Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has a bout of scarlet fever and will miss this week's EU summit in Brussels, his foreign minister says.

The minister, Franco Frattini, said he would attend instead of Mr Berlusconi.

Italian media reports say Mr Berlusconi, 73, has a mild form of the fever, which can result in a sore throat, high temperature and rash.

He is thought to have caught it from one of his grandchildren. Doctors have advised him not to travel yet

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has said that he "appreciates" the support shown by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Erdogan, who arrived in Tehran for bilateral talks on Tuesday, has accused Western nations of hypocrisy in criticising Iran's uranium enrichment programme while remaining silent on Israel, which is believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Ahmadinejad told Erdogan: "When an illicit regime possesses nuclear arms, one can not talk about depriving other nations from the peaceful nuclear programme.

The Czech Constitutional Court is considering a complaint against the European Union's reform treaty by 17 Eurosceptic senators who say the document would infringe Czech national sovereignty.

The Lisbon Treaty, which is meant to streamline decision-making in the bloc and give the EU greater clout on the world scene, has to be ratified by all 27 EU member states, with the Czech Republic the only country yet to do so.

Jan Fischer, the country's prime minister, said he did not expect the court to make an immediate decision on Tuesday and that a subsequent hearing would probably make the ruling.

The court has rejected a similar complaint before and most lawyers expect the complaint will be dismissed.

David Lammy, the intellectual property minister, has today warned that the UK cannot solve the problem of copyright piracy without the support of other European governments.

Lammy, speaking at the government's digital creative industries conference C&binet, said the UK has been stymied in its efforts to strengthen the enforcement of copyright because it is a "minority" player on the European stage.

"Some people tell me that content is national, they tell me the solutions lie in my backyard [but] this is not right, content is international," he added.

"Solutions lie internationally. For us, solutions lie in Europe. The UK must continue to encourage and support wider innovation and improve access to copyright works. But we can do relatively little domestically. A great deal of policy making is harmonised at European level and progress simply can't be made without a European consensus," Lammy said.

Two things that didn't end communism
Reagan and 'people power': The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall offers a chance to demolish some of the myths

...there is now a near-consensus among historians that Mr. Reagan's policies not only failed to end the Cold War, but probably prolonged it for several years beyond its likely end date, by propelling the most reactionary Communists into power.

"The more belligerent the United States became, in terms of Reagan's rhetoric and in terms of arms buildup, the stronger the hard-liners became in Moscow," Mr. Brown says.

"Whenever the Cold War became colder, the most militant Communists, the KGB and the military-industrial complex within the Soviet Union became stronger."

In fact, the collapse of communism was probably made possible, and certainly rendered peaceful and non-violent, by quite another set of Western policies - the kinds of policies that are finally being revisited today as an alternative approach to such authoritarian governments as those of Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

West German governments, starting with chancellor Willy Brandt in the 1970s, decided to meet the Communist East with engagement and aid, not confrontation.

These NeueOstpolitik ("new eastern policy") tactics provided targeted financial assistance and even bought hundreds of dissidents out of prison.

At the same time, the East European regimes had become linked to the West by borrowing tens of billions of dollars from petroleum-enriched banks. There was no talk of financial boycotts.

These two policies had an extraordinary effect. In public, Communist regimes were competing directly and aggressively with the market-oriented West. But behind the scenes, in places where it mattered, these regimes had become deeply dependent on the West.

Avoid the comments section...

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

Jan Guillou, number one journalist in Sweden (and well-known upper-class multimillionaire extremist, with a history of supporting everyone from Mao and PFLP to Saddam Hussein), has been shown to have been a KGB agent between at least 1967 and 1972, and was very possible tipped off by the KGB about the IB (according to retired senior KGB operative Boris Grigorjev), the secret Swedish intelligence agency which Guillou and two other fellows unveiled in 1973. This was the journalistic "discovery" of the century and launched Guillous career which has powered on since. It's even more fucked because Guillou later became friends with the old boss of the IB, who helped him write bestselling spy novels... It's really, really fucked up.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Der Tag, an dem Angela Merkel zur Kanzlerin gewählt wird, beginnt mit einer Nachricht, die weder die CDU-Chefin noch ihren künftigen Außenminister Guido Westerwelle erfreuen dürfte.

Eine Erhebung des Meinungsforschungsinstitutes Forsa macht deutlich, was das Wahlvolk von den von Merkel und Westerwelle abgesegneten Steuererleichterungen hält: Wenig.

