Belarus has taken strong diplomatic action against Sweden following a stunt involving parachuted teddy bears.

Sweden says all of its diplomats have been expelled from Belarus, which has also closed its embassy in Stockholm.

Belarus was angered when a Swedish public relations firm dropped about 800 teddy bears with pro-democracy messages from a light aircraft.

Four members of a Muslim sect in the Russian region of Tatarstan have been charged with cruelty against children for allegedly keeping them underground.

The sect's elderly leader, Faizrakhman Sattarov, who had declared himself a Muslim prophet, was charged with the crime of "arbitrariness".

Police found 27 children and 38 adults living in catacomb-like cells, dug on eight levels under his home.

No immediate reaction to the charges was reported.

A business in Wales is bussing in inmates from an open prison 21 miles away and paying them just £3 a day to man its call centre, the Guardian can reveal.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) confirmed that dozens of prisoners from Prescoed prison in Monmouthshire, south Wales, had done "work experience" for at least two months at a rate of 40p an hour in the private company's telephone sales division in Cardiff.

People working in the prisons sector described the scheme as "disgusting" and a "worrying development".

A barrister has been acquitted of possessing extreme pornography in a landmark case over the boundaries of what can be described as "extreme".

The jury was unanimous and took less than 90 minutes to clear Simon Walsh, 50, a former aide to London mayor Boris Johnson, and who served as a magistrate and alderman in the City of London, after a week-long trial.

The case is believed to be the first to address whether images of anal fisting, a sexual practice which is legal, and urethral sounding are extreme pornography, as defined under the controversial section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. Earlier this year Michael Peacock was acquitted of charges under the Obscene Publications Act 1959 of distributing obscene DVDs, which featured fisting and bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM).

Labour's candidate for police commissioner in Avon and Somerset, Bob Ashford, today stood down.  Astonishingly, it was all because of two minor offence committed 46 years ago when he was just 13, and for which he was fined a total of £5.

It's another illustration of the incredibly strict rules about who can stand for the new PCC jobs, an issue I've raised at length over the past few weeks.  What's happened reflects badly on the Home Office, who seem to have been all over the place on this matter, but also on the Labour Party who failed to make proper checks. 

Bob Ashford has issued a couple of statements today explaining his position.  This is the more detailed account.

Failures by two councils led to a homeless 16-year-old boy being forced to spend nine months living in a tent and having to sell his belongings to survive, an inquiry has found.

Kent County Council and Dover District Council have been criticised by local government ombudsman Anne Seex for their "inexcusable" handling of the teenager's case.

She said the failures of the two local authorities could have "tipped him into a spiral of drug use and crime" and caused him physical and mental ill-health.

The investigation found he spent nine months sleeping in a tent, sometimes in snowy conditions, in various parts of rural Kent, or on friends' sofas.

BRUSSELS - Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti won a confidence vote on Tuesday (7 August) linked to another €4.5 billion worth of spending cuts aimed at convincing investors that Italy's economy is sound.

But fresh data shows a worsening recession and rising borrowing costs.

The bill - which comes on top of previous spending cuts amounting to a total of €26 billion by 2014 - was approved with 371 MPs, while 86 said No and 22 abstained.

The €4.5 billion worth of cutbacks will be implemented by the end of this year. The remaining €21.5 billion are to be spread out over the next years.

Thousands of hospital beds are to be slashed and 20 percent of top public officials to be fired as part of the austerity drive.

BRUSSELS - Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the euro-using countries' club, the Eurogroup, has joined the ranks of people who say it would be OK if Greece left the euro.

...

He said that "from today's perspective, it [a Greek exit] would be manageable but that does not mean it is desirable."

...

German economy minister Philipp Rosler in late July already said the prospect of a Greek exit has "lost its terror," while local leaders in Bavaria said Greece should go before the end of the year.

Juncker distanced himself from the German point of view despite his own remarks.

He said some German politicians might not care what happens to the "little people" in Greece and that ordinary Germans "talk about Greece as if this were a people who cannot be respected."

"Perhaps this is the case with Mr Rosler. I do not care ... It would be good if more people in Europe would shut up more often."

Serbia said on Wednesday it would immediately seek a new loan deal with the International Monetary Fund and promised to slash its budget deficit as the country tried to calm financial markets unnerved by a power struggle over monetary policy.

Finance Minister Mladjan Dinkic made the pledge a day after a trio of central bank policymakers resigned, accusing the government of usurping the bank's role, and Standard & Poor's cut the EU candidate's credit rating, driving the dinar currency to a record low.

...

A lawmaker from the ruling coalition was appointed central bank governor on Monday.

A reader from Avoca in Co Wicklow expressed her amazement that men needed a fiscal treaty to understand "good housekeeping with budgets - women have been doing this succesfully for years".

This is the maxim of the Schwäbische Hausfrau, the thrifty Swabian housewife from southern Germany, a figure German chancellor Angela Merkel invokes every time she wants to silence the euro zone crisis cacophony.

Europe has been living beyond its means, she argues, and needs some thrifty Swabian housekeeping and financial common sense to balance budgets. Dr Merkel's logic, codified in the fiscal treaty, is not far from Margaret Thatcher's legendary put-down of socialism: eventually you run out of other people's money.

...

If politics is the art of the possible, Dr Merkel is its unchallenged master on today's European stage. Throughout the crisis, the German leader has identified what was possible and reverse-engineered her demands to land on target.

...

The point is this: what the lady wants is what she thinks she can get - and, then, usually on her terms. If what she thinks she can get shifts - for instance, a change in Europe's political wind - she simply alters course and claims she always wanted that, while keeping her eye on a long-term path.

This leads to the second, longer answer about what Dr Merkel wants. When the German leader leaves the political stage, she wants to leave behind a European Union that is a real political union - a far more closely linked bloc than the crisis-wracked construct she inherited in 2005. The Germans have a word for it: krisenfest - crisis-proof.

...

"I have a habit of making only the end results public," she said recently. "It doesn't always go down well - I noticed recently in a critique that the journalists are not even interested in results, but their genesis."

Punk band's members claim they are freer than those carrying out their prosecution as judge sets 17 August for verdict

Three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot said Vladimir Putin's Russia was the one on trial as they delivered closing arguments on Wednesday in a case seen as a key test of the powerful president's desire to crackdown on dissent.
[snip]

Prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence, arguing that the women sought to insult all of Russian Orthodoxy and denying they were carrying out a political protest.

Tolokonnikova called the charges against them a "political order for repression" and denounced Putin's "totalitarian-authoritarian system", insisting Pussy Riot were an example of "opposition art".

"Even though we are behind bars, we are freer than those people," she said, looking at the prosecution from inside the glass cage where she and her two bandmates, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, have spent the nine-day trial. "We can say what we want, while they can only say what political censorship allows.

Team GB have an enjoyed an Olympics beyond their wildest dreams. Team Cameron, on the other hand, have had a bit of a shocker.

Yesterday Jessica Ennis, the recently crowned queen of British athletics, was asked if she agreed with the Prime Minister's comments about needing to introduce a more competitive attitude to sport. "You don't want it to be too competitive at the start," she responded. "It's all about the love and enjoyment of the event". Cue attempts by certain members of the Downing Street press office to grab gold in the hotly contested final of Putting Your Foot Through The TV.

Before the Games started, there was lots of talk about using our summer of sporting success as a "firebreak" to contain the Government's political woes. Swept up in the moment we would forget all about cuts and double-dip recessions, giving ministers a much needed breathing space, and the opportunity to return from the summer recess refreshed and emboldened.

And as strategies go, it wasn't a bad one. Except that for reasons best known to themselves, No 10 have decided not to pursue it.

The proposal being drawn up by Mariano Rajoy's administration, to which EL PAÍS has had access, is similar in effect to an insurance policy for private healthcare. For the under-65s, the cost will be 710.40 euros a year, or 59.20 a month. For those over 65, the fee will rise to 1,864.80, or 155.40 a month. In both instances the payment will allow access only to basic state healthcare services. Costs for medicine and health transport services will be excluded and should a monthly payment be missed, the policy-holder will have their medical access suspended for three months.

In 2009 the Guardian identified 25 people - bankers, economists, central bankers and politicians - whose actions had led the world into the worst economic turmoil since the Great Depression. On the fifth anniversary of the credit crunch, what are they doing?

The Bank of England has cut its growth forecast to close to zero from about 0.8% predicted in May, as the double-dip recession intensifies.

