EurActiv.com - Commission to name 'chief scientific advisor' | EU - European Information on EU Priorities & Opinion

Following in the footsteps of Barack Obama in the United States, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso plans to appoint a chief scientific advisor to assist the incoming EU executive in making tough decisions on everything from GMO authorisations to addressing climate change.

The new job, to be created after the new-look EU executive is sworn in, forms part of an ongoing period of major reflection inside the Commission, which is re-organising its directorates in charge of science, research and innovation.

"We need a fundamental review of the way European institutions access and use scientific advice," said President Barroso earlier this month, announcing  his intention to "set up a chief scientific adviser" to the next Commission.

The adviser would have the power "to deliver proactive, scientific advice throughout all stages of policy development and delivery," Barroso explained, reflecting "the central importance" he attaches to research and innovation.

RFI - Up to 60 Calais migrants could be released

A total of 276 people, many of whom are from Afghanistan, were held following the raid in the northern port of Calais earlier this week.

About 130 of the migrants were sent to detention centres but judges in the southern cities of Nimes, Toulouse and Marseille ruled that nearly 60 of them should be freed.

A judge in Nimes ordered the release of 35 migrants.

Some were freed because their age cannot be determined and they could be minors, making their  detention in camps illegal.

Others were released because their 20-hour journey from Calais had been "unreasonably long", given that they could have been sent to detention centres in the north.

He said the trip took up almost half the 48-hour period they could legally be held and the migrants' right to defend themselves "had not been provided" during the journey.

Prosecutors in all three cities have appealed against the decisions and the migrants are being kept in custody while the appeals are considered.

European Voice: 'No' to Lisbon treaty camp gaining ground in Ireland

Opponents of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland appear to be gaining ground, according to an opinion poll published today (25 September) by the Irish Times, but the `Yes' voters are still in the lead.

With the referendum only a week away, support for the Lisbon treaty has risen to 48%, according to the poll. In the last Irish Times poll, published in early September, the `Yes' side was put at 46%. However, the `No' side has also gained ground, from 29% to 33%, as the number of undecided voters has dwindled from 25% to 19%.

If the undecided voters are excluded from today's opinion poll, the treaty would now be approved by 59% to 41%, according to the Irish Times.

New York Times (Reuters): Polish Church Elders Call For Russia to Be Forgiven

A senior Polish bishop said Saturday Poland must forgive Russia for Soviet crimes in order to improve relations, speaking at a graveyard of more than 4,000 Polish officers killed by Josef Stalin's army in 1940.

Russia and Poland are at loggerheads over the actions of Soviet leader Stalin in 1939, when he clinched a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that opened the way for the invasion of Poland and world war.

"The fate of those killed is already in the hands of God," Tadeusz Ploski, a Catholic Polish army bishop, told a group of 250 prison guards visiting Katyn to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of War World Two.

Council fights back over MEPs' budget attacks | Policies | EU governance | Council of Ministers | European Voice

The Council of Ministers has fought back against accusations from MEPs that it has been secretive about its 2007 accounts and failed to account for transfers of tens of millions of euros.In April a majority of MEPs voted to postpone approving the Council's 2007 accounts in a bid to exact more information about the spending. MEPs said that future decisions on approving the accounts would
depend on "greater transparency and closer parliamentary scrutiny" of Council spending on foreign and security policy.

Detailed response
The Council secretariat has drawn up a document with detailed responses to each point on which the Parliament asked for more information. The document, which was discussed by EU ambassadors on 10 September, says that the Council's use of 44 `suspense accounts' in which transactions are booked temporarily is "normal business practice" in all EU institutions. It says that unspent funds intended for interpretation costs were transferred to pay for delegates' travel expenses but  this was in line with an agreement on unused funds. The Council stressed that the money was not used to pay for missions by Council secretariat staff or Council delegates.
The Council said that the Parliament was mixing up operational spending for foreign policy missions, which are paid for by participating governments, and administrative spending.

The Council also issued a veiled warning to MEPs not to break an established `gentlemen's agreement' under which the Parliament and Council do not comment on each other's spending.