Die in den Koalitionsgesprächen ausgehandelten Steuersenkungen auf Kosten des Staatshaushalts kommen bei den Deutschen nicht gut an. Nur 22 Prozent der Bundesbürger finden sie in der Umfrage für den stern verantwortlich, 69 Prozent - insbesondere die Anhänger der Oppositionsparteien - sind dagegen

Die größere Panne als der kleine Mikro-Unfall hatte Bundestagspräsident Norbert Lammert wenige Sekunden zuvor verkündet: Statt der 332 Abgeordneten von CDU, CSU und FDP haben lediglich 323 Abgeordnete für sie gestimmt. Neun Stimmen fehlten Merkel aus den eigenen Reihen. Denn beim Zählappell in den Fraktionen am Morgen waren noch alle da. "Auch wegbleiben ist eine Statement", schimpft danach einer aus der Unionsfraktion.

When the Treasury decided in the summer of 2003 that its five tests for entry into the euro had not been met, the subject was kicked deep into the political long grass and has remained there ever since.

That may change. The fact that Britain proceeded to grow faster and had lower unemployment than the big economies of euroland meant those who supported UK membership of the euro - including Tony Blair, now one of those tipped to be the European Union's first president - remained silent.

But with Germany and France poised to record strong growth in the third quarter and Italy looking well placed to return to growth, the question of whether Britain should join is being raised once again.

Vestas, the world's largest wind turbine maker, has reported a big jump in quarterly profits after increasing deliveries of turbines.

Net profit for July to September came in at 165m euros ($246m; £150m), up 70% on the 97m euros recorded a year ago.

Revenue rose to 1.81bn euros from 1.76bn euros a year ago.

Vestas workers staged a sit-in protest at its site in the Isle of Wight this summer, after the firm shut the factory there with the loss of 425 jobs.

It was a huge coalition effort, you can find the list of participants here: http://www.seiu.org/bigbanks/

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

Household Debt Can Hasten Recovery, When It Goes Unpaid

The gloomy forecasts, though, miss an important point: Debts have value only to the extent that they are being paid, and a rapidly rising number of U.S. households aren't doing so. Those defaults are leading to losses at banks, a wave of foreclosures, trouble for neighborhoods and strife for families. But they are also providing an immediate, albeit radical, form of debt relief.

"It's not ideal, because it carries other costs," said Karen Dynan, a consumer-finance specialist at the liberal Brookings Institution think tank who recently served as a senior adviser to the Federal Reserve. But it is "going to help get household balance sheets back to the right place."

If one accounts for defaults, U.S. households' debt burden is shrinking a lot faster than the official data suggest. First American CoreLogic, which tracks the performance of mortgage loans, estimates that some 9.3% of the nation's 52.4 million mortgage holders were 60 or more days behind on their payments as of July. That represents relief on about $1.2 trillion in loans. The official data miss most of that, because the Fed doesn't erase debts until banks have foreclosed, sold the homes and taken the loans off their books, a process that can drag out for more than a year.

As a result, some economists are expecting a sharp improvement as widely watched indicators of consumers' finances catch up to reality. Joseph Carson, director of global economic research at AllianceBernstein, expects the share of households' after-tax income that goes to pay loans, rent and other financial obligations to fall to 16.3% by the middle of next year, well below the average for the 20-year period leading up to the housing boom. As of June, it stood at 18.1%.

"It's part of the cleansing process of a downturn," he said. "And it's happening a lot faster than people realize."

Big Financial Firms Would Bear Cost of Failed Rivals Under Proposal

WASHINGTON -- Under a deal hashed out between the Treasury Department and a key House Democrat, financial firms with more than $10 billion of assets would have to pay for the rescue or unwinding of a collapsed competitor, people familiar with the matter said.

The move reflects an effort by Democrats to shift the burden of future financial crises away from taxpayers and toward the financial industry as they draft a new mechanism for taking over and breaking up large, failing companies.

The deal between the White House and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) is a major advance in the administration's effort to overhaul banking rules and is consistent with the administration's goal of preventing financial institutions from becoming too big.

A tug of war has begun at the top of the government over the future of Northern Rock as senior figures argue that the Treasury's planned sell-off should be stopped so that the ailing bank can instead be turned into a building society owned by its customers.

The move would mean forgoing a potential £11bn windfall for taxpayers but some cabinet ministers and No 10 officials believe this option is preferable to selling the bank to a rival or refloating on the stock market since it would leave the bank less prone to instability and financial risk.

However, there are concerns within the Treasury, which needs to reduce public debt and claw back some of the £25bn of taxpayer money which was used to bail out the bank in 2008.

