The Labour party risks getting stuck in an "electoral cul-de-sac" if it takes a "pre-New Labour" direction under its new leader, Lord Mandelson warned today.

His comments were seen as a warning against the election of Ed Miliband, who has positioned himself to the left of his brother David as the pair have emerged as frontrunners to succeed Gordon Brown.

The former business secretary - and architect of New Labour - warned that the party risked a long period in opposition if it swung to the left and failed to recreate the wide-ranging coalition that took Tony Blair to power in 1997.

Mandelson's intervention could give a boost to David Miliband's campaign at the start of the week in which MPs, MEPs, party activists and members of affiliated organisations will start voting in the postal ballot to elect a new leader on 25 September.

A gunman killed six members of a single family, wounded 14 others, and then shot himself after being cornered by police in the Slovak capital Bratislava on Monday. Neither the motive nor the identity of the man is clear. 

The man who went on the shooting spree was said to be in his fifties and used an illegally obtained submachine gun and two shotguns, said Bratislava Police Commissioner Jaroslav Spisiak.

Witnesses said the incident occurred in broad daylight at around 10 a.m. in the captial's Devinska Nova Ves residential neighborhood.

Among the victims were four women and two men who died of gunshot wound

Leaked tapes of Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal he was sexually abused by a bishop are some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church. Skip related content

The tapes, made secretly by the victim and published in two Belgian newspapers on Saturday, show the former primate of Belgium exhorting him to accept a private apology or wait one year until the bishop retired before making his case public.

Their meeting took place on April 8, at a time when the Vatican was under fire for allegedly covering up similar abuse cases by priests in other countries and shocking abuse claims dominated the news in several European states.

Libya's Muammar Gaddafi is likely to arouse the usual mixture of curiosity and controversy on his latest trip to Italy. But behind the theatrics, the colonel's lucrative investments underscore Tripoli's growing influence on the Italian economy.

After years of bitter squabbling and three successive defeats in presidential elections, French Socialists wrapped up their summer conference with a united front and a defiant challenge to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that he plans to maintain an active role in Russian politics for years to come, but would not reveal whether he will stand in 2012 presidential elections.

Russia's political strongman, who was president from 2000 to 2008, also bluntly defended police action against banned anti-government protests, saying in an interview published in the Russian daily Kommersant that such protestors deserved to be pummelled.

Putin said he was not obsessed with the upcoming elections and had no "narcotic dependence" on political ratings.

The German government has condemned an official with the country's central bank on the publication of his book on immigration issues.

Bundesbank member Thilo Sarrazin's book, Germany Abolishes Itself, states that Muslim immigrants refuse to integrate and are a drain on society.

In a newspaper interview about the book, he said that "all Jews share a particular gene".

The Bundesbank board was to make a decision on his future later on Monday.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has weighed in on Germany's ongoing nuclear energy debate, saying the country needs to run its nuclear energy plants for at least 10 more years to keep energy costs down and ensure demand is met. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel foresees keeping Germany's nuclear power plants running for at least another decade past their current phase out date.

 

In 2002, the then-ruling SPD-Greens coalition passed a law that said all of Germany's nuclear power plants were due to go off line by 2022.

 

But Merkel, coming off a recent tour of energy facilities around Germany, said in an interview with public broadcaster ARD that "on technical grounds, [an additional] 10 to 15 years is reasonable."

 

Image:  We vote nuclear power. CDU.

Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine - Patti Smith

BUCHAREST, Aug 26, 2010 (IPS) - Five newborns died last week in a fire caused by an airconditioning fault at a Bucharest maternity. Insufficient, overworked staff and deficient maintenance -- results of inadequate funding of the health system - -were listed among the causes.

"I'm surprised such tragedies don't happen more often, given the conditions we work in," said resident doctor Raluca Grumazescu from the Brasov Children's Hospital.

The sole nurse attending the newborns at the Giulesti maternity in Bucharest had stepped out of the ward when the fire broke out. Three babies in incubators died instantly and two others did not survive severe burns.

