...the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, warned that other European nations should not expect too much from Germany. "We are convinced that Europe is our destiny and our future" she told the Bundestag. "But we also know our strength is not unlimited."

The French President, François Hollande, and Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, after meeting in Rome yesterday, said new measures were urgently needed to protect sovereigns from financial market contagion. Mr Monti said: "We agreed that the progressive improvements made to eurozone governance are not enough to shield the euro from market turbulence."

Another part of this article is quoted in the Economy section.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The outrageous editorial in Financial Times Deutschland captured broad TV and radio attention, though it did not make it into the Greek press since it was published today.

Expressing Berlin's neoliberal, monetarist position, the paper admonished Greeks to "Resist the demagoguery of Alexis Tsipras and Syriza". "Only with the parties that accept the terms of international creditors will your country be able to remain in the euro," the paper declared.

It advised Greeks to vote for New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, who just happens to be German Chancellor Angela Merkel's fellow conservative. While admitting that ND for decades had wrong-headed policies and is co-responsible for today's misery, it declared that: "The best solution for your country is a coalition government headed by Samaras." The editorial caused an uproar in Greece, and it seems to be pushing people closer to Tsipras. For most Greeks, it was the latest example of German gall.

Practically every leader on the Greek elections I came across when preparing the Salon had a clear unabashed anti-SYRIZA tint: all of Europe participates in the Greek campaign...hopefully with the opposite effect as intended.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

In an unprecedented move, political group leaders in the European Parliament have decided to suspend negotiations with EU member states on five major justice and home affairs dossiers in protest against their decision to unilaterally rewrite rules related to the EU's boder-free Schengen area.

Martin Schulz, European Parliament president, dramatically announced the extraordinary move during the Assembly's plenary session in Strasburg yesterday (14 June).

"It is without precedent that in the middle of the legislative process, one co-legislative chamber excludes the other," Schulz said.

Opinion polls in France show that the Socialist Party will likely enjoy an absolute majority in parliament as voters head to the second round of legislative elections on Sunday.

A victory for Socialists on June 17 would cap a string of triumphs, notably President François Hollande's runoff win over conservative former president Nicolas Sarkozy last month, and also the French left's takeover of the Senate in September 2011.

...According to Celine Bracq, an opinion expert with the French polling firm BVA, Hollande's camp has appeared to increase its advantage between the two rounds.

But, I guess that means that instead of feeling emboldened to implement leftist policies, the Hollande government will feel liberated from dependence on leftist allies and move further right...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The only recorded telephone contact between the then prime minister and Mr Murdoch in late 2009 was on November 10, when they apparently discussed Afghanistan, a Cabinet Office spokesman said today.

Mr Murdoch told the Leveson Inquiry in April that he had spoken to Mr Brown by telephone on or soon after The Sun switched its allegiance from Labour to the Conservatives on September 30, 2009.

He claimed Mr Brown accused the Murdoch empire of declaring war on the Labour government, which had no choice but to "make war" in turn.

Mr Brown told the Leveson Inquiry this week that the September call never took place.

...Sir Mervyn said he expected the scheme to be up and running "within a few weeks". Last night, the Treasury said it hoped the measures would increase annual lending flows to the economy by about 5 per cent, or £80bn.

The mood at the Vatican is apocalyptic. Pope Benedict XVI seems tired, and both unable and unwilling to seize the reins amid fierce infighting and scandal. While Vatican insiders jockey for power and speculate on his successor, Joseph Ratzinger has withdrawn to focus on his still-ambiguous legacy.

...Since the end of May, the pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, has been detained in a 35-square-meter (377-square-foot) cell at the Vatican, with a window but no TV. Using the code name "Maria," he allegedly smuggled faxes and letters out of the pope's private quarters. But it remains unclear who was directing him to do so.

Even with Gabriele's arrest, the leak still hasn't been plugged. More documents were released to the public last week, documents intended primarily to damage two close associates of Pope Benedict XVI: his private secretary, Georg Gänswein, and Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's top administrator. According to one document, "hundreds" of other secret documents would be published if Gänswein and Bertone weren't "kicked out of the Vatican." "This is blackmail," says Vatican expert Marco Politi. "It's like threatening total war."

