A 10-year investigation into alleged embezzlement of public funds by the former French president Jacques Chirac may end in a damp squib.

In a decision that will provoke allegations of political interference by his successor Nicolas Sarkozy, the Paris public prosecutor's office has decided that Mr Chirac has "no case to answer" in accusations that he ran his political party with officials illegally placed on the Paris town hall payroll from 1983 to 1995.

The decision to drop the case must still be approved by a judge. It is, in any case, just one of several allegations of misuse of public funds brought against Mr Chirac, 76. But the recommendation that he should not go on trial, despite considerable documentary evidence suggesting his guilt, is bound to draw attention to Mr Chirac's relationship with President Sarkozy.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is to claw back over €200 million in farm subsidies from 18 member states as a result of mis-spending, the EU executive announced on Tuesday (29 September).

In total, €214.6 million of EU farm monies unduly spent by countries due to non-compliance with EU rules or inadequate control procedures on agricultural expenditure will return to community coffers.

France will have to pay back €71m in mis-spent funds

"The commission is keeping up the pressure to ensure the best possible controls over how this money is spent," said agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel, commenting on the decision.

"The system is working better than ever and we will continue to strive to improve things further," she added.

Some €71 million is being demanded back from France in what is the biggest bill for misuse of funds, for weaknesses in on-the-spot checks over the course of 2006 and 2007.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union must toughen its stance when negotiating with China on investment access, according to the newly elected chair of the European Parliament's delegation to China.

Centre-right Italian MEP Crescenzio Rivellini signaled his intention on Tuesday (29 September) to use ongoing negotiations for an upgrade in EU-China relations to step up pressure in this area.

Mr Rivellini favours an end to the EU's embargo on selling arms to China

"We will try to use the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement to improve investment access in China for EU companies," he told EUobserver following his election to the post.

Ties between China and the EU are currently set out under a 1985 Trade and Co-operation Agreement but discussions have been ongoing since 2007 to broaden the formal relationship.

The job application procedure for officials in Brussels is changing in 2010. That is good news for Dutch nationals who would like a job 'in Europe'.

John Wouters (38) was one of only 159 people left in the running after most of the more than 11,000 initial candidates had dropped out. After a 16-months selection process and an extremely difficult exam Wouters now qualifies for a position in the administration of the European Union in Brussels. But that doesn't mean he is guaranteed a job: people who pass what EU employees call the `concours' are merely placed on a reserve list. Passing the concours means that Wouters is now allowed to apply for a job.

Even though he still doesn't have a job in Brussels yet Wouters is already part of a past generation: he was one of the last candidates required to take the infamous European knowledge test. Some of the questions in the test included: `How many presidents has the European Commission had to date?' or 'When was the Single European Act signed?'

A backlash was growing last night against the actors and directors who leapt to the defence of Roman Polanski after his arrest on a child sex charge.

Celebrated cinema luminaries including Woody Allen, David Lynch and Martin Scorsese called for Polanski to be freed immediately from arrest in Switzerland on a US extradition warrant.

He is wanted for fleeing 30 years ago to avoid sentencing after admitting unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. Lawyers for the film director have appealed for his release on bail.

Luc Besson, the director of Léon, however, refused to sign the Hollywood petition, saying that no one should be above the law, and Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, criticised his Foreign Minister for urging the director's freedom.

Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, walked out of a television interview while the cameras were still rolling during a series of angry exchanges with broadcasters.

Mr Brown was clearly frustrated as he was repeatedly challenged over his personality, leadership and the defection of The Sun newspaper from the Labour cause, complaining that he was not being given the opportunity to debate policy, following his speech at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

Following one particularly testy interview with Sky News, he attempted to walk out of the studio when still connected to a microphone, and while he was expected to remain in his seat for a second broadcast with the BBC.

A new report commissioned by the EU said that Georgia started the South Ossetia conflict last summer, but also found Russia's response illegal. Both Georgia and Russia have claimed the report supports their version. 

According to the report, carried out by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini and presented to the European Union on Wednesday, there is no evidence to support Georgia's claim that Russia had already sent troops to annex South Ossetia before Georgia began its attack on the region's capital Tskhinvali on the night of August 7/8 2008.