"In Romanian hospitals, it is common that only one doctor and one nurse supervise up to 100 patients during nightshifts, and they have to deal with emergencies on top of that," Grumazescu says. "The night duty can come in the middle of a 36-hour shift during which, if the hospital takes emergencies, there is no time to rest.

"We would need double the number of staff we have now," Grumazescu told IPS. "At the moment, nurses also do the job of orderlies, carrying patients and even cleaning the floors."

Britain and France could share their aircraft carrier capability in a dramatic co-operation pact designed to maintain military power while cutting costs, it has been reported.

The Ministry of Defence described the report in The Times as "speculation" ahead of the outcome of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, expected next month.

But a source said that ideas for all sorts of co-operation would be "on the table" when Defence Secretary Liam Fox visited Paris for talks with his French counterparts on Friday, and did not exclude the possibility of the aircraft carriers being discussed.

George Osborne is planning to cut staff numbers at the Treasury by about one-quarter and scale back his department's role as he attempts to lead by example in the search for sweeping spending cuts across Whitehall.

The chancellor will reconvene the public spending "star chamber" this week and hopes to settle a number of departmental budgets - including justice, transport, environment and culture - by mid-September.

Mr Osborne wants his own department to lead the way and has made plans to reduce Treasury staff numbers from 1,350 to 1,000 by natural attrition over the next four years, drawing a line under what he regards as the empire-building of the Gordon Brown era.

Poland's economy grew by an unexpectedly strong 3.5 per cent in the second quarter; the country's statistical agency said on Monday, thanks in part to continuing strong exports to the rapidly rebounding German economy, as well as resilient domestic demand.

The year-on-year growth rate, which has not been seasonally adjusted, comes in above the consensus of 3.2 per cent, and was stronger than the 3 per cent growth registered in the first quarter.

The statistical agency said that the main driver of growth was domestic demand, which grew 3.9 per cent.

Exports also accelerated showing a year-on-year growth of 17 per cent compared with 9.8 per cent in the first quarter. The result is due in part to a recent weakening of the Polish zloty against the euro and the dollar, and to surging exports, particularly to Germany, the destination of a quarter of Polish exports.

The price of steelmaking commodities iron ore and coking coal will drop next quarter for the first time in a year as lower steel production forces global miners Vale of Brazil and UK-listed Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, to offer discounts on their supply contracts.

The cost of iron ore and coking coal is key to the global economy as it affects steel prices and the cost of everyday goods. It is also crucial for the profitability of the mining and steelmaking sectors, two of the world's largest heavy industries.

Mining executives and analysts estimate that iron ore prices for the fourth quarter will drop by 10-15 per cent and coking coal prices by 5-10 per cent. The falls will either push down steel prices or widen steelmakers' profit margins.

Consumer spending in the US is diverging into two strands as strong growth at high-end stores such as Tiffany contrasts with continuing difficulties for mass-market retailers

Personal spending in the US is diverging into two distinct categories as strong growth at high-end stores contrasts with continuing difficulties for mass-market, low-price retailers.

Nearly a year after the US economy returned to growth, corporate earnings reports in recent months have provided consistent evidence of the differing fortunes. At high-end stores such as Neiman Marcus and Tiffany, shoppers are demonstrating confidence and spending with vigour. At the other end of the retail spectrum, consumers are cautious amid economic uncertainties, denting the earnings of groups such as Walmart.
...
On Friday, Tiffany, the luxury jewellery retailer, reported a 9 per cent increase in sales for the second quarter of 2010 over the comparable period a year ago. By contrast, Zale's, a mass- market chain of jewellery stores, has seen its 2010 sales lag behind its comparable figures for 2009.

Neiman Marcus, the luxury department store chain, reported a 7.6 per cent jump in revenues for the quarter ended July 31. Earlier this month, Walmart reported that same-store sales for the second-quarter of 2010 had declined from the previous year's levels.

You would also expect some pressure for realignment from the labour market. As the German export sector returns to full capacity, one would expect wage costs to rise by more than the eurozone average.

