Up to 20 families moved by police after rally in support of eastern Europeans targeted by youths throwing bottles

More than 100 Romanians fleeing racist attacks in Belfast have been moved to a council-run leisure centre after taking refuge overnight in a church.

The 115 Romanians were transferred to the O-Zone complex this morning.

The sports centre in the city's Ormeau Park has become a temporary home for the Romanians, many of whom have said they want to leave Northern Ireland.

Belfast's lord mayor, Naomi Long, said the repeated attacks on the Roma families close to the university district had brought shame on the city.

Hundreds of survivors of April's devastating earthquake in L'Aquila have protested in Rome, accusing the Italian government of taking too long with reconstruction efforts. 

Tuesday's protest coincided with a parliamentary session, where lawmakers were debating a government bill containing earthquake relief measures.

The earthquake in the central Italian region of Abruzzo killed almost 300 people and left 60,000 homeless. In recent weeks, many residents in L'Aquila have become frustrated with reconstruction efforts, and have accused Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of not keeping the promises he made following the disaster.

Most of L'Aquila remains uninhabitable and protestors say that damaged buildings in the town's historic center are getting worse.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission's new 10-year vision for transport policy contains almost no climate change-related measures, disappointing Brussels' own environment department officials, who worry that soaring transport emissions could wipe out reductions in energy and manufacturing.

The commission communication, which aims to set the bloc's transport agenda from 2010 to 2020, is to be published Wednesday (17 June). The text - seen by EUobserver - focuses on solving problems within the sector, such as upgrading infrastructure and improving safety.

"The most immediate priorities appear to be the better integration of the different modes of transport as a way to improve the overall efficiency of the system and the acceleration of the development and deployment of innovative technologies," it says.

It notes that with "still over 39,000 deaths in the EU in 2008, transport by road remains far too costly in terms of human lives," adding that "the reduction of accidents and of health hazards, the protection of passengers' rights and the accessibility of remote regions must remain a high priority."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission on Tuesday decided to take legal action against Germany after the southern region of Bavaria refused to disclose the names of EU farm aid beneficiaries, as required by the bloc's regulations.

Germany already missed a deadline on 30 April, when all member states were required to publish online the details of those receiving EU farm subsidies. While the federal government did publish the data available to them on Tuesday, the state of Bavaria - home to a number of important farm and agricultural industries - refused to disclose the information, citing privacy issues.

Bavarian farmers receiving EU money are reluctant follow the bloc's transparency rules

"Bavaria's decision is incomprehensible and I will now take steps to begin an infringement procedure," EU commissioner for agriculture Mariann Fischer Boel said in a statement.

The so-called infringement procedure, opened whenever a member state is in breach of EU law, can take several years and be dropped whenever the country remedies the situation. If it doesn't, the case is referred to European Court of Justice, which can apply sanctions to the country in question.

Russia has vetoed the extension of a UN mission in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, in place since 1993. Russia says the proposal to extend the mission would be "denying the existence of Abkhazia as a state." 

The US and several European countries, including Germany, had proposed a two week extension for the mandate, hoping to allow Russia and Western countries to come to an agreement on a long-term plan for the UN mission.

The deadline for the extension of the mission passed on Monday night. Ten UN Security Council members voted in favor of the extension, four abstained, and only Russia - which has veto power - opposed the proposal.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Sweden's tradition of support for underdog newspapers is being targeted by the European Commission, which views the country's public funding of a town's second-biggest newspaper as running counter to EU competition rules.

Stockholm has long provided the second-biggest paper in a city or town with state subsidies as a countervailing measure against the tendency for advertisers to flock towards the top-selling paper.

An old copy of the Stockholms Dagblad

In this way, left-wing newspapers in right-wing areas are protected from the depredations of the market, and vice versa, with the aim of assuring political and media pluralism.

However, the commission on Wednesday (17 June) called on Sweden to reduce the funding it provides to papers in large towns, claiming that they breach EU rules on state aid.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European gas companies may end up buying excess volumes of Russian gas to help prevent a fresh EU supply crisis, in plans to be discussed at the EU summit on Thursday (18 June).

Russian supplier Gazprom is facing financial and technical difficulties after having contracted to buy set volumes of gas from central Asian producers while facing a sharp drop in demand in the EU and Ukraine.