The final decision will be taken by ministers but they want to win the support of UKFI, the company set up to run the nationalised banks after last year's crash. Senior government sources believe there is a convincing case that taxpayers would benefit in the long term if a remutualised Northern Rock were able to help less well-off customers get low-interest loans.

The plans are meeting resistance from those who want the bank sold off by a Labour government to prove the rescue of Northern Rock was the right thing to do.

However the policy is appealing to Labour strategists beginning to coalesce around the rolling out of mutuals, and cooperatives across other areas of the public services as a policy platform for Labour's future; and politically appealing, as they think it will test David Cameron's reforming credentials for banking .

Well, I still think that there is another way of doing it - a Northern Rock Partnership

It's Not Northern Rocket Science as I said here as the Northern Wreck hit the rocks, and it would be a lot more straightforward to set up such a partnership now.

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

An EU crackdown on banks too big to fail appears to have begun with ING having to sell its insurance and investment management business, as demanded by the European Commission.

In the EU executive's boldest move yet, ING has been told to divest its insurance business, worth approximately 12-15bn euros. The bank has been asked to focus solely on banking in a break-up that will almost halve its balance sheet.

The Commission's move against the bank is causing a stir in the banking sector. Its demands are being interpreted by observers, and further interventions are expected in the coming weeks. Among the predicted targets are Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), whose restructuring plans are currently under scrutiny at the Commission.

A spokesperson for RBS in the UK said the bank is currently in talks with the British Treasury and the European Commission, but did not know when to expect a decision from the EU.

Bolero has signed an agreement with commodities firm Noble Group, which will enable the company to implement Bolero's multi-bank trade finance service on a global basis in support of both Letters of Credit and Guarantees.

The global roll-out will start in Hong Kong and will then expand to Noble's other primary centres in Singapore, Lausanne, Stamford, USA and London. The Bolero multi-bank service enables the automation of the end-to-end lifecycle of the Letter of Credit and Guarantee instruments for both Importers and Exporters and their banks.

The roll-out of this solution will allow Noble Group to better manage its Trade Finance operations and significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of communication with its partner banks on a global basis. By standardising on the use of Bolero with all core banks, Noble has the opportunity to provide regional and global consolidation and standardisation of its trade finance operations as well as removing time, cost and inefficiency from the processes. By using Bolero, Noble will ensure efficiency and standardisation benefits for its banks partners at the same time.

"A significant number of our core partner banks are already live on the Bolero channel and we anticipate our decision will help to strengthen this commitment as well as to influence other banks to adopt this open platform," says says a spokesperson from Noble Group's Treasury Department.

"Noble Group is a recognized leader with global presence that will add to the significant number of global corporates standardising on the Bolero channel. This, in turn will help to signal to banks globally the increased convergence on Bolero and the benefits to both communities in adoption of a common open multi-bank channel," says Claire Buchanan,, SVP, Global Field Operations at Bolero.

"We are delighted to be partnering with Noble Group. Noble is particularly important to us at Bolero because of its global presence as well as its significant operations in Asia where we are seeing a rapidly increasing focus on multi-bank trade finance from both corporates and their banks," says Arthur Vonchek, CEO of Bolero. *

Nope, nothing to do with Ravel or Bo Derek.

BOLERO is about electronic transfers of title in respect of goods in transit, and the arcane legal documents known as 'Bills of Lading', Letters of Credit and so on. This is the sort of global legal plumbing that you don't notice until it clogs up and the shit overflows, as it briefly did a year or so ago.

I was in there in the beginning maybe about 15 years ago, because at the IPE I dealt with transfers of title relating to barge deliveries of gas oil in the Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp area and down the Rhine.

The BOLERO Rule Book is a document (which they even patented I think....) which comprises a globally valid contractual framework for transfers of title.

Not a million miles away from the sort of stuff I'm doing today, actually.

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith

If anyone wants to know why CNBC anchors are so pale and nervous these days, look no further. As Comcast CEO Brian Roberts considers what to keep and what to, well, cut, post his digestion of NBC Universal (assuming deal rumors are true naturally) his eyes likely cast casual nervous glances at Nielsen reports of CNBC viewership. Yet his nervousness is quite minor compared to what actual employees must be feeling after Nielsen reported a 50% plunge in CNBC vierwership in October year over year. Specially, CNBC has experienced a massive 52% decline in overall viewers during business day hours (5 am - 7 pm), and a not much better 49% drop in its demo (25-54) in the month of October as compared to last year. Specific shows that are likely to follow the fate of Dennis Kneale's recently cancelled 8pm gobbledygook are likely the Kudlow Report and Mad Money, which are down 59% and 56%, respectively.