Spanish bond yields have continued to deteriorate, making a fully-fledged EFSF/ESM programme for Spain likely; Italian bond yields are also now well above 6%, as the markets are doubting Italy's sustainability as well; while southern Europe is burning, Angela Merkel gets in front of the Bundestag to list everything she does not want, including eurobonds and deposit insurance; says Germany should not be overburdened; also criticises Spanish policy to allow housing bubble to inflate in the last decade; Jens Weidmann says Spain must raise taxes, and cut spending even further; Luis Garicano says his preferred option would be a European equity injection into Spanish banks in return for a total ceding of sovereignty; Francois Hollande proposes his plan to save the euro: the ECB to supervise the 25 largest banks, an ESM-banking licence, and the right to inject equity; but Hollande is opposed to Merkel's designs for political union; of those proposals, Merkel indicated that she could support the principle of ECB bank supervision; Weidmann says his vision for a fiscal union consists of an automatic loss of sovereignty for countries that breach the fiscal rules; Alexis Tsipras said that if Spain can get €100bn without conditions, why can Greece not get the same, and stay in the euro; Antonis Samaras is portraying the political choice on Sunday as one between the euro and the drachma; France, meanwhile, is drawing up its own austerity programme.

Today, Greek voters are going to the polling stations torn by the momentous choice that they must make. Should they vote for a party (Syriza) promising to bargain with Europe for better terms and conditions or for parties (primarily conservative New Democracy and/or the socialist PASOK) that are, effectively, proposing to plead with Europe for better terms and conditions? Ostensibly, both sides of the argument are promising to negotiate with the troika (the European Central Bank, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund). However, in truth, the so-called pro-bailout parties (ND and PASOK) are running on a platform that any deal with Greece's official creditors is better than no deal. So, in view of the preceding definition of genuine bargaining, they are ruling genuine negotiations out, courtesy of their determination not to draw a `line in the sand'

The voters' dilemma gets worse because of the risks involved e.ither way. Pro-bailout parties argue against the `line in the sand' strategy because they believe that such a `line', if it must be adhered to (e.g. following a tough negotiating line by the troika), will lead Greece out of the euro, thus costing Greece more than toeing the troika's `line' (i.e. Greece is doing as it is told). In sharp contrast, Syriza is arguing (drawing upon the sorry experience of kowtowing to the troika's every whim during the past two years) that the greatest risk facing Greece is sticking to the present course of precipitous degeneration which inexorably, and speedily, leads Greece... out of the euro.

In the background of this dilemma, lies another fundamental difference of Greek opinion regarding Europe's handling of the Crisis in countries other than Greece. On the one hand, the pro-bailout parties maintain a touching faith in Europe's powerful nations to ride the present storm. While they concede that the past two years have been replete with a sequence of errors on the part of Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Frankfurt, pro-bailout parties are clinging on to the `theory' that "this is how Europe makes progress"; to the optimistic view that Europe will, in the final analysis, manage to do what is necessary in order to save the euro and, with it, snatch the European Ideal from the jaws of the unfolding disintegration. Based on this muted optimism, they argue that Greece's optimal strategy today is to do what it is told (even if what it is told makes little rational sense) so as to maximise its chances of staying within the European fold until Europe's long-awaited `final solution' to the Crisis arrives. Their nightmare scenario would see Greece fall out of the Eurozone just before the Eurozone is `fixed' through a combination of fiscal transfers, federal moves, debt mutualisation etc.

On the other side of the argument (which has, incidentally, been my own viewpoint for a long while now), a completely different view of what Europe is up to dominates. It is the view of European elites engulfed in a spectacular coordination failure that cannot resolve itself endogenously. They resemble American Pentagon generals of the early 1970s, who could see that the Vietnam War could not be won and was a train wreck in slow motion, but who had no means of combining this realisation into a coordinated attempt to change course. Similarly in the corridors of power in Northern Europe today, everyone can see that the Eurozone is heading for a major defeat, in the hands of this vicious Crisis, but no one dares speak the words that might lead to a collective, a European, re-set that will avert the inevitable disaster. In this view of developments in the European Metropoles, we need a circuit-breaker. Something must `give'. Some discontinuity is necessary, to interrupt the unfolding train wreck of the Eurozone. A Greek vote for a party, like Syriza, that is prepared to bargain (i.e. a party that is prepared to draw a `line in the sand') may provide this circuit-breaker. Through this prism, a Greek `no' to the troika is not in the slightest anti-European. Indeed, it is the only good service Greek voters can perform on behalf of the European Project.

