Germany has summoned Belarus' embassador to Berlin after Belarus authorities denied entry visas to election observers ahead of Sunday's parliamentary poll.

Berlin's Foreign Ministry summoned the Belarusian ambassador on Thursday after the two observers, one of them German, were denied visas.

Germany's special representative for Eastern Europe, Antje Leendertse, had made clear to Belarusian ambassador Andrei Giro "that the federal government has no understanding at all of electoral observers... and journalists being refused visas," a German foreign ministry statement said.

"Constraints on press freedom, entry denials and hindrances to civil society are already a potential negative sign in the run-up to the election and a further setback to social development," a spokeswoman for the ministry said.

Security was tightened at French embassies, consulates, cultural centers and international French schools in countries with sizeable Muslim populations Thursday - a day after a Paris-based satirical weekly published obscene cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Hours after the satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo, hit the French newsstands Wednesday, the French Foreign Ministry announced that embassies and official missions in 20 Muslim countries would be closed on Friday.

Apple Store workers in Paris are set to go on strike Friday in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

The industrial action in the French capital's three Apple stores is set to coincide with the launch of company's latest offering, the iPhone 5.

Workers there complain about the high-pressure working environment and low salaries.

"It's like working in a coal mine," one part-time worker, who asked not to be named, told FRANCE 24.

"Arriving on time is frowned upon"

Staff, he said, were monitored by CCTV "all the way to the toilet door", were searched when leaving work and endured a work culture where "even arriving on time is frowned upon".

A FORTNIGHT is a long time in the euro crisis. In two short weeks Portugal has gone from being a model pupil, praised in Brussels and Frankfurt for steadfastly pressing ahead with a reform programme tied to a €78 billion ($101 billion) bail-out to a cautionary example of the dangers facing governments which attempt to push austerity beyond the tolerance of long-suffering voters.

With his decision to finance a reduction in company costs through a sharp cut in workers' take-home pay, Pedro Passos Coelho, Portugal's prime minister, appears to have taken reform past the limit of what is deemed acceptable by large parts of the electorate. Until then, voters had accepted successive rounds of belt-tightening with grudging resignation.

The prime minister is proposing to cut employers' social-security contributions by 5.75 points, to 18% of their wage bill. By reducing labour costs in this way, he hopes to boost employment, push down prices and increase Portugal's export competitiveness. What makes the reform such a bitter pill for workers is that their social-security contributions will increase from 11% to 18% of their pay to finance the measure.

El Pais reports that Spain is looking to plug unused funds of the €100bn bank restructuring programme to apply for a precautionary credit line; Spain would still need to make an application to the ESM, but hopes to avoid further conditions; EU sources confirmed the discussions, but insisted that a Memorandum of Understanding was still needed; this pathway might circumvent a vote by the Bundestag; the FT reports that Brussels and Madrid have been working behind the scenes on a programme; the scope of negotiations includes structural reforms that previously not considered by the Spanish government; Frankfurter Allgemeine expresses outrage at the attempt by Spain to trick itself into a rescue, but writes that Wolfgang Schauble might be a willing accomplice, as he, too, wants to avoid a Bundestag vote; Suddeutsche Zeitung says it is legitimate to use the existing programme, but Spain should agree to conditions; Spanish three and ten-year yields dropped yesterday; the president of BBVA says Spain should apply for a programme immediately; Felipe Gonzales sympathises with Mariano Rajoy's wait-and-see approach; Spain's opposition leader  Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba said he would not apply for a programme; FT Deutschland reports that talks are under way for an official sector write down of Greek debt - relating to the first Greek programme; negotiators have noted that due to a technical oversight, such a write off can occur without a vote in the Bundestag; Greek coalition leaders made further progress towards an agreement; measures include an increase in the pension age to 67 years and further wage cuts; the Italian government yesterday cut its economic forecasts for this year and 2013 as debt-to-GDP is approaching 127%; Spanish employment is worsening further; the Spanish business owners' association is forecasting a further fall in GDP; Mariano Rajoy and Artur Mas fail to agree on Catalonian fiscal autonomy; the French government is piling on the pressure on their MPs to vote for the fiscal pact, but the government may need to rely on opposition votes; Jyrki Katainen says it will be difficult to get a banking union in place by the end of the year; Benoit Coeuré says an active monetary policy requires a passive fiscal policy; Jean Pisani-Ferry and Guntrum Wolff, meanwhile, list five conditions a banking union should fulfil - the most important being that it must be comprehensive.

