Czech police said they detained 22 people suspected of making and distributing cheap vodka and domestic rum laced with methyl-alcohol that killed at least 20 persons in the past two weeks.

The poisonous drinks may have come from one source and the suspects may face as much as 10 years in prison if found guilty, Vaclav Kucera, deputy police chief, said on state Czech Television today. On Sept. 14 the government imposed an indefinite ban on sales of hard liquor across the country as police and customs officers search for the source of the contaminated drink and its distribution network.

"I believe it was one source," said Kucera, who heads the team investigating the case. "We have moved from retailers, who sometimes also contaminated the drinks themselves, to dealers, who were in some cases also the producers, and we are getting to the supplier of raw materials."

(Reuters) - Tourism to Berlin is booming as never before and filling the debt-ridden city's coffers with much-needed cash, but not all Berliners are cheering the influx of visitors.

Some blame the tourists, especially the young 20-something "Easyjet set" who ride the budget airline to party through the night in the uber-cool, hedonistic German capital, for a host of ills from rising rents to noise pollution.

"Noisy tourists go home!" reads one hostile sign in the eastern district of Friedrichshain. "Berlin doesn't love you," say stickers plastering traffic lights in nearby Kreuzberg.

A gallery in an area known for its trendy bars featured for months a scrawled sign in the window: "Sorry, no entry for hipsters from the U.S."

"We've seen people insulted for looking like tourists or get disparaging looks," said David Schuster, an activist for a local leftist group that has launched a tourist-friendly awareness drive.

"There's some resentment that tourists party loudly or throw up on the streets," Schuster said. "I think many Berliners do too, but they feel entitled to act that way."

(Reuters) - Merging Britain's BAE Systems with EADS to create a global aerospace and defense giant would be a significant boost to European leaders' ambitions for a more efficient defense industry.

The European Union has long sought to foster more cross-national cooperation on defense projects in Europe to plug holes left by shrinking military budgets and to eliminate wasteful duplication of effort.

NATO too is urging members to work together on projects to squeeze maximum value from defense spending that many Western countries have slashed because of the financial crisis.

The combination of Britain's BAE Systems (BAES.L) and Franco-German dominated EADS (EAD.PA) to form the world's biggest aerospace company could be a big step towards achieving those goals.

"We would welcome any reinforcement of the European defense industry and its competitiveness on the international stage," one European Union source said.

Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards from different parts of the country converged in Madrid on Saturday to demand a referendum to determine whether the government should continue on its severe austerity program. Brought together by a collective called Social Summit -- comprised of about 200 professional organizations and the unions -- demonstrators marched through the streets of the Spanish capital under thousands of flags, banners and signs of the groups that they represented.

Many carried placards with the words "Fed up," "Euro violence," and "Assault" written on them.

Saturday's protest is just the first of many that are due to be held by the UGT and CCOO unions during what is expected a heated social conflict period this autumn. Both labor groups have threatened to call a general strike in the future.

Prime minister Mark Rutte admitted on Friday it will be complicated to form a coalition between the right-wing Liberals and the social democratic PvdA. A look at the main differences:

Healthcare
The PvdA wants to reverse the introduction of market forces and competition into heathcare and does not belief healthcare institutions should be driven by profit motives. It also says health insurance premiums should be income-related.

The VVD wants to increase the use of market mechanisms in healthcare, to allow hospitals to take on private investors and to increase competition between providers.

(...)

Eurozone budget deficit rules
The VVD wants to meet the 3% maximum budget deficit in 2013, the PvdA does not agree with meeting this target whatever the cost.

Redundancy reform
The spring austerity agreement included plans to make it easier for employers to sack staff and to cut golden handshakes. The PvdA, and the unions, are strongly opposed to the plans.

Taxes
The PvdA wants to reverse the planned October increase in value added tax (btw) from 19% to 21%. The VVD is against this.

The PvdA wants to increase the top rate of income tax to 60%. The VVD is opposed.

