Prime minister Herman Van Rompuy was a virtual unknown outside of Belgium until a few weeks ago, when his name began to do the rounds as a possible candidate for the newly created post of president of the European Council.

The diminutive politician-poet with a love of country life is seen by many of his own countrymen as an unsung national hero who has quietly pulled his nation back from the brink of collapse thanks to his adroit political manoeuvrings, a twinkle in his eye and a generous dose of wry humour.

The 62-year old is a master of understatement who would be the first to admit he stumbled into high office by accident and says he prizes intelligence over hard work.

The new German justice minister says Berlin is not comfortable with an EU measure that would grant US authorities access to European banking data. Now it seems likely that the Germans may scupper the deal, which is supposed to be pushed through at an EU meeting in Brussels at the end of November.

The agreement was supposed to be laced up before others got involved in the tricky debate about data protection and individual rights. Now, though, it looks like European Union plans to push through an anti-terror agreement with Washington may not go ahead, thanks in part to the new German government.

The Berlin coalition, which pairs Angela Merkel's conservatives with the Free Democrats (FDP), voted into power at the end of September, likely won't rubber stamp a proposal that would give the US wide ranging access to EU bank accounts in the course of terrorism investigations. The measure, proposed by Sweden as current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, was to have passed by Dec. 1. It foresaw allowing US investigators access to European bank accounts -- particularly international transactions -- as part of terror enquiries.

Kosovo's election commission is set to announce the result of the first poll since the country declared independence from Serbia last year.

PM Hashim Thaci assured supporters after polls closed on Sunday that his Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) had won 20 of 36 contested municipalities.

President Fatmir Sejdiu's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) said it had won the mayoral race in Pristina.

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, has died in Belgrade, the Church has announced.

The patriarch, 95, became leader of the Church in 1990. He was admitted to the city's military hospital two years ago.

Though he reportedly suffered from heart and lung conditions, the Church did not specify the cause of death.

Most of Serbia's population of seven million people are Orthodox Christians. President Boris Tadic said this was "an irredeemable death" for the nation.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle talks to SPIEGEL about new government plans to tackle the economic crisis, Obama's Afghanistan strategy and his own contribution to German society's acceptance of homosexuality.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Westerwelle, if things had turned out slightly differently, we would have been coming to meet you at the Finance Ministry. We always thought that Guido Westerwelle would have to become finance minister, because of his focus on economic issues. And now we're meeting with you here at the Foreign Ministry. How could that happen?

Guido Westerwelle: The Free Democratic Party has a long tradition in foreign policy. The periods when the liberals were in charge of foreign policy have always been great ones in our history.

SPIEGEL: Perhaps, but you personally were always interested in other issues.

Westerwelle: My passion and my commitment to foreign policy may not have been visible to you while we were in the opposition. But both were very much present.

They were the alpha males of German politics, rivals and partners who swaggered their way into government: the former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer. Now they are in fierce competition again, trying to outwit each other in the biggest geopolitical game in Europe: the supply of natural gas to the European Union.

It is a contest that involves elaborate networks of political friends and a sprinkling of retired spies who have been called in from the cold. But above all it is the saga of two testosterone-driven heavyweights who are going mano a mano. "Since they are not exactly strangers to macho behaviour," says Franziska Augstein, a prominent commentator who has been tracking both politicians, "the obvious question is: who has the longest pipeline?"

Mr Schroeder, 65, is chairman of the shareholders' committee of the so-called Nord Stream pipeline, a project steered by the Russian energy giant Gazprom. The pipeline, which is supposed to be onstream by 2012, will carry gas through the Baltic Sea from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany. It bypasses the Baltic states, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus and therefore cuts out their bargaining potential.

At the moment Russian gas for Western Europe crosses Ukraine; if Russia switches off the flow to Ukraine as a political punishment or because of unpaid bills, households across the West immediately feel the effects. Moscow thus has to give ground to Kiev. Nord Stream will reverse that position and greatly enhance Russian power in the east of Europe.

A government package designed, among other things, to help stop trouble at the COP15 summit by detaining troublemakers, may not have the desired effect as the country's prisons are full up.

