Prime Minister Gordon Brown this afternoon rebuffed German suggestions of more EU Treaty changes - insisting that Europe's governments had already ruled that out for at least the next few years.

With the dust still settling on bitter battles over the failed EU constitution and the beleaguered Lisbon Treaty, Mr Brown moved swiftly at a Brussels summit to put down a marker for no more institutional upheaval.

The EU's new foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton suffered a fresh blow to her reputation yesterday, with the resignation of her chief spokesman even as she unveiled details of the almighty new European diplomatic service she will run.

Baroness Ashton's grand announcement yesterday on the 7,000-strong foreign service was meant to turn a page on weeks of embarrassing criticism which suggested she was out of her depth and not up to the demanding new job she occupies.

But hopes of asserting her authority were overshadowed by the announcement of her spokesman Lutz Güllner that he was leaving the post he has held since Lady Ashton was appointed at the end of last year.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A third of euro-deputies have signed an appeal urging the European Commission to include work-free Sundays into an upcoming review of EU rules on working time, with the responsible commissioner pledging to "take into account" these views in his proposals due this autumn.

"Currently, it is up to member states to define Sunday as their weekly resting day, and in doing so, by taking into consideration cultural, ethnic and religious diversity," EU employment commissioner Laszlo Andor told MEPs during a conference organised by the parliament's centre-right group in support of work-free Sundays.

Switzerland is ready to lift a travel ban on some Libyan citizens in order to persuade Tripoli to drop a tit-for-tat ban on all travelers from Europe's border-free Schengen zone, the BBC reports. The row started in 2008, after Genevan police briefly arrested the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Civic Democrat chairman Mirek Topolánek will not lead his party into May's general elections. After days of strife over clumsy comments on gays and Jews the former prime minister made in an informal interview for a Czech gay magazine, the party leadership urged him on Thursday to step down as election leader, and to seriously consider resigning as party chairman.

Mirek Topolánek, Petr Nečas (right), photo: CTK

After a heated, five-hour debate on Thursday, Mr Topolánek said he was going to step down as the Civic Democrat election leader. He was replaced by senior Civic Democrat politician Petr Nečas, who said he appreciated Mr Topolánek's decision.

The leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) Sigmar Gabriel began a tour of mosques in the Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia on Friday. His aim was to speak out against a series of anti-Islamic demonstrations planned by the far-right party Pro-NRW.

"We shouldn't overestimate them," Gabriel told an audience at the Merkez mosque in Gelsenkirchen. "But we shouldn't underestimate them either."

Pro-NRW had earlier announced plans for a Saturday conference to discuss a minaret ban, and had also scheduled a demonstration march for Sunday at the biggest mosque in Germany, located in Duisburg-Marxloh.

On Friday the upper house of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, voted down a petition to allow dual citizenship for the German-born children of foreign nationals.

City-states Berlin and Bremen were joined by the state of Brandenburg in proposing to reverse a law made in 2000, under which children born to foreign nationals in Germany must choose one citizenship by their twenty-third birthday.

Berlin's home affairs senator Ehrhart Koerting argued that allowing dual citizenship would lead to a happier integration of foreign nationals.

Some 33 per cent of those questioned for BBC2's The Daily Politics said they trusted Labour's Prime Minister and Chancellor most to steer Britain's economy through the downturn, against 27 per cent favouring David Cameron and George Osborne and 13 per cent the Liberal Democrats' Nick Clegg and Vince Cable.

The poll comes after Mr Darling's admission yesterday that spending cuts under Labour would go further than those of Margaret Thatcher's first term.

The last time pollsters ComRes asked the same question in a survey for the programme in December, the Tory team were in the lead by 33 per cent to 26 per cent.

European Union leaders have called for economic reforms to prevent a repeat of Greece's debt crisis and boost growth in the region following a summit in Brussels.

The "Europe 2020" economic strategy aims to put all EU nations on the path of sound public finances, job creation and sustained growth.

