US airline Continental and five individuals have gone on trial in France over the crash of an Air France Concorde nearly 10 years ago.

The jet took off in flames from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and crashed minutes later, killing 113 people.

The presiding judge began the proceedings by reading out the names of all those who died.

An official report said Concorde had hit a metal strip from a Continental plane that had taken off earlier.

But Continental's lawyers say they can prove the supersonic jet caught fire before it struck the titanium strip.

A Polish court has issued a European arrest warrant for a Swede alleged to be behind the theft of the Arbeit Macht Frei sign from Auschwitz.

A court official in the southern city of Krakow said the warrant had been issued for Anders Hogstrom.

The metal sign was stolen in December from above the entrance to the notorious Nazi death camp. It was later recovered, cut into three pieces.

Five Polish men have already been arrested over the theft.

US President Barack Obama is to stay away from a Spanish US-EU summit scheduled for May, in what some see as a blow to Europe's diplomatic prestige.

The White House said Mr Obama had had no plans to attend the event, and aides pointed out he had visited Europe six times in 2009.

Mr Obama attended US-EU summits in Prague and Washington last year.

A Spanish official quoted by AP news agency said Madrid had assumed Mr Obama would be attending the May event.

The European Court of Human Rights has deferred its decision on whether an England fan should be extradited to Portugal to serve a jail term.

Garry Mann, 51, of Faversham, Kent, was given a two-year term for his role in a riot in Albufeira during Euro 2004.

Portugal is seeking extradition under a fast-track European Arrest Warrant because Mann did not serve his sentence in the UK after deportation.

His lawyers claim he had an unfair trial under a fast-track procedure

DUP leader Peter Robinson was faced with threats of resignations when he put a proposed justice deal to his assembly team, the BBC understands.

After Monday's meeting, party sources said Mr Robinson was seeking unanimous support for a deal before moving ahead.

It is believed the meeting was stormy, with a secret ballot ending in a 60/40 split in favour of the proposals.

It is now thought talks between the DUP and Sinn Fein could go on until the end of the week.

A Welsh assembly vote next week could enable AMs to "trigger" the process for a referendum on further powers.

The Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru leaders, Carwyn Jones and Ieuan Wyn Jones, have confirmed it will begin the process towards the referendum.

The vote on Tuesday, 9 February will be drafted to facilitate the so-called "trigger," but the assembly government is not sure of the 40 votes it needs.

Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say they could abstain.

Britain's "first past the post" voting system could be scrapped if Labour wins the general election, under plans which have been outlined by Gordon Brown.

The prime minister wants a referendum on changing to an "alternative vote" system, where candidates are ranked in order of voters' preference.

MPs will vote next week on holding a referendum after the general election.

The Tories accused the PM of wanting to "fiddle" the system while the Lib Dems said the plan did not go far enough.

An attempt to delay a bid to provide free personal care at home for some 250,000 people in England has failed.

The House of Lords voted against a motion tabled by former health minister Lord Warner.

He had argued that the government's proposal was "unaffordable" and proper consultation had not taken place.

The proposal was originally put forward by Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Labour's conference and is expected to be a key part of its election campaign.

The plan has attracted criticism from peers, local government and campaigners because a wider review of social care is also taking place.

Immigration Minister Eric Besson said Tuesday that French citizenship has been denied to a man for forcing his wife to wear the head-to-toe veil and for rejecting the principles of secularism and equality between men and women.

AFP - A foreign national who forced his French wife to wear the full Islamic veil will be denied French citizenship, the immigration minister said Tuesday.

Eric Besson said he had signed a decree rejecting the man's citizenship application after it emerged that he had ordered his wife to cover herself with the head-to-toe veil.

"It emerged during the inquiry and the interview process that this person forced his wife to wear the full veil, deprived her of freedom of movement with her face exposed and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women," said Besson in a statement.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU's new president, Herman Van Rompuy, has opted to hold his first EU summit in an old library in order to create an informal atmosphere.

The 11 February meeting is to take place in the 108-year-old Bibliotheque Solvay, situated in a small park between the EU member states' normal meeting venue, the Justus Lipsius building, and the European Parliament complex in Brussels.

The 27 leaders will spend almost the whole day, from 9am until 6pm, alone in the library's wood-panneled and book-lined main room. Each leader will be allowed to bring along one advisor, but the 27 aides will be segregated in a separate chamber.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the EU's foreign relations chief, Catherine Ashton, have also been invited.

Committee meetings and political groups week - Brussels

Hearing of Kristalina Georgieva.  The new Bulgarian Commissioner-designate is scheduled to appear before the Development Committee for a three-hour hearing (Wednesday).

SWIFT agreement.  The Civil Liberties Committee is set to vote on the EU's agreement with the US on the sharing of bank transfer data (Thursday).

EP President in France.  Jerzy Buzek will be in Paris for an official visit to France. He will meet President Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister François Fillon and others, including leaders of the French National Assembly and Senate. (Tuesday-Wednesday).

EP/European Council.  Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, will attend a meeting of the political group leaders and the EP President (Thursday).

Spanish Presidency.  Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos will be at the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees (Thursday).

EP/Mongolia.  President Buzek will meet the President of Mongolia, Elbegdorj Tsakhia, after which the two leaders will give an informal press briefing (Monday).

Ukrainian election.  A delegation of MEPs will observe the second round of Ukraine's presidential election (Thursday- Monday).

Preparations for the plenary.  The political groups will devote most of the week to their plans for the 8-11 February plenary session.  The key event is the scheduled vote on the new European Commission.  The session also includes debates on the progress made by Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia towards EU membership and votes on Haiti, Iran and Yemen, as well as on the Copenhagen climate summit.  Rules on EU support for improving social housing and a debate on needlestick injuries in hospitals area also on the agenda.

Pre-session press briefing.  Parliament's Press Service and the spokespeople of the main political groups will present the session agenda at the regular briefing on Friday (Anna Politkovskaya room PHS 0A050, 11am).

The Brussels bureaucracy is an authority that claims to want the best for us, he said.

