EUobserver / Schools, pensions, poor regions hit in EU budget proposals

Coming in the midst of politically painful cutbacks by EU capitals at home, the EU budget blueprint, adopted by written procedure on Thursday (12 August), will still see spending go up by almost three percent to €126.6 billion next year.

But the member states' plan envisages putting €3.6 billion fewer into the common pot than earlier requested by the commission, with reductions across the board.

The biggest casualties are to come in the areas of cohesion funds for poor regions (minus €1.1 billion), cash for stimulating economic growth and employment (minus €841 million) and support for EU farmers (minus €820 million).

With the EU working to put Haiti back on its feet and mulling a new 10-year recovery plan for flood-struck Pakistan, a further €203 million is at the same time to be taken out of the bloc's emergency aid reserve.

The EU institutions themselves are to take a €162 million hit. The lion's share (€73 million) is to come out of the commission's pocket. European schools, the Brussels-based academies which educate EU civil servants' children, are to lose €13 million. Pensions payments for retired EU officials are to lose €22 million.

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

France24 - Officials defend policy on Roma after UN cites rise in 'racism'

AFP - France on Thursday sought to fend off sharp criticism from the UN's anti-racism panel after members highlighted a "resurgence" in racism and xenophobia in one of Europe's biggest nations.

French officials underlined the legal grounds for measures being taken against travelling Roma from central Europe as the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wrapped up its hearing on France's application of international standards.

The panel of 18 legal experts is due to issue its findings on August 27.

On Wednesday, several of the independent experts began the hearing with unusually sharp comments about the state of racial discrimination in France.

Despite legal safeguards, the country is experiencing a "significant resurgence of racism and xenophobia", Kokou Ewomsan, a Togolese human rights official, told the French delegation.

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

Audit Commission to be scrapped - News & Advice, Travel - The Independent

The official watchdog responsible for ensuring local councils deliver value for money is to be scrapped, it was announced today.

Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said the Audit Commission had "lost its way" and would be disbanded.

The commission's inspection duties will now pass to the National Audit Office - the Whitehall spending watchdog - while its in-house audit practice will be transferred to the private sector.

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

Peace in the Basque Country?: Zero Tolerance in the Fight against ETA - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Patxi Lopez is the Spanish government's great hope in the struggle against ETA. The separatists have been in retreat since the Socialist politician took office as president of the Basque country one year ago. He is even being talked about as a future prime minister.

Early one recent Friday evening, a man in a white shirt and jeans takes a seat in the shade on the terrace of the Espejo café on Madrid's main Castellana avenue, a stone's throw from the Interior Ministry. The pensioners eating ice-cream at neighboring tables immediately begin whispering to one another. Couples who have come to start their weekend with a refreshing glass of beer crane their necks to get a better view.

"Is that him?"

"Sure, it's him. But where are his bodyguards?"

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

Shocking Images of Dead Kurdish Fighters: Turkey Accused of Using Chemical Weapons against PKK - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

German experts have confirmed the authenticity of photographs that purport to show PKK fighters killed by chemical weapons. The evidence puts increasing pressure on the Turkish government, which has long been suspected of using such weapons against Kurdish rebels. German politicians are demanding an investigation.

It would be difficult to exceed the horror shown in the photos, which feature burned, maimed and scorched body parts. The victims are scarcely even recognizable as human beings. Turkish-Kurdish human rights activists believe the people in the photos are eight members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) underground movement, who are thought to have been killed in September 2009.

In March, the activists gave the photos to a German human rights delegation comprised of Turkey experts, journalists and politicians from the far-left Left Party, as SPIEGEL reported at the end of July. Now Hans Baumann, a German expert on photo forgeries has confirmed the authenticity of the photos, and a forensics report released by the Hamburg University Hospital has backed the initial suspicion, saying that it is highly probable that the eight Kurds died "due to the use of chemical substances."

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

France24 - Jewish group blasts Israel's Peres over Holocaust in Romania

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization, on Friday criticized Israeli President Shimon Peres who paid tribute to Romania for "rescuing 400,000 Jews" during World War II.

The Jerusalem-based center voiced its "surprise and strong disappointment" at Peres who failed to mention "the central role played by the regime of Romanian dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu in the mass murder of an estimated 280,000 to 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews during the Holocaust."