While one can speculate about the causes of the drop (call it readers who can read between the propganda teleprompter lines), one thing the drop does explain is why CNBC has had to recently resort to advertising products for incontinence among other bodily malfunctions.

This just goes to show how much good planning in the form of strong lobbying efforts, massive campaign contributions, and big tips to the staff can give you a better position at the table. It makes all the difference in the US free-wheeling market for taxpayer funds.

There will be more players rolling over, and the poorly connected, broken banks will come staggering back from the land of green shoots with leaking balance sheets and bleeding income statements. The big Banks will keep taking chips and tips from Ben and Tim, a little peek at the hole cards, a friendly dealer on the flop, until the time comes to turn over that last river card, and move on to a differet town and a new game.

Where's GMAC at this table? Are you kidding me? They are outside parking cars.

The government wants allegations that it was complicit in the torture by the US of Britons held as terrorism suspects to be heard in secret.

In documents seen by the Guardian, lawyers for the government argue it must be allowed to present evidence to the high court with the public excluded, otherwise Britain's relations with other countries and its national security could be damaged. The government also wants its evidence kept secret from defence lawyers.

Lawyers for seven men who are now all back in the UK after the US released them without charge will tomorrow go to the high court in London to fight the government's attempt, which they say is designed to cover the embarrassment of ministers and the security services.

Eight US soldiers have been killed in bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, say Nato-led forces.

An Afghan civilian was also killed in what were called "multiple complex IED attacks" - or improvised bombs.

The deaths make October the deadliest month for American forces in the eight-year war in Afghanistan.

On Monday 11 soldiers were among 14 Americans killed in multiple air crashes. In total 55 US troops have died in October, the Pentagon says.

A US diplomat has resigned from his post in protest over the US-led war in Afghanistan, becoming the first US official to step down over the conflict since it began eight years ago.

Matthew Hoh, the senior state department official in Aghanistan's Zabul province, said in a letter released on Tuesday that he had "lost understanding of, and confidence in, the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan".

"I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end," the letter, which was dated September 10, said.

Arkadi Gaydamak, a Russian-born Israeli businessman and Pierre Falcone, his French associate, have been sentenced to six-year jail terms for organising the illegal trafficking of weapons to Angola.

Gaydamak, who fled France before the trial, and Falcone were among 42 politicians, businessmen and members of the Paris elite accused of defying a UN embargo to arm the Angolan government during a civil war in the 1990s.

Charles Pasqua, France's former interior minister, was handed a one-year jail term on Tuesday for his involvement in the case dubbed "Angola-gate".

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son of France's late president, was handed a two-year suspended sentence and fined $550,000 for receiving commissions linked to the illegal arms deals.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has said that he "appreciates" the support shown by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, over Tehran's nuclear programme.

Erdogan, who arrived in Tehran for bilateral talks on Tuesday, has accused Western nations of hypocrisy in criticising Iran's uranium enrichment programme while remaining silent on Israel, which is believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Ahmadinejad told Erdogan: "When an illicit regime possesses nuclear arms, one can not talk about depriving other nations from the peaceful nuclear programme.

The family of a British couple feared to have been seized by Somali pirates while sailing near the Seychelles said they are praying for their safety.

Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 58 and 55, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, sent a distress signal on Friday from the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles.

A possible yacht sighting, about 200 miles to the east of the Somali port of Haradheere, is being investigated.

Mr Chandler's sister Jill Marshment said it was "like a bad dream".

"[I] just can't believe it's happened but I'm afraid it does happen," she said.

"I'm sure they will come out of it alright... and they will do the best they can.

Reporting from Mexico City -  Representatives of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and the de facto government that replaced him in a coup returned to negotiations Monday, but the two sides remained deadlocked over whether to return Zelaya to power.

Both delegations had suggested Monday as a deadline for resolving the dispute, or calling off talks altogether. De facto President Roberto Micheletti abruptly announced Friday that the Supreme Court was the body that should decide whether to reinstate Zelaya. The head of Zelaya's team, Victor Meza, called the proposal "absurd" and countered that the Congress should make the decision, arguing that returning Zelaya to office was a political matter, not a judicial one.

The Supreme Court has endorsed the coup, and Zelaya's supporters do not trust it to be an impartial arbiter. The Congress also signed off on the coup and voted Micheletti into office, but Zelaya may believe there is more room for political jockeying among legislators. Micheletti's representatives favor deferring to the court because they want Zelaya to be brought to trial immediately on various charges, including abuse of power.

