The battle to choose the next head of the European Commission intensifies today when José Manuel Barroso will be nominated formally to keep the job, setting EU governments up in a straight fight with MEPs.

Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Prime Minister of Sweden, which is holder of the rotating EU presidency, has been stung into action by the refusal of Socialist, Liberal and Green MEPs to hold a vote on a new term for Mr Barroso at next week's opening session of the European Parliament.

He is understood to be annoyed that MEPs ignored his warning that blocking Mr Barroso would undermine the task of preparing a common EU position for climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

But an alliance of MEPs refused to be cajoled into an early vote and have demanded to see a programme of work from Mr Barroso for the next five years.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is on a level power footing with member states in the EU's complex institutional triangle after years of being a mere afterthought for EU governments, its outgoing president has said.

Urging his successor to keep up the fight to "defend" parliament's interests, German conservative Hans-Gert Poettering on Wednesday (8 July) said: "We are very successful now as European Parliament to be as equal partners of the council."

The vote on the next parliament president will take place next week

He suggested that the parliament already has the upper hand over the commission, because it "only comes into office ...once we have voted in favour."

This "institutional link" for controlling the council is missing Mr Poetterig said, but parliament should be "ambitious" to increase MEPs' powers towards member states.

They're known in Italy as "ronde" or vigilante groups patrolling major cities. Those who volunteer for them say they help deter street crime. But critics say they're a platform for politically motivated bullies.  

Italy's parliament last week legalized private patrol groups as part of a controversial set of laws aimed at clamping down on crime. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the right-wing party Lega Nord has defended the measure.

Maroni said this legislation will help make sure that existing groups adhere to strict regulations: small groups, armed only with mobile phones or walkie-talkies to alert the police.

Giorgio Marchesich, who is in charge of the regional branch of the Volontari Verdi in Trieste said his group was very happy about the new law.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - German centre-right MEP Herbert Reul is being tipped to chair the EU parliament's industry committee, as political groups haggle over jobs following last month's elections.

The industry appointment would ring alarm bells in Brussels' pro-green community, with Mr Reul noted for his scepticism on the human impact on global warming.

Parliament awaits: the new members of the committees will be decided next week

"Given the available scientific evidence and the ongoing discussion, we should be careful to point only to one cause for climate change," Mr Reul told this website.

The industry committee is the EU assembly's most powerful law-making unit. But Mr Reul's job is not a done deal, with fellow German conservative Christian Ehler also making a strong bid for the post as talks continue.

Major European gas suppliers, E.ON Ruhrgas and GDF Suez have said they are planning to challenge the EU executive's fine for cartel-type practices, announced on Wednesday (8 July).

The European Commission, the EU's top regulator, slapped a €553 million fine each on Frances's GDF Suez SA and Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas AG for colluding on market share of natural gas in national markets.

Neelie Kroes: "The Commission has no alternative but to impose high fines"

The penalty refers to a deal struck by the two companies back in 1975 not to sell Russian gas transported by the Megal pipeline to Germany and France in each other's markets, following their joint investment in the pipeline.

According to the commission, the energy giants kept the deal in place even after the EU's gas markets were liberalised and only ended their arrangement in 2005.

With underfunded, ill-equipped British troops struggling in Afghanistan, now is the time for European defence co-operation

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Labour's much-praised defence review of 1998 never contemplated an Iraq and an Afghanistan simultaneously. In military language it envisaged one "relatively short war - fighting deployment" and one "enduring non-war-fighting operation". Instead we have had two long hot wars, one of which, Afghanistan, has every sign of "enduring" for a long time to come. Iraq may to all intents and purposes be over, but as the death toll inexorably rises Afghanistan makes the assumptions of 1998 invalid.