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

France24 - Early elections in Italy could hamper recovery: president

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano warned Friday against snap elections after a split in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, saying they could hamper the economic recovery.

"We have seen recent positive and encouraging signs of a productive recovery and a return to growth in Italy even as the world scenario remains difficult," Napolitano said in an interview with the left-wing daily L'Unita.

"What could happen to this country if we head towards a political void and towards a brutal electoral clash?" Napolitano asked.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

FT.com / Companies / Banks - Former Austrian bank chief arrested

Austrian authorities have arrested the former chief executive of Hypo Group Alpe Adria, the troubled Austrian bank that had to be nationalised last year after making big losses in the Balkans.

Wolfgang Kulterer was detained by police in Klagenfurt, southern Austria, on Friday morning, following a lengthy probe into the bank's business activities.

The former bank chief is being investigated for breach of trust and giving false evidence to an enquiry in Carinthia, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office told the Financial Times.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

BNP in turmoil: Barnbrook resigns - Telegraph Blogs

Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's London leader and its representative on the London Assembly, has today resigned the BNP label and will sit on the Assembly as an independent, I understand. This follows his sacking as the BNP's Barking and Dagenham organiser three weeks ago after the party's dismal performance in the May local elections.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

AFP via google: Moroccans block border post into Spanish enclave

The protest began at dawn, causing a shortage of fish, fruit and vegetables in the Melilla markets, and traffic was resumed in the afternoon, Spanish media reported.

The demonstrators were angry over recent alleged incidents, including beatings, by Spanish police against Moroccan nationals at the border posts of Melilla and Spain's other disputed north African enclave of Ceuta.

The head of the autonomous municipality of Melilla, Juan Jose Imbroda, condemned what he said was the failure of the Moroccan authorities to prevent Thursday's protest.

This is shaping up to become Green March Mark II.

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

France24 - Eurozone growth surpasses US levels in second quarter

AFP- Germany posted Friday its best quarterly growth since reunification, driving Europe past the US in the recovery stakes as the continent recorded its best economic performance in four years.

Accelerating recoveries in Britain, France and even Spain also helped nudge Europe's main stock markets upwards, with only debt-laden Greece slipping deeper into recession as savage cuts scythe through spending.

However, with a growth rate of 2.2 percent between April and June, Germany was "playing in a league of its own," said senior ING economist Carsten Brzeski.

Jennifer McKeown of London-based Capital Economics noted that the 1.0 percent expansion across the 16 eurozone nations and the 27-member European Union as a whole was "the sharpest in four years."

It beat a 0.7-percent forecast and outpaced that of the US, which posted a quarterly gain of 0.6 percent -- down from 0.9 percent between January and March.

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

NHS faces £65bn bill for private finance schemes - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

The NHS in England faces a total bill of £65bn for new hospitals built under the private finance initiative (PFI), it was reported today.

Figures obtained by the BBC show that some NHS trusts were left with annual "mortgage" repayments accounting for more than 10% of their turnover.

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

'Stuttgart 21': A Four Billion Euro Makeover - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

he "Stuttgart 21" project is one of Germany's and Europe's largest urban renewal projects. It will see the train tracks that cut through the center of the southern German city placed underground, creating entire new neighborhoods. But many Stuttgart residents are deeply opposed to the multibillion euro undertaking.

"Stuttgart 21" is a massive -- and massively controversial -- railway and urban-development project for this southwestern German city famous for being the home of Daimler, Porsche, Bosch and other major German manufacturers and the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

First conceived in 1988, the project has gone through several permutations, but three key elements remain: creating a high-speed railway connection to the city's airport; transforming its main railway station from a terminus station to a through station; and creating a 60-kilometer high-speed rail line between Stuttgart and Ulm, nearly halving travel times between the two cities to only 28 minutes and also connecting to the city's international airport.

This last element is part of a larger European project related to the high-speed railway corridor stretching from Paris to Budapest, which city and regional officials hope will transform Stuttgart into "the new heart of Europe."

Methinks an underground through station connected to the high-speed lines would make eminent sense. As an addition to the existing surface station. As is, the project seems to be a real estate speculation masked as infrastructure investment.

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

Railway Gazette: Trans-Asian ECO train returns to Islamabad

INTERNATIONAL: The first eastbound ECO freight train is due to arrive in Islamabad on August 13, having left Istanbul on August 2 with cargo for Tehran and Islamabad. Six container flats each carried a 40 ft container destined for Pakistan, while five vans had consignments for the Iranian capital.

Operations over the 6 300 km route are being promoted by the regional Economic Co-Operation Organization, and the trip marked another stage in efforts to establish regular services on what is destined to become part of the Trans-Asian Railway.

An initial demonstration train ran from Islamabad to Istanbul in August last year, taking 14 days. The eastbound train was expected to take just 11 days 8 h. The time spent at the break of gauge at Zahedan was cut from 14 h to 8 h thanks to transhipment and customs procedures taking place simultaneously...

Also see Another Great Gameand later comment with report of the Westward run.

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

Railway Gazette: Progress Rail Services completes EMD acquisition

EMD: Progress Rail Services announced on August 3 that it had completed the acquisition of Electro-Motive Diesel from Berkshire Partners and Greenbriar Equity Group. The Caterpillar subsidiary paid $820m in cash plus a net working capital adjustment estimated at $108m. EMD is now a subsidiary of Progress Rail.

EMD is one of the two big diesel locomotive makers in the USA, originally a subdivision of GM.

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

FT.com / Capital Markets - Sales of `junk' bonds set to reach new high

Companies sold junk bonds in record volumes this week as investors favoured the credit markets over equities in an environment of rising uncertainty over economic growth.

Companies with credit ratings below investment grade sold $14.3bn of new high-yield or "junk" bonds, compared with the previous record week set in March, when low-rated companies issued just under $14bn, according to Thomson Reuters.

With more than $170bn priced this year, sales of junk bonds look likely to eclipse the annual record of $185.4bn set in 2006.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

FT.com / Brussels / Trade - EU official warns over US trade bill

Legislation to protect US consumers against defective foreign products could violate international trade rules and scare overseas companies out of the American market, a top European official has warned.

In a letter to Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, João Vale de Almeida, the European Union's ambassador to Washington, said it was "questionable" that the foreign manufacturers legal accountability bill was compatible with World Trade Organisation rules. He signalled that it imposed an unfair burden on foreign companies and "could hamper transatlantic trade".

The measure was drawn up in the wake of a scandal in which US homeowners struggled to get compensation for the effects of a Chinese-made drywall linked to respiratory and electrical problems. It would ban the import of goods ranging from drugs and pesticides to consumer products unless the manufacturer registered with a US agent, in effect consenting to US jurisdiction.

"Establishing a registered agent in the US for any potential damage claim of a US consumer seems disproportionate in terms of costs, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises," said Mr Vale de Almeida.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

France24 - Japanese and European far-right gather in Tokyo

AFP - European right-wing parties met in Tokyo Thursday at the invitation of a group that denies Japan's World War II atrocities, ahead of the anniversary of the country's surrender.

At the invitation of Japan's Issui-kai movement, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front, and Adam Walker, the British National Party's number two, convened to discuss the future of nationalist groups.

Representatives from Austria, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Romania and Belgium also took part in the two-day congress which was held at an upscale hotel on the former estate of Meiji-era (1868-1912) statesman Prince Aritomo Yamagata.

The delegates will visit the controversial Yasukuni war shrine on Saturday, one day ahead of the 65th anniversary of Japan's WWII surrender on August 15.

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

France24 - Army officer who threatened Togolese journalist recalled to France

AFP - France confined a senior military officer to quarters for 10 days on Friday after video footage appeared online showing him threatening a Togolese press photographer in Lome.

Lieutenant Colonel Romuald Letondot has been recalled from Togo to France and punished for "bringing the French army into disrepute", foreign ministry spokeswoman Christine Fages told reporters.

Letondot has apologised to journalist Didier Ledoux, who works for the Togolese weekly Liberte, but the video has been viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube and the scandal has tarnished France's image in Africa.

