The European Union's interior ministers agreed Thursday on common principles guiding the way member states manage the influx of non-EU nationals. But a Blue Card scheme for skilled migrants is still on hold.

The immigration and asylum pact, which is due to be formally adopted by EU leaders at their October 15-16 summit, seeks to improve the management of legal immigration, tighten controls on illegal immigrants and construct a common asylum policy.

"The aim of the pact is to avoid the two obvious potential pitfalls: the creation of a European fortress, and the total opening up to illegal immigration," said French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, who was chairing the interior ministers' meeting.

But critics argue that the final, watered-down version agreed by ministers in Brussels on Thursday is ineffective and gives too great a voice to national governments. For instance, the pact calls on EU countries to attract more highly skilled workers from outside the bloc. But it leaves governments with the power to decide who and how many of them should be admitted in their own countries.

Fed up with government bickering and growing economic uncertainty, Austrian voters could hand the far right big gains in general elections on Sunday.

If opinion polls prove correct, the Austrian far-right may notch large gains in general elections on Sunday, Sept 28.

Austria's voters appear to be fed up with rising inflation (at 3.9 percent, a 15-year high), poor integration of the country's large immigrant population, and the inability of the current government to do much about either.

The combined poll numbers of Austria's two far right-parties, the Freedom Party and the Alliance for Austria's Future are hovering around 25 percent. That would represent the best draw for the Austrian far-right since 1999, when then-Freedom Party (and now Alliance) leader Jörg Haider stunned Europe by garnering 27 percent.

A key European Parliament committee has given its backing to strong European Union limits on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) new cars should emit in a dramatic turnaround from the expected result.

The decision on Thursday, Sept. 26, was greeted with delight by environmental groups, with Greenpeace praising the parliament's environment committee for "warding off disaster" and Brussels-based group Transport and Environment (T&E) saying that parliamentarians had "stood up to enormous pressure" from lobbyists.

Car industry disappointed

But it was met with dismay by auto lobbies and politicians, with the association of European car manufacturers, ACEA, saying that the committee had "given the wrong signal" and "missed the opportunity to shape a realistic framework" for development.

Guenther Beckstein, conservative premier of the German state of Bavaria, which is home to major manufacturers BMW and Audi, said in a statement that "the anti-industry decision by the socialist majority in the committee endangers thousands of jobs (and) must be corrected" by the full parliament and the council of EU states.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament's delegation to the US will on its next trans-Atlantic visit ask Congress about allegations that the Irish anti-Lisbon Treaty campaign was funded out of America.

The parliament's political group leaders - the "conference of presidents" - made the decision on Thursday (25 September) following calls for transparency by the Irish and French governments and the European Commission.

Ireland rejected the treaty in June, but the battle is now heating up for the European elections

The move also comes after Declan Ganley - an Irish businessman with US interests who ran the prominent No-vote lobby, the Libertas group - admitted loaning it €200,000 of his own money. Under Irish rules, donations must be capped at €6,348.

The conference of presidents decided not to set up its own commission of enquiry, leaving any investigation to Ireland's Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO). But the parliament's administration will "regularly and closely monitor the situation."

The European Commission is keen to have fast internet access for all EU citizens by 2010, with a communication on the project due in 2009, PAP reports. "Fast internet connections are a passport to the information society and a condition of economic growth," information commissioner Reding said.

Both France and Germany on Thursday (25 September) said the current financial crisis would leave important marks on the world economy, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy declaring that the under-regulated system we once knew is now "finished," and German finance minister Peer Steinbruck saying the crisis marks the beginning of a multi-polar world, where the US is no longer a superpower.

"The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished," says France's president

Speaking to an audience of some 4,000 supporters in Toulon, France, Mr Sarkozy said the financial turmoil had highlighted the need to re-invent capitalism with a strong dose of morality, as well as to put in place a better regulatory system.

"The idea of the all-powerful market that must not be constrained by any rules, by any political intervention, was mad. The idea that markets were always right was mad," Mr Sarkozy said.

"The present crisis must incite us to refound capitalism on the basis of ethics and work ... Self-regulation as a way of solving all problems is finished. Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished," he added.

The economic crisis is rippling out to the sectors that service the financial elite -- from child care to restaurants to travel agencies.

