Twenty-five Romanians who were the victims of racist intimidation in Belfast left Northern Ireland today, with 75 others due to leave later this week.

The Stormont social development minister, Margaret Ritchie, confirmed earlier today that 100 of a group of 114 who had been targeted in racist attacks wanted to return to Romania.

Ritchie said only 14 of the Romanians subjected to the attacks - a family of seven and seven single men - had opted to remain in Belfast.

Meanwhile, the Belfast church in which the Romanians took shelter after the attacks has been vandalised.

Seven windows in the Belfast City church were smashed and the front door damaged in the attack, which happened overnight.

Ukraine's parliament has set a date for the country's presidential election, ending a dispute over its timing.

It will be held on 17 January, after a motion proposing that date was approved by 399 out of a total of 450 lawmakers.

The vote had been scheduled for October 2009, but President Viktor Yushchenko challenged that date and received the backing of the Constitutional Court.

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his former ally and political rival, says she also intends to run for president.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in Italy on his first official trip to Europe, where he is expected to push Rome, and later Paris, to toughen sanctions against Iran.

Netanyahu first met for talks with his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi, on Tuesday to discuss the situation in the Middle East, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But at their joint press conference, he focused on Iran, praising the courage of Iranian protesters and calling Tehran the "greatest threat to peace" in the region.

French naval vessels detected a weak signal from the flight data recorders, according to French newspaper Le Monde.

They said that a mini submarine has been dispatched on Monday to try and find the black boxes on the bottom of the ocean floor.

The "black boxes" may contain vital information that could help explain what happened when the Airbus A330 aircraft crashed into the sea en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1.

Germany has more Muslims than it originally thought, with nearly half of them holding German citizenship and thus able to vote in elections, according to a government survey released Tuesday, which found Muslims were religious but tended to be less socially integrated.

Muslims make up five percent of Germany's 80 million population, two percent more than most common estimates, according to the first survey of German Muslims.

Muslims in Germany are the largest minority in the country and Europe's second largest after France. Despite immigrating to Germany since the 1960s, German Muslims continue to suffer from a catalogue of deprivations like unemployment, lack of education and political representation.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt says the European Union is putting Croatia's EU entry talks on ice after the country failed to resolve a border spat with neighboring Slovenia. 

Setting out the main priorities for Sweden's upcoming six-month EU presidency, Bildt told a news conference in Brussels on Monday that the Croatia-Slovenia issue was a bilateral matter, and that no fresh attempts would be made to settle the border dispute.

"I think now is the time for a period of reflection in both countries. This is a bilateral dispute," he said, adding it was primarily up to Slovenia and Croatia to resolve the row, which dates back to the 1991 break-up of Yugoslavia.

Last week an EU mediation bid to resolve a land-and-sea border dispute between Croatia and EU member Slovenia collapsed.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - In a historic speech before a joint session of the French parliament on Monday (22 June), President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the global economic crisis meant that "nothing will be the same any more" and pleaded for change in both France and Europe as a whole.

"The crisis is not over. We don't know when it will end," Mr Sarkozy told the 920 parliamentarians and senators gathered together as the French Congress at the Palace of Versailles, once the home of Louis XIV.

The French president spoke before senators and parliamentarians for the first time since the 19th century

"Thinking of the crisis as brackets that will soon be closed ... would be a fatal mistake. Nothing will be the same ever again. A crisis of this magnitude always calls for profound questioning. We cannot witness such a catastrophe without questioning the ideas, the values, the decisions that led to such a result," the president went on.

The French leader, who was the first president to speak before parliament since Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in 1848, talked about the country's need to modernise its labour market, schools, universities and pension system.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - One year after its launch, the European Commission says pure "market forces" are ensuring its lobbyist register is a success but critics say the refusal to make it mandatory is a fatal weakness as law firms and think-tanks drag their feet in signing up.

With 1,600 entries on the register, representing thousands of individual lobbyists, and a signing up rate of about 30 to 40 a week, the commission says its "voluntary approach (..) has been confirmed by these numbers."

The commission has no plans to make the register mandatory

Corporate inhouse lobbyists and trade representatives account for around 900 of the entries with the system asking for the area of interest, number of employees and amount of money spent of representing its interests to the EU. NGOs make up most of the rest.

Jens Nymand Christensen, the commission official in charge of the issue, said commission staff is now being actively encouraged to ask lobbyists or companies looking for some face time if they are in the register.

The Netherlands - The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.

