Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the illegal sale of arms to Angola in the 1990s, said then president Jacques Chirac was fully aware of what was going on.

Germany's once-proud Social Democrats suffered an historic defeat on election day in September. Now, the party is gathered in Dresden to begin the search for answers -- and for a fresh start. But a new poll indicates the road to recovery is, if anything, getting longer.

It was the kind of election result that can mark a party for years to come. In German general elections on Sept. 27, the Social Democrats -- a party with a proud history stretching all the way back to 1875 -- suffered a colossal defeat. After 11 years in government, the party received just 23 percent of the vote, its lowest result ever in post-war Germany.

..."We want to get together and take a critical look at ourselves," Andrea Nahles, tapped to be the party's next general secretary, told the German television station ARD this week. "There is going to be a generational shift. If the SPD wants to recover its traditional strength, then things can't remain as they are."

(Nahles has been attacked by seniors within the party for being too young to rise this high.)

For many in the party, the solution is obvious -- the party must shift to the left. Calls for the SPD to renounce the Hartz IV reforms and the retirement-age increase have been myriad. A desire for the SPD to work more closely with the far-left Left Party -- long shunned due to its having grown out of the East German communist party -- has likewise made itself manifest.

Indeed, the selection of Andrea Nahles to take over from Hubertus Heil as SPD general secretary -- a move expected to be confirmed by a convention vote this weekend -- was seen as a step toward the left. Nahles has long been the leader of the SPD's left wing, and has not been shy about criticizing some of the reforms her party supported.

The relationships between Romania and the Republic of Moldova start to normalise after several years of tensions that culminated with visas being introduced for Romanian citizens. On Friday, the two states will sign several bi-lateral agreements that have been postponed for years by the ex-communist regime from Chisinau. The agreements address the light traffic at the border, the intergovernmental bi-lateral agreement regarding the cross-border points between the two countries and the protocol amending the intergovernmental agreement signed in 1992 in Bucharest addressing the protection of investments.

It happened that a father with his children in the car was driving through a village street, when a girl ran on the street. The car braked and the girl was barely hurt. However, a gathering of relatives and neighbours thought someone was ran over, pulled the man from the car, and beat him to death.

The perpetrators were Roma, thus all wings of the Hungarian far-right seized upon the crime, in particular the then still dwarf (but now double-digits in polls...) Jobbik, with its Hungarian Guard paramilitary.

The actual legal treatment of the case faced a problem: all the accused held to an omertà. All that became known about the background was that another small girl was ran over and killed there fifteeen years earlier (a circumstance that wasn't accepted by court as reason to consider acting on impulse as mitigating factor). Still, eight were sentenced to long prison terms on first instance.

Upon second instance, some of the accused broke and changed their testmonies, but did not say enough to reveal the precise course of events -- all that became clear was that the real ringleaders were the 6th and 7th order accused, who now got life imprisonment on second term.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The sight of Silvio Berlusconi, the controversial Italian Prime Minister, changing the law to his own benefit has become so familiar there is a risk that Italians -- and the world at large -- will accept it as normal. What is at stake, however, is not normal.

In effect, critics say, he is undermining the rule of law in a Western democracy instead of upholding it.

Mr Berlusconi and his supporters have this week tabled in Parliament a Bill shortening the length of criminal trials. It is, they say, a long overdue attempt to reform Italy's notoriously slow, cumbersome and Kafkaesque judicial system, in which verdicts arrive after years -- or never.

But this hastily formulated measure derives from Mr Berlusconi's instruction to Niccolo Ghedini, his personal lawyer -- who, this being Italy, is also a parliamentary deputy framing the law -- to find a way to save him from imminent corruption trials, after a ruling by the Constitutional Court last month overturning his self-awarded immunity from prosecution.

The European Union refuses to give Ukraine a shot at EU accession, thereby leaving the country without any bright prospects and slowing its stabilisation. This will go down in history as a huge mistake, foresees the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

It is widely mooted that political chaos reigns in Ukraine. What goes unmentioned in these appraisals, however, is that the Ukraine's principal Western partner, the European Union, is partly to blame for keeping the country unmoored and adrift with no political destination in sight.

