Alex Salmond has said he will stand down as Scotland's first minister and Scottish National party leader after failing to secure a majority for independence in Thursday's referendum.

He told a press conference in his official residence of Bute House that he would stand down as first minister in November when a new SNP leader will be chosen.

...Thursday's Scottish independence referendum saw the no campaign fronted by Alistair Darling win 55.3% of the vote, compared to 44.7% for yes. But the proportion represented a high water mark for the independence movement and the Scottish National party.

President Francois Hollande pleaded with Germany and other European partners on Thursday (18 September) to be patient with France and give it more time to reform before it meets deficit targets, admitting that results were coming too slowly.

...The Socialist leader, whose approval ratings have slumped to an all-time low of 13%, promised he would work till the end of his term in 2017 to modernise France, revive its stagnant economy and protect its generous social model.

Rejecting pressure to scrap the 35-hour work week, cut the minimum wage, raise the retirement age or leave the euro zone, Hollande said France should not be expected to carry out in five years labour market reforms that had taken Germany 10 years in far more favourable economic conditions.

Clueless and timid, onward to the dustbin of history.

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

Poland's cabinet reshuffle after Donald Tusk's resignation to become European Council president reflects a shift away from his political line, despite the fact only five ministers have changed.

Ewa Kopacz, expected to be the new prime minister, has announced the line-up of her cabinet. While most ministers kept their portfolios, some essential changes will take place.

...Sikorski's successor is Grzegorz Schetyna, ex deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, now chairing the Sejm's Committee for Foreign Affairs.

Schetyna, earlier one of the most popular Civic Platform politicians, was ousted from the forefront of Polish politics by Tusk.

Fewer and fewer German citizens are going to the polls, a trend officials attribute to the rigid rules in the voting system. The social democrats are now considering more innovative models, including mimicking Sweden's practice of voting "while out shopping". EurActiv Germany reports.

In terms of voter participation, Germany's last elections were a disaster; 48% in the Brandenburg regional poll, 53% in Thuringia, 49% in Saxony and 48% in the EU elections.

But election researcher Markus Steinbrecher considers the plans "a drop in the ocean".

Steinbrecher believes voting stations in shopping centres would only raise voter participation to a certain extent. "Maybe two to three percentage points, but definitely not more," he told EurActiv.de.

The cause of low voter participation is not the effort it takes to go to the polls, he said. Three other factors are much more relevant: (1) rising dissatisfaction with politics, the parties and the politicians, (2) a lack of interest for politics among much of the population and (3) the disappearing alliance between social groups and political parties.

Well duh.

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

Cerar's 16-member cabinet was approved by 54 votes to 25. His three-party coalition holds 52 of the 90 seats in parliament and investors hope it will return political and financial stability to the euro zone member, which narrowly avoided an international bailout for its troubled banks last year.

Cerar has said his cabinet will aim to cut the deficit to 3% of gross domestic product - the European Union's official ceiling - next year, from an expected 4.2% this year.

"Our fiscal policy will be restrictive, we have to reduce public spending and increase the efficiency of tax collection," Cerar said at the start of the parliamentary session.

He said that his government plans to boost growth by selling state assets, attracting more foreign direct investment, and by helping companies restructure and improving corporate governance - all issues that have largely been on the backburner since Slovenia became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991.

In other words, yet another "centre-left" government executing a right-wing neoliberal economic policy.

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

After the sanctions campaign commenced, Bank Mellat went to court in the UK and the EU Court of Justice, challenging the allegation that it was connected to Iran's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes. The bank commenced litigating in London in November 2009. Almost five years later, in June of this year, Bank Mellat won a ruling from the UK Supreme Court, the final court of appeal, rejecting the basis in evidence for the sanctions imposed on the bank. This followed a similar condemnation by the European Court, issued in January 2013. That story, and the two court judgements, can be read here.

"Mere allegations" were inadmissible to support sanctions, the two courts have ruled. The EU sanctions action against the bank had been illegal, the Luxembourg panel ruled, because "the [EU] Council did not... comply with the obligation to assess the relevance and the validity of the information and evidence against the applicant submitted to it, with the consequence that those measures are tainted by illegality. Lastly, the Council infringed the obligation to state reasons as regards the second, third, sixth and seventh reasons relied on against the applicant."

