Gordon Brown will mark the start of the countdown to the general election by challenging British businesses next week to do more to help young people find work.

In his first major appearance on the domestic stage since his summer holiday, Brown will make clear that jobs and the economy are his priority when he calls on businesses to focus attention on the 18 to 24 age group.

Brown will travel out of London on Wednesday for the autumn launch of Backing Young Britain, the government's initiative to encourage business to "play a part" in ensuring that young people do not join the ranks of the long-term unemployed.

The prime minister will ask businesses to follow the example of a series of high-profile companies, attending the event on Wednesday, that have signed up to a series of commitments. First launched in July, these ask businesses to offer voluntary places for school and university leavers; to consider young people for a job through a work trial; and to bid for help from the future jobs fund, which is sponsoring 100,000 jobs.

James Murdoch tonight launched a scathing attack on the BBC, describing the corporation's size and ambitions as "chilling" and accusing it of mounting a "land grab" in a beleaguered media market.

News Corporation's chairman and chief executive in Europe and Asia also heavily criticised media industry regulator Ofcom, the European Union and the government, accusing the latter of "dithering" and failing to protect British companies from the threat of online piracy.

Delivering the MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival 20 years after his father Rupert, Murdoch described UK broadcasting as "the Addams Family of world media", comparing it unfavourably with the industries in India and France and complaining about the "astonishing" burden of regulation placed on BSkyB, the pay-TV giant he chairs. "Every year, roughly half a million words are devoted to telling broadcasters what they can and cannot say," he said.

Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, today launched an all-out attack on Italian and international media which have reported his involvement in sex scandals and questioned its implications.

His lawyer said he had served writs on newspapers and magazines in at least two other European countries and was taking advice on the scope for libel actions in Britain. In Italy Berlusconi is seeking damages of €1m from the Espresso group, whose flagship daily, La Repubblica, has spearheaded the campaign to get answers about his friendship with an aspiring teenage actress and his alleged involvement with self-acknowledged prostitutes.

A writ signed by the prime minister said 10 questions to which the paper has demanded responses for the past two months were "rhetorical and blatantly defamatory". La Repubblica said that "for the first time in the history of Italian journalism the questions [posed by] a newspaper will end up in a civil court".

The eurozone's economic recovery is gathering pace but manufacturers are reporting record surplus capacity and consumers have become still more convinced that prices have further to fall.

The European Commission's latest "economic sentiment" survey highlighted the precariousness of the recovery that began in the second quarter of this year. It shows eurozone optimism levels rose in August for the fifth consecutive month, to the highest since October, but remained significantly below the average of the past two decades

Eurozone manufacturers, meanwhile, reported that capacity utilisation had fallen to the lowest level since comparable data were first collected in 1990.

Consumers' expectations about prices in the next 12 months were skewed more towards falls than at any time since that survey started in 1985. Manufacturers' stocks also remained above their long-term average in August.

Germany's far-left Left Party is hoping to make history after Sunday's state elections. First, it wants to establish the first state coalition with the center-left Social Democrats in western Germany. And second, it wants to install the party's first-ever governor. Whatever the party achieves could have repercussions at the national level.

Restraint has never been one of Oskar Lafontaine's strengths. The former German finance minister from the western state of Saarland would once greet every bus driver who'd switched allegiance from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) to his own far-left Left Party with a gleeful and ostentatious handshake. Now he's making his way through political party events and summer festivals, campaigning intensely against current Saarland Governor Peter Müller and his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), ridiculing the Green Party and ranting about the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP). Only Lafontaine's former party the SPD and its leading candidate Heiko Maas have been spared from the tirade.

France's embattled Socialists, the main opposition party, gathered in La Rochelle for their 'summer university' Friday to discuss strategies for solving their recent divisive history. The party is already looking ahead to the 2012 presidency

France's embattled Socialists, the main opposition party, gathered in La Rochelle for their 'summer university' Friday to discuss strategies for coming out of its divisive recent history. The party is already looking ahead to the 2012 presidency.

