Polish regions commissioner Danuta Hubner has said she will run in the June elections for the European Parliament, joining the list of the ruling liberal Civic Platform party.

"I can confirm that I will take part in the EP elections and I'm in talks regarding my participation with Prime Minister Donald Tusk," she told Polish press agency PAP on Monday (16 January).

Ms Hubner will lend her popularity to the liberal Civic Platform party

"I was always a liberal democrat, somebody who understands the link between individual freedom and social responsibility," added Ms Hubner, who came to Brussels in 2004 under a socialist government.

It is unclear which place she will take on the Civic Platform list, amid speculation that former Polish prime minister and potential European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek will take first place.

Administering Kosovo in the year following its secession from Serbia has been a challenge for the EU, with lawlessness undermining economic progress. That the EU is divided about Kosovo doesn't help either. 

Kosovo celebrates its first anniversary of political independence from Serbia on Tuesday February 17, but reports of the mini-state's success as a sovereign nation have been dismal.

The belief by many that independence would quickly put an end to the country's extreme poverty and misery has evaporated among its mainly ethnic Albanian population.

With the moribund economy still dependent on substantial foreign capital, nearly half of the workforce is unemployed and many Kosovo Albanians barely survive on remittances from relatives working in the European Union.

In spite of billions of euros that have been pumped into Kosovo since the end of the war a decade ago, the country's infrastructure and public roads are in need of repair.

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS - EU citizenship should mean freedom of movement, consular protection abroad and trans-national voting, but its enforcement depends on member states, European justice commissioner Jacques Barrot told a parliamentary committee on Monday (16 February).

Although enshrined in the current treaties, EU citizenship still looks more like "an imaginary concept", Mr Barrot said during a hearing in the parliament's civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee.

EU citizenship depends on member states

He said the concept of EU citizenship would be "fleshed out" in the upcoming review of justice and home affairs policies nicknamed the 'Stockholm programme' in the second half of this year.

Polish conservative MEP Urszula Gacek, the parliament's rapporteur on EU citizenship, highlighted that during the recent Mumbai bombings, several MEPs were literally standing "in their pyjamas" out on the streets, but were not able to receive help from the closest embassy of an EU country.

Memories of war in this tiny patch of farm country sitting in the shadow of the Caucasus mountains are old and filled with violence. 

But the raw anger among some South Ossetians, huddled amid the freezing, roofless ruins left by the recent war in this separatist province, is being redirected towards a new antagonist.

Europeans might be stunned to learn of the outrage of many here at the presence of EU ceasefire monitors -- part of an EU-brokered peace pact between Georgia and Russia that ended the five days of fighting over the region in August last year.

Some contempt is also saved for a separate mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has patrolled the region since 1992. Like European peacekeepers, OSCE personnel have also been denied access to South Ossetia since the war.

British and French vessels had enough material to carry out 1,248 Hiroshima bombings

Defence chiefs are facing an inquiry into the safety of the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrent after British and French submarines, each laden with missiles powerful enough for 1,248 Hiroshima bombings, collided while submerged in the mid-Atlantic.

HMS Vanguard, the lead boat of Britain's fleet of four V-class submarines armed with Trident nuclear missiles, limped back into its home port of Faslane in Scotland on Saturday showing significant damage. Witnesses said the hull was scarred with dents and scrapes.

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has warned that the fear of terrorism is being exploited by the Government to erode civil liberties and risks creating a police state.

Dame Stella accused ministers of interfering with people's privacy and playing straight into the hands of terrorists.

"Since I have retired I feel more at liberty to be against certain decisions of the Government, especially the attempt to pass laws which interfere with people's privacy," Dame Stella said in an interview with a Spanish newspaper.

"It would be better that the Government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state," she said.

Dame Stella, 73, added: "The US has gone too far with Guantánamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that. Furthermore it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification." She said the British secret services were "no angels" but insisted they did not kill people.