The two sides have agreed on all other points in a plan drafted in July by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, including a decision to forgo amnesty for people involved in the coup and the events leading up to it. But the final point, Zelaya's reinstatement, appears to be the deal-breaker.

Reporting from Mexico City -  Words can hardly convey how vicious, how over the top, Mexico's drug war has become. So they invented some.
....

Herewith a partial, albeit macabre, narco-glossary:

Levanton: the kidnapping of one or more members of a rival gang, or other enemy. Unlike traditional kidnappings, the point is not ransom, but to torture and kill a foe. Victims of a multiple levanton may end up fusilados.

Fusilados: from the Spanish for rifle, to be executed in the style of a firing squad, or with a shot to the head, known as a tiro de gracia. This occurred in an attack at a Ciudad Juarez drug-treatment clinic in early September.

Encajuelado: Based on the word for "trunk," a body dumped in the trunk of a car. This is a common method of disposing of victims of a drug hit. Often, the bodies are bound and gagged with packing tape or are encobijados, wrapped in blankets. Sometimes they are accompanied by a handwritten narcomensaje.

Narcomensaje: A scrawled drug message, often rambling or peppered with misspellings. Such missives are typically meant to threaten rival drug cartels or government security forces. Messages sometimes take the form of banners, known as narcomantas, and hung from bridges or in other public places to demonstrate a gang's audacity.

The Taliban brought their insurgency to the heart of Kabul this morning when militants stormed a guest house used by United Nation's employees which left six people dead.

At the same time a rocket attack on an exclusive hotel favoured by foreigners sent guests scurrying into secure underground bunkers and forced police to shut off large sections of the centre of the capital.

The assault on the UN approved Bekhtar Guesthouse in one of Kabul's most expensive neighbourhoods began in the early hours of the morning, and according to some people in the neighbourhood, involved at suicide bombers.

Such so-called "swarm attacks" have increasingly become a favoured tactic my militants operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A UN spokesman said six employees had been killed but was unable to confirm claims that some of the residents worked for UN Elect, the agency supporting the country's presidential election's which are due to go into their second round on November 7 despite threats by the Taliban to disrupt polling.

The UN also said nine people had been injured in the attack and this morning issued its "white city" order, confining all staff to their guest houses and banning all movement around the city until further notice.

Yesterday, a New Jersey paper reported that an angry young woman had splashed purple paint all over two people in Clifton, N.J., who were passing out pamphlets that depicted President Obama as a fascist.

The paper reported that, according to Clifton Police, the pamphleteers were working for the political action committee of Hoffmann-La Roche, a pharmaceutical corporation that has a large campus in the same town.

[...]

But, as police told TPM today, they were mistaken. Further investigation showed the pamphleteers were actually supporters of fringe political figure Lyndon LaRouche.

Senator Barbara Boxer released a 923-page draft of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act over the weekend, the Senate version of climate and energy legislation, for the first time specifying emissions allocations and costs proposed in the bill.

"We've reached another milestone as we move to a clean energy future, creating millions of jobs and protecting our children from dangerous pollution," Boxer, chairperson of the Environmental and Public Works Committee, who wrote the bill with Senator John Kerry, said on Friday.

Australians may have to leave coastal areas as rising sea levels threaten homes, according to a new report.

The parliamentary committee report says urgent action is needed, as seas are expected to rise by 80cm (31 inches).

About 80% of Australians live in coastal areas, and the report recommends new laws banning further development in coastal regions.

Correspondents say the authorities are divided over whether to retreat from rising seas or defend the coastline.

A study by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang of the World Bank looked at the relative importance of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses from oil, natural gas, and coal compared to the life cycle and supply chain emissions of domesticated animals raised for food. They conclude that greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the lifecycle and supply chain of animals raised for food account for 51% of annual emissions caused by humans and should be given higher priority in global efforts to fight climate change. 

Your leader column claims that the "nuclear renaissance" does not make sense on financial grounds (Nuclear power: A bung by any other name, 19 October). However, there is a growing collation of support among the public, politicians of the main parties, industry, scientists and regulators, who recognise nuclear is needed as part of the answer to keep the lights on and tackle climate change.

This was demonstrated in the last two weeks alone by reports from organisations as diverse as the Committee on Climate Change, Ofgem and the CBI. Among this coalition there is recognition that new nuclear can play its part without subsidy from taxpayers.

As a company looking to develop four new reactors in the UK, we have never sought subsidies. Our plans for this much-needed investment are viable without a penny of taxpayers' money.