[...]

This week, the Central Bank of Iran won a separate lawsuit against the EU. The new ruling can be read here. The judgement was issued by three judges -- Heikki Kanninen of Finland (below left), Eugene Buttigieg of Malta (centre), and Czech Judge Irena Pelikánová (right). Pelikánová also ruled in the Bank Mellat case last year.

For the second time, the EU court has ruled that sanctions are illegal if they are based on allegations which cannot stand up in court. With an irony yet to be tested in the US, the EU court has also ruled that state organizations and companies targeted by sanctions have the same human right to due process, as human beings, Russian dissidents, and Americans.

European Central Bank (ECB) plans to bolster lending to business were dealt another setback on Friday after banks decided to repay billions of euros of cheap ECB credit, sapping money available to lend to business.

The news came a day after the central bank's fresh offer of up to €400 billion of low-cost loans fell flat, casting doubt on its plans to shore up the eurozone's faltering economy.

On Friday (19 September), the ECB announced that banks would repay almost €20 billion euros of similar credit, known as long-term refinancing operations, that the ECB had advanced at the height of the eurozone's debt crisis.

Despite its shiny façade, the German economy is crumbling at its core. That, at least, is how Marcel Fratzscher sees it. With the country's infrastructure becoming obsolete and companies preferring to invest abroad, the government advisor argues that German prosperity is faltering.

...Fratzscher has headed the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) for more than a year now, and it is clear that this newfound proximity has sharpened his view of the contradictions in the world's fourth-largest economy. German industry sells high-quality automobiles and machines around the world, but when the plaster begins to crumble in an elementary school, parents have to raise money to hire a painter. Companies and private households are sitting on trillions in assets, but half of all autobahn bridges are urgently in need of repair. Germany derives more benefits from Europe than most other countries, and yet its citizens feel taken advantage of by Brussels.

Grand Delusion

Fratzscher calls it "Die Deutschland Illusion" ("The Germany Illusion"), the title of his new book which German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel will introduce on Friday. Last year, he asked his staff at DIW, one of the most important think tanks in the country, to address the underpinnings of the German economy. Fratzscher has condensed the results into an unvarnished reckoning with the country's economic grand delusions.

...What was recently nothing more than a theoretical possibility could soon become a central sticking point for Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. While Merkel and Finance Wolfgang Schäuble remain determined to adhere to their plans to present a balanced federal budget next year, Fratzscher advocates preparing for a worst-case scenario. "If the crisis worsens once again," he said in a conversation with SPIEGEL, "more spending will be needed to bolster the economy."

My one quibble is that his infrastructure spending plans seem focused on highways...

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

Dozens of Russian energy ventures are in jeopardy due to Western sanctions on technology and funding. Looming over them all, is a giant project the Kremlin is bent on saving no matter what.

The Yamal plan, a $27 billion (€21 billion)  investment to tap vast natural gas reserves in northwest Siberia, aims to double Russia's stake in the fast-growing market for liquefied natural gas. If it stays on track, it will also show the West that the world's largest energy industry is not cracking under sanctions.

Russia has said it will make sure Yamal has the resources it needs to keep building. But that pledge will be tested: Yamal's gas is so far in the Arctic North that it requires specialised technology often provided by Western partners - many of which will not be able to operate because of the restrictions.

And while Yamal's shareholders have already invested $6 billion (€4.6 billion) in it, US. and EU action has now effectively cut off the Russian energy firm's access to Western lending.

George Osborne's plans to balance the government's books will require additional tax increases, spending cuts or a squeeze on welfare worth more than £37bn in the first three years of the next parliament, according to Britain's leading experts on the public finances.

In an assessment of the budget plans of the three biggest Westminster parties, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that austerity would continue under a Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat chancellor, but that Osborne had by far the toughest approach to fiscal policy.

The IFS said the biggest difference was that the Conservatives planned to secure an overall budget surplus in the next parliament, with the Treasury's tax revenues sufficient to cover both the day-to-day running costs of government and capital spending on infrastructure projects.