"There simply is no space for a major influx during the summit. We have neither the cells nor personnel to handle, for example, 500 extra remand cases," Danish Prison Officer Association Kim Østerbye tells Berlingske Tidende.

The EU is pushing ahead too fast with plans to reform its financial architecture, warns a report by the UK's treasury select committee published on Monday (16 November).

The Swedish EU presidency hopes finance ministers meeting on 2 December will back amended European Commission proposals that were published in September, with the European Parliament's approval also needed.

The proposals - part of the EU's response to the financial crisis - envisage a new European Systemic Risk Board to monitor for macroeconomic dangers such as the build up of bubbles, and three new supervisory authorities for banking, insurance and securities.

A plan to give the financial watchdog new powers to tear up bank bonus contracts risks jeopardising the UK's standing as a global financial centre, City figures have warned the Government.

Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to use Wednesday's Queen's Speech to unveil plans for a Financial Services Bill that will hand more powers to regulators to stop mega bonuses.

The Bill is due to allow the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to cancel contracts that would see bankers pocket excessive bonuses or pay packages that reward undue risk-taking.

General Motors said on Monday that its finances had improved to the point that it could begin repaying its government loans, though it lost nearly $1.15 billion in the third quarter after emerging from bankruptcy in July.

G.M. said it increased its cash reserves by $3.3 billion from July 10 to Sept. 30, ending the quarter with $42.6 billion on hand. It plans to make a $1 billion payment to the United States government in December, more than five years before the loans are due, and to submit similar quarterly payments after that.

G.M.'s chief executive, Fritz Henderson, said the automaker's performance showed "some signs of progress and some signs of stability" and a "good, strong liquidity position."

Oracle's case for buying Sun Microsystems has failed to convince the European Commission, which issued a statement of objections to the deal on Sunday (15 November).

The European Commission statement said that Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems would harm competition in the profitable database market, marking a departure in competition policy from the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, which cleared the deal.

The EU statement, which was reportedly issued by the executive's competition watchdog, concerns Oracle's acquisition of Sun's open source database, MySQL, which reaps about $300 million in revenue and could add to the buyer's leading Java software.

MIAHUATLÁN, Mexico -- During the best of the times, Miguel Salcedo's son, an illegal immigrant in San Diego, would be sending home hundreds of dollars a month to support his struggling family in Mexico. But at times like these, with the American economy out of whack and his son out of work, Mr. Salcedo finds himself doing what he never imagined he would have to do: wiring pesos north.

Unemployment has hit migrant communities in the United States so hard that a startling new phenomenon has been detected: instead of receiving remittances from relatives in the richest country on earth, some down-and-out Mexican families are scraping together what they can to support their unemployed loved ones in the United States.

"We send something whenever we have a little extra, at least enough so he can eat," said Mr. Salcedo, who is from a small village here in the rural state of Oaxaca and works odd jobs to support his wife, his two younger sons and, now, his jobless eldest boy in California.

First, Japan's new Democratic party leaders won praise from Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, for their "very encouraging" efforts to reduce the reliance of the world's second largest economy on exports for growth.

Then, Tokyo's government bean-counters on Monday issued preliminary gross domestic product data showing the world second largest economy grew at a stronger-than-expected annualised rate of 4.8 per cent in the third quarter, two-thirds of which was powered by expansion in domestic demand.

An optimist might for a moment almost dare to dream that the long awaited - long as in since the 1980s at least - rebalancing of the Japanese economy has at last begun.

One of the many barometers of economic activity has started flashing a green light.

The Baltic Dry Index shows the price of moving coal, iron ore, grain and other commodities by sea. Such dry bulk is used to make concrete, steel and food - so in theory a rise in shipping costs could signal increased shipping activity and more economic production ahead.

After reaching a high in May 2008 of 11,793, the BDI had plunged by more than 94 per cent by December. It has recovered this year, before falling again, but in recent weeks it has really started moving. Since late September it is up more than 90 per cent to a 52-week high of 4,291. Last week its price gains outpaced even those of gold. Does this mean the global economy has turned the corner?

