The Bundestag on Thursday (22 April) is set to hold a landmark vote on European affairs, with the first binding EU recommendation for its government to follow in respect to Iceland's membership bid to join the bloc.

Although not a controversial one, the vote is a premiere in German politics, after lawmakers acquired a greater say on the government's EU policies. These extra powers were key for the Bundestag last year to approve the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's new legal framework, which the German constitutional court said did not provide enough parliamentary oversight.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Belgian politics were once again hurled into chaos on Thursday (22 April) after the Flemish Liberal party (Open VLD) - a key member of the ruling coalition - decided to pull out of the five-month-old government. .

Prime Minister Yves Leterme subsequently tendered his resignation to the country's head of state, King Albert II, around 1:30pm. "There was no other choice but for the government to resign," finance minister Didier Reynders told reporters.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday urged Romanian authorities to resolve the legal uncertainty surrounding an EU-backed agency scrutinising public officials' conflicts of interest, after the country's constitutional court stripped it of its main powers.

Ukrainian president Yanukovych has signed an extension of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's lease of its naval base in Sevastopol in the Crimea, which was due to expire in 2017, in return for a discount on gas imports. His predecessor, Victor Yuschenko, had opposed the move.

UK Tory leader David Cameron is sending shadow environment secretary Nick Herbert, who is gay, to Warsaw to try to convince the EU Parliament allies in the anti-gay Law and Justice Party to moderate its positions.

REUTERS - Armenia on Thursday suspended ratification of peace accords with Turkey, setting back to square one U.S.-backed efforts to bury a century of hostility between the neighbours.   Christian Armenia and Muslim Turkey signed accords in October last year to establish diplomatic relations and open their land border, bidding to overcome the legacy of the World War One mass killing f Armenians by Ottoman Turks.   But the process was already deadlocked before Thursday's decision, with each side accusing the other of trying to re-write the texts and setting new conditions.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has reiterated Germany's commitment to the war against Taliban Islamist militants in Afghanistan, saying to withdraw Bundeswehr troops from the country at this time would be "irresponsible."

Thursday's plenary session in the Bundestag opened on a somber note, as tributes were paid to the 43 German soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan, and Polish President Lech Kaczynski who was recently killed in a plane crash.

"The soldiers gave their lives to help build a safe, democratic state in Afghanistan," the president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert said.

The bishop of Augsburg, Walter Mixa, has written a letter to the pope offering his resignation after being accused of using violence against children in his care, and of misusing funds donated to a local orphanage.

His decision comes after senior figures in the German Catholic Church - who do not have the authority to call on him to resign -suggested he take a leave of absence from his post, a move which revealed a rare lack of solidarity within the ranks of the Catholic Church.

The number of people registering to vote has increased markedly, adding a new generation of voters to the electorate and making the outcome of the election even more volatile, according to a survey of marginal constituencies conducted by the Guardian.

Figures collected from more than 20 of the most marginal areas following Tuesday's deadline to register to vote indicate across-the-board increases in the electorate, compared with the last general election, suggesting that turnout could soar on 6 May.

Crime fell by 7% in England and Wales during 2009 despite the recession, according to the latest set of crime figures, published today.

The dramatic drop in overall crime was accompanied by further falls in the levels of gun and knife crime, including a 21% fall in fatal stabbings.

The latest British Crime Survey (BCS) results show a 1% rise in violent crime, but Home Office statisticians said that this was not statistically significant and overall levels of violent crime remained stable.

Both the BCS and the number of offences recorded by police show a 7% fall in overall crime in 2009. The number of offences recorded by the police in 2009, 4.4m, represents a fall of 340,000 in the past year and is now below the crime level recorded in 1997 when Labour came to power.

US investigators have been trying to get Germany to arrest and extradite a German citizen who allegedly belongs to a network smuggling US electronic components to Iran to be used in roadside bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan. But a German court is blocking the move.

The case has to do with temperature and humidity gauges as well as valves that regulate water flow -- the kind of things you can pick up in any sanitation-equipment store.

But what makes it unusual is that it also has to do with a request by American law-enforcement officials for their German counterparts to search through the office of a man they have in their sights and confiscate, in particular, "electronic data, written correspondence, invoices and lists of addresses."

What's more, these same officials would also like the Germans to extradite the suspect -- a German citizen who, for legal reasons, can only be identified as "N." -- so he can face criminal charges in the US. As far as the Americans are concerned, the ethnic Iranian businessman from the northern German city of Kiel is an enemy of the state who deserves to be put in prison for up to five years -- whether he was involved with the temperature and humidity gauges or not.

NATO's top official said Thursday that the alliance should take steps to support President Obama's ambitious nuclear-disarmament agenda, but he made clear that there are limits -- specifically, that U.S. atomic weapons should not be removed from Europe.

Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke as NATO foreign ministers discussed for the first time in more than a decade whether to get rid of the last remnants of the U.S. nuclear force that blanketed Western Europe during the Cold War...

But some European officials -- particularly in former Warsaw Pact countries -- worry that eliminating the weapons could send the wrong signal to Russia or other potential antagonists. U.S. officials acknowledged Thursday that Rasmussen's feelings are widely shared in the alliance.

"There is now new wind in the sails when it comes to reducing nuclear weapons and nuclear risks, and I want to commend President Obama for this, because he is leading the way," Rasmussen told a news conference, indicating that NATO could back some cuts in the short-range weapons. He said, however, that NATO's "core business" was assuring the alliance's members that they are protected.

"I do believe the presence of American nuclear weapons in Europe is an essential part of a credible deterrent," he said.

Military leaders say Britain's election should not be allowed to influence timetable for Afghans to take over

Nice to see NATO supports democracy...

Sky leaders' debate spin room: the live abortion of democracy | Marina Hyde | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

"Mos Eisley spaceport," sighs Ben Kenobi in Star Wars. "You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy ... " Evidently Obi Wan never visited Sky's post-debate spin room, which - pound-of-flesh for pound-of-flesh - must have been one of the most distasteful places to be in this galaxy or any other tonight.

The venue was an interactive science museum in Bristol, magically transformed by Rupert Murdoch's news network into a fully operational 10th circle of hell. Behold, the cream of Britain's arseoisie, as journalists, spin doctors and politicians interact in scenes that just scream "Come, friendly bombs ..."

[Crème de la Arseoisie™ Alert]

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - UK pharmaceutical firms have been defeated in their attempt to put an end to British government incentives to doctors to supply patients with cheaper but equivalent medicines.

The European Court of Justice rejected a complaint by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) that such National Health Service (NHS) schemes were not an illegal inducement under EU law.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Many of Europe's biggest corporations are avoiding registering their lobbying activities in Brussels even as they admit to the scale of their operations in Washington where registration of lobbyists is required by law, according to a new study.

As a result of the different registry frameworks between the two legislative capitals - in Brussels, the European Commission's lobby registry is a voluntary affair - European big business on the whole is able to make it appear that it is engaged in much more lobbying in Washington than in Brussels. This is the conclusion of a new study by lobbying watchdogs that analyses what the EU's 50 biggest corporations say they are spending on influencing policy.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The growing nationalist sentiment expressed by Chinese internet users is making the country more protectionist, according to Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

"When we meet [Chinese] officials they are very worried about the netizens. They really feel they have to be responsive to these interest groups," said Mr Wuttke earlier this week (20 April).

Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou said after the first day of crucial meetings with EU, IMF and European Central Bank officials on Wednesday (21 April) that an agreement on a contingency rescue plan could be reached by 15 May.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has said he is to fight EU laws that require airlines pay for customers' hotel bills after cancelled flights in the wake of the volcano ash troubles. "There's no legislation designed that says any airline getting a fare of €30 should be reimbursing passengers," he said.

After the first battle in a three part televised debate between Britain's major party leaders led to a massive boost for the "third man", Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has been catapulted into the spotlight, lavished over and picked apart by both the electorate and the press. Welcome to the UK, where "Cleggmania" is contagious... but for how long?

US President Barack Obama on Thursday will warn that the United States is doomed to a repeat of its economic crisis if it fails to embrace his proposed financial regulatory reforms.
   
In advance excerpts of a major speech he is due to give later in New York, Obama calls on Wall Street finance chiefs to join his effort to pass what he has billed as the most sweeping reforms since the 1930s.
   
The president notes that he visited Cooper Union, a prestigious college where he will give Thursday's speech, to warn of the dangers of Wall Street excess during his 2008 election campaign.
   
"I take no satisfaction in noting that my comments have largely been borne out by the events that followed," Obama says.

On his recent piece "Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete " that appeared on the Huffington Post he notes:

   April 15th has come and gone, but the issue of taxation remains the course de jour. I was recently forwarded an article entitled Taxes For Revenue Are Obsolete, written in 1946 by Beardsley Ruml, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and published in a periodical named American Affairs. While Ruml was writing about the merits of corporate taxes, it is his discussion about how the function of taxes changed after the nation exited the gold standard that make this a must read. As Ruml's stated, with an "...inconvertible currency, a sovereign national government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes for the purpose of providing itself with revenue... It follows that our Federal Government has final freedom from the money market in meeting its financial requirements... All federal taxes must meet the test of public policy and practical effect. The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue." He goes on to explain how, with Federal spending not revenue constrained, the first function of taxation is to regulate the value of the dollar, which we know as regulating inflation. The notion of the Federal government 'running out of money' and 'dependence on foreign borrowing' as well as 'sustainability' is categorically inapplicable. The operative CBO 'scoring' is the inflationary effect, rather than simply a revenue forecast. And while Social Security and Medicare may turn out to be inflationary, they are not 'bankrupting the nation' as most believe, including a Democratic Congress that cut Medicare spending with the recent health care bill and has all entitlements 'on the table.'

