Two Yemenis who arrived in Amsterdam on a flight from the US are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act, Dutch prosecutors say.

The men were detained on arrival at Schiphol airport on Monday after police were notified by the US authorities of "suspicious" items in their luggage.

One checked-in bag reportedly contained a mobile phone strapped to a medicine bottle, as well as knives and watches.

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe".

Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe "could turn into Africa" as "there are millions of Africans who want to come in".

Italy has drawn criticism for handing over to Libya migrants it intercepts at sea, without screening them first.

Far fewer now reach Italy from Libya.

The Catholic Church in Germany has issued tougher guidelines on the handling of reports of sex abuse.

The revised rules insist all allegations must be reported to prosecutors in an attempt to prevent cases being covered up.

But critics say the new advice does not go far enough to tackle the issue.

The Catholic Church in Germany and other European countries has been hit by repeated accusations of abuse.

The Iranian government today urged the country's media to refrain from insults after a hardline newspaper twice described Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, France's first lady, as a "prostitute".

The Keyhan daily paper made the comments after Bruni-Sarkozy condemned the stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of adultery.

Ramin Mehmanparast, a foreign ministry spokesman, said insulting foreign dignitaries was incorrect and was not officially sanctioned.

The two-time Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon has died aged 50 following a battle with cancer.

The French rider won the Tour de France in 1983 and 1984 and finished runner-up in 1989, losing by just eight seconds, the smallest margin in the history of the race, to the American Greg LeMond

A French judge has dropped charges against an Algerian official over the killing of a leading Algerian opposition figure, a lawyer says.

Mohammed Ziane Hasseni was arrested two years ago in connection with the killing of Ali Mecili, who was assassinated at his Paris home in 1987.

He was head of protocol at Algeria's foreign ministry when detained.

The case caused a rift in diplomatic relations between Algeria and its former colonial ruler, France.

Tony Blair claims Gordon Brown lost the last election because he abandoned New Labour and lost the "crucial" support of business, in memoirs that give an implicit endorsement of David Miliband as the party's future leader.

Mr Blair says he foretold that Mr Brown's premiership would end in "disaster" if he abandoned the party's centrist principles, and the book is a searing account of his fraught relationship with his "maddening" former chancellor.

The former premier claims it was his idea to make the Bank of England independent in 1997 and says he now regrets allowing Mr Brown to claim the credit. "I allowed him to the make the statement," he says.

Ireland's beleaguered banking sector has suffered a further blow after the nationalised Anglo Irish Bank revealed it will need further government loans following losses of €8.2bn (£6.7bn) for the first six months of this year.

The bank, which was saved from bankruptcy with billions of euros from the Irish taxpayer, said the final bill would be near €25bn after accepting an average 40% loss on its commercial and residential loans.

Mortgage lending fell sharply in July as activity in the housing market remained subdued, according to Bank of England figures released today.

Net lending totalled £86m for the month, down from June's £518m and the second-lowest monthly lending figure since the Bank's records began in 1993, although there have been two months when net lending was negative.

The number of mortgages approved for house purchases edged ahead slightly during the month, rising to 48,722 from 48,562, well down on the levels of more than 100,000 a month seen during the housing boom. The figure was also down on the high of slightly more than 59,000 in November.

India's economy has grown 8.8 per cent in the June quarter, its strongest performance in more than two years, official data show.

Figures from India's Central Statistical Organisation released on Tuesday, also revealed an increase of 2.8 per cent in farm output, a 12.4 per cent growth in manufacturing, a 7.5 per cent increase in construction and an 8.9 per cent rise for mining.

Before the international financial crisis, India was averaging annual growth of nine per cent.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Meghnad Desai, an economist and member of the UK's upper house of parliament, said that "for the last five years India has been growing at a rate of five per cent on average, and now it is beginning to look like it may get to double digit very soon".

Credit Suisse was accused yesterday of "sophisticated and aggressive tax avoidance" after the investment bank and wealth management group briefed staff that an unexpected one-off bonus would be awarded to hundreds of its London-based bankers tomorrow - less than five months after the government's 50% levy on bank bonuses expired.

The bank had initially won praise in some quarters for curbing 2009 bonuses in response to the tax on bankers' rewards announced by the then chancellor, Alistair Darling, last December.

