A row about the discovery of a series of 2,300-year-old caves has emerged as a potentially greater threat to Silvio Berlusconi than allegations he slept call girl Patrizia D'Addario.

The latest extracts of taped bedroom conversations to be released contained an apparently innocuous remark by the Italian prime minister that he had discovered 30 ancient tombs on one of his estates.

He is heard boasting to Miss D'Addario, 42, about the existence of Phoenician tombs, from the 3rd Century BC on his Villa Certosa estate on Sardinia where guests have included Tony Blair.

Conservative politicians across Germany have lashed out at Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries' repeated demand that laws be changed to give homosexual couples the right to adopt children. 

Christine Haderthauer, the minister for social affairs in the state of Bavaria, rejected the idea, telling the German daily Passauer Neue Presse that the goal of the adoption process is to find children an optimal family, and not the other way around.

Haderthauer was not the only one giving interviews to newspapers following Thursday's announcement. Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) parliamentary group, sharply criticized the justice minister's demand.

"It has always been our belief that children are best off being raised by a man and a woman," he told the Ruhr Nachrichten, adding that there was no reason for them, not even when it came to adoption rights, to make civil unions equal to traditional marriages.

Canada has sparked a diplomatic row with the Czech Republic by imposing visa restrictions on Czech citizens, after a rise in the number of Czech Roma seeking to escape anti-Roma violence back home.  

Canada imposed the visa restrictions after more than 1,700 Czech Roma, or gypsies, applied for refugee status in the first six months of 2009 - twice as many as in the whole of last year.

Canada had only removed visa restrictions in late 2007. They were originally introduced 10 years earlier, after a previous influx of Roma asylum seekers.

Many of the Roma want to leave their home because of what they see as an increased level of anti-Roma activity in the country. Ales Horvath and his young family had been planning to try to join relatives who moved to Canada in the mid 1990s.

"Ninety percent of us have been attacked," he says, "including me, my brother, my cousins. Everyone's experienced physical attacks. On top of that, I can't go into just any restaurant or disco with my wife - many places won't let us in."

Three prisoners have broken out of a Belgian jail in broad daylight using a hijacked helicopter. Officials said one of the accomplices was forced to stay behind because there was not enough space in the helicopter.

AFP - Three prisoners, among them one of Belgium's most dangerous criminals, escaped Thursday in an audacious jailbreak in broad daylight aboard a hijacked helicopter, the Justice Ministry said.
   
Two accomplices rented a helicopter, took the pilot hostage, and forced him to land in the courtyard of the jail, located in the northern city of Bruges, a ministry spokesperson told Belga news agency.
   
When the helicopter took off with the three convicts one of the accomplices stayed behind, possibly because of limited space aboard the helicopter, the spokesperson said.

The battle is over and Volkswagen has won. But questions are being asked once more about the controversial special VW law, which limits the rights of independent shareholders. 

Some observers are saying that it was only the VW law which prevented Porsche from succeeding in its ambitious plan to take over the larger company.  And it was Porsche's failure to finish off the takeover after having spent so much money which led to its disastrous financial problems. Those problems in the end could only be solved by VW's takeover of Porsche.

The original VW law dates from the privatization of the company in 1960. It guaranteed the state of Lower Saxony, which owned 20 percent of the shares, that it could continue to block developments of which it did not approve.  In addition, the law ensured that, however many shares anyone else had, they could only have a maximum of 20 percent of the votes.

EU objections

The EU Commission, which is the defender of the free movement of capital in the European Union, said over ten years ago that it was not happy with the law. It took the matter to the European Court of Justice, which ruled in 2007. The court's ruling, says Christian Democrat MEP Klaus-Heiner Lehne, was a bit ambiguous.

An Amsterdam court has ruled that the Dutch secret service (AIVD) illegally tapped the telephone of journalist Jolande van der Graaf, while investigating a departmental leak. The AIVD will appeal the decision, leaving open the question of whether the agency crossed the line.

On March 28th, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf published a story claiming that, in the run-up to the Dutch government's decision to support the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, the AIVD passed on misleading information to the Dutch cabinet.

