The defence secretary, Liam Fox, has held out the prospect of British troops starting to leave Afghanistan next year as he set out how the government will conduct what he called a "ruthless" and "unsentimental" defence and security review.

In his first speech on the review, he echoed David Cameron's recent remarks that British troops were in Helmand province "out of necessity, not choice". Their mission was "vital for our national security", he said.

However, Fox described the campaign's aim as creating a "stable enough Afghanistan to allow the Afghan people to manage their own internal and external security". He continued: "By the end of the year I expect that we can show significant progress, consolidating [Nato-led forces'] hold in central Helmand and accelerating the training of the Afghan national security forces".

These are limited objectives open to interpretation and the government's tough language about the importance of the conflict in Afghanistan to the UK's national security is preparing the way for a cut in the number of British troops in Helmand (now about 9,500) next July, the target Barack Obama has set for US troops starting to come home, defence analysts say.

Fox also said in his speech to the Royal United Services Institute today that Britain needed to be "smarter about when and how we deploy power". Both Fox and Cameron are deeply sceptical about New Labour's doctrine of liberal interventionism.

The arrest in Poland of a suspected Mossad agent is threatening to cause a diplomatic tug-of-war between Israel, Poland, Germany and Dubai. The man was arrested in connection with an investigation into the assassination of a leading Hamas figure in a Dubai hotel in January.

Israel is urging Poland not to extradite to Germany a suspected Mossad agent arrested at Warsaw airport on June 4 on suspicion of being involved in the assassination of a leading figure of Hamas in Dubai in January.

The man was arrested by Polish border guards at the airport as he was trying to enter the country. He is wanted by German authorities for allegedly helping to obtain a German passport used by one of the members of the hit team that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a founder of the military arm of the Islamist Hamas movement, in a Dubai hotel on January 19.

Germany has applied for the man to be extradited to Germany but members of the Israeli cabinet say he should be repatriated to Israel instead.

"Israel must resist the extradition of one of its citizens to a third country and use all means to make sure that he returns to his home country," said Transport Minister Israel Katz, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

For decades, the German-French relationship has been the most important one in the European Union. These days, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy can hardly stand each other. Why can't they just get along?

It's been said that she sometimes refers to him as the "little Napoleon." Only two years ago, he said that he liked her more than some in the press seemed to think. When he greets her, he likes to give her a little peck on her left and right cheeks. But she always presses her face a little too closely to his; the ritual is foreign to her.

Early on, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even watched old Louis de Funès films to gain a better understanding of this Frenchman, Nicolas Sarkozy, the country's exuberant, impatient president. Sarkozy is the kind of man who on a Tuesday meets with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who is on hostile terms with Moscow, and sells helicopters to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on a Friday. Who is opposed to government intervention in his country's economy one day and for it the next. He has been likened to the Duracell Bunny, this politician whose batteries never seem to run empty.

From the very beginning Merkel, a Protestant with a quantum chemistry professor for a husband, and Sarkozy, the "bling-bling" president with the pop-star wife, were an extremely unlikely pair. But they respected each other, and for a long time they made an honest effort to downplay their differences. They were determined not to allow their dissimilarities to affect relations between their two countries.

But since the Greek debt crisis emerged, that effort has diminished. "The German chancellor and the French president have never been this far apart," writes the Paris daily Le Figaro. According to the weekly magazine Le Point, "nothing is working anymore in the German-French relationship." Regional newspaper Ouest-France comments that "the worst thing about it is that the malaise is no longer personal, which makes it more deep-seated."

SPIEGEL alert

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

The Catholic Church in Germany, already struggling to cope with the sex abuse scandal, has been hit by revelations of theft, opaque accounting and extravagance. While the grassroots faithful are being forced to make cutbacks, some bishops enjoy the trappings of the church's considerable hidden wealth.

Shortly before Pentecost, Pastor S. received an unexpected early morning visit, not from the Holy Ghost, but from the police.

For the authorities, the words of the Gospel of Luke came true on that morning: He who seeks finds. More than €131,000 ($158,000) were hidden in various places in the rooms of the Catholic priest, tucked in between his laundry or attached to the bottom of drawers. The reverend was arrested on the spot. After several weeks in custody, Hans S., 76, is now back at the monastery, waiting for his trial.

And lo and behold, the proliferation of cash may have been even more miraculous than initially assumed. The public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Würzburg now estimates that S. may have embezzled up to €1.5 million from collections and other church funds. The members of his flock in a wine-growing village in the northern Bavarian region of Franconia are stunned. They had blindly trusted their shepherd, who always seemed so humble and modest.

The Catholic Church is currently being shaken by a number of financial scandals, not only in Franconia but also in Augsburg, another Bavarian city, where Bishop Walter Mixa's dip into funds from a foundation that runs children's homes recently made headlines.

More than €40 million have gone missing in the Diocese of Magdeburg in eastern Germany, €5 million have disappeared in Limburg near Frankfurt, and it was recently discovered that a senior priest in the Diocese of Münster had 30 secret bank accounts. And while parishes throughout Germany are cutting jobs and funds for community work, many bishops are still living on the high horse. A brand-new residence? An ostentatious home for their retirement? Restoration of a Marian column to the tune of €120,000? None of these expenditures presents a problem to high-ranking church officials from Trier in the west to Passau in the southeastern corner of Bavaria, whose coffers are brimming with cash.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Civil rights watchdogs and MEPs have attacked new EU plans to gather data on people who voice or share "radical messages" in a bid to pre-empt terrorist attacks.

