There are many aspects of the EU-China relationship where tension is now as prevalent as cooperation. Many European diplomats see renewed Chinese assertiveness across a range of policy spheres, from human rights to the environment. And they ask themselves whether this portends definitive failure of the EU's efforts at positive engagement. But one policy area especially prominent amidst such calculations is that related to Europe's on-going financial crisis.

Monetary issues have come to dominate EU-China relations. The European Union has pressed the Chinese authorities to revalue.  European exports to the Asian giant are even more acutely in need of a boost to help recovery from the worst economic crisis in decades. Of course, the US is also trying to press Beijing in the same direction. Chinese president Hu Jintao has promised a reform of the exchange rate system, but has not set a firm agenda and seems unlikely to move forward any time soon. Indeed, the peg to the dollar remains and the renminbi if anything faces some downward pressure.

This will engender tension during this year's G-20 meetings, but the only thing Westerners can do about it is complain.

This is a very, very dangerous period for Europe because the economic crisis was the most severe crisis, and it's affected the world, rather than specific countries. The costs of the bank rescue have been transferred to the public balance sheet. Within a period of about three or four weeks, the mood in European governments changed, from being relaxed about debt, to panicking.

Greece was the start and it spread to Spain and Portugal and the rest of them dread being in the same position, not least Britain. If Standard and Poor or Moody's mark you down, that sends your interest rates up and the Greek one is still, on a 10 year market bond, over 10% a year. On a German one, it's 2.5%.

The power of the markets, which were ironically bailed out by the bank rescues, otherwise they'd have all gone down, has now turned their attention to sovereign debt. They managed to transfer their debt onto the public authorities, who are now in trouble. The initial response to the crisis was quite good, they kept up spending, stimulus packages to varying degrees.

The European approach, since the problem burst on individual countries has been less sure. It took them a long time to deal with Greece and the price of dealing with Greece has got higher and higher. Worse, the terms that Greece has got are penal. The basic message being, if you get into the position Greece was in, Europe will punish you, you've broken the rules.

Several thousand people have attended a European-wide gay rights parade in the Polish capital Warsaw.

It was the first time the annual EuroPride march was being held in Central or Eastern Europe.

Several small counter-demonstrations were also held and some people hurled eggs and abuse at those in the parade.

A BBC correspondent says gay people in staunchly Roman Catholic Poland find it hard to be open about their sexuality.

Rioters in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble have fired shots and burned cars after police shot dead a man accused of robbing a local casino.

The violence flared early on Saturday morning after a memorial service for the man, who was killed 24 hours earlier in a shootout with police.

He was one of two men believed to have held up a casino, escaping with more than 20,000 euros (£17,000; $26,000).

The rioters also attacked a tram with baseball bats and iron bars.

AFP - French police released four associates of France's richest woman Friday after questioning them as part of a probe into a tax scandal that has rocked the government.
   
Investigators probing the affairs of L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt had detained her financial advisor Patrice de Maistre and celebrity photographer Francois-Marie Banier since Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - On the eve of World Day for International Justice, launched to recognise the emerging body of international criminal law, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) faces an uncertain legacy. Initially slated to finish its work in 2008, the ICTY is two years behind schedule and at least four years from the final thump of its gavel.

The ICTY is regarded as a groundbreaking model for the trial and prosecution of individuals responsible for crimes against populations and has been a pioneer in the development and application of international law. However, the tribunal has also been criticized for its slow pace, inconsistent sentencing patterns and long-lasting impunity - all concerns reflected in an Open Society Justice Initiative report launched here Thursday.

The report, titled "That Someone Guilty Be Punished", and authored by Diane F. Orentlicher, Deputy for the Office of War Crimes Issues for the U.S. Department of State, examines the effects of the ICTY in Bosnia.