"There was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation," the report said. "There is the question of whether the use of force by Georgia in South Ossetia ... was justifiable under international law. It was not."

Former French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has taken the stand in a Paris court, denying any role in a plot to discredit President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It is alleged that Mr de Villepin tried to manipulate a judicial investigation to hurt Mr Sarkozy's chances of winning the 2007 presidential election.

In court, Mr de Villepin categorically denied sending forged documents to a French judge to implicate Mr Sarkozy.

He also said ex-President Jacques Chirac played no part in any smear bid.

Germany's Social Democrats are in crisis. And they are not alone. Across Europe, social democratic parties are struggling to connect with a new generation of voters. What's the problem?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's re-election this weekend confirms what many already knew: Europe's social democratic parties have failed to distill any political benefit from the association between the right's reverence for unfettered markets and the economic crises that grip the continent.

Historically, Europeans turn to conservatives in times of crisis. But today, the situation is more complex. In Germany, Merkel's Christian Democrats also fared worse than in previous elections. Instead, voters opted for the far-left Left Party, the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens. These parties tapped into modernizing demographic trends: the rise of a progressive younger generation, the continuing rise in educational levels, the growth of the professional class, the increasing social weight of single and alternative households and growing religious diversity and secularism. Despite the defeat of the social democrats, then, one can discern the emergence of new constituencies that favor progressives. These trends are repeated across much of Europe.

But why do these groups not vote for the social democrats?

MILAN - An Italian prosecutor in the first trial anywhere scrutinizing the CIA's extraordinary renditions asked a Milan court on Wednesday to sentence 26 Americans to jail terms ranging from 10 to 13 years for the abduction of an Egyptian terror suspect.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro, completing his closing arguments, argued that a guilty verdict and strong sentence for the defendants, most of them CIA agents, would help restore confidence in Western democracies eroded by tactics employed in the fight against terrorism.

Spataro requested the top sentence of 13 years for Jeffrey Castelli, the former Rome CIA station chief, who he said coordinated the 2003 kidnapping with the former head of Italian military intelligence Nicolo Pollari. He also sought 13 years for Pollari.

The prosecutor requested 12 years each for Robert Seldon Lady, former Milan station chief, and Sabrina de Sousa, who was in the Rome Embassy and whom prosecutors say worked closely with Lady. Spataro is seeking sentences of 10 or 11 years for the remaining Americans.

The prosecution's closing arguments signal the final phase in the more than 2 1/2-year-old trial. Nearly a dozen defense lawyers now must make their case. A verdict is expected possibly by early November.

Prosecutors say Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, a suspected terrorist also known as Abu Omar, was kidnapped from a Milan street in broad daylight on Feb. 17, 2003.

Nasr was then allegedly driven from Milan to the Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, flown to the Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany and then onward to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured. Nasr has been released but remains in Egypt and has not testified at the trial.

Human rights advocates charge that renditions were the CIA's way to outsource the torture of prisoners to countries where it was practiced.

The CIA has declined to comment on the Italian case, and all the Americans are being tried in absentia and are considered fugitives.

In his closing, Spataro said Western democracies cannot accept arguments that the rules of engagement have been altered by the threat posed by international terrorism.

"We don't have an alternative but to have absolute respect for the law, even where it seems difficult. Only this will give us credibility," Spataro said, wrapping up his closing arguments in the Milan courthouse.

For three minor functionaries of the Italian Secret Services, the prosecution asked not to proceed against them because of a state secrecy ruling.

For Pio Pompa the prosecution requested three years imprisonment.

In a Georgian townhouse four minutes walk from Parliament, bankers, lawyers and economists held an off-the-record evening meeting to plot how to fight European Union financial regulation that they deem a threat to London.

"I am extremely worried about the City of London," said Ruth Lea, a director at Arbuthnot Banking Group Plc, who agreed after the Sept. 24 meeting at the Institute of Economic Affairs for her comments to be published. "Britain may be able to influence EU regulation, but we won't be calling the shots. Britain should consider the nuclear option of leaving the EU."...

The EU last week proposed three regulatory agencies with the power to overrule national authorities. The European Parliament is preparing to debate the Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers -- proposed rules pushed by European Socialist Party President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to limit borrowing by private-equity firms and hedge funds and to enforce them to establish bases within the EU.