The move comes after Greece's national deficit spiralled out of control, flauting EU budget limits on debt and deficits and threatening to devalue the euro.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said "a coordinated economic policy was absolutely essential" if the EU as a whole is to become more competitive.

The strategy, agreed on during a two-day summit in the Belgian capital, commits the bloc to boosting employment for citizens aged 20-64, increasing research spending by governments and companies and reducing the number of people living in poverty.

It also aims to generate more renewable power and reduce energy consumption as part of the EU's ambition to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The widow of Ian Tomlinson, the man who died at the G20 protests, has launched an emotional attack on the director of public prosecutions, accusing him of letting her down over his failure to decide whether the officer who assaulted her husband should be charged with manslaughter.

Julia Tomlinson accused Keir Starmer, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, of misleading her family. Her comments come days before the anniversary of the death of Tomlinson 12 months ago, and amid growing concern that the police have escaped largely unscathed from their controversial handling of last year's protests in the City of London.

Founded in the late 1980s in protest against abuses of power by "Roman" political parties, the movement lead by Umberto Bossi is Silvio Berlusconi's most faithful ally in government. With a share of the vote that has increased from less than 4% in 2001 to more than 10% in the 2008 European elections, it's likely to make further gains in regional elections to held on the 28 and 29 March.

In what will most certainly be a foregone conclusion, on the evening of 29 March after the second round of voting, the populist anti-immigration Northern League party will take control of the region of Venice -- a result that will mark a major milestone for the political grouping born 25 years ago under the mocking gaze of traditional politicians, which now runs 350 towns and 14 provinces north of the river Po.

BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA -- If nationalists in Slovakia have their way, schoolchildren will soon be forced, each Monday at 8 a.m., to listen to the national anthem blaring out from loudspeakers across this small Central European nation.

As part of a patriotism bill that some school principals have derided as Pyongyang-on-the-Danube, state schools will also be required to hang the Slovak flag in every classroom, along with the text of that national anthem and the national symbols -- three hills and a double cross signifying the Christian heritage.

The preamble to the Slovak Constitution, "We the Slovak nation," is to be prominently displayed in public institutions -- another assertion of Slovak primacy that ethnic minorities complain is directed at excluding them. School officials who disobey would risk being dismissed.

"During Communist times, we would use the public address system to announce Lenin's birthday, and this type of politics and ideological propaganda have no place in the classroom," said Norbert Kyndl, director of a large state school in Bratislava, who said that he would have to crank up a vintage public address system and spend €1,500, or $2,000, on flags and a coat of arms. "This is Slovakia -- not North Korea."

Lawmakers in Portugal have backed an austerity plan to restore the country's battered public finances.

The minority Socialist government and the opposition Social Democrats agreed on measures to ease the country's huge debts.

Investors fear Portugal could follow Greece into a deeper financial crisis.

Portugal's finance minister said the vote was key to restoring credibility with the markets.

EU leaders embroiled in row after Angela Merkel points to flaws in European charter

European leaders were embroiled today in a row over whether to reopen the ill-fated Lisbon treaty discussions, only four months after the EU's new rule book came into force.

While the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, pointed to flaws that could only fixed by revisiting Lisbon, Gordon Brown insisted that there was no appetite in Europe for reopening the charter, after nine gruelling years of argument about getting it adopted.

A two-day EU summit in Brussels ended with Merkel announcing that treaty changes were inevitable and Brown declaring them inconceivable.

Merkel appeared isolated, but nonetheless in a strong position after dictating the terms of a rescue plan for Greece aimed at forestalling its financial collapse and destabilising the euro.

he Times and Sunday Times newspapers will start charging to access their websites in June, owner News International (NI) has announced.

Users will pay £1 for a day's access and £2 for a week's subscription.

The move opens a new front in the battle for readership and will be watched closely by the industry.

NI chief executive Rebekah Brooks said it was "a crucial step towards making the business of news an economically exciting proposition".

Both titles will launch new websites in early May, separating their digital presence for the first time and replacing the existing, combined site, Times Online.