Commentators now plausibly argue that our defence is in crisis. The personnel are tired and the equipment is worn out. Procurement is in disarray and in its own annual report for 2008 the MOD noted that such was the impact of overstretch that fewer than half of all military units were ready to deploy on operations in an emergency. Only the goodwill and "can-do" attitude of the forces themselves have helped to paper over the cracks. Usually Trappist senior officers have felt compelled to speak out, first in private and then, more recently, in public. Afghanistan has brought all of this to a head. There is still no clearly enunciated strategy to co-ordinate political, economic, military and counter-narcotic policies. There is a continuing shortage of helicopters and armoured vehicles. The enemy has changed his tactics from outright confrontation to roadside bombs which we have been slow to counter.

LONDON -- Britain's most senior policeman ordered an inquiry Thursday into claims that journalists from a tabloid owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch illegally hacked into the mobile phones of hundreds of celebrities and politicians.

Lawmakers also demanded answers after The Guardian reported that the News of the World _ the country's most popular Sunday paper _ paid private investigators to obtain voice mail messages, private phone numbers, bank statements and other information about figures including Gwyneth Paltrow, George Michael and some of the country's most senior politicians.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the story "raises questions that are serious and will obviously have to be answered."

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he had appointed a senior Scotland Yard officer to look into the allegations against the News of the World, which is owned by News International Ltd., a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp., owner of U.S. media outlets including Fox Television, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's telecommunications chief, Viviane Reding, blamed the current internet business model for the rise in online piracy on Thursday (9 July), during a speech in which she outlined a new medium-term strategy for a 'digital Europe.'

Ms Reding said the European Commission intends to open up a broad consultation period on the 'digital Europe' strategy next month, but already she has indicated that a central part of the plan for the next five years will be to provide greater access to good quality online content.

Online piracy is prevalent among young users of the internet

The debate over what can be legally downloaded from the internet has flared up in recent months, fuelled by proposed French legislation that would have allowed a new state agency, known by the acronym Hadopi, to shut down web access for up to a year for those downloading materially illegally.

With the original proposal thrown out by the country's top court last month, adjusted legislation was approved by the French senate on Wednesday under which the final decision on cutting off web users has been moved from the state agency to the courts.

A number of deaths have already been attributed to the drug, which is used as a stimulant. Counsellors at Vinkki, a substance abuse treatment centre in Helsinki, say MDPV users come in the door on a daily basis.
"MDPV is stronger than regular amphetamines, and it carries serious mental and physical side effects," says Teemu Tiensuu, regional director of Vinkki.

wikip:

Methylenedioxypyrovalerone, also known as MDPV or MDPK, is a stimulant drug which acts as a norepinephrine and dopamine reuptake inhibitor, reportedly with four times the potency of methylphenidate.

wikip:

Subjective effects include CNS stimulation, euphoria, hypersexuality, agitation/anxiety and insomnia, with a duration of three to four hours, with aftereffects such as high BPM and CNS stimulation lasting from six to eight hours. High doses have been observed to cause intense, prolonged anxiety attacks in stimulant-intolerant users, and there are anecdotal reports of addiction at higher doses or more frequent dosing intervals. MDPV has been remarked about more than once for its powers as an aphrodisiac, which have been said to rival those of methamphetamine when dosed correctly.[3] Users often report to feel compelled to continue redosing, usually not due to the main stimulating effects of the drug, but due to the desire to retain the pro-sexual aphrodisiac qualitites experienced.

The protests began after the death of Mohamed Benmouna, a local 21-year-old who was found hanging in his cell after being arrested for attempted extortion.

Representatives of the Nabucco consortium in Vienna have confirmed that Joschka Fischer--former Green Party leader and foreign minister in the former Social Democratic Party (SPD)-Green government--has taken a post as adviser to the Nabucco pipeline project, in which the German RWE company is also involved. According to media reports, the "six-digit salary" consultancy contract has already been signed.

President Obama and other leaders backed historic new targets for tackling global warming last night in an agreement designed to pave the way for a world deal in the autumn.

For the first time, America and the other seven richest economies agreed to the goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than 2C (3.6F).

They also agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 as they strove for a worldwide deal at Copenhagen in December.

