BRUSSELS - The troika caused social devastation by forcing eurozone crisis countries to ignore social and welfare standards, MEPs have said.

Deputies on the European Parliament's employment committee backed a report by Spanish centre-left MEP Alejandro Cercas by 27 votes to seven on Thursday (13 February), which accuses governments of ignoring the European Social Charter and employment conventions set out by the International Labour organisation (ILO).

Speaking with reporters following the vote, Cercas accused the troika - officials who manage bailout payments on behalf of EU and international lenders - as well as eurozone finance ministers, of riding roughshod over the EU treaties and creating a "social tsunami."

"The arrogance of economic fixation has made policy makers forget that there are conventions which you must stick to ... even in a crisis you can't reduce pensions below the breadline," he said.

Undoubtedly, Renzi's decision appears to contradict the single most important thing that has characterised his politics so far, which has been to attack anyone who dares to govern without a direct mandate from the people. Yet this is exactly what he is doing on the basis of a deal done inside his party; he has declared himself an enemy of coalitions cobbled together between parties that ought to be competing in the electoral arena. Yet the alliance that will support his government is exactly that.

What is frankly difficult to understand is how Renzi can preach that only by implementing institutional reform will Italy ever have a government strong enough to achieve radical reforms, when he is about to attempt even more dramatic changes supported by a very weak majority.

Renzi is setting himself up for a mission impossible. He faces three main challenges: to overcome the economic crisis and start creating new jobs for the armies of young unemployed; to push a new electoral law through parliament to end political paralysis; and to bring about institutional reforms to streamline decision making. However, rising to each of these challenges depends on the continuous support of each of his three main enemies.

The author continues with austerity true-believerism, but the above exposes Renzi's hollowness IMO.

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

Agriculture Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich officially announced his resignation on Friday during a press conference in Berlin amid accusations he shared confidential police data about a fellow lawmaker suspected of possessing child pornography.

...Merkel lauded Friedrich's accomplishments on counterterrorism as interior minister, a position he held from March 2011 to the end of 2013. She especially praised his inquiry into the shortcomings of the investigation of the far-right terror cell, the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

...Social Democrat Party (SPD) leaders confirmed on Thursday Friedrich had informed them back in October of the investigation into fellow party member Sebastian Edathy, who has been targeted by authorities as part of a child pornography investigation. Revealing such information would be a breach of German law.

At the time, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), and its CSU sister party, were in coalition talks with the SPD.

"Accomplishments" on counter-terrorism and the NSU, LOL.

Regarding Edathy, I somehow wasn't surprised as my impression was of an overly power-conscious figure. (The last I read police found parts of physically destroyed hard drives at his home.) Moments from his career I can recall:

• he headed the parliamentary commission on the NSU neo-Nazi terror cell which concluded that there have been serious mistakes but failed to declare institutional racism as the reason, then again he always spoke out against far-righters (no wonder as he is of partly Indian descent);
  
• he attacked Schröder's one-time economy minister and later coal lobbyist for attacking Andrea Ypsilanti before the Hessen elections but attacked Ypsilanti for trying to cooperate with the Left Party afterwards;
  
• as chair of the interior commission of parliament he championed an internet surveillance law which was later declared unconstitutional (how funny if the claim turns out to be true that he was netted by foreign internet surveillance), but had an angry confrontation on Facebook when he was called out for using photos without permission.

Spanish MPs voted on Tuesday to usher in a fast-track reform that would drastically impede judges from investigating crimes outside of Spain's borders.

For nearly two decades, Spanish judges have used the doctrine of universal jurisdiction to investigate human rights abuses in countries including Guatemala, Chad and Argentina.

Most famously, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London in 1998 on the orders of the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón. Pinochet was eventually returned to Chile for medical reasons, but Garzón's actions were credited with sparking a revolution in international justice.

The reform introduced last month by Spain's governing People's party stipulates that universal jurisdiction will now only be applied when the defendant is a Spanish citizen or a foreign national resident in Spain. The reform is expected to be passed within months, after which interest groups will no longer be allowed to bring cases forward, only public prosecutors.