TheNews.pl: Poland EU agenda for 2011

Dziennik Gazeta Prawna presents the programme for Poland's EU presidency, which falls in the second half of 2011.

The main aims of the Polish rotating leadership of the EU are the strengthening of the EU's defence policy and energy security of Europe, writes the paper.

Poland wants to convince EU partners that the European Defence Agency should have the capabilities to purchase the most technologically advanced weapons, and a representative of the EU should take part in the North Atlantic Council which would increase EU influence in NATO. As far as energy security is concerned, Poland wants the EU to be prepared in case of a total cut in gas supplies from Russia. The daily highlights the fact that plans are already outlined to allow for immediate assistance to a country that might find themselves in such a position.

In an interview for Rzeczpospolita, Poland's Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, says that Poland's security should have its foundations in this country's NATO membership and in European security policy. Poland should be able to defend itself in situations when the US or NATO do not want to get involved, says Minister Sikorski.

Also see Quatremer (fr).

BBC: Spain unveils abortion law change

Spain's socialist government has formally unveiled plans to liberalise the country's abortion law.

Under the proposal approved by the cabinet, abortion would be made available on demand for the first time.

Girls as young as 16 would be allowed to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent.

Ministers say it is about "rights and respect" for women. The conservative opposition says young people may see abortion as a form of contraception.

Independent: Tory right set for showdown over Lisbon Treaty vote

David Cameron faces a showdown with his MPs over a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, in a sign that old wounds over Europe are reopening in the run-up to a general election.

Amid indications that Ireland will vote "yes" in a national vote on the treaty this Friday, Tory MPs on the right of the party are mobilising for an "ambush" of the leadership at the Conservative party conference in Manchester two days later.

By contrast, a "yes" vote would boost Tony Blair's hopes of becoming the first permanent president of the EU - an appointment created by the Lisbon Treaty.

Independent: Merkel fluffs her lines as election rivals close in

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, rallied her party faithful for one last push on the eve of today's election, arguing that only the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) would keep the country on a stable course, re-energise the economy and safeguard the interests of working people. The election is expected to be close, perhaps very close, with the last polls showing the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) continuing to close the gap on the centre-right CDU-CSU alliance.

Ms Merkel, who hopes to serve a second term at the head of a new, less constrained, coalition, with the free-market FDP rather than SPD, had returned from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh only hours before. She cited her international experience and stature in support of her bid to remain in power. But tiredness told, and Ms Merkel, while her serious and feisty self, at times appeared hesitant and less fluent than usual.

Telegraph - Rat plans to leave sinking ship Lord Mandelson: I would work for Tories

In an interview, the Business Secretary said he would be willing to put his experience at the disposal of the country, if Labour lost power. "As I grow older, I can imagine more ways of serving my country than simply being a party politician," he said.

The best way he has ever served the ocuntry was when he was (serially) walking out of downing St having been sacked.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Guardian - Labour leadership 'has lost will to live', says Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling has revealed his frustration at the collapse in Labour morale under Gordon Brown, accusing his party - from the prime minister down - of handing power to the Tories without a fight.

On the eve of what many MPs believe could be Labour's final conference as a governing party for a decade, the normally restrained chancellor delivers a stinging rebuke to the entire Labour hierarchy, which he says appears to have lost "the will to live", and warns that a Conservative government would "crash the economy".

keep to the Fen Causeway

G20: Leaders Agree on Reforms, Poor Still "Out in the Cold" - IPS ipsnews.net

PITTSBURGH, Sep 25 (IPS) - World leaders at the two-day G20 Summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh agreed to work cooperatively to recover from the global economic crisis and create structural reforms with long-term growth as the goal.

In their end of meeting statement, the heads of the world's biggest economies also vowed to reform banking sectors and raise capital standards, replace the G8 with the G20 as the primary forum for international economic diplomacy, endorse a World Bank-led food security initiative for the world's poorest countries, and commit to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Catching most observers by surprise was the announcement that the G8 would now be supplanted by the G20, a more representative body of the world's most powerful countries but a far cry from the inclusive global governance called for by the world's poorest countries and development NGOs.