Hardly anyone would deny that the prospect of EU accession went a long way toward expediting the stabilisation and democratisation of Central Europe after the Soviet bloc fell apart. Precious few European politicians, however, are prepared to publicly pronounce the obvious corollary for the Ukraine. If participation in the European integration process, the prospect of and negotiations toward EU accession, had positive repercussions from Tallinn to Dublin, then the Ukraine, if denied even a shot at future EU membership, remains at sea and sorely deprived of the beneficial beacons that lit the way for its western neighbours.

Web search giant Google faces a court case in Switzerland because of privacy concerns over its Street View service.

The application allows a 360-degree view of any street-level location.

"Numerous faces and vehicle number plates are not made sufficiently unrecognisable," said data protection commissioner Hanspeter Thuer.

Google said it was disappointed by the move. The firm says it is sure that Street View is legal in Switzerland and will "vigorously contest" the case.

... What makes Germany's unwillingness to aim for the top jobs in these two organizations so surprising is that it could have them for the asking. "Germany could get any position it wanted here in NATO," the NATO diplomat said.

A veteran E.U. diplomat agreed: "If Merkel was serious about naming someone, that person would get the top job. No question about it." No German has led the top European institution for 42 years, and the last time a German headed NATO was 15 years ago.

Apart from heading the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Germany is also noticeably absent from the leadership of other major international organizations, including the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the International Energy Agency and the United Nations (where at least a German heads the Environment Program).

<...>

Perhaps Germany does not want these leadership roles, said Daniela Schwarzer, Europe expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. "Maybe the Germans see themselves as moderators, not as leaders." With 27 countries now in the E.U., it is becoming increasingly difficult even for the best moderators to reach decisions that have substance. In that case, the new E.U. posts might not be so attractive. "Whether the new posts will be influential depends on the governments' willingness to make them so," Ms. Schwarzer added.

Other analysts are more critical of the German approach. "Germany has become very inward looking," said the E.U. diplomat, who attends all the bloc's major meetings and summit talks and sees the role Germans play. "If Merkel really cared about Europe, she would send better people and support stronger candidates," added the diplomat. ...

Both the eurozone and the European Union saw growth in the third quarter. According to Eurostat, the eurozone posted growth of 0.4% and the EU grew by 0.2%. The British and Spanish economies remain in the red.

British Airways last night confirmed that it will merge with the Spanish flag carrier Iberia in a $7bn (£4.2bn) deal, creating the world's third biggest airline. The announcement comes after a day when the boards of both companies were locked in separate meetings, combing through the fine details of the plans which have been under discussion for nearly 18 months.

Europe knows all about how tough Gazprom can be at the negotiating table. Now Gazprom, the bare-knuckled king of natural gas, is out to make its mark in America.

Just how tough is Gazprom? As the world's biggest supplier of natural gas, the Russian company has a reputation for hard-nosed bargaining. So when John Hattenberger, chief of the company's new US operation, hired George Thorogood and The Destroyers to play at a party marking the opening of Gazprom's Houston office, he insisted Thorogood leave his Epiphone guitar after the show. "That was clause 19 of the contract," Hattenberger jokes. Today the autographed instrument hangs above Gazprom's trading floor.

That's Gazprom with a sense of humor. But more often, its negotiating style is no laughing matter. In January, Gazprom slowed gas deliveries to Ukraine in a price dispute, leaving customers further down the pipeline in Central Europe shivering in the winter cold-the third time in three years Gazprom has taken similar steps.

(I don't recall shivering in winter cold last winter, not to mention three winters in a row.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The American dollar is in the midst of a large fall in its value, or depreciation, as measured against other major currencies. The decline has been steady since 2002 and our currency is down about 35 percent from that peak. After strengthening slightly more than 10 percent during the global financial crisis of the past 18 months, the dollar is again falling back toward its pre-crisis lows, representing its weakest international value since 1967.

But there is a definite possibility that the dollar could soon decline further or faster.

At the level of general economic strategy, the American government has responded to a financial sector crisis with an expansionary fiscal policy, and the Federal Reserve is implementing loose monetary policy. Andrew Haldane, responsible for financial stability at the Bank of England, puts it this way:

   "For the authorities, [excessive risk-taking by the financial sector] poses a dilemma. Ex-ante, they may well say "never again." But the ex-post costs of crisis mean such a statement lacks credibility. Knowing this, the rational response by market participants is to double their bets. This adds to the cost of future crises. And the larger these costs, the lower the credibility of "never again" announcements. This is a doom loop." (link to the paper)

Both Mervyn King and Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England have now spoken cogently, publicly and forcefully about current financial problems. But will it matter? Larry, Ben and Tim don't really seem to want the rules of finance to change very much. Unfortunately, problems with the regulation and structure of finance are only part of the problem, to continue from the Dollar Doom Loop article:

In addition to a financial crisis, we also have a large current account deficit, meaning that we buy more from the world than we sell. The deficit was $100 billion in the latest available (second quarter) data, which is around 3 percent of gross domestic product, and we finance that with capital inflows from abroad. (The current account deficit is down from around 6 percent, but two-thirds of the decline is due to the lower price of oil).

In the past, many of those inflows have been private investments of various kinds, but as investors around the world question whether United States government debt, and its dollars, are really worth the paper, it is increasingly difficult for us to finance our deficit with the outside world.

What does this mean for the dollar?

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner continues to repeat that a strong dollar is "very important" for the American economy, but United States fiscal and monetary policy pushes toward depreciation. To bail out our banks, we need cheap money, and this implies some inflation. To finance our current account deficit, investors need to think they are buying inexpensive assets from us. Everything points to a cheaper dollar. (The same thing is happening in Britain, but the Bank of England is increasingly explicit about this point and the unsavory broader situation.)

A "hard landing" scenario for the dollar could be painful.

The 1980s classic, Stephen Marris's "Deficits and the Dollar: The World Economy at Risk," stresses that a rapidly falling dollar would push up United States inflation, resulting in higher interest rates and a deep recession (pp. lx-lxi). Writing in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs, Fred Bergsten emphasizes that such outcomes are still possible today. A weakening dollar will cause inflation fears, so yields on long-term government bonds will rise to compensate investors for inflation, and we will need to pay more and more to finance our large debts.

The idea that the American dollar might follow emerging markets such as Russia in 1998 and Argentina in 2002, or Britain in the 1970s -- and so depreciate by 50 percent or more in a relatively short time -- is certainly implausible now. But such a "doom scenario" is not unrealistic in the future without change.The idea that the American dollar might follow emerging markets such as Russia in 1998 and Argentina in 2002, or Britain in the 1970s -- and so depreciate by 50 percent or more in a relatively short time -- is certainly implausible now. But such a "doom scenario" is not unrealistic in the future without change.

Senator Byron Dorgan has some harsh words for the too big to fails:

   It's one of the most frustrating things. We essentially have had modern-day bank robbers -- except that they wore gray suits and not masks -- and there's been no accountability for it ...
    Every day we see energy speculators, war profiteers, managed health-care providers, media propagandists, and/or financiers given some unfair advantage over the average consumers and taxpayers, and the cumulative effect of the American people watching selfishness prevail over the public interest has been an undermining of the public's trust in government.

    This "anything goes" approach to capitalism has injured the very economy we have aspired to create.

    I'm a big fan of the free-market system...This is not about a liberal or conservative philosophy. It is about making sure our economy and the free-market system work for everybody...
    There's no question the system is rigged against the little guy. The bigger interests have a lot more information. They jerry-rig the system so that they always win.

Dorgan said 3 things are needed to fix the financial system:

   One is to separate investment banks and FDIC-insured banks. Second, prohibit FDIC-insured banks from dealing in risky financial instruments on their own proprietary accounts... And third, abolish "too big to fail." If you're too big to fail, you're too big. Too big to fail is what I call no-fault capitalism.

Senator Dorgan was one of eight senators who stood up to oppose the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999, and said at the time:

   I think we will in 10 years' time look back and say we should not have done this.

Two-thirds of Germans oppose the country's almost eight-year long involvement in Afghanistan, although the mission is backed by all of the political parties, apart from the far-left Left Party. If anything, recent events have eroded public support even further with an airstrike involving a German officer most likely having led to civilian deaths compounded by the fiasco of the Afghan presidential elections.

Nevertheless Guttenberg seems intent on raising the profile of Germany's mission rather than sweeping it under the carpet. Since taking office two weeks ago he has single-handedly overturned years of government efforts to present Germany's involvement in the ISAF mission as a kind of military led school-building exercise. The public have never bought this line. A war by any other name is still a war.

Guttenberg has recognized that neither the public nor the military are served by these attempts at a semantic smokescreen. Indeed he has argued that politicians need to "bring the mission into the consciousness of the public." In his very first interview after taking on the defense portfolio in the new center-right coalition, Guttenberg broke the long-standing taboo, describing the conditions in Afghanistan as "war-like." And he has repeated this term in subsequent interviews, saying that when soldiers are faced with danger and the risk of death and injury then they might well describe their experience as war. Guttenberg's predecessor Jung refused to use the term, instead describing it repeatedly as a "stabilization mission."

It seems this yuppie, talked up by the media as 'rising star' is seen as the saviour by Atlanticists.


_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Self-proclaimed September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York for trial in a civilian US court and prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

At a news conference, the attorney general said five other suspects, including a major suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole warship, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will be tried before a military commission.

REUTERS - Sri Lanka's top general, who engineered the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam after a 25-year war, submitted his resignation on Thursday amid speculation he will run for president.

General Sarath Fonseka, the Chief of Defence Staff, is expected to challenge his commander in chief, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in an election which may be held by April.

Iraqi former battle zone sees abnormal clusters of infant tumours and deformities

Doctors in Iraq's war-ravaged enclave of Falluja are dealing with up to 15 times as many chronic deformities in infants and a spike in early life cancers that may be linked to toxic materials left over from the fighting.

The extraordinary rise in birth defects has crystallised over recent months as specialists working in Falluja's over-stretched health system have started compiling detailed clinical records of all babies born.

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects - which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

QUESTION: A follow-up on Honduras. What does the U.S. think about the human rights situation there right now? There have been mass arrests, curfews, an emergency decree, and a ban on protests and media closures for three weeks during the presidential campaign. Does that undermine the electoral process, in the view of the U.S.?

MR. KELLY: Regarding the - well, first of all, our real priority here is to see this accord implemented step by step. We've only gotten through step one, and we need step two and step three to be implemented.

Regarding the - these reports, I'm actually not aware of these reports of any actions to - you say ban rallies and - no, I'm not just aware of those reports. I think that we would need to have more details about it for us to really comment on it.

... China has taken steps in recent months to safeguard the legal rights of those who run afoul of the authorities. New regulations drafted by the Ministry of Public Security and released on Monday by the State Council, or cabinet, ban forced labor at government-authorized detention centers, where people accused of crimes are held before trial. The new rules also bar officials at detention centers from charging detainees for expenses like food.

But Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that the new rules did nothing to help detainees at unofficial jails.

The unofficial jails have captured attention in recent months.

According to Chinese news media, a guard at an unofficial jail in an inexpensive guesthouse pleaded guilty on Nov. 4 to raping a 20-year-old woman from Anhui Province who had come to Beijing to complain about harassment at her university. Nearly a dozen people reportedly witnessed the rape, and about 50 detainees, including the woman, managed to escape jail when the guard fled after the assault.

The court dismissed charges against the guesthouse and two provincial liaison officials, according to the official China Daily newspaper.

Oil giant Total UK today admitted health and safety breaches in connection with the massive Buncefield oil depot explosion.

It entered written pleas of guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety Act, and one of polluting water under the Water Resources Act.

Four other companies, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd, British Pipeline Agency Ltd, TAV Engineering Ltd and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd, pleaded not guilty to breaking health and safety laws.

Total is not expected to be sentenced until trials are held for the other companies.

The case at the Old Bailey was brought by the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency.

A series of explosions, including one major one, ripped through the depot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, on 11 December, 2005.

Widely thought to be the largest ever explosion in peacetime Europe, it measured 2.4 on the Richter scale and could be heard 125 miles away.

AFP - China should cut its carbon intensity by four to five percent each year from 2005 baseline levels, state media reported, citing a proposal by a leading government-led think tank.

The proposal comes ahead of a key meeting in Copenhagen next month where China -- now the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases -- will face pressure from rich nations to make firm commitments to combat climate change.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Italy was meant to reduce its emissions to 482 million tons by 2012, 6.5 percent below the 1990 figure. This means it will have to cut emisisons by over 10 percent in the next three years if it is to meet its commitments.

Under the Kyoto agreement, Spain was allowed to boost its output of greenhouse gases by 15 percent - to take into account its relatively underdeveloped economic situation in the 1990s.

But the country's subsequent economic boom led to a staggering  52.6 percent explosion in emissions. This leaves Spain with the challenge of slashing emissions by a quarter over the next three years.

Denmark has managed to cut output by four percent, but it is still way off its 21 percent Kyoto target.

English winegrowers are benefiting from global warming and their reputation is improving fast. Despite the rain, some British vintners dream of competing with France's Champagne region.

AFP - A super-fast, space-age powerboat which scythes through waves and smashed the round-the-world record is set to be unleashed on Japanese whalers next month, activists said on Friday.

The tri-hulled, kevlar-and-carbon vessel, which can manage speeds up to 50 knots (57 miles/93 kilometres per hour), will chase the controversial boats during their annual hunt in seas south of Australia.

AFP - Swine flu is thought to have killed nearly 4,000 people in the United States, including more than 500 children, health officials said after a new counting method yielded an estimate six times higher than the last.

The new system is based on more precise figures provided by 10 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. The previous estimated death toll from H1N1 was 672.

AFP - A billion-euro (1.5-billion-dollar) European spacecraft designed to rendezvous with a comet will skim past Earth on Friday on a final, eagerly-awaited swing by, enabling it to gain speed for a date in deep space in 2014.

European Space Agency (ESA) scientists are relishing the moment when they get to see their cherished baby, Rosetta, which was hoisted aloft in 2004 in one of the most extraordinary missions in space history.

Marine biologist Fleur Van Duyl from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research is fascinated by the energy budgets that support coral reefs in this impoverished environment. According to van Duyl's former student, Jasper De Goeij, Halisarca caerulea sponges grow in the deep dark cavities beneath reefs, and 90% of their diet is composed of dissolved organic carbon, which is inedible for most other reef residents. But when De Goeij measured the amount of carbon that the brightly coloured sponges consumed he found that they consume half of their own weight each day, yet they never grew.

What were the sponges doing with the carbon? Were the sponges really consuming that much carbon, or was there a problem with De Goeij's measurements? He had to find out where the carbon was going to back up his measurements and publishes his discovery that sponges have one of the fastest cell division rates ever measured, and instead of growing they discard the cells. Essentially, the sponges recycle carbon that would otherwise be lost to the reef. De Goeij publishes his discovery on November 13 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology.

snip snip

The sponges were shedding the newly divided cells, which other reef residents could now consume. 'Halisarca caerulea is the great recycler of energy for the reef by turning over energy that nobody else can use [dissolved organic carbon] into energy that everyone can use [discarded choanocytes],' explains De Goeij.

Mass budget calculations, validated with satellite gravity observations [from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites], enable us to quantify the individual components of recent Greenland mass loss. The total 2000-2008 mass loss of ~1500 gigatons, equivalent to 0.46 millimeters per year of global sea level rise, is equally split between surface processes (runoff and precipitation) and ice dynamics. Without the moderating effects of increased snowfall and refreezing, post-1996 Greenland ice sheet mass losses would have been 100% higher. Since 2006, high summer melt rates have increased Greenland ice sheet mass loss to 273 gigatons per year (0.75 millimeters per year of equivalent sea level rise). The seasonal cycle in surface mass balance fully accounts for detrended GRACE mass variations, confirming insignificant subannual variation in ice sheet discharge.

I refuse to quote the Science Daily article when it has as title Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever.

Because of the growing need for near-term, feasible, greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement options (1), there is increasing interest in the scale and cost-effectiveness of potential emission reductions from destruction of ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) (2). Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ODSs not only damage stratospheric ozone, but also are powerful GHGs, with global warming potentials (GWPs) up to 11,000 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2) (3). The Montreal Protocol eliminates production of these chemicals but does not control their emissions or require destruction of ODSs produced before phaseout deadlines. The Kyoto Protocol targets emissions of CO2 and other non-ODS GHGs. Because of these regulatory gaps, large quantities of ODSs remain in legal use or storage in older refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment, building and appliance insulation, fire suppression systems, and government and industrial stockpiles (4). Without requirements or incentives for destruction, these ODSs will ultimately be released to the atmosphere and contribute to anthropogenic climate change.

One more example why a single-minded focus on CO2 is stupid for writing policies on mitigating the anthropogenic contributions of green house gasses.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will soon launch an ambitious plan to boost its solar power generation from 3 MW to 20,000 MW by 2022, the minister for new and renewable energy said on Friday.

"The amount which we are going to talk about is huge. I can only say that much," Farooq Abdullah, told reporters, adding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to announce its new policy next week.

The policy framework, known in official circles as "the National Solar Mission," will address the high cost of manufacturing solar panels as well as the high price of solar power, Abdullah said. A rough rule of thumb is that one megawatt of coal generating capacity costs about $1 million to build, while solar capacity costs roughly double that.

"Our job is to bring the costs down. Whether we are going to give concession on import duties, whether we are going to give a sizeable subsidy to purchase solar power, all will be outlined in the mission," he said.

India struggles with a severe shortage of electricity, with peak power falling about 12 percent below demand. Rolling blackouts are common and businesses rely heavily on backup generators. The country has set a target to build 78,700 megawatts of new power capacity in the five years ending in 2012, but top officials have said India will fall short of that target.

German university students staged demonstrations across the country on Thursday to protest recent reforms to the country's degree system and tuition fees. They also complain that colleges are underfunded and understaffed.

By 2010, Germany will follow the Bachelor-Master-Doctorate format as part of the EU's Bologna reforms, aimed at synchronizing Europe's higher education standards. But critics say the new system will be too intense, as the time to complete one's degree will be shorter.

Russian Orthodox Church leaders have threatened to cut ties with Germany's Protestants for electing a divorced woman as the head of their church. The election has been described as a "sign of crisis in Western society."

Three players from Algeria's national football team were injured when their bus was stoned in Egypt. Algeria and Egypt are set to play a highly charged World Cup qualifier in Cairo on Saturday.

THE FOSSIL remains of a hitherto unknown species of dinosaur that is being hailed as the missing link between prehistoric two-legged animals and those that walked on four legs has been discovered in South Africa.

The researchers found the remains of two juvenile skeletons of the newly named Aardonyx celestae, a heavy, slow-moving herbivore that lived near Senekal in the northern Free State province around 950 million years ago. The Aardonyx, which had short, broad feet and a big midriff, was at least 7m long and as tall as a 6ft man even when juvenile.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A "significant amount" of frozen water has been found on the moon, the US space agency said heralding a giant leap forward in space exploration and boosting hopes of a permanent lunar base. Preliminary data from a dramatic experiment on the moon "indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater," NASA said in a statement.

"The discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon," it added, as ecstatic scientists celebrated the landmark discovery.

"Yes indeed we found water and we did not find only a little bit but a significant amount," said Anthony Colaprete, project scientist and principal investigator for the 79-million-dollar LCROSS mission.

....

One rocket slammed into the Cabeus crater, near the lunar southern pole, at around 5,600 miles (9,000 kilometers) per hour. The rocket was followed four minutes later by a spacecraft equipped with cameras to record the initial impact, which sent a huge plume of material billowing up from the bottom of the crater, untouched by sunlight for billions of years.

"In the 20- to 30-meter (66- to 100-foot) crater we found maybe about a dozen, at least, two-gallon buckets of water. This is an initial result," Colaprete told reporters.

Scientists have zeroed in on one apparent key to long life: an inherited cellular repair mechanism that thwarts aging and perhaps helps prevent disease. Researches say the finding could lead to anti-aging drugs. The study involves telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that have been likened to the plastic tips that prevent shoelaces from unraveling. Telomeres were already known to play a key role in aging, and their discovery led to this year's Nobel Prize in medicine.

The new study, which focused on Ashkenazi Jews, finds those who lived the longest had inherited a hyperactive version of an enzyme called telomerase that rebuilds telomeres.

....

In the new study, Suh and colleagues studied Ashkenazi Jews, a homogeneous population whose genetics are well-studied. Three groups were part of the research: A very old (average age 97) but healthy group of 86 people; 175 of their offspring; and a control group of 93 offspring of parents who lived a normal lifespan.

"Our research was meant to answer two questions," explained said Einstein researcher Gil Atzmon in a statement. "Do people who live long lives tend to have long telomeres? And if so, could variations in their genes that code for telomerase account for their long telomeres?"

"Yes" on both accounts, the scientists conclude.

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug. The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it -- as long as they are out of public view -- despite a federal ban.

"This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon's executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. "Our plans go beyond serving food and marijuana," said Martinez. "We hope to have classes, seminars, even a Cannabis Community College, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis."

The cafe -- in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club Rumpspankers -- is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who are NORML members and hold an official medical marijuana card.

Members pay $25 per month to use the 100-person capacity cafe. They don't buy marijuana, but get it free over the counter from "budtenders". Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., it serves food but has no liquor license.

There are about 21,000 patients registered to use marijuana for medical purposes in Oregon. Doctors have prescribed marijuana for a host of illnesses, including Alzheimer's, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Tourette's syndrome.

French-Senegalese author Marie NDiaye, who last week won France's top literary prize, the Goncourt,says she stands by her comments about President Nicolas Sarkozy creating the "atmosphere of a police state" in France.

AFP - French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand backed a book prize winner's right to free speech Thursday after she was attacked for calling President Nicolas Sarkozy's vision of France "hideous."

Patrizia D'Addario, the Italian escort who claims to have spent a night with Silvio Berlusconi, is to star in a film about her alleged exploits.

Miss D'Addario, 42, has been a household name in Italy ever since she claimed to have slept with the Italian prime minister at his residence in Rome, Palazzo Grazioli, last November.

She has just completed an autobiography, which is expected to contain further claims about her night with the 73-year-old billionaire and is scheduled to be published before Christmas.

Tonight, i'd rather be in Taka Tuka Land.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

A man on the run who sent a newspaper a photo of himself standing in front of a police van has been jailed.

Matthew Maynard, 24, had been living at home with his parents all along, Swansea Crown Court was told.

Maynard, of Penlan, Swansea, was jailed for 16 weeks for breaching conditions of a 12-month suspended sentence imposed for handling stolen goods.

He sent the photo to the South Wales Evening Post after it carried a police "mugshot" of him on its front page.

The photo had appeared, along with seven others, as part of a police campaign.

Home visit

But Maynard phoned the newspaper, claiming to be unhappy with the photo used, and sent them one of his own instead.