At the EU-Russia Summit today Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner and the Russian Minister for Regional Development, Viktor Basargin, signed the Financing Agreements for five cross-border co-operation programmes (CBC). These financing agreements are central to the implementation of cooperation programmes between the border regions of the European Union and Russia. The programmes have a total budget of approximately €437 million until 2013, and are funded by different sources: European Commission (€267 mio), Member States (€67 mio) and the Russian Federation (€103 mio). The co-financing by the Russian Federation confirms the spirit of partnership at the core of the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI).

...

The innovative character of this kind of cooperation lies in its balanced partnership: for the first time partner countries and EU member states apply a single set of implementing rules, share one single budget and take decisions together within a common management structure. Common needs are identified by local partners on both sides of the border for activities that are most relevant to their local situation, creating an approach from the bottom and according to real needs.

The programmes involving Russia are:

• "Kolarctic-Russia" (Sweden Finland, Norway, Russia) - €70.48 mio

• "Karelia-Russia" (Finland, Russia) - €46.40 mio

• "South East Finland-Russia" (Finland, Russia) - €72.36 mio

• "Estonia-Latvia-Russia" - €73.08 mio

• "Lithuania-Poland-Russia" (the Kaliningrad programme) - €176.13 mio

With more than 11 million new fixed lines laid in a year, the take up of broadband internet continues to grow in Europe. According to a report published today by the European Commission, 24% of the EU population had a broadband access line subscription in July 2009, up from 21.6% in July 2008. The report also shows that mobile broadband is gaining momentum in Europe, with a 54% increase since January and now at a penetration rate of 4.2% per 100 citizens. Last but not least, broadband internet connections in Europe are increasingly faster. 80% of broadband lines in the EU now have download speeds of 2 megabits per second (Mbps) or greater (allowing the use of Web 2.0 and video streaming), which is 5% up from last year.

"Despite the economic slowdown, Europe continues to have a very dynamic broadband market. Enhanced competition is driving better services, and consumers nowadays regard their broadband internet access as an essential part of life, " said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding. "This is a good starting point for the next European Commission. Vibrant high-speed broadband markets in a competitive single telecoms market are a strategic priority in the European Digital Agenda that is currently being prepared in the Commission. High-speed internet broadband, whether via fibre networks or wireless, is a pre-condition for a strong digital economy in Europe and for European leadership in new technologies and applications. After the European Parliament and the Council have agreed, on 5 November, a new and pro-competitive regulatory framework for Europe's telecoms markets ( MEMO/09/491 ), I expect that the drive for the roll-out of high speed internet will now intensify across all EU Member States. Europe is clearly ready to make the next decade thoroughly digital."

New figures published today by the Commission show that in the last year the number of broadband lines continued to grow throughout the EU by 10.7% on average (between July 2008 and July 2009), despite the gloomy economic environment . On 1 July 2009, there were around 120 million fixed broadband lines in the EU, of which 11.5 million lines have been added since July 2008.

Commissioner Borg said: "The Council's continued support for an integrated approach to maritime affairs is a fitting way in which to bring the first phase of the Integrated Maritime Policy to a close. Now we can set about taking this ambitious policy to a new level. In response to the Council's requests, we will now open the IMP out still further, in order to address the medium- and long-term challenges for Europe's seas and coasts and focus on economic growth, quality jobs, environmental protection, safety and security, and citizens' well-being."

On maritime surveillance, the Commissioner added: "By welcoming the Commission's Communication and endorsing our approach, the Council has yet further confirmed that the integration of maritime surveillance is on the right track, and fully deserves its place at the heart of our Integrated Maritime Policy. It is clear that all concerned parties share the conviction that integrated maritime surveillance will deliver benefits across the board, through better use and effectiveness of existing resources, which will also result in cost effectiveness."