The article contained information from classified AIVD documents that Ms van der Graaf had apparently received from an informant within the secret service. When the article was published, the AIVD began an investigation into the leak, including surveillance of Ms van der Graaf and a tap on her telephone, as well those of De Telegraaf's editor-in-chief, Sjuul Paradijs, and his deputy, Joost de Haas.

Tories' Chloe Smith clinches the seat in first electoral test since expenses scandal rocked Westminster

David Cameron has inflicted a humiliating byelection defeat on Gordon Brown as the Conservatives beat Labour into second place in Norwich North.

In the first electoral test for a Westminster seat since the MPs' expenses scandal rocked the House of Commons, the Tories' Chloe Smith won the Norfolk seat with a majority of 7,348 and, aged just 27, becomes the youngest MP in the Commons.

Labour's defeat, in a seat held comfortably by the party since 1997, is the fifth byelection blow Brown has suffered since he took over at No 10.

Mario de Queiroz interviews ANA GOMES, MEP for Portugal

Ana Gomes, socialist MEP for Portugal

LISBON, Jul 20 (IPS) - Throughout her varied career as a political leader in Portugal, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and ambassador, Ana Gomes has been a distinguished and tireless fighter for what she defines as "just causes." The target of her criticism now is the shelving of an investigation in her country into secret CIA rendition flights.

In contrast to other European countries, the Attorney-General's Office in Portugal (Procuradoria Geral da República - PGR) decided to close "for lack of evidence" the investigation into the use of Portuguese airports and airspace by U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) planes transferring prisoners to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The scandal broke out in November 2005, when the Washington Post revealed that the CIA was secretly transporting terrorism suspects, captured mainly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to the U.S. military enclave in Cuba and to secret prisons - or "black sites" - elsewhere in the world.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos defended his visit to Gibraltar on Spain's Radio Nacional amidst severe criticism mainly from the right wing press. The front page of El Mundo was a banner headline declaring the picture of the three ministers at the top of the Rock as `The Photo of Shame'.

The PP Opposition continued to say the visit would bring shame on Spain in the future. La Razon described the visit as `Gibraltar shows off its dominions to Moratinos' and of the Madrid press only El Pais took a similar tone to the regional press saying that those trying to revive nationalist sentiments were out of step with the times.

In his interview with RNE Sr Moratinos said that dialogue, cooperation and negotiation are the formula for the Gibraltar `problem'. He defended Spain's claim but said this should come through agreement with the affected parties adding that he believed a transfer of sovereignty "does not have to wait a very long time, but simply create the conditions so this can be adequately negotiated and with results."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSEL - British workers occupying a wind turbine factory in an attempt to prevent its closure have become a cause célèbre for environmentalists, Green MEPs and trade unionists, but the wind lobby in both London and Brussels has condemned the actions of the workers and taken the side of the company.

Opposition to building windmills is cited as one of the company's main reasons for abandoning production in the UK

On Tuesday, a group of around 25 workers from Britain's only wind turbine plant, owned by Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems, occupied their Isle of Wight factory in a last-ditch effort the prevent the loss of some 600 jobs when the facility closes at the end of this month.

The workers have been fenced in by management, but are vowing to remain inside until the government moves to nationalise the plant.

The company, for its part, says that due to the recession, troubles with bank finance and obstacles to gaining planning permission for windmills in the UK as a result of rural `nimbyism', the plant is not a viable concern and so is shifting production to the US and China.

Analysis of data on EU farm subsidies in the UK reveal that three Eurosceptic Conservative MPs have claimed more than £500,000 in EU farm subsidies in the past two years. A great piece of work by long-time farmsubsidy.org network member Annamarie Cumiskey for More4 News, the offshoot of Channel 4 News.