Unfortunately, this long-watched indicator can no longer be relied on. The surge in shipping costs a couple of years ago made building ships an extremely attractive business. New shipyards were planned and some built. It takes roughly two years for a ship to be delivered after it has been ordered.

The strength of the euro is hitting the profits and sales of companies in the eurozone sharply, in spite of the emerging economic recovery in the region.

Third-quarter results of some of the biggest companies in the currency bloc have revealed that they are suffering much steeper falls in profits than peers in European countries without the single currency, raising concerns that their competitiveness is under pressure.

Eurozone companies - excluding volatile financial and oil groups - have suffered a collective sales drop of 12.5 per cent and a fall in profits of 27 per cent in the third quarter, according to an ING analysis of the results of 311 groups.

European companies outside the eurozone in countries such as the UK and Switzerland have seen drops of 2.6 per cent in sales and 1.2 per cent in profits.

Mr. Buiter, advisor to central banks and to Godless Sachs, is at it again, comparing gold to Yap Island stone money, ranting against those who would trade valuable bank paper for something that he does not like, (but has endured as a store of wealth nonetheless for thousands of years). Once is a phenomenon, but twice is a trend. What can be dismissed as a crank rant must now be seen as a symptom of a man talking his book, and none too gracefully.

We give more credence now to the rumours that the Bank of England has miscalculated badly and the LBMA et al. are 'on the hook' for more gold than they can provide, precipitating a crisis for their advisors, especially those on the wrong side of the trading advice. And further, that gold held offshore by some prominent members of the European Union are having difficulty getting their collateral back from some of the bullion banks in a deliverable condition.

Quite a few options are coming due on the US Comex next week, and the bankers may be once more 'staring into an abyss.' Or setting up for a big push lower to 'save the banks.' That would be traditional central banking stewardship of late days.

    "We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake..." Eddie George, Governor Bank of England, in a conversation with CEO of Lonmin, September 1999

"W. Buiter, CBE, Member Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England (1997-2000)" Shoulder to shoulder on the brink, eh? That must have been rather intense and worthy for peers of the realm, skinning the specs. Oh, bravo.

The full SIGTARP report on AIG and its counterparty payments has been released. It contains all you need to know about the NYFED's bailout of Goldman Sachs.

....

And the most critical conclusion presented by Neil Barofsky: The SIGTARP blasts the Fed's ongoing desire to keep everything hidden and under a layer of opacity, as it keeps on lying to taxpayers that all is fine with the US economy, and urges investors to part with their hard-earned dollars and "invest" in toxic husks of zombie companies, when it knows full well that the entire financial system is constantly on the cusp of yet another collapse, and the market ponzi scheme could collapse at any minute.

From the report:

   The now familiar argument from Government officials about the dire consequences of basic transparency, as advocated by the Federal Reserve in connection with Maiden Lane III once again simply does not withstand scrutiny. Federal Reserve officials initially refused to disclose the identities of the counterparties or the details of the payments, warning that disclosure of the names would undermine AIG's stability, the privacy and business interests of the counterparties, and the stability of the markets. After public and Congressional pressure, AIG disclosed the identities. Notwithstanding the Federal Reserve warnings, the sky did not fall; there is no indication that AIG's disclosure undermined the stability of AIG or the market or damaged legitimate interested of the counterparties. The lesson that should be learned - one that has been made apparent time after time in the Government's response to the financial crisis - is that the default position, whenever Government funds are deployed in a crisis to support markets or institutions, should be that the public is entitled to know what is being done with Government funds. While SIGTARP acknowledges that there might be circumstances in which the public's right to know what its Government is doing should be circumscribed, those instances should be very few and very far between. (Emphasis by Zero Hedge)

The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say.

While Afghanistan has dominated the public discussion of Mr. Obama's strategy, which officials say could be announced as early as this week, Pakistan is returning to center stage in administration planning. As the president traveled to Asia, his national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, was quietly sent to Islamabad, its capital.