The GAERC Council called on the Commission to maintain the momentum behind the Integrated Maritime Policy. It pointed to the need to enhance the economic potential of maritime sectors, improve the effectiveness of governments' actions at sea and generate synergies in pursuing economic growth, environmental stability and a solid social dimension for maritime activities.

A Franco-German alliance behind the appointment of Europe's first president has been exposed after a diplomat inadvertently revealed Angela Merkel's preferred choice.

Berlin's silence over whom it backs for the new job was broken by Reinhard Bettzuege, the German Ambassador to Belgium, who let slip that his Chancellor was behind Herman Van Rompuy, the Belgian Prime Minister. Mr Van Rompuy has emerged as favourite to become the EU's first full-time president, overtaking Tony Blair.

Ms Merkel admitted what President Sarkozy has been claiming for weeks: that Paris and Berlin will agree on their candidates before tonight's summit of the 27 leaders in Brussels to select the president and EU foreign minister, another post that has been created by the Lisbon treaty.

Under the new rules national vetoes have been abolished and any vote on the candidates would be based on a qualified majority -- with large countries counting for much more than smaller ones. The deal completes a revival of the Franco-German axis, which was the centre of the EU before its enlargement to include countries from the former Eastern bloc.

Russia has made a surprise pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions at a summit with European Union officials in Sweden. Energy issues and Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization were also high on the agenda. 

EU officials have said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has vowed to cut his country's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The announcement came after a summit between European Union officials and the Russian president designed to lay the groundwork for a new economic and political partnership between Moscow and Brussels.

Medvedev did not comment publicly on the new emissions target but European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said "with the Copenhagen conference starting in just over two weeks we have made very important progress today.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, a leading candidate to win the presidency of the European Council, is strongly opposed to Turkey ever joining the European Union.

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe," Mr Van Rompuy said during a meeting of the Council of Europe on the subject of Turkey's possible entry into the EU, held in the Belgian parliament on December, 2004.

The Belgian leader believes Turkey would threaten Europe's 'Christian values'

During the speech, the Belgian leader underscored Europe's Christian "fundamental values," which would be undermined by admitting Turkey into the union.

"An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past. The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey," the then opposition politician said in a speech that until now has remained buried.

Russia imposed the moratorium after it joined the Council of Europe in 1996 and signed the European Convention on Human Rights, but it has not ratified the document yet.

"This decision is final and shall not be appealed," court chairman Valery Zorkin said reading out the ruling.

Zorkin said the moratorium on executions will be in place until Russian parliament ratifies Protocol 6 to the European Convention banning the death penalty.

1. On Monday, boarding bus for the countryside in Zalaegerszeg, Western Hungary, two young men got into an argument and scuffle. One of them went to the bus driver claiming to have lost a teeth, and asked for calling the police. The bus driver saw no  lost teeth and police didn't see reason to come either, so the guy left the bus upset.

   However, a few kilometers later, the bus was stopped by a civilian car. Two men in civilian clothes boarded the bus. They claimed to be police investigators, but showed no identifications, only a pistol on the belt. They took the second conflict party.

   Said boy, a Roma, was thrown out at a tank station, and reported that he was insulted, beaten, his ID card and cell phone were taken, and told to shut up or face a repeat performance.

   The two fake policemen were caught today.

2. Two weeks ago, an elderly German couple disappeared in Mohács, Southern Hungary. After tracking the movements of people they knew, on Monday, police found the wife buried 5 m deep, later the husband 6 m deep. Arrested for the crime: two middle-aged men and a woman in her twenties, all Germans who moved here a few years ago just like the elderly couple. Motive as yet unrevealed.

The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has 28 more cases to review after a wave of taxpayer-funded rescues following the credit crises, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said today in Brussels. The commission is forcing banks that received state aid to sell assets to prevent them from gaining an unfair advantage.

Today's "decisions all demonstrate that the commission takes seriously its role as guarantor of EU state aid rules and the single market, the fair level playing field," Kroes said at a news conference. "The restructuring of the banks will ensure their long-term viability."