This is not happening either.
...
While adjustment of the product side is prevented by an imperfect single market, adjustment on the labour market side is prevented by a complete absence of market integration. You would expect German workers to seek higher wages outside the country. But this is not happening, as the European labour market remains almost perfectly fragmented. That means German wage moderation can persist uncorrected for a long time. Nominal wages are effectively frozen, and are set to rise by only small percentages in the next few years.

Taken together, this means the intra-eurozone imbalances will not only persist, but probably increase. This will make the economic adjustment for Spain, Portugal or Greece even more difficult than it already is. Those persistent imbalances, much more than the build-up of debt, are my deep cause of concern about the long-term health of the eurozone.

But from a German perspective, this strategy boosts growth in the short term. It is, of course, a beggar-thy-neighbour strategy. The improvement in Germany's economic growth is driven not by productivity gains but by real devaluation.
...

The estimation results show that, in countries that are classed as exceptionally corrupt by Transparency International, bribe money has a remarkably negative effect on productivity.

A possible explanation is that, in countries where corruption is common practice, firms cannot get any additional benefit from also paying bribes. In fact, the more a firm is willing to pay in terms of bribes, the less it can spend in a more efficient way. This induces negative effects on productivity. We find a similar effect in the interaction of bribe tax and quality of the legal system. Firms that operate in countries that have a legal system with a low quality experience strong negative effects of bribes on productivity.

In countries that are classified as not corrupt or as having an adequate legal system, the story is the reverse: firms can benefit from paying grease money. An explanation could be that firms operating in countries with low corruption rates can profit because bribing is an unusual practice that helps them gain an advantage over their competitors.

China defended its controls on exports of rare earth after Japanese officials raised concerns about supplies of the raw materials used in the manufacture of products from cell phones to radar.

Restrictions on the rare earth industry will help protect the environment, the state-run Xinhua News Agency cited Chen Deming, China's commerce minister, as saying yesterday at a media briefing during China-Japan economic talks in Beijing.

China cut its export quotas for rare earth by 72 percent for the second half of this year, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce on July 8. Shipments will be capped at 7,976 metric tons, down from 28,417 tons for the same period a year ago.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced on Sunday the opening of the Russian section of a pipeline that will carry oil from Siberia to China in a move designed to diversify Russian oil exports and minimise reliance on European markets.

Swedish investment bank HQ Bank said Monday it was forced into involuntary liquidation after the financial supervisory authority revoked all its licences for breach of banking regulations.

HQ Bank, which manages around 60 billion kronor (6.3 billion euros, 8.1 billion dollars) from some 20,000 depositors, said efforts to find a way to keep the bank operating had failed after its licenses were revoked on Saturday

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) has announced measures to boost lending aimed at combating the rising value of the yen.

Following an emergency meeting, the central bank said it would increasing lending to commercial banks by 10 trillion yen ($117bn; £75bn).

The measure is designed to stem the value of the currency, and boost lending to businesses.

Meanwhile the Japanese government has announced its own plans for a 920 billion yen stimulus package.

Prime minister Naoto Kan said ministers had agreed a plan to fight the rise in the yen, as well as to try and counter weakness in some economies - especially the US and in Europe - that buy Japanese goods.

US companies face a "logistical nightmare" from a new rule forcing them to disclose the ratio between their chief executive's pay package and that of the typical employee, lawyers have warned.

The mandatory disclosure will provide ammunition for activists seeking to target perceived examples of excessive pay and perks. The law taps into public anger at the increasing disparity between the faltering incomes of middle America and the largely recession-proof multimillion-dollar remuneration of the typical corporate chief.

S&P 500 chief executives last year received median pay packages of $7.5m, according to executive compensation research firm Equilar. By comparison, official statistics show the average private sector employee was paid just over $40,000.

Business sees the disclosure provision - buried in section 953(b) of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act - as a bureaucratic headache that may encourage false comparisons.

Irish banks are gearing up to repay more than €25bn of debt in the coming month, in what could prove an important test of investor sentiment towards the broader eurozone financial sector.

Bond markets will begin to re-open in Europe this week after the summer hiatus. The Irish redemptions have prompted concern over whether a slew of bonds from the country, to refinance the maturing debt, could weigh on the wider market and affect investor appetite for other bank borrowing.

The New York-based hedge fund, which manages about $400 million, has added "a lot more" cheap, out-of-the-money options, betting the market is underestimating the likelihood of a crash, founder Russell Abrams said in a phone interview. Treasuries, German government bonds and Japan's yen are pricing in economic outcomes that are bleaker than the stock market expects, said the former co-head of U.S. equity derivative trading and convertible arbitrage at Merrill Lynch & Co.

"They are pointing to a much more dangerous environment than what equity investors believe," he said in an interview Aug. 27. "Either you're going to see the bond market make the the big move or the equity market make the big move; the current situation is not in equilibrium."

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, whose book "The Black Swan" is about how unforeseen events can roil markets, said Aug. 11 he is "betting on the collapse of government bonds" and that investors should avoid stocks. Government bonds around the world have rallied on growing signs the global economic recovery is faltering, driving yields on two-year Treasury notes as well as German 30-year and 10-year bonds to record lows last week.

India's economy expanded at the fastest pace in 2 1/2 years, increasing pressure on the central bank to extend the most aggressive round of monetary-policy tightening in Asia.

Gross domestic product rose 8.8 percent in the three months through June from a year earlier, after an 8.6 percent increase in the previous quarter, the Central Statistical Organisation said in a statement in New Delhi today. The figure matched the median estimate of 27 economists in a Bloomberg News survey.

Thousands of people returned to the historic southern city of Thatta in Pakistan today after levees built from clay and stone held back the floodwaters that have ravaged large areas of the country.

Thousands who fled as the floods inundated nearby towns complained about a shortage of food and water as they camped in a graveyard on a hill near the city.

People ran after vehicles distributing food and water near the graveyard - a chaotic distribution system that left many flood survivors, especially the old and infirm, with nothing. Some were forced to drink rainwater from the ground.

The presidents of France and Egypt met on Monday in Paris to discuss how a planned November summit of the Mediterranean Union could contribute to a Middle East peace accord after the resumption of direct Israeli - Palestinian talks.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy says "new hope presents itself" with the resumption of direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders later this week in Washington.
...
Sarkozy also said the group of 27 European Union nations and 16 southern Mediterranean and Middle East countries could encourage talks toward Mideast peace.

Four Ugandan soldiers with the African Union forces in Somalia were killed Monday when hardline insurgents fired a mortar shell at one of their bases, the force's spokesman said.

The AU troops, protecting Somalia's embattled government which the Islamist Shebab rebels are fighting to overthrow, have been locked in heavy clashes since last week with the radical group who have intensified their attacks.

An Iranian former prosecutor Saeed Mortazavi and two judges have been suspended over the prison deaths of three anti-government protesters, Iranian newspapers reported on Monday.

Mortazavi and two unnamed judges have been suspended over the deaths of Mohammad Kamrani, Amir Javadifar and Mohsen Ruholamini in Kahrizak jail, Iranian MPs said in a statement.

"The suspension of the former prosecutor and two judges accused in the case is comforting," 216 lawmakers said in a joint statement published in the Shargh newspaper.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, based on the Treasury Department's failure to grant a "license" to those groups to represent U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki in a lawsuit seeking to bar the U.S. Government from assassinating him without due process.  In response, Treasury officials issued the license (those groups are nonetheless proceeding with that lawsuit in an attempt to have the entire licensing scheme declared unconstitutional on the ground that the Federal Government has no authority to require government permission before American lawyers can represent American citizens, even if the citizen in question has been accused of being a Terrorist).

WASHINGTON, Aug 30, 2010 (IPS) - In an effort to introduce a story of "progress" into media coverage, Gen. David Petraeus's command claimed last week that the Taliban is suffering from reduced morale in Marjah and elsewhere, despite evidence that the population of Marjah still believes the Taliban controls that district.