ABU DHABI, March 26 (Reuters) - The managing director of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), considered the world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, is missing after a glider plane crash in Morocco, the state news agency WAM said on Friday.

The railway contractor Jarvis collapsed into administration yesterday after its lenders refused to stump up more capital to keep it trading.

The group - which was once Britain's biggest construction company and counts the former Conservative minister Steven Norris as its chairman - blamed cutbacks at Network Rail for the move, which puts 2,000 jobs across the country at risk.

Network Rail, which runs the UK railway infrastructure, is Jarvis's main client. But plans to cut 22 per cent from its costs over the five years to 2014 saw Network Rail defer 28 per cent of its track-renewals programme last year - causing massive problems for Jarvis.

In response, the contractor tried to reduce its dependence, and in January Jarvis signed a £55m contract with Chiltern Railways. But it was too little, too late. The company needed an injection of new capital to survive. But its banks could not be persuaded.

Jarvis's future "depended upon the continued support of key customers and creditors - including the lenders under the company's secured working capital facility and Network Rail," it said yesterday. "However, following negotiations with the company's secured lenders, it has today become clear that sufficient support will not be extended to enable the company to continue trading as a going concern."

Dubai's rulers yesterday bailed out Dubai World, the debt-ridden state-owned conglomerate which caused global investor panic last November when it asked for more time to repay $4bn (£3bn) worth of bonds.

The $9.5bn package was welcomed by the market as the Dubai bond prices surged. Traded debt in Nakheel, Dubai World's property arm which initially sparked the panic, jumped by 45 per cent after investors were promised that lenders would be fully repaid. Nakheel, the group responsible for the ostentatious palm-shaped islands that have become symbols of the Emirates' boundless ambition, now has two bonds outstanding, worth $1.73bn.

Dubai World rocked global financial markets when it asked lenders for a six-month moratorium on $4bn of repayments due a month later. The request came on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, the three-day holiday, leaving Western lenders in a state of flux. Yesterday's bailout vindicates those who argued that Dubai would not be allowed to fail.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - All eurozone states have signalled their willingness to contribute to a potential Greek bail-out, with the region's leaders hammering out an agreement late on Thursday night (25 March).

The exact details of how Athens would successfully trigger the new mechanism remain to be ironed out however, with any application for funds from the joint eurozone-IMF pot requiring unanimous euro member approval "based on an assessment by the European Commission and the European Central Bank."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU leaders signaled their concern over what they perceive as waning global enthusiasm for financial regulatory reform on Friday (March 26), and said they will push ahead with European plans before a G20 meeting in Toronto this June.

Presenting leaders with his preparations for the G20 meeting, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he wanted agreement first on a number of key European financial files, including plans to force banks to hold higher levels of capital and the bloc's draft hedge fund directive, delayed earlier this month due to upcoming elections in the UK.

EUROPE: Deutsche Bahn confirmed on March 18 that it had approached Arriva about a possible takeover bid, adding that 'discussions are ongoing and there is no certainty that any offer will be made'.

As required under the UK's takeover regulations, the international bus and rail operator had issued a statement the previous day that it had 'received an unsolicited approach from a third party'.

Arriva has contracts and concessions in 12 countries across Europe, and owns the second-largest rail network in Germany. The company had approached SNCF with a proposal to acquire all or part of Keolis (RG 3.10 p26), but it reported on March 5 that 'no agreement was reached and all discussions have now ceased'.

This would more or less comclude the elimination of major startups by the former national railways.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Three things are worth pointing out here. First, Ambac assurance hasn't actually filed for bankruptcy protection, but it is involved in a complicated restructuring/partial takeover by its regulator/failure to pay-type situation.

(As for why this was classed as a bankruptcy event rather than a restructuring or failure to pay, we think it may have to do with subsection (f) of section 4.2. of the 2003 ISDA Credit Event Definitions)

Second, the credit default swaps that have been triggered are only those that have been written as protection on Ambac, not those the bond insurer itself sold against CDOs and other structured products.

