In Berlin, he is known as Angela Merkel's smartest minister. But Norbert Röttgen has led a lacklustre campaign ahead of key elections this Sunday (13 May) in North Rhine-Westphalia, where opinion polls predict a historical defeat for the Christian Democrats in Germany's most populous state.

In Berlin, German environment minister Röttgen is known as "Merkel's darling".

But his fortunes could change dramatically this weekend as opinion polls predict the worst ever result for Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia, where Röttgen is attempting to dislodge Social-Democrat Hannelore Kraft as Prime Minister.

The German press is widely predicting Röttgen's defeat. Financial Times Deutschland pronounced the "Crash of a High-Flyer", while Süddeutsche Zeitung dubbed him "The nail in Merkel's coffin".

To make matters worse, Röttgen linked the regional poll to a vote of confidence on Merkel's European austerity policy in pre-election statements.

Campaigners have called on the EU to "break the systemic links" between European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) and International Life Sciences Institute Europe (ILSI).

The demand comes as MEPs on Thursday refused to endorse the accounts of several EU agencies, including EFSA for 2010.

The group Testbiotech is amongst those now urging "fundamental changes" to EFSA's founding regulations, which are due for review later this year.

A report considered at the plenary called the alleged links between EFSA and ILSI a source of potential conflict of interest. The two organisations have strongly denied any such links.

Alleged links between the two organisations are said to exist at management board level as well as on panels such as those for genetically engineered plants, food additives and pesticides.

ILSI, based in Brussels, is funded by a range of sources, including the EU as well food industry and agrochemical companies.

Greece looks to be heading for a repeat election as the country's three biggest parties appear unable to agree over an EU-IMF bailout.

The leaders of conservative New Democracy, the Socialists and Syriza, a radical leftist party that rejects the terms of the rescue plan, held talks with Greek President Karolos Papoulias.

Three attempts to form a government ended in failure last week.

EU leaders admit that failure to adhere to the terms of the bailout could see Greece leave the eurozone.

Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos appealed to the "logic and patriotism" of his counterparts and called on them strike a deal.

He said that he held some hope of forming a government despite the meeting's dead end.

But Alexis Tspiras, the leader of Syriza, rejected any possibility of softening its anti-austerity stance.

ROME, May 13, 2012 (IPS) - The European Union has been using all means necessary to fill the multi- billion-euro fund for climate change, including the controversial mobilisation of public resources through private financial intermediaries.

Following the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December 2009, rich countries pledged an annual 100 billion dollars (72 billion euros) by 2020 to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change.

The EU committed to providing 7.2 billion euros for the fund over the period 2010-12, most of which will presumably be channelled through the Green Climate Fund

Although originally this money was expected to come from public sources, developed countries are now leveraging substantial amounts of private finance to raise funds. Increasing attention is being given to financial intermediaries that supposedly have easier access to private investment in developing countries, and are thus better able to stimulate financial flows.

Experts say it may be possible to raise funds in the range of 100-200 billion dollars (72-144 billion euros) per year through these intermediaries, as a result of private flows from developed to developing countries.

The idea is that development banks and financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), use public money to invest in financial intermediaries working in developing countries to attract private investors.

A host of Russian literary figures led thousands of people through the squares and boulevards of downtown Moscow on Sunday afternoon to an opposition camp that has become the epicenter of the challenge to the rule of President Vladimir Putin.

"The authorities have to understand that they need to be respectful when they talk to the people," bestselling author Boris Akunin told supporters. "If they chase after them with truncheons, nothing good will come of this. The more aggressive they are, the quicker everything will end for them."

Organizers and independent media said over 10,000 people had attended Sunday's event, one of the largest unsanctioned opposition gatherings in recent years in Russia. Police said 2,000 people were present.

Detective novel writer Akunin, popular poet Dmitry Bykov, and around ten other writers announced Sunday's "Test Stroll" after some 600 people were detained as they gathered at downtown Moscow landmarks in the wake of Putin's May 7 inauguration. Protest leaders alleged arbitrary and illegal arrests of anti-Putin activists.

French Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon sharply criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a televised interview on Sunday saying she must understand that she alone cannot decide the fate of Europe.

 

"We did not vote to have a European Union president who is called Angela Merkel," he said on France 3 public channel when asked about socialist President François Hollande's desire to renegotiate the eurozone's fiscal pact.