»But instead it sees us as helpless minors without consent, as subjects that have to be convinced,« he said in his acceptance speech - a biting satire against the attempts by eurocrats to sidetrack a better European democracy.

»Every criticism of European institutions is conceived by these people as somehow anti-European,« Enzensberger said.

The mandate of the Barroso I European Commission ended 31 October 2009. Since then, it has continued as a "caretaker" Commission which must only fulfil its public service duty without making any new political or legislative initiatives. The European Parliament's role has been to monitor the Commission to make sure it acts in principle only as a caretaker.

The European Parliament is due to vote on the election of a new Commission in Strasbourg 9 February 2010. This background note is a summary of the procedural issues concerning the appointment of the new Commission.

• Number of Commissioners
  
• Hearings
  
• Vote on the Commission College
  
• What happens after the vote ?
  
• Previous votes on the Commissions

EP President Jerzy Buzek has expressed his consternation at the detention of 2009 Sakharov Prize Winner Oleg Orlov and 100 others in Moscow. He said: "I call on the Russian authorities to cease this heavy-handed treatment of peaceful demonstrators."

...

"On behalf of the European Parliament I have to express my consternation on hearing of the detention of some 100 people, including Oleg Orlov, head of the Memorial human rights Center, and Laureate of the Sakharov Prize 2009. They were arrested during a peaceful demonstration on Triumphalnaya Square, in Moscow on 31 January.

It is the second time since the award of the 2009 Sakharov Prize in Strasbourg in December that one of our laureates has been arrested. On 31 December 2009, 82 year-old Lyudmila Alexeyeva faced similar action merely for defending the constitutional right to demonstrate freely and peacefully.

In seinem Urteil vom 2. Oktober 2007, betreffend Nachbesteuerung von 1995 bis 2000, hielt das Schweizerische Bundesgericht in Lausanne die Nutzung dieser Daten - die laut Gericht auf der Basis einer "Verletzung des Geschäftsgeheimnisses" entstanden waren - durch die Steuer- und die Steuerstrafbehörden für zulässig.

Kristijan Golubovic (40) likes to compare himself to Robin Hood. "I never bothered poor fruit vendors," he said, speaking during an interview in his spacious home, located in Belgrade's outskirts. When he robbed an electronics store, it would be one carrying high-end brands for the rich. "I would steal 50 Bang & Olufsens that would end up with people unable to afford even a Sony."

The famous Serbian criminal Golubovic was released from prison a year ago, and he claims to have since limited his activities to participating in so called `ultimate fighting' tournaments. His presence can draw a crowd to these events. He also doles out advice to his fans by email. "A lot of people ask if I want to godfather their child," he said.

Brilliant reporting. Read to the end...

Dementia now costs the UK economy twice as much as cancer but gets a fraction of the funding to find causes and cures, a report seen by the BBC shows.

For every one pound spent on dementia research, 12 times that sum goes on investigating cancer, figures from the Alzheimer's Research Trust indicate.

Bridging this gap is urgent, it says, particularly given the numbers with dementia are much higher than thought.

With 821,884 sufferers, dementia costs the UK £23bn annually, the report says.

No prosecutions will take place in Britain in connection with the multibillion-dollar fraud carried out by Bernard Madoff.

Investigators from the Serious Fraud Office have been investigating Madoff Securities International, the British arm of his operations.

But it said no further action would be taken against the firm or its directors owing to insufficient evidence.

Madoff, aged 71, is s

Toyota Motors says its massive vehicle recall could cost it up to $2bn (£1.25bn) in lost output and sales.

It is in the process of recalling millions of vehicles which are potentially prone to uncontrolled acceleration.

It said the massive vehicle check might spread from the US and Europe to include the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

The company said 180,000 cars had been sold in those regions.

The carmaker has identified eight models as potentially at risk, but stresses that very few are actually faulty.

The yuan needs to appreciate to reduce China's dependence on exports for growth, says the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The OECD argues that more exchange rate flexibility and targeting inflation would help economic stability in China.

Its report also said the Chinese economy was weathering the global crisis "remarkably well".

It grew by 8.7% in 2009, setting it on course to become the world's second-largest, leaving Japan in third place.

Shadow chancellor George Osborne has said he wants a "more solid" economy for Britain built on savings, enterprise and exports.

He said the economy under Gordon Brown was "severely unbalanced" and growth driven by "public and private debt".

Easyjet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou is among those backing a new Tory economic model, the shadow chancellor said.

Meanwhile Mr Brown has denied the claim that Labour plans for the economy were not clear enough for the City.

BP has reported a sharp drop in profits in 2009 as it grappled with cheaper energy prices and squeezed margins on refining.

The oil company said underlying profits in the fourth quarter rose 70% on a year earlier to $4.4bn (£2.75bn), but that missed the City's forecasts. The year as a whole suffered a 45% fall in profits to $14bn.

Still, BP sought to flag up a stronger-than-expected 4% rise in oil and gas production in 2009 thanks to the start-up of new projects, including the first full year of production from the Thunder Horse field in the US Gulf of Mexico.

Reader's Digest in the UK was at risk of collapsing into administration today after a funding deal for its pension scheme failed.

Negotiations between its embattled US parent group, Reader's Digest Association, and the UK pensions regulator appeared to have broken down over an agreement for the UK title's pension fund.

The move is understood to leave the future of about 135 jobs hanging in the balance. There are 1,600 members of its pension scheme.

The Investment bank Goldman Sachs is facing a storm of criticism over reports its chief executive could pocket a bonus of up to $100m.

Officials at Goldman Sachs say no decision has been made yet on how much compensation will be paid to its CEO after a year of record profits.
 
The rumour, however, that Lloyd Blankfein might get a bonus of as much as $100m first surfaced last week at the annual shindig of the great and the good in global economics and business at Davos, Switzerland.
 
Goldman Sachs is sensitive to criticism about how much it pays staff.
 
All its London-based partners have agreed to limit their pay to £1 million (about $150m) after a levy was imposed on them by the UK government.
 