In effect, it appeared that Credit Suisse bankers were to shoulder this temporary tax burden, whereas several other investment banks chose to pass on the tax charge to shareholders.

What If We Ditched Quantitative Easing and Just Printed (And Distributed) Cash?  
Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds

What if the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury stopped trying to stimulate the economy by encouraging more borrowing with "quantitative easing" and instead "dropped money from helicopters" into households' accounts?

....

What seems clear is that expanding bank credit through quantitative easing policies of funneling trillions of dollars into banks isn't working. Putting the same money thrown into banks ($4 trillion) into households' accounts would certainly put the money where it could either be spent or used to pay down debt--both of which are direct "cures" to over-indebtedness and a no-growth economy.

The sums of money squandered on bailing out banks are difficult to grasp. So I'll make it easy: if the Treasury printed up $1.3 trillion in cash, that would be enough to give $10,000 to all 130 million households in the U.S. Even $10,000 to each household would enable a lot of debt to be paid off. Those without any debt could save/invest/spend it. That would certainly do more for the economy than throwing another $1.3 trillion to "extend and pretend" the banks' insolvency.

....

Would some people squander a one-time "last chance to set a new course" helicopter drop? Of course some people will. But that's not the point. The point is that the nation has received zero value from trillions in quantitative easing, and so if even 10% of the 130 million households do something useful with their $10,000 in cash then that would be one heck of a lot more than we've gotten from the trillions thrown down the rathole of a venal, corrupted, insolvent banking sector.

Throwing money at banks hasn't done anything but reward financial Power Elites via privatizing their gains and transferring their losses to the taxpayers. Throwing money at households won't solve the nation's problems either, but it would give households a one-time chance to do something useful with a chunk of cash. If 90% of the households blew it, then it would still end up somewhere in the economy, which is more than can be said of the trillions thrown away on QE.
(Emphasis is from the original.)

This is along the lines of what the Modern Monetary Theory, MMT, proponents say, for example. If there is unused labor available in the society a sovereign government with its own currency, which trades freely against other currencies, can always spend directly to employ that labor up to the point that it starts to cause wage inflation without other serious consequences - and should do so. If the government spends on important national priorities, such as making the country self sufficient in renewable energy and renewable based national transportation, it would be a strong positive development.

The problem with this is that it dilutes the perceived wealth of the elite and violates all of their ideas about how things should work. But those very ideas are what have led us into a financial catastrophe, from which only some of that elite has benefited.

Good to see such ideas presented on Business Insider!

Kooks of the world, UNITE! You have nothing to loose but your dysfunctional elites!

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

JPMorgan Chase & Co. told traders who bet on commodities for the firm's account that their unit will be closed as the company, the second-biggest U.S. bank by assets, starts to shut down all proprietary trading, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The bank eventually will close all in-house trading to comply with new U.S. curbs on investment banks, said the person, who asked not to be identified because New York-based JPMorgan's decision hasn't been made public.

....

Congress passed restrictions on financial firms this year designed to prevent a recurrence of the 2008 credit crisis, which almost caused the banking system to collapse. Proprietary trading involves transactions made on behalf of the bank rather than its customers. The curbs are known as the Volcker rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who campaigned for limits on risk-taking by lenders.

....

Coal derivatives trader Chan Bhima, who made a bad bet on coal prices that the New York Post said cost JPMorgan as much as $250 million in the second quarter, isn't affected by the cuts, the person said. The proprietary trading desk reports to commodities head Blythe Masters, who discussed Bhima's trade and other matters in a July conference call with her team.

....

U.S. banks are exploring ways to comply with the new trading rules. Citigroup Inc. was looking at three options to meet the new rule, including moving a team of proprietary traders into its hedge-fund unit, people briefed on the matter said in July. The bank would set up the traders as hedge-fund managers and seed their funds, then raise money from outside investors to redeem its stakes, the people said.

JPMorgan was embarrassed by its prop desk in Q2. That this action was necessitated by the recent financial reform bill will become clear when Goldman shuts down its prop desk. JesseJesse has some interesting questions on this move and has an earlier comment on Blythe Masters' blithe advice to her group back then: "Don't panic." Is it now time to panic? She assured her troops that: "We're not going to do crazy things on compensation at the end of the year." Now they can worry about even being employed at the end of the year.