A gas storage tank: Ukraine seems to be hoarding supplies in aniticipation of a fresh Russian cut-off

At the same time, Ukraine gas distributor, Naftogaz, is running out of money to pay the Russian firm. But Ukraine has hoarded gas in its vast underground tanks to help see it through the winter in case Gazprom cuts off supplies.

The last Russian cut-off, in January, caused massive disruption in the EU, which receives 25 percent of its gas from Russia via Ukraine.

The European elections didn't turn out well for Germany's Social Democrats. SPIEGEL spoke with Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück about the SPD's chances in German elections this autumn, his party's chancellor candidate and Chancellor Merkel's leadership.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Steinbrück, we would like to talk to you in your capacity as one of the deputy leaders of the Social Democrats (SPD).

Steinbrück: That's what I thought.

SPIEGEL: If the SPD were a department store, where would it be now? On the verge of bankruptcy or would it already have filed?

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück says that the Social Democrats still have a chance in September general elections. Steinbrück: I think the comparison between the SPD and department store is grotesque.

SPIEGEL: We don't think so. In the European parliamentary election, the SPD captured a meager 20.8 percent of the vote. Your party's business model seems to be out of date, not unlike the situation at Karstadt.

Steinbrück: Department stores on the whole, my friends, aren't out of fashion, and neither is the SPD. There are some very successful department stores, such as Galeries Lafayettes in France or Harrods in England. Much of what went wrong at Karstadt was the result of management errors.

• Today's youngsters could be trapped into a "work to live" cycle into their twilight years

Today's children could become what Aviva has dubbed "the forever generation". They are the generation who will be retiring later, paying their mortgage for longer and having children live with them well into their twilight years

Lifestyle changes mean that people are now taking up to seven years longer to reach various milestones - leaving home, marrying, buying a house and starting a family - than they did 30 years ago. Aviva is therefore warning that people need to start planning for their retirement sooner rather than later. <...>

Darren Dicks, head of annuity propositions for Aviva UK Life, said: "There is a risk that without forward planning, today's young adults could end up in a work-to-live cycle for what feels like `forever'. Without suitable pension provision and a means to pay off their mortgage before retirement, people could find themselves having to work for much longer than they do now. <...>

"On a more positive note, life expectancy is also increasing steadily, rising from 82.8 and 86.8 respectively for men and women born 30 years ago, to 88.5 and 91.8 for people born now(4). So even though people are working longer, they are also living longer in retirement. This underlines the importance of planning ahead and preparing for a long life."

Event	Average age 30 years ago	Average age now	Shift in yrs compared to 30 years ago	Expected age in 30 years time
First marriage (men)(6)	25.1 years	31.9 years	6.8 years	38.7 years
First marriage (women)(6)	22.8 years	29.8 years	7 years	36.8 years
Birth of first child (women)(6)	26.6 years	29.3 years	2.7 years	32 years
Purchase of first home(7)	27 years	34 years	7 years	41 years

The UK and Germany made very ambitious promises and have made great strides towards meeting those promises. Though they are both currently a bit behind in their progress, both Gordon Brown of Labour and David Cameron of the Conservatives in the UK have said they are committed to meeting this promise and have budgeted for the committed aid increases. This in a time of domestic hardship is politically brave and indeed honorable but it is also good, sound political sense. Germany has made budget provisions for continued significant and laudable increases, but will unfortunately probably just fall short of their target.

Despite some key investments from France in global health programs, France has made little progress towards its ambitious promise. This is pathetic given France's economic, cultural and historic links with Africa. Indeed it is so pathetic Germany has overtaken France in its economic co-operation with Africa for the first time ever.

And then there's Italy, this year's G8 host. Last year's host kept their promise; next year's host has kept theirs. But Italy has only done 3% of what Prime Minister Berlusconi personally and nationally promised in 2005. I'll repeat that figure of craven dishonesty -- 3%! So it is quite proper to ask -- what legitimacy does Italy have to run the G8 this year? How can you possibly trust a government that promises something, does nothing and expects to the lead the world's biggest economies? Especially when this promise was a solemn one between the rich and the poor. Between the powerful and the weak. Surely a test of power is how it cares for the frail. A measure of strength is how it safeguards the weak. In these tests Italy has failed.

