SPIEGEL (Jerzy Buzek): A Change for the Better in Europe

"Historic" is a word often over-used. Yet, Dec. 1, 2009, will go down in the history of the European Union as the day the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, ending nearly a decade of internal discussions.

The treaty represents an era of increased democracy in the European Union and gives a huge boost to the powers of the European Parliament. There is almost a doubling of the legislative and budgetary powers of the parliament. The European Parliament will also jointly decide with national ministers in the important spheres of justice and home affairs, such as immigration and asylum including conditions for the reception of applicants, and international trade policy.

One key area of increased power is the common agricultural policy. Here Members of the European Parliament (MEP) will for the first time co-decide with national ministers on agricultural law and spending, the latter accounting for almost 40 percent of the EU budget. The same applies to the EU fisheries policy. MEPs will also get an equal say with state ministers on the how the EU's structural funds are spent.

EUobserver: Sarkozy claims big win in EU jobs

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has let it be known he believes Paris outmanoeuvred London in the negotiations on EU jobs in recent weeks, with the appointment of a Frenchman to take charge of the internal market in the face of strong British opposition seen as the biggest political coup.

In unusually blunt comments, likely to fuel the simmering feud between France and Britain over the merits of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, Le Monde over the weekend reported Mr Sarkozy as saying: "It's the first time in 50 years that France has had this role. The English are the big losers in this business."

The president made the comments after it emerged that Michel Barnier, a former French foreign minister, will take on the internal market portfolio, including financial services, when the European Commission starts its next mandate early next year.

European Voice: EU agrees new bank data deal with US

EU interior ministers have struck an interim deal to give the US access to banking data handled by SWIFT, a bank-owned network that processes international communications among banks.

During their meeting in Brussels today, ministers agreed an interim deal for nine months. Germany and Austria had reservations about the level of data protection but abstained in the meeting. The EU needs unanimity to agree international treaties, such as the SWIFT agreement, but abstentions do not count as votes against.

The EU needed to strike a new deal with the US because SWIFT is transferring much of its data business to servers located in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Without an agreement, the US would no longer be able to consult the data. Supporters of the deal say that the data examined by US law enforcement agencies has been used to prevent terrorist attacks in the EU.

European Voice: EU ends visas for three Balkan states

Citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia will be able to travel throughout the Schengen zone without visas from 19 December, EU interior ministers decided today.

The visa waiver, which frees the way for travel across the vast majority of the EU, will apply to holders of biometric passports.

Tobias Billström, Sweden's migration minister who was chairing the meeting in Brussels, said that the decision would allow people from the countries to visit their relatives in the Schengen zone for Christmas.

NY Times: Accused Nazi Camp Guard on Trial in Germany

John Demjanjuk, a retired American autoworker, went on trial here Monday, accused of helping to force 27,900 Jews to their deaths during the Holocaust.

Prosecutors charge that Mr. Demjanjuk, 89, listed by the Simon Wiesenthal Center as its most wanted Nazi war criminal, worked as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. It was the second time Mr. Demjanjuk has been prosecuted, after he was sentenced to death in Israel in 1988 only to have his conviction overturned five years later as a case of mistaken identity.

BBC News: Vatican and Muslims condemn Swiss minaret ban vote

Religious leaders across the world have criticised Switzerland's referendum vote to ban the building of minarets.

The Vatican joined Muslim figureheads from Indonesia and Egypt, as well as Switzerland, in denouncing the vote as a blow to religious freedom.

France's FM Bernard Kouchner expressed shock at the ban which, he said, showed "intolerance" and should be reversed.

BBC News - Blair 'ready to back regime change in 2002' - adviser

Tony Blair signalled that he would be willing to back "regime change" in Iraq when he met George Bush in Texas in 2002, the Iraq inquiry has been told.

But his ex-adviser Sir David Manning said he stressed the UK could only back action against Iraq if the issue went to the United Nations first.

Mr Blair asked for UK military options two months later, Sir David said.

In Texas Mr Bush told him there was "no war plan" for Iraq but a small cell had been set up to consider "options".

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Tories' North-South divide on Hizb ut-Tahrir; call for their banning in the South, promote them in the North « North of Westminster

This week in London David Cameron and the Tories launched an attack on Hizb ut-Tahrir and the Labour council who fund the Schools they are closely associated with.

But in Yorkshire not only has a Tory MP shared a debating platform with Hizb ut-Tahrir but a Tory council funds one of Hizb ut Tahrir's favorite schools.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

BBC News - Johnston Press websites start charging for news

One of the UK's biggest newspaper firms is starting to limit access to online content from six of its titles.