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

EUobserver / Palestinian Authority ready for peace talks, Ashton says

"President Abbas is very close to accepting direct talks, but has requested a few more days for final consultations," she wrote to the bloc's 27 foreign policy chiefs, who are to meet from 10 to 11 September in Brussels, in a letter seen by EUobserver.

"In principle, President Abbas should be in a position to give a definitive answer by Sunday or early next week."

The two sides have engaged in indirect talks since the spring.

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

France24 - First nuclear power plant set to launch next week, says Russia

Russia will load fuel into a reactor on August 21 at Iran's first nuclear power plant, according to a spokesman for the Russian atomic agency that is building the plant near the southern Iranian city of Bushehr.

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

France24 - Trial of Canadian Guantanamo detainee delayed after lawyer collapses

The war crimes trial of a young Canadian detained at Guantanamo Bay, Omar Khadr, has been delayed for at least a month after his US lawyer fainted in the courtroom at the US naval base on Friday. Khadr was 15 when he was captured in Afghanistan.

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

France24 - Former army chief Fonseka convicted by court martial

AFP - A court martial convicted Sri Lanka's former army chief Sarath Fonseka on Friday of dabbling in politics and stripped him of his rank and medals, a senior military source said.

"The guilty verdict was read out to General Fonseka at the court martial a short while ago," the military source told AFP. "The president as commander-in-chief must now ratify the decision."

Fonseka's hearing before the three-member tribunal began five months ago despite protests from his party and human rights groups that the process was seriously flawed. However, he has the right to appeal to a civilian court.

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

France24 - First election in two decades to be held on November 7

The date for much-anticipated parliamentary elections in Burma (Myanmar) has been set for November 7, state media have reported, while human rights groups continued to criticise the obstruction of political opposition by the ruling military junta.

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

France24 - First nuclear power plant set to launch next week, says Russia

Russia will load fuel into a reactor on August 21 at Iran's first nuclear power plant, according to a spokesman for the Russian atomic agency that is building the plant near the southern Iranian city of Bushehr.
   
"We are preparing to transfer the fuel inside the plant next week ... Then we will need seven to eight days to transfer it to the (core of the) reactor," said Iran's atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi.
   
"On August 21, the fuel will be transferred inside the building in which the engine" of the Bushehr power station in southern Iran is located, he said, quoted by Iran's Fars news agency.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

The Conflict in Potosi, Bolivia:

In a nutshell...

Americas Quarterly Blog: 12 Aug.: Residents, miners and peasants from Potosí have been on strike and engaged in anti-government protest for the past two weeks. Some are on hunger strike, including provincial governor Félix González. They are demanding that President Morales commit greater investment to their region, particularly in the way of airport expansion, road construction, and creation of a cement factory. They also demand that the government resolve a boundary dispute with neighboring Oruro province over a limestone deposit.

Protesters --

Centro de Estudios Populares, Potosi: The Change that Doesn't Arrive, 11 Aug.: The conflict in the department of Potosi, one of the poorest in the country, exposes once again the reformist demagoguery behind the "process of change" with respect to the industrialization of the country. When mining is a strategic activity, without it's respective metal industry, and when the exploitation of hydrocarbons can not generate even a respectable factory of gas engines, the problem is fundamental.(...) In short the people are calling for the industrialization that Evo Morales promised during election time, whereby it is understood that employment, wages and better living conditions can be achieved. This is nothing strange considering that the most remote populations of the department do not have electricity or gas in the winter dawn of 20 º C below zero. (...) The truth is that beyond the demands of the people, the dreams of the national bourgeoisie, the ads promoting the industrialization of the country and the bleeding demagoguery of the government... , there is an inability to generate a national industry (with or without the State) due to the strong presence of imperialism in all its forms and manifestations: from Yankee imperialism which finances more than twenty projects of Evo Morales' National Development Plan, to large capital in multinational corporations that have awarded themselves the exploitation of various natural resources.

Evo Morales responds --

Raqaypampa - Bolivia, 12 Aug. .- Right-wingers and neo-liberals want to use regional struggles to conspire against the process of change and profound political and social transformation [sponsored by his gov't], denounced President Evo Morales Ayma on Thursday.  During a political rally in this town located at the southeast corner of the department of Cochabamba, in the province Mizque, Morales referred to the general strike declared 15 days ago in the city of Potosi, where civic organizations pronounced their regional defense of said struggles. He made clear his belief that it is "a political action because regional movements have made claims of conspiracy against the process [of change]," he said.

