(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron conceded on Sunday that Scotland had what it takes to be an independent nation, but said it currently enjoyed "the best of both worlds", imploring it not to break the United Kingdom apart.

Stepping up his government's campaign to hold Britain together ahead of an independence referendum expected next year, Cameron urged Scotland not to sever a union with England that dates back 306 years.

"Put simply: Britain works. Britain works well. Why break it?" he wrote in an article published in Scottish newspapers.

(Reuters) - French efforts to divert Europe from economic austerity have foundered twice in a week due to German resistance, underlining a growing policy divide that is hobbling the core partnership.

Berlin rejected President Francois Hollande's call on Tuesday to set a mid-term target for the euro, a move he hoped would bring the single currency down to a level that would make it easier for French industry to sell its goods abroad.

Three days later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined forces with Britain's David Cameron at a Brussels summit to push through the first ever cut in the 27-nation's budget, taking an axe to spending on infrastructure projects backed by Paris.

"Is it the budget I would have liked if it was just up to me? No. But the problem with Europe is that there are others involved," a resigned Hollande told reporters after all-night talks secured a deal on EU funding from 2014-2020.

The European Parliament will vote by secret ballot on the EU's 2014-2020 budget, its centre-left President Martin Schulz and Joseph Daul, the leader of the centre-right European People's Party, said yesterday (7 February).

Schulz, speaking at a late-night news conference, confirmed Daul's earlier statement that the use of the special procedure was planned.

Under parliamentary procedures, one-fifth of MEPs can request the Parliament hold a secret ballot instead of have their votes recorded. The vote is expected within three months, as some 80 legislative acts accompanying the EU budget should be prepared in the meantime.

EurActiv understands that the unusual procedure is aimed at preventing national governments from bullying MEPs by threatening to expose their votes.

The European Commission released its cybersecurity strategy yesterday (7 January) to address concerns and promote greater internet safety.

But the obligation put on EU member countries to report cyberattacks are "vague" and appear to do little to protect EU citizens' data stored outside the EU, Wim Nauwelaerts, a privacy and data security lawyer with Hunton & Williams firm, told EurActiv.

The EU-wide strategy aims at establishing cross-border cybersecurity rules and practices, and coordinated attack response. Companies and public bodies will also have to report significant attacks to the Commission, which took the unusual step of publishing a list of companies to which this may apply, including Google, the retailer Amazon, eBay and a number of telecoms and cloud service providers.

It also contains a legislative proposal obliging member states to designate a national competent authority for network information service, and set up a functioning computer emergency response team.

In an article published in the monthly magazine "UNFOLLOW" I read that annual tax losses from smuggling marine oil in Greece, a country under EU/IMF/EIB supervision, is estimated at €500 million by the Customs Authorities, €1.5 billion by the ministry of finance, while the market estimates it at €3 billion (tax losses per year without counting penalties).

Allegedly, there are some 1,500 fuel tanks illegally storing smuggled oil in Greece, mostly located in Lavrion, 60km south of Athens.

This is the essence of the story and if one takes the ministry of finance's version, for the €1.5 billion tax evasion per year the corresponding VAT (at 23%) is €350 million. Considering the market estimates, the annual VAT losses (which concern both Greek and EU budgets) rise to €700 million per year.

(ROME) - Italy's outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Sunday the European Union fears Silvio Berlusconi's return to power and his potential negative effect on the euro should his party win this month's election.

"Berlusconi has disappointed me, he's missed all his important meetings and has betrayed the liberal revolution," said Monti, who succeeded the billionaire tycoon as prime minister in November 2011.

"The EU fears his return because it has had enough of the lack of financial discipline and inability to make decisions that puts the eurozone in danger," Monti said on the Berlusconi-owned TgCom24 television channel.

The commission's five year review into the Reach regulation has found that the use of chemicals in the EU has become "considerably safer".

The registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals regulation (Reach) came into force in 2007 and was hailed as a significant piece of environmental legislation by the former environment commissioner Stavros Dimas.