The Johnston Press websites will either ask users to pay £5 for a three-month subscription to read the full articles or direct them to buy the newspapers.

English sites in the pilot scheme are those of the Worksop Guardian, the Ripley & Heanor News, the Whitby Gazette and Northumberland Gazette.

131 cm of water this morning.

EurActiv: SMEs look to environmental sector for green shoots

The promise of green jobs arising from eco-innovation and upgrading Europe's building stock offers small firms some hope for economic recovery. EurActiv's media network surveys the green economic landscape across Europe.

Around €40 billion is being injected into the European economy by the EU executive in a bid to stimulate green job creation. Another €3.9 billion of the European economic recovery plan has been ring-fenced for green R&D and infrastructure projects.

Adding in investments by national governments brings the total to around €90 billion. However, critics say this is a fraction of the €150 billion invested by China and the funds have yet to trickle down to SMEs.

Reuters: US shoppers spent less over Black Friday weekend

U.S. consumers spent significantly less per person at the start of the holiday season this weekend, dimming hopes for a retail comeback that would help propel the economy early in 2010.

The lackluster spending could pressure retail stocks on Monday as some investors were looking for a stronger showing compared with a year earlier, when consumers were being hammered by the recession and credit crunch.

"There may be a bit of a pullback, a little disappointment," said Patricia Edwards, chief investment officer at Storehouse Partners.

France 24 (AFP): UAE stocks plunge as govt says it will not guarantee Dubai World's debt

The government of Dubai does not guarantee the debt of Dubai World, a senior finance department official said on Monday, effectively washing its hands of the woes facing the embattled conglomerate.

"It is true that the government is the owner, but as the firm has several activities and exposed to different sorts of risks, the decision was from the day of its establishment that the company would not be guaranteed by the government," head of the Dubai Department of Finance Abdulrahman al-Saleh said in an interview with state-owned Dubai Television.

Bloomberg: Natural Gas Glut Overwhelms Speculators, Defies Rally

When Qatar's biggest natural gas shipment to the U.S. arrived this month, it signaled to Barclays Capital Inc. and PFC Energy that this year's worst performing commodity investment won't recover in 2010.

Murwab, a Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker, carried the first shipment to the U.S. from the Persian Gulf nation since June 2008. Its cargo, enough to heat about 9 million homes for a day, added to the largest gas inventories for this time of year since at least 1994, Energy Department data show.

Rising supplies threaten to hurt the record-large $4.2 billion bet in the U.S. Natural Gas Fund LP, while traders hold 51 percent more options contracts to buy gas than they do to sell. The International Energy Agency warned of a glut that Qatar's energy minister said may last until 2012.

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Thirty financial groups on systemic risk list

Thirty global financial institutions make up a list that regulators are earmarking for cross-border supervision exercises, the Financial Times has learnt.

The list includes six insurance companies - Axa, Aegon, Allianz, Aviva, Zurich and Swiss Re - which sit alongside 24 banks from the UK, continental Europe, North America and Japan.

The list has been drawn up by regulators under the auspices of the Financial Stability Board, in an effort to pre-empt systemic risks from spreading around the world in any future financial crisis.
...
The list, which is not public, contains many of the multinational bank names that would be widely expected.

The exercise follows the establishment of the FSB in the summer and is principally designed to address the issue of systemically important cross-border financial institutions through the setting up of supervisory colleges.
...

As a spin-off from that process, the groups on the list will also be asked to start drawing up so-called living wills - documents outlining how each bank could be wound up in the event of a crisis.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

FT.com / India / Economy - India's 7.9% growth spurt shatters forecasts

Strong manufacturing and services helped India's economy shatter growth forecasts in the three months to the end of September, raising the prospect of an early rise in interest rates.

The economy grew by 7.9 per cent year on year, according to official figures released on Monday, well above expectations of 6.3 per cent. The robust performance was driven by the government's fiscal stimulus measures to counter the effects of the global financial crisis.
...
Manufacturing output rose 9.2 cent and services 9.3 per cent, the government data showed. Agricultural production, yet to reflect the effects of a poor monsoon, rose 0.9 per cent.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

FT.com / Columnists / Wolfgang Munchau - Greece can expect no gifts from Europe

After Dubai, will Greece be next? This question is technically a category error, since Dubai World is not a state but a state-owned company. But many investors rightly do not care about the difference. Last week investors started to fret about sovereign default in earnest. So what about Greece?
...
The speculation is now back, but there is one difference. The eurozone will not come to the rescue this time, verbally or otherwise, unless Greece meets a number of conditions the European Union is likely to impose in the coming months.