 

High on the agenda: how to get out of the mire of despondency that has swamped the party in the past 12 months Party leader Martine Auby yesterday acceded to high ranking socialists, and accepted the need for open presidential nomination primaries.

 

The leader of France's embattled Socialists was strong-armed Thursday into agreeing to a primary vote to choose a challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, ahead of a make-or-break party congress.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, has encouraged his fellow MEPs to make a quick decision on the re-appointment of European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, warning that a delay threatens European stability.

"It would be much better for the stability of the EU and its institutions if a vote is held in September," the new president told reporters alongside his commission counterpart on Thursday (27 August) in Brussels.

 "The two institutions need to organise themselves ahead of the Irish vote and I hope and expect a vote on 16 September."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The president and prime minister of Kosovo have walked out of talks with EU representatives in the first serious bilateral rift since Kosovo declared independence last year.

The meeting in Pristina on Thursday (27 August) was designed to soothe ethnic Albanian fears over a new police co-operation agreement between the EU's police mission to Kosovo, EULEX, and Serbia's interior ministry.

Half a dozen new cases of so-called `exploding' iPhones emerged Wednesday in France, with manufacturer Apple facing an official inquiry and calls to come clean over possible risks linked to its hugely popular smartphone.

Eight French consumers have come forward saying their iPhone screens exploded or cracked without explanation. Five of the cases in the south around Marseille and three in the Paris area.

In the latest incident, Rolland Caufman, a Parisian pensioner, says his iPhone screen broke the week after he bought it.

"I went out shopping, with my iPhone in my left pocket, when I suddenly felt it heat up and start vibrating," he said. "I took it out of my pocket and held it to my ear and saw the screen crack up like a car windscreen."

Poland's economy grew by an annual 1.1 per cent in the second quarter, as strong exports and resilient consumer spending helped it post the strongest growth in the European Union, the country's statistical agency reported on Friday.

The results come after an 0.8 per cent increase in the first quarter, giving Poland gross domestic product growth of 1 per cent in the first half of the year.

The first-quarter numbers were higher than the 0.5 per cent most economists expected, and mean that Poland will is likely to avoid a recession this year, making it one of the continent's best performers.

The United States yesterday rejected a report that it had scrapped its predecessor's plan to deploy missile defenses in Europe, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Aug. 27).[...]

The Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported that sources said that Washington was looking at an alternative plan that could involve sea-based systems or fielding missile defenses in Israel, Turkey and the Balkans as a shield against Iran's growing missile capabilities.

"I would call that report inaccurate," said State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley. "Our review of our missile defense strategy is ongoing and has not reached completion yet" (Agence France-Presse/Novinite.com, Aug. 27).

Independent News & Media, the owner of The Independent, is confident of agreeing a deal with holders of €200m worth of bonds due for repayment shortly, the company said today.

Unveiling results for the first half of the year, INM also revealed that it has agreed the sale of INM Outdoor, its South African advertising business, in a deal that will raise €98m. Along with other disposals, the group is on target to raise funds of around €150m this year.

INM had been due to repay the bond issue in May, but has deferred the deadline several times in standstill agreements with its creditors. Today, the company said negotiations over the facility were continuing and that "the directors believe that an agreement can be reached that is acceptable to the group".

Bank credit to businesses in the eurozone shrank further last month despite current favorable conditions on the money markets, sparking fears over the true state of the economy in Europe.

Loans to businesses and households in July slowed to the record lowest annual growth ever, according to figures released by the European Central Bank (ECB), the main financial institution of the 16-strong currency union, released on Thursday (27 August).

The cheap money which banks received is not being passed on to firms and households

In the private sector, credit provided rose by just 0.6 percent compared with July 2008 while economists expected a 1.3 percent annual expansion. In June, loans to businesses amounted to the then minimum of 1.5 percent.