His message, officials said, was that the new American strategy would work only if Pakistan broadened its fight beyond the militants attacking its cities and security forces and went after the groups that use havens in Pakistan for plotting and carrying out attacks against American troops in Afghanistan, as well as support networks for Al Qaeda.

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington's health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation's drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation's drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

BAGHDAD -- In a massacre that revived memories of Iraq's worst years of sectarian bloodshed, assailants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms savagely killed 13 men and boys late Sunday near the restive city of Abu Ghraib, according to Iraqi officials and villagers.

Most of the victims -- some of whom reportedly were beheaded, while others were shot and then mutilated -- were members of the Awakening, a Sunni Muslim movement that with U.S. backing and funding has fought the terrorist group al Qaida in Iraq.

Residents and security officials said that shortly before midnight, armed men in civilian vehicles raided two villages near Abu Ghraib -- a city to the west of Baghdad that houses a major prison -- took captives to a nearby cemetery named Seyid Mhimmed and killed them.

"I believe they were targeted because they formed Sahwas (Awakening councils) in the area and fought back al Qaida," said Ibraheem Ismail, who described himself as a first cousin of seven of the victims and more distantly related to the rest.

Conditions are ripe for a fresh surge in food prices as the global economy recovers, says the senior United Nations agriculture official.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), believes that the world is not doing enough to avert another food crisis. His warning comes as leaders are expected to gather in Rome on Monday for the World Food Summit .

"When the recovery picks up, we will be back to square one," Mr Diouf told the Financial Times in an interview.

He said the same structural problems behind last year's spike in food prices were still affecting the market. These included lack of investment, surging demand in Asia and diversion of food commodities into biofuels.

"We have all the elements of the crisis," he said, adding that a weakening US dollar could exacerbate the upward price pressure in food commodities.

The cost of nature conservation is by far outweighed by societal and economic benefits, argues a new report supported by the European Commission and published on Friday (13 November).

The report urges international policymakers to scale-up investments in the management and restoration of ecosystems and to value the economic capital of nature in decision-making.

It was prepared by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative, which is hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The report stresses that destruction of nature has direct economic repercussions which are systematically underestimated, and that valuing ecosystems makes "economic sense".

After the last round of climate talks before the UN conference in Copenhagen ended with a sense of pessimism and pending defeat, the Danish ambassador to the EU, Poul Skytte Christoffersen, warns against the danger of postponing a deal until next year.

Speaking to EurActiv, Christoffersen urged leaders to avoid falling into the trap of the Doha round at all costs. "I have been living the Doha round closely [...] The moment is never right and once you get in this logic, it is a slippery slope," he said.

Over the last weeks and months, Denmark, hosting the UN climate conference, has engaged in intensive consultations with world leaders in order to break the deadlock over global climate negotiations to agree on a post-Kyoto treaty to reduce global emissions.

Rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers in the Netherlands will soon pay a few cents for every kilometer on the road, in a plan aimed at eliminating chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions.

The GPS monitoring system could be a test case for other countries weighing options for easing crowded roads. Some cities like London have created congestion charges to control traffic in downtown areas, but only Singapore has a similar scheme for charging according to the amount of travel.

When the plan takes effect in 2012, new car prices will drop as much as 25 percent with the abolition of a purchase tax and the road tax, which now totals more than 600 euros per year for a mid-sized car. Instead, an average passenger car will pay €0.03 per kilometer, with higher charges levied during rush hour and for travelling on congested roads. Trucks, commercial vehicles and bigger cars emitting more carbon dioxide will be assessed at a higher rate, the transport ministry said.

London, which has some of Europe's worst air pollution, may have to ban cars and reschedule events during the 2012 Olympics to ensure optimum conditions for athletes, a leading air-quality scientist said.

The U.K. capital is in a "new era" of air pollution, mostly caused by emissions from diesel-powered cars, vans and buses, said Professor Frank Kelly, director of the King's College Environmental Research Group.

The city of 7.5 million residents has the worst record for nitrogen dioxide pollutants among European capitals and one of the worst for dangerous airborne particles. Politicians including Mayor Boris Johnson aren't doing enough to cleanse the air, Kelly said. Beijing last year and Athens in 2004 struggled with air pollution during the games.