Young French people should ditch the idea of staying in their native land in order to find work and hope for the future abroad, according to a trio of successful French thirty-somethings.

Entrepreneur Félix Marquardt, rapper Mokless and journalist Mouloud Achour launched a campaign dubbed "Barrez-Vous" ("get out" or "break free") at the beginning of September.

In an editorial in left-leaning daily Libération, the trio told French young people that they lived "in a decaying and ultra-centralised country run by old men which is falling to bits one piece at a time."

France, they said, is no longer in its golden age and the current generation will be the first to be worse-off than its parents. They added that country's economic policies are deliberately unfavourable to the young, meaning that one in four people under 35 is out of work.

Quitting France for better prospects abroad is not a new idea and there are large expatriate French populations abroad, notably London - which has some 400,000 French residents, attracted by a more liberal working environment and higher salaries.

[Noonan] said many aspects of Ireland claim for bank relief were contingent on progress elsewhere, and "especially in Spain".

...

"Certainly any arrangement which would have the direct recapitalisation of Spanish banks and applying that formula to Ireland is contingent on progress being made on Spain."

...

With the possibility of Spain requiring euro zone aid, a likely request for assistance from Cyprus and uncertainty hanging over Greece's future, the euro zone wants to deliver proof that its crisis management has worked - at least in the case of Ireland.

Wolfgang Schauble shows a distinct lack of enthusiasm for a Spanish EFSF/ESM application; France, meanwhile, is pushing Spain to make an application quickly; at the informal Ecofin, there was also more foot-dragging over banking union with Germany and several small countries rejecting the ambitious timetable of the Commission; non-eurozone countries are also opposed to the ECB as the supervisor; another problem is a perceived competitive distorition; Jorg Asmussen presented the ECB's proposals focusing on all banks, while Germany wants to restrict the choice to the systemically-relevant banks; El Confidencial writes that Spain has failed to extract a commitment to bank recapitalisation on the timetable agreed at the June EU summit; Germany's Sparkassen and Volksbanken are turning up the heat in their campaign against banking union; the banking union has become an issue of inter-institutional strife in Brussels; Spain has committed to providing a detailed timetable for economic reforms; Spain has reached its original 2012 deficit target already by July; El Pais reports that the 2013 budget will contain some more surprise cuts; paper says in a comment that the government is miscommunicating; Spain and Portugal saw large anti-austerity demonstrations over the weekend; there is a one-day public transport strike in Madrid and Barcelona today; Maria Fekter says Greece will only get a few more days to comply, and definitely not a third programme; Christian Noyer says German fears about the ECB's bond purchasing programme are exaggerated; the French state audit office warns the government that it must bring social security under control; a new poll shows the rise of euroscepticism in Germany; the young major of Florence gets ready for a pro-European challenge in the PD's primaries; Eugenio Scalfari says the next big threat to the eurozone is the Italian election; Silver Berlusconi is getting ready for a return to the big stage; Wolfgang Munchau, meanwhile, argues that Mario Draghi should have gone for QE1, not OMT.

"In Belgium, espionage, Russian espionage and from other countries, like the Chinese, but also others, [is] at the same level as the Cold War ... We are a country with an enormous concentration of diplomats, businessmen, international institutions - Nato, European institutions. So for an intelligence officer, for a spy, this is a kindergarten. It's the place to be."

...

When asked if EU-friendly countries, such as Israel or the US, do it, he said: "It would be naive to think that only countries like Russia, China, Iran are spying."

He added: "There is one field where the difference between neutral, friendly and unfriendly services tends to disappear and that's when you are talking about the protection of economic and scientific potential. In this case, I think every service is in competition with the others."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, trying to play down the impact of the Tymoshenko case, argued that parliamentary elections would show Ukraine's commitment to democracy. The Association Agreement and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) with the EU, which have been put on ice for several months (see background), would be signed soon after the 28 October parliamentary election, Yanukovych said.