French planes have carried out air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq.

Less than 24 hours after President François Hollande announced he had approved a request from the government in Baghdad for air support, at least two French Rafale planes attacked the Isis insurgents' positions.

A statement from Hollande's office read: "This morning at 9.40am our Rafale aircraft carried out a first attack against a logistics centre of the terrorist organisation Daesh [Isis] in the north-east of Iraq. The target was hit and entirely destroyed. Other operations will be carried out in the days to come."

The target was near Tall Mouss in the Zoumar sector of northern Iraq. The French aircraft are based at Al-Dhafra near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Two U.S. jets intercepted six Russian planes that neared U.S. airspace off Alaska on Thursday and Canadian planes intercepted two Russian bombers that approached Canadian airspace, NORAD reported.

A U.S. official told CNN's Barbara Starr that officials in Washington think the incidents were related to the visit by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who talked to Canadian officials Wednesday and President Barack Obama on Thursday. The United States promised Ukraine $46 million in nonlethal aid for its battle with pro-Russian militants.

The Russian aircraft flew within about 55 nautical miles of the Alaskan coastline and about 40 nautical miles of the Canadian coastline, said Capt. Jeff Davis of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD.

Kurdish fighters from Turkey and Iraq are scrambling to help defend a vital Kurdish safe haven in northern Syria, where tens of thousands of Kurds have fled after an offensive by Islamic State (Isis) militants.

The border region of Kobani, home to half a million people, has held out for months against an onslaught by Islamists seeking to consolidate their hold over swaths of northern Syria. But in recent days, Isis extremists have seized a series of settlements close to the town of Kobani itself, sending more than 70,000 mostly Kurdish refugees streaming across the border into Turkey.

A Kurdish commander on the ground said Isis had advanced to within 15km (9 miles) of Kobani.

A Kurdish politician from Turkey who visited Kobani on Saturday said locals told him Isis fighters were beheading people as they went from village to village.

"Rather than a war this is a genocide operation ... They are going into the villages and cutting the heads of one or two people and showing them to the villagers," Ibrahim Binici, a deputy for Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP, told Reuters.

Peace marches are set to take place in Moscow and other Russian cities on September 21. As many as 50,000 people are expected in the capital alone, for what will be the first mass protest involving the public against Russia's intervention in Ukraine for six months.

In March 2014, in the wake of the disputed referendum in Crimea on whether the peninsula should become part of Russia, tens of thousands took to the streets across the country under the slogan "Hands off Ukraine."

Recent polls, though, suggest that the majority of Russians still supports Moscow's Ukraine policies. Dissenting voices are very rarely heard in public.

Thousands of mourners and survivors came together in Nairobi, Kenya, on Sunday to commemorate one year since gunmen from the militant group al-Shabab stormed the capital's Westgate Mall, where they staged a four-day massacre. Al-Shabab claims the attack was an act of revenge against Kenya for the presence of their troops fighting extremists in Somalia.

According to Kenyan officials, 67 people were killed during the attack, in which the attackers hunted down shoppers in supermarket aisles and singled out non-Muslims for execution.

'High alert'

On Saturday, Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said Kenyan security forces remained on high alert for the anniversary, asking Kenyan's to be "extra vigilant" in the coming weeks.

Fears over hazardous foods are incomprehensible, a study released on Tuesday (16 September) by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) said.

The debate around TTIP has been surrounded by many evocative images - chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-treated meat, and genetically modified food.

Many observers believe TTIP's ratification could mean weaker and lower food standards. The IW, which has close ties to employers' associations, hopes the study will help demystify the issue.

"There is no scientific proof that chicken disinfected with chlorine can be hazardous to health," said IW director Michael Hüther, indicating assessments conducted by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR).

With increasing media attention given to the TTIP juggernaut, it was only to be expected that neoliberal propagandists will come to the rescue. But the above seems to be an attempt too weak and transparent.

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

The world's population is now odds-on to swell ever-higher for the rest of the century, posing grave challenges for food supplies, healthcare and social cohesion. A ground-breaking analysis released on Thursday shows there is a 70% chance that the number of people on the planet will rise continuously from 7bn today to 11bn in 2100.

The work overturns 20 years of consensus that global population, and the stresses it brings, will peak by 2050 at about 9bn people. "The previous projections said this problem was going to go away so it took the focus off the population issue," said Prof Adrian Raftery, at the University of Washington, who led the international research team. "There is now a strong argument that population should return to the top of the international agenda. Population is the driver of just about everything else and rapid population growth can exacerbate all kinds of challenges." Lack of healthcare, poverty, pollution and rising unrest and crime are all problems linked to booming populations, he said.

...Sub-saharan Africa is set to be by far the fastest growing region, with population rocketing from 1bn today to between 3.5bn and 5bn in 2100. Previously, the fall in fertility rates that began in the 1980s in many African countries was expected to continue but the most recent data shows this has not happened. In countries like Nigeria, the continent's most populous nation, the decline has stalled completely with the average woman bearing six children. Nigeria's population is expected to soar from 200m today to 900m by 2100.

... Coal-burning in the US actually peaked in 2007 and has dropped by an astonishing 21%.

This is the largest drop in coal use, in absolute terms, ever experienced by any country in all of history, and no, it is not "just because of shale gas". More than half of the reduced coal use has been replaced by renewable energy, dominated by wind power, and by reductions in power consumption.

... New data for the first half of 2014 shows, for the first time this century, an absolute drop in China's coal consumption. Though this is unlikely to be sustained in the very short term several experts have predicted China's coal consumption will peak due to the new policies, and this drop seems to be evidence of the approaching emissions peak. Levelling off coal consumption in China would halve the global CO2 growth rate, putting global CO2 emissions in line with IEA's new policies scenario. The dominant role China's coal use has played in global emissions growth now suddenly becomes a reason to be optimistic. ...

... For those concerned about tackling climate change this isn't a reason for complacency. This is an all hands on deck moment, akin to a moment when the crew of a stranded ship suddenly sees an unlikely, narrow passage to safer waters.

The task of peaking global emissions of heat-trapping gases is more urgent than ever, and the fact that the target is now finally within reach is a reason to redouble our efforts, for a major turning point in the battle to prevent climate chaos.

California is in a historic three-year drought, and recent photos taken in Northern California put a visual exclamation mark on the issue.

The images were captured in August by Justin Sullivan of Getty Images, in the same locations at Lake Oroville and Folsom Lake where the California Department of Water Resources took photos in July 2011.

It's been an explosive few weeks in Iceland. In the Holuhraun valley, in the centre of the country, the Earth's crust has been wrenched apart and molten rock spewed 130 metres into the sky. The volume of magma erupting is more than any other volcano on Iceland in a century - and could potentially continue erupting for more than a year, "so even as an Icelandic volcano, it's a big one," says Professor Simon Redfern from Cambridge University.

Those who remember the disruptions and delays to air travel of four years ago will no doubt be reaching for their passports with apprehension - and well they might. "It's not actually a volcano at the moment - it's a fissure eruption - which is good, it's relatively safe," says Redfern. "But there is the threat of Bardarbunga going, and with the vast volume of magma beneath it, it's potentially bigger than the 2010 volcano [Eyjafjallajökull]."

Redfern is part of a team of earth scientists who have been monitoring the movement of magma beneath the region since 2006, and who were out there when the eruption began. He says the threat from Bardarbunga is two-fold, as it sits under 850 metres of glacial ice. "If it explodes under ice the magma cools very quickly, and more importantly the water in the ice turns to steam. So it's actually the steam exploding within the magma, that then turns this from being a pile of rock into a big plume of ash," he says. "It would also pose a significant threat to life in the vicinity because the glacier could melt and that would create a huge melt flood."

20 September 1934 – birth of Sophia Loren

21 September 1964 – the (originally) 10,250 m Arlberg Tunnel opens in Austria

21 September 1964 – Malta achieves independence from Britain

One of Ireland's best known broadcasting journalists was mugged in Edinburgh while covering the Scottish referendum. RTE presenter Philip Boucher Hayes had to hand over his recording equipment.

Then he agreed to pay £200 to the muggers to recover it. In a tweet about the incident he wrote: "Was told I was 'lucky you're not English.'"