Luigi de Magistris has been elected Chair of the European Union Committee on Budgetary Control. It's this summer's best news item. He will be able to check up on the allocation of money to the various countries of Europe, to see how the money is really used, to attack fraud, to keep Italian citizens informed through the Internet. In 2007, I went with de Magistris to Strasbourg to denounce the scandal of the European funds assigned to Italy that land up in the pockets of the parties, of the lobbies and of the mafias. A figure equal to nine billion euro a year. I asked the parliamentarians present to send no more money as it was like sending the money to Bokassa. Two years later, we have an amazing result. The right person in the right place. And this is thanks to you, thanks to the Internet. Luigi is the European parliamentarian with the most preference votes, half a million votes. And this was what was crucial in his being elected as Chair of this committee. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.

Blog: Luigi de Magistris, a Euro-parliamentarian elected as an independent in the lists of Italia dei Valori, in the last few days elected as Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control. What does it mean having this position and what will you have to do?

Luigi de Magistris: It's a massive responsibility that the European Parliament has entrusted to me. The Committee is made up of 30 parliamentarians. It deals with the way the money is spent. This is the money that the European Parliament gives to the various European Union institutions and so this is really important. If the Committee acts in an effective way by exercising its powers to the full, it means that it is checking up on the transparency and the correct use of the spending and on the rule of law.
Then another really important task of the Committee is to check up on the work of the European Investment Bank. Another issue is the cost-benefit ratio in relation to the European funds that are assigned to the various States, thus we have to verify for example, if it is worthwhile giving certain sums of money to the States, if the work to be carried out is effective for an overall development of the European Union.
Another fundamental issue that is among others an element of continuity with the work done as public prosecutor in recent years, is that of the fraud. In fact the Committee on Budgetary Control deals with European fraud. It has relations with Eurojust, Europol, OLAF { European Anti-Fraud Office}, the European Court of Auditors and thus it basically means that there is verification and control in relation to fraud taking place in member countries and this is extraordinarily important because it means giving value to the member States that use the European funds in a correct way so as to bring about economic development, that is compatible with the environment, that creates effective employment and that is not based on recommendations and various systems of "belonging". However, on the other hand, it rigorously provides sanctions against all those member States, those regions, those places where public money is wasted and is used only to enrich the usual business committees, to reinforce organised crime, to damage the territory and subjugate the population.

So, instead of bitching again, I thought I start something new. Until end of September I will, from time to time, do a Friday Special Country Focus here in the Salon, which will start with Sweden. Sweden because it is holding currently the EU Presidency and then after 3 Months switch the focus to another country.

However, my hope is that this will not be limited to the Salon. It would be great if other people would post diaries too  and I am not thinking only of the Swedes, but also those who have been in Sweden, or would like to travel to Sweden, or just plain want to know more about it too.

Any topic goes, like:
*    Style of Government, Parties, Politics
*    Economy
*    Culture and History
*    Nature and Environment
*    Health and Education Systems
*    Food and Recipes
*    Literature and Music
*    Travel and Travelogues (with pictures if possible)
*    Etc.

So, basically any topic goes, as long as it has to do with Sweden and helps us here on ET to learn more about that country.

With Anders Borg, Sweden's pony-tailed Minister of Finance, now helping the EU navigate through the global economic slump, the AFP's Marc Preel takes a look back at the rise of this self-described pragmatist.

Behind the "rocker" image, Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg is a deft politician set to take centre-stage as Sweden's EU presidency grapples with the fallout from the global financial crisis.

With his hair slicked back into a ponytail, sharp suits and an earring in his left ear, Borg is a million miles away from the normal stereotype of a government numbers guy.

Yet this 41-year-old former banker is one of the major players inside the Swedish government and a mastermind behind the centre-right Moderate Party's rise to power with his long-time political allies, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt and Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

A shortage of healthy sperm and a spike in demand from lesbian couples has caused a backlog of artificial insemination applications at Swedish fertility clinics.

While legislation granting lesbian couples the right to the treatment has increased the demand, Sweden's requirement for non-anonymous donations combined with poor quality sperm has also reduced the supply of donor sperm.

At Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, for example, couples are forced to wait a year-and-a-half for artificial insemination treatment, reported the Göteborgs-Posten (GP) newspaper.

