The Czech government has unveiled a new PR campaign to raise awareness of the country's forthcoming presidency of the European Union.

The campaign revolves around the sugar cube - a Czech invention - and includes a seemingly innocent slogan.

But the phrase is highly ambiguous in Czech, and has left critics wondering what the government is trying to say.

The government has defended the campaign which is now running on TV screens and billboards.

In it, a handful of Czech celebrities - including the Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech - sit around a table and do amusing things with sugar cubes.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has called for an international probe into the conflict over Georgia's breakaway provinces in an interview published Friday.

It was necessary to examine the background of the brief war last month when Russian troops entered South Ossetia and penetrated further into Georgia, Steinmeier told the daily Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung on Friday, Sept. 5.

"The question of who bears guilt and responsibility is not the priority when people are suffering, have lost their possessions and are forced to flee," he said. "But I have also said that in a second phase, in which we will define our medium and long-term relations with the conflicting parties, the issue of who bears what part of the responsibility for the escalation to the point of a military conflict will play a role.

"This cannot be cleared up overnight and probably never completely," the foreign minister told the newspaper.

A Polish newspaper has reported that a top secret memo confirms the existence of a secret CIA prison in Poland, a claim rejected by the Polish government.

Polish prosecutors have obtained a top secret memorandum from either late 2005 or early 2006 showing that a CIA prison existed in Poland earlier in the decade, according to respected Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

The Warsaw newspaper quoted sources saying that they had seen the document but did not explicitly say that the prison served as a holding center for al-Qaeda terrorist suspects as has been alleged in the American media.

The Gazeta reported that according to the document the secret prison was set up after the US and Poland signed an accord in 2002 to combat terrorism.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - While Brussels is home to an estimated 15-20,000 lobbyists, who daily and doggedly attempt to win lawmakers to their clients' point of view, up to now, only around 300 lobbying organisations have signed up to the European Commission's voluntary registry.

As of Wednesday (4 September) - a day when across the Atlantic, Jack Abramoff, once one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists, was sentenced to four years in prison for his extensive corrupt practices - in Europe's capital, a total of 303 lobbying groups had filed with the public record of EU lobbyists, or "registry of interest representatives."

Commissioner Kallas' spokesperson has warned that the number of lobbying organisations signing up to the registry is 'low'

Campaigners for lobbying transparency in Europe have repeatedly argued that it is only because the US has a mandatory registry that characters such as Mr Abramoff - whose network of corruption has now delivered 13 guilty pleas from public officials and lobbyists - can be caught.

In Brussels, they warn, lobbying remains too shadowy an activity after the launch of a voluntary registry, which would never bring an Abramoff-style case to light.

Tensions between two EU countries, Finland and Slovenia grew to new heights on Thursday (4 September), with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa delivering an official note of complaint to the Finnish ambassador in Ljublajana over Finnish TV accusations of bribes in relation to a weapons deal.

On Monday (1 September) the investigative journalism programme MOT claimed Finnish defence material manufacturer Patria paid a total of €21 million in bribes indirectly to Slovenian officials and to the prime minister in return for arms orders.

Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa refuted the claims saying friendly relations with Finland could be a affected

The news was broadcast on Finland's national public service broadcaster, YLE.

Mr Jansa refuted the claims as being unfounded, saying that MOT could effect the friendly relations between the two countries.

It might be a good place for a stag party or cheap weekend away but would you go all the way to Hungary just to get your teeth seen to?

One company reckons it is the answer to shelling out hundreds or even thousands of pounds on treatment in the UK.

The Hungarian Dentist Travel Company is spending the next week touring the country with a tent as their consultation room.

Their first stop is a farm in Lincoln, where the company is based.

Patient Malcolm Bramell said: "If I had a tooth implant it would cost £2,100 privately in Lincoln. I am with the NHS but they don't do implants here. I'm here to see how much it would cost if I went to Hungary.

BRUSSELS: After the crisis over Georgia, new divisions have emerged within the European Union over whether to offer Ukraine a clear signal that it might one day join the 27-nation bloc.

The Russian military action in August increased pressure on the EU to increase its engagement in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova to shore up pro-Western forces there. But the Georgian conflict has reignited a vigorous debate within the EU on whether the bloc can continue to expand to include more nations that border Russia.

A test of the EU's commitment to its Eastern neighbors comes Tuesday in Évian, when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which holds the EU rotating presidency, leads talks with Ukraine on behalf of the bloc. The meeting will have an added sense of urgency following the collapse of the government in Ukraine this week.

