The German government is applying pressure on offshore tax havens. It is also taking action against German banks operating in Switzerland, where they maintain accounts for shadowy Liechtenstein foundations. In a time of economic crisis, Berlin needs all the tax euros it can get.

Martin Maurer remembers that fateful gray November day all too well. Maurer runs the Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland from his office above an upmarket men's clothing store only a stone's throw from Zurich's exclusive Bahnhofstrasse. The organization represents the interests of more than 150 financial institutions, 20 of them German.

On that day last November, Maurer received a number of calls from nervous fund managers, who were alarmed by a seven-page letter that Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) had sent to all German banks with Swiss subsidiaries. The agency, based in Bonn, was asking unpleasant questions about an explosive subject. It wanted to know how many accounts the Swiss subsidiaries were managing for foundations and trusts, and how many of these foundations were headquartered in the tiny principality of Liechtenstein, which is famous as a tax haven.

Russia has announced plans to set up a military force to protect its interests in the Arctic.

In a document published on its national security council's website, Moscow says it expects the Arctic to become its main resource base by 2020.

While the strategy is thought to have been approved in September, it has only now been made public.

Moscow's ambitions are likely to cause concern among other countries with claims to the Arctic.

Turkish voters go to the polls in nationwide local elections on Sunday, March 29. The predominantly Kurdish Southeast, and in-particular Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, is seen as a key for the ruling Islamic- rooted AK party. In the last general election they scored a surprising victory over the pro-Kurdish DTP, and are aiming to do better this round. But the DTP are fighting back by focusing on women rights.  

Earlier this month at least 50,000 people gathered in the heart of Diyarbakir to commemorate the birth of Mohammed. The meeting also saw strong condemnation of Israel and Jews over the attack by Israeli forces on Gaza last January. It was largest religious gathering the city has seen in living memory. One of those attending was a man named Ahnet.

Every year he says, this meeting is getting bigger, in the past only a few villagers would come, but now most of the villagers are coming. He says people are again becoming more and more aware of their religion. With Islam he says, there must be unity so our number has to grow.

London is bracing itself for the G-20 meeting next week, as thousands of demonstrators prepare to descend upon the British capital. While most protestors will be peaceful, those working in the financial industry are being advised not to wear suits to work or even to stay at home to avoid potential violence.

Mirina Pepper has just been panhandled by a homeless man near London's Liverpool Street Station. She reaches into her handbag and grabs a bundle of £20 notes. "Here, you can give them out," she says. The homeless man looks perplexed at the notes, not knowing whether he should take this as a good or bad thing.

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS - European diplomats are trying to appease mounting tensions in Tbilisi ahead of opposition protests scheduled for 9 April with the political aim of forcing president Mikhail Saakashvili to step down.

"There is a general hope that demonstrations will take place peacefully within the constitutional framework, that was reiterated by everybody whom we met, opposition and government," Council of Europe rapporteur Mattyas Eorsi told EUobserver on Friday, upon his return from a two-day visit in Georgia.

The flag of independent Georgia - the country's democratic credentials will be put to the test

He added that the political culture in the southern Caucasus was "not yet as developed as in most European countries," however.

The 9 April rally marks 20 years since an anti-Soviet demonstration was dispersed by the Red Army, leading to 20 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

"The problem is that even if party leaders decide not to have any violence, you can never exclude that individuals [will] make trouble," Mr Eorsi said.

As Turkey cracks down on 'honour killings', women are now told to commit suicide

When Elif's father told her she had to kill herself in order to spare him from a prison sentence for her murder, she considered it long and hard. "I loved my father so much, I was ready to commit suicide for him even though I hadn't done anything wrong," the 18-year-old said. "But I just couldn't go through with it. I love life too much."

All Elif had done was simply decline the offer of an arranged marriage with an older man, telling her parents she wanted to continue her education. That act of disobedience was seen as bringing dishonour on her whole family - a crime punishable by death. "I managed to escape. When I was at school, a few girls I knew were killed by their families in the name of honour - one of them for simply receiving a text message from a boy," Elif said.

So-called "honour killings" in Turkey have reached record levels. According to government figures, there are more than 200 a year - half of all the murders committed in the country. Now, in a sinister twist, comes the emergence of "honour suicides". The growing phenomenon has been linked to reforms to Turkey's penal code in 2005. That introduced mandatory life sentences for honour killers, whereas in the past, killers could receive a reduced sentence claiming provocation. Soon after the law was passed, the numbers of female suicides started to rocket. Related articles

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - NATO is increasingly lacking solidarity and unity of vision over future strategic options, such as its relation with Russia and enlargement, a study issued by the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, a Dutch think-tank, shows.