The EU's authorities, rightly or wrongly, are more afraid of the moral hazard of a bail-out than the possible spillover effect of a hypothetical Greek default to other eurozone countries. If faced with a choice between preserving the integrity of the stability pact and the integrity of Greece, they are currently minded to choose the former. To safeguard what is left of the stability pact, they are determined to link any help to a country's willingness to comply. Otherwise the EU fears it might lose all leverage over budgetary processes elsewhere in the eurozone. And no country in the eurozone has flouted the pact more than Greece.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

Good Bye! The Reappointment Of Bernanke Is Too Much To Bear   Nassim Nicholas Taleb  HuPo

What I am seeing and hearing on the news -- the reappointment of Bernanke -- is too hard for me to bear. I cannot believe that we, in the 21st century, can accept living in such a society. I am not blaming Bernanke (he doesn't even know he doesn't understand how things work or that the tools he uses are not empirical); it is the Senators appointing him who are totally irresponsible -- as if we promoted every doctor who caused malpractice. The world has never, never been as fragile. Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.

No news, no press, no Davos, no suit-and-tie fraudsters, no fools. I need to withdraw as immediately as possible into the Platonic quiet of my library, work on my next book, find solace in science and philosophy, and mull the next step. I will also structure trades with my Universa friends to bet on the next mistake by Bernanke, Summers, and Geithner. I will only (briefly) emerge from my hiatus when the publishers force me to do so upon the publication of the paperback edition of The Black Swan.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Taxing Wall Street Today Wins Support for Keynes Idea

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- John Maynard Keynes proposed a tax on financial transactions in the middle of the Great Depression, and another economist, James Tobin, revived the idea in the 1970s as a way to counter currency market speculation. Neither effort gained much acceptance. Now, a growing number of economists and politicians argue that it's time for a levy on trading stocks, bonds, currencies and derivatives.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Nov. 7 that a transaction tax might compensate for the billions of dollars that the public has spent on bank bailouts. Government officials in France, Germany and Austria have voiced their backing. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner answered Brown a day later, saying the tax was not something the U.S. would support. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, says the idea has "substantial currency" among congressional Democrats.

Even if political consensus on a transaction tax is lacking -- and Brown and Pelosi both say it would need to be implemented everywhere or not at all -- the idea is attracting supporters worldwide.

"It's akin to a gambling tax on socially negative activities," says Andrew Sheng, a former chairman of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission who now advises Chinese bank regulators. Trades that created big risks to the financial system, with the fewest benefits to the economy, might be taxed out of existence, Sheng says. That's because the tax would boost the cost of complex financial products, such as collateralized-debt obligations, that have several layers of transactions -- and slim profit margins, he says.

$76 Billion

The funds raised would be substantial: With stock and currency markets ringing up about $900 trillion in turnover each year and derivatives another $625 trillion, a tax of 0.005 percent might raise $76 billion annually, Sheng estimates.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

 "A Radically Simple Approach to Resolving Financial Crises"

Of late, the Treasury, House, and Senate have put forward proposals for how to resolve large financial institutions. The problem is that none of them seem to deal with the elephant in the room, namely, how the responsible grownups are going to deal with particular creditors and counterparties. For better or worse, bankruptcy procedures are well established, even if they do not fit large complex financial firms very well. The key element is that either freezing counterparty positions or forcing them to take large haircuts could be highly disruptive, which is what a resolution process is supposed to avoid. The lack of attention to mechanics is troubling and suggests that these efforts in the end will amount to window-dressing.

But Dan Arondoff offers an appealing, streamlined alternative
:

   There was another way to resolve the collapse of Bear and AIG without having to bail out their bondholders. The impetus and justification for the intervention, recall, was to prevent a default on contracts to counter parties that might have a devastating systemic impact. But the very same funds that were injected into the firms as equity to be used by the firms to pay its counterparties, could have been made available directly to those same counterparties if the Fed or Treasury had announced a willingness to purchase the contracts directly from the counterparties. Let's take AIG. The Fed purchased $85 billion of stock -for 80% of the equity -that was immediately used to pay off CDS counterparties like Goldman Sachs. Once having injected the funds, the Fed became an equity holder in AIG, with a claim junior to all bondholders, both secured and unsecured. If the Fed had paid Goldman directly for its CDS contract (assuming Goldman was interested in selling), then the Fed would have averted a possible collapse of Goldman and acquired a claim on AIG - the Goldman CDS contract -that was senior to the equity holders and possibly senior to some debt holders and equal to some others. The Fed would have achieved a superior collateral position. AIG could have then undergone a normal bankruptcy. The Fed could have reduced taxpayer exposure further by setting its purchase offer for AIG claims at lower than 100% face value if it deemed that a lower payout would not risk financial meltdown,,,,The same principle would have seen the Fed offer to purchase Repo contracts from Bears' counterparties.