He will encourage the Croatian Government to implement the recently announced labour legislation reform and to address remaining structural weaknesses in the labour market, particularly with regards to employment of women and older people. He will highlight the need for Croatia to participate in the Europe 2020 Strategy and notably integrate its targets for employment and social inclusion, and urge the Croatian Government to prepare to take full advantage of the European Social Fund (ESF) to co-fund projects to invest in human capital. He will also meet with Croatian social partners and remind them of the enhanced role which the Treaty of Lisbon gives them. Andor will also award contracts for two specific schemes under the Instrument for Pre-Accession to further strengthen investment in human capital in Croatia. The first scheme includes some 7 contracts, worth around €1 million, on "Improving access to sustainable employment of long-term unemployed highly educated persons" and the second scheme includes some 30 contracts, together worth around €4 million, on "Modernisation of school curricula in VET schools in line with the changing needs of the labour market/economy".

Energy ministers from the 27 member states met on Monday to discuss trans-european energy infrastructure (cables and pipelines) and how to increase investment in renewable energy generation. Under pressure from the short term thinking which accompanies any economic slump, and under the onslaught of a multi-million euro campaign from the natural gas companies, the switch from fossil fuels to renewables has been questioned and may be delayed. I met the European Climate Foundation and others to discuss how we fight back.

Th gridlock in justice and home affairs policy caused by a decision of the JHA Ministers on 8 June not to involve Parliament in a review of the Schengen border control agreements and a retaliatory decision by MEPs to withhold parliamentary approval of five other dossiers is moving towards a resolution. As has happened in the past, Parliament has prevailed. We have fewer powers than the Council of Ministers, but enough to ensure they cannot marginalise our role in policy making.

...

The row over the absence of women from the board of and director-level positions within the European Central Bank was intensified by an open letter from my excellent French colleague Sylvie Goulard MEP to the President of the Euro-Group suggesting that the ECB's headquarters be transferred to Riyadh or to The Vatican while this remains the case. Under current tenure agreements the situation cannot be resolved before 2018.

Economic gloom in the eurozone is set to worsen, according to a key business indicator, as more companies adjust to weak demand by shedding workers. Recession is expected to return to all of its members, except Germany.

The closely-watched Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) dropped to 45.9 points in the eurozone in September, down from 46.3 points in August, British research group Markit said Thursday, after polling 5,000 eurozone businesses in the course of the month.

The reading showed private sector business activity declining for the eighth consecutive month, Markit Chief Economist Chris Williamson said in a statement, with the data suggesting that the 17-nation currency area would see the "worst quarter for three years" at the end of the month.

AFP - The former boss of a UBS trader accused of losing the Swiss bank $2.3 billion in "rogue trades" turned a blind eye to his excessive deals due to the profits they reaped, a London court heard Thursday.

Ronald Greenidge, who managed Kweku Adoboli from 2008 until April 2011, was also accused by defence lawyer Charles Sherrard of being aware of a secret "umbrella fund" used to hold the unauthorised profits.

During combative exchanges in the hearing, adjourned for a short time after Greenidge was taken ill, the former banker strenuously denied he had tolerated Adoboli's deals that exceeded the bank's trading limits.

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Mario Monti may have saved Italy from ruinous default but the growth potential of Europe's most sluggish economy is as weak as ever, and that means prospects for lasting debt reduction remain fragile.

The German government has long been divided over whether the country needs a legal quota for women at the upper echelons of German businesses, but in a surprising development, advocates of such a mandate could soon get their way.

OAS_RICH('Middle2'); Enough support has emerged in the Bundesrat, or upper legislative chamber representing Germany's 16 federal states, that a majority will likely approve a binding gender quota initiative on Friday, the conservative daily Die Welt reports.

The legislative initiative, which would still need approval by Germany's lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, is largely supported by the opposition environmentalist Greens and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and was proposed by the SPD-led city-state of Hamburg. It would require publicly traded companies to have at least 40 percent women on their supervisory boards.

Labour hoarding is surely part of the story. Corporate finances are strong, which makes the hoarding affordable - and indeed, desirable in the medium term. Moreover, real wages have been falling, making it cheaper to retain workers. Yet, though this must be part of the story, it cannot be all of it. It does not explain why employment has recently been rising. Moreover, as the stagnation continues, hoarding must make less sense. Yet employment stays robust.

Falling real wages also justify substituting labour for capital. I suspect this is part of what has happened. Yet it is hard to believe it explains much of a shortfall of 12 per cent in output per worker, relative to the pre-crisis trend.

Mr Broadbent suggests a third cause: misallocation of capital due to a defective financial system. The decline in the rate of overall investment is not big enough to explain the productivity puzzle. But he notes that prices and profitability have diverged across sectors to a greater extent than normal. Yet this has not triggered a large reallocation of capital to high-return activities. As a result, "some firms are kept in business . . . despite making relatively low returns. Others, able to expand but unable to obtain the finance to do so, are forced to substitute labour for capital".

A wave of strikes has hit India, with shops and businesses closing across the country. The demonstrators oppose the government's decision to allow foreign retailers such as Walmart and Tesco to enter the Indian market.

Small shopkeepers, traders, laborers and opposition activists blocked roads and railways across India on Thursday, part of a nationwide strike against a host of government reforms that aim to boost the country's flagging economy.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the controversial reforms last week, which would allow the world's three largest retailers - Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco - to invest in India's supermarket sector. The reforms would also allow foreign investment in aviation and the sale of minority stakes in four state-run companies. The government has also hiked diesel fuel prices by 12 percent in a bid to reduce its budget deficit.

China promised its commitment to supporting Europe through its financial crisis but rapped Brussels over its stance on EU-China trade and an arms embargo on Beijing.

The EU-China summit on Thursday ended on a mixed note, with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao promising China's help in solving the eurozone crisis but forcefully insisting that the EU should lift its arms embargo on his country.

"China will continue to play its part in helping resolve the European debt issue through appropriate channels," Wen said at a business summit following political talks with Europe's leaders.

Mogadishu has been hit by a suicide bombing, a week after hopes were raised by the election of a new Somali president. Witnesses say at least 14 were killed in a restaurant opposite the capital city's National Theater.

During Thursday's attack two suicide bombers targeted the Village Restaurant, an eatery frequented by Somali politicians and journalists and run by a Somali businessman who returned home recently from Britain.

The attack came despite long-running efforts by a 11,000-strong African Union (AU) force to evict the Islamist rebel group, al Shabaab, from swathes of Somalia. The AU force known as AMISON largely pushed the militants from Mogadishu last year.

Pakistani police guarding US, British and French embassies in Islamabad have repelled thousands of demonstrators protesting a widely criticized anti-Islam film. The US has warned its citizens to avoid travel in Pakistan.

Police squads fired tear gas and live rounds overhead as young demonstrators, some armed with wooden clubs, tried to reach Western embassies located in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave. For protection, the area has been surrounded by hundreds of shipping containers.

Medics said 50 people were hurt, including 10 policemen, as demonstrators tried to storm the container barrier. Some carried flags of hardline Islamist groups.

The Afghan leader has sacked almost a third of his governors in a presumed attempt to crackdown on corruption. But the dismissal of the governor of Helmand is likely to worry those concerned about the region's security.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai on Thursday fired five governors, including the governor of Helmand province, a key Western ally in one of the south's most volatile regions.

"We hope that the new changes bring good governance and reforms in the provinces and affect the daily lives of Afghans," said Rafi Ferdous from the government's Office of Administrative Affairs, who announced the changes.

Four UN Security Council members have refused to back a German-drafted resolution condemning the abuse of children in conflict. It came as a UN envoy decried the Syrian regime and rebels for attacks targeting children.

China, Russia, Pakistan and Azerbaijan abstained from the normally routine UN Security Council vote on children and armed conflict on Wednesday in an apparent effort to restrict investigations conducted by the newly appointed UN special envoy to children.

The resolution set out a mandate for Leila Zerrougui, which the four nations said would allow her to investigate conflicts which are not listed on the Security Council agenda.

Diplomats from more than 60 countries have met in the Netherlands to discuss a tightening of sanctions in Syria. Amid further reports of violence, the opposition has proclaimed parts of Damascus "disaster areas."

The meeting near The Hague on Thursday was focused on the tightening of loopholes to better enforce current sanctions, which include an oil and arms embargo.