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Lots of confused chatter in the bond community as to why the negative swap spread story (anywhere between 7Y and 30Y) is being largely ignored by the media. After all, the associated market, which according to the BIS was roughly $154 TRillion in June 30 makes the Greek bond debacle and various sovereign CDS discussions in the media pale in comparison. As several bond traders pointed out, the likelihood of negative spreads having been modelled out by the TBTFs is very low, if any, meaning that unhedged bank IR-swap exposure is suffering massively, and is likely to surpass all record past prop desk losses. In fact, rumors abound that a few of the desks having placed leveraged bets on spread divergence over the past months and years are currently in critical condition, yet nobody is discussing this for fear of another round of bank run concerns among the TBTF banks. What is odd, is that the Primary Credit borrowings are now at almost financial crisis lows of just under $9 billion, leading many to speculate that banks now satisfy all of their short-term funding needs via the fungibility of excess reserves....

Unprecedented relationships are beginning to form in the global bond markets. For as long as anyone can remember, the US government has enjoyed the lowest cost of borrowing whatever the maturity of the bond, because the US has been deemed the safest credit anywhere in the world. The prospect of default of the United States has been considered so low that academics describe the US Treasury bond as the risk-free bond., from which all other credit instruments are priced.

This relationship seems to be breaking down, for the first time in living history. This past week Berkshire Hathaway was able to raise funds at an interest rate lower than that of the US Treasury. Headlines in the financial press stated: "Obama Pays More Than Warren Buffett For Money." The bonds of DuPont and other stalwart corporate names also yielded less than equivalent maturity Treasuries.

The Treasury Department is now coming routinely to market with bond issues that just two years ago would have been considered preposterously large. All of this is necessary to help the US fund its projected $1.9 trillion budget deficit, up from about $400 billion a few years ago (not counting the issues necessary to fund the Iraq War). Today the Treasury offered $42 billion in 5 year notes, and the auction did not go well. The bid-to-cover ratio, which measures the excess demand for the bond, was disappointingly low. Moreover, indirect bidders took only $16.6 billion of the issue, and this category includes foreign central banks. Lately there has been a category added by the Treasury called "Direct Bidder", which is not specified, but is assumed by some to be the Federal Reserve.

This means that the one arm of the US government is buying the debt issued by another arm - never a good result because no new cash flows into the Treasury coffers.

escher economics!

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

US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have agreed a new nuclear arms reduction treaty after months of negotiations.

The treaty limits both sides to 1,550 warheads, about 30% less than currently allowed, the White House said.

The deal replaces the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The leaders will sign the pact in Prague on 8 April.

President Obama hailed the treaty as the most comprehensive weapons control agreement in nearly two decades.

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's bloc has won the most seats in Iraq's parliamentary elections.

His coalition had two seats more than that of incumbent PM Nouri Maliki, officials said, in what was seen as a surprise result in the 7 March poll.

Earlier, the UN's envoy to Iraq described the election as "credible" and urged Iraqis to accept the results.

Mr Allawi will need to form a coalition government as he lacks a majority, amid fears the results may spark violence.

Just hours before the results were announced, twin bomb blasts in the town of Khalis, in Diyala province, killed at least 40 and left more than 60 injured.

A South Korean navy ship with about 100 personnel on board has sunk off the west coast near North Korea.

The exact cause of the sinking was unclear, but an explosion was reported in the rear of the ship.

There was speculation it could have been from a torpedo from the North. The involvement of North Korea has not been confirmed by officials.

Fifty eight of the sailors were rescued from near Baengnyeong island by several navy and coastguard vessels.

It was unclear what had happened to the remaining 46 personnel.

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has joined President Robert Mugabe in dismissing calls to enshrine gay rights in the new constitution.

"I totally agree with the president," he said, state media report.

Homosexual acts are currently illegal in Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe once said gays were "worse than pigs and dogs", sparking international condemnation.

Gay rights has become a controversial issue in several African countries in recent months.

