United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed outgoing European Commission vice president Margot Wallstrom as his special representative for fighting sexual violence against women and children in conflict. 

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced the selection of Margot Wallstrom for the special representative post during his opening speech at the African Union's 14th summit in Addis Ababa.

Among the items topping the agenda are armed conflicts in Somalia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the brutal rape of women and children has become disturbingly common.

Wallstrom reacted to the nomination on Sunday saying she would lobby for sexual violence in war to be recognised as a war crime, attacking what she said was a tendency to explain the abuse of women as "cultural."

 

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament is set for new political powers allowing it to seek the resignation of an individual European Commissioner, following a working relations agreement sealed earlier this week by senior MEPs and commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

Due to be voted on 9 February, the draft power-sharing deal suggests that Mr Barroso must "seriously consider" whether to ask an individual commissioner to step down if parliament withdraws its confidence. If he chooses not to let the commissioner go he then has to explain his reasoning before MEPs.

Under EU treaty rules, MEPs can censure the commission as a whole but not individual members. This new inter-institutional arrangement, while not legally binding, will further increase the political clout of the EU assembly, a trend that has been growing steadily in recent years.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - US President Barack Obama is likely to skip this year's EU-US summit to be held by the Spanish presidency in Madrid, as he is focusing more on the domestic agenda, according to press reports.

The White House has decided that Mr Obama will not attend the summit with the European Union in May, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed US officials.

Barack Obama will travel less this year, as he is focusing on the economic recovery.

Last year, Mr Obama went to Europe six times, as he set about establishing relations with world leaders. Now that those relationships are in place, "so the demands are somewhat different," a senior administration official told the US paper.

Jean-Francois Copé, a centre-Right French politician who has set his sights on succeeding President Nicolas Sarkozy, has called on David Cameron to 'join France' in Europe.

Mr Copé, who has led the French campaign for a blanket ban on the burka, said he "deeply regretted" the position of "our British conservative friends" on Europe.

His remarks came less than three months after France's Europe minister sparked a furore by branding Mr Cameron's pledge to reclaim EU powers as "pathetic" and "autistic".

The Pope has made an unprecedented attack on the human rights policies of Gordon Brown's Government, claiming that they threaten religious freedom and urging Catholic bishops to fight back with "missionary zeal".

Pope Benedict XVI said that new equality legislation was unjust and violated natural law.

He urged the 35 Catholic bishops from England and Wales, in Rome on a five-yearly "ad limina" visit, to make a united stand against the Equality Bill currently going through Parliament.

He claimed the proposed new laws threatened "long-standing British traditions" of freedom of speech.

Silvio Berlusconi was facing a party revolt yesterday over reported plans to field showgirls with little or no political experience as candidates in regional elections next month -- a strategy that caused uproar last year.

The scheme to use attractive young women, including television hostesses, models and Big Brother contestants, as candidates in European and local elections last June was described by Veronica Lario, Mr Berlusconi's wife, as an abuse of power and "shameless trash . . . [to] amuse the Emperor".

Nearly all the candidates were withdrawn after similar criticism.

But amid a rise in popularity after a physical attack on him in December, the Italian Prime Minister appears to be reviving the plan.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is set to back Greek government plans to rein in public spending when the full college of 27 commissioners meets this Wednesday (3 February).

In comments made to Reuters on Monday morning, and subsequently confirmed at a new conference in Brussels, EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the Greek spending cuts are achievable but are also surrounded by risks.

The Greek government plans to sharply cut back public spending this year

"What we are saying to the Greek authorities is: your stability programme has established ambitious targets and objectives and we fully endorse these ambitious objectives," Mr Almunia told the news agency.

"We consider that the achievement of these objectives in the coming three years, before the end of 2012, is absolutely necessary. These objectives are achievable but they are surrounded by risks," he added.

Member states are struggling to bring the EU Services Directive into national law while carefully watching other countries' development, a EurActiv round-up has found.

The European Commission has long viewed the Services Directive as a crucial step in completing the EU's single market, but member states' failure to put it in place before the recently expired December 2009 deadline led to much hand-wringing and debate in Brussels.