...

Kroes last week said she wasn't a "bank destroyer" and sought to change the "arrogant" culture of banks. Her office is reviewing restructuring plans for dozens of banks, including Northern Rock Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

In the construction sector, seasonally adjusted production 1 decreased by 1.1% in both the euro area 2 (EA16) and the EU27 2 in September 2009, compared with the previous month. In August 3 , production rose by 0.1% in the euro area , but fell by 0.1% in the EU27 .

Compared with September 2008, output in September 2009 dropped by 8.0% in the euro area and by 9.4% in the EU27 .

These first estimates are released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities .

We could cushion the impact of another big downward shock by a lot more deficit spending--unemployment, after all, goes down whenever anybody spends more (even though sometimes falling unemployment comes at too-high a price in rising inflation), and the government's money is as good as anybody else's. But the centrist Democratic legislative caucus has now dug in its heels behind the position that we cannot undertake more deficit spending right now because we have a dire structural health-care financing proble afrer 2030. The Republican legislative causes has now dug in its heels behind the position that the fact that unemployment is 10% shows not that policy earlier this year was too cautious but rather that it was ineffective. And the Obama administration has not been able or has not tried to move either of those groups out of their current entrenchments.

We could cushion the impact of another big downward shock by recapitalizing the banks again. But the failure of the Fed and the Treasury in the aftermath of Lehman to grab a share of the upside from its capital injection and purchase operations for the public in the form of warrants means that there is no coalition anywhere for a repeat or anything like a repeat of propping-up the banking system: the right thinks it is an unwarranted intervention in the free market, the left thinks that it is a giveaway to the undeserving and feckless superrich, and the center is bewildered because it is an enormous and poorly-structured intervention in the market, it is a giveaway to the undeserving and feckless superrich, and the optics are terrible.

So if another big bad shock hits the U.S. economy, what could the Obama administration possibly do?

The numbers above are nominal prices, and then adjusted for inflation using some governmental measure presumably.
One appears to be based on median prices, and the other on total transactions.

FT.com / China / Economy & Trade - Fears of China property bubble

Urban property prices in 70 big and medium-sized Chinese cities rose 3.9 per cent in October from a year earlier, accelerating from September's 2.8 per cent rise, according to government figures.

Price rises in top-tier markets such as Beijing and Shanghai have been much faster. Analysts say the rebound has largely been driven by an unprecedented government-led expansion of bank lending. It is also being driven by government policies, including tax breaks, low interest rates and smaller down-payment requirements. 

Investment in real estate development, a key driver of economic growth, rose 18.9 per cent in the first 10 months of the year on a year earlier, a marked acceleration from 17.7 per cent growth in January-September.

Ms Zhang said the current speculation should be a serious warning for the industry and the general economy.

"In Manhattan, they have vacancy rates of 10-15 per cent and they feel like the sky is falling, but in Pudong [the central business district in Shanghai] vacancy rates are as high as 50 per cent and they are still building new skyscrapers," she said.

On my street, there are a ridiculous number of real estate offices, literally one every two or three storefronts, with a dozen or so young agents sitting in each of them, mostly doing nothing, except surfing the web, chit-chatting, having a smoke.  It's surreal.

Then again, what do Chinese people have to do with their savings?  Real estate, the stock market, or the mattress.  The Chinese stock market is temperamental to say the least, but some people are still putting there money for lack of alternatives.  There is gold.  And more recently there is art as investment.  But real estate is definitely benefiting unnaturally and dangerously from this general lack of investment options, or so it seems to me.

And while the coastal urban areas are very different from the still poor interior of the country, this place definitely smells a lot like Tokyo circa 1987 or 88.

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

Deflation in a fractional reserve banking system means policymakers have, for all intents and purposes, lost control of the economy. It would also impact the top-tier of the societal spectrum tied to financial...assets, which would be problematic for politicians and the constituencies that bankroll them. Election aspirations, however, may be the least of the concerns; this economic maelstrom is bigger than any particular political agenda.