Economists interpret the results as a proof that banks do not provide the cheap money offered by the ECB and other institutions automatically to firms and households which could kick off investments and stronger consumption.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Worries over high unemployment pushed U.S. consumer confidence to a four-month low in August, while spending rose modestly in July, indicating the economy's recovery from recession would be lethargic.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said Friday its final index of confidence for August fell to 65.7, the lowest since April, from 66.0 in July. However, sentiment improved from early this month.

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed consumer spending edged up 0.2 percent in July, largely driven by the government's "cash-for-clunkers" program that fuelled demand for autos, after increasing 0.6 percent in June.

Incomes, however, were flat after a steep 1.1 percent drop in June, underscoring the pressure on households from falling housing prices and rising unemployment.

Short sellers have been deserting the US stock market in droves during its sluggish summer sessions in a retreat that has helped fuel the recent volatile trading in AIG and other beaten-down financial shares, analysts said on Friday.

Short sellers seek to profit from price declines by selling borrowed shares and then "covering" their positions with purchases of the same stocks. When large numbers of short sellers close their positions by buying shares at the same time, the stocks involved can register explosive - and often inexplicable - gains.

For many, the unsettling feature of the post-March bounce is that it was driven by a dash for trash. Undercapitalised banks and companies with overstretched balance sheets have been in the vanguard. Still more worrying is that the S&P 500 index is once again way above fair value as measured by the cyclically adjusted price earnings ratio, which is a multiple of average earnings over 10 years.
...
A more profound question is whether the stock market has sufficiently grasped the nature of the post-crisis model of capitalism the world is moving towards. Governments will be exercising greater control over the management and levels of profit in banking, the motor industry and elsewhere. Regulation will increase, as will taxes. And the populist backlash against bank bonuses threatens to spill over into a wider resentment of profits and wealth creation.

In short, the stock market entertains hopes of a strong sustained recovery that will probably not be fulfilled. After the extraordinary rise through August, a pause would anyway be justified.

Dear Senator Kaufman, we at Zero Hedge applaud your effort to bring transparency to, and evaluate the various new forces that, for better or worse, determine the modern market landscape. However, we would like to bring to your attention a fact which renders your entire approach of seeking fair and unbiased commentary from the SEC irrevocably moot. The reason is that the SEC, in alignment with many of the very industry players who may be abusing market structure for their own tiered benefit, stands to benefit significantly from an increased amount of daytrading volume across all markets, and, in fact, based on actions as recent as 4 months ago by the SEC, the regulator is well aware of the monetary benefits that ever-increasing churn creates for the commission and is fully intent on capitalizing on them. We thus suggest you bypass any protocol that has an SEC intermediation and go directly to penning a Bill which, we trust, will prove to be more fair and objective than anything the SEC would ever provide you with. The reason for the SEC's insurmountable conflict of interest is the so-called Section 31.

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From the definition of Section 31

   When you sell a stock, you may have noticed that a small transaction fee, often just a few pennies, appears on your confirmation slip. Although some broker-dealers have described this charge as an "SEC Fee," the SEC does not actually impose this fee on individual investors.

    The SEC does not impose or set any of the brokerage fees that investors must pay. Instead, under Section 31 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, self-regulatory organizations (SROs) -- such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and all of the national securities exchanges (including the New York Stock Exchange and the American Stock Exchange) -- must pay transaction fees to the SEC based on the volume of securities that are sold on their markets. These fees recover the costs incurred by the government, including the SEC, for supervising and regulating the securities markets and securities professionals.

-Skip-

Using the same back of the envelope analysis we did when we evaluted the cost of high frequency trading, and focusing exclusively on exchange traded stocks (and for the purpose of simplicity ignoring OTC transactions and other OTC products), we postulate 6 billion shares traded daily at a $20 average price for 250 trading days per year. Applying the old fee of $5.60 per million dollars results in an annual revenue stream of $168 million to the SEC. Applying the new fee of $25.70 per million dollars, and the SEC now would receive $750 million dollars- three quarters of a billion, and more than 80% of the SEC's annual budget. And keep in mind we did not include all other various exchange traded and OTC products that the SEC collects fees on. Did the SEC specifically request the fee increase in March as it became aware of the potential windfall that HFT driven churn, pardon, liquidity provisioning, could be for the Commission?

Now Senator Kaufman, you obviously realize, in referencing your letter to the SEC, that High Frequency Trading in its various forms now accounts for well over half of total volume in domestic and international markets. An objective analysis of HFT, as you have demanded of Ms. Schapiro, could have one of two outcomes: a favorable one, and an unfavorable one. Assuming a hypothetical outcome is indeed, unfavorable, it would have dramatic repercussions not only on the market landscape, but on overall market transaction volume, potentially impacting it to the tune of the estimated 70% of volume that HFT accounts for.

At this point it bears pointing out the flagrant conflict of interest that the SEC is faced with. An objective, unbiased and impartial analysis of HFT would leave the "cash strapped" Commission exposed to losing up to 70% of this primary revenue stream. Using the conservative estimate above, do you, Senator Kaufman, realistically believe, that Ms. Schapiro and her assistants would be able or willing to provide unbiased data on information that could impair over half a billion worth of annual revenue for the SEC.

It is a bank, but not as you know it.

Yes, it has electronic security doors. Yes, there are cameras watching every angle. And, Yes, barbed wire surrounds the perimeter.

But in this bank, you do not see any cash or diamonds. Instead, the deposits here have a different kind of value.

So valuable that, just like other banks, it has been robbed. Three times.

And what is in this vault? Parmesan cheese. Lots and lots of it - 300,000 blocks or "wheels" of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, to be precise, stored on giant shelves.

Barter system

Credem has been doing this for about 50 years, as its way of helping sustain local agriculture.

It is a kind of one-way barter system of bygone days that still works today.

The only collateral Giovanni Gualdi can offer a bank is the cheese he makes

In the past few years, with economic pressures on the cheese makers, it has come into its own.

Giovanni Gualdi is 71. Just like his father before him, he has been a Parmesan producer all his life.

He has a herd of cattle to feed, and staff to pay. As he waits for his cheeses to be ready, he needs a special kind of loan.

For him, the only collateral he can offer a bank is his cheese.

So he hands over about 1,000 wheels of Parmesan a month and gets his loan with which to carry on his business.

Giovanni said: "It has been a difficult five years. The market has been very bad. Businesses here have spent money, so they rely on the loans, otherwise they would shut."

In fact, in the past five years, more than 100 makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano have closed down.

Dollar Is Now Cheaper to Borrow Than Yen
Low Interbank Rates Position Greenback for 'Carry Trade'

SINGAPORE -- The dollar officially became cheaper to borrow than the conspicuously low-yielding yen for the first time in more than 16 years. That doesn't bode well for the U.S. currency, some analysts said.

The dollar has long benefited from positive yield premiums, especially against the Japanese currency, but the prospect of the Federal Reserve keeping U.S. overnight interest rates essentially at zero until at least late next year has wiped out the dollar's premium.

That means less incentive for investors to park funds in dollar assets for the relative yield advantage, or "carry." This is particularly true in Asia, where many central banks traditionally try to keep their exchange rates as even as possible against the dollar.

The fall in dollar interbank-borrowing rates -- on an absolute basis, but even more so in relative terms -- could even see the dollar becoming a funding currency, the unit investors borrow to buy higher-yielding assets.

(...)

The three-month London interbank offered rate for dollars, a key gauge of liquidity in the short-term funding markets and a benchmark rate for short-term borrowing by companies and consumers, this week fell below the three-month yen Libor rate for the first time since May 1993. The dollar Libor rate, which surged to 4.81875% at the height of the global panic in October, fell Wednesday to 0.37188%, sliding below the yen Libor rate, which has fallen to 0.38813 from last year's high above 1%.

