The European Commission has begun consultations on tackling indirect land-use change caused by agro-fuel production, floating the idea that such criteria could be applied more generally to a range of other agricultural commodities.

The EU's new Renewable Energy Directive obliges member states to ensure that 10% of their transport fuel comes from renewable sources, including biofuels, by 2020.

The goal was aimed at contributing towards the bloc's climate goals, but questions have been raised about the unintended consequences of replacing large forested areas and food production with energy crops.

To address this issue, the directive requires the Commission to present a report by the end of 2010 on how such "indirect land-use changes" impact on greenhouse gases and whether they should be tackled.

But a consultation paper seen by EurActiv reveals that the EU executive is ambitiously planning to come up with a document and potentially a legislative proposal as early as next March. This is to ensure that member states can take them into account when submitting their national renewable energy action plans by the end of June 2010.

National government leaders to meet in Brussels in mid-September.

The Swedish government is preparing to hold an extra summit of national government leaders in Brussels in mid-September. 

Sweden, which holds the presidency of the EU, wants the member states to agree on a common position for the G20 summit, which will be held in Pittsburgh on 24-25 September. The Swedes are preparing to schedule a dinner-meeting of heads of state or government on or near 16 September.

A third of voters who decided not to use their ballot in this summer's European Parliament elections only made their decision in the final days of the election campaign, according to a European Parliament Eurobarometer survey conducted in the month following the June poll.

32% of these abstainers said they had decided not to vote either several days before the election (16%), or on election day itself (16%), the survey reveals.

The surveyexternal of 26,830 people across Europe was carried out in the month following the 4-7 June elections. Citizens were asked to give their reasons for choosing whether or not to vote, and, if they did vote, what factors they took into account in deciding which party to vote for.

Half of all abstainers declared an "attachment to Europe" and 36% in that group said they only made the decision not to vote either on election day itself or in the final days leading up to the ballot.

Communists top seemingly fraud-free poll, but opposition is in position to control parliament.

Moldova's opposition parties have won an absolute majority in snap parliamentary elections, putting them in a position to remove the Communist Party from power. 

The Communists emerged as the single strongest party, with 48 seats in the 101-member assembly, but an alliance of three centre-right parties, together with a party led by a former Communist, have a combined 53 seats.

More than 98% of votes have been counted, with the remaining 2% - mostly from expatriate voters - expected to be counted before the end of the day. The final count could cost the Communists another seat.

EIB promises €300 million loan for energy project.

The EU's investment bank has promised a €300 million loan to finance a large  wind farm in the North Sea.

The Belwind project, located 46 kilometres off the coast of Zeebrugge, Belgium, will provide enough energy to power 350,000 households. Construction has already started and is expected to be completed by early 2011.

The cost of the wind farm is €482.5m. On Monday, the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced it would contribute €300 million. The remaining money will come from a consortium of Belgian and Dutch investors, including the banks ASN, Dexia and Rabobank International.

"It is a milestone project," said the EIB's Melchior Kargil. "Given the current situation in the financial markets, this is an important signal for renewable energy."

wink, wink...

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU member states laid aside the advice of their own legal experts in cutting MEPs out of talks on a new bank data deal with the US.

The legal services of the EU council (the member states' secretariat in Brussels) in July put forward a confidential paper saying that the European Parliament should have co-legislative powers on the pact under articles 95 and 300 of the EU treaty, EUobserver has learned.

Over 8,300 banking organisations in more than 208 countries use SWIFT.

But EU foreign ministers on Monday (27 July) opted to give the Swedish presidency the exclusive right to handle talks, citing articles 38 and 24 instead.

"It's not that dramatic," an EU official said. "The council often follows the opinion of its legal services, but not always."

Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in 't Veld sees the move as an affront to democratic principles.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Swedish EU presidency has been forced to defend its human rights credentials after quietly adopting a new trade pact with Turkmenistan.

"Human Rights are important to the Swedish presidency and they are indeed an essential element of the agreement," Sweden's EU ambassador Ulrika Barklund-Larsson told EUobserver on Wednesday (29 July).

"More generally, human rights and the rule of law underpin the EU's relations with Turkmenistan, as with the whole Central Asian region."

Ms Barklund-Larsson's remarks come after two leading advocacy groups attacked the way in which Sweden handled the new treaty.

Spanish authorities have closed ports and airports on Mallorca after two police officers were killed in a bomb attack on the island.

The armed Basque separatist group Eta is suspected to be responsible for the explosion early this afternoon, which reportedly hit a police car on patrol in a street about 400 metres from the town's tourist-packed beaches.

Spanish media reported that an unknown number of people were injured in the blast near the Civil Guard's Palmanova barracks, which is close to several hotels.

It was unclear whether the bomb was attached to the underside of the car or planted in the street.

A regional interior ministry statement said security forces had sealed off the island "to avoid the escape of the terrorists".