On debt cancellation, the G8 are largely making good, thus enabling 34 million children to go to school for the first time ever. That's 34 million new brains actively engaged with our world. However the current financial crisis may give rise to a newer debt problem. This needs to be avoided.

Feminist politician equates Pirate Party supporters with rapists

A blog post comparing file sharing advocates to rapists has caused a backlash for the feminist member of the Riksdag who authored the entry.

Last Sunday, Annika Qarlsson, who also heads the board of the Centre Party's women's organization Centerkvinnorna, reflected on her blog about the success of the Pirate Party in recent European Parliament elections.

"[H]ere's a thought and a reflection connected to the Pirate Party's success with many young men, who voted for them in order to protect their personal privacy. [I'm] thinking about the statistics which came out the other day that show there are innumerable young women who are raped by young men who they barely know or don't know at all," wrote Qarlsson.

"And I can't make sense of it - do young men think that privacy is important or don't they?"

The number of seats should be cut from 349 to 99.

   

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

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Any attempt by EU leaders this week to formally nominate Jose Manuel Barroso for a second term as European Commission will come a cropper in the European Parliament on procedural grounds, a senior MEP warned on Tuesday (16 June).

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, head of the Greens faction, said he believed there was a "sufficient majority" in the EU assembly to block Mr Barroso when the issue goes to vote in mid-July.

The European Parliament will meet in mid-July for its constitutive session

"If we are to vote in July, then the debate will be on procedure," he said, adding that an alliance of "Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialists and the far left" would be enough.

Parliament is up in arms because a decision this week by EU leaders to formally back Mr Barroso would fall under the current Nice Treaty rules, whereas it voted in May by overwhelming majority to try and appoint the commission president under the yet-to-be-ratified Lisbon Treaty.

With 48 MEPs - up 14 on the 2004 elections - will Europe's ecologists become a force in the EU parliament ? Some commentators are none too convinced while others have noticed that this traditionally left-wing movement has taken a right turn.

The Greens in the Brussels' region have just formed a coalition with Liberals and Christian Democrats, reports Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. A historic shift is also visible in Germany, where Greens have announced for the first time that they are ready to cooperate with Christian Democrats and Liberals at a federal level.

For some time now the argument goes that Greens should jettison traditional links for new ones. In France, for instance, Greens almost outpolled former coalition partners the PS, whereas in Portugal and Italy they scored as well as far-left movements they are usually associated with. "The Greens must start talking about climate change in an economic context (creating new jobs in a green economy), abandon their links with the extreme left, and deal with Liberals or Christian Democrats in the same way the moderate left does, Rzeczpospolita opines.

Elsewhere, Belgian ecologist party MEP Philippe Lamberts argues that Greens share certain values with the right. "Socialists and free-market liberals believe that the measure of quality of life is your material status," he says. "We think, as Christian Democrats do, that the good life is not the amount of money on your bank account." Greens, also, Rzeczpospolita pointedly remarks, are more likely to have criticised Communist dictatorships.

Siemens, Deutsche Bank, RWE and E.on ready to invest in ambitious plan to power Europe with clean electricity from Africa

Twenty blue chip German companies are pooling their resources with the aim of harnessing solar power in the deserts of north Africa and transporting the clean electricity to Europe.

The businesses, which include some of the biggest names in European energy, finance and manufacturing, will form a consortium next month. If successful, the highly ambitious plan could see Europe fuelled by solar energy within a decade.

The consortium behind what would be the biggest ever solar energy initiative will first raise awareness and interest among other investors for the project, known as Desertec, which is estimated to cost around €400bn (£338bn).

Torsten Jeworrek, board member of Munich Re, the German reinsurer which is leading the project, said: "We want to found an initiative which over the next two to three years will put concrete measures on the table."

This week marks the end of the dollar's reign as the world's reserve currency. It marks the start of a terrible period of economic and political decline in the United States. And it signals the last gasp of the American imperium. That's over. It is not coming back. And what is to come will be very, very painful.

Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America's imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.

There are meetings being held Monday and Tuesday in Yekaterinburg, Russia, (formerly Sverdlovsk) among Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The United States, which asked to attend, was denied admittance. Watch what happens there carefully. The gathering is, in the words of economist Michael Hudson, "the most important meeting of the 21st century so far."

Hungary, severely hit by the economic crisis, has said it is to close four embassies worldwide to save money, including one in Europe.

