks facing the sector as whole.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said relations with international forces backing his government have been frayed because of the killing of more than 90 civilians during a recent strike by US-led coalition troops.

Karzai made the remarks Thursday, Sept. 4, during a visit to a village where more than 90 civilians were reported killed in a US air raid on Aug. 22.

 

He traveled to Azizabad village in Shindand district in the western province of Herat on Thursday and met families of the victims who were killed in a US-led coalition air raid, the presidential palace said in a statement.

 

The US military insisted that its operation, which was jointly conducted with Afghan commandos in the area, left 30 to 35 militants and up to seven civilians dead.

 

But an investigation team created by the Afghan government found that more than 90 civilians, including 60 children, were killed in the eight-hour aerial bombardment. A separate probe by UN officials confirmed the Afghan government's figures.

Commodity-market regulators are investigating whether energy-market players are injecting false data into the marketplace to influence perceptions about crude-oil supply and demand, people familiar with the probe say.

Among other things, regulators are concerned that companies may be reporting inventory levels that benefit their own trading positions but that may not be accurate, people familiar with the regulators' thinking say.

Unexpected drops in oil inventories reported each Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration can spark price spikes on the main oil futures benchmark on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A company could theoretically underreport barrels in its tanks, for example, at a key hub to suggest oil is scarcer than it really is, and then sell its physical oil at a premium when oil prices jump on misleading news.

Another concern is whether companies conduct some physical oil sales and purchases solely to influence short-term pricing on oil futures markets.

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned Iran on Thursday it was taking a dangerous gamble in seeking to develop nuclear weapons because one day its arch-foe Israel could strike.

Western powers accuse Iran of seeking the atom bomb under the cover of a civilian nuclear programme but Tehran insists it only wants to master atomic technology to generate electricity.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if the dispute cannot be settled through diplomacy.

"Iran is taking a major risk in continuing the process to obtain a military nuclear capacity," Sarkozy told a meeting in Damascus with the leaders of Syria, Turkey and Qatar.

Joe Biden, Barack Obama's vice-presidential running mate, has indicated that a new Democratic administration could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration over the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo bay.

Mr Biden said at an event in Deerfield Beach, Florida: "If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution, out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president - no one is above the law."

His statement is the strongest indication yet that an Obama administartion might seek legal redress against the President George W. Bush. It could undermine Mr Obama's message of bipartisanship and moving beyond the battles over Iraq.

In April, Mr Obama struck a similar note when he promised that he would ask his attorney general to review the Bush administration's decisions to differentiate between "genuine crimes" and "really bad policies".

"If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated," he told the Philadelphia Daily News. "You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve."

Progressives may bemoan it, but there is no credible left in the US at this point. We may on the verge of a new Zeitgeist (I wrote a dairy on this previously) but the conservative Zeitgeist ushered in by Goldwater and brought to power by Reagan is not yet played out and the left is still having to triangulate, with the Overton window being shifted so far to the right.

However, what is unsustainable cannot continue forever, and the reckoning will come sooner or later, at which point the Zeitgeist will shift again, either lurching further right into fascism or to the left, as progressives get their chance to clean up the mess and launch the country in a fresh direction.

Looming on the horizon, however, is the rise of China. What's in store was foreshadowed by the Chinese determination to beat the US in the Olympics by getting more gold -- which they did handily once they focused their energy and intention (qi, yi) on it. The West, principally the Brits, raped China economically in the past, and the Chinese have not forgotten this. There is payback coming, although it may take a couple of decades.

I bring this up here because the longer the conservative era lasts, and the degree to which eventually change does not completely disavow it, the worse the Chinese reaction against the West will be when they take over the reins of global economic might, hence power. A McCain/Palin administration would be disastrous in this regard. McCain would not be able to restrain himself from attempting to further antagonize and humiliate China, and Palin's pseudo-Christian bluster would be even more offensive to them (and Islam) then Cheney's jingoistic war-mongering and Bush's "moral" posturing. The Chinese really, really do not like being humiliated, and they will repay in kind. Be assured of that.