Political activists labelled as "Extreme right/left, Islamist, nationalist or anti-globalisation" may in future find themselves under surveillance in line with a new, so-called, EU "data compilation instrument" put at the disposal of police and security forces in member states.

Spying on people for their political beliefs is unacceptable, say MEPs

The 70-question long "instrument," covering ideologies, dissemination channels, personal and professional data on "agents," would help police and security officials gather comparable intelligence across the EU, which could later be pooled together into a single data base.

Although non-binding, the guidelines can legitimise police co-operation and new practices in the member states. The instrument was made public last month by Statewatch, a civil liberties watchdog, after being agreed by EU ministers in April.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The chief of Europe's trade union chiefs, John Monks, has warned that the austerity packages being imposed across the bloc will send the continent "back to the 1930s." He reported that European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also fears member states will turn their back on democracy - but for the opposite reason.

"This is extremely dangerous. This is 1931, we're heading back to the 1930s, with the Great Depression and we ended up with militarist dictatorship," the general secretary of the European Trades Union Congress (ETUC) said in an interview with EUobserver. "I'm not saying we're there yet, but it's potentially very serious, not just economically, but politically as well."

Mr Monks reported that Mr Barroso has similar concerns, but based on diametrically opposed reasoning. He said the commission chief believes the austerity packages will save Europe from returning to the darkest days of the last century rather than precipitating the fall.

"I had a discussion with Barroso last Friday about what can be done for Greece, Spain, Portugal and the rest and his message was blunt: 'Look, if they do not carry out these austerity packages, these countries could virtually disappear in the way that we know them as democracies. They've got no choice, this is it'."

Embarrassed by Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders' victory in Wednesday's general elections? You can now join a dedicated Facebook group to say `sorry' to the rest of the world. And no, you're not the only one. Only two days after its launch, more than 30,000 people have already signed up.

"We apologize for the 1.5 million Dutch people that voted for Geert Wilders" is the name of the Facebook group, launched only hours after Wednesday's election results were in. The far right PVV party got 24 seats in the 150-seat parliament, with around 15 percent of the vote. "The PVV is a right-wing party that promotes fear, hatred and racism," say the founders of the web page. "The majority of Dutch people do not support its ideology and would rather not see it become a part of our government."

Bush
The site was set up by Leonie Heinicke and her brother Michiel, who were inspired by similar initiatives in the United States, where thousands of Americans apologised to the world for the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004.

Leonie and Michiel opened the site simply because they were shocked. "The Netherlands always used to be known as this friendly, tolerant country," Leonie told Radio Netherlands Worldwide. "But that's changed now. We have a lot of international friends and they all asked us how a party like the PVV can be so popular here. That's why we opened this Facebook group."

New Dads to be Forced to Stay at Home

Four day's leave on full pay. People of Freedom and Democratic Party in agreement. Italy follows Europe's example

ROME - No more taking holidays, partly because it's not a restful time. No discretionary leave either since the boss may not be sympathetic. And no lunchtime dashes from office to maternity ward and back. As they can in most parts of Europe, new dads in Italy could soon be able to forget the sacrifices and subterfuges they have used to enjoy those precious first hours with their new heir. "Compulsory paternity leave" is the title of the bills that the Chamber of Deputies started to examine on Wednesday morning. If the bills get through, fathers will no longer have any choice. When their child is born, they will have to take four days' leave. It will no longer be optional, as it is under existing legislation. Paternity leave will become compulsory, like the five months that new mums have to take off before and after childbirth. But there will be no loss of pay because the four-day break will be at the expense of the employer or, in the case of the self-employed, of the healthcare system.

Serbia has taken a crucial step towards joining the European Union after the Dutch dropped opposition to their membership following progress on war crimes investigations.

Europe's foreign ministers agreed to implement and ratify a frozen trade and aid treaty, known as a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, with Serbia, a precondition for EU entry.

The next step, a formal assessment of Serbia's EU membership application, is expected "in a few months".

Far-reaching action is needed to tackle Britain's deficit, Nick Clegg said today as the Office for Budget Responsibility revised economic growth predictions down to 2.6% from Labour's figure of 3-3.5%.

In a speech to the Institute for Government, the deputy prime minister said Labour had left a "terrible legacy" and insisted the coalition government must act now to cut debt or risk losing its capacity to protect those most in need.

He singled out a soaring bill for "unreformed gold-plated" public sector pension schemes as an area facing urgent cutbacks.

Earlier today the OBR, headed by the former Treasury mandarin Sir Alan Budd, said growth in the economy, which the previous government predicted would range between 3% and 3.5% for 2011, was revised down to 2.6%.

The spending watchdog also said the scale of borrowing was about £155bn - £8bn lower than in Alistair Darling's March budget, and £23bn lower over the five years to 2014-15.

WASHINGTON -- Searching for a way to satisfy both the United States government and its own shareholders, the board of BP on Monday was examining three options for what to do with its next dividend, a person with direct knowledge of the board's discussions said.

The company's $10.5 billion annual dividend has become a point of contention as President Obama has said BP should not be paying stockholders when fishermen, oil workers and small-business owners are saying they cannot get the company to pay their loss claims from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The discussions came as Mr. Obama was on his way to the Gulf Coast on Monday, his fourth trip to the region since the disaster struck, and as the company said it would increase the amount of oil they recover from the damaged well each day.