A United Nations summit on food security opened with leaders slamming rich nations for worsening world hunger by allowing speculation in agricultural markets and using subsidies that hurt production in developing nations.

Pope Benedict XVI cited "greed which causes speculation to rear its head even in the marketing of cereals, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity."

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who called hunger "the most terrible weapon of mass destruction," urged rich nations to meet their commitments to boost investment in agricultural in poor nations and to end "shameful" farming subsidies.

"They sabotage emerging agriculture in the poorer countries, wiping out their hope to create a bridge to development," Lula said.

China from the Inside

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Adding a pharmaceutical form of the B vitamin niacin -- but not the drug ezetimibe -- to a cholesterol-lowering statin drug appears to reduce artery plaque buildup in patients with coronary artery disease, according to much-anticipated results announced at a press conference November 15.

The results were from a study that was relatively small -- only 208 patients -- but provided a head-to-head comparison of niacin and ezetimibe, known by the brand name Zetia. Despite studies last year that questioned its effectiveness, Zetia remains a blockbuster drug for Merck & Co. Inc. The form of niacin used in the study is an extended-release, prescription-only formulation of niacin called Niaspan, made by Abbott, which funded the new trial.

The new findings were simultaneously published online by the New England Journal of Medicine and presented during the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2009. Niacin has been shown to raise levels of HDL, the type of cholesterol that protects against heart disease. Zetia is designed to work differently, by lowering levels of LDL, the cholesterol that contributes to heart disease. Niacin also lowers LDL, but is better known for raising HDL. Zetia's performance fell flat in two recent trials, leading many doctors to question its usefulness.

A lot more pictures if you follow that link.

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

Hopefully, this analysis - and there's more on the nuts and bolts of our method below - sheds some factual light on the claims and counter-claims that are paranoically sweeping across the music industry establishment, not least that put forward by the singer Lily Allen in this paper recently - and the BPI - that artists are losing out as a result of the fall in sales of recorded of music.

[...]

The most immediate revelation [...] is that at some point next year revenues from gigs payable to artists will for the first time overtake revenues accrued by labels from sales of recorded music.

Why live revenues have grown so stridently is beyond the scope of this article, but our data - compiled from a PRS for Music report and the BPI - make two things clear: one, that the growth in live revenue shows no signs of slowing and two, that live is by far and away the most lucrative section of industry revenue for artists themselves, because they retain such a big percentage of the money from ticket sales.

[...]

It's interesting too that, overall, industry revenues have grown in the period - though admittedly not by much - which arguably adds strength to the notion that, when the BPI releases its annual report claiming how much `the music industry' has suffered from the growth in illegal file-sharing, what it perhaps should be saying is how much the record labels have suffered.

Some of the analysis is based on guesswork, so it can use some further review.

Achieved without violence, the fall of the Czechoslovak communist regime had none of the usual arousal associated with revolutions. Journalist Jiří Peňás presents a psychoanalytic interpretation of the events of 17 November 1989.

Down with false modesty! Let's examine the naked truth of the Velvet Revolution. In laying bare the facts, perhaps we can explain why the end of communism proved to be so unsexy. One of the remarkable aspects of the events of November 1989 in the future Czech Republic, and also in Slovakia, was the virtual or complete absence of any sexual dimension. There were none of the sexual expressions that usually accompany revolutions and the collapse of regimes: no orgies, no exhibitionistic women, and no men desperately attempting to lay hands on them in public. No doubt, the chilly temperatures of the Central European autumn did much to negate any excess of libido in what proved to be a surprisingly straitlaced insurrection, but that is not the whole story. The truth is that the issue of sexual freedom was simply postponed, or at least set aside until the dust had settled. So the question is: what became of the sexual liberation which could reasonably be expected after a prolonged period of pious oppression?

This image of unwavering propriety does not square with the he fact that most participants in the events of the revolution were students, who are usually enthusiastic proponents of sexual freedom. Whereas the campaign for greater sexual liberty played a key role in in the 1968 student riots in the United States and Western Europe, no such demands were voiced by Czech and Slovak students: there was no petition that concerned any indicator of sexual freedom, from access to pornography to contraception, not to mention guaranteed orgasms for everyone. And certainly there was no question of mixed showers in university hostels.

When a French-Senegalese author became the first black woman to win France's most prestigious literary award, it seemed like the perfect example of the model of integration championed by Nicolas Sarkozy, the president.

Unfortunately for Mr Sarkozy, Marie NDiaye, who won the Prix Goncourt, for Trois Femmes Puissantes (Three Strong Women), a story about the interweaving lives of three women set in France and Senegal, also has strong opinions about how life in France has changed since he was elected in 2007.

An outspoken interview she gave to cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles last summer, before she won the award, has resurfaced after it was attacked by Eric Raoult, a deputy from the governing centre-right UMP party, last week.

Ms NDiaye, who moved to Berlin just after the 2007 election, told the magazine she left France partly because of Mr Sarkozy's election. She described France as "hideous", and went on to say the country now had the "atmosphere of a police state". She added: "For some time now, I have found the climate in France to be quite depressing and morose."

Rejecting the advice of the city attorney, two Los Angeles City Council committees voted today to scrap a proposed provision that would have banned the sale of medical marijuana. The controversial measure, first proposed a year and a half ago, delayed deliberations as council members debated the wisdom of ignoring the opinion of the city's top prosecutor. But about four hours into a raucous hearing, council members made it clear they were ready to move on.

"When can we finally stop the merry-go-round?" said Councilman Dennis Zine, who kicked off the City Council's consideration of the issue in 2005 when concerns about dispensaries first surfaced. He proposed an alternative provision that would allow dispensaries to accept cash for marijuana as long as they comply with state law.

William Carter, the chief deputy city attorney, repeatedly argued that state law and state court decisions make it clear that collectives can cultivate medical marijuana but not sell it. "We're stuck with the current law," he said. But Zine urged the council members to adopt an interpretation of the law that would not upend how dispensaries operate in Los Angeles and most of the state. "I'm saying let's push that to the edge," he said.

....

Four years ago, when the City Council first began to look into regulating dispensaries, there were four. A year later, there were 98. In 2007, when the city adopted a moratorium, 186 dispensaries were allowed to remain in business. Now, the city attorney's office estimates there could be as many as a thousand spread throughout the city, and heavily concentrated in some neighborhoods.

The collision of a large extraterrestrial object with Earth almost 2 billion years ago may have stirred the seas worldwide and delivered a small but crucial serving of oxygen to the deep ocean. The Sudbury impact, named after the Canadian city located near the center of what remains of the ancient crater, happened around 1.85 billion years ago (SN: 6/15/02, p. 378). Despite erosion since then, the impact structure --at least 200 kilometers across -- is recognized to be the second-largest on the face of the planet, says William Cannon, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., and coauthor on a paper in the November Geology. The event fundamentally affected the concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the deep sea -- enough to almost instantly shut down the accumulation of marine sediments known as banded iron formations, report Cannon and coauthor John F. Slack, also of the USGS in Reston.

Banded iron formations, massive deposits rich in iron oxides, have accumulated at several periods in Earth's long-distant geological past, mostly when atmospheric concentrations of oxygen were low (SN: 6/20/09, p. 24). One extended episode of banded iron formation (or BIF) buildup suddenly -- and without an obvious explanation -- ended about 1.85 billion years ago, says Cannon. Over a very short interval, he notes, "the environment shifted from one happily making banded iron to one that wasn't."

In northern Minnesota and other areas nearby, the formations lie directly underneath a thick layer of material only recently recognized as ejecta from the Sudbury impact. Mark Jirsa, a geologist with the Minnesota Geological Survey in St. Paul, was a member of the team that identified the ejecta layer. "We intuitively connected the Sudbury impact with the shutdown of BIF accumulation," he says. "But now [Slack and Cannon] have come up with a model for how that might have happened."

