The European Union's finance ministers piled pressure on banks and insurance companies to provide greater transparency in the wake of the global financial turmoil.

At an informal meeting in the French seaside city of Nice, ministers said "measures designed to restore confidence through transparency and the responsibility of the actors will be put in place without delay."

The EU's internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, is due to unveil a set of proposals aimed at improving the transparency of financial market operators in October.

Though details are as yet unclear, the proposals are expected to include a set of requirements for credit rating agencies wishing to operate in the EU.

A rural district in southern Poland on Friday became the first in the country to display German signs, in what some said was an attempt to reconcile the area's troubled history.

The first of 67 signs was unveiled in the small district of Radlow, which boasts some 28 percent Germans, the daily Wyborcza reported.

"You can see similar bilingual signs in many places in Europe," said Christoph Berger, a German government attorney dealing with minority issues.

"But this place where we meet today is unique, marked by its difficult history."

Officials at the ceremony said the signs would celebrate the region's multicultural past.

The area belonged to Germany until 1945, but after World War II many Germans were forced out or left as Poland came under Soviet control.

Turkey was traditionally adept at maintaining good relations with both Russia and the West -- until the Georgian crisis came along. Now both sides are making demands on Turkey. Has the time come for Ankara to choose sides?

 Where East meets West, the Bosphorus waterfront in Istanbul. Turkey is walking a tightrope between Russia and the West. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 62, is Russia's most flamboyant far-right politician and professes to be big friend of Turkey. "No one loves you the way I love you," the thick-set populist who speaks fluent Turkish, recently sang before a Turkish audience in Istanbul.

Zhirinovsky, a graduate of Oriental studies, visited Turkey for the first time in 1962 as a translator for the Soviet Union's State Committee for Exports. During his visit he was arrested for spreading "communist propaganda" and spent 17 days in jail. Later he wrote a pamphlet about his experiences and recommended that his country annex all Turkic countries because the Russian soldier "must clean his boots in the Indian Ocean."

Now Zhirinovsky's passion for the southern neighbor has been reignited once more. "Learn Russian, don't look to the West, look north," the troublemaker preaches during his regular visits to Turkey. "The EU doesn't want you, but we want you. We'll give you gas, you give us nuts!"

Employees at Volkswagen staged their biggest ever demonstration on Friday with tens of thousands protesting against EU plans to scrap the so-called "VW law" which gives the company state protection.

 VW employees staged their biggest ever demonstration on Friday. Tens of thousands of workers at Europe's largest carmaker Volkswagen staged a demonstration on Friday in protest against EU demands to scrap a law giving the firm special state protection.

Trade union IG Metall said 40,000 VW workers joined the rally at the group's main plant in Wolfsburg, northern Germany, after the EU Commission warned it would take Germany to court for not fully complying with its demands to axe the so-called "VW law," which ensures a government veto in the affairs of the carmaker.

"In this age of globalization and financial market capitalism we need more democracy and not less," IG Metall leader Berthold Huber told the rally. The union said workers from all VW's plants in Germany and abroad had joined the demonstration.

Eastern Europe is over and done with communism, right? Not so fast in Poland, where the country's last communist leader went on trial Friday for imposing martial law in 1981.

 Poland"s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, attends a court hearing in Warsaw on Tuesday. A packed Warsaw court listened Friday as prosecutors read out the official indictment of Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, 85, and seven other former top-ranking officials from Poland's former communist regime.

The Institute for National Remembrence, which investigates and prosecutes communist crimes, brought charges against the group for imposing martial law in 1981 as the Soviet-backed government tried to crush the Solidarity pro-democracy labor movement.

The 1981 decision led to the death of dozens of people and the imprisonment of hundreds more in internment camps. The defendents are charged with violating the constitution, committing "communist crimes" and leading "an organized criminal group of a military nature having as its goal the carrying out of crimes that consisted of the deprivation of freedom through internment."

The Lib Dems have made a significant break with their commitment to the European single currency, it emerged last night.

Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader, and the home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said it was no longer a priority to campaign for British entry into the euro. The shift in policy is surprising, as Mr Clegg and Mr Huhne, both former MEPs, have been passionate supporters of the single currency.

While the issue has been off the Government's agenda for five years, it has been at the forefront of Lib Dem policy for the past decade.

Mr Clegg told The Independent on Sunday that the debate on the euro was now "neutered". He insisted his party remained committed to Europe, but that tax and other domestic issues were now top of the agenda.

CABINET ministers were last night being urged to force Gordon Brown from office after 10 former government members publicly demanded a leadership contest.

Following the dramatic sacking of Siobhain McDonagh as a government whip, a string of senior Labour figures yesterday added their voices to the calls for a formal party ballot.

Barry Gardiner, a special envoy for Brown, said it was time for a leadership contest because "the public has stopped listening to Gordon Brown" and he is "not a popular prime minister".

A coalition of up to a dozen senior MPs has now demanded that Labour send out leadership nomination papers before the annual party conference starts next weekend in Manchester. The rebel challenge has received private support from serving ministers, including one cabinet minister who said it was the only way of forcing Brown from office.

THE European Union plans to ignore the Irish "no" vote on the Lisbon treaty and press ahead with massive spending increases to implement its provisions.

It plans to spend £6.2 billion on promoting itself as a "global player" next year and 22% more on justice and home affairs to pay for new powers under the still-unratified treaty, in a budget set to be agreed by Brussels in December.

The £6.2 billion will be used to promote EU interests across the world from Latin America to Africa, the Caribbean and Russia, with £243m spent on EU embassies and an £11m information budget to help sell Europe's new role as a global heavyweight.

"This appears to be stretching the boundaries of legality by dressing up expenditure on areas of new powers under the Lisbon treaty as falling within existing powers," said Martin Howe QC, a leading constitutional lawyer.

PARIS: Starting his first visit to France as pope, Benedict XVI touched Friday on central themes of his papacy - including the tensions between faith and reason and church and state as well as his efforts to reach out to Muslims and Jews - and he urged an increasingly irreligious Europe to look back to its intellectual roots in Christian monastic culture.

"What gave Europe's culture its foundation - the search for God and the readiness to listen to him - remains today the basis of any genuine culture," the pope said.

The pope spoke before 700 academics, cultural figures and Muslim leaders at the Collège des Bernardins, a new cultural center in a 13th-century monastery, a location he called "emblematic" for his remarks.

"Amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from migrations of peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the monasteries were the places where the treasures of ancient culture survived," he said.

He continued: "It is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance."

While Georgia's separatist enclaves Abkhazia and South Ossetia celebrate formal recognition of their independence by Russia, hardly a day goes by without bloodshed in North Caucasus regions Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Bildunterschrift: Magomed Yevloyev was shot dead in August

Since the murder of Ingush opposition journalist Magomed Yevloyev in August, calls to break away from Russia have grown louder in Ingushetia. Russian media report that even in hitherto tranquil Russian regions such as Tatarstan and Bashkiria, Muslim separatists have become more independence-minded of late.

For years, Russia's leaders have sought to quell separatist tendencies by what they describe as "isolated extremists." The lengths to which the Kremlin is prepared to go is best illustrated by restive Chechnya, battered into submission by two wars since 1994.

A declaration addressed to the Council of Europe by Russian human rights activists said that "the situation in the North Caucasus republics has became greatly more agitated since the war between Russia and Georgia in the South Caucasus."

Not satisfied with control of the drug trade, building industry and rubbish collection in Naples, the local mafia is getting into the bakery trade and ensuring that Neapolitans rely on the mob for their daily bread.

According to a report released last week, city officials and investigators suspect Camorra clans are behind many of the 1,400 unlicensed backstreet bakeries in and around the city which supply hundreds of street vendors who sell loaves out of car boots - and they may be spreading into selling other basic food products.