"We want to renegotiate the European treaty so that economies are relaunched through growth," he said, adding that it is the austerity measures that Merkel argues are so essential to underpin Europe's eventual recovery that have pushed the Greek economy to the edge.

Hamon belongs to the left wing of the Socialist Party and is not considered to be close to Hollande.

I saw this interview. As soon as he had said this, the "journalist" made like he hadn't heard and threw him a question about Hollande's concubine Ms Trierweiler.

Talks with President Karolos Popoulias ended in an impasse, as Syriza refused point-blank to join a government; talks continue as New Democracy and Pasok are pondering alternatives;one option is for a coalition to include the small Democratic Left, which wants to remain in the eurozone, but cancel the EU/IMF memorandum after two years; but DL so far refuses to enter a coalition with the participation of Syriza; another option under discussion is for the Independent Greeks, a rightwing splinter group, to join the coalition; a poll shows 78.1% of Greeks want to stay in the euro; the two big parties are expected to use the upcoming election campaign as a referendum on euro membership; European central bankers have been threatening for the first time that Greece might be leaving the euro; Paul Krugman says the euro might end within a few months from now; Wolfgang Munchau writes that the Greeks face four choices, of which the best would be to stick with the programme until primary balance is reached, and then default inside the eurozone; CDU suffers a catastrophic defeat in Northrhine-Westphalia; German commentators see the result as having serious implications for Merkel and her coalition; the markets' reaction to the restructuring of Spanish banks has been underwhelming, as investors remain convinced that Spain needs an EFSF/ESM programme; French Socialists attack Angela Merkel ahead of tomorrow's meeting with Francois Hollande; a poll shows that the united front of the French left has a clear lead but the Socialists trail the UMP; Vincent Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, meanwhile, show that debt overhangs have massively negative implications on growth.

This is less of a blog more of a series of notes to try and enhance understanding of who Syriza and its leader Alexis Tsipras actually are, and how they might behave if, as polls suggest, they become the winning party in a second Greek general election. I've been troubled by the lack of historical depth; and of course my own knowledge is limited to English sources. Get ready to hear about parties and political currents that most commentators believed were insignificant just a few years ago.

[27 bullet points later]

Whatever the outcome, the above explains how a combination of historical factors, the position of the EU and a demographic radicalisation of young people propelled one of the furthest left parties in any European parliament to within a few steps of forming a government; and provoking a showdown with the EU that would doubtless see Greece's suspension or exit from the Euro.

At the same time it explains that the resulting government may, in effect, be little more than a left-social democratic government, despite its symbology and the radicalism of some of its voters. By forcing the mainstream parties into positions where they could not express the will of the majority of centrist voters, the EU may end up destroying the Greek party system as it has been shaped since 1974.

Share prices have dropped across Europe and the euro has slid to an 18-month low against the dollar on fears that the eurozone bailout of Greece will fail and reports that French president Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull his country out of the single currency altogether to force Germany to agree to the rescue plan.

The panic selling has been stoked by news that Spain's underlying inflation rate turned negative in April for the first time on record, adding to fears that the country is facing a cash crunch.

...

Germany has been reluctant to act throughout the Greece crisis. But the meeting in Brussels finally put together a €110bn (£94bn) rescue package.

China cut the amount of cash that banks must set aside as reserves for the third time in six months, pumping money into the financial system to support lending after data showed a slowdown in growth is deepening.

Reserve ratios will fall 50 basis points, effective May 18, the People's Bank of China said on its website yesterday. The level for the nation's largest lenders will decline to 20 percent based on previous statements.

Premier Wen Jiabao is increasingly shifting to supporting the nation's expansion from fighting inflation and containing property prices. China's import gains stalled in April while industrial output rose at the slowest pace since 2009 and new yuan loans were the lowest this year, adding to global growth concerns just as Europe's debt crisis reignites.

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan will move to limit the fallout from a shock trading loss that could reach $3 billion or more by parting company with three top executives involved in its costly failed hedging strategy, sources close to the matter said.

The bank - the biggest in the United States by assets - is expected to accept the resignation this week of Ina Drew, its New York-based chief investment officer and one of its highest-paid executives, in the next few days, the sources said. Two of Drew's subordinates who were involved with the trades, London-based Achilles Macris and Javier Martin-Artajo, are also expected to be asked to leave, they said. Neither was available for comment on Monday.

