Finland's prime minister today (10 August) proposed a banking sector-funded European crisis fund to recapitalise troubled banks as part of Europe's plans for a banking union to tighten supervision.

The premier of triple-A rated Finland - one of only four remaining eurozone members to retain the top credit rating - also said the European Union should fully implement decisions made to establish closer fiscal union.

"We should be able to build a system where banks cannot shake up whole countries. One solution in addition to monitoring could be European banks' crisis fund," Jyrki Katainen was quoted as saying in an interview with economic magazine Talouselama published today.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is "deeply worried" that Britain could decide by referendum to leave the EU, he told Germany's Die Zeit newspaper in an interview.

Blair added in the interview, published yesterday (9 August), that the transfer of competences to the EU must lead to more democratic legitimacy as well, and said that "Britain must play a strong role in this".

Ha. Ha. Ha.

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

BRUSSELS - Special prosecutors in Vienna charged disgraced former Austrian euro-deputy and interior minister Ernst Strasser with corruption on Thursday (9 August).

Strasser - who was one of three MEPs caught on camera taking a bribe to influence legislation at the European Parliament in March last year - continues to deny any wrong doing.

An undercover sting by journalists from the UK's Sunday Times newspaper offered the then MEP an €100,000 annual fee to push through amendments that would favour the interests of a fictional corporate client.

...Slovenian centre-right Zoran Thaler also resigned as MEP after he accepted a similar bribe from the journalists.

Meanwhile, Adrian Severin of Romania continues to pursue his functions as an MEP despite also been caught on camera accepting €12,000 for "two to three days' work."

BRUSSELS - EU countries have opted not to retaliate against Belarus in its diplomatic war on Sweden.

They will instead tell Belarus' own envoys to EU capitals that the Union is not happy. They might also add more Belarusian officials and businessmen to the EU sanctions list in autumn.

..."We will be reviewing sanctions on Belarus later on in the next few months ... the situation with the Swedish embassy will have an effect on this," he added.

At first, Jean-Claude Juncker was just jabbering about Greece. No, he couldn't categorically exclude its exit from the Eurozone, he said, but it wouldn't happen "before the end of autumn." With these words, he might have thrown the markets into vertigo-inducing tailspins a year ago. But Monday, during an interview on German TV (transcript), the Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup--where the finance ministers of the Eurozone manage the political ends of their currency--wasn't ruffling any feathers; and markets went up. That's how far the Eurozone's debt crisis has advanced, after 21 summits to save the euro, and after two bailout packages to save Greece.

The French President and the Prime Ministers of Spain and Greece had called him that morning and kept him from getting any work done, he mused. It was that kind of conversation, self-aggrandizing in a quiet way. Then he plowed into sound-bite happy politicians, particularly those who were pushing for a Greek exit, such as German Vice Chancellor Philipp Rösler who'd proclaimed that such an event had long ago lost its horror. "It would be good if more people in Europe would shut up more often," Juncker explained.

Nevertheless, a Greek exit would be "a manageable process," he said--confirming Rösler offending sound bite of a couple of weeks ago [read....  Smashing The Can Instead Of Kicking It Down The Road]. But it would entail significant risks, "particularly for ordinary people in Greece." To show just how close to his soul they were, he added, "I do care what happens to these mountain farmers in Greece. Maybe Mr. Rösler doesn't care, but I do."

Then he lamented that "many Germans and the German media" talked about Greece as if it were "a people you couldn't respect"; and that Greek tabloids depicted Chancellor Angela Merkel as if she were "the heiress of the Nazis." History, and "what we thought had been definitively buried, very quickly rises again," he said. "European integration remains a highly fragile story."

He'd hit the nail on the head. European integration, a vague intellectual construct for the people on the ground, has been the elite's dream for decades. And now their handiwork appears to be sinking into the morass of budget deficits, excess debt, and national priorities. What a hoot it would have been to bring all these people with their dozens of languages and diverse cultures into one grand organization under one government, run by a few mostly appointed politicians and bureaucrats, at the top of whom would be, why not, Juncker himself and of course the inevitable Merkel.