Attempt at negotiations --

FM Bolivia, Sucre, 12 August. Sucre could be the place where the expected agreement is signed to end the conflict in Potosí. In the Governorate of Chuquisaca, the national government and representatives from Potosi will put their cards on the table and stand up to face the conditions to start the dialogue.

Nope, it wasn't Sucre...

Sucre, 13 Aug (Erbol) .- The ministers of the Presidency, Oscar Coca; of Autonomy, Carlos Romero; and of Mining, José Pimentel, returned again Friday morning to the city of La Paz [from Sucre] without managing to resolve the Potosi conflict. (...) He [Coca] reiterated that President Evo Morales is ready to welcome the leaders or representatives of Potosi, but in La Paz [the capital], and that the impossibility of dialogue owes only to the radical attitude of some leaders, that are wearing down their bases in order to keep up the pressure.

La Paz, 13 Aug (Erbol) .- The Minister of the Presidency Oscar Coca said Friday that the national government will not use force to restore order to the department of Potosi, but it will be rural communities that will do this beginning this weekend.  "This weekend we are certain that the rural population, already fatigued by this intolerance, as they are the ones that have been abused, have decided to normailize activities; hence this problem will be resolved from the rural communities. They're going to normalize the situation; they have acknowledged as much to us, " said the authority.

OUTCOME of Chavez - Santos meeting.

Honduras: The peasant leader Maria Teresa Flores, who was missing since last August 7, was found dead with signs of having been tortured and then executed with shots from a firearm. Flores, mother of 14 children, was part of the Coordinating Council of Peasant Organizations of Honduras (COCOCH) and she used to head the Peasant Organization of Honduras (OCH).

Panama: It is already over a month ago that banana plantation worker Valentín Palacios was taken away by the police and never heard of again. In more than a month, all the police has come up with is the statement that "he doesn't appear on our list of persons detained". The public ministry says the case is being handled by the personeria in Changuinola. In Changuinola, inquiries are met with a deafening silence.

Oaxaca, Mexico: The PRI-dominated state legislature of Oaxaca on its "own" initiative absolved  governor Ulises Ruiz for having violated the state constitution when he ordered the gunning down of protesters in the summer and fall of 2006.

Jalisco, Mexico: At least 150 Jalisco state police  in full riot gear evicted some 800 people living and working in the beach community of Tenacatita and the neighboring village of Rebalsito in the early hours of August 4.

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

The Indian government said Thursday that it would block encrypted BlackBerry corporate e-mail and messenger services if wireless companies did not enable law enforcement authorities to monitor those messages by the end of the month....

Losing access to the wireless market in India would be far more significant for R.I.M. than losing the ability to provide service in the United Arab Emirates. India is one of the world's fastest-growing wireless markets, and it already has an estimated one million BlackBerry users. Some use R.I.M.'s consumer e-mail service, which the government said it had no problem with because it can already monitor those messages.

Officials in India have maintained that the government has the right to monitor all voice and data communications in an unencrypted form under technology laws and the licenses through which wireless phone companies operate.

Read more...

shake, shake, shake.
shake, shake, shake.
shake, your booty.
awwww...

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

France24 - Water-borne diseases compound threats to flood victims

Aid agencies, already struggling with relief efforts in flood-hit Pakistan, warned on Friday that outbreaks of water-borne diseases pose a major threat to the victims of Pakistan's worst floods in decades.

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

Refugee camps to use gas from human waste | Environment & Development | Deutsche Welle | 13.08.2010

Environmental engineer Eckhard Kraft and his team at the University of Weimar are designing portable lavatories which harvest methane and make it available for energy. Kraft believes these units may eventually act as a source of fuel for refugee camps around the world, while also helping solve sanitation problems.

"I'm thinking of using this biogas for cooking purposes," Kraft said in an interview with broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk. The energy could also be used for other purposes, he added. "Lighting is also a huge problem in refugee camps. Providing light at night would improve safety."

It isn't always easy to get people to understand how important hygiene issues are in refugee camps, Kraft said. "It sounds a bit crazy, because first you've got to feed the people, and make sure they get drinking water. But the sanitary problem is often neglected," he said. 

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

Biggest relocation in China since Three Gorges - Asia, World - The Independent

China's growing thirst for water is driving one of the world's biggest mass relocations, with 440,000 people leaving their homes to make way for a huge man-made canal project to channel water to drought-prone Beijing.

An advance party of 499 villagers were moved yesterday from their homes near Wuhan in Hubei province, China's heartland, in preparation for one of the biggest irrigation schemes in history.

By the end of September, 60,000 people will have left the area. The remainder will be relocated by 2014, giving up their homes to make way for the South-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD) which will divert water from China's largest river, the Yangtze.

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

Coltan mines to be 'fingerprinted,' German scientists say | Science & Technology | Deutsche Welle | 13.08.2010

In the late 1990s and early 2000s the world began to wake up to the reality of "blood diamonds," or diamonds mined in regions of sub-Saharan Africa used to fund violent conflicts, especially in Liberia, Angola and Sierra Leone.

But over the last decade, activists, scientists, and politicians have also been made increasingly aware of the use of coltan mining to fund similar conflicts central Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

...From his office at the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Hannover, Frank Melcher has a collection of rock cuttings in small see-through boxes and plastic bags spread out. Next to each box and bag he puts a color print-out of pictures taken with an electron microscope. To the untrained eye they look like pictures of mosaic floor, but for Melcher they indicate far more.

"If you compare coltan samples from different proveniences, it's quite obvious," he said. "This is a sample from Rwanda, this one's from Australia. The dye distribution is totally different. It's a totally different mineralogy."

Melcher is one of many German scientists working to set up a "certified trading chain," which would establish the origin of coltan samples.

He relies on more than using visual cues to identify a coltan sample's provenance. Melcher and his colleagues also use an electron microprobe that hits the sample with an electron beam. The emerging x-rays indicate which chemical elements are contained in the sample.

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

Video: Ride along as a real-world battery swap takes place in less than two minutes -- Autoblog Green

We're still not convinced that the whole battery swapping idea will work on a grand level, but there are countless possible benefits to such a system that we simply can't overlook. First and foremost, the speed of battery swapping is unmatched by any current method of charging that employs a cord. Better Place has demonstrated that it's a two-minute-or-shorter ordeal. Second, it just seems so darn convenient to pull up to a station, hand over a few bucks, get a fresh battery and be on your way.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Interesting TED presentation by Matt Ridley

You can't be me, I'm taken

How Lucy's meat-eating made us what we are now - Science, News - The Independent

The point in prehistory when our early ancestors first picked up a sharp-edged stone to butcher animals has been pushed much further back in time with the discovery of ancient bones.

Scientists working at an archaeological site in Ethiopia have discovered two animal bones with the distinctive cut marks of stone tools that the researchers believe were used to scrape or slice chunks of meat from carcasses some 3.4 million years ago.

The bones, which also show evidence of being broken open to extract highly nutritious marrow, are evidence that our ancestors were organised carnivores a million years earlier than previously understood.

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

Tube line cleared for runaway train - Home News, UK - The Independent

A runaway train went through six stops on a 13-minute journey on the Tube today with other Underground trains having to be cleared out of its path.

The unmanned engineering train, used for maintenance, began to move southbound from Archway station on the Northern line.

London Underground (LU) staff took an operational decision to let the train continue and diverted trains on to another branch of the Northern line while clearing trains from the Charing Cross branch on which the runaway train had been diverted.

The train eventually came to a stand at Warren Street station. LU and the Rail Accident Investigation Bureau have launched an investigation into the incident and LU has suspended the use of all engineering trains of this type.

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

Gay marriage can go ahead in California - if no one objects, says judge - Americas, World - The Independent

In a ruling that sets the stage for yet another showdown in a seemingly never-ending legal battle which is destined eventually to reach the Supreme Court, a judge in San Francisco has decided that same-sex weddings must be allowed to resume in California next week.

Judge Vaughn Walker, who last week found that the state's ban on gay marriage "disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification," said that opponents of same-sex unions have until 5pm on Wednesday to get an appeal court ruling that would put new marriages on hold.

If they fail, couples will be allowed to tie the knot as early as that night. The decision comes a week after Judge Walker struck out Proposition 8, a law approved by voters at the 2008 election which defined marriage as a "union between a man and a woman," on the grounds that it violates principles of equality enshrined in the US Constitution.London Underground (LU) staff took an operational decision to let the train continue and diverted trains on to another branch of the Northern line while clearing trains from the Charing Cross branch on which the runaway train had been diverted.

The train eventually came to a stand at Warren Street station. LU and the Rail Accident Investigation Bureau have launched an investigation into the incident and LU has suspended the use of all engineering trains of this type.

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

Court bans counter-demo against neo-Nazis | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 13.08.2010

A Hanover court has approved a planned neo-Nazi march in a town in the state of Lower Saxony this weekend, but prohibited a trade union counter-demonstration from taking place.

Right-wing extremists will hold a "funeral march" on Saturday in Bad Nenndorf, where British occupying forces interrogated Nazis between 1945 and 1947, and reportedly abused their detainees.

The Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB) was planning to march in opposition, and described the administrative court's decision to stop them as an "incredible ruling."

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

EUobserver / Germans upset by Google Street View

Thousands of Germans have requested their homes be removed from Google Street View before the new service is launched in 20 German cities by November. Even the country's conservative minister for consumer affairs, Ilse Aigner, has requested to be excluded.

In a country long wary of surveillance, with memories of the Nazis' Gestapo and East Germany's Stasi secret police not forgotten, the response to Street View has been overwhelmingly negative compared to other European countries.

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

France24 - South Asian superbug claims first fatality

A Belgian man became the first known fatality of a drug-resistant "superbug" originating in South Asia, reinforcing fears the germ could spread worldwide after infecting dozens of people in Britain and Australia.

The unnamed patient became infected while hospitalised in Pakistan and died in June, a doctor from the Brussels hospital where he had been treated told Belgian media on Friday.

"He was involved in a car accident during a trip to Pakistan. He was hospitalised with a major leg injury and then repatriated to Belgium, but he was already infected," the doctor said.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

France24 - A quarter-pounder with statins on the side?

Fast food restaurants could hand out free cholesterol-busting statin drugs with their burgers and fries so customers can offset the heart disease risks caused by the food, researchers said.

Statins lower the amount of unhealthy "LDL" cholesterol in the blood, and a raft of data has shown they are highly effective in fighting the risk of a heart attack.

Scientists at Imperial College London said this week that taking a statin pill could offset the increased risk to the heart caused by the fat in a medium-sized cheeseburger and a small milkshake.

Dr Darrel Francis, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, said: "Statins don't cut out all of the unhealthy effects of burgers and fries. It's better to avoid fatty food altogether."

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

BBC News - Home computers discover rare star

By putting their home computers to work when they would otherwise be idle, three "citizen scientists" have discovered a rare astronomical object.

The unusual find is called a "disrupted binary pulsar"; these pulsars can be created when a massive star collapses.

The discoverers, from the US and Germany found the object with the help of the Einstein@Home project.

It asks users to donate time on their computers, allowing them to be used for searching through scientific data.

This type of project is known as "distributed computing". Einstein@Home harnesses the power of home machines in order to process large amounts of data.

Credited with the discovery are Chris and Helen Colvin, both information technology professionals from Iowa, US, and systems analyst Daniel Gebhardt from Mainz in Germany.

Their computers, along with 500,000 others from around the world, are being used to analyse data for Einstein@Home.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

free risk rate FUBAR

Wells Fargo Bank has foreclosed on Greene's $615,035 condominium in the upscale Naval Square development in the city's Schuylkill section. In a lawsuit filed July 27, Wells Fargo said the amount in dispute was $386,685.22.

Greene, 53, runs the nation's fourth-largest public housing agency and is one of the highest-paid public officials in the city. His salary is $306,370, and last year he got a $44,188 bonus....