But the news media ignored the command's handout on the story, which did not quote Petraeus.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Aug. 25 news release quoted German Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, the ISAF spokesman, as citing intelligence reports of "low insurgent morale, which is affecting their capability across the country."

The release claimed that the Taliban commander in Marjah district, Mullah Niamat, "openly acknowledged to his fellow insurgents that the Taliban is losing Marjah and their chances of winning are poor."

The release cited "intelligence reports" as saying the Taliban leader's assessment was "based on battle losses" and "increased resentment of the insurgent methods by average Afghans".

New York Rebounds From Slump, Unevenly

This CIA "Red Cell" report from February 2, 2010, looks at what will happen if it is internationally understood that the United States is an exporter of terrorism; 'Contrary to common belief, the American export of terrorism or terrorists is not a recent phenomenon, nor has it been associated only with Islamic radicals or people of Middle Eastern, African or South Asian ethnic origin. This dynamic belies the American belief that our free, open and integrated multicultural society lessens the allure of radicalism and terrorism for US citizens.' The report looks at a number cases of US exported terrorism, including attacks by US based or financed Jewish, Muslim and Irish-nationalism terrorists. It concludes that foreign perceptions of the US as an "Exporter of Terrorism" together with US double standards in international law, may lead to noncooperation in renditions (including the arrest of CIA officers) and the decision to not share terrorism related intelligence with the United States.

At least 10 policemen were killed and several injured in a fierce firefight with Maoists on Sunday in the Kajra hill jungles, which stretches for about 40 km till Jamui, the state police confirmed on Monday.

Among those killed was Kawaiya outpost in-charge Phulan Yadav, who was leading the anti-Naxalite operation. There are unconfirmed reports of over a dozen policemen still missing in the jungles, about 30 km from Lakhisarai district headquarters.

FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--An expert report the German government has commissioned to help work out the country's future energy policy comes to the conclusion that most of Germany's energy ...

A volcano on the Indonesian island Sumatra that had been dormant for more than four centuries has erupted for the second day in a row.

Mount Sinabung was again spewing out towering clouds of ash on Monday, forcing the evacuation of more than 21,000 people. Some aircraft had to be diverted because of poor visibility.

Villagers living along the slopes of the Sinabung in North Sumatra province have packed up their belongings and headed to emergency shelters, mosques and churches, Andi Arief, a presidential adviser on disasters, said.

Their abandoned homes and crops were blanketed in heavy, grey soot, and the air was thick with the smell of sulphur

African lions are one step away from becoming an endangered species, and a measure designed to preserve them is to blame. A new study suggests that hunters who pay to shoot the animals are killing too many of the big cats.

Seventy years ago, the kings of the jungle numbered 450,000. Now the lion population has dwindled to less than a tenth of that. In the 1980s and 1990s, African nations started to think an old practice might hold the solution to saving the lion: trophy hunting. They hoped that by allowing rich game-chasers to shoot a few animals, landowners would have an incentive to conserve lion habitats and keep the species alive while boosting their local economies. In the meantime, it became conventional wisdom to blame the decline on factors such as conversion of lion habitat for agriculture, disease, and killings by locals upset over lion attacks on people or livestock. But the newest research, to be published in an upcoming issue of Conservation Biology, shows that at least in Tanzania--home to more lions than any other country--that isn't the case.

Led by Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, a team of biologists took a closer look at the diminishing lion populations in Tanzania over the last decade. The researchers analyzed the amount of game brought back by hunters from 21-day safaris, the only legal way to hunt lions in the East African nation. They discovered that from 1996 to 2008, the number of lions hunters bagged in Tanzania decreased by half. It's not that hunters are scarce: Sales of the wilderness treks have risen by 60% since 1998. And the hunters probably aren't deliberately shooting fewer animals either, according to geographer Brian Child of the University of Florida, Gainesville, who was not part of the study. "In general, if they're paying a lot of money, they're going to be hunting as hard as they can," Child says.

This leaves only one reason the hunters are bringing in less game: There's less game out there to shoot.

RICHMOND -- An Albemarle County judge has blocked Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's quest for documents related to the work of a former University of Virginia climate scientist, ruling that Cuccinelli failed to show why he suspects the professor may have violated a state fraud statute.