Spain's 10-year borrowing costs breached 7 per cent yesterday, the highest level since the formation of the single currency, while the flames of the eurozone crisis spread closer to Italy.

Investors continued to dump Madrid's debt as investor confidence that the forthcoming €100bn (£81bn) bailout of the country's toxic banks would be sufficient to solve Spain's fiscal problems drained away. There were further signs of investor concerns over the sustainability of Italian debt too, with Rome forced to pay 5.3 per cent in a debt auction to raise three-year money yesterday, sharply up on the 3.9 per cent last month. Rome also sold €627m of bonds due in 2019 at an uncomfortably high yield of 6.13 per cent...

Even German borrowing costs have been rising from record lows in recent weeks, hitting 1.5 per cent for 10-year debt yesterday, as investors have begun to factor in the potential costs for the eurozone's powerhouse economy of bailing out the weaker members of the currency union.

The Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night announced measures designed to prevent a new credit crunch that would push Britain's economy deeper into recession. The move was a clear sign that the Governor and the Treasury are alarmed by the prospects for the economy in the face of potential financial shocks from the eurozone.

Egypt's Supreme Court ruled to dissolve the Islamist-dominated parliament on Thursday, effectively erasing parliamentary gains made by the Muslim Brotherhood during the country's troubled transition to democracy.

The court ruled that one-third of the seats in the legislative body were invalid due to violations of electoral law.

In a further setback to the Islamists, the court ruled that the last Prime Minister under ousted President Hosni Mubarak, Ahmed Shafiq, could stay in the running for the presidential runoff election this weekend. He is going up against the Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsy.

Senior Brotherhood leader and lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagy described the ruling on Thursday as a "full-fledged coup," carried out by a ruling military establishment seeking to maintain their grip on power.

AFP - Russia on Friday denied holding discussions with other nations on a political transformation in its Soviet-era Syria that would include the departure of President Bashar al-Assad.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also stressed that Russia would insist on Iran joining any future international talks on the crisis.

Lavrov was speaking just a day after meeting US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns in Kabul for talks that Washington described as "constructive."

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius had earlier on Friday also mentioned discussing a post-Assad Syria with Russia.

Lavrov's denial was aimed at US media reports. Apparently some US diplomats were idiots to leak it to the media.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

AFP - President Cristina Kirchner demanded Thursday that Britain start talks with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in a UN speech on the 30th anniversary of the end of their war over the disputed territory.

The two countries held rival commemorations to mark the end of Britain's military operation to end a 74-day Argentine occupation of the remote South Atlantic islands.

In London, Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to defend the Falklands against new "aggression" and said there could be no sovereignty negotiations.

The protests in Sofia have been led mainly by young people who denounced the "mafia' as being behind the law, which was adopted on Wednesday by the Bulgarian Parliament.

The Forest Act is seen by environmentalists as a "licence to kill" the Bulgarian forests, which in spite of poaching and abuse, still remain an important natural asset for the country and the continent. State forests and protected areas, the last significant public resource that has not yet passed into private hands in Bulgaria, occupy about 20% of the country's territory.

The new law enables the construction of ski slopes and lifts in previously protected areas, removing the obligation that the status of the land be changed for this purpose. Furthermore, it would allow the acquisition of building rights on public land without tender and for an indefinite period.

8. WINDFARM APPROVED An application for a 498MW offshore wind farm northeast of the eastern Aegean island of Limnos has been approved, the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) announced on Thursday. The 2bn euro project, comprising 81 wind turbines, will be the first of its kind in Greece and the third in size worldwide. City Electric SA (a subsidiary of RF Energy SA) is behind the project, which will be linked to the national energy grid and play an important role in meeting national renewable energy sources (RES) national targets by 2020. The wind farm will have a capacity of 1,692.3 GWh and will supply roughly 500,000 households with electricity. Its operation will contribute to cutting carbon dioxide emissions by roughly 1.7 tons annually.

Siemens has unveiled the first batch of its new 75 metre-long wind turbine rotor blades, which it claims are the "world's longest".

The B75 Quantum rotor blades will be installed on the second prototype of Siemens' 6 MW offshore wind turbine, which will be erected in later this year in Denmark's Østerild Test Station.