Budapest intends to close its representations in Luxembourg, as well as in Malaysia, Chile and Venezuela.

It will also shut down eight consulates - in Lyon (France), Dusseldorf (Germany), Krakow (Poland), Chicago (US), Toronto (Canada), Sao Paolo (Brazil), Sydney (Australia) and Hong Kong, Hungarian foreign minister Peter Balazs announced on Tuesday (16 June).

Crisis-hit Hungary will be closing four embassies and eight consulates worldwide in a bid to save money

"With the reorganisation, the ministry will save two billion forint (around €7 million) annually," Mr Balazs said at a press conference in Budapest, French news agency AFP reported.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama's plan to reshape financial regulation, which he will unveil on Wednesday, is the product of weeks of meetings among government officials, financial experts, lawmakers, industry executives and lobbyists, many of whom were invited to help the White House draft the proposal.

Mr. Obama told reporters on Tuesday that a "lack of oversight" allowed what he called "wild risk-taking." He said it led to "very dangerous" conditions that imperiled the global economy.

But executives from an array of industries caught up in the financial crisis came to Washington over the last several weeks to make their case for how the new regulatory landscape should look. They came from big banks and small ones, insurance companies and stock exchanges, hedge funds and mutual funds, and were joined by officials from consumer groups and big labor -- often with conflicting views.

Now, lobbyists who lost the initial skirmish inside the administration will head to Congress to try to influence the final product.

Protestors are using the popular micro-blogging site Twitter to make an end run around the foreign press blackout in Iran, and getting help from the US. Here's a look at what they're saying. 

After the weekend's images of beaten demonstrators, and Monday's scenes of mass rallies, Iranian authorities clamped down on foreign press on Tuesday. Reporters from Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine were told not to leave their offices to report on the ongoing protests. US broadcaster CNN was forced to use pictures taken from Iranian state television, which showed only the pro-Ahmadinejad rally.

The Islamic Republic's crippling of the mainstream media meant that so-called "citizen journalism" took on an increasingly important role. Ordinary Iranians sent pictures and videos they'd taken with digital cameras and mobile phones, showing both peaceful demonstrations and continued harassment and violence from authorities. Among the best ways available to get written communiqués out was through the website Twitter.

When Fox News reported today based on unnamed sources in Gaza that former President Jimmy Carter plans to urge President Barack Obama to take the Palestinian militant group Hamas off the U.S. terrorist list in meetings later this week, Washington Democrats and the Obama administration collectively cringed.

"The president has addressed Hamas questions, including in the Egypt speech," an administraton official said. "[We] won't have more to say about this."

"Just like with President Clinton, Carter is becoming a huge problem and a growing concern for Obama," a Washington Middle East hand said. "They are very pissed with him."

After observing Lebanon's elections, Carter visited Damascus last week and met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, as well as exiled Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal. This week, he met with Israeli settlers in the West Bank and toured Gaza with top Hamas leader Ismail Haniya as his guide. His trip to Damascus came a day ahead of that of Obama Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell.

China's Communist Party is cracking down on corruption. Wealthy businessmen and party officials are being targeted, and even the country's richest man is being held by authorities in an undisclosed location.

The sun is setting over Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor as the floating casinoNeptune lifts anchor and casts off. The white cruise ship slips past a backdrop of brightly lit skyscrapers and out into international waters, marking the beginning of a long night.

The mood on board is exuberant. The passengers stream into the casino and crowd eagerly around the gambling tables. The Chinese gamblers on board the Neptune have the boat to themselves. Many of them have traveled to Hong Kong from the People's Republic, and they include fat cats and wealthy businessmen who have done well for themselves. Most are in the company of conspicuously young women. The players trade in thick wads of cash for chips.

TEHRAN - The presidential election results announced by the Interior Ministry must be confirmed by the Guardian Council, GC spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaii said on Tuesday. And the Guardian Council will declare the final results within the legal time period of 7 to 10 days, he added.

In response to protests by the defeated candidates, the GC has agreed to recount certain ballot boxes, he explained.

Representatives of three presidential candidates -- Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi, and Mohsen Rezaii -- held discussions with Guardian Council experts on the election results on Tuesday.

Mousavi, who finished in second in the presidential election, and Karroubi, who finished in last place in the four-way race, ave made allegations of election fraud.

Hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the transfer of four Guantanamo Bay inmates to Bermuda branded their prime minister Ewert Brown a "dictator" and demanded he step down after negotiating a secret deal witht he United States.

About 600 people gathered outside Parliament in Hamilton, the island's capital, chanting "Brown must go" and waving banners as they marched to the Cabinet office.

But Mr Brown was defiant. "As some of you might know, I grew up in the protest era," he shouted at the booing crowd. "This is nothing new to me. I have seen them larger and longer," he said.

On June 12, 2009, 1,503 communities chose their representatives in orderly, transparent elections, according to Ahmed Herzenni, chairman of Morocco's human rights watchdog, CCDH. His opinion was shared by more than 150 foreign observers, including the International Strategic Studies Association from Washington, D.C., and the New York-based American Center for Democracy (ACD).

Unlike the Soviet-style election in April that led to the reelection of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Algeria, Morocco's eastern neighbor, or the controversial and violent presidential election in Iran, Morocco's election was "fair and free."

An international plan to build a nuclear fusion reactor is being threatened by rising costs, delays and technical challenges.

Emails leaked to the BBC indicate that construction costs for the experimental fusion project called Iter have more than doubled.

Some scientists also believe that the technical hurdles to fusion have become more difficult to overcome and that the development of fusion as a commercial power source is still at least 100 years away.

At a meeting in Japan on Wednesday, members of the governing Iter council will review the plans and may agree to scale back the project.

First, Queen Elizabeth adopted Michelle Obama's urban ag agenda by starting her own kitchen garden on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The Queen and the First Lady have been forging a "special friendship" of their own in recent months, as evidenced by the spontaneous hug Michelle Obama gave the Queen at a reception, to the horror of the protocol police.

Who knows, maybe the Queen's growing friendship with our foremost ambassador for fruits and veggies was a factor in her Majesty's decision to authorize a new victory garden. It's been a long time since the Queen last dabbled in edible landscaping, according to the BBC, which noted that "This is the first time vegetables have been grown in the backyard of the monarch's London residence since World War II."

The BBC story included a photo, taken in 1940, showing the Queen as a young princess wielding a spade and a rake. This time around, the Queen's delegating the digging to her staff.

...

If the First Lady and the Queen's shared desire to promote food gardening and healthy eating seems like an unprecedented pairing, Brits witnessed an even more improbable UK/US alliance this week when Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono--famously blamed for breaking up the Beatles--came together on Monday to announce the launch of Sir Paul's Meat Free Mondays campaign.

By coincidence, America's version of the go-veg-once-a-week movement, Meatless Monday, relaunched its website on the very same day, so there's plenty of momentum growing on both sides of the Atlantic for this campaign to start your week off doing something significant to curb your carbon 'foodprint.'

Given the role that livestock production plays in producing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting back on our meat consumption just makes sense, and making a habit of doing so one day a week is a win-win, benefiting your own health and the planet's. As Moby, who's as famous these days for his NYC vegan café Teany as for his music, said at the Meat Free Monday launch:
'If I point my finger at someone, saying, "You should be a vegetarian," they're just going to get annoyed...There is definitely a risk [of] alienating people. Maybe one day a week, consider what you are doing.

'We're saying, do this for your personal health and in the process you help animals and you help the environment.'

It's heartening to see two of Britain's best known citizens lobbying on behalf of a plant-based diet, or what Michael Pollan--another Meatless Mondays advocate--calls "the resolarization of our food chain." Here comes the sun, indeed.

Ideas Ecology The uses of enchantment Published on June 16 2009  |   Le Monde

Photo: Shahram Sharif Print Send React Taille police +   |  Taille police -   

In a forum published by Le Monde, French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin calls on civililsation to change by giving greater importance to love, solidarity and poetry. Only an ecology-based politics, according to him, seems capable of seeing such a project through.

The success of the green coalition in the European elections in France should not be overestimated nor underestimated. It should not be overestimated, because it was in part due to the weakness of the Socialist Party, the poor credibility of the centrist MoDem and smaller groups on the Left. At the same time, it should not be underestimated, because it also highlights the political progress of environmental awareness in our country. As a nation we now have a more developed consciousness of the environment, but we remain largely unaware of the relationship between politics and ecology, and this is problematic because issues of justice, of government, of equality and of social relations, effectively extends beyond the sphere of environmentalism. Now that we can perceive the shortcomings of political platforms with no environmental component, we should not overlook the deficiencies of political programs that focus solely on environmental issues.