 How long will it stay on the menu? In June, Burger King introduced a €120 "bling burger" in London. With unemployment rising and investment banks likely to lay off thousands more in the coming months, Britain is in the midst of a major slowdown. Although the situation isn't as dire as in the U.S., ripple effects from the financial crisis are starting to spread through the British economy. From restaurants to real estate agents to domestic staff agencies, myriad businesses that service Britain's financial sector are feeling the pinch. "Cafés, restaurants, and other services linked to the City and financial markets are going to be reamed," says Jamie Dannhauser, an economist at Lombard Street Research in London.

Consider Abbeville Nannies, a child-care placement agency that operates in the affluent London neighborhoods of Battersea and Wandsworth, known as "Nappy Valley." Director Kate Barker says the credit crunch has led to a drop in demand for maternity nurses, who provide 24-hour care for newborns at a cost of up to $2,000 a week. At the same time, Barker is fielding calls from worried nannies who say the parents they work for are getting laid off and can no longer afford their services. "It has really affected us over the last year, and now it is accelerating," Barker says.

Central banks are taking co-ordinated action to lend extra cash to banks.

The Bank of England, US Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Swiss National Bank will be involved.

The Bank of England will be lending an extra $30bn (£16bn) for a one week period, $10bn overnight and $40bn in three-month loans.

The central banks said that the extra cash was intended to help banks as they approach the end of the financial third quarter next week.

In an article for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the 'great silence' over the annual British party conferences as politicians and their club of commentators say nothing about a war provoked and waged across the world the responsibility for which lies close at hand.

Britain's political conference season of 2008 will be remembered as The Great Silence. Politicians have come and gone and their mouths have moved in front of large images of themselves, and they often wave at someone. There has been lots of news about each other. Adam Boulton, the political editor of Sky News, and billed as "the husband of Blair aide Anji Hunter", has published a book of gossip derived from his "unrivalled access to No 10". His revelation is that Tony Blair's mouthpiece told lies. The war criminal himself has been absent, but the former mouthpiece has been signing his own book of gossip, and waving. The club is celebrating itself, including all those, Labour and Tory, who gave the war criminal a standing ovation on his last day in parliament and who have yet to vote on, let alone condemn, Britain's part in the wanton human, social and physical destruction of an entire nation. Instead, there are happy debates such as, "Can hope win?" and, my favourite, "Can foreign policy be a Labour strength?" As Harold Pinter said of unmentionable crimes: "Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening, it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

The Guardian's economics editor, Larry Elliott, has written that the Prime Minister "resembles a tragic hero in a Hardy novel: an essentially good man brought down by one error of judgement". What is this one error of judgement? The bank- rolling of two murderous colonial adventures? No. The unprecedented growth of the British arms industry and the sale of weapons to the poorest countries? No. The replacement of manufacturing and public service by an arcane cult serving the ultra-rich? No. The Prime Minister's "folly" is "postponing the election last year". This is the March Hare Factor.

TBILISI, Georgia -- Georgians were critical Thursday of President Mikhail Saakashvili's plans for major political reforms as the country struggles to cope with the devastation caused by its war with Russia.

In a speech Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Saakasvhili promised major social and legal reforms that would strengthen checks and balances in government, overhaul the legal system, broaden media freedoms and provide support for the political opposition. He compared his program to the Rose Revolution -- the 2003 peaceful protests that brought his pro-Western government to power.

But Nino Burdzhanadze, the former speaker of parliament, said Georgia does not need a new revolution.

"We are farther from solving the conflict that we were before the August crisis," she told The Associated Press. "We have problems with the economy and democracy, how can you speak of promises right now?"

She blamed Saakashvili for the political and economic disruption caused by last month's war with Russia, in which Georgia used military force to try to reclaim control of a separatist region, South Ossetia.

Russia crushed the Georgian military, drove deep within Georgia and later recognized the independence of South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

For decades, politics in Bavaria have been synonymous with the Christian Social Union, the state's sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. When voters go to the polls on Sunday, the party could lose an absolute majority it has maintained for decades. Is this the end of Germany's last bastion of old-fashioned conservatism?

The Last Prost? Bavarian Governor Günther Beckstein's party is close to losing its absolute majority in parliament during state elections this weekend. The name escaped him for a moment. Former Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber was standing at the microphone in front of 4,000 people -- and 4,000 beer steins -- campaigning for his party, the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But then Stoiber, for the life of him, simply could not remember the name -- of none other than his successor, the current Bavarian governor.