The quarterly inflation report indicated no growth for 2012, compared with 2% predicted a year ago.

The data had fuelled anticipation for an interest rate cut, but Governor Sir Mervyn King dismissed calls for a reduction in the near term.

He said recovery hopes had consistently been dashed.

The experience of the U.S., the world's largest currency union, suggests fiscal transfers can be very expensive for individual members of the union. The relatively affluent state of Connecticut, for example, has in some years sent as much as 8 percent of its gross domestic product to poorer states. The payments, made largely through the federal income tax system, serve both to equalize levels of income across the U.S. and to cushion regional downturns. States in recession, for example, receive transfers large enough to offset as much as 40 percent of their loss in income.

Like it or not, the euro area will need a similar risk- sharing system. Economists have long warned that the member countries' economic cycles are too far out of sync to coexist without some kind of stabilizing mechanism. Inflation and unemployment rates diverge wildly, and European workers aren't mobile enough to compensate by moving to where the jobs are.

So what would it cost to turn Europe into a better fiscal union? Let's try a thought experiment.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King signaled continued support for Prime Minister David Cameron's budget squeeze as he cut forecasts for economic growth and said Britain's recovery will be a "slow process."

"If you go back to 2010 when the rebalancing program was put in place, that looked pretty sensible," King told reporters in London today. The plan's three main elements "still seem to me exactly the right three things," he said.

The government's spending cuts, along with the euro-area debt crisis, have curbed demand in the U.K. While the economy shrank the most in more than three years in the second quarter, Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne have pushed back against calls from the opposition Labour Party to scale back the fiscal program, saying it is needed to insulate the country from the euro-area debt turmoil.

King was speaking after publishing the central bank's quarterly Inflation Report, which included forecasts showing annual gross-domestic-product growth of about 2 percent in two years. That compares with a projection in May of 2.5 percent.

Asked whether the government should have a "plan B," King said "no,"

"I'll do anything," Mtwazi, 34 and a black father of two, said in an interview on Aug. 1. He hasn't been permanently employed since being fired as a painter four years ago and competes for part-time jobs, earning between 100 rand ($12) and 200 rand a day if he gets hired. "Sometimes I don't eat because I don't have money," he said.

Mtwazi may soon find it even harder to get a job as South Africa's government moves to change labor laws that companies say already fuel a 25 percent unemployment rate and constrain growth in Africa's largest economy. Proposed laws pushed by the country's labor unions seek to give temporary workers the same rights as permanent employees if they've been on the job for more than six months, forcing up costs for retailers such as Cape Town-based Pick n Pay Stores Ltd., which will be required to raise pay and extend pension and medical benefits to those workers.

...

Laws that require employers to negotiate wages at an industrywide level and make it difficult to fire workers because of poor performance deter hiring, according to companies such as Johannesburg-based AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU), Africa's largest gold producer.

It's easy to understand why the Germans are worried. The experience of the U.S., the world's largest currency union, suggests fiscal transfers can be very expensive for individual members of the union. The relatively affluent state of Connecticut, for example, has in some years sent as much as 8 percent of its gross domestic product to poorer states. The payments, made largely through the federal income tax system, serve both to equalize levels of income across the U.S. and to cushion regional downturns. States in recession, for example, receive transfers large enough to offset as much as 40 percent of their loss in income. Risk Sharing

Like it or not, the euro area will need a similar risk- sharing system. Economists have long warned that the member countries' economic cycles are too far out of sync to coexist without some kind of stabilizing mechanism. Inflation and unemployment rates diverge wildly, and European workers aren't mobile enough to compensate by moving to where the jobs are.

So what would it cost to turn Europe into a better fiscal union? Let's try a thought experiment.

The first step is to figure out what kind of fiscal transfer system best suits the euro area. Equalizing income levels need not be the goal -- trade and investment can play that role. What matters for the currency's viability is diverging growth rates. So, the transfers should be aimed at smoothing them out.

To get a sense of how this could work, imagine a fictional European Stabilization Fund. Countries experiencing relatively fast growth (more than 2 percent, adjusted for inflation) would contribute to the fund. Countries in recession would receive payments equal to 40 percent of their loss in income, a cushion at least as generous as that in the U.S. If the 12 countries that have been in the euro since 2001 all participated in such a fund, how would it have worked out?