Policymakers understand the enormous stakes given our derivative-laced finance-based economy. They've postured, positioned and proffered assurances, pulling out all the stops in an attempt to flush the system with liquidity despite the clear and present danger of a total system unwind, with currency markets possibly providing the release value.

....

As the world reserve currency lost 38% since 2002, foreign holders of dollar-denominated assets have grown increasingly frustrated with the status quo. Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, and Don Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, are among the latest leaders to voice displeasure, warning of "unavoidable risks" and "the next global crisis," respectively.

....

Asset classes continue to trade as a monolithic monster on the other side of the dollar. We call this dynamic "asset class deflation vs. dollar devaluation"...and while both sides of the equation can decline, they would be hard pressed to rally in sync. That's important to remember, particularly as the carry trade becomes part of the mainstream lexicon.

Goldman Sachs, which lately has been caught in a toxic spiral of potential misrepresentations (courtesy of the SIGTARP report which plainly refuted the firm's claims that it was not on the hook vis-a-vis AIG, and by the way, Ms. Tavakoli, we are waiting for you to retract your apology to the 85 Broad team) and horrendous PR (first Blankfein apologizing for something, then Gasparino telling Lloyd he should step down), may be the final straw that finally breaks open the Fed's "book of death" (for the middle class, f/k/a "book of life" for the banker cartel). Ahead of tomorrow's hearings on various Fed transparency initiatives, Rep. Elijah Cummings is calling for a complete tear down of the existing Fed structure, and demands an overhaul to the "minimal accountability" that the Fed is subject to courtesy of the current Wall Street perpetuated (and lobbied) status quo.

....

...it would be sadly ironic if it ends up being Goldman Sachs that gets the fed into the pickle of complete transparency. At the end of the day, if we want to even have a chance of preventing another system collapse, one of the two has to happen: i) Goldman has to be dismembered, with the very least being its prop trading being ripped apart from the firm's agency core operations, or ii) the Fed has to be not only audited, but to provide constant information on who it is that is the recipient of generous taxpayer bailouts day in and day out, as well as what securities make up the collateral the various bail out programs, as well as what marks these securities are ascribed by the Fed's less than spectacular trading desk. No exceptions. If neither of these changes, and the status quo persists, then another occurrence of an AIG type blow up is not a question of if but when.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told a Brussels news conference that Somali security forces have asked for special training to fight against the growing armed insurgency in their country, the EUobserver reports.

Solana said the training would not be a big operation.

"It will probably be in the hundreds, not the thousands," he said Tuesday.

The admission confirmed widespread speculation about a process plagued by legal and logistical obstacles from the start. Though not a surprise, it will provide Mr Obama's critics with more evidence that he has so far promised more than he can deliver.

Mr Obama "knew this was going to be hard," he told Fox News in China before leaving for South Korea. In a separate interview with NBC he argued that many deadlines on which he was reported to be slipping had been set by the media, not his administration, but he acknowledged that on Guantanamo "We had a specific deadline that was missed."

Nothing symbolised the new President's resolve to break with the policies of his predecessor more clearly than his order on January 22 that the detainee camp be closed by January 2010.

In an interview Wednesday with U.S. news station Fox News, Mr. Obama said additional settlement building could make it harder for Israel to make peace with its neighbors.

He added that he thinks such action, in his words, "embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous."

Israeli officials announced plans Tuesday to construct 900 new housing units in east Jerusalem.

Nov 17 (Reuters) - Renewable energy company Ram Power Corp (RPG.TO) said the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) has proposed to arrange $216 million in debt financing for the company's 72 megawatt geothermal project in Nicaragua.

NEW ORLEANS -- A federal judge found Wednesday evening that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after Hurricane Katrina. The ruling was a major victory for homeowners who suffered damage in the aftermath of the storm.