"We need vigorous implementation," Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal told the opening of the "Friends of Syria" sanctions working group. "Sanctions will only have an impact if they are carried out effectively," Rosenthal went on. "That is how we can make a difference."

First it was the widely panned trip to the London Olympics. Next came an underwhelming convention. Days later, there were shaky policy statements on healthcare and Iran, as well as a much-criticised response to anti-American violence in the Arab world.

Then, on Monday, a video leaked of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney telling donors that 47% of Americans are "victims" who are "dependent upon government" and feel "entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it".

The American Embassy in Islamabad, in a bid to tamp down public rage over the anti-Islam film produced in the U.S., is spending $70,000 to air an ad on Pakistani television that features President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denouncing the video.

The State Department said Thursday the embassy had compiled brief clips of Obama and Clinton rejecting the contents of the movie and extolling American tolerance for all religions into a 30-second public service announcement that is running on seven Pakistani networks. Obama and Clinton's comments, which are from previous public events in Washington, are in English but subtitled in Urdu, the main Pakistani language.

AFP - The auctioning of oil block concessions in Brazil's huge deep-water reserves next year should lure the huge investments required for exploitation, analysts say while voicing concern about delayed legislative approval of a royalties law.

President Dilma Rousseff gave the green light Tuesday for an auction inside the so-called "pre-salt" reserves located off the country's southeast coast, to be held in November 2013.

Next May, another auction involving 74 oil blocks, half at sea and half on land, is to be held outside the pre-salt reserves, which are buried beneath several kilometers of ocean, bedrock and hot salt beds.

(Reuters) - European Union plans to cap the use of food-based biofuels are a major setback for an industry once seen playing a central role in the fight against climate change, but now more often cast as the villain following a series of global food price spikes.

Industry sources and analysts predict the plan could trigger a wave of plant closures across Europe while questioning whether so-called advanced biofuels, often made from waste products, can play the greater role now envisioned by the European Commission.

British MPs are calling on Shell and others to halt "reckless" oil and gas drilling in the Arctic until stronger safety measures are put in place.

Politicians also want to impose "unlimited" financial liability on operators and the creation of a "no-drill zone" in a new environmental sanctuary.

The uncompromising demands have angered the energy industry but come just days after alarming new evidence has emerged about Arctic sea ice melting at record levels. They also come on the day that an environment committee of MEPs in Brussels called for tougher financial guarantees from oil companies to ensure they could pay for spills in European waters.

Cem Özdemir: why German industry is thanking the Green party

One of Germany's first senior politicians from an immigrant background describes how environmentalism went mainstream - and celebrates the national football team's ethnic transformation

Communities with windfarms in their area could get money off their electricity bills or grants for facilities such as playgrounds, the government has suggested.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has launched a consultation into how communities could benefit from having windfarms sited near them, for example by receiving discounts on bills or investment in local infrastructure. It will also look at how local businesses could become involved in the supply chain and how developers can best consult local people.

Quebec's new natural-resources minister, Martine Ouellet, says she doesn't believe the controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale, known as "fracking," can ever be done safely.

She made her remarks on her way into her first cabinet meeting, on her first full day as a cabinet minister in the new Parti Quebecois government.

Ouellet says she supports a broad moratorium on both the exploration and exploitation of shale gas.

AFP - Hundreds of photos taken by American actor Dennis Hopper in the 1960s and found by chance after his death went on display for the first time in four decades Thursday at a Berlin museum.

The exhibition, "Dennis Hopper, the Lost Album", opened at the Martin Gropius Bau, made up of some 440 black and white photos bearing testament to six years in the life of the actor, who died in 2010, in Los Angeles from 1961.

"In his last will, my father asked for the compound of houses where he lived to be sold," his eldest daughter Marin Hopper said at the opening of the exhibition, which runs until December 17.

"We put all his belongings in a storage. It's only a year later when we sorted everything out that we found the boxes with all the pictures," she added.

At 17, Johannes Kneifel beat a man so brutally that he later died. In prison, the neo-Nazi converted to Christianity, and soon he will qualify as a church minister. But a new witness in the case has raised doubts about his guilt.

Inspiration came from exposure to the work of the American painter Thomas Kinkade, the dulcet tones and harmonies of the music of Justin Bieber, the dance cinematography of Busby Berkeley, and the business practices of Hollywood.

It's mojo-major, baby.


Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere