A new headline grabber has emerged on the Austrian political stage. He's Frank Stronach, an 80-year-old auto parts magnate who's launched a new party that seeks control of the government - and an end to the euro.

Frank Stronach was born not far from Graz, the location of the Austrian production arm of Magna International, a company Stronach formed in Canada after emigrating as a young man.

Stronach made millions in Canada in the auto parts industry, only to return in the 1980s to Austria where he made many more millions.

But as new cars continue to roll off production lines at Magna Steyr in Graz, and parts are assembled at factories belonging to Magna International in 26 countries around the globe, Stronach is now concentrating his efforts on the upcoming general election in Austria.

In a rare political declaration, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has rejected "binary choices" for the eurozone's future, dismissing calls for a "United States of Europe" as well as a return to national currencies to stop the sovereign debt crisis.

"Those who claim only a full federation can be sustainable set the bar too high," Draghi wrote in an opinion piece published on Wednesday (29 August).

"What we need is a gradual and structured effort to complete the EMU [Economic and Monetary Union]," he added in the article, originally published in German newspaper Die Ziet and published in full on EurActiv.com.

Such ventures into political territory are extremely rare from the ECB, signalling that the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis is reaching a decisive turn.

BRUSSELS - Legislation to establish a banking union for the eurozone will be tabled on 12 September, European Commission President Jose Barroso said in a speech Thursday (30 August).

Speaking at the Aspbach Economic Symposium in Austria, President Barroso described the step, which is expected to see the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank given extensive powers to supervise and intervene in the European banking system, as "the next concrete and immediate deliverable of our vision to generate confidence in the future of the euro area". 

However, with Britain and other non-eurozone countries likely to opt-out of the system, the union is expected to focus on the single currency areas.

At a news briefing in Brussels, Commission spokeswoman Pia Hansen confirmed that "the banking union will be for the seventeen," although she added that it would be open to non-eurozone countries. There would be "an interface for those who would like to join that supervisory mechanism," she said.

Michel Barnier says the September 12 proposal will include central supervision of all 6000 systemically relevant banks; he says Dexia, Northern Rock and Bankia would not have fallen under a large-bank regime; foresees a staged introduction: EFSF-supported banks in January 2013, large banks in July 2013, remaining banks in January 2014; the CDU bitterly opposes these proposals as they threaten the viability of many German savings banks and mutual banks, whose business models depends on regulators looking the other way; Wolfgang Schauble argues that it is too much for the ECB to take on 6000 banks; Bild reports that Jens Weidmann has considered resignation in protest over bond purchases, but decided against it "for now"; Greek coalition partners have continued their talks, as details of the package emerge, including cuts to holiday payments and further cuts of pensions; despite fulfilling its obligations, Portugal is likely to need a second bailout; Valencia upped its bail-out request from the Spanish regional stabilisation fund; three regions are now grabbing half of the funds earmarked capacity; Andalusia is demanding no intrusion into regional autonomy; on a visit to Spain, Francois Hollande is calling for urgent action to solve the crisis; Mariano Rajoy denies suggestions that he wants to wait with an EFSF/ESM application until after the Galician elections; Spain is considering not to revert to EU money in the recapitalisation of Bankia to avoid a bail-in of subordinate creditors; a member of the German Council of Economic Advisers has calculated that a euro breakup would cost Germany 7-10% of GDP; Ewald Nowotny is "massively" bearish on the eurozone's economic prospects; Irish house prices, meanwhile, are rising again.

(Reuters) - A complete collapse of the euro would shave up to 10 percent off the German economy and even just the departure of Greece from the currency club bears substantial risks to business, according to government economic advisor Lars Feld.

Feld, one of five "wise men" economists whose views help shape the public debate in Germany but often have little direct impact on policy, said recent estimates by the group suggested Germany's gross claims from the euro zone are about 3.5 trillion euros.

"When a good part of the claims would go in default, there would be insolvencies in small and medium-sizes firms and the economy would be hit," Feld told a Frankfurt journalist club Wednesday night in remarks slated for publication on Thursday.

"This drop could amount to 7 - 10 percent of the (German) gross domestic product (GDP)."

China has assured Europe of its confidence in the eurozone at the start of a two-day visit to Beijing by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said China would "continue to invest in the EU."

At a joint press conference after talks, Wen said: "China has always had confidence in the eurozone, and we are happy to see greater use of the renminbi [China's currency] by European countries in trade and economic transactions."

"Strengthening practical cooperation between China and the EU is conducive to overcoming the eurozone debt problem," Wen said. Governments within the EU had the wisdom to solve the problem, he said, adding that Italy, Greece and Spain must step up their resolve to implement reforms.