During the spring, the hospital even began actively recruiting new donors in an effort to reduce wait times.

Swedish doctors have prescribed the antiviral drug Tamiflu to the value of almost 200 000 US dollars during the first six months of 2009.

According to the latest figures from the Swedish State Monopoly Pharmacy Apoteket AB, this is ten times as much as during the same period last year.

The increase in prescriptions began as the first reports of Swine Flu A/H1N1 started coming in from Mexico and culminated in May. The increase is worrying Martin Holmberg, of the Unit of Infectious Disease at the National Board of Health and Welfare.

"The unnecessary overuse of Tamiflu could cause a development of a treatment resistant virus and then we have really made the situation worse for many," he said to Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

The difference between men's and women's income in Sweden has grown in recent years. New figures show that the average difference in income has increased by almost 1700 US dollars per annum, about 130 dollars a month, since 2006.

Newsnight's Matt Prodger visits Sweden's Peace and Love music festival in Borlange to investigate what it is about the Swedes that has put them at the heart of a raging debate about internet freedom.

For 24-hour party people a visit to the land of the midnight sun is a must. For one thing, the Swedes are serious when it comes to having fun - and at this time of year the sun never sets.

Beginning today, the Swedes are trying to get the European Union back on track toward improving its energy efficiency.

At an informal meeting of energy and environmental ministers from the 27 E.U. member states that starts today in Åre, Sweden, the host country hopes to refocus the other European states on what it calls "eco-efficiency."

In addition, the Swedes, who currently hold the E.U. presidency, will stress the need for Europe to be unified in its goals ahead of U.N. climate negotiations in Copenhagen, Denmark, this winter, said Johanna Martin, a spokeswoman for Sweden's energy minister, Maud Olofson.

"We're looking at how to make sure the European Union comes to Copenhagen speaking with one voice," Martin said. "We are facing challenges with the economic recession, and we still need an ambitious and good agreement in Copenhagen."

The Swedish government decided today to close down its consulate in New York. This has stirred up a debate of the priorities of Sweden´s foreign relations. At the same time an official report will start about how the Swedish foreign relations administration can be modernised.

The closing down the consulate in New York is not an isolated decision. The consulate in Los Angeles, Kaliningrad (Russia) and Kanton (China) will also be closed. Moreover, the Swedish embassy in Colombo (Sri Lanka) will close down.

The decision to close down the New York consulate was however the most sensitive one. This consulate has for many years served as a good information centre for many Swedes and it has also been ´Sweden´s window´ towards the United States.

According to a press release from the Swedish Foreign Ministry, these measures are necessary for a balanced budget.

But the press release also says that Sweden must adapt its foreign representation to changes in the world. Since 1990 Sweden has closed 43 embassies and consulates but also opened 30 new. For example there are new Swedish embassies in Minsk (Belarus), Kabul (Afganistan), Khartoum (Sudan) and in Bagdad (Iraq).

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission laid out new guidelines for banks receiving government support on Thursday (23 July) in order to avoid distortions of competition within the sector.

Since the fall of Lehman Brothers last September, roughly 30 banks within the EU have received state aid to keep them afloat on condition that a restructuring plan be submitted within six months.

Banks that receive state aid will have to undergo stress tests

But banks will have five years to implement their plans, an indication that the commission still considers the current climate extremely difficult.

Philip Lowe, the commission's director-general for competition, said the guidelines were "the ultimate stage in restoring health to the banking sector ...which is done by returning individual institutions to viability without state aid."

Europe's men are affected more than women by the impact of the economic crisis on employment, and young people are among the most vulnerable, a fresh report by the EU's statistics office says.

"After three years of steadily declining unemployment, the economic crisis has hit the labour markets throughout Europe," says the Eurostat publication, published on Thursday (23 July).

No good news on jobs for the young Europeans, unemoplyment figures across the member states show

It points out that since the record low unemployment figures last March, the number of persons unemployed across the 27 member states rose by 5.4 million to reach 21.5 million in May, with the highest increase recorded in January 2009, at around 800,000 in a single month.