The Bavarian way of life must continue to be associated with the CSU, Stoiber had proclaimed to his audience in a large tent in the city of Freising, north of Munich, drawing the unusually long index finger of his right hand through the air like a baton.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to build a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent system", to be in place by 2020.

He said he wanted military chiefs to submit plans by December.

He called for a programme to build new nuclear submarines as well as "a system of aerospace defence".

The announcement comes just weeks after Russia accused the US of starting a new arms race by siting part of its missile defence shield in Poland.

"We must guarantee nuclear deterrence under various political and military conditions by 2020," Mr Medvedev told military commanders.

Belarus goes to the polls tomorrow in a parliamentary election that its dictatorial leader hopes will improve relations between the country and the West.

Supporters of Alexander Lukashenko, the President, held all 110 seats in the last parliament. But 70 opposition candidates have been allowed to stand this time and as many as 30 are expected to win seats.

Mr Lukashenko has called on the European Union and the United States to give a positive assessment of the elections and to embrace Belarus. The man who was dubbed the last dictator in Europe recently hired Lord Bell, the British public relations guru, to improve his image.

Almost 500 observers from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) are attending the election as Mr Lukashenko strives to win international approval of the ballot as free and fair.

His monuments still dominate Rome's skyline; his name is chanted at football matches and a notorious episode of his rule was recently re-enacted, complete with men dressed as SS stormtroopers. The rehabilitation of Benito Mussolini, Italy's wartime dictator, may not yet be complete -- but it is not for want of trying.

Yesterday urban planners and architectural historians from across Italy gathered in Rome to honour the "glories" of Fascist architecture. The conference, at Latina, a model "new town" created in reclaimed marshland south of Rome by Mussolini in 1932, is the brainchild of Giorgio Frasinetti, the head of urban planning at Predappio, the town in Emilia-Romagna where Il Duce was born and is buried.

Mr Frasinetti admitted that Fascism had its "ugly" aspects but he insisted that the buildings erected throughout the country under Mussolini should not be seen as an embarrassment, but deserved "re-evaluation".The move follows the restoration of an obelisk bearing the word "Dux" (Duce) outside the Olympic Stadium in Rome and of Mussolini's Rome residence, the Villa Torlonia. This month a "wartime enactment association" wearing Nazi uniforms re-created the rescue of Mussolini by SS commandos at Campo Imperatore in the Abruzzo mountains, where he was held after being deposed in September 1943. Massimo Castelli, head of the association, insisted that the event arose solely from a "passion for military history".

Russia's bumper wheat harvest has allowed it to open a new front in the re-emerging Cold War as it uses food to expand its influence in the Middle East and Africa.

The largest wheat harvest in 15 years is expected to yield 51 million tons, of which a record-breaking 15 million are earmarked for export. Only the US and Canada are expected to export more.

The boom comes as the Kremlin's influence in the Middle East grows, with trade volumes at record levels and increasing collaboration in the energy sector.

Russia's grain trade may prove as controversial as its involvement in energy markets, because it was announced in July that the industry, now mainly in the hands of private traders, would soon be amalgamated into one trading company under Kremlin control.

Iraq has bought 200,000 tons of Russian hard milling wheat at $300 a ton. It is the second large sale of Russian wheat since July.

Despite a massive financial crisis afflicting rich countries, a one-day UN development conference witnessed a strong outpouring of aid from leaders both public and private to help the world's poorest nations.

Major charitable foundations, government leaders and businesses of all stripes joined forces Thursday to push for progress in ending poverty, hunger and fighting diseases, and warned that the ongoing financial turmoil was no reason to bring those efforts to a halt.

The pledges totalled $16 billion (10.9 billion euros) according to an initial UN estimate, including more than $3 billion to eradicate malaria, $2 billion to tackle an ongoing food crisis and $4.5 billion for educational programs.

Pirates off the coast of Somalia have seized a Ukrainian ship carrying T-72 tanks, an official has said.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said the ship had a crew of 21 and was sailing under a Belize flag to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

A report from Russia's Interfax news agency said earlier that the ship had a cargo of about 30 tanks, as well as spare parts for armoured vehicles.