Issued just a week ahead of NATO's 60th anniversary summit, the study, Finding a path away from NATO de-solidarisation is aimed at feeding into the drafting of the alliance's new strategic concept, which dates back to 1999. The 26 NATO heads of state and government are set to start work on a new concept at the summit.

NATO at 60 - mid-life crisis or fresh start?

Challenged by new problems such as the economic crisis, the race for Arctic resources, and a resurgent Russia and China, NATO is facing the "strategic necessity" of reconciling its traditional role - providing for the security of its members - with that of coping with these new challenges, the report highlighted.

Carried out amongst 300 experts and students on transatlantic security, the study was launched on Thursday (27 March) at the Security and Defence Agenda, a Brussels-based think-tank that focuses on EU-NATO issues.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The populist right-wing party of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday officially merges with the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale at the founding congress of Il Popolo della Liberta, the powerful new rightist bloc that is not only set to dominate Italian politics for the foreseeable future, but will also wield considerable power in the European Parliament after the June elections.

Mr Berlusconi says goodbye to Forza Italia and hello to a new bloc with the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale

A three-day, €3 million extravaganza, with jumbotron screens and menus is to celebrate the fusing of the two parties, a long-expected move that brings Mr Berlusconi one step closer to his dream of a unified Italian right.

The Italian leader will become the head of Il Popolo della Liberta (People of Freedom), although his ambitious rival and chief of the now disbanded Alleanza, Gianfranco Fini has indicated he has his sights on the leadership should Mr Berlusconi exit the stage.

"Berlusconi knows that his strong and recognised leadership can in no way become a personality cult," Mr Fini, also the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the Italian parliament's lower house, told the final conference of his own party.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament will from 1 April begin putting up billboards around Europe to try to get voters interested in the upcoming EU election.

The 10 images, created by Berlin-based advertising company Scholz & Friends Group, are designed to show that EU lawmaking is relevant to people's everyday lives.

The financial crisis poster - some of the images flatter MEPs' powers

They depict two to three options in various policy areas on a blue background with the slogan "Use your vote in the European Parliament Elections" and the country-relevant date from 4 to 7 June.

For food safety, there is a supermarket chicken with no labels and one plastered with nutritional information. On fuel types, there is a petrol can, an electric battery and a clump of rapeseed to stand for biofuel.

If the Lisbon treaty goes through, the parliament's powers of legal co-decision with the European Commission and member states will be extended to new areas such as immigration and police co-operation.

Si ce n'est pas un affront, c'est tout de même une vilaine manière faite aux socialistes français. Gordon Brown, en soutenant officiellement la reconduction de Manuel Barroso à la présidence de la Commission européenne et, surtout, José-Luis Zapatero en apportant son appui implicite, ont réduit la portée de ce qui doit être l'un des axes majeurs de la campagne européenne du PS. Sans parler de l'appui du premier ministre portugais, le socialiste José Socrates, à son compatriote. Le thème du « haro sur Barroso » présente en effet quelques avantages. Il permet de donner un visage à la « dérive libérale » des institutions européennes - il faut dire que l'intéressé, franchement droitier et pas très social, a aussi poussé au soutien de la politique étrangère de George Bush - et signifier que la bonne vieille cogestion entre social-démocratie et libéraux n'est plus de mise au Parlement. En focalisant une partie de l'argumentaire sur Barroso, le PS estimait dés lors pouvoir « politiser » le débat en introduisant un clivage gauche/droite. Sans oublier le couplet sur le vote utile ; « seul le vote socialiste peut permettre de changer la majorité politique du Parlement européen ».

A crowd of new interesting characters is running for the European Parliament in Poland. Among them Wałęsa.

Well, no, I don't mean the legendary Solidarity leader. I mean Jarosław Wałęsa, his 33-year old son and politician. He will be running in Gdansk for the governing Civic Platform. He is last on the party list. But that is a neat trick which has worked before. He was also last when he ran for the Polish parliament in 2005 and 2007. He got a huge number of votes, because of the name the first time, but also because of his good work as an MP the second time. 