The argument centres on how the Commission will respond should infringement procedures be launched to force member states to speed up their efforts. The question floating around is whether a "softly-softly" approach would be more appropriate given the complexities of this troublesome dossier.

State aid: Commission approves second prolongation of Danish guarantee scheme for new debt

... The Commission found the second prolongation of the measures, initially approved on 3 February 2009 (see IP/09/206 ) and prolonged for a first period of six months on 17 August 2009 (see MEX/09/0817 ), to be in line with its Communication on state aid to overcome the financial crisis. ...

Banking Expert Group - call for expressions of interest

... Interested candidates should apply by 28 February 2010 according to the instructions contained in the call for expression of interest and the mandate, which are available at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/bank/group_of_experts/index_en.htm

Paweł Samecki, European Commissioner for Regional Policy, will address the Danube Region stakeholder conference in the German city of Ulm (Baden-Württemberg) tomorrow (2 February). This marks the launch of a series of consultation events aimed at shaping the Commission's plans for a European Strategy for the Danube Region. Building on the positive experience of the first 'macro-regional' strategy in the Baltic Sea Region, this latest initiative seeks to develop the huge economic potential of Europe's longest river, and improve environmental conditions in and around the wider Danube region.

Labour is closing the gap with the Conservatives amid public doubts about David Cameron's economic policies, according to a poll for The Independent.

The ComRes survey found that 82 per cent of people want Mr Cameron to be clearer about what he would do on the economy - including 82 per cent of Tory supporters. Only 24 per cent believe the recession would have ended sooner if the Tories had been in power, while 69 per cent do not.

Chancellor Merkel says Germany is likely to buy data on possible tax-evaders that media say an informant has offered to sell authorities. The case could spark a fresh tax row between Germany and Switzerland. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that she was in favor of acquiring the information on citizens who had allegedly sheltered millions in secret Swiss bank accounts.

 

"Like every reasonable person, I support doing everything we can to clamp down on tax evasion," Merkel told reporters. "If these data are relevant we should aim to get hold of them."

 

German media reported over the weekend that an informant had offered data of up to 1,500 possible tax evaders with accounts in Switzerland which could lead to 100 million euros for state coffers. 

France's profit-making oil giant Total has postponed until late June a decision on the future of a refinery near Dunkirk, in northern France, pledging to guarantee the jobs of 370 workers there. AFP - French oil giant Total said Monday it had postponed until late June a decision on the future of a refinery in northern France and pledged to guarantee the jobs of 370 people employed there.
  
The announcement was made during a meeting of the company's workers' committee that drew 1,000 demonstrators, according to trade unions and 500 according to police.
  
Total came under sharp attack from political leaders last March when it announced plans to cut 555 jobs in France after turning a profit of 13.9 billion euros (19 billion dollars) in 2008.

Many countries have started to see a rebound from last year's economic recession. But will it last? Economists at the World Economic Forum in Davos warn that paying down massive public debt will be "very, very painful." Deep spending cuts and significant tax hikes may be unavoidable.

For those now in their 30s, Kenneth Rogoff has bad news. "It will be terrible for you," the Harvard University economics professor told a young German at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Germany's debt is exploding, the population is aging," he said. "And to be honest, I think your country is going to have average growth of just 1 percent in the coming years."

Rogoff went on to say that, should Germany wish to begin making inroads into its mountain of debt, there is no way around strict savings measures and significant tax increases. "It will be very, very painful," Rogoff said, adding that it will take at least a decade, and possibly many more, for Germany to pay down its debt.

He wasn't the only one in Davos with a dark vision of the future. Many countries could be stricken with the "Japan illness," Robert Shiller, a behavioral economist at Yale University, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Following a financial crisis in the 1980s, Japan's economy remained in the doldrums for years as trust in the economy's ability to recover evaporated. Few were willing to take risks, sapping the Japanese economy of its life blood, said Shiller. "Such a situation could take hold in many regions of the world."

Zero Hedge recently highlighted the ever increasing Federal outlays on unemployment insurance, leading to questions on whether the true unemployment rate, as indicated by actual cash outlays, may be materially higher than indicated in increasingly dubious governmental reports. One proposed alternative has been that the Federal government is directly subsidizing standalone states' depleted unemployment insurance trust funds. Using data provided by ProPublica we have been able to confirm that indeed standalone states are for the most part now bankrupt and have no reserves left in their coffers when it comes to funding ever increasing insurance benefits. As ProPublica indicates, there are now 26 states which have depleted their trust funds, among these are the usual suspects including California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, which now rely exclusively on borrowings from the Federal government to prevent the cessation of insurance payments to recently unemployed workers. Currently all states collectively posses $10.7 billion in trust fund assets(with the bulk held by less impacted states such as Washington ($2.6 billion), Louisiana ($1.1 billion) and Oregon ($1.1 billion). On the other hand, 26 states currently rely exclusively on the Federal Government, and have borrowed a combined $30 billion through December to fund payments. ProPublica estimates that another 8 states will be insolvent within 6 months, as their trust funds also approach 0.

The main features of the concluded negotiations are as follows:
Concessions granted by Norway to the EU:

• Additional full liberalisation representing roughly some 20% of the EU exports to Norway, or €250 million.
  
• New tariff quotas, in the meat sector (600 t for swine meat, 600 t for poultry and 900 t for bovine meat))
  
• Additional tariff quotas concerning cheese (2700 t) cereals (durum wheat 5000 tons, maize 10000 tons, rye 1000 tons), fruits and vegetables (strawberries 300 tons, potatoes 3000 tons, lettuce 400 tons), meat products (sausages 200 tons, ham 200 tons, bacon crisp 100 tons) and juices (apple 1000 tons, bilberry 200 tons, blackcurrant 150 tons). The trade value is estimated at around €50 million.
  
• Tariff reductions applying for some ornamental plants and flowers, namely begonias, roses, tulips and lilies. The trade concerned by these concessions is of €3.5 million.
  

Concessions granted by the EU to Norway:

• Full liberalisation on products on which Norway offers full liberalisation;
  
• Additional Tariff quotas for cheese (3 200 t), fresh raspberries (400 t), potato chips (200 tons) and pet food (13 000 t).

The Commission's examination of the proposed transaction showed that the horizontal overlaps between the activities of Deutsche Bank and Sal. Oppenheim, such as the distribution of mutual funds and the provision of private banking services, are limited and that, for all products and services concerned, the merged entity would continue to face effective competition.

The Commission examined the effects of the proposed transaction on the provision of broadband internet access as well as on mobile and fixed telephony. The Commission found that in view of their different business focusses, Telefónica and Hansenet are not major competitors for each other in any of the relevant markets. Moreover, both the horizontal and the vertical relationships between the activities of Hansenet and Telefonica in Germany are limited and the combined firm would continue to face a number of strong, effective competitors, including the incumbent operator Deutsche Telekom.

Nous faisions de grands progrès en termes de taux d'emploi et ensuite la crise a frappé de plein fouet, détruisant une grande partie de nos efforts. Ce fut un coup dur. Mais grâce à notre travail ensemble, grâce à notre dialogue avec les partenaires sociaux, notre réponse a été forte, efficace et coordonnée.

Oui, les taux de chômage ont augmenté, et dans certains pays, beaucoup. Mais beaucoup moins qu'aux Etats Unis, et beaucoup moins que ce que les experts craignaient au début. La crise a démontré l'importance et les bienfaits du modèle social européen et de nos systèmes de protection sociale - c'est une leçon essentielle à retenir.

Les mesures prises ont aidé à maintenir les gens dans leur emploi. Les mois à venir seront durs, nous continuerons à voir le chômage augmenter - il y a toujours un laps de temps entre la reprise économique et la reprise de l'emploi. Notre grand défi est de continuer à aider les travailleurs pendant cette période, surtout les jeunes et les vulnérables, mais aussi de s'assurer que notre reprise économique ne soit pas une croissance sans création d'emplois. Dans ce contexte là, une stratégie Europe 2020 réaliste mais ambitieuse est essentielle.