In a SPIEGEL interview, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, 58, discusses positive diplomatic signals from the Obama administration, the possibility of nuclear disarmament and opportunities for cooperating in the conflict with Iran.

 Will spring bring a defrosting of Moscow-Washington relations? "There have already been trade-offs in past eras," says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. SPIEGEL: Mr. Minister, it looks as if after a phase of tense relations the United States and Russia want to reach out to each other again. Could 2009 be "a year of new beginnings," as your German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier says?

Lavrov: The global financial crisis is forcing all countries to focus on the real problems. It's actually a simple task.

SPIEGEL: Really?

Lavrov: We can no longer afford the luxury of little geopolitical games, because we all face challenges that directly affect our citizens. So we should no longer ideologize problems, we should instead honestly express our own national interests, understand the legitimate interests of our partners, and have no more hidden agendas, where one thing is said while something else is done behind someone's back. The signals that we are receiving indicate that our Western partners are aiming for the same objectives.

With less than two months to go until the new US president's first visit to Europe, Czech officials are pushing for an EU-US meeting to be held in Prague.

"It's our impression that the new administration doesn't just care about the fat cats - Germany, France and Britain - but they care about the small countries, too," Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, told the International Herald Tribune newspaper.

The Czechs would like Barack Obama to send a signal to smaller EU countries from Russia's former sphere of influence

"It's important that the United States also do this in a country that 20 years ago belonged to the Soviet pact," he added. Mr Schwarzenberg noted that an Obama visit to Prague would be an important message to Moscow, which continues to view the Czech Republic and Poland as part of an "eastern zone."

During his trip to Europe, Mr Obama will first go to London on 2 April, where he will attend the Group of 20 large industrialized countries (G20) meeting scheduled to discuss overhauling the global financial system.

Estranged husband of Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, sentenced to four and a half years' jail by Italian court for taking $600,000 bribe as reward for withholding court testimony

David Mills, the estranged husband of the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, was today sentenced to four and a half years in jail by an Italian court after being found guilty of taking a $600,000 (£400,000) bribe as a reward for withholding court testimony to help Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

The verdict is a potentially serious embarrassment not only for Berlusconi but also Gordon Brown because it turns the spotlight back on the role played by one of his ministers in the affair. Jowell signed a document crucial to the receipt of what a foreign court has now decided was a bribe.

Mills was not present in court when Judge Nicoletta Gandus read out her verdict, but said in a statement that he was "very disappointed" by the verdict and would appeal against it.

The EU's highest legal body, the European Court of Justice, has ruled that the public must have access to information about location of genetically modified crops. It's the latest decision on a very controversial issue. 

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg handed down the ruling on Tuesday, February 17 in a case that has been going on for nearly five years.

"The right of public access to information applies to releases of genetically modified organisms," the ECJ said in its decision. "The information relating to the location of the release can in no case be kept confidential."

In April 2004, French citizen Pierre Azelvandre asked local authorities in his home region of Alsace to provide a list of where GM field trials had taken place and where future ones were planned.

The main opposition party in Italy is likely to appoint as temporary secretary Dario Franceschini to guide the party in the upcoming European parliamentary elections in June.

The creation of Veltroni's Democratic Party 16 months ago was perceived as instrumental in hastening Prodi's downfall. It's centrist, majoritarian strategy has alienated a crucial, highly politicized left electorate that contributed to an unbroken sequence of losses under his guidance through voter abstention. It will be the task of any new leader to create a party for which the politicized left can feel comfortable enough to vote.

Sardinia offers an opportunity in that Veltroni's centrist ally and consumate "transformist" Pierferdinando Casini passed over once again to Berlusconi's side. The PD however could explode into minor parties were it to free itself of the centrists and the so-called "theo-dems," a mock-left Papist faction that menaced yesterday to resign if the PD followed its secular vocation to stonewall the righwing's bill on obligatory life-sustainment against a citizen's will.

At present it appears that Pierluigi Bersani is in pole position as future Secretary, if the party survives the European elections.

Queen Cartimandua has been rutting for revenge after her cover was blown in December 2007. At the time Deborah Bergamini, alias Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, was running the RAI as a soporific adjunct to her Emperor's designs. As one of Berlusconi's most faithful marketers it was only natural that when he came back to power in 2001, she should hold a key role in State television so as to sell her Boss's image as well as all his miracles to an enchanted audience.

When Wojtyla died she made sure the masses were not unduly traumatized by the event to the point of neglecting to participate in the upcoming administrative elections- a crucial appointment for Berlusconi. So Bergamini saw to it that the State TV broadcasted the right atmosphere.

But what she didn't know is that she was being wiretapped as part of a larger investigation into alleged slush funds abroad. Thanks to newspaper scoops, Bergamini's improper professional conduct was exposed. She was suspended- and shocked to the point she abandoned her alter ego, Queen Cartamandua. Like Richard Nixon she crossed the desert alone only to reap severance pay within a year for the paltry sum of € 390,000 and a nomination as Deputy in Parliament by her Boss.

Two days ago her amendment to Berlusconi's outright criminal wiretapping bill passed in commission. It mandates one to three years in prison for any reporter who publishes wiretaps, whether in full or in synopsis. The bill is very likely to pass as is because of Berlusconi's large majority and his constant recourse to confidence votes.

Now you might say, hey, wait a minute- what's this all about? Are we missing something? Well, a wiretap bill in one guise or another has been on every political hack's agenda for years now. The political class in general is tired of being called to account for possible criminal activity. Since wiretapping is one of the most efficacious investigative tools, it's only natural that a law must be made to prevent its use. All the more so when the mafia has a stake in the matter. It's all game to pass anti-mafia legislation. It makes good PR, especially with the Americans. But then with the vacuous excuse of privacy a self-serving law is contrived that makes wiretapping nearly impossible and definitely ineffectual to contrast crime.

Now I could go on about other aspects of this criminal bill. D'Avanzo for la Repubblica summed it neatly: public opinion is being outlawed. When the bill becomes law, reporters can no longer write about a crime, name names of alleged parties involved, publish the name or the photo of the investigators or the judges that handle the case. Not even public documents may be discussed in the press once investigative secrecy has been let up. Blogs can be blacked out on the whim of the Minister of Interior- no longer an affair of due process. Opposition MP's have promised to publish news abroad when the law passes.

Queen Cartamandua has added the finishing touch: three years prison for anyone who discusses her professional improprieties. She must certainly keep the wild boars out of her queendom. Where only the pure at heart may adventure to find true love. Oh, Ms. Bergamini is ready to enter her liquid dale. She's even put on her high heels made of the finest antler. She'll find her man there, in his Diesel jeans with a roast of pheasant and grapes. We're all ears, Queen Cartamandua.

Italy's centre-left opposition leader, Walter Veltroni, has resigned after his Democratic Party lost a key local election on the island of Sardinia.

The result consolidated the hold on power of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right alliance, after its candidate for governor won.

Mr Veltroni had been criticised for failing to make gains on the government despite the deepening recession.

...

In Sardinia, Mr Berlusconi's candidate and son of his tax advisor, Ugo Cappellacci, ousted the centre-left governor, Renato Soru, the founder of the Tiscali internet company.

It put the prime minister's ally in charge of a region where he owns a luxury seaside mansion and spends lots of time.

of course it helped that veltroni has the charisma of overcooked pasta...

the only pol who has even the faintest modicum of trustworthiness here is di Pietro, as far as i can tell.

and he ain't that popular, alas...

someone buy the guy a football team and a a few media outlets, pronto!

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Violent protests hit French island

Late on Monday night police fired tear gas at protesters in Guadeloupe's largest town, Pointe-a-Pitre, as they set fire to roadblocks, while gangs looted shops, smashed storefront windows and set fire to two buildings.