The inquiry into the Iraq war may travel to the country to seek testimony from witnesses and gather evidence about the conflict.

Launching the long awaited inquiry, which had been surrounded by controversy, chairman Sir John Chilcott also stated he is considering holding "discussions" with US officials and seek documents from Washington to gage the "international context" of the invasion.

Sir John confirmed that Tony Blair would be called to give evidence and he and other witnesses would be warned about the consequences of not being truthful.

Lithuania's new president has admitted that her country could be forced to seek help from the International Monetary Fund if it fails in efforts to raise more money from foreign capital markets to prop up its teetering economy.

Dalia Grybauskaite, who became Lithuania's first woman president when she was sworn in this month, said the finance ministry was considering "one more shot" at raising money this year after a €500m ($703m, £427m) bond issue in June.

However, in an interview with the Financial Times, she acknowledged that an IMF loan might prove necessary "if external conditions will not allow Lithuania to refinance our debts . . . if the markets are closed".

Welcome to the Cam-Kam, the new dance of the European hard right. Choreographed by William Hague, the new dance-master for the Europe-hating media and Tory millionaire MPs, the Cam-Kam allows the worst of 20th-century politics - dislike of Jews, gays, immigrants - to prance and preen on the European stage.

Named after the alliance between David Cameron and Michal Kaminski, the Cam-Kam reminds watchers of the worst of ultra-nationalist politics.

It shows a side of the Tory leader that is far removed from the Andy Coulson image of the heir to Blair raising politics to a higher plane.

As a child of the post-1968 liberated and liberal Notting Hill classes it is impossible to conceive of Cameron with a gram of anti-gay or anti-Jewish prejudice.

On the contrary, he has spoken warmly of the values and contribution of the Jewish community in Britain and those who have heard him speak do not doubt the sincerity of his views.

Equally he has promoted gay Shadow Cabinet members and apologised for the Tory line on Section 28.

So why this alliance against his own nature with Michal Kaminski, a Polish right-wing politician whose views on Jews, on gays, on immigrants, on President Obama would place him at the very rough end of BNP politics in Britain?

Russia's new president is trying to show the world a more liberal face, but the body count of murdered human rights activists keeps rising. Being a political critic in Russia is getting more dangerous by the day, and now one prominent human rights organization in Chechnya has decided to close its office.

Yet another Russian human rights activist has been silenced in yet another brutal attack. This week unknown gunmen shot anti-corruption activist Albert Pchelintsev in the mouth with rubber bullets, in front of his apartment in the Moscow suburb of Khimki. The 38 year old was seriously wounded in the lower face and jaw but survived the attack.

A long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq war began on Thursday with its chairman pledging to cross-examine in public Tony Blair, the former prime minister, and pull no punches with his findings.

Sir John Chilcot, a former senior civil servant who is heading the inquiry, ruled out a "whitewash" and insisted he would not "shy away" from making plain criticisms where necessary.

"If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so," he said.

The inquiry will examine Britain's involvement in the war from summer 2001 to the end of this month, covering the run-up to the conflict, the legality of declaring war, the invasion and the aftermath. It is the widest remit given to any inquiry into the war.

Britain, the only European power market to shrink in the past six years, wants hedge funds, banks and commodity firms to trade more electricity at a time when Prime Minister Gordon Brown seeks to quash oil speculation.

The U.K. energy market regulator, called Ofgem, is considering asking companies to post electricity prices to attract more participants such as Rampart Capital, a London- based hedge fund that plans to start trading U.K. power. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. will start an electricity auction on Sept. 28 in an attempt to make the market more transparent.

Five months after investors fled Poland on concern eastern Europe was headed for a banking crisis, money is flooding back to one of the few countries to escape the global recession.

Morgan Stanley, Putnam Investments and Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. forecast more gains in the zloty following a 6 percent rally that made it July's best performer against the euro among 26 emerging-market currencies. Citigroup Inc. raised its outlook on Polish shares to "overweight" this week as the WIG20 Index extended its longest monthly rally since 2006. Bonds are soaring after investors bought $3.5 billion of government notes, more than twice the amount planned.

The U.K. government should limit the size of banks operating in the U.K. and introduce a "tax on size" to stop banks taking advantage of becoming too big to fail, according to the latest report from a U.K. parliamentary committee into the causes and consequences of the financial crisis.

"Major banks have managed to establish themselves in a powerful position in the economy," said John McFall, chairman of the House of Commons Treasury committee. "By becoming too large and complex

Banks in the euro area have relaxed restrictions on borrowers from companies and households, while demand for home loans has surged for the first time since early 2006, a fresh survey by the European Central Bank has found.

"These developments confirm a turning-point," the Frankfurt-based bank commented on the change in bank loan behaviour in the 16-member eurozone".

BOSTON, Jul 30 (IPS) - Banks bailed out with U.S. taxpayer money, like Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp, are raking in money by charging 150 percent interest and more on short-term, payday loans to people with no savings, consumer advocates say.