The G8 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, Russia and the United States. The G20 adds Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey and the European Union.

"The G20 is more representative than the G8 but there is still no seat at the table for the poorest countries," said Oxfam senior policy adviser Max Lawson. "South Africa is the only African country included in this club. That means when the G20 talks about growth and stability, they are leaving the poorest countries in the cold."

G20: Stiglitz and Sen Come In Too Late - IPS ipsnews.net

BERLIN, Sep 23 (IPS) - A new report on Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress presented earlier this month in Paris by Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen is a late, and quite modest contribution to an old debate, many experts say.

Not many believe it can influence the discussions at the G20 in Pittsburgh Sep. 24 and 25.

Stiglitz and Sen prepared the report on the request of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and were expected to produce, as Sarkozy put it, "a statistical revolution" on national and private enterprise accounts that would leave behind standard economics indicators in use, such as the gross domestic product (GDP).

But the report progresses little beyond other work under way over years to develop indicators such as environmental degradation, health, and social wellbeing.

"The elder among us economists are very amused," Christian Chavagneux, editor of the French economics monthly Alternative Economiques, told IPS. The first questioning of the value of GDP as indicator came in the 1970s, Chavagneux said. "Since then, the number of alternative indicators of human and economic well-being has gone from zero in the 1970s to some 30 today."

Prime among these, he said, is the human development index (HDI) used by the UN Development Programme since 1990. The report considers measures such as life expectancy, literacy and education besides the GDP. The HDI was developed by Amartya Sen along with the renowned Pakistani economist Mahbub ul-Haq.

Reuters Columns » Blog Archive » The financial paradox of PC unit growth | Blogs |

Depending on what measures you use, the personal computer industry either is on the cusp of another Golden Age or in a downward spiral. From a financial point of view, the latter is more accurate.

Sector enthusiasts point to PC sales by volume bottoming out this month or next after a steep, year-long downturn. Gartner Inc this week revised its 2009 PC shipment forecast to 285 million units, an annual decline of 2 percent. That's a big improvement over the research group's gloomy January prediction of a 12 percent drop.

The October launch of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system could spur many buyers to replace aging PCs. Now Wall Street has become increasingly bullish on PC stocks it believes will benefit from a surge in corporate orders that has not been seen since the industry's glory days in the 1990s.

But growth in unit sales cannot disguise shrivelling revenues brought on by plunging prices.

Got bad news? It pays to bury it, study shows | U.S. | Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Got bad news? It pays to relegate it in a footnote of the press release.

Companies that are forthright about bad news end up paying for it more than those that bury it in the press release, a new study of accounting restatement announcements by companies shows, leading its authors to suggest regulators should standardize such disclosures.

"Firms providing less prominent press-release disclosure of a restatement are rewarded with a less negative return at the announcement," the report said.

Such companies are also less likely to be sued for securities fraud, according to the report by Edward Swanson and Senyo Tse of the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University and Rebecca Files of the University of Texas, Dallas.

The study, "Stealth Disclosure of Accounting Restatements" in the September issue of the Accounting Review, used a General Accounting Office database of companies that announced accounting restatements based on serious irregularities from January 1997 through June 2002.

It found that companies that announced a restatement in the headline of a press release suffered a drop of 8.3 percent relative to the stock market as a whole over the three days around the news.

This compared with a drop of only 4 percent for companies that revealed the restatement in the body of a press release about earnings, and only 1.5 percent for companies that relegated the news to a footnote in a release about earnings.

Bloomberg: Arctic Oil Tempts Norway to Seek Drilling at `Gates of Hell'

Norway started a push to explore for oil and natural gas in more remote regions like its Arctic volcanic island of Jan Mayen, as the country seeks to reverse almost a decade of dwindling North Sea output.

"We've explored an increasingly large part of the Norwegian shelf," Oil Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said in an interview on a trip to the barren outpost on Sept. 23. "If we now wish to develop Norway as an oil and gas nation, it will have to be in other areas."