Across the population, men have been more affected than women by the economic downturn, as they prevail in the most damaged sectors such as the car industry and financial services, the very sector that sparked the global credit crunch last autumn.

Officials in Shanghai have issued a call encouraging couples to have a second child to help avert a labour shortage in the years to come.

China has operated a strict "one couple, one child" policy for 30 years, carefully monitoring pregnancies and even forcing abortions on women who already have children to control a populationg that is the world's largest at more than 1.3 billion.

But there are some exceptions to the policy: urban parents are permitted two offspring if both husband and wife are only children themselves; in rural areas, couples have long been allowed to have a second child if their first is a girl.

The appeal from officials in Shanghai is the first time in decades, however, that the government has actively encouraged procreation

It is the hot new thing on Wall Street, a way for a handful of traders to master the stock market, peek at investors' orders and, critics say, even subtly manipulate share prices.

It is called high-frequency trading -- and it is suddenly one of the most talked-about and mysterious forces in the markets.

Powerful computers, some housed right next to the machines that drive marketplaces like the New York Stock Exchange, enable high-frequency traders to transmit millions of orders at lightning speed and, their detractors contend, reap billions at everyone else's expense.

These systems are so fast they can outsmart or outrun other investors, humans and computers alike. And after growing in the shadows for years, they are generating lots of talk.

My wife and I were looking around for a place to invest in and live in while my son attends school. We've given up on rural schools in our state. We will keep our farm. We looked at a short sale and had an interesting conversation with the seller's Realtor. He told us about a meeting between his brokerage and BofA the day before. BofA is working with the Brokerage about when B0fA should put repossessed properties up for sale. The banks are currently sitting on a lot of inventory, afraid to put them on sale because the banks would have to write that inventory down on their books. The banks it seems can keep these repossessions off their balance sheets until they actually put them up for sale. Another interesting tidbit is that houses offered as "Short Sales" can sit with an offer on them for months at a time while the banks decide what to do. How are these short sales counted in the just released housing statistics? I would point out a few obvious implications of this:

1. Current inventory is inaccurate, low, if you consider vacant houses that the bank must eventually sell.
2. The bankers and real estate firms understand all of this but maybe consumers are kept in the dark.
3. Prices are going up now but they have to come down. This real estate agent seemed to think that there will be a lot more inventory available this fall.

potemkin housing market, mark to make-believe.

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

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke ventured to the Hill this week for his semi-regular beating at the hands of freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

Grayson's Fed exchanges have become small sensations online; a May grilling of the Fed inspector general approaching a million views on YouTube and roughly another million on other video players.

His most recent battle with Bernanke, which is already on its way to 100,000 views, was fought over the Fed's project of "central bank liquidity swaps." The Huffington Post first reported the swaps in March. In response to the global economic crisis, the Fed has injected hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars into foreign central banks in exchange for foreign currency. The swaps represent a radical intervention by the Fed in the global money supply but have barely been covered by the media. They are done without approval from or oversight by the Congress or the White House.

Bernanke, asked by Grayson what the central banks did with the U.S. money, replied: "I don't know."

Grayson, in an interview with the Huffington Post, said that the lending program represents a startling amount of decision-making authority vested with one man.

He put the $500 billion-plus lending program in perspective. "I see all the time, still to date, actual recorded votes on $100,000-dollar elements on these actual appropriations bills. Now compare that to the fact that the Federal Reserve handed out $500 billion dollars, which is literally five million times as much...and they don't even know who ended up with the money," he said.

"Was the money used to buy U.S. treasuries and prop up the dollar? They don't know. Was the money used to bail out European automakers? They don't know. He literally doesn't know what happened to $500 billion dollars," he said. "I find that extremely disturbing."

The swap program was approved by the Federal Open Market Committee, a 12-member board within the Fed, which is quasi-public entity controlled in large part by private banks.

The Fed doesn't consider the currency exchange risky because it holds the foreign banks' currency as collateral. But that fundamentally misrepresents the risk associated with currency speculation, said Grayson, who has a deep business background.