The UN World Food Programme has denied a claim that up to half the food aid to Somalia was being diverted to Islamist militants and corrupt contractors.

WFP officials said there was no evidence to back up the claim made in a report by a UN monitoring group.

The UN's aid chief in Somalia said the report was based on "hearsay" and not backed up by any documentary evidence.

The aid chief, Mark Bowden, said the flow of funds to the WFP operation in Somalia had dropped after the report.

The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia was initially set up by the Security Council to supervise the arms embargo against the war-torn country.

The Vatican has attacked the media over charges that the Pope failed to act against a US priest accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys two decades ago.

A Vatican newspaper editorial said the claims were an "ignoble" attack on the Pope and that there was no "cover-up".

The head of the UK Catholic church said the Pope had made important changes to the way abuse was dealt with.

The Catholic church has been hit by a series of allegations in Europe and the US over the past months.

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed during clashes with Hamas fighters on the Gaza Strip's southern border, the Israeli army has said.

Two other soldiers were wounded during the fighting which broke out east of the town of Khan Younis.

Two Palestinian militants were also killed in the clashes, Palestinian and Israeli sources say.

The unrest may have been sparked by a bid by militants to seize an Israeli soldier, a BBC correspondent says.

Local sources say Palestinian militants carried out a raid across the fence line and the Israeli military then appears to have pursued them back into Gaza, says the BBC's Paul Wood, in Jerusalem.

Five Pakistani soldiers and at least 21 suspected militants have been killed in clashes near the Afghan border, Pakistan's military has said.

The fighting occurred in the tribal district of Orakzai.

It came a day after military aircraft bombed areas in the district killing at least 11 people.

Militants led by Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Meshud are thought to have moved to Orakzai following a troop offensive in South Waziristan.

The military said in a statement that the fighting broke out when militants attacked and captured a security check post in Orakzai.

"Security forces counter-attacked and recaptured that check post," the statement said.

melda Marcos, former first lady of the Philippines, has begun a campaign for a congressional seat that she hopes will allow her to bury her husband in a heroes' cemetery and clear his sullied name.

Marcos, 80, and nearly 18,000 other politicians are traversing the impoverished south-east Asian nation on the first official day of campaigning for the 10 May elections.

Presidential and senatorial candidates have been campaigning for more than a month. Police say political violence, which often goes hand-in-hand with campaigning, has already claimed close to 80 lives, including 57 people massacred on the 23 November in an election caravan in southern Philippines.

WASHINGTON -- A federal court Friday denied a Republican Party bid to raise soft money, the unlimited donations from corporations and individuals banned by a 2002 campaign finance law. In a separate ruling, judges said a conservative group can raise unlimited sums for independent election ads but must regularly disclose its donors.

In a case brought by the Republican National Committee, a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington said it lacks the authority to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the ban on soft money fundraising by national party committees. That ban is a cornerstone of the so-called McCain-Feingold law and one of the few major parts of the law to survive court challenges.

The RNC had argued that it should be able to raise soft money for state elections, congressional redistricting, legal costs and other activities that it said had nothing to do with federal elections. The Federal Election Commission contended the soft money ban should be upheld.

Joining the RNC in the lawsuit were the California Republican Party, San Diego County Republican Party and RNC Chairman Michael Steele. The court also rejected their arguments that the law's soft money ban shouldn't apply to their fundraising for various activities.

The former Republican vice-presidential candidate and one-time Alaska governor has become a conservative star whose supporters hope will run against President Barack Obama for the White House in 2012.

But Mrs Palin is putting this aside to campaign for Mr McCain, her former running mate who is viewed with deep suspicion by many conservatives and faces a tough primary challenge in Arizona from Right-wing talk show host and former congressman JD Hayworth.

NEW ORLEANS -- Federal prosecutors have filed reduced charges against conservative activist James O'Keefe and three others arrested after they allegedly tried to tamper with the phones in Sen. Mary Landrieu's New Orleans office.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) -- A military judge in California denied a motion Friday to dismiss charges against a Marine sergeant whose squad killed 24 Iraqi men, women and children after a bomb killed a Marine.