In answer to a request by the administration over the weekend that BP provide "a faster plan" to siphon off and collect the gushing oil, one with "greater redundancy and reliability," the company said in a statement on Monday that it had come up with a new plan to siphon off from 40,000 to 53,000 barrels of oil a day by the end of June, up from the 15,000 barrels they are now collecting. If successful, the plan would happen two weeks earlier than they originally had suggested.

Their revised plan also includes methods to achieve even greater redundancy beyond June, to better allow for bad weather or unforeseen circumstances, administration officials said.Mr. Obama's trip to the Gulf Coast will be his first overnight visit since the April 20 rig explosion that caused the spill and, after three trips to Louisiana, his first tour of the states to the east -- Mississippi, Alabama and Florida -- that are in the direction of the spewing oil's drift. With each trip, he has grown more critical of BP's response, channeling the increasing anger and desperation of coastal residents and politicians.

(Reuters) - Moody's Investors Service on Monday downgraded Greece government bond ratings into junk territory, citing the risks in the euro zone/IMF rescue package for the debt-laden country.

The agency downgraded the rating by four notches to Ba1, placing it one notch into junk status. The outlook is stable.

Moody's also downgraded Greece's short-term issuer rating to not-prime from Prime-1.

June 14 (Bloomberg) -- United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, ending eight years as the union's leader, said the U.S. auto industry is recovering and credited President Barack Obama with saving it.

"There is strong evidence that the worst is behind us and the industry has clearly rebounded," he said today in a farewell speech at the UAW's constitutional convention in Detroit. "Without hesitation, President Obama addressed the auto industry crisis."

Gettelfinger, 65, is retiring this week after two terms as president. He overcame the union's shrinking size to persuade the U.S. Congress and Obama to rescue General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC last year. The UAW has fallen to about 355,000 members from a 1979 peak of 1.5 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Bob King, 63, who leads the UAW's bargaining with Ford Motor Co., has been chosen by the union's Administration Caucus to replace Gettelfinger when delegates elect a new leader June 16 at the convention. The Administration Caucus has controlled the Detroit-based union since 1946.

une 14 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion after the biggest bailout in American history.

Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts.

"It is the mother of all bailouts," said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.

Fannie, based in Washington, and Freddie in McLean, Virginia, own or guarantee 53 percent of the nation's $10.7 trillion in residential mortgages, according to a June 10 Federal Reserve report. Millions of bad loans issued during the housing bubble remain on their books, and delinquencies continue to rise. How deep in the hole Fannie and Freddie go depends on unemployment, interest rates and other drivers of home prices, according to the companies and economists who study them.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced after talks in Berlin on Monday that they will call for a bank levy and a tax on financial market transactions at the G20 meeting in Toronto later this month.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have announced they will call for a bank levy and a tax on financial market transactions at the G20 meeting in Toronto later this month.

Sarkozy also dropped his call for a new secretariat for eurozone members following talks in Berlin with Merkel.
  
"We would be better off making the European systems a bit lighter by not creating institutions, to focus instead on being more pragmatic," he told reporters.

Merkel also discussed concerns about Spain's economic stability, saying the country knows it can make use of the 750 billion euro rescue mechanism established for the euro amid worries about the country's ability to refinance itself on capital markets.

A Senate proposal to force banks to shed their lucrative yet risk-laden derivatives units -- which is vehemently opposed by Wall Street -- is gaining steam, picking up the support of some regional Federal Reserve chiefs with more on the way.

Yet President Barack Obama's Treasury Department, led by Timothy Geithner, continues to oppose the measure, Senate aides say, who add that Treasury is supporting Wall Street over Main Street by opposing the measure considered of "utmost importance" to financial stability. "It shows the access of the major Wall Street banks in the Treasury Department in spades," one Senate aide said on the condition of anonymity.

Assistant Treasury Secretary for Financial Institutions Michael S. Barr is said to be leading Treasury's efforts.....Treasury is joined in its opposition to the measure by the Federal Reserve's Washington-based Board of Governors and the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair.

Meanwhile, supporters include the longest-serving policy maker in the Fed, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Thomas Hoenig, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Hoenig and Fisher wrote letters of support last week to Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln, the author of the provision, referring to it as "of utmost importance to our nation's long-term financial and economic stability."

....

Lincoln's proposal would compel the nation's megabanks to move their swaps-dealing units, which deal and trade in a type of financial derivative product, into a separately-capitalized institution within the larger bank holding company. The affected firms collectively would have to raise tens of billions of dollars to protect their swaps desks in case their bets go bad. Or, they could disband the activity altogether.

Francisco González actually said that the Spanish private sector has greater difficulties funding itself than the government.

By laying out pros and cons we risk inducing people to join the debate, and losing control of a process that only we fully understand. - Alan Greenspan

As Mervyn King of the Bank of England brilliantly explained, the authorities had to do in the short-term the exact opposite of what was needed in the long-term: they had to pump in a lot of credit to make up for the credit that disappeared and thereby reinforce the excess credit and leverage that had caused the crisis in the first place. Only in the longer term, when the crisis had subsided, could they drain the credit and reestablish macro-economic balance. This required a delicate two phase maneuver just as when a car is skidding, first you have to turn the car into the direction of the skid and only when you have regained control can you correct course.

The first phase of the maneuver has been successfully accomplished - a collapse has been averted. In retrospect, the temporary breakdown of the financial system seems like a bad dream. There are people in the financial institutions that survived who would like nothing better than to forget it and carry on with business as usual. This was evident in their massive lobbying effort to protect their interests in the Financial Reform Act that just came out of Congress. But the collapse of the financial system as we know it is real and the crisis is far from over.

Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama, when financial markets started losing confidence in the credibility of sovereign debt. Greece and the euro have taken center stage but the effects are liable to be felt worldwide.  Doubts about sovereign credit are forcing reductions in budget deficits at a time when the banks and the economy may not be strong enough to permit the pursuit of fiscal rectitude. We find ourselves in a situation eerily reminiscent of the 1930's. Keynes has taught us that budget deficits are essential for counter cyclical policies yet many governments have to reduce them under pressure from financial markets. This is liable to push the global economy into a double dip.

It is important to realize that the crisis in which we find ourselves is not just a market failure but also a regulatory failure and even more importantly a failure of the prevailing dogma about financial markets. I have in mind the Efficient Market Hypothesis and Rational Expectation Theory. These economic theories guided, or more exactly misguided, both the regulators and the financial engineers who designed the derivatives and other synthetic financial instruments and quantitative risk management systems which have played such an important part in the collapse. To gain a proper understanding of the current situation and how we got to where we are, we need to go back to basics and reexamine the foundation of economic theory.

We are currently in the midst of a Fourth Turning. This twenty year Crisis began during the 2005 - 2008 timeframe with the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent repercussions on the worldwide financial system. It is progressing as expected, with the financial crisis deepening and leading to tensions across the world. It will eventually morph into military conflict, as all prior Fourth Turnings have. The progression from High to Awakening through the Unraveling took from 1946 until 2006. The most treacherous period of the Saeculm is upon us. The intensity of a Crisis is very much dependent upon how a country and its citizens prepare for the Crisis during the final years of the Unraveling. The last Unraveling period in U.S. history from 1984 through 2005 was symbolized by Boomer greed, materialism, debt and selfishness. When Michael Lewis graduated from Princeton University in 1985 and joined Salomon Brothers, I'm sure he didn't realize that he would end up book-ending the Unraveling period in his two best-selling books about Wall Street.

In his latest book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Lewis seems bewildered by the fact that his first book Liar's Poker, written in 1989,  didn't dissuade college students from pursuing careers on Wall Street. If Lewis had read The Fourth Turning by Strauss & Howe when it was published in 1997, he would have understood why the people on Wall Street couldn't change. The generations were just acting out their part in a grand never ending cycle. Lewis explains what he thought would happen:

"I stumbled into a job at Salomon Brothers in 1985 and stumbled out much richer three years later, and even though I wrote a book about the experience, the whole thing still strikes me as preposterous--which is one of the reasons the money was so easy to walk away from. I figured the situation was unsustainable. Sooner rather than later, someone was going to identify me, along with a lot of people more or less like me, as a fraud. Sooner rather than later, there would come a Great Reckoning when Wall Street would wake up and hundreds if not thousands of young people like me, who had no business making huge bets with other people's money, would be expelled from finance."

Another sign of the imminent return of the Deutsche Mark comes this weekend courtesy of BoersenNEWS.de, one of the largest German stock market portals. Due to popular demand, the portal has reintroduced quotations in DEM, alongside those in EUR: "Due to the ongoing Euro crisis many investors expect the return of the Deutsche Mark. A recent survey, showed that 39% of 1,364 börsennews.de users, would like the good old Deutsche Mark reintroduced. Börsennews.de has responded and will immediately display share prices in Euro and Deutsche Mark." The commentary on this symbolic switch is enough to indicate just how the majority of Germany feels about this issue: "With the symbolic reinstatement of the Deutsche Mark Börsennews.de is not supporting to the abolition of the Euro, however the desire of many citizens for economic security. One thing is clear, the German Mark represented the economically strong and healthy Germany. The Euro represents a cracked economic system, not only throughout the world, in Europe, but above all in Germany." We couldn't have said it better ourselves. Suddenly, Jim Rickards' observation that Germany and Russia could be very well considering a new gold- and oil-backed currency, does not seem all that very ludicrous to us. In fact, should the two countries indeed be in such deliberations (and for their literal recent proximity, look no further than the seating chart in this year's Mayday parade in Moscow), the end of fiat could be approaching much faster than previously expected.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli officials said Sunday they would imminently announce an investigative panel that will probe the events surrounding an Israeli naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla that left nine people dead and dozens wounded.

While officials in the prime minister's office said that the committee would be an "independent public committee" they did not give details about its mandate or composition.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said that retired Israeli Supreme Court Judge Yaakov Tirtel will head the investigation.

"The principle guiding our policy is clear -- to prevent the entry of war material from entering Gaza and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid and non-contraband goods into the Gaza Strip," said Netanyahu.

Intelligence head Dan Meridor meanwhile confirmed in a separate interview that two international representatives would be allowed as "observers" in the investigation.

Zimbabwe's political and military leaders have used violence and intimidation to seize control of the country's lucrative diamond business, a report said today.

According to Global Witness, a campaigning group, the Zimbabwean army has abused civilians in Marange's diamond fields over the past three years while the ruling Zanu PF party is blocking oversight of the joint venture company boards via its supporters.

"The investment deals have been done with scant regard for legal process against a background of violence and intimidation, and are dangerously lacking in transparency," said Elly Harrowell, a Global Witness campaigner. "This leaves the door wide open for state looting and corruption, and raises the very real possibility of internationally certified diamonds financing renewed political violence in Zimbabwe."

The Global Witness report said the minister of mines, Obert Mpofu, a Zanu-PF stalwart, has led efforts to block oversight of the companies, Canadile Miners and Mdaba Diamonds, by imposing his allies as board members, and sidelining the state mining company, ZMDC.