In 2006 the inhabitants of Amsterdam engaged in some 2 million trips a day, an 8% reduction compared to 1990. This is due to the number of trips per person per day falling from 3.6 to 3.1%. The number of transfers has fallen in the old city within the ring road in particular.

The number of trips by car, compared to 1990, has fallen in all districts (-14%), whereas the number of trips by bicycle has only risen within the ring road (+36%)...

Amsterdam is doing this right.

Europe and the United States have announced co-ordinated action against China for breaking World Trade Organisation rules, raising fears of a damaging trade war in the depths of the global recession.

The US trade representative issued a statement this afternoon criticising restrictions China has placed on exports of raw materials, to the disadvantage of American firms. Together with Europe, the US will start formal "dispute resolution consultations" at the WTO, claiming China has breached the rules of the international marketplace.

Regulators will not be distracted from the 'radical' reforms on pay and capital requirements required at the banks despite early signs of economic recovery, Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has pledged.

Giving evidence before the Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday, he said: "There is a danger, because we are now seeing positive signs, that there could be some drawing back from the degree of radicalisation required. [We must] ensure we're not sitting here again in 10 to 15 years' time. We are going to make sure we are being radical enough."

Nearly one in six "prime" mortgages in the UK have fallen into negative equity, according to ratings agency Fitch. Households in Sunderland and Northampton are suffering most from the property crisis, it reveals.

Northern Rock has the most once-prime loans now in negative equity, said Fitch, with 32% of the mortgages in its controversial "Granite" book higher in value than the homes they are secured against.

The lender had specialised in offering 125% "Together mortgages" which combined a 100% home loan with a personal loan and were aimed at first-time buyers struggling to get on to the property ladder.

Protesting workers held the executive chairman of TDF, the French television broadcast operator, hostage today in the latest case of bossnapping in France.

About 600 employees invaded the group's headquarters outside Paris to demand the withdrawal of a redundancy plan.

Patrick Babin, the executive chairman, was detained in his office, before being released as the striking staff joined a protest march.

"We're asking him to scrap his restructuring plan," said Bruno Rabardel, a representative of the Confédération générale du Travail union.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Trade representatives from the European Union and Australia say they will push for further progress on the Doha round of multilateral trade talks at a meeting in Paris this week.

"I'm going to Paris with the very strong conviction that we now need to move forward speedily and we need to set a timetable [for the talks]," said European trade commissioner Catherine Ashton following a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday (23 June) with Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean.

Trade ministers from around the World will meet on the sidelines of an annual ministerial meeting of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris later this week (24-25 June) to assess the political willingness to officially resume the Doha talks that stalled in July 2008.

Several non-OECD members have also been invited to the meeting including India, Brazil, Chile, China, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa, whose agreement will prove vital to securing a multilateral deal.

European nations need to find a "credible exit strategy" for their public finances as the aid shelled out to shore up banks could reach 16.5 percent of GDP, an EU report warned Tuesday.

In its annual report on public finances, the European Commission estimated the direct fiscal costs of the current crisis in the EU anywhere in a broad band from 2.75 percent to 16.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

* Unite 'appalled' by size of pay package

* Shareholders say price target could encourage risk-taking

* City institutions believe RBS should reconsider deal

A pay deal for Stephen Hester, the Royal Bank of Scotland's chief ­executive, which could reach £15m provoked anger from unions, shareholders and politicians last night as the state-­controlled bank reignited the public furore over ­boardroom pay.

RBS was accused of missing an opportunity to set an example and put a lid on bankers' pay following the £20bn taxpayer bailout of the Edinburgh-based bank in which the government has a 70% stake.

City institutional investors believe the bank should reconsider Hester's pay package which comprises cash, shares, options, credit notes and debt and will pay out its maximum amount in three years if the taxpayer makes an ­estimated £8bn profit on its shareholding in the bank.

Boeing delays maiden Dreamliner flight

Boeing has been forced to postpone the first flight of its troubled 787 Dreamliner, its flagship new aircraft development programme, after discovering a weakness in the structure of the jet.

The US aircraft maker, which was already running nearly two years behind schedule, had been due to make the maiden flight by June 30.

(...)

The problems at Boeing are a stark reminder of the daunting complexity of developing new generation large commercial aircraft and follow more than two years of delays suffered previously by Airbus in bringing its A380 superjumbo into commercial service.

Boeing is greatly increasing the use of lighter materials in the 787, including the first all-composite airframe, and has tried to streamline manufacturing and assembly processes and to outsource much more of the engineering and manufacturing to suppliers around the globe.

For the first time the wings of a Boeing aircraft are being made in Japan, which is accounting for 35 per cent of the airframe in total, with other key outside suppliers in Italy and the US. Boeing said it was engaged with both Mitsubishi and Fuji Heavy Industries in engineering the necessary reinforcement parts.

The unexpected stresses in the structure had been found in 36 places, 18 on each side of the aircraft, at the join of the wing to the body, each in areas of one to two square inches.

The A380 delays were a sign that Airbus's multinational structure and management, laden with heavy state interference, did not work. This time, of course, it is just because of the complexity of designing aircraft.

Europe. Is. So. Doomed.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

June 24 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's export slump deepened in May, casting doubt on the nation's growth prospects as the economy struggles to emerge from its worst postwar recession.

Shipments abroad dropped 40.9 percent from a year earlier, more than April's 39.1 percent decline, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The median estimate of economists surveyed was for a 39.3 percent decrease. From a month earlier, exports fell 0.3 percent, the first deterioration since February.

Declines in shipments to Asia accelerated for the first time since January, damping hopes that demand from the region will spur a recovery in the world's second-largest economy. A worldwide stock market rally stalled this month on concern that the global recession will deepen.

"Final demand just isn't picking up and it's still hard to expect a very strong economic recovery," said Azusa Kato, an economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. Kato said the economy will "barely expand" in 2010 once the effect of Japan's own economic stimulus measures fades.

The FT reports that the OECD warns on pension crisis:

   Strains in pensions systems, in both private and public provision, threaten to turn the financial crisis of the past two years into a social crisis lasting for decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned on Tuesday.
    In its annual analysis of the health of pensions systems globally, the Paris-based organisation found private pension plans lost 23 per cent of their value last year, while higher unemployment "leaves little room for more generous public pensions.
    Angel Gurría, the OECD secretary-general said: "Reforming pension systems now to make them both affordable and strong enough to provide protection against market swings will save governments a lot of financial and political pain in the future".

At the heart of the financial industry are highly leveraged businesses. Their central activity is creating and trading assets of uncertain value, while their liabilities are, as we have been reminded, guaranteed by the state. This is a licence to gamble with taxpayers' money. The mystery is that crises erupt so rarely.

Such a crisis is not only the result of a rational response to incentives. Folly and ignorance play a part. Nor do I believe that bubbles and crises can be eliminated from capitalism. Yet it is hard to believe that the risks being run by huge institutions had nothing to do with incentives. The unpleasant truth is that, today, the incentive to behave in this risky way is, if anything, even bigger than it was before the crisis.

Regulatory reform cannot end with incentives. But it has to start from incentives. A business that is too big to fail cannot be run in the interests of shareholders, since it is no longer part of the market. Either it must be possible to close it down or it has to be run in a different way. It is as simple - and brutal - as that.

Can't argue with that!

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Gandhi

Iranian authorities said they would teach an exemplary lesson to "rioters" held in the worst unrest since the birth of the Islamic Republic and pressed accusations that violence was being incited by Western powers.

"Those arrested in recent events will be dealt with in a way that will teach them a lesson," the official IRNA news agency quoted senior judiciary official Ebrahim Raisi as saying on state television late on Monday.

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, has said that Moscow aims to hold a peace conference before the end of 2009 to help resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

After holding talks in Cairo with Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, Medvedev said a two-state solution, the issue of settlements and a future capital would be on the agenda at the meeting.

Medvedev said: "We paid special attention to Middle East issues. We highly appreciate efforts by the Egyptian president to create an atmosphere of trust and co-operation in the region.

"[The] Moscow Middle East conference, which we plan to hold before the end of the year, will also contribute to achieving this goal."

Nairobi -- An old man with a walking stick trudges while being guided by an aide. 'Mzee, have you been blind since childhood?,' I curiously ask. "No," says M'njau Ndei. "My eyes were gouged out for being a Mau Mau supporter.'

When in March, 1959, 11 inmates died in the Hola camp, the investigating magistrate, W. H. Goudie, blamed officially-sanctioned brutality for the deaths.

So what now? Today, the Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Mau Mau War Veterans Association will file a suit in London against the British Government for human rights abuses and torture. It is expected that the British Government will present a range of legal arguments to stall the case, deny responsibility or refute the allegations. The case could drag on for years.

The wazee are in London to make their plight known to the British public. And what will they be asking for? An apology at the very least and some form of reparation to enable them to live their sunset years with some degree of dignity, comfort and security.

Earlier this month, Zainuddin criticised Mehsud after an attack on a mosque which killed 33 people.

He told Associated Press: "Whatever Baitullah Mehsud and his associates are doing in the name of Islam is not a jihad, and in fact it is rioting and terrorism".

"Islam stands for peace, not for terrorism," he had said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling to Washington this week to discuss the financial crisis and climate change with US President Barack Obama -- two issues where Germany and the US are deeply divided. In the new world order, Europe is looking increasingly irrelevant for the US.

When US President Barack Obama recently met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Dresden, he did something completely unexpected in the middle of their conversation: He deviated from the program.

When high-ranking politicians meet, the program is one of the most important elements. It includes the agenda and the things a politician is expected to say. Chancellors and presidents like to stick to a program, because it gives them security.

Food shortage fears have prompted the Chinese government to suspend the reforestation of marginal arable land, a senior government official said today .

The sacrifice of a key environmental restoration project for crop production highlights the growing problem of feeding the world's biggest population as cities expand into farmland and urban residents consume more meat and vegetables.

Lu Xinshe, deputy head of the ministry of land and resources, said the country was struggling to hold the 120 million hectare "red line" considered the minimum land areas needed for food self-sufficiency

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is due this week to make one of the most keenly awaited decisions about land ownership in the Amazon rainforest.

The president has to decide by 25 June whether to veto parts of a bill that is due to transfer an area of public land - estimated to be around 670,000 square kilometres (259,000 square miles) - into private hands.

The government originally introduced what is called "Provisional Measure 458" as a way of bringing security to small farm owners in the Amazon region.

But critics say the proposal amounts to an amnesty for land-grabbers, and that the original measure has been altered by Congress in a way that will only serve to encourage deforestation.

It's burning season on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where vast tracts of vegetation are being torched and clear-felled to meet the soaring global demand for palm oil. The pace is especially frenzied in the peat swamp forests of the Tripa region, one of the final refuges of the critically endangered orang-utan - and a company owned by one of Britain's most venerable trading groups is among those leading the destructive charge.

In Indonesia, one of the largest palm oil companies is Astra Agro Lestari, a subsidiary of Astra International, a Jakarta-based conglomerate which is itself part of Jardine Matheson, a 177-year-old group that made a fortune from the Chinese opium trade and is still controlled by a Scottish family, the Keswicks, descendants of the original founders.

Oil companies are salivating over the supply of black gold beneath Ecuador's rainforest. The South American country is pledging to keep the oil in the ground -- if the international community provides compensation. Now Germany has taken a leading role in raising the necessary cash.

There are many attributes which make the Yasuni National Park special: It is one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet, it is home to indigenous tribes which hunt and gather in its remote interior, and there's a unique breed of small bat. But the national park also has a geographic curse: It sits atop Ecuador's largest known oil reserve, thought to contain hundreds of millions of barrels.

And this potential fortune threatens its very future. In response, Ecuador has come up with an unusual plan to safeguard the UNESCO biosphere Reserve. The cash-strapped South American country has pledged to leave the oil in the ground forever -- something unheard of among oil nations -- if the international community compensates for some of the lost income.

The scheme, which was first mooted by Ecuadorian President Raphael Correa more than a year ago, got off to a slow start. By the end of the year the country extended its self-imposed deadline, in a last ditch bid to rally international support. Meanwhile, international oil giants were queuing to exploit the supply of black gold.

But now, all of a sudden, the ball seems to be rolling. Following a two-day visit by the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Fander Falconí to Berlin, Germany had positioned itself at "the forefront of the initative," the Ministry for Economic Cooperation said.

Detail of one of Mars' moon, Phobos

Ananova - Man digs 50ft hole to fish - in his kitchen

Man digs 50ft hole to fish - in his kitchen

A Chinese farmer dug a 50ft hole inside his house to go fishing.

 Li Huiyan, of Chongqing, hired 30 villagers for six months to dig the hole in his kitchen, reports IC Media.

He wanted to reach an underground river which he suspected was full of fish.

The river had been over ground but had disappeared 30 years ago when the local authorities bombed part of a mountain to pave a road.

Li explained: "The river used to have so many fish, and by simply putting a net there, hundreds of fish would be caught."

 After digging his pit down to the river, Li installed a fishing net across it and regularly hauls out fish, so far earning his family nearly £2,000.

"I sell the fish at a wholesale price of 24 yuan (£2.15p) per kilo, but 36 yuan (£3.20p) per kilo for retail," he said.

great round-up, Fran And Sassafrass!

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

Nokia Siemens Network has confirmed it supplied Iran with the technology needed to monitor, control, and read local telephone calls.

It told the BBC that it sold a product called the Monitoring Centre to Iran Telecom in the second half of 2008.

In a career that has spanned five decades, artist David Hockney is still at the cutting edge of art.

The 72-year-old has embraced new technology by using his iPhone to create new works of art.

Speaking about his iPhone work, Hockney said: "One morning recently, I made a drawing on my iPhone while I was still in bed, of flowers through the window, and the sunrise, which I could then [email] to 12 people, without it ever having been photographed or printed, and that's very new."

New details of how Britain would have been governed in the event of a nuclear war from the 1960s into the 1990s have been disclosed with the publication of the secret War Book.

The document, over 16 chapters, gives precise plans and instructions for what would have been done by officialdom during the build-up to an international confrontation and after the bombs started falling.

There are indications that aspects of the arrangements have been adapted for use during other, domestic, emergencies since the cold war, including the fuel protests in 2000.

Many in the West still think of communist East Germany as a consumer wasteland, devoid of attractive products. Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, SPIEGEL ONLINE takes stock of GDR department store shelves and, through archival material, uncovers a lost world.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in einestages.de, SPIEGEL ONLINE's award-winning history portal.

The discrete directive to journalists was clear: "Don't do anything that might awaken people's needs." The edict from the German Democratic Republic's Socialist Unity Party was meant to help protect the people of the communist state from anything that could spark Western-style consumer desires.

 Shopping sprees may be the norm in capitalist societies, since they boost demand in a supply-side economy. The economy of East Germany, however, became one of scarcity starting in the 1970s -- the GDR's citizens became increasingly sophisticated and began wanting more than the system could possibly supply. Necessities such as bicycles and washing machines were no longer enough -- leading the ruling party, the SED, to try and curb consumption.

Still, it's not as if East German store shelves were empty of products. The selection might not have been Macy's or Marks and Spencers -- and the products may have lacked the glossy packaging of their Western cousins -- but they existed nonetheless. Indeed, East Germany had its own brands -- they just happened to have a socialist spin. And until the Berlin Wall fell 20 years ago, East Germans lived a consumer world of their own.

• frequent job ads advising "older than 40 need not apply"
  
• to join the National Police one has to be under 30
  
• a 36-year old volunteer firefighter was barred from joining the corps by a 35-year age limit set by the Catalan regional government
  
• a human rights lawyer has challenged in court 15 separate public employment contests covering a total of 30,000 public jobs, on the grounds of age discrimination.

But I am a bit shocked that the article claims there is little social awareness of this problem. I have known this since my early teenage years because of anecdotal evidence from family friends.

For more on age discrimination see the recent discussion of the diary Ok, I am pissed at Europeans by Jeffersonian Democrat on May 16th, 2009.

A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds; a man of deeds and not of words is like a garden full of turds — Anonymous

Research shows that people prefer to be addressed in their right ear as they will find it easier to process the information and are therefore more likely to perform a task.

Known as the "right ear advantage", scientists believe it is because information received through the right ear is processed by the left hand side of the brain which is more logical and better at deciphering verbal information than the right side of the brain.

According to the study, office space per employee was an average 23.4 square metres in Helsinki, which is more than in any other large Euroepan country. By global comparison, only Washington DC had more office space per employee.

Moscow has the most crowded offices, where workers have only 7.8 square metres on average.

Wives of the world leaders due to attend next month's G8 summit in Italy should boycott the meeting because of Silvio Berlusconi's "sexist" and "offensive" attitude to women, a group of Italian female academics has said.

A number of wives, including Sarah Brown and Michelle Obama, are to join their husbands at the summit, although the wife of the Italian Prime Minister will not be hosting as she is seeking a divorce.

Veronica Lario announced the end of her marriage at the end of April after Mr Berlusconi attended the 18th birthday party of an aspiring model.Since then, a series of allegations about his personal life has emerged.

Prosecutors in Bari, southern Italy, are investigating "inducement to prostitution" by a local businessman after an escort girl claimed women were paid to attend Mr Berlusconi's parties in Sardinia and Rome.

Mr Lonely, for fans of the bizarre.

Director:"cue grams, ready camera 1...and 3, 2 , 1"

....

Director: ready camera 1. Slow zoom and....wait for it (1.03). Zoom"

"OK. Strike the set. On to 22b."

You can't be me, I'm taken