Lt. Col. David Jones ruled at Camp Pendleton on a defense motion claiming there was unlawful command influence while a general considered a court-martial for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich.

The judge ruled there was no record of any "meaningful comment" between the general and an aide who had investigated the case as a military lawyer.

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cuba may open sugar production to foreign investors for the first time since the 1959 revolution as it seeks to reverse the once proud industry's relentless decline, business sources said this week.

Talks between investors and the government have come and gone with little result for years, but what is shaping up as perhaps the island's worst harvest in a century has increased interest in bringing foreign partners, the sources said.

On Wednesday, Democracy Now! featured Nairn's report of the repercussions of his discovery of a link between retired Admiral Dennis Blair, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, and the Indonesian general responsible for massacres at churches.

The wave of repression against journalists and leaders of the National Front of Popular Resistance of Honduras continues to be unstoppable. This morning journalists José Bayardo Mairena Ramírez and Manuel Juárez were murdered, killed by numerous gunshots. The murders took place in the department of Olancho, on the highway to the city of Juticalpa.

AT&T Inc. said Friday that it would record a $1-billion noncash expense in the first quarter related to the newly passed healthcare law, joining a growing list of large U.S. companies.

<...>

Among its many effects, the new healthcare law eliminated a tax deduction that companies used to cut the cost of drug-benefit programs for retired workers.

<...>

... companies that still offer retiree drug benefits, mostly older industrial concerns or those with unionized employees, say the end of the deduction could force them to change their benefit plans. In other words, they might curtail or even cancel them.

The head of the UN's climate change panel has accused politicians and prominent climate sceptics of "a new form of persecution" against scientists who work on global warming.

In a strongly worded article published on the Guardian website, Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), hit out at those in "positions of power and responsibility" who try to portray "dedicated scientists as climate criminals".

Pachauri also accused critics who have used an error in the 2007 IPCC report to question the scientific basis of climate change of "an act of astonishing intellectual legerdemain [sleight of hand]". Scientific knowledge of climate change, he says, is "something we distort and trivialise at our peril".

A university CIO says that sysadmins determined to do their bit for the environment - and save cash on printer consumables - should switch fonts wherever possible to Century Gothic.

Diane Blohowiak, Director of Computing and Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, says she has switched the college's email system from Arial to Gothic default as part of a "five year plan to go green". The story comes to us courtesy of local radio station WPR.

According to Blohowiak, Century Gothic when printed out uses 30 per cent less ink than Arial, and even trounces a well-known (though unnamed) "eco font". She says that printer ink costs her department $10,000 per gallon, though obviously it is supplied in smaller units.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Union leaders have for the first time officially endorsed moving beyond the United Nations in order to push forward the international climate negotiations process.

At the EU's spring summit, the bloc's premiers and presidents embraced the G20 as a possible forum more amenable to climate discussions than the UN process, long bogged down by mistrust between rich and poor countries, while at the same time not completely abandoning the UN as some in the US have called for.

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters Life!) - A new climate gallery at London's Science Museum, sponsored byRoyal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), will step back from pushing evidence of man-made climate change to adopt a more neutral position.

Stocks

The 4 million pound ($6 million) exhibition, opening in November, will provide "up-to-date, accurate" information about the science of climate change and aims to "satisfy the interests and needs of those who accept that human-induced climate change is real, those who are unsure, and those who do not," the museum said in a statement.

"The scientific community has, with some exceptions, concluded that climate change is real, largely driven by humans and requires a response," said the museum's director Professor Chris Rapley. "Our objective is to minimise the shrill tone and emotion that bedevils discussion of this subject."

The report, compiled for the Commission by the International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI), concludes that indirect land-use change has "an important effect on the environmental sustainability of biofuels". Nevertheless, it argues that current EU renewable energy targets are small enough to safeguard the environmental sustainability of biofuels.