Mbada Diamonds is chaired by Robert Mhlanga, former air vice-marshal and a star witness against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai during his trial for treason in 2003.

TINGO MARÍA, Peru -- Coca cultivation is surging once again in this country's remote tropical valleys, part of a major repositioning of the Andean drug trade that is making Peru a contender to surpass Colombia as the world's largest exporter of cocaine.

Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking rings are expanding their reach in Peru, where two factions of Shining Path guerrillas are already competing for control of the cocaine trade.

The traffickers -- fortified by the resilient demand for cocaine in the United States, Brazil and parts of Europe -- are stymieing efforts to combat the drug's resurgence here and raising the specter of greater violence in a nation still haunted by years of war.

"The struggle against coca can resemble detaining the wind," said Gen. Juan Zárate, who leads the country's coca eradication campaigns.

The increase in Peru offers a window into one of the most vexing aspects of the American-financed war against drugs in Latin America, which began in earnest four decades ago. When antinarcotics forces succeed in one place -- as they recently have in Colombia, which has received more than $5 billion in American aid this decade -- cultivation shifts to other corners of the Andes.

Uzbekistan has ordered its border crossing with Kyrgyzstan closed, saying it cannot receive more people fleeing violence in the neighbouring country.

"Today we will stop accepting refugees from the Kyrgyz side
because we have no place to accommodate them and no capacity to cope with them," Abdullah Aripov, the deputy prime minister, said on Monday.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said more than 75,000 people had crossed the border since the violence, which has killed at least 124 people in southern Kyrgyzstan, started.

The UNHCR said it was preparing to send aid and emergency teams to Uzbekistan.

"We have agreed with the Uzbek government to support their efforts and assist tens of thousands, mostly women and children seeking safety in Uzbekistan," it said in a statement.

Ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks have flocked to the border since the bloodshed, pitting ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz against each other, started on Thursday night.

Fires were raging in the cities of Osh and Jalal'abad on Monday, and some sources said the official figures of 124 people dead and nearly 1,500 injured appeared way too low.

MOGADISHU, Somalia -- Awil Salah Osman prowls the streets of this shattered city, looking like so many other boys, with ripped-up clothes, thin limbs and eyes eager for attention and affection.

But Awil is different in two notable ways: he is shouldering a fully automatic, fully loaded Kalashnikov assault rifle; and he is working for a military that is substantially armed and financed by the United States.

"You!" he shouts at a driver trying to sneak past his checkpoint, his cherubic face turning violently angry.

"You know what I'm doing here!" He shakes his gun menacingly. "Stop your car!"

The driver halts immediately. In Somalia, lives are lost quickly, and few want to take their chances with a moody 12-year-old.

It is well known that Somalia's radical Islamist insurgents are plucking children off soccer fields and turning them into fighters. But Awil is not a rebel. He is working for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, a critical piece of the American counterterrorism strategy in the Horn of Africa.

Kenya's church leaders have blamed the government for a grenade attack at a rally on Sunday that led to six deaths.

The explosions at a Nairobi prayer meeting campaigning against a draft constitution caused a deadly stampede.

After an emergency security meeting, Prime Minister Raila Odinga confirmed it was a grenade attack and said a top police team was investigating it.

All but a handful of ministers in the shaky coalition government are backing a "Yes" vote to the draft charter.

The arrest of several army officers in Guinea is not linked to elections due in two weeks' time, the army chief has said.

Col Nouhou Thiam said the detentions were over allegations of financial impropriety.

Several of those detained were close to the former military ruler, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt last year.

The army has promised to step down after the poll on 27 June.

The BBC's Alhassan Sillah in Conakry says the arrests had led to wild rumours circulating in the capital.

The top court in Guatemala has dismissed the country's attorney general amid allegations of corruption and links to drug traffickers.

The Constitutional Court annulled the selection of Conrado Reyes, who has been in the post for less than a month.

The court's decision comes days after a judge heading a UN-backed commission investigating corruption in Guatemala accused Mr Reyes of having links with criminal gangs.

Mr Reyes has denied the allegations.

BANGKOK, June 14, 2010 (IPS) - The Mekong River is steadily emerging as a testing ground for public diplomacy, Chinese style. Beijing, it appears, wants to reach out to its southern neighbours who share the river more as a friendly giant than an imposing bully.

An unprecedented move to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding two of four dams on the upper stretches of the river that snakes through southern China is only the latest in a diplomatic shift towards openness taking shape since mid-March.

On Jun. 7, senior government officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam were offered their first glimpse of the newly built Xiaowan dam and the older Jing Hong dam as part of a fact-finding tour. It was a groundbreaking journey into the mountainous terrain of China's Yunnan province that had, till this month, been forbidden territory to officials from the Mekong River Basin countries.

The welcome mat was rolled out by Beijing in early April during the first summit of the Mekong River countries, which also include Burma (or Myanmar), in addition to the four river basin countries and China. That summit in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin was to mark the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which paved the way for the creation of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental body of the four lower Mekong countries tasked to manage and develop the basin area.

"The Chinese government indicated at the summit that they would like to be more open with governments in the lower Mekong countries," Damian Kean, an MRC spokesman, told IPS from his headquarters in Vientiane. "It was keen to address the concerns of the lower basin countries."

March marked a noticeable turning point in China shedding its secretive policies about its designs on the Mekong River, which begins its 4,660- kilometre long journey from the Tibetan plateau, heads through Yunnan, then passes Burma before snaking its way through the basin to empty out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam.

