With Berlin scheduled to unveil a new energy concept, power companies have been lobbying for the extended use of their nuclear plants, if only for 10 to 15 more years. They could recoup their investments and then some. 

When the German government unveils its new energy concept September 28, it will likely announce a plan to prolong the life span of the country's 17 existing nuclear power plants. Chancellor Angela Merkel has advocated doing so by another 10 to 15 years, saying that would make it possible for the country to control electricity prices and meet goals for greenhouse gas emissions.

But critics say an aggressive nuclear energy lobby has been pushing for such extended life spans so that power companies can continue to reap profits from their investments in nuclear reactors. Four companies operate nuclear power plants in Germany: E.ON, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW.

Germany's Central Bank has initiated proceedings to remove one of its board members, Thilo Sarrazin, for controversial remarks he made on race and immigration. 

Executive board members of the German Central Bank on Thursday agreed to file a request for the removal of one of its board members, Thilo Sarrazin, following controversial remarks he made on race and immigration in interviews and in a new book released earlier this week.

The decision comes after mounting political pressure to drop the contentious banker and limit damage to the country's reputation.

"The board of the German Central Bank today decided unanimously to ask the president of the republic to dismiss Dr. Thilo Sarrazin as a member of the board," the bank said in a statement.

Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, also said on Thursday that he was "appalled" by Sarrazin's comments.

The News of the World is facing a fresh allegation of phone hacking against one of its journalists, the Press Complaints Commission confirmed today.

The commission was informed by the paper just over two months ago about the allegation, and the journalist involved has been "suspended from reporting duties".

Stephen Abell, the PCC director, confirmed today that the press regulator was informed by the paper in June "of the existence of the recent allegation of phone-message hacking against the reporter". Abell said that the PCC was prevented from launching its own investigation because the allegation was "the subject of legal action".

The new claim was revealed late yesterday in a New York Times article on the News of the World phone-hacking affair. The paper reported that the News of the World was conducting a new phone-hacking investigation and had suspended a reporter, after a "television personality" had been alerted by her phone company to a "possible unauthorised attempt to access her voicemail" and the number was traced back to a journalist at the paper.

The prime minister of Kosovo, which seceded from Serbia and declared independence two years ago, has offered to make a fresh start in relations with Belgrade, which is coming under increasing European pressure to respond in kind.

In an article for the Guardian's Comment is free, Hashim Thaçi said it was "inevitable" that Kosovo and Serbia would resolve their deep enmity, bury their differences, and look to a future integrated in the European Union (EU).

The call for new negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade followed a blunt warning to the Serbian government this week from the foreign secretary, William Hague, who said the Serbs were jeopardising their chances of joining the EU by refusing to deal with an independent Kosovo.

The European Commission has halted a proposal to allow Israel access to potentially sensitive data on European Union citizens following concerns expressed by the Irish Government.

The concerns arose following the use of forged Irish passports in the murder of a Hamas operative, allegedly by Israeli agents.

In a surprise move this morning, the Commission said they would withdraw the application to effectively recognise Israel's data protection standards as being on a par with those enjoyed in the EU.

A far-right party in Austria has sparked outrage by launching an online video game which allows players to shoot down minarets and muezzins calling for prayer.

The game, called "Moschee Baba", or "Bye Bye Mosque", gives players 60 seconds to collect points by placing a target over cartoon mosques, minarets and Muslims and click a "Stop" sign.

It is being used by the Freedom Party (FPOe), which has a link to the game on its website, to encourage voters to elect Gerhard Kurzmann, the party's candidate in the picturesque region of Styria.

"Game Over. Styria is now full of minarets and mosques!" it says at the end of a session, before inviting players to vote for Kurzmann on September 26, when local elections are being held.

SLOVAKIA is in shock; France in uproar. The cause of both nations' turmoil is the Roma (gypsies), or, rather, what is being done to them. This week a gunman in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, killed seven people and injured 14, before shooting himself dead. Six of the victims were a Roma family, killed inside their apartment; they appear to have been deliberately targeted.