EU leaders are set for difficult talks as they meet this week (29-30 October) to reach an agreement on funding under a new climate treaty ahead of the UN-led Copenhagen conference in December.

As Copenhagen approaches, the pressure is on to find consensus at the highest political level on the exact figures that the EU is willing to put on the table to secure a new climate treaty. The bloc has been postponing the decision since last spring, and the June summit settled on hammering out all the details at the October European Council.

Nevertheless, it appears increasingly unlikely that EU heads of state and government will be able to present concrete sums to fund emissions reductions and climate adaptation measures in developing countries after finance ministers last week failed to find agreement. The talks stalled on objections from Eastern European member states, which want upfront funding before the climate treaty starts in 2013 to be voluntary.

Chelsea Hodge: If 95 percent of Italians, some of earth's most fashion-conscious inhabitants, don't own a dryer, then why are Americans so adamant about tumble drying their clothes?

The tumble dryer is the second largest energy-consuming appliance and the leading cause of house fires among appliances. There is no such sense as an Energy Star dryer; these machines are inherently inefficient, using natural gas or electricity to heat air. ...

Alexander P. Lee is executive director of Project Laundry List: In Italy, only about three or four percent of households own a dryer. In Denmark, newly constructed student housing included space for indoor drying. In China, the bamboo shaft is still a ubiquitous clothesline. In the United States, approximately 80 percent of households own a dryer. Project Laundry List believes, from anecdotal evidence, that the vast majority of families can see a 10 to 20 percent savings on their electric bill by going cold turkey and setting up a clothesline or drying rack. ...

I have become a fan of hang-drying laundry since moving to Tokyo seven years ago and now China for two years.  A friend in the U.S. suggests that this infatuation will end as soon as I have toddlers (apparently these generate an amount of laundry totally out of proportion with their small body sizes).

La Chine dorme. Laisse la dormir. Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera.

Obama to detail stimulus spending on 'smart grid' A $3.4-billion chunk will go toward grants to modernize the U.S. power system to more easily use renewable resources.

Reporting from Washington -  President Obama and administration officials today will announce $3.4 billion in spending projects to modernize the nation's electric power system.

The president will offer details on funding for the "smart grid" during an appearance at a solar plant in Arcadia, Fla. White House officials said the projects would create tens of thousands of jobs in the near term and lay the groundwork for changing how Americans use and pay for energy.

The spending is aimed at improving the efficiency and reliability of the U.S. power supply, and helping to create markets for wind and solar power, officials said. They also said it would create "smart meters" to help consumers use electricity when demand is low and when rates are cheaper -- for example, by running dishwashers and other energy-thirsty appliances in the middle of the night.

The money will be released in the form of grants to applicants and must be matched dollar for dollar by private funding.

Companies and industries in the Päijät-Häme region that use grains are the suppliers of raw material for the plant. Much of the waste from processes at bakeries, shops, breweries and distilleries are suitable for ethanol production. Leftover dough and the mix of yeast, sugar and alcohol remaining from beer brewing at the nearby Hartwall brewery go into making fuel.

Up to now, much of this waste has gone into animal feed, landfill or down the sewer. Hartwall's R&D Director Jorma Rasi has been leading the "grain cluster" group providing raw materials to the plant.

In the build-up to the Copenhagen climate change summit, US Senator John Kerry tells Sarah Smith that the US climate targets "may be at the lower end" then what was hoped for.

US negotiators can sign up to an emissions reduction deal in Copenhagen in December, even though the American climate change bill won't be signed into law by then.

That's what Channel 4 News has been told in an exclusive interview with John Kerry, the top Democrat sponsoring the bill.

But Senator Kerry warned that the carbon reduction target set by the US "may be at the lower end of what we can pass" - an indication that it could be as low as 17 per cent on 2005 levels.

Does running a marathon push the body further than it is meant to go?

The conventional wisdom is that distance running leads to debilitating wear and tear, especially on the joints. But that hasn't stopped runners from flocking to starting lines in record numbers.

Last year in the United States, 425,000 marathoners crossed the finish line, an increase of 20 percent from the beginning of the decade, Running USA says. Next week about 40,000 people will take part in the New York City Marathon. Injury rates have also climbed, with some studies reporting that 90 percent of those who train for the 26.2-mile race sustain injuries in the process.

News here.

"Hidden Cost of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use," estimates dollar values for several major components of these costs. The damages the committee was able to quantify were an estimated $120 billion in the U.S. in 2005 - a number that primarily reflects health damages from air pollution associated with electricity generation and motor vehicle transportation. The figure does not include damages from climate change; harm to ecosystems; effects of some air pollutants, such as mercury; and risks to national security, which the report examines but does not monetize.