The vision of humankind that is "above nature" has yet to be replaced by a vision of our complex interdependence with the natural world, whose death will also be our death. Political ecology must have two aspects, one turned towards nature, and the other towards society. It follows that a politics that seeks to replace polluting fossil fuels with clean energy sources also has implications in terms of policies that focus on health, hygiene and the quality of life. A policy that aims to save energy is also an aspect of a politics that aims to combat the consumerist delirium of the middle classes. Policies with goals such as the de-pollution of cities,  the development of electric public transport, the pedestrianization of historic town centres, make a major contribution to programmes to re-humanize cities, which also include plans to ensure that residential areas have a mix of social classes and an end to ghettoes of all kinds, including luxury ghettoes for privileged communities.

Health officials in Birmingham say the spread of swine flu in the city can no longer be contained.

Fifty-five new cases have been confirmed in the West Midlands region taking the total to 567 - more than half of the total cases in England.

The city council's health scrutiny committee was told officials want to move to "mitigating" the outbreak.

"Containment is too late in Birmingham. We are planning for the mitigation phase."

Under the containment policy all those people who may potentially have come into contact with an infected individual are offered anti-viral drugs.

The aim is effectively to isolate the virus, allowing no opportunity for it to spread further.

But once cases become too frequent to contain, drugs are only given to those people, such as family members, who are at significant risk of infection.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Five clones of a search and rescue dog which helped locate people trapped in the rubble of the 9/11 attacks were formally presented to their ancestor's former handler.

James Symington, a former Canadian police officer, choked back tears as he formally took possession of the five descendants of his beloved German shepherd named Trakr, who died in April.

Symington was presented with Trakr's offspring after winning a competition organized by California firm BioArts International -- the "Golden Clone Giveaway" -- to find the world's most "cloneworthy" dog.

Symington said he hopes the puppies -- Trust, Valor, Prodigy, Solace and Deja Vu -- will go on to follow in Trakr's footsteps.

On television, the Italian penchant for adorning soundstages with skimpily clad, surgically enhanced showgirls has radically metastasized, spilling over from game shows to all forms of entertainment, including the nightly news.

But feminist grumblings only exploded into public debate in recent weeks after reports emerged that Mr. Berlusconi, a media magnate whose family owns Italy's three largest private television channels, was grooming a stable of TV starlets for the political arena. (Although the prime minister has denied the reports, Barbara Matera, a former showgirl, was elected earlier this month to the European Parliament with Mr. Berlusconi's People of Liberty party).

Adding spice to the mix was the buzz over the harem-like surroundings at Mr. Berlusconi's villa in Sardinia.

A suburban "mother-to-be" has infuriated the right-to-life community in America by admitting a blog she had written for more than two months tracking her pregnancy with a child diagnosed with a terminal disease was nothing more than a fantasy

However, in her determination to sustain the illusion, Ms Beushausen had posed for the photograph not with a baby, but a plastic doll.

One of the first to become suspicious of the events described on the site - littleoneapril.blogspot.com - was Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from upstate New York. "I have that exact doll in my house," she said. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam." She then started a counter-blog to expose the fabrication. For her trouble, she was bombarded with hate mail.

An illegal immigrant has been found inside Sandhurst military academy after stowing away on an Army coach travelling from Germany.

The Ministry of Defence said the man, whose age is uncertain, had been handed over to Thames Valley Police.

The coach was carrying a number of officers and other personnel, but was driven by a civilian contractor who was responsible for security, the MoD said.

The Sun newspaper reports that the man was originally from Afghanistan.

It claimed that the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, was "incandescent" at the incident.

Traditionally celebrated with food, drink, song, saunas and bonfires, Midsummer is the only holiday when the Finnish flag flies around the clock, from 6 pm Friday till 9 pm Saturday. The holiday is celebrated on the weekend closest to the actual Summer Solstice, which this year happens to fall on Sunday.

My eldest daughter went into hospital last night with appendicitis, though not acute. She'll be operated sometime later today according to latest reports. She'll be missing the big party and 'papa betaler' may too ;-)

I was looking forward to relaxing after delivering a rather major writing job to the client yesterday. But such is life. My daughters come first.

You can't be me, I'm taken