The two sides expect to reach broad consensus on a new agreement dealing with ties between the EU and Ukraine. But several EU countries, including Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, want to make clear that this will not lead, automatically, to EU membership talks. By contrast, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic States, Sweden and Britain are pressing for language stating that Ukraine has a clear European future.

BENALMÁDENA, Spain: Few Spaniards would sacrifice their annual summer vacation. But while Spain's beaches are still busy, shops and restaurants at its resorts are ominously quiet as the country's economic crisis envelops the tourism industry.

After 50 years of uninterrupted growth, Spain's overbuilt and relatively expensive resorts seem ill-placed to cope with a downturn, at a time of increasing competition from cheaper, less-crowded destinations like Croatia and Turkey.

"In 48 years, I have never seen losses like this; tourism bosses I'm talking to have never suffered so much," said Domenec Biosca, president of Spain's Association of Tourism Directors and Experts.

He said that in many parts of the country, tourism was already in deep recession, as both Spaniards and foreigners travel less distance, stay less time and spend less money.

The European Union should fully liberalise its electricity and gas markets, pursuing a controversial goal set by its executive last year, according to a report today by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The EU's executive European Commission proposed dividing ownership of gas and electricity supply from pipelines and grids in a drive to help new market entrants and force down prices.

But European Union energy ministers yielded to pressure from France and Germany at a June summit, giving giant energy companies easier alternatives to being broken up.

The European Parliament, which has powers of co-decision alongside the energy ministers, stuck firm to the Commission's initial preference for full ownership unbundling of electricity networks but agreed to compromise on gas.

MADRID - Spain has taken a first step toward amending its restrictive law on abortion, a government minister said yesterday, moving to fill one of the last big gaps in a drive for sweeping social change in this traditionally Roman Catholic country.

Equality Minister Bibiana Aido said the law must be changed because Spain's 17 semiautonomous regions apply it unevenly.

Seeking Recommendations

A panel of 13 lawyers, doctors and other experts has been appointed to come up with recommendations for the Socialist government on how to amend the current law, Equality Minister Bibiana Aido told reporters.

She said she expects a bill to be presented to Parliament in the first six months of 2009, but could not specify whether it would provide for abortion on demand up to 12 to 14 weeks into a pregnancy, as demanded by abortion rights campaigners. The current law, which dates from 1985, allows abortion in the first 12 weeks in case of rape, 22 weeks in case of fetal malformation, and at any time if a psychiatrist certifies that the mother's physical or mental health is endangered.

The vast majority of the roughly 100,000 abortions carried out in Spain each year fall into the latter category, according to the Association of Accredited Abortion Clinics. Abortion foes call it a loophole that is grossly abused.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Italy's plan to fingerprint Roma people has received a green light from the European Commission, with Brussels' experts suggesting that the controversial measures are not discriminatory or in breach of EU standards.

A commission spokesman told journalists on Thursday (4 September) that the practice proposed by Italian authorities earlier this year is only aimed at identifying persons "who cannot be identified in any other way" and excludes the collection of "data relating to ethnic origin or the religion of people."

Italy plans to fingerprint only people who cannot be identified in other way

The centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi sparked protests from human rights organisations and several in the European Parliament after announcing its plan to fingerprint Roma people - including children - as part of a census of Roma camps.

Some critics of the move compared it to the policies of Benito Mussolini, the country's fascist leader during the Second World War.

Chinese airline Hainan may challenge a bid by Lufthansa to buy Brussels Airlines, with the Asian firm already in talks to snap up Belgium's Charleroi airport.

German carrier Lufthansa remains the favourite bidder for Brussels Airlines, but some shareholders in the Belgian company believe the offer is too low and are looking at other partners, such as British Airways and Hainan, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Friday

Late last week, Lufthansa said it was in "constructive negotiations" to acquire a 45 percent stake in Brussels Airlines for €65 million, expecting to close the deal within the next few weeks. The remaining stake was then to be taken over after two years.

But shareholders in Brussels Airlines believe the carrier is worth at least €200 million. Brussels Airlines is the heir to the bankrupt Sabena, with a 30 percent share having been taken over in 2006 by Richard Branson's Virgin Express.

Nato peacekeepers in Bosnia have raided the home of a retired colonel suspected of having close links to Ratko Mladic, who is wanted on charges of war crimes.