He is not the only new and interesting character the parties are fielding for the EP election:

My discontent about the lack of choice about the future President of the European Commission is well known. But it seems - bizarrely - that the choice of the President of the European Parliament might actually become a bit more interesting. President of the EP is a largely symbolic role, chairing the sessions and with some external representation tasks. Perhaps the election intrigue is a manifestation of the old Henry Kissinger quote that "university European Parliament politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small"?

Anyway, so what's going on? Essentially the President of the EP is usually a tie-up between the 2 main political groups in the Parliament, the EPP-ED and PSE. Each gets the Parliament President for about two and a half years of the five year parliamentary term. Josep Borrell, a socialist, preceeded Hans-Gert Pöttering, a christian democrat, in the current term.

For the 2009-2014 term the socialists want to put forward tub-thumper Martin Schulz, but as a German national he cannot follow Pöttering. So the EPP-ED will get the first call - if tradition is respected. Former Polish PM Jerzy Buzek was the most likely candidate, although now Silvio Berlusconi - with the additional backing of Alleanza Nationale in the EPP, want their own man - Mario Mauro. See this from Euractiv that explains the games.

VIENENBURG, Germany: Last month Frank Koppe gathered together all 50 of his employees at Koppe-Apparatebau for coffee, cake and the kind of bad news that has lately become all too familiar. He told them the small company's business, designing and manufacturing custom equipment for industrial plants, had been sliced nearly in half.

But rather than resorting to layoffs, Mr. Koppe asked half his employees to come in every other week. The government would make up roughly two-thirds of their lost wages out of a fund filled in good times through payroll deductions and company contributions.

The program -- known as "Kurzarbeit," which translates as "short work" -- and others like it lie at the heart of a heated debate that has erupted on the eve of next week's Group of 20 meeting of industrialized and developing nations and the European Union, creating a rift between the Obama administration and European governments. The United States is pressing for a coordinated package of stimulus plans by member countries to encourage economic growth, something that Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek of the Czech Republic, which holds the European Union presidency, has called "a way to hell."

But virtually all European governments, led by budget-conscious Germany, are resisting the American pitch, saying the focus should be on stricter regulation of financial markets.

The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples as sclerotic impediments to growth, are automatically providing the spending programs that the United States Congress has to legislate.

New figures on the UK economy show that it fell even deeper into recession in the fourth quarter of last year than first thought, piling the pressure on the prime minister.

Revised data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that gross domestic product shank by 1.6% in the last three months of 2008, rather than the 1.5% previously reported. Worse than previously expected output in construction and services was blamed for the downward revision.

It is the worst performance since the second quarter of 1980 and confirms Britain is in the middle of a deep downturn following a contraction of 0.7% in the third quarter of last year and zero growth in the second.

Russia's ambitions of resurrecting its superpower status have received a jolt after Dmitry Medvedev, the country's president, was effectively told he would only play a peripheral role at next week's G-20 summit in London.

Just months after holding Europe to ransom during a gas dispute with Ukraine, Russia has discovered that continental energy dominance does not translate into commensurate influence in the debate over how to tackle the global economic crisis.

Russian officials were said to be angered after the leak of a British government document that appeared to divide G20 members into two lists of descending importance.

In 1930, John Maynard Keynes wrote: "The world has been slow to realise that we are living this year in the shadow of one of the greatest economic catastrophes of modern history." Today, as then, we are in the shadow of catastrophe. Today, as then, our thinking is slow. We need to come to grips with the crisis itself.

Two ingrained habits are leading to failure. The first is to assume that eventually economies will return to normal on their own. In London in January, US Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke said: "The global economy will recover." He did not say how he knows. The fact that for months the news has been consistently worse than expected shows that the forecasts are wrong. Their basic failure is that they do not take account of the massive pay-down of household debt, everywhere under way, as a result of the collapse of the banks.

The second bad habit is to believe that recovery runs through the banks rather than around them. This idea holds that credit is "blocked"; it must be made "to flow." The metaphor is fallacious. Credit cannot flow when there are no creditworthy borrowers, no profitable projects.

Socialist leaders are holding a big meeting as of today in Vinia Del Mar, Chile. The meeting has been organized by the Chilean government and President Michelle Bachellet, with the cooperation of the British think tank Policy Network. The meeting is entitled "Progressive ruling: the reply to the world financial crisis in a progressive direction."

Participating amongst others in the meeting will be Brazilian President Lula da Silva, British PM Gordon Brown, Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner and many others. [...]

The meeting will focus on the hammering out of progressive policies that will tackle the world financial crisis, the promotion of a responsible and viable globalization, climate change in a period of world recession, the status of social protection and labour market during globalization, the role of the state in economic development, the contribution of science and novelty in viable development.

"But what these guys should be doing ... is conclude the Doha round of trade talks and show that the leaders who are gathering in London are turning their backs on protectionism and international nationalism.

"And if I had a slogan for the crusties and the nose-ringed protestors who are going to be out on the streets of London doing all their ludicrous antics, they should be saying:

"'What do we want?' 'Free trade.' 'When do we want it?' 'Now.' That's my slogan."

Bill Moyers Journal . James Thindwa | PBS

Wal-Mart (Watch Video)

Thindwa's Jobs with Justice was also in the forefront of a living wage battle against Wal-Mart. When the corporation announced plans to open a store in Chicago, Jobs for Justice and other groups decided to forestall Wal-Mart's well-known low wage-floor with a local living wage law, putting the starting salary at $10 per hour -- the salary being paid at another big box store in Chicago, COSTCO. The campaign went on for three years until 2006 when the city council passed the living wage ordinance. Victory was brief. Chicago's six-term Mayor Democrat Richard M. Daley lobbied enough council members to change their vote to enable a mayoral veto. Wal-Mart did arrive in Chicago but not initially as a Supercenter which would compete with local grocers.

However, Chicago's Wal-Mart wars are not over. In March 2009, a city alderman announced a plan to allow Wal-Mart to build a second store in Chicago. In the meantime, Citigroup downgraded Wal-Mart's rating because of worries that unionization might cut into Wal-Mart's profits.

Bill Moyers Journal: A Living Wage in an Ailing Economy?

This week, the JOURNAL introduced James Thindwa, a community organizer in Chicago who has been involved in a lengthy campaign to force big-box stores like Wal-Mart to pay employees a living wage if they want to open locations in the city. Those efforts proved controversial in struggling neighborhoods that lack other employment opportunities.

From interview on tonight's Bill Moyers Journal (video of the interview also available on this page):

William Greider | Bill Moyers Journal - PBS

BILL MOYERS: I read just this morning that there's a nation wide grassroots protest planned for April 11th.

WILLIAM GREIDER: I know some of those kids.

BILL MOYERS: You do?

WILLIAM GREIDER: Yeah, no, I'm excited by it.

BILL MOYERS: They're young people who want to take on banking reform, and reform the financial systems, as a campaign, an ongoing witness.

WILLIAM GREIDER: I know. They call themselves A New Way Forward.

<...>

BILL MOYERS: A corporate state?

WILLIAM GREIDER: A corporate state. And by that I mean a rather small but very powerful circle of financial institutions the old Wall Street banks, famous names. But also some industrial corporations that bought banks. Or General Electric, which is already half of big financial capital, GE Capital. And that circle will be our new Wall Street club. Too big to fail. Yes, watched closely by the Federal Reserve and others in government, but also protected by them. And that's a really insidious departure. To admit that and put it into law. And then think of all those thousands of smaller banks. How are they going to perform against these behemoths that have an inside track to the government spigot? And for just ordinary enterprise in general? Before you even get to the citizens. How are citizens supposed to feel about that? And I-- my point is, in this situation, with if the leading banks and corporations are sort of at the trough, ahead of everybody else in Washington, they will have the means to monopolize democracy. And I mean that literally. Some of my friends would say, hey, that already happened.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, the corporate state is here.

WILLIAM GREIDER: The corporate state is here. And I'd say, let's not argue over that. The fact is, if the Congress goes down the road I see them going down, they will institutionalize the corporate state in a way that will be severely damaging to any possibility of restoring democracy. And I want people to grab their pitch forks, yes, and be unruly. Get in the streets. Be as noisy and as nonviolently provocative as you can be. And stop the politicians from going down that road. And let me add a lot of politicians need that to be able to stand up. Our President needs that to be able to stand up.

naked capitalism: Former Australian Prime Minister Savages Geithner's Performance in the Asian Crisis

"Tim Geithner was the Treasury line officer who wrote the IMF [International Monetary Fund] program for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions to a capital account crisis."

In other words, Geithner fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And his misdiagnosis led to a dreadfully wrong prescription.