The highest officer in the US military today issued a scathing critique of American "strategic communication" efforts in Afghanistan and the Muslim world, writing that the gap between promised improvements and actual developments harms the credibility of the US message.

In an article written for Joint Force Quarterly, a military publication, Admiral Mike Mullen said that US efforts in Afghanistan and elsewhere to send a positive message about US military action and development efforts hurt US credibility when they do not coincide with what the populace sees on the ground.

Mullen's criticism comes as US officials have acknowledged the US is losing the war of ideas against its Taliban and al-Qaida enemies. In an effort to bolster its image as Barack Obama ramps up the war in Afghanistan, the administration has established a $150m (£92m) effort to train Afghan and Pakistani journalists, set up radio stations and produce pamphlets, posters and CDs lambasting Islamist militants.

A senior Saudi royal, credited for cracking down on al-Qaeda-linked militants, has been slightly wounded after a militant blew himself up at a gathering of well-wishers for the Muslim month of Ramadan, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Prince Mohammed bin Naif, the deputy interior minister for security affairs, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries after Thursday night's incident at the prince's home in Jeddah.

The prince, who is the son of interior minister Prince Naif, the third in line to the throne, was shown on Saudi television on Friday sitting next to King Abdullah, who had rushed to the hospital.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Republicans and Democrats were to come together at a private memorial service on Friday to honour Senator Edward Kennedy, the standard-bearer for liberal Democrats and patriarch of an American political dynasty.

The senator's body lay in repose in Boston where thousands of people gathered to pay their respects and preparations were under way to bury him on Saturday near the graves of his brothers President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.

JEDDAH (Reuters) - A suicide bomber failed in his attempt to kill the prince who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign, the first attack on a member of the royal family since the start of a wave of violence by al Qaeda six years ago.

Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the deputy interior minister and son of the man thought likely to be the next crown prince, was meeting well-wishers on Thursday when a man blew himself up, a ministry spokesman said. The prince was not seriously hurt.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has slowed its nuclear expansion and met some demands for better monitoring but allegations of covert atom bomb research look credible and Tehran must address them, the U.N atomic watchdog said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report will form the basis for six-power talks on September 2 to look into harsher U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic over a uranium enrichment campaign the West fears is a stealthy quest for nuclear weapons.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at his chief political rivals on Friday, calling on judiciary officials to "decisively" and "mercilessly" prosecute them for challenging the legitimacy of his electoral victory and tarnishing the image of the state.
...
Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke in front of thousands of government supporters gathered in a covered arena at Tehran University. The president appeared unafraid to effectively contradict the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Wednesday said he was not convinced that reform leaders had conspired in advance with foreign forces to orchestrate the post-election unrest. The supreme leader did, however, stick by the government's claim that the protests were planned.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency. ...

Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to "direct the national response to the cyber threat" if necessary for "the national defense and security." The White House is supposed to engage in "periodic mapping" of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies "shall share" requested information with the federal government. ("Cyber" is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

"The language has changed but it doesn't contain any real additional limits," EFF's Tien says. "It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There's no provision for any administrative process or review. That's where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it."

Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network....

Update at 3:14 p.m. PDT: I just talked to Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the Senate Commerce committee, on the phone. She sent me e-mail with this statement:

    The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president's authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a "government shutdown or takeover of the Internet" and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government's response.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for an on-the-record answer to these four questions that I asked her colleague on Wednesday. I'll let you know if and when I get a response.

TIA! TIA! Don't you just love these guys?! Well, they love you, too, very much.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

This is the moment a Great White shark launched a deadly attack on a baby seal, tossing it into the air before finally catching the pup between its terrifying jaws.

The shark was captured in these amazing photographs as it powered through the waves at 35mph toward two Cape Fur seals, clearly hoping to make a meal of them both.

It propelled out of the water, throwing the two seals into the air before lunging backwards to try and snare one between its sharp teeth.

Adapting to the damage caused by climate change will cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a group of scientists said on Thursday - putting the price tag far higher than previously estimated.