[Greene's "spokesman" Ken] Dorn added that Greene "knows people will find it hard to understand how he could be involved in a possible foreclosure proceeding on his home, but he would prefer not to say more about it at this time." Greene bought his three-bedroom, 2,100-square-foot condo in 2007. Wells Fargo is not seeking to evict him.

etc

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

mo' money, mo' money, mo' money

By adding PayPal, Google would give app developers another way to GET PAID

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Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

shrewd

scone wrote on Fri, 8/13/2010 - 7:36 pm (in reply to...)
"Bond Girl wrote:'I'm not even sure we need a leader though. We need a whole new system. And before we have a whole new system, we need a different culture.'"

Yes, and you can't legislate that. You can't even get people to act like civilized human beings on a blog comment section, when it's very easy to be a jerk. It's a lot of work to not be a jerk, there's a reward for being an asshole, and no points, or even points off, for trying to take the whole game up to a higher level. And that negative reward system echoes all the way through the ranks of public life, in business, culture, and politics.

Bond Girl wrote on Fri, 8/13/2010 - 7:39 pm (in reply to...)
Oh, I agree completely. I can't tell you how many times I've said that you can't legislate morality. Alas, we live in an era that still believes that you can engineer incentives and that incentives have the same net effect as morality.

Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.

Follett backs Balls with £100,000 gift - UK Politics, UK - The Independent

Ed Balls has received £100,000 from Ken Follett, pictured with his wife, Barbara, the former Labour MP for Stevenage

Ken Follett, the millionaire thriller writer, has lavished £100,000 of his fortune on the apparently doomed campaign by Ed Balls to become Labour leader.

The six-figure donation will give fresh impetus to the shadow Education Secretary's attempt to succeed his political mentor Gordon Brown.

Despite putting up a spirited fight, Mr Balls seems to be lagging behind David and Ed Miliband in the battle for the Labour crown.

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

Gored Through the Neck: Matador Who Cheated Death Makes His Comeback - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Julio Aparicio became the most famous bullfighter in the world in May after he was gored through his neck by a bull. The grisly photograph appeared on front pages of newspapers around the globe. He made his comeback just a few weeks later -- and experienced the "worst hours" of his life.

In the morning, Julio Aparicio had knelt to pray in front of a portable shrine, one that he always takes along to his bullfights. He knelt for longer than usual that morning, he says.

Aparicio has been a matador for more than 20 years. He has killed hundreds of bulls in his career, and the excitement shortly before the corrida, or bullfight, is nothing new to him. But it's different this time, nothing like the tension he's experienced so many times before, the feeling of anticipation while he waits in the hallway for the fight to begin, the cheering crowds, the shouting fans, the music.

...The matador is afraid.

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

Westerwelle's Moral Hara-Kari: Ditching Principles for Diplomacy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is openly gay and likes his partner to accompany him on foreign trips. However, he now says that he will travel alone to countries where homosexuality is an offence. He wants to promote tolerance, but not "imprudently." That's a disgrace. A Commentary by Henryk M. Broder.

Germans have many things they can be proud of. One is the fact that the mayor of Berlin is openly gay. And so is the current foreign minister.

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

SBS: Spain extradites alleged 'Pink Panther'

The suspect and another "Pink Panther" member allegedly stole a diamond tiara worth 200 million yen ($A2.57 million) and other gems from a jewellery store in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza district on June 14, 2007.

The robbers fled the scene on bicycles.

Hadziahmetovic was arrested in Cyprus in 2009 on a European warrant over the theft of luxury watches worth 600,000 euros ($A853,508.87) in Spain, to where he was transferred. Japan then sought his extradition.

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

Miscellaneous stuff goes under Klatsch... Get the bit about

PEOPLE AND KLATSCH - this is the place for stories about people and off course also for gossipy items. But it's also there for open discussion at any time.

?

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

What do the French have to do with Cologne Cathedral? Cologne is in Germany.

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

Gothic cathedral building was a middle-age bubble: it was a competition between cities with extreme costs, and sooner or later lean times came (be it due to war, famine, pestilence, or simply losing trade market share to competing cities). Most gothic cathedrals were projects abandoned half-finished in the middle age, and architectural art moved on to baroque while willingness to spend on finishing the austere-looking giants was lacking. Then in the 19th century, Romanticism found the Middle Age and Gothic fun again. The architectural result was that many half-finished middle-age cathedrals were finished, and a lot more (too) perfect neogothic clones were built.

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