"I think this is outrageous. These banks got billions in bailout funds and now it's business as usual," Jim Campen, executive director of Americans for Fairness in Lending, told IPS.

Once the sole domain of freestanding, paycheque-cashing storefronts, payday loans are proven to send borrowers deeper into debt, while making massive profits for the lender, according to the National Consumer Law Centre.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation changed a rule in 2005 to allow banks to enter the lucrative market of payday lending. In 2008, the FDIC issued guidelines for bank payday loans, with a suggested cap of 36 percent interest.

Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp and other banks have chosen not to follow the voluntary guidelines and instead are charging triple-digit interest on payday loans to cash-strapped customers, according to consumer organisations.

Low-income families with little savings are especially vulnerable to these usury fees, says Chi Chi Wu, staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Centre, one of a number of organisations in support of a nationwide cap on interest rates.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which lost $55bn in 2008, between them paid 1,400 employees bonuses of $1m or more each, according to a New York state report, released on Thursday, on banks propped up with taxpayer funds.

See details of Tarp recipients' bonus payments

The study, compiled by Andrew Cuomo, New York attorney-general, showed that JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, which both finished in the black last year, paid the most million-dollar bonuses - 1,626 and 953, respectively.

However, the totals at a profitable bank such as Goldman were nearly matched by two of the year's biggest losers on Wall Street. Citi, which suffered a $27.7bn loss, paid million-dollar bonuses to 738 employees. Merrill, which lost $27.6bn, paid 696 bonuses of $1m or more.

Two top Chinese banks have set ceilings for new loans this year to rein in a spate of aggressive lending, as regulators raised concerns over credit risks, domestic media reported.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) aims to issue one trillion yuan (146 billion dollars) this year while smaller rival China Construction Bank has set a target of 900 billion yuan, the Caijing magazine reported on its website Tuesday, citing unnamed banking sources.

The ceiling on new loans is "to prevent potential deterioration in assets quality due to unusual lending growth", an unnamed official with China Construction Bank was quoted as saying.

If put in place, the full-year lending ceilings would imply the two banks have already issued around 80 percent of their total lending for the year.

ICBC and China Construction Bank extended 825.5 billion yuan and 709 billion yuan in new loans in the first half of the year respectively, according to the report.

Governments and investment funds are buying up farmland in Africa and Asia to grow food -- a profitable business, with a growing global population and rapidly rising prices. The high-stakes game of real-life Monopoly is leading to a modern colonialism to which many poor countries submit out of necessity.
...
Susan Payne, a red-haired British woman, is the CEO of the largest land fund in southern Africa, which currently includes 150,000 hectares (370,000 acres), mainly in South Africa, Zambia and Mozambique. Payne hopes to raise half a billion euros from investors. She talks about fighting hunger, but the headings on her PowerPoint slides, embellished with photos of soybean fields at sunset, tell a different story. One such heading refers to "Africa -- the last frontier for finding alpha." The word alpha signifies an investment for which the return is greater than the risk. Africa is alpha country.
...
US investment management company BlackRock, for example, has established a $200 million agriculture fund, and has earmarked $30 million for the acquisition of farmland. Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment company, has acquired more than 100,000 hectares in Ukraine. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have invested their money in pig breeding operations and chicken farms in China, investments that include the legal rights to farmland.

A top Indian official damped hopes of a revival of global trade talks on Wednesday, saying the economic downturn had damaged the will for a deal.

Rahul Khullar, India's commerce secretary, said agreement at the Doha round of talks at the World Trade Organisation was out of reach while the world's political leaders faced public anger in their countries over job losses and lack of economic growth.

The assessment will limit ambitions for a proposed ministerial meeting in Delhi and Group of 20 talks in Pittsburgh, US, in September. These were expected to revitalise the stalled talks and help boost the world economy.

The world's financial markets have decided that Asia is rebounding more quickly than most other parts of the world, and capital is rushing to get into those countries before asset prices rise too much.

The monetary policy authorities know this and - given what we have all seen over the past few years (or is that two decades?) - they are rightly worried about new "bubbles" of various kinds that can destabilize their financial systems and undermine their economies.

The growth in debt outstanding is therefore responsible for pulling forward demand - that is, increasing GDP - by about 21%.

That is on average in each year since 1981 the addition to the current debt incurred by private parties (again, not including the government!) has resulted in GDP being 20% higher than it would have otherwise been over the entire 30 year period.

Unemployment Report FAR Weaker Than Claimed

"Initial Claims" were 584,000 today, scream the headlines, and the pumpers all claim this is "better than expected" when looking at continuing claims, which declined slightly to 6.416 million on a 4-week rolling basis.

But those numbers don't include the people who rolled off the original 13 week unemployment rolls and onto the extended programs (which go out to 52 weeks in many cases), and as such the number is being dramatically underreported.