The European Commission can confirm that it is assessing the effectiveness of proposed commitments received from British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia to alleviate the Commission's concerns regarding potential anticompetitive agreements under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU, formerly Article 81 EC Treaty). The agreements relate to passenger transport on certain long-haul routes. As part of this assessment process, and before deciding whether the proposed commitments will be suitable to remedy the Commission's concerns and for a public market test, the Commission is sending the proposed commitments first to a number of key market players for comments.

In April 2009 the Commission opened proceedings in relation to its concerns about agreements between British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia (see MEMO/09/168 ). Pursuant to these agreements, the parties intend to jointly manage schedules, capacity and pricing, as well as share revenues on transatlantic routes between North America and Europe.

British Airways, American Airlines and Iberia offered commitments in order to alleviate the Commission's concerns. This proposal requires further investigation before the Commission reaches any conclusion as to the next steps.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A maiden U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co, the Defense Department said.

Barack Obama

The Missile Defense Agency said both the target missile, fired from Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and the interceptor, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, had performed normally after launch on Sunday.

"However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected," the agency said on its web site. Officials will investigate the cause of the failure to intercept, it said.

The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defense, the sole U.S. bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads

The Pakistani newspaper, The News alleges that:

"Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans.

US President Barack Obama has cancelled the American project designed to take humans back to the Moon.

The Constellation programme envisaged new rockets and a new crewship called Orion to put astronauts on the lunar surface by 2020.

But in his federal budget request issued on Monday, Mr Obama said the project was "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation".

It was draining resources from other US space agency activities, he added.

He plans instead to turn to the private sector for launch services.

The decision was immediately condemned by Congressional figures who represent workforces dependent on Constellation.

Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday (1 February) said that roughly 500 more police trainers are needed in Afghanistan, echoing similar calls from the EU's own mission on the ground.

"Training is an investment in the transition of Afghanistan and I will press hard for this," Mr Rasmussen said during a press conference in Brussels detailing the agenda of an informal meeting of Nato defence ministers due to take place in Istanbul on 4-5 February.

He said some 100 police and 21 army training units - each comprising four to five trainers - are still needed.

"I will make a demand from all Nato members and partners to eliminate the deficiencies of training mission in Afghanistan," he said.

These days, liberals don't know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan to worrying that, in the wake of Democrat Martha Coakley's defeat in Massachusetts, he won't get any plan through Congress. On other subjects, too, from Afghanistan to Wall Street, Obama has thoroughly let down his party's left flank.

Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama's three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country's regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn't simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama's revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office.

Since 2003, Central Asia has been targeted for funding in disaster preparedness and risk reduction. This latest decision will continue to fund local disaster management at community level, coordination mechanisms at local, national and regional levels; public awareness-raising,training and education; early warning systems, exchanges of know-how, mitigation works and stock-building of relief items.

Amidst otherwise strong coverage of the growing debate around the nature of finance and the power of big banks, a surprisingly high number of journalists continue to misuse the word "populism".

For example, in an article on criticism of bankers at Davos, the Wall Street on Saturday morning reported that President Sarkozy of France delivered a "populist broadside" when he said,

   "That those who create jobs and wealth may earn a lot of money is not shocking.  But that those who contribute to destroying jobs and wealth also earn a lot of money is morally indefensible."

The implication, of course, is that some politicians are pandering to "the people" vs. "the elites" - part of a long-standing theme in some interpretations of democratic political conflict.  While elites invest and engage in productive activities, the argument goes, plebians from time to time demand excessive income redistribution or punitive taxation or other measures that would undermine productivity and prosperity.

I had seen the NYT op-ed by David Brooks and been massively annoyed. "Populist" ranks right up there with "Liberal" and "Conspiracy" among useful words that the right-wing mainstream has worked to stigmatize. Simon Johnson does a really good job of deconstructing that process in this particular instance. His first link (above) is to Brooks' op-ed. Johnson continues:

Or, as President Obama said in March 2009, "My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."