But he goes deeper. Southern Greeks knew nothing about northern Germans or the Lapps, and vice versa, he said, which left politicians to lead the continent based on the "fundamental agreement that we must work together," but alas, without knowing anything about "the living conditions of others."

And what about sticking together against colossi such as China or India? Suddenly, his dark pessimism, and realism, burst to the surface. Forget Greece. This was about the future of a dying continent.

"We're small, and we're becoming weaker," he said. The floodgates opened. Was he trying to scare the uppity Germans into obedience? "We're not numerous enough, we're declining in number, we're losing economic power, and if we don't have this common currency, politically we won't have any significance."

Significance. Who cares what the mountain farmers in Greece want. Juncker and his ilk want significance. They already have everything else. He wants to transcend the limits of his political future, being at the top of a tiny but immensely wealthy country, and being at the top of a frantic monetary union.

"Europeans are dwarfs," he said. But he had a solution. The one that would reverse all the scourges he'd just mentioned: "We must show the world something giant, and that's the euro."

he doesn't call his site 'testosteronepit' lightly!

h/t max keiser

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

Social Europe: The Case for a Change of Course in European Policy (09/08/2012 BY PETER BOFINGER JUERGEN HABERMAS AND JULIAN NIDA-RUEMELIN)

The euro crisis reflects the failure of a dead-end policy. The German government lacks the courage to move beyond a status quo that has become untenable. This is why, despite extensive rescue programs and countless crisis summits, the situation of the eurozone has steadily deteriorated over the past two years. In the wake of its economic crash, Greece faces the prospect of leaving the eurozone, which would have incalculable knock-on effects for the other member countries. Italy, Spain and Portugal are all in the grip of a severe recession, which is driving up unemployment. The economic downturn in these problem countries is making the fragile situation of the banks even more precarious, and the growing uncertainty about the future of monetary union is undermining the confidence of investors, who are increasingly reluctant to buy bonds issued by the problem countries. Rising interest rates for government bonds, coupled with the steadily deteriorating economic situation, are hampering the processes of consolidation - which were never going to be easy in the first place.

...

The escalation of the crisis shows that the strategy previously pushed through by the German government in Europe is based on a false diagnosis. The current crisis is not a crisis of the euro. The euro has shown itself to be a stable currency. Nor is the current crisis a debt crisis specific to Europe. Compared with the USA and Japan, the EU - and within the EU the eurozone - has the lowest level of debt of all three economic regions. The crisis is a crisis of refinancing affecting individual countries within the eurozone, and is primarily due to an inadequate institutional underpinning of the common currency.

...

In actual fact the problem countries have so far failed to limit their refinancing costs to a manageable level, despite extensive structural reforms and a policy of spending cuts that are unusually severe by international standards. The events of the last few months point to one conclusion: that the German government's diagnosis and therapy have been too one-dimensional in conception from the beginning. The crisis has not come about just because individual countries have behaved badly, but is due in large measure to systemic problems. These cannot be solved by greater efforts at the national level; they require a systemic answer.

BRUSSELS - Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva has broken the government's tacit pro-German line and urged the European Central Bank (ECB) to start buying bonds from troubled eurozone countries.

"Why not have the ECB start applying now to public debt securities from Portugal and Ireland the orientation announced by its president," Cavaco Silva said in a message posted on his Facebook page on Thursday (9 August).

He was referring to statements made last week by ECB chief Mario Draghi that the bank could start buying distressed bond, but only in September, pending an internal review and a vote by the bank's board.

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has made headlines by buying data on Swiss bank accounts in a crackdown on German tax evaders. But now they have found evidence that Swiss bank UBS may have helped Germans shift their assets to Singapore before a tax treaty between Germany and Switzerland goes into effect next year.

...German investigators who recently purchased data on UBS bank clients have come into possession of documents that show how Swiss banks allegedly help clients transfer their assets to Southeast Asia to evade taxes, according to the Friday edition of the Financial Times Deutschland. "For the first time, we have a paper trail to Singapore," a source close to the North Rhine-Westphalian state Finance Ministry told the newspaper. North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state, has led the way in buying Swiss bank customer data in a bid to catch German tax cheats.