The moves were designed to put the squeeze on the world's developing nations, most of whose leaders will join the G8 for a debate chaired by President Obama today.

The world's leading industrialized nations pledged to limit global warming to within two degrees of pre-industrial levels, but dates pegged to concrete emissions goals are a long way off. 

Leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations made a bid to prevent catastrophic climate change on Wednesday, calling for global warming to be kept to two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels.

They also agreed to new carbon emissions cut targets, pledging to cut emissions from within their borders by 80 percent by 2050. G-8 leaders also expressed hope that they would be able to convince rapidly developing nations to limit their own emissions, pitching in on an effort to cut worldwide emissions by 50 percent over that time.

"We have agreed for the first time [in the G-8] that average global temperatures must rise by no more than two degrees...We hope that we will get that agreement tomorrow too," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during a break in talks at the summit of G-8 leaders in the Italian town of L'Aquila.

None of the G-8 countries is on track to fend off the dangers of climate change, WWF's Kim Carstensen told Deutsche Welle. Leaders need to agree on goals and financing for a deal at major climate talks in December.  

Kim Carstensen is the head of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Global Climate Initiative. The WWF and Allianz recently released the G-8 Climate Scorecards 2009, which rank G-8 members according to their improvements since 1990, their current status and their policies for the future.

 

Deutsche Welle: How important of a role do the G-8 countries play in the potential success of climate talks at the end of the year in Copenhagen?

 

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Major economies need to carry the heaviest burden, says Carstensen

Kim Carstensen: The level of commitment from developed countries needs to be carried by the biggest and strongest economies, and they are the G-8 countries. Without the G-8 countries coming together and committing to targets, committing to finances, committing to action on adaptation and on support for developing countries - if we don't get the G-8 countries to come forward and commit to that then it's going to be impossible to get a strong enough deal in Copenhagen in December.

 

The G-8 state's pledge to limit global warming to two degrees sounds like a commendable target. But German commentators warn that concrete details are needed to prove the proposal isn't just a bunch of hot air.

Promises are all very well, but show us the money: That, in a nutshell, is the reaction of scientists and environmentalists to the G-8 states' commitment to limit global warning to just two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), compared to levels at the start of the industrial age.

The G-8 summit logo: Leaders have agreed to limit global warming to two degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. Leaders of the G-8 member states -- the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Russia -- announced the promise on Wednesday, the first day of their summit in L'Aquila, Italy. They also said that rich countries should cut emissions by 80 percent by 2050 while the world as a whole should cut them by 50 percent by 2050. The commitment is seen as an important preparatory step for the major United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen in December, where delegates are hoping to reach a deal on a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.

Still, scientists and environmentalists reacted with skepticism to the G-8 promise, saying there was no information about how the targets were actually going to be met. The role of developing and emerging economies, who are producing an increasing share of greenhouse emissions, is also crucial. In a key session to be chaired by US President Barack Obama at the summit on Thursday, G-8 leaders will meet with members of the G-5 group -- Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa -- in a bid to get them to sign up to the newly announced targets.

The G8 summit in Italy welcomes emerging economic powerhouses, including China, India and Brazil, for talks aimed at reaching a new deal to combat global warming.

Five emerging economies have joined the G8 summit at L'Aquila in Italy for talks on climate change and the global financial downturn, amid reports of small progress in tackling environmental issues.
 
On Wednesday, the Group of Eight countries - USA, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, Italy, Canada and Russia - agreed to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

While leaders agreed to cut emissions by between 50 and 80 percent by mid-century, Russia dismissed the target as "unacceptable and unattainable."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has criticised leaders of the G8 industrial nations for failing to make deeper commitments to combat climate change.

On Wednesday, the leaders, meeting in Italy, agreed to cut emissions by 80% by 2050, but Mr Ban said big cuts were needed sooner rather than later.

The leaders are set to meet their counterparts from emerging economies to discuss a new deal on global warming.

US President Barack Obama will chair the session, in the city of L'Aquila.