The worldwide cost of adaptation - including better flood defences, improving transport infrastructure and better resilience to drought - would probably reach sums in the region of $140bn to $210bn a year by 2030, said the group of climate experts brought together by Imperial College London and the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development.

These sums are far in excess of the $100bn (€70bn, £61bn) a year that Gordon Brown, the UK's prime minister, has said rich countries should be prepared to spend by 2020 on helping poor nations adapt to global warming and cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Funding from the rich to the developing world to assist with adaptation is proving a big sticking point in the negotiations to forge a new global treaty on climate change, set to culminate this December at the Copenhagen summit. Poor countries say the developed world is failing in its responsibilities.

.eco Battle

Three letters at the end of an internet address have sparked a surprisingly high-stakes fight between two environmental champions. The letters in question are "eco." And they're in play because starting next year, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers -- the body that oversees internet domain names -- plans to begin letting people register web sites that end in dot-eco.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev both think that's a great idea and one that could be a powerful tool for environmental progress. But they have different ideas about what should be done with it. And they're backing different companies, both of which are fighting to control the dot-eco domain. Al Gore is backing an American company named "Dot Eco." And Mikhail Gorbachev is backing a Canadian company called "Big Room." Trevor Bowden is one of Big Room's co-founders and he was in Vancouver.

Big Room's main competition is from a California-based company called Dot Eco, a company supported by former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore. No one from Dot Eco was available to speak to us this morning. But we aired a clip with what its co-founder, Minor Childers, has to say about the company.

In the end, it will be up to the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers -- or ICANN -- to decide who gets to control the dot-eco domain. We heard from Karla Valente, the director of communications for product services with ICANN.

.eco Battle - Custom Fit Communications

There are clearly a lot of people willing to put a significant amount of time and money into controlling certain domain names. But Roy McClean isn't sure it's worth the effort. He is the owner of Custom Fit Communications, an internet marketing and development company. He was in Pemberton, British Columbia.

Jaycee Lee Dugard, the woman found alive almost two decades after being kidnapped, feels terrible guilt for forming an emotional attachment with her suspected captor, her stepfather said today.

Phillip Garrido, 58, is accused of kidnapping Dugard when she was 11 years old in 1991 and detaining her for nearly two decades in a hidden backyard compound of tents, outbuildings and a shed behind his home on Walnut Avenue in Antioch, in the Bay area of San Francisco.

Investigators said Garrido, a convicted sex offender, raped Dugard and fathered two children with her - the first when she was about 14. Those girls, now 11 and 15, were detained along with their mother.

Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, told ABC television that she was "doing well" following her release, and had been playing with her younger sister.

He said: "My wife says that Jaycee looks good. She looks almost like when she was kidnapped. She looks very young. She doesn't look 29 at all."

The first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion has launched an outspoken attack on the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, criticised the policy of the Church of England towards gay and lesbian clergy. Alluding to the significant number of clergy who are gay, he said: "I think gay clergy in the Church of England are thought of as a problem to be solved or at least lived with, rather than a gift from God."

Robinson, who is in Britain to speak at the Greenbelt festival at Cheltenham Racecourse this weekend, added that he could not accept the archbishop's recent comments that if the Episcopal church refused to uphold the current moratorium on consecrating actively gay bishops or blessing civil unions, the communion might have to be reorganised into a two-tier, or "two-track" model. "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church," he said. "Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God."

In September 9 AD, Germanic tribesmen slaughtered three Roman legions in a battle that marked the "big bang" of the German nation and created its first hero -- Hermann. The country is marking the 2,000th anniversary with restraint because the myth of Hermann remains tainted by the militant nationalism that would later be associated with Hitler.

Germany's 20th century history has been so troubled that anniversaries of positive events are in short supply. This year has two such rare examples, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 60th of the establishment of democracy after World War II.