It was the first time that the government has been held liable for any of the flooding that inundated the New Orleans area after Aug. 29, 2005, vindicating the long-held contention of many in the region that the flooding was far more than an act of God.

If upheld, the ruling could force the federal government to pay tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to homeowners whose property was lost or damaged by water from the navigation canal, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as MR-GO (pronounced Mister Go).

"It is the court's opinion that the negligence of the corps, in this instance by failing to maintain the MR-GO properly, was not policy, but insouciance, myopia and shortsightedness," wrote Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of Federal District Court.

A key House panel voted on Wednesday to give the federal government broad new powers that could be used to break up large financial firms before they fail. The House Financial Services Committee voted 38-29 to support an amendment sponsored by Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) that drew strong objections from Republicans and wariness from some centrist Democrats.

Kanjorski said his amendment to the sweeping financial overhaul legislation was inspired by a belief that lawmakers would not vote for future emergency bailout funds like they did a year ago with the $700 billion bailout package. "We've gone to the edge. We've almost seen a world meltdown. What I'm saying is before we get back into those circumstances, we're going to cure that," Kanjorski said.

....

The Kanjorski measure requires federal regulators to look closely at the 50 largest financial firms by assets and determine whether their size, scope, interconnectedness and other factors need additional regulation. Regulators would then be able to impose stricter regulations, limit a firm's ability to merge and also possibly sell or divest parts of the firm. Companies would be able to submit their own business plans, subject to approval from a council of regulators in advance of the government taking action.

But in fact China is heading in the opposite direction of "rebalancing." Its productive capacity keeps soaring, but Chinese consumers are taking home a shrinking proportion of the total economy. Last year, personal consumption in China amounted to only 35% of the Chinese economy; 10 years ago consumption was almost 50%. Capital investment, by contrast, rose to 44% from 35% over the decade.

China's capital spending is on the way to exceeding that of the U.S., but its consumer spending is barely a sixth as large. Chinese companies are plowing their rising profits back into more productive capacity--additional factories, more equipment, new technologies. China's massive $600 billion stimulus package has been directed at further enlarging China's productive capacity rather than consumption. So where will this productive capacity go if not to Chinese consumers? Net exports to other nations, especially the U.S. and Europe.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

The agreement reached yesterday by representatives of the Council and the European Parliament retains the key aspects of the Commission proposal presented in 2008. The recast proposal aims at extending the scope and strengthening the current Directive by setting a legal framework to upgrade the national building codes and by launching an ambitious policy of nearly zero energy buildings, so that all new buildings will be nearly zero energy as of 2020. As for existing buildings, Member States will also draw up national plans to increase the number of nearly zero energy buildings.

Moreover, the recast Directive also improves the information provided to consumers in the buildings energy performance certificate. Not only the energy performance certificate shall be shown to the prospective new tenant or buyer of the building, but the energy performance indicator of the building shall be stated in the sale or rental advertisements.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of EU CO2 emissions. It is estimated that, by strengthening the provisions of the Directive on energy performance, the EU could achieve a reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 70% of the current EU Kyoto target. In addition to this, these improvements could save citizens around 300€ per annum per household in their energy bills, while boosting the construction and building renovation industry in Europe.

Pfizer and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative announced the collaboration Wednesday. The DNDi scientists will screen Pfizer drug candidates to see if they are effective against sleeping sickness -- also called human African trypanosomiasis -- visceral leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease.

GREAT FIREBALL: A remarkable midnight fireball that "turned night into day" over parts of the western United States last night was not a Leonid. Infrasound measurements suggest a sporadic asteroid not associated with the Leonid debris stream. The space rock exploded in the atmosphere with an energy equivalent to 0.5 - 1 kilotons of TNT. Approximately 6 hours later, observers in Utah and Colorado witnessed a twisting iridescent-blue cloud in the dawn sky. Debris from the fireball should have dissipated by that time, but the cloud remains unexplained;

With all but one of the G-8 leaders having failed to attend and no new financial commitments to ending hunger, the summit in Rome has left many wondering what purpose it served. 