The second day of the summit has begun, opening up its discussions to take in the so-called G5 nations - Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. Egypt is a special invitee.

In a separate joint statement, the G-8 said it was committed to finding a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program and urged Iran to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency. "We sincerely hope that Iran will seize this opportunity to give diplomacy a chance," the statement said.

Western countries believe Iran is trying to build an atomic bomb. Tehran says its uranium-enrichment program has purely civilian aims and has rejected all overtures for talks.

Growing impatience with Tehran

The United States and Canada said the world's main industrialized nations were growing increasingly impatient with Iran's tactics.

The helicopter blades have stopped turning, the limousine engines have been switched off.

All the VIPs who have been flown or driven to the G8 summit in the central Italian city of L'Aquila have now arrived.

But even as it got under way there have been some who have been saying it has been badly organised.

Britain's Guardian newspaper was one that said preparations were so chaotic that there have been murmurings from other member states about expelling Italy from the G8.

The paper said that moving the summit from Sardinia to L'Aquila, which was hit by an earthquake in April, had created a situation where other countries were setting the agenda for the conference, instead of the host, Italy.

The Italians have reacted with anger and disbelief.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said it should be The Guardian who ought to be expelled from the list of great newspapers.

EUOBSERVER / ANTWERP - Diamond trading, certification and polishing businesses in the Belgian city of Antwerp have reduced activities and temporarily laid off staff due to the economic crisis, as the industry is dependant on the cash-strapped banks to finance it.

A handful of old men with typical black hats and long grey beards sit scattered across an immense hall, some playing chess, others simply chatting with each other. The impression is of a social centre or a retirement home.

Only the bigger and more valuable diamonds are cut in Antwerp, the rest are processed in India and China

In fact, it is the trading floor of one of the world's most prestigious diamond bourses, established in 1904 by the local Jewish community.

Once an exclusive club of the black-clad orthodox Jews, the bourse now also serves vegan food along with traditional kosher menus to accommodate the growing Indian community in the trading business.

After last month's Digital Britain report Lord Carter and Viviane Reding explain why Europe's hopes for economic recovery lie in its digital industries and infrastructure.

The communications sector today underpins everything we do. Every school, every hospital, every workplace and even every home depends in one way or another on digital technology to function.

It is both the critical sector for our modern knowledge economies and an important sector for future growth in its own right.

For the first time in 13 years, the assessed value of all property in Los Angeles County has declined, according to a report released Thursday by the county assessor's office. County property rolls lost about $1 billion in value last fiscal year -- losses driven largely by downward reassessments of homes as the housing market has slumped.

Property in the county is now valued at $1.1 trillion, a 0.09% decrease compared with the year before, according to the assessor's annual report. Setting aside tax-exempt property such as churches and nonprofit hospitals, the loss of value increases to half a percentage point.

The drop marks a step back for the county, which had seen the value of property increase an average of 7% each year since 1996. Even so, officials said L.A. County has fared better than other Southern California counties.

"Home values have declined and foreclosures are up," said L.A. County Assessor Rick Auerbach. "But not to the same extent as in neighboring counties. The real estate market is still a vital part of Los Angeles County's economy."

Orange County announced earlier this week that its taxable property value dropped 1.2% last year, the first drop since 1994. Property value decreased 2.3% in Ventura County; 6% in San Bernardino County and 10.5% in Riverside County, according to assessors' reports.

While nearly every other Wall Street firm had AIG's Financial Products group in Wilton, Connecticut on speed dial, Citigroup reportedly avoided doing business with them. Instead of off-loading risk onto the insurance giant by taking out credit default swap contracts, Citigroup prefered to keep one-hundred percent of the risk themselves, an AIG trader tells Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair.