The UBS material is apparently so revealing that the investigation into the bank has now become the priority, a source told the FTD, which said that German tax evaders, the original target, were now being regarded merely as "bycatch." The investigators are said to have obtained video material which show "senior (UBS) employees" giving instructions on how German clients can invest their money with the bank in a "tax-optimized" manner -- in other words, keeping it concealed from the tax office.

Said tax agreement increasingly looks like a lifebelt thrown to tax evaders. The agreement, which is currently blocked by the upper house of the federal parliament, was to end a wave of purchases of stolen Swiss bank data by German tax authorities, which the Social Democrat-Greens-led state of NRW violated. Just the day before, there was a concerted attack of CDU and FDP leaders against the NRW government, using harsh words...

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

Investors remained jittery Thursday after allegations that Standard Chartered flouted US sanctions in conducting some $250 billion in deals with Iran. The British bank fell more than 25% in market value in the 24 hours following Monday's accusations.

An over 80-year-old idea is on the table in the United States and Germany: separating risky investment activities from everyday banking. But views differ on how strict the separation should be and if it will even help.

... "As early as the 1920s, Senator Carter Glass, one of the authors of the act, believed that too much money was being pumped into speculative investments," said Hans-Joachim Voth, economic historian at Pompeu Fabre University in Barcelona. "With the Great Crash and ensuing Depression, Glass saw an opportunity for pushing through a clear separation of commercial banks from investment ones."

... In contrast, - nearly four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers - politicians have few fundamental reforms they can say will protect future generations. "It's bordering on the criminal that we have not learned one lesson from the crisis [that began in] 2007 and have not really managed to improve regulatory mechanisms," Voth said. "I think it also reflects a failure of intellect."

..."I'm not a big fan of a black and white policy that says we should break up the banks and keep them seperated," said Georg Fahrenschon, president of the German Savings Bank Association.

He defended universal banks that do everything - account keeping, lending, securities trading and foreign exchange transactions. "Over the last three years, we have seen how important it was to have regional banks that could also help mid-sized companies with currency risk management."

This is significant that the Bank for International Settlements has talked about reclassifying gold for commercial banks from a Tier 3 to a Tier 1 asset, which effectively means that gold will have 100% weighting, as opposed to 50%. This reflects a change in how the official sector views gold.

The second phenomenon is what has been happening in the Eurozone. A fiat currency is vaporizing before our eyes. A number of central banks hold a substantial amount of euros in their foreign exchange reserves that may be worth nothing. Some central banks may have gold holdings, but not as much as they claim, because of forward sales. There is most likely a structural short in the market from the central banks.

...

Our general feeling at Pinetree that gold is slowly being re-monetized has driven our investment decisions. Relative to the metal, gold equities are at such valuation extremes that it makes it a much more compelling valuation relative to copper, iron ore or some of the base metals. But we've been bullish on gold since the early 2000s, based on the positive supply/demand fundamentals. All of those factors are part of the decision to increase our overall exposure.

So Monti went on attack. The Eurozone bailout chaos and Germany's resistance to ECB printing operations have created tensions that show "the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe," he told the Spiegel, a threat designed for German consumption--the latest in a series of escalating threats issued by politicians of debt sinner countries. And like his predecessors, he took it a step further than anyone before him.

Further even than Alexis Tsipras, the firebrand leader of Greece's left-wing SYRIZA party, who'd threatened during the chaotic election, "If Greece doesn't get its next loan installment, the Eurozone will collapse the following day." But now comes Monti--and it's no longer just the demise of the 17-member Eurozone but the dissolution of Europe. Europe as a whole. If the ECB doesn't print whatever it takes to bail out Italy, "the foundations of the project Europe are destroyed," he said.

Then, indefatigable, the unelected technocrat went after democracy itself: "If governments let themselves be tied down completely by the decisions of their parliaments," he said, and he was directly addressing Germany, "then the breakup of the Eurozone is more likely than a tighter integration"--the latter being Chancellor Angela Merkel's brainchild and the focus of much of her efforts. Thus he'd lashed out at Germany's democratic processes, including parliament's involvement in some of the bailout decisions, limited as it is. Instead of allowing elected representatives of the people who will pay for the bailouts to have a say in the bailouts, Monti wants Merkel and her government to go around parliament and impose their decision on the citizenry.  

"Attack on democracy," is what Alexander Dobrindt, Secretary General of Merkel's coalition partner CSU, called Monti's words on Sunday. He lamented that "greed for German tax money is sprouting undemocratic flowers." He didn't mince words. "Mr. Monti apparently needs to be told that we Germans will not be ready to abolish our democracy just so that Italy's debt can be financed."

On Saturday already, Dobrindt had taken on ECB President Mario Draghi by accusing him of abusing the ECB for the benefit of his native Italy. "It's striking that Draghi always becomes active and wants to buy sovereign bonds when Italy is once again in a tight spot," he said. Even Draghi would have to adhere to the treaties governing the ECB. "He must decide where he stands: on the side of the stability union or on the side of the crisis countries that try to sneak their way to German money."

Higher yields were a sign countries needed to reform, he said, and forcing yields down through bond purchases would only treat the symptoms, not the causes. Draghi's plans, he said, reveal the life-long lie of European "centralists" in Brussels who want to guarantee "the same standard of living from Athens to Munich." But this cannot be done, least of all through printing money for debt sinner countries. "That's euro socialism," he said.

yes, and?

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

In late July, the inspectors returned to Athens yet again and left on Sunday. After another visit at the end of August, they'll release their final report in September. A big faceless document on which people of different nationalities labored for months; a lot of politicians can hide behind it. Even Merkel. And the Bundestag, which gets to have a say each time the EFSF disburses bailout funds.

Alas, August 20 is the out-of-money date. September is irrelevant. Because someone else turned off the spigot. Um, the ECB. Two weeks ago, it stopped accepting Greek government bonds as collateral for its repurchase operations, thus cutting Greek banks off their lifeline. Greece asked for a bridge loan to get through the summer, which the ECB rejected. Greece asked for a delay in repaying the €3.2 billion bond maturing on August 20, which the ECB also rejected though the bond was decomposing on its balance sheet. It would kick Greece into default. And the ECB would be blamed.

But the ECB has a public face, President Mario Draghi. He didn't want history books pointing at him. So the ECB switched gears. It allowed Greece to sell worthless treasury bills with maturities of three and six months to its own bankrupt and bailed out banks. Under the Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA), the banks would hand these T-bills to the Bank of Greece (central bank) as collateral in exchange for real euros, which the banks would then pass to the government. Thus, the Bank of Greece would fund the Greek government.

Precisely what is prohibited under the treaties that govern the ECB and the Eurosystem of central banks. But voila. Out-of-money Greece now prints its own euros! The ECB approved it. The ever so vigilant Bundesbank acquiesced. No one wanted to get blamed for Greece's default.

On January 22, 2012 French President François Hollande -  at the time just a presidential candidate - stood in front of thousands of cheering supporters at a rally at the Le Bourget conference centre near Paris and blasted Nicolas Sarkozy's track record on foreign policy.

"Being the president of the Republic means being firm... [it means] not inviting dictators to Paris," Hollande lectured. Names were carefully omitted from the Socialist leader's speech, but there was no doubt he was referring to Sarkozy's now infamous reception for the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the Elysée Presidential Palace in December 2007.

...It was with the same uncomfortable smile Sarkozy offered Gaddafi back in 2007, that Hollande shook hands with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain on July 23.

...On July 5, Hollande met with controversial Gabonese President Ali Ben Bongo. On that day around 30 protesters gathered outside the Elysée to demand greater transparency in France's dealings with its former African colonies; some of the participants held hand-made signs reading "Bongo dictator, Hollande accomplice".

...So far Hollande has been unwilling to shun controversial world leaders, but, as in so many other domains, has sought to distance himself from his predecessor Sarkozy's notorious taste for extravagance.

REUTERS - Tunisian police fired teargas and rubber bullets on Thursday to disperse protesters demanding jobs in Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the revolution that ousted Tunisia's autocratic leader last year and triggered the Arab Spring uprisings.

Doctors at Sidi Bouzid's hospital said six people were injured during the protest, which drew hundreds of young Tunisians demanding jobs, more investment in their region and the dismissal of the city's governor.