A man is critically ill in a hospital in Oregon with suspected plague, the disease that caused the Black Death, which wiped out 25 million people in 14th-century Europe.

The unidentified man, who is in his 50s, was reported to have been bitten on the hand while trying to save a mouse caught by a stray cat. He fell ill with a fever several days later and was admitted to hospital where doctors said he had classic symptoms of the disease. Laboratory tests are being carried out.

AP - Japanese police Friday arrested the last fugitive suspected in a doomsday cult's deadly nerve gas attack on Tokyo subways 17 years ago: the cult leader's former bodyguard, who was finally tracked down at a comic-book cafe.

Katsuya Takahashi, 54, a former member of Aum Shinrikyo cult, was arrested on suspicion of murder, a Tokyo police spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity, citing department rules. An employee at the downtown Tokyo cafe had recognized him and called police, she said.

Takahashi admitted who he was when approached by the police at the cafe.

His trail had been cold for years, but it heated up after another fugitive from the cult was arrested June 3. Thousands of officers had been hunting for him across the capital, handing out fresh photos of the suspect and monitoring transportation hubs to keep him from escaping.

For years, German law enforcement officials searched in vain for the people behind a baffling series of murders ultimately attributed to the Zwickau neo-Nazi cell. At one point, police in Hamburg even turned to an Iranian 'metaphysicist' for help -- but it only added more confusion to their hunt.

...According to their records, the necromancer told the police that he had made contact with the murdered greengrocer for 10 to 15 minutes via a female medium while staying in a rental apartment in Hamburg. He said he was told the murder had been "unplanned," that an "injustice" was behind the deed and that drugs might have played a role. The victim had been "in contact with a gang," he reportedly continued, made up of up to eight "motorcyclists/bikers," one that might have been known to the police but had "no high degree of organization."

...Today, officials in Hamburg know that what the Iranian told them bears little in common with the actual facts of the murder. But at the time, the information from the other world appears to have interested police officials there enough to run a cross-check with their in-house information system. The search turned up nothing.

Margaret Brown, a professor of education at King's College, London, did go on the record. The new curriculum, she said, "encourages the rote teaching of disparate skills and discourages the buildup of understanding, problem-solving and enjoyment of maths." The people drawing up the reforms "ignored all advice from the maths community, ACME [the Advisory Committee on Maths Education] and others," Brown said, adding that the reforms "will be guaranteed to create failure, not to reduce it."

I overheard one researcher suggesting this might be a deliberate policy, a "charter for private tuition." Sainsburys, after all, offer tuition for your children while you shop, so the rise in failing students will create a market opportunity.

As a ray of hope, I'll admit that not all experts are down on all the reforms. Conrad Wolfram, the computer genius whose company runs the software behind Apple's Siri, has some positive things to say at his blog. But, despite the good bits, the new curriculum presents "a broadening chasm between government's view of maths and the real-world subject". Many of the proposed subjects are no longer relevant to the modern world, he says: it's like teaching your kids how to rub sticks together to make fire but not teaching them how to cross roads.

England's captain Steven Gerrard was confident of gaining a victory against Sweden in Friday's Euro 2012 group D clash, claiming their opponents were 'not as good as France'. England have yet to beat Sweden in a competitive match.

A nice way to fire up... the opponent.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has filed formal charges against the seven-time Tour de France winner, threatening to strip him of his victories in the storied cycling race.

Armstrong, who forcefully denied the accusations, could face a lifetime ban from the sport if he is found to have used performance-enhancing drugs. The move by USADA immediately bans him from competing in triathlons, which he turned to after he retired from cycling last year.

Armstrong has been dogged by doping allegations since his first Tour victory in 1999, but had hoped his fight to be viewed as a clean champion was finally won after U.S. federal prosecutors closed a two-year criminal probe in February without bringing any charges. Armstrong has said the investigation took a heavy emotional toll and he was relieved when it ended.

But USADA officials insisted they would continue to pursue their own probe into Armstrong and his former teams and doctors, and notified him of the charges in a 15-page letter on Tuesday. Unlike federal prosecutors, USADA isn't burdened by proving a crime occurred, just that there was use of performance-enhancing drugs.

France's Roger Garaudy, a famous philosopher and communist best known for his controversial views on the Holocaust and his anti-Zionist work "The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics", died at the age of 98 on Wednesday just outside of Paris.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere