Lithuania's president-elect says she will push to open up the Baltic state's energy sector, which is still linked to the Soviet-era power grid.

Dalia Grybauskaite achieved an election landslide on Sunday to become Lithuania's first female president.

"There is no internal market with electricity - it's very monopolised," Ms Grybauskaite told the BBC.

Lithuania gets more than 80% of its gas and most of its oil from Russia.

The country is also under pressure from the EU to close its Ignalina nuclear power station this year. The closure was a condition for Lithuania's EU accession in 2004.

Michael Martin has told MPs he intends to stand down, so becoming the first Commons Speaker to be effectively forced out of office for 300 years.

Mr Martin, who will also step down as an MP, has faced criticism over his handling of the MP expenses issue.

The officer in charge of policing the G20 protests in London admitted today that police no longer receive sufficient training in tackling public disorder.

But he admitted this had resulted in officers being taught about the techniques of dealing with public disorder but not the "softer" skills of communicating with demonstrators.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn on Tuesday (19 May) confirmed he had received Slovenia's response to his latest proposal aimed at solving the long-standing border dispute between Croatia and Slovenia, saying he would meet the two countries' foreign ministers in the coming weeks to discuss amendments submitted by Ljubljana.

A new study by a German welfare organization shows that the gap between rich and poor is widening in the country, with the east and northwest lagging clearly behind the south. 

Germany is being ripped apart - at least socially. According to the first-ever poverty atlas released by Der Paritaetische, one of the big five social welfare organizations in Germany, the level of poverty in some eastern parts of the country is up to four times higher than in the south.

The atlas, released on Monday in Berlin, shows that the German region of Western Pomerania leads the nation when it comes to poverty, with more than one in four people there living at or below the poverty line.

On the opposite end of the spectrum - as well as the opposite end of the country - the region of Schwarzwald-Baar-Heuberg has a poverty rate of 7.4 percent.

In an interview with several national newspapers, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said he was "very proud of the support" he had received from a variety of EU governments and political families, adding that he will be ready to start forming his new team as soon as his nomination becomes official.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Monde and other national newspapers, Barroso said he would make his decision "after the elections, taking into account the support from member states and the Parliament" after the European elections on 4-7 June.

Most European leaders have already lent their support to Barroso, including his own conservative family (EurActiv 16/10/08) and ruling socialists in key countries like Spain and the UK (EurActiv 17/03/09).

With the Party of European Socialists unable to agree on an alternative candidate - and barring last-minute surprises at the June European elections, which the conservatives are tipped to win - it therefore seems Barroso is set for a smooth re-appointment.

Health chiefs in Wales are dealing with a "massive" measles outbreak, with numbers already four times the highest figure recorded over the past 13 years.

Four nursery school children were treated in hospital as part of 127 cases across mid and west Wales, while there are another 35 cases in Conwy.

The National Public Health Service (NPHS) in Wales saw 39 cases last year. Its highest figure in 2003 was 44.

He told the press that he would refer to parliament "when he had the time" on the Mills-Berlusconi corruption sentence, and would finally say what he thinks of "certain magistrates." Berlusconi further felt it necessary to repeat the well-proven falsehood that there were no showgirls in his electoral lists. Repetition ad nauseum makes truth.

When asked by Unità, the historical left opposition daily, if he would let himself be tried, he became furious, and swore, as always, "on the heads of his children." Poor creatures. At least he should swear on his own rather than put his childrens' heads to the block. He menaced that either the reporter should get out or he would leave.

To la Repubblica now well-known for its ten questions, he refused to answer unless la Repubblica changed its attitude and came to some sort of an "agreement." He went into a tantrum and reconfirmed that la Repubblica was sick with envy and hate for his person and therefore he had no intention of answering their questions.

He then played the patriotic button on how Italian reporters cause disparaging impressions of the Right Holy Nation abroad.

He was particularly enraged that the financial daily, Sole 24 Ore, had published a scoop today on Noemi's properties.

He repeated ad nauseum that 75% (only!) of the Italians were with him. (Unfortunately 100% are still stuck with him.)

Berlusconi concluded his rant pointing out that he considers Antonio Di Pietro a "threat to democracy."

For a brief video of the event see here for now while we impatiently wait for the full version.

While a majority of Europeans say they like the European Union, more than half have declared no interest in the June European elections, a fresh study has shown.