Added Costs

"Bit by bit we'll have these three EU regulators above us," Lea said. "There's one for banking, one for insurance and one for securities inevitably calling the shots."

London's hedge fund and private-equity managers argue that the directive targeting their industries will restrict Europeans' ability to invest worldwide and make it harder for non-EU managers to raise money in Europe. The new rules could cost funds as much as 1.9 billion euros ($2.8 billion) through increased compliance costs in the first year and 985 million euros annually thereafter, according to Open Europe.

"Everywhere in Europe people feel an unease about the Anglo-Saxon way of doing business in markets," Hans Hoogervorst, chairman of the Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets, said at a conference in London yesterday....

Arguments against EU legislation in terms of the threat to London are counterproductive, said Angela Crawford-Ingle, who advises private-equity firms at Ambre Partners. "You're missing a trick here," she said. "If you take the emotion out of the debate for a moment, there are a lot of areas where you can get a European focus."

In any other European country, a prime minister like Silvio Berlusconi would have already been swept away, punished for a style of government that is dedicated to protecting his own interests as a business tycoon and demolishing the autonomy and independence of judges to ensure his impunity. His lifestyle is closer to that of an Oriental potentate than to the devout (and hypocritical) supporter of the traditional "God, the motherland and the family", which is the mantra of the right.

Needless to say, Italian conservatives mouth these statements to pander to the Vatican. Mussolini, too, paid lip service to being a proud champion of the family, idolising women as angels of the hearth, whereas in reality he was a boastful womaniser.

Berlusconi's problems on the domestic stage are mostly to do with rifts in his own governing coalition - mainly with his deputy, Gianfranco Fini (the third power in the state, after President Napolitano and Berlusconi). Opposition does not come from the Italian people or from the opposition - the centre-left Partito Democratico appears to be incapable of offering a plausible alternative to the current government.

Why isn't the PD considered as a possible government? I think it's clear: Berlusconi's monopoloy of the media embodies the difference between the two sides. In a country in which hardly anyone reads books (Italian book readership is last but one in Europe behind Turkey) and where schools and universities are painfully neglected, over the last 15 years political and civil instruction have been provided by Mediaset's TV serials, which have "educated" (absit iniuria verbis) at least two generations.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Both Greece's main parties agree the economy is in a mess, hobbled by a public debt and budget deficit that are among the highest in the euro zone. But ahead of national elections Sunday, they offer wildly contrasting remedies -- spending versus austerity.

Socialist opposition leader George Papandreou, the likely winner, wants to inject up to €3 billion ($4.39 billion) to stimulate the economy, give public sector workers above-inflation pay rises and boost infrastructure investment.

Conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis is seeking a renewed mandate to pass urgent but unpopular reforms. He has pledged to freeze salaries, pensions and hirings, cut spending and take severe action against widespread tax evasion.

In the run-up to the 22 November presidential election in Romania, leaders of Transylvania's Magyar community are campaigning for an autonomous Szeklerland. But in a region where Magyars and Romanians live happily side by side, the local population appears largely indifferent to demands for independence, notes Evenimentul Zilei

In Transylvania, the road linking Brasov to Covasna is redolent with the aroma of Kurtos Kalacs (sweet buns sprinkled with caramelized sugar) and homemade potato bread. This is the historic route to the country of the Szeklers, Romania's ethnic Hungarian minority, whose National Council recently voted to adopt a national anthem, a coat of arms and a flag for the "future autonomous Szeklerland." Zagon, one of the largest villages in Covasna country has about 5,000 inhabitants, with approximately 2,700 Romanians, almost as many Hungarians and about 40 Roms. Politicians in Zagon are proud of the fact that the village is run by a multi-ethnic team with a Magyar mayor, Joseph Kis, and a Romanian deputy mayor, Nicolae Coznean. Both men have known each other since they shared the same bench in primary school. "I have lived here all my life, and we have never had any ethnic issues with the Magyars and the Gipsies," explains the deputy mayor. "I can honestly say that I don't understand this Szeklerland business. Not long ago, I was talking about what's been happening with a policeman from the Magyar community, and he asked me, 'If we do have an independent Szeklerland, does that mean that I will earn twice as much as my Romanian colleagues?'" Almost everyone in Zagon can speak Romanian and Hungarian, and fluency in both languages is virtual pre-requisite for local government  jobs.