"We are actively moving towards signing the association agreement with the European Union," Yanukovych told the gathering on 14 August. "At the moment, our European partners have some additional questions to Ukraine, but I am sure that after the upcoming parliamentary elections all concerns will disappear and the path towards full association between Ukraine and the European Union will be completed," Yanukovych said, as quoted by the Moscow Times.

But Kairat Kelimbetov, vice prime minister of Kazakhstan, pleaded in favour of the integration of Ukraine in the customs union established by Russia with his country and Belarus. The EU has said that Ukraine's eventual participation in the customs union was incompatible with the DCFTA.

2. SAMARAS The country would benefit from more time to implement further austerity measures, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has told an American newspaper. "Instead of the [cuts package] taking place over two years, it would be best if it were to take place over four years," Samaras was quoted in a Washington Post. "We are talking about an extension to 2016."

3. MORE TIME The country may be given more time to meet its deficit-reduction targets without being paid any more additional bailout than agreed in the memorandum, Austria's finance minister, Maria Fekter, has said. "Greece still has to get some things on track but we will achieve a cost-neutral extension," she told an Austrian newspaper. However, she told another title that this extension might only amount to "a few more weeks' time".

4. TSIPRAS Syriza is ready to assume the reins of power "even tomorrow" if the coalition government leaders admit that they cannot, its leader said on Sunday. Addressing reporters at the 77th Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF), Tsipras insisted that extending the debt-repayment period over another two years was extending "the rope with which we will hang ourselves". The debt remained nonviable, he said, adding that Greece had to stop being a guinea pig for neoliberal experiments and become instead a model for progressive solutions across Europe. If he came to power, Tsipras said he would annul the memorandum and renegotiate the loan agreement. This would achieve a moratorium on interest payments of the external debt for a specific period of time and the write-off a substantial part of the balance and its repayment with a "growth clause ... precisely as the case with Germany in 1953". Tsipras presented an eight-point "integrated reconstruction programme", the main focus being on social protection.

6. GOVT RESPONSE Tsipras cannot hide the total absence of a plan and programme in Syriza, the government spokesman claimed on Sunday. "It is sad to see a young person speaking with outdated terminology of the past," Simos Kedikoglou added. "The only thing he did not clarify is in what ... currency he will implement his pledges," he said.

All empires are accidental, just like the US.

Anyway, Germany's savers feel resentment and guilt over pressure to end euro crisis

In a domestic debate that mirrors the rancour and resentments that have broken out across the EU as leaders bicker endlessly over who should pay to rescue the euro, richer German states now complain about constantly having to help out poorer states via the national federal subsidies system. Just as tens of thousands of Germans tried and failed last week to persuade the country's constitutional court to rule against the eurozone's bailout fund, the rich southern state of Bavaria is taking similar action to try to freeze payments to poorer areas. Some southerners are calling for Bavarian independence from Germany, arguing it would be better off. In addition to the subsidies, German taxpayers stump up a "solidarity surcharge" of 5.5% of income tax to fund the hefty costs of unification in an arrangement due to last until 2019. "East Germany might well need another trillion," said Katinka Barysch, a German economist at the Centre for European Reform.

Despite the unification fatigue, the project remains feasible for several reasons - patriotism, empathy with the less fortunate easterners, and because the process is subject to the same rules, laws, political system and culture and can be easily policed and monitored.

None of this can be said about Europe. The German merger model is not a template that can be applied on a European scale. When the euro was being created 25 years ago, the then chancellor, Helmut Kohl, used to argue that German and European unification were two sides of the same coin. The euro crisis has punctured that notion.

The case against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange may be on the brink of collapse following claims from the defence team that the central piece of evidence used in the case does not contain Assange's DNA.

According to details that have emerged in a 100-page police report submitted after witnesses were interviewed and forensic evidence had been examined, the condom submitted for evidence by one of the key alleged sexual assault victims does not contain Assange's DNA.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has embarked on the biggest gamble of his second term, pushing through policy changes opposed by members of his own coalition as he seeks to revive the economy and the fortunes of his embattled party.