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

New Banks Needed #1 August 25, 2020

Banks are capital constrained. Balance sheets are loaded up with problem debt. Future losses are embedded in booked exposures. The banking sector is not sufficiently healthy to support economic expansion or to reverse deflationary pressures.

So the question is how do we evolve? The government has propped up the banking sector, believing systemic impacts of bank failures would trigger a tidal wave of further liquidity contraction and trigger depression. The propping up has not worked. Yes, it has prevented a massive financial system collapse, but it has not supported economic growth. We need creative destruction in the banking sector. Let these existing banks reap the rewards of their policies. Create new banks with new fresh capital, unencumbered by toxic assets, headed by wise risk managers, but ready to lend.

New Banks Needed #2
August 31, 2010

The gist of what I am saying is this and is really not controversial.

    * Banks have embedded losses on their balance sheets
    * These imbedded losses impact profitability and capital
    * Because risks in the economy are large, banks are exceedingly careful about lending.
    * On an individual bank level, this is appropriate.
    * In aggregate, this reduces growth or recovery potential
    * This is in line with the "Zombie Bank" discussions that were all over the place during the depth of the financial crisis, which predicted just what we have going on today.
    * The Fed policy of low rates and other regulators complicity in "extend and pretend" does not solve this dilemma. It simply prevents the clearing of the market for financial assets and the development of new robust financial institutions that are capable of taking on risk.
    * New banks with new capital are needed. They would not be encumbered by imbedded bad assets or dependent on a super low rate environment.

New banks would also provide the opportunity to shed the predatory financial model that imperils our future. The ability of bankers to be in denial about the state of affairs and to argue for the status quo is not a reason to believe them. That's it.

We are now starting to get reports of credit worthy borrowers having difficulty financing homes and Wall Mart having set up a business brokering Small Business Agency loans to creditworthy business borrowers, so there is likely a market, but our government likely will put the desires of the TBTFs ahead of any move to actually help main street.

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

On such chances the wheel of history turns. But this time was different: the crisis brought Barack Obama to power close to the beginning of the economic collapse. I (among others) then argued that policy needed to be hugely aggressive. Alas, it was not. I noted on February 4 2009, at the beginning of the new presidency: "Instead of an overwhelming fiscal stimulus, what is emerging is too small, too wasteful and too ill-focused." A week later, I asked: "Has Barack Obama's presidency already failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question. But these are not normal times. They are times of great danger. Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it. Today, it can offer solutions; tomorrow it will have become the problem. Today, it is in control of events; tomorrow, events will take control of it. Doing too little is now far riskier than doing too much." This was right.

The direction of policy was not wrong: policymakers - though not all economists - had learnt a great deal from the 1930s. Sensible people knew that aggressive monetary and fiscal expansion was needed, together with reconstruction of the financial sector.

But, as Larry Summers, Mr Obama's chief economic adviser, had said: "When markets overshoot, policymakers must overshoot too". Unfortunately, the administration failed to follow his excellent advice. This has allowed opponents to claim that policy has been ineffective when it has merely been inadequate.

UK manufacturing suffered a sharp slowdown last month amid uncertainty about the nature and extent of public spending cuts, adding to fears that the economy is weakening.

The manufacturing sector purchasing managers index slipped from 56.9 to 54.3, where a figure above 50 means that companies are reporting rising activity. The fall in the index continues a trend of slowing growth in the sector since reaching a peak in May. Growth in activity is at its lowest in nine months and manufacturing output is now expanding at its slowest rate in 11 months.

A rapid deceleration in new orders lay behind much of the slowing activity, which suggests that there may be further weakness ahead. Employment growth also slowed in the month to its weakest since March.

"The looming public sector spending cuts are keeping UK manufacturers on tenterhooks and slowing the pace of the recovery," said David Noble, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, which produces the data with polling company Markit.

Sagging stock prices in the second quarter of 2010 attracted the interest of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the foundation added the Goldman Sachs Group and Monsanto to its portfolio, according to the Dow Jones Newswires. The foundation recently bought about 500,000 shares of the giant biotech company, according to another financial website.

