ATHENS, Sept. 8 (Xinhua) -- Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras on Saturday stressed that a fresh austerity package under discussion is necessary to regain credibility and overcome the threatening debt crisis.

"We are at a crucial crossroads," Samaras said when inaugurating the 77th Thessaloniki International Fair in the northern Greek city port. "In order to avert the catastrophe we had to restore credibility," he added.

Police investigators have for years been participating in meetings of far-right and anti-immigrant groups and individuals, including Anders Behring Breivik, in order assess the potential for violent attacks, according to a media report.

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The meetings brought together groups opposed to immigration and Islam and were organized by the website Document.no, according to a report in the Aftenposten daily.  The meetings discussed subjects ranging from immigration to ecology, according to the newspaper.

"A throwback to the days when police would monitor the left," said Document.no editor Hans Rustad to the newspaper in response to the report.

Convicted terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is reported to have attended several meetings organized by Document.no and according to the police survey he was assessed as "moderate and relatively centrist within the community". 

The community was assessed by the police to have a "low potential for immediate violence".

Prime minister and VVD leader Mark Rutte launched a strong attack on the Labour party on Saturday, as a new poll says the gap between the two parties has narrowed to just one seat.

In an interview with the Telegraaf, Rutte warned that the rise of the PvdA is 'a danger to the Netherlands' and said the party's plans would involve 'fewer roads, fewer jobs and longer waiting lists.'

Rutte's strong words come as a new Maurice de Hond opinion poll buts Labour just one seat behind the VVD, as the swing from the Socialists to PvdA continues.

With 21 parties contesting the September 12 election and 10 or 11 of them likely to win seats in the 150-seat parliament, putting a new coalition cabinet together is likely to be a lengthy process.

A secret report from Germany's police warns of neo-Nazi attacks, even assassination attempts, on foreigners, prominent politicians and police officers.

Der Spiegel magazine said on Sunday it had seen the report which said that attacks "should be expected" against foreigners, Jewish institutions and "representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany, such as politicians, public figures, and police officers."

The paper from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, BKA, dated July 2012, warns the attacks could come from individuals or groups, and could include fatal injuries from arson attacks, possibly on refugee hostels, for example. Potential homicides were also included in the nightmare list.

This latest warning came almost a year after revelations that a right-wing extremist cell calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU), was responsible for killing nine men of Turkish and Greek origin and a police officer.

President François Hollande's plan to make sure the wealthiest help pull the country out of debt was once again under scrutiny on Sunday after seemingly being dealt a blow by France's richest man. Billionaire businessman Bernard Arnault caused anger and consternation among France's lawmakers after it emerged Saturday that he had applied for Belgian nationality.   The 63-year-old head of the Louis Vuitton, Moët and Hennessy (LVMH) luxury goods empire lodged his application with parliament in Brussels last week.     His move comes as President François Hollande's bid to balance the books through tax increases comes under increased scrutiny.

The 10-year old European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has done a good job providing scientific advice to Europe's policymakers, and despite allegations to the contrary, it operates independently, says an evaluation report by international auditing company Ernst & Young issued on Wednesday. But the agency must become more transparent and do a better job of explaining what it does and how, the auditors say.

EFSA, based in Parma, Italy, was created in 2002 by the European Union to provide independent advice and communication on risks concerning the food chain. Under European regulations, it must undergo an external review every 6 years.

The 337-page report, which assesses virtually all of EFSA's activities in the period from 2006 to 2010, comes at a sensitive time. EFSA has recently come under fire from advocacy groups and the European Parliament for being too close to industry. On 9 May, the chair of EFSA's management board, Diána Bánáti, resigned effective immediately because she had returned to her job at the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), an industry-funded group. Two days later, the European Parliament refused to sign off on EFSA's 2010 expenditures as a way to protest ties between EFSA and industry.

(Reuters) - The seven-year-old British girl who survived a gun attack in the French Alps last week that saw her father and mother shot dead in their car is out of a coma and will be questioned by police as soon as she is able, the French prosecutor said on Sunday.

French and British police continued their search of the family home in Surrey near London of Saad al-Hilli, the Iraqi-born British driver who was shot twice in the head along with his wife, an older woman and a passing cyclist on Wednesday.

"She (Zainab) has come out of her artificial coma and she is now sedated," State Prosecutor Eric Maillaud told Reuters. "She is better and her condition is improving little by little. She will be able to be questioned, but in what time frame?"

"We'll need a green light from the doctors."

In my judgment the best course of action is to persuade Germany to choose between becoming a more benevolent hegemon, or leading nation, or leaving the euro. In other words, Germany must lead or leave.

...

The eventual outcome [if Germany left] would fulfill John Maynard Keynes's dream of an international currency system in which both creditors and debtors share responsibility for maintaining stability. And Europe would escape from the looming depression. The same result would be achieved, with less cost to Germany, if Germany chose to behave as a benevolent hegemon. That would mean (1) establishing a more or less level playing field between debtor and creditor countries and (2) aiming at nominal growth of up to 5 percent, in other words allowing Europe to grow its way out of excessive indebtedness. This would entail a greater degree of inflation than the Bundesbank is likely to approve.

Whether Germany decides to lead or leave, either alternative would be better than to persist on the current course. The difficulty is in convincing Germany that its current policies are leading to a prolonged depression, political and social conflicts, and an eventual breakup not only of the euro but also of the European Union. How to persuade Germany to choose between either accepting the responsibilities and liabilities that a benevolent hegemon should be willing to incur or leaving the euro in the hands of debtor countries that would be much better off on their own? That is the question I shall try to answer.

[Weidmann's isolation at the ECB] should be no cause of glee, let alone joy, because German isolation is about the last thing the eurozone needs. The day after the ECB's decision, the German media eulogised Mr Weidmann for fighting against the infidels in the ECB. The consensus view among German commentators is that the ECB has lost its independence; that the German taxpayer will foot the bill; and that hyperinflation is around the corner. One commentator was appalled by the fact that Mario Draghi was ready to save the euro at any cost.

...

The German revolt is thus deeply troubling. The problem is not Angela Merkel, who has taken a neutral position in the Draghi v Weidmann contest. The problem is a shift in public opinion. The German public has bought into the narrative that the crisis was caused by profligate southern European politicians and consumers, who had wasted the first decade of their membership of the eurozone indulging in a debt-financed housing and consumption boom. It is a false morality tale - mostly devoid of economic reasoning. But this has not stopped it from becoming the dominant narrative. Not enough politicians, certainly not enough journalists and commentators, are pushing against this narrative. Ms Merkel's single biggest error in her management of the crisis was her failure to get this narrative under control, or establish a narrative of her own. With her famous red lines on eurozone bonds and deposit insurance, she even ended up reinforcing the narrative.

The same narrative will almost certainly have influenced the German Constitutional Court, which is due to announce its ruling on the ESM on Wednesday. Mr Weidmann also gave a very critical assessment of the ESM in his deposition to the court in July. I would caution readers not to take the court's decision for granted. While I do not have the foggiest idea what the court will say, I am certain the ruling will not be based on, or even influenced by, fears of a negative market reaction, as so many commentators keep insisting it will be.

"Lack of demand for labour is clearly a real problem. Welfare-to-work programmes can be useful in ensuring that unemployed people remain active, but they also entail risks, especially when there are so few alternatives in the main labour market. Adapting skills to job market requirements is important, but will not get us far in the absence of measures to create jobs.

"This applies also to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the so-called programme countries. Further reforms and adjustments are needed, but must be implemented in a socially sustainable way.

"Investment must be stepped up, especially in tradable sectors and in people's skills. But crucially, job creation must be treated as a priority on its own because jobs create growth. Programme countries cannot simply wait for jobs to be created as a result of growth and external demand.

"Europe needs a youth guarantee - that young people will be in work, training or education within months of leaving school -especially in peripheral countries.