Free Exec Summary here.

Coal comes in at over $30/MWh, with climate effects adding another $30/MWh.  Grain of salt as i've just received this.  

Skennah Kowa

CNN, which invented the cable news network more than two decades ago, will hit a new competitive low with its prime-time programs in October, finishing fourth - and last - among the cable news networks with the audience that all the networks rely on for their advertising.

The official monthly numbers will be finalized at 4 p.m. Monday and will include results from Friday. CNN executives conceded that will not change the competitive standing for the month. CNN will still be last in prime time.

That means CNN's programs were behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but even its own sister network HLN (formerly Headline News.) Three of its four shows between 7 and 11 p.m. finished fourth and last among the cable news networks. That was the first time CNN had finished that poorly with its prime-time shows.

Government claims that the ID Card scheme will be self-financing are "completely deluded", the Tories have claimed today.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling launched the attack as the Home Office released its twice-yearly estimates on the multibillion-pound project's cost to the Exchequer.

His opposite number on the government benches, Alan Johnson, claimed that voluntary take-up will cover the £835m it is estimated the ID Cards themselves will cost.

The cards are expected to cost the public £30 each, so on the Home Secretary's reckoning, 28 million people - almost half the population of the UK - will come forward.

The fate of the London Lite newspaper appears uncertain after its publisher said it was considering its future, "which may result in closure".

Associated Newspapers said it would consult 36 London Lite employees before making a final decision.

Associated voiced concerns about the "commercial viability" of the paper.

Earlier this month, the Evening Standard started being given away for free in London. In September, the free London Paper ceased publication.

"The latest development in the London afternoon free newspaper space dictates that we look again at the future of London Lite," said Steve Auckland, managing director of Associated Newspapers free division.

The French branch of the Church of Scientology has been fined $900,000 for defrauding vulnerable followers, a Paris court has ruled.

But the group, which is officially considered a sect in France, was not banned from operating in the country.

The group's lawyer said they would appeal against Tuesday's verdict.

The court convicted six group leaders, the Scientology's Celebrity Centre, and its bookshop of organised fraud for preying financially on followers in the 1990s.

Investigators said the group pressured members into paying large sums of money for questionable financial gain and used "commercial harassment" against recruits.

A minimum wage of £7.45 per hour, coupled with corporation tax cut for small and medium size businesses is economically viable in the UK. It would lift millions of adults out of poverty, and children too. The current minimum wage of £5.73 per hour coupled with zero tax paid, is not enough to live on for one person, and falls below the poverty level of pay according to many studies and the general public Luxembourg has a minimum wage €9.08 per hour which is £8.26 per hour, or £17,173 a year. France has a minimum wage of €8.71 per hour (£7.92 per hour) and Ireland has a minimum wage of €8.65 per hour (£7.87 per hour). So a minimum wage of £7.45 per hour is hardly radical.

The current strategy of reducing child poverty heavily relies on increasing the amount of child benefits paid out, in real terms, relative to the median wage and inflation. This further and further incentivizes couples and women to have children simply in order to receive state benefits. This increases the number of children born into low income households, uses up government revenue and creates a benefits culture and destroys social cohesion.

Iceland is the country that has made the most progress in closing the gender gap - knocking Norway off the top spot - a World Economic Forum survey said.

Across the 134 countries surveyed, most progress was made in closing the health and schooling divide in the past year.

But 60% of the pay and work status divide and only 17% of the political involvement gap has been closed.

The WEF measures progress in the areas of politics, education, economy and health for the report.

Labour MP Barry Sheerman tells More 4 News that the system of providing 1.6 million pupils with special educational needs (SEN) is in need of significant change and has urged Children's Secretary Ed Balls to act now.

Sheerman, who chairs the influential education and skills select committee, has already clashed with the Children's Secretary as recently as last week, over the appointment of a children's commissioner when he described him as a bully.

Sheerman's latest call comes in advance of an inquiry into schooling for special needs pupils, whose problems may range from mild learning difficulties to serious disabilities.

At 92 years old, Alfred Donovan is an unlikely online campaigner. But he and his son John, 62, have been a painful thorn in the side of Royal Dutch Shell for more than a decade. The pair run one of the oldest and most effective "gripe sites", and the oil giant's army of well-paid lawyers do not know how to neutralise them.

The number of so-called "gripe sites", which exist to criticise, mock, and generally annoy companies, people, and institutions, has exploded in recent years, and the trend is set to continue.

Take this month's campaign against the super-injunction obtained by the lawyers Carter Ruck on behalf of Trafigura. Thousands of Twitter users, empowered and astonished at the campaign's success, are expected to look afresh at how the internet can be used to fight against big business.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum captured the nation's attention when they were defendants in the RIAA's first two trials against accused online infringers. But here's the mind-warping reality: both defendants would have been far better off monetarily if they had simply ignored the complaint altogether and failed to show up in court.

That counterintuitive logic played out again this week in Massachusetts, where federal judge Nancy Gertner issued four default judgments against accused P2P file-swappers who never bothered to respond to the charges against them. Their failure to appear meant an automatic loss, and though the judge does have some discretion in setting penalties, judges often pick the minimum awards in such cases.

Apple's iPhone 3GS is driving its market share higher and higher, according to a new study from ChangeWave Research.

The firm surveyed 4,255 consumers in September, and found 39% of them now have a smartphone, which is up from 37% from July and almost double from a year ago.

As more people buy smartphones, the iPhone 3GS is taking share, while Research In Motion is stalling. And yes, it looks ugly for Palm, but at least it has leveled off. Too bad it looks like Google's Android is about to eat it alive.

Philip Collins in The Times today expounds brilliantly on why David Cameron's "progressive conservatism" is a contradiction in terms:

In his conference speech in Manchester this month, Mr Cameron made the intriguing claim that, in the very act of reducing the size of the State, a future Conservative government would improve the condition of the poor. When the State withdraws, he argued, the wounds of society heal over. The main problem of the poor, by this argument, is not that they have too little money but that they have too much government.

Well, it's a view. We will all somehow make ourselves better. The naivety would be touching if it wasn't so irritating. The Conservative conference was full of earnest young people pointing out that they had just discovered something called "the poor" that the Labour Government had shamefully failed.

He was listed as target X, a so-called domestic extremist included on a secret police spotter card as a regular attender at anti-arms demonstrations.

But today it emerged that X was not quite the threat police took him for - at least to the arms industry. In fact he was an alleged infiltrator from the arms company BAE.

The 2005 spotter card, published by the Guardian this week, contains a photograph of Martin Hogbin, who was national co-ordinator for the Campaign against the Arms Trade. He was later accused of supplying information to a company linked to BAE's security department, but denied the allegation.

When asked about his past today, Hogbin said: "I couldn't possibly comment." He added that he had attended demonstrations because he thought the arms trade was "wrong"

Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, warned internet users today that the days of "consequence-free" illegal filesharing are over as he unveiled the government's plan for cracking down on online piracy.

Mandelson, speaking at the government's digital creative industries conference, C&binet, confirmed that the internet connections of persistent offenders could be blocked - but only as a last resort from the summer of 2011.

He added that a "legislate and enforce" strategy was the only way to protect the intellectual property rights of content producers.

The launch of a prototype rocket designed to replace the aging shuttle has been delayed by bad weather.

The slender, 100m-tall Ares I-X vehicle was supposed to test technology crucial for the development of a manned craft.

A combination of high wind speeds and clouds contributed to Nasa's decision to scrub the launch at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

The experimental craft has two further four-hour launch windows between 0800 and 1200 EDT on 28 and 29 October.

The craft is the first new launch vehicle that Nasa has designed and built in more than three decades.

Halloween just got a lot less magical for a group of Harry Potter fans in London. Warner Brothers cracked down on a planned Harry Potter-themed dinner run out of the home of a London woman using the name "Ms. Marmite Lover," informing her that references to Diagon Alley and different foods from the book constituted copyright infringement. "While we are delighted you are such a fan of the Harry Potter series," said a letter from the company, "unfortunately your proposed use of the Harry Potter properties...without our consent would amount to an infringement of Warner's rights."

(and perhaps some consultants as well.  So cool for hot summers, and only 10 times as expensive!)

Skennah Kowa

What's it all about? The winner of the THE Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award has distilled ten facts of university life to share

It was Wallace Stanley Sayre, a political scientist at Columbia University, who reportedly came up with the most famous law of academic politics: the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.

Anyone involved in sorting out university car-parking will recognise the law's truth.

Now Sir David Watson, professor of higher education management at the Institute of Education and winner of Times Higher Education's 2009 Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award, has condensed his observations of the sector into nine rules of his own.

Watson's "Laws of Academic Life" are:

* Academics grow in confidence the farther away they are from their true fields of expertise (what you really know about is provisional and ambiguous, what other people do is clear-cut and usually wrong)