The United Nations World Summit on Food Security in Rome had all the signs and trappings of a world-class summit: helicopters buzzing overhead for days, whole city blocks roped off to traffic, hundreds of police on guard, and crowds of well-heeled officials from around the globe.

Inside the huge, modern, monolithic Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters, just across the street from the ancient Roman Circus Maximus, leaders and diplomats from around the globe spoke one after another of the tragedy of hunger, which now affects over a billion people, more than ever before.

Yet despite pleas for action from everyone from Pope Benedict XVI to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, no new commitments have come - neither for more money to bolster agriculture in developing nations, nor to the UN's proposed date of 2025 as the target for ridding the world of malnutrition. Instead, in a watered down statement, already released on the first day of the summit, nations pledged to try to cut world hunger in half by 2015 and said that eradicating hunger should come "at the earliest possible date."

The Earth's oceans, which have absorbed carbon dioxide from fuel emissions since the dawn of the industrial era, have recently grown less efficient at sopping it up, new research suggests.

Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels began soaring in the 1950s, and oceans largely kept up, scientists say. But the growth in the intake rate has slowed since the 1980s, and markedly so since 2000, the authors of a study write in a report in Thursday's issue of Nature.

The research suggests that the seas cannot indefinitely be considered a reliable "carbon sink" as humans generate heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.

The slowdown in the rise of the absorption rate resulted from a gradual change in the oceans' chemistry, the study found. "The more carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs, the more acidic it becomes and the less carbon dioxide it can absorb," said the study's lead author, Samar Khatiwala, a research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Energy-efficient light bulbs lose on average 22% of their brightness over their lifetime, a study has found.

In some cases they emit just 60% as much light as traditional models which are being phased out of shops, it says.

The study in Engineering and Technology magazine concluded that consumers were being misled by the bulbs' packaging.

Of the 18 energy-saving bulbs tested over 10,000 hours by the Institution of Engineering and Technology, three stopped altogether.

Friday 20 November 2009: With entrepreneurship education taking precedence in the EU policy agenda, ETF and its partners from sixteen pre-accession and Southern Mediterranean countries will gather at the University St. Kliment Ohridski in Bitola, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, to consider the outcomes of the first phase of an ETF pilot project which aims to determine the feasibility of policy indicators to promote entrepreneurship in higher education. The project is prompted by policy recommendations by the European Commission for promotion of entrepreneurship education beyond the business school, encompassing all faculties. About the ETF: The European Training Foundation (ETF) is an agency of the European Union that helps EU partner countries to reform their education and training systems, and so bring out the full potential of their people.

Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said: "Over the years, microbes have evolved and have become stronger thus making available treatments less effective. Serious diseases that were believed to be under control are re-emerging with a vengeance. The document published today, on the European Antibiotic Awareness Day, offers good food for thought. It lays the foundations for an open discussion that I hope will lead to concrete measures to combat AMR, which has turned into one of the most serious health risks in Europe."

...

Since the 1990s, when AMR recognised as a serious threat to public health, the Commission has launched different initiatives has developed tools to monitor the effect of these actions. In June 2008, the Health Council adopted conclusions on AMR calling the Commission to promote mutual cooperation between all Directorates General and concerned Agencies and to facilitate cooperation between the Member States on aspects of AMR.

The full text of the staff working paper can be found at:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosafety/salmonella/antimicrobial_resistance.pdf

For more information please visit:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosafety/salmonella/index_en.htm

News that former KISS drummer Peter Criss, he of the Catman persona, suffered breast cancer has provoked new interest in the subject of male breast cancer, a rare but potentially fatal tumor.