Derivatives can serve many useful purposes, but they also contain hidden dangers. For instance, they can pile up hidden imbalances in supply or demand which may suddenly be revealed when a threshold is breached. This is true of so-called knockout options, used in currency hedging. It was also true of the portfolio insurance programs that caused the New York Stock Exchange's Black Monday in October 1987. The subsequent introduction of circuit breakers tacitly acknowledged that derivatives can cause discontinuities, but the proper conclusions were not drawn.

Credit default swaps are particularly suspect. They are supposed to provide insurance against default to bondholders. But because they are freely tradable, they can be used to mount bear raids; in addition to insurance they also provide a licence to kill. Their use ought to be confined to those who have an insurable interest in the bonds of a country or company.

It will be the task of regulators to understand derivatives and synthetic securities and refuse to allow their creation if they cannot fully evaluate their systemic risks. That task cannot be left to investors, contrary to the diktats of the market fundamentalist dogma that prevailed until recently.

AFP - A series of grenade attacks rocked central Bangkok on Thursday, killing one person and injuring more than 50, including foreigners, amid a tense standoff between groups of rival protesters.
   
Five grenades were fired into a crowd in the capital's business district, said army spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd, where pro-government demonstrators were facing off with their rival "Red Shirts".
   
One Thai woman died, according to a local hospital, after the grenades hit the mass of pro-government supporters. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva immediately called an emergency meeting with security officials.
   
Ambulances rushed to the scene to load up bloodied victims after the blasts sent relaxed and cheerful pro-government crowds fleeing from the area, home to dozens of corporate towers and a notorious red-light district.

AFP - India's city population will nearly double to close to 600 million people by 2030, requiring huge investment to avoid urban "chaos", a report by global consultancy McKinsey warned Thursday.

India must invest 1.2 trillion dollars for core urban infrastructure in its cities over the next 20 years, equivalent to 134 dollars per capita a year, the report said -- almost eight times current spending in per capita terms.

"The need for change is urgent. India's current approach to urbanization is likely to result in urban gridlock and chaos," said Ireena Vittal, one of the report's authors

AFP - The meal doesn't look like much, rice, a few vegetables and a little bit of meat, but for the Haitian school children who receive it for free, it is reason enough to come to class.

By 10:30 am on a Wednesday, the smell of chicken stock wafts through the Rosalie Javoukey school, located in a neighborhood of Haiti's devastated capital Port-au-Prince.

In the shade of a three-story building scheduled for demolition, women bustle about, doling food onto metal and plastic plates on huge tables set up in between white Unicef tents.

AFP - Two military-grade rockets struck Jordan early on Thursday, one slamming into an empty warehouse in Aqaba and the other splashing into the Red Sea near the Israeli border, a security official said.

"The preliminary investigation determined that the explosion in the (Red Sea) port of Aqaba on Thursday morning was due to a Katyusha rocket," the security official said, citing sources close to investigators.

AFP - South Korea's military believes that a North Korean submarine launched a torpedo attack to sink a South Korean warship last month near their disputed sea border, the Yonhap news agency said Thursday.

The assessment was reported to the office of President Lee Myung-Bak and the defence ministry immediately after the ship sank last month, an unnamed senior military source told Yonhap.

"It's our military intelligence's assessment that North Korean submarines attacked the ship with a heavy torpedo," the source said, adding that the subs were armed with torpedoes with 200-kilogram (440-pound) warheads.

REUTERS - US President Barack Obama's administration has warned that "all options" are on the table if Syria supplied Scud missiles to Hezbollah but defended its pursuit of dialogue with Damascus.
   
Israel believes that Syria has supplied Hezbollah with the ballistic missiles, which could dramatically increase the Lebanese Shiite militia's ability to attack the Jewish state.
   
Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, said Wednesday the United States would have "really, really serious concern" if Syria had delivered such high-grade weapons to Hezbollah.

English Facebook link (unfortunately not updated)

Unknown blog note (in English but somewhat alarmist)

The most reliable and up-to-date source is this (unfortunately in Spanish)

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

(Reuters) - Shortly after they were diagnosed with breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. There was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. And there was Patricia Reilling, a successful art gallery owner and interior designer from Louisville, Kentucky.