Diminishing access to traditional reserves is prompting countries to turn to unconventional sources such as oil sands and shale-rock formations to meet demand. Russia, Canada, the U.S. and Iceland are vying for a stake of the Arctic, which may hold as much as 50 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, according to BP Plc.

Crude output from Norway, the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter, peaked between 2000 and 2001 and may fall 9.7 percent this year, according to the Petroleum Directorate. Norway gets almost a 25 percent of its economic output from oil and gas, which has made it the world's second-richest nation and financed its cradle-to-grave welfare system.

European Voice: Business warns financial reforms pose 'risks'

European business organisations today (25 September) warned that planned reforms to financial regulation in the EU could have damaging side-effects on companies' access to capital.

They said that the European Commission had failed to properly assess the impact of planned regulatory changes at EU-level, or to sufficiently consult industry. A lack of co-ordination between work at European-level and in international fora, such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, on changes to the capital requirements placed on banks risked leading to "unintended consequences", they argue in a report.

"Rushed solutions to change legislation or standards should be avoided," the report says. It also calls for "a more inclusive consultation process must be put in place with a stronger representation of key business stakeholders".

Delay, delay, delay...

Forbes.com: G-20 leaders promise tighter regulations
By EMMA VANDORE , 09.25.09

"Going forward, we cannot tolerate the same old boom-and-bust economy of the past," President Barack Obama said, speaking as the summit in Pittsburgh ended. "We can't grow complacent. We can't wait for a crisis to cooperate."

...

"Our coordinated stimulus plans played an indispensable role in averting catastrophe. Now we must make sure that when growth returns, jobs do, too," he said at a wrap-up news conference.

Obama said actions taken so far "brought the global economy back from the brink."

En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma

Reuters: EU bank sector stress test positive - EU sources

The European Union banking sector could withstand a further deterioration of economic conditions according to aggregate results of a pan-EU stress test of banks, three EU sources said.

The test was commissioned by EU finance ministers from the Committee of European Bank Supervisors (CEBS) earlier this year and its results will be discussed by the ministers at the informal meeting in Gothenburg in Sweden on Thursday.

"The report is very positive. The European banking sector is definitely not in danger, the results are better than most people have anticipated, I would say," one source close to the preparation of the ministers' meeting said.

Insurance charter fight next year| The Hill | 24 Sep 2009

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said on Thursday that lawmakers next year will begin to consider whether parts of the insurance industry should be overseen by the federal government instead of state authorities....

"The question of an optional federal charter for insurance, particularly life insurance, is on the committee's agenda for probably next year," Frank said. "It just would be more weight than I think this issue could carry."

Insurance has long been regulated at the state level, but as some insurers grew in size and had a larger impact on the economy [BWAH!], they and their allies have pushed for a federal office to oversee them, preferring one regulatory body to the various state regulatory authorities.

Reps. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.) and Ed Royce (R-Calif.) have sponsored a bill to set up a federal charter.

The American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI) has been a strong supporter of a federal charter. But other insurance lobbying associations, including the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) and the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI), prefer maintaining state regulation.

"Blueprint for a Modernized Regulatory Structure" pronounced dead on arrival, 30 March 2008, prematurely.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Is CNBC For Sale?  Zero Hedge

There may be some major changes in the NBC ownership structure according to media and financial pundits. Even as General Electric is dealing with significant balance sheet problems, which have been temporarily swept under the rug compliments of unjustified Goldman Sachs stock upgrades, it may be looking at getting rid of its "vanity play", the NBC TV station family, which of course includes CNBC. According to MarketWatch:

-Skip-    

And while NBC is having few and far between successes, even as the popularity of the mainstay "Tonight Show" drops (from 18 million viewers down to 6 million), the network's other presumably profitable channels, CNBC in particular, have also seen a dramatic drop in their viewer metrics. The melting ice cube of the traditional media core holding has lead MarketWatch to observe the "the key question is when -- not if anymore -- Immelt will sell NBC, whose portfolio includes NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and other assets."