Open 24 hours a day, the street sellers are drawing shoppers with cheap, crusty bread fresh from wood-burning ovens, the way Neapolitans like it. But police say Naples' new breed of bakers are slowly poisoning their customers by burning old varnished wood, nut shells covered in pesticides and even planks pulled from exhumed coffins. 'Whoever buys this bread is eating dioxins and carcinogenic substances and putting their health at serious risk,' said Francesco Borrelli, assessor for agriculture for the province of Naples.

The growth military might of China and India has undoubtedly been rapid in the last decade, but their defence budgets still fall short of the combined total of Europe's leading military powers.

Europe's top five defence spenders have an annual budget of £120 billion, compared to China's £35 billion and India's £15 billion.

Although Britain's defence budget is probably £2 billion short for what the Government wants the Armed Forces to achieve, it is still the one of the biggest in the world, with £34 billion being spent this year.

This means that Britain remains a heavyweight player. It will have what will arguably be the world's most potent hunter-killer submarine in the Astute, the best air defence warship in the Type 45 destroyer, and one of the most effective combat aircraft in the Eurofighter-Typhoon.

There is also nothing like continuous warfare to hone an army into an efficient fighting unit.

Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the military has come a tremendous distance in co-ordinating all arms into an effective force, making all three Services largely think for each other rather than reverting to petty inter-Service rivalries.

The United States government has imposed new sanctions on Iran, this time targeting its shipping industry, by blacklisting the main shipping line and 18 subsidiaries, accusing the maritime carrier of being engaged in contraband nuclear material, a charge vehemently denied by Iran.

While the economic impact of the measures against Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) will be minimal in light of the near absence of any connection between the shipping company and US businesses, this latest US initiative against Iran sends a strong signal about the US's intention to escalate pressure on Iran, even unilaterally if need be. And, perhaps, it is a prelude for more serious and dangerous actions in the near future, above all a naval blockade of Iran to choke off its access to, among other things, imported fuel.

The outgoing George W Bush administration is slowly but surely taking strident actions that will effectively tie the hands of the next US president, particularly if that happens to be Democratic candidate Senator Barack Obama, who in the past has expressed an interest in direct dialogue with Tehran.

Should the new sanctions prove as catalysts for more aggressive US actions against Iran in international waters or the Persian Gulf, as called for by some members of US Congress seeking the interdiction of Iranian cargo ships, then by the time Bush's successor takes over at the Oval Office next January, the climate in US-Iran hostility may have degenerated to such depths that it would take a monumental effort to undo what appears to be Bush's last hurrah.

Ever since Russia and Georgia launched an information war in the world's media, the Baltic nations have been exposed to two often-conflicting viewpoints about the war and its consequences.

So much so that Baltic officials began pondering how to curb broadcasts from neighboring Russia. Or at least to be able to compete with them.

Russian television channels, available in the Baltics on cable, showed the Russian military presence in Georgia as positive. They hailed last week's EU summit, where European nations stopped short of sanctions on Moscow, as a success of the Russian foreign policy.

By contrast, Latvian and Estonian news took a pro-Western tone, condemning the first Russian military excursion into another sovereign country since the Soviet Union fell in 1991.

A recent survey by the Riga-based Marketing and Public Opinion Research Center showed Latvia's population is evenly split in its support for either side in the five-day conflict between Georgia and Russia.

The police are to expand a car surveillance operation that will allow them to record and store details of millions of daily journeys for up to five years, the Guardian has learned.

A national network of roadside cameras will be able to "read" 50m licence plates a day, enabling officers to reconstruct the journeys of motorists.

Police have been encouraged to "fully and strategically exploit" the database, which is already recording the whereabouts of 10 million drivers a day, during investigations ranging from counter-terrorism to low-level crime.

So, how long till they change their motto to "all your data is belong to us"?