U.S.  |  Health  |  Healthcare Reform

Neither of these women knew about the other. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders -- more than any other health insurance company in the United States.

The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.

Romanian President Traian Basescu on Thursday said his country was against an EU-wide reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, unless other big international players were also aiming for the same target. Romania, however, does support the 20% target agreed at EU level.

Important differences between the major parties on the environment emerged last night, as they clashed over nuclear power, windfarms, expanding flying, and the number of climate change sceptics in their ranks.

Despite similar-sounding manifestos, Labour's climate and energy secretary, Ed Miliband, and his Conservative and Liberal Democrat shadow spokesmen attacked each other's policies at a special debate organised by the Guardian.

Government subsidies for solar energy in Germany have reached absurd proportions, as ordinary consumers pay out billions to support solar power. Now plans to reduce the subsidies are encountering massive resistance from the industry and a number of German states, which benefit from the current arrangement.

Stuart Brannigan believes that the subsidization of solar power practiced in Germany is extremely exaggerated. Brannigan, a British citizen, says that it's "absolutely necessary" that it be drastically reduced in size.

It's a surprising remark, considering that Brannigan is the European managing director of Yingli Green Energy, a Chinese solar energy company which largely has German government subsidies to thank for the fact that it has been able to grow from a small business into a major player in just six years. Brannigan hasn't exactly made any friends in the photovoltaic sector, especially not in Germany, with comments like this.

(HELSINKI) - Finland's government on Tuesday outlined a plan to massively boost renewable energy production to meet European Union requirements on slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

"This addition of renewable energy is equivalent in scale to three big nuclear power plants," Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said in comments broadcast by YLE.

"In terms of scale, this is a massive solution," Vanhanen said after a ministerial working group on climate and energy policy agreed on the proposal.

Finland's energy mix currently includes nuclear power, and the government is due to decide this month on how many new nuclear reactor permits to allow.

Three utilities have made requests for permits, and the decision will need parliamentary approval.

To meet an EU requirement for raising the share of renewables to 38 percent of energy consumption by 2020, Finland must increase energy production based on renewables by 38 terawatt hours, the employment and economy ministry said in a statement.

It plans to do so by increasing the use of wood-based energy, wind power, biofuels and heat pumps, with support for renewable energy envisioned at around 327 million euros (439 million dollars) per year in 2020.

The efforts would see Finland's annual carbon dioxide emissions cut by seven million tonnes by 2020 while reducing coal use would cut emissions by a further two million tonnes, the statement said.

The event will look at the role that sustainable agriculture can play in feeding the world while addressing such concerns as reducing the so-called 'carbon footprint', the start of farming 'cool' and protecting soil from pesticides and erosion.

Industry stakeholders will share knowledge, insights and experiences in a programme designed around working sessions, keynote speeches, workshops, networking opportunities and roundtables. Topics on the agenda include:

• successful cases of sustainable agriculture,
  
• sharing risk and value across the supply chain,
  
• the importance of local and global policy for sustainable agriculture,
  
• the practicality of a global framework for farm metrics,
  
• responsible soy production,
  
• sustainable palm production,
  
• collaboration work in the value chain,
  
• insights and successful strategies in farmer capacity development.

More information about this event...

Asian carp are reviled as vanquishers of native species, feared as hefty jumpers able to break a boatman's jaw, and scorned as, well, carp. But even as Northern states battle to keep them from ravaging the Great Lakes, officials in the South, where the alien species have multiplied like guppies, are working to transform the carp into marketable assets.

First, the rebranding. In January, Louisiana wildlife officials rolled out the Silverfin Promotion, enlisting chefs to create recipes for what they called the tasty white meat of the bighead carp and silver carp, the two dominant invaders.

"A cross between scallops and crabmeat," declared Philippe Parola, a noted seafood chef whose new recipes include silverfin almondine.

Meanwhile, would-be carp exploiters in Kentucky, after trying the fish smoked, canned and in fried balls, concluded that it tasted remarkably like tuna and proposed labeling it Kentucky tuna.

No one has yet declared the Asian carp to taste just like chicken, but a new image does seem essential.

When the German Bier Purity ordnance came into effect, sorta.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

AFP - Children watching the Disney Channel in Chile were offered a startling adults-only peek of Playboy programming this week because of a technical error, media reported Thursday.

And the glimpse they caught went a long way beyond Playboy's bunny logo romping around on a channel normally reserved for Mickey Mouse and friends.

"My eldest daughter told me one of her friends said to put on channel 21 (Disney), and instead of the usual program there was the Playboy channel. Luckily my smallest one, 10 years old, was sleeping at the time," one Chilean mother, Jacqueline Orchad, told the daily El Mercurio.