"BHV: it's over ", headlines Le Soir on the vote over the carve-up of the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde (BHV) district, a subject that has been the major cause of the political crisis between the Flemish and Walloons since 2007. The Flemish demand to divide in two the predominantly French-speaking territory located in Flemish territory seemed even to threaten the unity of the kingdom. The French-language daily is the only paper, along with La Libre Belgique, to devote its front page to the story.

This July 13 the Chamber of Deputies must vote on the fate of the district. The Senate already voted in favour of the split, on July 12.

"BHV" is the only bilingual electoral district in the country, encompassing 19 municipalities of the bilingual Brussels-Capital region and 35 Flemish municipalities around the cities of Halle and Vilvoorde.

Bulgaria and Romania are set to fail their biggest test since their accession on 1 January 2007 with the forthcoming publication of crucial progress reports on the reform of law enforcement.

Romania faces unprecedented criticism because of suspected attempts by its new government to ease democratic checks and balances, while Bulgaria faces more heat over alleged close ties between government officials and organised crime.

...Ponta ignored a decision of the Constitutional Court which had ruled that he could not represent Romania at the recent EU Summit. He has also issued an urgent decree, approved by the government on 4 July, stating that opinions of the Constitutional Court are no longer mandatory for parliamentary decisions.

Ponta overreached, but Băsescu's rule was one long succession of attempts to sideline rivals with institutional changes, and weaken the parliament in particular. Hence, the EU and international media narratzive is indicative of the EPP closing ranks, IMHO.

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

Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to lower the price of gas for Ukraine yesterday (12 July) during his first visit to the former Soviet republic since returning to the Kremlin in May, a meeting which Kyiv had hoped would resolve the energy stalemate.

Ukraine, which depends heavily on gas imports from Russia, has long wanted to revise a 2009 gas deal with Moscow which it argues set an exorbitant price for the fuel (see background).

But President Viktor Yanukovich's talks with Putin, just like those with the Kremlin leader's predecessor - and now prime minister - Dmitry Medvedev, failed to yield a breakthrough.

(Yet another) story which doesn't quite fit the "evil pro-Russian Yanukovych vs. pro-Western martyr Tymoshenko" media narrative. It will be forgotten quickly.

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

The German government says Jewish and Muslim communities should be able to continue the practice of circumcision, after a regional court ruled it amounted to bodily harm.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said it was a case of protecting religious freedom.

Steffen Seibert said: "Circumcision carried out in a responsible manner must be possible without punishment."

European Jewish and Muslim groups had criticised the Cologne court ruling.

MEPs from the European parliament's regional development committee (REGI) have called for member states to ensure that EU cohesion funds reach Europe's regions and cities.

Europe's regions and local authorities must be more involved in designing regional programmes, said the committee, which insisted the policy have a priority focus on making it easier for final beneficiaries to utilise funding opportunities.

Wednesday's vote followed "over 3000 amendments in 10 committee meetings, in under nine months, 11 working group and countless rapporteur meetings", said regional development committee chair and EPP member Danuta Hübner.

Parliament will now negotiate with the council and the commission over the summer, beginning with yesterday's technical meeting, on Thursday 12 July.

The REGI committee is looking to adopt the rest of its negotiating mandate in the autumn and put the whole package to a final vote once negotiations are concluded.

France's main Muslim organisation is in crisis after the oldest Paris mosque announced that it was leaving on Wednesday. Founded by Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister in 2003, the French Muslim Council (CFCM) is torn by factional disputes as it discusses reforming its structure.

The rector of the influential Grande Mosquée de Paris (GMP), Dalil Boubakeur, announced that it was quitting the CFCM on Wednesday, accusing the federation's president, Mohamed Moussaoui, of "autocratic governance" and claiming that his organisation was being squeezed out of its rightful role.

The news came as a surprise not only to Moussaoui but also to the national executive of the Paris mosque. One of its delegates, Abdelkader Bendidi, expressed "great surprise" on discovering that he had resigned without being consulted.

Boubakeur was the first president of the CFCM and is still an honorary president.

At present representation on the CFCM is allotted according to the size of an organisation's mosques and Boubakeur, who is considered close to the Algerian government, accused CFCM leaders of "trying to play down the size and influence" if his mosque.

Switzerland's supreme court has intervened to stop a young Kosovan woman having to decide whether to remain with her abusive husband or lose her Swiss residency permit.

The 21-year-old Kosovan woman came to join her husband in St. Gallen in the east of Switzerland some 21 months ago, newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported.

The husband, who is seven years older than his wife, forbade her from attending German-language or integration courses and would only allow her to leave the house in the company of her mother-in-law.

When the woman tried to resist what she described as slave-like conditions, she was put out on the street. Her family back in Kosovo also rejected her for her behaviour.

The St. Gallen migration board then decided not to renew her residence permit because she could not show that she was a victim of marital violence, or that she would face persecution in Kosovo. Her complaints to the Cantonal Security and Justice Department and to the Administrative Court were also rejected.

The kind of experience she had gone through was to be expected in a Muslim marriage, the authorities said.

After hearing a parliamentary say fuck them, thousands of people took to the streets tonight

140 photos of todays taking the street http://imgur.com/a/HXn9u  ‪#quesejodan‬

After all, the major effect of the ECB's rate cut on July 5 was to make it unprofitable - in fact, punishing - for banks to park their dollars with the central bank. The ECB wants the banks instead to invest those dollars, to lend them out to companies and people.

And the banks are thinking,  in response, "you can not be serious." After all, there's a quiet credit crisis underway. Reports are the banks know they don't have enough money on hand to carry them through another big financial crisis. As a result, the prevailing financial  psychology calls for hoarding money.

...

The world's financial system is heavily dependent on money market funds. Money markets act as short-term lenders to banks, governments and other crucial institutions. And we've seen what happens when money markets become unstable: in 2008, investors in money market funds started panicking after Lehman Brothers fell, and created a deeper panic.

Italy passed a tough market test today as its three-year borrowing costs fell well below 5 per cent at an auction hours after Moody's cut the country's rating to two notches above junk status.

The US rating agency surprised markets today by lowering Italy's sovereign debt rating to Baa2 amid persistent worries about Spain's ability to sort out its banking problems, concerns about a Greek exit from the euro and doubts over Italy's long-term resolve to push through much-needed reforms.

Moody's lauded Prime Minister Mario Monti's commitment to fiscal reforms and structural consolidation. But warned it could again cut the country's marks if the next Italian government failed to push through necessary changes.

In the first five months of 2012, the Greek ministry of finance registered a €300 million shortfall in collected taxes. The shortfall, notes the ministry, is primarily due to corporations having not submitted their taxes on time.

Meanwhile, ordinary Greek citizens are on the front-line of a tax collection scheme that has channelled revenue directly from their electricity bills into the state coffers to help plug the country's debt.

Associate professor of economics Rapanos Vasileios at the University of Athens says that Greek ship owners are exempt from "some laws". Most, he told this website, register their boats overseas like in the Cayman islands even if they fly the Greek flag.

...The country's largest property owner - Greek Orthodox Church - is under intense scrutiny following a real-estate scandal that apparently swindled millions of euros from Greek tax payers.

...Athanasios said that local authorities are to blame for any irregularities that may have arisen from illegal appropriations of property.

China's economy grew at its slowest pace since the onset of the global financial crisis, expanding 7.6% from April to June year-on-year, official data showed on Friday. A spokesman said China would meet its full-year growth target of 7.5 percent.

The European Commission has informed four traders of North Sea shrimps of its preliminary view that they may have infringed EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels. The Commission has concerns that these companies may have colluded to fix prices and allocate markets and customers at least in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium The sending of a statement of objections does not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation.

In March 2009, the Commission carried out unannounced inspections at premises of a number of producers of North Sea shrimps (see MEMO/09/142). The Commission does not reveal the name of the companies at this stage as it respects the rights of defence and the presumption of innocence.

This investigation concerns the food sector which has been identified as a priority sector for the action of both competition authorities in Europe and the European Commission in order to ensure that food markets work for suppliers and consumers alike (see IP/12/502).

Rohatinski, who was governor for 12 years, is not short of job offers after he was not given another mandate last month by Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic.

It is reported than Rohatiniski has received a few job offers from overseas, including  Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. If he does not accept the overseas offers, it is rumored then that he will take up a position at Croatia's largest privately owned buisness Agrokor.

I think Rohatinski remained rather popular in Croatia throughout his mandate, because he was perceived as capable in contrast to the incompetence and corruption prevailing in the Croatian political class.  I don't know whether that perception deteriorated in the last year as the crisis deepened.

If you are not convinced, try it on someone who has not been entirely debauched by economics. — Piero Sraffa

AFP - France has issued an arrest warrant for the son of Equatorial Guinea's President Teodoro Obiang Nguema after he refused to be interviewed by magistrates on graft charges, a judicial source said Friday.

Magistrates want to speak to Teodorin Nguema Obiang Mangue about allegations of money laundering and embezzlement but he declined to be interviewed, claiming immunity as Equatorial Guinea's vice president.

Reports say that forces loyal to Syrian President Assad have massacred over 200 people in the village of Tremseh. Footage uploaded to YouTube indicates that a savage religious war is raging in some rural areas -- and that soldiers are fanning the flames of hatred.

In Pakistan, opposition parties are out on the streets to protest against the resumption of key NATO supply lines to Afghanistan.

Land routes to Afghanistan via Pakistan are the cheapest way for NATO to provide much-needed supplies to its troops who are fighting a decade-long war against Islamists militants.

Islamabad had blocked the supply routes in retaliation for a NATO airstrike in Salala near the Afghan border last November that resulted in the death of 24 of its soldiers. US-Pakistani ties had been at their lowest level ever since. Last week, after almost seven months, Pakistan finally agreed to reopen NATO supply lines to Afghanistan after an apology was issued by Washington.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Burma's President Thein Sein on Friday to improve relations with the military-ruled country, despite criticism from rights groups that foreign investment is increasing faster than democratic reform.

On July 10, Park Geun-hye officially declared her presidential candidacy for a vote set to take place in South Korea at the end of the year. The 60-year-old chairwoman of the conservative Saenuri Party (also known as the New Frontier Party) -- and daughter of former president Park Chung-hee -- is hoping to take over from the unpopular current president, Lee Myung-bak. According to the Constitution, Myung-bak is not allowed to pursue a second five-year term.

Park will have to receive the nomination of her largely supportive party before jumping into the race, though it is a procedural formality -- with 40% favourability ratings, she is currently considered the frontrunner.

...Park's name is ...inextricably linked to that her father, who ruled Korea with an iron fist from 1962 to 1979... After seizing power in a military coup, Park Chung-hee made a name for himself in South Korean history with unapologetic tactics, including cracking down on the press and throwing political opponents in jail...

...If the candidate is looking to distinguish herself from her father in terms of how she wields power, many of her economic ideas are the same. Before his assassination at the hands of the director of Korea's national intelligence service, Park was widely viewed as successful in kick-starting his country's industrial and economic development.

Four Israeli activists and six foreign citizens, including a New York Times correspondent, were arrested this Friday in Nabi Saleh. The Israelis and the reporter were released last night after a short investigation. The international activists remain in custody and will most likely be deported. According to various reports, New York Times reporter Ben Ehrenreich was in Nabi Saleh to write up a story for the magazine, and  despite repeatedly showing IDF soldiers his press card and asking why he was being apprehended, he was detained for nearly 2 hours before being released without being told why. Ehrenreich is an acclaimed novelist and son of writer Barbara Ehrenreich.

From the flight deck to the wheel brakes, new generations of aircraft that produce far less pollution increasingly rely on imported raw materials which are themselves dirty to produce. EurActiv reports from the Farnborough International Airshow.

China and Russia are dominant suppliers of some forms of titanium - a lightweight metal used in airframes and parts - while China holds the lock on production of rare earth metals. Dependable supplies of these resources are vital as European and American airplane manufacturers juggle backlogged orders and address forecasts of exponential growth over 20 years.

"It's an area that is going to increasingly become a challenge in the industry," said Dr Andy Jefferson, programme director at the industry-financed Sustainable Aviation research organisation in the United Kingdom.

Three solar power companies have written to the [British] government demanding £2.2m in damages which they say were caused by cuts in 2011 to the incentive scheme for solar, which resulted in a legal challenge that the government lost.

Last October, ahead of schedule, the coalition cut in half payments for the feed-in tariff scheme which pays generators of small-scale energy such as solar panels. The cut led to a near 90% drop in installations.

The companies, who have sent a "letter before claim" to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), say the government should pay because they claim its action "caused major financial losses and materially harmed the confidence of both consumers and the industry".

Britain risks being turned into a "nuclear laundry" by taking ownership of German plutonium in return for cash, the government was warned on Friday.

The move came alongside confirmation that ministers were moving towards a controversial decision to build a new mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant despite having just agreed to close an existing one which lost millions of pounds.

Britain has the largest stockpile of plutonium in the world but has taken permanent control of a further 4 tonnes under a deal with German nuclear power companies.

Charles Hendry, the Minister of State for Energy, said the agreement reduced the need to transport plutonium back to the continent and would improve the UK's overall security.

Around 250,000 people in and around the central German city of Erfurt have been studiously avoiding tap water, scared of the bacteria which can cause a range of intestinal and respiratory problems - nasty for most people, fatal for some.

Doubts filtered into public after a parliamentary question to the Thuringia local government revealed an internal memo which suggested the test results which sparked the scare may have been wrong, Bild newspaper reported on Friday.

Experts at the Institute for Water and Environment Analytics (IWU), who did the testing, have rejected suggestions they got it wrong. "This is a smear campaign and one which I will be taking legal action against," said institute head Dr Wolfgang Möller.

"We checked all the results thoroughly," he said, on discovering that a spokesman from the state's ministry for social affairs, Uwe Büchner, told the Bild that a fake scare was "not likely, but possible."

E-coli was found in one water sample, but when the same sample was tested again it came out clear, the paper reported.

BRUSSELS - The European Commission has said in a written note that respect for gay rights is a legal criterion for EU accession.

It cited the 1993 so-called Copenhagen criteria for EU eligibility and article 2 of the EU Treaty, which prohibit discrimination against "minorities."

It also cited articles 10 and 19 of the EU Treaty and article 21 of the European Charter on Fundamental Rights, which explicitly forbid discrimination on grounds of "sexual orientation."

...The commission note was sent to EUobserver in response to a question born of an interview with an Armenian cleric.

Armenia, a deeply Christian country where church teaching has more authority than in many EU states with Christian roots, is keen to become an EU member.

The tale is bizarre, but true. During World War II, an orphaned brown bear went from being a cuddly pet to an officially enlisted soldier in the Polish army, and reportedly saw fierce combat in Italy. Decades after the war and his death, "Wojtek" continues to be honored.

Archibald Brown had already seen a lot during the war -- but nothing like this. It was mid-February 1944, and the courier for British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was in the port of Naples to help process a unit of Polish soldiers that had just arrived by ship from Alexandria, Egypt, to advance with British soldiers against German and Italian forces...

"We looked at the roster, and there was only one person, Corporal Wojtek, who had not appeared," Brown recalled in an interview years later. But the documents said that Wojtek belonged to the unit. Brown had his service number and his pay book, but the soldier himself seemed to have vanished without a trace.

Brown then called out the soldier's name, but there was no response. So he asked the other soldiers why Wojtek wasn't coming forward. An amused colonel responded: "Well, he only understands Polish and Persian." Brown was then led to a cage holding a full-grown Syrian brown bear, the unit's most popular member.

Almost 12,000 patients are dying needlessly in NHS hospitals every year because of basic errors by medical staff, according to the largest and most detailed study into hospital deaths ever performed in the UK.

The researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and colleagues found something went wrong with the care of 13 per cent of the patients who died in hospitals. An error only caused death in 5.2 per cent of these - equivalent to 11,859 preventable deaths in hospitals in England.

At least 30 people were killed on Friday when a train crashed into a truck carrying farm workers that was traversing a railway line near Malelane in South Africa. Rescue and paramedic crews are at work at the scene of the crash, officials say.

Yoga teacher fired after glare at Facebook worker - SiliconValley.com

SAN FRANCISCO--Looks may not kill, but they can get you fired.

That's what a Northern California yoga instructor found after leading sessions at Facebook's Menlo Park campus.

The instructor, Alice Van Ness, said she got fired after she glared at a Facebook employee who texted during a class in June.

"The whole point for most people going to yoga is that it's disconnecting from the outside world," said Van Ness, a 35-year-old San Carlos resident who has taught yoga for six years. "If you are bringing your phone into class, why are you even there?"

Van Ness told the Facebook class to turn their phones off after seeing a female employee with a cellphone out. Later, while demonstrating a difficult pose, she caught the same worker typing on her phone. Van Ness said she stayed silent, but shot the woman a disapproving look. The employee stepped out before returning to the class, Van Ness said.

According to a termination letter from Plus One Health Management that was provided to The Associated Press by Van Ness, she was warned prior to the class that she could not enforce a cellphone ban.

All in all, it says a lot about Facebook after all.

Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.

The Chelsea captain John Terry was found not guilty on his racial abuse charge by a court today.

District Judge Howard Riddle said that it was "a crucial fact that nobody has given evidence that they heard what Mr Terry said or more importantly how he said it" in relation to his accusation that he abused Anton Ferdinand during a game between Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea in October last year.

...He was accused of calling Ferdinand a "f*** black c**" during a confrontation during the game. Terry admitted saying the words but claimed he was repeating them back sarcastically after Ferdinand had first falsely accused him of making the allegation.

British cyclist David Millar prevailed in the twelfth stage of the Tour de France on Friday, clinching his fourth win of the tournament, while fellow Briton Bradley Wiggins maintained the yellow jersey with a 2min 5sec advantage.

Next Salon Sunday night for Monday.

France's far-right National Front is to sue Madonna after an image at the US singer's Paris concert showed party leader Marine Le Pen with a swastika imposed on her face.

National Front vice-president Florian Philippot said the party could not accept "such an odious comparison".

The image, in a video accompanying the song Nobody Knows Me, was followed by another resembling Adolf Hitler.

Madonna was performing at the Stade de France in a Paris suburb on Saturday.

Last month in Tel-Aviv:

Madonna vs. Marine Le Pen: A Swastika-Doomed Concert | Hollywood.com

Madonna and controversy. They go together as well as Madonna and any flower but hydrangeas. The pop icon has now once again found herself in the middle of political and press chatter after showing a photo of Marine Le Pen branded with a Swastika during a recent concert in Tel Aviv, Israel. During a performance of the singer's single "Nobody Knows Me," the photo of the Front National President appeared on stage, and Le Pen is reportedly threatening legal action should Madonna use the image again. "If she does that in France, we'll be waiting," Le Pen told the Daily Mail