In France the expulsion of hundreds of Roma immigrants, whom Nicolas Sarkozy's government says were in the country illegally, has galvanised opposition from the pope, French churches, a UN committee and even several ministers in Mr Sarkozy's own government. Yet further tough legislation is promised.

Between them the Slovakian shootings and the expulsions from France highlight the difficulties faced by Europe's largest stateless minority. An ingrained underclass, Roma are the victims of prejudice, often violent, at home in eastern Europe. Thousands have migrated westward to seek a better life, particularly as the expansion of the European Union has allowed them to take advantage of freedom-of-movement rules. Yet although conditions may be better in the west, the reception has rarely been friendly and politicians like President Sarkozy have ruthlessly exploited hostility towards the newcomers.

The European Union reached a long-awaited agreement on Thursday night on reform of financial supervision, paving the way for the establishment of three pan-EU watchdogs to oversee controls on banks and insurers in the region from next year.
...
The overhaul involves the creation of a European Systemic Risk Council to assess threats to regional financial stability. In addition, three watchdogs - covering banking, insurance and securities markets, respectively - will also be established.

Day-to-day supervision of individual companies and markets will remain with national supervisors but the new EU bodies will develop harmonised rules and approaches to co-ordinate their actions.
...
The new watchdogs will have no direct supervisory powers, other than for credit rating agencies operating in the EU - a move which should reassure the UK. MEPs have also dropped their demand that the new watchdogs are all based in Frankfurt: instead they will be split between London, Paris and the German city.

The watchdogs will have some additional powers in "emergency situations", however, and may temporarily ban or restrict certain financial activities if these threaten the stability of the EU's financial system. But "emergencies" will be called by the member states, rather than the European Commission or parliament.

European Union banks may face new costs and liabilities next year under a law allowing claimants to freeze debtors' assets in the bloc with court orders from any EU jurisdiction, lawyers say.

The European Commission wants the proposal in place as soon as March, allowing judges to grant cross-border account freezes in secret and apply them to banks in other EU nations before a debtor is aware of the claim.

The legislative arm of the 27-nation EU says 63 percent of cross-border debt can't be recovered, and it blames a network of diverging national laws and the high cost of winning separate freezes in each country where assets are located. Lawyers aren't convinced the new law will help.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- One of the principal owners of the Afghan bank at the center of an accelerating financial crisis here said depositors had withdrawn $180 million in the past two days. He predicted a "revolution" in the country's financial system unless the Afghan government and the United States moved quickly to help stabilize the bank.

Khalil Frozi, one of the two largest shareholders of Kabul Bank, said reports indicating that the institution had lost as much as $300 million were overstated. But he predicted that if Afghan depositors continued to withdraw their money at the current rate, then Kabul Bank would almost certainly collapse -- undermining confidence in the nascent financial system Afghanistan has been trying to build with American help.

"If people lose their trust in the banks, then we will have revolution in our financial system," Mr. Frozi said in an interview. "We need the Afghan government and the U.S. government to support us. That is essential."

The news came as Afghan leaders took the first steps toward arresting the panic, which began earlier this week when the country's top banking officials demanded the resignations of Mr. Frozi, the bank's chief financial officer, and of the bank's chairman, Sherkhan Farnood.

ederal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said he regretted not saying in congressional testimony shortly after the failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in 2008 that the central bank had no authority to save the firm.

The testimony at the time "has supported this myth that we did have a way of saving Lehman," Bernanke said today in response to questions during a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearing in Washington. "I regret not being more straightforward there because clearly it has supported the mistaken impression that in fact we could have done something."

Bernanke made the remarks to explain the disparity between his September 2008 testimony that the Fed and U.S. Treasury "declined to commit public funds to support the institution" and later statements that the government had no option to save Lehman because of inadequate collateral. The Fed decided at the time against saying Lehman was unsalvageable because it may have risked further panic in financial markets, Bernanke said today.