-Skip-

Unfortunately this very well may be the best time for a media venture, as the market gradually begins its reintroduction with gravity. Recall that Harbinger recently sold a major stake of its NYT holdings: it appears others have top ticked the media market. Jeff Immelt is likely not too far behind Phil Falcone in this regard. As such, it is unlikely that valuations will increase markedly from this point on. The only question is who will acquire the NBC family, and whether subsidiary companies such as CNBC and MSNBC will be included in the package. At first blush, it does not seem a practical move, as most major networks have been developing their own business related channels: if anything, the probability of selective picking off of specific anchors and personalities would make much more sense, than paying for the "intangible" value of a station like CNBC, which over the past 6 months has attained a definitive reputation of selective reporting bias and prejudice.

Perhaps this is the moment for CNBC to start being an objective TV station once again. After all, that is the only way it can hope to regain its floundering viewership. Yet, while it is caught in the Catch 22 of being a subsidiary of one of the most financially troubled conglomerates, the likelihood that it will promote objectivity and diligent reporting is next to negligible: GE has nothing to gain from CNBC spreading the truth about the domestic economy without 10 shades of rosiness. Thus CNBC is caught in a toxic spiral, whereby its value drops every single day it remains a GE sub. And Jeff Immelt is likely very much aware of this phenomenon. Which is why readers should not be too surprised if in the next several weeks or months Bob Pisani uses his "victory for the bulls" catchphrase a mere 10 times per day or less, as it may very well be time for a strategic shift in orientation of CNBC, and quite possibly, an outright sale.  (My bold.)

The bold captures well what I have long suspected as to why knowledgeable people at NBC and MSNBC, Rachael Maddow, for instance, rarely report on the biggest issue of the day--the economy--and when they do they never discuss the depth of the problems between Wall Street and Washington, and Rachael is more forthcoming than most, or was, I should say, as I have largely stopped watching, as the absence of coverage is so glaring as to raise my blood pressure.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Why Consolidation in the Banking Industry Threatens Our Economy  Washington's Blog

As everyone knows, the big banks have gotten bigger and bigger. Noted economist Mark Zandi says we have an oligopoly of banks, and that "the oligopoly has tightened". The TARP Inspector - Neil Barofsky - told Huffington Post yesterday that, because of the consolidation in the banking industry and the moral hazard created by the bailouts:

   I think we may be in a far more dangerous place today than we were a year ago.

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But I would like to use an analogy from science to discuss why our current, highly-concentrated banking lineup presents a huge threat to our economy (analogies can sometimes be useful; e.g. Taleb talks about black swans).

It has been accepted science for decades that when all the farmers in a certain region grow the same strain of the same crop - called "monoculture" - the crops become much more susceptible.

Why?

Because any bug (insect or germ) which happens to like that particular strain could take out the whole crop on pretty much all of the region's farms.

-skip-

If power and deposits are concentrated in a handful of mega-banks, problems with those banks could bring down the whole system. As Zandi noted, there is an oligopoly in the banking industry (and "the oligopoly has tightened").

Moreover, the mega-banks are huge holders of derivatives, including credit default swaps. JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley together hold 80% of the country's derivatives risk, and 96% of the exposure to credit derivatives.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Special Report: How the Government is Setting Us Up for a Second Subprime Crisis

Is the government creating another subprime-mortgage bubble?

The first time around, the three-headed federal serpent - the Bush administration, the Treasury Department and the U.S. Federal Reserve - used Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) to "legitimize" trillions of dollars worth of toxic financial waste known as subprime mortgages.

The result was the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression - a mess that was global in nature.

And we're now headed for a repeat performance.

Some of the players may have changed since the first subprime-mortgage crisis, but the game apparently remains the same. With banks currently unwilling to lend, the new federal triumvirate of the Obama administration, the Treasury and the Fed are trying to inflate the moribund U.S. housing market. This time around, however, the FHA is the weapon of choice.

Obama & Co. are making an all-or-nothing bet that the U.S. economy will recover and bail out the housing market before the final bill for this ill-advised gambit comes due.

When this bubble bursts - and it will - U.S. taxpayers will be on the hook for more than $1 trillion in government-guaranteed debt.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

McChrystal submits plea for more Afghanistan troops | U.S. | Reuters

KABUL (Reuters) - The commander of Western forces in Afghanistan hand-delivered a request for more troops to U.S. and NATO commanders at a meeting in Germany, his spokesman said on Saturday.

General Stanley McChrystal gave his long-awaited request for more troops to U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis, said spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis.

"At the end of that meeting General McChrystal did provide a copy of the force requirements to Admiral Mullen on the U.S. side and Admiral Stavridis on the NATO side," Sholtis said. McChrystal returned on Saturday from the unannounced meeting in Europe.

Officials have not said exactly how many extra troops McChrystal believes he needs, although defense and congressional officials have suggested the request would be for about 30,000.

Iran to hold missile war games from Sunday | Special Coverage | Reuters

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards will hold missile defense exercises over several days starting on Sunday to boost the Islamic Republic's deterrence capability, Iranian media reported.

Saturday's announcement coincided with increased tension in Iran's nuclear dispute with the West, after Tehran disclosed it was building a second uranium enrichment plant.

The reports did not say what kind of missiles would be used in the war games. In May, Iran said it had tested a missile that defense analysts said could hit Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf.

The United States, which suspects Iran wants to build nuclear bombs, has previously expressed concern about Tehran's missile program.

Iran often conducts war games or tests weapons to show its determination to counter any attack by foes such as Israel or the United States.

Mixed reactions to US policy shift towards Burma | Asia | Deutsche Welle | 26.09.2009

For the first time in 14 years, Burma's junta leader, General Than Shwe, will travel to the UN's general assembly meeting. The move comes as the US has said it wants to engage diplomatically with the country's regime. 

Washington's new policy towards Burma will include more direct and deeper engagement with the junta. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the announcement on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York this week.

However, she insisted that sanctions against the regime would remain an important part of US policy. "Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice in our opinion. Going forward, we will be employing both of those tools, pursuing our same goal. To help achieve democratic reform we will be engaging directly with Burmese authorities."

Clinton also said that the change in policy did not mean there would be any compromise on the demands for credible democratic reform and the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Guardian: Coup leader defies ex-premier's demands in Honduras standoff

Hopes for a rapid end to the crisis in Honduras appeared to have been dashed as the leader of the coup that removed President Manuel Zelaya insisted that the ousted premier could only leave the Brazilian embassy where he has taken refuge if he was offered asylum by another country.

"Interim" president Roberto Micheletti also made clear his government would not allow a weekend visit of several foreign ministers who have offered to help resolve the crisis and remained unrepentant about plunging the country into a cycle of demonstrations, violence and curfews.

But he did acknowledge one mistake. "It was an error to have sent the president, or ex-president [Zelaya], out of the country," he told the Associated Press.

Genetically Engineered Sugar Beet Approval Illegal, Judge Rules

SAN FRANCISCO, California, September 22, 2009 (ENS) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture's deregulation of genetically engineered RoundUp Ready sugar beets in 2004 was unlawful, a federal court in California ruled Monday.

The federal district court for the Northern District of California ruled that the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, APHIS, violated the law when it failed to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement before deregulating sugar beets that were genetically engineered to be resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, marketed by Monsanto as Roundup.

Plaintiff groups Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club, and High Mowing Seeds, represented by Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety, filed suit against APHIS in January 2008.

They claimed that the agency failed to adequately assess the environmental, health, and associated economic impacts of allowing Roundup Ready sugar beets to be commercially grown without restriction. This failure to assess violates the National Environmental Policy Act, the court determined.

US,Vietnam face Agent Orange legacy

Mai Khai contentedly grows his potatoes and melons smack up against an old brick wall surrounding a former US airbase in Vietnam which experts say remains highly contaminated.