What prompted this move was the withering criticism China's four completed dams (of a cascade of eight planned on the upper Mekong) came under...

WASHINGTON, Jun 12, 2010 (IPS) - Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the spectre of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late 2006.

On Thursday, McChrystal's message that his strategy will weaken the Taliban in its heartland took its worst beating thus far, when he admitted that the planned offensive in Kandahar City and surrounding districts is being delayed until September at the earliest, because it does not have the support of the Kandahar population and leadership.

Equally damaging to the credibility of McChrystal's strategy was the Washington Post report published Thursday documenting in depth the failure of February's offensive in Marja.

The basic theme underlined in both stories - that the Afghan population in the Taliban heartland is not cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces - is likely to be repeated over and over again in media coverage in the coming months.

The Kandahar operation, which McChrystal's staff has touted as the pivotal campaign of the war, had previously been announced as beginning in June. But it is now clear that McChrystal has understood for weeks that the most basic premise of the operation turned out to be false.

RAJ PATEL: OK, so the website is Abahlali--A-B-A-H-L-A-L-I.org. And the organization is called the Abahlali baseMjondolo, which is Zulu for "people who live in shacks." Now, the reason this is an interesting organization is because when we're seeing all the joy around the World Cup, it's important to remember, of course, that the World Cup is not an unalloyed good. Not everyone in South Africa is benefiting from the World Cup. And in fact, you know, FIFA, the organization that organizes the World Cup, the Federation of--sorry, the International Federation of Football Associations, is an incredibly powerful organization that in many ways has sort of commandeered the willing South African government to be able to rearrange the country to make it more football- and corporation-friendly.

And so, around all the stadiums, for example, the stadia, are exclusion zones, where street traders have been moved away--informal traders, in some circles as they're known--and in which a beautification campaign has been carried out. Of course, I mean, this isn't a terribly new idea. I mean, the sporting events around the world, when they happen in the Global South, have usually been alibis for a few corporations and a few people to profit massively and for governments to engage in what they seem to--what they call beautification, or what more rightly is called gentrification and privatization.

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Possibly related station:
I can't believe it's not Budha

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Granted, there will always be challenges associated with such an ambitious project. They include competing financial, technological, environmental and economic interests. However, vision and leadership often triumph over obstacles. It will take political will and engagement in the months and years ahead. Europe, Japan and now China have answered the call of high speed rail. America appears to be next. A high speed rail link to Montréal can lead to closer links within the leading trading bloc in the world, the U.S. and Canada. We in North America should heed the call for greater interconnectivity and seriously explore the promise of high speed rail. Québec is all aboard.

How about one to Mexico City, as well????

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

Matador Christian Hernandez, bedecked in traditional livery and bearing a customary red cape, narrowed his eyes as the bull lowered its head.

What happened next was slightly less orthodox, as the 22-year-old turned on his heels and fled the onrushing bovid, explaining later "this is not my thing".

After reaching, and vaulting, the perimeter wall at Sunday's botched bullfight at the Plaza Mexico in Mexico City - to cries of derision from the crowd - Hernandez was arrested for breach of contract, local media reported yesterday. He was later released after paying a fine.

"There are some things you must be aware of about yourself," the 22-year-old Mexican matador said in a television interview.

"I didn't have the ability, I didn't have the balls, this is not my thing."

If anyone was wondering how Israel managed to recover from the global financial crisis faster than other Western economies, Head of the Knesset's Finance Committee Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) has the answer - divine providence.

Speaking at an Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry conference on religious sector employment, Gafni said that contrary to past predictions, "the haredim, who 30 years ago were foretold as the market's ruination, have prospered, and with them Israel, which suffered last from the global recession and was the first to recover.

"I would say this is a case of divine providence."

After two years of debate, more than 90 countries have voted to create a scientific panel on biodiversity following a five-day UN meeting in Busan, South Korea.

Achim Steiner, the UN under-secretary general who oversaw the talks, said the creation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was "the dream of many scientists" now made reality.

The establishment of the panel is aimed at addressing growing concern about the human impact on habitats and species around the world.

Steiner, who is also head of the UN Environment Programme (Unep), said "[The IPBES] represents a major breakthrough in terms of organising a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other ecosystems."

The panel will peer-review science research on biodiversity and ecosystems to ensure that governments are receiving the best information and advice, and are able to act more decisively to reverse various trends in the natural world.

Four weeks after the nation's worst environmental disaster, the Obama administration saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills.

"We'll let BP decide on what expertise they do need," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19. "We are keeping an eye on what supplies we do need. And as we see that our supplies are running low, it may be at that point in time to accept offers from particular governments."

That time has come.

In the past week, the United States submitted its second request to the European Union for any specialized equipment to contain the oil now seeping onto the Gulf of Mexico's marshes and beaches, and it accepted Canada's offer of 9,842 feet of boom. The government is soliciting additional boom and skimmers from nearly two dozen countries and international organizations.

In late May, the administration accepted Mexico's offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway.

Driving at lower speeds is better for the climate. In a pilot study CE Delft has estimated the potential CO2 savings arising in various scenarios with tighter motorway speed limits. Lowering the speed limit for cars to 80 km/h can reduce transport CO2 emissions on highways by 30% in the longer term.

US President Barack Obama has said the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will have the same impact on the US psyche as 9/11.

The disaster will "shape how we think about the environment... for years to come", he told US website Politico.

Mr Obama has arrived in Mississippi on his fourth visit to the affected area. He will also visit Alabama and Florida.

Directors of oil firm BP are meeting to decide whether to suspend dividends as company shares have taken a tumble.

Beijing (AFP) June 14, 2010
A top official at China's food and drug safety watchdog has been sacked and is under investigation, state media said, three years after the agency's former head was executed for corruption.

Zhang Jingli, deputy chief of China's State Food and Drug Administration, is being investigated for "suspected serious disciplinary violations," the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Zhang, 55, has been removed from the post he took up in 2003, the report said, citing a Communist Party body tasked with rooting out corruption among party officials. No other details were provided.

In 2007, former SFDA head Zheng Xiaoyu was executed for accepting 850,000 dollars in bribes in exchange for granting approvals for hundreds of medicines, some of which were later found to be dangerous.

The case caused huge concern in China and triggered governmental pledges to improve supervision of the country's food and drug industries, but huge safety scandals have nevertheless erupted since then.

Last week, I spoke to the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects in Miami Beach, as part of a session on neighborhood density.  We had a sizable, knowledgeable and attentive audience, and I was struck by the fact that most of the comments and questions after our session were about what we need to do to craft sustainable urban economies, not the facts and figures we had presented regarding the market for walkable neighborhoods, how to design for environmental sustainability, and the dividends that urban densities can bring to their communities.

... The inspection process, known as certification, is meant to guarantee that an independent eye has scrutinized farming and food processing to make sure they meet federal rules ranging from a ban on most pesticides to requirements that organic and nonorganic foods be kept apart in processing plants.

But in an audit of O.C.I.A.'s operations in China, department investigators found at least 10 state-managed farms or factories that posed a potential conflict of interest, said Miles V. McEvoy, deputy administrator of the agency's National Organic Program.

<...>

O.C.I.A. is a nonprofit organization founded by American farmers in the 1980s. It remains one of the most active certifiers licensed by the department's organic program. Today, according to department data, it inspects more than 1,800 operations in 11 countries, mostly in the United States, Canada and Latin America.

<...>

In China, the O.C.I.A. joined forces with the Organic Food Development Corporation, an agency affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection. The association kept a small staff -- one or three people in Nanjing -- while inspectors from the Chinese agency went out to farms and factories. Their findings were translated into English and sent to O.C.I.A. headquarters in Nebraska, where staff members reviewed the material and made the final decisions on certification. ...

As part of the 2010 Culture Capital project, a collection of thought-provoking artworks have been installed on a lake in Essen. Visitors are invited to walk all over them - and rethink energy use and climate change.  

It's not your typical museum. Those who want to experience the Ruhr Atoll art project up close have to take a paddle boat to get there. And touching the work won't draw nasty looks from some museum employees - quiet the opposite actually, it's strongly encouraged.

 

The 300-square-meter (about 3,200-square-foot) installation is particularly child-friendly, said the mastermind behind the project, artist Norbert Bauer. His aim is to make art accessible.

 

"I think art can and should always be fun," he said. "I'm not going to take it all so deadly seriously."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy lived with constant threats on his life after the assassinations of his brothers and was monitored by the FBI for his possible ties to Communist radicals in Latin America, according to a trove of FBI files on the late senator released Monday.

The more than 2,200 pages, disclosed in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by news organizations, cover the FBI's relationship with the Massachusetts Democrat from 1961 to 1985. Kennedy died of cancer in August.

The bulk of the material covers FBI investigations of threats of violence and extortion against Kennedy and other public figures, including Kennedy's political rival, President Ronald Reagan. One anonymous letter sent in October 1968 threatened "assassination for Kennedy number three within twenty four hours . . . all Kennedy residents are in danger on that day.''

Sirhan Sirhan, who shot and killed Kennedy's brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in 1968, even offered $1 million to a fellow inmate in California to kill Edward Kennedy, according to the files, which say the prisoner declined.

Longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is a regular presence in the documents, which touch on some of the controversies involving Kennedy and his family -- and Hoover's own troubled legacy of spying on Americans. The FBI, for example, closely monitored Kennedy's fact-finding trip to Mexico, Central America and South America in 1961, and one document shows that Hoover received a file from an FBI employee in Mexico City that said the senator "is interested in meeting with 'leftists' to talk with them and determine why they think as they do.''

NEW YORK, Jun 12, 2010 (IPS) - The U.S. currently lags behind several Western European countries in closing a legislative loophole banning the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) beyond its borders to protect U.S. citizens and residents. But this may soon change.

Some 6,000 girls endure FGM every day, totaling about 100 to 140 million girls and women who bear the lifetime consequences. The "Girls Protection Act" would make it illegal to transport a minor abroad for the purpose of FGM. Introduced by members of Congress Joseph Crowley and Mary Bono Mack as a bipartisan initiative, the bill is now awaiting review in a congressional committee.

FGM rituals are practiced in many parts of Africa, the Middle East and some countries in Asia. It involves procedures that partially or completely remove the external female genitalia and is undertaken at infancy or later in childhood, depending on a particular culture.

There are four types, which range in severity. Most common as characterised by the World Health Organisation is Type II, "the excision of the clitoris with partial or total excision of the labia minora."

Political asylum has been granted in the United States to FGM survivors, and activist organisations for women such as Equality Now and Sanctuary for Families warn that those at risk also include women living in the U.S.

In 1791, James Madison penned a short essay that foretold a long, and ongoing, financial involvement by government in journalism. Madison said, in part:

Whatever facilitates a general intercourse of sentiments, as good roads, domestic commerce, a free press, and particularly a circulation of newspapers through the entire body of the people, and Representatives going from, and returning among every part of them, is equivalent to a contraction of territorial limits, and is favorable to liberty, where these may be too extensive.