    Government does not need resolution authority over investment banks or bank holding companies. All that is required is authority (if it does not already exist) to offer to purchase contracts from counterparties of failing banks. It can then pursue collection of its claims in a normal bankruptcy process. This will resolve much of the moral hazard issue, as equity holders and bondholders will not be bailed out. It will reduce taxpayer exposure and the policy is credible.

Tell TINA to take a hike! Better yet, tell TINA to go preform an anatomically impossible act of auto-eroticism. There are and there were alternatives to the bailout. I doubt that it was for lack of intelligence that Tim Geithner did not see this possibility 14 months ago. Even were the authority not clear, in those circumstances it could simply have been asserted. If needed, it would have been far easier to get that authority than to get Congress to approve Paulson's $700 billion TARP.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

FT.com / Markets / Insight - Insight: Deflating the bubble

From June 2008 to June 2009, reserves held by commercial banks with their central bank doubled in the eurozone, and increased by an even greater percentage in the UK and US, yet bank deposits and total bank assets barely changed, so the multiplier collapsed to zero. Banks, in aggregate, just absorbed the additional reserves by allowing their ratio of reserves to deposits to balloon, without any attempt to use their greater liquidity/reserves to expand their balance sheet. Why?

This may appear to have been a purely passive response to cash injection, but nevertheless commercial bank treasurers will have consciously decided that accumulating vast cash reserves was preferable to using them in any other way. This may be partly insurance against uncertain future needs to roll-over wholesale funding. At a time of tightening bank capital requirements, and rising prospective defaults, the limitations on lending to private sector borrowers, except on most favourable terms, are obvious.

But why not buy safe public sector debt? Lower yields on short-dated government bonds, pushed down by QE, as well as interest rate risk, enhanced by rising debt ratios, may make public sector debt appear less attractive compared to the safe remuneration on deposits at the central bank. This is a condition for a typical liquidity trap; hence my proposal for applying a negative return, a charge, on such deposits.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

FT.com / Europe - Eurozone unemployment hits 11-year high

Unemployment in the eurozone reached its highest level in more than a decade in October, as employers continued to cut jobs despite tentative signs of economic recovery.

The uninterrupted rise in the number of jobless since February 2008 has pushed the unemployment rate to 9.8 per cent, the same as September figures, which on Tuesday were revised upwards from 9.7 per cent on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

Countries in the eurozone now have 15.6m unemployed, the most since the European Commission started compiling data in the mid-1980s, and up 3m on a year ago.

The headline figure hides considerable divergence in joblessness at national level. Dutch unemployed remains well below 4 per cent, whereas nearly one in five workers in Spain are looking for a job.

The rise in joblessness is also uneven across the 16 countries that use the euro. Unemployment in Germany is at the same level as it was at the start of the economic crisis, and actually fell last month, to 7.5 per cent. France and Italy are still shedding jobs, however.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

EurActiv: Russia proposes new Euro-Atlantic security treaty

Russia published on 29 November its proposal for a new Euro-Atlantic security treaty that would restrict its ability to use military force unilaterally if the United States and its European allies agreed to do the same.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the European Security Treaty is needed to replace Cold War-era institutions like NATO that are ill-suited to defusing tensions in a multipolar world, but his proposals have received a muted reception in the West.

Medvedev has invited proposals from Western countries on how to build a new security treaty. The draft, which would "finally do away with the legacy of the Cold War," has been sent to all relevant leaders, the Kremlin said in a statement.

BBC News: Barack Obama issues orders for Afghan troops build-up

US President Barack Obama has issued new orders for the US military in Afghanistan after deciding how many more troops to send, officials say.

Mr Obama told senior military leaders about his long-awaited decision on troop numbers on Sunday night, a White House spokesman said.

The president is now briefing the UK, French and Russian leaders on the plan.

BBC News: Somali pirates capture huge tanker taking oil to US

Somali pirates have captured a tanker carrying oil to the US, officials say.

The Greek-owned Maran Centaurus was about 1,300km (800 miles) off Somalia when it was hijacked on Sunday, said the EU Naval task force (Navfor).

The ship was full of oil and is believed to be one of the largest yet seized by Somali pirates. There are 28 crew members on board.

WaPo: Senate to begin debate on healthcare overhaul

The U.S. Senate opens debate on a broad healthcare overhaul on Monday with senators seeking an elusive compromise on thorny issues like a government-run insurance plan, abortion coverage and holding down costs.

The debate on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, which opens at 3 p.m. EST (2000 GMT), is expected to last three weeks or more. Republicans have vowed to do whatever they can to block or delay the bill.

The Senate plan is designed to rein in costs, expand coverage to about 30 million uninsured Americans and halt industry practices such as denying coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions.

British yacht crew of five detained in Iran | Special Coverage | Reuters

Five Britons have been detained in Iran after their racing yacht may have inadvertently strayed into Iranian waters, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday.

The yacht, en route from Bahrain to Dubai, was stopped by Iranian naval vessels on November 25, he said in a statement.

<...>

The Volvo 60 class yacht, called Kingdom of Bahrain and owned by the Sail Bahrain project launched by the Team Pindar sailing team, was due to have reached Dubai on November 26 to take part in a 360-mile Dubai-Muscat race, local media reported last week.

Along with the rest of the race fleet, it was to have passed through the shallows of the Gulf into the Indian Ocean before arriving in the Omani capital Muscat. ...

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

Terrorism?

A few days ago, a man in Ohio was arrested following an explosion in his apartment, after which police discovered "about 35 pipe bombs, an assortment of firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition." In the intervening days, as far as I can tell (from my own watching), there has been zero coverage of this event in the national news.

Explanation: He wasn't Middle Eastern.

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

Honduran voter turnout numbers dropping?

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

Runoff in Uruguay:

José "Pepe" Mujica of the governing Broad Front (FA) won Sunday's runoff election against former President Luis Alberto Calle of the National Party. With 97 percent of the votes in, the country's electoral court showed Mujica pulling in 53 percent against 43 percent for Lacalle. During campaigns, Lacalle suggested Mujica would take Uruguay down a left-leaning road modeled on the path of Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
[...]
Mujica, a former agriculture minister, was a member of the Tupamaro guerilla group and imprisoned during the military regimes that governed during the 1970s and 1980s. He used his victory speech to heal rifts with other candidates and called for reconciliation. When he takes office in March, the new president will have the backing of Congress, where the FA and the Progressive Encounter command a majority. The coalition secured 50 seats in the lower house and nine senatorial seats during the October election.

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

Rep. Hinchey: Bush Administration 'Intentionally Let bin Laden Get Away' In Order To Justify Iraq War  MSNBC via HuPo

On Monday afternoon, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-New York) told MSNBC host David Shuster that the Bush administration "intentionally let bin Laden get away" in order to justify the Iraq war. Hinchey is from a historically Republican district (though it includes Democrat-heavy in places like Woodstock and Ithaca) and his statement seemed to shock Shuster.

"Look what happened. Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan. How we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away. How we intentionally did not follow the Taliban and al Qaeda." Hinchey alleged that bin Laden was let go because "the previous administration... knew very well that if they would capture al Qaeda there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq."

Shuster, incredulous, pushed back: "You really believe that?"

"Oh, there's no question about that because the leader of the military operation in the United States called back our military, called them back from going after the head of al Qaeda because there was a sense that they didn't want to capture him." Shuster began talking over Hinchey: "You can accuse them of malfeasance, you can accuse them of dropping the ball, of having an awful plan, and all of them would be justified, but to suggest that they would deliberately let, deliberately let Osama bin Laden get away so they could justify the war in Iraq... That will strike a lot of people as crazy."

Hinchey leaned back and smiled wrily. "I don't think it'll strike a lot of people as crazy. I think it'll strike a lot of people as very accurate."

Partial substantiation from French and British sources was cited in the Monday Salon.  Glad to see this make it onto a national outlet. I have long contended that, contrary to the popular political myth, US politics actually BEGINS at the nation's shore. Especially nice to see a US Congressman make David Schuster wet his pants on air.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Seculars use God's name against Haredim in Jerusalem fight | Ha'aretz | 1.12.09

During the ultra-Orthodox demonstrations against Intel in Jerusalem two weeks ago, something strange happened: toward the end of the protest, when the police began pushing the demonstrators out of the Har Hotzvim industrial zone, the Haredim withdrew.