In a masterful counterattack to the destabilizing policies of Washington in Latin America, Hugo Chávez expelled in humiliating form the imperial ambassador Patrick Duddy. His action was supported by Honduras, Nicaragua, Ecuador and  most importantly, the Southern Colossus, Brazil, that told the camarilla in the White House not to cross the red line of the Brazilian area of influence. In the diplomatic language of Itamaraty: "We will not tolerate the rupture of the Bolivian institutional order".

In this way, with the support of Argentina and Paraguay, a cordon sanitaire is established around the separatist zones that Washington has created by means of an evil inversion of the revolutionary "focus-theory" of the sixties. As a consequence, a configuration of regional geopolitical security administered by the  Latin American Regional Power Block (Bloque Regional de Poder, BRP) comes into being. It is evident that such configuration cannot lack the coercive element, that is to say, the concentration of military forces in the geographical borders of the separatist counterrevolutionary foci, from the side of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

The dangerous Latin-American crisis that we live is the corollary of the movements on the "world chess board" of the Washington-Tel Aviv connection  that desperately tries to achieve accomplishments of  the expansionist-subversive neocon-agenda, they haven't been able to achieve during Baby-Bush's  eight years in the White House.

If back in 2000 you told me that getting Junior into the White House would help Russia's economic and political recovery, I would have asked you to stop smoking crack. Bush and Cheney were aggressively anti-Russian in their election campaign. They criticized Clinton for being soft on Russia in view of Moscow's military campaign in Chechnya, among other reasons.

One thing I knew for certain: the second war against Iraq was unavoidable if Bush was to become president. Obviously, I was right about that, but I completely failed to consider the wider implications of the Iraq war on US reputation, the prices of oil and, by extension, on Russia's economy and foreign politics. The events of 9/11 did not precipitate the US invasion of Iraq - they delayed the invasion.

Bush had no reason and no previously-stated desire to fight Taliban. If anything, in late 1990s Taliban was shaping up to be a valuable partner for the US oil interests in the region. As you may know, several US energy firms, including the ill-fated Enron, were in negotiations with Taliban regarding an oil pipeline to traverse Afghanistan. In July of 2001 these negotiations stalled and the US government even threatened Taliban with unspecified military action.¹ As Bush later discovered, Taliban had little tolerance for pressure.

The US actions against Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as political disputes with Iran and Venezuela, contributed to rising energy costs and weakened US economy. Political tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated in early 2008 and led to a 50% hike in the price of crude in just six months.² Needless to say, Russia, as the world's largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil, benefited from these aggressive US policies.

A CALL for British troops to return to Zimbabwe and train its army will provide a crucial early test of whether an agreement to be signed tomorrow by President Robert Mugabe and his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai is a power-sharing deal or merely a fig-leaf for continued despotic rule.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Tsvangirai, who will become prime minister under the agreement, will demand the return of the British military advisory and training team, which trained Zimbabwe's security forces after independence.

About 200 British troops were based in Zimbabwe from independence in 1980 until they were withdrawn after the seizure of white farms began in 2000.

Their presence would reassure the MDC, whose leaders are worried about the deal's viability, particularly after Mugabe told tribal chiefs this weekend that putting his Zanu-PF together with the MDC was "like mixing fire and water".

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration is pushing through a broad array of foreign weapons deals as it seeks to re-arm Iraq and Afghanistan, contain North Korea and Iran, and solidify ties with onetime Russian allies.

From tanks, helicopters and fighter jets to missiles, remotely piloted aircraft and even warships, the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005.

The trend, which started in 2006, is most pronounced in the Middle East, but it reaches into northern Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and even Canada, through dozens of deals that senior Bush administration officials say they are confident will both tighten military alliances and combat terrorism.

"This is not about being gunrunners," said Bruce Lemkin, the Air Force deputy under secretary who is helping to coordinate many of the biggest sales. "This is about building a more secure world."

The woman who is on course to become Israel's next prime minister is preparing to end fledgling peace talks with Syria unless it cuts its ties with Iran and the militant Hizbollah group.

zipi Livni, who is expected to win the ruling Kadima party's leadership race despite a growing challenge from her main opponent, is using the last days of her campaign before Wednesday's primary to broadcast a strong message to the Arab world.

She is determined to ensure that nobody assumes that the presence of a woman at Israel's helm might leave the country more susceptible to attack.

Ms Livni has made plain that she is likely to end the indirect talks with Syria, brokered by Turkey and made public only in May, bringing to an abrupt halt one of the few innovations of the outgoing prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

In her harshest statement yet on the matter, during a rare interview with the Al-Arabiya television network, Ms Livni said last week she has "no need to meet with Syrian representatives" as long as the country continues to allow weapons smuggling to Hizbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

Bloomberg headlines:

    * Bank of America Said to Reach $44 Billion Deal to Buy Merrill
    * Lehman Said to Prepare Bankruptcy as Buyers Withdraw (Update1)
    * Wall Street Firms Set Up $70 Billion Fund to Provide Liquidity
    * AIG Seeks $40 Billion Fed Bridge Loan, Times Says
    * Asian Stocks, U.S. Futures, Dollar Tumble on Lehman Bankruptcy

Two broker dealers and one insurance company practically gone. It is going to be a dark Monday for a lot of 401k holders.

One fifth of sovereign wealth funds are not accountable to their domestic legislatures, according to a new survey supported by the International Monetary Fund.

The survey of 20 such funds found that 21 per cent were not accountable, while 58 per cent reported to their legislatures through a board chair or minister of finance.

The survey was conducted under the auspices of the IMF by the international working group of sovereign wealth funds (IWG) as part of a process towards drafting a set of principles for them. Following a summit in Santiago, Chile, this month, the IWG reached agreement on a draft set of 24 principles expected to be unveiled next month.

The push for a voluntary code of conduct comes amid increased scrutiny of the role of such funds in the global financial markets. US politicians have grown more vocal about their nature, as several have increased their stakes in US companies

Banking stocks fell across Europe on Monday after the dramatic overnight news of Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy and Bank of America's $50bn takeover of Merrill Lynch.

...

"Black Monday? Try Blacker Than a Dark Cellar at Midnight Monday," said Mark Priest, senior trader at ETX Capital.

"Bear Stearns has gone, Lehman's gone, Merrill's gone - it's carnage. People are worried about what will emerge when Lehman Brothers unravels itself, and the ripple effects that that could cause. It looks like people have moved their money back into commodities - gold and silver are up, but otherwise there are few safe havens."

Pakistani troops have fired shots into the air to stop US troops crossing into the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, local officials say.

Reports say nine US helicopters landed on the Afghan side of the border and US troops then tried to cross the border.

They say seven US helicopter gunships and two troop-carrying Chinook helicopters landed in the Afghan province of Paktika near the Zohba mountain range.

US troops from the Chinooks then tried to cross the border. As they did so, Pakistani paramilitary soldiers at a checkpoint opened fire into the air and the US troops decided not to continue forward, local Pakistani officials say.

As Warwick University Professor Colin Crouch's book "Postdemocracy" appears on shelves in Germany, DW-WORLD.DE asked him how his theory can shed light on today's global political events.

DW-WORLD.DE: Governments seem to work for the benefit of multinational companies. PR experts rule the level and content of the public debate. Parliaments have been invaded by lobbies. Doesn't all that constitute, at least technically speaking, the end of democracy as we know it?

Colin Crouch: Governments in countries where democratic institutions are strong cannot work solely for multinational corporations and PR experts cannot control all debate. Where governments have to face seriously contested elections, it is not possible to ignore the needs of ordinary people. Indeed, one reason why business has such political power is that governments depend on economic success to satisfy people's needs, and business seems to hold the answers to that success. PR experts cannot completely control debate where civil society outside the official political world is strong and vigorous. My book "Postdemocracy" is concerned with societies where democratic institutions are strong, and is about problems that occur for democracy within and despite that strength. The same forces that you mention -- MNCs, clever PR -- in a polity where democracy is young, with shallow root, would be far more damaging.

Once they were mythical creatures. Today, elks in Sweden are seen as pests who gobble up the young forests. Every autumn 200,000 Swedes go elk hunting, but they are not only after the animals.

Willy Uvebrant is stomping around the forest of Agunnaryd. The air is damp from the morning dew. It smells of resin, moss and mushrooms. The farmer is in his mid sixties and wrapped in a green windbreaker.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Sweden's elks are becoming a nuisance

Willy reckons he is on the right track: The long legs leave behind notable tracks on the forest floor. "That is an elk track," he explains. "They must have come this way. But I fear the tracks don't seem very fresh."

Elks are not very keen on being tracked down -- they are masters of disguise and deception. The hunters from Agunnaryd look to proven tactics. Specially trained elk-hounds track the animals and lead them to the hunters, who remain spread out and on the lookout. Willy loads his shotgun. A high-caliber cartridge is put into the barrel. The experienced hunter has done in a good dozen elks in his time.

The town of Leixlip, just west of Dublin, has been chosen by Guinness maker Diageo to be the site of its new flagship brewery.

The plant will be built on a 73-acre site in Leixlip - where the first Guinness brewery was opened in 1755.

The development is part of a 650m euro ($906.1m; £517.6m) investment in Diageo's brewing operations in the Irish Republic.

Once it opens in 2013, the firm's Kilkenny and Dundalk plants will close.

The closure of these breweries will see a cut of almost half the number of Diageo's brewing staff of 430 in the Irish Republic.

He was one of the world's most prolific and secretive gamblers. The arrival at casinos in London of Fouad al-Zayat, the high roller know as the Fat Man, created panic and excitement and not a little rubbing of hands by management in their dinner jackets and black ties.

Over 15 years, the 20-stone Syrian billionaire lost more than £191m on the spin of the roulette wheel. But now he is biting back by taking six prestigious British casinos to court, claiming they illegally allowed him credit.

The move follows his recent victory in the High Court when his lawyers successfully argued that a £2m debt with Aspinalls of Mayfair should be wiped out because they allowed him credit.

In a rare interview in his marbled floor office in Nicosia, Cyprus, the Fat Man, a big beast even among the big spending gamblers known as 'whales', said he was now looking to claw back £67m.

Security device will spot weapons hidden in clothes, shoes and baggage

Scientists have developed a scanner that can pinpoint explosives and weapons hidden in the shoes, clothing and luggage of terrorists as they walk around airport terminals.

The system - created by researchers led by Professor Wuqiang Yang of Manchester University - can detect devices instantly. Moreover, it does not require travellers to take off their shoes or place luggage on conveyor-belt detectors. Instead, security staff will be able to spot terrorists with knives in their jackets or explosives in their backpacks as they move around the departure lounges.

News of the scanner's development comes after last week's convictions of three British men for conspiracy to murder in a case in which defendants were accused of trying to smuggle bomb-making materials onto aircraft inside cabin luggage. The alleged plot, in August 2006, led to a global security clampdown at airports that has resulted in severe restrictions - still in place - on carrying liquids in hand luggage.

As a result, the scanner has triggered considerable interest among US defence chiefs, who are investing billions of dollars on research into detectors that might improve airport safety. At the request of UK security officials, a prototype has been sent to be tested at Dallas airport.

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the country can't afford $3.3 trillion of tax cuts proposed by Republican presidential nominee John McCain without corresponding spending reductions.

Greenspan, a lifelong Republican and longtime friend of McCain, said today on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital With Al Hunt'' that ``I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.''

McCain has said he would balance the cost of most of his tax cuts with budget reductions, while providing few details beyond eliminating earmarks and other pork-barrel spending, which have totaled about $171 billion since 2001. Democratic nominee Barack Obama is proposing fewer tax cuts and more ambitious spending programs.

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology -- fossil fuels -- rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology -- renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution -- on the eve of PCs and the Internet -- is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. "Typewriters, baby, typewriters."

Of course, we're going to need oil for many years, but instead of exalting that -- with "drill, baby, drill" -- why not throw all our energy into innovating a whole new industry of clean power with the mantra "invent, baby, invent?" That is what a party committed to "change" would really be doing. As they say in Texas: "If all you ever do is all you've ever done, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

I dwell on this issue because it is symbolic of the campaign that John McCain has decided to run. It's a campaign now built on turning everything possible into a cultural wedge issue -- including even energy policy, no matter how stupid it makes the voters and no matter how much it might weaken America.

Officials in Florence cannot now persuade local residents' committees to accept the Chinese statues, even if they are tucked away by roundabouts on the outskirts of town. "How about an international location, like the airport," the committee chairman, Giuseppe d'Eugenio told newspaper Corriere Fiorentino after he refused the statues.

"They are ugly and too imposing," added Andrea Ceccarelli, a second residents' representative. "They would also block the views of motorists at a roundabout and be dangerous."

There matters would have rested had it not been for the decision by the Chinese to send a delegation from the city in Zhejiang province to Italy later this month to inspect the cultural artefacts. And so, like some plot in a slapstick movie, Florence city officials are desperately casting around for somewhere to display the statues before the Ningbo delegation arrives this month. Councillors are now worried that when the truth emerges, the Ningbo David could be knocked down in revenge, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

exquisite symbolism... someone's got some 'splainin' to do!

Peace is not the absence of war -- peace is the absence of fear. Ursula Franklin

ScienceDaily (Sep. 14, 2008) -- Contrary to 40 years of conventional wisdom, a new analysis published in the journal Nature suggests that old growth forests are usually "carbon sinks" - they continue to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and mitigate climate change for centuries.

However, these old growth forests around the world are not protected by international treaties and have been considered of no significance in the national "carbon budgets" as outlined in the Kyoto Protocol. That perspective was largely based on findings of a single study from the late 1960s which had become accepted theory, and scientists now say it needs to be changed.

"Carbon accounting rules for forests should give credit for leaving old growth forest intact," researchers from Oregon State University and several other institutions concluded in their report. "Much of this carbon, even soil carbon, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed."

The analysis of 519 different plot studies found that about 15 percent of the forest land in the Northern Hemisphere is unmanaged primary forests with large amounts of old growth, and that rather than being irrelevant to the Earth's carbon budget, they may account for as much as 10 percent of the global net uptake of carbon dioxide.

ARIS (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, a champion judoka, could soon be flooring France's Nicolas Sarkozy with some of his famous throws after agreeing to pass on some of his black belt skills to the French president.

"He (Sarkozy) is interested in martial arts and we have decided to do some training together," Putin was quoted as saying in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published on Saturday.

A press officer at Sarkozy's office had no immediate comment.

ONE of Carla Bruni's jilted lovers has taken his revenge with a fictional account of their relationship in which the Italian supermodel, singer and French first lady is painted as cold and heartless.

Jean-Paul Enthoven, a silver-haired literary critic of 59, has good reason to feel bitter about Bruni, 40. She left him for Raphaël, his son, a professor of philosophy, with whom she had a child before marrying President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this year.

The novel was the talk of le tout Paris last week and an example of the latest fashion among members of the French cultural elite for savaging each other under a flimsy fictional cloak where the characters are strikingly similar to real people.

Bruni has already fallen victim to this fad for the roman à clef. When Raphaël, 30, went off with Bruni, Justine Lévy, his wife, wrote a vitriol-filled novel about the break-up in which she referred to the Italian temptress as "the Terminator". Now Enthoven Sr is having his say.

Conservative MPs have been given discount vouchers for a lap dancing club near their party conference venue.

The vouchers, offering a £10 reduction on entry to Birmingham's Rocket Club, were in a booklet sent out to delegates with official conference literature.

The Tories meet later this month at the International Convention Centre, just yards from the club in Broad Street.

A Conservative party spokeswoman said the booklet had been put together by a Birmingham PR firm.