Last month Goldman announced that only 35.8 per cent of its revenue for 2009 would be paid out to staff, down from 48 per cent in 2008.

Small firms have been hard hit by the economic crisis, and so must be given incentives and support, including easier access to credit, help with innovation, tax breaks and less red tape, MEPs on Parliament's Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis (CRIS), and experts agreed at a workshop on Monday.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), "represent the backbone of the European economy, provide most jobs and are the most creative. They therefore contribute considerably to the EU's success", declared Special Committee Chairman Wolf Klinz (ALDE, DE), opening the workshop on the impact of the crisis on SMEs.

...

In Europe, greater freedom to "hire and fire", which Mr  Braunerhjelm listed as a worthwhile labour market measure, is "almost the F-word (...) it is an American model," said Olle Schmidt (ALDE, SE). "We don't need to copy the US system", but  we do need a "system that enables restructuring", replied Mr Braunerhjelm.

Commission clears acquisition of Pisto Group by Macquarie Funds and Antin IP

The European Commission has granted clearance under the EU Merger Regulation to the acquisition of joint control of Macquarie Strategic Storage Facilities Holdings S.a.r.l. (MSSFH) of Luxembourg and its subsidiaries (together The Pisto Group) of France by Macquarie Funds and Antin Infrastructure Partners (Antin IP), also of France. Macquarie Funds is active in financial and infrastructure investment activities. Antin IP is an infrastructure investment fund sponsored by BNP Paribas, a French-based provider of banking and financial services. The Pisto Group is active in the oil products storage sector. The operation was examined under the simplified merger review procedure.

In December 2009 compared with December 2008, industrial producer prices fell by 2.9% in the euro area and by 1.7% in the EU27 .

The average industrial producer price index for 2009, compared with 2008, decreased by 5.1% in the euro area and by 4.3% in the EU27 .

These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union .

The Set-up--"The Court is Now in Session, the honorable Judge Peck presiding."

...Our friends at HousingWire report that a federal bankruptcy judge in New York sitting on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, has voided the seniority claims of holders of various qualified investment contracts, ruling that their ipso facto clauses which subordinated other claims to their own were "null and void in bankruptcy." This is an important victory for fans of equal protection and due process, and a big setback for the OTC derivative dealer banks which exert considerable influence at the Fed and OCC.

We have always held the view that the attempts by the large dealer banks, ISDA and regulators to carve out a special, privileged place in the law for OTC derivatives contracts in the event of default is inherently unfair and is doomed to failure, or at least would be challenged, on Constitutional grounds. This case and others make that challenge and review process a reality and also leaves much of the world of complex structured finance in a shambles when it comes to the legal reality of counterparty risk.

Indeed, the same legal art that gave the swap counterparties in this latest case the impression that they were senior to the other creditors of the bankruptcy estate was used by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and his successor, Timothy Geithner, to justify the rescue of American International Group. The very same type of investment contracts that Secretary Paulson and Secretary Geithner swore under oath, over and over again, just had to be paid at par in the case if AIG were just set aside by New York Bankruptcy Judge James Peck.

And notice that the world has not ended when the holders of OTC contracts are treated like everyone else. Indeed, Judge Peck has made a number of rulings over the past two years re-leveling the playing field between holders of OTC contracts and other claims against the Lehman bankruptcy estate. As we have noted before, the admirable conduct of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case by Judge Peck and US Bankruptcy Trustee Harvey Miller is the starkest condemnation possible of the AIG bailout, a hideous political contrivance that ranks with the great acts of political corruption and thievery in the history of the United States.

All by itself this is great news. The big banks can buy favorable laws, but they can't make them constitutional. (Have to wait for the SCOTUS to do that. :-/  But even John Roberts may fear to tread on the Leahman Bankruptcy proceeding. If he does, the lawyers could end up owning the economy instead of the bankers.) So what will be the wider effects of this ruling?

Ruling to be the dance music for the Zombie Ball

The question of the enforceability of the documentation in a complex structured securitization involving OTC swaps is not just a matter of debate in the AIG case. Across the US and around the world, investors and trustees are grappling with this same issue. The result is litigation by bond trustees against bond issuers as well as claims by guarantors such as MBIA (MBI) and the housing GSEs, including the Federal Home Loan Banks, against sponsor banks. Many of these claims regarding derivatives are being made in the context of claims for the repurchase of defaulted residential and commercial loans.

The wave of loan repurchase demands on securitization sponsors is the next area of fun in the zombie dance party, namely the part where different zombies start to eat one another. The GSE's are going to tear 50-100bp easy out of the flesh of the banking industry in the form of loan returns on trillions of dollars in exposure, this as charge-offs on the several trillion in residential exposure covered by the GSEs heads north of 5%. The damage here is in the hundreds of billions and lands in particular on the larger zombie banks, especially Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC). (My bold)

Aww, just when Hank and Tim and Ben get Humpty together again and back up on the wall and pull off the TARP--now this. Who could have known? Wait! Didn't I recently predict that the Zombies would soon turn to canabilism?

What harm could these zombies possibly do?

To put the growing combat in the loan repurchase channel into perspective, keen analysts will already know that a new item has appeared in the disclosure for non-interest income by many larger banks that have been active in the securitization markets. In the case of WFC in Q4 2009, gross income of $1.2 billion in mortgage loan originations was net of $316 million in loss reserves for loan repurchases. Imagine if we add a zero to the loss allocation, then another, and you get to the worst-case exposure on OBS loan repurchases.

Watch this heretofore obscure part of the mortgage banking business become downright material in coming quarters as a race of sorts develops between banks that want to restart the securitization markets and those that are being dragged under water by the weight of legacy liabilities. Notice, for instance, that in the MBI litigation against Countrywide Financial et al, MBIA Insurance Corporation v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. et al. that now includes BAC explicitly.