That's a problem - see, there are 2,656,879 people in that bin, an increase of 24,518 from the prior week, and worse, 352,482 people rolled off the 13 week program last week!

So the real increase was about 50,000 people, not 24,000 in the current week, because you have to add back in those that have been removed from the count but are still unemployed!

At a time when the financial industry's credibility is at an all-time low, you would think Wall Street's finest would break their necks providing transparency.

Not so. Stock analysts continue to promote corporate earnings lies, insisting that net income isn't really what investors need to know.

Instead, their earnings estimates ignore often huge expenditures that can't help but affect a company's health.

A Senate panel seeking evidence of fraud tied to last year's mortgage crisis has issued subpoenas to financial companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., said U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma.

Coburn declined to say whether subpoenas were issued to other institutions. Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank by assets, also was sent a subpoena, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry, who declined to be identified because the request isn't public.

Didn't Henry Paulson promise us the TARP was an investment and the taxpayer might even show a profit? Shows the dangers of buying what an ex-Goldmanite is selling.

The TARP losses, as estimated by Ethisphere, are $148 billion as of June 19, so it is a bit dated. The flip side is I am hearing word that we may have more money disappear into the AIG black hole in the coming months. Since AIG has only used $134 billion of the $180 billion authorized (only with AIG and the DoD can you say something like "only $134 billion"), another leg down may not mean an increase in the commitment.

ON vacation in Turkey, I am picked up at the airport by a minibus. It's past midnight, pitch-black, the driver is speeding around corners. Only one headlight is working. And I have my doubts about the brakes. In my head I'm planning the letter of complaint to the tour company. And then the driver's cellphone rings, he picks it up and answers it, he has only one hand on the steering wheel. Now I'm mentally compiling the list of songs to be played at my funeral.

That's rather how I feel when people talk about the latest fashion among investment banks and hedge funds: high-frequency algorithmic trading. On top of an already dangerously influential and morally suspect financial minefield is now being added the unthinking power of the machine.

Inflation Adjusted S&P500 Earnings

Why are so many homeowners underwater on their mortgages?

In crafting programs to prevent foreclosures, policymakers have assumed that the primary reason homeowners owe more on their home than it is worth is that they bought at the top of the market. In other words, they've lost equity primarily through forces beyond their control.

A new study challenges this premise and finds that excessive borrowing may have played as great a role.

Timothy Geithner can't sell his house - The Daily Show

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

While long-time Zero Hedge readers have known our position on the issue (of HFTs) since early April, the basis of our perspective has always been a (very relevant) question. Which is why it is useful to hear those who are directly involved in not only the HFT market, and not only were instrumental in developing the HFT architecture, but have worked for the largest HFT option trading desk in the US, that of Citadel (and likely were sitting one desk away from the likes of Misha Malyshev, made infamous by his involvement in the Aleynikov-GS scandal). We present to you Michael Durbin, who tips his cards in a piece by Reuters' Matt Goldstein who broke the Aleynikov scandal.

   Durbin says it's reasonable to wonder whether Wall Street's unfettered embrace of algorithmic automated trading could be setting the stage for a future meltdown.

    "You have multiple HFT trading firms and sometimes their agendas are complementary and sometimes they're not," explains Durbin, director of HFT research with Blue Capital Group, a small Chicago-based options trading firm.

    "There could be a time where these HFT programs unintentionally collaborate and you have a two- or three-minute period where the markets are going crazy. Then other traders respond to it and it simply gets out of control."

    What Durbin's talking about is the dreaded contagion effect, in which a bad trade or a rogue algorithm misfires -- sparking copycat sell orders at other high frequency desks.

It's the kind of machine-driven crash that sounds like the plot line for "Wall Street" meets "The Matrix".

Of course, if Durbin is right and the regulators finally do something about the inherent risk, the revenue streams that would be cut would reach into the tens of billions of dollars. It is not surprising that so many lay and otherwise voices have sprung up in defense of HFT, some of which have an agenda, others which speak purely out of naivete.

And back to Matt Goldstein:

   Big players in the field like Goldman Sachs, Citadel Investment Group, Getco and Interactive Brokers claim they're mainly providing liquidity -- making it easier for other traders, institutions and investors to get in and out of positions. The vast majority of high frequency traders would have you believe they are nothing more than service providers.

    Yet it's fair to question the necessity of the service that high frequency traders say they are providing. Much of the liquidity high frequency traders are adding to the mix is simply to match trades created by other high frequency traders.

-Skip-

    That's enough for me. It's high time for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and overseas securities regulators to start working together now to assess the potential systemic risks posed by high frequency trading before a problem occurs.

    Again, it's premature for anyone to suggest that regulators either prohibit or severely restrict high frequency trading. But let's be clear what we're talking about here -- this is mainly trading for trading's sake. High frequency trading is simply another way for Wall Street firms and hedge fund to make money.

    There's nothing inherently wrong with profit-driven trading. But if high frequency trading isn't critical to keeping the markets humming, there should be nothing stopping regulators from putting a review of this strategy at the top of their agendas.