Almost four decades after American troops stopped wartime spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides containing potentially cancer-causing dioxin, United States and Vietnamese officials are cooperating on preliminary clean-up measures at the Danang airport.

Full-scale decontamination has yet to begin, though, and could take years.

While the preparatory work continues, Khai faces only a limited danger from his vegetables, foreign and Vietnamese experts said.

But residents near the airbase do face a more general dioxin risk, they said. A Canadian study found elevated dioxin levels in people living near the north and east of the airbase although neither foreign nor Vietnamese experts could say exactly how many people are at risk from the contamination.

Worldchanging: Planetary Boundaries and The Failure of Environmentalism

Planetary boundaries are the natural limits on humanity's use of the planet. Strikingly, until recently, no one had made a serious effort to quantify these limits in measurable ways. That's why a new report from the Stockholm Resilience Center, attempting to give hard numbers for most of these boundaries, is so crucial.

The Resilience Center focused in on nine boundaries: climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution. These are each critical in their own ways:

New York Times: New Rules Lead Europe to Dump Trash Abroad

When two inspectors swung open the doors of a battered red shipping container here, they confronted a graveyard of Europe's electronic waste -- old wires, electricity meters, circuit boards -- mixed with remnants of cardboard and plastic.

"This is supposed to be going to China, but it isn't going anywhere," said Arno Vink, an inspector from the Dutch environment ministry who impounded the container because of Europe's strict new laws that limit all types of waste exports, from dirty pipes to broken computers to household trash.

Exporting waste illegally to poor countries has become a vast and growing international business, as companies try to minimize the costs of new environmental laws, like those here, that tax waste or require that it be recycled or otherwise disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.

BBC: Iceland plans big whalemeat trade

The company behind Iceland's fin whaling industry is planning a huge export of whalemeat to Japan.

This summer, Hvalur hf caught 125 fins - a huge expansion on previous years.

The company's owner says he will export as much as 1,500 tonnes to Japan. This would substantially increase the amount of whalemeat in the Japanese market.

...where nobody buys it.  Japan's bogus "scientific whaling" programme simply fills freezers, because modern Japan - as opposed to the gerontocrats running the place - doesn't actually want to eat whale.

Beppe Grillo's Blog

Siena, in Italy, whose residents enjoy a good standard of living, uses approximately one third of the resources per capita of those used by the residents of Houston, Texas. This is certainly a start. Personally, I would prefer to live in Siena rather than in Houston. The way in which we build our towns essentially dictates how we utilise our resources. This notwithstanding, if everyone lived like the people living in Siena, it would take three planet Earths to sustain this kind of lifestyle for every inhabitant of our planet.

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

ARGENTINA: New Voice for Sexual Minorities - IPS ipsnews.net

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 26 (IPS) - A monthly magazine published by an Argentine umbrella group of some thirty organisations of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans (LGBTs) seeks to become a major communications channel for the community and an instrument for disseminating the actions that sexual minorities undertake to defend their rights.

"The Pride March (Argentina's annual LGBT celebration organised since 1992) is a big part of us, but it doesn't cover all of our community. There are lesbians with no visibility and transgender women who have fought for years to have their identity recognised," Mónica Ferrari, editor-in-chief of the just-released monthly publication Queer, which is distributed free of charge, told IPS.

The magazine is the official voice of the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans (FALGBT) and has a circulation of 15,000 copies in print and a summarised version online. The name Queer was chosen because of its connection to a theory of diversity that sees sexual identity as constructed socially and not determined by biology.

The magazine had already appeared for a few years but was forced out of circulation in 2002 due to lack of funding. Queer's original editor-in-chief and founder was FALGBT's current president, María Rachid, who has now supported this new edition.

Le cinéaste Roman Polanski arrêté à Zürich

Le organisateurs du festival de cinéma de Zürich ont annoncé, dimanche, que la police avait arrêté le cinéaste Roman Polanski, sous le coup d'un mandat d'arrêt américain datant de 1978. Polanski a fui les Etats-Unis cette année-là après avoir été poursuivi pour viol sur mineure.

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