• European Salon de News, Discussion et Klatsch - August 10
  
• European Tribune - LQD - Gates' charity increases mortality rates
  
• European Tribune - Charity, Solidarity & the L Word
  
• European Tribune - Why I don't do charity

The contentious issue of West Bank settlement construction is threatening to dominate the first face-to-face talks for 20 months between Israel and the Palestinians, due to begin with a White House dinner hosted by President Barack Obama tomorrow night.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, were en route to Washington today amid opposition, cynicism and indifference among their respective populations, despite Obama's insistence that a comprehensive peace deal can be reached within 12 months.

Four Israelis have been killed in a shooting attack near Hebron in the occupied West Bank, according to Israeli police.

The gunman opened fire on a car driving on Highway 60 near the Kiryat Arba settlement, according to Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has praised the drawdown of US troops from his country and called Tuesday a "bright day for the people of Iraq".

Al-Maliki spoke during a televised address hours before what US commanders say is the formal end of combat operations in Iraq. 

Just under 50,000 US troops, who are expected to stay through until next year, remain in Iraq.

Colombia Reports: Former paramilitaries admit to cremating the bodies of some 150 of their victims in northern Colombia between 2000 and 2004, prosecutors told news agency AP.

Chile, SANTIAGO - The top health ministry official in northern Chile's Atacama region resigned Monday over his role in reopening the San Jose mine, where 33 miners are now trapped, after an accident in which one worker lost a leg. Raul Martinez Guzman signed the July 28 resolution authorizing the reopening of the mine, which had been closed since the July 3 accident that resulted in doctors having to amputate the leg of miner Gino Cortes.

GUATEMALA CITY - At least five people dead, eight missing and hundreds of homes damaged and flooded made up part of the harm done by a weather system that hit Guatemala over the weekend, authorities said Monday. The disaster-response agency, Conred, said in its latest report that one person died, four were injured and three have gone missing in the western province of Sacatepequez. Meanwhile in the eastern province of Chiquimula a strong current of water caused the death of two people, and another four have disappeared.

PANAMA CITY - Three people have died, almost 1,000 have been adversely affected in various ways and at least 170 homes have been severely damaged in the torrential rains that have fallen over the weekend in Panama, a government official said on Sunday. The head of Sinaproc, the national emergency management office - Arturo Alvarado - told Efe that "regrettably there are three deaths, one in the province of Bocas del Toro, another in Chiriqui and the third in Veraguas," all of them adults. During this year's rainy season, the levels of Panama's rivers have risen rather precipitously due to heavy mountain water runoff and "therefore we are urging people not to defy the waters by fishing, bathing or crossing them, because they are exposing themselves" to mortal danger, he said.

HURRICANE EARL

From Anguilla:

Anguilla News: After battering the Northern Leeward Islands, especially Anguilla, where Police Commissioner Rudolph Proctor said at least two roofs were blown off on Monday, Hurricane Earl intensified and moved past the Northern Virgin Islands. The Tropical Storm warning was discontinued for Anguilla at 5:00pm by the Government of Antigua and the Hurricane warnings in the Virgin Islands were replaced with Tropical Storm warnings.

From Antigua & Barbuda:

Caribarena: From a statement by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer - "...So far, I am advised that 259 persons were occupying shelters up to this morning, although this number could change over time.   A total of 110 persons were occupying shelters in my own constituency of St. John's Rural West.  Fifty (50) persons in St. Mary's North were in shelters up to this morning. In St. John's Rural South, 42 persons were in shelters. (...) APUA has advised that it is in a position to restore water supplies as soon as the hurricane has passed. Electricity supplies will take longer to be restored as there are reports of downed power  lines and poles. APUA personnel will be working hard to restore power as quickly as possible. We are thankful that so far there has been no report of loss of life and minimal reports of damage to houses and other property...