The action "arises out of the alleged fraudulent acts and breaches of contract of Countrywide in connection with fifteen securitizations of pools of residential second-lien mortgages" Take particular care to savor the fact that these are second lien pools and that, where defaults have occurred on the primary mortgage, loss severities on the seconds will tend to be 100%. Or the cost could be more than par if you count the cost of remediation and recovery efforts.

With private issuers trying to find a workable formulation for new securitizations, the mounting litigation in the secondary market for structured deals comes at a bad time for efforts to revive the patient and confirms our worry that there is a lot of tough work ahead in the loss mitigation channel. More, we worry that the level of claims and defaults now visible in the US markets is just a taste of the high tide we could see in 2010-2011, especially as and when interest rates start to rise even modestly. Did somebody say "interest rates?" (My bold)

There was a time when interest rates reflected risk.

Acronyms used:
REO = Real Estate Owned (by lender after foreclosure)
OTC = Over The Counter (Typically, unregistered two party transactions. Total unknown?)
OCC = Office of Currency Controller - US Government.
ISDA - International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. = Global trade association for OTC derivatives
MBIA Inc., headquartered in Armonk, New York is a holding company whose subsidiaries provide financial guarantee insurance, fixed-income asset management, and other specialized financial services. (Why I don't trust annuities.)
GSE = Government Sponsored Enterprise - backed by the "full faith and credit of the US Government and People"?
OBS = Off-balance-sheet, financing activity not on the company's balance sheet?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Iran today dismissed the US buildup of a missile shield in the Gulf as a "puppet show" as details emerged of an unsuccessful US missile test designed to simulate an Iranian attack amid a tense standoff between the two countries.

The US has sent ships and missiles to the region in what officials said was an attempt to deter an attack by Iran on US allies. Iranian officials criticised the US deployment as unnecessary and unworkable.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said: "Regional countries should know that this puppet show by the US while claiming to create security in the region is nothing except a new political ploy to increase the [American] military presence at the expense of others."

A new Israeli report defending the military's conduct in the Gaza war was challenged tonight after evidence emerged apparently contradicting one of its key findings.

Israel submitted a 46-page report to the UN on Friday saying its forces abided by international law throughout the three-week war last year. It was meant to avert the threat of international prosecutions and to challenge a highly critical UN inquiry by South African judge Richard Goldstone, which accused both Israel and Hamas of "grave breaches" of the fourth Geneva convention, war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

The Israeli report looked in detail at a handful of incidents, including the attack on the al-Badr flour mill in northern Gaza, which was severely damaged.

A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US.

Maher Arar filed a lawsuit before the US supreme court on Monday, appealing a lower court ruling that rejected his case because it involved national security information.

Arar was arrested by US authorities while transiting through New York's JFK International Airport in 2002, on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis.

He was detained on information shared by Canadian police that suggested he had ties to "terrorist" groups.

Anti-government fighters have fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace in the Somali capital, prompting return fire by troops that killed at least 16 people, medical officials and residents say.

Residents and medical officials said on Monday that several bombs hit Mogadishu's northern Suqa Holaha, or livestock market, district.

"At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu," Ali Yasin Gedi, vice-chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told the Reuters news agency.

Nigeria's main armed group has said it was not directly responsible for the sabotage of an oil pipeline that forced Royal Dutch Shell to shut down three pumping stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta region.

The Movement for the Emancipaton of the Niger Delta (Mend) said they did not attack the Trans-Ramos pipeline that is run by Shell's Nigerian subsidiary.

"Mend was not directly responsible," the group said in an email to Reuters news agency on Monday.

"It was certainly a response to our order to resume hostilities by one of the various freelance groups we endorse," the statement said.

Shell said on Sunday the sabotage had caused some oil to spill into the Niger delta's creeks and that it was in the process of recovering spilled crude.

China has warned Barack Obama, the US president, not to meet the Dalai Lama, saying any meeting with the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could further harm already-strained relations between the two countries.

The warning on Tuesday comes amid a growing row over a recently announced multi-billion dollar sale of US arms to Taiwan.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday Zhu Weiqun, executive vice minister of the Communist Party body that handles contact with the Dalai Lama, said any meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama would "seriously undermine the political
foundation of Sino-US relations."

"If the US leader chooses to meet with the Dalai Lama at this time, it will certainly threaten trust and cooperation between China and the United States," he said.

"We oppose any attempt by foreign forces to interfere in China's internal affairs using the Dalai Lama as an excuse."

The sodomy trial of Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has been suspended for a day following several hours of last-minute legal wrangling.

The high-profile trial had been due to begin on Tuesday at the Kuala Lumpur high court, but quickly ground to a halt amid a row over defence lawyers' access to prosecution evidence.

Instead the trial is now scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

The case has placed the Malaysian judiciary under scrutiny again after Anwar's conviction for the same offence almost a decade ago was eventually overturned.

If found guilty of sodomising a former aide, Anwar could be jailed for 20 years, in effect ending his political career.

Sri Lanka's president has dismissed a dozen senior military officers who the defence ministry said were a "direct threat to national security" after last week's presidential elections.

A military official said on Monday it was the army's biggest-ever purge and went beyond a 1962 shake-up following a coup attempt by volunteer officers against the late prime minister, Sirima Bandaranaike.

"What we have just witnessed is the biggest single shake-up in the army," a senior official said.

"The sacking is also coupled with several drastic changes in key positions."

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, had accused the defeated opposition
of planning to assassinate him after he beat Sarath Fonseka, the former army general, in a bitterly contested January 26 poll.

United States special Mideast envoy George Mitchell has urged Europe to step up pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an attempt to kick-start stalled peace talks with Israel, the London-based A-Sharq-al-Awsat reported on Tuesday.

"The time has come to stop finding excuses for avoiding a return to the negotiating table," the London paper quoted Mitchell as saying, citing French officials.

Mitchell believed the Palestinians were showing little enthusiasm for talks because as inaction was safer than reentering dialogue when the outcome was so uncertain, the paper said.