Long after the Nazi party took power in Germany in 1933, after the Reichstag had been burned and anti-semitic violence became official state policy, European governments remained more worried about the possibility of a socialist Germany than a fascist one. Almost until the Second World War, it remained more important to many world leaders that Germany pay down its debts. Drawing historical parallels with Nazism is a weary rhetorical technique that commentators on left and right have cheapened by tossing the simile into discussions of food labelling and over-enthusiastic traffic control. In this case, however, it's not rhetoric.

Actual fascists in actual black shirts are actually marching around Athens waving swastikas and burning torches, and maiming and murdering ethnic minorities, and world governments appear frighteningly relaxed about it as long as the Greek people continue to pay off the debts of the European elite. When the lessons of history are taught by rote, they can be easy to miss when most needed. This time, Europe must remember that the price of fostering fascism is crueller and costlier by far than any national debt

A German MP brings new case to the constitutional court linking Mario Draghi's OMT to the current ESM case; the legal argument is that the OMT had fundamental altered the ESM, and that the ECB had usurped permanent powers from the parliament; Der Spiegel writes that the court is likely to take the new case seriously, as anti-euro sentiment is rising in the country; also said the German government has no Plan B in case of a No vote; the FT has the story that the Liikanen review will conclude with a recommendation to separate assets from banks' trading operations from their retail business; Francois Hollande announces his 75% marginal tax in a demonstration that he intends to stick to his election promises; Bernard Arnault has taken on Belgian citizenship in anticipation of this measure; dissatisfaction with Hollande is increasing, polls show; there were contradictory signals from Spain about whether and when to apply for an EFSF/ESM programme; the Spanish government seems adamant that it has done all it can on reforms, while EU source say more conditions are possible given the risks associated with the banking sector and the autonomous regions; Olli Rehn said there would be no new conditions in addition to those already agreed; the Spanish government drafts in the long-term unemployed to clear the damage caused by the wildfires; despite repeated denials, Mario Monti is considering a second term, the Wall Street Journal reports; the troika has rejected several of the Greek government's austerity measures; one of the coalition parties threatens to withhold support for the programme; Portugal raises social security contribution in the latest effort to meet the nominal deficit target; an Iceland central bank recommends that the Portuguese should start a witch-hunt to find out who was responsible for the mess; BoA/Merrill Lynch lists five problems with the OMT, including excessively strict conditionality; Luigi Zingales says Mario Draghi's gamble is risky, as government may not live up to their structural reform promises; Wolfgang Munchau argues that Jens Weidmann may have won the debate after all, as Germany sinks into deep Euroscepticism; George Soros, meanwhile, argues that Germany faces a straight choice between either quitting the eurozone, or leading it out of crisis.

Views vary between Britain, who wants no EU supervision, and easterners who want to join the euro and are wary of being left out.

(Reuters) - Egypt's new prime minister Hisham Kandil is finalising an economic reform plan that will rein in hefty consumer subsidies, he said on Sunday, adding that he expected the economy to grow in the current financial year by 3 to 4 percent, or more if investment goals are achieved.

Kandil told Reuters in a rare interview that the government aims to cut the budget deficit, now running at about 8 percent of gross domestic product, by 1 percentage point in two years although he said that target was "dynamic".

China's industrial output grew at the slowest pace in three years and President Hu Jintao said economic expansion faces "notable downward pressure," signaling that officials may need to add further to stimulus after approving subway and road projects.

Production increased 8.9 percent in August from a year earlier and fixed-asset investment growth in the first eight months eased to 20.2 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday in Beijing. Inflation accelerated for the first time in five months.

The data underscore risks that full-year growth in the world's second-biggest economy will slide to its lowest in more than two decades and undermine support for the ruling Communist Party during its once-a-decade power transition to a new generation of leaders later this year. The rebound in inflation, excess capacity in some industries and banks' bad loan risks from past monetary easing highlight the potential cost of ramping up stimulus efforts.

U.S. tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect by the beginning of next year pose one of the biggest risks to the global economy, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said today.