Based on the economic performance of the 12 countries, it's possible to come up with an answer. The results are surprising.

From 2001 through 2012, a period that included one of the worst recessions on record, the contribution required from the fast-growing economies to keep the fund above water would have been only 0.64 percent of their gross domestic product. Germany grew fast enough to qualify as a contributor in only four of the 12 years, so its average payment would have been a meager 0.03 percent of GDP -- a total of about 11 billion euros for the whole period. In the recession year of 2009, Germany would have received a stimulus equal to 2 percent of GDP, more powerful than the program the U.S. put in place that year.

Spain, not Germany, would have been the biggest net contributor in euro terms, putting in more than 14 billion -- a function of its real-estate boom in the first part of the decade. France would have come in second at nearly 13 billion euros. Greece would have been a contributor in most years; ultimately, it would have received a net 5 billion euros, mostly in 2011, a year it desperately needed the help. Mitigating Booms

In other words, history tells us there's no reason to believe that a deeper fiscal union would entail constant support from Germany to peripheral countries such as Greece and Spain. Money would flow in all directions, and the transfers could go a long way toward mitigating booms and busts.

Starting such a fund today would not be much more difficult than it would have been in 2001, even though harsh austerity measures have snuffed out growth in most of the euro area. Based on the International Monetary Fund's growth forecasts, a newly created stabilization fund would have to borrow about 10 billion euros to cover payments for this year and next. It would have enough contributions to pay the borrowed money back by 2015.

a lot of fuss about nothing?

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

Fierce fighting between Syrian government troops and rebels is taking place in a strategic district of the biggest city, Aleppo.

State media said government forces had taken control of Salah al-Din, but the Free Syrian Army later announced a successful counter-attack.

Images that have emerged from the northern city show buildings reduced to rubble by heavy weapons.

Observers say controlling Aleppo is a crucial goal for both sides.

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi has sacked the country's intelligence chief and the governor of the country's North Sinai province.

Hours earlier, the Egyptian military launched an offensive in the region against suspected Islamist militants which it says has killed 20 people.

The campaign comes after militants killed 16 Egyptian border guards in the area on Sunday.

He hasn't been seen in public since the G8 summit in Mexico, and since then Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has even missed the African Union summit held in his own capital city, Addis Ababa.

Zenawi, 57, usually a conspicuous figure at meetings of African and international heads of state, has now been missing for more than seven weeks, amid growing incredulity.

Government sources in the secretive African nation say that Meles - who was seen looking frail before his disappearance - is resting but well, but more than one eyebrow has been raised at the reasons for his absence. "The Prime Minister is on vacation recovering from illness," an Ethiopian government source told the Guardian. "There has been a lot of ill-meant speculation about his health."

The alleged gunman, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page, was also killed after he opened fire on a police officer. Page was an army veteran who was discharged from the military in 1998. He was also a white supremacist.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights group that tracks hate groups in the US, says it has been tracking Page with concern for more than a decade.

Page, who reportedly described himself as a member of the 'Hammerskins Nation', was trained in psychological warfare and served in the US army from 1992 before being demoted and discharged in 1998.

US law enforcement says it is treating the attack as a possible act of "domestic terrorism", which implies a political agenda.

A 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security warned of the rise of right-wing groups fuelled by a struggling economy and the election of Barack Obama, the country's first black president. The report was criticised by Republicans and later pulled by the department.

Swiss experts have been invited to the West Bank to test Yasser Arafat's remains for possible poisoning, the chief investigator looking into the 2004 death of the Palestinian leader has said.

Tawfik Tirawi did not not give further details, but the lab confirmed that it had been invited.

"We are currently studying how to adequately respond to this demand," Darcy Christen, a spokesman for the Swiss institute, said on Wednesday.

"Meanwhile, our main concern is to guarantee the independence, the credibility and the transparency of any possible involvement on our side."

The announcement follows weeks of indecision on the autopsy issue by officials in the Palestinian Authority (PA), the self-rule government that Arafat established.

Their conflicting positions and hesitation triggered speculation they were trying to quietly kill the investigation.

Much of the cynical attitude many people had towards sport in general has evaporated, and people who've never shown an interest before, are desperately applying for last-minute tickets for events such as upside-down canoeing through a swarm of bees or vaulting over an ostrich.

Boris Johnson and others have claimed that the British success is a triumph for "conservative values" such as competition. But if medals were awarded on the competitive rules that Boris and the Conservative leader attained their privileges, they wouldn't bother with the racing as competitors would just inherit the medals, then give an interview saying the trouble with the other runners was they expected something for nothing.

So a more reasonable suggestion is that there should be two medal tables shown each day: one showing the number that Britain has won, and one showing the number conservative Britain has won, omitting the cyclists, the people they'd have prevented from coming here in the first place, the people who had to move abroad to train as facilities here were cut, leaving them with the one for the dressage. They can have that if they want.

Israel is busy consoling itself: It's not so terrible, better luck next time. "The main thing is to participate" also goes down well, to say nothing of "it's only sport" and "a respectable appearance." And of course the fact that the wind was so weak on the decisive day.

The national store is overflowing with condolences - the number of Jews who won medals, the "respectable" seventh place taken by the Israeli swimmer, and the Hebrew tattoo (! ) on the arm of the French swimmer. Also the words of the national disappointer, Lee Korzits - who said with her eyes brimming with tears, "We aren't suckers" and "I deserved a medal" - are so comforting, admit it. So lovely.

[...]

We have gotten used to a different kind of thinking: We are the best - number one, son. Ask any backpacker who comes home after a post-army trip abroad, and he will tell you that the Indians are filthy, the South Americans are ridiculous, the Chinese are weird, the Thais are cheats and the Nepalese also aren't so hot. They managed to teach everyone something. And in general, the Americans are so square, the Swedes are boring, the Germans lack a sense of humor and the British have no resourcefulness. Only we are the Chosen People, the light unto the nations, to all the nations. We are the leaders in high-tech and agriculture. We have the most patents and apps. Tel Aviv is New York. The Galilee is Tuscany. The Air Force is the most sophisticated and the Israel Defense Forces are the most moral. Look at the list of Nobel Prize winners to see the Jewish genius.

But suddenly these Olympic Games of shame came and left cracks in these absolute axioms that we invented for ourselves. Israel - not what we thought. Just put it to an objective test, and what the hell happens? A flop. A backward flip-flop, just like the PISA standardized test scores that also aren't an Israeli favorite.

Several countries in southern and eastern Europe are falling well below EU targets for waste management, with Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece among the worst offenders, an EU report says.

Northern European countries mostly have the best results, the comparison shows.

"Many member states are still landfilling huge amounts of municipal waste... despite better alternatives," the EU environment commissioner said.

Sewage sludge, wastewater and liquid manure are valuable sources of fertilizer for food production. Fraunhofer researchers have now developed a chemical-free, eco-friendly process that enables the recovered salts to be converted directly into organic food for crop plants.

Phosphorus is a vital element not only for plants but also for all living organisms. In recent times, however, farmers have been faced with a growing shortage of this essential mineral, and the price of phosphate-based fertilizers has been steadily increasing. It is therefore high time to start looking for alternatives.

This is not an easy task, because phosphorus cannot be replaced by any other substance. But researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB in Stuttgart have found a solution that makes use of locally available resources which, as unlikely as it might seem, are to be found in plentiful supply in the wastewater from sewage treatment plants and in the fermentation residues from biogas plants: a perfect example of the old saying "from muck to riches".

This summer, a severe drought and genetically modified crops are delivering a one-two punch to US crops.

Across the farm country, years of reliance on Monsanto's Roundup Ready corn and soy seeds--engineered for resistance to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide--have given rise to a veritable plague of Roundup-resistant weeds. Meanwhile, Monsanto's other blockbuster genetically modified trait--the toxic gene of the pesticidal bacteria Bt--is also beginning to lose effectiveness, imperiling crops even as they're already bedeviled by drought. Last year, I reported on Bt-resistant western rootworms munching on Bt-engineered corn in isolated counties in Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. 

This summer, resistant rootworms are back like the next installment of a superhero blockbuster movie franchise. In a July 30 post, University of Minnesota extension agents Ken Ostlie and Bruce Potter report they've seen a "major [geographical] expansion" of rootworm damage throughout southern Minnesota, where Monsanto's corn is common.