"It's speculation. It's exactly the thing that hedge funds do all the time and hedge funds do blow up," he told the Huffington Post. "Look at the Fed balance sheet right now. It has 40 times as much in liabilities as it does in capital. Historically that's a dangerous place to be.

bernanke was speechless, very amusing...

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

The Taliban's power in Pakistan continues to grow and it now has entire towns under its control. Under US pressure, the Pakistani army is fighting the Islamists -- with limited success. Pakistani intelligence says the Americans are doing more harm than good.

Back when Qari Zainuddin still believed that he could win this war, he stood in front of his office in the Pakistani town of Dera Ismail Khan, surrounded by masked men, each of them with an AK-47 at the ready. A few white doves cooed as the sun blazed down on the flat brick buildings.

Zainuddin, 26, a powerfully built Taliban commander, was wearing a shimmering, gold-colored cap over his dark hair and a Palestinian scarf wrapped loosely around his shoulders. He was speaking into the microphones of the journalists he had invited.

The European Union's commissioner of external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, has made a surprise visit to Cuba for talks on improving bilateral relations with the communist government there. 

The top EU diplomat was to meet for talks with Cuban President Raul Castro, as well as with the Cuban foreign, trade and culture ministers, as part of a review of relations between the EU and Havana, according to EU sources.

Ferrero-Waldner is in Cuba at the tail end of a larger tour of Latin America that included meetings with officials in Argentina and Mexico.

The EU normalized relations with Cuba in June last year after a five-year freeze prompted by Cuba's crackdown on 75 opposition dissidents. The improvement was also catalyzed by the resignation of long-time revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in February last year, paving the way for the accession to power of his brother, Raul.

When police attended a call-out to a burglary, they ended up detaining a black professor at his own home - and re-igniting a heated debate on racial profiling

Imagine, if you will, a professor at Cambridge, one of the most learned and best known scholars of his generation, being arrested by police after forcing the door of his house when the front lock jammed. Impossible, you will say. But that is what happened. Except the Cambridge in question is not in East Anglia, but a town in Massachusetts that is home to the British university's American equivalent, Harvard, and that Henry Louis 'Skip' Gates, the professor who lived at this most pleasant abode, is black.

Every now and then, a small incident crystalises a great issue, and the Gates affair is one of them. The issue is racial profiling, the pernicious habit of police or other authorities to use race as a basis for suspicion of a crime. It is to be found in many countries, but nowhere is it more sensitive or controversial than in the US, where racism is the original sin.

Mr Gates had returned from an academic trip to China last week but could not get into his house. With his driver, he forced the door and called the company that managed the house to complain. Unfortunately, someone had seen "two black men with backpacks on the porch", apparently trying to force entry, and called the police.

Honduras's deposed president appears close to attempting another return home, having arrived at a Nicaraguan town near the border with his country.

Manuel Zelaya drove in to the northern town of Esteli, about 40km south of the border with Honduras, on Friday, while Honduran troops massed at the frontier.

Honduras' de facto government imposed a curfew from noon on Friday to 6am on Saturday, as hundreds of Zelaya supporters headed to the border.

Mariana Sanchez, Al Jazeera's correspondent at El Paraiso, a town about 12km from the Honduras-Nicaragua border, said: "There have been several rounds of tear gas shot at a group of about 1,000 pro-Zelaya demonstrators, who have been here since very early this morning.

When Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the main election challenger to President Hamid Karzai, arrived here to campaign last weekend, thousands of supporters choked the six-mile drive from the airport. Cars were plastered with his posters. Motorbikes flew blue banners. Young men wearing T-shirts emblazoned with his face leapt aboard his car to embrace him to ecstatic cheers.

With only a month to go, Dr. Abdullah has started his campaign late, but in its first two weeks he has canvassed six provinces and drawn growing support and larger crowds than expected. Rapturous welcomes like this one have suddenly elevated him to the status of potential future president.

"I have no doubt that people want change," Dr. Abdullah said in an interview after a tumultuous day campaigning in Herat, in western Afghanistan, adding that his momentum was just building. "Today they are hopeful that change can come."