About 1.85 billion years ago, Earth's now separate landmasses were joined in a single supercontinent. That also means there was one large ocean, says Cannon. Many scientists suggest that the object that slammed into Earth then -- probably an asteroid abut 10 kilometers across -- splashed down in that ocean, in waters about 1 kilometer deep on the shallow shelf surrounding the supercontinent. Models hint that the tsunami spawned by the event would have been 1 kilometer tall at the impact site and remained at least 100 meters tall about 3,000 kilometers away, Cannon adds.

Those immense waves and large underwater landslides triggered by the impact stirred the ocean, bringing oxygenated waters from the surface down to the ocean floor, the researchers propose. Sediments deposited on the seafloor before the impact, including BIFs, contained little if any iron in its Fe(III) form but were high in Fe(II), a sign that most parts of the ocean were oxygen-free. But marine sediments deposited after the impact included substantial amounts of Fe(III) but very little Fe(II) -- and, therefore, sizable amounts of dissolved oxygen. The team's analyses suggest that after the impact, dissolved iron spewed into the deepest parts of the ocean by hydrothermal vents would have reacted with oxygen within a day or so, thereby choking off most of the supply of Fe(II) to shallower waters where BIFs typically accumulated.

AFP - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi gave a speech to 100 young Italian women recruited by a model agency and urged them to convert to Islam, newspapers reported on Monday.

The young women selected for Kadhafi's speech in Rome late Sunday each had to be at least 1.70 metres (five feet seven inches) be "pleasant" and "well dressed" but low cut tops and mini-skirts were banned, the newspapers said.

Each woman was paid between 50 and 60 euros and was hired by the Hostessweb agency, the reports said.

The women were told to got to a luxury hotel in the Via Veneto, without knowing why, and were then taken in buses to the Libyan ambassador's residence. Kadhafi is in Rome for the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit.

The leader of the Libyan revolution arrived one hour late at 10:30pm to the amazement of the women who had expected a party rather than a lesson on the history of relations between Islam and the West and the role of women.

A group of 70 daredevils have broken the world record for the greatest number of people to skydive in formation wearing wingsuits.

They jumped from four separate aircraft at 13,000ft before flying their way into a complex diamond-shaped pattern at over 100mph for two miles.

Hundreds of spectators gathered at Lake Elsinore in California, America, to watch them beat the record before they broke formation to deploy their parachutes and land safely.

British daredevil Mark "Birdman" Harris, who has completed more than 6,000 skydives and 600 wingsuit dives, said they have taken a "massive step forward".

Harris, 33, said: "This was a massive step forward from last year and I can only imagine what next year will be like.

U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land directed the U.S. attorney to collect $20,000 in sanctions from "birther" attorney Orly Taitz the day after her deadline passed to pay the money.

Land's Friday order and judgment stem from a Sept. 17 motion Taitz filed on behalf of former client Capt. Connie Rhodes, who sought to stop her deployment to Iraq on arguments that President Barack Obama couldn't legitimately hold office. Land told Taitz the previous day that she could face sanctions if she ever again filed another "frivolous" suit in his court. When Taitz filed the motion for emergency stay, Land gave Taitz two weeks to explain why he shouldn't sanction her $10,000.

On the deadline, Taitz, who no longer represented the captain, responded with a motion to recuse Land from the case and a request to extend her deadline. In his 43-page order, Land lays out a timeline of Taitz's actions in his court, discusses why her numerous court filings were frivolous and addresses point-by-point her arguments for why he should be recused from the case. He also increased the original sanction by another $10,000 and gave her until Thursday to pay.

California attorney Orly Taitz, the president of the Defend Our Freedoms Foundation, stands on the steps of the Federal Courthouse in Columbus Friday with what she claims is a copy of a birth certificate for President Barak Obama from Mombass, British Protectorate of Kenya. Taitz represents U.S. Army Capt. Connie Rhodes in a civil complaint filed Friday questioning the country of Obama's birth and his eligibility to be president.

>

"The United States attorney is authorized and directed to collect the judgment as provided by law," Land's Friday order states

I miss poemless.