But at one point they reached a pile of plastic boxes on the road, and suddenly refused to retreat any further. Some began fighting the police, while others simply fled to the sides of the road, giving the police more impetus to disperse them forcefully.

The reason for the sudden panic was that under the boxes, on the street, someone had spray painted the name of God - Yahweh. The boxes had been placed on top of the graffiti as a holy roadblock by an anonymous group of secular Jerusalemites who have taken upon themselves to act lawfully and creatively against the Haredim.

From Bloomberg.com

I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit," said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it's true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn't call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that "as a preliminary matter" it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.

Australia an Asian nation say Chinese

A Lowy Institute poll of Chinese public opinion on world affairs, to be released today, shows Australia is accepted as an Asian nation, with an important role to play in regional organisations, attractive values and a good political system.

But the Chinese are wary of Australia's close ties to the United States, with 48 per cent of those surveyed regarding it as a negative influence on Australia-China relations.

France 24 (AFP): Bordeaux banks on biodiversity

It was a crisp autumn day in the vineyards of Saint Emilion, the vines asleep for the winter, as winegrowers, scientists and children planted hedges to create habitats for mites needed to prey on vine pests.

This marked the debut of an ambitious biodiversity project launched by pioneering French vintners in a bid for sustainability.

The biological diversity of Saint Emilion's 8,000-hectare vineyard landscape, intertwined with wine since Roman times and protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage site since 1999, has been precariously reduced by urbanization, chemical vine treatments, and one-crop farming.

BBC News: Solar panel costs 'set to fall'

The cost of installing and owning solar panels will fall even faster than expected according to new research.

Tests show that 90% of existing solar panels last for 30 years, instead of the predicted 20 years.

According to the independent EU Energy Institute, this brings down the lifetime cost.

[...]

Incentive programmes for solar panels in Germany, Italy and Spain have created manufacturing volume that's bringing down costs. Solar panel prices dropped 30% last year alone due to an increase in output and a drop in orders because of the recession.

Jack of Kent: On Denialism

Is Denialism a helpful term?

This question is prompted by a rather spirited exchange of views earlier today on Twitter. It was a discussion about climate change and global warming.

The discussion originated in the outraged reaction of a very eminent Bad Science blogger to a personal recommendation of a book for Christmas by a scientist on a science charity website.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Climate: We Can ALL Agree On Two Things
 George Washington on Zero Hedge

Whatever you think about the leaked emails showing that "tricks" were used to "hide the decline" in the climate data, and the fact that the original source data showing historical climate information was destroyed, you should agree on two things.

The Carbon Footprint of War

First, as Harvey Wasserman notes, continuing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will more than wipe out any reduction in carbon from the government's proposed climate measures. Writing about the escalation in the Afghanistan war, Wasserman says:

   The war would also come with a carbon burst. How will the massive emissions created by 100,000-plus soldiers in wartime be counted in the 17% reduction rubric? Will the HumVees be converted to hybrids? What is the carbon impact of Predator bombs that destroy Afghan families and villages?

Carbon Trading

Second, the proposed solution to global warming - cap and trade - is a scam. Specifically:

    * The economists who invented cap-and-trade say that it won't work for global warming

    * Many environmentalists say that carbon trading won't effectively reduce carbon emissions

    * Our bailout buddies over at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the other Wall Street behemoths are buying heavily into carbon trading. As University of Maryland professor economics professor and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission Peter Morici writes:

         Obama must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to worthy homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading and complex derivatives. Industry leaders like Citigroup have announced plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers enjoyed influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign. Now it remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these same bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.

We should also keep in mind the carbon footprint of getting soldiers to Afganistan and supplying them there. I have previously read about the profit potential for Wall Street from "cap and trade" programs. Or should that be "crap and trade" scams?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

LED Bulbs Save Substantial Energy, Study by Osram Finds - NYTimes.com

... While that may seem self-evident, until the release of the report on Monday the answer remained unclear.

That is because no one knew if the production of LED lamps required more energy than needed for standard incandescent bulbs. While it is indisputable that LEDs use a fraction of the electricity of a regular bulb to create the same amount of light, if more energy were used in the manufacturing and distribution process, then the lighting industry could be traveling down a technological dead end.

The study results show that over the entire life of the bulb -- from manufacturing to disposal -- the energy used for incandescent bulbs is almost five times that used for compact fluorescents and LED lamps.