At a panel discussion at the report's launch, Refik Hodzic, Outreach Expert and former official of the ICTY and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, referred to the publication as one of the most important of its kind because it is the first to examine the tribunal's impact on the main constituents for whom the tribunal was created: the people who witnessed and survived the atrocities of the 1990's Balkan wars.

Despite the overall support given to the tribunal by those interviewed, the publication also chronicles dissatisfaction with the ICTY's performance. The report, said Hodzic, shows that "The tribunal has to fight for its legacy."

(Reuters) - Hungary and its international lenders have not yet resolved differences over some important issues in talks which are expected to be finished by early next week, local media reports said.

News portal Index.hu said late on Friday, citing unnamed sources, that Hungary needs to come up with a plan on how to meet its deficit targets this year and in 2011 as the International Monetary Fund and the EU have made it clear there was no room for budget loosening.

National news agency MTI said on Saturday, citing unnamed government politicians, that there was disagreement over two issues between the government and the IMF and EU delegation -- a plan to introduce a tax on banks and another proposal which would cut the central bank governor's salary.

AFP - The wealth manager of France's richest woman has told police Labour Minister Eric Woerth asked him to give his wife career advice a few months before she was recruited to help manage the fortune, the newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday. Quoting what it said were transcripts of police questioning of wealth manager Patrice de Maistre, it said he had referred the hiring decision to L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt and her late husband because of the political sensitivity.   "I saw him (Woerth) two or three times in early 2007 because he asked me to meet his wife to try to give her advice on her career, which according to him, she was not entirely satisfied with," De Maistre was quoted as telling investigators.   Florence Woerth, the conservative politician's wife, was hired at a salary of 140,000 euros ($181,700) a year and a bonus of 60,000 euros. She stepped down in June after allegations that Bettencourt had evaded tax on some of her assets.

Twenty people have been arrested at a rally by the English Defence League in Dudley.

There were angry scenes as riot police and sections of the crowd clashed on the streets of the town.

Members of the 500-strong demo reportedly threw cans and bricks at officers.

Part of the town had already been sealed off ahead of the demonstration, that was due to take place on the same day as a Unite Against Fascism rally.

Sky correspondent Darren Little said trouble erupted after when EDL members tore down metal barriers.

I am pondering a Master's degree with them and want some feedback. It would be in Leadership and Management, with the Geneva campus, and would also include some environmental science and law courses thrown in too.

Thanks for the feedback if you have any!

We have an interview with Peter Goldsmith, who was Attorney General 2001-07, in The Independent on Sunday.

I think it is an interesting and important interview, primarily about the inquiry, which David Cameron announced last week, into allegations that the Government in which Goldsmith served, and to which he was the chief legal adviser, was complicit in the rendition and torture of terrorist suspects.

This is a full transcript (16 July 2010).

The UK's health care system is the most efficient, says a study of seven industrialised countries.

The Commonwealth Fund report looked at five areas of performance - quality, efficiency, access to care, equity and healthy lives.

The US came last in the overall rankings, which also included data from Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand.

But there is room for improvement in every country, says the report.

The report, which is an update to three earlier editions, includes patients and doctors' ratings of their experiences in their own health care systems.

More than 27,000 patients and primary care doctors were surveyed across all seven countries as part of the study, starting in 2007.

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell the most against the euro in 14 months and dropped to the lowest level this year versus the yen as economic reports added to evidence that the U.S. recovery is losing momentum.

The greenback touched a level weaker than $1.30 versus the shared currency as minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting last month indicated policy makers trimmed their forecasts for growth. The euro rallied for a third straight week against the dollar before partial results of stress tests on the region's banking system due on July 23.

"It's really dollar weakness based on some evidence the economy is slowing," said Vassili Serebriakov, a currency strategist at Wells Fargo & Co. in New York. "The economic indicators are pointing strongly toward slower growth in the second half of the year."