YITZHAR, West Bank: A pipe bomb that exploded late on Wednesday night outside the Jerusalem home of Zeev Sternhell, a Hebrew University professor, left him lightly wounded and created only a minor stir in a nation that routinely experiences violence on a much larger scale.

But Sternhell was noted for his impassioned critiques of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, once suggesting that Palestinians "would be wise to concentrate their struggle against the settlements." And the authorities found fliers near his home offering nearly $300,000 to anyone who kills a member of Peace Now, a leftist Israeli advocacy group, leading them to suspect that militant Israeli settlers or their supporters were behind the attack.

If so, the bombing may be the latest sign that elements of Israel's settler movement are resorting to extremist tactics to protect their homes in the occupied West Bank against not only Palestinians, but also Jews who some settlers argue are betraying them. Radical settlers say they are determined to show that their settlements and outposts cannot be dismantled, either by law or by force.

Iraq's president Jalal Talabani, touting security gains in that country, has appealed to nations around the world to open diplomatic missions in Baghdad and drop sanctions left over from the Saddam Hussein era. The Iraqi leader was among speakers Thursday in the U.N. General Assembly's general debate. VOA's David Gollust reports from our U.N. bureau.

The Iraqi president says his government still has a long road ahead in its efforts to restore full peace to the country.

But in his U.N. speech, he highlighted incremental successes by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, and Diyala provinces, and said the government aims to take over security responsibilities for the entire country from U.S.-led multi-national troops by the end of this year.

Accordingly, Mr. Talabani appealed to the world community to recognize the security gains by reopening or establishing diplomatic missions in Baghdad and by increasing the level of representation at the handful of foreign missions already functioning there.

Russia stepped up efforts to project its increased might on the world stage on Friday, welcoming President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela by signing a $1 billion military loan to the country and announcing wide-ranging plans to modernize Russia's nuclear deterrence.

The Russian Navy also dispatched a warship to the Indian Ocean to try to intercept a Ukrainian vessel reportedly carrying 30 battle tanks that was seized by pirates. The United States also sent a warship in hot pursuit.

After a military exercise in the southern city of Orenburg, near the border with Kazakhstan, President Dmitri Medvedev declared Friday that by 2020 Russia would construct new types of warships, including nuclear submarines carrying cruise missiles, and an unspecified space defense system.

"A guaranteed nuclear deterrent system for various military and political circumstances must be provided by 2020," Medvedev said, in comments reported by Reuters.

Even in tough budget times, there are lines that cannot be crossed. So I was startled by this tidbit reported recently by The Associated Press: When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the small town began billing sexual-assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams.

Ms. Palin owes voters an explanation. What was the thinking behind cutting the measly few thousand dollars needed to cover the yearly cost of swabs, specimen containers and medical tests? Whose dumb idea was it to make assault victims and their insurance companies pay instead?
(...)
That's why when Senator Joseph Biden, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, drafted the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, he included provisions to make states ineligible for federal grant money if they charged rape victims for exams and the kits containing the medical supplies needed to conduct them. (Senator John McCain, Ms. Palin's running mate, voted against Mr. Biden's initiative, and his name has not been among the long list of co-sponsors each time the act has been renewed.)

Wachovia has begun preliminary talks with Citigroup about a potential merger, people briefed on the matter said Friday afternoon.

Feelers have also been extended between Wachovia and Wells Fargo and Spain's Banco Santander, these people said.

How fun. Back in the dark ages of this mess, say about six or nine months ago, Citi was the worst hit of the major banks. Now not only is nobody worried about them, they're even thinking of buying a big chunk of the shitpile to add to what they already have. As for Santander - I've read that the biggest Spanish national banks managed to isolate themselves relatively well from the fallout from their own housing bubble, with only the midsize and small ones in serious trouble. I guess they figure their American friends are having so much fun, they might as well join them.

NEW YORK -- George W. Bush governs by crisis interspersed with long periods of not governing at all. Only when disaster threatens or arrives does this president summon himself, Congress and the nation to act -- in haste and extremis rather than in reasoned unison.

This calamity is a global financial meltdown rather than the attacks of Sept. 11, the Iraq war's unraveling or Hurricane Katrina. But Bush's gun-to-the-head leadership style held constant last week. "My plan or apocalypse" was the choice he presented to Americans.