If, back in the 18th century, you could see all the way across the Atlantic, you would find an unbroken line of plantations that stretched from Buenos Aires to Baltimore. Down this entire line, slaves harvested sugar for British tea, rice for the West Indian consumption, and cotton for the textile mills of New England. These were vast monocrops that broke the body and ruined the soil--but made money for planters and big companies that traded the goods.

Here, you see the logic of the modern industrial food system in its rawest form--a logic of prioritizing profit over human and environmental welfare.  A lot has changed in the 400 years since the Elmina Fort was built, but this principle has not gone away. The logic of the plantation is the logic of today's industrial food system.

In this system, it is in the interest of the middleman--large companies that dominate the processing and distribution of food--to squeeze farmers and externalize costs. The industrial model may work for some things, but it's time to admit that it doesn't work for food.  It doesn't work for Lucas, a tomato-picker in Florida, who toils from dawn to dusk without protection or health care and still cannot escape poverty. It's not good for the farmers in Illinois who have nearly been bullied out of existence by Monsanto. It's not good for teenagers in Brooklyn who, when asked how many of them have diabetes or know someone with diabetes, raise every hand in the room. And it's certainly not good for the 99 percent of us who are left holding the bag of rising health care costs.

It doesn't work for anyone who wants--and needs--real food: food that nourishes the earth, communities, and individuals, both eaters and producers.

word...

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

A phone on a pub table may be threatened by more than puddles of ale as RapidNFC has signed a deal with Rutland Print to craft beer mats that beam web addresses to mobes over the air.

Quite why one would want wireless Near Field Communications (NFC) embedded in something designed to mop up booze isn't clear. An NFC tag can transmit a URL or other minimalist data to a nearby handset, and even RapidNFC admits it's a novelty item. But the company has apparently had had considerable interest from brands wanting to be the first on the block with radio-tech-enhanced tableware.

Jimmy Wales has claimed that he couldn't have founded Wikipedia in the UK because the nation's libel law adds unpredictability and "friction" to hosting the world's largest unreliable collection of factoids.

It's an echo of the notorious claim made by Prime Minister David Cameron that Google could not have started out in the UK due to its protection of copyrighted works - a suggestion even Number 10 can't now corroborate. But Wales' proclamation is something else, too: a tacit admission that some of the material published by Wikipedia is legally contentious.

There certainly are good, thoughtful contributors at Wikipedia, yet huge swathes of material - encompassing biographies of living people - are governed by anonymous fanatics with an axe to grind.

"Glenn Greenwald frames the discussion: The book argues that the rule of law has been radically degraded in a way that was not previously true. "Rule of law" has a pretty clear meaning by consensus; it means that in a society we are all bound on equal terms by a common set of rules. Contemporary legal scholars define it that way. In the 80's and 90's the World Bank and IMF required that countries comport with the rule of law.

"Most of the events that we consider to be progress in American history were driven by the reverence for this concept that we are all equal under the law, that equality under the law is how we determine if we are perfecting the union...And what I think is radically different about today is not that the rule of law suddenly is not always being applied faithfully, because that has always been true. What is different about today, radically, is that we no longer bother to affirm that principle...
You can often, and I would say more often than not, in leading opinion-making elite circles, find an expressed renouncement or repudiation of that principle...All of these acts entail very aggressive and explicit arguments that the most powerful political and financial elites in our society should not be, and are not, subject to the rule of law because it is too disruptive, it is too divisive, it is more important that we should look forward, that we find ways to avoid repeating the problem...the rule of law is not that important of a value any longer...

The law is no respecter of persons, but the law is also a respecter of reality, meaning if it is too disruptive or divisive that it is actually in our common good, not the elite criminals, but in our common good, to exempt the most powerful from the consequences of their criminal acts, and that has become the template used in each of these instances."

The survey showed that those Irish who considered themselves religious had fallen from 69 per cent in 2011 to less than half today. Ireland was ranked seventh in the 57 countries for those describing themselves as convinced atheists.

En 1932, un joven licenciado de la École Normale Supérieure de París, Paul Nizan, se despidió de los estudios filosóficos a los que se había consagrado hasta entonces con un iracundo ensayo titulado Los perros guardianes. Nizan reprochaba a los filósofos de su tiempo extraviarse en una logomaquia de conceptos que, en último extremo, les servía de justificación para mantener fuera de su campo de preocupaciones los múltiples problemas que acabarían desencadenando la catástrofe apenas unos años más tarde. Bien estaba hablar de ananké, cogito, noúmeno y otras construcciones racionales destiladas desde los tiempos clásicos, pero, en la perspectiva de Nizan, había llegado el momento de colocar la filosofía y a los filósofos contra la pared y requerirles su opinión "sobre la guerra, el colonialismo, la racionalización de las fábricas, el amor, las diferentes formas de morir, el paro, la política, el suicidio, las medidas de orden público, el aborto"; en fin, "sobre todos los asuntos que preocupan verdaderamente al mundo" y que, con mínimas variaciones, son los que le siguen preocupando, pese a la reverenciada fantasía de que las nuevas tecnologías han desencadenado una nueva era y una revolución civilizacional.

...

Hoy, por el contrario, esas respuestas no se esperan de la filosofía y de los filósofos, y de ahí que la reiterada cantinela de dónde están la filosofía y los filósofos, de dónde están los intelectuales en estos tiempos de crisis, parezca obedecer a la desesperada incongruencia de reclamar que comparezcan los sastres para sofocar un incendio devorador. Por propia voluntad o por responsabilidad sobrevenida, el papel de la filosofía y de los filósofos lo ocupan hoy la economía y los economistas, lo cual no significa que el razonamiento de Nizan carezca de sentido. Significa, tan solo, que es a la economía y a los economistas, que es a quienes razonan como Weidmann y el Bundesbank bajo la dirección de Weidmann, a quienes habría que colocar contra la pared y requerirles su opinión sobre los asuntos que, para Nizan, preocupaban verdaderamente al mundo y que, por desgracia, le siguen preocupando. Requerirles su opinión, si no sobre todos los asuntos inventariados por Nizan, sí sobre la guerra, el paro, la política, el suicidio; requerirles su opinión, su modesta opinión, sobre la falta de atención en los hospitales, el deterioro de la educación pública o el destino de unos europeos que, con una vida de trabajo a las espaldas, temen verse desasistidos al final de sus días y con sus ahorros reducidos a simple calderilla. Requerírsela, incluso, sobre "la tragedia del hombre laborioso y capacitado que consagra su juventud a adquirir una técnica difícil y que luego se ve envejecer y morir en la miseria, sin que el mundo le haya ofrecido jamás la ocasión de ser útil y sin que haya podido probar si servía o no"; una tragedia que recuerda demasiado a la de millones de jóvenes europeos de hoy, pero que es, en realidad, la descripción que hizo el periodista español Chaves Nogales de la situación en la que se encontraba Alemania, precisamente Alemania, por las mismas fechas en las que Nizan escribió su iracundo ensayo Los perros guardianes.

...

La traición al ser humano que está revelando la política de austeridad a ultranza para combatir la crisis del euro no es la de la química y los químicos; ni siquiera la de la filosofía y los filósofos; tampoco la de los intelectuales. Es la traición de la economía y de los economistas, la de cierta economía y la de ciertos economistas. Clérigos celosos de los conceptos destilados por su ciencia, se desentienden de los devastadores efectos de aplicarlos sobre los europeos de hoy, a quienes arrojan sin que les tiemble el pulso, soberbios en el baluarte inexpugnable de sus especulaciones teóricas, al paro, la miseria, el miedo y la desesperanza. Exactamente como, referido a la filosofía y a los filósofos, denunciaba Paul Nizan.

In 1932, a young graduate of the École Normale Supérieure de Paris, Paul Nizan, took leave of philosophical studies to which he had devoted so far with an angry essay entitled watchdogs. Nizan reproached the philosophers of his time that they got lost in word fights over concepts, which ultimately served as their justification to keep out of their field concerns with the many problems that would eventually trigger disaster a few years later. It was fine to talk about Ananke, cogito, noumenon and other rational constructs distilled from classical times, but from the perspective of Nizan, it was time to put philosophy and philosophers against the wall and require their opinion "about  war, colonialism, factory rationalization, love, different ways of dying, unemployment, politics, suicide, law enforcement measures, abortion", in sum, "on all matters which truly concern the world" and, with minor variations, the ones it remains concerned with, despite the revered fantasy that new technologies have triggered a new era and a civilizational revolution.

...

Today, however, these answers are not expected of philosophy and philosophers, and hence the repeated refrain of where are philosophy and philosophers, where are the intellectuals in these times of crisis, seem to obey the desperate incongruence of demanding that tailors come to smother an all-consuming fire. By choice or by acquired responsibility, the role of philosophy and philosophers today is taken by economics and economists, which does not mean that the reasoning of Nizan is meaningless. It means, simply, that is economics and economists, who argue like Weidmann and the Bundesbank under the direction of Weidmann do, who should be placed against the wall and be demanded their opinion on matters which, according to Nizan, truly concerned the world and, unfortunately, continue to concern it. Requiring their opinion, if not on all matters inventoried by Nizan, indeed on war, unemployment, politics, suicide, requiring their opinion, their humble opinion, on the lack of care in hospitals, deteriorating public education or the destiny of a European people who, with a lifetime of work behind them, are afraid of being disadvantaged at the end of their life and with their savings reduced to chump change. Demand it even about "the tragedy of the hard-working and able man who devoted his youth to training to acquire a difficult technique and then sees himself gro old and die in misery, without the world having ever offered him the chance to be useful, without having been able to test whether or not they were fit", a tragedy all too reminiscent of millions of young Europeans today, but which is in fact the description Spanish journalist Chaves Nogales gave of the situation in which Germany was, precisely Germany, around the time that Nizan wrote his essay The Angry Watchdogs.

...

The betrayal of the human being which is being revealesby the extreme austerity policy to combat the euro crisis is not of that of chemistry and chemists, not even that of philosophy and the philosophers, nor of the intellectuals. It is the betrayal of economics and economists, a certain economy and certain economists. Clerics zealous of the concepts distilled by their science, they turn away from the devastating effects of applying them on today's Europeans, ans throwing them, showing unwavering pulse, proud in the impregnable bastion of theor theoretical speculations, into unemployment, poverty, fear and hopelessness. Just like Paul Nizan denounced referring to philosophy and philosophers.

Bob Hoskins is to retire from acting after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

The 69-year-old star of the Hollywood hit Who Framed Roger Rabbit has enjoyed a career spanning four decades.

In a statement on Wednesday, his agent said he was withdrawing from acting after a "wonderful career" and would be spending time with his family.

Hoskins achieved a Golden Globe nomination for his role as a private detective opposite the animated bunny.

The Ashmolean museum in Oxford has succeeded in buying Edouard Manet's portrait of Mademoiselle Claus, regarded as a key impressionist work, after raising £7.83m in just eight months, including hundreds of donations from the public ranging from £1.50 to £10,000.

If the appeal had failed, the painting would have left Britain, after being sold last year for £28.5m - the difference in price represents the tax breaks for works of art going to British museum collections.

On Wednesday, two pale serious young women came face to face in Oxford: Fanny Claus, the subject of the arresting 1868 painting, and Mara Talbot, the 11-year-old who, with her mother, gave the final £30 donation to the public appeal

The capacity crowd at the Olympic Velodrome on Tuesday roars in anticipation. Six highly trained and fit cyclists set off on a race for gold.

And leading the way is a 65-year-old man on a motorbike.

One of the more incongruous sights at the Olympics has been Peter Deary, who drives the derny, a two-stroke motorized bicycle that leads the riders in the keirin race.

London 2012 are investigating how a bucket of unofficial condoms found its way into the athletes' village without official consent.

The Australian BMX cyclist Caroline Buchanan tweeted a photograph of the bucket, which featured a sign reading "Kangaroos condoms, for the gland downunder", and a picture of a boxing kangaroo.

She joked that bucket seemed to back up rumours that the village becomes a hot bed of activity as thousands of competitors complete their events and celebrate after years of working to get to the Olympics - tweeting: "Haha, the rumours are true. Olympic village."

When Boris Johnson found himself marooned midway down a zip-wire last week, dangling like a sack of potatoes over a Hackney park, few had time, in their mirth, to investigate the root cause.

It turns out that the tension of the zip-wire is calculated based on the user's weight, something which Boris was apparently reluctant to share. According to Hugh Muir, not stepping on the scales prior to his adventure resulted in the cock-up,