The dollar declined 2.24 percent, the most since May 2009, to $1.2930 per euro yesterday, from $1.2641 on July 9. It touched $1.3008 yesterday, the weakest level since May 10. The U.S. currency dropped 2.3 percent to 86.57 yen, from 88.62 yen, after reaching 86.27 yesterday, the lowest level since Dec. 1. The euro was little changed at 111.96 yen, compared with 112.01.

The euro has rallied 8.9 percent versus the dollar since reaching a four-year low of $1.1877 on June 7 as concern eased that Europe's sovereign-debt crisis would undermine the region's economic recovery.

Continental Europe is a bastion of privacy, especially compared with the US. The individual's right to "dignity" is much more highly prized in Europe than the freedom of the public to pore over all the salacious details of some luminary's recreational activities in the tabloids.

It was only after his death, for example, that that François Mitterrand, former French president, was revealed to have cohabited with his
mistress and love-child throughout much of his period in office.

A similar code of omertà appears to prevail when it comes to the credit crisis.

Whereas the US has more or less dished the dirt on its troubled financial institutions, the European authorities regard airing the shortcomings of the region's banks as taboo.

But while hushing up celebrity frolics deprives only the paparazzi of earnings, concealing insolvency at, say, savings banks could have potentially disastrous consequences for customers and the wider financial system.

It is painfully obvious that the eurozone's problems extend far beyond Greek over-indebtedness or the bursting of Spain's property bubble. Even prudent Germany's state banks are tainted by
dodgy lending.

And the region's less dynamic nations are blighted by a profound lack of economic competitiveness

Europe's automotive manufacturers lack the will to rid themselves of unprofitable operations that threaten their future, and experts predict a future of muddling through rather than decisive action to restore health and profits.

At a conference in Bilbao, Spain, last month, Ford Europe Chairman and CEO John Fleming said overcapacity had reached 35 percent and was getting worse.

In a sane world, this would mean that the least productive producers in Europe would be under pressure to close. After all, the existence of a chronically inefficient manufacturer simply makes it uneconomic for everybody. As the worst offender tries to dump its cars by slashing prices or offering massive incentives, the best ones need to cut prices too, otherwise their production lines will slow and their operations slip into the red.

But in Europe any logical pressure to close unviable operations almost always founders on political pressure. Governments cannot bear to preside over the closure of factories and fear the negative reaction from voters if the nightly TV news shows lines of frustrated workers chanting insults as they march away from highly paid and often high tech jobs to years on the dole. No matter that this means problems will fester and worsen. If decisions can be delayed, perhaps the next election can be won, and pension and retirement attained. This pass-the-parcel policy means that hopefully, someone else will take the decision, and receive the brickbats.

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European leaders marvel at the way the U.S. industry finally came to grips with its chronic overcapacity last year as General Motors shed factories and brands, and re-emerged slimmer and a more effective global player. Chrysler's new life as a subsidiary of Fiat of Italy looks less compelling.

The ECRI Weekly Leading Index (WLI), a measure of future U.S. economic growth stands at 120.6 unchanged from a week ago. We first began actively talking about the WLI in April as a predictive indicator for either sustained recovery or a double dip recession. However, the gauge most of us are looking for is the annualized year-on-year change. Reuters says:

   The index was last below 120.6 in the week of July 24, 2009, when it measured 120.3, according to ECRI. The index's annualized growth rate fell to minus 9.8 percent from minus 9.1 percent the previous week, originally reported as minus 8.3 percent.

The index is saying that growth is slowing quite rapidly. But there is no imminent recession on the horizon.  However, what happens by the end of the year or in 2011 is another story. David Rosenberg mentioned in June that a minus ten reading is a recession lock for the entire 42 years of ECRI data available. The minus 9.8 reading is about as close to a double dip warning as you are going to get from the WLI. These numbers are telling us that the manufacturing and inventory led recovery is so stalled that a double dip recession is likely within six months.

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan believes Congress should let the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush expire for all Americans in order to address the widening deficit, according to a TV interview airing Friday.

"They should follow the law and let them lapse," Greenspan told Bloomberg TV's Judy Woodruff.

Hat tip Booman Tribune

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

It appears that a Phibro/Buffett-inspired attempt to corner a commodity market is in progress. Amusingly (or not so much for chocolate mousse cake makers), it is occurring in the relatively compact and illiquid cocoa market, where the WSJ reports ten brokers (mainly BNP Paribas) took possession of more than 240,000 tons of cocoa, valued at as much as $1 billion, leaving just 6,710 tons available for purchase. The Telegraph adds some further color: "The cocoa beans, which are sitting in warehouses either in The Netherlands, Hamburg, or closer to home in London, Liverpool or Humberside is equivalent to the entire supply of the commodity in Europe, and would fill more than five Titanics. They are worth £658 million." This is nothing less than an attempt to squeeze existing shorts, with an emphasis of the on the run, July contract. Indeed, the contango between July and September has surged to 11%, even as the settlement price on the continuous front-month, closing at $3,165, approaches all time highs: "Thursday, cocoa for July delivery settled at £2,732 ($4,221) a metric ton. Friday, the new front-month contract, for September delivery, rose 1% to £2,445 a metric ton." And that's not all: "Already, cocoa for September delivery is trading at a big premium to December cocoa, sparking talk that another run on inventories may occur when the September contract expires." In other words, with half of America beckoning diabetes with open arms, a rather sharp bout of inflation is about to be felt for all those whose daily calorie intake is over 2,000. Incidentally, this is precisely the kind of action that would happen if and when someone had the urge to pull a Buffett and send the price of gold and silver through the roof (and destroy JPM and the LBMA in a matter of hours).

Are there no laws or market rules about cornering the market? Or are existing laws and rules inadequate? Chris? If there indeed are no opposing laws physical silver would seem to be a target of opportunity.

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

The need for humanitarian aid will increase in Afghanistan over the next 12 months when more than 130,000 US/NATO troops, backed by tens of thousands of Afghan forces, seek to make military gains against a resurgent Taliban, aid agencies warn.

"My sense is that the tough fighting will continue; indeed, it may get more intense in the next few months," newly appointed commander of all US/NATO forces Gen David Petraeus told lawmakers during his confirmation hearing on 29 June.

"In the experience of the ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross], more troops have led to more fighting which has always left more casualties," Bijan Fredric Farnoudi, an ICRC spokesman, told IRIN, adding that humanitarian needs would rise as a result.

ICRC's concerns have been echoed by its local counterpart, the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS), and several other NGOs.

WASHINGTON, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday denounced Thursday's suicide bomb attacks on a Shi'ite mosque in Sistan-va Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran by a Sunni extremist group that Tehran charges is being supported by Washington.

"I strongly condemn the outrageous terrorist attacks on a mosque in southeast Iran," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "The murder of innocent civilians in their place of worship is an intolerable offence, and those who carried it out must be held accountable."

In a separate statement, Clinton condemned the attacks "in the strongest possible terms" and suggested that Jundallah, the group that claimed responsibility, may be added to the State Department's terrorism list. "This attack, along with the recent attacks in Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Algeria, underscores the global community's need to work together to combat terrorist organisations that threaten the lives of innocent civilians around the world," according to the statement, which cited Jundallah by name.

A fire in a hotel in northern Iraq has killed 30 people, including 14 foreigners, hospital officials say.

At least 40 people were wounded as the fire spread through the Soma Hotel in Suleimaniya during the night.

Some died jumping from their windows to escape the flames, which broke out late on Thursday, witnesses said.

City officials said it was likely that the fire was started by an electrical fault, with no indication that it was a result of a terror attack.

The Pakistani army has carried out 238 extrajudicial killings of people in the Swat Valley since September last year, says a report from Human Rights Watch.

It documents cases where members of the army allegedly took away Taliban suspects, who were later found dead, their bodies riddled with bullets.

A military spokesman denied the army had engaged in extrajudicial killings.

The army said it had driven insurgents from Swat following a massive offensive against them last year.

TORONTO, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - Canada's parliament is so broken and dysfunctional that the country is in danger of becoming "the laughing stock" of the world.

So says Peter Russell, a University of Toronto political scientist and author, and he is not alone.

Both Stephen Harper's minority-led Conservative government and the various opposition parties are on a continuous war footing in preparing for the next election. As a result, they are accomplishing little and turning off the Canadian public, which is voting in fewer numbers, Russell told IPS.

"The math of parliament is that no party has the majority in parliament, no party is popular [enough] with the people. And to adapt to that you have got to figure out ways on working together, to pass legislation and to get policies through and we've had a dysfunctional parliament mainly because of that failure of political leadership," he said.

Russell was referring to the Canadian political conundrum where since 2004 the appearance of five competitive federal political parties in a highly regionalised nation, including the Greens and a Quebec-specific sovereignist party, the Bloc Quebecois, has made minority parliamentary governments likely inevitable for the foreseeable future.

RAMALLAH, Jul 15, 2010 (IPS) - Israel has received international praise for its decision to ease its crippling blockade on Gaza following the country's deadly assault on a humanitarian flotilla trying to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the coastal territory. But according to the UN and human rights organisations, the easing of the blockade is insufficient in meeting Gaza's needs.

"Even if the blockade is eased it remains illegal under international law as it is a collective form of punishment on a civilian population," Chris Gunness from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told IPS.

"Eighty percent of Gaza's population is aid-dependent. Allowing more aid in is perpetuating this dependency and not addressing the issue of self- sufficiency or the root causes of the crisis," added Gunness.

Israeli commandos shot dead nine activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, one of the flotilla boats, when they raided it in international waters at the end of May. The killings sparked international outrage but also drew global attention to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza as a result of Israel's, and to a lesser degree Egypt's, hermetic sealing of the territory.

July 16 (Bloomberg) -- Democrats, facing a U.S. electorate angry about the economy and other issues, still have one political asset: George W. Bush.

The former Republican president is blamed more than President Barack Obama for the budget deficit, unemployment and illegal immigration, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted July 9-12.

Most surprising is that 60 percent say Bush is primarily responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan. Just 10 percent point to Obama, who has ordered 51,000 additional troops to that country since taking office, doubling the number deployed by Bush.

This is the proof Westerners used to lie professionally and shamelessly and why I prefer to live in more corrupt the East where officials do not (or cannot) hide that they lie or cheat or do so very unconvincingly. In the industry of propaganda and lies the West can give a run for money to anybody on this planet. Just check readers's comments to this "article":

and readers' reaction:

Calcutta Telegraph: Reports on poverty? Japan scribe shown door

A recently-revealed tape has shown Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, discussing ways to undermine the Oslo Accords and calling the United States "easy" to manipulate.

The video was filmed in 2001, apparently without Netanyahu's knowledge, during a meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. It aired on Friday night on Israel's Channel 10, and several translations have been posted online.

At one point on the tape, Netanyahu threatens a "broad attack" against the Palestinian Authority.

Photos taken by a mountaineer on Everest from the same spot where similar pictures were taken in 1921 have revealed an "alarming" ice loss.

The Asia Society (AS) arranged for the pictures to be taken in exactly the same place where British climber George Mallory took photos in 1921.

"The photographs reveal a startling truth: the ice of the Himalaya is disappearing," an AS statement said.

"They reveal an alarming loss in ice mass over an 89-year period."

AFP - A leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well has shown no sign of sub-seabed damage after two days of pressure tests following the placing of a new sealing cap, BP said Saturday.
   
"We're feeling more confident that we have integrity," said BP senior vice president Kent Wells. "At this point there's no evidence that we don't have integrity."
   
"That's very good and the fact that the pressure continues to rise is giving us more and more confidence as we are getting through the test."
   
BP sealed a cap placed over the leak on Thursday, shutting off the flow of crude into the ocean for the first time as it began a series of pressure tests intended to establish the condition of the wellbore below the seabed.
   
The tests are intended to determine whether the sealing cap can remain closed, or whether the wellbore could spring new leaks if the gushing oil is shut in.
   
Engineers had hoped to register readings of up to 8,000-9,000 pounds per square inch (psi), a high level that would have suggested no oil was leaking below the seabed.

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - The Nigerian government is trying to cope with an outbreak of lead poisoning which has killed over 200 people in Zamfara State since early July.

According to NGO News Africa, medical personnel supervising the treatment of victims confirmed that most of those who died were children aged five years and younger.

Doctor Alhassan Hamisu Dama, told Good Health Weekly, "I cannot say precisely, but more than 200 children died and that is why we are concentrating on treating victims of that age group."

He also urged for financial and technical assistance. "The World Health Organisation (WHO) is working with its U.N. partners to mobilise funds to deal with this unprecedented environmental emergency," Dama said.

However, WHO had no response for IPS as to when these funds were going to be mobilised or where they were explicitly coming from.

Dama told IPS, that the treatment for the children is fund demanding. He said "to place just one child on the complete dose of drug treatment requires about N480,000 [3,190 U.S. dollars]."

U. Joy Ogwu, the Permanent Representative of Nigeria, refused to comment to IPS about the outbreak and its affect on the country's citizens and environment.

However, an on-site medic told NGO News Africa, " all the victims had more than 65,000 microgrammes per decilitre lead blood levels....

BUCHAREST, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - Canadian company Gabriel Resources has managed to resurrect a cyanide-based gold exploitation project which had been declared illegal in courts, and is opposed by most Romanians.

The gold exploitation planned by the Canadian company in Rosia Montana (Alba county, northwest Romania) is set to be the largest in Europe. Three hundred tons of gold and 1,400 tons of silver are to be extracted over 16 years from four quarries in Apuseni Mountains.

Toronto-registered Gabriel Resources owns 80 percent of the stakes in Rosia Montana Gold Corporation (RMGC, the entity set up to build and run the operation), while Romanian state-owned Minvest Deva has most of the remaining shares.

With the price of gold more than doubling since the project was planned, profits from the exploitation are set to be huge. Over the past couple of years, RMGC has been claiming that the Romanian state alone would gain between 2 and 4 billion dollars from this project.

The project has been opposed since 2002 by locals and activists across the country. The Save Rosia Montana campaign has grown into the strongest civic movement in contemporary Romania.

The project would involve the resettlement of all villagers from Rosia Montana (situated between the quarries) and relocating churches and cemeteries. Even though RMGC has bought close to 80 percent of the property in Rosia Montana village, the remaining villagers are determined not to sell their lands.

Have you heard about the "growing number" of eminent scientists who reject the theory that man-made greenhouse gases are increasing the earth's temperature? It's one of those factoids that, for years, has been casually dropped into the opening paragraphs of conservative manifestos against climate-change treaties and legislation. A web site maintained by the office of a U.S. Senator has for years instructed us that a "growing number of scientists" are becoming climate-change "skeptics." This year, the chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation gave a speech praising the "growing number of distinguished scientists [who are] challenging the conventional wisdom with alternative theories and peer reviewed research." In this newspaper, a columnist recently described the "growing skepticism about the theory of man-made climate change." Surely, the conventional wisdom is on the cusp of being overthrown entirely: Another colleague proclaimed that we are approaching "the church of global warming's Galileo moment."

By filing a suit on Wednesday, July 14, in an Oakland federal court, California Attorney General Jerry Brown clearly defined the battle lines in a fight that could impact the future of the clean energy industry in California.

The technology magazine IEEE Spectrum considers just how much water is used in creating the energy that runs our everyday electronic devices--and our society at large:

Plug your iPhone into the wall, and about half a liter of water must flow through kilometers of pipes, pumps, and the heat exchangers of a power plant. That's a lot of money and machinery just so you can get a 6-watt-hour charge for your flashy little phone. Now, add up all the half-liters of water used to generate the roughly 17 billion megawatt-hours that the world will burn through this year. Trust us, it's a lot of water. In the United States alone, on just one average day, more than 500 billion liters of freshwater travel through the country's power plants--more than twice what flows through the Nile.

This illuminating bit of number crunching is part of an ambitious IEEE Spectrum special report, "Water vs. Energy," that explores the intertwined, sometimes oppositional relationships of these two resources.

The number of accusations of child witchcraft in sub-Saharan Africa is rising, the UN children's agency says.

It warned that African children, some as young as eight, accused of being witches have been been burned, beaten and even killed as punishment.

Orphans, street-children, albinos and the disabled are most at risk, according to a new report.

Unicef acknowledged there was little it could do about belief in witchcraft.

The agency says the increase in incidents of abuse of vulnerable children is linked to greater urbanisation in the continent and disruption caused by war.

The growing economic burden of raising children is also thought to be a factor.

JOHANNESBURG, Jul 16, 2010 (IPS) - Nine-year-old Nomasonto* had no choice but to switch roles with her mother and care for the HIV-positive woman who gave birth to her. Instead of worrying about homework and going out to play with her friends, Nomasonto's daily concerns were now a matter of life and death.

Suddenly the child had to wash her mother, change and feed her. She even had to take her ill mother to hospital for checkups and to collect her medication.

Nomasonto cared for her mother until she was 10. That year her mother died of an AIDS-related illness. It is now four years later, but when Nomasonto tells IPS her story, she does so in a tiny voice, which seems to contain some anger. It is hard for her to talk. She still remains traumatised by suddenly having to care for her parent.

But sadly Nomasonto is not the only child in South Africa traumatised after being forced into the role of becoming a care-giver to HIV-positive parents.

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- At Apple Inc., "working our butts off" means cots in the engineering department and cars in the parking lot at all hours of the night.

Seeking a solution to the antenna flaw that is dropping calls for some iPhone 4 users, Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said yesterday that employees started a round-the-clock effort to improve the reception amid complaints since the device's debut on June 24.

"We've been working our butts off in the last 22 days to understand what the real issues are here so we can come up with real solutions," Jobs said at a press conference.

Jobs offered customers free rubber cases that prevent the dropped calls by covering the external antenna on the left-hand corner of the iPhone. That will stop users from gripping it in a way that interferes with reception. He is giving full refunds to buyers who are still dissatisfied.

Given the choice, I would never have embraced the niqab. My initial teenage revulsion was inspired by the fact that it was mandatory. Implicit in any law that proscribes women's dress lies the most sinister, ideologically myopic assumption that a woman cannot be trusted not to succumb to pressure to dress a certain way. In the same way that Muslim countries accuse the hyper-sexualised West of corrupting their women, European societies cannot fathom that a woman would want to wear a niqab or burka unless it is attributable to some brute influence either by a man or general social coercion. In that sense, I do not see a potential ban on the burka in the UK as any different to the oppression in Saudi Arabia in terms of how it assumes that the way a woman dresses is never really down to her.

A mix of Islamophobia, busy-bodying feminism and resurgent nationalist sentiment has contributed to this demonisation of a minority of Muslim women. The niqab and burka are indeed powerful symbols and reminders of the ongoing fissures between the West and Islam. Indeed, it is understandable that something as final and ostensibly exclusionary as a face veil would be alienating. But surely that lies more in the realm of social inappropriateness?

To legislate against the extremes would be a highly intrusive extension of authority. To mobilise the mechanism of the state to tackle Islamic fundamentalism via cracking down on the face veil is not the answer. To force a female to remove her veil is just as subjugating as forcing her to cover.

The Sunday Times (£) reports that CCHQ commissioned and paid for a party election broadcast that portrayed people 'coming out' as Conservatives:

"One of the suppressed films that have now emerged shows naked men grappling in a shower, while another depicts a teenager being caught reading what at first appears to be a top shelf magazine. The third unshown ad makes light of teenage sex, portraying a girl confessing to her parents: "I am three months Conservative."

The Sunday Times says that the ads were dropped for fear of a public backlash. My understanding is a little different. Senior Tories felt that the ads commissioned by Steve Hilton were at best out-of-date and at worst self-loathing.

The Times newspaper's website has lost two‑thirds of its audience following the implementation of a paywall, according to data published yesterday - a dramatic decline, but not as steep as many had forecast.

Readership figures for the site will be keenly scrutinised by the rest of the media industry, and particularly by rival newspapers, which are still struggling to work out a viable business model as readers migrate to online news and circulations decline.

Rupert Murdoch, who controls News International, the owner of the Times, announced the decision to install a paywall around the paper and its sister, the Sunday Times, last year, pitching him against many in the industry who are banking on the idea that drawing a mass audience with free news will eventually deliver strong advertising revenues.

Ilda Boccassini has had some spectacular moments in her 30-year career as a prosecutor, taking on the Sicilian Mafia, corrupt fellow magistrates and the terrorists of the Red Brigades.

But none have been quite so dramatic as the morning last week when "Ilda the Red" - as she is known for her flame-coloured hair - helped launch the biggest police operation against the Calabrian Mafia for 40 years.

though the € is at a 4 month high.

I'm not certain i would classify Adolf as one of the world's greatest writers, but i would note that we're still fighting against idiocy. i do think Goldman Sachs would hire him.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Crafty insta-celebrities and self-branding geniuses and social media gurus assert that submitting to the daily grind to pay the mortgage constitutes a meager existence. Books like "The 4-Hour Work Week" tell us that working the same job for years is for suckers. We should be paid handsomely for our creative talents, we should have the freedom to travel and live wherever we like, our children should be exposed to the wonders of the globe at an early age.

In other words, we're always falling short, no matter what our resources, and we pass this discontent to our offspring. And so millions of aspiring 3-year-old princesses hum "Someday my prince will come!" to themselves, turning their backs on the sweetness of the day at hand.

Maybe this is why AMC's hit series "Mad Men" (premieres 10 p.m. Sunday, July 25) resonates so clearly at this point in history, when the promise of the boom years has given way to two wars, a stubborn recession and a string of calamities that threaten to damage our way of life irreparably. Somehow "Mad Men" captures this ultra-mediated, postmodern moment, underscoring the disconnect between the American dream and reality by distilling our deep-seated frustrations as a nation into painfully palpable vignettes. Even as the former denizens of Sterling Cooper unearth a groundswell of discontent beneath the skin-deep promises of adulthood, they keep struggling to concoct chirpy advertising messages that provide a creepily fantastical backdrop to this modern tragedy.

...

 While "Mad Men's" detractors often decry the empty sheen of it all, claiming that it has no soul, clearly that's the point. The American dream itself is a carefully packaged, soulless affair. This is the automobile a man of your means should drive. This is the liquor a happy homemaker like yourself should serve to your husband's business guests.  As absurd as it seems to cobble together a dream around a handful of consumer goods, that's precisely what the advertising industry did so effectively in the '50s and '60s, until we couldn't distinguish our own desires from the desires ascribed to us by professional manipulators, suggesting antidotes for every real or imagined malady, supplying escapist fantasies to circumvent the supposedly unbearable tedium of ordinary life. In show creator Matthew Weiner's telling, the birth of the advertising age coincides directly with the birth of our discontent as a nation -- and what got lost in the hustle was our souls.

sauce bernays!

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter