Hungary's ruling Socialist party was last night facing substantial losses in local elections following two weeks of street protests sparked by the Prime Minister's admission that he had lied to win re-election.

The vote was widely seen as a referendum on the leadership of Ferenc Gyurcsany, whose government has been badly shaken by a leaked tape in which he admitted that he deliberately misled voters about the state of the economy.

With more than 80 per cent of the votes counted last night, the opposition Fidesz party seemed poised to win the mayorships in 15 of Hungary's 23 largest cities, as well majorities in the county councils in 18 of the 19 counties - most of which had previously been held by the Socialists.

Moments after polls closed, the country's President, Laszlo Solyom, accused Mr Gyurcsany of undermining confidence in democracy, apparently calling on the parliament to replace him. In a nationally broadcast speech, he said Mr Gyurcsany "does not acknowledge that he used improper means to hold on to power and then begin putting the state finances in order ... this undermines the trust in democracy."

Austria's Social Democrats last night celebrated an unexpected, if narrow, general election victory, evicting the Christian Democrat chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, from office after six years in power.

While Alfred Gusenbauer, the Social Democratic leader, primed himself to be chancellor - an outcome that confounded all the opinion polls - he was likely to reach out to Mr Schüssel's party to form a "grand coalition" of the two big parties.

Mr Schüssel's Austrian People's party (OVP) suffered a chastening defeat, down eight points on four years ago, with 34.2% of the vote, compared to 35.7% for the Social Democrats. The hard-right Freedom party, led by the Viennese populist, Heinz-Christian Strache, came third with more than 11%, the Greens mustered 10.5%, and the former extreme-right champion, Jörg Haider, looked likely to scrape into parliament with just over the 4% needed to qualify for seats.

EU and US officials were hoping Sunday to avoid a legal vacuum threatening to disrupt transatlantic travel after failing to reach agreement on the transfer of airline passenger data before a court deadline passed.
European negotiators flew out of Washington on Saturday after the US side introduced fresh requirements which were not within their mandate to accept, EU sources said.

However transatlantic airlines continued Sunday to hand over the information required by the US authorities, regardless of any legal vacuum, according to airline spokesmen.

Both the US and EU sides stressed that they were close to an agreement and that discussions would continue this week, with EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini and US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff likely to speak by telephone on Sunday.

"There is no deal. It's a shame because we are 90 percent there," EU spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters in Brussels on Sunday. "The EU team has flown out of Washington but talks will continue this week."

NEW YORK: The 15 million Muslims residing in Europe today do not pose a threat to European values or politics given the extent of their myriad divisions and internal fragmentation, a new study has said.

This conclusion contradicts analysts and policymakers who after 9/11 fear the impact of Muslims on European politics and policy based on the assumption that a Muslim bloc will soon emerge to dominate the foreign and domestic policies of European states if nothing is done to prevent it.

The findings of the study, coauthored by political scientists - Carolyn M. Warner and Manfred W. Wenner - at Arizona State University and entitled "Religion and the Political Organization of Muslims in Europe," appeared in 'Perspectives on Politics,' a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

The authors explore the diversity that characterizes Muslims in Europe as well as the documented instances of their inability "despite plentiful incentives, opportunities, and pressure to do so" to form coherent political fronts in countries like France and Germany that host large Muslim populations.

"Western fears and criticisms are partly based on serious ignorance of the characteristics of Islam and of the people in Europe who adhere to it," the authors said, pointing out that "Islam is a highly decentralized religion 'structurally biased against facilitating large scale collective action."

To the applause of fellow passengers, the Jewish designer was escorted from a New York flight as a potential bomber. Because, he tells Sophie Goodchild, of his holiday tan

Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients. This means the hip architect is familiar with the irritations of heightened airline security post-9/11. But not even he could have imagined being mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and physically pinned to his seat while aboard an American Airlines flight - especially as he has Jewish origins.

Yet this is what happened when he travelled back from a business trip to the Turks and Caicos islands via New York on 22 May. Still traumatised by his ordeal, the 47-year-old is furious that the airline failed to protect him from the gung-ho actions of an over-zealous passenger who claimed to be a police officer. He has now instructed a team of top US lawyers to act for him.

The London-based interiors guru, whose clients have included Peter Mandelson and the husband-and-wife design team Suzanne Clements and Ignacio Ribeiro, said he felt compelled to speak out to protect other innocent travellers from a similar experience.

"This man could have garrotted me and what was awful was that one or two of the passengers went up afterwards to thank him," said Mr Stein. He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear "Arab".

FLEURANCE, France - Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius joined a growing field of Socialist presidential contenders Sunday, formally announcing his candidacy for the party's nomination for the French presidential elections.

    Fabius, who trails in polls behind Socialist forerunner Segolene Royal, said in southern France on Sunday that he would seek his party's nomination. He is the third Socialist to make his candidacy official.

    "I have decided, if the party militants so wish, to be the presidential candidate," he told some 200 supporters in the city of Fleurance. "I took this decision because France is in need of a change, a change which can come only from the left."

    "The task won't be easy," Fabius said, adding he was confident of his chances at winning the nomination during the party's November primary.

    Just 6 percent of respondents to a recent opinion poll said they would like to see Fabius win the Socialist nomination. According to the poll, published in Sunday's the Journal de Dimanche newspaper, leading hopeful Royal held on to her commanding lead over rivals, with 49 percent. The poll of 961 people was conducted by telephone Sept. 28 and 29 the Ifop agency. No margin of error was given.

   Fabius took a swipe at Royal, saying that polls do not always accurately reflect public opinion. Royal announced her candidacy on Friday, and another Socialist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has also announced he will seek the nomination.

· High alert as four officers are held on spying charge
· Putin accuses leadership of act of state terrorism

Infuriated by the arrests of four Russian officers on spying charges, Moscow has put its troops in Georgia on high alert and ordered them to "shoot to kill" to defend their bases in the former Soviet republic.

In his first public comments on the escalating crisis, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, yesterday accused Georgia of "state terrorism" and compared the arrests to the repressions of Stalin's secret police chief, Lavrenty Beria.

The commander of Russian military forces in Georgia, General Andrei Popov, said Russian law authorises the use of force to defend bases abroad from aggression. "We are ready to thwart any possible attempts to penetrate our facilities using all means, including shoot to kill," he said. Mr Putin held an urgent meeting with armed forces chiefs, top ministers and the heads of intelligence services to discuss Russia's response to the arrests.

Europe needs to start cutting its 2m-strong armed forces to take account of competition to recruit young people as the continent's population ages, according to a report expected to be endorsed by EU defence ministers tomorrow.

The report warns that personnel costs are likely to rise sharply by 2025, when the average European will be 45 years old and private sector employers will vie with the military to recruit from a dwindling pool of young people. It calls on European armed forces to outsource to the private sector, increase automation and eliminate excess capacity.

"Do Europeans between them really need nearly 10,000 main battle tanks and nearly 3,000 combat aircraft?" asks the European Defence Agency, in a paper that examines the defence challenges in 20 years' time.

Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, will describe the paper - drawn up with the help of Europe's military planners and foreign policy experts - as "a compass bearing to help us advance into the fog of the future".

Italy's ruling centre-left -coalition raised income tax for high earners in a 2007 budget that government ministers defended yesterday as necessary to narrow the gap between the wealthy and less well-off.

"We've done a budget in which my first concern was the rights of the weak," Romano Prodi, prime minister, told reporters. "Those who have less are being strongly helped, so thatthe country can develop -better."

The budget contains €33.4bn ($42.3bn, £22.6bn) of revenue-raising measures and spending cuts, of which €14.8bn will go to reducing Italy's budget deficit, as agreed with its European Union partners. The deficit will fall to 2.8 per cent of gross domestic product from 4.8 per cent this year.

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, finance minister, told the Financial Times in an interview: "The government will fully realise the task of reducing the deficit to 2.8 per cent of GDP. This is what we agreed with Brussels, and this is what we will do."

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The United States formally joined the 46-nation Council of Europe in waging war on cyber crime and urged other governments to do the same.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Washington had submitted its ratification of the Convention on Cybercrime to the Strasbourg, France-headquartered council and that the agreement would take effect on January 1, 2007.

The convention adopted by the Council of Europe in 2001 is the only legally binding multilateral accord specifically addressing computer-related crime, McCormack said in a statement.

It deals with computer hacking and Internet fraud as well as crimes involving electronic evidence, child sexual exploitation, organized crime and terrorism.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Bosnians turned out in large numbers for parliamentary elections on Sunday to choose politicians who will lead the deeply-divided impoverished Balkan nation after international supervision ends next year.

The preliminary turnout figure was 43.9 percent, election organizers said. But more people went to the polls than in 2002, when the turnout was 55 percent, because the number of registered voters has risen by 400,000 to 2.75 million.

"The turnout figure should be much higher after we get data from 16 bigger municipalities," said election commission head Branko Petric.

Bosnians voted for Serb, Croat and Muslim members of the presidency and parliament as well as the president and two vice-presidents in the Serb Republic. They also cast ballots for the assemblies of the two regions and 10 federation cantons.

Preliminary results for the state presidency are expected late on Sunday. Others will not be known before Monday because of a complex process of counting the votes and allocating mandates for Bosnia's multi-layer government structure.

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - Brazil's leftist president was falling just short of the majority of votes needed to avoid a runoff and win re-election Sunday after his party was slammed in the final days of the campaign with charges of corruption and dirty tricks.

With 83 percent of the ballots counted, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had 49.6 percent of the vote compared to 40.7 percent for center-right Sao Paulo state Gov. Geraldo Alckmin, election authorities said.

Silva, who had been favored to win due to the economic stability and anti-poverty programs he brought to Brazil, needs 50 percent plus one vote to win the contest Sunday. If he fails to get that, he and Alckmin head to a runoff on Oct. 29.

Silva's campaign manager, Marco Aurelio Garcia, said a first-round win for the president was still possible because many of the uncounted votes were from Brazil's impoverished northeast, which has benefited handsomely from government social programs.

09/30/06 "The Independent" --- - In antiquity, Pliny wrote of the cliffs of Bayada. The chalk runs down to the Mediterranean in an almost Dover-like cascade of white rock, and the view from the top - just below the little Lebanese village of Chama'a - is breathtaking. To the south lies the United Nations headquarters and the Israeli frontier, to the north the city of Tyre, its long promentary, built by Alexander the Great, lunging out into the green-blue sea. A winding, poorly-made road runs down to the shore below Chama'a and for some reason - perhaps because he had caught sight of the Israeli warship off the coast - 58-year-old Ali Kemal Abdullah took a right turn above the Mediterranean on the morning of 15 July. In the open-topped pick-up behind him, Ali had packed 27 Lebanese refugees, most of them children. Twenty-three of them were to die within the next 15 minutes.

The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Lebanon as it is already forgotten abroad. War crimes are easy to talk about when they have been committed in Rwanda or Bosnia; less so in Lebanon, especially when the Israelis are involved. But all the evidence suggests that what happened on this blissfully lovely coastline two and a half months ago was a crime against humanity, one that is impossible to justify on any military grounds since the dead and wounded were fleeing their homes on the express orders of the Israelis themselves.

Mohamed Abdullah understands the reality of that terrible morning because his 52-year-old wife Zahra, his sons Hadi, aged six, and 15-year-old Wissam, and his daughters, Marwa, aged 10, and 13-year old Myrna, were in the pick-up. Zahra was to die. So was Hadi and the beautiful little girl Myrna whose photograph - with immensely intelligent, appealing eyes - now haunts the streets of Marwahin. Wissam, a vein in his leg cut open by an Israeli missile as he vainly tried to save Myrna's life, sits next to his father as he talks to me outside their Beirut house, its walls drenched in black cloth.

"From the day of the attack until now, lots of delegations have come to see us," Mohamed says. "They all talk and it is all for nothing. My problem is with a huge nation. Can the international community get me my rights? I am a weak person, unprotected. I am a 53-year-old man and I've been working as a soldier for 29 years, day and night, to be productive and to support a family that can serve society and that can be a force for good in this country. I was able to build a home in my village for my wife and children - with no help from anyone - and I did this in 2000, 23 years after I was driven out of Marwahin and I finished our new home this year." And here Mohamed Abdullah stops speaking and cries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- In the world's biggest economy, one in eight Americans and almost one in four blacks lived in poverty last year, the U.S. Census Bureau said on Tuesday, both ratios virtually unchanged from 2004.

The survey also showed 15.9 percent of the population, or 46.6 million, had no health insurance, up from 15.6 percent in 2004 and an increase for a fifth consecutive year, even as the economy grew at a 3.2 percent clip.

It was the first year since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 that the poverty rate did not increase. As in past years, the figures showed poverty especially concentrated among blacks and Hispanics.

In all, some 37 million Americans, or 12.6 percent, lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 for an individual or $20,000 for a family of four. The total showed a decrease of 90,000 from the 2004 figure, which Census Bureau officials said was "statistically insignificant."

A group of 16 organizations of writers, artists, musicians, cartoonists and publishers has issued a statement asking the Cultural Affairs Agency to extend copyright protection from 50 years after their deaths to 70 years -- just as in Europe and North America.

<snip>

"Unless the protection is extended to 70 years as quickly as possible, criticism from overseas will mount," said Hiromi Kawakami, a senior official at the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers.

"The problem will become global when the copyright protection for music of John Lennon and Elvis Presley expires," Kawakami said.

This spring, Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, and Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, sent letters to then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, asking him to extend copyright protection.

Novelist Masahiro Mita, vice president of the Japan Writers Association, said behind the request is an increase in life expectancy and the idea that families depend on the money they get from copyrights even after the artists have died.

"Especially in Japan, there are many 'I' novels, and authors have made subject matter of their family's private business," he said, indicating it is natural for relatives to receive royalties for a long time.

<snip>

Hideaki Shirata, an assistant professor at Hosei University, opposes the extension of copyright protection.

"Culture should be a public property which can be enjoyed freely by all people. A cultural life is the one in which many people can get in touch with works and can easily take part in creation," he said.

"The extension of copyright protection will narrow that down."

This is extremely disheartening.  More people need to read Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 1 -- Two American citizens of Pakistani descent returned to the United States on Sunday, five months after they were denied permission to fly home to California unless they submitted to an interrogation by F.B.I. terrorism investigators.

The men, Muhammad Ismail, 45, and his son, Jaber, 19, of the Northern California farming town of Lodi, returned from Pakistan on a flight that landed at Kennedy Airport in New York around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. They were scheduled to arrive in California on Sunday night or early Monday on a connecting flight, their lawyer said Sunday.

The Ismails are an uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a Lodi man who was convicted in April in federal court of providing material support to terrorists. Mr. Hayat told investigators he had attended a terrorism training camp during a long stay in Pakistan and intended to carry out unspecified attacks in the United States. Mr. Hayat's father, Umer, was convicted on a lesser charge of lying to investigators about the amount of cash he carried to Pakistan on a 2003 trip, but a jury deadlocked on terrorism charges.

The Ismails were not charged in the case. They attributed their predicament to being related to the Hayats, the only people to have been charged in what federal prosecutors have described as an investigation into possible terrorism links in Lodi.

MANAMA, Bahrain, Sept. 29 -- Just months before Bahrain is to hold parliamentary and municipal elections, a former government adviser has set off a political firestorm with a report describing what he says is a vast conspiracy to rig the elections, manipulate the country's sectarian balance and ensure Sunni domination over the country's majority Shiites.

The scandal, which is being called "Bandargate" after the author of the report, Salah al-Bandar, reaches to the core of this tiny island kingdom's simmering tensions.

The report includes hundreds of pages of supporting material, apparently authentic, including canceled checks, hotel bills, accounting sheets and notes. The material suggests that at the very least, unusual business dealings were occurring between government officials, Mr. Bandar says, and that it may have amounted to an effort to set off ethnic conflict.

[...]

In all, Mr. Bandar contends, the documents indicate that $6 million was spent to plant articles in Bahraini newspapers, organize counterdemonstrations when Shiites held protests, set off cellphone text-message campaigns against opposition figures and even support a program to convert Shiites into Sunnis. Government officials have dismissed Mr. Bandar as a disgruntled employee with ulterior motives, insisting that the report is a fabrication.

A Middlesex businessman is to become the first person in the world to use air miles to be blasted into space.

Alan Watts, 51, from Harrow, has flown upper class with Virgin Atlantic to the US around 40 times in the past six years.

It earned him two million air miles - enough to pay for the £100,000 trip to space with Virgin Galactic.

Mr Watts, the managing-director of an electrical engineering firm, said it would be the most exciting thing he has ever done in his life.

"The nearest I've come to space before was going on the Space Mountain ride in Florida," he said.
The businessman will have three days of training before boarding the spacecraft, which travels at almost 5,000kph.

Richard Branson revealed that Mr Watts would be among the first passengers as he unveiled a model of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShip2 in New York.

Shameless recommendation.

Al Gore's take on global warming: 'An Inconvenient Truth'.
Film now in theatres in Europe:

Belgium : 11 oct.

The Netherlands 12 oct.

Other country's?

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

         Arno                                                                                                                 Axelle Red                                                                      

The initiative for the free open air concerts comes from Tom Barman, front man of the Flemish band dEUS. Barman says that the concerts are intended to blast away racism and promote tolerance.

It's no coincidence that the concerts are being staged one week before the local elections. All eyes will be focused on the performance of the far right Vlaams Belang that hopes to capture Antwerp City Hall, but also in Brussels and Charleroi the far right Front National is expected to pick up many votes.

Ghent is an example of a city that seems to have successfully stemmed the advance of the far right extremism.

The events were covered yesterday afternoon on TV and radio.
For Belgium, 100.000 people is huge.
So there is some hope.


The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)