But all things end. Bush -- and the two candidates to succeed him -- needs to communicate that financial unilateralism is also a relic of bygone times. In this era of instant telecommunications and unfettered capital flows across borders, U.S. rescue plans will work in the long run only if they are accompanied by significant international regulatory reform and innovation.

This crisis suggests that newspapers are not the only species endangered by the telecommunications revolution. The ways in which stock markets, banks and insurance companies do business are also being rendered obsolete by the force of computers, fiber-optic networks and other instruments of globalization.

Yves Rossy, 49, who calls himself Fusionman because he is half man, half bird, made the 22 mile crossing from Calais to Dover in just under 15 minutes.

Reaching speeds in excess of 125 mph, the flight was so smooth the Swiss even had time to carry out a few loops over the British coastline before pulling the rip cord and parachuting to earth.

Mr Rossy, whose day job is an airline pilot, had to shelve his two previous attempts to enter the record books due to poor British weather but a blue autumn weather meant conditions were perfect today.

At 1.06pm the former military fighter pilot, who now works for Swiss International Air Lines, his folded wings attached to his back, high fived his crew and then dropped from a plane 8,000 feet above the French coast.

A regional cross-border newspaper for communities living near the Dutch-German border illustrates how relations between the populations have improved. The Schengen agreement has helped change the groups' attitudes toward one another.

The first issue of Buren (Neighbors) has just landed on the doormats of 400,000 residents in the region around Enschede on the Dutch-German border. The special collector's item, as the paper's editorial identifies itself, is a combined effort by the Dutch regional newspaper Twentsche Courant Tubantia, and the German titles Westfälische Nachrichten and Grafschafter Nachrichten.

FOUND IN ... This article has been provided courtesy of NRC Handelsblad. NRC Handelsblad and its companion Web site NRC.nl are two of the most respected brands in Dutch journalism.

Journalists from all three newspapers double as translators for each other's articles in Buren, which is published in both Dutch and German editions. The new paper was launched to celebrate 50 years of collaboration between the border communities in the area.

Close Relationships

The stories focus on the close relationships that have developed between the Dutch and the Germans over the years. "We've come up with some remarkable statistics," says Jan Haverkate, one of the Dutch journalists working on the project.

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Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

In a poll of 500 uncommitted voters

CBS Poll:

40% Obama Wins
38% Tie
22% McCain won

"Forty percent of uncommitted voters who watched the debate tonight thought Barack Obama was the winner. Twenty-two percent thought John McCain won. Thirty-eight percent saw it as a draw.

Forty-six percent of uncommitted voters said their opinion of Obama got better tonight.

Sixty-eight percent of uncommitted voters think Obama would make the right decisions about the economy. Forty-one percent think McCain would.

Forty-nine percent of these voters think Obama would make the right decisions about Iraq. Fifty-five percent think McCain would.

CNN Poll:

Obama won 51%
McCain won 38%

MediaCurves ran a Focus Group poll:

Independents in the MediaCurves focus group gave the debate to Obama 61-39. They also think he won every individual segment. Republicans gave the debate to McCain 90-10, Democrats to Obama 93-7."

Bottom Line: Foreign Policy was supposed to be McCain's strength.  He needed a blow-out win to start grabbing back the slow drift of Undecided to Obama.  He didn't.  He blew it.

If anything Obama will come out the winner.

McCain also made a huge mistake by mentioning his opposition to ethanol.  With Indiana and Missouri polling close, with the trend slightly towards Obama, he can't afford to offend/piss-off farmers in the Corn Belt.  Well.  He did.  Interesting to see how that plays out over the next week.

Och nu den svenska kocken bakar en Alaskan älg jägare. Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!

Nicolas Sarkozy's whirlwind romance with Carla Bruni, the supermodel who became his wife, is to be turned into a television drama.

But there was speculation in French media circles as to whether any big channel would risk the wrath of the President - close to several media tycoons - by buying it.

The film will be a mixed adaptation of two recent unauthorised biographies, for which television company Endemol has just bought the rights, charting the French first couple's lightning courtship and marriage.

One is called Ruptures (Break-ups) by Mickaël Darmon and Yves Derai - a play on words between Mr Sarkozy's pledge to "break" with past ways of governing, his divorce from ex-wife Cécilia, and Miss Bruni's break from her man-eating past.

The book recounts Mr Sarkozy's deteriorating relationship with his ex-wife, his election last year and ends with their separation.