From Montserrat:

The Montserrat Reporter: Flooding was the result as it thundered, lightening and rained all night from about 5.00 p.m. yesterday. Roads from the north to the south suffered damage as bridges and ghauts were blocked from the flood waters and boulders that came crashing down.  Nantes River was blocked and the flood water flowed over on the road and found its way like the river and down into Rams Enterprises basement storage. Heavy equipment were still working on that bridge at 2.00 p.m., clearing it to ready it for the continuing threats of rain. Runaway Ghaut was blocked from mudslides, which made the road impassable from both sides. Casava Ghaut suffered most damage as the bridge barrier was broken after it became blocked and the result was boulders and other debris also blocked that passage.

From St. Kitts & Nevis:

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - SEVEN men and a woman were giving praise and thanks to God yesterday (Aug. 30) for bringing them safely to St. Kitts, after the cargo vessel in which they were travelling was adversely affected by weather conditions caused by Hurricane Earl.

From St. Martin/St. Maarten:

Philipsburg:--- Cleaning up St. Maarten in all areas is a task the residents and members of public works have begun shortly after hurricane Earl passed across St. Maarten and its neighboring islands. While the island was spared from significant damage one of the most worrisome scenes is the areas where the different political parties had their posters.

More photos HERE.

From the US Virgin Islands:

St. John,  St. Thomas & St. Croix

From the British Virgin Islands:

Roadtown, Tortola: From as early as 5:00 a.m. residents of the Road Town areas stood surveying their streets and yards; and by 7:30 a.m. many had collaborated to remove many fallen trees and debris. A walk through Road Town as of 8:00 a.m. revealed minor damage. Some surprises included a tent that sailed all the way to the top of large tree at Botanic Station, damaged signs, etc.

More HERE.

...And, of course, PUERTO RICO.

...Koch Industries is in the news again following an expose by Jane Meyer at the New Yorker titled, "Covert Operations: The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama":

   The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry--especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers' corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies--from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program--that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus.

....

But, here's a key piece of information: the Kochs haven't just given to right-wingers. Back in April of 2001, The American Prospect's Bob Dreyfuss reported that the Kochs also funded the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC):

   And for $25,000, 28 giant companies found their way onto the DLC's executive council, including Aetna, AT&T, American Airlines, AIG, BellSouth, Chevron, DuPont, Enron, IBM, Merck and Company, Microsoft, Philip Morris, Texaco, and Verizon Communications. Few, if any, of these corporations would be seen as leaning Democratic, of course, but here and there are some real surprises. One member of the DLC's executive council is none other than Koch Industries, the privately held, Kansas-based oil company whose namesake family members are avatars of the far right, having helped to found archconservative institutions like the Cato Institute and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Not only that, but two Koch executives, Richard Fink and Robert P. Hall III, are listed as members of the board of trustees and the event committee, respectively--meaning that they gave significantly more than $25,000.

    The DLC board of trustees is an elite body whose membership is reserved for major donors, and many of the trustees are financial wheeler-dealers who run investment companies and capital management firms--though senior executives from a handful of corporations, such as Koch, Aetna, and Coca-Cola, are included.

....

Fitting, isn't it? The entity that tries to undermine the progressive agenda from within the Democratic Party was getting funding from the guys who are trying to destroy the Democratic Party from the outside.

Just a side note: The DLC's long-time CEO, Bruce Reed, is now the Executive Director of the Obama administration's Debt Commission, a.k.a. the Cat Food Commission.

Rabbi convenes special religious court to carry out punishment against newly religious man who sang in front of integrated audience of men, women

The sinner lifted his shirt and recited the confession. A court clerk pressed him against the tree pole and began flogging him with a special whip. The three judges declared, "May your evil be lifted and your sin atoned."

Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney has officially joined the legions of birthers, after writing an affidavit in support of Army Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he does not believe President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Lakin faces a court martial on Oct. 13 for his refusal.

The affidavit from McInerney acknowledges concerns about Obama's Constitutional eligibility, and demands that he release his birth records or that the court authorize discovery

The world's most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is "undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today" and "a challenge humanity must confront", in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled "sceptical environmentalist" once compared to Adolf Hitler by the UN's climate chief, is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. "Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century," the book concludes.

If you have kids, you're going to love the Squishy Circuits Project: it involves cooking and electronics, although not at the same time.

Squishy Circuits is a great sets of recipes from Samuel Johnson and Dr. AnnMarie Thomas at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota. Essentially you will make two batches of Play-Doh, one conductive and one non-conductive, and preferably different colors. The dough can then be formed into any kind of circuit and, with the addition of some wires poking into the dough and some batteries, motors and light-bulbs, you can have yourself some sticky, squishy, educational fun.

India's supreme court has reopened the Bhopal toxic gas leak case in response to a government petition seeking harsher punishment for officials from Union Carbide, the chemical company responsible.

In a decision that delighted the long-running campaign for justice by the survivors of the 1984 gas disaster, India's highest court today agreed to review its earlier decision that reduced the crime from one of "culpable homicide" to "a rash and negligent act".

Because of the lighter charges, seven Union Carbide officials received just two-year prison sentences when the court case finally concluded in June this year - 25 years after the accident, which the government says killed around 3,500 people. Activists say at least 22,000 died in the immediate aftermath and the following years

In 8 May 1980, the World Health Organisation declared that "the world and its peoples have won freedom from smallpox." Through decades of intense vaccination, this once fatal disease had been wiped out. It was a singular victory and having won it, countries around the world discontinued the vaccination programmes. After all, why protect against a disease that no longer exists (save in a few isolated stocks)?

Unfortunately, this is not a rhetorical question. The smallpox vaccine did more than protect against smallpox. It also reduced the risk of contracting a related illness called monkeypox, which produces the same combination of scabby bumps and fever. It's milder than smallpox but it's still a serious affliction. In Africa, where monkeypox originates from, it kills anywhere from 1-10% of those who are infected. And more and more people are becoming infected.

Anne Rimoin from the University of California, Los Angeles compared data on the virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo over the last three decades. She found that, during those years, monkeypox has become 20 times more common in humans. In one particular area, 72 people out of every million were infected each year between 1981 and 1986. Between 2005 and 2007, that figure rose to 1442 per million.

Exiled to the shores of the Black Sea 2,000 years ago, the Roman poet Ovid discovered the powerful winds that blew across that eastern border of the empire. To this day the wind continues to blow inland as far as Fantanele, a Romanian village located a few dozen kilometres from the coast.

"That's why we call it the Black Sea," said Constantin Stanciu, a farmer in Fantanele. "It's a rough sea and when it's angry, which is often, it blows this far inland." The wind is the only certainty in this isolated, hilly region. The land is arid and rocky, which limits the farming possibilities. And to judge by the farmers' leathery skin, the sun is as strong as the wind. The inhabitants have been resigned to the wind's onslaught for centuries, and their poverty is apparent.

Greenpeace claims to have shut down offshore drilling by a British oil company at a controversial site in the Arctic after four climbers began an occupation of the rig just after dawn.

The environment campaigners said the four protesters evaded a small flotilla of armed Danish navy and police boats which have been guarding the rigs in Baffin Bay off Greenland since the Greenpeace protest ship Esperanza arrived last week.

The rigs are operated by the Edinburgh-based oil exploration company Cairn Energy, which last week prompted world-wide alarm among environmentalists after disclosing it had found the first evidence of oil or gas deposits under the Arctic.

As anticipation grows about a possible renaissance for the nuclear power industry -- and about its potential for curbing greenhouse gas emissions -- some politicians are stepping up warnings about the high cost of such projects.

Last week, Traicho Traikov, the Bulgarian economy and energy minister, said the cost of building a second plant near the Danube River had reached 9 billion euros, or $11.4 billion, according to the original cost of the project for two reactors was expected to be just under $4 billion.

Today I bring you a story that has it all: a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that's revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots. It uses VoIP yet works with existing cell phones. It has pedigreed founders. Best of all, it is part of the sex, drugs and art collectively known as Burning Man. Where do you want me to begin?

"We make GSM look like a wireless access point. We make it that simple," describes one of the project's three founders, Glenn Edens.

The technology starts with the "they-said-it-couldn't-be-done" open source software, OpenBTS. OpenBTS is built on Linux and distributed via the AGPLv3 license. When used with a software-defined radio such as the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), it presents a GSM air interface ("Um") to any standard GSM cell phone, with no modification whatsoever required of the phone. It uses open source Asterisk VoIP software as the PBX to connect calls, though it can be used with other soft switches, too.

Every British Prime Minister I can think of has written his or (in one case only) her memoirs. None have provoked quite the pre-publication antagonism generated in advance of Tony Blair's autobiography, A Journey, which is out tomorrow.

Stand back from the venom for one moment, and ask yourself: would it not be rather odd if a former Prime Minister did NOT at some time write a memoir? Yet for this particular Prime Minister, we have people, among them artists and authors, who would describe themselves as liberals, and doubtless rush to the barricades whenever freedom of speech is under attack, attacking bookstores who have the temerity to want to stock and sell a book written by a man who won three general elections, one of them after the war in Iraq which is the single biggest contributor to the `anger' which these people say justifies the hatred.

Our new blogs will cover particle physics, skepticism, evolution, politics - and much more. Photograph: Tim O'Hara/Corbis

It's nearly the end of summer holidays, and there are plans afoot in the blogosphere.

You would not know it from general media coverage but, on the web, science is alive with remarkable debate. According to the Pew Research Centre, science accounts for 10% of all stories on blogs but only 1% of the stories in mainstream media coveage. (The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at a year's news coverage starting from January 2009.)

On the web, thousands of scientists, journalists, hobbyists and numerous other interested folk write about and create lively discussions around palaeontology, astronomy, viruses and other bugs, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, evolutionary biology, extraterrestrial life or bad science. For regular swimmers in this fast-flowing river of words, it can be a rewarding (and sometimes maddening) experience. For the uninitiated, it can be overwhelming.

The Guardian's science blogs network is an attempt to bring some of the expertise and these discussions to our readers. Our four bloggers will bring you their untrammeled thoughts on the the latest in evolution and ecology, politics and campaigns, skepticism (with a dollop of righteous anger) and particle physics (I'll let them make their own introductions).

A General Medical Council disciplinary panel today ruled that Dr Freddy Patel, the pathologist who carried out the first autopsy on Ian Tomlinson who died at last year's G20 protest, acted in a way that amounted to misconduct during two earlier postmortem examinations and his fitness to practise is impaired.

The panel also ruled that Dr Patel had displayed deficient professional performance in a third postmortem.

The panel had already concluded that Dr Patel was "irresponsible" and failed to meet professional standards during his examinations of the bodies of a five-year-old girl in 2002, a four-week-old baby in 2003 and a woman who died in 2005.

Panel chairman Richard Davies told Dr Patel: "The panel is not satisfied that there is no risk of the relevant conduct being repeated."

The first Edinburgh international book festival run by its new director Nick Barley saw a small dip in ticket sales, bucking a trend of increasing audiences in previous years.

This year's festival, which closed last night with a tribute to the Scots Makar Edwin Morgan, who died last week, sold 3% fewer tickets than last year's record-breaking event.

Despite unusually sunny weather and another record year for the fringe, which sold nearly 2m tickets, the book festival's organisers believe the recession led its audience to buy fewer tickets.

It is now well-established that the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of the view that MMR does not cause autism.

The front page of the Mail on Sunday at the weekend has the headline "FAMILY WIN 18YR FIGHT OVER MMR DAMAGE TO SON" and a strap-line reading "£90,000 pay out is first since concerns over vaccine surfaced".

This is the case of a boy called Robert, who is now 18 and has severe brain damage such that he is unable to talk, stand unaided or feed himself, following a severe convulsion and onset of epilepsy at the age of 13 months. It is impossible not to feel sympathy and admiration for Robert and his family for his condition, their circumstances and their long battle for compensation. In fact I share the view of Robert's mother that £90,000 is not very much given the financial costs involved with a case like this.

Around 8 p.m. on the evening of Dec. 23, 2009, my 12-year-old son and I were puttering around the house when there was a sudden, loud banging at the front door.

"I have legal papers for Amy Wallace," a brusque woman's voice said from the other side of the door when I asked who was there. I was startled. The voice sounded unpleasant. It was dark out. It was the night before Christmas Eve. I didn't feel like welcoming the voice in. Can you leave the papers outside, I asked? "Are you Amy Wallace?" barked the voice. "Uh," I said, hesitating, my head muddy. Who was sending me legal papers?

"I'm going to take that as a yes!" the voice said, and not in a friendly way. "I saw you through the window. Consider yourself served!"

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink actually tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

But a new paper in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that - for reasons that aren't entirely clear - abstaining from alcohol does actually tend to increase one's risk of dying even when you exclude former drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

Politicians and members of the public have reacted with fury after a BBC Radio 4 broadcast heard commentators describe Scots as living off of benefits provided by the English and describe the Scottish parliament as a "charade of a building" inhabited by MSPs who "crawl out of the darkness".

The comments were made on the radio programme `Any Questions' by Baroness Ruth Deech who is a former Governor of the BBC and Douglas Murray who is the Director of The Centre for Social Cohesion (CSC).  The comments have resulted in a stream of complaints to the BBC.

The show, broadcast on Friday 20th August, heard Baroness Deech claim that Scots lived off of benefits paid for by English subsidies and that the release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi had embarrassed the rest of the UK.

Collecting tribal artefacts in the late 19th century, Harvard University's Peabody Museum sought to preserve a span of American history that 18th-century frontiersmen had tried to obliterate. By the end of the 20th century, the tribes wanted their things back. Thousands of ceremonial objects were returned before curators realised that earlier conservators had doused them with arsenic to repel insects. Saving the artefacts had rendered them deadly.

A majority of Republicans believe that President Barack Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world," according to a survey released on Monday.

That figure, buried at the very end of a newly released Newsweek public opinion poll, reflects the extent to which a shocking bit of smear and misinformation has managed to become nearly commonplace within the GOP tent.

In the military, it's said, training never ends. Officers at one Virginia base reportedly think that maxim extends to their soldiers' religious development, as well: The Army is investigating allegations that soldiers there were ordered to attend a Christian pop-rock concert, or else remain confined to their barracks.

"Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down," Private Anthony Smith told the Associated Press, referring to himself and the other 100 or so men who declined to attend the concert. "It seemed very much like a punishment."

The UK is to introduce one of the world's most ambitious attempts to police online marketing next year, when the Advertising Standards Authority extends its regime to corporate websites, social networks and mobile applications.

Regulating the web is notoriously tricky, given its international and anonymous nature, but the British self-regulatory body will go further than those in most other large advertising markets.

"When this goes live next March this will be the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world," said Chris Smith, chairman of the ASA.

The rules will capture marketing through Twitter and Facebook pages and could even include user-generated content, such as YouTube videos, if members of the public are asked by companies to aid their marketing efforts.

Let's start by congratulating the News of the World for its exclusive on what we've come to call 'spot-fixing'.

I have a lot of reservations about entrapment, whether it's carried out by the 'forces of law and order or by newspapers. But it does seem, on the face of it at least, that this particular exercise satisfied the main criteria for subterfuge 'in the public interest'. Prima facie evidence of serious wrongdoing on a matter of some significance and the probability that the evidence couldn't be collected in any other way.

In a meeting room in a community centre in Vancouver, the blackboard said "Strategy" and the leaflets said "Bigot Alert". A coalition of prominent anti-racist organisations shook hands and took their seats, notepads at the ready. A "leading racist" was about to land in Canada on a speaking tour. TV and radio stations were vying to secure chatshow bookings. There would be celebrity appearances, meet-and-greet-the-fans sessions and high-profile book signings. This was, the coalition felt, an unusual and disquieting turn of events. The media do not, as a rule, scramble to book racists for celebrity appearances. But this was an unusual racist, they said

At one time, the Tornio brewery employed more than 200 people, and even in recent times, there were nearly 100. Fewer than ten are moving to Lahti. Some were able to go into retirement, others found work elsewhere, and some went into training, but the future remains uncertain for about half of them.  The average age of the employees is 45 years.

"Hartwall has been very good as an employer, but it did make one very abrupt move here", Piiparinen says diplomatically. Reactions to this move are indicated by the pins on the brewery notice board that have been stuck into the photograph of CEO Jan-Kees Nieman.

No matter - it's only Lapin Kulta.

You can't be me, I'm taken

Gunman Raoul Moat shot himself before police officers opened fire with Taser shotguns, Sky News has learned.

Will probably consist of myself, LEP, Geezer in Paris, and whoever is in Pars and can attend. Jerome may be there or join in the afternoon... Email or phone if you might be there.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan