EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - In a bid to boost its credibility, the EU's justice and police mission in Kosovo has started high-level corruption cases against local officials and fired 16 of its own gendarmes who were caught smuggling cigarettes and alcohol across the border.

"Our guiding principle is that no-one is above the law and we will continue to apply that," Eulex head of mission Yves de Kermabon told MEPs during a hearing on Thursday (3 June).

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - From the brand-new European Parliament office in Washington, Polish national Piotr Nowina-Konopka is seeking to increase co-operation between the US and EU legislatures, moving from the current formulaic contacts to practical exchanges between the law-makers representing 800 million people between them.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As an Irish ship carrying humanitarian aid continues to sail for Gaza, Ireland has found itself hurled to the forefront of tensions between Israel and the European Union.

On Wednesday (2 June), the Irish government warned Israel for a second time to let the boat, whose passengers count among their number five Irish nationals, including a former UN deputy secretary general and a Northern Irish Nobel peace prize laureate, carry on to its destination and deliver its cargo without hindrance.

A highly anticipated report by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Serge Brammertz, on Serbia's and Croatia's cooperation with the court appears less positive than both countries were expecting.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday denied that a split is emerging inside the union on how to handle the Israel flotilla probe after Italy and the Netherlands voted against a UN call for an international enquiry. "The EU does speak with one voice," she said.

The state premier of Lower Saxony, Christian Wulff is to be nominated as the next German president, according to government sources.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to propose the 50-year-old as the successor to Horst Koehler, who resigned unexpectedly at the start of the week.

The naming of Wulff follows German media reports that the former favorite, Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen, is no longer being considered. The media reports cite sources from within Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

German Defense Minister Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg has reopened a long-simmering debate about the draft in Germany, saying he wouldn't shy away from "radical and controversial measures" in his efforts to cut back on military expenditure.

"Against the background of the latest savings proposal, I'm determined to put the issue of military conscription back on the agenda," the German Defense Minister said in a keynote speech on military policy in Hamburg recently.

As part of the government's planned austerity measures, the German military is facing cuts of 1 billion euros ($1.24 billion) annually over the next three years.

On his landmark visit to Ankara on Thursday, Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region and the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) made pledges that testified to the major renewal of Turkish-Kurd relations that has developed recently.

"We are against the continuation of violence. We do not see Turkey's security as separate from our own. We will expend all efforts to end this deplorable situation," Barzani said after talks with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

In Greece, the latest 24-hour strikes have left a hole in media coverage as journalists have walked off the job.

On Thursday, no television news or radio programs are being broadcast, and online news outlets have not been updated since early Thursday morning. Friday editions of the country's newspapers are also not scheduled to be printed.

In addition to stopping the presses, Greek public transportation workers have also gone on strike. Currently, there are no bus, subway or tram services in Athens.

AFP- A man shot dead a female magistrate and a court clerk in a Brussels courtroom on Thursday before fleeing the scene, justice minister Stefaan De Clerck announced.

"This is a real drama. A magistrate, for the first time in history, and her clerk, were killed right in the tribunal room," De Clerck told said on national television.

The justice of the peace who was killed was presiding over a civil tribunal dealing with matters such as divorce and problems with neighbours, according to the minister.

AFP- Friends and neighbours of Derrick Bird, who killed 12 people on a shooting spree in northern England, have expressed shock that a "normal bloke" could wreak such devastation.
   
But there were reportedly some prior warnings of the killings, which media reports suggest could have been caused by a family feud or a row at work -- and which caused the normally conposed Bird to explode.
   
The 52-year-old taxi driver drove through the picturesque Lake District on Wednesday morning on a terrifying rampage that only ended when he turned the gun on himself.
   
Police do not yet know what motivated the attack. He had no history of mental illness, according to the local health authorities.

England (Reuters) - The head of Britain's biggest union said tougher anti-union laws are certain under Britain's new government and will trigger confrontation with workers already angered by proposed spending cuts.

UK

But Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson told Reuters in an interview the kind of riots that have hit debt-laden Greece are unlikely in Britain.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat alliance, which came to power after a May 6 election, wants to concentrate most of its efforts on departmental spending cuts as it tries to reduce a budget deficit running close to 11 percent of national output.

Ed Miliband has strengthened his pledge to promote women to senior political jobs by supporting a plan to ensure half of the party's new shadow Cabinet team is female.

Labour's acting leader, Harriet Harman, announced she would be campaigning for a change to the party's rules that would see 11 out of the 22 shadow posts given to women. Current rules dictate that just four posts have to be filled by a female MP. The move would guarantee jobs for the likes of Yvette Cooper, Tessa Jowell and Caroline Flint.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Brussels has warned that markets will "punish" the EU unless it restores faith in its financial governance. But the 2011 Hungarian EU presidency risks setting a bad example amid a struggle to rebuild its economy and a recent turn toward nationalism.

"I have encouraged Prime Minister Orban to do everything that is in his power to address the structural problems for Hungary, to continue and to accelerate if possible fiscal consolidation efforts," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Thursday (3 June) after meeting the new Hungarian leader in Brussels.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - An influential member of the European Parliament has questioned the way in which EU leaders and finance minsters rapidly cobbled together a €750 billion eurozone rescue mechanism at the beginning of last month, referring to the process as "highly undemocratic".

The comments, made by centre-right MEP Wolf Klinz on Thursday (3 June), refer in particular to the new balance-of-payments facility for eurozone states that makes up part of the support mechanism.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has come forward with a list of amendments to revise EU rules on credit rating agencies, aiming to boost transparency and centralise supervision at the European level.

Under the proposals, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) - a new body whose legislation is currently being negotiated by member states and the European Parliament - will take over the supervision of rating agencies in Europe from national authorities.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU is still no clearer on how it should balance the freedom of the internal market and workers rights following a series of key judgements in recent years by the bloc's highest court, seen as tipping the scale more towards the protection of economic interests.

A hearing on Wednesday (2 June) on where to go next with a law governing the hiring of foreign workers - the Posting of Workers Directive - saw little agreement between the European Commission, business and trade union representatives.

Italy, France and Germany have ignored EU court rulings on non-compliance with single market law and face fines if the situation persists, the EU commission warned on Thursday. The Italian case concerns an illegal transition period for making women civil servants retire at the same age as men.

It's no secret that the German government is on the brink of some serious belt-tightening to get its budget deficit under control. However, it is still unclear exactly what those measures will entail, and where the cuts will come from.

On Thursday, members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet are meeting to continue the debate on the issue ahead of a special session beginning on Sunday where concrete plans are expected to be made.

France's upper house of parliament definitively approved Thursday a supplementary budget giving the green light to the country providing 111 billion euros as a guarantee to safeguard the euro. The Senate passed the plan by 309 votes to 24. The vote approved France's contribution to a bailout package agreed to by the leaders of the 16 euro zone countries on May 9.   France's National Assembly (France's lower house) had earlier backed the plan in a vote Monday.  

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is mentioned in a Luxembourg police report concerning the payment of tens of millions of euros in bribes in the sale of French submarines to Pakistan in 1994.

The report, dated January 19, 2010, is in the possession of two French officials investigating DCN, the company that built the submarines, according to legal sources who on Wednesday confirmed information published on the Mediapart website.

The rising cost of meat, dairy products and vegetable oils will increase the world's food import bill by 11.5 per cent in 2010, according to the United Nations, further stoking fears of rising food inflation in emerging countries.

Food costs make up a significant part of the price of consumer goods, and the increase is likely to lead to higher inflation at a time when many emerging economies are battling rising inflation.

Chinese consumer price inflation rose to 2.8 per cent in April, with food prices rising 5.9 per cent year-on-year - one factor pushing the Chinese authorities to take measures to cool the growth of their economy.

In its forecast about this year's food import bill, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Thursday that the cost of imported foods would hit $921bn, its highest level after a record of $1,015bn in 2008, and well above levels before the food crisis of $350bn-$450bn a year.

Retail trade in the eurozone fell at its sharpest level for 18 months in April, raising fears that the bloc's economic recovery is being hampered by anaemic high-street spending.

Seasonally-adjusted retail trade was down 1.2 per cent compared to March, according to Eurostat, the European Commission's statistical arm.

Economists had expected a modest rise. The fall was partly offset by an upward revision to the March data, from 0 to 0.5 per cent growth.

The fall chimes with repeated surveys of consumers, which show that confidence is still at low levels and falling. That has filtered through to stagnant retail spending, with consequences for the broader economy.

Governor Zhou Xiaochuan of the Chinese central bank put forward in April 2009 the case for a "super-sovereign reserve currency". Such a currency already exists in embryonic form in the IMF Special Drawing Rights...

Why not, however, gradually give the SDR more of the characteristics of a genuine money and allocate new issues to emerging countries? This was originally proposed in a now long-forgotten plan by the late Maxwell Stamp. The purpose of a revival would not be to add permanently to emerging country reserves but to provide these countries with the wherewithal to increase investment. Surplus nations such as China would then receive payments in non-depreciating currency guaranteed against default and SDR users would have much less reason to fear undue Chinese political influence. Moreover, instead of the uphill task of persuading the western political and financial establishments that budget deficits are permissible and desirable in the face of a potential world savings surplus, the offset to that surplus would be provided by development expenditure, which would be doubly blessed as "investment" and as part of an attack on world poverty - all this would attract bien-pensant lobbies in a way that the more abstract Keynesian arguments on their own evidently cannot.

Statements by senior Israeli military commanders made in the Hebrew media days before the massacre revealed that the raid was planned over a week in advance by the Israeli military and was personally approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak. The elite Israeli commando unit known as Unit 13 was tasked with carrying out the mission and its role was known by the Israeli public well before the raid took place. Details of the plan show that the use of deadly force was authorized and calculated. The massacre of activists should not have been unexpected.

On May 28, three days before the raid, top Israeli military officials revealed details of their strategy to Maariv, Israel's most widely circulated paper. The caption of the Maariv article reflected the military command's plan to use force: "On the way to violence; one of the boats is on its way."

In a lecture he gave to a group of journalism students last month, a top official at Xinhua, the state news agency, said that the mission was not so picture-perfect. The official, Xia Lin, described how a design flaw had exposed the astronaut to excessive G-force pressure during re-entry, splitting his lip and drenching his face in blood. Startled but undaunted by Mr. Yang's appearance, the workers quickly mopped up the blood, strapped him back in his seat and shut the door. Then, with the cameras rolling, the cabin door swung open again, revealing an unblemished moment of triumph for all the world to see.

The content of Mr. Xia's speech, transcribed and posted online by someone who attended the May 15 lecture at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, has become something of a sensation in recent days, providing the Chinese a rare insight into how their news is stage-managed for mass consumption.

Titled "Understanding Journalistic Protocols for Covering Breaking News," the speech was intended to help budding journalists understand Xinhua's dual mission: to give Chinese leaders a fast and accurate picture of current events and to deftly manipulate that picture for the public to ensure social harmony, and by extension, the Communist Party's hold on power. ...

L'ufficio stampa del governo israeliano ha divulgato per errore un video-farsa proprio sul sanguinoso arrembaggio costato la vita di nove persone. Il video creato da Latma Tv si intitola "Flotilla- We con the world" (Flotilla- Noi inganniamo il mondo) ed è la parodia di "We are the world".

The renewable energy industry has won exemption from a piece of European Union legislation aimed at banning the use of hazardous chemical substances in household electronic goods.

The vote comes as a relief to solar panel companies such as First Solar Inc, which had strongly resisted the attempt by some members of the European Parliament to ban the substance cadmium, used as a compound in the panels made by the US company.

AFP - BP on Thursday successfully cut off a fractured oil pipe using giant shears, pressing ahead with its latest bid to seal the leak as President Barack Obama announced a third trip to the region.
  
After a diamond-blade saw got stuck in the pipe lying a mile down on the sea bed, the British energy giant was forced to use rougher means to slice it off.
  
"The other saw that we attempted to use was not successful in getting the internal drill pipe so we replaced it with the shears, which don't have as clean a cut, but we do have a cut now," Admiral Thad Allen told reporters.

EU air quality legislation sets a limit on the maximum concentrations of certain pollutants. Britain has failed to comply with standards for dangerous airborne particles known as PM10, which are emitted by industry, traffic and domestic heating, the Commission said.

These particles can cause health problems including asthma, cardiovascular problems, lung cancer and premature death.

According to the latest data, the Greater London Urban Area and Gibraltar exceed PM10 limits

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Nokia-Siemens Networks on Wednesday (2 June) admitted its share of the blame for Iran's brutal crack-down on anti-government demonstrators last year after selling mobile phone surveillance to the authoritarian regime.

"We absolutely do find ourselves in a tricky situation and need the help of people in this room to help us navigate in these challenging times," Barry French, head of marketing and corporate affairs with Nokia-Siemens Networks, told MEPs during a hearing on human rights and new information technologies.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Western Europeans are among the world's most suspicious users of social networking websites but Asians are the most duplicitous, a new study has found.

Focusing on the biggest player in the field, Facebook, which is used by just over half of all internet surfers, the survey by Belgian firm InSites Consulting noted that 47 percent of people in southern Europe and 44 percent in western Europe have "little trust" that Facebook will not pass on their private data to third parties.

Sharia police in the Indonesian province of Aceh are stopping women dressed in jeans and forcing them to change into long government issued skirts.

The semiautonomous province on the northern island of Sumatra has the highest proportion of Muslims in the country. In order to bring an end to decades of fighting between Muslim separatists and the army, the national government consented to the adoption of Sharia law in Aceh in 2002. To enforce the new laws, a special unit of police, called Wilayatul Hisbah or "the vice and virtue patrol", was established.

On 26 May, the West Aceh district of the province intensified their crackdown on women wearing tight fitting trousers by issuing the local police with 20,000 long skirts. Women who are stopped at checkpoints for breaching the bylaw are now furnished with a skirt and have their trousers confiscated. The women cannot be arrested however.

A satirical Web user who has been slamming British oil major BP for weeks over the oil slick crisis has decided to put his online popularity to good use by donating 10,000 dollars (8165 euros) to Gulf Restoration Network, a non-profit conservation group.   Since its launch on May 19, the BPGlobalPR Twitter account has ridiculed BP's management of the oil slick crisis, earning in the process 111,347 followers (and counting).

AFP- Six men from Europe, Russia and China were Thursday locked away from the outside world for the next one-and-a-half years, in an unprecedented experiment to simulate the effects of a mission to Mars.
   
One Chinese man, one Italian, one Frenchman and three Russians will spend the next 520 days in a 550 cubic metre facility at a Moscow research institute to test how their bodies and minds react to prolonged isolation.
   
Dressed in blue overalls, the six gave the thumbs-up sign and smiled for the cameras as loved ones and wellwishers gave them an emotional send-off before they entered the facility.
   
"See you in 520 days," shouted one of the Russian participants, Sukhrob Kamolov, just before a scientist shut the door on the facility and sealed it shut at around 1000 GMT.

AFP - Le Monde, France's high-brow newspaper of record, on Thursday vowed to remain independent despite imminent plans to sell itself to a new -- and possibly foreign -- owner.

"A page of the daily's history will turn," publisher Eric Fottorino wrote in a front-page letter to readers that said five bidders were interested in taking control of the paper currently owned by its journalists.

Gareth Edwards made just-releasing Monsters (so he says) for 15000 bucks. But it doesn't matter if it cost 1.000.000 - it's still cheap. And this movie is going to be highly influential around Hollywood board rooms.

But the video above shows how he personally made 250 video effects for the BBC Drama 'Attila the Hun' (apart from directing the 2 hour TV movie). In his bedroom.

You can't be me, I'm taken

AFP - Actress Rue McClanahan, who found fame in the long-running US television sitcom "Golden Girls", died Thursday at age 76, People magazine reported on its website.

McClanahan, who played the man-hungry Blanche Devereaux in the popular series which ran for seven years from 1986 to 1992, passed away after suffering a massive stroke, her manager Barbara Lawrence told People.

i just listened to all 4 parts, and cannot find anything he says as unreasonable, but he's a teabagger!

which is why i believe eventually the force of the teabagger movement if it joined forces with the kossak/move on/greenpeace crowd would be unstoppable, especially with someone as convincingly courageous as this man as leader.

nothing remotely beckian...

tough talking realism is what i take away from his vids.

i don't get authoritarian, does anyone here?

all he needs is a wig and a quill, the pose is pure 1798!


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