It may just be a few billion euros too far for Ireland's beleaguered taxpayers.

Anglo Irish Bank Corp. said Aug. 31 it needs about 25 billion euros ($32.1 billion) in state funding, equivalent to about two-thirds of this year's tax revenue. Standard & Poor's, which last week cut the country's credit rating to AA-, said the state may have to inject as much as 35 billion euros.

"It's like a bad dream where you're chasing something you can't catch up with," said Micheal O'Cearbhail, a retired television producer shopping in O'Connell Street, Dublin's main thoroughfare. "Eventually they'll have to close it down."

Few places in the world encapsulate the global financial crisis more than Ireland as the country's decade-long economic boom came to a halt with the collapse of the property market.

The European Central Bank on Thursday said eurozone growth this year would be much stronger than previously expected, but betrayed worries about the outlook by warning that its forecasts could prove over-optimistic and extending into 2011 the supply of emergency liquidity to the region's banks.

Jean-Claude Trichet, president, said the "very substantial" upward forecast revision followed an exceptional recent growth spurt. Although growth would cool in the second half of the year, he expected a continuing "positive underlying momentum" in the eurozone, and again ruled out a "double dip" back into recession.

However, the ECB president surprised analysts by warning that risks to the outlook were "slightly tilted to the downside", indicating a lack of faith in the ECB staff's forecasts.

Risks included weaker growth "in other advanced economies" - an obvious reference to the US, although Mr Trichet said the ECB had never expected "extraordinarily dynamic" growth on the other side of the Atlantic.

The ECB's caution about its economic forecasts reflected fears about raising false expectations. For this year, it expected growth in a range with a midpoint of 1.6 per cent compared with 1 per cent anticipated in June. For 2011, it expected 1.4 per cent growth, compared with the 1.2 per cent expected previously.

Foreign companies are losing market share in China across a broad range of industries because of discriminatory treatment by the government and regulators, according to the European Chamber of Commerce in China.

In its annual position paper, the organisation aired a host of complaints from its member companies and explicitly accused Beijing of violating its World Trade Organisation commitments through its heavy-handed certification requirements.

"Compulsory certification in excess of what is reasonable is being used to keep foreigners out of the market and business license requirements continue to exclude foreign companies from entire sectors," the group said.

China uses business licensing to restrict foreign access to some sectors and applies "vague and unprecedentedly broad definitions of public security and critical infrastructure" in its certification of a wide range of products, the EU chamber said.

This means foreign companies, particularly in industries like banking, transportation, IT and telecommunications, are often unable to get their products certified and so cannot sell them in China.

Here is a graph from the Council of Foreign Relations blog: Greek Debt Crisis - Apocalypse Later

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph from Paul Swartz at the CFR shows the default probabilities on three different dates:

On April 30th, no European plan was yet in place to address the ballooning Greek debt, and default was considered a real possibility in the short term. On May 11th, just after the European Stabilization Mechanism (ESM) was announced, markets sharply cut their view on the odds of default across all time horizons. ... On September 1st, the market's view of the probability of default within two years was lower than before the ESM was announced, but higher over longer time frames.

So initially the policy response lowered the default probabilities across all time frames (from red to light blue), but now - after further analysis - the default probabilities have increased for longer time frames (green).

Regulators are scrutinizing what some in the stock market are calling "quote stuffing," trading in which unusually large numbers of orders to buy or sell stocks are placed in a fraction of a second, only to be canceled almost immediately.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun looking into whether the practice is putting some investors at a disadvantage by distorting stock prices, according to people familiar with the matter. The SEC is looking at what role, if any, quote stuffing played in the May 6 "flash crash," when the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapsed 700 points in minutes

Putting some investors at a disadvantage! How about everyone who does not have the latest HFT machine with the latest HFT algos co-located at the exchange? The SEC will have to think long and hard about this!

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

Leading UK and continental European companies are increasingly shunning banks from Spain, Italy and even Germany because they do not believe the Europe-wide stress testing of banks gave a true picture of their financial health.

Corporate treasurers from groups with revenues of more than $240bn told the Financial Times they were conducting their own tests to gauge for themselves banks' robustness.

High-frequency trading: Up against a bandsaw

At an industrial estate on the edge of Tseung Kwan O, a new town connected by road tunnel to Kowloon, work has started on a data centre where traders of stocks, futures, options and currencies will place their computers next to Hong Kong Exchanges' own systems.
...
The concept - known as co-location - is growing fast. Last week, NYSE Euronext completed the move of trading in thousands of New York Stock Exchange-listed companies to a similar data centre in New Jersey.
...
The speed with which exchanges are building such facilities is a sign of the global spread of a phenomenon gripping the markets: "high-frequency trading" (HFT). The phrase describes a style of electronic dealing that uses algorithms to dip automatically in and out of markets hundreds of times faster than the blink of a human eye.
...
But like an invasive species in the natural world, HFT had grown rapidly before the wider public even noticed. Tabb Group, a consultancy, estimates that HFT now accounts for 56 per cent of all equity trades in the US and 38 per cent by value in Europe.
...
Concern is therefore growing that the markets may be morphing into little more than a playground for a specialised type of trading that has minimal economic benefit and contributes little if anything to capital formation - the traditional function of stock exchanges.

As the policy debate intensifies, investors might spare a thought for Takahashi Korekiyo, Bank of Japan governor from 1911 to 1913. He also served as finance minister and prime minister in the 1920s and 1930s.
...
However, in December 1931, Takahashi returned to the job of finance minister... A Keynsian by instinct Koreyiko reversed the tough, deflationary stance of his predecessor and fought recession with massive stimulus: he abandoned the gold standard, loosened credit conditions and raised public spending, financed with new debt.In some ways, it worked
...

But Takahashi encountered two problems... tensions continued to rise, partly because the large conglomerates, or zaibatsu, were the biggest winners from stimulus. Mitsui, for example, made millions of dollars from currency trading as Japan left the gold standard...

Second, and unsurprisingly, the spending bonanza undermined confidence in Japan's government debt and its currency, creating fragility.

So in 1936, Takahashi embarked on an exit strategy, cutting public spending and tightening monetary policy.

From a macroeconomic perspective, it made sense. But it cost Takahashi his life. As political tensions exploded, he was assassinated by rogue army officers who were furious at - among other things - the military spending cuts. That triggered a slide towards militarism, wild public spending and hyperinflation.

Ireland, simply put, appears insolvent under plausible scenarios with current policies. The idea that Ireland, Greece or Portugal can cut spending and grow out of overvalued exchange rates with still large budget deficits, while servicing all their debts and building more debt, is proving - not surprisingly - wrong. Such policies leave nations burdened with large debt overhangs that effectively tax businesses and borrowers - because interest rates must stay high to reflect risk.

Investors must wonder whether businesses and homeowners can afford these higher interest rates, so banks and investors cut credit lines and reduce lending. This strangles economies, even when the fiscal authorities take tough steps needed to cut deficits.

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Binyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, met for the first day of direct talks in Washington today and agreed that a peace deal could be achieved within a year.

George Mitchell, the White House envoy who joined the negotiations, said the two leaders decided to begin putting together a framework agreement on all major issues - such as borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and security - that will "establish the fundamental compromises necessary" to flesh out a comprehensive peace deal.

Mitchell said Netanyahu and Abbas agreed to meet again in a fortnight in the Middle East and every two weeks after that. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and Mitchell will attend the first of those meetings on 14 September.

Hurricane Earl, some 300 miles south of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras, has now prompted tropical-storm or hurricane warnings from the Tar Heel State's coast to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.

Coastal New England from Westport, Mass., to Hull, a town at the end of a peninsula forming part of Boston Harbor, is the latest swath of coastline to come under a hurricane warning.

From the North Carolina-Virgina border up to Westport, the entire coastline is under a tropical storm warning. The Delmarva Peninsula is under a hurricane watch as well.

"We've talked about people needing to be prepared and getting their plans ready. We're past that," says Craig Fugate, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "This is a day of action." People need "to be ready to heed any additional evacuation orders as this storm continues to track to the north," he says.

PHOENIX -- An Arizona sheriff has been sued by the U.S. Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with a civil-rights probe into police practices and jail operations.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, is disappointing given that he and his office were cooperating on the federal probe. "I thought we were really close to getting this resolved," the sheriff said.

Arpaio restated his confidence that Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies do not target Hispanic citizens because of their race, and said if the Justice Department had any evidence of racial profiling, they wouldn't be suing him to get records to prove that deputies profile.

Ten election campaign workers have been killed in an air strike by Nato-led forces in Afghanistan, officials say.

The governor of the northern province of Takhar, Abduljabar Taqwa, told the BBC that two people were also wounded in the attack in the Rostaq district.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the incident, saying that "pro-democracy people should be distinguished from those who fight against democracy".

Violent protests over high food prices are continuing in Mozambique, with at least seven people killed since demonstrations began on Wednesday.

Shops were looted, cars set on fire and roads barricaded on Thursday, while troops attempted to clean up streets and restore order in Maputo, the impoverished nation's capital.

Witnesses said police opened fire on protesters in a poor suburb of the city, but there were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.

According to local television, one person drowned on Thursday after falling in a pond while escaping police.

Russia announced a 12-month extension of its grain export ban on Thursday, raising fears about a return to the food shortages and riots of 2007-08 which spread through developing countries dependent on imports.

The announcement by Vladimir Putin came as the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation called an emergency meeting to discuss the wheat shortage, and riots in Mozambique left seven dead.

The unrest in Maputo, in which 280 people were also injured, followed the government's decision to raise bread prices by 30 per cent. Police opened fire on demonstrators after thousands turned out to protest against the price hikes, burning tyres and looting food warehouses.

Although agricultural officials and traders insist that wheat and other crop supplies are more abundant than in 2007-08, officials fear the deadly Mozambique riots could be replicated.

Democratic campaign ad against Vitter (R-LA), including reenactment of his crime

A class-action lawsuit filed in Superior Court accuses Toronto and Peel police of a litany of wrongdoings related to their conduct during the June G20 summit.

The statement of claim names the Toronto Police Services Board, the Attorney-General of Canada and the Regional Municipality of Peel Police Services Board as co-defendants.

Plaintiffs Miranda McQuade and Mike Barber are acting as the public face for hundreds of citizens arrested or detained by authorities during summit protests.

"The conduct of the defendants... fell fall short of both common law and constitutional norms and effectively eroded the fundamental freedoms and civil liberties enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," the 41-page claim alleges.

Colombia Reports: Authorities on Thursday raised the number of police killed in an alleged FARC attack in the southern Caqueta department to fourteen. Initially, departmental authorities had said five policemen were killed on a Wednesday evening patrol when a roadside bomb exploded.

Colombia Reports: More than 10% of Colombia's population is displaced, Constitutional Court magistrate Luis Ernesto Vargas said Thursday. The court official blames the massive displacement on the country's armed conflict, but also on mega projects that are executed without consulting the local population, leaving them without access to their land. The displacement hits the indigenous and afrocolombian peoples hardest, said Vargas. 16.6% of Colombia's displaced is afrocolombian and 6.5% is indigenous.

RIO DE JANEIRO - The government of the western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso has announced the discovery of a huge deposit with as much as 11 billion tons of iron ore with an Fe grade of 41 percent, as well as an estimated 428 million tons of phosphate rock. The deposit holds three times the volume of the Carajas iron ore mine, also located in Brazil and one of the largest in the world, although the ore grade of the latter is higher, Gov. Silval Barbosa told a press conference.

MANAGUA - Six people have died since the start of the week in the heavy rains in Nicaragua, raising the death toll from the torrential rains this year to 40, emergency management officials said. "The rains have mainly affected rural areas in the northern and central parts of the country, where there are streams and rivers that have been crossed without caution by adults," emergency management chief Gen. Mario Perezcassar told Efe.

IKN News Round-up

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

(h/t crooksandliars.com)

Like generations of Tibetan nomads before him, Phuntsok Dorje makes a living raising yaks and other livestock on the vast alpine grasslands that provide a thatch on the roof of the world.

But in recent years the vegetation around his home, the Tibetan plateau, has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess livestock and plagues of insects and rodents.

The high-altitude meadows are rarely mentioned in discussions of global warming, but the changes to this ground have a profound impact on Tibetan politics and the world's ecological security.

[...]

"The grass used to be up to here," Phuntsok says, indicating a point on his leg a little below the knee. "Twenty years ago, we had to scythe it down. But now, well, you can see for yourself. It's so short it looks like moss."

Fresh fears about drilling in the Gulf of Mexico were raised today when fire forced workers to abandon an oil and gas platform, just six months after the BP explosion that created an environmental disaster in the region.

The coastguard reported an oil slick a mile long and 30 metres wide near the site of the fire, undercutting a claim by the oil company that there was no pollution.

It is not known yet whether the oil might have come from the platform or, more worryingly, from a well below the surface. The prospect alarmed the White House, environmentalists, fishermen and others on the Gulf Coast, still coping with the pollution from the BP oil spill.

Pasadena TX (SPX) Sep 02, 2010
KiOR has reached an agreement last Friday with the State of Mississippi to build five commercial-scale renewable crude oil production facilities in return for a State assistance package that includes a $75 million loan. According to the agreement, KiOR will build three of the five facilities over the next five years.

By 2015, the project will deliver more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs and an estimated $500 million worth of investment. In addition to the loan, the State's package includes assistance with infrastructure needs and workforce training.

The company plans to utilize Mississippi's abundant supply of woody biomass to produce commercial volumes of Re-Crude, a high-quality crude oil that can be refined into conventional fuel products, including gasoline and diesel, and deployed in the country's existing transportation fuels infrastructure.

A nose full of biting ants can really spoil your appetite. Especially if your nose is 3 meters long. African bush elephants (Loxodonta africana) avoid this discomfort by refusing to munch on acacia trees that house swarming ant colonies. Their aversion, a new study suggests, helps maintain the savanna's delicate balance between forest and prairie.

Trees and grasses constantly vie for control of the savanna, but wildfires, drought, variable soil chemistry, and giant herbivores prevent either plant from taking over. Not enough fire to keep the trees in check, and the canopy will close in; too many elephants eating the trees, and the savanna would become grassland. Or so scientists thought. They seem to have underestimated the acacia's ability to defend itself.

Unlike many acacia trees that are stripped bare by elephants, whistling thorn trees (Acacia drepanolobium) seemed immune. The trees bristle with the 5-centimeter-long thorns typical of many acacias, but some of the spikes also swell into hollow bulbs the size of ping pong balls. Crematogaster ants colonize the empty thorns and feed on nectar secreted from the plant's leaves. That makes a whistling thorn tree the ants' territory--which they defend against intruders. Todd Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, wondered whether the tiny bodyguards could really protect trees from the world's largest land animal.

. RWR: `America will always be that shining city on the hill, a beacon for the world.'

BHO: `We must create new green jobs. America will lead the way becoming a 13 watt CFL Mini Spiral Energy Star Twist Compact Fluorescent visible in Trenton.'

Craig Henderson drove from Blaine, Washington to the Mexican border -- a distance of 1,478 miles -- without stopping to refuel. He burned 12.4 gallons for a record-breaking 119.1 mpg in a car he originally designed in 1984.

There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be the magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to crack the potential of solar power.

JERUSALEM -- Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who gained worldwide fame for decades as a one-man Nazi-hunting operation, was in fact frequently on the payroll of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, a new biography asserts.

The assertion, based on numerous documents and interviews with three people said to be Mr. Wiesenthal's Mossad handlers, punctures not only a widely held belief about how he operated; it also suggests a need to re-evaluate the standard view that the Israeli government took no interest in tracking down Nazis until the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, and little thereafter.

Mr. Wiesenthal died in 2005 at the age of 96 in his Vienna home.

Earlier this summer, we blogged about our Peruvian partner LUNDÚ, who have been working on a campaign to protest racist portrayals on a Peruvian television network. Their activism has included a public demonstration and a petition with over 5000 signatures, demanding that the characters "Negro Mama" and "Paisana Jacinta" be removed and the network publicly apologize for the racist, sexist, and discriminatory stereotypes they portray. Last we reported in June, LUNDÚ and other advocates were awaiting a response from the National Society of Radio and TV (SNRTV).

This week, we learned that the request was dismissed, and the characters will stay on television.

Storrs CT (SPX) Sep 02, 2010
Community feasting is one of the most universal and important social behaviors found among humans. Now, scientists have found the earliest clear evidence of organized feasting, from a burial site dated about 12,000 years ago. These remains represent the first archaeological verification that human feasting began before the advent of agriculture.

"Scientists have speculated that feasting began before the Neolithic period, which starts about 11.5 thousand years ago," says Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut, and author of a research article released yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is the first solid evidence that supports the idea that communal feasts were already occurring - perhaps with some frequency - at the beginnings of the transition to agriculture."

In the hurry to rebuild after World War II, Germany made a significant number of architectural missteps. But while many would like to see the ugliest edifices torn down, some architects say we are stuck with the buildings and that we should learn to embrace these eyesores to find hidden charms in the otherwise charmless.

It isn't difficult to describe the plenary hall of the state parliament building in Lower Saxony. It is hideous. Heinous. Revolting. A boxy concrete abomination whose ugliness stands out even amid the abundant architectural putrescence that Hanover has to offer. And soon, if state representatives have their way, the not-quite-50-year-old-building is to be demolished.

Good news, right?

Not necessarily, say a growing number of architects. Germany, after all, is full of cringe-inducing concrete monoliths, monuments to the orgy of construction that swept the country in the hurry to rebuild after the destruction of World War II. Getting rid of them all would amount to a vast, and expensive, re-reconstruction project. Instead, even as many city renewal projects are marked by a nostalgia for the homey, constricted city centers of old, many architects are saying that ugliness has its virtues -- and it is time to begin recognizing that fact.

Symantec has teamed up with rapper Snoop Dogg to launch a cybercrime rap contest.

Participants are invited to bust some rhymes on the subject of malware, hacking and botnets for the chance to win an all expenses paid trip to LA to attend a Snoop gig and meet his people, if not the rapper himself. Winners get a Toshiba laptop outfitted (inevitably) with Norton Internet Security 2011. Entry is only open to US residents.

According to the 126-page report that was the result of two years' research, Lisa experienced a range of abuses when she sought medical care, including being physically bound, having her privacy violated, and verbally abused by doctors and nurses who threatened to report her to the police because she had aborted her baby.

Every year, the report added, 560,000 Filipino women turn to abortion. It said 90,000 of them suffer from complications, and 1,000 die from crude and extremely painful methods such as intense abdominal massages by traditional midwives, the insertion of catheters into the uterus and the medically unsupervised consumption of Cytotec, the local brand name of a drug containing misoprostol to induce uterine contractions, and the ingestion of herbs and other concoctions sold by street vendors.

These situations happen because women with unwanted pregnancies are driven to go underground to seek abortions, which are illegal under Philippine law.

Egypt has created a special security department to monitor Facebook. Allegedly, the "main task of this group is to monitor Facebook content like groups, pages and chat and to publish reports countering online criticism of current Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak or his son Gamal." But it's extremely unlikely that the secret police powering it will not collect user information, as well as seek out and punish those who use the social network for free speech and political reasons.

Egypt's relationship to Facebook is extensive. Very popular for several years prior, on April 6, 2008, students and others used it to stage a protest against the Egyptian government's precipitous raising of bread prices. This protest gave birth to the the April 6 Movement. But the protest was brutally put down and the leadership of April 6, whose goal is an open discussion of issues of importance to their country, have been harassed ever since.

Researchers at Boston University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard have discovered that charitable behavior exists in one of the most microscopic forms of life -- bacteria. Their findings appear in the Sept. 2 issue of Nature.

In studying the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, the researchers found that the populations most adept at withstanding doses of antibiotics are those in which a few highly resistant isolates sacrifice their own well being to improve the group's overall chance of survival.

This bacterial altruism results when the most resistant isolates produce a small molecule called indole.

Indole acts as something of a steroid, helping the strain's more vulnerable members bulk up enough to fight off the antibiotic onslaught. But while indole may save the group, its production takes a toll on the fitness level of the individual isolates that produce it.

He has been accused of blackmail, and described as "cursed" and having "zero" emotional intelligence in print by Tony Blair in a week in which his personality has been put under the microscope. But Gordon Brown's policy of dignified silence over the publication of his predecessor's memoirs did not last long.

In a statement tonight Brown broke his self-imposed embargo to set out his plans for the future. He chose not to claim back credit for the plans to make the Bank of England independent, nor did he attempt to stick the knife into Blair or defend those friends who took a drubbing in the book. Instead, he attempted to rebrand himself from bully Brown to Saint Gordon, by setting out how he and his wife Sarah intend to contribute to public life.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an "on-again, off-again" relationship.

A chef in Texas has created what he claims is the world's first recipe for deep-fried beer.

The beer is placed inside a pocket of salty, pretzel-like dough and then dunked in oil at 375 degrees for about 20 seconds, a short enough time for the confection to remain alcoholic.

When diners take a bite the hot beer mixes with the dough in what is claimed to be a delicious taste sensation.

Inventor Mark Zable said it had taken him three years to come up with the cooking method and a patent for the process is pending. He declined to say whether any special ingredients were involved.

A guy walks into a bar with a $1.4 million Corot. Stop us if you've heard this one.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's 1857-58 "Portrait of a Girl" is missing, according to a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. And the last man with possession can't recall where it is after a night of heavy drinking, the suit says.

"Really, you only need one pilot," he tells Bloomberg Businessweek in the Sept. 6 edition. "Let's take out the second pilot. Let the bloody computer fly it." What happens if the pilot has a heart attack? One member of the cabin crew on all Ryanair flights would be trained to land a plane. "If the pilot has an emergency, he rings the bell, he calls her in," O'Leary says. "She could take over."
...
Earlier this summer, he announced that he was planning to replace the last 10 rows of seats on his aircraft with 15 rows of upright "standing seats" -- vertical benches with shoulder harnesses and arm rests -- which would allow him to pack 30 more passengers onto each plane.
...
O'Leary now says that after taking a look at the drawings, he has decided vertical seats won't save enough room. Instead, he has a better idea -- replace the last 10 rows with a standing cabin, outfitted with various handrails, much like a New York City subway car, only without the benches and the panhandlers. The increased capacity, he says, would lower fares by 20 percent to 25 percent.
...
O'Leary downplays the threat that turbulence would presumably pose for standing passengers. "Yes, somebody could get injured," he says. "I don't say that lightly. But we'd do exactly what we do in every other case: `Ladies and gentlemen' -- BING, BONG -- `we're going to have some slight turbulence. Hold on to the rail tightly.'"