REUTERS - An Afghan police commander and several of his men killed three U.S. soldiers in the southern province of Helmand, turning guns on them after inviting them to a dinner to discuss security, Afghan officials said on Friday.

The men were all American special forces members and were killed on Thursday night while attending a meeting in the Sarwan Qala area, in what appeared to be a planned attack by rogue Afghan forces.

"During dinner, the police commander and his colleagues shot them and then fled. The commander was Afghan National Police in charge of local police in Sangin," a senior Afghan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Sangin is a district.

REUTERS - Four Chinese policemen admitted on Friday to attempting to protect the wife of powerful politician Bo Xilai from suspicion of the murder of a British businessman, an official said, in another damaging development for the ex-Politburo member.

The official's statement, given after an 11-hour hearing barred to non-official media, formally establishes for the first time that there was an attempted cover-up of the murder of businessman Neil Heywood and comes just a day after Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, chose not to contest a charge of poisoning Heywood.

Neither the official account of Gu's closed-door trial, the most politically explosive case in China in three decades, nor that of Friday's proceedings mentioned Bo by name. But the legal noose appears to tightening around the brash politician who cast himself as a leftist alternative to China's rulers.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's visit to disputed islands suspected of containing rich natural gas reserves raised tensions between Seoul and Tokyo on Friday, with Japan recalling its ambassador and issuing a terse warning.

In short, Bibi and Barak's ship continues to sink. Their war plans have been scuttled by forces that have proven much more determined than I ever expected them to be: the Obama administration; the Israeli security establishment, retired and, most importantly, active; many of Israel's most respected mainstream journalists (especially Barnea and Shiffer, Haaretz's Amos Harel and Amir Oren, and Channel 10′s Immanuel Rosen and Alon Ben-David), who've gotten out the story that IDF chief Benny Gantz, IDF Intelligence head Aviv Kochavi, Air Force commander Amir Eshel, Mossad director Tamir Pardo and Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen are against a war; and Peres, whom Haaretz's Ari Shavit described as "the true leader of the opposition ... [who] is working with all his power to foil the move being advanced by Netanyahu and Barak."

In recent years, I haven't had a lot of opportunities to feel proud of Israel's democracy, but I sure as hell do now as I watch this uprising against two men's lunacy, and I see that the uprising is winning - as far as I'm concerned, it's won. In how many other countries would you see such a backlash within the upper reaches of the establishment - the military and intelligence branches, the media, the presidency - against a war being sold as a war of national survival, a war to prevent national extinction, by the unchallenged leaders of the country, each of whom thinks he's God?

Testosterone Pit - Home - Argentina: The Big Shrink

A Trilemma: Try to fix one problem and the other two get worse.

While stagflation can be brought on by a large external shock, à la the oil shocks of the 1970s, Argentina's situation is the result of over a decade of pursuing a growth strategy that combines import restrictions with capital controls to promote domestic growth and high employment.

In 2001 when Argentina opted to default on international obligations and rapidly devalue the peso, effectively losing the ability to borrow money abroad, they did so to pursue a course of action without the harsh effects of austerity currently being protested in Greece and Spain. And indeed, the past decade has seen growth and relative stability, which led a number of commentators to suggest that Argentina provides an alternative path to countries under strain in the Eurozone. (See here, here, and here.)

3 legged stool on a sloping floor?

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

According to the animal welfare group 30 millions d'amis (30 million [furry] friends), no less than 60,000 pets are abandoned in France every year during the summer holidays. The Paris-based Société Protectrice des Animaux (Animal Protection Society), which runs shelters nationwide, reckons the figure is even higher: a whopping 100,000 animals abandoned by their owners.

 

I spoke to Marion Giroud of the Confédération Nationale des SPA de France, which federates its own network of animal shelters nationwide. "People don't think about the constraints" when they buy a pet, she told me in a telephone interview. Although going on holiday would appear to be a pretty obvious one, it only seems to dawn on some pet owners when it's already too late. Seemingly unable to find a kennel, a pet-sitter or to take their pet with them, they then choose to abandon said pet rather than miss out on their vacation. "Some of them phone us up just before their holiday, saying that all the kennels are full", Giroud explains. Although she acknowledges that there are not enough kennels and catteries in France, she points out that pet-sitting services offered by individuals are now easy to find online (one such website is Tendea).

AP - The head of Belgium's federal agency for nuclear safety AFCN said on Friday he was "sceptical" that an ageing reactor closed over fears of cracks could be restarted.

...According to French-language daily Le Soir, a crack of between 15 and 20 millimetres (0.6 and 0.8 inches) was discovered during a test in June. There has been no denial of this report.

...The agency is also mulling the permanent closure "in the worst case" of a second reactor in the country's south near Liege.

...The Dutch firm, Rotterdam Drydocks, that made the vessels is out of business, which has amplified concerns about others it delivered in Europe and in the Americas.

Spain has indicated it has two reactors in the same bracket, Switzerland and Sweden one each.

Overweight Americans place a massive burden on the US health care system, a problem New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes to help solve with a ban on supersized soft drinks. But the highly publicized offensive against sugary sodas has erupted into a debate about personal freedom.

...By spring 2014, Tsuchiyu, 9 miles (15km) from Fukushima, will be generating 250 kilowatts of electricity - about a quarter of the city's total needs - at a geothermal plant hidden away in the surrounding mountains.

The plant will be the first to be built inside a national park, a controversial move that only became possible after the environment ministry recently relaxed regulations on developing protected areas.

If all goes to plan, the project could not only help the town become self-sufficient in power generation, but revive its role as a tourist destination after visitor numbers plummeted amid lingering fears over radiation. In the past, hot-spring operators have been among the fiercest opponents of geothermal energy, an obvious source of energy given Japan's huge subterranean reserves of volcanic water.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for the corn crop by nearly 17% and raised the upper end of its price forecast by 39% ...

Per bushel, corn is expected to rise as high as $8.90 -- up sharply from previous estimates of $5.40 to $6.40 per bushel.

Also:

The impact of high corn prices already has made itself felt around the world. On Thursday, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said that world food prices soared 6% in July, ending a streak of three consecutive months of declines, following a sharp increase in grain and sugar prices.

The rising prices for corn will have an enormous impact on people in developing countries, where people spend 30% to 40% of their income on food. "They're the ones that are hardest hit," and hunger will rise, says Colin Carter, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis.

Many people still believe that the Nazis invented the famous German autobahn, and that the construction work helped eradicate mass unemployment in Germany. But this is a historical fiction.

....Only a few years earlier, many members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) - the Nazis - collaborated with the German Communist Party in sabotaging the construction of `car-only roads', as these concrete runways were initially called. The Nazis' argument was that the roads would "only benefit rich aristocrats and Jewish big capitalists and their interests." The Nazis stayed well clear of the political negotiations on financing the motorways. It was only when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 that the Nazis realized they could use the autobahn for their own ends.

...It was the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, who managed to finance and construct the first crossroads-free motorway in 1932 - now the A555 between Cologne and Bonn. The road was 20 kilometers long, and the speed limit was 120 kilometers per hour, though at the time most cars could only manage 60. The Cologne region was said to have the highest volume of traffic in the country. Shortly afterwards, however, the Nazis came to power, and the motorway had only been open a few months when it was downgraded to the status of "country road". The Nazis decided they wanted to take the credit for building the first autobahn.

...Autobahn construction works were supposed to create at least 600,000 jobs. In fact, even when construction was at its height there were never more than 120,000 people at work. The construction itself was marked by sickness, death, hunger and misery. There were strikes, and the strike leaders were sent to concentration camps. The public, of course, were told none of this.

Over the years, an increasing number of Germans found jobs in the booming arms industry. That was what reduced unemployment - not the autobahn construction...

A paediatrician has been arrested over claims he disciplined his 11-year-old daughter by waterboarding her.

Melvin Morse, 58, a doctor known for his research into near-death experiences of children, is accused of subjecting the girl to the simulated drowning technique more typically associated with the interrogation of terrorist suspects.

He and his wife Pauline Morse, 40, were arrested at their home in Georgetown, Delaware, on Tuesday on charges of endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangerment and conspiracy.

David Cameron's appearance on Chris Evans's Radio 2 breakfast show has caused consternation at the BBC, with senior figures within the corporation unaware that the prime minister was booked to appear.

BBC insiders said there were fears that Cameron's 20-minute interview with Evans on the country's most popular breakfast show on Thursday breached BBC rules on impartiality.

Cameron read out messages from listeners and told Evans about the legacy of the London Olympics, defending the government's policy on the controversial issue of the sale of school playing fields.

One BBC source said they expected Labour leader Ed Miliband would be badgering the corporation to come on to Radio 2 to read out listener text messages next week. But there is no indication that Labour is preparing a complaint about the Cameron interview.

Dr Silvia Garbari, from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, said: "We are 99% confident that there is dark matter near the sun. In fact, our favoured dark matter density is a little high.

"If future data confirm this high value, the implications are exciting."

The Swiss scientists measured local dark matter density by studying the positions and movements of thousands of orange K dwarf stars near the sun.

Scientists have excavated three new fossils - a face and two jawbone fragments - indicating that at least two other species of human lived between 1.78m and 1.95m years ago at the same time as our direct ancestors. The discovery emphasises the complicated nature of human evolution, which has been likened to an intricate family tree of related species rather than a simple sequential line of direct descent.

The neat direct line view was always a pre-Darwinian image (going back to Aristotle), which saw humans as the most advanced life form, and later mis-interpreted Darwinian evolution as a progression in that direction, rather than in the direction of best adaptation to one's niche for all extant species.

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

Speaking at a conference at Tehran's Amir Kabir University, Iranian minister of communication and information technology Reza Taqipour confirmed that the step -- designed to protect the nation's intelligence form foreign powers -- was the first phase in moving the country away from a global internet and towards a national intranet by the end of 2013. Following in the footsteps of North Korea, where the Kwangmyong intranet is the only online platform citizens can use, Iran is abiding by plans announced in April 2011 to instate a heavily censored system that abides by Islamic law.

...

Quoted by Iran's FARS news agency, Taqipour went on to call the worldwide web an unreliable network, particularly in times of crisis -- perhaps referring to the much-publicised role of social networking sites throughout the 2011 Arab Spring.

According to FARS, the minister said a new network would turn "threats into opportunities" and somehow render current issues with cost, security and bandwidth obsolete.

He may have become the first man to win consecutive gold medals in both the 100 and 200 metres but Jacques Rogge has denied Usain Bolt the third title he came to the London 2012 Olympic Games to collect. The president of the International Olympic Committee has told the Jamaican sprinter he is not yet a "living legend".

Speaking ahead of last night's 200 metres final, he told reporters: "The career of Usain Bolt has to be judged when the career stops." He added that Bolt is an "icon" but has not yet achieved his stated aim of legendary status.

Rogge said: "If you look at the career of Carl Lewis, he had (four) consecutive games with a medal. Let Usain Bolt be free of injury, let him keep his motivation which I think will be the case ... Let him participate in three, four games, and he can be a legend."

This coming weekend is the Pike's Peak Hill Climb, a car and motorcycle race (time trial, actually) up the winding road to the top. There's a big celebration downtown tonight where they show off the cars, the bikes, and the pit babes.

Part of the run-up to this is the singing of a nationalistic song, but in this case, it was "America the Beautiful" instead of "The Star Spangled Banner." "America" is a much better song, and it has a connection to Pike's Peak because (according to legend) Katharine Lee Bates was inspired to write it when she came here as a tourist in 1895. Given that our official national anthem is unsingable, lots of people think that it should be replaced with "America."

Some people, however, are confused. This evening when the singer started off her wobbly rendition, I noticed that one old geezer took off his hat and saluted the flag. Hand on heart, etc. Actually, there was no flag visible, so he just saluted the singer.

So one way of looking at this is that he's a patriotic old git and any sort of patriotic song gets him going. I can just imagine what happens when he hears "The Marine's Hymn" or "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" or the Navy or Air Force songs. Probably breaks out sobbing.

The other way of looking at it is that we are suffering from mass hysteria. However, it was just this one guy, most people just stood there sipping their beer and wondering when the parachutists would be landing.