The departures come after the unit Drew runs, known as the Chief Investment Office (CIO), mismanaged a portfolio of derivatives tied to the creditworthiness of bonds, according to bank executives. The portfolio included layers of instruments used in hedging that became too complicated to work and too big to quickly unwind in the esoteric, thinly traded market.

A change of power does not require the election of a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Democratic majority in Congress, or an attempt to reform the system or electing progressive candidates, but rather a destruction of corporate domination of the political process--Gamer's "patron-client" networks. It requires the establishment of new mechanisms of governance to distribute wealth and protect resources, to curtail corporate power, to cope with the destruction of the ecosystem and to foster the common good. But we must first recognize ourselves as colonial subjects. We must accept that we have no effective voice in the way we are governed. We must accept the hollowness of electoral politics, the futility of our political theater, and we must destroy the corporate structure itself.

The danger the corporate state faces does not come from the poor. The poor, those Karl Marx dismissed as the Lumpenproletariat, do not mount revolutions, although they join them and often become cannon fodder. The real danger to the elite comes from déclassé intellectuals, those educated middle-class men and women who are barred by a calcified system from advancement. Artists without studios or theaters, teachers without classrooms, lawyers without clients, doctors without patients and journalists without newspapers descend economically. They become, as they mingle with the underclass, a bridge between the worlds of the elite and the oppressed. And they are the dynamite that triggers revolt.

This is why the Occupy movement frightens the corporate elite. What fosters revolution is not misery, but the gap between what people expect from their lives and what is offered. This is especially acute among the educated and the talented. They feel, with much justification, that they have been denied what they deserve. They set out to rectify this injustice. And the longer the injustice festers, the more radical they become.

(Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a top Afghan peace negotiator in the capital Kabul on Sunday, dealing another blow to the country's attempts to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban.

Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, 68, was one of the most senior and important members on Afghanistan's High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with the insurgents.

"He (Rahmani) was stuck in heavy traffic when another car beside him opened fire," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul police's investigation unit. No suspect was arrested.

The Taliban denied involvement in the killing of Rahmani, a defector from the Taliban who retained strong ties to the movement.

Mexican authorities have found the dismembered bodies of at least 49 people stuffed into bags and dumped on a highway near the northern industrial city of Monterrey in what appeared to be part of a string of brutal drug gang killings, local media reported.

The bodies were found in the early hours of Sunday, sparking a large deployment of local, state and military officials to the scene, daily Excelsior reported on its website.

"We are still in the process of counting the bodies, but there are at least 37 that we have tallied so far," a spokesperson for the state of Nuevo Leon, the home state of Monterrey, told the AFP news agency.

The bodies were found on an isolated stretch of the highway 180km from the US border.

The report follows a string of atrocities, including 18 people who were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara, on Wednesday.

At least four people have been killed, and another 24 injured, after fighting erupted overnight in the Lebanese city of Tripoli between residents loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and those supportive of the Syrian opposition, witnesses and security officials have said.

Rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles were used in the fighting in an Alawite enclave and surrounding Sunni neighbourhoods in the port city, 70km north of Beirut, the capital.

"The clashes peaked at dawn. The sound of gunfire is still echoing in the city," a Lebanese security official said.

Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut on Sunday, said that there was uneasy calm in the city but that the fighting was "definitely related to the on-going crisis in Syria".

KUFRA, Libya, May 13, 2012 (IPS) - As dusk settles over the isolated Saharan town Kufra, young guards order a few hundred migrants lined up at a detention centre to chant "Libya free, Chadians out", before they kneel down for evening prayers.

Most of the prisoners in the small, squalid compound called the Freedom Detention Centre - run by Kufra's military council - are from Chad. Hundreds more, from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, were moved to bigger facilities due to overcrowding.

Almost 1,000 miles from the Mediterranean coast in Libya's desolate southeast desert, the Kufra oasis strategically lies near the long and porous borders of Egypt, Sudan and Chad.

"The two main hubs are Kufra and Sabha in Libya," explains Emmanuel Gignac, head of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Libya. "All West African migrants are going through Sabha via Chad or Niger, and those originating from the Horn of Africa are going through Sudan to Kufra... then either directly to Tripoli or Benghazi. Those are roughly the routes."

My father recently received a form letter response from Joe Pitts (Pennsylvania's 16th district). A year ago, after visiting me in Ramallah, my father contacted Pitts' office, expressing his opposition to House Resolution 268, a one-sided resolution that condemned Palestinians and reaffirmed the US "commitment to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". The incredibly baffling, much-delayed response from Pitts included this gem:

With the global war against terrorism, it is now incumbent on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasir Arafat to clamp down on Palestinian extremists that have perpetuated violence and to restart a peace process that has collapsed.