Men have only a small amount of breast tissue concentrated in the area immediately behind the nipple, probably the main reason that they account for only about 1% of all breast cancers. Nonetheless, about 1,990 men will develop the disease this year, and 480 will die from it (compared with more than 40,000 deaths in women), according to the National Cancer Institute. Male breast cancer carries about the same risk of death as the female version, but because it is generally detected at a later stage of progression, the perception is that it is more deadly. The disease is most common in men between the ages of 50 and 60. The lifetime risk of developing it is less than 1% for the average man, but for those carrying the breast cancer gene BRCA2, the risk increases to about 6%. Family history is particularly important: One in every five men with breast cancer has a relative who's also had it.

D.A. chides L.A. council, says he'll target pot dispensaries

With the Los Angeles City Council poised to take up a medical marijuana ordinance after two years of contentious debate, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley warned Tuesday that he intends to prosecute dispensaries that sell the drug even if the city's leaders decide to allow those transactions.

Cooley's broadside came a day after two council committees rejected the city's attorney's advice to ban sales. The ordinance they recommended would allow dispensaries to accept cash contributions as long as they comply with state law, a provision Cooley derided as "meaningless" and said reflected "Alice-in-Wonderland thinking." Cooley and City Atty. Carmen Trutanich maintain that recent court decisions clearly indicate collectives cannot sell marijuana over the counter, although members can be reimbursed for the cost of growing it.

....

Some prosecutors and law enforcement officials argue the decisions bolstered their long-held view that neither Proposition 215, which voters approved in 1996, nor the state's Medical Marijuana Program Act, which the Legislature passed in 2003, specifically allow for sales. In September, Trutanich sent the council a nine-page review of the case law. "This is an area where the intent of the law is very clear. Collectives are allowed to grow this and distribute it amongst themselves," he said Tuesday. "Not one sentence says sales are allowed."

Lawyers for medical marijuana advocacy groups have countered with their own analyses. The Union of Medical Marijuana Patients recently delivered a 23-page legal review to council members. "We're really disappointed because we have been thinking that the district attorney would have respect for what the City Council would come up with," said James Shaw, the group's director. "We're taking his threats as real."

Joe Elford, chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access, said that properly organized collectives can sell marijuana, citing guidelines issued last year by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown. "The idea that a nonprofit collective can't sell things is just a bizarre interpretation of the law," he said.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Poor white boys now do worse in primary school tests in England than any other main group, latest figures show.

Only 48% of white British boys eligible for free school meals achieved the expected level in English and maths.

The average for all pupils was 71.8% - and that gap, 23.8 percentage points, was up from 23.1 points last year.

Attainment continued to vary between ethnic groups with Chinese, Irish, Indian and mixed white and Asian children doing best.

It was known already that nationally, attainment in both English and maths in the Key Stage 2 national curriculum tests - commonly known as "Sats" - had fallen this year.

Only a few weeks after the Dutch Internet service provider UPC decided to discriminate Internet traffic1, Vodafone announced yesterday2 that it will prioritize Internet access for its mobile subscribers who are ready to pay an extra fee when the 3G network is congested. This means that instead of equally sharing the network capacity between all users, Vodafone will discriminate against the subscribers who do not pay the extra fee, and deliberately slow them down. Such a business model based on organizing a scarcity of resource instead of investing in more infrastructure is in total contradiction with the nature of Internet as we know it3. While mobile operators face greater capacity constraints than fixed-line Internet providers, reasonable network management practices must be narrowly defined to exclude such abusive and discriminatory practices. This is yet another breach to network neutrality, which proves that mere political statements4 will not suffice to protect citizens against arbitrary restrictions of their access to the Internet.

... Schuman's 4-year-old photo blog, the Sartorialist (thesartorialist.blogspot.com), has become a daily habit for thousands of devotees, making it consistently rank among the 50 most popular blogs in the world. By artfully spotlighting men and women who dress themselves with uncommon panache, the blog offers its passionate followers a quick hit of style as regular as the sunrise.