Circuit Judge Paul Peatross issued his ruling this morning, 10 days after hearing arguments in the extraordinary clash between the attorney general and UVa.

Cuccinelli issued a "civil investigative demand" to the university as part of an inquiry targeting former UVa professor Michael Mann, a climate scientist who now works at Penn State University. The attorney general's office indicated it is investigating "possible violations" of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by Mann in obtaining five research grants while at UVa, where Mann worked from 1999 to 2005.

The U.S. harvests around 68 million metric tons of wheat each year. There are two ways to increase this amount: One is to change farming practices by, say, increasing the amount of cultivated or irrigated acreage. The other is to breed the crop to be more prolific by introducing attributes that make it mature at ideal times, resist fungal infections, and divert more energy into making grain. Starting in 1959, wheat yield increased by about 1.1% per year, thanks to these breeding efforts--a boost known as "genetic gain." But in 1984, a few scientists noticed that in the 10 previous years, the average yield improvement had slowed, indicating that genetic gain was potentially leveling off. Ever since, genetic gain has continued to steadily drop.

To better quantify what was happening, Robert Graybosch, a geneticist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and C. James Patterson, a geneticist at Oregon State University, Corvallis, analyzed data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the last 50 years. They found that genetic gain began slowing down in the late '80s, as scientists had suspected, and now appears to have come to a halt. With current breeding techniques, wheat may finally have reached the upper limit of its potential yield, Graybosch says. "Now it's sort of reshuffling cards from the same deck."

Why has genetic gain come to a standstill? One of the primary reasons, says Graybosch, is that pathogens are likely evolving more quickly than breeders can keep up with. Another possibility, says Kulvinder Gill, a wheat geneticist at Washington State University, Pullman, who was not involved with the study, is genetic bottlenecks. For example, "dwarfing" genes that allow the plant to divert more energy to producing grain are widely used to increase yield--but this also means that breeders have been ignoring nondwarf varieties, thereby restricting the gene pool. Selecting for varieties that are resistant to particular pathogens has created a similar bottleneck, says Allan Fritz, a wheat geneticist at KansasStateUniversity in Manhattan who was also not involved with the work.

Directly altering the DNA of wheat--so-called genetic modification--could again spur genetic gain in crops, but Graybosch doesn't expect that anytime soon. The wheat's genome is very complex, he notes, and the public tends to frown on genetically modified foods.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/30/bjorn-lomborg-climate-change-u-turn

Now he's clamouring for $100 bn a year to fight climate change.

I've been following his career, more in sorrow than in anger, for years. He's been through the following phases :

1. Global warming is a scam invented by corrupt scientists who lie with statistics (which is something he is an expert on). This is what made him famous.

2. OK, global warming is real and it's a problem, but the best solution is business as usual plus charity to help the poorer countries adapt (this message presumably kept the business sponsors happy)

3. Global warming is a real problem, it must be fixed, just buy my book and I'll tell you how.

A three-man delegation representing Pakistan's highest law enforcement agency has been sent to London to investigate spot-betting allegations, as calls grow for the country's entire cricket team to be banned from international competition.

Leading the calls today was Malcolm Speed, an Australian who was the chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC) from 2001-08.

Speed said he was concerned by what "looks a fairly compelling case" of rigged betting after Scotland Yard officers investigated claims that reporters paid a middleman £150,000 in return for exact details relating to play during the final Test of the four-match series at Lord's.

Researchers have long thought that Ötzi, the 5000-year-old Iceman found in the Alps in 1991, died wounded and alone, perhaps the victim of a raging blizzard. But a provocative new paper tells a radically different story. The first comprehensive map of Ötzi's body and belongings suggests he was ceremoniously buried by his fellows in the warm summer months.

Previous studies of Ötzi focused on his corpse rather than the entire death scene. His body, found on the Austrian-Italian border by two German hikers, had been pierced by an arrowhead in the shoulder. And the goods he carried--a copper axe, dagger, quiver, backpack, birch-bark container, and an unfinished bow--lay scattered around him. Previous analyses assumed that he discarded these as he succumbed to death from his wounds and the harsh winter.