Geithner thought Asia's problem was the same as the ones that had shattered Latin America in the 1980s and Mexico in 1994, a classic current account crisis. In this kind of crisis, the central cause is that the government has run impossibly big debts.

The solution? The IMF, the Washington-based emergency lender of last resort, will make loans to keep the country solvent, but on condition the government hacks back its spending. The cure addresses the ailment.

But the Asian crisis was completely different. The Asian governments that went to the IMF for emergency loans - Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia - all had sound public finances.

The problem was not government debt. It was great tsunamis of hot money in the private capital markets. When the wave rushed out, it left a credit drought behind.

But Geithner, through his influence on the IMF, imposed the same cure the IMF had imposed on Latin America and Mexico. It was the wrong cure. Indeed, it only aggravated the problem.

Keating continued: "Soeharto's government delivered 21 years of 7 per cent compound growth. It takes a gigantic fool to mess that up. But the IMF messed it up. The end result was the biggest fall in GDP in the 20th century. That dubious distinction went to Indonesia. And, of course, Soeharto lost power."

Exactly who was the "gigantic fool"? It was, obviously, the man who wrote the program, Geithner, although Keating is prepared to put the then managing director of the IMF, the Frenchman Michel Camdessus, in the same category.

Worse, Keating argued, Geithner's misjudgment had done terminal damage to the credibility of the IMF, with seismic geoeconomic consequences: "The IMF is the gun that can't shoot straight. They've been making a mess of things for the last 20-odd years, and the greatest mess they made was in east Asia in 1997-98, so much so that no east Asian state will put its head in the IMF noose."

China, in particular, drew hard conclusions from the IMF's mishandling of the Asian crisis. It decided that it would never allow itself to be dependent on the IMF, or the US, or the West generally, for its international solvency. Instead, it would build the biggest war chest the world had ever seen.

Keating continued: "This has all been noted inside the State Council of China and by the Politburo. And it's one of the reasons, perhaps the principal reason, why convertibility of the renminbi remains off the agenda for China, and it's why through a series of exchange-rate interventions each day that they've built these massive reserves....

sounds like a human wrecking ball...

Another accelerator to get Chris doing his happy dance!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

It's has been in the news a lot lately, and the prospects of a global currency have Max Keiser, Huffington Post blogger and host of BBC World's "The Oracle," giving dire warnings of the consequences if China or other countries were to make a push for it.

 

Keiser appeared on Aljazeera English's March 27 "Inside Story" to discuss the possibilities of a global currency. Host Darren Jordon asked Keiser about the pitfalls of converting to a global currency and Keiser used it as an opportunity to launch into an anti-American diatribe.

President Obama's new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding for both countries, with U.S. military expenses in Afghanistan alone, currently about $2 billion a month, increasing by about 60 percent this year.

"The president has decided he is going to resource this war properly," said a senior administration official of the plan Obama is set to announce this morning. Along with the 17,000 additional combat troops authorized last month, he said, Obama will send 4,000 more this fall to serve as trainers and advisers to an Afghan army expected to double in size over the next two years.

In outlining his plan after a two-month review that began the week of his inauguration, Obama will describe it as a sharp break with what officials called a directionless and under-resourced conflict inherited from the Bush administration. Far from al-Qaeda being vanquished and the threat to the United States diminished, the official said, "seven and a half years after 9/11, al-Qaeda's core leadership has moved from Kandahar, in Afghanistan, to a location unknown in Pakistan . . . where we know they're plotting new attacks" against this country and its allies.

With stability returning, Oil Minister al-Shahristani has big plans to make his country the fourth-largest oil producer.

With security in Iraq improving, international oil companies are quickly moving in, often with little or no fanfare. Hanter Gasser, Royal Dutch Shell's (RDS) top executive for Iraq, recently spent a week in Basra, site of the country's biggest fields, checking on a joint venture Shell is starting with the Iraqis to find commercial uses for the gas that is flared off during oil production. Gasser says Iraq burns off enough gas to power two countries the size of Jordan.

 Iraqi police officers protecting oil installations north of Basra. Shell is one of about 30 oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP, that are pursuing licensing agreements with Baghdad. Iraq intends to boost production in seven fields holding an estimated 44 billion barrels of reserves, more than a third of its total. Those agreements are supposed to be awarded in a few months. "We have high interest in Iraq, and we are waiting to see the terms," Gasser says. Iraqi oil production, at a low 2.5 million barrels a day, is just where it was before the war. If Iraq produced anywhere near its targeted 6 million barrels a day, it could change the industry's dynamics and curb talk of a looming shortage.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) failed to elect a successor to its outgoing director Mohamed El-Baradei after five rounds of voting, setting the stage for a new ballot and possibly new candidates. 

Both Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano and South African rival Abdul Samad Minty came up short in the vote to install a successor to Mohammed El-Baradei, who will be stepping down as IAEA chief in November after 12 years of service.

In three rounds of inconclusive balloting on Thursday, March 26, Amano, 61, polled more votes than Minty, 69, but fell short of the 24 required under the agency's rules.

On Friday, the board resorted to two runoff, "yes, no or abstain" ballots for each candidate. Amano took 22 "yes" votes, 12 "no" and one abstention. Minty garnered 15 "yes" votes, 19 "no" with one abstention. The nuclear watchdog has a 35-member board.

A new ballot is likely to be held in May, possibly with new candidates

"The slate of candidates is considered to have been wiped clean," Ambassador Taous Feroukhi of Algeria, chairman of the Vienna-based governing board, told reporters.

The past two days have seen pirates hijack two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the highest-profile captures since international navies began patrolling the region's sea lanes. 

Two European-owned tankers were hijacked off the Somali coast within 24 hours of one another, the EU's anti-piracy naval mission confirmed Thursday.

A Norwegian chemical tanker was seized some 720 kilometers off the coast of Somalia on Thursday, March 26, by pirates armed with machine guns.

The European Union's military spokesman said the 23,000-ton  Bow Asir, which is registered in the Bahamas, was captured on its way to the Persian Gulf.

Salhus Shipping, which owns the tanker, said in a statement that the crew numbered 27 members of different nationalities and that they had contacted the company after 16 to 18 pirates came aboard with automatic weapons.

"We have no reports of any injuries," said company director Per Hansen. "We are doing our utmost to ensure the safety of the crew, and have established communication lines with naval forces, insurance companies, flag state and charterer."

Last Saturday, a mother and her daughter who were photographed among the cherry blossoms on the campus of Wuhan University while wearing kimonos, were harassed by angry students and citizens who considered their behavior to be unpatriotic.

The issue has quickly become a hot topic in China.

<...>

It is true that Chinese were badly treated by Japanese aggressors during the war, however, it was Japanese aggressors who were guilty, not cherry blossoms or kimonos. Therefore, it is better to take practical measures to promote traditional Chinese culture rather than appeal to people's patriotism by condemning the two women.

<...>

The cherry blossoms, some of which were planted by Japanese aggressors during Word War Two, have become cultural symbols of Wuhan University after years of growth. Therefore, it is unreasonable to enjoy the cherry blossoms with a sense of nationalism.

Learning to be Submissive

By: Aaron Datesman

My favorite part of being American is the crazy mirror which comes with the gig. When America gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror, somehow we see the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave! This is a fantastic trick, I can't get over it.

This is the reason why I love Michael Moore's movie Sicko so much. Do you remember his interview with the group of American expats in France? "In France, the government is afraid of the people, they're afraid of protests, they're afraid of reactions from the people, whereas in the States people are afraid of the government. They're afraid of acting up, they're afraid of protesting, they're afraid of getting out."

This hits the nail on the head in my opinion. The submission to authority in this culture is unbelievable. I wonder how it got to be this way?

Oh. Maybe this was how:

Sometime the following year, the Security Chief of the Chicago Black Panther Party, the William O'Neill who had told me that now I could see why I had to pick up the gun, was revealed to have been an FBI infiltrator who worked closely with the police. Probably he was the one who put the drug in Fred Hampton's coffee that night, so that he would not be able to wake up when the police came to execute him.

The quote is from From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter, the autobiography of David Dellinger. I should have read this book half a lifetime ago. You should read it, too.

-- Aaron Datesman

UPDATE BY JON: Right on, French people:

Bosses across the world are having to break bad news to employees as companies go under. But that can be a risky business in France, where some furious workers have taken to holding their managers hostage to demand better pay-offs.

In the latest outbreak of "bossnapping", workers at a pharmaceutical factory were Wednesday holding their boss in his office for a second day to force him to improve their redundancy packages.

No wonder Mitch McConnell is so terrified of the United States turning "into France."