Troops entered the house of Petar Jesic in the town of Rogatica, 50km east of Sarajevo, at dawn on Thursday and searched it for several hours, Derek Chappell, a Nato spokesman said.

"We have very strong evidence that he has been and continues to be an active member of the support network of Ratko Mladic," Chappell said.

Jesic, who the spokesman said had "very close connections with many Bosnian Serb army leaders", was questioned along with his wife and mother-in-law.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU capitals should create a united front in order to beef up their position vis-a-vis major energy suppliers such as Russia, the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggested on Thursday (4 September).

"Many EU member states prefer to maintain their bilateral relationships with supplier countries, which may affect the strength of the EU to act as a single entity," IEA chief Nobuo Tanaka said, labelling the current fragmented approach "perhaps the weakest policy area."

Russia's actions in Georgia in August have only heightened concerns about European energy security

"In the long run, it means they [EU states] will lose out," Mr Tanaka stressed.

Russia supplies the 27-nation bloc with a third of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas - a dependence expected to rise significantly in the future.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The final shape of an EU security mission to Georgia and broader EU-Russia relations will top the agenda of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in France this weekend. The possibility of relaxing sanctions against Belarus and prospects for a new Ukraine treaty will also come up for debate.

The 14th century palace complex will host the EU meeting

The EU is keen to send over 200 personnel to Georgia under its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) umbrella and has already begun recruiting for a chief of staff, political advisers and logistics officers.

"The participants must have negotiating skills and the ability to work professionally in a stressful and diverse environment," the job advertisement says, asking for availability on "15 September 2008 at the latest," with deployment on the ground envisaged before 15 October.

It remains uncertain if the unit will be composed of EU-badged policemen or soldiers however, if it will stand alongside OSCE monitors or be part of an OSCE-led team and if it will have access to the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

SALES of new cars are forecast to continue to plunge over the next year after manufacturers announced the worst August figures for 42 years.

UK registrations fell last month by nearly 19 per cent on a year ago as drivers postponed buying new cars because of fears over the economy.

The fall in Scotland was even more marked, with sales down 21 per cent to 4,578 and traders predicting a disappointing" September, when new number plates usually boost sales.

Microsoft Corp. may have made a mistake by settling antitrust charges with the European Union last year after losing an EU court ruling. The software maker didn't know it was one vote away from winning.

Judges voted 7-6 against Microsoft on Sept. 17, 2007, according to two people with direct knowledge of the outcome. They declined to be identified because EU court votes are confidential. It should have appealed to try to end the European Commission's case for once and for all, said Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar Inc. in Chicago.

The close vote may indicate that EU courts aren't a rubber stamp for commission decisions. Knowledge of the split may influence U.S. technology companies facing antitrust probes, such as Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., in their legal battles.

A tiny autonomous archipelago off Finland could soon add to the EU's Lisbon Treaty woes.

The Aland Islands, which lie between Sweden and Finland, have yet to vote on the EU's reform treaty - and a No would further undermine its legal credibility. Irish voters rejected the treaty in June.

Under the act of autonomy with Finland, the islands - home to just 27,000 people - have the right to vote separately on EU treaties.

Looking at the Wikipedia summary of Ratification, the treaty could still conceivably be defeated by Gibraltar (UK), Åland (Finland) and Cyprus</snark>. ... (and I don't really expect Finland to fail because of Åland)

Beppe Grillo's Blog

Quinto Vicentino and Torri di Quartesolo are two small municipalities that have won the battle against the American Army. The doubling of the United States Military base in Vicenza has ground to a halt. The two municipalities have managed to halt the construction of the new barracks to house the military personnel. There is an existing regional law that limits the number of buildings that may be erected in agricultural areas. If the planned 215 houses had been built for the American soldiers, the remaining residents would not have been able to build anything more for the next 10 years.
Kambiz Razzaghi, Works Manager in charge of the construction works for the new Dal Molin military base, has said that: "Yes, Quinto is dead". So the Americans are homeless, at least for the time being. What they are thinking of doing is spreading themselves out throughout the area, in small enclaves in a number of the Vicenza municipal districts. Ten houses here, another fifteen there, and some housed in the various Bed and Breakfast establishments in the Veneto Region.
The municipalities are the fulcrum of the lever that will eventually raise up the whole of Italy. This was proven in the Val di Susa, in Campania and now in Vicenza. It is impossible to lie to those who see what is happening with their own eyes. The new Dal Molin military base would turn Vicenza into one of the biggest targets in the whole of Europe in the event of a war against the United States. This would, after all, be the biggest military base in Europe, from which it would be possible to despatch bombers loaded with atomic bombs. There is no valid reason for setting up a base such as this.
On 5 October 2008 Vicenza is scheduled to hold a Municipal Referendum regarding the construction of this base. The quorum for this referendum is 35,000 voters. I will be there to lend my support. My hope is that, at some stage in the future, Kambiz Razzaghi will say that: "Yes, Dal Molin is dead".
There is yet more good news from Vicenza, namely the Dal Molin 2.0 plan submitted by the "Vicenza, 5-star municipality" Civic List plan, submitted by Davide Marchiani. According to this plan, a solar energy farm would be set up in place of the military base. Vicenza would score around one billion, three hundred million Euro over a period of 20 years. This would mean free electricity for 25 thousand of the 43 thousand families. The project is illustrated in detail in the attached document, which can be downloaded. Therefore, I hereby invite the people of Vicenza to support the project and the residents of other municipalities to copy it.
They may never surrender, but neither will we.

(my bold)

this is very heartening...

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

Western companies are pushing to acquire vast stretches of African land to meet the world's biofuel needs. Local farmers and governments are being showered with promises. But is this just another form of economic colonialism?

Everything will turn out alright. Correction: everything is going to get better. There will be new roads, a new school, a pharmacy, even a proper water supply. Most of all, there will be jobs -- 5,000, at the very least. "If there are jobs for us, then it's a good thing," says Juma Njagu, 26, who hopes to be able to leave his meager existence as a planter and charburner behind soon.

Njagu lives in Mtamba, a village of about 1,100 souls in Tanzania's Kisarawe district, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) south-west of Dar es Salaam, the capital and largest city. Mtamba, accessible by dirt road, is a place where people scrape by on a bit of farming, a bit of fishing and the production of charcoal. There isn't much else in Mtamba.

That could change if the British firm Sun Biofuels goes ahead with plans to produce biodiesel fuel from "Jatropha curcas," an energy plant with a high oil content, which it hopes to plant on Kisarawe's farmland.

The United States has spied extensively on Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi government leaders, the American investigative journalist Bob Woodward has revealed.

"We know everything he says," the journalist quotes one source as saying, in his fourth book on George Bush's presidency. The US administration's decision to spy continually on Mr Maliki shows deep distrust of the Iraqi leadership by the US. The surveillance took place even while Mr Maliki was speaking to Mr Bush by video-phone once a week.

The Iraqi government reacted furiously today and said it would ask the United States for an explanation, although Mr Maliki and other Iraqi leaders are unlikely to be shocked or surprised that the US has been spying on them.. "If it is true...it reflects that there is no trust," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

Stephen Harper, Canada's prime minister, is set to call an election for October 14, a government spokesman has said.

Harper will visit the nation's governor general on Sunday and ask her to dissolve the Canadian parliament so an election can be held, the spokesman said on Friday.

Harper's Conservative party beat the country's opposition Liberal party, which had held power for almost 13 years, in 2006.

Despite growing protests in Pakistan over a raid, many Pentagon officials favor a more aggressive approach to counter attacks in Afghanistan carried out by militants based in Pakistan. By Julian E. Barnes and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
September 5, 2008 WASHINGTON -- Even as angry protests spread in Pakistan, Pentagon officials said Thursday that the number of cross-border commando missions may grow in coming months to counter increasing violence in Afghanistan.

The developments threatened to aggravate U.S.-Pakistani tensions just before the country's presidential election Saturday, in which attitudes toward the United States are likely to be a key issue. The U.S. raid Wednesday and its aftermath also fanned a long-standing debate within the Bush administration over how to deal with militants in Pakistan.

During last year's APEC summit, students and activists found themselves the most unlikely of targets. Edmund Tadros reports.

University activists and Greenpeace members made up a third of a secret list of 61 people NSW Police considered so dangerous they were banned from public areas near last year's Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.

[...]

A former police officer who is now an academic at the University of Western Sydney, Michael Kennedy, branded the intelligence assessments "pure unadulterated bullshit".

Its a perfect example of how we can never, ever trust the police in a democracy, and why we need to watch them like hawks, be very careful with the powers we give them, and ensure that everythign they do can be challenged in a court with a legal duty to protect human rights.  Sadly, Australia has no binding human rights legislation, and so the police get to get away with destroying democracy for their own convenience.

The government has formulated a plan to put troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under federal control, dismiss their top executives, and use government funds to prop them up, government officials told the two companies yesterday, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

Under the plan, the federal government would place the firms in a legal state known as conservatorship, the sources said. The value of the company's common stock would be diluted but not wiped out while the holdings of other securities, including company debt and preferred shares, would be protected by the government.

Instead of giving each company a big capital infusion up front, the government plans to make quarterly infusions as the companies' losses warrant, the sources said. This would be an attempt to minimize the initial cost of the rescue.

The major problem with housing lately is that mortgage rates are moving up even as US Treasury rates move lower. All of the attempts to fix the mortgage market so far revolve around attempts to get mortgage rates down and thus increase affordability.

This move will unclog tens of billions of mortgage backed securities guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie.  Mortgage rates will fall sharply next week.  Banks will be able to lend again because investors will buy mortgage backed securities which when issued by Fannie and Freddie will now be guaranteed by the US Treasury.

Yes this is inflationary as the fact that the Treasury has a printing press which prints dollars is the reason they can guarantee hundreds of billions in new debt.  But the alternative was a massive deflation whose consequences are far worse.

Bank and financial stocks will rally huge on Monday providing relief on Wall Street.  The Dow shoul d be up several hundred points even as Fannie and Freddie shares go to zero.

This "fix" has been inevitable for over one year.  It would have been a lot cheaper one year ago if the Treasury had just sated back then that it would stand behind the implicit guarantee of Fannie and Freddie debt.  The Administration was determined to let market forces fix the problem.  The problem is way too big for the markets so now a total bailout is required and much more expensive for taxpayers.

But don't fool yourself.  This is good news for the economy.  It doesn't cover up the failures of the Administration which McCain also supported but Obama would have done the exact same thing almost as soon as he took office.

The risk of systemic failure of the financial system had risen significantly again in the past two weeks.  That is a bad thing.  Cyclical risks remain high but that is something that can be dealt with.  No one wants systemic failure.

Voting in Angola's parliamentary election resumed on Saturday for an unscheduled second day amid charges the poll had been chaotic and violated the African nation's electoral law.

The election, Angola's first for 16 years, is largely a race between the ruling MPLA and opposition UNITA party. It has been keenly watched by the international community because of controversy marring recent African polls and Angola's emergence as a major oil producer.

In 1925 Britain, confident in stabilization, attempted to return to the Gold Standard. The result was to prolong an economic recession. This, combined with the Dawes plan linking Europe's main economies to dollar loans, set the stage for the Crash of 1929 being a global event. The United States was the only place to put money, and a return to the global gold standard was impossible. The penultimate crisis taught people all the wrong lessons. It discredited the belief in fundamental economic reörganization, left the orthodoxy in place that loan agreements and budget cuts to make the poor pay would be enough to tide over any economic crisis, and created a single point of failure for the global economy. It also pushed aside people like John Maynard Keynes and Winston Churchill, one might almost say because the latter did not know to listen to the former.

This is why this is not the ultimate crisis: the wrong lessons have not been taught, there is not a complete marginalization of common sense, and the elites are serious. They recognize, like in 1923-1925, how serious. However, as soon as this crisis is past, they see a return to the previous order, just as soon as the banking mess is tided over. This means that as soon as there is a gasp of air, they will grab it. Electorates, for their part, are willing to be equally stupid. Having seen the failure of the present, they have swung to the right in Europe, with Cameron trying to make a trifecta of conservative governments in largest economies in Europe. At the very moment when Bushism is discredited globally, pro-Bush governments are in place in Canada, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom.

Having seen what the first round of liberal Reaganite doctrine has done for the US, we are now about to try a second round. Obviously if one dose of arsenic isn't enough, then two will be.

Or three.

In our case the same mistake of the Dawes plan is about to be repeated: prop up with loans those who cannot pay debts that should not have been incurred, with the belief that a reïmposition of the old rent system will be possible after they have been tided over.

Scientists have for the first time recorded individual brain cells in the act of summoning a spontaneous memory, revealing not only where a remembered experience is registered but how the brain is able to re-create it.

The recordings, taken from the brains of epilepsy patients being prepared for surgery, demonstrate that these spontaneous memories reside in some of the very same neurons that fired most furiously when the recalled event was first experienced. Researchers had long theorized that this was the case but until now had only indirect evidence.

The new study, experts said, has all but closed the case: Remembering, for the brain, is a lot like doing.

The experiment, being reported Friday in the journal Science, moved beyond most earlier memory research in that it focused not on recognition of objects or recall of specific words or symbols but on free recall - whatever popped into people's heads when, in this case, they were asked to recall a series of short film clips they had just seen. Such memory often deteriorates quickly in people with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, and it is critical to so-called episodic memory: the rich catalog of vignettes that together form our remembered past.

The fragrance used to mask bad metro smells in Paris isn't strong enough for the Berlin commuter rail. Transportation authorities have started sniff tests in a project to give the S-Bahn a new, refreshing odor.

 Smell something funny? The Berlin S-Bahn smells of many things, not all of them pleasant: wet umbrellas, body odor, unwashed dogs, kebab and currywurst, sometimes spilled beer or schnapps.

But that may change. The Berlin Transportation Authority (BVG) has announced plans to lace the S-Bahn with its very own de-odoring odor. "A relevant test is being prepared," BVG spokesperson Burkhard Ahlert told the Berliner Zeitung Thursday.

An employee dreamed up the idea to neutralize urban smells with an "S-Bahn perfume" contest, to find ways to improve the experience of commuters. The preliminary stages, underway soon, will involve "test sniffing," said Ahlert.

A dog had to have 13 golf balls removed from its stomach after eating them on walks around a Fife course.

Owner Chris Morrison had been taking five-year-old black labrador Oscar round the Pitreavie golf course in Dunfermline for several months.

He took Oscar to the vet after noticing a rattling sound coming from his pet's stomach.

They then discovered that 13 balls - each weighing 45 grams - were lodged in his stomach

The deafening engines that send motocross bikes shooting off jumps and tearing up hillsides have earned the cycles a bad reputation. But a German entrepreneur wants to rehabilitate the sport -- with an all-but-silent new engine.

The Quantya is an electric motocross bike. Its silent motor might help redeem the sport's deafening bad-boy image. At first glance, the Quantya motocross bike doesn't leave a particularly tame impression. It looks like the usual cross-country motorbike, a vehicle for daredevils, the kind of riders who plow down muddy tracks and off high jumps with no regard for the natural world around them. And then, of course there's the noise: the motor's guttural RrrrraaaangtangtatatAAANG. Hardly any recreational sport has won so little acceptance in polite society.

Yet the Quantya is different. It can take on rough terrain just as well -- and no less destructively to the ground it covers-- as traditional motocross bikes, but with a difference. The Quantya does it silently, moving almost as noiselessly a bicycle. What's the secret? The bike's power source is electricity, not gas.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/article1630897.ece

SCIENTISTS are trying to stop the most powerful experiment ever - saying the black holes it will create could destroy the world.
...Experts even predict that millions of tiny black holes will be produced -- baby brothers of the monsters gobbling up dust and stars at the heart of the galaxies.
...But the anti-CERN brigade accuse the scientists of playing God, warning that no one can guarantee that the black holes will not survive, rapidly growing in size to suck the Earth out of existence in an instant.

But CERN, which includes several UK scientists, say their work is vital to unlock the secrets of matter that forms everything known in the universe.

Thanks you for that reference to Carman Laforet. I didn't know about her, and now I'll see if I can find one of her books. Sounds like an interesting writer perhaps.

A Conservative MP today described the terrifying moment he was held at gunpoint and forced to eat coffee whitener to persuade a group of excitable Colombian soldiers that he was not a drugs trafficker.

Michael Fabricant, who represents the Staffordshire consitutuency of Lichfield and Burntwood, was on a South American trekking holiday with a friend last week when he was stopped by the men toting M16 rifles.

The soldiers searched through their bags and found an unlabelled jar of Coffee Mate - which Mr Fabricant had packed because he did not want to risk drinking fresh milk. Unfortunately, the soldiers thought it was cocaine - sometimes dubbed 'Colombian marching powder'.

John McCain has won the ratings race.

The Republican nominee beat Democratic challenger Barack Obama's record-setting convention speech viewership by 500,000.

McCain's address at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night was seen by about 38.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Obama received 38.4 million.

That means McCain's speech is now the most-watched in convention history -- 41% higher than President Bush's acceptance speech four years ago, and 1% higher than Obama's address last week.