'Pin-point' disruptions of Lufthansa services will begin at various airports on Friday, according to the trade union representing cabin staff. UFO says passengers will be given time to amend their travel plans.

Industrial action against the German national carrier Lufthansa would "definitely" begin on Friday, UFO said on its website Thursday, but it did not disclose exact times and the airports affected by the strike.

Britain's Barclays has appointed retail banker Antony Jenkins its new chief executive. The new man at the helm will have to deal with the aftermath of a recent management shake-up in the wake of a rate fixing scandal.

Oxford-educated Antony Jenkins will be Barclay's new chief executive, the British bank announced on Thursday. The 51-year retail specialist succeeds US banker Bob Diamond who stepped down in July after the exposure of attempts by Barclays to rig the key interbank lending rate (Libor).

The bank was fined 290 million pounds ($460 million, 366 million euros) by domestic and US regulators over fiddling with the Libor number which sets the interest rate at which lenders can borrow from each other.

Slowing global economic activity and the debt crisis in Europe hit the German labor market in August as unemployment rose for the fifth month in a row. Key job indicators show no signs of improvement.

The number of jobless Germans rose to 2.9 million in August - 29,000 more than in the previous month, the German Labor Agency said Thursday.

Although the jobless rate remained unchanged at 6.8 percent, the figure was the highest since April this year.

In adjusted figures, accounting for seasonal factors such as the summer holidays and graduates seeking jobs, German unemployment rose by 9,000.

For over a decade the BRIC states have held sway over swaths of the world economy. But another set of nations, united under the acronym MIST, is ready to knock a brick out of the economic wall.

People who want to get their message across quickly - and make their way into the headlines - would be well advised to come up with a short and snappy abbreviation or acronym for their whole idea.

It worked 11 years ago for Jim O'Neill, an asset manager at Goldman Sachs, when he coined the term BRIC - the now-ubiquitous acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China. Fund managers and investment consultants grabbed onto the term as a way of getting their customers to invest in those four countries, which were undergoing astonishing growth at the time.

AFP - Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organization, confirmed on Thursday that growth in global trade would remain below four percent this year and urged governments against protectionism.

Annual growth in world trade has averaged six percent over the past 15 years, but this year "we will be below four percent," Lamy told France's BFM radio, blaming the slowdown on a sluggish world economy.

President François Hollande has announced a bilateral Franco-Spanish summit on October 10 after meeting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid. But many in Spain are beginning to question the French leader's willingness to stand with them against potentially crippling German-inspired austerity measures.

After Hollande's approval rating took a dive in France this summer, he has now disheartened some Spaniards who believed he would be an ally in ending the EU's current austerity drive.

In its latest quarterly report, the International Atomic Energy agency warns that Iran may be set to step up its uranium enrichment activities. It also says it suspects Tehran is trying to cover-up a nuclear test.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog says Iran may have laid the groundwork for a major expansion of its uranium enrichment activities.

A new International Atomic Energy Agency report says Iran has doubled the number of centrifuges at its underground facility at Fordo. The quarterly report, released on Thursday, puts the current number of centrifuges at the heavily fortified facility at 2,140, up from 1,064 in May. The newly added elements had not yet been put into operation, the report says.

The leaders of Egypt and Iran have held the first presidential-level talks between the two countries in more than 30 years. It signals a major shift in foreign policy for both countries.

The meeting between Egypt's Mohammad Morsi and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took place on the sidelines of the summit of non-aligned countries in Tehran.

The topics of discussion included the need for an end to the Syria crisis, and the two countries' severed diplomatic ties. The leaders reportedly agreed that Egypt and Iran were "strategic partners" in the region.

The two countries have had no formal contact or ties since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.

Paul Ryan, the US Republicans' vice-presidential contender, has accepted his party's nomination at its convention with a verbal attack on the economic polices of President Barack Obama.

Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman regarded by Republicans as their fiscal expert, accused Obama of enacting "big government" policies and presiding over ballooning debt and joblessness.

"The choice is whether to put hard limits on economic growth or hard limits on the size of government, and we choose to limit government," Ryan said.

The humanitarian situation in Syria is catastrophic. The work of aid organizations is being impeded by the warring parties, and aid workers are risking their lives. The UN Security Council is set to address the issue.

The clearly visible crescent on his red uniform did not protect Bashar al-Youssef. The 23-year-old worked for the Red Crescent aid organization and was shot and killed in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor. Five Red Crescent workers have been killed in Syria since violence broke out there over a year ago. It is not clear in any of the cases if the aid workers were killed by Syrian government troops or rebel fighters.

The Paralympics are more professional than ever - with new sporting records thanks to technology. But some say 'techno-doping' gives disabled athletes an unfair advantage.

A thousand reports have been written and filed, a thousand photos have been taken, and once again hundreds of journalists have come to record Oscar Pistorius' every move.

The South African runner, who uses prostheses, has become a sports icon like no other. He blurs the line between the Olympics and Paralympics.

Politely, Pistorius answers the questions from the media gathered in London.

"The focus shouldn't be an athlete's disability, or the technical support they get, but their skills and their willpower," he says.

A report circulating widely online from private pro-regime Syrian channel Addounia TV is generating much debate as to the methods used by the channel's journalists.   This report, filmed in Daraya after a massacre for which the government and the Syrian Army blame each other, shows journalist Micheline Azar setting the scene to a background of classical music. The cameraman films close-ups of several corpses stretched out on the ground or in cars. "As usual, by the time we arrive at the scene, the terrorists have already done what they do best: committed criminal acts, murdered people... and all in the name of freedom," says Azar.  

AFP - Arrested Lonmin mine workers were on Thursday charged with the murder of 34 striking colleagues who were shot dead by South African police on August 16 during a strike over wages.

"The court today charged all the workers with murder, under the common purpose law," spokesman for the prosecutor's office Frank Lesenyego said.

Police opened fire on striking workers at the Marikana mine after a stand-off had already led to the death of 10 people including two police officers.

AP - A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when he was first fired upon.

Bin Laden apparently was hit in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as SEALs rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in "No Easy Day." The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)'s Dutton imprint.

Bissonnette says he was directly behind a "point man" going up the stairs. "Less than five steps" from the top of the stairs, he heard "suppressed" gunfire: "BOP. BOP." The point man had seen a "man peeking out of the door" on the right side of the hallway.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-30/a-pilgrims-progress-to-the-white-house/4234546

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-30/status-of-the-mining-boom-with-clarke-and-dawe/4234114

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-31/smith-says-australia-will-stay-the-course-in-afghanistan/42355 42

Defence Minister Stephen Smith says Australia remains committed to "staying the course" in Afghanistan, after the ADF suffered its worst day in combat operations since the Vietnam War.

Five Australian soldiers died in Afghanistan on Wednesday - three when an Afghan army sergeant shot them at close range as they rested at a patrol base in the Baluchi Valley in Uruzgan.

Lake Titicaca sits on the border of Peru and Bolivia, a marvelous, shimmering, blue wonder. But as cities along its banks boom, untreated waste has started to cloud its waters.

Fifteen thousand feet above sea level, amongst Bolivia's Andean glaciers, the air is thin and cold. In this silent place surrounded by rocks and ice, a stream begins to flow downward. It is beginning a journey towards Lake Titicaca, South America's largest lake, which sits on the border shared by Bolivia and Peru. The glacial stream is crystal clear. But by the time it reaches the lake, less than 65 kilometers away, the water will be a soupy, foamy green, polluted by industrial, household and agricultural waste.

France's Socialist government has come under a broadside of criticism in Germany for artificially lowering the cost of petrol and diesel at the pump.

French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici announced Tuesday that the government and oil firms had agreed to split the burden of a six-euro-cent cut per litre for petrol and diesel over the next three months.

Paris insists that this temporary measure has been put in place to give the government time to work out a long-term strategy to keep the cost of fuel down.

And despite polls showing 78% of Germans favour a similar intervention, the German government and the press wholeheartedly rejected copying the French initiative.

AFP - Storm-weary residents hunkered down for a hot, wet and windy wait on Wednesday as Hurricane Isaac slowed to storm force but looked set to linger over southern Louisiana.

Officials urged residents to stay indoors and warned it would be at least a day before winds calmed enough for crews to try to repair downed power lines, which meant a half a million people would spend another night in the dark.

Dozens of people who refused to heed mandatory evacuation orders were trapped by flood waters after a massive storm surge rolled water over the levees protecting low-lying Plaquemines Parish overnight.

The pressure from the pounding waves remained so strong that engineers were considering puncturing at least one levee to release some of the water.

AFP - The World Bank said Thursday that drought in the US and Eastern Europe crop centers sent global food prices soaring by 10 percent last month, raising a food security threat to the world's poorest people.

The surge in prices, mainly due to the devastating heat wave across the central US, which produces the world's largest crops of corn (maize) and soybeans, places in danger millions around the world, especially in countries dependent on imported grains, according to the bank.

From June to July, the prices of both corn and wheat jumped by 25 percent while soybeans were up 17 percent. Corn and soybean prices topped their previous record highs in the food price crisis of June 2008.

Two of the world's smallest countries are to place nearly 2.5 million square kilometres of south Pacific Ocean in newly created marine protected areas.

The Cook Islands, nation of 20,000 people on 15 islands, formally announced on Tuesday the creation of the world's largest marine park covering nearly 1.1m sq km, an area bigger than France and Germany.

"This is our contribution not only to our own wellbeing but also to humanity's wellbeing," said the prime minister, Henry Puna.

"The Pacific Ocean is source of life for us. We are not small Pacific island states. We are large ocean island states," Puna said at the opening of the Pacific Islands forum, where leaders of 16 Pacific countries including New Zealand and Australia are meeting in Rarotonga.

A vast reservoir of the potent greenhouse gas methane may be locked beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, a study suggests.

Scientists say the gas could be released into the atmosphere if enough of the ice melts away, adding to global warming.

Research indicates that ancient deposits of organic matter may have been converted to methane by microbes living in low-oxygen conditions.

The organic material dates back to a period 35m years ago when the Antarctic was much warmer than it is today and teeming with life.

In the US, journalists are sacrificing editorial independence in exchange for access to top politicians. The practice has a long history in Germany, where interviews often must be authorized before publication.

In democratic societies, the media has long struggled with the political class to define what information is fit to print. While journalists seek access to high-level officials for a scoop, officialdom often does its best to control the flow of information to journalists in order to mold public opinion in its interests.

South African human rights activist Denis Goldberg spent 22 years in prison during the apartheid era. Today he is the honorary president of the charity HEART (Health Education and Reconstruction Training), which he founded himself in Britain in 1995. Last year, Goldberg received the German Order of Merit for his work on German-South African relations and his campaign for social justice. He tells DW why education is so important for humanity.

American oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard says his latest deep sea expedition off the coast of Cyprus has revealed an amazing array of life forms, shipwrecks and unusual discoveries.

During most of August, Ballard's research team on board the EV Nautilus have concentrated on the unique geological makeup of the Eratosthenes Seamount, one of the largest features on the eastern Mediterranean seafloor.

Ten years ago it was thought the famous Black Forest cuckoo clocks would disappear - sales plummeted and several old clockmakers went broke. Now, new features and modern designs have enabled a comeback.

The myth of uniform is that it is a social leveller, an equaliser. And pushes up results? Then show me how. Many European countries with good schools don't have uniforms. Bill Clinton thought back in the 90s that it might be the answer to gang-related violence. It wasn't.

No uniform does what it says on the tin. It is about conforming. It heartens many a parent to see their child as somehow ready for work. Mr Gove of the Bible loves a uniform. Indeed the fetishisation of school uniform is no longer a pervy thing; it is education policy. The academies are bonkers on it, parents like it and many children say it makes their lives easier. Labour and Tories think much the same.

Louis de Gouyon Matignon, 20, willingly presents himself as an advocate of the Gypsy cause. That's a good thing because he's in his third year of law school and has spent the summer as a parliamentary aide to the conservative UMP Senator Pierre Hérisson, President of the National Consultative Commission on [French] Travellers.  

In July, the 100th anniversary of the "circulation notebook" [obligatory for travellers aged more than 16 and on the move for more than six months, gave this "Gypsyofile" a chance to make a name for himself in the media. Originally, the notebook was created to "take a census" of all those people with an itinerant lifestyle in France, explains Gouyon Matignon.

But, according to him, "it comes down to creating an internal passport," for the 350,000 to 500,000 Manouches [French Gypsies], Gypsies or Roma settled in France. The notebook must be stamped every three months in a police station to show, among other things, the town to which they are affiliated.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-30/rinehart-sets-out-road-to-riches/4232326

More work, less play: Rinehart sets out road to riches
Australia's richest person Gina Rinehart has urged Australians to work harder and cut down on drinking, smoking and socialising if they want to become wealthy.

In her regular column in a mining industry magazine, the controversial magnate says billionaires and millionaires are doing more than anyone to help the poor by investing their money and creating jobs.

Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion, blames anti-business and socialist policies for hurting the poor.
Writing in Australian Resources and Investment magazine, she blames "taxes, green tape and socialist policies" for killing off investment in Australian projects.

I like this comment

Self-made millionaires can say that and get away with it. Gina Reinhart isn't one of them.

Sure, she's multiplied the money she's inherited many times over, but it was all on the back of Hancock Prospecting. She certainly never made much money before receiving that inheritance in the early 90s- she wasn't even a millionaire. Why was that, I wonder? Too much drinking and socialising?

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