Bulgarians and Romanians can be expelled through a so-called APRF, or 'prefectoral decision to be conducted at the border', on the basis of threats to public order or infringements of labour legislation.

If the citizens concerned fail to produce a residence permit authorising them to work, they are subjected to such steps, Nabli explains, adding that the situation will remain unchanged until 2014, when nationals of the two EU countries will not be tied down by work restrictions.

Another measure, called OQTF, or 'Obligation to leave French territory', can be taken in the event that the residence permit cannot be maintained or in the event of unemployment, when the individuals concerned do not have enough resources to meet their needs and are without medical coverage.

Regarding the Roma expulsions, Nabli says that they appear to contradict the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which entered into force together with the Lisbon Treaty. He notes that the principle of non-discrimination protects the minorities' rights and prohibits collective expulsions.

Nabli argues that "freedom of movement has no price" and consequently criticises the 300 euros of "assistance for departure" that the French authorities offer Roma (plus 100 euros per child) for receiving their signature on agreeing to leave French territory.

Entitled "A Journey" and responsible for a media frenzy in the UK, the memoir chronicles much of his domestic political struggles but also his fateful decision to go to war in Iraq and his close relationship with Mr Bush, the instigator of the global war on terror.

It also dips into his unfulfilled relationship with Europe. When he came to power in 1997, Brussels was quick to note that he was the most pro-EU British leaders ever, leading to high hopes that he would take his country into the euro.

..."Unless it was economically plain that it would be good for Britain, it was simply not politically sellable," his book says, according to the Financial Times. "The political problem was the economics."

He hoped that the economics would change but by election year in 2001, this was still not the case: "They didn't and, for me, that was that."

EUOBSERVER /BRUSSELS - With MEPs having something of a reputation for a patchy appearance rate in the EU chamber, moves are afoot to make sure that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is not humiliated during a first ever "State of the Union" speech.

To get derrières on as many of the 736 seats as possible, the leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament have suggested fining those MEPs who dare to give the three hour slot for the speech and debate a miss.

An electronic test will be carried out three times during the debate, starting early on Tuesday (7 September), and deputies who are twice conspicuous by their absence may be subject to a small financial penalty.

AFP - France and Britain announced Friday they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programmes, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets.

"In terms of actually being able to share an aircraft carrier, I would have thought that that was utterly unrealistic," British Defence Minister Liam Fox told reporters after talks with his French counterpart Herve Morin.

"But when it comes to pooling assets in other areas such as strategic or tactical lift I would have thought that that was a different case altogether," he added, referring to military transport planes and helicopters.

In his first official visit to France on Thursday, Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski stressed his determination to draw his country closer to its EU partners. "Poland wants to be active in deepening European integration," Komorowski told FRANCE 24 in an exclusive interview.

Representing the centre-right Civic Platform (PO) party, which has enjoyed a majority in the Polish parliament since 2007, Komorowski has brought a markedly different image of Poland to Europe's capitals.

During a European tour that includes stops in Brussels and Berlin, the new Polish leader is trying to turn the page on the euroscepticism that marked the tenure of his predecessor, the late Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash last April.

Poland 'wants the euro'

"Yes, we want to be part of the eurozone," insisted Komorowski when probed on his conservative rival's efforts to impede the adoption of the EU common currency. Poland joined the EU in 2004, but is yet to adopt the single currency.

Speaking to the press after a special meeting with Polish ambassadors and his Polish counterpart, Radek Sikorski, in Warsaw on Thursday (2 September), Mr Lavrov said Poland backs Russia's draft proposal on dropping EU visa requirements: "We hope for a quick and positive response from Brussels. The Polish side has confirmed that it will support this draft."

...For his part, Mr Sikorski did not correct Mr Lavrov at the press event. But his own statement on the subject was much more cautious.

Referring to a separate plan to simplify visa rules but only for people living in Russia's EU exclave of Kaliningrad, the Polish diplomat said: "It would be an argument for the more conservative structures in the countries of the European Union, which are mostly the interior ministers, that if our neighbours have respected current simplifications, they would also respect further liberalisation."

"Political will is one thing and fulfilling technical conditions is another thing," he added.

A proposal for an application to recognise the Jewish state's data protection regime as equivalent to that in the EU was shelved on Thursday (3 September) after Dublin made it clear that it would oppose the move at a commission meeting in Brussels.

Irish media are reporting that the commission conceded to the country's concerns, although the EU executive may return with similar plans, should Ireland's reservations be dealt with.

Justice minister Dermot Ahern originally raised his objections in July, shortly after the country expelled an Israeli diplomat following Dublin's conclusion that Tel Aviv was behind the assassination of a Hamas leader by a hit squad in January in Dubai that had used eight forged Irish passports alongside a number of falsified passports of other EU states.

Negotiations to form a rightist Dutch coalition government with the backing of anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders have floundered, the government information service said Friday.

Negotiations led by Ivo Opstelten, an official appointed by Queen Beatrix to examine coalition options, "have failed to yield any result," it said in a statement three months after June national elections narrowly won by the pro-business VVD with Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) in third place.

Negotiators from the EU's three institutions - the EU Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the European Commission - reached a political consensus last night on the package.

"This is not light-touch regulation. It is comprehensive and intelligent," the chair of the Parliament's economics committee, UK Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles, told journalists.

A European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) and three new European Supervisory Authorities - a European Banking Authority (EBA), a European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and a European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) - will form part of the new architecture of financial supervision agreed yesterday.

The Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in the European Parliament are ready to use the new mechanism in their drive against speculation, German MEP Schulz announced yesterday (2 September).

Schulz said the S&D group will use the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) if the European Commission confirms its opposition to a Europe-wide "financial transaction tax".

Last Tuesday, German daily Handelsblatt reported that Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta was against the idea, saying a financial transaction tax would drive up costs for businesses and governments.

Stimulating innovation and preventing companies from fleeing abroad are the keys to success for a new EU industrial policy, stressed French Industry Minister Christian Estrosi during a visit to Brussels yesterday (2 September). But one of the main potential weapons of the strategy, the controversial "country of origin" labelling, remains blocked at EU Council level.

...innovation cannot take place while European industries continue to be tempted to move their operations abroad, the French minister stressed.

This question has provoked controversy in France, where attempts by President Nicolas Sarkozy to shore up industrial production have led to accusations of state protectionism.

Estrosi denied the charge earlier this week (31 August), and hammered home the point in Brussels yesterday, arguing that there is no "protectionism" at play. Rather, he claimed, it is a simple economic fact that the EU must curb outsourcing if it is to remain competitive.

One of the cornerstones of Paris's strategy to reverse outsourcing is the drive to ensure all French products are labelled "made in France". This, too, has proved controversial and highly divisive when raised at European level.

The new Slovak government has two key employment aims: pulling jobless citizens out of the 'social trap' - where the economic motivation to work is low - and fighting the serious problem of long-term unemployment.

In 2009, the employment rate in Slovakia stood at 66.4%, just below the EU average (69%) and ten percentage points below the EU's 2020 goal of 75%. Currently, more than 400,000 Slovak citizens are out of work.

The ultra-liberals introduce doublespeak with high speed...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

The board, responsible for conducting the day-to-day business of the IMF, is composed of 24 directors appointed or elected by member countries or by groups of countries. Despite the EU comprising of a monetary union, it is not represented by a single seat.

Ahead of a meeting of EU finance ministers next Tuesday, when a senior eurozone source involved in its preparation was asked what result could be expected, he answered: "Nothing. I expect that the single European chair will be identified as a very long-term possible solution."

Germany, France and Britain have their own seats on the board, while EU members Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Denmark represent groups of countries. Switzerland, although not part of the EU, also has a chair.

The United States' unprecedented move last month to block plans that would have maintained Europe's long-running dominance over the 24-member board will be discussed. The US Senate has also voted to block use of its taxpayers' money for IMF rescues such as the bail-out of Greece.

AFP - US unemployment jumped to 9.6 percent in August, the Labor Department said Friday, showing the recovering economy is still struggling to create jobs.

In a keenly awaited unemployment report, the department said the economy lost 54,000 jobs last month, a better figure than the 120,000 loss expected by economists.

Burger King, America's second-largest hamburger chain, has accepted a takeover bid by private equity firm 3G Capital valued at 3.26 billion dollars.

Air France-KLM is considering creating its own domestic low-cost subsidiary called "Air France Express" that could begin flying as early as 2011. The company already operates an international low-cost carrier, Transavia.

The restructuring has seen the unincorporated tri-national partnership under which Eurostar was created replaced by Eurostar International, a conventional three-way joint venture with its own staff and accounting procedures. Eurostar International is majority-owned by SNCF with a 55% stake, whilst the UK government currently holds 40%. SNCB retains a `sleeper' share of 5%.

SWEDEN: A ceremony in Kramfors on August 28 attended by King Carl-Gustav XVI marked the start of a rolling inauguration of the Botniabanan in northeast Sweden. A royal train then left for Örnsköldsvik and Nordmaling, where further celebrations were held, before it reached Umeå in the evening.

Also see The EU's emerging high-speed networkS

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

IRELAND: On September 3, Iarnród Éireann operated the first scheduled passenger services to Dunboyne since 1947 with the opening of the 7∙5 km double-track line from Clonsilla to M3 Parkway. Representing an investment of €160m under the Transport 21 investment programme, the project marks the first phase of a project to reopen the railway to Navan, which closed in 1963.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is shutting its principal-strategies business, a group that makes bets with the firm's own capital, to comply with new U.S. rules aimed at curbing risk, two people with knowledge of the decision said.

Wall Street's most profitable investment bank plans to hold off on announcing the wind-down while the 65 to 70 members of the global unit seek new jobs, the people said, speaking anonymously because the internal discussions about the process are confidential. Some traders and support staff may get roles within the New York-based firm, while a team in Asia may raise money for a new hedge fund, the people said.

"What's motivating people is that they need to know where they are going, and no one wants to be the last group out the door," Gary Townsend, president of Hill-Townsend Capital LLC, said on Bloomberg Television. "It's really the personnel decisions that are driving this to happen sooner rather than later." Townsend's Chevy Chase, Maryland-based investment firm specializes in financial companies.

Goldman Sachs, which says about 10 percent of its revenue comes from proprietary trading, is grappling with a provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act that prohibits banks from risking capital by betting for their own accounts. JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to close its prop-trading units in response to the law, signed by President Barack Obama in July. JPMorgan last month told in-house commodities traders in London that they may lose their jobs, a person briefed on the matter said this week.

This part of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform bill seems to be for real. The banks have at least four years to wind this down, but no one wants to be the last one out, so it is happening quickly. First JPMorgan and now Goldman.

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

American officials blocked European attempts to publish the latest draft of the global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on an EU website after a Washington-based round of negotiations in August.

The European Commission, which has been feeling the heat from lobby groups and the European Parliament for greater transparency in the negotiations, debriefed MEPs on the August negotiations yesterday (1 September).

MEPs have been demanding to see the full negotiating text as they will be asked to give ACTA their consent in a vote later this year.

Islamist Basiji militias and Iran's Revolutionary Guards surrounded the home of opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi on Friday to prevent him from joining the annual Quds rally, which last year brought on anti-government protests, his website said.

A suicide bomber targeting a Shiite Muslim rally has killed at least 43 people in the Pakistani city of Quetta. The rally was held to mark the annual international Shiite event of al Quds day.

REUTERS - Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned on Thursday an air strike by NATO-led forces which he said killed 10 election campaign workers, although U.S. officials maintained it was aimed at an Islamist leader.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces hunting militants have caused major tension between Karzai and his Western allies. The latest incident came at a bad time as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates landed for unannounced talks.

Gates's arrival was also overshadowed by renewed worries about corruption, one of Washington's biggest concerns in Afghanistan, after two officials from the country's top private bank left their positions amid allegations of graft.

Puppets are expendable?

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Fourteen police officers died when their vehicle was destroyed by a mine in southern Caqueta department, police said Thursday. Officials attribute the blast to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), whose main stronghold is in Caqueta.

AP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power in Australia on Thursday when an independent lawmaker said he would support her center-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.

A bloc of three independent kingmakers will now decide whether Labor will govern for a second three-year term or whether a conservative Liberal Party-led coalition will form the next administration after Aug. 21 elections failed to give any party a majority.

The conservative coalition now needs the backing of all three remaining uncommitted independents to reach a 76-seat majority in the 150-seat House of Representatives, while Labor needs only two.

SANTIAGO, Sep 3, 2010 (IPS) - Exports from Latin America and the Caribbean will grow again this year, driven largely by demand from China. But the high proportion of commodities may increase dependency on China, and Asia as a region, warns a new report by ECLAC, the regional United Nations agency.

"Clearly, trade relations between the region and China could give rise to centre-periphery dynamics. We supply it with raw materials, with little added value, and it sends back manufactured goods," Claudia Casal, a researcher at the non-governmental National Centre for Alternative Development Studies (CENDA) in Chile, told IPS.

Bolivia (Erbol): Relatives of the victims of the massacre of October 2003 will present a complaint against the United States government before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for its failure to act two years ago on the request for extradition of former President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada.

SAN MARTIN DE SAMIRIA, PERU - To the untrained eye, all evidence here in the heart of the Amazon signals virgin forest, untouched by man for time immemorial - from the ubiquitous fruit palms to the cry of howler monkeys, from the air thick with mosquitoes to the unruly tangle of jungle vines. Archaeologists, many of them Americans, say the opposite is true: This patch of forest, and many others across the Amazon, was instead home to an advanced, even spectacular civilization that managed the forest and enriched infertile soils to feed thousands.

ROAD TOWN, BVI -- At 5:00 pm on Thursday, the centre of the newest tropical storm, Gaston, was located near latitude 13.5 north, longitude 39.5 west or about 1,425 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. Gaston is moving toward the west at 3-5 mph. Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 30 mph making Gaston a remnant low or a low pressure system.

The draft European Water Stewardship Standard defines requirements for sustainable water management and includes a list of indicators which may be used for reporting and certification.

The standard was finalised in June with the European Water Partnership (EWP), an open member organisation with an interest in water management.

REUTERS - The International Monetary Fund will give Pakistan $450 million in emergency flood aid, providing some relief for a government overwhelmed by the disaster and facing renewed militant violence.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in Washington on Thursday that the funds would be dispersed in "coming weeks".

Strauss-Kahn said discussions with a delegation led by Pakistan's Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on how to "reorganise" an $11 billion IMF loan program would continue.

He said Islamabad remained committed to terms including tax and energy sector reforms.

The Shock Doctrine.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Bathgate was one of hundreds of rare fruit aficionados gathered to share seeds, cuttings and knowledge. The organization founded in 1968 encourages gardeners and hobby farmers to plant unusual fruit instead of commonplace fare, such as apples and oranges. Members search the globe for new varieties or seek to develop tastier, heartier strains suitable for backyard growing.

While the organization focuses on fruit that is not widely commercially grown, members have a chance at immortality, and perhaps profit, with discoveries that become named varieties.

They point out that the Hass avocado, a variety that accounts for 95 percent of avocados grown in California, came from a tree amateur horticulturist Rudolph Hass discovered in his grove in the Orange County suburb of La Habra Heights in 1926.

The peach was Bathgate's shot at fame in the small but passionate world of exotic fruit growers.

"Isn't it delicious?" the 77-year-old retired aerospace engineer beamed. "I grafted it onto a friend's tree that never produced, and it's been going gangbusters since then."

Along with sampling new varieties of plums, apricots, peaches and other stone fruit, the growers could tour a pomegranate plantation or learn to propagate jujubes during the four-day conference held each year in August.

Edgar Valdivia, 70, escorted visitors through his shady San Fernando Valley backyard to show off spiky, pink dragon fruit, which is also known as a pitaya (pih-TIE'-yuh) or pitahaya (pih-tah-HAY'-yuh).

Legend has it that almost a century ago a series of railway wagons stuffed with gold sank into the depths of a lake in Siberia. This week, researchers, exploring the depths by submarine, may have found the Russian royals' lost gold.

As Bair Tsyrenov slowly guided his Mir submersible up an underwater slope, a shimmer of gold was caught in the vehicle's headlights, 400 meters (1,300 feet) below the surface of Lake Baikal. First the ship's three-man crew discovered "steel girders that looked like railway bridges." Then they struck upon the "bars with a particular golden radiance," Tsyrenov, a researcher from the Lake Baikal Protection Fund, reports.

The find, made by researchers at the beginning of this week, was a spectacular one. For the last two years, the two Mir submersible research vehicles, usually at work in the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, have been operating in Siberia's Lake Baikal, the world's largest freshwater body. These are the same two mini-submarines that brought the world the first underwater images of the Titanic.

The Mir expedition to Lake Baikal was actually supposed to be finishing up around now. But the vessels are currently hot on the trail of a legend: the last czars' hoard of gold, which has been missing for 90 years and which, according to legend, lies in the depths of the Siberian lake.

Twenty years after it was squatted by a group of artists, Berlin's legendary Tacheles arts center faces the threat of closure. The building, which became famous as part of the city's heady 1990s counterculture, has become the symbol of a new struggle against gentrification in Berlin.