The EU's Renewable Energies Directive mandates a 10% share of renewable energies in transport fuels by 2020. The report assumes that only 5.6% of this would come from first-generation biofuels.

But experts said this is a gross underestimation because the other options - electric cars and second-generation biofuels produced from waste and non-food crops - will not in reality be widely available by 2020.

The Center for American Progress offers a reminder that we already have a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions up and running in the U.S.-- it's called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, it operates in 10 northeastern states, and it works fairly well, according to CAP's new review.

Bradford Plumer rounded up the details in the CAP post. Now I'm copping from his post--what fun, this internet.

Four useful takeaways here, via Plumer:

British scientists have unveiled plans to clean up the junkyard of space by attaching giant sails to orbiting rubbish to drag it down into Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up.

Fifty years of space exploration have left more than 5,500 tonnes of spent rockets, defunct satellites and abandoned equipment hurtling around the planet and cluttering up the nearest reaches of space.

The build-up of debris, which is growing at 5% a year, is a major threat to working satellites and crewed spacecraft, such as the space shuttle and the International Space Station, which have to alter their orbits occasionally to avoid a direct hit.

Is the time approaching when the European Union will impose greenhouse gas controls on products and services imported from parts of the world that lack such regulations?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy seems to hope so.

Addressing reporters at an E.U. summit in Brussels, Mr. Sarkozy reiterated his view on Friday that imports from countries with looser environmental rules should be penalized.

The E.U. put in place an emissions-trading system in 2005 that forces businesses to pay more to release more greenhouse gases. The so-called border adjustment tax favored by Mr. Sarkozy could help steel, chemical and other major polluters in Europe cope with cheaper imports from overseas.

Researchers believe technology could be used to determine a computer typist's age, sex and culture within 10 keystrokes by monitoring their speed and rhythm.

The murder of Ashleigh Hall, a teenager from Darlington, last year by a predator she met on Facebook has raised fresh calls for extra security to protect young people on the internet.

What will you do come April 1, when Ordnance Survey goes free?

You hadn't heard? You should have. In a big victory for the Free Our Data campaign, Gordon Brown has announced that various sets of OS data - presently expected to be vector and raster datasets from 1:25,000 up to 1:50,000 maps will be made available for free reuse, including commercial reuse.

That's going to create the possibility of paper maps created using OS data, but which are tailored to specific niche uses - rambling, climbing, canoeing, horse-riding, tourism, say.

Then there are all the potential online uses - which the Show Us A Better Way competition, and its winners, could exploit in all sorts of ways that they weren't able to before.

Microsoft's Hotmail and Outlook Live servers keep getting stuck on a spamming loop that is locking many students and teaching staff at UK universities out of the firm's email service.

On 18 March, Microsoft admitted that Hotmail and Outlook Live users at the University of Bath and the University of Manchester were unable to receive emails for the best part of the day due to a cockup with the junk email filtering system.

When former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frumpublished a blog post declaring the final vote on health care reform the "Waterloo" of the Republican Party, he drew a firestorm of criticism on the right. He also, it seems, sacrificed his seven-year fellowship at the American Enterprise Institute. The prestigious conservative think tank abruptly dismissed Frum on Thursday from his $100,000-a-year post as an AEI resident scholar.

Initial reports of his dismissal indicated some dissatisfaction from AEI brass about how little time Frum was logging at the office compared with outside projects, such as his columns at CNN.comand in the Week magazine Frum told Greg Sargent at the Washington Post that AEI President Arthur Brooks informed Frum he could retain his formal affiliation with the institute -- only without any salary. Frum declined the offer and submitted his formal resignation to Brooks after their lunchtime meeting

A different version of events surfaced Friday, when Frum told Politico's Mike Allen that "the core of the story is the kind of economic pressure that intellectual conservatives are under. AEI represents the best of the conservative world. Arthur Brooks is a brilliant man, and his books are fantastic. But the elite isn't leading anymore. It's trapped." Specifically, Frum alluded to pressure from major donors at the institute after the controversial "Waterloo" post.