The energy used during the manufacturing phase of all lamps is insignificant -- less than 2 percent of the total. Given that both compact fluorescents and LEDs use about 20 percent of the electricity needed to create the same amount of light as a standard incandescent, both lighting technologies put incandescents to shame. ...

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

Possible sinkhole threatens New Mexico town  LA Times

Reporting from Carlsbad, N.M. -  Cookie and Ella Fletcher decided to call Thanksgiving off. This year, there seemed little to be thankful for.

Not far from the Fletchers' mobile home in this small southeastern New Mexico city lies a giant underground cavity that geologists say is a time bomb waiting to implode. At any moment, they say, the cavity could collapse into a yawning sinkhole, taking with it a chunk of highway, a church, several businesses and the El Dorado Estates trailer park the Fletchers call home.

The cavity is the result of three decades of salt mining, a process in which oil service companies inject water into a salt layer 450 feet underground, allow the water to dissolve the salt, and then suck up the brine. Oil companies use the brine to help extract oil from the earth. Over the years, more than 6 million cubic feet of brine was removed from the Carlsbad well and sold for use in the oil fields that blanket the surrounding desert.

State officials singled out the Carlsbad well as a danger and ordered it closed after two similar wells north of town collapsed last year, leaving craters about 400 feet across and 100 feet deep. Those sinkholes caused little damage because they occurred in rural areas -- in fact, sinkholes are not unheard of in oil country. But the Carlsbad brine well is smack underneath the busiest intersection in this town of 26,000, and it is only footsteps from a major irrigation channel and railroad tracks.

Local officials say a collapse would ravage the city's economy and could do as much as $100 million in damage to the pecan and cotton fields that depend on the irrigation channel. El Dorado Estates residents say they would be left homeless; most are itinerant oil field or construction workers or retirees, like the Fletchers, who live on fixed incomes.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

As bees continue to die off, suspicion turns to chemically coated seeds and other factors

Colony collapse disorder has a variety of suspected causes: pesticides, varroa mites, viruses, stress from shipping hives long distances to pollinate crops -- or some combination. Colony collapse disorder typically affects commercial hives and generally not those kept by hobbyists. But some researchers and environmentalists are focusing again on pesticides as the key culprit.

"We do feel like pesticides are playing a role in pollinator decline," said Maryann Frazier, a senior extension associate with Penn State University. "We know that the pesticides are there. We don't know yet exactly what role they're playing." Penn State's research is undergoing peer review and is expected to be published by the end of the year.

Focus on neonicotinoids

Environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, are targeting chemically coated seeds, called neonicotinoids. They have called on the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend use of neonicotinoids, an artificial form of nicotine, until more conclusive research can be completed. Italy, France, Germany and Slovenia have restricted the use of some of these pesticides.

California's Department of Pesticide Regulation, where more than 1 million honeybees are needed each winter to pollinate the almond crop, is also re-evaluating some neonicotinoids that may be harmful to bees. "What we're asking the EPA is to go with precautions," said Laurel Hopwood, chairwoman of the Sierra Club genetic engineering action team. "Let's go ahead and suspend them until we get all of the research completed."
....
Commercial beekeeper Clint Walker, who is based in the Central Texas town of Rogers, has been suspicious of pesticide use since the number of his hives dropped from 2,000 in summer 2005 to 600 in January 2006. The portion of his hives that pollinated cotton fields that had been sprayed in West Texas collapsed, while his hives that stayed in Central Texas and pollinated wildflowers experienced no problems. But he will wait for definitive proof before assigning blame.

Have to be very careful about concluding that the products of pesticide manufactures are producing a problem.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

NY Times: A Museum Hails Caesar, Even if Some Antiquarians Don't Agree

Dredged up from the murky depths of the Rhône River, beneath a heap of wrecked cars, rotting tires and more than 20 centuries of silt, the statue's white marble visage was plain as day.

"My God, it's Caesar!" Luc Long remembers shouting after his team of archaeologists and divers discovered the statue in 2007.

The Roman appears with little hair, a wrinkled forehead, a prominent Adam's apple and features that, for Mr. Long, "seem carved in human flesh." But Mr. Long did not realize at the time that he had discovered what he said was "the first portrait made of Caesar when he was alive." The bust, which France's Culture Ministry now dates from 46 B.C., is thought to be the only known surviving statue of Julius Caesar carved during his lifetime.

BBC News: 'Arthritis risk' for middle-aged exercise addicts

Middle-aged men and women may be risking arthritis if they overdo their exercise regime, research suggests.

A US study of more than 200 people aged 45 to 55 and of "normal" weight found those doing the most exercise were the most likely to suffer knee damage.

Running and jumping may also do more damage to cartilage and ligaments than swimming and cycling, researchers said.

One arthritis charity said it was important to keep fit and most people would not have any problems.

Running and jumping do more damage to your knees than swimming and cycling and excessive running and jumping may not be smart for middle-aged people of 'normal weight'. Who would have thought?

Reuters: "Big Bang" collider sets particle beam record

The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN near Geneva scored a world record on Monday by accelerating beams to the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider, the research center announced.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the achievement marked a major milestone on the way to tests next year which they hope will unlock secrets of the origins and make-up of the universe.

The energy of the twin beams circulated around 27-km tunnels deep underground went, at 1.18 trillion electric volts (TeV), well past the previous highest -- just under 1 TeV -- in a collider at the U.S. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

BBC News - BT boss has only broadband home

British Telecom (BT) has admitted its chairman is the only person in a village on the Oxfordshire-Buckinghamshire border with broadband.

Other people in Hambleden were told they could not have broadband because of the distance to the exchange.

BT said Sir Michael Rake's connection was part of a trial of new technology, and no company could afford to provide broadband to the area.

One local resident said it was not fair and that Sir Michael should resign.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Some Biologists Find an Urge in Human Nature to Help - NYTimes.com

... When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help, Michael Tomasello writes in "Why We Cooperate," a book published in October. Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

The helping behavior seems to be innate because it appears so early and before many parents start teaching children the rules of polite behavior.

<...>

... Dr. Tomasello finds the helping is not enhanced by rewards, suggesting that it is not influenced by training. It seems to occur across cultures that have different timetables for teaching social rules. And helping behavior can even be seen in infant chimpanzees under the right experimental conditions. For all these reasons, Dr. Tomasello concludes that helping is a natural inclination, not something imposed by parents or culture.

<...>

"We're preprogrammed to reach out," Dr. [Frans] de Waal writes. "Empathy is an automated response over which we have limited control." The only people emotionally immune to another's situation, he notes, are psychopaths.

Indeed, it is in our biological nature, not our political institutions, that we should put our trust, in his view. Our empathy is innate and cannot be changed or long suppressed. "In fact," Dr. de Waal writes, "I'd argue that biology constitutes our greatest hope. One can only shudder at the thought that the humaneness of our societies would depend on the whims of politics, culture or religion." ...

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

Western Men Are Doomed - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

David Brooks: Gail, I don't know if you had a chance to see my column Tuesday, but China always gets me thinking big. I look at the long history and bright future of that civilization-state and suddenly you've got to chase me down with a butterfly net to impose the grip of reality on my grandiose and free-floating ideas. It's runaway Spengler Syndrome.

But I do have one more Grand Historical Theory to spin out for you, and it involves thinking styles. Different cultures and groups have different styles of thinking, or to be more precise, the average behavior is different from one group to another. So is it possible that Westerners, on average, have thinking styles that make them ill-suited for the problems of the future while Asians have styles that make them better suited?

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

SPIEGEL: Rocker Offends Germans with Nazi-Era Anthem

British musician Pete Doherty was booed heavily in Germany after singing the first verse of the German national anthem. The lyrics are taboo in Germany because of their Nazi associations.

Pete Doherty, a scandal-ridden British rockstar best known for having dated supermodel Kate Moss, has made headlines again -- and for once, it's actually about his singing.

The Babyshambles frontman took to the stage Saturday evening at a festival that was being simultaneously broadcast live on the radio station Bayern 2. He had originally showed up to watch the concert, but talked his way on stage. After taking the microphone, the clearly drunk rocker started to sing the first verse of the German national anthem, which has been taboo since World War II because of its Nazi associations.

He didn't even sing it right!

BBC News - Chelsea Clinton engaged to marry boyfriend

Chelsea Clinton, daughter of ex-US President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is engaged to marry her long-term boyfriend.

She is marrying Marc Mezvinsky, a banker at Goldman Sachs, with whom she became friends as a teenager.

A spokesman for former President Clinton confirmed that the couple got engaged over last week's Thanksgiving holiday.

Ms Clinton, 29, is attending Columbia University's School of Public Health.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Arkansas' favorite son at black tie event in Netherlands  AP

Amsterdam News publisher Elinor Tatum escorts former President Bil Clinton, center right, and his wife Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to their table...

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."