The quotes in the last paragraph sound like Abdullah is using Obama's script.

Already well known among most Afghans, Dr. Abdullah, 48, an ophthalmologist, has a background that includes years of resistance to Soviet and Taliban rule as well as a crucial role in the formation of the new democratic government after the American intervention.

A dapper dresser, wearing traditional Afghan clothes under a variety of Western tailored jackets, he combines solidarity with the former resistance fighters with the moderation of the Afghan intellectual, giving him potentially broad appeal.

After serving as foreign minister in Mr. Karzai's government for five years, he left in 2006 and has since become a strong critic of the president's leadership. He refused an offer to become Mr. Karzai's running mate, and he contends that the president practices a policy of divide and rule that has polarized the country.

MADRID -- No more solitary howls under the moonlight: the Iberian wolf has made a comeback. A healthy population now ranges across much of Spain's rural northwest after decades as an endangered species surviving in remote mountain ranges.

But the success celebrated by conservationists had been muted by complaints from shepherds and livestock breeders until an old tradition reared its head. Breeders have turned to Mastiff guard dogs to keep their herds safe.

A ban in the 1980s that prohibited the hunting or poisoning of the wolves, coupled with the more recent abandonment of rural lands, led them back to territories their kind once called home.

WASHINGTON - Two teams of Chinese scientists have made a major advance in mice in the development of a new kind of stem cell that doesn't involve destroying embryos.

Those cells are derived from ordinary skin cells, and when they were created two years ago from human skin and genetically reprogrammed, it was hailed as a breakthrough. But questions remained whether they could act as chameleon-like as embryonic stem cells and morph into any cell type in the body.

One way to show that versatility is if the new reprogrammed stem cells could be used to produce an entire new life.

The name Henk Sneevliet is not known to many Chinese, but the Dutchman is mentioned in the history books, under his pseudonym, Maring. He is the foreigner who put his life on the line in order to set up the Communist Party.

Documents relating to Sneevliet's personal and political career are on display in the memorial Hall of the First National Congress of the Communist Party of China until 10 August 2009. "The first national congress of the Communist Party took place on 23 July 1921 in that Shanghai building," says Marine van der Heiden from the International Istitute for Social History. "Thirteen Chinese attended, as did two foreign advisors, a Russian and Henk Sneevliet."

A Swiss psychiatrist is treating severely ill patients with LSD to alleviate their fear of pain and death. Other psychedelic drugs are being tested on patients in the United States, Britain and Israel. Are psychotropic substances about to make a comeback in therapy?

Nothing's happening, Udo Schulz thought to himself with quiet regret. I must have been given the placebo. He was lying on a mattress in a brightly lit room, waiting for the first real drug experience of his life.

Barcelona attracts more and more Italians, who this year make up the biggest foreign community in the Catalonian capital. Young people are particularly drawn to its congenial setting and economic dynamism. But the region has also become a refuge for the heads of the Italian Camorra, alerts La Repubblica.

Every year, more Italians are settling in Barcelona, attracted by more than just Las Ramblas, the fantastic pinnacles of La Sagrada Familia and the spicy bacalhau fritters described by Pepe Carvalho. The city of Gaudí and Mirò is becoming a new Eldorado for our fellow citizens.

"It's about the attitude, the state of mind," a chef from Friuli who struck gold in the Catalonian capital explained to French daily Le Monde. "Here, people are positive, and foreigners are welcomed in a way that compares to nowhere else." This year, the Italian community became the largest of the new minorities now settled in the city, outnumbering Ecuadorans, Pakistanis and Bolivians.

The head of one of the UK's leading business universities has resigned in dramatic fashion after just two years in the post, amid claims that the governing body was running it like a corporation.

Professor Malcolm Gillies, the vice chancellor of City University in London, stepped down with immediate effect yesterday after a long running disagreement with the council over how the university should be run.

A source at the university told The Independent that Prof Gillies - who was only appointed in 2007 - had diverted money and resources into teaching at the expense of administrative positions, which had proved unpopular with the council.

Up to 63 redundancies in the university's information services, human resources and finance departments are due to be finalised at the end of this month.

"What has happened came as a complete shock to everybody," the source said. "He's literally clearing his desk today - he'll be out of the building come half past five. He's been a tremendously good thing for City, and everybody here is very upset and furious. It seems the corporate people have won out over the teachers.

The first thing that struck us was the distance between the watchtowers. We had just cycled a strenuous mile uphill above the medieval village of Geisa, along the Iron Curtain Trail that follows the old Warsaw Pact-NATO divide in central Germany. Now, in the tranquillity of the early evening, we emerged at the top of the hill onto a verdant field adorned with European Union and German flags -- and two sinister-looking structures that faced off against each other no more than 70 yards apart...

Now, this piece of cold war history is perhaps the best-preserved relic on the Iron Curtain Trail, a 4,225-mile network of bicycle paths that extends along the former Warsaw Pact-NATO border, from northern Finland to the Black Sea. In recent years, thanks primarily to the efforts of a German Green Party activist and European Union Parliamentarian, Michael Cramer, trails have been rehabilitated with financing from the European Union, and historical markers have been erected.

A brochure with maps in German and English covering the entire route has just been published.

I'd love to cycle this.

Outgames international gay sport and culture event opens in Copenhagen

When the 5,500 participants are introduced on a catwalk in Copenhagen's central square today, it will kickstart nine days of sport, arts and political debates with almost 100 nations represented in more than 30 events, traditional and improvised.

But the event is about much more than podium places. The Outgames has launched itself under the banner of sport, culture and human rights. Participants from a host of cities, including Tel Aviv and Mexico City, will take over public spaces throughout Copenhagen to showcase artists and performers.

At the centre of the political programme is a human rights conference, where speakers include the British basketball player and sports commentator John Amaechi, the first NBA player to have come out.

My good friend Uffe Elbaek, formerly the founder and rector of the excellent KaosPilot entrepreneurial school, is the director of Outgames.

You can't be me, I'm taken

A flotilla of ancient and modern flying machines begin crossing the Channel from dawn today in a salute to the world's first air journey: the Calais-Dover flight on July 25, 1909, by Louis Blériot, the French pioneer.

Monoplanes built by Blériot, 130 microlights, the Red Arrows and la Patrouille de France display teams are joining in the pageant over the Strait of Dover to mark the 100th anniversary of a feat that amazed Europe.

Centenary festivities have been building up all week, reminding younger generations how the landing of the frail wood and fabric Blériot XI made Britain realise that invaders could just hop over its glorious Navy.

"Flying machines are no longer toys and dreams, they are established fact," said David Lloyd George, then the Chancellor, after reading The Times's breathless coverage of the historic flight. "The possibilities of this new system of locomotion are infinite. I feel, as a Britisher, rather ashamed that we are so completely out of it."

So--hooray for green shoots, glimmers of hope and whatever other high-fructose optimism you want to sprinkle on your portfolio to help you get through the day.

If you made money betting on the recovery, I'm happy for you. Really. Truly.

But my 401(k) isn't going to recoup its losses anytime soon and a lot of my friends still don't have jobs so let's just say I'm not taking a drag on these green shoots some of you are smoking. I'm still bitter.

If you've got some lingering recession rage, too, you're going to want this iPhone app.

APPLE INCAAPL 157.82  1.08  +0.69%  NASDAQ

Quote  |  Chart  |  News  |  Profile

cnbc_comboQuoteMove('popup_AAPL_ID0E5FAC15839609');[AAPL  157.82    1.08  (+0.69%)   ]

A video of a Twin Cities couple's surprise dance down the aisle in St. Paul with their wedding party has gone viral.

More than 1.6 million YouTube views have been tallied since the video was posted Sunday of Kevin Heinz and Jill Peterson, their seven bridesmaids, five groomsmen and four ushers making their surprising funky entrance into the sanctuary of Christ Lutheran Church on Capitol Hill to Chris Brown's R&B hit "Forever" on June 20.