-Skip-

So why was Citi hungrier for risk than other firms? Why wasn't it a buyer of credit default swaps from AIG? Our best guess is that Citi believed it had discovered a cheaper alternative to credit default swaps--the structured investment vehicles. You remember those right? The SIVs were off-balance sheet entities that owned long term debt and were funded with short-term debt. Citi managed at least seven of them holding a total of $100 billion worth of assets at their height. When these began to meltdown, the government attempted to organize a bailout ominously called the M-LEC (and nicknamed by bloggers as "The Entity") that faltered because other Wall Street banks saw it as a gift to Citi.

It's very possible that instead of buying credit default swaps on its mortgage backed securities, Citi was just selling them to the SIVs it managed. Since these were off-balance sheet, Citi wouldn't have faced the capital requirement constraints that often prompted other banks to buy credit default swaps. Citi could lend and securitize, then sell off any extra inventory into its own SIVs, freeing up the capital it got from the SIV to make more loans. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If we're right about this, the SIVs provided Citi with credit protection the same way AIG did for the rest of Wall Street. Except, of course, that when the government made AIG's counter-parties whole, Citi found it had come up short. When the SIVs collapsed, it wound up having to fund their bailout itself. The enormously expensive SIV bailout helped contribute to the pitiful financial condition that has made Citi more or less a ward of the federal government.

The Michael Lewis link is to his famous Vanity Fair article, now available on-line.  Enjoy.

If sanity be culturally normative, then by the norms of this culture I claim insanity.

So, year-on-year inflation is down for the 4th consecutive month, but we can use the month-on-month rate to say there's no deflation. Right.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

At least 33 people have been killed in two suspected suicide attacks in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, police have said.

The second bomber reportedly detonated his explosives as people gathered to help victims of the first blast on Thursday.

More than 70 people were reportedly wounded.

Khaled Omar, a police colonel in the town, told the AFP news agency that the attack took place outside a house used as a court annexe to interrogate suspects in "terrorist attacks".

Elsewhere, at least seven civilians were killed and 20 injured by two bombs hidden in piles of rubbish in a market in Baghdad's Sadr city.

The bombing in Tal Afar followed a twin car bomb attack in the city of Mosul on Wednesday that killed at least 14 people and wounded 33 others. 

Iranian police have dispersed hundreds of protesters who staged a march to commemorate the anniversary of student unrest in 1999, witnesses have said.

Police fired tear gas on Thursday to scatter demonstrators who defied government warnings and moved towards Tehran University, the centre of the unrest 10 years ago.

Police in riot gear were out in force due to earlier street protests that had been held against last month's presidential election.

One student, who was at the protest but wanted to remain unnamed, told Al Jazeera: "They were starting to have a very calm demonstration, but the police started hitting the people, arresting the people.

"They didn't let anybody to go near the Revolution Square the main point of the student demonstration.

"Also the people riding their cars - you can hear them using the sound to protect the people who march in the street. If the police see any cars making the sound, they get the ID and didn't let them to go anywhere."

The Iranian authorities had said that any commemoration of the 1999 incident, in which at least one student was killed and dozens wounded when vigilantes stormed a university dormitory, would be dealt with forcefully.

Women in Afghanistan are facing increasing violence almost eight years after the fall of the Taliban, a UN report showed today.

The report, issued by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, focuses on the "growing trend" of violence and sexual threats made against women in public life.

It reveals examples of targeted killings of professional women as well as a list of threats, discrimination, intimidation and harassment aimed at working women and their families.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: "The limited space that opened up for Afghan women following the demise of the Taliban regime in 2001 is under sustained attack, not just by the Taliban themselves, but by deeply ingrained cultural practices and customs.

"Despite a number of significant advances in terms of the creation of new legislation and institutions, there is a chronic failure at all levels of government to advance the protection of women's rights in Afghanistan," the she added.

The 4,000-year-old city south of Baghdad was once home to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

The Unesco report says troops and contractors dug long trenches through the ancient ruins, bulldozed hilltops and drove heavy vehicles over the fragile paving of pathways which were once held sacred.

I don´t know whether to be angry or sad or both.

Somewhere in cyberspace, the ghost of de Chardin is smiling.

Bundanoon, located in the picturesque Southern Highlands of New South Wales and boasts a population of just 2,000, voted by a huge majority in favour of the move with a show of hands at a public meeting.

Huw Kingston, a local businessman and organiser, said almost 400 people turned up to the Bundanoon Memorial Hall, with only two casting dissenting votes.

"It was the biggest ever turnout in the community here at Bundanoon - it's overwhelming support,'' he said. "We can now continue with our route of making Bundanoon Australia's first bottled water-free town.

"We can go forward with the strength of the community and the businesses right behind us.''

Shops in the town will now be banned from stocking and selling bottled water and filtered water fountains will be placed on Bundanoon's main street so people can fill their bottles for free. Visitors to the town will also be discouraged, but not banned, from drinking bottled water.

Locals decided to act when drinks company Norlex Holdings announced plans to tap an underground reservoir in the town, truck the water up to Sydney and then send it back in bottles.

Plastic, chemicals and toxic bombs: the waters off the Belgian shore are increasingly polluted. Scientists fear for the survival of marine flora and fauna.

When thousands of tourists quit the beach in Ostend at the end of a nice summer day, they leave behind heaps of trash. Plastic bags, cigarette butts, dirty diapers and a host of tins and bottles. After a busy weekend, the Ostend municipal beach-cleaning services collect up to ten tonnes of refuse - a process that has a catastrophic impact on the flora and fauna there. The juggernaut they use to sweep the beach along the tide line turns over the sand up to ten centimetres deep, raising a great quantity of organic matter to the surface and damaging the microbiotic organisms in the sand. What is more, a lot of the plastic disappears under the sand. "You don't see it, but our beach is largely composed of plastic at present," says Pavel Klinckhamers of Greenpeace Netherlands.

But not all the plastic comes from tourists. On the contrary, by far the bulk of it is from refuse thrown overboard by the boats, whether on purpose or by accident. It is estimated that year in, year out, between two and ten thousand containers go by the board. Sea fowl take them for food and eat them. A 2003 Dutch study showed that 95% of the northern fulmars washed ashore have plastic in their stomachs, as do many beached seals.

The number of oil-covered marine birds that drift ashore has gone down, on the other hand, which goes to show that the international efforts to combat illegal oil dumping in the North Sea are not in vain. Back in the 1980s, all the beached fowl were covered in oil; nowadays, only one quarter of them are. But that is still a quarter too many. Sailors are stubborn.

After a series of incidents that could endanger the security at a nuclear plant in Sweden, officials in the Scandinavian country have called for new security measures. 

The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) has placed the Ringhals nuclear plant, in the southwest of the country, under special supervision after a series of incidents.

"The agency has on several occasions pointed out deficiencies that have been followed by measures from Ringhals, but the problems still remain," said Swedish Radiation Safety Authority official Leif Karlsson.

According to reports, the first incident occurred late in 2008 and involved the failure of an automatic safety system to switch on. The second, at the start of 2009, involved faulty control rods that are designed to regulate nuclear activity.

The nuclear watchdog also cited weaknesses in how officials at the nuclear plant carried out routines and how instructions were adhered to.

Ringhals' four reactors produce up to one-fifth of Sweden's electricity.

The newly found monkey was first spotted by scientists in 2007 in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and is related to the saddleback tamarin monkeys, which are known for their distinctively marked backs, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.

The small monkey, which is mostly gray and brown and weighs less than half a pound, has been named Mura's saddleback tamarin after the Mura Indian tribe of the Purus and Madeira river basins where the new sub-species was found.

It is 9.4 inches tall with a 12.6 inch tail.

"This newly described monkey shows that even today there are major wildlife discoveries to be made," Fabio Rohe, the lead author of a study confirming the new discovery, said in a statement released by the WCS.

Rhino poaching around the world is set to reach a 15-year high, conservation groups have warned.

They say demand for the threatened animals' horns is being driven by the traditional medicine trade in Asia.