In 1882, Puck's editor, H.C. Brunner wrote, "There must be something wrong, either in the laws or social system, by which one man can acquire so much wealth and power to the detriment of other men."

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Related galleries:
The Garden Party of the Monopolists
Keppler

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

A campaign is under way to have a statue of the creator of Count Dracula - one of Gothic horror's most fascinating characters - erected in his native city of Dublin.

Many do not realise that Bram Stoker, author of the book Dracula, was an Irishman who spent much of his life in Dublin. In fact several of the numerous Draculesque theories maintain that his creation is grounded not just in Transylvania but in Irish folklore.

The statue proposal, which came from Dacre Stoker, the author's great-great-nephew, has found initial favour with Dublin Council's advisers.

But, since the Irish economy might these days be described as close to undead, the statue project - planned to coincide with the centenary of the author's death in 2012 - will only go ahead if the Stoker family can find the money for it. According to a council spokesman, a life-size statue would cost around €100,000 (£90,000).

A New York memorabilia dealer is selling what he claims is the last privately-owned copy of a World War Two manuscript of Jewish names known as "Schindler's list" and made famous in the 1993 movie of the same name.

New York memorabilia dealer, Gary Zimet is asking $2.2 million for the list. He says three others are owned by museums, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Representing the manuscript's seller, Zimet, says it's been held for more than 55 years by the family of Schindler's accountant, Itzhak Stern. The Stern family recently sold it to the current, unidentified owner.

The trouble started when Raj Patel appeared on American TV to plug his latest book, an analysis of the financial crisis called The Value of Nothing.

Shortly afterwards, however, things took a strange turn. Over the course of a couple of days, cryptic messages started filling his inbox.

"I started getting emails saying 'have you heard of Benjamin Creme?' and 'are you the world teacher?'" he said. "Then all of a sudden it wasn't just random internet folk, but also friends saying, 'Have you seen this?'"

What he had written off as gobbledygook suddenly turned into something altogether more bizarre: he was being lauded by members of an obscure religious group who had decided that Patel - a food activist who grew up in a corner shop in Golders Green in north-west London - was, in fact, the messiah.

The days when teachers could expect just a hand-written card or chocolates from their pupils as a present at the end of term are fast disappearing.

Instead, they are being showered with an ever-more bewildering array of expensive presents, including opera and Test match tickets, champagne - and even a brace of pheasants. One teacher was even promised a foreign holiday by a parent if he could get a child onto a music scholarship scheme run by Eton.

The glittering array of presents on offer is revealed in a survey of more than 1,000 teachers published today by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers. It has prompted concerns, to be raised at the union's conference next week, that the custom has become "increasingly commercialised and competitive".

We did discuss at lunch whether we felt we could manage our embarrassment over a Tiffany bracelet...

A mare called Asherah Ishtar from the Kirkkonummi-based RH Team is the only horse in Finland that has been deemed sufficiently worthy - together with 99 other quality mares worldwide - to receive seminal fluid from the Dutch super-stallion Moorlands Totilas.

Some may ask "Moorlands Who?", but in the international media Moorlands Totilas has been described as a dressage sensation and the priciest horse of all time. If he were for sale, the price-tag for the ten-year-old stallion, "Toto" to his friends, would read EUR 25 million. With that amount of money one could buy, for example, approximately 860 Škoda Superb Combi family estate cars.

"The stallion is a triple Dressage World Champion. The percentages it has achieved its victories with have been in a league all their own. Normally, at the Olympic level, the top dressage horses receive around 80 per cent of the maximum points. This one has been awarded scores of over 90 per cent", gasps Tarja Malmström, the owner of the lucky mare.

Finnish Breeders' Association Chairman of the Board Håkan Wahlman seems equally impressed with the uniqueness of the offered breeding possibility.

 "We have high expectations. Totilas is an exceptional individual, one that has impressed the entire dressage world with his moves", Wahlman gushes.

The point is not to be right, but to get to right.