Tyler concludes:
We hope that this time, unlike the Flash case, the SEC won't wait until a senator actually reminds it to do its bloody job.

New data from First American CoreLogic shows mortgage delinquencies climbing in June, with both California and Los Angeles posting default rates of about 10%. Yes, a staggering one out of 10 mortgage holders in Los Angeles County and California missed enough mortgage payments to receive a notice of default.

Default notices are the first stage in the foreclosure process. In June, Los Angeles County defaults rose to 9.9% of mortgage holders, from 9.5% in May. That's nearly double the 5.2% Los Angeles default level in June 2008.

The US bailout is a robbery in progress, the greatest heist in monetary history. But consider for a moment: what if it actually works, what if the financial sector is saved and the economy returns to the course it was on before the crisis struck? Is that what we want? And what would that world look like?

The answer is that it would look like Sarah Palin. Hear me out - this is not a joke. We're so busy laughing at her we may not have given sufficient consideration to the meaning of the Palin moment. Think about it, Sarah Palin stepped on to the world stage as vice-presidential candidate on 29 August 2008 at a McCain campaign rally. Two weeks later, on 15 September, Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering the global financial meltdown.

An investigation into the kidnapping of five British men in Iraq has uncovered evidence of possible collusion by Iraqi government officials in their abduction, and a possible motive - to keep secret the whereabouts of billions of dollars in embezzled funds.

A former high-level Iraqi intelligence operative and a current senior government minister, who has been negotiating directly with the hostage takers, have told the Guardian that the kidnapping of IT specialist Peter Moore and his four bodyguards in 2007 was not a simple snatch by a band of militants but a sophisticated operation, almost certainly with inside help. Only Moore is thought still to be alive.

Witnesses to the extraordinary operation which led to the abductions have also told us that they have been warned by superiors to keep quiet.

China has taken the unusual step of moving a $5bn refinery and petrochemical plant, one of the country's biggest foreign investment projects, after a public outcry, a senior Communist party official said on Thursday.

The decision to relocate the plant is the highest-profile victory so far for China's loosely organised but increasingly aggressive environmental and community activists.

Wang Yang, party secretary of Guangdong province and south China's most powerful politician, attributed the decision to shift the joint venture project of Sinopec, the Chinese state owned refiner, and Kuwait Petroleum Corp, to "strong criticism from the community".

Tens of thousands of Iranian protesters took to the streets of central Tehran tonight to clash with security forces after a day of unrest marking the memory of Neda Soltan, the young woman whose killing came to symbolise the brutal crackdown after June's disputed election.

Dense clouds of tear gas mingled with acrid smoke from burning rubbish carts and tyres as crowds defied a ban on public meetings to converge on Vali Asr, Vanak and Haft e-Tir squares - focal points for opposition demonstrations in the seven angry weeks since the presidential poll.

Iranian riot police used tear gas and wooden batons to disperse thousands of opposition supporters in central Tehran on Thursday as they massed to commemorate those killed in the unrest after the disputed June 12 presidential election, witnesses said.

The authorities had denied permission to hold any formal mourning ceremonies, but in what appeared to be the most serious street challenge by the opposition in weeks, the witnesses said, demonstrators gathered around a large prayer venue, the Grand Mosala, as well as in central Vali Asr square, where tens of thousands had gathered in the street demonstration in the days following the election.

Earlier Thursday, police and demonstrators clashed at a cemetery in the city's southern outskirts where some of those killed in the postelection violence were buried, including Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who was shot and whose bloodied image, circulated widely on the Internet, has become an icon of the post-election crackdown.

The opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who has asserted that the election was stolen from him in a massive fraud, was among the thousands who arrived at the cemetery, but the police surrounded him and forced him to return to his car before he could offer prayers, news reports said.

Some in the crowd chanted Mr. Moussavi's name and "death to the dictator!" according to videos posted on the Internet and witness accounts reported by The Associated Press. When another opposition leader, reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, attempted to give a speech, the police moved in, firing tear gas and swinging wooden batons at the mourners, news reports said.

The leader of an Islamic sect blamed for days of deadly violence in Nigeria has been killed in police custody, police officials say.

The news came just hours after security forces said they had captured Mohammed Yusuf in the city of Maiduguri.

Mr Yusuf led Boko Haram, which wants to overthrow the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

Hundreds of people have died in five days of clashes between his followers and security forces.

"He has been killed. You can come and see his body at the state police command headquarters," Isa Azare, spokesman for the Maiduguri police command, told Reuters news agency.

His bullet-riddled body was shown on state television, AFP news agency said.

Large parts of West Africa are struggling to get back online following damage to an undersea cable.

The fault has caused severe problems in Benin, Togo, Niger and Nigeria.

The blackout is thought to have been caused by damage to the SAT-3 cable which runs from Portugal and Spain to South Africa, via West Africa.

Around 70% of Nigeria's bandwidth was cut, causing severe problems for its banking sector, government and mobile phone networks.

"SAT-3 is currently the only fibre optic cable serving West Africa," explained Ladi Okuneye, chief marketing officer of Suburban Telecom, which provides the majority of Nigeria's bandwidth.

"So all West African countries have to use it."

The Taliban have called on people in Afghanistan to boycott next month's presidential and provincial elections.

In a statement on a Taliban website, the movement ordered fighters to block roads on the eve of the elections and stop voters going to polling stations.

The statement said that participation in the vote would be a show of support for "invading Americans".

Afghanistan has seen a rise in violence ahead of the poll and there are grave concerns about security on the day.

A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that the Iraqi forces suffer from deeply entrenched deficiencies but are now capable of protecting the Iraqi government, and that it is time "for the U.S. to declare victory and go home."

A woman and her two sisters who came to Beijing from southern China during the Paralympics last September to protest property seizures but were arrested have been sentenced to one year of detention for vandalism, the woman said in a telephone interview on Thursday.

The woman, Huang Liuhong, had already been held for nearly a year in a hotel -- known as a black jail -- while awaiting trial.

Russia and Cuba have signed contracts that "set the bases" for Russian oil company Zarubezhneft to search for oil in Cuba's part of the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba's state-run press said on Wednesday.

In its online edition, Communist Party newspaper Granma said four oil-related contracts had been signed during a visit on Tuesday by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to the island that was his country's close ally during the Cold War.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered that one of the youngest detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, be released by late August in a case that drew wide attention because of rulings that he had been tortured by Afghan officials and abused in American custody.

"Enough has been imposed on this young man to date," the judge, Ellen Segal Huvelle, said in a courtroom crowded with people drawn by what had become a confrontation between the judge and the Obama administration.

But it was not clear Thursday whether Judge Huvelle's order will mean freedom for the detainee, Mohammed Jawad, who has long faced American charges that, as a teenager, he threw a hand grenade in Kabul in 2002 that injured two American servicemen and their Afghan interpreter.

The Obama administration is supporting moves to implement a U.N. doctrine calling for collective military action to halt genocide.

The next step is to see if the countries in favor of implementing the policy will act when a new genocide is brewing if all other diplomatic actions fail. The doctrine is political, not legal: Although these countries have expressed the political will to act, they aren't legally bound to.

The U.N. just concluded a weeklong debate on implementing the doctrine, which was endorsed by U.N. members in 2005.

Wealthy taxpayers have inundated the Internal Revenue Service in recent weeks with requests to come clean for past tax evasion, amid a government crackdown on undeclared income from overseas accounts.

The volume has been so great that Wednesday, the IRS issued a streamlined, three-page form for taxpayers seeking entry into its temporary voluntary-disclosure program.

"Last week we had 400 [applicants] -- four times as many as in all of last year," said IRS spokesman Frank Keith, who declined to provide more detailed figures.

Yahoo! LEDE: Town halls turn into house of horrors for Congressmen
HEADLINE: Town Halls Gone Wild

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety -- welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

"I had felt they would be pointless," Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district. "There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation." ...

Bishop isn't the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were "refused an opportunity" to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.

The targets in most cases are House Democrats, who over the past few months have tackled controversial legislation including a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a landmark energy proposal and an overhaul of the nation's health care system. ...

ahahahaaa

In other news, 10 y.o. Militant Electrician asks, How much freakin' money does the federal government want anyway?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Climate change is speeding up the release of carbon dioxide from frigid peatlands in the sub-Arctic, fuelling a vicious circle of global warming, according to a study to be published Thursday.

An increase of just 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) over current average temperatures would more than double the CO2 escaping from the peatlands.

Northern peatlands contain one-third of the planet's soil-bound organic carbon, the equivalent of half of all the CO2 in the atmosphere.

Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation found in wetlands or peatlands, which cover between two and three percent of the global land mass. While present in all climate zones, the vast majority of peatlands are found in sub-Arctic regions.

A team of European researchers led by Ellen Dorrepaal of the University of Amsterdam artificially warmed natural peatlands in Abisko, in northern Sweden, by 1.0 C over a period of eight years.

The experimental plots exhaled and extra 60 percent of CO2 in Spring and 52 percent in Summer over the entire period, reported the study, published in the British journal Nature.

Engineers developing Nasa's new rockets have denied that the agency's human spaceflight plans are too expensive, too risky and subject to long delays.

The US space agency has already spent four years developing its next-generation rockets, called Ares.

The engineers defended their work before a presidential panel tasked with reviewing Nasa's plans beyond 2010, when the shuttle is due to be retired.

They said Ares was the safest, fastest way to get Americans back into space.

Critics have asked questions about the technical scope of the next-generation human spaceflight programme, known as Constellation, and Nasa's ability to manage its cost.