After two years of stalled policy making and amid slumping support, Singh's Congress party-led cabinet Sept. 14 allowed overseas retailers to enter India, and said foreign airlines can own minority stakes in local carriers. While the second-largest party in the alliance, Trinamool Congress, vowed to take a "drastic step" if Singh, 79, doesn't abandon the laws and roll back a diesel price increase, opposition lawmakers called for a nationwide strike over policies they say will trigger job losses and hurt the poor.

"Congress has been committing harakiri by doing nothing," Satish Misra, a political analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, said by phone yesterday. "They have been pushed around so much that it was time to fight back."

The Institute of International Finance warned that the European Central Bank's plan to buy sovereign bonds may result in a "cliff effect" if a country fails to meet conditions tied to the purchases.

Termination of bond purchases could lead to an "abrupt" market correction, the IIF's market monitoring group said in a statement today. Some countries may also be put off from seeking aid because of the requirements, said the Washington-based IIF, which represents more than 450 financial companies.

Under the ECB's plan, which helped drive the euro to a four-month high on Sept. 14, the central bank would buy government bonds in tandem with Europe's bailout funds to stem rising borrowing costs if countries ask for help and agree to conditions. The ECB will also assume oversight of the region's banks as early as the start of next year under plans for closer integration among Europe's lenders.

A timely implementation of a single banking supervisor will allow the bailout mechanism to lend directly to the banks and also help stabilize markets, the IIF said.

The IIF's risk group, headed by Jacques de Larosiere and David Dodge, urged European governments to pursue structural reforms that will ensure a path to economic growth, echoing concerns by the ECB that it has only bought nations time to implement reforms needed to stabilize their economies.

The European Commission's plan for a pan-eurozone banking supervisory system to be in place by the end of the year is in disarray just days after it was proposed, with several finance ministers raising objections during a meeting in Nicosia today (15 Sept).

Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister of Germany, went as far as to say that he had concerns about the plan to give the governing council of the European Central Bank ultimate authority over the supervision of eurozone banks.

"I have considerable doubt about the proposal of the Commission that the governing council of the ECB should have the final decision," he said after the meeting.

(Reuters) - The patent wars that have embroiled many of the world's technology giants in recent years are spreading to a new set of combatants: start-up companies and their venture-capital backers.

A group familiar to many larger technology companies is instigating the battles: non-performing entities, or NPEs, who acquire patents or serve as agents for inventors. Paradoxically, they often represent start-up friendly institutions such as universities.

They are disparagingly referred to as "patent trolls" in Silicon Valley, and are increasingly going after entrepreneurs and their investors, claiming patent infringement.

The unflattering nickname arose due to their habit of suddenly demanding licensing fees from unsuspecting businesses, much like mythical trolls that lie in wait under bridges to extract tolls from travellers.

Here's a thing: Anglo-Saxon capitalism used to be considered a byword for a tough economic creed based on sound money, free trade, limited government and open and competitive markets. In contrast, Europe was the home of profligate governments that relied on inflation, devaluation and protectionism to get them out of trouble. But thanks to the financial crisis, those caricatures are being overturned. It is the euro zone that is committed to sound money, fiscal consolidation and structural overhauls designed to free up the supply side of the economy; meanwhile the U.S. and U.K. have put their faith in money printing and deficit spending. Only last week the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a new round of bond-buying while the U.K. debated whether to drop its debt target.

Of course, the euro zone is not adopting this hair shirt approach entirely out of choice but because governments and the central bank are constrained by the strict rules surrounding membership of the single currency. Left to themselves, most national governments would go down the Anglo-Saxon route in the blink of an eye. In this respect, the euro is like the gold standard, keeping governments on the path of virtue. Indeed, the euro is a tougher constraint on governments because it has replaced national currencies, making it virtually impossible to quit. Old-fashioned orthodoxy has been hard-wired into the euro zone.

...