Such language reveals a complete misunderstanding of our current situation.  (Matt Taibbi has this right, but doesn't go far enough.)

The problem we face is not that the broader population wants pointless or destructive revenge on a financial elite that has done well.  Nor is it the case that, if left largely to its own devices, our major banks will guide us back along the path to sustainable growth.

The consensus technocratic assessment is simple: We are smack in the middle of a doomsday cycle of repeated boom-bust-bailout (our version; the Bank of England's take).  The core issue - banks considered "too big to fail" - was not resolved in or after the crisis of 2008-09; if anything, as these banks have increased in size, the problem is now worse.  We are therefore doomed to run headlong into another crisis.

This view is increasingly the developing consensus of most economists, many people active in financial markets (e.g., judging by reactions to this piece), top policy analysts from right and left, clear thinking central bankers, and pretty much anyone else who follows the news.  Elites are deeply split along pro- and anti-big bank lines.  Most people who do not have a conflict of interest - i.e., don't work for big banks or the administration - want to see the most dangerous parts of our financial sector reined in and made safer. Even leaders of the global nonfinancial business elite begin to understand what has happened and what comes next.

The fact that dramatic banking reforms would be popular does not make them populist.  It merely means that a broad cross-section of our population has woken up to part of our appalling reality.  Sure, they are angry - but with good reason, and the remedies they seek are entirely appropriate.  Most of our elites are on the side of the broader population on this issue; only the diseased heart of Wall Street holds out.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Obama administration remains convinced that merely tweaking our existing regulations is the only responsible way forward.

COLORADO SPRINGS -- This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops -- dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

sigh

you are the media you consume.

At the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today on the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) expressed his concern that repealing the rule would pave the way for allowing "alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art" in the military

A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation - especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

The emails were stolen from a backup computer server used by the University of East Anglia. They contained private discussions between climate scientists that have embarrassed those involved, particularly Professor Phil Jones, who has stepped down from his post as head of the unit pending an independent inquiry into whether there is any evidence of scientific misconduct. He is not implicated in the hacking.

Rajendra Pachauri, who has faced criticism as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change following allegations of inaccurate statements in panel reports, suffered a fresh blow last night when he failed to get the backing of the British government.

A senior government official reiterated Pachauri's position but stopped short of expressing confidence in him. "The position is that he is the chair and he has indicated that mistakes were made," the climate change official said. "There is no vacancy at this stage, so there is no issue at this stage."

It sounds too good to be true: a non-toxic spray invisible to the human eye that protects almost any surface against dirt and bacteria, whether it is hospital equipment and medical bandages or ancient stone monuments and expensive fabrics.

But true it is. The spray is a form of "liquid glass" and is harmless to living things and the wider environment. It is being touted as one of the most important, environmentally-friendly products to emerge from the field of nanotechnology, which deals in objects at the molecular end of the size scale.

Tests have revealed an astonishing variety of potential uses for the liquid glass, from protecting vineyards against fungal attacks to coating medical implants with non-stick, antibacterial surfaces. Scientists have even used it to spray fabric with an invisible, dirt-resistant film - emulating the fictional invention of unstainable clothing in the 1951 Ealing comedy The Man in the White Suit.

A new ranking of the world's nations by environmental performance puts some of the globe's largest economies far down the list, with the United States sinking to 61st and China to 121st.

In the previous version of the Environmental Performance Index, compiled every two years by Yale and Columbia University researchers, the United States ranked 39th, and China 105th.

The top performer this year is Iceland, which gets virtually all of its power from renewable sources -- hydropower and geothermal energy. It was joined in the top tier by a cluster of European countries known for their green efforts, including Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and Finland.

"Countries that take seriously the environment as a policy challenge do improve, and those that don't deteriorate," said Daniel C. Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, who oversees the index project. "Both the U.S. and China are suffering because they're industrial and haven't been paying much attention to environmental policy."

The European Commission is working on a framework for developing Europe's electricity grids to integrate the massive increase in renewable energy expected in the next decade, a senior official said last week (28 January).