"The Sartorialist is the first thing on the Web to set up meaningful competition to the fashion magazines," said Peter Jones, a New York-based fine art photographer, dealer and collector.

Schuman greeted fans in Los Angeles in October at signings of his recently published book, "The Sartorialist," a collection of more than 500 pictures of the creative, stunning, amusing, sublime and occasionally ridiculously stylish people who have appeared on his blog. Ernest Duarte, a 51-year-old design engineer from Orange County who purchased the $175 hardcover limited-edition and stood in line to meet Schuman at Barneys in Beverly Hills, summed up the revolutionary element of the photographer's work: "The pictures aren't just about what's expensive. They celebrate what the individual brings to their look."

My wife, who works at the same company as me, has for some months been conducting an illicit affair with our chief executive. She has decided to leave me and to resign her position in order to move in with him.

Washington Times editorial page editor Richard Miniter is filing a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the paper today, alleging discrimination based on age, disability, and religion -- being forced to attend a Unification Church mass wedding -- and he will ask the government to enjoin the Times' assets, his lawyer tells TPM. The development adds to an already daunting mess of problems at the newspaper, whose top executives were fired last week, and whose executive editor resigned.

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A former Wall Street Journal editorial page writer and author of multiple books, Miniter was hired as editorial page editor and vice president of opinion at the Times in March. The article announcing his hire described it as "the latest of a series of dramatic moves to boost the newspaper's global impact."

Besides the mass wedding charge, Klayman alleges Miniter and other employees who were over 40 were victims of age discrimination. Finally, he claims Miniter was forced to work when he was having severe heart problems. During a health scare earlier this year, Miniter was brought out of the newsroom on a stretcher, newsroom sources say.

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All of these allegations will be included in the EEOC complaint, Klayman says. He adds that there is a dispute over Miniter's employment status at the paper, and the paper is improperly continuing to use his name on its masthead.

'If you choose a new pope, you should pick a Catholic,' Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian premier, said as he urged leaders to pick a candidate with strong European credentials.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy might well back Van Rompuy, a relatively obscure figure unlikely to threaten their grip on Brussels.

But others, among them Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, argue that leaders should instead push for 'strong personalities' capable of giving the EU a strong voice on the world stage.

45088 Signatures

A cross-party group of MEPs have called for former Irish president Mary Robinson for the role of EU president.

Robinson has already ruled herself out of the running but the 30-strong group say EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the post should urge her to "reconsider" her decision.

The deputies, from four political groups,make their demands in signed declaration which will be delivered to the summit.

Whatever differences exist between its member states, the prerequisite for a well-functioning European Union is that institutions work well together. In order to make progress towards the ends we seek, we need agreement on the means by which policy is made.

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At stake is the European Union's influence - including, of course, the defence of its own interests in a globalised and multipolar world. That is why it is vital for the European machine to function well even as the 27 member states debate the EU's positions and direction.

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The Union's permanent president will only be truly useful if he or she facilitates debate at the highest level about Europe's future. There can be no question of nominating a super-head of government who might contradict the Union's basic contract - namely, shared sovereignty in certain policies but not in all prerogatives of states. He or she must be a convinced European, from a country that subscribes to all Union policies.

It would be a poor interpretation of the Lisbon treaty if the chosen person were to consider himself or herself as the president of the European Union. ...

Gordon Brown's insistence on maintaining Tony Blair's candidacy for the EU presidency, despite the general rejection it has caused, is blocking the appointment of the Union's leaders. The consensus agreement between the German Chancellor Angel Merkel and the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to make the Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy the first permanent president of the European Union is meeting resistance from the British Prime minister who favours his predecessor. In addition, the French-German initiative has caused unease to Fredrik Reinfelds, prime minister of Sweden, who holds the Union's presidency and who, as such, is charged with making the nominations for the appointments.