Can we have our fish and eat it too? An unusual collaboration of marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists says the answer may be yes.

In a research paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science, the two groups, long at odds with each other, offer a global assessment of the world's saltwater fish and their environments.

Their conclusions are at once gloomy -- overfishing continues to threaten many species -- and upbeat: a combination of steps can turn things around. But because antagonism between ecologists and fisheries management experts has been intense, many familiar with the study say the most important factor is that it was done at all.

China's government said it shut down many of its smaller and dirtier power plants nearly two years ahead of schedule, as the world's biggest consumer of coal took advantage of the weak global economy to boost efficiency and cut pollution in its vast network of generators.

But China's overall power-generating capacity surged by about one-fifth over the period, underscoring the challenges China faces as it tries to balance its energy needs with its growing desire to fight pollution.

The National Energy Administration said Thursday that since 2007 it had closed 54 gigawatts of coal- and oil-fired power plants as part of the cleanup plan. That would amount to about 7% of China's current electricity-generating capacity.

Coal piles in Central Appalachia are overflowing as producers see less demand and increased reliance on cheaper and cleaner natural gas.

Mountains of coal are piling up along the winding roads of Central Appalachia, a boon to buyers and a bane to miners.

Coal companies centered in this region, which includes parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, are seeing far fewer shipments to utility companies and steelmakers, resulting in contract renegotiations or cancellations for many of them.

A new analysis says the coal sector will have to cut production 50 million tons this year, on top of even steeper cuts earlier in the year, to get supply in line with demand.

MESA. Arizona, Jul 30 (IPS) - A three-day widely publicised immigration raid by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office left the city of Mesa like a ghost town. Small businesses closed. Workers stayed home to avoid being pulled over and questioned for documents.

"There was panic and fear," said Magdalena Schwartz, a pastor at the Disciples of the Kingdom Free Methodist Church in Mesa, who received numerous calls from residents.

"Children are afraid of being separated from their parents," she added.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has the largest police force in the nation deputised to enforce U.S. immigration laws. His raids in mostly Latino neighbourhoods have raised concerns over racial profiling - and prompted a call to end his 287(g) agreement with the federal government.

His latest controversial sweep happened weeks after Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced new guidelines to put the focus of the programme's Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with local law enforcement on the capture of criminal immigrants.

But while some see the chances as a positive step, civil rights advocates argue they are minimal and cosmetic.

MONTEVIDEO, Jul 30 (IPS) - The girls who attend the school of Villa García, a township on the outskirts of the Uruguayan capital, are still playing dolls and dress up - only now they do it on their laptop computers.

After they finish grade school, many of these girls will quickly leave their childhood behind, having their first baby when they're still in their teens, just like their mothers, aunts or other women in this impoverished community did.

In the 1970s, this school stood out for its participatory educational approach and for providing equal learning opportunities for all. But, like most schools in the country, it has since lost ground in terms of gender equality and now, perhaps without meaning to, it perpetuates stereotypes that condition girls and boys for certain roles.

Villa García's was the first school in the Montevideo metropolitan area to receive the computers distributed under the central government's one-laptop-per-child programme, known as CEIBAL (a Spanish acronym that stands for Basic Computer Connectivity in Education for Online Learning, but also coincides with the name of Uruguay's national tree, the Ceibo), which seeks to promote digital equality and to democratise knowledge.

Its pupils are among the large proportion of boys and girls who live under the poverty line in Uruguay: almost half of the child population of this small South American country of just 3.4 million inhabitants.

The aim of this innovative initiative championed by socialist President Tabaré Vázquez is to give every schoolchild and teacher in Uruguay their own personal computer, thus bringing disadvantaged communities into the digital age.

But the programme failed to include gender considerations in its contents, and as soon as kids are allowed to play freely with their computers, boys go straight to online games typically associated with their sex and girls look for doll, dress-up and fashion makeover games, Adriana Font and Karen Souza, two young teachers who work at the school, told IPS.

Genetic evidence is revealing that human populations began to expand in size in Africa during the Late Stone Age approximately 40,000 years ago. A research team led by Michael F. Hammer (Arizona Research Laboratory's Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona) found that sub-Saharan populations increased in size well before the development of agriculture.

This research supports the hypothesis that population growth played a significant role in the evolution of human cultures in the Late Pleistocene. The team's findings are published in the online peer reviewed journal PLoS ONE on July 29.

Reconstructions of the timing and magnitude of changes in human population size are important for understanding the evolution of our species. There has been a longstanding disagreement whether humans began to increase in number as a result of innovative technologies and/or behaviors formulated by hunter-gatherer groups in the Late Pleistocene, or with the advent of agriculture in the Neolithic.

Victory for Debbie Purdy after historic ruling in right-to-die legal battle

Prosecutors must spell out policy for MS sufferer in assisted suicide case Britian's highest court issued a historic judgment today that could finally remove the fear of prosecution from people who travel abroad to support relatives seeking an assisted suicide.