But the new study--published today in Antiquity Journal--comes to a different conclusion. Led by archaeologist Alessandro Vanzetti of the University of Rome, La Sapienza, the researchers say that Ötzi's body and artifacts were in fact carefully placed on a stone platform 5 meters away from where the body was later found. Among the larger artifacts, only the backpack frame, trapped against the rock, remained in place. Human and animal hair on the platform--which is uphill from the body's final resting place--are "inconsistent with the disaster theory that the Iceman died where he was found," the authors write. If Ötzi had lain down on the rock with his goods close about him, his possessions would not have been so widely scattered, they say. And an unfinished bow is an odd thing for a lone man to carry over a mountain pass.

The Library of Congress has just opened up 222 boxes' worth of files and papers on Fredric Wertham, the scaremonger whose book Seduction of the Innocent led to widespread bans, burnings and censorship of American comic books. Wertham wasn't just a nutcase pro-censorship crusader: he was also (paradoxically), a civil rights pioneer who worked for racially integrated education in America (he also appeared in defense of Edith Rosenberg, later executed for spying for the USSR).

PULLMAN, Wash. -- You know those goody-two-shoes who volunteer for every task and thanklessly take on the annoying details nobody else wants to deal with?

That's right: Other people really can't stand them.

Four separate studies led by a Washington State University social psychologist have found that unselfish workers who are the first to throw their hat in the ring are also among those that coworkers most want to, in effect, vote off the island.

"It's not hard to find examples but we were the first to show this happens and have explanations for why," said Craig Parks, lead author of "The Desire to Expel Unselfish Members from the Group" in the current Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The phenomenon has implications for business work groups, volunteer organizations, non-profit projects, military units, and environmental efforts, an interest of Parks' coauthor and former PhD student, Asako Stone.

ScienceDaily (Aug. 30, 2010) -- A new study from North Carolina State University shows that genetics play a key factor in whether someone is willing to take a survey.
"We wanted to know whether people are genetically predisposed to ignore requests for survey participation," says Dr. Lori Foster Thompson, an associate professor of psychology at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the research. "We found that there is a pretty strong genetic predisposition to not reply to surveys."

It was reported on Sunday 29 August 2010 that Mr Justice Kenneth Parker - the duty vacation judge (pictured right) - had, the previous day, granted a privacy injunction to an England footballer.  This appears to be the third such injunction granted during August (see our earlier post on the two previous injunctions).  The story of this "third injunction" was first reported in the Sunday Telegraph and has since appeared, on similar lines, in the "Daily Mail", the "Guardian", the "Independent" and the "Metro".

As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.

School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.

Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.

"Look, it's like I'm in a snapshot with her," said Shu Watanabe, 23, as he showed off his iPhone display, featuring himself next to the image of a doe-eyed cartoon character named Rinko, a smiling high school girl.

Rinko may only be digital, but try telling that to Watanabe or the legions of other fans of "Love Plus", a dating sim or simulation game that is played on handheld Nintendo DS consoles and also boasts AR applications for iPhones.

This is a composite image of the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758, located about 3.2 billion light years from Earth, showing the effects of a collision between two smaller galaxy clusters. Chandra X-ray data (blue) reveals hot gas in the cluster and data from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India (pink) shows huge "halos" generated by ultra-relativistic particles and magnetic fields over vast scales. Optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey are colored gold.

Floats paraded down the streets of central Paris on Sunday to celebrate the annual Ganesh festival. The parade celebrates the Hindu deity which is represented with the body of a man and the head of an elephant. The procession route, in the 10th district of Paris, is home to a growing Sri Lankan Tamil community and is sometimes referred to as Little Jaffna.

Dear Abby: I am a male who wears women's underwear, as well as skirts, shorts and nightgowns. I will soon be flying to Florida and will be taking a carry-on bag ... etc.

I thought it was hilarious, but you know how stupid I am.

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!