When asked about the 4-7 June poll, 18 percent of the respondents said they were "not at all interested" in it, while 35 percent said they were "rather not interested," a TNS Opinion study for the French Political Innovation Foundation released on Monday (18 May) showed.

Just as many (35%) said they were "rather interested," but just 11 percent said they were "very interested."

From Stockholm to Sardinia, Waterford to Warsaw, a noisy and eclectic band of nationalists and eurosceptics are on the campaign trail hoping to unseat their mainstream rivals in the European Parliament.

Dutch anti-Islamists, Hungarian nationalists, Italian separatists and an Irish-backed anti-Lisbon Treaty party are all clamouring for seats when Europe goes to the polls between 4 and 7 June. And a combination of dismally low voter turnout and the economic downturn looks set to play into their hands in the vote.

If one holds the citizenship of two different EU countries, either through birth or naturalisation, can one vote in both countries in the June European Parliament elections?

      This question, which one would assume contains a "No" answer, was prompted in Sweden, when the postman dropped voting slips from both Finland and Sweden into the mailbox of a person with a dual citizenship

Inflation on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure, which includes housing costs, dropped sharply to -1.2pc in the year to April, from -0.4pc in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday.

It was the lowest RPI figure since records began in 1948, and weaker than economists had expected.

The main driver of the fall was lower mortgage interest payments following the Bank of England's decision to cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 0.5pc in March, the ONS said.

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhua) -- China will increase subsidies for consumers who sell their cars and home appliances in order to purchase new ones, in an effort to spur domestic consumption and curb pollution, according to a cabinet meeting held Tuesday.

    The government will raise subsidies for auto replacements from 1 billion yuan to 5 billion yuan this year, and allocate 2 billion Yuan to encourage home appliance upgrades, an executive meeting of the State Council presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao said.

German investor optimism has hit the highest level for almost three years, according to a survey that added to the evidence the country's recession could be over later this year.

The Mannheim-based ZEW institute said its economic sentiment index had leapt more-than-expected this month to the highest since June 2006, buoyed by signs that an economic recovery is underway after the savage contraction in activity late last year and early in 2009.

If supported by other surveys and economic data, the latest rise could encourage hopes that German gross domestic product will start expanding in the second half of the year as emergency government measures take effect. However, further sharp rises in unemployment and the still-uncertain global economic environment mean growth rates are expected to remain modest well into next year.

The Senate today overwhelmingly passed a bill that would sharply curtail credit card issuers' ability to raise interest rates and charge fees, taking a critical step in reforming an industry that has gone largely unregulated for decades.

In a 90-5 vote, The Senate delivered a victory to consumer groups and to the White House, who blame industry practices for sending Americans deeper into debt just as they are losing their jobs and their homes.

Lawmakers will now turn to reconciling differences with a similar bill passed by the House on April 30. President Obama has said he wants to sign a bill into law by Memorial Day.

"This is a victory for every American consumer who has ever suffered at the hands of a credit card company," said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), the author of the bill. "My bill that the Senate passed today will insist on consumer protections that are strong and reliable, rules that are transparent and fair, and statements that are clear and informative."

Consumer advocates said the Senate's action showed a solid commitment to consumer protection.

The eurozone posted an unexpected trade surplus in March, for the first time since the economic crisis broke out last year.

Eurostat figures published Monday (18 May) showed that the 16 EU countries sharing the euro registered a trade surplus of €400 million, up from a deficit of €1 billion in February.

Eurozone trade figures are looking up for the first time since the crisis broke out

The news is positive for eurozone nations, whose economies contracted by 2.5 percent in the first three months of 2009. Economists had forecast a trade deficit of €300 million in March.

Exports rose by 1.4 percent and imports by 0.6 percent, the data shows.

How to Read This List: We went into our story with a hunch: that the press, in fact, did not provide adequate warnings. To find out if that was true, we searched for stories that could reasonably be interpreted as significant warnings, with a particular eye for investigative stories into the heart of the problem--predatory lenders and their Wall Street backers (e.g. "Mortgaged Lives: Profiting From Fine Print With Wall Street's Help," NYT, 3/15/00). We took several steps, outlined below, to do so.

Warnings come in many forms, of course. In our search, we came across plenty of stories that were useful to readers in all sorts of ways, even if they weren't investigations (e.g. "Blacks Are Much More Likely To Get Subprime Mortgages," WSJ, 4/11/05; "Clouds sighted off CDO asset pool," FT, 4/18/05) and added them. We also found stories that covered lending and Wall Street in depth, and may have been fine stories in other ways, but weren't really warnings (e.g. "Battle Ready: In Morgan Stanley Rebellion, Purcell Puts Up Tough Fight...," WSJ4/4/05). We included those, too, to give a sense of what Wall Street coverage during the period actually looked like. We also included bits of context to give a sense of what was happening on the finance beat at the time (e.g. "Spitzer Probes Sub-Prime Mortgages," NYT, 4/29/05). As we went, we saw that stories fell into identifiable types (e.g. "consumer stories" about bad mortgages, "investor stories" about a housing bubble, etc.) and so placed them into seven categories.

An important point: While the List may seem long, keep in mind that the business press produced more than a half a million news items during this period, so in a sense the stories on the List are drops in a very large bucket. There are no non-lending and non-Wall Street stories on the List, nothing about iPods, the auto business, etc. ...

Click here to download The List

South East Asian leaders have expressed "grave concern" in their first official response to the trial of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

A statement by Asean - a 10-nation grouping that includes Burma - called for proper medical care for Ms Suu Kyi.

It warned the "honour and credibility" of Burma's government were at stake.

By DAVID E. SANGER Published: May 19, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Now that President Obama has established what he called a "clear timetable" for Iran to halt its nuclear program -- progress must be made by the end of the year, he declared on Monday -- both American and Israeli officials are beginning to talk about how to accomplish that goal.

But even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's first visit to the White House on Monday, where he and Mr. Obama stressed common goals and played down their differences on strategy, it seemed clear that they still do not agree even on the basic question of how much time remains to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability.

So now begins Mr. Obama's diplomatic sprint. His declaration Monday that "we're not going to have talks forever" was a warning to the Iranians that his fundamentally different approach -- serious American engagement with Tehran for the first time in three decades -- must bear fruit before Iran clears the last technological hurdles to building a weapon. It is a strategy that some administration officials describe as "negotiations with pressure" -- a combination of direct negotiations, reassurances that Washington is no longer seeking regime change in Iran, and an effort to persuade the ruling mullahs that the alternative to serious concessions will be painful: international sanctions that are far harsher and more tightly enforced than the weak mix of actions imposed so far by the United Nations Security Council.

Sri Lankan state television has broadcast video footage of what the army says is the body of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the Tamil Tigers.

The military said the body was found in a lagoon on Tuesday morning, contradicting claims by senior Tamil officials that Prabhakaran was alive in a safe location.

China has reportedly freed the last activist still jailed for "hooliganism" relating to the Tiananmen Square democracy movement of 1989.

Liu Zhihua was freed in January, but news of his release has only now been confirmed, according to the Dui Hua Foundation, a US-based pressure group.

Mr Liu had been jailed for life for leading a strike at a factory.

If Obama was naive about well-intentioned change before the vote, he no longer has this political handicap.

Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin acknowledged the voters' defeat by the discredited banksters. The banks, Durbin said, "frankly own the place."

It is not difficult to understand why. Among those who defeated the homeowners bill are senators Jon Tester (Mont), Max Baucus (Mont), Blanche Lincoln (Ark), Ben Nelson (Neb), Many Landrieu (La), Tim Johnson (SD), and Arlan Specter (Pa). According to reports, the banksters have poured a half million dollars into Tester's campaign funds. Baucus has received $3.5 million; Lincoln $1.3 million; Nelson $1.4 million; Landrieu $2 million; Johnson $2.5 million; Specter $4.5 million.

The same Congress that can't find a dime for homeowners or health care appropriates hundreds of billions of dollars for the military/security complex. The week after the Senate foreclosed on American homeowners, the Obama "change" administration asked Congress for an additional $61 billion dollars for the neoconservatives' war in Iraq and $65 billion more for the neoconservatives' war in Afghanistan. Congress greeted this request with a rousing "Yes we can!"

The additional $126 billion comes on top of the $533.7 billion "defense" budget for this year. The $660 billion--probably a low-ball number--is ten times the military spending of China, the second most powerful country in the world.

How is it possible that "the world's only superpower" is threatened by the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan? How can the US be a superpower if it is threatened by countries that have no military capability other than a guerilla capability to resist invaders?

These "wars" are a hoax designed to enrich the US armaments industry and to infuse the "security forces" with police powers over American citizenry.

Not a dime to prevent millions of Americans from losing their homes, but hundreds of billions of dollars to murder Muslim women and children and to create millions of refugees, many of whom will either sign up with insurgents or end up as the next wave of immigrants into America.

This is the way the American government works. And it thinks it is a "city on the hill, a light unto the world."

Americans elected Obama because he said he would end the gratuitous criminal wars of the Bush brownshirts, wars that have destroyed America's reputation and financial solvency and serve no public interest. But once in office Obama found that he was ruled by the military/security complex. War is not being ended, merely transferred from the unpopular war in Iraq to the more popular war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Obama, in violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, continues to attack "targets" in Pakistan. In place of a war in Iraq, the military/security complex now has two wars going in much more difficult circumstances.

Viewing the promotion gravy train that results from decades of warfare, the US officer corps has responded to the "challenge to American security" from the Taliban. "We have to kill them over there before they come over here." No member of the US government or its numerous well-paid agents has ever explained how the Taliban, which is focused on Afghanistan, could ever get to America. Yet this hyped fear is sufficient for the public to support the continuing enrichment of the military/security complex, while American homes are foreclosed by the banksters who have destroyed the retirement prospects of the US population..

By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency.

Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

Nearly a century after the Progressive-era birth of the state's ballot-measure system, it is clear that voters' fickle commands, one proposition at a time, are a top contributor to paralysis in Sacramento. And that, in turn, has helped cripple the capacity of the governor and Legislature to provide effective leadership to a state of more than 38 million people.

The Government has joined calls for Britain's best-selling household groceries to use sustainable palm oil.

The Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the Government was "greatly concerned" by the impact of palm oil production in South-east Asia, where it causes extensive deforestation and threatens the survival of the orangutan and other rare animals.

palm oil is in, or suspected to be in, 43 of the UK's 100 best-selling grocery brands, including Cadbury Dairy Milk, Mr Kipling cakes and Dove soap.

It is often labelled as "vegetable fat" or "vegetable oil," making it difficult for the public to exercise choice.

Barack Obama is to compel US car makers to give up on gas guzzlers and step up production of a more fuel-efficient vehicle fleet.

In a ceremony today at the White House, Obama will establish the first national limits on car exhaust and dramatically raise fuel efficiency standards. The new exhaust target - an average 35.5mpg by 2016 - will force US manufacturers to produce cars and trucks that are nearly 40% more efficient.

Environmentalists said the new standards will do more to reduce global warming pollution than any of the other measures taken by Obama so far, and could lead to the overhaul of the US car industry. Cars and trucks are responsible for about a quarter of America's greenhouse gas emissions.

The revival of atomic energy in Europe and a new nuclear-friendly mood in both the EU Commission and the EU Parliament has given the industry's powerful lobby in Brussels a shot in the arm.

Consider this curious case: a 44-year-old ostrich  farmer from the Australian outback developed  sudden onset of muscle weakness after returning  home from an evening of kangaroo-shooting. He  had difficulty in getting out of his bath and was  unable to stand while waiting for help to arrive. His  respiratory status deteriorated, and he required intubation and mechanical ventilation. He was found to  be profoundly hypokalaemic with a serum potassium
level of 1.4 mmol ⁄ l. He had been drinking 4 l of  Coca-Cola per day over the past 3 years, and drank  up to 10 l to slake his thirst when he went for kangaroo-shooting at night. He was advised to curtail  his cola drinking, and his potassium level normalised, his weakness resolved, and he made a full recovery (1).

[...]

In their review of cola-induced hypokalaemia, Tsimihodimos et al. make a compelling argument that potassium depletion should be added to the long list of soft drink-related health problems. In the cases they describe, chronic consumption of 3-10 l of sugar-sweetened cola per day led to severe hypokalaemia, hypokalaemic myopathy, and in some cases, hypokalaemic paralysis. One patient developed hypokalaemic nephropathy and subsequent nephrogenic diabetes insipidus. In all cases, the patients' symptoms improved, and the hypokalaemia resolved with potassium repletion and reduction or cessation of cola drinking.

[...]

One might argue that people who drink 3-10 l of cola per day are outliers, and that excessive soft drink consumption at this level is so rare that it is not a public health issue. The problem is that we have every reason to think that it is not rare. We know, for instance, that for the period from 1999 to 2002, the 95th percentile of soft drink consumption for US male teenagers was 83 ounces per day, and for female teenagers, 61 ounces per day (5)

[...]

Cola drinks need to be added to the physician's checklist of drugs and substances (such as liquorice) that can cause hypokalaemia. More work is needed on the epidemiology of cola consumption, hypokalaemia and cardiovascular disease rates.

Europe's largest onshore wind farm is to be expanded further, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has announced.

Mr Salmond was speaking as he officially switched on the 140-turbine Whitelee wind farm on Eaglesham Moor in East Renfrewshire.

He said developers ScottishPower Renewables had been given permission to add a further 36 turbines to the site.

That will allow the £300m wind farm to power 250,000 homes and could create up to 300 jobs, Mr Salmond said.

I've been asked if this is real? is it really Europes lagest windfarm? by someone who says that he's seen windfarms that seem to stretch for miles in Spain.

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

Scientists have discovered an exquisitely preserved ancient primate fossil that they believe forms a crucial "missing link" between our own evolutionary branch of life and the rest of the animal kingdom.

The 47m-year-old primate - named Ida - has been hailed as the fossil equivalent of a "Rosetta Stone" for understanding the critical early stages of primate evolution.

The number of confirmed cases of swine flu in Japan soared on Monday, forcing the closure of thousands of schools in the western region worst hit and raising fears about the likely impact on an economy already suffering a historic slump.

Yoichi Masuzoe, the minister for health, labour and welfare, stressed that the new flu did not appear to be any more lethal than seasonal types, suggesting that a relatively restrained response to the H1N1 virus might be appropriate.

Almost half a century after he climbed the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told the world that he had a dream, Martin Luther King is to receive perhaps the ultimate recognition of his standing as a modern American icon: a Steven Spielberg film chronicling his life and times.

The civil rights leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the struggle against racial segregation, will be the subject of what Spielberg has billed as the "defining" biopic about his childhood, career, and untimely assassination.

... Perhaps, it's high time to challenge this narrative and ask a very difficult question: are the publicity gains gained through this greater reliance on new media worth the organizational losses that traditional activists entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of activism (demonstrations, sit-ins, confrontation with police, strategic litigation, etc) and embrace more "slacktivist" forms, which may be more secure but whose effectiveness is still largely unproven?

Let's not get into trying to find answers to purely speculative questions like whether the utility of the very public work of 1000 "slacktivists" equals that of the very quiet and often unattributed work of one traditional activist. The real issue here is whether the mere availability of the "slacktivist" option is likely to push those who in the past might have confronted the regime in person with demonstrations, leaflets, and labor organizing to embrace the Facebook option and join a gazillion online issue groups instead. If this is the case, then the much-touted tools of digital liberation are only driving us further away from the goal of democratization and building global civil society.

Of course, the ideal case here is when one's participation in digital activism doesn't subtract from -- and instead enhances -- one's eagerness to participate in real-life campaigns. However, it's also quite possible that a significant portion of the activist population would be morally content with the "slacktivist" option alone, preferring not to get too close to more dangerous activities that are likely to get them in trouble with authorities. So should we be more careful when discussing the success of most digital activism campaigns, since they may also have unanticipated adverse effects on more effective forms of enacting political and social change? (Of course, the relative effectiveness of one type of activism over another is a matter of great contention too.) ...

The concluding sentences made me think of Sven's diary Numbers:

... I also think that it might be useful to search for traces of "slacktivism" in other fields. For example, is the growing public fascination with "ethical consumerism" likely to erode other more effective (and more political) forms of protest? Given that some advocates of "ethical consumerism" still cling to the notion that "shopping is more important that voting," this may as well be the case.

As I wrote this morning, a recent US congressional report says that the GPS system that could be on the verge of breakdown, thanks to a lack of proper investment.

It's a worrying possibility - not just for the Pentagon, which is having its ability to manage a complex service like GPS called into question, but for the companies that have built businesses on the solidity of the global positioning system.

The experiment was part of 16 offbeat tasks selected from ideas sent to the space agency by hundreds of members of the Japanese public, from nursery school pupils to a 90-year-old man.

He also handled the awkward task of folding laundry in zero gravity, struggling with a shirt and then, for added difficulty, the floating arms and legs of a blue space overall.