This response was dated April 20, 2012.

The former Foreign Minister of Japan, Seiji Maehara now the Chairman of the Council for political studies of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan says that Russia and Japan are studying the possibility of jointly constructing a gas pipeline. He was speaking at the end of his talks at the office of the Russian Gazprom.

The issue of building a gas pipeline on the seabed was raised by Russia this time. The Japanese politician expected this and had discussed it with representatives of the Japanese business community ahead of his trip to the Russian capital. Mr. Maehara says that his country is studying the Russian proposal.

Japan sees the laying of a gas pipeline as an alternative to liquefied gas, which is shipped to the country in tankers. A preliminary study of the issue by specialists confirms that the project is technically possible.

In recent years the economic value of pollination-dependent crops has substantially increased around the world. As a team of researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Technical University of Dresden and the University of Freiburg headed by the UFZ wrote in an article entitled "Spatial and temporal trends of global pollination benefit" in the open-access journal PLoS ONE the value of ecological pollination services was around 200 billion US dollars in 1993 and rose to around 350 billion US dollars in 2009.

For the first time, the researchers were also able to show in which regions of the world pollination plays a particularly important role and agriculture is furthermore particularly dependent upon the pollination carried out by animals.

The researchers analysed this relationship on the basis of 60 crops, such as coffee, cocoa, apples and soya beans, which are dependent upon pollination by animals, mostly insects such as honeybees and wild bees, butterflies or bumble bees. These investigations enabled them to create a global map showing the dependence of agricultural yields upon pollination.

In February, a group of anti-wind activists gathered in Washington, DC. Their goal: establish a coordinated, nation-wide program of "wind warriors" who could be dispatched to fight the industry anywhere, anytime.

The organization would combine efforts and create "what should appear as a `groundswell' among grass roots" to counter legislation supporting wind energy on the federal, state and local levels.

The leader of the group was John Droz, Jr, a long-time wind opponent and a senior fellow at the ultra-conservative American Tradition Institute. ATI calls itself an "environmental" think tank. The organization, known best for suing climate scientist Michael Mann, is devoted to spreading doubt about climate change, opposing state-level renewable energy targets, and stripping away environmental regulations.

The ATI is so extreme that it was denounced by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for contributing to an "environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas."

According to a memo just obtained by the Checks and Balances Project and reviewed by Climate Progress, Droz has also been focused on crafting a fake grassroots campaign to fight renewable energy projects -- specifically wind -- in legislatures, zoning boards and town halls across the country.

Last week, the University of Illinois' College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) in Champaign-Urbana made a momentous announcement: it has accepted a $250,000 grant from genetically modified seed/agrichemical giant Monsanto to create an endowed chair for the "Agricultural Communications Program" it runs with the College of Communications.

The university's press release quotes Monsanto's vice president of technology communications giving a taste of its vision for the investment:

With the population expecting to reach 9 billion by 2030, farmers from Illinois and beyond will be asked to produce more crops while using fewer resources. At Monsanto we are committed to bringing farmers advanced ag technologies to help them meet this challenge. Effectively communicating farmers' efforts to feed, clothe and fuel a rapidly growing population is a major part of the solution.

A cynic might translate that statement this way: In order to maintain our highly profitable and hotly contested business model, we'll need a new generation of PR professionals to construct and disseminate our marketing message.

Crude prices should fall because global supply is outweighing demand, according to Saudi Arabia's oil minister, Ali al-Naimi.

"We want a lower price than where it is now," al-Naimi said in Adelaide today. "We need to get the price to a level of around $100" a barrel for London's Brent crude, he said. Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest oil exporter.

Brent, a benchmark price for more than half the world's crude, has dropped 6 percent this month amid concern Europe's debt crisis will worsen and curb fuel demand. OPEC is working to bring prices down, the group's Secretary-General, Abdalla el- Badri, said May 3.

The producer group, scheduled to meet next month, is pumping 8.3 percent more crude than it considers necessary this quarter, figures from the Vienna-based group show.

BULAWAYO, May 11, 2012 (IPS) - While women constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one because of cultural and social barriers.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), women are the majority of the world's agricultural producers, supplying more than 50 percent of the food that is grown globally. And in sub-Saharan Africa the number is higher, as women grow 80 to 90 percent of the food in the region.

FAO says that although across the globe women are responsible for providing the food for their families, they do this in the face of constraints and attitudes that conspire to undervalue their work and responsibilities and hinder their participation in decision and policy making.

But it is a situation that the new Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) boss, Jane Karuku, says must change in order for Africa to feed itself.

Kodak may be going under, but apparently they could have started their own nuclear war if they wanted, just six years ago. Down in a basement in Rochester, NY, they had a nuclear reactor loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium--the same kind they use in atomic warheads.

But why did Kodak have a hidden nuclear reactor loaded with weapons-grade uranium? And how did they get permission to own it, let alone install it in a basement in the middle of a densely populated city?

But not German authorities. He was arrested at Frankfurt airport on the way to a Star Trek convention in Düsseldorf, i kid you not.

Spiggle (auf Deutsch)

Because even in environmental defense, sex sells, here is, relauched April 16th this year, Brigitte Bardot.

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

Mayan wall writings in Guatemala include calendars suggesting the culture was not convinced the world will end in 21012, as many have believed, researchers say.

Some previously discovered Mayan calendars did not go beyond 2012 -- but the newly discovered writings and calendars do, scientists said.

"So much for the supposed end of the world," archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, lead author of a study published in the journal Science, said.

Discovered in the ruins of Xultun, the astronomical calendar was unearthed in a filled-in scribe's room, USA Today reported.

The ancient Mayan civilization of pyramid temples had collapsed there by about A.D. 900, leaving very few records of their astronomy -- until now, Saturno said.

SANTIAGO, May 11, 2012 (IPS) - A new report takes a close look at the territorial distribution of poverty and inequality in Latin America, which has long had a reputation of being the most unequal region in the world.

The Latin American Report on Poverty and Inequality 2011, presented this week by the Latin American Centre for Rural Development (RIMISP), notes that rural areas and indigenous and black populations are hit hardest by inequality.

It also points out that the huge disparities in development levels within the countries of Latin America are one of the aspects of inequality that have received the least attention.

"In Latin America, one's place of birth or residence is not a minor issue because it determines both socio-economic conditions and opportunities to access the goods that guarantee wellbeing," the report says.

"This is true of entire countries and areas within them. The region is home to countries that have achieved greater levels of growth, but that growth is concentrated in a limited number of territories," it adds.

The study also says that some countries with relatively low average levels of development have no areas that are particularly lagging or advanced with respect to the national median, while other countries with relatively high average levels of development have only a few areas with satisfactory results.

"The average American baby is born with 10 fingers, 10 toes and the highest recorded levels of flame retardants among infants in the world." So begins the Chicago Tribune's damning four-part series about spin and science, or lack thereof, in the flame retardants industry. Flame retardant chemicals have become so ubiquitous-there's two pounds of the stuff in just the cushions of a large couch--because we've accepted the health dangers are worth the protection they provide against fire. Except, there is no scientific basis for the claim that flame retardants save lives.

Part three in the series, published today, is a systematic debunking of the few studies the industry has continuously cited as evidence for the efficacy of flame retardants. One obscure Swedish study, available only in Swedish, relied on flimsy evidence from just eight electrical fires caused by TVs. The peer-reviewed paper also lists a PR specialist among its authors. The lead scientist of another study has disavowed what he calls the industry's "grossly distorted" flogging of his work, which looked at levels of flame retardants far above industry standard in household furniture. These examples and many more show how scientific authority has been manipulated for profit:

Pee sitting down and make eye contact while clinking glasses and you can't go far wrong. For this week's Local List, we've come up with some essential etiquette tips for those on their first sojourn through Germany.

1931 - Ådalen shootings: five people are killed in Ådalen, Sweden, as soldiers open fire on an unarmed trade union demonstration.

And it led to many things. Among them sentenced demonstrators, but not sentenced military. Soc-dems campaigned and won the '32 election largely on Ådalen and the Kreuger crash (financial match empire that went up in flames). Despite expectations in the party, the sentenced demonstrators did not get a pardon, leading to heated debate. Exactly what was said during the crucial soc-dem post-election meeting in Stockholm is not known as that protocol is lost. It being the only lost protocol in the Stockholm soc-dems history indicates that it was not an accident.

Anyway, lawes were changed and Ådalen is still the go-to example of why the military should not perform police duties.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!