The following year, partly in response to Madison's advice, Congress passed the Post Office Act of 1792. One of its key provisions -- in what, looking back, was a pivotal development of a robust and free press in America -- let newspaper publishers mail papers for extremely low prices. It was an outright subsidy, for a social purpose.

The goal wasn't to give newspaper owners a special deal because they were nice people (many were not) or would support government positions (many did not). It was to help ensure that knowledge and commerce would spread as quickly, and as widely, as possible. The First Amendment generally forbade interference in what people could publish; the Post Office law provision helped make it financially feasible to ensure that other people could receive and read what was published.

... Venus looks forward while Mars lies beside her, apparently asleep.

... Or is he? Recently, art historian David Bellingham came to a different conclusion. He noticed that Botticelli painted a fruit in the bottom right-hand corner of his canvas that looks a lot like datura stramonium, a plant that's also known as "poor man's acid." <...>

Eventually, he came across a picture of datura. Struck by its similarity to Botticelli's fruit, Bellingham brought the picture to a greenhouse in London's Kew Gardens and showed it to some botanists there. One of them immediately identified it as datura, apparently solving the mystery once and for all.

Bellingham looked up 18th century accounts of the drug to get a better sense of its effects. "Basically, it produces similar experiences to LSD," he explains. "It's been likened to the effects of opium mixed with alcohol. It can produce a great deal of thirst, hallucinations," and even "speedy chattering." As a datura high is wearing off, Bellingham says, the user eventually "swoons and falls asleep" ... kind of like Botticelli's Mars? ...

First and foremost is the question of facts. Chomsky's criticism is laden with facts, a substance that seems to elicit ennui among contemporary French thinkers. No doubt the importance of the essay in the French educational system has bred a world of "philosophers" whose skill at manipulating fact-free ideas was the guarantee of a distinguished career. Louis Althusser confessed as much in his autobiography, admitting that he not only knew few facts but that he knew few works of philosophy - but he had learned how to synthesize. This raises the question of the social usefulness of such philosophy. If the social object is to entertain, then the French school reaches its goal - mystification is often far more entertaining than straightforward descriptions of reality. On the other hand, if the object is to help readers reach their own understanding of reality, especially political reality, then their first need is to be provided with the basic relevant facts, which most people do not have time to ascertain through their own research. Thus Chomsky is useful to citizens by providing them with the raw material to develop their own ideas in a way that the purveyors of ready-made but flimsily supported ideas are not.

Two other differences concern ethics and clarity of thought.

Chomskian ethics focus on critique of the abuse of power in one's own society. This does not imply rejection of that society, as in some ways Chomsky is very pro-American. But the basic attitude is that one has both the duty and the possibility to combat abuse of power in one's own society, whereas this is difficult if not impossible regarding foreign, and especially antagonistic societies.

In recent decades, French intellectuals have, in contrast, tended to adopt a dualistic ethics, and to take sides between "camps". After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the "socialist camp", this dualism has centered on the West, "home of human rights", versus the rest of the backward world. This has led to total misunderstanding of Chomsky, whose criticism of the United States has nothing to do with choosing some opposing "camp".

As for clarity, the emphasis on stylistic complexity in the elite French school system has led to the notion that whatever is clear is not "deep". A certain obscurity is supposed to suggest profundity (Pierre Bourdieu  made deliberate use of this prejudice by using long sentences for simple thoughts. [BWAH!] He once told American philosopher John Searle that to be taken seriously in France, at least twenty percent of what one writes needs to be incomprehensible).

In part because of these differences, there is a natural antagonism between Chomsky and his French contemporaries.

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Screen discourse, mother of all "cultural boycotts"
What are the mechanisms and institutions which make possible the continued reproduction of this age-old domination by men? Fake beards?

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

The biggest winner in Germany's emphatic 4-0 win over Australia was embattled coach Joachim Loew. But he and others are warning against exaggerating the significance of that victory. 

Everybody loves a winner.

Germany's one-sided demolition of Australia on Sunday prompted frenetic celebrations in public viewing areas and parades of flag-flying, honking cars in the nation's cities.

Monday morning newspapers and television programs were hardly less euphoric in hailing the victory.

"This will be our World Cup," proclaimed Germany's leading tabloid Bild. "Loew was proven right in all respects."

Former German national goalkeeper Toni Schumacher seconded those sentiments.

"Despite all the criticism, Loew did everything right," the goalkeeping legend told the public television station ZDF.

Ironically, though, many of those now singing Loew's praises are the same ones who criticized the national team coach for sticking with out-of-form veterans Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski just a few days previously.

USB Typewriter Turns iPad into Paper | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Gadget Lab Hardware News and Reviews USB Typewriter Turns iPad into Paper

If you have $400 and a serious case of nostalgic yearning, then may we suggest you spend the money on a wonderful USBTypewriter? Described as a " groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence," the typewriter can hook up to any machine with a USB port and lets you clackety-clack your way through your latest novel, email or even spreadsheet.

The Typewriter Dock, seen in the video above, is an even better version. It holds an iPad in its carriage whilst simultaneously inputting typed letters. All it needs is a Bluetooth component to replace the cable, and a writing app that can use the accelerometer to detect a carriage return and move you to a new line. Ding!

Inside there is a sensor strip under the keyboard which detects the key-presses that hit it, and this pulse of electricity is then passed on to an Arduino circuit-board whereupon it is translated into a standard USB key-down event. All you need to do is plug it in and type.