Part of the regulation requires the commission to review progress and publish a general report looking at its operation and whether it is meeting its main objectives.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that "Reach functions well and delivers on all objectives that at present can be assessed," although it did highlight some areas which need to be improved.

Unrest in Slovenia is continuing for a fourth month on, with tens of thousands of protesters gathering in major cities, including capital Ljubljana, to request the resignation of PM Janez Jansa.

Late Friday evening, police used teargas to dispell a 20,000 strong crowd gathered around the Parliament in Ljubljana.

Protesters have requested Jansa's resignation, and have accused the government of widespread corruption, after it was revealed that the PM had failed to declare income worth more than EUR 200,000.

It is 50 years since activists bombed a power transformer at one of the most controversial construction projects in modern Welsh history.

The Tryweryn reservoir saw the Meirionnydd village of Capel Celyn drowned to provide water for Liverpool.

Two activists were jailed after planting explosives at the site in February 1963.

On Saturday, more than 100 people gathered to mark the incident.

Eugenio Scalfari, one of Italy's most respected political commentators, says an election upset in Italy is possible; he said Silvio Berlusconi and Beppo Grillo are gaining support among people fed up with the policy of austerity; sees no chance of pre-election alliance between the two, but the possibility of a re-grouping of the right post-election; the polls push Pier Luigi Bersani into an alliance with Mario Monti as the right solidifies its poll ratings;  Silvio Berlusconi has his €50bn stimulus would lead to increase in economic growth by 0.5%; Ignazio Visco has called for more powers for the Bank of Italy to interfere with reckless banks and their managers; BoI confirms that only Monte dei Paschi has received special support from the BoI; Lucrezia Reichlin writes that the bailout for MPS only delays the inevitable nationalisation; the FT has the story that a bail-in of insured depositors is among one of three options by the eurogroup for Cyprus;  Annette Schavan, Merkel's science minister, resigns in a blow to the chancellor; an EU draft law wants to force banks to participate in Euribor panel; Spain's opposition leaders gave a strong anti-austerity message, and warns that euroscepticism is rising in Spain; an eleven-day garbage collection strike ends in Seville after workers accept a pay cut; Mariano Rajoy publishes his tax declaration in the attempt to persuade that he is clean; the strategy of the Spanish government is now to deflect from the scandal by pointing out that it pales in significance to what has been happening elsewhere; there were large demonstrations in Slovenia after it became known that the country's PM failed to declare income;  the Greek government offers people a laxer schedule to pay overdue taxes; Antonis Samaras got a relatively good deal out of the EU budget negotiations; government also proposes legislation to force union to cast members' ballots before calling a strike; Irish central bank governor criticises banks for failing to deal with mortgage crisis; Ireland's opposition Fianna Fail has staged a miraculous recovery in the opinion polls; Wolfgang Munchau welcomes the deal on Ireland's promissory notes, but says there should be no mistake that this is monetary financing; Le Monde says Mario Draghi has been a lot more effective in talking down the euro's exchange rate than Francois Hollande; the French president, meanwhile, declares that the trouble with the European Union is that other people are involved in decision-making.

Pope Benedict XVI is to resign, the Vatican has confirmed.

Italian news agency ANSA reports Pope Benedict XVI is to resign

This is a link to live text with updates.

Via the Courrier International, the original is from Izvestia.

The privileged position of the UK is pretty interesting... and I would be interested to hear an official explanation from Cameron. Likewise, Germany gets a good rate, despite the huge cost of the Nordstream pipe.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

(Reuters) - Tales of shady business practices abound in China - fake revenues, phony invoices, sham factories - but until recently, the problem seemed confined mostly to Chinese companies.

No longer.

Concern is growing about risks to U.S.-based multinationals in a country where American audit regulators are locked out by the Chinese government and bribery and fraud are routine.

(Reuters) - The European Union's top monetary official wants closer coordination on currencies to avoid potentially damaging disruptions to world trade, he told an Austrian magazine.

The remarks by Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn come amid a standoff between France and Germany over whether a strengthening euro needs an official European response or whether markets should be left to set exchange rates.

Germany said this week the strong euro was not a concern and signaled opposition to a French proposal for a mid-term target rate, exposing policy divisions over mainland Europe's currency between its top two economies.

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world's biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports of goods, official figures from both countries show.

U.S. exports and imports of goods last year totaled $3.82 trillion, the U.S. Commerce Department said last week. China's customs administration reported last month that the country's trade in goods in 2012 amounted to $3.87 trillion.

China's growing influence in global commerce threatens to disrupt regional trading blocs as it becomes the most important commercial partner for some countries. Germany may export twice as much to China by the end of the decade as it does to France, estimated Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s Jim O'Neill.

(Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought running gun battles with Islamist rebel guerrillas in the north Mali town of Gao on Sunday, in clashes that showed up big gaps in security in a zone recently recaptured by a French-led military offensive.

Gunfire resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient town on the Niger River, hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.

French helicopter gunships clattered overhead.

"Islamists who have infiltrated the town are trying to attack our positions, but we're fighting back," a Malian army officer told Reuters by phone. Another Malian soldier said one group of rebel infiltrators had come in on motorbikes.

Civilians crouched for cover behind walls lining narrow dusty alleys as French and Malian troops, backed by armored vehicles, fired on the al Qaeda-allied insurgents who had slipped into the area of the central market and police station.

The secular party of Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki has withdrawn its three ministers from the country's government, saying that its demands for changes in the cabinet have not been met.

The decision on Sunday by Marzouki's Congress for the Republic Party deals a further blow to Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali's government, already weakened by last week's assassination of secular opposition leader Shokri Belaid.

"We have been saying for a week that if the foreign and justice ministers were not changed, we would withdraw from the government," Samir Ben Amor, a Congress for the Republic Party official, told Reuters news agency.

"This decision has nothing to do with the prime minister's decision to form a government of technocrats," he said, referring to Jebali's declared intention to name a non-partisan cabinet to run day-to-day affairs until elections can be held.

As the manhunt for the ex-cop wanted in the slayings of three people enters its sixth day, Dorner's firing has been the subject of debate both within and outside the LAPD. An online manifesto that police attributed to Dorner claims he was railroaded by the LAPD and unjustly fired. His allegations have resonated among the public and some LAPD employees who have criticized the department's disciplinary system, calling it capricious and retaliatory toward those who try to expose misconduct.

Seeking to address those concerns, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced this weekend that he was reopening the investigation into Dorner's disciplinary case. "It is important to me that we have a department that is seen as valuing fairness," Beck said.

Why are Americans getting fatter, and who's to blame? It's a question members of the US Congress need to be asking. 

Like the war on tobacco decades ago, the US is now fighting a new battle on obesity. On one side are US public health officials advocating for their government to put in place better nutrition policies. But those efforts have met stiff resistance, in part because the $1 trillion US food and beverage industry is fighting regulation with a powerful weapon: its deep pockets. 

It's no secret the standard American diet is relatively inexpensive, convenient and satisfying. Whether it's highly marketed fast food or highly processed, packaged foods in the supermarket, what Americans eat has changed dramatically over decades.

And it shows. The US has the highest rate of obesity in the industrialised world. One-third of Americans over the age of 20 are obese, according to government figures. For children, this figure is 17 percent.

"It's really expensive to get healthy food in the United States," said a shopper at a mall in McLean, Virginia when asked why the number of obese Americans is rising. "Fast food is much too accessible." Another man explained, "The government can stop the advertising, can stop all the bad foods and yet they let it keep going, and then they complain about obesity."

(Reuters) - Six big French retailers said on Sunday they were recalling lasagne meals and other products suspected of being mis-labeled after the discovery of horsemeat in beef products.

The British unit of frozen foods group Findus began recalling its beef lasagne last week on advice from its French supplier, Comigel, and the French and British governments have since vowed to punish those found responsible for allowing horsemeat originating from Romania to be sold as beef.

French retailers' federation FCD said on Sunday that French supermarkets were also pulling several products supplied by Findus and Comigel on concerns that they were mislabeled. The supermarkets are Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Cora, Monoprix and Picard

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is funding the Butendiek wind farm with € 450 million. Butendiek wind farm is one of the biggest offshore wind projects so far in the German part of the North Sea. It has 80 turbines with a total generating capacity of 288 MW and will cost a total of €1.4 billion.

As Wilhelm Molterer, EIB Vice-President stated: "It is due to the strong commitment shown by the various groups of investors that Butendiek is now able to get off the ground. And the EIB loan will make an important contribution to this. The financing of renewable energy, particularly offshore wind energy projects, is and will continue to be a key part of the EIB's work, as it is all about meeting Europe's ambitious environmental targets. Here, Butendiek will have a crucial part to play."

The Danish government export credit agency Eksport Kredit Fonden (EKF), KfW and nine commercial banks will also be involved in financing the wind farm.

Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., said that the U.S.'s development of shale oil and gas will make the country energy independent as early as 2018.

"For many decades, we have heard that the U.S. will be independent of foreign imports of energy," Ambani, whose company operates the largest oil refining complex in the world, said in an interview to be aired today on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program. "Realistically, I can now tell you that it is my judgment this will happen in the next five to seven years,"

GULFE, Cameroon, Feb 9 2013 (IPS) - Approaching the Lake Chad basin from Gulfe, a small locality 45 kilometres from Cameroon's Far North Regional capital Maroua, the atmosphere of despair is palpable: dusty air, fierce and unrelenting winds, wilting plants and sand dunes suggest that this once lush area is undergoing a terrible change.

Nothing breaks the expanse of sparse vegetation but the occasional withered tree and some scorched shrubs.

Bordered by Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, Lake Chad once spanned 25,000 square kilometres but in the last half century it has shrunk by 90 percent, its total surface area now covering a mere 2,500 square kilometres.

As a result of feeble rainfall, the Chari and the Logone - the two main rivers that feed the lake - are bringing less and less water each year.

Herders, fisherfolk and farmers who have relied for generations on the rich soil of this basin are now struggling to survive, as the great lake dries up before their very eyes.

Sea-surface height data from NASA's Jason-2 satellite show that the equatorial Pacific Ocean is still locked in what some call a neutral, or 'La Nada' state. This condition follows two years of strong, cool-water La Nina events.

A new image, based on the average of 10 days of data centered on Jan. 26, 2013, shows near-normal conditions (depicted in green) across the equatorial Pacific.

This latest image highlights the processes that occur on time scales of more than a year, but usually less than 10 years, such as El Nino and La Nina.

A worldwide review of global rainfall data led by the University of Adelaide has found that the intensity of the most extreme rainfall events is increasing across the globe as temperatures rise.

In the most comprehensive review of changes to extreme rainfall ever undertaken, researchers evaluated the association between extreme rainfall and atmospheric temperatures at more than 8000 weather gauging stations around the world.

Lead author Dr Seth Westra said, "The results are that rainfall extremes are increasing on average globally. They show that there is a 7% increase in extreme rainfall intensity for every degree increase in global atmospheric temperature.

"Assuming an increase in global average temperature by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century, this could mean very substantial increases in rainfall intensity as a result of climate change."

A new analysis from research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance has concluded that electricity from unsubsidised renewable energy is already cheaper than electricity from new-build coal and gas-fired power stations in Australia.

The modeling from the BNEF team in Sydney found that new wind farms could supply electricity at a cost of $80/MWh -compared with $143/MWh for new build coal, and $116/MWh for new build gas-fired generation.

These figures include the cost of carbon emissions, but BNEF said even without a carbon price, wind energy remained 14 per cent cheaper than new coal and 18 per cent cheaper than new gas.

BEIRUT, Feb 9 2013 (IPS) - One couple's modest marriage in Lebanon has catapulted them into media limelight and sparked a national debate pitting the Prime Minister against the President while eliciting stern condemnation from leading religious figures. Their union is both exceptional and controversial - it is the first civil marriage in the country.

In Lebanon social and political integration is realised through sectarian affiliation; it is within the legal institutions of the 18 different religious sects that marriages are traditionally authorised. "It is really a different feeling when you feel like a human being getting married to another human being based on human rights and not on sectarian rights," the groom, Nidal Darwish, tells IPS.

Darwish and his bride Kholoud Sukkariyeh tied the knot in a secret ceremony at her house with just her brother for a witness, and a notary to oversee the signing of the contract. But once their marriage entered the public domain it soon became a hot and controversial topic of discussion across the country. What may in many societies seem a trivial matter cuts deep into Lebanon's social, political and religious fabric.

PORTO ALEGRE, Jan 31 2013 (IPS) - At 8 a.m. on Oct. 25, 1975, Brazilian journalist Vladimir Herzog voluntarily reported to the São Paulo headquarters of the government's intelligence agency and was never seen alive again.

The facilities he had been summoned to were just one of the detention and torture centres that were active during Brazil's last dictatorship.

Herzog was editor-in-chief of the news department at the São Paulo-based television network TV Cultura, and had been called in for questioning by the Information Operations Department of the Centre for Internal Defence Operations (DOI-CODI) for his alleged connections to the then-illegal Brazilian Communist Party (PCB).

He died under torture, but his death was made to look like a suicide by the military in an attempt to cover up the murder. A photograph released later showed Herzog hanging in his cell, but in a position that clearly revealed that the military's suicide version was a farce.

In the absence of long-term instrumental data, fragile rock formations, called hoodoos, may be key to understanding seismic hazard risk. In this study, researchers consider two hoodoos in Red Rock Canyon region to put limits on expected intensity of ground motion from earthquakes along the Garlock fault.

Hoodoos can be found in desert regions and are highly susceptible to erosion that makes their age uncertain. Despite that uncertainty, existing unfractured hoodoos, tall spires of sedimentary rock, may help put limits on ground motion associated with recent events by understanding the minimal force necessary to break the shafts made primarily of relatively soft sandstone.

Our ability to learn and form new memories is fully dependent on the brain's ability to be plastic - that is to change and adapt according to new experiences and environments. A new study from the Montreal Neurological Institute - The Neuro, McGill University, reveals that DCC, the receptor for a crucial protein in the nervous system known as netrin, plays a key role in regulating the plasticity of nerve cell connections in the brain. The absence of DCC leads to the type of memory loss experienced by Dr. Brenda Milner's famous subject HM.

Although HM's memory loss resulted from the removal of an entire brain structure, this study shows that just removing DCC causes the same type of memory deficit. The finding published in this week's issue of Cell Reports, extends Dr. Milner's seminal finding to another level, revealing a key part of the molecular basis for learning and memory.

Although both netrin and DCC are essential for normal development (in terms of guiding nerve cell growth) until now their function in the adult brain was not known. Dr. Tim Kennedy, lead researcher and neuroscientist at The Neuro, contributed to the discovery of netrins as a young post-doctoral fellow. This new study reveals the answer to the question that drove him to first start a lab.

Police who are investigating a series of sexual assaults in the southern French city of Marseille have arrested identical twin brothers.

The 24-year-old unemployed delivery drivers, named locally as Elwin and Yohan, were placed under investigation on Friday.

Officers say they are sure that one of the two men carried out the attacks, but that they do not know which.

Standard DNA tests are unable to differentiate between their DNA.

Why isn't Leicester twinned with Abbottabad? Those places have got so much in common. Both face stern economic challenges. Both are desperate to attract investment and tourism. And both have been the resting place of the mutilated remains of a notorious villain - who, in both cases, some say has been misjudged.

There are differences of course: Leicester's dead guy, Richard III, belongs to a very different historical era from Osama bin Laden (who met his end in Abbottabad) - it was no less brutal but the distance of time has allowed it to become picturesque. And, perhaps consequently, Richard III is a little further along the path of reputational rehabilitation than Bin Laden. Also Richard III didn't actually die in Leicester but was carried there dead, while Osama bin Laden was removed from Abbottabad post-mortem, leaving no possibility of infra-car-park skeletal jackpots for the city's future mayors. But the main difference is in how the two towns are making use of their respective celebrity corpses.