Ireland's Prime Minister Brian Cowen (photo), a proponent of the Lisbon Treaty, is out campaigning for a 'Yes' vote ahead of Ireland's referendum on the subject on October 2. Europe's powers say a 'No' vote would paralyse the EU.

Reuters - Europe's big powers are banking on Irish voters backing reforms to make the European Union a stronger
player on the world stage and avert a crisis they fear could paralyse the 27-nation bloc.

 

Irish approval for the EU's Lisbon treaty in a referendum on Friday would clear an obstacle to streamlining decision-making and put pressure on the Polish and Czech presidents to follow other EU leaders by signing it into law.

 

Rejection could delay moves towards closer EU integration and enlargement, and undermine public and investor confidence, at least briefly hitting the euro currency.

 

"There's a sense it's going to be a 'Yes' vote," Hugo Brady, of the Centre for European Reform think-tank, told Reuters.

Europeans are spellbound as they look to Dublin in the run-up to a second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon and the future of the European Union on Friday. Many believe a "yes" vote will come, but the "no" camp is still formidable and many voters remain undecided.

Andrew Byrne had planned to move to Belgium to pursue a masters degree. Suddenly, though, it became clear to him that he had something more important to do first -- he needed to stay and protect his country from the catastrophe of isolation.

"This decision is too important to leave it to the politicians." says Byrne, 24. So he took a year off and in December founded Generation Yes. It's an initiative comprised of young people, independent of any political or business interests, who are promoting the European Union. Byrne wants to convince his fellow Irish to vote "yes" on Oct. 2 when the country goes to the polls for a repeat of the failed 2008 referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The treaty, a successor to the 2005 failed attempt at adopting a European Constitution, is meant to streamline EU decision-making and establish the new position of a president who will represent the EU on the international stage.

Byrne isn't alone. Dozens of volunteers are helping him -- working without pay, nearly around the clock. Not a single volunteer is older than 27. They explain the treaty over the Internet, Facebook and through Twitter. And every day they take their message to the streets, handing out informational brochures about what they see as a "fateful vote." "Talking to people is the most effective way of winning somebody's vote," Byrne explains.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Moldova's newly elected pro-Western government hopes to secure an aid package from the IMF and the EU in the coming weeks in order to bring the country back on the floating line, Prime Minister Vlad Filat told MEPs in Brussels on Tuesday (29 September).

Only a few days in office, the 40-year old premier chose Brussels as his first destination abroad and even named his four-party coalition the "Alliance for EU integration" as a sign of its commitment to EU-inspired reforms.

Prime Minister Vlad Filat hopes the EU will offer financial assistance to his country.

"Up until now, EU-Moldovan relations were based on mere declarations, but my government is committed to real reforms and the implementation of the promises made," Mr Filat said during a hearing in the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee.

His election was broadly acclaimed by MEPs from across the political spectrum as a victory against a repressive and backward regime, which has kept the country down for the past eight years. The democratic coalition won the majority in the parliament after a re-run of the fraudulent April elections, in which the Communist Party claimed victory.

The French government vowed to continue its stimulus effort as it unveiled its latest budget Wednesday. Public deficit will grow to a record 8.2% of GDP this year and 8.5% in 2010, by which time public debt will have reached 84% of national output.

AFP - France's public deficit will grow to a record 8.2 percent of GDP this year and 8.5 in 2010, according to the government's budget on Wednesday, based on expected growth of 0.75 percent next year.
  
France is edging out of a recession caused by last year's global financial collapse, but the government vowed to continue stimulus spending, and warned that deficit levels will not begin to fall until 2011.

If I were to design a stimulus plan, Cash for Clunkers might be among them.

-Skip-

So why is this likely to fail, at least in part?

That is because the Obama Economic Team, under the leadership of Larry Summers, is grasping at stimulus and aids programs like bank capital asset subsidies that as part of a total package might be useful, but as remedies applied to a sick system do not promote a cure, but merely serve to mask the symptoms. Stimulus and aid programs do not work when they are merely poured into a system that is broken, or worse, broken and corrupt.

And it cannot be reformed by actors who have been and continue to be willing beneficiaries of its flaws, such as the transference of wealth from the many to the few. Congress and the Administration have to take themselves away from the trough and start acting for the greater good of the people whom they represent, rather than the special interests who give them campaign contributions and fat, overpaid jobs when they leave office.

Bernanke has said, with only a slight hint of doubt that he may be overstating things, that he saved the world from depression. The banks are declaring the recession over, and chipping away in Congress at any legislation that would limit their bonuses or dampen their derivatives activity. M&A activity is picking up now that stock prices have recovered nearly 50% of their decline. CDOs are being repackaged again and securitized. Fees on consumer banking are being scaled back but only on products like forced overdrafts that have drawn consumer outrage.

These recoveries are the businesses which boomed during the housing bubble. Banks want to get back into the most lucrative parts of their businesses of the 00's. But their basic lending, to consumers, small businesses, corporations, local governments and non-profits, is stagnant if not declining. The country is still being deprived of credit, and bankruptcies are rolling along as the credit crisis deepens. Consumers are retrenching by increasing their savings and ploughing what money they can not into the banks, which offer hardly anything in the way of interest because they don't want the money, but into Treasuries. What credit there is comes from the federal government - which for example is financing over 3/4 of all home mortgages.

We remain in the classic Keynesian liquidity trap. Uncle Ben has been unable to do anything about it. Until many trillions of dollars of debt are paid back or defaulted, the economy will not recover, and the government will be the only place open for lending, unless you are in the speculative business of derivatives trading or securities placement.

The next round of disappointment for the markets - in fact let's call it shock - is just around the corner. Numerian

Massage people, not numbers.

American International Group Inc. dismissed McKinsey & Co. as an adviser for the bailed-out insurer's restructuring as Chief Executive Officer Robert Benmosche seeks to trim consulting fees, said two people familiar with the matter.

McKinsey worked on a review of AIG businesses that started in March under Benmosche's predecessor, Edward Liddy, said the people, who declined to be identified because the decision wasn't public. The plan was to produce a multiyear road map, called Project Destiny [pdf, oversight.house.gov], to restructure the company after it took a U.S. rescue valued at $182.5 billion. Mark Herr, an AIG spokesman, and Yolande Daeninck of McKinsey declined to comment.

The insurer has "too many" advisers because managers "forget to look in our own backyard for skills," Benmosche told employees of New York-based AIG in August, according to a record obtained by Bloomberg. "I am busy getting lists of bankers, lists of lawyers, how many consultants we have." ...

AIG owes more than $38 billion on a Federal Reserve credit line. The $182.5 billion bailout includes a $60 billion Fed credit line, a Treasury Department investment of as much as $70 billion and $52.5 billion to buy mortgage-linked assets owned or backed by the company.

The New York Fed has hired Ernst & Young LLP to advise on the dismantling of AIG at a rate of $775 an hour per person for work done by partners or executive directors, according to documents [pdf, NewYorkFed.org] from the accounting firm released July 17. The firm may earn as much as $60 million, the records say, an increase of 50 percent from the initial agreement.
 

Eyewitnesses to the devastating tsunami that struck the Pacific islands of Western and American Samoa have told Radio Netherlands Worldwide they had only 15 minutes to try and outrun the waves after first warnings were issued.

Over 100 people are feared dead after a heavy tsunami hit the islands. It was caused by a powerful earthquake southwest of American Samoa, registering 8.0 on the Richter scale. Villages and holiday resorts on the southern coast of the islands have been destroyed completely, according to eyewitnesses.

The epicentre of the quake was located some 190 kilometres southwest of American Samoa, striking at a depth of 33 kilometres. The Samoa islands consist of two entities - the nation of Samoa or Western Samoa and American Samoa, a US territory, with a total population of about 250,000 people.
 
A Pacific-wide tsunami warning was issued after the earthquake, with small tsunamis reaching New Zealand, Hawaii, Tonga and Japan. These did not cause major damage and large scale evacuations were not necessary.

The US government has relaxed its control over how the internet is run.

It has signed a four-page "affirmation of commitments" with the net regulator Icann, giving the body autonomy for the first time.

Previous agreements gave the US close oversight of Icann - drawing criticism from other countries and groups.

The new agreement comes into effect on 1 October, exactly 40 years since the first two computers were connected on the prototype of the net.

"It's a beautifully historic day," Rod Beckstrom, Icann's head, told BBC News.

The European Commission, which has long been critical of Icann's alliance with the US government, welcomed the new deal.

"Internet users worldwide can now anticipate that Icann's decisions...will be more independent and more accountable, taking into account everyone's interests," said Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for information society and media.

Analysts should not delude themselves into believing that Zelaya was bringing a clean slate to Honduras.  But they also should not conclude that Zelaya lacks domestic support.  In addition to mainly-urban protesters, a dormant mass of Zelaya supporters exists in rural areas.  These people are often too poor and afraid to leave their communities. They will not protest but they will remain disillusioned. Those who are not appalled by the coup that unseated their populist president have become disgusted with the modus operandi of Honduran politics.

The item I cited in the open thread is more eye-opening:

In short, Micheletti's three-month reign as de facto president may be coming to an end.  He has clearly been shaken by events, overplayed his hand and is now facing the defection of key elements of his coalition: the congress, the presidential candidates, the army and, quite possibly, the business community and the Supreme Court.  All that's left now is a graceful, negotiated exit.

Centenarian Rabbi Shalom Yosef Elyashiv, who is considered the top Ashkenazi haredi arbiter of Jewish law alive today, ruled last week that Crocs sandals cannot be worn on Yom Kippur because they are too comfortable.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the night to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

SAMSO, Denmark -- The people of this Danish island have seen the future, and it is dim and smells vaguely of straw.

With no traffic lights on the island and few street lights, driving its roads on a cloudless night is like piercing a black cloud. There is one movie theater, few cars and even fewer buses, except for summer, when thousands of tourists multiply the population.

Yet last year, Samso (pronounced SOME-suh) completed a 10-year experiment to see whether it could become energy self-sufficient. The islanders, with generous amounts of aid from mainland Denmark, busily set themselves about erecting wind turbines, installing nonpolluting straw-burning furnaces to heat their sturdy brick houses and placing panels here and there to create electricity from the island's sparse sunshine.

By their own accounts, the islanders have met the goal. For energy experts, the crucial measurement is called energy density, or the amount of energy produced per unit of area, and it should be at least 2 watts for every square meter, or 11 square feet. "We just met it," said Soren Hermansen, the director of the local Energy Academy, a former farmer who is a consultant to the islanders.

Ankara is the neighbour Europeans still won't let into their club. And yet the country behind the Bosporus is soon to become the communication hub for energy supplies bound for Europe. Die Zeit doubts the EU can go on snubbing the Turks indefinitely.

Turkey? For many a European, it is a precarious candidate for accession on the eastern edge of the EU. A farflung NATO outpost, a last offshoot of Western civilisation, bordering on nightmarish nations like Iraq and Iran. But this past summer, an astounding number of the world's potentates undertook a pilgrimage to Turkey, of all places. It was about energy. In this regard, Turkey lies right smack in the middle. It may have little in the way of resources itself, but several Central Asian countries, along with Russia and the Middle East, will soon be pumping fuel to Europe through Turkish pipelines. And which way those pipelines will run has become a cliffhanger involving high stakes and major geopolitical risks.

One traditional supply route runs from East to West. For 15 years Turkey has been under discussion as a transit country for the riches discovered in and around the Caspian Sea since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That includes the natural-gas fields in Turkmenistan; Kazakhstan's offshore Kashagan Field, the biggest oil field discovered in the past quarter of a century anywhere in the world; and Azerbaijan. For a long time it was not clear how all that was supposed to reach Europe. But on 13 July five heads of State came up with an answer in Ankara: they agreed the Nabucco gas pipeline from Turkey to Central Europe and then held a sumptuous ceremony to mark the occasion, over which Turkish premier Erdoğan presided like the ringmaster of a great energy circus.

Under-18s will be banned from using sunbeds in Wales because of the risk of skin cancer, the Welsh health minister said today. Edwina Hart also outlined plans to ban unstaffed tanning salons after reports that they were being used by children. Officials in Cardiff are considering all law-making means available to impose the ban. Hart said: "I am particularly concerned about the use of sunbeds by people under the age of 18 and by the use of coin-operated sunbeds." Sunbed operators in Scotland will be banned from serving under-18s and from running unsupervised salons in November.