In an interview in his office in central Madrid, Garzón described the government's reform as absurd. Judges would not be able to investigate foreign crimes against humanity, genocides and war crimes, he said. "The conditions that they're imposing are so exorbitant that it would be almost impossible to prosecute these crimes."

Leaked correspondence published yesterday (13 February) links MEP Iliana Iotova (S&D, Bulgaria) to a public relations firm in her country, which has offered and apparently provided personal brand services to Iotova, but also an alleged badmouthing campaign against Bulgarian Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva. 

A video showing a hacker introducing what appears to be the correct password for Iotova's email account was first published on the website Balkanleaks, which specialises in anonymous sharing of sensitive information.

The investigative website Bivol published on Thursday (13 February) excerpts from an email, which represents an offer made by the public relations company Leadway Media Solutions to Iotova. The PR service package is offered by Aneta Avramova, an official in the company.

Accordingly, Avramova has offered Iotova 50 comments in internet forums per month, 150 comments in Facebook and 50 tweets, as well as 15 press publications per month. The PR company also offered to create a "thematic internet group" to campaign under the motto 'Where has the money for the refugees disappeared?'

Tory Euro-MPs have sparked fury by trying to block efforts to scrap roaming fees to use mobile phones abroad.

Consumer watchdogs have battled for years against the sky-high charges faced by holidaymakers when they use their mobiles overseas.

But Tory Euro-MPs are under attack for trying to stop an EU plan to phase out roaming charges and end them completely by 2016.

Between October and December 2013, the eurozone economy grew 0.3 percent, improving on a meager 0.1 percent recorded in the previous three-month period of the year, according to , on Friday.

Compared with the fourth quarter of 2012, the rate of expansion was even higher at 0.5 percent, Eurostat said.

...According to the Eurostat figures, the recovery was led by the bloc's main economies, Germany and France, which expanded by 0.4 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.

But the biggest quarterly rises were posted by new eurozone member Latvia, up 0.7 percent, and the Netherlands which grew by the same rate. Italy, which is the euro area's third-biggest economy, grew by only 0.1 percent.

Eurozone laggard Greece saw its economic problems ease somewhat at the end of 2013, logging a better-than expected contraction of 2.6 percent on the annual comparison for the quarter.

A smaller contraction is still a worsening of economic problems, sorry. And -2.6% is "better than expected", LOL.

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

Cyprus' central bank chief Panicos Demetriades said Friday he was confident most, if not all, domestic restrictions on bank money transfers and withdrawals would be done away with by the end of the year.

The controls had been imposed to prevent bank clients from emptying their accounts after the country agreed in March of last year to the conditions of an international bailout plan, which among other things mandated a raid on uninsured deposits in the nation's two top lenders.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) -- There are eerie parallels between the stock market's recent behavior and how it behaved right before the 1929 crash.

That, at least, is the conclusion reached by a frightening chart that has been making the rounds on Wall Street. The chart superimposes the market's recent performance on top of a plot of its gyrations in 1928 and 1929.

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

Wednesday we reported that another JP Morgan banker has been found dead, as the latest banker to meet a sudden and untimely demise is Ryan Henry Crane, the Executive Director in JPMorgan's Global Equities Group.

Today, Steve Quayle's banker source "V", who predicted that a wave of banker hits was imminent when the very first bankers began dropping last week, has dropped a bombshell regarding the death of Ryan Henry Crane.

V states that Crane oversaw all of the trade platforms and worked closely with Gabriel Magee of JPM's London desk (who fell 32 stories off the JPM London roof moments after texting his g/f he would be home shortly), and that the pair had access to the exact same info.

V concludes Crane & Magee: "Knew each other and had uncovered something".

V's update on the latest JPMorgan banker to turn up dead is below:

Development aid for health has decreased or is stagnant in a majority of European countries, according to a report by the network of NGOs, Action for Global Health.

Spain has seen the worst decline since 2010, the organisation noted. Madrid used to allocate 0.053% of its gross national income (GNI) to health; it fell down to 0.022% between 2009 and 2011.

Germany is also a low contributor compared to its economic weight with only 0.031% of its GNI.

With 0.045%, public development aid for health in France is relatively stable but still far away from the international target.

The Italian contribution has declined significantly since 2009. It is today between 0.017 and 0.019% of its GNI. Italy is one of the smallest contributors to health together with Austria, Greece and Portugal.

...The only country that has maintained a stable budget in line with international recommendations is the UK. The country has consistently increased its development aid for health since 2008 and reached the 0.1% objective in 2011.

The US and Europe need a new strategy on drugs and should look at alternatives such as the regulated sale of marijuana, says the Uruguayan president, José Mujica, whose country recently legalised the production and sale of cannabis.

In an interview on Thursday, the 78-year-old former leftwing guerrilla said the world's largest economies, which are the biggest markets for illegal narcotics, needed to tackle drug trafficking using tools other than prohibition.

"The industrial societies are the ones that have to change," he said. "For a small country, it's possible to experiment with this, but it's also very possible for a developed country because of the resources it has."

Week-long protests in Venezuela turned violent on Wednesday leaving three people dead, more than 20 injured, and the president, Nicolás Maduro, struggling to restrain mounting discontent among opposition groups and radical elements of his Chavista movement.

Initially sparked by unrest over soaring inflation, rising crime and the arrests of student protesters, the demonstrations in Merida, Tachira and Anzoategui have escalated into deadly clashes between opposition activists and pro-government Chavista militias known as colectivos.

The president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, said the first killing was of a colectivo member in downtown Caracas during an opposition march.

Cabello blamed the opposition for the murder and assured the colectivos that those responsible would feel the full weight of the law. But tellingly, he also appealed to the armed groups not to take matters into their own hands. "Remain calm and sane," he urged in a televised address. "We ask you to trust us."

In the short term, the protests pose little threat to Maduro's government, but analysts see increasing confusion as armed militias enter the fray. Any loss of control over armed supporters could pose a bigger threat than the fragmented opposition.

Thousands of Thai police were deployed in Thailand's capital city, Bangkok, on Friday with the goal of clearing long-occupied protest sites. National Security Council Chief Paradorn Pattanathabutr said 5,000 police had been assigned to the operation, targeting sites around the government district.

...Yingluck called general elections on February 2 in an attempt to bring public unrest to an end. The results were disputed by opposition parties, who questioned their legitimacy amid closed polling stations and the inability for some voters to participate while demonstators blocked the registration process in about 28 constituencies.

However, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that there were insufficient grounds to consider a petition filed against the government elections by opposition Democratic Party lawyer Wiratana Kalayasiri.

Earlier this week, the Electoral Commission announced new election dates for April to accommodate those blocked from voting on February 2.

Let's not forget that this opposition opposes democracy itself and wanted an unelected government.

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

"In terms of the storms and floods of winter 2013/2014, it is not possible, yet, to give a definitive answer on whether climate change has been a contributor or not," concluded the United Kingdom's Met Office in a lengthy report published this week.

But the experts admit, however, that when taken as a whole, the persistence and clustering of the storms inundating the United Kingdom this winter with flooding and heavy rains are unprecedented in modern times and are sending a strong signal that the climate change links need to be better understood.

...Barry Gromett, a spokesman for the Met Office, wrote in an email, "We can't definitively link the recent storminess, rainfall and flooding to climate change partly because of the highly variable nature of UK weather and climate and the lack (for the moment) of formal attribution studies."

"However, some studies are now suggesting a shift in the Atlantic storm track, steering depressions on a similar track to those we've seen recently. Observations show global mean rainfall is increasing and there is also some evidence that extreme daily and hourly rainfall totals are showing similar trends. This is consistent with basic physical premise that a warmer atmosphere can hold more water," Gromett wrote.

...The problem is in putting those tools into action. "The attribution of these changes to anthropogenic global warming requires climate models of sufficient resolution to capture storms and their associated rainfall. Such models are now becoming available and should be deployed as soon as possible to provide a solid evidence base for future investments in flood and coastal defences," the report concluded.

The government's push into offshore wind power has created a boom in renegade ship operators that are exploiting workers and putting lives in danger, according to the UK's largest marine workers' union.

Nautilus has dubbed the sector that operates boats for the UK's offshore windfarms the "wild west" of renewable energy. The union says basic safety rules are not being enforced, bullying and harassment are commonplace, crews lack training and are often forced to work in sea conditions beyond recommended limits.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament's Committee for Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) have rejected on Wednesday (12 February) a proposed regulation which included a definition of "engineered nanomaterials" in food.

The Parliament members said that the definition could lead to existing nanomaterials not being labelled due to an exemption provided for food additives approved on an EU list.

In the European Commission proposal, food additives already on sale and potentially containing nanoparticles would be exempted from nano-labelling. The MEPs said that the Commission's plans would deny consumers their right to be informed.

They also said that a 50% nano-particles threshold for an ingredient to qualify as `nano' is much too high. This disregards the European Food Safety Agency's (EFSA) advice to the Commission of a 10% threshold in light of ongoing uncertainty of nano safety.

Electricite de France SA can't make ends meet unless it can raise the price of wholesale nuclear power it sells to rivals, its chief executive officer said.

"One can't demand of a company to sell a quarter of its output below cost over the long term," Henri Proglio told reporters today at a presentation of 2013 results. "No company can survive" on these terms "without compensation."

Proglio's comments indicate a battle over the regulated price, known as Arenh, is intensifying as the utility demands the rate be increased, and competitors and industry want it lowered. Under a system meant to boost competition, EDF has to sell about a quarter of its annual atomic output to competitors.

In January 1942, the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, ordered the creation of the Dachau entomological institute. Its official mission was to find new remedies against diseases transmitted by lice and other insects: German troops were often plagued by typhoid, and there were concerns about a developing typhoid epidemic at the Neuengamme concentration camp.

But in an article for the science journal Endeavour, Klaus Reinhardt says protocols kept by the head of the institute allow no other conclusion than that the institute also pursued research into biological warfare.

In 1944, scientists examined different types of mosquitoes for their life spans in order to establish whether they could be kept alive long enough to be transported from a breeding lab to a drop-off point. At the end of the trials, the director of the institute recommended a particular type of anopheles mosquito, a genus well-known for its capacity to transmit malaria to humans.

With Germany having signed up to the 1925 Geneva protocol, Adolf Hitler had officially ruled out the use of biological and chemical weapons during the second world war, as had allied forces. Research into the mosquito project had to be carried out in secret.

A study of gay men in the US has found fresh evidence that male sexual orientation is influenced by genes. Scientists tested the DNA of 400 gay men and found that genes on at least two chromosomes affected whether a man was gay or straight.

A region of the X chromosome called Xq28 had some impact on men's sexual behaviour - though scientists have no idea which of the many genes in the region are involved, nor how many lie elsewhere in the genome.

Another stretch of DNA on chromosome 8 also played a role in male sexual orientation - though again the precise mechanism is unclear.

Researchers have speculated in the past that genes linked to homosexuality in men may have survived evolution because they happened to make women who carried them more fertile. This may be the case for genes in the Xq28 region, as the X chromosome is passed down to men exclusively from their mothers.

...While genes do contribute to sexual orientation, other multiple factors play a greater role, perhaps including the levels of hormones a baby is exposed to in the womb. "Sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice," said Bailey. "We found evidence for two sets [of genes] that affect whether a man is gay or straight. But it is not completely determinative; there are certainly other environmental factors involved."

There is a widespread but mistaken view about genes as a computer program running a robot, implying absolute genetic determinism of body traits. I think it was Richard Dawkins who came up with the alternative imagery of a cooking recipe: the end effect results from the interplay of the ingredients and also the circumstances set by preparation and cooking.

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

Websites can link to freely available content without the permission of the copyright holder, the European Court of Justice says.

The court's decision came after a dispute in Sweden between journalists and a web company that had posted links on its site to online news articles.

A Swedish court had asked the EU court to consider whether this broke copyright law.

The "position would be different" for links that bypass a paywall.

Dr Peter Saunders, of the Care Not Killing Alliance, told the Mirror: `There may be nothing in this. But if a doctor has intentionally taken the life of a child in the UK, then that is murder because euthanasia is illegal under British law.' Dr Irwin's comments came as the news that Belgium had extended euthanasia to children was met with revulsion across the world, but only minor ripples of dissent among Belgians. `Belgium has allowed the killing on demand of terminally ill children and has headed for the ethical abyss. A state which allows something like this is a failing state,' the conservative German daily Die Welt screamed in a column. The law covering euthanasia of minors is different to the broader euthanasia law. Adults can opt for death by injection if they find their condition intolerable and pain too great. Cases have included deaf twin brothers about to go blind. But children must also be shown to be terminally ill. The child makes the decision, with parental consent.

Norwegian convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has threatened a hunger strike if prison authorities don't upgrade his video game system to a PlayStation 3, among other demands.

"You've put me in hell," Breivik wrote to officials in November in a letter obtained by Agence France-Presse, "and I won't manage to survive that long. You are killing me."

Breivik currently has access to a PlayStation 2 console, but he has reportedly been less than pleased with the selection of games available.

"Other inmates have access to adult games while I only have the right to play less interesting kids games," the 35-year-old kid-killer wrote. "One example is 'Rayman Revolution', a game aimed at three year olds."

15 February 1944 – the senseless destruction of the Abbey of Monte Cassino during the Battle of Monte Cassino by a bomber raid, killing 230 Italian civilians.

On the same day, the Red Army starts the Narva Offensive which fails to take Estonia

16 February 1934 – the four-day Austrian Civil War ends with the victory of state and paramilitary forces under chancellor Engelbert Dolfuß over the Schutzbund paramilitary of the Social Democrats, opening the way to the legal establishment of the Austrofascist dictatorship

George Clooney has claimed that France should return the Mona Lisa to Italy during a promotional tour for his new film The Monuments Men, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The comments, which follow Clooney's repeated claims over the past week that Britain should return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, were reportedly made in Milan at a press event during which the film's cast posed in front of the famed Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece The Last Supper. The film's director was joined by co-stars Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jean Dujardin and John Goodman for the event.

Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is currently held in the Louvre in Paris, where it has hung since 1797. It was acquired by French king Francis I shortly after completion around 1518 and has only been shown in Italy once, in 1913, following its theft by an Italian patriot in 1911.

Italian authorities have regularly petitioned for the return of the world's most famous painting, most recently in 2012 ahead of the 100th anniversary of its restitution to France. Their Gallic counterparts have so far refused on the grounds that the work of art is too delicate to be moved. Clooney's reported remarks are said to have returned the matter to the public arena and sparked new calls in Italy for the return of the painting.

The book is about evolution, its messiness, glory, sometimes cruelty, and awesome power to create more and more complexity. Darwinian processes, driven by variation, selection, and replication, are fundamental cosmic patterns found not only in biological life but also in the evolution of cultures, technologies, and societies. The only permanent feature of an ever changing universe is the process of change itself. Evolution works by creating complexity and diversity, in an endless search of better adaptation to changing environmental conditions, and ruthlessly discarding experiments to make room for what works. "Natural selection is a process of exuberant creation and ruthless elimination," says Chu. "Similarly, the best practice in science and culture is a kind of negative pragmatism: find out what is not working and get rid of it."

It's not surprising, then, that the most successful product of evolution - ourselves - must necessarily make room for new experiments in the search of optimal adaptation to a wider environment - the whole universe. Chu uses the powerful metaphor of a killer whale - another creature that evolution has placed at the top of its habitat - that jumps out of the water to catch glimpses of other, more challenging alien environments. At this point in human history, "blind" Darwinian evolution is about to give rise to self-directed, conscious evolution. But self-directed evolution will not be a clean, aseptic, top-down, design-review-implementation project.