While Lagarde has warned about the U.S. fiscal situation before, this time she took her case directly to leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Vladivostok, Russia. She said the fiscal cliff was one of "three key risks" -- the other two being the euro crisis and medium-term public financing.

"We discussed over lunch with the leaders of APEC, the global economic situation, with the three key risks that we see on the horizon," Lagarde told reporters today. She said there are a "combination of factors that could also increase the vulnerabilities of emerging economies."

Lagarde made the comments to an organization whose membership oversees 56 percent of global economic output. The more than $480 billion so-called fiscal cliff of automatic spending cuts and revenue changes would probably cause a recession if left unchanged, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report last month.

In her New York Times article (September 8, 2012) - Cutting the Deficit, With Compassion - the former economics advisor to the Obama Administration Christina Romer attempts to outline a Democratic plan for "dealing with the deficit" which she says should be "front and center" and allow the Democrats to move beyond the defensive position of "criticizing the Romney-Ryan approach".

To which any sensible person who understands these matters will ask - why should the Democrats want to "deal with the deficit" anyway? What exactly is there to deal with?

Well, Dr Romer thinks that the Democrats should be developing:

... compassionate deficit reduction. The essence is to cut the deficit in a way that does as little harm as possible to people, jobs and economic opportunity.

In other words, she is adocating that the Democrats should hold out to the American people a policy position that will undermine economic growth, condemn millions of them to entrenched unemployment, and reduce the future opportunities for American children to achieve to their potential.

Since when has that been a core Democrat principle in the US?

BAGHDAD, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- A series of bombs and gunfire attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed some 52 Iraqis and wounded more than 200 others, in what appeared to be an attempt by insurgent groups to destabilize the country and undermine confidence in the Iraqi government.

The deadliest attack in the day occurred near the city of Amara, some 365 km south of Baghdad, when two car bombs exploded at a marketplace near the shrine of Shiite Imam Ali al-Sharqi in the town that holds the name of the Imam, killing 18 people and wounding some 70 others.

Earlier in the morning, a suicide car bomber struck a crowd of security recruits at the compound of Iraq's Northern Oil Company ( NOC) near the city of Kirkuk, killing up to eight recruits and wounding 30 others.

The victims were signing up to be security members at the Iraqi Facilities Protection Service (FPS), which is an Iraqi paramilitary force tasked with site protection of Iraqi government facilities.

NOC is a state-owned company which is responsible for oil exports from northern Iraq.

Colombia's president says he will not lower his guard against the country's main rebel group, but he believes a peace deal is possible if there is "goodwill" on both sides.

"If there is goodwill from both parts, we will reach an agreement much sooner than people expect," Juan Manuel Santos told Al Jazeera on Saturday, as peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), aimed at ending half a century of war between the two sides, is set to kick off next month.

"I think the fundamental issues that are on the table, that we agreed to discuss and agree on in order to finalise the conflict, are not that difficult," the president said in his first extensive interview with an international network.

Santos said he remained sceptical about FARC's motives, and that the Colombian military and police had been instructed to intensify their offensive against the rebels as they entered the "last track of this conflict" and could not afford to lower their guard.

He said a fundamental issue in the negotiations would be about balancing peace with justice, by finding ways to reintegrate FARC members into society while also seeing to it that those who committed crimes be punished accordingly.

At least 16 people have been killed by government soldiers in the central Malian region of Segou, when the army opened fire on their vehicle, a government official and the police have said.

The incident occurred overnight on Saturday in the town of Diabali, and authorities said those killed were Islamist fighters.

Among the dead were two Malians and 14 Mauritanian nationals, Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reported from Mali's capital Bamako on Sunday. Our correspondent said there were two differing accounts of what had taken place.

Iraq's fugitive vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi has been sentenced to death in absentia after a court found him guilty of running death squads.

The court ruling came as at least 64 people were killed in a wave of about 27 attacks across Iraq.

Hashemi was the most senior Sunni Muslim in the predominantly Shia Iraqi government until he was charged last December and went on the run.

The charges against him sparked a political crisis in Iraq.