In a unanimous ruling, the law lords ordered the director of public prosecutions to immediately draw up a policy that would spell out when prosecutions would and would not be pursued.

The ruling was strongly in favour of Debbie Purdy, 46, who has multiple sclerosis and who has been fighting to protect her husband should he accompany her to a clinic in Switzerland that specialises in euthanasia. She had argued that the law was unclear and uncertainty surrounding the issue breached her human rights.

Speaking outside the House of Lords after the judgment Purdy, from Bradford, said she was "ecstatic".

Authorities in China have highlighted inadequate knowledge of contraception and poor sex education as major factors in the high number of abortions there.

There are 13 million abortions each year, compared to 20 million births, according to newly published research.

Researchers believe the real figure could be even higher because there are many abortions at unregistered clinics.

Other countries have higher rates. They include Russia - which some years has more terminations than births.

IT IS one of the biggest mysteries in human evolution. Why did we humans evolve such big brains, making us the unrivalled rulers of the world?

Unrivalled? What about rats and cockroaches?

Some 2.5 million years ago, our ancestors' brains expanded from a mere 600 cubic centimetres to about a litre. Two new studies suggest it is no fluke that this brain boom coincided with the onset of an ice age. Cooler heads, it seems, allowed ancient human brains to let off steam and grow.

Please go ahead and post your items, it's a DIY!

A group of young women in Kiev has woven itself into the crowds along Khreshchatyk, the city's main boulevard. They're wearing pink pantyhose, miniskirts and high heels. They carry placards saying: "Ukrainian girls are not for sale." Nastia, a recent high school graduate, says: "Today, we're going on patrol."

At a press conference in Rome this morning, Pope Benedict XVI has officially confessed that persistent rumours that he and most of his predecessors are Antichrist are in fact true. This shock revelation vindicates centuries of campaigning by evangelical groups in the US and Northern Ireland.

It has emerged that for at least five hundred years successive popes have all been working behind the veil of holiness to further the purposes of Satan on Earth. When this began is uncertain, though historians agree that it must have been before the time of Alexander II Borgia, whose pathological feasting, gambling and whoring are now seen as classic examples of displacement activity by a man who could not come to terms with his dual role.

Protestants from Cromwell to Ian Paisley have consistently asserted that the Bishop of Rome was the human personification of Satan, but now the present incumbent has finally put his hands up and declared `Yup, fair cop, you've got me banged to rights.'

Benedict apologised `whole-heartedly' to Catholics across the world for having pretended to be the Vicar of Christ when in fact he consorted nightly with the hell-born spawn of Beelzebub. However, he insisted he had not known the truth until shortly after his election as Pope in April 2005. `I was stunned when the Keeper of the Keys told me this in a private briefing - it certainly isn't what I came into the priesthood to do. I thought I was one of the good guys' said the German-born pontiff and former Hitler Youth member. `But there's no way to resign from the post and, well, I assumed if it was OK for the great John Paul II, it must be OK for a humble tiller in the fields of the Lord like me.'

In his early days, Benedict said, he was amused to see even non-Catholic MEPs rise up in anger when the Reverend Ian Paisley denounced him as Antichrist in Strasbourg. `I stood there thinking, if only you knew,' he said. `But really I was a complete fraud and I'm glad that it's all out in the open at last.

Only Brock Lesnar can save the GOP nowfrom William K. Wolfrum's Blog by William K. Wolfrum

Hey Republicans, quit your whining and listen up. You keep bitching about every thing going against you guys and then who do elect to run your party? Michael Steele? As incompetent and milquetoast a person rarely walks the planet. Well, it's time to grow a pair. There is just one man alive who can bring the Republican Party back to the power it once commanded.

Brock Lesner.

In human history, no nation has ever had access to a human so close to being pure Terminator. The UFC Heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar is a ruthless 6-3, 270-pound killing machine. His mammoth skull contains a brain disinterested in anything but violence. And his German/Yeti heritage means he's as pure a white man as you'll find this side of Brian Kilmeade.

Yes, Brock Lesnar is the only one who can lead the Republican Party now. Sure, his political knowledge is non-existent, but if he can at least name who the current President is, he'll be more or less on par with Steele.

As an added plus, he's Brock Freakin' Lesnar. No more worries about creating sophisticated political ads.

Brock Lesnar is every Conservatives ultimate fantasy human. Lesnar is Joe the Plumber on more steroids and with less intellect. Lesnar is Sarah Palin with a better rack and ability to finish what he starts. Lesnar is everything conservatives ever wanted, and even whiter than they could have ever hoped.

So, Republicans, I ask you this: Do you really want to be an ineffectual party only interested in blocking legislation, or do you want to kick ass? Elect Brock Lesnar as your new National Committee Chairman. He is a huge, mindless, narcissistic wrecking machine with a bad attitude. Brock Lensnar is everything the GOP as all about.

-WKW