"We had this big release ceremony," said Karen Dixon, director of Greenwich Audubon. "It was hilarious. I didn't know what I thought would happen. A parade? I guess I don't know what I thought 2,000 insects would look like but basically they were in a Tupperware container."

Cozying Up

Dixon said she also saw many holes in leaves and adult weevils [rhinoncomimus latipe] mating.

"They were very cozy," she said. "They were with each other in the Biblical sense."

It takes two to there years for the weevils to get established and make significant inroads, which they have done to mile-a-minute [persicaria perfoliata] in the mid-Atlantic states, Ellis said.

The provider of the weevils, state-run Phillip Alampi Beneficial Insect Rearing Laboratory in Ewing Township, New Jersey, can provide more of the insects than initially expected, Ellis said. The Connecticut project is funded primarily by the U.S. Agriculture Department.

"The key now is we need to give the weevils time," Ellis said. "We can't expect overnight success."

A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world's population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out only 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three percent of the world's population growth happened in places with very low emissions.

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that about one sixth of the world's population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees (£40) a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning 30,000 rupees or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to the developed nations. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for instance, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together. Even deforestation in poor countries is driven mostly by commercial operations delivering timber, meat and animal feed to rich consumers. The rural poor do far less harm.

Record £1.75bn online spend makes UK first major economy to spend more on web ads than TV, says IAB

The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.

The milestone marks a watershed for the embattled TV industry, the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century. It has taken the internet little more than a decade to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK.

UK advertisers spent £1.75bn on internet advertising in the six months to the end of June, a 4.6% year-on-year increase, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. To put this in perspective, in 1998, when the IAB first measured internet advertising, just £19.4m was spent online.

The trial of four Google executives has begun in Milan with an engineer from the search giant giving evidence.

The executives are accused of breaking Italian law in allowing a video of a teenager with Down's Syndrome to be posted online.

The case, subject to lengthy delays, could have major ramifications for content providers around the globe.

Engineer Jeremy Doig's testimony sought to show that "Google had not committed any crime", said Google's lawyer.

The executives standing trial are David Carl Drummond, head of Google Italy's managing board; George De Los Reyes, a board member; Peter Fleitcher, in charge of privacy protection in Europe; and Arvind Desikan, head of videos for Europe.

The Tango has been declared part of the world's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation aims to preserve a list of legacies under threat from global change.

Argentina and Uruguay, where the dance originated, jointly submitted it.

UNESCO said heritages seeking approval, transmit from "generation to generation" and give "communities and groups a feeling of identity".

It added that the dance "embodies and encourages diversity and cultural dialogue."

Argentinian official Hernan Lombardi said he was "very proud that the music and dance of the Tango have now been safeguarded for humanity.

Back in August, the BBC sent a quiet notice to Ofcom asking for permission to cripple the next generation of digital television broadcasts. The BBC had apparently been meeting "third party content owners" who had "made it clear" that they expected the corporation to find ways to violate the regulation that forbids it from encrypting free television, and it thought it had found a way.

Some background: licence-fee-paid television must be free to receive in the UK. Unlike cable and commercial satellite signals, free-to-air television is carried on public airwaves, which broadcasters are allowed to use for free. In return, broadcasters are expected to provide programming on those airwaves, for free. And not just free as in "free beer", but also free as in "free speech." The terms and conditions for free-to-air telly are "Do anything you want with this, provided it doesn't violate copyright law."

After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

Icann - the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org - said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government.

The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.

In her speech to the Labour conference today, Harriet Harman announced a new, shocking development in the world of online vice:

And there is a very sinister development which we are determined to stop. You know trip advisor - a website where guests put their comments on line for others to see. There is now a website, like that, where pimps put women on sale for sex and then men who've had sex with them put their comments on line. It is `Punternet' and fuels the demand for prostitutes. It is truly degrading and puts women at risk.

<snip until the end of the site owners reply>

    In closing, I would like to thank you for the huge influx of traffic to my website which your actions have caused. I am sure that the ladies who are a part of the PunterNet community thank you as well, as they will no doubt benefit financially from the many new clients who might otherwise never have found them.

The last point is, of course, the most pertinent. In delivering her scoop about the existence of a ten-year old website, Harman has triggered a predictable Streisand effect. But she got her Terminator gag in, so she's probably happy.

James Lovelock, like Sir David Attenborough and Jonathan Porritt, is a patron of the Optimum Population Trust. It is one of dozens of campaigns and charities whose sole purpose is to discourage people from breeding in the name of saving the biosphere. But I haven't been able to find any campaign whose sole purpose is to address the impacts of the very rich.

The obsessives could argue that the people breeding rapidly today might one day become richer. But as the super wealthy grab an ever greater share and resources begin to run dry, this, for most of the very poor, is a diminishing prospect. There are strong social reasons for helping people to manage their reproduction, but weak environmental reasons - except among wealthier populations.

The Optimum Population Trust glosses over the fact that the world is going through demographic transition: population growth rates are slowing down almost everywhere and the number of people is likely, according to a paper in Nature, to peak this century, probably at about 10 billion. Most of the growth will take place among those who consume almost nothing.

But no one anticipates a consumption transition. People breed less as they become richer, but they don't consume less - they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issue is, in Lovelock's words, "hiding from the truth". It is the worst kind of paternalism, blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich.

JK Rowling was denied the US's highest civilian honour because members of the Bush administration believed Harry Potter "encouraged witchcraft", a new book claims.

Matt Latimer, a former speech writer for George W Bush, states in 'Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor' that White House officials objected to the author's perceived promotion of sorcery in the series.

As a result her name was not included amongst those receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it is alleged.

The award acknowledges contributions to US national interest, world peace or cultural endeavours.

The Cirque de Soleil's founder blasted off today to claim the title of first clown in space.

Guy Laliberte, who owns the planet's dominant circus brand, took his show deeper into the galaxy wearing a big red nose and singing a pop song.

The Soyuz capsule took off from Kazakhstan towards the International Space Station carrying the Canadian business-clown who was accompanied by Jeffrey Williams, an American astronaut, and Maxim Surayev, a Russian cosmonaut.

The spacecraft successfully shed its rocket stages and entered orbit minutes after blasting off from the Baikonur launch facility as friends and family on the ground broke into a rendition of Elton John's Rocket Man. Laliberte's presence on the mission relaxed the serious atmosphere usually seen as preparations are made for a rocket launch.

I admit it: I'm a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can't control it. It's Apple. I don't like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.

Seriously, stop it. I don't care if Mac stuff is better. I don't care if Mac stuff is cool. I don't care if every Mac product comes equipped a magic button on the side that causes it to piddle gold coins and resurrect the dead and make holographic unicorns dance inside your head. I'm not buying one, so shut up and go home. Go back to your house. I know, you've got an iHouse. The walls are brushed aluminum. There's a glowing Apple logo on the roof. And you love it there. You absolute MONSTER.

Of course, it's safe to assume Mac products are indeed as brilliant as their owners make out. Why else would they spend so much time trying to convert non-believers? They're not getting paid. They simply want to spread their happiness, like religious crusaders.

Consequently, nothing pleases them more than watching a PC owner struggle with a slab of non-Mac machinery. It validates their spiritual choice. Recently I sat in a room trying to write something on a Sony Vaio PC laptop which seemed to be running a special slow-motion edition of Windows Vista specifically designed to infuriate human beings as much as possible. Trying to get it to do anything was like issuing instructions to a depressed employee over a sluggish satellite feed. When I clicked on an application it spent a small eternity contemplating the philosophical implications of opening it, begrudgingly complying with my request several months later. It drove me up the wall. I called it a bastard and worse. At one point I punched a table.

This drew the attention of two nearby Mac owners. They hovered over and stood beside me, like placid monks.

"Ah: the delights of Vista," said one.

"It really is time you got a Mac," said the other.

"They're just better," sang monk number one.

"You won't regret it," whispered the second.

I scowled and returned to my infernal machine, like a dishevelled park-bench boozer shrugging away two pious AA recruiters by pulling a grubby, dented hip flask from his pocket and pointedly taking an extra deep swig. Leave me alone, I thought. I don't care if you're right. I just want you to die.

I know Windows is awful. Everyone knows Windows is awful. Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.