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President Barack Obama's envoy is said to blame Abbas for frustrating his most recent attempt to coax the two sides into renewed discussions during a trip to the region in Januar

Turkey on Tuesday denied reports that its ambassador to Israel had asked his superiors in Ankara to transfer him to a new posting after he was treated with deliberate disrespect by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

Ayalon in January issued a formal apology to Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, who earlier in the month was summoned to explain a Turkish broadcast of dramatized abuses of Palestinians by Israeli troops, which caused offense in Israel.

Before the meeting Ayalon told photographers in Hebrew: "Pay attention that he is sitting in a lower chair and we are in the higher ones, that there is only an Israeli flag on the table and that we are not smiling."

Gays should be allowed to serve openly in the US military, the country's top commander has said.

Adm Mike Mullen told a Senate hearing into the ban on openly gay personnel that allowing them to serve was "the right thing to do".

He said there were practical difficulties in repealing the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" policy, but that the military could handle it.

President Barack Obama has pledged to repeal the ban.

Adm Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was concerned about a policy that forces people to "lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens".

He stressed he was "speaking for myself and myself only".

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a 22-year prison sentence was too lenient for the al-Qaida-trained terrorist convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the sentence Tuesday. It also removed the Seattle trial judge from the case and assigned the re-sentencing of Ahmed Ressam to another federal judge.

As they say, "just one individual CAN make a difference."

"Prof. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of International Law, University of Illinois College of Law, of Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A., has filed a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.), in The Hague, against U.S. citizens George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleeza Rice, and Alberto Gonzales (the Accused)."  The Complaint is based on the "criminal policy and practice of 'extraordinary renditions' perpetrated upon about 100 human beings," which practice represents "Crimes against Humanity" and are "in violation of the Rome Statute establishing the I.C.C." * (emphasis mine)

B92 News Region Region

Bosnia: Police raid Wahhabi village

2 February 2010 | 12:34 -> 16:03 | Source: Beta

BRČKO -- Police in Bosnia-Herzegovina this Tuesday blocked a village near the town of Brčko where Wahhabis reside.

Bosnia's law enforcement and various other agencies officers detained more than ten Wahhabis, including women, and brought them in for questioning, reports said.

A large cache of mostly hunting weapons were also found and confiscated in Gornja Maoča today.

Police searched another location, in the Gornji Rahić area, also close to Brčko, seizing computers, cell phones and other equipment from the home of a Wahhabi there

Earlier today, local media reported that police were looking for people who pose a threat to security and Bosnia's constitutional order.

Wahhabis are members of a radical Islamist sect.

Some 600 state and entity police and security agency officials blocked off the village of Gornja Maoča on Tuesday morning, which has the largest Wahhabi community in Bosnia.

The police operation, dubbed Light, is described as the largest in the country since 1995.

Bosnia's federal television reported that this is a large police action aimed at uncovering the identity of persons who represent a security threat to the country.

It was stated that several buildings have been searched, in which large amounts of weapons were found.

Bosnian media said earlier that the security services have put Gornja Maoča under special monitoring, with information received that activities that could endanger state security were observed in that village.

Gornja Maoča is a completely isolated village where the laws of Bosnia-Herzegovina are not in effect. The village is organized according to Sharia law.

The road that leads to Gornja Maoča is almost completely unpassable and all of the road signs pointing towards the village are in Arabic.

Most of the homes there fly black Islamic flags, and the children study according to the education system of the country of Jordan, reports said.
 

Mr. Posada-Carriles' jury trial has been set for February 26, 2010.

Faisant suite à l'invitation du gouvernement du Togo, la Commission européenne a décidé de déployer une Mission d'observation électorale à l'occasion des élections présidentielles prévues pour le 28 février 2010. Cette Mission d'observation sera dirigée par le Chef Observateur M. José Manuel Garcia-Margallo y Marfil, membre du Parlement européen (ES).

La Mission sera constituée par un Chef Observateur et onze experts qui sont arrivés dans le pays ces dernières semaines. Ils ont été rejoints par 30 observateurs à long terme qui suivent la campagne électorale et les préparatifs des élections dans tout le pays, ainsi que le scrutin et la période postélectorale. 80 observateurs à court terme arriveront peu de temps avant le jour de scrutin.

Cette Mission d'observation complémente d'autres actions de l'Union européenne de soutien des élections au Togo. La Commission Européenne a notamment consacré une enveloppe de 12,5 millions d'euros, au titre du FED, au soutien des élections, dont 3,5 millions sont destinés à la mise en place de conditions sécuritaires adéquates.

Main Immediate Priorities for Emergency Aid

200,000 tents are needed . ...

Some 36 million "ready to eat" meals are required now ...

Priority items, besides tents, include shelter kits, tarpaulins, jerry cans, blankets, plastic sheets, hygiene kits and kitchen kits.

The main challenge in terms of water is limited distribution and storage capacity. ...

Within 2 weeks four field hospitals (IL, RU, ES, FR) will close; however, the Haitian Government is requesting that medical teams stay for a longer period of time in order to minimize administrative efforts and ensure continuity of care and restore health services. ...

Costa Rica's presidential campaign has become quite tense in the lead-up to the February 7 elections, but it also has turned rather goofy.

One of the latest displays of wackiness took the form of a lie detector test, which several leading candidates actually agreed to take on national television.

I was eating dinner at a Japanese restaurant here on the east side of San José, when right-wing candidate Otto Guevara popped on the restaurant's TV screen strapped to a polygraph machine.

"Have you profited in any way while carrying out your duties for which you could be legally charged?" a moderator asked Guevara, 49, of the Libertarian Movement. "Have you lied to the media during your election campaign?" she asked.

you can trust the black box!

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

South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford recalls how she made the "leap of faith" to marry husband Gov. Mark Sanford even though the groom refused to promise to be faithful, insisting that the clause be removed from their wedding vows.

And things are liable to get closer before the end of the night. How so? Because essentially all of the outstanding vote is in Cook County (Chicago), where Dillard is picking up 18 percent of the vote so far and Brady just 5 percent. If I project out the remaining Cook County precincts based on the previous ones, I show Dillard picking up another 800 votes and Brady another 225. That would make the statewide margin Dillard 154,876, and Brady 154,877 -- an advantage of literally one vote for Brady

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told the Palestinians on Wednesday that "as it is right to cry for the victims of the Holocaust, it is right to express sorrow for the Palestinian victims [in Gaza]."

Earlier Wednesday, the Italian premier told Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset that the United Nations' Goldstone Report on the Gaza war tried to incriminate Israel's justifiable actions. Berlusconi is on the third day of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The medical journal which originally published the discredited research linking autism and MMR has now issued a full retraction of the paper.

The Lancet said it now accepted claims made by the researchers were "false".

It comes after Dr Andrew Wakefield, the lead researcher in the 1998 paper, was ruled last week to have broken research rules by the General Medical Council.

The publication caused vaccination rates to plummet, resulting in a rise in measles.

The Lancet had already issued a partial retraction.

Brazil's government has granted an environmental licence for the construction of a controversial hydro-electric dam in the Amazon rainforest.

Environmental groups say the Belo Monte dam will cause devastation in a large area of the rainforest and threaten the survival of indigenous groups.

However, the government says whoever is awarded the project will have to pay $800m to protect the environment.

The initial approval was a key step before investors could submit bids.

"Phil Jones, the beleaguered British climate scientist at the center of the leaked e-mails controversy, is facing fresh claims that he sought to hide problems in key temperature data on which some of his work was based," The Guardian reports this morning.

It investigated "thousands of e-mails and documents apparently hacked from the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit" and found "evidence that a series of measurements from Chinese weather stations were seriously flawed and that documents relating to them could not be produced."

Jones, according to the Guardian, "said he was not able to comment on the story."

Today, after many months of delay, the government finally announced its detailed plans for the feed-in tariff. It is a huge disappointment for all of us who want to see communities taking control of their energy production.

The announcement could have heralded a new age in British energy policy, where a large proportion of our energy is produced by individuals and communities through microgeneration, solar panels on the roofs of our schools and homes, small scale hydropower and wind.

It is an approach that has had success in many countries around Europe, where feed-in tariffs have played a fundamental role in promoting renewable energy. In Germany, where feed-in tariffs have been around for years, the total installed solar capacity is around 200 times that of the UK. The Netherlands has 40% of its electricity demand met from decentralised energy.

Almost all the media and political discussion about the hacked climate emails has been based on brief soundbites publicised by professional sceptics and their blogs. In many cases, these have been taken out of context and twisted to mean something they were never intended to.

Elizabeth May, veteran head of the Canadian Green party claims to have read all the emails and declared: "How dare the world's media fall into the trap set by contrarian propagandists without reading the whole set?"

If those journalists had read even a few words beyond the soundbites, they would have realised that they were often being fed lies. Here are a few examples.

The most quoted "climategate" soundbite comes from an email from Prof Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, to Prof Mike Mann of the University of Virginia in 1999, in which he discussed using "Mike's Nature trick" to "hide the decline". The phrase has been widely spun as an effort to prevent the truth getting out that global temperatures had stopped rising.

Goals on reducing greenhouse gases announced by major industrialised nations are a step forward, but not enough to forestall the disastrous effects of climate change by the middle of this century, UN officials said yesterday.

Janos Pasztor, the top climate adviser to the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, said the goals, submitted to the UN as part of a voluntary plan to roll back emissions, make it highly unlikely the world can prevent temperatures from rising above the target set at the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

Fifty-five nations - including China, the US and those making up the 27-member European Union - met a 31 January deadline to submit pledges to the UN for cutting those emissions. Together they produce 78% of the world's greenhouse gases stemming from fossil fuel burning. More commitment letters were expected to be submitted over the next few days.

The United Nations has welcomed the "clear goal" set by some of the world's biggest polluters to combat climate change, but says it is "not good enough" to forestall the expected disastrous effects of global warming.

Janos Pasztor, a senior adviser on climate issues to Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said the goals, submitted to the UN as part of a voluntary plan to roll back emissions, make it highly unlikely the world can prevent temperatures from rising above the target set at the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

"You can look at it negatively and positively," Pasztor said. "The negative part is that it's not good enough. The positive side is that for the first time, we have a goal, a clear goal that we're all working toward ... before we would just talk."

Fifty-five nations, including China, the US and the 27-member EU, met a January 31 deadline to submit pledges to the UN for cutting emissions.

snag07 on February 1, 2010 - 1:03pm

This is the Oil Drum not the "morality drum". Reforestation and some agrarian reform would go far to increasing the carrying capacity but talking about energy, I've spent months in the DR in poor coastal areas. The bottom line is that no Caribbean island should ever import oil ever again- Trade Winds are awesome consistant potential wind generators. With power demand realatively low, this is the time to invite Suzlon and the Chinese in to provide effective and scalable generators at cost to put Haiti back on it's feet, proving that green works here now. Log in or register to leave a comment Ghung on January 30, 2010 - 11:31am

Nature has wiped much of the slate clean in Haiti. Once the cleanup and stabilization efforts get out of their initial phases we will see massive amounts of aid going to rebuild things to.......what?

The opportunity to demonstrate an infrastucture based around renewables is perhaps unique. It occurs to me that the current structure of things there is well suited to distributed forms of energy, as in localized micro-grids based on renewables and supported by conventional sources of electricity. It would be a shame to pour billions of dollars into a BAU infrastructure that we know will be short lived. One way to get these people out of their "funk" is to show them that they can be responsible for some of their basic requirements. This has been demonstrated in other parts of the world.

this is what hawaii should have done 40 years ago, and still could...

altro che 'free trade', should be 'free trade winds'!!

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

SELF was founded in 1990 by Neville Williams, an award-winning journalist and author (Chasing the Sun: Solar Adventures Around the World ), who had experience actively promoting solar power as a staffer with the U.S. Department of Energy during the Carter administration. By 1997, SELF had established 11 self-sustaining solar energy projects in eleven countries across Asia, Africa, and South America.

In its early projects, SELF used funds donated by the World Bank, private philanthropies, and loans from development agencies, to buy home-size photovoltaic systems in bulk on the open market, usually enough for one small village at a time. SELF then sold the systems at slim mark-ups to villagers in developing areas, in partnership, where possible, with in-country nonprofit agencies. Each participating household made a 20 percent down payment on a solar energy system and paid off the balance - usually between $300 and $400 - over several years. The buyers' payments were pooled in a local revolving loan fund from which their neighbors could borrow to buy their own solar power gear. SELF used a portion of the mark-ups on the equipment to establish a local dealership and train residents as solar installers and technicians.

The arrangement brought power to the people in more ways than one. Residents had acquired electricity for their homes and farms through equipment that they had paid for themselves. Trained technicians had learned a profitable trade, and their training ensured that the power systems' continued operation did not depend on return visits from outsiders with exotic knowledge. The loan fund made it possible for villagers to finance the continued dissemination of solar systems in their areas.

The program has yielded broader benefits as well. In much of the developing world, the primary fuel for night lighting is kerosene, which causes more than 20,000 injuries and house fires annually through spills and other accidents. In addition, every home burning kerosene-fueled lamps emits an average of 6 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually, and exposes family members to fumes as hazardous to the health as smoking two packs of cigarettes per day.

For much of the 1990s, SELF's primary mission was to deliver solar home systems - 50-watt units installed at the household level that could generate enough power to run a few compact florescent lights, a radio, and a small black and white television for four or five hours each evening. The electricity generated by the solar panel is stored in a battery, which then provides power at night and during rainy weather.

In western China, SELF brought solar power to 1,000 households in 14 villages; created the Gansu PV Company to manufacture small-scale photovoltaic systems as a joint venture with SELF; and established the Gansu Solar Electric Light Fund to extend credit to villagers to buy the systems. In Sri Lanka, SELF helped a national development agency start a division to sell photovoltaic systems at prices that villagers can afford, but that will still enable the agency to sustain itself.

In Tanzania, SELF has worked with the Masai people - a widely-scattered group of herders - to help the tribe acquire solar-powered telephones and FM radios to share information about land speculators threatening to drive them off their ancestral lands. In a poor area of black South Africa, SELF has installed a photovoltaic system in a school, using the energy to power computers and connect the school to the Internet.

Stem cell experts say they believe a small group of scientists is effectively vetoing high quality science from publication in journals.

In some cases they say it might be done to deliberately stifle research that is in competition with their own.

It has also emerged that 14 leading stem cell researchers have written an open letter to journal editors in order to highlight their dissatisfaction.

Billions of pounds of public money is spent on funding stem cell research.

Photos belonging to artist Andy Warhol - valued at $28m (£17m) - have been donated to colleges and university museums across the US.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, based in New York, said the collection included celebrity snapshots, still lifes and nudes.

It is thought a lot of the pictures helped inspire his work.

Curator of the foundation, Jenny Moore, said: "This is something he would have been very exited about."

She added: "This is a little-known body of Warhol's work.

The L'Oréal UK and Ireland Fellowships For Women In Science are awards offered annually by L'Oréal UK & Ireland with the support of the UK National Commission for UNESCO, the Irish National Commission for UNESCO and the Royal Institution of Great Britain to promote, enhance and encourage the contribution of women pursuing their research careers in the UK or Ireland in the fields of the life and physical sciences.

Four UK and Ireland Fellowships will be awarded in 2010 to outstanding women scientists in the early stages of their career to enable and/or facilitate promising scientific research. The Fellowships are tenable at any UK or Irish university or research institute to support a 12-month period of postdoctoral research in any area of the life or physical sciences.

The value of each fellowship is £15,000 (equivalent € for candidates in Ireland). The Fellowships are designed to provide flexible support. The prize money can be spent in innovative ways to enable women scientists to pursue and continue their research careers - such as buying equipment, paying for childcare or funding travel costs to an overseas conference.

Startpage Web Search. Startpage, the world's most private search engine, and its E.U. brand, Ixquick, today announced the release of a new proxy service that allows users to surf the web with complete privacy. The proxy lets users browse websites safely and anonymously, without passing on any private, personally identifiable information to the websites they view.

The Startpage proxy is a free service that works in conjunction with the Startpage search engine. When users perform a search, they will find a clickable "proxy" option below each search result. When this option is selected, Startpage acts as an intermediary to retrieve the page and display it in a privacy-protected Startpage window.

Hoyerswerda, a town two hours beyond Dresden close to the Polish ¬border, has lost half its population in the last 20 years. It is an ¬ageing ghost town. The young and those with qualifications have left - young women especially. And those that remain have given up having babies. Hoyerswerda (known to its citizens as Hoy Woy) seems a town without a purpose, in a corner of Europe without a future.

Greater Manchester Police's computer network has been infected by the infamous Conficker worm, leaving beat cops unable to run computer checks on suspected criminals and vehicles for the last three days.

The malware was likely introduced into the GMP network after an already infected memory stick was plugged into a Windows PC.

UK Party leaders were this week on the receiving end of a sharp rap to the knuckles, as a letter from the Head of the UK Statistics Authority, the aptly named Sir Michael Scholar, warned them to keep their paws off official stats for the duration of the election campaign.

The letter is a masterpiece of understatement, combining pre-emptive rebuke with a shame-faced plea for greater attention and, by implication, protection from cuts in a time of cutbacks

Sir Michael begins with an observation that may prove useful to those unaware of the religious affiliations of the Pope or the defecatory habits of bears. He states: "Public confidence in official statistics is low and there is a perception that official statistics are subject to political interference."

DETROIT (AP) -- The two-story house and its boarded-up, broken windows have been covered with sheets of ice that glow in the sunlight, and icicles reach from the edges of the roof almost to the ground.

The steps, porch and shrubs that glisten with ice in the rundown neighborhood are part of the Ice House Detroit project. Its creators want to draw more attention to the nation's housing crisis and inspire people by showing what's possible in a city with tens of thousands of vacant homes and a foreclosure rate among the nation's highest.

"This gives them an opportunity to see something different in their neighborhood," said Gregory Holm, a New York-based photographer who grew up in Detroit. "It's not saying it's going to change afterward. But it's a gift."

Cape Town on Friday, 2 February 1990, 20 years ago today, was an extraordinary place to be. Everyone seemed to be there. The world's press had descended on South Africa's coastal capital in expectation of what would be the biggest news story of the year. Television cameras roamed the town, but as the day wore on they concentrated outside the State Parliament where a momentous event was expected to be announced. In Greenmarket Square and along Grand Parade in the heart of the city, wealthy young whites mixed happily with black demonstrators carrying the black, green and gold flags of the banned African National Congress (ANC) party. Archbishop Tutu was at St George's Cathedral with his flock, which included more whites than blacks, ready to celebrate a happening which he seemed to regard as the Second Coming.

A conservative activist and Illinois comptroller candidate filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White late last week over an atheist display on state property over the holiday season.

William J. Kelly filed the suit over the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Winter Solstice sign placed in the State Capitol in December, which read: "At the time of the winter solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is just myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." 

When the sign was posted in December, Kelly called it "hate speech," and said he did not believe it was appropriate for a sign that "mocks" religion to be placed next to the Capitol's Christmas tree and nativity scene.

When he tried to remove the signage on Dec. 23, Kelly was escorted from the Illinois State Capitol building by police.

Europeans are on average broadly satisfied with their personal situation, but less satisfied when it comes to the economy, public services and social policies in their country, according to an opinion survey released today. The Eurobarometer on the social climate in the EU also found large differences between countries, with people in the Nordic countries and the Netherlands generally most satisfied with their personal situation. The survey forms part of the European Commission's Social Situation Report, also released today, which examines social trends in Europe, this year focusing on housing.

...

According to the Eurobarometer survey, a majority of Europeans are satisfied with life in general, giving an average score of +3.2 points (on a scale of -10 to +10). But there are big differences between Member States: the highest level of satisfaction was reported in Denmark, (+8.0), with Sweden, the Netherlands and Finland also having high levels. The lowest levels of satisfaction were reported in Bulgaria (-1.9), followed by Hungary, Greece and Romania.

...

On average, Europeans spend one-fifth of their disposable income on accommodation. Rent and mortgage payments only make up 30% of total housing costs in the EU while the other 70% pays for repairs, maintenance and fuel. Following housing privatisation, most people living in countries from the central and eastern EU Member States own their own homes, and charges for repairs, maintenance and fuel make up around 90% of total housing costs.

A feng shui master today lost his battle for the multibillion-dollar fortune of his late lover Nina Wang, with a Hong Kong court dismissing her will as a forgery.

A judge ruled that her estate should go to charity, ending a lawsuit that has gripped the territory - long fascinated by "Little Sweetie", a property magnate who sported pigtails, ankle socks and miniskirts until her death at 69.

The extraordinary case saw intimate details of the couple's affair, explanations of esoteric feng shui rituals and even Wang's pigtails submitted in evidence; her lover said she left the latter to him as a token of her affection.

But the high court ruled against Tony Chan Chun-chuen, dismissing the will he produced after Wang's death in 2007 as a forgery and her supposed signature as "a highly skilled simulation".

An MP has called the wearing of burkas the religious equivalent of "going round with a paper bag over your head".

In a parliamentary debate, Conservative MP Philip Hollobone said it was "offensive" for women to cut off face-to-face contact with other people.

The Kettering MP said he had "huge sympathy" with those who wanted a ban on face-covering veils in public.

None of the three large UK parties back a ban, with ministers saying it would not be "British" to bar them.

You may remember the BigDog robot by Boston Dynamics - a robotic pack animal developed on behalf of the US military. When videos of it started spreading around the web a couple of years ago, people were astonished by its lifelike movement - particularly the moment when somebody gives it a hefty kick to try and unbalance it. The visceral reaction most people feel when watching that moment is, if nothing else, proof that machines can bridge the uncanny valley sometimes.

The idea of BigDog - which we first covered in 2005 is to help soldiers carry equipment over rough terrain, but it's also a really interesting application that could be used in all kinds of other situations as well - imagine one that could move materials around a building site or even little dogs to help you with your shopping.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy has backed out of singing in Italy's San Remo music contest reportedly because she took offence to a song mocking her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy's decision to withdraw from the festival, which runs from February 16 to 21, was revealed by the state channel Rai Uno, which airs the event each year.

Massimo Giletti, presenter of the popular culture programe Arena, said: "Carla Bruni has decided not to participate in the Festival of San Remo, where she was to have sung with Gino Paoli on the Thursday evening.

To no one's surprise, the terminally ridiculous right wing sockpuppet Chuck Norris, who is far too stupid to have thoughts of his own so he just repeats whatever the right wing says, has endorsed a whole slate of conservative candidates -- including at least one who openly advocates the death penalty for gays and lesbians. In his latest column, he writes:

LOS ANGELES - A law enforcement official says prosecutors plan to charge Michael Jackson's doctor with manslaughter.

The official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that prosecutors will file a criminal complaint against Dr. Conrad Murray in court rather than go through a secret grand jury.

The person is not authorized to speak publicly about the case and only spoke on condition of anonymity.

You see, the Westboro Baptist Church, a Fred Phelps hate group, decided to protest at Twitter HQ.  Yup, baptists hating gays at twitter...  well, just click, made me a little homesick for an SF laugh.

Skennah Kowa

La Chine dorme. Laisse la dormir. Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera.

A farmer who built a castle hidden inside a stack of straw bales has lost a High Court bid to save it from being demolished.

Robert Fidler, of Salfords, Surrey, built the house, complete with turrets, without planning permission.

He kept it hidden until August 2006 and was ordered to tear it down by Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in 2008.

Mr Fidler appealed on the basis that his house had stood for four years without anyone objecting to it.

He claimed he only started building the structure when the council did not answer his planning application to turn a cowshed into a house.