There's a third one coming up in September that represents nothing less than the birth of the German nation -- the 2,000th anniversary of a devastating victory over three Roman legions by Germanic tribes in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

The battle created the first German hero, Arminius, or Hermann as he later became known, a young chieftain of the Cherusci tribe who led the rebellion and was hailed for centuries as the man who united the Germans and drove the Romans out of Germania.

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Astronomers from China and the United States may cooperate on building the world's largest telescope aimed at providing deeper insight into the very early stages of the universe, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

The Thirty-Meter-Telescope (TMT), conceived and headed by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), is expected to be completed in 2019, the official Chinese news agency said.

The detailed chemical structure of a single molecule has been imaged for the first time, say researchers.

The physical shape of single carbon nanotubes has been outlined before, using similar techniques - but the new method even shows up chemical bonds.

Understanding structure on this scale could help in the design of many things on the molecular scale, particularly electronics or even drugs.

The IBM researchers report their findings in the journal Science.

It is the same group that in July reported the feat of measuring the charge on a single atom.

A "killer" fish native to South America has been found in a Devon river.

The Environment Agency said its staff were amazed to find a dead piranha in the East Okement tributary of the River Torridge.

The piranha, which has razor-sharp teeth, is generally considered to be the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world.

The 35cm (14in) fish was spotted by Bob Collett, Dave Hoskin and Eddie Stevens during a sampling trip on the river.

A treasured piece at the Dutch national museum - a supposed moon rock from the first manned lunar landing - is nothing more than petrified wood, curators say.

It was given to former Prime Minister Willem Drees during a goodwill tour by the three Apollo-11 astronauts shortly after their moon mission in 1969.

When Mr Drees died, the rock went on display at the Amsterdam museum.

At one point it was insured for around $500,000 (£308,000), but tests have proved it was not the genuine article.

t is a long-held complaint of many shoppers: Christmas appears to get earlier every year. The sight of stores decorated in tinsel and baubles, rocking to the strains of Jingle Bells in mid-August are apparently becoming all too frequent... in Yorkshire, anyway.

This week four shops in Leeds contacted the police after a group calling itself the "Movement for the Containment of Xmas" posted letters threatening attacks on their premises if they put Christmas cards on sale before 1 November. The letter says that any store-owners who fail to comply with the orders will have their door locks filled with glue - a fate that has already befallen one shop.

Laura Dekker's solo voyage around the world is on hold; her court-appointed guardian can prevent her from setting sail.

The Utrecht district court On Friday put 13-year-old Laura Dekker under the supervision of a youth welfare organisation, but it stopped short of divesting parental authority.

With the support of her parents, Laura wants to sail around the world solo for the next two years and become the youngest person ever to do so. But the Child Protection Authority filed for custody over Laura in order to stop her.

Laura's lawyer Peter de Lange has advised her to stay ashore for now, and cooperate with the two-month investigation the juvenile court has ordered.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles County Coroner said on Friday it has ruled the death of pop star Michael Jackson a homicide due to acute intoxication from the drug propofol and other conditions.

In a statement, the coroner said propofol, a powerful aesthetic, and the sedative Lorazepam were the primary drugs responsible for Jackson's death.

An insufferable teenage version of Nicolas Sarkozy, complete with platform heels, slick slogans and permanent Ray Bans, is attracting crowds to French cinemas for a cheeky comedy that has become the surprise hit of the summer.

Audiences, especially the young from the ethnic banlieue housing estates, cannot get enough of the clone of the young Sarkozy played by 15-year-old Jérémy Denisty, who steals the show in Neuilly Sa Mère! The low-budget film, set in the President's home town, reached the top of box-office charts as Mr Sarkozy holidayed on the Côte d'Azur two weeks ago.

Nearly a million people have seen the satire about Sami, a 14-year-old from the car-burning housing estates who moves in with a rich family in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the opulent west Paris suburb. Neuilly has been the President's fiefdom since he won election as a councillor at 22 and Mayor at 28.

zen moments galore

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