Speaking at a roundtable debate in Brussels, Hans van Steen, head of unit at the Commission's energy and transport department, responded to calls for the power industry and policymakers to be brought together to agree on a grid development plan.

"The Commission will be producing an infrastructure package, hopefully by the end of this year, where we will be looking at grid requirements," said van Steen, speaking at a conference in Brussels.

He said the "package" would be looking at replacing the current Trans-European Energy Networks with new instruments. Moreover, it would address the issue of linking up new capacity for offshore wind in the North Sea.

The European Commission today adopted a decision concerning a second request from Italy for additional time to comply with EU legislation on air quality. The decision relates to a request for temporary exemptions in 12 additional zones or agglomerations from the EU's air quality standards for dangerous airborne particles known as PM 10 in the regions of Campania, Puglia and Sicilia. The Commission decision approved a time extension for PM 10 in one air quality zone in the region of Campania but objected to all other requests. Some 20 decisions have already been adopted in 2009 one of them on an earlier request from Italy for different zones or agglomerations. The vast majority of air quality zones in the EU did not satisfy the conditions for a time extension, or were already found to be in compliance with the limit values.

Overseeing the safe and environmentally sound management of waste is one of the most serious environmental challenges facing the EU today. An estimated 2.6 billion tonnes of waste is generated in the EU each year - about 90 million tonnes of this is classified as hazardous.

The study published today recommends setting up a dedicated agency at EU level to tackle the underlying problems of poor implementation and enforcement of European waste legislation. The scale of the problem has grown in recent years following increases in waste generated and shipped in the enlarged EU. In 2008, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the Commission to report on the feasibility of establishing a "Community environmental inspection force".

The agency would carry out a number of tasks such as reviews of enforcement systems in Member States, coordinated controls and inspection activities. This would be combined with the creation of a specific European body responsible for direct inspections and controls of facilities and sites in serious cases of non-compliance. A European network of Member States would support the agency in a number of activities.

Nel mondo vanno persi ogni anno (dati 2008) quasi 33 milioni di bagagli, cioè quasi 90 000 bagagli al giorno. Ciò significa, per la sola Europa, praticamente 10 000 bagagli smarriti quotidianamente. A livello europeo, possiamo stimare circa 6 milioni di bagagli persi ogni anno. Secondo l'AEA (Association of European Airlines), il tasso di smarrimento (inverno 2008/2009) è stato pari a 13 per 1000 passeggeri, a fronte dei 15,5 dell'inverno precedente. L'EPF (European Passengers' Federation) ha parlato di un bagaglio perduto ogni 64 passeggeri circa.

Insomma nonostante la tendenza positiva, grazie soprattutto agli sforzi dell'industria negli ultimi anni per migliorare i servizi, occorre fare di più per contrastare questa tendenza.

Ho già dato pubblicamente atto all'industria di essersi attivata in questi ultimi tempi. Mi riferisco alla IATA, la quale con il suo BIP ("Baggage Improvement Programme") si è lanciata la sfida ambiziosa di ridurre del 50% il numero dei bagagli smarriti entro il 2012, o ancor l'idea della pulce elettronica sui bagagli, sperimentata ormai da varie compagnie aeree.

What do a loud-mouthed English ladette, a svelte Ukrainian vamp, a dashing Polish casanova and a bagpipe-playing Frenchman all have in common? Bar-stool jokes aside, they're all members of YRN - the association of European regions' youth network. About 150 people meet annually to discuss how to use Europe to hoist them out of the economic doldrums. cafebabel.com caught up with them in Paris this December

Charlotte Kudé, 18, is unflinching, even intimidating as she delivers her welcome speech to a cavernous conference room of blinking euro-youths. At an age when many of us were busy smoking rollies and looking moody, she has managed to get herself elected as president of a youth network that represents 270 regions from 33 countries. Her audience do not hail simply from Milan, Frankfurt or Berlin, but from regions as diverse as the sunlight-shy Gavleborg in Sweden, the Atlantic archipelago of the Azores, and the eastern extremities of Georgia. This is Europe's real international generation - a bunch of twentysomethings who think little of jumping on a plane to Paris at a moment's notice, unfazed by a three-day conference held entirely in English, most wielding a command of at least two foreign languages. The post-erasmus society who have found themselves disenfranchised by the greed of middle-aged bankers are more than ready to utilise Europe to take back their futures.

A priest last week admitted in a statement to SPIEGEL he had abused a number of pupils at an elite Berlin high school run by Jesuit priests. In recent days, around 20 former students have come forward alleging they were sexually abused by priests at the school. The director of Canisius College has described the years-long abuse as "systematic."

Berlin's Canisius College, a university-prep high school run by Jesuit priests, is one of the most elite schools in the German capital. Former students from the respected private school have reached the upper echelons of business, politics and society. For the past week, however, Canisius College has been at the center of a major sexual abuse scandall.

Last week, around 20 former students claimed they had been sexually abused by two teachers at the school, Wolfgang S. and Peter R. The abuse is believed to have been committed during the 1970s and 1980s.

Almost half of European recruiters seek information on potential candidates using online social networks and almost a quarter have rejected candidacies on the basis of their research, according to a survey released for EU Data Protection Day.

When asked how they collect information about people they plan to hire, 43% of European human resources professionals surveyed reply that they analyse the online reputation of the candidate, mainly through search engines, social networking websites, personal sites and blogs.

In Germany, 59% of recruiters make use of personal data collected on the Internet for the evaluation of a candidate, 47% in the UK, and 23% in France. The EU average is much lower than the US, where 79% of HR experts scan the Web in search of personal information for recruiting purposes.

Crazy as it sounds, over the next several weeks I'm going to try to do something close to that. I'll be writing about the elements of mathematics, from pre-school to grad school, for anyone out there who'd like to have a second chance at the subject -- but this time from an adult perspective. It's not intended to be remedial. The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it's so enthralling to those who get it.

...

The creative process here is the same as the one that gave us numbers in the first place. Just as numbers are a shortcut for counting by ones, addition is a shortcut for counting by any amount. This is how mathematics grows. The right abstraction leads to new insight, and new power.

...

Yet despite this infinite vista, there are always constraints on our creativity. We can decide what we mean by things like 6 and +, but once we do, the results of equations like 6 + 6 are beyond our control. In mathematics, we'll see in the coming weeks, our freedom lies in the questions we ask -- and in how we pursue them -- but not in the answers awaiting us.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Silvio Berlusconi and his estranged wife have met for the first time in nine months as their lawyers reportedly exchanged details of alleged infidelities during bitter divorce talks.

The 73-year-old Italian prime minister and Veronica Lario, 53, spent 20 minutes in the same room during a five-hour meeting between their lawyers. The infidelity claims formed part of the talks between their representatives, the Italian media reported on Sunday.

Miss Lario is demanding €3.5 million (£3 million) a month in maintenance from her husband of 19 years, claiming that she could no longer be with a man who "associates with minors", a reference to her husband's friendship with a teenage model whose 18th birthday party he attended last year.

For today's episode in the Clearstream show, here is Carla Bruni being indignant. In the video below, the chanteuse-supermodel reacts to a question about the duel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin. The interviewer caught her off-guard on Saturday by asking about the affair.

She is stunned, she says, by Villepin's charge that the President had ordered the prosecutors to appeal against his acquittal. She is amazed that so many people are questioning the independence of the French justice system. "It's a criminal trial, you understand, it's about a criminal trial, not politics,"she says with a hiss. When RTL radio went to a commercial, the smile switched off and she threatened to walk out of the studio, according to journalists there. She had been expecting only soft questions on her work for people with Aids.

Mrs Sarkozy must be one of a small minority or she takes her adopted compatriots for fools. Few believe the official line that Jean-Claude Marin, the chief prosecutor, did not receive word from the Elysée Palace after Villepin's acquittal on Thursday. The prosecution, mainly initiated by Sarkozy when he was a presidential candidate, was eminently political.

Well, it's still the case that there's no single good website for breaking news. But there is David Roberts on Twitter.