Other Sunni politicians denounced Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki - who issued the warrant for Mr Hashemi - as a dictator, accusing him of deliberate provocation that risked plunging the country back into sectarian conflict.

Correspondents say the fragile government coalition between Sunnis, secularists and Shia has seemed in danger of collapse ever since.

Hong Kong voters went to the polls in legislative elections seen as a crucial test for the Beijing-backed government, as calls for full democracy grow and disenchantment with Chinese rule surges.

Nearly 3.5 million people are eligible to cast ballots in the poll, which comes after weeks of protests against a plan to introduce Chinese patriotism classes into schools forced the government into a last-minute backdown on Saturday.

Voting began at 7:30am (23:30 GMT Saturday) and would go on until 10:30 pm with results not expected until Monday.

The new 70-seat legislature could pave the way for universal suffrage in 2017 for the job of chief executive and by 2020 for the parliament.

Forty of the 70 seats in the new legislature are directly elected - the first time that more than half of the seats up for grabs would be decided by popular vote.

The remainder are chosen by small groups of electors selected along economic and professional lines.

A Russian-Japanese project to build a liquefied natural gas plant in Vladivostok has great potential and will lend support to Japan as it boosts imports of LNG, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the concluding press conference of the APEC summit in Vladivostok on Sunday.

The CEO of Russian gas giant Gazprom, Alexei Miller, signed a memorandum on Saturday with the head of the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's natural resources and energy agency, Ichiro Takahara, to move forward on the LNG project.

Most of the LNG produced at the new plant will be exported to Japan, which is consuming more gas in order to compensate for the shutdown of a number of nuclear plants following the Fukushima disaster in March 2011.

Oil is washing up along the Gulf Coast in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, churned up by Hurricane Isaac. After discovering hundreds of tar balls at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama, a Greenpeace research team joined our allies at the Gulf Restoration Network to investigate the impacts on East and West Ship Island, off the coast of Mississippi. We found tar balls on East Ship Island and several heavily oiled areas on West Ship Island, which are both part of the Gulf National Seashore.

Meanwhile, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Louisiana is "closing a 12-mile section of Gulf coastline from Caminada Pass to Pass Fourchon after Hurricane Isaac washed up large areas of oil and tar balls at the location of one of the worst inundations of BP oil during the Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 ... agency crews surveying damage from Isaac discovered large sections of viscous oil and tar balls floating along the coast."

Greenpeace documented oil on East Ship Island in October 2010, months after the BP oil disaster. Returning two years later to find so much oil pollution is a sad reminder that it's impossible to clean up a major marine oil spill. Officials are concerned that up to 1 million barrels of oil are estimated to remain in the Gulf of Mexico, and are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to explain how they will address oil pollution remaining from the 2010 spill.

Higher average temperatures and increasing salt concentrations are stress factors that many ecosystems face today in the wake of climate change. However, do all ecosystems react to stress in the same way and what impact does stress have on ecosystem services, such as biomass production? Botanists and ecologists from the universities of Zurich and Gottingen demonstrate that a high level of biodiversity aids stress resistance.

Higher number of species leads to greater stress resistance

The scientists studied a total of 64 species of single-celled microalgae from the SAG Culture Collection of Algae in Gottingen. These are at the bottom of the food chain and absorb environmentally harmful CO2 via photosynthesis.

"The more species of microalgae there are in a system, the more robust the system is under moderate stress compared to those with fewer species," says first author Bastian Steudel, explaining one of the results. Systems with a higher number of species can thus keep their biomass production stable for longer than those with less biodiversity.

"Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce," declared a New York Times headline. "Organic food hardly healthier, study suggests," announced CBS News. "Is organic healthier? Study says not so much, but it's key reason consumers buy," the Washington Post grumbled.

In reality, though, the study in some places makes a strong case for organic--though you'd barely know it from the language the authors use. And in places where it finds organic wanting, key information gets left out. To assess the state of science on organic food and its health benefits, the authors performed what's known among academics as a "meta-analysis"--they gathered all the research papers they could find on the topic dating back decades, eliminated ones that didn't meet their criteria for scientific rigor, and summarized the results.  

In another post I'll get to the question of nutritional benefits--the idea, expressed by the Stanford authors, that organic and conventional foods are roughly equivalent in terms of vitamins and other nutrients. What I want to discuss now is the problem of pesticide exposure, and why I think the Stanford researchers are underestimating the risks.

BANGKOK, Sep 9 2012 (IPS) - As government negotiators from the world's poorest countries ended a round of United Nations climate change talks in the Thai capital, they sounded a grave note about what appears imminent when they assemble in November in Doha - the reading of the last rites of the Kyoto Protocol.

"We are concerned that the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only international treaty that binds developed nations to lower (greenhouse gas) emissions, and thus our lone assurance that action will be taken, is eroding before our eyes," declared a statement released by the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Africa Group, which represent over a billion people vulnerable to the ravages of extreme weather.

Such concern about the fate of the Kyoto Protocol in the capital of Qatar, where negotiators from over 190 countries will gather for a U.N. climate summit, is with reason. The upcoming 18^th conference of the parties (CoP 18) will be the last meeting before the clock runs out on Dec. 31for the world's industrialised countries to meet their initial, legally-binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and to announce new legally binding cuts for the second period as 2013 dawns.

The Russian Orthodox Church has sustained a well-thought strike aimed at testing how deep its followers' faith is, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill said on Sunday.

As of late the Russian Orthodox Church has come in for unprecedented criticism both at home and abroad over the punk group Pussy Riot case and the perceived luxurious lifestyle of its leading figures.

"I can't get rid of the thought that it was a certain exploratory attack to check how deep is the faith and devotion to Orthodoxy in Russia," he told the Vesti Nedeli weekly news program on Russia's state-run Rossiya TV channel.

Only about 1 percent of the human genome contains gene regions that code for proteins, raising the question of what the rest of the DNA is doing. Scientists have now begun to discover the answer: About 80 percent of the genome is biochemically active, and likely involved in regulating the expression of nearby genes, according to a study from a large international team of researchers.

The consortium, known as ENCODE (which stands for "Encyclopedia of DNA Elements"), includes hundreds of scientists from several dozen labs around the world. Using genetic sequencing data from 140 types of cells, the researchers were able to identify thousands of DNA regions that help fine-tune genes' activity and influence which genes are expressed in different kinds of cells.

Just as the sequencing of the human genome helped scientists learn how mutations in protein-coding genes can lead to disease, the new map of noncoding regions should provide some answers on how mutations in the regulatory elements lead to diseases such as lupus and diabetes, says Manolis Kellis, an associate professor of computer science at MIT, an associate member of the Broad Institute and an author of a paper describing the findings in the Sept. 5 online edition of Nature.

Hunting for Martians may be a tougher task than predicted. Clays, long thought to be a sure sign of a warmer and wetter past on the Red Planet, could merely signal earlier volcanic activity - which would have made some regions on Mars less favourable for life.

Clay layers found across Mars suggest that during the Noachian period, from about 4.2 billion to 3.5 billion years ago, the planet was warm enough to host liquid water - necessary for life as we know it.

Scientists thought Mars clays could have formed in one of two ways: through soil interacting with standing water on the surface, or from water bubbling up from below via hydrothermal vents.

Bettina Wulff, the wife of German ex-president Christian Wulff, is suing a TV moderator and Google for helping spread rumours about her life before her marriage.

The 38-year-old filed suit against the multinational internet corporation and TV presenter Günther Jauch in a Hamburg court on Friday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported.

In recent months, 34 German and foreign bloggers and media outlets, including Stern magazine, Mediengruppe Österreich publishers and Berliner Zeitung newspaper, had signed cease-and-desist declarations related to the stories, the paper reported.

Political enemies of her husband within Hannover political circles have been spreading rumours since 2006 that Bettina Wulff once worked in the red-light milieu, in an attempt to damage her husband, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.