Nearby, Bryan Hall, the fourth-generation owner of G.W. Hall & Sons, is in the same predicament. Dorchester County, where the crab-processing industry is based, had a 9.1% unemployment rate in January, second highest in the state. "I know unemployment's up, but I can't find Americans to do this job," Mr. Hall said.

Critics of the visa programs blame sponsors for driving down wages. Mr. Brooks said he offered the no-show hire an entry-level salary of $6.71 plus some incentives by piece and pound, and the potential to double her salary with experience.

"With our competition in Southeast Asia, we can't pay more," he said. "It's just better to close." The irony isn't lost on both sides of the debate: Foreigners are needed so Americans can compete with...foreigners.

To be sure, nearly all players in the global economy have grappled with the question of how open borders should be. In Europe, several countries with steep unemployment rates are paying migrants to return home.

The U.S. government's attitude marks a stark turnaround. During the boom years, Congress actually raised the number of H-1B visas, reserved for highly skilled immigrants. Now, some economists have suggested that allowing more foreigners into the U.S. -- say, an immigrant who buys a house in exchange for a green card -- would actually help jump-start the economy.

But a public beleaguered by lost jobs seems loath to embrace such an idea. The federal economic-stimulus package restricts H-1B hires among companies that receive funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. They must prove they have tried to recruit American workers at prevailing wages and that foreigners aren't replacing U.S. citizens.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that John Roberts misled the Senate during his confirmation hearings by pretending to be a moderate -- and that the United States is now "stuck" with him as chief justice.

Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression, researchers reported Wednesday.

Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly expand similar ongoing research to more than 150 different locations.

"The average person hopefully will see this type of a study and see the importance of us thinking about water that we use every day, where does it come from, where does it go to? We need to understand this is a limited resource and we need to learn a lot more about our impacts on it," said study co-author Bryan Brooks, a Baylor University researcher and professor who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment.

Pope Benedict XVI triggered yet another scandal when he criticized the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS in Africa. Now the protests are taking an unusual form: The pontiff is about to receive a deluge of condoms by post -- gifts from international members of a Facebook group.

Condoms printed to mock Pope Benedict XVI after his polemic remarks that they do not help in the fight against AIDS. When Benedict XVI travelled to Africa, the continent worst-hit by AIDS, he stumbled, once again, head first into an international controversy. His remarks that condoms were not the answer in the continent's battle against the killer virus sparked vociferous criticism from experts and politicans alike.

Now that anger is being expressed in an unusual way: An Italian group on the social networking Web site Facebook is urging people to post condoms to the pope in protest over his remarks. It expects 60,000 subscribers will send a condom to the Vatican on Friday.

The postal protest is "a peaceful provocation ... a reaction to the pope's absurd words on condoms," wrote the Italian organizers of the Facebook group, which now has more than 26,000 members. It said it represented young people "who are the closest and most interested in this kind of question."

They call her "the woman without a face", a serial killer who has stalked Western Europe for more than 15 years, murdering young and old while leaving no witness who could describe her. The Phantom of Heilbronn, as she has also become known - an allusion to the scene of her most notorious crime - has apparently killed, mugged and burgled across Germany, France and Austria, leaving her DNA at 40 crime scenes.

Luckless German detectives have travelled thousands of miles in pursuit, perplexed as to how she could evade capture for so long. A €300,000 (£280,500) bounty has been put on her head.

Now it seems the Phantom might not, in fact, exist: officers believe that her "crime spree" was a fiction created by contaminated cotton swabs.

The Federal Criminal Police Office (FCPO) is investigating the theory amid strong suspicions that the female DNA evidence tracing her career comes from an employee involved in making the swabs or packing the cotton buds. If these fears are confirmed, it would throw the investigations of six murders and multiple burglaries into disarray and, as the head of the Baden-Württemberg state police union put it, be "a very embarrassing story".

The spiral galaxy M104 is famous for its nearly edge-on profile. Seen in silhouette against a bright bulge of stars, the cosmic dust lanes give it a hat-like appearance, suggesting the more popular name, The Sombrero Galaxy

LECCO, Italy: Each morning, about 450 students travel along 17 school bus routes to 10 elementary schools in this lakeside city at the southern tip of Lake Como. There are zero school buses.

In 2003, to confront the triple threats of childhood obesity, local traffic jams and -- most important -- a rise in global greenhouse gases abetted by car emissions, an environmental group here proposed a retro-radical concept: children should walk to school.

They set up a piedibus (literally foot-bus in Italian) -- a bus route with a driver but no vehicle. Each morning a mix of paid staff members and parental volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests lead lines of walking students along Lecco's twisting streets to the schools' gates, Pied Piper-style, stopping here and there as their flock expands.

At the Carducci School, 100 children, or more than half of the students, now take walking buses. Many of them were previously driven in cars. Giulio Greppi, a 9-year-old with shaggy blond hair, said he had been driven about a third of a mile each way until he started taking the piedibus. "I get to see my friends and we feel special because we know it's good for the environment," he said.

One of the world's most prestigious medical journals, the Lancet, has accused Pope Benedict XVI of distorting science in his remarks on condom use.

It said the Pope's recent comments that condoms exacerbated the problem of HIV/Aids were wildly inaccurate and could have devastating consequences.

The Pope had said the "cruel epidemic" should be tackled through abstinence and fidelity rather than condom use.

A BBC correspondent says the Lancet's attack was unprecedentedly virulent.

[...]

"Whether the Pope's error was due to ignorance or a deliberate attempt to manipulate science to support Catholic ideology is unclear," said the journal.

But it said the comment still stood and urged the Vatican to issue a retraction.

"When any influential person, be it a religious or political figure, makes a false scientific statement that could be devastating to the health of millions of people, they should retract or correct the public record," it said.

"Anything less from Pope Benedict would be an immense disservice to the public and health advocates, including many thousands of Catholics, who work tirelessly to try and prevent the spread of HIV/Aids worldwide."

A British engineer from Hampshire has broken the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle.

Richard Jenkins reached 126.1mph (202.9km/h) in his Greenbird car on the dry plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada.

Mr Jenkins told the BBC that it had taken him 10 years of "hard work" to break the record and that, on the day, "things couldn't have been better".

In response to our Stop Supporting The O'Reilly Harassment Machine campaign, UPS told us yesterday that it was investigating whether to continue supporting O'Reilly's show. "We are sensitive to the type of television programming where our messages and presence are associated and continually review choices to affect future decisions," spokeswoman Susan Rosenberg told us.

Today UPS announced it will stop advertising on O'Reilly's show. Here is the statement UPS emailed out just moments ago:

Too much wiggle room left in that, but still -- progress.

Possible Faux News headline: "Brown Shirts Pull Ads from O'Reilly Factor."

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

In research presented at the American Chemical Society's 237th National Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah on March 26, scientists from Georgia describe technology that converts mechanical energy from body movements or even the flow of blood in the body into electric energy that can be used to power a broad range of electronic devices without using batteries.

"This research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics," says lead researcher Zhong Lin Wang, Regents' Professor, School of Material Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The new "nanogenerator" could have countless applications, among them a way to run electronic devices used by the military when troops are far in the field.

The researchers describe harvesting energy from the environment by converting low-frequency vibrations, like simple body movements, the beating of the heart or movement of the wind, into electricity, using zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires that conduct the electricity. The ZnO nanowires are piezoelectric -- they generate an electric current when subjected to mechanical stress. The diameter and length of the wire are 1/5,000th and 1/25th the diameter of a human hair.

In generating energy from movement, Wang says his team concluded that it was most effective to develop a method that worked at low frequencies and was based on flexible materials. The ZnO nanowires met these requirements. At the same time, he says a real advantage of this technology is that the nanowires can be grown easily on a wide variety of surfaces, and the nanogenerators will operate in the air or in liquids once properly packaged. Among the surfaces on which the nanowires can be grown are metals, ceramics, polymers, clothing and even tents.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened to renounce his title of co-prince of Andorra if the tiny country does not change its secretive banking laws, a government minister confirmed on Thursday (26 March).

The Principality of Andorra, a miniscule territory squeezed between France and Spain in the Pyrenees, has been jointly ruled by the two countries since it was established centuries ago.

Mr Sarkozy has been co-prince of Andorra since he became president of France in 2007

The French president and Spain's Bishop Joan Enric Vives Sicilia are the current co-princes of Andorra, which is currently on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD) blacklist of "non-co-operative" financial centres, or, in other words, tax havens.

"He [Nicolas Sarkozy] said he would renounce his title of co-prince of Andorra if all countries that practise these tax haven mechanisms do not behave themselves," French minister for family affairs, Nadine Morano, said on the i-Télé television channel.

Ms Morano was referring to comments made by Mr Sarkozy on Wednesday to deputies from his UMP party.

T IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.