Martin Reiter is thinking about locking himself into a cage and having it suspended in front of Tacheles, the way criminals were treated in the Middle Ages. It's not a bad idea, he says. Reiter is 47, his curly hair is slowing turning gray, but it's still shoulder-length and his eyes sparkle.

The Berlin arts center Kunsthaus Tacheles, which has been an iconic symbol of the city's rebellious, post-reunification counter-culture for two decades, is on its last legs. The artists are about to be evicted, and bankruptcy proceedings have begun against Reiter's association, Tacheles e.V. The evictions could start at any moment.

Alcohol consumption dropped in the UK at the sharpest rate for 60 years, according to industry figures yesterday.

The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) said drinkers drank 8.4 litres of wine, beer and spirits in 2009, six per cent lower than 2008. It stressed Britons were now consuming 13 per cent less alcohol than in 2004, with consumption remaining below the EU average.

Butbutbut, is all the alcohol drunk on the beaches of Benidorm, Ibiza, Mallorca or Crete included?

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

The pathologist who carried out the first post-mortem examination on newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson, who died at the G20 protest, was suspended from the medical register for three months today.

A General Medical Council disciplinary panel previously ruled that Dr Freddy Patel acted in a way that amounted to misconduct in two earlier post-mortem examinations, meaning his fitness to practise was impaired.

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

He has already been suspended from the Home Office register of forensic pathologists after questions were asked about the autopsy carried out on the body of 47-year-old Mr Tomlinson, who died in London in April last year.

REUTERS - A Portuguese court, giving its first findings in one of the country's longest and highest profile trials, ruled on Friday that all seven defendants committed child abuse at a state orphanage.

The defendants, including a well-known television presenter, a former diplomat and two doctors, are charged with being members of a network that systematically abused children from the Casa Pia state home for orphans.

...The judges will continue reading out their findings before announcing their verdicts and handing down sentences later in the day, ending a trial that has lasted six years.

RUPERT MURDOCH's Times of London has seen its web traffic plummet 90% ever since it started charging for content back in May, and online advertisers are fleeing as a result. You know it's bad when publicists don't want to work with you anymore. NEW RANK: #81

The French actress Juliette Binoche, known for her sweetness on and off screen, has gently savaged the actor Gérard Depardieu for publicly questioning her talent. In an interview with an Austrian magazine, Mr Depardieu last week attacked the Oscar-winning Ms Binoche as "an absolute nothing".

In a series of interviews in Britain before her award-winning new movie is released today, the graceful Ms Binoche remained within character while implying that Mr Depardieu was suffering from psychological problems.

"I don't know him and I don't know what I did to him," she told the BBC Radio 4 culture programme Front Row. "I understand that you don't have to like everyone and you [can] dislike someone's work. But I don't understand the violence [of his words]. I think it has to do with himself. There's something going on," she said.

On June 19, the day after France lost to Mexico in the first round of the South African World Cup, the French sports daily L'Equipe published a shocking insult as its front page headline. The paper said the insult was what striker Nicolas Anelka had yelled at the team's coach in the locker room at half-time.

Anelka was subsequently suspended from the competition. In protest at Anelka's exclusion, the French players refused to participate in a training session. This action, in turn, led to sanctions against four of the squad's strike "ringleaders".

According to le Point, the FFF investigation auditioned 18 players, three federation members and three team staff. Among those interviewed, three players said they thought it was Domenech himself who had leaked the incident to l'Equipe.

In addition, le Point reported, the FFF investigation recommended that all 23 players "be sent before the disciplinary committee," and signalled that Domenech had made "unexplained decisions that led to uneasiness, even resentment", while making "no effort to resolve the incident [with Anelka]."

William Hague faced fresh questions about his judgement yesterday as he made his first public appearance since the resignation of his special adviser over "untrue and malicious" rumours of a gay relationship between the two men.

Downing Street insisted yesterday that the Foreign Secretary was backed "100 per cent" by David Cameron, who continued to have full confidence in him. However, doubts were expressed by prominent figures in the Conservative Party over Mr Hague's wisdom in sharing a hotel room with 25-year-old Chris Myers, whom he subsequently put on the public payroll.

Some reports claimed yesterday that Mr Hague may quit his job in exasperation at what he is undergoing. The Foreign Secretary said of Mr Myers: "He is clearly someone who is rather fed up with politics, and who can blame him" - drawing the inference that he too was feeling the same way.