"It is a political crisis, an institutional crisis and we are on the brink of sedition," Victorin Lurel, Guadeloupe's regional council president, told France-Info radio on Tuesday.

However, Elie Domota, a leader of the Collective Against Exploitation, or LKP, the group of unions and political parties organising the strikes, accused France of "repression", local newspapers reported.

And in the wonderful world of basketball :

Magic's Mickael Pietrus on the road to Guadeloupe -- OrlandoSentinel.com

The Magic -- in partnership with the Islands of Guadeloupe -- have begun a 10-week contest that will end with four people traveling with Pietrus for a five-day trip. The contest winner will be able to invite three others to make the journey. The prize includes airfare from Orlando, hotel accommodations and transportation to and from the airport.

But you must learn about Guadeloupe to compete. Each week you can take a three-question test about Guadeloupe at OrlandoMagic.com. Answer the questions correctly and you earn an entry into the contest, meaning you can add an entry each week until the season ends.

EU economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia will this week name the first group of states to receive disciplinary action by Brussels for breaching the rules underpinning the euro.

Ahead of Wednesday's (18 January) move, the commissioner insisted that member states adhere to the Stability and Growth Pact, which requires that countries keep their budget deficits below three percent of GDP.

The headquarters of the European Commission - the guardian of the EU rulebook

"The rules were established for everybody and must be respected," he said before a debate in the European Parliament on Monday.

"What they say as far as budget discipline is concerned is clear: In the case where countries have recorded or plan deficits above the three percent barrier, we must launch procedures established in the [EU] treaty," he added.

Of the countries up for review on Wednesday, France, Spain and Greece are expected to attract excessive deficit action from the commission, according to draft documents seen by Reuters.

The German government is considering taking a stake in General Motors subsidiary Opel to prevent mass layoffs expected to be part of the American automobile giant's looming restructuring. Trade unions are calling for a spin-off, but the issue has sparked a political row.

 The production line at Opel's modern plant in Eisenach, eastern Germany. Germany's political parties are embroiled in a row about whether the government should take a stake in carmaker Opel, which faces possible mass redundancies and plant closures under a global restructuring by its parent company General Motors due to be presented later on Tuesday.

The labor leaders of GM's European subsidiaries -- Opel, Vauxhall in Britain and Saab in Sweden -- on Monday demanded a spin-off of their brands rather than face what they called potentially fatal cost-cutting in Europe by GM.

"The spin-off of Opel/Vauxhall ... and the spin-off of Saab is the only reasonable and feasible option for General Motors which would not destroy the European operations and its European assets and could avoid lawsuits," said a statement on the labor force's Web site.

Politicians and analysts have warned that Britain is on the verge of deflation after economic data released this morning showed that living costs are rising at their lowest rate in almost 50 years.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that the retail prices index, which includes mortgage costs, fell to just 0.1% in January following the recent falls in interest rates and cheaper fuel. This is the lowest RPI level since March 1960, and it is expected to enter negative territory soon.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said inflation was now "virtually disappearing" as a threat to families, although this might not be obvious to those facing higher council tax bills.

"It is becoming clear that for the foreseeable future there is a higher risk of deflation than inflation, which is why it is inevitable and sensible that the Bank of England should be moving towards expansion of credit and the money supply directly," said Cable.

Russia has cut its budget for hosting the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi by 15%, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak has said.

Mr Kozak said an assessment of construction projects found it would be possible to save about $8.3bn (£5.8bn), according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia has been hit hard by the global financial and economic crises after years of soaring economic growth.

The 2009 budget is expected to show its first deficit in about a decade.

From the paper:

The government deregulated and privatized the banking system in the late 1990s and 3arly 2000s.  The banks passed into the hand of individuals with little experience in modern banking, with then porceeded to take advantage of ample capitalin international markets to fuel a high degree of leverage and exponential growth.

In effect, the country decided to stake its economic future on international banking, without have the necessary safeguards in place, eventually developing a banking system mucy beyond the ability of the state to come to its help with liquidity or solvency support.

Apparently Anglo-Disease is virulent.

No one could have predicted

Responding to questions after the speech, Greenspan blamed insufficient regulatory oversight in part for failing to recognize the degree of risk that was accumulating in the banking system.

"The regulatory structures, especially internationally, were way behind the curve," he said.

Germany has acknowledged for the first time that it may have to rescue eurozone states in acute difficulties, marking a radical shift in policy by the anchor nation of Europe's monetary union.

Finance minister Peer Steinbruck said it would be intolerable to let fellow EMU members fall victim to the global financial crisis. "We have a number of countries in the eurozone that are clearly getting into trouble on their payments," he said. "Ireland is in a very difficult situation.

"The euro-region treaties don't foresee any help for insolvent states, but in reality the others would have to rescue those running into difficulty."

WaPo: Late Change in Course Hobbled Rollout of Geithner's Bank Plan (February 17, 2009)

They needed an alternative and found it in a previously considered initiative to pair private investments and public loans to try to buy the risky assets and take them off the books of banks. There was one problem: They didn't have enough time to work out many details or consult with others before the plan was supposed to be unveiled.

Moreover, the department made a strategic decision to limit input from the financial industry and other outsiders, aiming to prevent leaks and avoid a perception they were designing the plan for the benefit of big banks. But that also meant they were unable to vet their plan with the companies involved or set realistic expectations of what would be announced.

The team concluded that the financial rescue effort would have to include several components. None would be more vital than an initiative for either removing or neutralizing the distressed assets on the banks of books -- many related to troubled mortgages -- so the banks would be freed to resume lending.

If only to start with a bit of anti-metropolitanism, let's begin in Hereford: a very average English settlement (population: 50,000), with a centre long since colonised by the usual high-street names. When I moved nearby five years ago, I might have moaned about a typical Clone Town, but I was amazed by the crowds that descended on the place every Saturday. Now the throng is thinning by the week. At the last count, 51 shops had either closed or were about to. This is not unique to Hereford. It's happening just about everywhere. January's retail figures might have shown an upswing driven by crazed discounting, but the underlying picture remains grim: recent research by Experian, the credit information firm, predicted town-centre vacancy rates of 15% by the end of the year, with some places set to come close to 40%.

Quite apart from a simple drop in demand, the current high street crisis says a lot about the economics of the good years, and the risks of letting retail titans gobble up towns with no thought of what might happen when the music stops. One thinks, for example, of quintessentially boom-time commercial leases which mean that rents can only ever go up; and, most crucially, local economies now so dominated by huge firms that large parts of the high street can be imperilled at a stroke - as happened two weeks ago, with the final fall of the UK wing of the Icelandic investment company, Baugur.

There's also a story here about the fate of the few independent shops that our towns and cities managed to sustain. Thanks to the buying up of the high street and the great onslaught of your Tescos and Asdas (now joined, of course, by the recession-boosted likes of Lidl and Aldi), a lot of stand-alone businesses had their takings so blitzed that any bad economic news would quickly push them into the red, and so it proved. Now many wonder whether they will ever come back. Trawl the local press and the imbalance is obvious. The Skegness Standard mourns the loss of a beautifully named local menswear institution called Smalls of Spilsby; the South Devon Herald Express tells of the closure of Rossiters, a 150-year-old family-run department store in Paignton. And the good news? Across the country, there are promises of new jobs at Asda, KFC and the international sandwich empire, Subway.

Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki called for German companies to take a greater interest in his country. Despite a German-Iraqi still being held hostage, the security situation in Iraq has dramatically improved, he said. 

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the German mass-market daily Bild on Tuesday, Feb. 17, that it would be "excellent if (German firms) would take on a greater role in the reconstruction" of his country, adding that it was "the perfect time for foreign investment" in Iraq.

 

He said his country wants to "build good relationships and true friendship with Germany and Europe," and added that he was "hoping for political as well as economic cooperation."

 

Germany has contributed to the training and equipping of the Iraqi army and police forces, and, al-Maliki said, German companies have made agreements with the Iraqi government to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq's rail network.

 

Israel has launched a covert war against Iran as an alternative to direct military strikes against Tehran's nuclear programme, US intelligence sources have revealed.

It is using hitmen, sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project, the experts say.

The most dramatic element of the "decapitation" programme is the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran's atomic operations.

Despite fears in Israel and the US that Iran is approaching the point of no return in its ability to build atom bomb, Israeli officials are aware of the change in mood in Washington since President Barack Obama took office.

They privately acknowledge the new US administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and Mr Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now.

An emboldened Hugo Chávez vowed to speed up "the construction of true socialism" in Venezuela after winning the right to stand for reelection indefinitely - a measure that opponents say puts the country on the path to dictatorship.

The President told ecstatic supporters that his decisive victory in a referendum on removing term limits had smashed the barriers to a permanent socialist revolution in Venezuela, one of the world's largest oil producers.

To chants of "Chávez will not go" from a crowd gathered outside Miraflores Palace in Caracas, the President vowed to stand in the next elections in 2013 and beyond. "Unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate," Mr Chávez declared.

The number of civilians killed in the conflict in Afghanistan rose 39% last year, the United Nations says.

Militants were to blame for 55% of the 2,118 civilian deaths, while US, Nato and Afghan forces were responsible for 39%, according to the UN report.

Civilian casualties have increased despite repeated pledges by US-led forces to reduce civilian deaths.

The data came as a US Congress-funded think tank said it was unlikely the US and Nato would defeat insurgents.

The Institute of Peace called for new forces deployed in the country to be used to train Afghan security forces.

A UN-backed tribunal in Cambodia has begun the first ever war crimes trial of a Khmer Rouge leader, 30 years after the fall of the regime.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, appeared in front of a court in the capital Phnom Penh for initial procedural hearings on Tuesday morning.

Duch, 65, is accused of murder, torture, rape and persecution, and faces life imprisonment if convicted. Cambodia does not have a death sentence.

Shielded by a bullet-proof screen to prevent physical attacks against him, Duch did not speak publicly throughout the court's opening session.

He had been driven to the court from a nearby villa where he is being held with four other Khmer Rouge leaders, who will each face trial later this year.

The Catholic News Agency confirmed Monday that Pelosi (D-Calif.) is to meet Wednesday with Pope Benedict XVI, who has said supporters of abortion rights should not receive Communion.

Pelosi, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, is on an official trip to Italy. The news agency said there have been contradictory reports about whether the Pope would receive her. The agency said the Vatican's press office confirmed today that the audience would take place Wednesday. The Vatican reportedly made clear that the Pope is meeting with her as a head of state, since she is third in line to the presidency. ...

In April, Pelosi received Communion in a service during the Pope's visit to Washington, though she did not receive it directly from the Pope. She said she felt very comfortable taking communion during the mass, despite her difference

"Communion is the body of the people of the church coming together," Pelosi said at her weekly news conference after returning from the mass. "I feel very much a part of that."

To help meet customer needs and increased federal fuel economy standards, Chrysler plans 24 vehicle launches in 48 months, and announced electric technology as a primary strategy for developing fuel-efficient, low  emission vehicles, including an electric-drive vehicle in 2010. The viability plan shows compliance with current federal fuel economy requirements as set fort in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Going forward, Chrysler supports the development of a uniform national standard that reflects the input of all constituents. ...

Chrysler has sign a non-binding agreement to pursue a strategic alliance with Fiat that represents significant strategic and financial benefits to stakefolders. ...The proposed Fiat Alliance would enhance Chrysler's viability plan and would provide the Company with access to competitive fuel-efficient platforms, distribution capabilities in key growth markets and substantial cost-saving opportunities....

[W]e will require incremental financial support to continue our orderly and effective restructuring and are therefore now seeking an incremental $2 billion in addition to the remaining $3 billion that was within the scope of our original December 2 [2008] plan submission. ...

Restructuring Actions ...

Management Concessions
Chrysler will fully comply with the restrictions established under section 111 of EESA [Bailout Bill, Oct 2008] relative to executive privileges and compensation. In addition, the Company has suspended the 401k match, incentive bonuses, merit increases and has eliminated retiree life insurance benefits.  ...

Reportedly, GM is soliciting $16.6B more from US Treasury and predicts profitiability in 24 months. pdf, "2009-2014 Restructuring Plan," (117pp) "as required under section 7.20 of the Loan and Security Agreement Between General Motors and the US Department of the Treasury Dated December 31, 2008".

Contents of interest --

• Restructuring Plan: Federal Requirements -- product mix, compliance with federal fuel economy and emissions, domestic manufacture of 'Advanced Technology' Vehicles

  General Motors is also investing significantly in hybrid and plug-in vehicles for both cars and trucks and offers 9 hybrid models in 2009 ...a number which will increase to 14 models in 2012 and 26 models in 2014. The Chevrolet Volt is included in this count, as are two additional models sharing the Volt's extended range electric vehicle (EREV) technology. ...One item of particular note is the Company's announcement on January 12, 2009 to construct a new manufacturing facility in the United States to build Lithium-Ion battery packs for the Chevrolet Volt. ...The Company has already submitted two Section 136 [Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007] applications to the Department of Energy in support of various 'advance technology' vehicle programs ... These two requests combined total $8.4 billion, and a third application is planned for submission by March 31, 2009.

• GM North America versus GM Global outlook
• ($1B Bond) Exchange offer information, US Treasury's "$5 billion TARP investment in GMAC" and petition for TALF access, and (10) Safe Harbor Provisions (risk management)

I won't argue placing Phill Gramm at #1, although I would prefer to see Alan Greenspan, (#17,) in that spot.  I am dismayed to find Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush absent from their top 25.  As enablers and promoters of deregulation and neo-classical economics I rank them above the heads of Wall Street firms that took "advantage" of the de-regulation they facilitated.

I am glad to see such discussion started in the MSM.

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

The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday that Hamas has commandeered a large cache of unexploded weapons fired by Israel into the Gaza Strip during its offensive last month.

The cache had disappeared while under guard by Hamas officials. United Nations experts had planned to dispose safely of the stockpile, which includes aircraft bombs and white phosphorous shells

The European Space Agency (ESA) said it hoped to set up its own detection system for space junk instead of relying on US radar to track the chunks of shattered satellites and spent rockets in earth orbit. 

After a US satellite accidentally hit an out-of-commission Russian satellite, scattering a trail of debris in space last week, the European Space Agency said Monday, Feb. 16, it wanted its own system to protect satellites.

 

Gaele Winters, who heads ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) at Darmstadt, said the debris would be a danger to ESA's own satellites in the same orbit. He said ESA need live data so its spacecraft could steer clear of the junk.

 

Jean-Francois Kaufeler, head of the space junk monitoring department at ESOC, said, "Much more monitoring needs to be done." Experts are to meet March 30 to April 2 in Darmstadt to swap ideas on how.

 

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tracks about 13,000 objects in orbit, but ESA estimates hundreds of thousands of distinct items are in orbit. A fragment 1 centimeter across could knock out a satellite if it hit it at speed.

Cern is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, its American rival claims.

Fermilab say the odds of their Tevatron accelerator finding it first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best.

Cern's Lyn Evans admitted the accident which will halt the $7bn Large Hadron Collider until September may cost them one of the biggest prizes in physics.

The two rivals are trying to identify the "God Particle" - one of the fundamental particles of matter.

Ghaffar Hussain was once a radical Islamist with the group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Now he is part of the Quilliam Foundation, a British think tank seeking to combat extremism. He spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about the Islamist world view and the pleasant feeling of omniscience.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: As we speak, around three dozen German Islamists are supposedly living in terrorist training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Some of them have radicalized very quickly, within months. You yourself were a radical Islamist at one time and are now an expert in the field. What is it that makes some young Muslims tick?

A young German Islamist in Waziristan.

Hussain: Primarily they buy into a certain narrative, and a specific world view, which seems to be particularly appealing for young Muslims in Europe. Quite a few of them feel marginalized, they don't feel they fit into society and they can't connect with their parents' generation. So they look for something they can belong to and some of them feel very attracted by the Umma concept, the idea that all Muslims form a unity. This is then where your allegiance lies and nothing else matters. From there, they develop an urge to do something good, and then they are sometimes confronted with what I call shock tactics: graphic images of Muslim victims, for example. They reach the conclusion that they have to do something about it. Plus there is the scriptural side: They are being told that they have to fight, that fighting is a duty.

Turks living in the western city of Dortmund have set up Germany's first Turkish carnival association. They want to prove they can party as hard as anyone else -- and to encourage immigrants to join in the peculiar festival which kicks off on Thursday.

If you're an immigrant in western or southern Germany, you will never truly arrive until you have embraced carnival. The national psyche cannot be understood unless one has taken part in this fancy dress festival with its strange rituals which include symbolic castration, mock assaults on town halls, binge drinking and singing along to nonsensical songs.

The founding members of Germany's first Turkish carnival society -- press spokesman Aytac Arman (L), Aykut Akköse (C) and Yalcin Bayram (R) at a news conference in Dortmund. So it may seem surprising that even though more than two million people with Turkish backgrounds live in Germany and they started coming as long as half a century ago, they have only just now set up a carnival association of their own.

The 1st Turkish Fools' Association Dortmund 09 was formed in the western industrial city as an official registered group last week in a small but significant step to deepen their integration into German society.

ROME: Close on the heels of the pope's rehabilitation of a group of schismatic bishops, including one who denied the Holocaust, a second scandal has compounded a searching debate within the church over whether Pope Benedict XVI's focus on doctrine and perceived insensitivity to political tone are alienating mainstream Roman Catholics and undermining the church's moral authority.

On Sunday, a priest known for such provocative statements as blaming the sins of New Orleanians for Hurricane Katrina asked the pope to rescind his appointment as an auxiliary bishop in Austria.

The affairs have engendered a storm of criticism of the church hierarchy and led to frantic efforts to mollify angry and confused parishioners around the globe, while the latest controversy has raised concerns that the actions could be part of a disturbing pattern.

The Vatican expert George Weigel, in a recent essay in First Things, an American religion journal, criticized the Vatican for its "chaos, confusion and incompetence."

A Portuguese carpenter has made a fully working Vespa scooter out of wood.

The machine was made in ten months by Carlos Alberto and has been carved out of ten different types of wood and even has an original 1957 Vespa engine.

Capable of speeds of up to 46 mph, Mr Alberton first hit on the idea in 2001 during a conversation with a fellow Vespa enthusiast, but didn't start work on his labour of love until October 2007.

Covered in a special fire-proof varnish and built using woods from Brazil and Mozambique, Mr Alberto's Vespa cost him £2,491 (2,800 euros), but to him the tiny scooter is priceless.

"The idea came to me in 2001 when I was lying in bed with a terrible case of flu," Mr Alberto said.

The founder of a US Muslim TV network has been charged over the beheading of his wife, media reports say.

Muzzammil Hassan, 44, is accused of second degree murder of Aasiya Hassan, whose body was found last week at the TV station in New York state.

Both Mr Hassan and his wife worked at Bridges TV, a station aimed at countering stereotypes of Muslims.