Recent history also favors the euro zone. Sweden, Ireland, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile and East Germany all experienced robust recoveries after embracing fiscal consolidation and structural reform, notes Ludger Shuknecht, the head of the German finance ministry's economics division, in a new paper for London-based thinktank Politeia. All these countries suffered from low growth, high unemployment, large deficits and rising debt and a poor regulatory and business environment--similar not only to today's European crisis countries but many advanced economies including the U.S. and U.K. The lesson of these recoveries is that creating growth depends on a three-pronged approach based on restoring the soundness of the public finances, structural overhauls to improve the functioning of labor, product and financial markets and strengthening the institutional environment by stamping out corruption and improving transparency and the rule of law.

"@Hannes_Swoboda: One Year after Occupy Wallstreet many justified demands are still open: we need more regulation of financial markets!"

(Reuters) - Chinese police used pepper spray, tear gas and water cannon to break up an anti-Japan protest in southern China on Sunday as demonstrators took to the streets in scores of cities across the country in a long-running row over a group of disputed islands.

The protests erupted in Beijing and many other cities on Saturday, when demonstrators besieged the Japanese embassy, hurling rocks, eggs and bottles and testing police cordons, prompting the Japanese prime minister to call on Beijing to ensure protection of his country's people and property.

In the biggest flare-up on Sunday, police fired about 20 rounds of tear gas and used water cannon and pepper spray to repel thousands occupying a street in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.

Protesters attacked a Japanese department store, grabbed police shields and knocked off their helmets. One protester was seen with blood on his face. At least one policeman was hit with a flowerpot.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping's emergence from a two-week absence without any official explanation highlights the uncertainty caused by the opaque way in which the world's second-biggest economy changes leaders.

Xi's Sept. 15 visit to China Agricultural University in Beijing, his first public appearance since Sept. 1, was covered by state television, radio and the official Xinhua News Agency. None mentioned that his disappearance had sparked speculation about his health and his prospects for ascending to China's top leadership position this year at a Communist Party congress, for which a date has yet to be announced.

The lack of information prompted concern about what might happen and who would take China's top job if the man groomed as the country's next leader couldn't serve. The once-a-decade power handover, already clouded by the ouster of Politburo member Bo Xilai, coincides with increasing challenges for policy makers, from a widening wealth gap and slowing economic growth to escalating territorial disputes with neighbors.

"It just shows that the government is terrible at dealing with information dissemination" around its leaders, said Kerry Brown, a professor at the University of Sydney who served as a British diplomat in Beijing. "It seems his disease or problem was not so devastating, so why try to control everything so tightly. This makes people see lack of confidence and a nervous and frightened leadership. Not good."

Four American soldiers and an Afghan police officer have been killed in southern Afghanistan following an attack suspected to involve members of the Afghan police, NATO's military mission in that country says.

The latest "insider" attack took place on Sunday morning, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement.

The attack took place at the district headquarters in the Mizan district of Zabul province, and was carried out by several Afghan men dressed in police uniforms, the deputy governor's office told Al Jazeera.

The four soldiers were found dead and two wounded when a response team arrived at the scene from a nearby checkpoint, a spokesman for the coalition said.

At least 14 people have died in a roadside bomb attack in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, police officials say.

Sunday's blast hit a vehicle believed to be carrying members of a peace jirga, and injured at least four people.

Ejaz Abid, a senior police officer, said the blast struck a passenger van in the Jandol area of the Lower Dir district.

Among the dead were three women and three children, the police said.

Eight Turkish police officers have been killed and nine wounded in a blast in the Karliova district of Bingol province in southern Turkey, security officials say.

They said members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) launched the attack on Sunday as a police service bus was passing by.

Video posted on the Dogan News Agency website showed the mangled remains of a white minibus with blown-out windows that had been carrying the police.

CAIRO, Sep 16 2012 (IPS) - When Egypt's army was deployed to restore order in the streets during the uprising that ended president Hosni Mubarak's rule, Egyptians greeted the troops as saviours. But by the time the generals handed the country over to a civilian president in June this year, many Egyptians regarded the 16 months of transitional military rule as more oppressive than the 29 years under Mubarak.

"The military claimed to be the guardian of the revolution, and at first we all believed it, but over time we realised we'd been deceived," says youth leader Mohamed Abbas.

Activists accuse the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which assumed power after removing Mubarak in February 2011, of transforming Egypt from an authoritarian police state into a military dictatorship. They claim military leaders must be held accountable for the human rights violations and crimes committed during the interim period, including repeated crackdowns on unarmed protesters that left scores dead and injured.

Many of the alleged crimes stem from the military's efforts to stamp out dissent during its rule. Protesters report suffering torture and humiliation while in military custody. They were among some 12,000 civilians handed down harsh sentences by military kangaroo courts.

The European Commission Friday announced an additional €100 million in new funding for Palestine in the areas of water and sanitation and supporting refugees.

Though Mitt Romney has been campaigning for president since 2006, it's alarming how little is known about critical chapters of his business biography. Nothing spells that out more clearly than his ties to Monsanto--the current target of a mid-September Occupy nationwide action--whose dark history features scandals involving PCBs, Agent Orange, bovine growth hormone, NutraSweet, IUD, genetically modified (GM) seed and herbicides, reaching back to the 1970s and '80s. That's when Monsanto was the largest consulting client of Romney's employer, Bain & Company, and when Romney helped move Monsanto from chemical colossus to genetic giant, trading one set of environmental controversies for another.

This history matters not just because of the light it sheds on Romney's self-ballyhooed business experience but because of the litany of Monsanto corporate objectives that clash with planetary concerns. If Romney is elected, this bête noire of environmentalists will have a very old friend in a very high place.

now pink slime, or at least the company most associated with it, is back yet again, and with a vengeance. The Twitterverse is atwitter with news that BPI is launching a $1.2 billion defamation suit against ABC News and three whistleblowers--two federal employees and a former BPI worker --who spoke to the news network. ABC News is calling the suit "frivolous,"  AP reports, and that seems right. All ABC and the whistleblowers did was to describe in detail how the stuff is made. You can't convincingly blame the messenger because you don't like how the message went over with the public.

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Meanwhile, Cargill, the vast agribiz company, is quietly contemplating ramping up its own production of "lean, finely textured beef." A company spokesperson recently told the trade journal Food Navigator (registration required) that it had done focus groups on the stuff shortly after the media storm last spring, and found that concern over it was already "in consumers' rearview mirror and fading fast."

by viewing nature as simply the opposite of culture, consumers often expedite the destruction of the experiences of nature they desire most," write authors Robin Canniford (University of Melbourne) and Avi Shankar (University of Bath).

Consumers preserve romantic ideas of nature as an escape from urban life and culture by hiding or purging elements of culture and social tensions from their experiences of nature. Paradoxically, these actions can harm the environment and subject the experiences of nature to increasing legal and commercial regulation.

For example, although the Maldives are frequently considered an island paradise, tourists have left behind so much waste that entire islands are being swamped by trash that is polluting the crystal blue sea tourists travel so far to experience.

On Australia's Gold Coast, violence against other surfers has become such a common method of alleviating crowded experiences of nature that police have been drafted in to patrol the perfect sandy beaches in order to control the violence.

Boat charters and private resorts that limit the number of consumers at certain locations in order to preserve an unspoiled experience of nature have subject these experiences to increased regulation and commercialization.

Promotion of GM mosquitoes as a way to tackle a tropical disease is simply part of a PR strategy intended to pave the way to a new global business selling GM agricultural pests, says Helen Wallace

In November 2010, Oxford University spin-out company Oxitec announced it had released 3 million genetically modified (GM) male mosquitoes in the Cayman Islands. Shock and surprise was muted by enthusiastic press coverage of its claims to have reduced the wild population of the Aedes aegypti species of mosquitoes by 80 per cent. This is one of two species of mosquito that can transmit the tropical disease dengue fever. In January 2011, the company submitted its results to the journal Science. This week - two years after completing the experiments - the findings have finally been published as Correspondence to the Editor of journal Nature Biotechnology.

Oxitec reports several different estimates of the temporary reduction in the wild population of mosquitoes, ranging from 60 per cent to 85 per cent. There is no baseline data on mosquito populations at the site. At different times, Oxitec moved mosquito traps from one location to another and changed the size of the release site. It is unstandable then that a succession of peer reviewers have rejected its results.

Business circles in Japan have lambasted the government's new energy policy, released Sept. 14, which pledges to shut down all nuclear power plants by the 2030s.

"Some enterprises may consider leaving Japan," Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura told reporters on Sept. 14.

He said zero nuclear power could result in higher electricity costs and would be a burden for corporate management, while the policy could also spark concerns about the reliability of the electricity supply, which in turn might negatively impact production.

The Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry condemned the government decision.

"It is the last thing I could approve of," said Tadashi Okamura, its chairman. "I have no choice but to oppose it."

Energy ministers meeting in Cyprus on Monday (17 September) are having a first debate on EU commission plans to cap biofuels made from food crops from 2020 in a bid to limit their impact on soaring food prices.

According to a draft paper seen by EUobserver, the commission for the first time would put a five-percent cap on biofuels made from food or feed such as rapeseed and soy.

"The Commission is of the view that in the period after 2020 biofuels should only be subsidised if they are not produced from crops used for food and feed," the paper reads.

EurActiv: US electric car industry poised to overtake Europe

From 2025, American cars and light trucks will have to achieve a standard of at least 54.5 miles per gallon (mpg) under the new regulation, higher than can be achieved by any existing fuel-powered cars, according to the US Department of Energy.

The only cars on the US market which exceed the 54.5 mpg target (measured as mpg equivalent) are at least partly powered by plug-in electricity, the US Environmental Protection Agency says.

This could spell trouble for Europe's electric car industry as a `thought experiment' by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) found that the US figures would translate to EU measurements as a roughly 70 g/km standard, with air conditioning credits exemptions potentially taking the figure up to a maximum of 83 g/km.

The EU has only set a fuel savings target of 95 g/km for 2020, with the promise of a communication about consultations on a future 2025 targets later this year.

Hollande, who took office in May, announced on Friday (14 September) he would shut the Fessenheim nuclear station in Alsace, near the German border, by the end of 2016, sticking to his election pledge to halt its operations by the end of his mandate in 2017.

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Hollande's announcement on the early closure has dealt a blow to the nuclear industry, and drawn criticism from unions which are worried about job losses.

...

Hollande, speaking at an environmental conference in Paris, also announced he has rejected several applications to begin extracting natural gas and oil from shale using hydraulic fracking, which uses a high-pressure mixture of sand, water and chemicals to extract petroleum.

Greenpeace International VICTORY! Shell cancels plans to drill for oil in the Arctic this year!

After investing 7 years and the best part of $5bn on getting there, Shell has nothing to show except a series of safety mishaps and a reputation in tatters.

Thank you to the nearly 2 million who have signed up to protect the Arctic and the thousands who took action around the world. YOU have shown what a movement can do. Read more about this people power victory: http://act.gp/OSz12B

And let's make sure they stay out of the Arctic for years to come: www.savethearctic.org

A growing body of research shows that children who suffer severe neglect and social isolation have cognitive and social impairments as adults. A study from Boston Children's Hospital shows, for the first time, how these functional impairments arise: Social isolation during early life prevents the cells that make up the brain's white matter from maturing and producing the right amount of myelin, the fatty "insulation" on nerve fibers that helps them transmit long-distance messages within the brain.

The study also identifies a molecular pathway that is involved in these abnormalities, showing it is disrupted by social isolation and suggesting it could potentially be targeted with drugs. Finally, the research indicates that the timing of social deprivation is an important factor in causing impairment. The findings are reported in the September 14th issue of the journal Science.

The researchers, led by Gabriel Corfas, PhD, and Manabu Makinodan, MD, PhD, both of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's Hospital, modeled social deprivation in mice by putting them in isolation for two weeks.

When isolation occurred during a "critical period," starting three weeks after birth, cells called oligodendrocytes failed to mature in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region important for cognitive function and social behavior.

Jobseekers are being kept hanging on the telephone for at least five minutes before they are connected to a member of staff in jobcentres - a deliberate move to encourage people to make online claims, internal documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The new policy, outlined in an memo entitled Job Seekers' Allowance Online Performance Improvement, means that an unemployed person calling a jobcentre call centre will be forced to wait for five minutes not because staff are too busy to answer the phones but so that they can listen to "the advantages of using the online service, ie will receive their entitlement decisions more quickly than those who use the telephone".

Even once claimants get through, the instruction to call centres is to talk them into claiming online. "Those who choose to remain on the phone will be able to use the telephony service to begin their claim".

Stress has long been pegged as the enemy of attention, disrupting focus and doing substantial damage to working memory - the short-term juggling of information that allows us to do all the little things that make us productive.

By watching individual neurons at work, a group of psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has revealed just how stress can addle the mind, as well as how neurons in the brain's prefrontal cortex help "remember" information in the first place.

Working memory is short-term and flexible, allowing the brain to hold a large amount of information close at hand to perform complex tasks. Without it, you would have forgotten the first half of this sentence while reading the second half. The prefrontal cortex is vital to working memory.

"In many respects, you'd look pretty normal without a prefrontal cortex," said Craig Berridge, UW-Madison psychology professor. "You don't need that part of the brain to hear or talk, to keep long-term memories, or to remember what you did as a child or what you read in the newspaper three days ago."

But without your prefrontal cortex you'd be unable to stay on task or modulate your emotions well.

Cross a crow and it'll remember you for years. Crows and humans share the ability to recognize faces and associate them with negative, as well as positive, feelings. The way the brain activates during that process is something the two species also appear to share, according to new research being published this week.

"The regions of the crow brain that work together are not unlike those that work together in mammals, including humans," said John Marzluff, University of Washington professor of environmental and forest sciences. "These regions were suspected to work in birds but not documented until now.

"For example it appears that birds have a region of their brain that is analogous to the amygdala of mammals," he said. "The amygdala is the region of the vertebrate brain where negative associations are stored as memories. Previous work primarily concerned its function in mammals while our work shows that a similar system is at work in birds. Our approach could be used in other animals - such as lizards and frogs - to see if the process is similar in those vertebrates as well."

Marzluff is the lead author of a paper being published the week of Sept. 10 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

:: Half of all under-five deaths occur in only five countries.

:: These countries are India, DRC, Nigeria, Pakistan and China.

:: 40 percent of all children dying under the age of five die within the first 28 days after birth.

:: UNICEF estimates that by 2050 one in three children will be born in sub-Saharan Africa.

Now, onto some positive news. Here are 12 former high-mortality countries that have made strides in reducing under-five mortality and are close to achieving Millennium Development Goal 4 by 2015:

While the EU Commission has been much more copyright maximalist at times (it was the major driver behind ACTA in Europe), some on the Commission have been pushing back on such views for a while. Neelie Kroes, who is VP of the EU Commission and in charge of "the digital agenda," has been speaking out on these issues for a while. Last year, she pointed out that new business models, rather than greater enforcement was the right path forward. She's also spoken out against kicking people offline and in favor of open innovation and creation.

myscienceacademy.org The shimmering multicoloured berries of the African shrub Pollia condensata are the first plant material to show structural colour - derived from their cellular configuration rather than pigments. They are also the brightest biological material ever discovered, more reflective than other structurally-coloured tissues like beetle exoskeletons, bird feathers or butterfly wings.

Read more: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2012/09/pollia-condensata-structural-colour-never-fades