The groups estimated that the number of rhinos being killed in southern Africa had risen four-fold in recent years.

The findings were presented at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Geneva.

"Rhinos are in a desperate situation," said Heather Sohl, species policy officer for conservation group WWF.

And here's the thing: in this case, there isn't any hidden evidence -- you can't argue that the CIA knows something the rest of us don't. And the voices calling for stronger stimulus are, may I say, sorta kinda respectable -- several Nobelists in the bunch, plus a large fraction of the prominent economists who predicted the housing crash before it happened.

But somehow, the pro-stimulus people are unpersons. Who makes these decisions?

A potential solution might lay in a reconsideration of money, that institution of collective trust on which our mass society is based.

Money functions as both a store of value and a medium of exchange. These work at cross purposes, because as a store of value it is a form of private property, while as a medium of exchange it is a form of public utility, similar to a road system. Most people focus on their own wealth in comparison to others and thus think of it as private property. The reality is that the system belongs to whomever guarantees its value. We do possess the money we hold, in the same way we possess the section of road we are driving on. You own your car, house, business, etc, but not the roads connecting them. Money is a similar medium. It was one thing when money signified some commodity you had stored or traded and its value was entirely based on that underlaying commodity, but now the money supply far exceeds the underlaying value of the real economy and so its value is maintained by the ability of the government to support it through taxation. This means it has become an illusionary bubble of value into which ever more resources are needed to support and so is only functional as a medium of exchange. While this is potentially catastrophic, it presents an opportunity to change the basic economic equation.

Believing money is private property encourages people to hoard it. The problem is that capital is subject to the laws of supply and demand, with the lender as supply and the borrower as demand. Since the supply of capital must be balanced by demand for it, there must be sufficient borrowers for this notational wealth, or its value will collapse. The problem is that political power is on the side of those with money, rather than those borrowing it and this lack of balance regularly creates situations which swell the supply of money, while depleting the abilities of those borrowing it. This results in periodic credit
collapse, as masses of borrowers default. We are at an extreme state of this particular situation, since the government has borrowed massive amounts of its own money back, loan standards were left in the dust and enormous bubbles of excess circulation were blown up by the financial services industry to hold this surplus notational wealth. Now that the bubble is collapsing and its value evaporating, the powers that be are engaged in more destructive behavior by issuing ever more debt and currency to keep the bubble from imploding. Since the only way to prevent this additional money from being seriously inflationary is to monetize ever more value out of society and the environment in order to support and pay interest on it, to the increasing detriment of world health. The situation is analogous to high blood pressure. As bad debt clogs the arteries, increasing pressure doesn't clear the clots, but damages healthy tissue and causes it to harden and burst in weak points. When that happens, a person dies, but an economy flooded with loose credit is distorted. In a Ponzi scheme, the money from later investors is used to pay off earlier investors. When an asset bubble builds up, due to easy credit, rather than improved earnings, the same thing happens, as later investors pay earlier investors, then loose their investment when the well of credulous investors dries up.

great essay, beautiful writing, very salient.

If'Madness is the absence of work'(Foucault), then Sanity is the presence of play..

The G8 summit may be graced by a new breed of political wife, thanks to Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni, but yesterday's official programme was an old school affair as the spouses of the world's leaders met in Rome for lunch, museum visits, afternoon tea and an audience with the Pope.

There was one exception: Sarah Brown ensured at least some advances in technology, if not feminism, by using the latest online trends to tweet and blog about the events.

The tour began with a visit to the Vatican, where Mrs Brown and her counterparts from Mexico, Sweden, India and South Africa were granted a meeting with Benedict XVI.

"Landed in Italy, and Gordon is whisked off to the summit," posted Mrs Brown, username g8sarah, on her new blog. "I have the privilege of a second meeting with His Holiness the Pope in Vatican City, with the rest of my group (good to see the spouses from Mexico, India and the EU who are all friends from the G20)."

Sarah Brown (SarahBrown10) on Twitter

And her blog Sarah Brown @ G8