What will they do? CSSD lacks knowledge of both Voldemort and candy bars in Prague
New Councilors of CSSD will most probably have to overcome certain language barriers to understand their old-new colleagues from ODS in Prague Council and municipal council.
Aktuálně.cz "tested" the Social Democrat members of the new Council in terms of the well-established slang that originated in the town hall during the few last years, when Prague was ruled by the current coalition partners.
Coded vocabulary that was established by Prague political elite during the previous era of the mayor Pavel Bem, describes some of the most famous persons, situations and affairs in the city.
Surprisingly, it turned out that the new council members do not understand the well-known concepts.
At least they say so.
"Who is Voldemort?"
"I really do not know."
"I'm rather a novice in Prague politics," responded Lukas Kaucky, the Councilor for culture, to the test of "Godfather" vocabulary.
And even though he is a political veteran, the Councilor Karel Brezina responded similarly.
For instance regarding the term "golf hole."
"It's the only one of the presented words that I use at least occasionally."
"Otherwise, I generally do not recognize the slang."
Out of the glossary, published by Aktuálně.cz last June just before the Election Congress of ODS, editors selected six examples, mainly well-known in connection with the Prague City Hall.
The Socialists were to explain the concepts of "Voldemort," the "greatest golf hole in Prague," "go to a candy bar," "bull neck," "betrayal of the capital" and "to plate with metal."
Three Councilors agreed with the quiz, the fourth - Antonín Weinert, who is to head the education in Prague in the future - promised to attend an interview first, but later he stopped answering the phone.
The fifth Councilor, Peter Dolínek, refused the test straight away.
"I do not pay attention to such things at all and I am not going to evaluate the way the Civic Democrats talk."
"I am rather concerned how we will match our programs," he said.
As we already mentioned, Councilor Lukas Kaucky would reportedly not recognize in the above heading that it is about an influential entrepreneur and friend of ex-Mayor Bem, Roman Janousek.
"Voldemort" bears no meaning to Kaucky and the only term he correctly guessed in the test is "the greatest golf hole in Prague."
"It's Blanka tunnel," says Kaucky, and immediately adds: "But I know it from the newspapers."
"I'll have to get myself a language course," he quips.
Golf hole as the Blanka tunnel was then correctly deciphered by not only the matador Karel Brezina, but also the Councilor for the environment, Lukas Plachy.
Both Social Democrats then also know who is actually Voldemort and Lukas Plachy is familiar with this character - he also guesses the right meaning of the phrase "to go to a candy bar."
"That means going to a company in Prague" he sails close to the meaning, which is the office of Janousek's companies.
Similarly to Brezina he notes that he gained the knowledge from the newspapers rather than using such a vocabulary himself.
According to the testees, there is no such groovy glossary of slang terms in Social Democrats Party.
"I even consulted my colleagues, but it seems that we really do not have anything like that."
"We rather address one another with names, sometimes we use abbreviations and name garbles," said Prague CSSD chairman Peter Hulínský, addressed by party members as Hulda.
"At school I was called Birch, but I do not know if my colleagues call me so," he admits his own nickname, Karel Brezina.
Aktuálně.cz tested the nickname and it works.
Councilor Weinert is Grandpa or less friendly Old Man for party members, the Councilor Miroslav Poche, who won attention just before the election by the fraud in party sponsorship, was nicknamed "Igráček" by some colleagues.
Nicknames are also the only thing accepted by the Social Democrats in the intra-party speech.
Hulínský reportedly does not like to be addressed as Hulda, but Aktuálně.cz has also seen another nickname of that Prague chairman.
"Dr. of Black-jack Law" supposedly recalls that Peter Hulínský got his Degree of JUDr at the Police Academy in Bratislava.
The government wants to limit the torture of "witches," a brochure was released
Women declared as witches in Burkina Faso usually have several common characteristics.
They rather come from the older generation, cannot engage in work for health reasons for instance, are unmarried and have no children.
The one who "becomes" a witch is sent into isolation in order to not jeopardize the rest of the village.
"Such a fate befalls men only very rarely."
"Nor healthy young women are sent away because they help with work and bear children," says the nun, who takes care for more than a hundred women banished from their community in a special care home in the capital of Burkina Faso, West Africa.
Local government now decided to combat the unusual "social measures."
It has published an information booklet, which should help limit the witch-hunt.
But there is a snag in that.
"More than 70 percent of adults in Burkina Faso cannot read," pointed out the disadvantage of written education Die Standard daily.
Accusations of witchcraft are also common in other African countries.
In Ghana, which borders with Burkina Faso, a seventy-two Amma Hemmah died last week after three women and two men tortured her, doused in kerosene and set alight.
The case was reported by BBC.
The perpetrators claim that it was an unfortunate coincidence.
According to their version the oil that is used for ritual anointing ignited and burned the woman to death.
It allegedly burst into flames after the group wanted to "expel the evil spirit" from the woman.
Isolation of "witches" is widely supported by people regardless of their education level.
Daily Der Standard quoted a businessman of forty-two from Burkina Faso: "Devourers of human souls have always posed a danger," he said.
While in Burkina Faso the government is trying hard to moderate the witch hunt, the Gambia's President himself participated in the hunt last year.
"Gambian President Jámí after the death of his aunt unleashed a large-scale witch-hunt for witches allegedly involved in her death and trying to use black magic to kill the president."
"He invited shamans from nearby Guinea to help him and they accompanied by policemen, soldiers and president's private security guards forced randomly selected men and women from Gambian villages to the president's ranch in Kanilai," said Amnesty International in their report.
The arrested people had to drink a potion of herbs with hallucinogenic effects, which also causes intestinal and kidney problems.
Two prisoners did not survive.
After international pressure nearly a thousand of inmates were released.
Bakala's tenant: Heating in the stove, signed the rent increase
An older heavyset man walked out of the door of the client center of RPG Flats Company owned by the 'coal baron' Zdenek Bakala, the largest privately owned rental apartments" owner in the Czech Republic.
Under his arm he carried a folder with new lease contracts to three flats: his, his daughter's and his son's, who is in prison.
All the three's rent has just risen due to deregulation.
From next year will the son pay CZK 4100 for the second class 2 +1 apartment instead of the current CZK 3500 per month.
"And there is no hot water and we must heat in the "Petra stove" (solid fuel stove, ed. note) " the man points his finger on his son's new contract, which he is authorized to signed by proxy.
"But I signed it," he says half angrily, half resignedly.
BytyOKD.cz Civic Association, which identified the new tenancy conditions as "unfair and immoral," advises tenants not to sign the new contract and wait until 7 December, when they will publish a guidance on how to counter them.
But the man remains skeptic.
"One says this, another that," he frowns.
Ostrava has become a great laboratory of deregulation.
After the New Year the vast majority of dwellings with non-market rent in the Czech Republic will be subject to deregulation.
Aktuálně.cz therefore decided to visit the "laboratory" itself.
Havířov's waiting room of RPG is one of the four in the Ostrava region and is already full at nine a.m. on Tuesda.
Standing right at the door, there is a security guard from a security agency with a call device nearby.
Special button "Rent 2011" shines on the touch screen.
One tap and the machine issues a slip with a number.
You do not even manage to read "157" and your figure beeps on the large screen below the ceiling of the waiting room.
It is your turn in half a second.
An older couple comes to ask about the lease after a few moments, there is apparently no rush for new leases in the waiting room at all.
Most people came to solve the same problems as usual - request for repairs, insured events etc.
Letters with new leases have been sent to mailboxes of most of the tenants of 44 thousand dwellings RPG portfolio in the Ostrava region since about mid-November.
RPG Byty proposes to increase rent by 15 to 38 percent in these letters.
A special desk for new leases was opened on 18 November in the client center.
"It has been in operation for over a week, so it's only run-in," respond the clerks at the desk after some hesitation, when the client introduces himself as a journalist.
Deregulation and Bakala's former mining flats are local hot topic.
Before the elections, it was quite loudly adopted by Parliament Vice-President and a native of Ostrava Lubomir Zaoralek of the Social Democrats, and even now it fills local newspapers.
"I have been asking them for this new floor for twenty years."
"They have not even changed a f..king plate in the bathroom," relieves the man mentioned in the introduction.
It is mostly the retired who only come to see if they can I get a discount on rent if they sign on time, as RPG their promises in their special offer.
Half off the February rent will also receive the other tenants who will have signed the new contract by 15 December.
Havířov's "deregulatory" desk is certainly not overwhelmed with questions.
"Out of yesterday's 360 clients only about forty to fifty came to inquire about leases in 2011," estimates the clerk behind the counter.
RPG on their bulletin boards and Web site proposed the negotiation of individual contracts where needed.
However, if the parties fail to agree on the lease, an independent tribunal will have to establish the rent.
"This is not a threat, but the information on the only possible legitimate and completely legal procedure," says RPG on its website.
"Nobody will sue them here," said one of the RPG Flats clerks and the man on the street outside the client center partly agrees.
"I have CZK 13,000 pension and five thousands are left for the meals, I cannot afford bringing it to the court," he said.
The clerk but then doubts after all.
"We'll see."
"Mr. Zaoralek advises them in the media not to sign, so some people are waiting," she thinks.
The regulation of rents ends in the most of the Czech Republic with the New Year 2011 and according to RPG Byty is the increase of rents an economic necessity.
"The current rent is still less than the amount needed for simple maintenance of housing stock," commented Pavel Klimes, director of RPG portfolio of residential apartments, and reminded that neglect of the housing stock complained about in relation just to those angry tenants, is the main reason for the increase in rents according to the house owners.
While within the five years between 2005 and 2010 could RPG invest four billion from the rents into the apartments, within the four years between 2011 and 2014 it should be 5.2 billion.
Large screen hanging from the ceiling opposite the padded seats of Havířov's waiting room keeps repeating some information highlighted in red.
"The increase in rents in 2011 by 15% and less concerns 31,200 flats, it is more than 90% of RPG apartments."
"And it will always be a maximum of CZK 7.50 per square meter and month," appears on the screen.
Only for 400 apartments of RPG portfolio the rent will rise by 38 percent.
"In these cases there will be an increase from an extremely low amount of CZK 19.66 per square meter," points RPG.
In 2600 apartments will the rent remain the same next year.
RPG Byty promises that deregulation of rents will not be sudden, it will be spread over four to eight years.
It adds another commitment: all the money from rent increases (see the chart) will be invested by the company back to the flats, especially in heat savings - new windows and insulation.
Priority will be given to people who sign the agreement to increase rents.
Offices need a kindergarten nearby, architects have understood
Avriopoint Office Building in Brno is the new headquarters of Arch.Design Company.
Nobody would expect that it contains a tiny kindergarten with everything necessary - with colored walls, imaginative furniture, a bunch of toys and even a miniature golf course on the outdoor terrace.
Since October last year the children of Arch.Design employees can attend.
Architectural design company, Arch.Design, whose studios produced a number of important buildings in Brno, have included the space for their corporate tiny kindergarten even in the first drawings of the Avriopoint building.
It indeed employs nearly 90 people - mainly baby-boom-aged and they want their female designers and architects to quickly return to work.
Along with the possibility of part-time contracts the kindergarten is a benefit that Arch.Design offers to their employees within their welfare program.
Female construction engineers and architects have thus the opportunity to combine their demanding jobs with child care.
Tinz kindergarten has been invented by Arch. Design employees themselves and with the support from management they were able to obtain a grant of the European Union and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
Corporate tiny kindergarten is funded by the European Social Fund through the Operational Program Human Resources and Employment and state budget of CZ.
Thanks to grant funding (subsidy of 2.8 million) they were able to purchase equipment and for the period of two years provide qualified personnel and operation.
After the depletion of financial aid (2 years) the Arch.Design Company must operate the kindergarten for 3 years at its own expense.
Preparation of the project lasted one year and the Economy Rating Company helped with the applications for grant significantly.
The care is provided by qualified staff, children are taken care of by a nurse and a kindergarten teacher all day; the kindergarten can therefore be attended by children without any age restrictions, but most of them are over 3 years old.
As this is a "Mini-kindergarten," only 5 children may be present at the same time, even though more can attend in the course of the day altogether.
The operation of the kindergarten is flexible to the needs of parents and children of all employees have the same right to use the nursery, regardless of the position in the company hierarchy.
Although this is an individual education and care, the program content in the mini-kindergarten is comparable with the framework program of preschool education.
Children are not only playing here, they are also provided with quality teaching - from basic knowledge to preparation for schooling and English is also taught here.
The class is not only equipped with toys, inspiring games, but also with a computer that children can use.
The presence of small children directly in the company creates a friendly and positive environment.
Parents can always check their child and it prevents stress situations related to delayed pick-up from nurseries located far from their parents" workplace.
Parents then use the working time much more efficiently.
Not surprisingly, a loyal employee - employer relationship is produced there naturally.
Arch.Design became one of the Czech companies, which offer significant benefit when recruiting new employees, they are friendly to the family and through this program they have enhanced personnel marketing.
House of bones fascinates even after 100 years. Look at the interiors by Gaudi
The roof looks like a prehistoric lizard's spine, the staircase reminds of a dinosaur backbone and balconies are open fish mouths.
This is the house of Casa Batlló in Barcelona by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí.
The locals started to call it the House of bones for its organic shapes.
Organic shapes, wild colors, unusual use of stone, fragments of tiles and mosaics, facade reminiscent of scales and soft curves everywhere, all of which are typical of Art Nouveau by Antoni Gaudí.
The facade of the house opens dreamy lines, soft colors and textures reminiscent of nature and animals.
The detailed look reveals geometry, rhythm, and well-considered order.
At night, the entire facade of the house seems even more dramatical, it is lit so that the gloss paint impression would be further enhanced.
Winding and twisting shapes appear equally as much indoors.
Wood follows in the window frames in the waves, along with handrails, door trim, moldings and watch.
Batlló House, located in the Eixample district on a busy shopping street Passeig de Gracia No. 43, was rebuilt from the original house in 1877 by the architect Emilio Sal Cortes.
Reconstruction took place for two years and the house was completed in 1906.
The investor, a wealthy industrialist Josep Batlló, initially insisted on the demolition of the old building and construction of an entirely new one, but soon he adopted Gaudi's idea of an unusual and cheaper redevelopment of the house.
Apartment building Casa Batlló was nevertheless not designed by Antoni Gaudí alone.
Architect Josep Maria Jujol cooperated with him.
It was his developer's board where the decorations for the representative apartment of the property owner were created, as well as the use of a mosaic on the facade.
A number of other authors and artists worked on the facade.
Joint work on drafts for Casa Batlló building started a successful cooperation of Jujol and Gaudi.
Jujol took part in the construction of Gaudi's building Casa Mila and Park Guell, which contains other Gaudi's works.
The locals started to call it the "House of bones" for its organic shapes soon after its completion.
Others began to call it a "yawning house" for its specific mechanism of windows opening.
It is also said that on top of the building there is a representation of the sword of St. George, the patron of Catalonia.
Other sculptural elements of the building also contain hidden religious motives.
Gaudi designed a central heating system in the house, unique for his time, with ventilation and typical chimneys.
Their forty-five degree slope may seem bizarre.
When creating Gaudi totally disregarded building regulations of the time and did not let them tied him up.
At the start of construction he actually received a building permit from the city, but the provided details about the planned reconstruction were so vague, that two years after the completion the City Council was horrified by the result and asked for redress.
Councilors did mind for example that the building interfered with its pillars into the public sidewalk.
The correction never happened, rather the opposite: only fifteen days after the request from the city, Josep Batlló applied for (and successfully received) the permission to lease the top two floors of the building.
The owner himself moved to lower floors.
There was a banquet hall in the gallery on the second floor and on the third floor there was a bedroom and a private section of the apartment.
The ground floor was leased to a jewelry.
The entire six-storied building is intersected by a staircase, which ends only at the roof terrace.
The key elements of the reconstruction were the abolition of all right angles and straight lines and replacing them with curved walls.
Gaudí also worked with the modern concept of space interconnection.
The social part is completely connected by opening the saloon door and a larger group can comfortably communicate without losing the necessary privacy for intimate conversations.
The house won due to Gaudi's rebuilding a new facade and also the unusual roof and two extra floors.
Gaudi's play with light is also impressive, along with blue and white glazed tiles used to line the inner courtyard and skylights.
The play of two colors delivers a maximum of light on all floors of the house.
It was enough to gamble on the principle that white reflects light more than dark colors, which absorb the sun's rays on the contrary.
Casa Batlló House, which was included in UNESCO World Heritage Fund in 2005, can be visited by anyone.
The most spacious and most luxurious apartment has been opened to the public on the first floor.
The owners decided to move this up in 2002 to celebrate the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the famous author.
They kept providing the excursions since they discovered that this is a very profitable business, plus they extended tours by the common and attic spaces, including a roof terrace.
Admission to the sight is certainly not negligible, amounts to 16.50 euros, while students, seniors, groups and travel passes holders receive a twenty percent discount.
The amount greatly exceeds the price of admission to other Gaudi's buildings in the city.
If you want to experience the true atmosphere of the house with dragon towers, you have to quickly make friends with any of the inhabitants of the apartment house and visit them at home.
How to choose the mattress and the slatted bed base: Women have different requirements from men
Not luxurious bed frame, but the quality of the lying area, that is the mattress and slatted bed base gives a really good bed.
They must however match in a harmonious way to suit a specific user.
The selection decisions are influenced by lots of things such as the weight, height, age, health, and gender of the owner.
Also the type of interior, into which the mattress and slatted base are purchased, is important.
A typical example?
For instance for summer houses which are not heated regularly, latex mattresses are not suitable because they warm up rather slowly.
In addition, they tend to have significantly higher weight than a standard polyurethane foam mattress.
It is also necessary to turn them regularly.
If they do not have enough venting channels in their core, and still lie on a hard board, they retain moisture: Even mold could occur beneath the mattresses.
The choice is also influenced by habits.
Who spent more time abroad, where they often use very thick mattresses with softening layer, they will find it hard to feel good on a thin one with hard surface.
"Perhaps all hockey players returning from the NHL complained to me that they were sleepless."
"Their battered shoulders, heels and hips needed the mattress to be softened with a layer of lazy foam."
"Those are recommended even for people with diabetes who have a nervous system disorder, so they assume 'information' from the joints and skin in an ill way," explains Sylvia Hadamczikova, who specializes in upholstered furniture.
She therefore looked for lazy foam mattresses for many hockey players, but also other customers years ago.
"Now it's okay, suitable mattresses can be found at Tempur, Italian Magniflex, but also Czech Tropico."
You need not be an NHL guy to appreciate the lazy foam.
This "miracle" works in a simple manner.
Optimizes its rigidity and shape by the heat absorbed or adapts to your body warm.
You feel no press and will not keep changing position on your bed all night as if you were after a tough game.
You will just sleep better.
Lazy foam also works well as a protection against pressure sores.
When choosing the size of your mattress thickness, add one foot length to your height, which is about 21-34 cm.
Man and woman with a height of about 180 cm then need a bed of 210-220 cm.
The minimum width for one should be 90cm in double bed, i.e. 180 cm altogether.
In separate beds, for example for singles, it is recommended at least 120 to 140 cm.
For both usual comfort and a possible visitor.
"Otherwise the rule for bed width is simple: when lying on your back, you should keep your hands comfortably slightly bent at the elbow," advises Ing. Helena Prokopová, head of the Guild of upholsterers and decorators, who has addressed the issue of healthy sleep and the ergonomics of furniture for many years and teaches it to colleges.
For everyone needs their own mattress and a slatted base in a double bed, be careful to buy match the thickness of mattresses when buying them.
Otherwise you will have to fit into slatted bases into different heights, which may not be possible with every frame of the bed.
Foam mattress should be at least 14 cm, while the frame types with a spring framework should be at least 15 cm, including at least three centimeters count for the shaping and softening layer.
"You must not feel the springs when touching the mattress with hands or sitting down on the mattress," warns Helena Prokopova.
Each mattress requires a certain type of slatted base.
Upholstered beds, where the mattress and the foundation are like conjoined Siamese twins, should not appear in bedrooms.
It is hard to air the mattresses; you can not wash the fabric either, which should be a must today.
And since we normally perspire 0.2 to 0.75 liters of sweat during the night, it is obvious that after five to seven years the mattress will resemble a large (and clogged) sieve.
That's why experts refuse advertising slogans of life of the mattress up to 25 years, or even a lifetime warranty.
Everything has its pros and cons.
Therefore, the practical advice from vendors is as follows: Do not give up hygiene for mattresses with a width of 120 and 140 cm and their removable and washable cover, rather add a mattress protector, which can be easily removed and washed.
Although today mattress covers are now commonly manufactured with a zip around the perimeter, so after opening you get two parts (vital for washing and the size of washing machine!), handling the larger types when removing them (and in one person) may remind of a match of light-weight fightnig a heavy one in the ring.
Do you have a fixed plate in the bed instead of a slatted base?
Never!
If so, then only in a bed for one-night visitors.
The board should nevertheless be equipped (if not already) with ventilation holes and use the mattress with spring framework of a minimum height of 15 cm with springs in the bags (from German Taschenfederkern) and a softening layer.
Polyurethane mattresses should not be on such a basis.
For non-positioning slats with 14-18 blades, latex or sandwich mattresses will be suitable (maybe a combination of latex and coconut), but it always pays back to get the slatted bases with larger number of blades, 28 or more, where there are double blades in the lumbar area and their stiffness can be regulated.
Mattresses with spring frames should not lie on adjustable slats as they do not respond to positioning.
In addition to adjusting the stiffness of slats you can also enjoy the so-called shoulder cradle.
This is a special mounting of blades, which enables to push, or even tilt the plate so that the arm of the sleeper would nicely "fit into the mattress."
For men whose shoulders are "all over their back," this is certainly an important thing.
Even mattress manufacturers respect it when in "men" mattresses they began to use the softening zone right in the shoulder area.
They also remember the women - those indulge in the softer surface of the hip area.
Aileron or lamellar gratings with the so-called multi-torsion suspension are intended for the most demanding customers.
The pressure is spread into several points and the tension reduces.
But be careful when you use a wrong pillow with a correct mattress and slatted base (large and "stuffed"), most of the "pluses" will disappear.
The basic rule is simple: The cushion should support the head and touch the shoulders with its corners so that the shoulder muscles could relax.
A suitable size of 50 x 60 cmis recommended, preferred for example in Scandinavia.
When lying on the side, the pillow should be able to deal (along with the shoulder cradle of the slatted bed or softened zone in the mattress) with shoulder height.
Modern mattresses do have something in common with original mattresses filled with grasses.
Their manufacturers increasingly use natural materials, or at least admixtures.
There is simply an organic trend even in mattresses.
Raw materials from oil, out of which polyurethane foam is made, are being replaced with natural oils, such as from soy and castor-oil plant.
It is just soy that all well-known manufacturers use now.
"Organic in mattresses means that the core is made of purely natural material," explains Petr Vasicek from the company Tropico Plus.
Natural products are also used in the production of mattress covers, one of the first was aloe vera.
But you can also indulge in microcapsules that can release fresh scent of lavender or forest.
There is even a division for men and women.
While men are "cooled" by herbal extract of birch, so that the mattress cover would absorb heat and cool the body, women are on the contrary "warmed" by the covers.
The extract of red pepper increases circulation of blood, so the weaker sex feels warmer.
Today's favorites?
Mattress made of cold foam (with larger pores with a damaged cell structure is more breathable than regular polyurethane and has a better elasticity.
Combining different stiffnesses of cold foams and "lazy" foam result in multi-zone mattresses that know exactly where the head should be, as well as shoulders and heels.
You will pay seven thousand crowns and above for a good quality mattress.
Those that meet health parameters tend to have lower rate of VAT as they are considered medical equipment.
Gumotex was the first to employ this advantage in the Czech Republic.
It is not easy to save on the mattress and the slatted base.
Sometimes you can use special offers of manufacturers or retailers, who offer two mattresses for the price of one.
For instance Magniflex brand offers their Duofreeze mattress with the memory foam Memory sewn into the cover for 11 990 crowns.
However, you can get the second one for free.
The era of lazy or viscoelastic foams with open cell structure and high density was started by Tempur material in a "cosmic" pace.
It was originally developed as a material for NASA because the astronauts were exposed to enormous overextertion during the start.
Tempur softens when warm, but strengthens in the cold.
It is then perfectly adapted to warm human body and spreads its pressure optimally.
It is therefore ideal to prevent pressure ulcer development, but also to enhance comfort while sleeping.
Viscoelastic foams are used not only for mattresses, but also medical products, such as special pillows under the feet, which mitigate the legs and venous system.
Domestic producers use the foam Twinsaver or Eucatherm C and such.
Devices for people monitoring are required by more and more parents, who want to watch their children
Fear for their own child brings more people to the idea of watching them using GPS.
The system originally created to search for cars could also monitor the movement of people and thus should help in cases such as the disappearance of nine-year-old Annie Janatková.
The facility is currently of the size of a matchbox, but it may soon be as big as a watch.
Many people have been scared by the case of missing Annie and thus began to search for ways to protect their children better.
Even at the cost of disruption to their privacy.
"We say to all that it is not spying, but a means to further reduce the probability that a tragedy happens," said Petr Pilin of the Macro Weil, one of the suppliers of surveillance equipment on the Czech market.
"I admit that under certain circumstances it may lead to misuse of such equipment, if they are put in a bag of someone who does not know it, but we have not seen such cases yet."
"Most customers actually buy it for security reasons," he added.
According to him, the child should always know for what the purpose of the "box" is and how it is used in an emergency.
Child psychologist Dana Bočková points out that if a child does not want to wear something like that, it will just get rid of it.
"Even very young children show great creativity how to lose some things on purpose if they do not want to be under control."
"Great parents' expectations were fueled by cell phones before, but those can be switched off as well as this tracking device," says Bočková.
According to her it is questionable whether, in the event of an attack such a device would really help.
"As for the upcoming kidnapping, the perpetrator almost always ensures that the child should not carry any electronics that might reveal his position."
"It's the phone now."
"When tracking devices get more common, they will look for those, because their sales will certainly be supported by massive advertising."
"In this case, the criminals are always one step ahead of police," says the psychologist.
She admits, however, that similar devices may help in case of sudden attack by a pedophile.
According to Robert Cech of RC Monitoring Company that provides tracking services for both cars and for people, even when there is an attack and immediate destruction of the tracking device, its presence can help.
"The device can be set to send regular position report after a certain period of time."
"If it becomes damaged, we will have at least the last position of the person."
"The more expensive devices have in-built and tiltmeters, so even if one just skids and remains lying motionless, the device immediately sends a warning with location," says Czech.
According to him a similar service may be provided by smart mobile phones with navigation, where it is enough to load a special software.
The problem of current surveillance units lies in the fact that it is either a device similar to pendants of matchbox size or smaller mobile phones.
There is always the risk of their loss.
According to Pilin from the Macro Weil Company a device that looks like a conventional digital watch is now being tested.
"This will be the biggest advantage that the aggressor may not even recognize the tracking device at all."
"Or they recognize it after some time and it may give the police extra time," he adds.
Whether you the tracking devices develop into bracelets or pendants, they are still using the same technology as that used for monitoring vehicles.
It is a combination of location detection via GPS (used by regular car navigation) and the functions of a mobile phone, which reports the current vehicle position.
The army has enough igniter cord to wind the whole of Czech Republic. But they will expire in only two years.
Czech army has purchased 445 kilometers of cords, which detonate explosives.
Already last year the Ministry of Defence delivered 224 km of the cords lines into the warehouses.
The army thus has reserves for 225 years.
The problem is that life of the lines is two to four years.
The Army purchased the detonating cords from STV Group, Inc. for CZK 40 million.
The General Staff provided the reasoning for buying such a huge quantity of igniter cords to MF Dnes stating that soldiers use 60 km of igniter cords in training per year.
Calculations of army bomb disposal experts that the MF Dnes approached imply that it would be a very intense pyrotechnic training that would be undergone also by all the generals every year, along with the officers of the army, secretaries and cleaners.
Defense Minister Alexandr Vondra and army commander Vlastimil Pick included.
Only thus could be the army annual consumption of sixty kilometers of igniter cords justified.
This period corresponds to 25,000 explosions.
And even if it were true, the army reserves would be enough for more than ten years.
However, if the basic training of any new professional actually needed just two meters of the igniter cord, as the experts say, then the army has ensured by the purchase - even with increased consumption by engineer or special units - the stock for the above 225 years.
Rapid Deployment Brigade soldiers personally complained recently to the minister Vondra that they have almost no ammunition for small arms and so shootings are limited due to shortage of money.
Not mentioning the lack of underwear.
"I do not understand either, that they buy so many igniter cords from us repeatedly."
"But it's their decision, and they certainly know what they will use them for."
"For us, the army is a good customer, whose demands we try to meet as retailers," says the sales manager of STV Group, Jan Děcký.
Defense Ministry spokesman Jan Pejsek reasons for the purchased hundreds of kilometers of cords by creation reserves of such "munitions" for ten years at least.
Jan Děcký of STV Group, however, speaks only of the four-year life of the cords and police or army deminers even of mere two years.
"If stored under perfect conditions, it can be even four," said one, who as a soldier does not want to disclose the name when criticizing the military.
After expiry date any ammunition must be carefully tested for reliability to make sure it does not endanger the life of soldiers.
These tests are not free and it cost more money.
Another argument of the Ministry is the quantity discount on 445 km of the ignition cords.
"It cost us about sixty percent less than last year's supply of two hundred forty-four kilometers," says the speaker Pejsek the opinion of buyers of the Ministry of Defence.
Just for comparison: Annual consumption of firing lines of police deminers who destroy munitions from World War II and the one left after the Soviet army has not exceeded 1500 meters for several years.
A police orders only such amount of the ammunition that would be used before its expiration.
It paid back for the safety of deminers and the flexibility to acquire more modern and thus more reliable types of lines.
Ministry of Defence has already considerable problems with the liquidation of tens of thousand tons of ammunition from the times of the Warsaw Pact, when the two-hundred-thousand Czechoslovak army was preparing to set off for the Rhine.
The Czech one, according to the pyrotechnicians approached by MF Dnes, will face the same problem in a few years: They will dispose of hundreds of kilometers of old igniter cords that are currently "cheaply" purchased.
To this day I use the contacts I gained through the competition
Winning the prize in the Entrepreneur of the year helped Lukas Pytloun sell the franchise of his hotel.
The winner of last year's Entrepreneur of the year was a twenty-eight-year-old entrepreneur Lukas Pytloun from Liberec.
His success story is much like one from a movie.
Lukáš Pytloun liked to travel.
And abroad he realized that Liberec lacks quality accommodation at a reasonable price.
Using his savings from foreign part-time jobs and a bank loan he purchased a ruined house with five apartments.
It was a great courage considering that at that time he was still a student of the third year at university.
"The ratio between quality and price of accommodation of the time in our country made me I try to do something," says Lukas Pytloun.
The first renovated apartment he rented to foreign workers.
All profits were invested back into the house, which he gradually remodeled into a boarding house with 54 beds.
Since then, he has managed to gradually open four guest houses in Liberec within the seven years of his business, along with two stylish restaurants and two hotels with a total capacity of 300 beds across all categories of accommodation.
Until recently, the most comfortable one was Pytloun four-star design hotel.
This year another one was open, equally good.
"We have signed a contract with a hotel in Ostrov u Tise, where we sold our franchise concept and others interested in the Pytloun hotel franchise are applying," says last year's number one trader.
"And the sale of the license to operate the hotel was very much influenced just by winning the competition Entrepreneur of the year," appreciatively adds Pytloun.
The victory brought more reputation and popularity in Liberec and its surroundings.
"People recognized me in the streets, often additionally congratulated me and I must say it felt good," he recalls.
He strongly encourages all who are eager to try something to participate in the competition.
It is not necessary to win, any visibility is good.
He says he still draws on contacts and acquaintances, which would perhaps not get otherwise.
"With some I've met through the competition, I started a regular business."
In his opinion, the glory associated with the success landed a bit on each employee.
And there are about seventy of them.
"I see them show greater loyalty and pride that they are involved in something that gained universal recognition."
"It's much more than just my personal success, as it is the result of good work of all of us together."
"Only my name is thrust into the forefront," says Lukáš Pytloun modestly today.
I wish my successor quieter year than we had in Farmet
Euphoria of victory was quickly replaced by the effects of the crisis.
With self-discipline of the winner Farmet has already overcome bad times.
Prize for the first place in last year's Vodafone competition Company of the Year was in the Slav House collected by the owner of Farmet Company, Karel Žďárský.
The jury then appreciated the efforts by which a small tool workshop in Ceska Skalice grew into a business with hundred-million turnovers.
"I can say that the award encouraged not only me but all my colleagues and increased our confidence for battles with the competition," says the last-year winner today.
In the early history of the Farmet company there was a desire to do something useful.
And so, when the state offered the father of Charles Žďárského to rent a small workshop to compensate for the communists-confiscated property, he did not hesitate any long, rejected a career in the company, where he was working, and with a few friends around his father he founded the company producing plastic tubs.
Soon after that they began to specialize in vegetable oil presses.
After eighteen years, they became the largest manufacturer of automatic presses in Central Europe.
Greater awareness among the general public was won after the success in the competition through the media.
"Not only our customers have begun to perceive the brand Farmet much better, but also foreign partners have begun to appreciate that they work with a company that has achieved greater success in its home country," says Karel Žďárský.
Last year, however, was not only full of the euphoria of victories in FARMET.
Awards were based on firm economic performance until 2008 and only partly from 2009.
And just 2009 was the toughest year for the sale of engineering goods.
Crisis was at its very peak, not touching so many people yet, but companies had stopped their investment projects and began to restrict purchases of new machinery and technology.
"The situation obviously did not spare us."
"Sales fell by 40 percent, we had to restrict production and even discharge employees," explains Karel Žďárský.
A viable company must be able to take even such unpopular measures sometimes.
However, they managed and retained the profit, even though lower than before the crisis.
However, what FARMET would not compromise, is the investment in research and development.
"With the help of subsidies we have built a research and training center, we have enhanced our presentation at international fairs, won major awards in local exhibitions," says Žďárský.
The crisis seems to be behind them.
Revenues are growing again and so is the number of new employees.
"I wish the nice feeling of victory to the new winner, but in a more peaceful atmosphere," says Karel Žďárský.
Survey that removes absurd regulations
Poll of the Absurdities is a part of the business competition for the fourth time.
Some ridiculous regulations have are already been removed.
Infamous winner of next year's Poll of Absurdities was the absurd obligation to bring documents that are accessible for officials online to the authorities.
It was chosen by more than a third of almost four thousand votes.
For example, Social Security Administration required a paper certificate of incorporation, although the officer can obtain one by two clicks of a mouse.
Thanks to the poll, this will change.
"The Czech Social Security Administration will not require the certificate of incorporation from for controls of contributors," said spokesman Jana Buráňová of CSSA.
To crack down on all the rules and regulations that companies and businesses in the Czech Republic must meet, and remove those that lack sense, is the essence of the Poll of Absurdities.
This is the fourth time this year, it has been a part of the business competition, held by Hospodářské noviny and it is becoming increasingly popular among the public.
If about three thousand voters were involved in the vote last year, there were nearly four thousand voters earlier this year.
And not surprisingly, there are still many legal obligations, which only serve to delay the business.
"For instance in the number of papers required for tax returns we keep the top places in the world," said Karel Havlicek of the Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Crafts in CR.
Simplification of business has in recent years become a stated objective of all governments.
But compared with the rest of the world the situation has not really improved in the Czech Republic.
According to the World Bank, in terms of business conditions the Czech Republic was ranked 74th position; it is eight points less than last year.
The Poll of Absurdities was first launched in 2006 and takes place every year under the same scenario.
Anyone may propose administrative and bureaucratic nonsenses every year from April to September, when is there is the deadline for the competition.
In order to sign for the competition, website HYPERLINK "http://www.firmaroku.cz" is to be used. Organizer then chooses the seven candidates for the "anti-award" and allows the public vote for it in October at the website www.firmaroku.cz /absurdita and www.ihned.cz.
The absurdity that gets most votes wins.
In this survey more than a hundred, 105 to be precise, meaningless rules and regulations were filed.
Tips were received from entrepreneurs, but also professional associations and journalists.
Among the "finalists" of the contest was for instance the requirement that the trucks for maintenance of highways were to pay road-tolls, or that businesses with twenty employees, two offices and two toilets had those painted every two years.
The list of this year's seven proposals is posted on the website of the contest.
Announcement of the competition, which always takes place in early November on Wenceslas Square in Prague is part of the hapenning, regularly attended by personalities of the political and social life.
This year, for example, the finale of the competition was assisted by Eva Svobodova, director of the Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Crafts in CR and Petr Kuzel, president of the Chamber of Commerce in CR.
"Economic prosperity can not work where the state is throwing business in its own foot, so my goal is to annually remove at least three dozen paragraphs, which today only unnecessarily complicate the business," said Minister of Industry and Trade Martin Kocourek.
Efforts to abolish meaningless regulations has rather positive load.
In 2007 most people were against the obligation of a business to report their intention to take part at the exhibition or fair with their stand three days ahead to the trade office at the place where its permanent establishment is located.
This has been removed by an amendment to the Trade Act.
The second most voted obligation in 2007, which was reporting a business trip of foreign staff lasting up to 30 days to the Labour Office, was removed by the so-called Green Card Act.
And last but not least.
Absurdity of 2009 was the obligation of physiotherapists to have a large mirror, a refrigerator and two stepping scales in the office.
It was mitigated by the Ministry of Health this year - the obligation to have a refrigerator has been removed.
New category recognizes socially responsible companies
Environmental, humanitarian, educational and sports projects are considered.
New in the fifth year of HN Daily competition is the category called the Responsible Company in 2010.
The mission of this competition is to promote reasonable and fair business.
"We want this to support companies that reflect their business" impact on the environment and encourage socially responsible activities," says Patrik Bartholdy, regional manager of Vodafone mobile operator company, which is the promoter and guarantor of the competition, as well as in the case of the rebel competition.
In the first year of this special subcategory of the main Vodafone competition Company of the year 2010, companies, for whom success in business is not the only long-term goal, signed for the competition.
Each story is very inspirational and would be enough for a separate article.
Although the nature of their activities varies considerably, the common denominator of their efforts may be the support and thoughtfulness.
In one case, for example, it relates to people with disabilities and elsewhere to personal problems or health of their employees.
Among the fourteen finalists in CR we find a Prague-located software company Et Netera who supports the creation of informal sports teams of staff which then participate in a number of tournaments in different sports.
Another example of a responsible company from the Pardubice region is the company Isolit-Bravo, who has been a major contributor to the endowment fund for handicapped children for seventeen years.
Old mill of Podebrady then takes care of their disabled employees, who are more than 70 percent of the whole staff, and was thus awarded with the title of Responsible Company in the Central Bohemia Region and won the third place in the Vodafone competition Company of the year.
In the Olomouc region the award was received by MiRyz Soft accounting firm, which has introduced flexible working hours in addition to the reduced average 35 hours per week but did not reduce salary proportionately.
The title was also awarded to the company because they preferably buy from Czech manufacturers, promote civic activities in the neighborhood and protect the environment.
"We try to recycle as much as possible so that our business and our administration had the least impact on the environment," explains the executive Miluse Ryznarová.
Responsible IT Company Enlogit in the Ústí region then thinks about the health of its employees, and for each laptop purchased they bought ergonomic chairs and keyboards, support their work from home and use catering services provided by a local sheltered workshop for their corporate events.
"In addition, we support the People in Need Foundation, which helps the local Roma community in particular," says company representative Ondrej Suchy.
Finally, worth noting is also the activity of Praní a čištění Company of the Karlovy Vary region, which contributes its employees with bonuses to their pension schemes.
"We provide allowanced for meals, transport, upskilling and recreation," says Josef Strapáč from Bruntál Czasch construction company, the winner in the Moravia-Silesian Region.
For the Responsible Company of the Year category were automatically enrolled all regional finalists of Vodafone Company of the Year competition, who answered the questionnaire attached to the application and sent it to organizers until 15 August.
Incorrectly filled or incomplete answers to the questionnaire were then excluded from the evaluation by the organizer.
"If the representatives of competing companies failed to answer the questions, they could not attend the Responsible Company of the Year Competition, but are not disqualified from the "main" Vodafone competition Company of the Year."
"Single sign just for this competition is not possible because it is a subcategory of the main competition Company of the year," explains Karel Goldman of the organizing agency Bison & Rose.
Police made arrests at the Land Fund in Plzen during the tendering procedure
In recent days the anti-corruption police made arrests at the building of the Land Fund in Pilsen.
Handcuffs were put by detectives to a local entrepreneur in the media sector and real estate dealer, Luboš G.
He allegedly attempted to manipulate the current tender for the settlement of restitution claims, so that the land offered was awarded to a particular candidate.
He was supposed to pay half a million to Luboš G.
So far I can only confirm that the police prosecute one person for the offense of fraudulent manipulation of public procurement and public tenders," said the head of Pilsner prosecution Antonie Zelená to Pravo, adding that the additional details with respect to ongoing investigations can not be released.
The 46-year-old entrepreneur was released by police after 24 hours.
Due to a low of official information we can only speculate how one could manipulate the tender.
A spokesman of the Land Fund Lubomíra Černá replied to the question by Pravo that police actually made arrests at a detached workplace in Plzen, namely during the public tendering procedure.
"It was a client, not our employee," she said.
The public tender, according to Ms. Cerna, is called "Invitation to tender for the transfer of land rights under the Lands Act" and takes place when more eligible candidates are interested in the land offered.
"These people within the call offer a higher value of their restitution claims to be settled by the transfer than the announced value of the land."
"By the claims offered the order of the acquirers is set and Land Fund then transfers the land to the person who offered the highest claims," said fund spokesman.
Mr Luboš G. probably had information, who replied to the call, and since he is also a beneficiary, because he has bought a number of restitution claims, he suggested to another candidate not to participate.
The candidate probably received financial compensation.
That would explain that he was detained with such a large sum of money.
Lubos G had superior contacts to LF already in the past.
He figured in the case of former chief of LF Vaclav Sankot, who was prosecuted for transferring lands in the substitutional land restitution, on which a decision on the location of a building has already been issued.
It was just then when Mr Lubos G. acquired lands intended for the construction of public roads from the fund, particularly at the point where the driveway was to be built to the industrial zone Borska pole.
Later, he very conveniently exchanged those with the city for a house in the historic town center, which had a much higher value.
Town hall had to accept it then, because otherwise it would block the construction by blocking the lands.
Households will pay extra hundreds for housing a month
Households will have to pay more since January, not only for all types of energy, but also for water and sewerage, heating supplies, and rents will rise in certain areas.
Families will have to pull out monthly hundreds more from purses from January.
The price of electricity will be raised up by 4.6 percent; gas will be about 2 percent more expensive, in some towns you will have to pay extra for water by up to a tenth and supply of central heating will often be more expensive.
Electricity price increase should cost houshould s in the flats hundreds of crowns a year more than now.
Prices of power energy were reduced by all the major suppliers at the same time; a significant increase in support for the production of energy from renewable sources, especially photovoltaics, is to blame then.
Although gas will only be slightly more expensive, it will happen when most people are heating their flats and thus have the highest consumption.
Annually they must then also take extra costs in account.
While electricity and gas will be more expensive across the country, central heating price change varies from place to place.
Price increase is planned mainly in larger municipalities.
For example, households in Pardubice and Hradec Kralove will pay since January for central heating about CZK 50 per month extra, families in Liberec will pay extra CZK 1,000 a year.
Residents of Prague may have more expensive water and sewer by more than 9 percent, in the event that the city increases the rent of the infrastructure.
If the rent does not change, Prague residents will pay extra 6.8 percent.
Price in Prague, however, will still be in a nationwide comparison rather low.
In the North Bohemia, where prices are already among the highest, the water rate should increase by about 7.4 percent.
For example, the price of rent in 450 thousands of rental apartments, where regulation ends in January, may significantly increase.
For example, CPI Byty, which in Usti nad Labem owns about 2,500 apartments, plans to raise the rent from January by up to one hundred percent.
The company intends to bring to the court those who will not accept the new rents.
Regulated rents paid by people in approximately 300 thousand apartments could increase by up to ten percent next year.
Czech children get drunk with Fernet and Rum. Beer is out of fashion, it works slowly.
Fernet, rum, vodka, exceptionally better brand of whiskey stolen from parents.
These are the drinks, after which most often drunks not even of the age of fifteen end in physicians" care.
Children who are treated for drunkenness at the hospital repeatedly are not an exception.
This follows the experience of physicians who are confronted with similar cases in the admissions of patients to children departments of hospitals.
"Beer or wine is completely unfashionable, as it takes a long time before they get drunk."
"Liquor is the trend of today, that is for sure," said the head of children's ward in Horovice Hospital in central Bohemia, Ludek Pelican to Pravo.
"If they can pull out a bottle of their father from the closet, it is usually the whiskey, but otherwise Fernet and vodka dominate."
"Vodka has the advantage that it is served in juice and they may not smell so badly then," said the head physician.
And this is confirmed by the speaker of the Faculty Hospital Motol, Eva Jurinová.
"It is Fernet or rum most often."
"It is today a modern spirit, especially in primary schools."
"In some cases, it was a plum brandy, which they have brought from home," said Jurinová.
According to the head physician Pelikán are thirteen- or fourteen-year-old drinkers admitted to hospital a relatively common phenomenon.
Before Hořovice, where he has been since this year, he worked for ten years just in pediatrics department in Motol, where ambulances bring befuddled schoolchildren from the surrounding area.
"One girl was admitted to our hospital four times."
"She started her career at the age of twelve, when she was brought to us with a 3.5 per mille of alcohol in the blood, in addition in combination with ecstasy," the doctor describes a particularly serious case.
"She had attended a dance party and Vystaviste."
"It is interesting that her mother did not find at all strange that she had not seen her daughter for 48 hours," said the chief physician.
It is the disinterest of parents or even their considerable tolerance to drinking problems of their own offspring is considered a major cause of increasing children boozing.
It is however not an addiction in the true sense in the case of children according to experts.
"Under the term alcoholic we understand a multi-year chronic addiction to alcohol with all the related phenomena, which does not apply to children."
"For those who use alcohol frequently, it is more associated with unsuccessful family-social background," said the head physician Pelikan.
According to spokeswoman Jurinová about forty drunken children have this year been hospitalized at the pediatric clinic in Motol until mid-November.
The statistics, however, receive only those with severe intoxication who had to stay in the hospital.
Child drunks, who are taken home after outpatient treatment by their parents or the police, are not counted.
Except where kids just sit around after school and drink a bottle of brandy, according to Pelikan, there are three seasonal fluctuations, which one can rely on: Witch Feast, New Year and the end of the school year.
"It's either to wash down the sadness from bad school report, conversely, to celebrate the start of the holiday."
"But I experienced seven drunk children admitted to hospital at the same time during the witch feast" said Pelikan.
The drunk, who spends the night with detoxification under medical supervision, is paradoxically in an advantage compared to that one at home, who suffers from unpleasant hangover the next day.
Morning headaches caused by dehydration and lack of glucose are prevented by irrigation infusion with glucose and nutrients that the body is lacking.
"They are actually doing better because they have the beautiful evening experience and a good wake up when nothing hurts."
"Only they are confused about where they are," said Pelikan, adding that he sometimes spoils the pleasant mood of the patients by at least a list of costs that their treatment required.
Transport by ambulance and being hospitalized on an acute bed costs thousands of crowns.
"Sometimes I used this as an educational measure, when I directly to those children calculated how much it cost that they became drunk, and that they could also spend the summer working to make money to cover this one party," said Pelikan.
Insurance companies, however, do not take regression procedures in which the parents should cover the cost of treatment in cases of child drunks.
Two L-159 aircrafts are in foreign hands for the first time in Spain
Two L-159 of a total of five pieces for which the Czech Defense Ministry has exchanged transport aircraft CASA C-295M, flew on Tuesday to Seville, where is based the manufacturer of Casa aircrafts - EADS.
It is the first time that aircrafts of this type appeared in the possession of someone else than the Czech army.
They have only been abroad for training and demonstration flights.
It is a two-seat version of the L-159T1 aircraft, which has been operated by Czech army and were airworthy.
The remaining three are single-L-159.
Those are still standing in Aero Vodochody and the broker - the company Omnipol - took them over only last week.
It has not been released when the aircrafts will physically leave Vodochody, according to Jan Pejsek of the Press Department of Ministry of Defense.
"Single-seat L-159 have been allocated for the exchange from long-stored aircraft, and without any deposits and investments by the Ministry."
"Two-seat L-159T1 aircrafts were exchanged in the current condition and form," Pejsek told Pravo.
He added that the army will not be left without a two-seat aircraft, because in May 2009 the ministry signed a contract worth 200 million crowns with Aero Vodochody for the reconstruction of four redundant L-159 machines into two two-seat machines.
One new aircraft was taken by the army in July; the other will be taken over until the end of this year.
According to Pejsek EADS has committed to enforce the aircraft as equipment to some Alliance countries.
"The contract clearly states that the purchaser of the L-159 is the EADS company and they will be used for training pilots from NATO countries."
"How to implement this thing is therefore an issue for customers" said Pejsek.
Hospodářské noviny recently reported that the Spanish army is not interested in L-159.
The exchange of five L-159 aircrafts for one Casa aircraft and purchase of three more aircrafts worth 3.5 billion was approved by government of Mirek Topolanek last year.
Ministry of Defence did not organize any tender for the purchase and addressed EADS directly.
The former leadership of Ministry of Defense argued that the exchange would promote further exports of L-159 abroad.
Czech Army has purchased 72 aircrafts from Aero and uses only 24; they would like to sell the remaining ones.
Purchase of Casa aircrafts will probably have judicial implications.
The European Commission has sued the Czech Ministry of Defence at the European Court because the aircrafts were to be selected on the basis of a European tender and not addressing only one manufacturer.
The Army has already acquired three Casa aircrafts, the last one should arrive in Prague, airport Kbely, within a fortnight.
Having index finger longer than ring finger indicates a lower risk of cancer
Men who have a longer index finger than ring finger are at lower risk of prostate cancer.
It is a surprising conclusion of a study published on Wednesday by the British Journal of Cancer.
This may be related to the level of the male hormone testosterone.
"Our results show that the relative finger length may serve as a simple test for prostate cancer risk, especially for a man up to 60 years," said study's co-author Ros Eeles, Professor at the Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Warwick.
The finger could then help determine which men should undergo tests for prostate cancer, particularly in combination with genetic risk or other threatening factors such as family health burden, she said.
In the period 1994-2009 she along with her colleagues monitored more than 1,500 patients with prostate cancer in Britain and in parallel over three thousand healthy men.
More than a half of the study participants had a shorter index finger on their right hand than their ring finger.
The same probability of prostate cancer applied to them as for 19 percent of those whose fingers were of equal length.
For those who have the index finger longer than ring finger this risk decreased by 33 percent, while for men up to their sixties it was even an 87 percent decline.
The ratio of the length of those two fingers - formed in the prenatal period - probably reflects different levels of sex hormones to which the child is exposed in the womb.
Less testosterone corresponds to a longer index finger.
Previous studies have shown that it is the testosterone that supports prostate cancer development.
Leading geneticist and former Czech President of Academy of Sciences Professor Vaclav Paces said for ČTK that he knows about the study but in his opinion the relationship between the length of the fingers and the cancer does not seem to be "fully proven."
The Czech Republic is covered with snow, D1 and D5 are closed
Czech Republic, like most of Europe, woke up covered in snow on Thursday morning.
The roads and pavements are mostly covered with compacted snow, in many places road maintenance stuff drove all night.
D5 between the 89th and 93rd kilometer in the direction of Rozvadov has been closed in the morning due to several accidents of trucks and passenger cars and D1 is also blocked in the direction from Brno to Prague.
News were informed by the central dispatcher of Automotoklub (UAMK).
At the 91st kilometer truck crashed, at the 93rd kilometer two trucks collided, the accident included injury.
Also several cars ended up in a ditch.
Problems are also on the D1 highway at the 185th kilometer in the direction of Prague.
Two trucks have collided there.
Drivers should leave the highway just after Brno at the 190th kilometer or go through Brno and drive back to the highway at the 182nd kilometer at Kývalka.
There are car queues several kilometers long.
Also, there is an accident at D11, at the very arrival in Prague.
There is a layer of snow, several centimeters thick, in Prague, the thermometer shows minus seven degrees Celsius.
There are queues of cars in Prosek, Štěrboholská is also blocked.
The most reliable means of transport is the subway.
Trams run delayed between Charles Square and Namesti Miru.
At eight in the morning Prague emergency staff should meet once again.
Also railways and airports must are facing the problems.
Czech Railways have had to cancel seven fast train connections due to snow.
There are problems with the railway line from Prague to Kralupy or from Prague to Beroun.
Passengers should check the current situation.
Ruzyne airport was closed from 11 pm Wednesday night to 5 a.m..
Most of the roads in southern Moravia are now passable, but only with caution.
There are three impassable side roads in the Vyškov area, there is loads of snow in the Brno area and snow chains are necessary for travelling on certain communications in higher parts of Blansko region.
The most affected sites included the Vyskov area.
There are closed roads still: Rousínov - Slavkov, Bohdalice - Kučerov and also Šaratice - Milešovice.
For their extension routers will be deployed.
It is impossible to estimate when they will be passable again.
In the Hodonin area, caution is necessary when travelling in the White Carpathians.
On roads that are there in order to protect the environment just kept passable with inert fill, there is a 5-centimeter layer of snow, said ČTK.
In the Czech Republic from two to ten centimeters of snow has fallen, most in northern Bohemia, often up to 18 centimeters.
In the Moravia-Silesian Region about 15 centimeters of snow has occurred.
Snowfall in the Czech Republic gradually ceases.
American troops have a new "smart weapon"
The U.S. Army deployed a new "smart weapon" in Afghanistan, known so far only by a codename XM-25.
The generals hope that the new automatic rifle will affect the conflict with the Taliban and "change the game" in their favor.
The new weapon is like a superaccurate small cannon.
Their projectile is directed by a laser to hit within a few meters.
Special ammunition caliber 25 mm, designed for this rifle and containing high explosive, in fact, act like little grenades.
The projectiles can be programmed to explode when hitting the target, but at any point of their ballistic path.
They can be used against an enemy who is hiding behind a barrier, behind walls or in trenches.
These are usually not protected from the above, and if hit by the rain of deadly shards of steel, they may not fight any more.
According to Richard Audetta who participated in the development of XM-25 rifle, it is a new first weapon for the infantry, which uses "smart" technology.
"The soldier basically operates it as follows: they find a target, it sends a laser beam to determine the distance and thus the precise explanation of the point, they adjust the elevation and squeeze the trigger."
"Let's say that you have obtained 543 meters."
"When you squeeze the trigger, the gun charges, and fires a missile at a distance of 543 meters plus or minus one, two or three meters," said Audette.
400 jobs relocated
The Fujitsu corporation is relocating its Bad Homburg office to Frankfurt.
In July of next year, 400 employees will move from the current office building on Marienbad Square in Bad Homburg to Frankfurt's Astro Park.
The Japanese Fujitsu corporation is relocating its Bad Homburg office to Frankfurt.
The industry giant in computers and computer maintenance announced on Wednesday that 400 men and women are to move from the current office building on Marienbad Square in Bad Homburg to Frankfurt's Astro Park in July of next year. The Astro Park is a large office complex on Lyon Street in Frankfurt's Niederrad district.
A spokeswoman for Fujitsu explained that, in the medium term, a further 100 corporation employees currently spread across the region will join the Frankfurt office.
The rental offer had been extremely attractive and the open-plan office in the Astro Park was better suited to the way employees actually work, the spokeswoman added.
Fujitsu had also only been renting the office in Bad Homburg.
The manager responsible for the move, Bernd Wagner, said, "in Frankfurt Niederrad, we have found a central location with outstanding infrastructure."
The excellent connection to the airport was of particular significance to a global company such as Fujitsu, he added.
Yesterday the coming relocation of an important company within the region was a cause for joy among the winners and disappointment among the losers.
Markus Frank (CDU), head of Frankfurt's department of economic affairs, said the city had once again attracted a global player,
which was a "fantastic acknowledgement of the city."
He believed the city would suit Fujitsu and that the move would be a significant boost for Niederrad.
Michael Korwisi (Greens), Mayor of Bad Homburg, expressed his regret at Fujitsu's decision.
He said the city had been informed of the intended move by the company's management board well in advance.
"We offered the company our help, as a matter of course," said Korwisi.
The amicable meetings, however, had no effect on the difficulties between the computer manufacturer and the landlord for the property on Marienbad Square.
Economic reasons had finally tipped the balance.
Korwisi now wants to focus on preventing such a prominent location from remaining vacant long-term.
"I hope the building's owner and landlord will cooperate."
The building previously used by Fujitsu on the town hall square and the neighbouring low-rise "Kleine Vertikale" were among a number of buildings on Marienbad Square that were part of the controversial building project by the spa town ten years ago.
The joint project between the city and a private project developer served to create a new entrance into the city between the train station and town hall, which attracted criticism on account of the massive scale of development over areas previously partly used for parking, and on account of the height of the buildings.
In 2001, three companies moved in: Feri, the investment consultancy management and rating company, Start Amadeus, the travel sales and marketing systems software manufacturer, and Fujitsu, the computer maker (still linked to Siemens at the time).
The buildings used by Fujitsu were purchased in 2006 by the Frankfurt-based DIC Group and the Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund and sold on to Spanish Falcon Real Estate Investments SA in Madrid one year later.
The Tokyo-based Fujitsu corporation sells itself as the third largest IT provider in the world.
It provides companies with computers, servers and other equipment and provides necessary servicing.
The office in the Rhein-Main area is one of the largest in Germany, although Fujitsu has considerably more employees in Munich.
The Fujitsu subsidiary, Technology Solutions, is also moving from Bad Homburg to Frankfurt; two further subsidiaries, Fujitsu Services and a company named TDS, will also be based in Frankfurt.
7000 square metres have been rented in the Astro Park office building to accommodate them.
The twenty-year-old complex - its name inspired by the star-shaped ground plan - is already home to the Central Association of the German Electrical and Electronics Industry (ZVEI) and other organisations.
Amazon blocks server - threats against Assange
Wikileaks is getting into deeper and deeper waters.
The e-commerce company Amazon has banned the whistleblower from its servers.
Political pressure may stand behind the move following publication of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic dispatches.
The founder of Wikileaks, Assange, is believed to be in England.
The whistle blowing website, Wikileaks, is increasingly under fire in the United States.
Internet activists have lost access to their American server and are now looking for an internet home in Europe.
The prominent American Senator Joe Lieberman called upon other countries and companies to boycott Wikileaks.
In the meantime, a newspaper report suggests Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is on Interpol's wanted list, is currently in Great Britain.
"Wikileaks forced off Amazon servers."
"Free speech in the land of the free," said the whistle blowing activists on Wednesday (local time) via the Twitter messaging service.
A short while previously, the internet company Amazon had banned Wikileaks documents from its servers.
The internet activists had used the Amazon Web Service (AWS) to publish secret diplomatic dispatches in order to be able to cope with the high number of people accessing the documents.
Wikileaks discussed the step on Twitter: "Great - we'll spend our dollars employing people in Europe instead."
If Amazon had issues with freedom of speech, "it should give up selling books."
Amazon stopped Wikileaks using its servers after colleagues of Senator Joe Lieberman started to investigate, reported the broadcaster CNN, quoting Lieberman's office.
The chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs had threatened to boycott Amazon, reported the British newspaper "The Guardian."
"I would have liked to see Amazon take this step earlier, considering the previous publication of classified information by Wikileaks," said the Senator.
Lieberman also called on other countries to cooperate in preventing Wikileaks from finding new servers.
"Wikileaks" illegal, outrageous, and reckless acts have compromised our national security and put lives at risk around the world," the non-party Senator stated in a statement.
"No responsible company - whether American or foreign - should assist Wikileaks in its efforts to disseminate these stolen materials."
Wikileaks founder Assange, who is wanted by Swedish authority on suspicion of rape, is on Interpol's wanted list.
According to a report in the London-based newspaper "The Independent," the 39-year-old Australian is currently in the UK, and Scotland Yard is aware of his exact location.
The internet activist has always described the Swedish investigations as a scheme orchestrated by his detractors.
In London, Wikileaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said that threats had been made.
"There have even been calls to assassinate Julian Assange."
Hrafnsson said that Assange was therefore afraid for his personal safety.
The Wikileaks founder will remain in hiding.
Hrafnsson was clearly reacting to statements from North America.
In America, the former Republican Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, had called for the people responsible for the Wikileaks revelations to be indicted and executed for treason.
In Canada, one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's advisers ironically suggested on television that Assange should be "killed" and that Obama could "use a drone."
In the meantime, exchanges have been made between the White House and Assange.
Robert Gibbs, the speaker of American President Barack Obama, said that it was "ridiculous and absurd" that Assange had demanded the resignation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if she is found responsible for recently revealed requests to diplomats to engage in espionage.
"I'm not entirely sure why we care about the opinion of a guy with a website," said Gibbs.
"Our foreign policy and the interests of this country are far stronger than his one website."
The American government is currently carrying out a comprehensive review of the security of its databases.
Russell Travers, Deputy Director of the Information Division at the National Anti-Terrorism Centre, has been appointed as a special representative, the White House announced.
Travers will be responsible for developing the "necessary structural reforms" that are now needed following the disclosure of diplomatic dispatches by Wikileaks.
The White House also wants to look at how the entire government exchanges and protects information.
The American government also expressed its concern for the safety of dissidents and activists who may be put at risk by the Wikileaks publication.
"We have done everything to contact them," said States Department Spokesman Philip Crowley.
"We are ready to protect them if that becomes necessary."
The Ice Cream University
Ice cream confectioners are being trained for the warm seasons at the "Gelato University" in Bologna.
The three-day foundation course for future "gelatieri" is the largest course, and welcomes visitors from all over the world.
Where does all that ice cream actually come from?
From the "gelatiere" and the "gelataio."
The "gelatiere," known in English as the old-fashioned "ice cream confectioner," produces the cream following the rules of the Italian art of ice cream making.
The "gelataio" gets the ice cream out of the refrigerated counter with a spatula, smoothes it into wafers and sells it.
You do not need to go to Anzola dell'Emilia in the province of Bologna to know that.
But for anyone who wants to know more about ice cream, the "Gelato University" of the Italian Carpigiani company is a must.
The ice cream university was created by the manufacturer of ice cream makers in 2003 to ensure that the ice cream from all its makers met exacting Italian standards.
The three-day foundation course for future "gelatieri" is the largest course, and welcomes visitors from all over the world.
There are also specialised courses over several days covering chocolate ice cream, and internships in the company's own ice cream parlour.
Many dream of a new career to escape a mid-life crisis; others come to test their vague aspirations against the cold facts.
This time, there are 40 participants from 19 countries and every continent - from Brazil and Hungary to Saudi Arabia.
Jacky, an art teacher from California, loves the slow food movement and wants to offer a high-quality European product in a country accustomed to industrial ice cream.
Anke from Berlin is a management consultant and wants to do something on her own after years in a highly stressful job.
Two young Egyptian girls dream of opening an ice cream parlour in Cairo.
One man from Malta and another from Brazil want to improve the quality of the ice cream in their bars - and Canadian housewife Julia has come because her children love Italian ice cream.
Maestro gelatiere Luciano Ferrari begins the course by describing the ideal characteristics of a perfect ice cream.
Not only a good flavour, but silky softness and good texture are key.
Training the course, Luciano does not forget to mention the real icing on the cake for the national and thoroughly southern monolith. "Italian gelato is simply the best - after that, it's all just romance."
The first step of production seems very easy.
Luciano pours the basic ingredients - milk, cream, powdered milk, sugar and stabilisers - into a large blender that heats the mixture to 85 degrees on an electronic programme and then immediately cools it to four degrees.
Then he turns a tap on the machine and out comes a pasteurised, basic white ice cream, the basic for all milk-based ice creams.
The lecturer is immediately overwhelmed by questions. Can you make ice cream using natural ingredients only without stabilisers?
How can you experiment freely on your own?
Luciano warns against letting the spirit of the age lead you astray.
Anyone who talks about making ice cream "using natural ingredients only" has probably used stabilisers anyway - in most cases a natural product such as guar gum from guar beans.
Of course, you can make ice cream without stabilisers, but then you have to sell it within a day, as otherwise it collapses and your customer ends up licking lumps of ice.
Some variations to the base are allowed.
It gets more exciting with the flavours.
For ice cream flavouring, Maestro Luciano differentiates between the ingredients you buy in the fruit section and in the sweet section of the supermarket.
There are also powders and pastes.
"All suppliers will try to get you to get you to buy dozens of flavoured additives.
But you should just experiment."
Either with fruit sorbets using sugar and fresh fruits,
or with a white ice cream base that can be turned into yellow cream by using eggs or can be mixed with cocoa powder to form the base of all kinds of seductive chocolate.
At last the course participants are allowed onto the ice cream maker.
Luciano lets each of them make four different types of vanilla, chocolate, mocha and hazelnut ice cream - with or without eggs in the base and with more or less vanilla flavouring or other natural ingredients.
The experiment is repeated with the range of fruit sorbets.
More flavourings, more fruit purée - not necessarily an improvement in taste.
Hazelnut ice cream does not necessarily taste more nutty when it contains more hazelnuts.
The team that produces the most popular kiwi ice cream uses more fruit, less water and a little less of the stabiliser.
The taste of a gelato only really stands out if the mixture is balanced, says Luciano.
Making ice cream is a matter of arithmetic. If sugary peach purée is used, the proportion of sugar in the basic recipe has to be reduced.
An extra portion of sugar is needed for lemon ice cream.
Luciano brings out a device that shows him the sugar content of the types of fruit (vintners use it to measure the density of grape must using the Oechsle scale).
Fortunately, tables make the calculations easier.
Making ice cream does not require as much physical activity as it once did.
It is not just the machine, which produces the base.
There is also a device that beats the finished ice cream mixture to a creamy consistency while cooling it to negative temperatures.
But despite all automation, minor accidents still occur.
The Brazilian Gustavo covers himself and his course mates from head to toe with fruit purée as he loses control of the oversized hand-held blender.
"In every course," says Maestro Luciano, "it is only a matter of time before something like this happens."
Inspectors in the twilight
There are allegations that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has been infiltrated by the genetically modified crop industry.
The Testbiotech centre of expertise, which sees itself as an independent institute for assessing the impact of biotechnology, has made the accusation.
"It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but we have good documentary evidence," said head of Testbiotech, Christoph Then, in Munich on Wednesday.
Harry Kuiper, chair of EFSA's expert panel responsible for the risk assessment of genetically engineered plants and another EFSA expert are also believed to have been working with the lobby group ILSI for years.
ILSI receives funds from corporations such as Monsanto, Nestle and Bayer.
Kuiper has had a central role in developing the EFSA test specifications for GM plants and therefore has a clear conflict of interests, says Then.
In places, the EFSA regulations are identical to position papers produced by ILSI and thus are being written by the very industry that the authority, based in the Italian city of Parma, should be controlling, argues Then,
pointing out that this is the second time Testbiotech has criticised a conflict of interests.
A high-ranking EFSA manager recently moved to the Swiss agribusiness company Syngenta without any restrictions or a transitional period being imposed, and is now on the other side of the line.
MDR Radio has also recently uncovered personal connections between the EU supervisory authority and the industry lobby, which has caught the attention of the Environment Agency and EU parliamentarians.
However, EFSA does not see any conflict of interests.
In a statement, EFSA said that all significant data were considered, including data from industry, if such data were of a high professional quality.
In addition, EFSA stated that it had no requirement that its panels avoid all contact with industry.
However, all members of EFSA must disclose any such contact.
Kuiper admits to working for the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) in the USA.
The institute describes itself as a neutral forum for experts from science, industry and politics to assess the risks around biotechnology and other areas - without a lobbying mandate.
In this field, independent experts such as Then express criticism that genetically modified plants are currently approved for animals without feeding trials and that the reaction of GM plants to environmental influences is not being investigated.
"For example, we want to know what genetically modified corn does in fields," says Then.
Current practice is only to test isolated proteins, but not the entire GM plant, which does not provide reliable results.
"If you don't look for the risks, how are you supposed to find them?," asks Then.
Angelika Hilbeck shares his opinion.
The scientist has been carrying out research into GM technology since 1994 and is currently working at ETH Zurich.
The industry is increasingly trying to influence or discredit outspokenly critical scientists in this field in Europe, as in the USA, says Hilbeck.
There are hardly any researchers left without ties to corporations, she believes,
and studies criticising companies are not normally published.
"The industry is controlling safety research," says Hilbeck.
The trail of stones
Uli Gsell has got hold of some - in total, around 400 kilos.
On Monday evening, he was standing in front of Stuttgart train station, his tuba on his back.
There was a demonstration.
It was snowing.
The tale is a familiar one. In September, the excavators arrived and had begun to break up a large section of the north wing.
Stuttgart was not the same. Thousands and thousands of people demonstrated against S21, the multi-billion Euro sinking of the train station.
By the time work was suspended, a large proportion of the wing was rubble.
Broken into 6000 or 7000 pieces.
Crailsheim shell limestone, a crumbly coarse stone, quarried between 1914 and 1920.
43-year-old Gsell is a sculptor in Ostfildern.
He got hold of a few chunks.
"These stones are relics."
"They will not disappear."
He raves: "A cheap and poor stone, simple and earthy."
When he cut one out, it smelt of cigarette fumes.
He still does not know what he will do with the chunks of stone.
Stones have plenty of time.
As does Uli Gsell.
The trail of the Stuttgart stones leads to a forest in Tübingen and a former French munitions depot where Manuel Rongen has created his own world of stone.
The 44-year-old trades in old stones.
He has bought every stone from the demolition in Stuttgart.
"It would be a crime if they were ground into gravel or disappeared into landfill," he says in his office, a small wooden shack that was once a sentry box.
People insulted and threatened him, he recalls, when the newspapers reported in September that he had bought the remains of the north wing from the demolition contractor.
He talked with the opponents of the Stuttgart 21 development project for days on end.
He explained that there was nothing he could do about the demolition.
And if it were going to happen, then the most sensible thing was that the stones were used again for other purposes.
In response, around 200 Stuttgart 21 opponents took a block away with them, each weighing an average of 80 kilos and costing 6.50 to 14 Euros.
Some as a keepsake, but others in the hope of being able to return the blocks if the building is rebuilt.
Rongen had bought 500 tonnes - equivalent to 25 truck-loads.
About half is stored in the forest, but the rest has been sold long ago.
Gardeners, landscape gardeners and homeowners.
They came from everywhere and took away whatever they could carry in car boots and trailers.
The Stuttgart stones of scandal have long since been transformed into walls, or boundaries for herb gardens.
"Actually, this stone is nothing special," says Rongen.
"If it didn't have political significance."
He climbs into his off-roader and does a tour of his realm of 20 hectares.
He studied law but switched to biology, then he got interested in computers, and finally became a stone merchant.
And a stone enthusiast.
He stores 40,000 tonnes of stone.
He carts his treasure from all over Germany.
And claims to be the largest used stone dealer in the country.
He brakes.
Artfully carved sandstones are lying in the snow.
"They used to be part of Dresden's Marienbrücke," he says.
Elbe sandstone, yellow and warm, he says.
"My favourite stone."
The route then continues upwards through the forest.
He points to a pile: red sandstone, previously part of Karlsruhe train station.
And more.
"Beautiful travertine."
The blocks once belonged to the stands of Stuttgart's Neckar stadium.
The snow is full of stones and stories - Stuttgart travertine from Stuttgart police headquarters, red granite from Dom St. Blasius, tuff from Heilbrunn hospital.
So much work, so much effort, so much sweat.
When Rongen thinks about how the stones used to be carved by hand and moved with simply pulleys and oxcarts, he feels a great sense of reverence.
"It would be a scandal to shred all this."
He hasn't become rich, but he has found some priceless stones.
The stone merchant currently employs 14 people and masons, sculptors, a smith, a glass blower and a horticulturist have also set up in the forest.
"We work hard, but it is satisfying," says the used stone dealer.
He has to go to Cologne soon.
There are stones to be rescued there as well.
Talent war for graduates with potential
There is a rush on at the buffet.
16 students are shoving their way to salmon rolls, tomato soup and desert.
The Technical University of Braunschweig and the car maker Volkswagen have invited mechanical engineering and design students to a workshop.
They are going talk shop on the car of the future with VW developers in a kind of idea contest - and, incidentally, find out more about Volkswagen.
Many companies are already engaged in hand-to-hand combat in the contest for the cleverest minds, and are relying on cooperation with universities, just like VW.
Their mission: to recruit the most talented graduates as early as possible in the lecture hall - before they come onto the job market and are courted by anyone else.
And because universities do not provide a breakdown of student performance, companies are looking for and hoping to attract exceptional talent in hands-on projects.
On the second day of the workshop at the Technical University of Braunschweig, the car maker it out to woo the talent.
A young woman from human resources distributes ballpoint pens, gummy bears and folders bearing the VW logo.
She tells the young hopefuls about internships and student jobs, and explains the various routes into the company.
Nico Selle from the Technical University of Braunschweig is managing the project with VW.
He sees advantages for both sides. "The students get in contact with industry and gain some experience."
"VW can get to know students while taking a closer look at interesting candidates and thinking about which ones are their potential employees."
Such cooperation, thinks Sells, is not unusual.
What is new is that students are being touted so aggressively.
"The focus used to be on specialism-specific projects," says Selle.
The fight for the latest batch of graduates is set to be a lot tougher.
In many sectors, companies can no longer identify their employees from the hoards of applicants.
They really have to sell themselves to win over highly qualified graduates.
Graduates in engineering find themselves particularly well placed for negotiation.
According to the Association of German Engineers (VDI), more than 40,000 engineering jobs were unfilled in October.
And the shortage of engineers is going to get worse, according to VDI.
Roman Dykta is on the hunt for talent for KPMG, the audit, tax and advisory services firm.
He organises lavish recruitment events such as the KPMG race, a kind of modern scavenger hunt where participants have to find their route using GPS coordinates.
The company wants to send eight promising students straight across the USA next year.
And quite incidentally, the participants will see KPMG branches and get to know the company.
Who gets to go is decided in two advance selection rounds.
Only the crème de la crème of the many applicants will fly to the USA.
Amidst all the war cries surrounding university graduates with potential, the rifle shots from some companies are getting louder and louder, says Dykta.
"With this race, we want to stand out from the crowd."
"Just one trip wasn't enough for us."
For talent-hunter Dykta, the sums add up.
"To this day, we have stayed in contact with all the participants of a similar campaign last year."
"Some of them are just about to graduate and expect to apply to us soon," he says.
Besides direct touting on campus, small and medium-sized businesses especially are stalking candidates at classic career fairs.
"We try to reach graduates at fairs."
"For example, at Intersolar," says Sitha Stübe, head of human resources at the solar technology manufacturer, Solarworld.
The Bonn-based company employs around 1500 people in Germany.
Stübe is well aware of the problem of attracting young talent.
There are currently 35 vacancies on the company website.
"It is really very difficult to fill vacant positions."
"It costs a lot of time and money," she says.
Another route is contact via university lecturers.
Solarworld is cooperating with a number of universities, including Freiberg University.
"The lecturers point out that the students can do internships or write their dissertations with us."
Expensive advertising campaigns for solar specialists are not in the pipeline.
On the other hand, the company is trying to advertise with its other advantages, including a relaxed working atmosphere, flat hierarchies and straightforward communication.
"A big corporation cannot often offer that," says human resources manager Stübe.
Money has not been the key factor in the job market for a while.
Flexible working time, childcare and good promotion opportunities are also decisive factors.
Solarworld came in 55th place among the 100 best employers in Germany in a study by the Great Place to Work Institute.
The institute publishes an annual league table of German employers.
It asks employees how happy they are with their work and job environment and looks at the general working conditions.
Human resources manager Stübe hopes to score points with job-seekers thanks to the company's place on the list.
"I think that applicants are influenced strongly by external assessments of any potential employer," she says.
Wolf Reiner Kriegler from the German Employer Branding Academy is an advisor for companies seeking to develop a reputation as a good employer as part of a long-term strategy.
He advises his clients to be more authentic.
And that actually means internal changes, says Kriegler.
"The best way to make yourself attractive as an employer is via your own employees," he says.
In industry jargon, that means Employer Branding among your own employees.
"Happy employees are the best ambassadors."
If you treat your own well and they identify with the company, then they will find you new employees among their friends and acquaintances.
"It's like playing in a band," says Kriegler.
Obama stops new oil drilling
There will be no new drilling off the coast of the US Federal State of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico in the coming year.
The government in Washington has published a prohibition to that effect - thereby definitively scrapping earlier plans.
New drilling is also forbidden off the Atlantic coast for the immediate future.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar made the announcement on Wednesday.
The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in April was the trigger for the strict prohibition, which is to remain in force for at least the next five years.
Before the disaster that cost eleven workers their lives and led to the USA's biggest environmental disaster, President Barack Obama, under pressure from the opposition and industry, had signalled his readiness to allow new drilling in the eastern area of the Gulf of Mexico.
Advocators had hoped this would reduce the USA's dependency on foreign oil supplies.
Who will bear responsibility for the devastating oil spill in the Gulf has still not been conclusively decided.
The British energy company BP is the focus of criticism, and is faced with claims for billions of dollars.
A board of inquiry set up by President Obama is set to submit its findings at some point in December.
In October, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had revoked the prohibition on drilling imposed after the explosion.
In response, various oil companies immediately submitted applications for new drilling projects.
Obama and Salazar want to rule out any further catastrophe with tougher controls and stricter safety regulations.
The responsible control authority, which fell into disrepute after numerous accusations of corruption, is being extensively reformed.
At the same time, the President has announced that lucrative tax loopholes for oil and gas companies will be stopped.
The industry is warning publicly that the output in the Gulf will be significantly lower than in the past if regulation is tougher.
"The government's plans are the biggest brake on the growth of the oil and gas industry," is the outcome of a recent industry survey by the consultancy firm BDO - even before the prohibition on drilling was put in place on Wednesday.
The American Energy Alliance also complains of the uncertainty faced by the industry. "No one knows what exactly will change in terms of regulation."
The organisation believes investment in new projects will be suspended indefinitely - at the expense of growth.
Ogoniland has burnt down
The water in the rivers is oil-brown and reeks like a petrol station. Billions of litres of leaked crude oil have destroyed the natural environment of Ogoniland in Nigeria.
People are living on theft, corruption and cooking illegal oil.
Celestine Akpobari sees the positive side.
"Don't worry," the ecoactivist tells journalists. "You'll see plenty of oil sludge to photograph today."
The 37-year-old Nigerian was trying to photograph a boy wading up to his waist in the water - and the streaks of water around him. In the rainbow-coloured water, the scene is almost beautiful.
The brown billows of crude oil under the surface are invisible.
Esther Badom used to fill buckets with shrimps at the bank of the Bodo jetty river.
Now, the stagnant waters are completely dead.
Five years ago, massive quantities of crude oil flooded out of a burst oil pipeline into the vast wetland.
Fishermen from the nearby town of Bodo now have to paddle six hours to get to water inhabited by fish. Ogoniland, in the heart of the Niger delta, is one of the most contaminated regions in the world.
On the journey through the mangrove swamps, criss-crossed by river courses, the full extent of the devastation is plain to see.
Instead of clear water, the motorboat churns up a brown swill; if you put your hand in the water it comes out coated in oil.
The roots of the mangrove trees stick out from the ground like black liquorice sticks. The odd palm among the mangroves hangs its frond despondently.
The flocks of birds ubiquitous in wetlands are nowhere to be seen. As soon as the outboard motor falls silent, a devastating quiet descends over the former paradise that now stinks like a petrol station.
"What is happening here is ecological warfare," says Celestine Akpobari, sombrely. "We are living with a permanent hazard to health."
The comparison to war is apposite.
The region of the Ogoni has been a contested battlefield for decades. More than 60 years ago, the first explorers from Europe made their way to the region. In the 80s, the first wave of resistance was organised around the author Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was later executed. It was here that the Shell company had to stop production in 1993, because it was too dangerous for its oil workers.
Even today, the company is prohibited from returning to Ogoniland. While more than two million barrels of black gold are pumped every day from the delta region as a whole - which is an area three times the size of Switzerland with more than 5000 wells and 7000 kilometres of pipeline - the oilfields in Ogoniland lie fallow, the situation too unstable for the oil company.
Every few hundred metres, steel frames rise from the water like bizarre sculptures. The heads of boreholes are far too affectionately referred to as "little Christmas trees."
These structures can be up to 50 years old and most of them are seriously corroded.
One borehole after the next falls apart, says Akpobari, then a constant stream of crude oil runs into the water.
According to expert estimates, more than two billion litres have flown into the delta's ecosystem in 50 years. Year on year, that is the same amount of oil that rushed into the sea off Alaska when the Exxon Valdez supertanker crashed 21 years ago - one of the largest environmental catastrophes in human history.
There is dispute over who should be held responsible for the ongoing worst case scenario of ecological disaster.
Whilst the Shell company says sabotage and organised theft of oil are responsible for more than 90 percent of the contamination, environmentalists believe burst drill heads and leaking pipelines are the main cause.
In 2008, the US academic Richard Steiner accused Shell of applying significantly lower safety standards in Nigeria than in the rest of the world. The rate of defects in pipelines alone was "several times higher than elsewhere."
Human figures emerge from the mangrove swamps, that from a distance look deserted, oil-covered outside garages. The figures are stark naked and covered to the neck in oil.
Under one of the many barrels - some connected to pipes, others scattered at random over the ground - there is a a flickering fire. An illegal mini refinery.
Michael, the group leader, explains that the crude oil is heated in the barrel for several hours.
First, benzine is siphoned off to a collecting pan, then kerosene drips from the end of the tube and finally, diesel.
Michael and four assistants produce up to four 300-litre barrels of diesel a day in this way. "We get 34,000 naira for it" - about 22 dollars.
The inhabitants of the delta use the chronic fuel shortage to their advantage in the largest crude oil state of sub-Saharan Africa.
Nigeria has just one refinery of its own.
The illegal cooks can still undercut the absurdly low diesel prices of 40 Euro cents per litre. They get their raw material for nothing.
The material comes from "bunkerers" who tap the pipeline network all the way across Ogoniland. Over the entire Niger delta, experts estimate the country loses at least 16 millions litres of crude oil a day in this way.
However, only a tiny proportion of the raw material stored by bunkerers goes on to be refined illegally. Organised criminal networks with politicians and high-ranking officers amongst their ranks fill tankers with the lion's share and flog it on the global market.
The activist Akpobari believes the debate around whether the environmental catastrophe is the result of the activities of the population or lax production safety standards is purely academic.
"If the oil companies were not perceived as interlopers and if they had not so thoroughly destroyed the fishermen's livelihood, there would not be any sabotage, theft or illegal refineries."
Akpobari explains that the relationship between the Ogoni towards Shell in particular has been destroyed to such an extent that only withdrawal by the company is an option. "Perhaps other nations such as the Chinese will prove to be a better option."
Michael turns edgy.
"It's time you disappear," says the muscular oil man.
"The soldiers might turn up at any minute."
If the illegal oil refiners are caught by the army's task force, they are not likely to be jailed, but will have to pay hefty bribes.
It seems that the soldiers, who mainly originate from the north of the country, also want to profit from oil, like all other Nigerians.
"This damned stuff has brought our country to rock bottom in every way," says Akpobari.
Investigators uncover dangerous defect in A380 engines
The A380, it seems, has a major safety issue.
During examination of a plane following an emergency landing, investigators have discovered a possible defect that could cause "catastrophic engine failure."
The airline Qantas is now preparing to take the engine manufacturer to court.
The passengers of the Qantas Airbus that was forced to land at the beginning of November appear to have had considerably more luck than anyone realised. During its investigations, the Australian air safety authority identified a serious safety issue in the engines of some A380 planes - and is now warning of a possible construction defect.
The alleged defect would have serious consequences. In a statement published on Thursday, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) revealed that the defect could potentially cause fatigue cracks and leaks in an oil hose connection.
This could lead to "catastrophic engine failure."
20 different A380 aeroplanes with Rolls-Royce engines may be affected.
The Qantas Airbus that was forced to land in Singapore on 4 November was one of those aeroplanes.
The Australian airline is now taking legal steps against the British turbine manufacturer.
It has submitted a claim to an Australian federal court in Sydney which leaves open further potential legal measures against the company.
The CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce, said that his airline would demand compensation for the incident which occurred at the beginning of November.
The heat of the engine had caused parts to become detached and had damaged the wings.
Rolls-Royce believes an oil fire caused the damage.
Following the incident, up to 40 engines around the world must now be replaced.
The Australian investigators announced that they will be carrying out further safety tests on the superjumbos fitted with the affected engines.
ATSB speaker Martin Dolan said that the safety recommendation was the result of cooperation with Rolls-Royce.
The safety issue was considered sufficiently serious for all affected parties to be informed.
After the forced landing of the Qantas plane, the airline grounded its A380 fleet for weeks.
Singapore Airlines temporarily kept about three of its eleven A380 on the ground.
Lufthansa replaced the engine in one A380 as a precaution.
The double-decker is the largest passenger plane in the world.
Country-wide snowfall unleashes traffic chaos
Germany all in white. There has been overnight snowfall across most of the country.
There is chaos on many roads, and trains and flights have been cancelled.
At least three people have died in car accidents.
The winter freeze in Germany. In freezing temperatures, almost the entire country was covered in snow on Wednesday night - causing traffic chaos in many areas.
In the north and east of the country, there is 15 centimetres of snow in some areas.
Traffic is severely restricted on many motorways and roads.
Snow ploughs were in continuous operation on the A7 at Flensburg, unable to beat the constant snow drifts.
Strong winds were also recorded over the Baltic coast.
The Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) is expecting storm tides with water levels 1.2 metres above normal on the Baltic coast of Schleswig-Holstein from the morning onwards.
In Saxony, the snow drifts on motorways and A-roads have been causing serious problems.
According to the weather service Meteomedia, Saxon Switzerland was put on red alert - the highest alarm level.
30 centimetres of fresh snow fell in some parts of the region and fresh strong winds caused drifts.
A number of lorries and cars were stranded during the night.
In Saxony-Anhalt, the police authorities also reported serious disruption on the roads.
Snow and wind caused crawling traffic and traffic jams on the A2.
In Thuringia, the A4 and A9 were affected by snowfall.
According to Deutsche Bahn, there are significant disruptions in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and in the north of Bavaria.
Snow on the tracks, fallen trees on the rails and overhead wires and malfunctioning points are the main problems.
In Saxony, long-distance trains from Leipzig to Nuremberg had to be stopped.
An ICE train to Munich was forced to end its journey in Saalfeld, Thuringia.
The 165 passengers were provided with woollen blankets, food and drink by fire and ambulance personnel.
Snow swept across the roads.
Snow and wind is causing numerous cancellations at major German airports.
In Munich, a spokeswoman for the flight information centre announced that some cancellations had already been made.
In Frankfurt am Main, a spokeswoman for Fraport said that 40 flights had already been axed.
Snow ploughs have been in permanent operation.
Only a small number of stranded passengers were at the airport, and there were just under 400 camp beds still available to accommodate them, said the spokeswoman.
Accidents had already occurred on many roads by Wednesday evening.
One lorry driver died in the evening in a collision with a train on a level crossing in Ostholstein.
The train driver suffered light injuries.
A similar accident occurred near Nuremberg on snow-covered roads. A truck was stranded on a level crossing when the vehicle got stuck in the snow.
The driver died.
Four passengers in the train were injured - the line from Bayreuth to Nuremberg was closed into the hours of the morning.
A 30-year-old woman also died after she overturned on black ice near Aschaffenburg.
There is, however, some good news from forecasters. Although the snow will continue to be loose and powdery causing snow drifts even in light winds,
the wind is set to drop.
Only the Baltic Sea will suffer strong and stormy winds.
However, it will remain very cold - up to minus 15 degrees in some places.
Deutsche Bank seeking buyer for its twin towers
Deutsche Bank wants to sell its emblem. According to a newspaper report, the bank is looking for buyers for the two office high-rises at its Frankfurt headquarters.
The property could fetch up to 500 million Euros.
Deutsche Bank only recently renovated its company headquarters. The twin towers in the Frankfurt banking quarter have been modernised as bankers returned to their former workplace.
But the financial institution now clearly wants to recoup the costs of renovation - and is looking for a buyer for the two high-rises, writes Financial Times Germany, quoting a spokesman.
The spokesman did not indicate the reasons for the planned sale.
"We are constantly reviewing whether it is better to own property ourselves or to sell it and then rent it back," he said.
Germany's largest financial institution is abandoning its company headquarters after only a limited period of time.
The bank first took over the two towers for 272 million Euros in mid-2007 from the investors of one of its own funds and went on to implement an extensive programme of renovation.
According to the information available, the extensive renovation cost around 200 million Euros.
A sale would earn the bank a lot of money.
According to the newspaper, industry experts estimate the value of the towers, renamed the "Greentowers," at around 500 million Euros.
Whether the buildings will be resold to a fund owned by the bank or to an independent investor is currently not decided, said the spokesman.
Thousands mourn lost friends
More than 10,000 people in New Zealand have attended a memorial service for the miners declared dead after a series of explosions.
It has not yet been possible to recover the bodies, as the safety situation in the shaft where the accident happened remains precarious.
Almost two weeks ago, a violent explosion occurred in the Pike River Mine near the city of Greymouth.
29 miners aged between 17 and 62 were buried alive below ground.
A probe was lowered into the shaft, but no signs of the survivors were discovered.
Owing to the high concentration of poisonous gases and further subsequent explosions, no rescuers were allowed into the shaft for safety reasons.
After the second violent detonation, the authorities and experts acted on the assumption that there was no chance any of the miners had survived.
It has not yet been possible to recover the bodies.
Family members and friends remembered the dead in a memorial service.
In bright sunshine, ten thousand people gathered in Greymouth on New Zealand's South Island.
They held a two-minute silence.
29 tables were set up in honour of the buried miners, displaying helmets, lamps and their names.
Pictures and personal items, including clothing and surfboards, were also on display.
The flags were flying at half mast at all government buildings in the country.
New Zealand had hoped that the miners would come back "from the depths of the earth" to the surface, said the Prime Minister of New Zeeland John Key to the crowds at the memorial.
"But they never came home."
Lawrie Drew, father of trapped coal miner Zen Drew, said that he could not come to terms with the death of his son until he had seen his body.
Several foreign diplomats took part in the memorial service alongside the Prime Minister and members of victims" families.
British and South African miners were also buried alive in the first explosion on 19 November.
Rescuers began by extinguishing a fire inside the coal mine on New Zealand's South Island.
Superintendent Gary Knowles told journalists that work would begin to cool the fierce temperatures inside the mine as soon as the explosive gases had been displaced.
To hell, warriors!
Is there a place for gore in art house cinema?
The film director Nicolas Winding Refn is testing old genre boundaries afresh with his warrior epic "Walhalla Rising."
What audience was the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn thinking of when he was shooting "Walhalla Rising"?
A captured Viking warrior with only one eye (Mads Mikkelsen) escapes his tormentors and knocks down his opponents with almost superhuman powers - which sounds ideal for young male viewers on the search for gore and action, particularly as our hero has a preference for brutal killing methods and is not averse to tearing out the entrails from the living bodies of his enemies when he is in a bad mood.
On the other hand, One-Eye, as he is actually called, does not say a word during the entire film, and even the other figures are only induced to say one or two sentences at most, or to emit a few excruciating death cries.
Otherwise, the film is silent, luxuriating in the eerily beautiful hills of Scotland that provides the scenery for the Viking world of around a thousand years ago.
More suited to adult cinema enthusiasts with an interest in existentialism and very smooth tracking shots.
Great when a film has several target groups, but a shame if they are mutually exclusive.
Since his wild and stylised drug dealer trilogy "Pusher," Director Winding Refn has been seen as a kind of Danish version of Quentin Tarantino, but stoically refuses to make his works accessible to the mainstream by using a little more humour or to the art house by displaying less brutality.
Most art cinema enthusiasts would be deterred by the cerebral matter and entrails flying around.
If they have not already done so, action fans will die of boredom when One-Eye - for somewhat indecipherable reasons - sets off by ship to Jerusalem with a troop of violent Christian missionaries, ending up stuck for what seems like an eternity in dead calms and fog before the crew arrives in what is clearly America - where the silence continues.
No wonder then that 'Walhalla Rising" has not found a cinema distributor in Germany and has only appeared on DVD.
This is a shame, particularly because the cinematography is superb, but also because at times there is a stirring work of cinema behind the pretentious, at times bloody façade - and that work of cinema deserves some attention.
This film is not about dialogue or a stringent plot, but all about atmosphere - a feverish dream that has become a film.
For the viewer, there is no escape from that dream.
Refn hardly allows the viewer a single moment of relaxation and slowly chokes the same view with his iron images and the gloomy trance-like soundtrack - and the incomprehensible hatred that strikes out at the viewer from the hearts of the characters.
Only one small blond boy who stands faithfully at One-Eye's side retains anything of innocence - all other characters are driven by fury.
Above all, it is the one-eyed hero who is driven by fury - whose motives are never explained, but who at some point becomes the warrior from hell for his enemies and temporary allies alike, and perhaps even the messenger of the devil himself.
He equals damnation, but perhaps only for the already damned.
"Walhalla Rising" is an enigmatic film that people will hate and admire, to their chagrin, vexation and amazement.
An experience.
Mysterious earthworks
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has new evidence of a secret nuclear programme in Syria.
The country is refusing to comment - but is allowing inspections.
Towards midnight on the night of 5th to 6th September 2007, at least four Israeli F-15 I fighter jets attacked a mysterious, cube-shaped building in Syria.
It stands on the banks of the Euphrates river; the next major city, 30 kilometres away, is Dair Alzour.
The name turns up in IAEA documents when there is mention of the reactor Syria is alleged to have built in the cube-shaped building hidden in a valley cut off from the country's electricity network - with aid from North Korea.
According to a briefing from the US foreign intelligence service, the CIA, at the end of April 2008, the reactor, commonly referred to by the name of the nearest settlement El Kibar, could be used to produce plutonium - which could in turn be used to build atomic bombs.
The technology from the fifties is of very little use for any other purpose.
The CIA gave a video presentation with blurry satellite images.
Using computer animation, the agency showed where the components of the reactor are believed to have been located before its destruction - the reactor is said to be a smaller copy of the north Korean model from the atomic centre in Yongbyon.
They agency also produced photos showing the building close up, and even its interior.
The reactor is believed to have been almost ready for commissioning, but not yet supplied with fuel rods.
Now, more than three years after the bombardment, almost no more is known. In fact, the questions seem to have increased with time.
The former US President George W. Bush has recently revealed in his memoirs that, although the CIA had known before the attack that Syria was building a reactor in El Kibar, it had not discovered any signs that there was "an active nuclear weapons programme" in the country.
Many intelligence officials in Europe are even more sceptical and speak only of an "alleged reactor," even if they believe the CIA presentation was "plausible."
They lack hard evidence, as does the IAEA.
Asked how certain he is that a reactor exists this summer, a high-ranking UN diplomat replied laconically that the IAEA had "enough material to pose questions."
The Syrians, in any case, rapidly removed the rubble of the supposedly "unused military building" and levelled the area completely.
Nonetheless, in June 2008, an IAEA team led by chief inspector Olli Heinonen discovered traces of man-made uranium in El Kibar.
In addition, the IAEA obtained commercially produced satellite images from a Member State from the period immediately preceding the attack - images said to be more convincing that the images presented by the CIA.
However, the images were not available on the market, as the unknown customer - Israel, perhaps - has purchased them exclusively.
Hence, the IAEA cannot independently verify their authenticity.
Syria has claimed never to have had a secret atomic programme or to have built a reactor.
Damascus claims the uranium was from Israeli weapons.
However, after analysing the particles, the IAEA rejected the claim as implausible.
Since then, Damascus has avoided discussion on this point - or on the satellite images.
Syria has also prevented inspectors carrying out a second inspection in El Kibar or to access the rubble of the bombed building.
Israel is also maintaining a stony silence.
"We will never comment on this," said the former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in office at the time of the attack, confirming the official position.
So the investigation has continued since June 2008 without conclusion and "is increasingly developing into a serious credibility problem for the authority," according to a high-ranking western diplomat at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna - ultimately, a serious infringement of the non-proliferation treaty remains unresolved in the hands of the IAEA.
The IAEA clearly believes the key to moving forward in this process lies in three additional facilities that are supposed to have had a "functional connection" with the alleged reactor - and in contrast to the reactor, still exist.
However, inspectors have not so far disclosed the nature of the facilities or what function they have or what makes them seem suspicious.
According to information provided by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, they are referred to internally at the IAEA as Marj as-Sultan, Masyaf and Iskandariya, referring to towns nearby.
The independent Institute for Science and International Security in Washington (ISIS) has identified these locations and found a complex of buildings on satellite images at Masyaf which is very probably one of the suspicious buildings.
It may be located in or immediately next to a military base - it is precisely for this reason that Syria is refusing the IAEA access to the three locations.
In Vienna, there is word that the Syrians were afraid of some kind of fishing expedition and worry that the IAEA is being sent out by the USA as a vanguard to spy out military facilities.
This fear was exacerbated by the fact that nuclear inspectors had been tipped off about the facilities by the US secret services.
The IAEA has documents, including satellite photos, which suggest that material has been transported between the three locations and the cube-shaped building on the Euphrates river.
A high-ranking western diplomat in Vienna said that at least one of the facilities could be "related to fuel production."
However, there were "no signs of sensitive activities" such as uranium enrichment or reprocessing - processes that are required to build atomic weapons.
This type of reactor is fuelled by uranium, but not enriched uranium.
However, a reasonable guess could be made as to where the uranium came from and where the plutonium from that uranium would be extracted for use in a bomb.
It remains unclear, however, whether rubble that could contain valuable trace deposits has been stored at the three locations.
No one is admitting to having any information on where the rubble has ended up, as if hundreds of truckloads of earth had simply vanished into thin air.
The salt mine of Al Tibni, located just several kilometres from El Kibar on the other side of the Euphrates and investigated by Syria in 1998 as a possible storage location for radioactive waste is an unlikely location, according to the IAEA.
The former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley recently connected the mine and the reactor in an analysis of satellite images for the prestigious magazine, Jane's Intelligence Review.
Images from orbit, however, show that Syria undertook earthworks at the three suspected locations and removed large containers after the IAEA had demanded access.
That may be coincidence, but has done nothing to clear suspicion.
There is also talk in diplomatic circles of the IAEA having spent a number of months developing an inspections plan that would allow Syria to protect any military secrets - the costs alone shows the extent of the inspectors" interest.
Damascus, however, also brushed off this proposal.
Although western diplomats in Vienna had offered reassurance, by saying that since the reactor was destroyed the issue had low priority, the US ambassador Glyn Davies has been bringing so-called special inspections to the table, which is one of the most powerful instruments available to the Vienna-based atomic authority to carry out inspections.
Yukiya Amano, current Director General of the IAEA, who is believed to have suggested the inspection, has already spoken of "an option that I am open to in the future," but is still hesitating.
The option is high risk. On the one hand it requires a majority in the Governing Council of the IAEA, and a number of the 35 countries represented are anything other than eager for escalation.
On the other hand, as one diplomat points out, "what if, in the end, they find nothing?"
Love in times of war
Since Angelina Jolie began working on her as yet anonymous directing debut in the summer, there has been trouble.
She wrote the script herself - a love story between a woman from Bosnia and a Serbian man.
No one really knows much more than that - but that alone is enough to cause unease.
The rumour stubbornly persists that the woman - a Muslim - falls in love with her Serbian rapist during the Yugoslavian war.
Bosnian women's organisations have protested immediately, in response to which several days of shooting planned in Sarajevo were moved to Hungary at short notice.
Since then, the film has been shot in Hungary and is in post-production, but there are still protests in Bosnia.
Bakira Hasečić from the Association of Women Victims of War wrote to Jolie via the UN refugee agency UNHCR and demanded a meeting with the actress, reported a Bosnian newspaper - Jolie herself is an ambassador for the UN agency.
However, she can hardly be described as diplomatic - Jolie offered to meet the women weeks ago in Hungary, but they declined.
The meeting must take place in Bosnia, insists Hasečić.
According to Hasečić, there were no love stories in rape camps, and Jolie's behaviour towards victims told her enough about the script.
According to the UN refugee organisation, her organisation has recommended dismissing Jolie as an ambassador, reports the Guardian.
But what kind of script exactly has Jolie written?
The Bosnian Ministry of Culture that read her script issued a permit for shooting in Sarajevo after some to-ing and fro-ing - it is not entirely clear why Jolie then did not go to Bosnia.
They fledgling writer herself asserts that she has no political motives in her film, has read up on the Yugoslavian conflict assiduously and wants to show the horrific consequences of war and give a voice to all sides involved.
In terms of content, however, she remained vague.
A second, considerably different synopsis of the film is being circulated on the internet. The lovers had known each other before the outbreak of war and meet again when she, a Bosnian Muslim, is kidnapped to a Serbian camp where he is working as a guard.
That sounds a very different story to the "rape victim falls for torturer" scenario.
The fact that Jolie's film actually begins before the war is clear.
According to Jolie, the pressure on her is "unfair and based on false information."
Now only the hackers from Hollywood can give her any peace by illegally posting the script on the web, as has been the fate of so many other scripts.
Let's get out of here
This evening, everything is finally going well for the Irish.
Not a trace of unhappiness.
The home team is dominating its guests from Sweden, Finland and the USA too much for that.
The fans are hooting for joy against a soundtrack of blaring music and stamping feet.
The Bailey Pub in Cork, southern Ireland, is rocking because the table tennis players are throwing ping pong balls into beer glasses over a three metre distance - and scoring.
"Beer pong" is the name of the bizarre spectacle; the winner gets 500 Euros win bonus plus plane tickets to Las Vegas for the beer pong world championship in January.
Cian Tanner is a quiet type; this shrill drinking game and the reticent computer scientist do not really go together.
But the 26-year-old is trying to amuse himself by playing, to distract from the burning question of what the future will bring.
He has not scheduled in a round of gambling in Las Vegas - he will be taking part in job interviews in New Zealand in January.
"I have a weird feeling doing it," he says.
"It is so far from home and I still don't have any work there."
Still, his girlfriend is waiting for him in Auckland - "she got her dream job as event manager in no time - perhaps a good sign," says the young man and smiles.
In response to the poor outlook at home, two of Tanner's three siblings are already taking their chances abroad.
His sister Yvonne, a social worker, is in Sydney and his brother Colin has got a job as an IT consultant in London.
Young people are leaving. Tanner's family is hardly the exception for families on the island.
100,000 Irish men and women will leave the country in the near future, predict experts from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin.
By 2015, they estimate a total of 200,000 emigrants.
For a small country with only 4.5 million inhabitants, that will be a significant loss.
If the predictions prove to be correct, there will be a wave of emigration comparable to the emigration Ireland suffered in the 80s.
After a decade of growth that brought great prosperity for the Irish with it, the hard times have returned.
The economic crisis is particularly bewildering for young, well-educated Irish who have only seen things getting better.
Job losses and social descent seemed absurd in the boom years.
Everyone was needed and there was money abounding.
Since then, three out of every ten men and women under thirty are without work.
In the Irish Times, there are many letters from young emigrants complaining that "everything is going down the pan in Ireland."
"There should be a revolution against the politicians and bankers - but anyone who can simply leaves and our country is losing an entire generation."
"Can the last person please turn out the light."
Law student Leanne Caulfield, President of the Irish Union of Students, sees a dismal future ahead, because the government is engaged in window-dressing and is no longer offering young people prospects for the future.
"They are reducing the minimum wage, but they don't have a strategy to create new jobs," says the 20-year-old.
She sees her fellow students making their way from one unpaid internship to another.
Her greatest concern is that she will have to emigrate in four years as well.
"The thought is sad and depressing."
On the other hand, men such as Stephen McLarnon try to give the situation a positive spin.
McLarnon organises the WorkingAbroadExpo, a fair offering an all-round service for work abroad.
"For people starting a career, working abroad is a great chance to take your first steps onto the career ladder," says the manager.
There are photos of surfers in Australia and snowboarders in Canada on his website.
The message is clear. Working abroad is not galley duty, but a source of freedom and fun.
For the last six months, Seán O'Donovan has known what it feels like to build something somewhere else.
As there was nothing more for the 29-year-old engineer in Ireland, he is now working with 15 Irish colleagues on building sites in Germany.
They are currently working on a fashion boutique in Gelsenkirchen.
In January, they will move on to Hanover or Berlin - to the next project.
In the meantime, O'Donovan visits his home country seldom, as he is taking on extra shifts to be able to pay off the mortgage on his house at home.
"The situation is really a bit crazy," he says, as he goes through the door of his house for the first time in a long time.
"I am earning money in Germany for a house in Ireland that I barely see."
He laughs a little self-consciously and wanders through the cold rooms.
The small house is in a classy neighbourhood with tended front gardens. Large, expensive cars are parked in the driveways.
O'Donovan bought the house with his sister four years ago for 380,000 Euros - financed with a 100 percent mortgage.
"They were mad times - there was easy money without too many questions," he says.
Is he worried that things could go wrong with the mortgage?
O'Donovan thinks for a while, pours some more tea and says: "I don't have any children to feed and I am young. Even if everything goes wrong, I can start again."
The civil engineer does not like the moaning that he hears so often.
"No one has to starve - out situation is nowhere near as dramatic as times this island has gone through in the past," he says.
"Working abroad for a while is not the worst that can happen - perhaps we only really feel Irish by going abroad."
He laughs and recalls how his father went to England in the last great economic crisis.
"Seven years later, he was back and life went on in Ireland, just like that."
Cian Tanner likes that idea.
Leave the future open and just see what it is like living somewhere else.
He has already spent a few years working in London and why should things not go well for him and his girlfriendin New Zealand?
One thing still worries him well and truly these days - the party for his 27th birthday on Friday in Dublin.
He worries it could degenerate into a farewell party.
"Just not too much emotion," he says and drinks a large gulp of beer.
"Farewell - that sounds alarming."
"Lets just call it a going away party, really relaxed with a few friends, a couple of drinks and the odd game."
The democratic routine
Support for democracy in Latin America continues to edge up, as does backing for private enterprise.
Crime has become a bigger worry than unemployment.
And Brazil is seen as more influential than the United States across much of the region.
Those are some of the findings of the latest Latinobarómetro poll taken in 18 countries and published exclusively by The Economist.
Because the poll has been taken regularly since 1995, it tracks changes in attitude across the region.
Two related things stand out in the results of this year's poll, taken in September and early October.
The first is Latin America's fairly sunny mood.
The second is the increasing stability of attitudes towards democracy and its core institutions.
Support for democracy has risen noticeably in several countries on the Pacific rim of South America (see table 1).
For example in Peru, where economic growth has averaged 6% a year since 2002, support for democracy has risen from a low of 40% in 2005 to 61% this year.
It also rose in Mexico, where the economy has recovered after suffering a big drop in output last year.
But only around half of respondents in Mexico and Brazil, the region's two most populous countries, are convinced democrats, which drags down the regional average (see chart 2).
Some 44% of respondents across the region pronounced themselves satisfied with how their country's democracy works in practice, the same figure as last year but a big increase on the 25% in 2001 (chart 3).
Some 34% said they had confidence in their country's Congress and 45% in their government, the same as last year in both cases but up sharply from 2003 (17% and 24% respectively).
A decade ago economic woes in Latin America undermined support for democracy.
That it has held up during the world financial crisis is probably because many Latin American countries suffered only a brief recession and have enjoyed a strong recovery.
In addition, a stronger social safety net has helped to shield the poor.
(The United Nations' Economic Commission for Latin America reported this week that the proportion of Latin Americans living in poverty rose only marginally in 2009 and has fallen again this year, to 32%.) 
But the mood varies widely from country to country (see chart 4).
Brazil's strong economic performance and the popularity of its outgoing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is reflected in a widely shared sense of progress.
That is scarcer in Mexico and Central America, where the recession was more severe and violent crime has worsened.
For only the second time since the polls began, more respondents across Latin America as a whole cite crime, rather than unemployment, as the most important problem facing their country (see chart 5).
Some 31% say that either they or a close relative have been victims of crime over the past year, but that is down from 38% last year and is the lowest figure since 1995.
A more robust economic performance is reflected in rising support for private enterprise and the market economy: some 71% of respondents across the region say that private enterprise is indispensable for development, up from 56% in 2007 (see chart 6).
Some 58% agree that the market economy is the only system that will make their country developed, up from 47% last year.
Interestingly, 62% of respondents in Venezuela hold that view (and 80% there back private enterprise) even though their left-wing president, Hugo Chávez, is expropriating many private companies.
Brazil is the country which exercises most leadership in the region, mentioned by 19% of respondents (up from 18% last year), followed by the United States (9%, unchanged from last year) and Venezuela (9%, down from 11% last year).
But the United States is seen as the most influential country by respondents in Mexico and much of Central America, whereas Venezuela enjoys that distinction in Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.
A vote rubbished
Nobody expected Haiti's general election on November 28th to be perfect.
But it was far worse than the outsiders who are trying to help the stricken country feared.
It featured stuffed ballot boxes and repeat voting, ballot slips scattered in gutters, trashed polling stations and intimidation.
Polling stations opened hours late.
Many Haitians, including lots displaced by January's earthquake, roamed around trying to find out where to vote.
Some of them eventually gave up.
A dozen presidential candidates, including several presumed front-runners, cried fraud and called for the election's annulment.
Protests, some of them violent, flared across the country.
Nevertheless, Edmond Mulet, the United Nations' top official in Haiti, declared it "a fairly good election in many ways."
Observers from the Organisation of American States and the Caribbean Community said cautiously that they did "not believe these irregularities, serious as they were, necessarily invalidated the process."
In other words, the show goes on.
The electoral authority, which opponents claim is beholden to René Préval, the unpopular outgoing president and his candidate, Jude Célestin, is due to announce preliminary results on December 7th.
The expected run-off is scheduled for January.
All hope in the election is not lost.
The two leading opposition candidates, Michel Martelly, a rap musician, and Mirlande Manigat, a former first lady, have retreated from their initial call for the vote to be declared invalid.
But there may be trouble if Mr Célestin, who has little or no discernible support among voters, is declared by the electoral authority to have reached the run-off.
With a cholera epidemic raging, and more than 1m earthquake survivors still living in tents, there were fears that turnout would be low.
In the event, a lot of Haitians wanted to vote but were prevented from doing so by disorganisation.
Some 250,000 identity cards, required for voting, remained undistributed shortly before the election.
Much is at stake.
Aid donors see the election of a legitimate and popular government as an essential step in Haiti's reconstruction.
And so, it is clear, do Haitians themselves.
Tiptoeing to the centre
In the weeks since she was suddenly widowed, Cristina Fernández, Argentina's president, has benefited from a wave of public sympathy that has boosted her approval rating by 20 points, to over 50%, its highest level since she was elected in 2007.
Yet turning this into a successful campaign for a second term at an election next year may depend on whether or not the visibly grieving Ms Fernández abandons the intransigence of her late husband, predecessor and political partner, Néstor Kirchner.
And on that the signs are mixed.
Mr Kirchner, who continued to handle economic policy even after his wife succeeded him as president, was in the habit of drawing up budgets which underestimated tax revenues, economic growth and inflation.
That allowed the first couple to spend the extra revenues at will.
On paper Ms Fernández's government lost its majority in Congress last year.
But the opposition is divided, and it was thrown further into disarray by Mr Kirchner's death of a heart attack on October 27th.
Some dissident members of the ruling Peronist movement have rallied to Ms Fernández.
But after chaotic sessions (in which a parliamentarian punched another in the face, and others accused the government of bribery), Congress failed to approve the 2011 budget.
"I'm not going to argue," said the president.
The 2010 budget will now apply next year, giving the president even more room to spend at will.
The economy is overheating wildly: it is likely to grow by up to 9% this year.
The official inflation rate now stands at 11.1%, but many private estimates - and trade-union wage demands - put the figure close to 30%.
Mr Kirchner, who took office in 2003 when Argentina was scarred by economic collapse, made growth and poverty reduction, rather than controlling inflation, his priorities.
He refused to deal with the IMF, harassed the private sector and purged INDEC, the statistics agency, which proceeded to doctor official inflation statistics.
Might Ms Fernández now moderate these policies?
She has called for talks between private business and union leaders.
And her officials are saying that they want to limit wage increases next year to 18%.
The economy has been buoyed by high world prices for Argentina's farm exports.
But inflation has eroded the boost to growth provided by a big devaluation in 2002.
That may be why Ms Fernández is showing signs of wanting to restore Argentina's financial ties to the rest of the world.
Earlier this year the government struck a deal with bondholders who had refused an earlier forced restructuring of debt on which Argentina defaulted in 2001.
Now Ms Fernández seems to be edging towards an agreement with creditor governments grouped in the Paris Club, to which it owes some $6.7 billion.
The Kirchners always insisted this could not involve oversight by the IMF, as is customary.
But last month Amado Boudou, the economy minister, announced that the fund will provide "technical assistance" to design a new national consumer-price index, which looks like a prelude to cleaning up INDEC.
It is not clear whether Ms Fernández wants to remain in politics beyond the end of her term now that her husband is no longer at her side.
If she does, she needs to win the support of the middle class, much of which has tired of kirchnerismo.
By the time Argentines return from their summer holidays in March, the wave of sympathy for her will have ebbed.
If she wants to win another election she will have to decide whether or not quietly to repudiate many of her husband's policies.
Half a cheer for China
Taiwan's voters are inching towards a kind of closer union with the mainland.
What does Taiwan think of its big brother across the strait?
More than 7.5m voters turned out on November 27th, 70% of those eligible, to elect mayors and city councillors in five urban districts, in what is seen as a broad assessment of the president, Ma Ying-jeou.
Mr Ma himself has become a surrogate for feelings about the mainland, having forged groundbreaking business links, including a partial free-trade pact, in the biggest rearrangement of relations with China proper since 1949.
Mr Ma passed the test, but only just.
Although his Kuomintang party (KMT) ended up winning three of the five mayoralties, it failed to win a majority of the votes.
Instead, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has leant towards fuller independence for Taiwan, won nearly 50% of all votes to the KMT's 45%.
Had this been a presidential poll, Mr Ma would be in trouble.
Since he was elected two years ago his party's share of the vote has fallen by perhaps 8%.
For the first time, the DPP drew even with the KMT in the city councils.
The election saw most of the staples of Taiwanese elections, including rowdy campaign trucks and flag-waving mass rallies with skimpily clad dancing girls.
It even saw the obligatory mysterious assassination attempt.
Sean Lien, son of Lien Chan, the KMT's honorary chairman, was stumping for a KMT candidate on the eve of the election.
A man from the crowd shot the young Mr Lien clean through the face, wounding him and killing a bystander.
Bizarrely, it has not been determined whether the gunman intended to harm Mr Lien or to settle a dispute with the candidate.
Either way, says Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of the DPP, the shooting affected the election, casting suspicion on the DPP and driving voters towards the KMT.
Perhaps the only big winner from the campaign was China.
It was striking how the issue of the mainland itself was absent.
Instead candidates jousted over plans for public housing and job creation.
Taiwan usually enjoys its de facto independence and loathes China's military threat.
So, the KMT tends to avoid parading its ties to the government in Beijing.
But this time the DPP also refrained from whipping up anti-China sentiment.
It is responding to a new awareness that Chinese business is essential to Taiwan's economic survival.
Mr Ma, for his part, claimed confirmation that his China policy is acceptable to the Taiwanese majority.
The government in Beijing can be expected to continue supplying commercial sweeteners, in line with its strategy for luring Taiwan back to the fold.
China wasted no time sending a negotiator to Taipei to arrange for a summit on investment protection and medical co-operation.
Certainly, it would like to see political integration too, but first things first.
Better to wait till after the 2012 presidential election for that.
The DPP has anyway reinvented itself.
Two years ago it was at a low point: its former leader, Chen Shui-bian, had been sent to jail on charges of corruption.
President in 2000-08, he was a firebrand for explicit independence.
But under the leadership of Ms Tsai, a new generation of moderates has emerged and the DPP is working hard to attract professionals and youths.
Ms Tsai has been hailed as a DPP candidate for the presidency, as has Su Tseng-chang, who served under Mr Chen.
Their party is now doing its best to show that it too can engage with Beijing.
Ms Tsai announced plans for a think-tank to act as a point of contact between the DPP and China, provided their talks can be held without preconditions.
Ms Tsai tells the Taiwanese public that her party presents a "trustworthy alternative" to Mr Ma's hasty approach to China.
Mr Chen seems infuriated by the shift.
In a statement issued from his cell he said that the DPP's candidates would have fared better if they had insisted that Taiwan is a separate country.
He even ordered Mr Su, a pragmatist, not to run for the presidency.
Even without Mr Chen's interference, the DPP will struggle to choose between its potential candidates.
The KMT is due for soul-searching of its own.
Mr Ma's ratings have been poor, despite breakneck economic growth; KMT candidates have not wanted to campaign with him.
His unpopularity seems to be owing largely to unemployment and the widening gap between rich and poor.
A KMT spokesman says it will reshuffle its cabinet as well as its local branches.
The DPP's strong showing suggests that Taiwan's support for rapprochement is limited.
At the same time most Taiwanese see the economic integration with China as inevitable.
According to Antonio Chiang, a prominent columnist, "the point of no return has already passed."
Grammy nominations: Jazz singer Esperanza Spalding is a surprise pick in best new artist category
Perform at the request of a president, and people are bound to take notice.
Esperanza Spalding, the 26-year-old jazz bassist and singer hand-picked by President Obama to perform at his Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in 2009, marked one of the Grammys' surprises this year with a high-profile nomination in the best new artist category.
Considering that Spalding has been a celebrated figure on the jazz scene since her 2008 album, "Esperanza," the nomination is a bit of a head-scratcher, but it is consistent with the Grammys' rules of an artist not releasing more than three albums before the recording that "establishes the public identity of that artist."
Her ambitious 2010 album, "Chamber Music Society," certainly marked a step forward, and given her airily inviting vocal style and a deft hand with pop, funk and Latin influences, it's possible to draw at least a dotted line to Spalding from Norah Jones' runaway success in 2003, the closest equivalent to Grammy voters looking toward jazz's neighborhood in this category in recent years.
Elsewhere Grammy voters rightly honored the Vijay Iyer Trio's "Historicity" in the instrumental album category, an invigorating thrill-ride of a record that was a critical favorite last year.
Among those Iyer will be competing against include veteran saxophonist James Moody's "Moody 4B" and keyboardist John Beasley's "Positootly."
Trombone Shorty, a raucous New Orleans favorite and frequent guest on HBO's "Treme," was honored in the contemporary jazz category, which otherwise tilts heavily toward fusion with nods toward albums by Stanley Clarke, John McLaughlin and Jeff Lorber.
The wild, steampunk-informed Darcy James Argue's Secret Society earned some well-deserved recognition in the large ensemble category, competing against the Billy Childs Ensemble's rich chamber-jazz and the ever-adventurous Dave Holland, whose octet's live album "Pathways" was a fine example of the bassist's democratic hand as a bandleader.
Grammy Awards nominations: Michael Daugherty, Steve Mackey lead classical categories
The classical nominations for the 53rd annual Grammy Awards feature a sprawling mix of musicians and composers from around the world.
Leading the nominations are Michael Daugherty's "Deus Ex Machina," for piano and orchestra, with five nods, and Steve Mackey's "Dreamhouse," an eclectic orchestral work, with three nods.
Among the nominees with ties to Southern California is Estonian composer Arvo Pärt for his Symphony No. 4, "Los Angeles," a piece that was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and debuted at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2009.
L.A.-based composer Avner Dorman's Mandolin Concerto is also up for an award.
Classical nominations are spread over 13 categories covering orchestral, operatic, choral and solo recordings.
A category for classical producer of the year features five nominees - Blanton Alspaugh, David Frost, Tim Handley, Marina and Victor Ledin and James Mallinson.
The nominations for classical album are Bruckner's Symphonies No. 3 and 4 from the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Daugherty's "Deus Ex Machina" and "Metropolis Symphony" from the Nashville Symphony Orchestra; Steven Mackey's "Dreamhouse" from the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Synergy Vocals; "Sacrificium - the Art of the Castrati" featuring various artists; and Verdi's "Requiem" from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.
In the opera category, the nominees are Berg's "Lulu" from the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House; Adolf Hasse's "Marc Antonio e Cleopatra" from Ars Lyrica Houston; Kaija Saariaho's "L'Amour de Loin" from Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; Rodion Shchedrin's "The Enchanted Wanderer" from the Orchestra and Chorus of the Mariinsky Theatre; and Arthur Sullivan's "Ivanhoe" from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Composers who are up for Grammys for contemporary composition include Pärt for Symphony No. 4, Daugherty for "Deus Ex Machina," Hans Werner Henze for "Appassionatamente Plus," Magnus Lindberg for "Graffiti" and Shchedrin for "The Enchanted Wanderer."
Pärt's Symphony No. 4 had its premiere at Disney Hall in January 2009 in a performance that was recorded by the L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The approximately 30-minute piece is dubbed "Los Angeles" and is dedicated to former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who is imprisoned in Russia.
Dorman's "Mandolin Concerto" was nominated for instrumental soloist performance with orchestra.
The L.A. composer said that he wrote the 15-minute piece specifically for mandolin performer Avi Avital, who performed the concerto with the New York-based Metropolis Ensemble.
"I wrote it using Middle Eastern sounds and a lot of North African scales and rhythms," said Dorman in a phone interview.
Conductor Pierre Boulez, 85, received a nomination in the category of orchestral performance, for leading the Chicago Symphony in a recording of works by Stravinsky.
Instrumental soloists who received nominations include pianists Nelson Freire and Marc-André Hamelin; organist Paul Jacobs; violinist Julia Fischer; and harpist Sarah Schuster Ericsson.
Vocal-soloist nominees were all female this year and included Anne Sofie Von Otter, Cecilia Bartoli, Lucia Duchonová, Vivica Genaux and Measha Brueggergosman.
In the classical crossover category, soprano Jessye Norman received a nomination for her recording "Roots - My Life, My Song."
Proposed Temecula mosque wins planning commission approval
A proposed mosque in Temecula has won the unanimous support of the local planning commission following more than five hours of often heated public testimony.
Critics assailed the project as promoting both terrorism and traffic tie-ups.
But commissioners ruled Wednesday night the new religious center complied with local laws and would be aesthetically impressive.
"Many good people came to support it - Christians, Jews, Bahais, you name it," said Hadi Nael, chair of the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley, speaking Thursday morning.
"I'm proud of that as an American citizen."
"It shows that justice prevails."
"The opposition is very minimal," he added.
"They just have very loud voices."
"We have beautiful people in this valley."
The meeting began at 6 p.m. and lasted until nearly midnight with most of the time taken up with people speaking for or against the center, about evenly divided, according to the Press-Enterprise.
The debate continued on the newspaper's website.
"There is no more America," wrote one commenter.
"It is another Planet of the Apes with Miss Liberty dead in the sand."
"America has fallen."
Planned Islamic centers also have sparked protests in other parts of the country, including near ground zero, the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.
In the Temecula Valley, Imam Mahmoud Harmoush has denounced violence.
His congregation of about 135 families has co-existed without incident in Riverside County for years but wanted a larger and better space than the warehouse it rented on a property shared with a manufacturer of water-filtration systems.
The new 24,943-square-foot mosque with Mediterranean-style architecture would include two minarets and rise as tall as 43 feet.
It would occupy a 4.32-acre site on Nicolas Road about two miles east of Chaparral High School.
Opponents can still appeal the project to the City Council.
Arsenic-tolerant microbe raises possibility of new types of life on Earth, or elsewhere
The discovery of a strange bacteria that can use arsenic as one of its nutrients widens the scope for finding new forms of life on Earth and possibly beyond.
While researchers discovered the unusual bacteria here on Earth, they say it shows that life has possibilities beyond the major elements that have been considered essential.
"This organism has dual capability."
"It can grow with either phosphorous or arsenic."
"That makes it very peculiar, though it falls short of being some form of truly 'alien' life," commented Paul C. W. Davies of Arizona State University, a co-author of the report appearing in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.
Six major elements have long been considered essential for life - carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.
But the researchers found that the bacteria, discovered in Mono Lake, Calif., is able to continue to grow after substituting arsenic for phosphorous.
"It makes you wonder what else is possible," said Ariel D. Anbar of Arizona State University, a co-author of the report.
The find is important in the search for life beyond Earth because researchers need to be able to recognize life, to know what life looks like, Anbar said.
The study focuses on a microbe found on Earth.
However, the announcement of a news conference to discuss it, which did not disclose details of the find, generated widespread speculation on the Internet that the report would disclose the discovery of extraterrestrial life.
It didn't.
The discovery "does show that in other planetary environments organisms might be able to use other elements to drive biochemistry and that the 'standard' set of elements we think are absolutely necessary for life might not be so fixed," commented Charles Cockell, professor at the Planetary and Space Sciences Research Institute, Open University, in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
Cockell was not part of the research team.
"This work is novel because it shows the substitution of one element for another in fundamental biochemistry and biochemical structure," added Cockell.
It wasn't a chance discovery.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon of NASA's Astrobiology Institute, who led the study, targeted Mono Lake because it has high arsenic levels.
Arsenic and phosphorous are chemically similar, so she speculated that a microbe exposed to both might be able to substitute one for the other.
"Arsenic is toxic mainly because its chemical behavior is so similar to that of phosphorus."
"As a result, organisms have a hard time telling these elements apart."
"But arsenic is different enough that it doesn't work as well as phosphorus, so it gets in there and sort of gums up the works of our biochemical machinery," explained Anbar.
The researchers collected the bacteria known as GFAJ-1 and exposed it to increasing concentrations of arsenic, which it was able to adapt to and grow.
The microbe does grow better on phosphorous, but showing that it can live with arsenic instead raises the possibility that a life form using arsenic could occur naturally, either elsewhere on Earth or on another planet or moon where arsenic is more common.
Jamie S. Foster, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Florida, said the idea that arsenic could be substituted for phosphorous isn't new, but there has never been example where it was shown to work.
Arsenic was more common in the early times on Earth, she said, so researchers have speculated that early life forms might have used it.
"It does suggest that that there could be other ways to form life, not just how life formed on early Earth," said Foster, who was not part of Wolfe-Simon's research team.
The research was supported by NASA, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health.
Remaining stolen show dogs found in Compton
The remaining two of four show dogs stolen from outside a Bellflower motel have been found, Los Angeles County Sheriff's officials said Thursday.
The four show dogs - two Akitas and two Pembroke Welsh corgis - vanished Tuesday when someone stole the 2006 Chevrolet Express van they had spent the night in outside a Bellflower Motel 6, authorities said.
Two of the canines were recovered Wednesday afternoon, and the remaining two were found late Wednesday evening, said to Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
"The good news is that the dogs are fine," said Whitmore.
"They are in good condition."
"They have been returned to their rightful owners."
Whitmore declined to say precisely where the dogs were found, in what neighborhood, and the circumstances surrounding their discovery.
"There is an investigation going on."
"We don't want to say," Whitmore said.
"We are following leads."
The dogs owners, Kristina Rickard and David Peek, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
They were reunited with their two Akitas at a county-run animal shelter in Downey on Wednesday afternoon.
Sheriff's deputies found the van and the two dogs separately in Compton.
The Akitas - Trace, a 3-year-old male, and Didi, a 10-month-old female - were unharmed, authorities said.
But Bunny and Peter, the corgis Rickard and Peek planned to show at area competitions this week on behalf of the dogs' Japanese owners, remained missing until their discovering late Wednesday.
Peek and Rickard, who live in Redding, are in town for the AKC/Eukanuba National Championship in Long Beach this weekend, where they planned to show Trace.
The other dogs were expected to compete in other competitions scheduled in the days before the AKC/Eukanuba show, Peek told The Times on Wednesday.
Southern California is one stop on the couple's nearly month-long tour of dog shows.
On Monday night, Peek and Rickard checked into the motel.
They often stay in motels and park their van right outside their room window.
They brought three other dogs - a Boxer puppy, a Parson Russell terrier and a Brittany - which stayed with them in the motel room.
But they left the thick-furred Akitas and corgis in the van where it would be cooler.
They opened the windows a bit, so the dogs could get fresh air.
Peek and Rickard reported the van stolen at 6 a.m. Tuesday.
Peek had said they would offer a reward to anyone who could lead them to the corgis, which are implanted with microchips to identify them.
It was unclear Thursday whether an award would be given.
Lion ready to roar again as MGM restructuring gets final court go-ahead
After 18 months of turmoil and uncertainty, MGM has finally gotten a green light to start anew.
A New York federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday officially blessed the "pre-packaged" plan by creditors to wipe out about $5 billion in debt, clearing the way for the 86-year-old entertainment company to focus its efforts on producing and releasing movies and television shows.
With Thursday's ruling that the plan meets the requirements of the U.S. bankruptcy code, no more legal obstacles remain for MGM to relaunch under Spyglass Entertainment founders Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, who will become chief executives of what will be a slimmed-down studio.
The staff will drop to about 320 from over 400.
MGM will not actually emerge from Chapter 11 until JPMorgan Chase closes a planned $500-million loan facility to fund the new MGM's operations and productions.
It is currently being syndicated by the investment bank - which is itself kicking in $75 million - and is expected to be funded by mid-December.
The studio's restructuring process began in May 2009, when investment bank Moelis & Co. was hired to advise management on how to fix its finances as it was struggling to afford interest payments of $300 million per year.
That August, Chief Executive Harry Sloan was replaced by Stephen Cooper, a former CEO of Enron and a turnaround expert known for his work at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.
Moelis' and Cooper's attempts to resolve MGM's financial woes and satisfy the studio's 140-plus creditors took much longer than expected.
After several months of discussions, the parties agreed in late 2009 to put the company up for sale.
However, the auction attracted few bidders and none willing to pay the $2 billion-plus that creditors were seeking.
By the spring of this year, it was back to the drawing board as the MGM team began working on a restructuring plan that, after months of debate and internal disagreements, was finally endorsed by creditors in late October.
When MGM officially emerges from bankruptcy in the coming weeks, Moelis and Cooper's firms will receive multimillion-dollar bonuses for their work.
Moelis & Co., which has already received $1.2 million, will get a $9.5-million payment.
Cooper's firms, which have been collecting $375,000 per month for their services running the company, will receive a $4-million "success fee."
Barber and Birnbaum plan to restart production at MGM, which released only one movie this year, and put together an annual slate of seven or eight films that will come out starting in 2012.
They also plan to co-finance two movies based on "The Hobbit," along with Warner Bros.
The studio needs to close a separate loan of between $265 million and $275 million to fund its portion of those two movies, which are to be directed by Peter Jackson.
Investor Carl Icahn, who owns about 18% of MGM's debt, had been seeking to arrange a merger of the studio with Lions Gate Entertainment, in which he is the largest shareholder.
However, recent talks between the two companies have not resulted in a deal.
Tech Toys to Keep Your Gift Budget in Balance
While the leading candidate for this year's most marvelous toy is the iPad, followed by, perhaps, a Microsoft Kinect video game system, both can put a significant dent in your gift budget.
Consider that for the price of one iPad, you can buy five $99 BMX bicycles, and that one Kinect game costs the same as 10 classic beaded jump ropes, or about 48 cans of Play-Doh.
But there are ways to keep your gift budget in balance.
I recently visited three national toy sellers - a Wal-Mart, a Toys "R" Us and a BJ's Wholesale Club - to see what electronic toys I could buy for less than $80.
It was immediately clear that Moore's Law has been at work; this year's technology toy is likely to have more power, while costing the same if not a bit less compared with last year's.
In addition, while there are generally fewer new toys with associated Web sites, two of the most well known of this type, Webkinz and Club Penguin, have more offerings.
And button-cell powered toys are increasing, as well as toys with rechargable batteries.
Here are some recommendations.
(All prices are from Toys "R" Us, except if otherwise noted.) 
Sing-a-ma-jigs (Mattel, $13, for ages 3 and up) are guinea pig-sized plush toys that sing a note when you squeeze their bellies.
One squeeze equals one note, and a second squeeze starts building a song.
If you buy more than one, they'll sing in harmony.
Caution: Once you start squeezing, you can't stop.
For singing combined with dancing, Dance Star Mickey (Fisher-Price, $60, for ages 2 and up) is the best choice.
Borrowing on last year's Elmo Live technology, the 14-inch animatronic doll plays turn-taking games like Simon Says, and can moon walk, thanks to his innovative hinged feet with locking wheels.
Children testing the toy used Mickey as a dance instructor although their parents complained about the lack of a volume control.
If you're a child of the '80s, you may recall Alphie, one of the first computerized educational toys.
He's back, (Hasbro/Playskool, $40, for ages 3 and up), with a backpack full of quiz cards designed to turn a car ride into a session with a self-correcting, wisecracking workbook.
If you're leery of handing your child your smartphone, here are three stand-alone alternatives.
VTech's MobiGo ($60, for ages 3 to 8) is the cheapest and easiest to use, featuring a qwerty keyboard, although the games don't teach as effectively as the Leapster Explorer ($70, for ages 3 to 12), Leapfrog's first major overhaul of the Leapster line, with a newer, brighter screen.
Neither version is compatible with older cartridges.
Fisher-Price's iXL ($90, for ages 3 to 7) uses an iTunes-like system to deliver games and e-books, and has an SD card slot that makes it possible to display family photos.
Finally, Scrabble Flash ($30, Hasbro, for ages 8 and up) is a set of five blocks just larger than a book of matches, each with its own LED screen.
The goal is to make words by placing the blocks in a row before time runs out; it's great for an impromptu spelling contest.
Increasingly, toys have some sort of online connection.
Based on their presence in toy stores alone, the two largest are Webkinz and Club Penguin.
To buy your child an online pet in Club Penguin, for example, you can get a Disney Club Penguin 2" Mix 'N Match Figure Pack, $5, for ages 6 to 12) that includes a coin with a hidden code.
When you redeem the code online, your child is given enough credits in the Club Penguin store for any two items.
These might include roller skates or a pet Puffle toy.
Slightly larger than the bristle-end of your toothbrush, Hexbug Nano ($10, for ages 5 and up) is the latest in a line of button-cell powered micro-robots.
The faux bug moves quickly on 12 vibrating silicon legs, in random directions.
It is fun to make a maze out of blocks to see if it can find its way through.
It's durable, too.
Ours was able to drop off the kitchen table and even spent some time inside our dog's mouth.
Bringing a Softer Side to Policing in China
Like an urban drill sergeant, Tang Shenbin paced on a city square, sternly inspecting his nervous charges, issuing sotto voce commands with military authority.
He wanted the female members of chengguan - China's burly enforcers of urban order, feared and despised for their capricious crackdowns and penchant for violence - to convey a certain impression to a clutch of onlookers.
"Stand straight!"
"Look sharp!"
Show them, he whispered, "what pretty girls are like!"
Four barely-past-teenage girls in white gloves and identical olive jackets and pants snapped to attention.
Four pairs of black pumps lined up ruler-straight.
Four prim hats perched perfectly atop hair bound in blue and white striped bows.
"Personally, I think they are average-looking," Mr. Tang said, dismissively.
"Models are pretty."
More than one government has tried to brush up the image of China's urban inspectors.
One city mandated that all new recruits have a college degree.
Guangdong Province changed the gray-green uniforms to a supposedly more inviting blue.
Wuhan, in central China, substituted stare-downs for strong-arming: in 2009, one report stated, 50 officers encircled a wayward snack cart, glowering steadily for a half hour until the peddler packed up and left.
Xindu, an urban district of 680,000 in Chengdu, has chosen major image surgery.
Since 2003, the district has supplemented its urban street police with 13 women, specifically chosen for their looks, shapeliness and youth.
The idea is to give the rough-hewn police a softer, feminine side.
Unfortunately, even Scarlett Johansson might struggle to raise China's subterranean regard for these city squads.
And for good reason, critics would argue.
Unlike the police, these officers are authorized only to enforce city ordinances by imposing fines and other administrative penalties.
But the Chinese news media routinely portray a different reality.
In January 2008, Hubei Province inspectors beat a bystander to death after he used his cellphone to film them breaking up a protest against a waste dump.
Last year, a training manual for Beijing inspectors, pilfered and posted online, described how to effectively thrash offenders without drawing blood.
This year, a Shanghai watermelon peddler was left brain-damaged after a scuffle with five officers.
One violence-soaked video game, available for download online, features Chinese-trained inspectors who assault street vendors.
"Chengguan has scarred the government," China Daily, a national publication, lamented last year after yet another controversy over tactics.
The paper demanded a "truly thorough clean-up."
Skeptics say the approach here falls far short of that.
After the district advertised for eight new female recruits in October, an editorial in The Beijing Evening News questioned whether the women had actual duties or were simply scenic diversions.
The answer appears to be a little of both.
The district's advertisement called for female applicants 18 to 22 years old, with a good figure and "the five facial features in proper order."
They should be above-average height - taller than 1.6 meters or 5 feet, 2 ½ inches.
Retirement at age 26 is mandatory.
Officials said the job was physically too arduous for women over 25.
"Their image is the important thing," one unnamed district official told Rednet.com, a quasi-governmental Web site.
"First, the candidates' external qualities will determine if they make the cut, such as height, weight, facial features, etc."
Next comes temperament and "inner qualities."
Female chengguan are like flower vases, he said, adding, "Besides being vases, they will have other responsibilities."
Zheng Lihua, the deputy director of the district's city management bureau, is not eager to endorse that description.
But he noted that height requirements were standard in many Chinese job advertisements for both sexes.
So is the demand for orderly facial features.
Whether that means good-looking is a matter of debate among Chinese.
Certainly, the disabled or disfigured need not apply.
"We can't let a lame person or a hunchback come to serve here," Mr. Zheng said.
"His image would not be good."
Liu Yi, who patrols the Baoguang Square near a monastery, is 22, apple-cheeked with a finely curved mouth.
She does not consider the stress on her appearance to be sexist, she said.
"Do you think I look sexy in this uniform?" she asked with a wry look.
Said her dimpled co-worker, 21-year-old Xu Yang, "Our job is to present the city's image."
They do not object to their limited tenure either, they said, because they harbor career ambitions greater than simply shooing vendors into the alleyways where they are supposed to confine their business.
Every morning, the squad faces off against a dozen or so peddlers who dart around on foot or bicycle, trying to sell as many buns or bowls of tofu as possible before they are run off.
"Master Wang, you have to leave."
"We have told you many times!" said Ms. Xu as one vendor fled on foot, temporarily deserting his bicycle-drawn cart of noodle-fixings.
The officers describe their duties as more monotonous than strenuous.
"It is pretty much the same every day," said Huang Jing, 20, who studies marketing in her off hours.
"Very routine."
One reason is that female officers lack the power of their male counterparts to confiscate vendors' goods.
They can only threaten to report violators to their male supervisors.
That tends to shield them from the sudden public displays of animosity against officialdom that are common throughout China.
This year hundreds of citizens in Kunming, the Yunnan provincial capital, rioted after false rumors spread that chengguan officers had killed a vendor.
More than a dozen police or chengguan officers were injured in the nighttime episode; 14 government vehicles were overturned or set on fire.
Xindu has so far escaped such violence.
But calm is hardly guaranteed.
Just two blocks from placid Baoguang Square, where the female officers patrolled that morning, more than 50 people gathered on a street corner.
Officers had confiscated a motorcycle that was being repaired on the sidewalk instead of inside a shop, as regulations require.
The bike's owner was crying foul.
A 15-minute standoff ensued before the officers, grim-faced, elbowed their way to their vehicles and sped off with the motorcycle and its owner.
Li Xuedong, 40, a coordinator attached to the male squad, remained behind, his white badge flipped over to conceal his name.
Like the female officers, the coordinators - men age 40 or over - play a purely supportive role.
Unlike them, they are not schooled in maintaining a polished image.
"Sometimes we fight verbally."
"Sometimes we fight physically," Mr. Li said matter-of-factly.
"Most of the time it is the public who starts it."
Prosecutors won't charge Senator Ensign
Justice Department prosecutors have cleared Senator John Ensign of criminal allegations arising from his affair with a former campaign aide and his efforts to secure lobbying work for the woman's husband, the senator's lawyers announced Wednesday.
The decision ends the most serious legal threat facing Mr. Ensign, the Nevada Republican who was considered a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012 until the scandal over his affair made national headlines last year and damaged his career.
Mr. Ensign's office said he was "certainly pleased" by the decision, which followed a yearlong investigation.
The senator could still face disciplinary action by the Senate ethics committee.
Mr. Ensign's lawyers said the Justice Department had "informed us that Senator Ensign is no longer a target of its investigation and that it has no plans to bring any charges against him in this matter."
The Justice Department declined to comment on the case.
The announcement came as something of a surprise to many ethics lawyers outside the Justice Department, who said there appeared to be significant evidence to indicate that Mr. Ensign may have conspired to violate a criminal ban on federal lobbying.
Interviews, e-mail and other documents first disclosed in October 2009 in The New York Times indicated that Mr. Ensign had helped Douglas Hampton, who was one of his aides, secure lucrative lobbying work to win the silence of Mr. Hampton and his wife, Cynthia, about the senator's affair with her.
Mrs. Hampton once served as treasurer of an Ensign campaign.
Mr. Ensign contacted a number of political backers to find work for Mr. Hampton and then advocated on their behalf after they had hired Mr. Hampton to lobby for them, according to the documents and interviews.
Because Mr. Hampton had recently been an aide to Mr. Ensign, he was barred by law from lobbying his former employer or the Senate as a whole for a year.
Ethics experts said the unusual arrangement between Mr. Ensign and Mr. Hampton, who were close friends before the affair, appeared at odds with the so-called revolving door lobbying ban.
From the evidence that has been made public, "there appeared to be a prima facie case of a conspiracy to violate, and substantial violation of the revolving door statute," said Stanley Brand, a Washington lawyer who specializes in defending clients investigated by the government.
While Justice Department officials declined to explain the reasoning behind the decision in the Ensign case, Mr. Brand and other ethics lawyers said the department appeared wary of taking on political prosecutions after a number of high-profile setbacks for its public integrity section, including the decision last year to drop the prosecution against former Senator Ted Stevens amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct.
Federal prosecutors "are clearly gun shy," said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an advocacy group that brought several complaints against Mr. Ensign in the case.
"This basically says high-ranking government officials can now assume the laws don't apply to them," she added.
Paul Coggins, Mr. Ensign's lead lawyer, said in an interview that he received a phone call from a Justice Department prosecutor on Monday and a follow-up the next day, telling him that the department was not seeking charges against his client.
Mr. Ensign's defense team had been cooperating with prosecutors in trying to persuade them that the senator, as his office reiterated in a statement Wednesday, "acted in accordance with the law."
Mr. Coggins declined to spell out the legal arguments he made to prosecutors.
"I'm not comfortable going into the details of my discussions with the Justice Department except to say that we think they made the right decision," he said.
Last month, the Federal Election Commission decided to drop an investigation into a separate complaint by the ethics group alleging that a $96,000 payment from Mr. Ensign's parents to the Hamptons violated federal election law.
The election commission said it did not have enough evidence to prove the money was anything except a gift.
One company for which Mr. Ensign helped Mr. Hampton find lobbying work was NV Energy, a major Nevada company that had long supported the senator.
One e-mail sent in December 2008 showed that after the company brought Mr. Hampton on as a lobbyist, Mr. Ensign's chief of staff, John Lopez, communicated with Mr. Hampton and told him that he was "pounding" the Interior Department over an issue in dispute.
Mr. Ensign also attended a lunch with Mr. Hampton and another Nevada client, Allegiant Air, and called the transportation secretary to set up a meeting on the airline's behalf after it had hired Mr. Hampton to do lobbying work.
When news of the affair first surfaced last year, Mr. Ensign apologized to his constituents and resigned his position as the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the Senate.
After keeping a low profile for many months, Mr. Ensign told reporters two weeks ago that he planned to run for a third term in the Senate.
In announcing that Mr. Ensign was no longer the target of a criminal investigation, his spokeswoman, Jennifer Cooper, said the senator hoped the ethics committee would quickly follow the Justice Department's lead and end its inquiry.
"Senator Ensign looks forward to continuing his hard work on behalf of the people of Nevada," she said.
Cheshire Appeal Will Point to Twitter
There were half a dozen of them typing away in the courtroom rows.
Minute by minute, they sent out reports of gruesome testimony via Twitter.
In the end, the defense says, there were more than 140,000 Twitter messages about the trial that dealt with rape and children tied to their beds in a house that was set ablaze.
On Thursday, the widely followed trial of Steven J. Hayes, who was convicted of killing three members of a Cheshire, Conn., family, is set to come to an official end with the judge's imposition of the death sentence voted for by the jury.
But lawyers for Mr. Hayes have already made court filings that sketch out appeals arguments that are likely to occupy the courts for years.
One of the most provocative is that the intense reporting on the trial - including mainstream reporters' extensive use of Twitter - created a "circus atmosphere" and such widespread, instant saturation with inflammatory details that the jury was improperly swayed by public passions.
The claim could force appeals judges to grapple with the question of whether new technology requires new courtroom rules.
"As I experienced it during this trial, I think there's a real danger that the inclusion of new technology in the courtroom is affecting an individual's fair-trial rights," said Thomas J. Ullmann, Mr. Hayes's chief defense lawyer.
The trial judge, Jon C. Blue of State Superior Court, tersely rejected the claims in a ruling last week, saying that the news media were "carefully controlled" and that there was no evidence the jury was driven by passion.
But that is not likely to be the last word on the issue.
For decades, appeals courts have recognized that coverage of notorious cases can raise questions about a trial's fairness.
In a landmark 1966 ruling, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Cleveland osteopath, Dr. Sam Sheppard, for the murder of his wife, saying in its decision, Sheppard v. Maxwell, that there was a "carnival atmosphere at trial" because of the news media.
The crime is believed by some to have been the inspiration for the television show and the movie "The Fugitive."
Some lawyers said appeals courts reviewing Mr. Hayes's conviction half a century later might be intrigued by the argument that new rules could be necessary to govern ways of communicating from courtrooms unimagined at the time of Dr. Sheppard's case.
"There is a general reason for concern about the impact of the new media" in high-profile trials, said John J. Donohue III, a Stanford Law School professor who studied the Connecticut death penalty and wrote a report that said it was arbitrarily enforced.
Professor Donohue said some appeals judges might be intrigued by the idea that limiting instant communication from courtrooms might make trials fairer.
The Twitter issue is just one of many outlined by Mr. Hayes's lawyers that are likely to be argued for years, delaying an execution.
The defense lawyers also claim, for example, that Mr. Hayes may have been prejudiced when Judge Blue declined to allow them to test potential jurors' reactions by showing them grisly crime-scene photographs during jury selection.
Some of the jurors have said they were horrified by the photographs of the victims, Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11.
The defense lawyers say they will also challenge the constitutionality of the death penalty and argue that the judge wrongly removed a juror who had been critical of prosecutors and that he improperly added pressure for a verdict by his unusual decision to direct the jury to deliberate over a weekend.
The jurors were not sequestered.
But their arguments about the effect of the intense coverage of the trial may draw the most interest.
They noted in a challenge to the verdict filed last month that the case dominated the news in Connecticut and was discussed during the election campaign by candidates for governor and the United States Senate.
They argued that the news media continually fanned the flames of emotion about the case.
"The daily crush of media tweets, cameras and reporters outside the courthouse," the lawyers wrote, "was unlike anything ever seen here in New Haven and maybe statewide."
Their focus on the Twitter coverage is controversial.
In interviews, some journalists said the claim that instant news was more incendiary than reports delivered more slowly was a Luddite view that would make poor court policy governing coverage of future trials.
But some lawyers said appeals courts were often attracted to arguments that social and technological changes required adaptation by the courts.
Mr. Hayes's lawyers are pressing that claim.
In their filing, they referred to the Supreme Court's 1966 decision overturning Dr. Sheppard's conviction because of the trial coverage and made it clear they would claim that the new media required new rules.
"This case," they wrote, "represents the Sheppard v. Maxwell of the 21st century."
Can civility bridge the divide?
After a campaign notable for invective and negativity, a modicum of civility has broken out in Washington this week.
Is it a harbinger of genuine bipartisan cooperation ahead or an illusory moment before a quick return to partisan combat in the capital?
Tuesday's meeting between President Obama and congressional leaders produced no breakthroughs on the big issues that must be dealt with during the lame-duck session.
But by all accounts, it was at least a polite discussion of the two sides' differences as well as a recognition of their shared responsibilities to govern, rather than another empty episode of partisan point scoring.
Wednesday's public meeting of the president's deficit commission was equally civilized, despite the policy differences that remain among the members.
It seems clear that close interaction over a period of months produced a mutual respect that transcends the ideological gulf that still separates the members.
That's hardly enough to declare that a new era of cooperation has arrived.
Both sides are now in a period of testing - probing one another for signs of cooperativeness and compromise while trying to evaluate the limits of public opinion and voters' patience for renewed partisan warfare.
Which is why the meeting on Tuesday and the participants' reviews of it afterward were done with a minimum of demands or accusations.
The philosophical differences between Obama and the Republicans are too large and too deeply held to suggest any quick change in the climate that existed during the past two years.
Whether the issue is taxes, spending, health care or entitlements, the two sides remain miles apart.
Still, the November election has tempered Washington, at least in the short term.
"There's no question that tonally things have changed," said Pete Wehner, a Bush administration official now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
"Those are inevitable after elections.
Elections arouse partisan passions, and then they die down.
That is good."
On some issues, particularly those on the agenda for the lame-duck session, Republicans and Democrats have little choice but to find a solution.
The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, and nobody favors that.
Both sides want to find a way to preserve some or all of them, permanently or temporarily.
Similarly, compromise is likely on extending unemployment benefits, if only because Republicans can't afford to look like they favor tax cuts for the wealthy while denying jobless workers unemployment compensation.
After Tuesday's meeting at the White House, there is greater optimism for a possible deal on these issues during the lame duck session, along with ratification of the New START pact.
But William Galston of the Brookings Institution cautions that successful cooperation on the pressing issues of the lame-duck session will not necessarily lead to continued bipartisanship when the new 112th Congress convenes in January.
Instead, he said, a period of disagreement is likely, even inevitable.
"After things that have to get done get done, the psychology in the short term will revert to one of confrontation," he said.
Wehner, too, expressed skepticism - which is widely shared - that civility will lead to real cooperation.
"I view most of what happens between now and 2012 as an undercard, or shadow boxing, to the main event in 2012," he said.
The reasons have much to do with the makeup of the new Republican majority in the House and the tea party voters who were instrumental in creating it.
However mindful Republican leaders are of the dangers of overplaying their hand, they know they must try to live up to their promises to cut government spending and repeal the new health-care law.
Those partisan lines are already clear in the initial reactions to the deficit commission recommendations, which include reforming the tax code and raising some taxes, raising the retirement age and cutting spending.
Co-chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have taken on one of the most difficult jobs in Washington and have, in their own estimation, forced the issue of the deficit onto the public agenda in ways that can't be ignored.
But they need 14 votes on the 18-member commission to issue their plan as an official recommendation, and they have been struggling to get anywhere close to that number.
The greatest resistance is among the elected officials on the panel, suggesting that on fiscal issues there is, today at least, little grounds for or desire for compromise.
Galston predicts two phases in the battles between the White House and congressional Republicans.
The first will come next year in the form of partisan clashes, as Republicans challenge Obama on the budget, taxes and health care, followed later by a period of greater bipartisan cooperation.
What would cause the shift?
Public opinion.
There is considerable evidence that, despite the partisanship of the recent election, a majority of Americans still want to see the two parties work together.
If confrontation leads to stalemate, as it did in 1995, then both parties will be carefully watching the public reaction.
Whoever is judged to be losing is likely to shift course and seek compromise.
That, however, may be an optimistic view.
Partisanship and polarization are greater today than they were in the mid-1990s, and there appears to be a bigger ideological gap between Obama and congressional Republicans than there was between President Bill Clinton and the Republicans then.
At the same time, activists in both parties see 2010 as mere prelude to a more consequential election in 2012.
Given that reality, the civility on display this week may be welcomed by many Americans.
But it will take much more effort on the part of both sides to find common ground on the issues that still divide them.
Leaked U.S. document portrays Moscow as haven of corruption
Control of the city is in the hands of a "kleptocracy," and it passes on a portion of the bribes and protection money it collects all the way to the Kremlin, the U.S. Embassy in Russia reported in a memo in February.
Both the police and the Federal Security Service run huge protection rackets that help account for the high cost of living in Moscow, it said.
They collect money not only from legitimate businesses but from organized criminal groups as well.
Each layer of the bureaucracy - what Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has termed the "vertical of authority" - takes its cut as the money moves up the ladder.
The memo, which was sent to Washington under the name of Ambassador John Beyrle, was posted by WikiLeaks on its Web site Wednesday.
The memo is based on sources whose names have been redacted.
It was written while Yuri Luzhkov was still Moscow's mayor, and it blames him for much of the corruption.
He was fired in October by President Dmitry Medvedev, but there has been little evidence of a cleanup since then.
Luzhkov and his wife, Yelena Baturina, who owns a prominent construction firm, have consistently denied corruption accusations over the years, and he has won several libel suits over such accusations.
In September he told a Russian television station, when asked about a documentary suggesting he was corrupt: "It is mad, it is filth, it is a mess."
Russians overwhelmingly believe that theirs is a corrupt society, polls have shown.
But it is unusual to find the particulars spelled out as they were in the embassy's report, and it is unheard of that it should be diplomats from a foreign country doing so.
"The Moscow city government's direct links to criminality have led some to call it 'dysfunctional,' and to assert that the government operates more as a kleptocracy than a government," the memo says.
"Criminal elements enjoy a 'krysha' (a term from the criminal/mafia world literally meaning 'roof' or protection) that runs through the police, the Federal Security Service (FSB), Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), and the prosecutor's office, as well as throughout the Moscow city government bureaucracy.
"Analysts identify a three-tiered structure in Moscow's criminal world."
"Luzhkov is at the top."
"The FSB, MVD and militia are at the second level."
"Finally, ordinary criminals and corrupt inspectors are at the lowest level."
"This is an inefficient system in which criminal groups fill a void in some areas because the city is not providing some services."
The report says that the FSB rakes in money from the biggest firms, and that the police target small businesses.
One source, it said, "explained that Moscow business owners understand that it is best to get protection from the MVD and FSB (rather than organized crime groups) since they not only have more guns, resources, and power than criminal groups, but they are also protected by the law."
"For this reason, protection from criminal gangs is no longer so high in demand."
The memo notes that, while the collection of money is comprehensive, the protection itself can be spotty; even those who pay are sometimes subject to arrest.
Those who do not pay quickly find their businesses shut down on one pretext or another.
Medvedev has talked several times about fighting corruption but has admitted that he has made little headway.
The embassy memo relays reports of men taking suitcases, presumably stuffed with cash, into the Kremlin itself.
"In his fight against corruption, Medvedev has to rely on bureaucrats," Georgy Satarov, director of the Moscow think tank Indem, said in a recent interview.
"But he is a part of this bureaucracy."
"He is not part of a political class, because a political class doesn't exist in Russia anymore."
Without politics, without an opposition, without a separation of powers, he said, corruption is inevitable.
Nationwide, Indem estimates that corruption costs Russia more than $300 billion a year.
The country was ranked 154th in a recent survey on global perceptions of corruption by the nongovernmental organization Transparency International (countries are ranked from least to most corrupt).
The disclosure of the U.S. Embassy memo, which didn't occur until late evening Moscow time, is sure to stir displeasure within the Russian government, although to the extent that Luzhkov can be blamed for Moscow's failings, it might be an opportunity for the Kremlin to argue that it is solving the problem.
Interviewed for CNN by Larry King, Putin suggested that the WikiLeaks documents may be fabrications and reacted angrily to a disclosure that U.S. diplomats had called him Batman to Medvedev's Robin.
"The truth of the matter is, this is about our interaction, which is an important factor of the domestic policies in this country," he said.
"But to be honest with you, we didn't suspect that this would be done with such arrogance, with such a push and, you know, being so unethically done."
Khmer Rouge veterans forced to confront the past
In a dimly lighted concrete classroom with smudged and peeling walls, the principal of Anlong Veng High School recalled the man who had built it, the late Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok.
"Everyone here loves Ta Mok."
"He was a good leader, and he cared about his people," said Sreng Kor Ma, 42.
Known as "the Butcher" for his brutality during Khmer Rouge rule, the commander remains popular in this remote former Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwestern Cambodia, where he built hospitals, bridges and other infrastructure and where thousands of the organization's former soldiers still live.
But this year, 12 years after the Khmer Rouge surrendered to the government, long-held loyalties are finally being challenged in Anlong Veng.
In April, a local truth and reconciliation forum allowed victims to publicly confront people who had participated in the regime.
In June, the government distributed a high school textbook here that for the first time teaches the history of the Khmer Rouge to the children of its former soldiers.
And in July, a joint U.N. and Cambodian tribunal handed down its first conviction of a former Khmer Rouge member, sentencing the onetime chief of the notorious Tuol Sleng torture center, Kaing Khek Iev, better known as Duch, to 35 years in prison.
With each of those developments, anxiety has grown among Anlong Veng's Khmer Rouge veterans, complicating efforts at reconciliation and their attempts to reintegrate into Cambodian society.
"There is resentment and fear among the former Khmer Rouge, but they are powerless to do anything," said Chhang Youk, head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent organization that researches the regime.
"For them, life under the Khmer Rouge was glorious, but the regime has become symbolic of evil."
"It is creating divisions within families."
During the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia, from 1975 until 1979, an estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died from starvation, disease or overwork.
When the Vietnamese invaded and toppled the Pol Pot-led government in 1979, remnants of the regime and its military fled to Cambodia's border with Thailand.
There they launched an insurgency that endured until the last of the movement surrendered in December 1998.
As Pol Pot, Nuon Chea and Ieng Sary directed the guerrilla war from their bases in western Cambodia's mountains and jungles, Ta Mok cultivated a following in Anlong Veng.
But in the mid-1990s, after a U.N.-sponsored peace agreement led to the country's first democratic elections in 1993, large groups of Khmer Rouge fighters began defecting to the government, culminating in the surrenders of Ieng Sary in 1996 and Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan in 1998.
Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and Ta Mok, who had held out, was captured by government forces in 1999 in the nearby Dangrek Mountains.
He died in a Phnom Penh prison in 2006 while awaiting trial.
With their benefactors no longer providing for them, most former Khmer Rouge fighters have descended into the grinding poverty common in rural Cambodia, and many remain nostalgic for the movement.
Although a few elite Khmer Rouge officials kept their local government posts in exchange for laying down their arms, the rank and file remain poor, unskilled farmers.
"These people have benefited very little following the surrender," said Sok Leang of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation, which holds public forums throughout Cambodia, including in Anlong Veng.
"They are embedded with the utopian agrarian ideology of the regime."
"They were brought up with no concept of doing business."
Sor Lim, 55, who joined the Khmer Rouge as a teenager in 1974, fought in the jungle around Anlong Veng before settling down to life as a poor rice farmer in 1998.
"Life under the Khmer Rouge was good," he said.
"Ta Mok fed everyone."
"But now, life is difficult because we have to provide for ourselves."
The ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal has also provoked worries here.
Early next year, the court is expected to begin trying Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan, Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, another former Khmer Rouge minister.
The court's mandate is to prosecute senior leaders and those most responsible for crimes, but it has not said whether it will pursue cases beyond those four.
This has done little to calm fears in Anlong Veng.
Recent media speculation has centered on Im Chaem, 64, who was a district chief in Banteay Meanchey province during Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s.
In 2007, she told researchers from the Documentation Center of Cambodia that she had supervised construction of the Trapeang Thma dam, a project in which thousands of forced laborers are thought to have died.
On a sweltering recent evening, Im Chaem returned from working in the fields to her wooden stilt house on a dirt road outside Anlong Veng.
As the sun cast long shadows across the parched grass, Im Chaem declined to discuss her past in the Khmer Rouge.
If the court summoned her, she said, she would refuse to go.
"Cambodia is at peace and stable," she said.
"If there are more prosecutions, there will be war."
Prime Minister Hun Sen, who defected from the Khmer Rouge in 1978, has also repeatedly warned that instability will occur if the court pursues more suspects, although experts and historians dispute that.
"Cambodia must dig a hole and bury the past," he has said.
But confronting the past is just what Cambodia must do to move forward, said Chhang Youk, of the documentation center.
"Reconciliation in Khmer terms is reconnecting the broken pieces," he said.
"It's our obligation to put these broken pieces together so that we can understand."
The center produced the first government-approved textbook about the Khmer Rouge, the 75-page "A History of Democratic Kampuchea."
It distributed it in Anlong Veng in June as a supplement to the Education Ministry's high school history textbook, which contains fewer than four pages about the Khmer Rouge.
As in much of Cambodia, Anlong Veng's young people know few details about the Khmer Rouge, despite the town's connection to the regime.
Touch Valeak, 19, a student at Anlong Veng High School, said the new textbook was helping students understand an important part of their history.
But his parents reacted with skepticism when he took the book home to study.
"My family rejects many parts of the textbook and the tribunal," he said.
"They are suspicious because they are not sure how many people the court will prosecute."
Such resistance has made the reconciliation process complex and difficult, Sok Leang said.
But the public forums, the textbook and the tribunal are beginning to have an impact, he said.
Still, the Khmer Rouge retains a powerful allure here.
Up in the Dangrek Mountains, a path overgrown with weeds and strewn with discarded plastic bags leads to a rectangle of black soot covered by a rusted tin roof.
Pol Pot's body was burned here on a pile of tires after his death in 1998.
Nuom Sothea, 31, a roadside cellphone vendor, said she didn't know much about the man who was cremated there.
"But he has a strong spirit, and many local people go there to pray to him," she said.
It was Nuom Sothea's birthday, and later that day she planned to walk to Pol Pot's final resting place, where she would leave a bunch of ripe bananas in hopes of bringing good luck.
Belarus agrees to give up its stock of weapons-grade uranium
In a surprise victory for President Obama's campaign to secure nuclear material worldwide, the government of Belarus announced Wednesday that it will give up its stock of highly enriched uranium, a critical component of nuclear weapons.
The deal was disclosed in a joint statement issued after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met with Belarusan Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov on the sidelines of a security summit here.
The U.S. government had been trying for years to persuade Belarus to give up its highly enriched uranium and seemed to have hit a roadblock last spring.
But U.S. officials told The Washington Post that a pair of classified operations were carried out with Belarus in the past two months to remove 187 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from a Belarusan research facility.
That set the stage for Wednesday's agreement to remove the rest of the material - about 500 pounds' worth, according to one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The agreement appeared to be one of the most important results of Obama's 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit in April, which excluded Belarus.
And it was apparently good enough to secure the former Soviet republic's invitation to the follow-up summit, in 2012.
"I was really fascinated by the fact they want a seat at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit."
"That proves to me this process is working," said Ken Luongo, president of the Partnership for Global Security, a group promoting nuclear security.
Clinton called the agreement "a very significant, important step" by Belarus.
Obama pledged in Prague in April 2009 to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years.
Since then, the U.S. government has helped six countries get rid of all their highly enriched uranium.
Belarus would be the seventh.
A dozen countries did so under the George W. Bush administration.
At the time of Obama's Nuclear Security Summit, Belarusan President Alexander Lukashenko had declared that the nation would never give up its uranium.
"We have kept highly enriched uranium - hundreds of kilograms of what is basically weapons-grade and lower-enriched uranium," Lukashenko said then.
"This is our commodity... We are not going to make dirty bombs, and we are not going to sell it to anybody."
"We're using it for research purposes, is all."
Belarus approached the United States a few months ago, however, indicating interest in reaching an agreement.
The first undertaking to remove Belarus's uranium, in October, was especially complicated because the material had been slightly irradiated, officials said.
It was loaded onto a special train that traveled more than 1,300 miles to a Russian facility for storage and disposal, officials said.
The second operation concluded Monday and was done by plane, according to the officials.
The U.S. government spent $13 million on the efforts, much of it to supply Belarus's research facility with low-enriched uranium, which is not suitable for nuclear weapons.
"This was very carefully coordinated and orchestrated to build up the trust" that led to the agreement signed by Clinton, said Andrew Bieniawski, an Energy Department official working on Global Threat Reduction.
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimated this year that Belarus had at least 88 pounds of weapons-grade uranium, as well as hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium.
Belarus will aim to eliminate its stockpile by 2012, according to the joint statement.
Relations between Belarus and the United States have been strained for years, primarily because of Lukashenko's harsh repression of human rights.
But Wednesday's statement suggested a potential thawing.
"Welcoming progress on these global security issues, the United States and Belarus acknowledged that enhanced respect for democracy and human rights in Belarus remains central to improving bilateral relations, and is essential to the progress of the country and its citizens," it said.
The Spanish Government did not raise objections regarding the flights of CIA
The Spanish Government did not raise objections regarding the flights of CIA with Taliban prisoners and of Al Qaeda that were going to Guantánamo via Spanish territory, according to the the USA ambassador in Madrid's telegram.
Thus is reflected through the filtered documents (cables) by Wikileaks to the newspaper El País, where it is added that the first vice-president of the Government at that time, Maria Teresa Fernandez of the Vega, asked that the Spanish Executive was informed in order " to be able to demonstrate that they had carried out appropriate monitoring procedures on the foreign aircraft that cross Spain."
In June 2006, after a report of the European Council where there were accusations of complicity in practices against human rights in a dozen countries, among which is Spain,a meeting took place between the ex- North American ambassador Eduardo Aguirre and Fernandez de la Vega.
The vice-president recognized that the council's report "had taken the Government of Zapatero outside the game" and insisted that Spain did not have anything to hide regarding this matter.
"De la Vega emphasized that Spain does not raise objection for the intelligence flights over Spanish territory."
"They simply want to be informed" in order to avoid being "caught by surprise," Aguirre relates in a telegram.
Also the ex-Minister of External Affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos, indicated to the ambassador that the Spanish Executive "wanted to give this issue as little attention as possible, although being in the hands of the judges, the Government had a limited influence."
On the other hand, in January 2007, the public prosecutor Vicente González transmitted to the Embassy that he would not try to block the initiative of the judge of requesting the declassification of documents of the National Center of Intelligence (CNI) and of the ministry of Defense regarding the flights of the company"
This information does not contain any incriminatory element nor any sensitive information," explained the Embassy after speaking with the public prosecutor.
Nevertheless, the USA reflected on its preoccupation for "the apparent coordination between the Spanish judge and German public prosecutors," more than the declassified information of the CNI or the ministry of Defense.
"This coordination between independent investigators will complicate our efforts to handle discreetly the case between Governments"; says Aguirre.
In March 2007 during a lunch between the ambassador of the USA and minister of the Internal Affairs, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, this one commented to him that " although the Spanish judges are rabidly jealous of their independence and will do what they consider to be right," he had given instructions to his collaborators " to avoid commentaries of inflamed rhetoric, in an attempt to reduce the temperature."
The ambassador also expresses his preoccupation for the action of the PP in this matter.
"In spite of his pro American general orientation, our experience suggests that the PP won't doubt in capitalizing any indication that the Government of Zapatero tolerated or deliberately ignored actions of the USA that could be interpreted as possible violations of the human rights, even if these revelations have negative consequences for the Government of the USA," indicates.
The parricide complained of the the "burden" of being a mother
The young lady spoke of the baby when he was already dead and she kept a blog: "Terror of the Galician"
Mónica Juanatey Fernandez is "Muki" in the network.
With this nickname, that she has used since since she was young, she communicated with a cousin, and at least one friend, both of them from Noia, the town of Corua where she was born.
The messages are from 2008.
In order to understand them, it is necessary to know the personal life that ABC reconstructs through her relatives' testimonials.
The young lady from Galicia, 30 years, initiated a relation in 1998 with Iván Túñez, an industrialist.
This affair lasted one year.
They decided to split, soon after they found out that she was pregnant.
He wanted to know if the baby was his, but his ex never allowed him to take the DNA test.
Soon after that she found someone else.
The man she chose was was Alberto, a man from Lousame, a neighboring municipality.
She remained with him for a long period of time.
Caesar lived with them.
When the girl went to the Balearic Islands to test the labour market, the child remained with her au pair that accompanied her for one week in Palma.
But in the content of her messages, one can see that their romance had ended, it was broken up.
In March 2008 in Menorca, single, she writes: "Alberto is very weird and upset, because I have come here to work."
"When I told him this he seemed to be happy, sure, but now he realizes how hard it is to stay with the child all day long and not to have the freedom of doing what he wants";
Then, she speaks of a message received on her mobile phone that reads: "I want you to come this month or give me an address to which I can send you the child."
She adds: "If he doesn't like leaving the child with my mother, I will take him when I get back."
In May, she speaks about her return to town: "I will go there this week, but I will only stay until the 19th, because on the 20th I must present myself at work."
She clarifies that if everything goes well, she will keep her first-born child.
"From now on he will stay with whom he must stay, meaning with me and I will never in my life leave him again with somebody else except for my mother" doubtful intention given her bad relationships.
In July, there is another post.
When she writes it, it is assumed that the boy, who arrived at the island on the 1st of that month, and supposedly was assassinated on 10th, is already dead.
"Caesar is in contented on the one hand, but not on the other hand."
On the one hand he is with me and he likes the location, but on the other hand he is going to classes almost every day."
She speaks of a transfer to Mallorca.
"He will go to summer classes there, and thus I can save some money."
On the 17th, there are memories and complaints.
"Hugs from Caesar, who asked me when you'l come back."
"Alberto says that he sent I do not know what videos to the email and as you can see when he wants he can find me."
On the 30th, another one: "The boy is well; he goes to summer classes to learn Catalan."
About Victor, there is one: "He gives me money."
On the Internet there are messages of her in blogs dedicated to animation.
She even had one of her own in MySpace universe, where she called herself "Muki the ex prisoner."
"Terror of the Galician woman (inscription)."
The last man, who lived with her, declares his grief for feeling guilty.
He does not want to think that everything has happened for not having told him that she was a single mother.
Mónica entered yesterday in the provincial prison of Palm, coming from the center of judicial prisoners of Menorca.
Carlos Maceda, the appointed lawyer, explained that he does not remember how the facts occurred, "nor that he had the intention to cause any minor pain."
Before, yes she confessed that she had drowned Caesar in the bathtub and deposited his corpse in a suitcase.
The defence and the public prosecutor asked for a psychiatric test.
The popular would gain 4 seats in the Congress and the PSC would lose 9
With the results of the 28-N, the PP could be decisive in the municipalities of Lérida, Tarragona and Barcelona
After the important increase in the votes and experienced deputies in the recent autonomic elections, the Catalan PP is already thinking to the general elections, is there and advance or not?, the outlook is more than positive, since the number of votes that this formation obtains in those elections usually doubles the ones received during the Catalan elections.
Thus, the popular Catalans obtained 610.473 votes in the general elections of 2008, whereas in the autonomic ones of 2006, the number dropped to to 316.222.
Last Sunday, the PPC obtained 384.091 votes.
If this upwards tendency ensures a transfer of votes PSC votes and the loyalty of the electorate of the PP. Analysts of this formation have calculated that, if general elections took place, the PPC could get from 8 to 12 deputies in the Congress, whereas CIU would also gain four (now it has 10) and the PSC would lose nothing less than 9 deputies (it has 25).
These calculations would observe that the Catalan area is fundamental for PP and PSOE.
According to the opinion polls, ERC would lose a deputy - it currently has three- whereas ICV would remain with a deputy or would gain one.
But, if the electoral calendar remains established, the immediate appointment will take place in May of 2011 with the municipal elections, where the popular seats can also be decisive in the aim of the socialist hegemony in the four capitals of the province and their change to the front of the Delegation of Barcelona, one of the administrations that handles the biggest budget - 661 million Euros for 2011-.
Nationalists' as much as popular ones coincide in the possibility that the PSC loses the city councils of Barcelona, Tarragona, Lérida and Gerona, where the Socialists would not obtain the majority nor the possibility of appealing to their traditional partners, ERC and ICV.
Given the republican fiasco, it would not be a surprise for this formation to lose its representation in the Town hall of Barcelona - it is needed to obtain 5% of the votes.
The PP has increased its number of votes in the four capitals and could be a decisive force in Barcelona, Lérida and Tarragona.
The nationalists are convinced of being able to carry out the upset in the capital of Tarragona, where they governed with the PP before the present socialist mayor, Josep Felix Ballesteros.
In Lérida, the PP has been placed only to 500 votes of the PSC, whose mayor, Ángel Ros, maintains very good relations with Mariano Rajoy - during this last campaign, they met in several occasions.
The popular ones have also grown in other important municipalities like Badalona, Castelldefels or Reus.
At the moment, the PP is present in 34 municipal governments in Catalonia and aspires to form lists in the maximum number of populations.
The Catalan group facilitated thousands of passports to Al Qaida
Besides the seven prisoners in Barcelona, in Thailand there were three
The seven Pakistanis and the Nigerian one stopped by agents of the General Barcelona police intelligence formed a jihadist group that, directed from Thailand, facilitated passports to different groups of Al Qaida, among them " The Tigers for the Liberation of Tamilm Territory" (LTTE) and " Laskar and Taiba" (Let), author this last one of the attacks of Bombay that caused the death of 106 people in 2008.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has paid attention to these investigations, until the point of assuring that with "Kampai" operation; it has been " weaken" the apparatus of falsification of Al Qaida at an international level and, " therefore, its operative capacity."
The investigators calculate that the cell, during the two years that has been active in Catalonia, has been able to send thousands of passports to Thailand, where they were falsified and soon distributed to the groups that integrate the criminal galaxy Al Qaida so that its " combatants" can cross the European borders and the ones of other western countries with total impunity.
The dismantled cell is not the only one that the jihadist network had in Europe, for this reason in the investigations there have participated, besides the Thailand services, other European police units, reason why it does not discard that in territory of the EU occur similar events to the one developed the night of Tuesday in Barcelona.
In coordination with this operation (The Pakistani Junaid Humayun, Atiqur Rehman, Jabran Asghar, Malik Iftikhar Ahmad, Mohammad Saddique Khan Begum, Tanveer Arshad and the Nigerian Babatunde Agunbiade were all stopped), in Thailand another one had developed with the capture of the Pakistanis Muhammad Athar Butt and Zeeshan Ehsan Butt and the Thai Sirikanlaya Kijbumrung.
The group seated in Spain and other European countries was directed from Bangcock
The Catalan network - part of it was struck in 2009 - mainly robbed passports to tourists who fulfilled the requirements marked by the call "Worldwide Islamic front."
That is to say, the documents had to be in the name of men among 25 and 45 years, with validity of several years and without printed visas.
In the means of investigation it is emphasized that, for the moment, no data has been found related to the persons arrested in Catalonia regarding the attack of Bombay, although the author of this attack, " Laskar e Taiba" , has been one of the receiving groups of the passports robbed in Spain and soon falsified in Thailand.
However, it should be mentioned that days before this committed attack, from Catalonia there were sent through an agency of transferences about some thousands of dollars that were "invested" in the purchase of mobile phone cards that soon were used by the members of the "commando" that ended the life of 106 people.
The Policemen have captured a lot of documentation.
The PP asks Mas to postpone the fiscal concert
The leader of the PPC, Alicia Sanchez-Camacho, had yesterday was able to personally present her conditions for supporting his investiture as president of the Catalan Autonomous Government to Artur Mas, identical to ones already raised during the campaign and that resume themselves in giving priority to the recovery of the economy and giving up phylo-sovereignty, as it is the economic concert that the nationalist leader wants to raise in the line of his mandate.
The president of the popular Catalans went to the Artur Mas meeting with the security of having obtained 18 deputies in last Sunday's elections, a number more than sufficient to be assumed popular, since the candidate of CiU needs that at least one of the formations that will force the opposition to abstain in the investiture voting.
On the possible agreement with the PP depend the future alliances that the nationalists want to remain in the Congress when general elections are held, but, at the moment, the conversations that Mas maintains with the rest of the political leaders in Catalan is key.
As regards the president of the PP, for supporting an investiture "she will have to make all the sovereign and independent speeches," as well as the economic concert - similar to the one of the Basque Country - that the convergent leader tries to put under referendum.
Both leaders have their gamble of using a very inflated autonomic administration and eliminating the successions and donations tax.
Of the details of the negotiation on the investiture of which Mas will take care, on behalf of the PPC, Jordi Cornet and Dolors Montserrat.
Mas has already met Joaquim Nadal (PSC) - who promised a hard opposition, Joan Herrera (ICV) and today he will do the same with Joan Puigcercós (ERC), Albert Rivera (Ciutadans) and Joan Laporta (Catalan Solidaritat).
The geriatrician affirms that the deaths were caused by "lack of means"
The owners of the center of Olot do not discard that their attendant killed more than 11 elderly people
The people in charge with the geriatric hospital La Caritat de Olot (Gerona) offered a press conference yesterday in order to underline the damage that has caused to the institution the criminal conduct of Joan Vila Dilmé, the nurse who while there killed at least eleven elderly people that he had under surveillance.
The director of the residence, Joan Sala, appeared accompanied by the centre's lawyer, lawyer Joan Canada, and announced that " the intention of La Caritat would to pin the blame on the individual responsible for of the deaths but "legality and responsibility forces us to assume the procedural situation of civil responsible people."
And that besides the social loss of prestige that the organization can encounter for not having detected in time the criminal activities of the watchman, the great threat for the Caritat has now takes the shape of of a substantial indemnification that is already calculated by the legal representatives of the relatives of the victims.
Joan Vila Dilmé has confessed that the first crime goes back to August 2009 and that since then he didn't stop killing.
The judge already mentioned in the document that ordered the exhumation of eight bodies - old patients of the geriatric hospital- whom she suspected that in many cases no doctor personally explored the dead bodies but, taking into account the age and the pathologies of the patients, the procedure was made by phone.
La Caritat, through its director, fully denied this end yesterday and mentioned that "the lack of measures couldn't have been at any moment the cause of what had happened."
The lawyer of La Caritat added that "in the cause there is no indication that there has been an imprudent action on the part of any other person who is not the guilty one."
The one baptized as "Angel of Death" confessed 11 murders the day before yesterday and detailed that he committed the first crime on the 29th of August of 2009 and a month and a half later, killed another grandmother.
In this case an overdose of insulin brought her the death; unlike the first crime he committed with a mixture of sedative tablets.
The director of the Caritat says that it is complicated to control that the personnel of the center have access to medicines.
The overdose of insulin and the sedative cocktail would have been the mechanism used in six of the nine crimes that the nurse, in his eagerness to alleviate the suffering of the patients, used or killing them.
But the tests that are being carried out in the laboratory will have to clarify if Vila is not lying and tried to assure for his first victims a less cruel death or if, on the contrary, burned them internally by giving them lye as he already confessed that had done with the three women that he killed between the 12th and the 17th of October.
In La Caritat they do not give credibility to the appearance of the watchman, nor to the number of confessed murders, that they do not refute being superior, and justifies his attitude in the different versions that Vila has given in his visits to the court and the nonsense of changing his method of killing after having successfully committed, eight murders.
This is why they say they put themselves at the disposal of justice to clarify the reach of this event.
The BCE threatens
The investors suddenly reacted yesterday to the threat of Trichet that noticed that "the markets do not have to underestimate our ability to react."
The differentials of peripherals have closed by force and the rates of the European banks have raised more than 5%.
However, we do not have to underestimate the capacity of the BCE in being mistaken and the Euro has just dipped again which is a worrisome signal.
What happened yesterday is characteristic of a non liquid market that collapses and recovers but motivated by the closing of short and very speculative positions.
The institutional investors will take time in regaining confidence.
A month ago the BCE called us today to retire liquidity measures and will spend time tomorrow to retire by fourth time in two years and those that are left.
The Bundesbank demanded to finalize the plan of purchase of ineffective national debt and to eliminate all the extraordinary measures of liquidity on credit, leaving only limitless access by week.
After the Irish crisis we hoped that they prolong the present measures of liquidity "at least until March" and maintain the quarterly auction with limitless access by the end of the trimester in order to guarantee the liquidity at least until June.
We also hope that they continue with their program of vouchers purchase and give signs of intensifying it.
If they do not fulfil the generated expectations they will transform the excellent reaction of the markets yesterday and if they continue being blinded by retiring liquidity measures, Good Lord!
As happened during the meeting of May when they affirmed that they had not contemplated the vouchers purchase and collapsed the markets, tomorrow history could repeat itself.
The BCE must be credible and persistent.
In May announced the bazooka on Monday and on Wednesday said that it had already bought too much, bringing about a new collapse of the market.
The auction of bills organized once a year in Portugal were very poor yesterday.
The Treasury only distributed 500 million to 5,28%, versus 750 million to 4.81% of the previous auction.
Even so the types in Portugal fell 30 basic points in the entire curve, reflecting clearly a change in the market feeling after the words of Trichet.
In Ireland, the Allied and Bank of Ireland deficit figured had been made public.
The considered numbers are about 10.000 million in the short term and another 15.000 are potentials. Until February they have to obtain private capital or will be nationalized.
Although Ireland does not have any credibility for not having detected the problem in July with the economic stress test, the numbers are acceptable within the Plan of Aid and help in reducing the level of uncertainty.
However, the next Tuesday, the Government will have to secure the parliamentary approval of its new budget and still doesn't have sufficient support, reason why Ireland continues being an uncertainty center.
Angela Merkel has moderated the tone of her speech in order to relax the tension facing the next Summit of Presidents and Government on the 14th of December where it is necessary a political commitment that could demonstrate that we are a union and that goes in the same direction.
The problem is that Germany wants to play Wagner and the rest the hymn of joy of Beethoven.
In Spain, the president had the opportunity to present yesterday the set of measures that will be approved on Friday by the Cabinet.
The Reformation of pensions, transparency in independent communities and financial organizations, reduction of the deficit, liberalization, privatization, measures for reactivating jobs sound in the ears of the investors as the four seasons of Vivaldi.
The double effect of Trichet and ZP explain that the Spanish stock-market has raised 4,5%, double compared to the rest of European stock-markets.
Unlike February, the reaction of the Government and the Bank of Spain has been fast and forceful and we are benefiting from the surprise effect.
Today there is a key auction of a voucher to three years that will be having the Trichet effect, reason why we hope that it will be solved with increased demand and will help dissipating the doubts on our capacity of refinancing.
For Spain asking for a Plan of Aid would be a self sacrifice.
They would give us a line of liquidity that we did not need, the Treasure has more than 40.000 million available in liquidity the triple compared to March, to the most expensive types and closes the access to the markets indefinitely.
However, the strategy must continue being the one of the woman of Caesar, "besides being, looking like."
Come on, we can do it.
The president of Eulen will contest the meeting of Vega Sicilia requested by his children
The storm does not moderate the Alvarez family conflict, proprietors of Eulen and El Enebro.
David Alvarez, founder of the group, will oppose, by considering "null and void," the judicial meeting of En Enebro of the 16th, required by five of his seven children and when they try to impose their majority and take control of the management organs of the company that owns the Vaga Sicilia warehouses.
David Alvarez and his children Jesus David and Maria Jose are taking into consideration the legal battery for the new judicial chapter in their litigation for the control of part of the group.
The founder of the greatest holding company of enterprise services does not seem willing to give up in his litigation in order to be present in the control systems of El Enebro.
From his council of administration he was taken off by five of his seven children who appointed themselves administrators in the council of shareholders on 18th of January of this year and whose opposition is written down in the Mercantile Registry.
The judicial meeting of El Enebro arranged for the 16th, summoned by the magistrate of Mercantile Affairs Number 2 of Madrid, has caused havoc yet again in the Alvarez family.
The appeal to the judge for determining the assembly is, until the conflict is solved, the single legal mechanism that guarantees the meeting's convention.
The last actions of Juan Carlos, Pablo, Emilio, Marta and Elvira Alvarez Mezquiriz, is described by David Alvarez as a "desperate appeal by the representatives of his five children who, by means of procedural subtlety, clearly infringing the Law and abusing the right, try to confirm and change the meeting of the 18th of January as null," according to his official spokesmen.
This argumentation will be the basis on which to establish that: once the meeting has been held, he will reject considering it "null and void."
The same protagonists, who maintain a discreet silence, have already tried without success to have the magistrate summon a meeting in June.
In El Enebro, patrimonial society holder of the Warehouses Vega Sicilia, among others assets, the seven children of David Alvarez control the 100% of the capital.
The founder of the service group claims, nevertheless, the usufruct on 51% of the capital, according to the familiar protocols.
This subject is the basic aspect that has to be decided by the judge once celebrated the meeting on the demand of opposition, for which the date is no indicated yet.
Red Bull triumphs in F1 with its secret weapon: Siemens.
There is software that can design improvements to the cars in real time.
Since Red Bull entered the world of Formula 1 in 2004, its history in this select universe of speed has been marked by surprise and success.
Initially nobody considered the options of a team that just arrived, in spite of the ascending trajectory of the last seasons, last November, in the final race of the championship all bet on the triumph of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.
Without losing part of his reputation as champion driver, the German Sebastian Vettel, nor the power of the Renault motor that drives his car, in the world of Formula 1 " the secret weapon that the multinational Siemens has put into the hands of Red Bull in order to turn it into a winning team has become a legend.
In fact it is powerful simulation software that the German company marketed in 2007 with aims very far away from the high automobile competition.
Denominated PLM, this powerful computer science instrument has been used to design assembly chains for manufacturing factories, energy plants, instruments of high precision.
The objective is to reproduce, to faithfully simulate the product or the process before constructing it in a real mode, avoiding this way failures and avoidable expenses.
Plm has facilitated the development of the cameras of Canon, the airplanes of Sukhoi or the most famous utilitarian cars of Nissan.
Siegfried Russwurm, person in charge of the Siemens industrial division, explains that the use of this computer science instrument in his F1 factory has allowed Red Bull to design and make "in a few hours, almost in time real," the modifications, changes and improvements that are needed during the races and tests.
Russwurm explains that the team in 1992 had an average of 10 technicians who were able to introduce a maximum of three or four improvements to the vehicles during every season.
Red Bull has 180 professional young people with high qualifications working today who, equipped with powerful computer science equipment, analyse and project all kind of modifications to the cars.
The Siemens manager explained that the software PLM is able to analyse and improve all elements of Red Bull cars except for the engine, which is the entirely the responsibility of Renault.
The materials, fuel, aerodynamics and elements of security are being modified.
The changes can be taken from the virtual reality of the simulator to the reality in 24 hours, thanks to advanced production systems by means of laser and autoclaves of high tech.
The only limitation of this spark of technological improvement is the figure of 40 million dollars that each team of Formula 1 can spend at the most every season in order to facilitate the competition.
Red Bull has build a high-tech factory for designing and producing its cars in a locality about 50 KM from London.
There are two buildings in which visits are restricted, especially for journalists.
Everything that occurs there is considered "Top Secret."
The factory has 580 employees, including its two drivers, the champion Vettel and Mark Webber.
The Red Bull hero, without any doubt, is the recent champion Sebastian Vetell.
Among the immense technological resources that the energetic drink brand has put to the service of its participation in the circuits, other protagonists hide whose contribution is inestimable and their notoriety unrecognised.
The head of technology at the factory, Steve Nevey, affirms that five years ago it was possible to affirm that the advances of I+D in the cars contributed to 50% to the victories and the drivers were responsible for the rest.
Today these percentages have varied and the technology adds 85% of the success, while the drivers contribute with 15% to the added value.
Nevey recognizes that neither Vettel or Webber will never be replaced by computer science since "they are indispensable gladiators."
HP will open in two years 20 own stores with local distributors
Hewlett-Packard (HP) inaugurated yesterday in Barcelona its first exclusive store in collaboration with its partner Pont Reyes.
This it will be first of the network of 20 stores having among 80 and 100 square meters that the multinational anticipates to open in Spain during the next two years.
The company will make compatible this initiative with the 16 areas already present in big centers as PC City, Carrefour, Saturn and El Corte Ingles.
The vice-president of HP Spain, Helena Herrero, gave as example the remodelled store located in the Barcelonan Gran Via, property of Pont Reyes, with whom she collaborated for 30 years.
The North American group has prepared a plan to open 200 points of sale in Europe in 2013, strategy which includes the 20 Spanish establishments.
The first ones to open were in Bucharest (Rumania) and Belgrade (Serbia) the last week, being Barcelona.
Herrero did not want to reveal the following possible openings, although she recognized that Madrid could be the following destiny.
Also the director of HP on personal systems assured that the philosophy to open the stores will be always the same, based on a local distributor with experience and knowledge of the sector.
The North American group provides consultancy services and is in charge with the exclusive furniture design of the stores (with products that can be touched of interactive form), that in Europe will have an identical image.
In addition, HP covers the formation of the personnel of the establishments.
Helena Herrero denied that it was a system of franchise and emphasized that the exclusive network of commerce tries "to improve the service towards the client and the SMEs in the purchase, the attention, post-selling and even packing."
The Barcelona store includes a space with a pioneering pilot program at a world-wide level that is in charge with solving the possible problems of a computer science equipment of HP still with guarantee.
An online service connects a technical center located in the Maastricht (Holland).
"Thus, in 10 minutes we can resolve problems that sometimes can last up to two days."
"This system is especially designed for SMEs and users, since the great companies already have contracted services of technical attendance," mentioned Helena Herrero yesterday.
Sabadell bets on "stealing" one million clients from its rivals in three years
More optimistic than other managers, the delegated advisor of Sabadell Bank, Jaime Guardiola, thinks that 2011 will be a hard year for the bank, but discards initially a new crisis of liquidity and predicts the end of the war of liabilities.
In spite of it, he anticipates a collapse of the margins of interests that will try to partly compensate with raised commissions and the price of the credit.
Sabadell hopes to catch in three years a million particular clients.
Sabadell has found a way of exploiting the next three years and being able to survive in very complicated economic surroundings.
The bank will start up in 2011 a new director plan that will have a validity of three years.
The objective, besides surviving without needing to appeal to the public aid of FROB, is to gain market quota by getting a million of new particular clients -700.000 if are discounted those that might leave the bank, pending on assignment, since until now they spoiled more the SMEs and companies than the retail client.
This year has caught 250.000 particular clients and 50.000 companies.
Its market quota of individuals is of 3,5%, whereas in companies surpasses 10%.
Another base of the plan 2011-2013 is the bet on productivity, meaning, of austerity, with reduction of costs as objective, and whose challenges will be exhibited by the bank when presenting the results of the exercise.
Few banks dare during these times to set objectives and make them public since the financial crisis has changed all of the plans for the global bank.
Sabadell, in fact, will close this year its director plan Optima, hired four years ago, although initially it was for three, but the market conditions forced him to extend it into one more year.
The clients who give up savings will be his main objective.
During a breakfast organized by the APIE, Guardiola insisted that 2011 " is going to be a difficult and transcendental year."
The executive, in fact, thinks that the exit of the crisis in Spain "will be slow."
In addition, in two or three years there will be "very difficult to create jobs," something fundamental for the survival of the banking business.
And, although he thinks that the war of the liabilities - that penalizes the margins- is being reduced, the price of the risk subsidies that banks are paying for their emissions in order to obtain liquidity are already moving to the cost of the credit to compensate the fall of the margins.
The subject of liquidity and financing is fundamental, and is going to be a pressure factor on credit.
"We haven't closed the faucet, but the differentials are more important," recognized Guardiola.
Banesto already issued orders on Thursday to his network to limit the long term credit and to raise the price of the differentials - See CincoDías from 22nd and 27th of November.
Also he recognized that the tendency of the bank now "it is to raise the commissions," but "within a competitive frame."
The director plan of Sabadell is based on the organic growth, although, as always, the group does not discard corporative operations.
Not in vain, assures that in Spain "major sizes are going to be required."
"Next year everything will move," he assured.
He affirms that capital needs have "risen too much" and it does not discard that some Spanish financial organization enters within red numbers.
And he mentions that the FROB can replace the market in fundraising before new recapitalizations.
After assuring that Sabadell can survive the temporary closing of the markets, he pays attention to which some bankers already predicted as a new crisis of liquidity.
He says that there cannot be emitted, but unlike to what had happened in June, is possible to obtain short term financing through agreements, which softens the crisis.
The CECA discards a second big wave of fusions in the saving banks
The chief of a main directorate of the CECA, Jose Antonio Olavarrieta, discarded yesterday that a big wave of fusions of savings banks is going to take place and insisted once again on the speed with which the reconstruction of the sector is being made.
When the process of concentration of the Spanish savings banks started, the there were several organizations that assured that they would not participate in this first stage and that they would be expect the second round.
Nevertheless, the chief of a main directorate of the Spanish Confederation of Savings banks (CECA), Jose Antonio Olavarrieta, discarded yesterday that this new big wave of operations is going to take place.
I believe that the greatest part of the fusions has occurred, the incorporation of Cajasol to the group of Banca Civica cannot be called a second round, there are only adjustments.
" The biggest part is completely done; perhaps instead of 17 we could have 13 or 14 but all the great processes have been done under the surveillance of Bank of Spain, that has collaborated very many to this matter," pointed the manager.
In declarations during a breakfast of the Manager Association and Executives of Aragón (ADEA), Olavarrieta has exposed that the concentration process is being undertaken " with the greatest possible speed, and we must be very satisfied of how this happens in the terms that at the time, not now, were marked in the plans of business with the Bank of Spain," he emphasized.
To go from 45 saving banks with an average of 28.500 million volume of assets to 17 with 75.500 million is a process that does not have comparison in history, reducing the number of organizations to a 62% so that they are much bigger to fulfil Basilea , he underlined.
Olavarrieta recognized that there is "a series of opinions rather pessimistic on the slowness of the process" that demonstrates "a lack of seriousness and reason," because "what the Bank of Spain does is to remember that we must fulfil the term before the end of year."
The chief of a main directorate of CECA, Jose Antonio Olavarrieta, assured yesterday that Spain has the more rigorous financial system of all Europe and "probably" of the whole world, and he attributed to those who call into question the "lack of knowledge."
The manager showed that, within the present economic conjuncture, "we can be very relaxed" with the situation of the financial organizations and the savings banks, a system that has undertaken a "very important" concentration process and that "goes with the greatest possible speed."
Also he remembered that the Spanish bank came out very well with the stress tests that the BCE made in July.
Zapatero and the German red line
Berlin has chosen to maintain the Euro, but has established the conditions for all the Union.
The market tensions have brought about a double governmental response.
On the one hand, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has suggested new measures of adjustment, from fiscal reductions to the SMEs, regulation of private agencies of positioning or suppression of the 426 Euros of aid to unemployed without contributions, to the privatization of 49% of AENA, the management of the airports of Barajas and El Prat and of 30% of Lotteries of the State.
On the other hand, Vice-president Elena Salgado, with the support of the ex-president Felipe González, has added to the critics to the councillor Angela Merkel her responsibility in untying the present crisis.
How can those movements be interpreted?
She continues that the position of Merkel is not an error in her communicative policy.
On the contrary, it is another bolt tightening in the difficult process of redefinition of the Euro.
And there Germany has a radically new vision on how its future must be like, that contradicts the one of maintaining the old traditions of its main partners.
Against the European resistance, in Germany there are speculations on three possible exits from the crisis.
First, a strong Euro, integrated by itself, Austria and Holland, among others countries, while the south would leave the monetary zone.
Second, the recovery of the German mark, although now seems to be science fiction, with a very favourable current of opinion, near 50% of the population.
Third, a redesign of the Euro, according to the German proposals of greater macroeconomic control, budgetary rigor, fines to the transgressor countries, possible suspensions of payments to some of them and extension of the private sector of the costs of the potential adjustments.
The German position is clear and comes defining itself over a long time, so there are no excuses.
Firstly, in 2009, when as much the IMF as the European Commission stimulated the deficits, the German Government presented a constitutional reform in order to prevent them from 2016.
This was the first signal of divergence between what Germany thought it had to do (plans of fiscal strictness and stability in the public finances), and what its European partners were doing, including France.
The second headache for the Central European country was when Merkel laboriously extended the decision of rescuing Greece.
Then it was the object of ferocious critic, but the truth is that the political consensus in Germany and the public opinion and the published one were against the rescue of Greece.
Finally, during the last days of October, Merkel emerges again with a clear position, demanding the reform of treaties of the Union, in order to make possible the rescue of a country and, at the same time forcing, the private moneylenders to run with part of the cost.
This position has been interpreted as anti-European, since it has precipitated the Irish crisis and all the rest.
But her proposal, although somewhat sweetened, has been approved and, in the next months, we would have to attend the process of reform of the Union that makes possible those measures starting with 2013.
Germany has drawn up a red line that does not warrant crossing.
And it is saying to us all that, although now it has to take measures with which perhaps it does not agree, starting with that date the old functioning of the Euro, will have been finished.
The 2013 will mean the birth of a new monetary area, in which the violating countries will be severely sanctioned, can be forced to declare themselves in suspension of payments and, in that case, the private sector also will support part of the cost.
Germany is telling us that we must follow a severe path of growth with high rates of saving and investment, moderation in consumption, improvements in productivity, competitiveness and positive balances.
Another alternative based on the debt and the construction, with enormous deficits in the balance of payments, as the one faced by Spanish growth during the years of the boom, will not be tolerated.
The offer is clear.
We should better understand it.
It is not about trying to lead back the public deficit to 3% in 2013.
What they ask us is much harder.
And the worst thing than we could do in these circumstances is to kid ourselves.
I hope that the present turbulences would open the path to a greater tranquillity
and that we take advantage of the time that they have given us, until the spring of 2013.
It seems that president Zapatero has understood it the same way and its double manifest (the reforms promised after the meeting of the last Saturday with the great companies and the announcement of yesterday of new measures) suggests that, in spite of the critics to Merkel, has laid way to the thesis according to which one should put order in the house.
But the red line that Germany has drawn up there it is, and it does seem that is going be moved.
And, among the possibilities that are contemplated, the one of leaving a monetary zone of little serious countries cannot be excluded.
Then, Germany will always tell us that it had warned us.
Sport and fraud law
Tricks such as those of Alonso and Ramos before the Ajax demonstrate wittiness but not the will to get remove of a sanction.
The expulsion presumably forged by two players of Real Madrid (Xabi Alonso and Sergio Ramos) in the game played on the 23rd of November against Ajax in Champions League has caused rivers of ink to be written about if such behaviour is or is not unsportsmanlike and if, both players should be sanctioned by UEFA.
As we all know, a few minutes before the end of the game (that their team had already won), both players deliberately wasted time which made the referee show the second yellow card to both of them.
This way, and since Real Madrid will finish as leader of its group, both players will fulfil the prescribed sanction during the next game of league, against Auxerre, and will be able to get rid of the cards the following phase.
Finally, the committee of discipline of the UEFA has sanctioned with two games the trainer of the team, Jose Mourinho, and with different economic amounts the implied players.
The provocation of a yellow card in similar circumstances as this one is not a new practice, but rather frequent in the world of football.
It is so extended that it part of the ethos, of the unwritten rules, but followed nonetheless by this sport.
Part of the debate arisen in the related case is caused by the fact that has been carried out by team of the Real Madrid organization (that in its hymn presumes of nobility and honour, and that has fined its players for analogous acts) and by the dramatization orchestrated, apparently, by Mourinho, who adds one more to his expanded history of histrionic and provoking technician.
Anyway, the debate deals with if that type of behaviour not prohibited specifically by the regulation contradicts the principles of the sport, that is to say, if with these actions fraud is committed; then, indeed, they are respectful actions with the sport regulation, but they seem to elude its sense.
The matter examines the type of damage that is brought to the sporting spirit.
One of the advantages that include the sport spirit is the physical integrity of the opposite players, aspect that with these actions wasn't put into danger, that is to say, there was no violent game.
Another of these advantages to which it is alluded to with the fare-play is to avoid that the team of the law breaker players takes advantage unjustly of the opposite team, which did not happen either.
However, the paradoxical thing about the action of the players of Real Madrid is that it did not comply to what we normally characterize as legal fraud, because the violation of the rules was not made secretly as to try to avoid the sanction, but their action was most evident and thus they received punishment from the referee.
They waited for and accepted the sanction with no complaints.
Another question is what type of advantage the violators obtained in the actions deliberately carried out.
Here it seems necessary to state that it isn't a disadvantageous situation for rival nor is an obtained benefit in the same game, because evidently the result of the action supposes leaving their own team with less players.
And neither is it a useful strategy for the next game, because the club will not be able to count on those players.
The advantage, obviously, consists in the fact that the players will begin the following phase of the Championship without cards that could threaten their participation in a future game.
But it is about a long term advantage, with a certain degree of indetermination, because the team can be eliminated first of change, and in addition with this action the players fulfil a sanction game and go to the second cycle of cards, in which the suspension by card accumulation takes place with one less than in the first cycle.
So that, by passing rounds, it is not so clear that it is an advantage.
Those actions are really against the sporting spirit, which is part of the strategic decisions that favour taking advantages allowed by the rules.
Regarding this assumption, the players did not act in order to avoid the application of the sanction (this would have been a clear case of legal fraud), but rather chosen when to obey it.
They made a strategic decision without avoiding the punishment.
Although the border between the wittiness and the law fraud is diffuse, in this occasion I believe it was a clear case of wittiness.
The controversy seems to arise from two factors: because it was about two auto expulsions and the way the transmission of the directive was carried out to cause them.
The damage brought about to the principles of the sport by these actions is not as much ethical as aesthetic.
Offensive of supplies to catch Christmas dinners of groups in BCN
The way the days fall this year, there is a concentration of reservations on the 16th and 17th.
The celebrations of the employees, who want to spend between 20 and 30 Euros.
As nougat and lottery, once with December the group dinners before Christmas return, that continue being an gasp of fresh air for the restoration and leisure of Barcelona, that because of the crisis has ended with an offensive of price fixing in order to be able to catch the majority share of customers: almost all want to spend between 20 and 30 Euros on dinners or meals, agree the managers and associations in the interviewed sector.
In order to finish complicating the accounting, the calendar of this year (for falling the New Year's Eve on Friday) concentrated the requests in the week of the 13th of December, with the result until that date of an avalanche of reserves of dinners for weekend (16 and 17) and hardly movement for the previous week.
As was happening from 2008, when the stage of cost-cutting began, there were many companies that have eliminated collective dinners for budgetary reason.
For not ruining the tradition, many workers maintain it by paying it out of their own pocket.
Whatever conjuncture, everyone demanded a price war, confirms the president of the Gremi Restoration of Barcelona, Gaiet Farrs.
The representative of the employer's association, today, does not dare to predict whether thee will be celebrations this month."
"People consider it long before making the reservation."
"They want to go out but they have in mind the price situation," he mentions.
The business will go "well for those who give quality for good price and with good attendance," he adds, and reminds that the clients tend to come down one step once with the crisis, so that the strip around the 25 Euros has become a demand for the majority.
In a poll made in diverse centric establishments one can see the collapse of reservations for the night of the 17th.
Soteras group indicate that there is an authentic boom of requests for that Friday, with the pretension of spending no more than 30 Euros, to which they have responded by adapting its menus with formulas of 25 and 35 Euros.
In another of the most powerful groups, Andilana, with 16 establishments in the city (Hostal de la Rita, Market, La Fonda and others), the peculiarity of the calendar has involved more anticipated reserves, even since the beginning of November.
"We have done the impossible to maintain the same prices of the year last, with menus for all the tastes from 19.95 to 30 Euros," they detail.
In AN Grup, which involves El Mussol, Attic, QuQu, and up to a total of 23 bars, they remain optimistic after detecting an increase of the invoicing from the second semester and some good, although concentrated, perspective of business for Christmas.
Sources of the group emphasize that the 18th will also be a hyperactive day concerning friend groups that celebrate the holidays.
To their six menus of the group they have added a Christmas one, with 30 Euros or more as star budget and the perception that there is a predisposition to spend 10% more than last year in exchange for demanding more details, if necessary.
They also see green buds in some companies that invite their employees and the grater the volume the better.
On behalf of the Fecasarm employer's association (that includes organizations like the Association of Bars, Restaurants and Leisure of Barcelona), its vice-president, Enric Gomà, believes he is beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel and considers that altogether the reserves are "cheerful," although the clients "negotiate" as much as possible.
Indeed, the illusion of celebrating has not decreased for whoever pays, indicates this one.
The Pakistani nuclear program generates great restlessness in the USA
Islamabad produces atomic weapons at "a rate faster than any other country."
The filtrations of Wikileaks confirm the bonds between the Taliban people and Pakistan.
The content of the correspondence between the American embassy in Pakistan and the Department of State of the USA filtered by the Wikileaks portal confirms the enormous restlessness which the Pakistani nuclear program brings about in Washington.
Besides the enlightening and substantial details that are offered on the content of the conversations and the thoughts of the credited North American diplomatic representatives in Islamabad, the documents reveal that the cooperation between both countries in the matter of atomic security, instead of increasing, "decreases," and that the unstable Asian country produces nuclear weapons with "a rhythm faster than any other country."
The peculiarity of the Pakistani nuclear program - that the arms are not assembled but they remain stored by components to make difficult their destruction in case of attack-- it constitutes one of the main causes for concern in Washington.
Thus is enumerated by the ambassador in Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, in a report previous to the visit of the ex- advisor of National Security, James Jones: "The proximity of some nuclear power plants on the territory under Taliban attack, the rumoured dispersion of the nuclear materials and the vulnerability of atomic materials transportation."
The high number of people implied in the nuclear arsenals and the missiles programs is being taken into consideration, not only by the USA, but also by Russia, such as the reason for maintaining its guard.
"Pakistan has had to hire personnel with strict religious beliefs in order to protect the nuclear power plants; given the poor educative and cultural levels, the extremist organizations have more opportunities to recruit people to work in the nuclear programs or of missiles," said the expert Yuri Carole, from the Russian Ministry of External Affairs, in a meeting with his Americans homologous.
The newest information on the documentation filtered by the portal of Julian Assange is the decreasing cooperation between the USA and Pakistan in subjects of nuclear proliferation and the high Pakistani rate of nuclear weapon production.
An office of the embassy in May, that describes as "frustrating" the communication with Pakistan, says that: "The transparency is frequently nonexistent; the offers of aid remain without an answer or are refused."
In another message, Peter Lavoy, civil servant of the National Intelligence for the south of Asia, states that "in spite of the economic catastrophe, Pakistan produces nuclear weapons in a rhythm faster than any other country of the world."
The ambassador Patterson also asks Washington, during a visit of the head of the Army, General Ashfaq Kayani, to give clear orders to the person in charge that "the Army of Pakistan must end the tacit support to the terrorist groups."
Hunting of the head of Wikileaks
Obama appoints a person in charge of the antiterrorism fight in order to avoid new filtrations.
Interpol emits a red alert with the purpose of following the movements and locating Assange where he might is.
All that is related to Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange, forms a complicated labyrinth in which it is difficult to have certainty on any of the facts.
Yesterday Interpol emitted one "red alert" in order "to locate and follow the movements" of Assange.
Nevertheless, this isn't a traditional order of arrest.
In addition, it isn't new, because it dates from the 20th of November.
And has nothing to do with the last filtration of more than a quarter of a million diplomatic documents pertaining to the USA but with the accusations of sexual abuse that the Australian faces in Sweden.
In addition, the lawyer of the creator of Wikileaks, Mark Stephens, assures that "the police knows where and how to get into contact with Mr. Assange."
It was day 20 when the international police body with headquarters in Lyons (France) issued the order at the request of Sweden, but did not reveal it until yesterday, after receiving authorization from the authorities of that country.
Given the facts, the 188 countries of Interpol have indications for identifying or locating to Assange "with respect to his provisional arrest and extradition."
Although the Interpol cannot order the arrest of an individual affected by a red alert, many of the Member States, as the organization explained, consider the call network notice free way for making an arrest --that has to undertake the national body of police, - especially if they have a bilateral agreement of extradition, as it is the case of Sweden and England, where Assange might be.
The movement irritated the lawyers of Assange, who published yesterday a letter denouncing that the founder of Wikileaks, 39 years old, declared being willing to take part in a video conference in order to answer any questions from the Swedish authorities.
They also recall that Assange asked and obtained permission to leave Sweden from the public prosecutor in his case, whom they compare with the mythical Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, head of security of Stalin.
"This seems to be hunting, not a legal persecution," denounces the letter.
While the world was searching for him - and from Australia his mother defends the innocence of her son-- Assange follows in unknown whereabouts, but not in silence.
On Monday gave from an unknown place an interview to the director of the magazine Time through Skype, a conversation in which he requested the resignation of the Secretary of State of the USA, Hillary Clinton.
"If it is possible to show that she was responsible for ordering American diplomats to spy in the ONU violating international treaties that the USA has signed, she should resign," he said.
His opinion was insulted yesterday by the press secretary of the White House, Robert Gibbs, who described as "ridiculous and absurd" the resignation request.
"I don't know why we should pay any attention to the opinion of a man with a web page" declared the CNN.
Obama himself has ordered to a high person in charge with the antiterrorism fight, Rusell Travers, to prevent new document leaks.
The attempt by the spokesman of President Barack Obama to reduce the attention paid to Assange contrasts with opinions that politicians and commentators now proclaim.
Peter King, the congressman who from January will preside over the Committee of National Security in the House of Representatives, has asked the Department of State to study the possibility of including Wikileaks in the list of terrorist organizations "in order to take part and his funds and to persecute anyone who give them any contribution or help."
Furthermore went Tom Flanagan, an adviser of the Canadian president Stephen Harper, who had to withdraw his opinion after saying that Assange would have to be murdered."
"Obama should turn him into an objective and use a non manned aircraft or something."
Who did not apologize was Mike Huckabee, Baptist minister, ex-governor of Arkansas and possible candidate to the presidency.
"Whoever he is in the Government the one who leaked the information is guilty of treason and anything that is not the execution would be a too much gentle punishment," declared for Fox.
Puigcercós looks for peace in ERC with winks to those who have the same opinion as Carod
The republican leader will allow the party a secret voting regarding his continuity.
Huguet proposes a more plural executive and the end of the full meeting system.
Joan Puigcercós seems to have found the prescription for negotiating for the umpteenth time the internal revolt in the ERC, without a sight for the loss of 11 deputies and half of the votes.
The president of the party is conscious that his threat of resignation is insufficient for the supporters of the ex- leader Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, but he also knows that the influence of that sector today is so diluted as his own mentor and can cause the him worries that he had with other extinct currents.
For this reason, the leader of Esquerra will try to gain the new critics with winks that allow him to be protected until the municipal elections.
In order to begin, Puigcercós announced yesterday that more than 200 national advisors of ERC could pronounce privately on his continuity.
By means of tickets, and not by raised hand.
If the supporters of Carod want to carry certain vote of punishment to the president, they can do it without fear to retaliation.
In fact, the head of the ranks wants to avoid the division image as much as the one of submission to him.
In several interviews, he affirmed that he would not consider himself ratified with half plus one of the votes, but added, without mentioning the percentage, that wouldn't be good either a result " a la Bulgarian."
The close supporters of Carod demand the president something more than putting his position at the disposal of the militancy, a gesture that is not worth when Puigcercós controls the most important organ between congresses.
But for not having the majority sufficient to force resignations, they are going to try to decide with the executive a direction from now until May.
For this, they hope to participate in the elaboration of the document of strategic reorientation that the direction will put under voting of the national advice on day 18.
Its intention is to speak for Puigcercós in exchange for promising to advance the congress to the autumn of 2011, something that the cupola considers already done.
The ERC leader recognized that "polyphony" harms stability and that its objective is to make, once and for all, the organization able to wash the dirty rags inside.
In this line, is symptomatic the article that counsellor in functions Josep Huguet posted on his blog.
Considering the ideologist Puigcercós, the holder of Innovació considers a fulfilled act that the leader will be authenticated "in exchange of diverse objectives."
And he enumerated five, of which two are emphasized.
First, "recompose" the executive so that it represents at least 90% of the militancy, that is to say, to include new faces that come from the sector compatible with Carod.
The second can be the great newness.
Huguet proposes that ERC eliminates the assembly as an operation mechanism.
Thus, proposes a reform of the statutes that allows celebrating the congresses through delegates chosen by suffrage.
Ending with the assembly model, an exception in the Spanish system of parties has been an obsession of the team of Puigcercós that already battled in this sense in both last congresses.
In fact, the convulse conclave of the 2008 let the mission of direction review of the assembly in a specific congress of reform of statutes.
This meeting wasn't held yet, because the internal flood of the last years advised against confronting the subject.
Now, without critical sectors on the matter, could be a good moment to retake it and try to close it for always.
23 executed in November; 290 during 2010
According to the numbers of MILLENIUM State of Mexico a diminution of four cases was registered in comparison with 2010.
During November 23 people were killed in the State of Mexico, four less than in the previous month according to the registration of MILLENIUM State of Mexico.
Among the murders stands out one of three women and the discovery of a pair of bodies in the Valley of Mexico.
In the penultimate month of the year there were 390 deaths related to the organized crime.
Among the cases stands out the one of a corpse found in San Diego de los Padres Cuexcontitlán, municipality of Toluca.
The subject had at least three gunshots and one shot in the head besides having their feet and hands tied with cable.
On the following day, the corpse of a subject was found in a suitcase inside the trunk of a vehicle left on the Mixtecas Street, in the Colony Santa Cruz Acatlán, of the municipality of Naucalpan.
Thursday morning four men found a body with signs of torture and at least three lethal shots in the thorax, on the free-way of Tenango-Ixtapan de la Sal, in the section crossing the municipality of Villa Guerrero.
Next to the body there was a message signed by the criminal organization the Michoacana family.
A day later in Nezahualcóyotl, a gentleman of 50 years, was assassinated with eight shots after leaving his house to collect garbage.
On the seven of November, two subjects of 30 years were murdered by a bullet in the head each of them in the colony San Pedro Xaloxtoc, municipality of Ecatepec.
In Chalco, with a shot in the forehead the corpse of a man was found in a solitary street of the Colony the Naranjo and underneath the body they found a case perforated by a firearm of calibre 25.
In Ecatepec, parts of a human body were found in the black water channel of the colony Playa Golondrina.
Emergency authorities undertook an exhaustive search of the other members of the body, were those weren't located.
Neighbours of Tepotzotlán reported finding a corpse in Pe a Colorada, with hands tied and with head bandaged.
The man had a wound caused by a firearm which shot him in the nape of the neck.
during the middle part of the month the execution of two men was reported, who were covered in blankets and left in the trunk of a vehicle in the street of Villas de la Hacienda in the municipality of Atizapán de Zaragoza, next to the victims there were also two death threats.
A day later, a cardboard box that contained a human head was found in the colony Valle de los Reyes, in the municipality of Los Reyes La Paz.
In a nearby colony it was found put in a black plastic bag and the rest of the body with a message signed by the "Incorrigible one."
The 17th, covered in blankets, two women were found dead in Zoquiapan in the municipality of Ixtapaluca and the following morning the corpse of a man in Huixquilucan was found covered in a yellow and blue blanket, presumably identified as being Mario Rios according to a message that his executioners left next to him.
In Ixtapaluca, with gunshots in the nape of the neck, the dead body of a woman in the town of San Francisco Acuautla was found.
On the skin of the woman there were tattoos of the Santa Muerte, as well as necklaces with her image.
During the last part of the month, the corpse of a man in the municipality of Zinacantepec with at least three bullet shots was found on the board of an automobile and there was also a message signed by the criminal group.
Two days later, the corpses of some men with the curb head and a message were found in the community of Puente de Piedra, in Santiago Tepatlaxco.
In front of the bodies there was a message signed by the criminal organization which stated: "This happens to those who do not align."
In Ecatepec, with signs of torture and tied of feet and hands two bodies were found inside a taxi left behind the Center of Justice of the colony San Agustín.
The last day of the month the bodies of two men were found in the municipalities of Los Reyes de la Paz, and Nezahualcóyotl.
The first of them was beheaded in the colony Cuchilla Ancon and was put in black plastic bags, tied with cinnamon band and next there was a message; whereas, the second was tortured and found in a plastic market in the streets of the Juárez Colony.
Next to him the agents found a piece of cardboard with a message.
China maintains the objectives of reducing gases of greenhouse effect
The representative of that country at the COP16 assured that his country has made enormous efforts for reducing the carbon track and detailed that he maintains his offer of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45% by 2020.
China maintains its offer of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between 40 and 45 percent by the year 2020, assured Su Wei, China's representative to the COP16.
In his first public appearance in the 16th UJ Conference on Climatic Changes (COP16), Su Wei assured that his country has made enormous efforts for reducing the carbon track and reconverting its industry.
In fact, during the last four years his country has invested 245 million dollars in diminishing its greenhouse gas emissions.
Nevertheless, he made it clear that China will not modify its objectives, but will continue working jointly with the international community in that matter.
He added that the Chinese strategy regarding the matter of climatic change is divided into four parts: dialogue; construction of capacities; construction of institutions and endorsement to pilot programs.
In all those parts, advances have been made, including the approval, last year, of a new Energy law, with objectives regarding the reduction of gas emissions, he explained.
On the other hand, he emphasized that in China, the federal authorities have been working of a coordinated way with and the state and local ones, in order to achieve the objectives of energy saving, use of efficient energy and reduction of emissions.
In addition, there are in being developed or are already concluded diverse multiannual plans, as much financed by the Chinese government, such as by the governments of other countries.
For example, he referred to the Program of Efficient Use of Energy, that was implemented during the last the five years and that received investments from the Organization of the United Nations (ONU), the government and the private initiative.
There is also being developed a provincial project of climatic change, another one for the change of incandescent centres by economizers and another of mitigation and adaptation, he detailed.
At the same table, Martin Krol, scientific adviser of the government of that country in the matter of climatic change, assured that the China's efforts have been greater than generally perceived.
For example, he states, the greenhouse gas emission per capita in China is six tons by person, whereas in the United States is of 100 tons; China is responsible for the 9 percent of the historical contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
Also, it efforts without precedent in the use of the energy, in increasing by 20 percent its energy efficiency over the last five years and anticipates to do the same towards year 2020, he added.
Bounded to the legality expulsion of Espino: Caesar Nava
The national leader of the PAN detailed that the ex-baker leader is within his right to go to the Commission of National Order to protest according to his rights.
The national leader of the PAN, Caesar Nava Vázquez, assured that the expulsion of Manuel Espino Barrientos was become attached to the legality and that the ex- leader is in his right to go to the Commission of National Order to protest according to his rights.
In a previous interview to the protest of Gabino Cué Monteagudo as governor of the state, he said that anyway the expulsion of Espino is a decision made in the local area.
"It is about an independent decision by the Commission of the Order of Sonora."
"Mr. Espino has the right to go, where appropriate, via a claim made to the Commission of Order of the National Council, being a decision taken in the scope of an authorized organ," he wrote.
On the other hand, he clarified that it is not time to think about 2012 and that never was there in the negotiation table an alliance for the presidential candidacy.
Nava Vázquez was convinced that the National Action will get fortified in the internal election of 4th and 5th of December, where will be chosen his successor."
This (an alliance in the 2012) is a subject that was never discussed at the negotiation table, or at least not thus far, it was an exposition for the local election that was successful and fulfilled the objective," he referred to.
The leader underlined that PAN is supported by 71 years of dialogue, the reason why "we are not afraid of the internal competition; on the contrary "we enjoy it and makes us stronger."
He said that without any doubt that the council will know how to choose the best leader than the National Action would require for the next three years, for that reason he will give the office "to whom the council chooses."
"I have that absolute tranquillity and openness; to anyone of the five I would be proud to give the office of the president of party."
He foretold that the rise the party registered during the past elections on the 4th July will be reflected in the next fights, although "it is not the time yet for thinking about 2012."
"So far it is about accompanying Governor Gabino Cué in this duty."
In this framework, it stood out that the three governments of alliances in Oaxaca, Puebla and Sinaloa will be the reason for observation in the entire country, for that reason "many hopes, yearnings are put in them, and I am sure that Gabino will be equal to the challenges."
While being interrogated on the critics of the PRI to President Felipe Calderón for his speech within the framework of the four years of his government, Cesar Nava asked the PRI members to reflect on the 6 years terms of the former presidents Ernesto Zedillo and Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
If the PRI thinks that the governments of Zedillo and Salinas were better than those of Fox and Calderón; they should begin defending them; and leave the closet, he affirmed.
He considered that the holder of the federal Executive can say expressions as the ones he said during his speech in the National Audience, because in the country there is no gag or censure.
Promote Obama in Twitter law in favour of undocumented students
If you agree to the approval of the law Dream Act, calls your senators and make them approve this legislation, twittered the American president on the popular social network.
President Barack Obama has joined today the national mobilization supporting the law Dream Act, for legalizing undocumented students, with a message in his personal account of the social network Twitter.
If you agree to the approval of the law Dream Act, calls your senators and make them approve this legislation, tweeted Obama.
His brief message maintains open a cybernetic link with an ampler document that asks the public to immediately communicate with the senators, since the vote of the legislation is imminent.
If a expected vote is made soon, now is the moment for your voice to be heard, he indicates.
The message was disclosed after the 42 republican senators threatened to block the vote of any legislation, unless it is approved the extension of cuts of taxes of the Bush era and the financing of the government.
Such blockade, announced in a letter signed by the 42 republican senators, could affect the vote on the law Dream Act and other projects as the ratification of the new treaty START with Russia against the nuclear weapon proliferation.
Asked about the republican blockade of the law Dream Act and other projects, the presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs trusted that once the fiscal matter has been solved, a schedule for the rest of the projects could be established.
"I think there is plenty of time..."
"We all agree that the fiscal issue should be resolved before the end of the year..."
"I believe that we can obtain an agreement in this matter and later we can plan the sequence of the rest," he said.
The leader of the democratic Senate majority, Harry Reid, announced on Tuesday that they would request a "vote of closing of debate" for the law Dream Act, the reason why the initiative of legalizing undocumented students could be voted next Thursday in the Senate, although next week is more probable.
The senatorial version of the Dream Act or law of the American Dream would legalize about 800 thousand young people who entered the United States before the age of 16; they have remained in the country the last five years and entered either higher education institution or the army.
But those in favour require 60 votes for approving the initiative, thus requiring the participation of republicans, when the supporting organizations of the project carry out intense lobbying to guarantee its approval.
The democrats, most of which support the Dream Act, count on 58 seats.
Nevertheless at least one of them, the senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, has said that he will vote against, and only a republican has expressed his support to the law, Richard Lugar from Indiana.
For this reason, those in favour of the Dream Act require gathering several republicans in case other democrats decide to turn the back to the initiative.
Among the most assisted republicans are the senators of Maine, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as well as the senator George Lemieux, of Florida, who completed the mandate of the senator Mel Martinez.
Other republicans who supported the Dream Act in the past are Orrin Hatch, from Utah, and Kay Bailey Hutchinson, from Texas, but they have declared that they will not turn their back again.
Another republican who was in favour, John McCain, has not defined his position at this moment.
Although the House of Representatives has a different version, analysts agree that the Dream Act faces the major obstacles in the Senate.
With Literature they can put their finger on it
The second round of The pleasures of language was a walk over which the participants enacted the narration
That of sex in language I understand that but... the finger on it? What am I expected to do?, inquired the writer Luisa invited Valenzuela invited to open the second round of The pleasures of the language, event that celebrates Literature in Spanish and which this time used the subtitle of her question (in another way the round table was dedicated to sex in the language, she explained).
The finger on it... " it puts us in a difficult position," told sweetly straight out the Argentine writer to the public, mainly of young people, who met in the International Fair of the Book of Guadalajara (FIL) to listen to this round table moderated by Marisol Shultz and participated Valenzuela, Sergio Ramirez, Mayra Montero and Luis Garcia Montero all participated.
Luisa Valenzuela read a text that she dedicated to Gonzalo Celorio and that Shultz would define later as a great story, with Luisa in first person as the protagonist who in search of knowledge known as "it," goes from doctor to doctor, from whom she does not obtain answers although gets stuck in the same narrative thread.
She leaves the doctor convinced: "perhaps patience is not my forte, maybe it is my sore."
In the end, after a frustrating approach with the trauma doctor who who clarifies that sore isn't a scientific term; it is the psychoanalyst who unravels the mystery: "the sore is the real open thing; the symbolic thing is the scar."
The protagonist sighed alleviated and concluded "on the sore I only managed to know that the real thing is open and that it does not exist," but convinced that the pleasures and the tricks of the language have to be mixed.
Valenzuela, the writer, played with both.
The Nicaraguan Sergio Ramirez also exhibited a delightful narration that titled Praise of the invention, where the finger on the sore isn't named but is discovered.
In broad terms of magical realism, he tells the story of a famous witch, who by touching clouds, brought back men who had gone far away or repaired the virtues lost by a maid, narration that turned into speaking about America, a great novel which didn't lack from the very beginning its own chroniclers who told it and mentioned Bernal Diaz del Castillo who criticizes the excesses of the things told by the conquering captains.
Cervantes who invented us all (the writers) laughed of the false witnesses who appeared in histories presented as real, but otherwise he would have never told the history of America with imagination which lack shyness.
Nevertheless, he emphasized "crazy people and liars are those who best imagine things" and it is where reality and falsehood are mixed, where one knows if the narrated thing belongs to one side or another, where the fictional Literature reaches its apogee.
In fact it is named "Cervantes tradition.
"For its philosophy of: we are what's told of us."
As for her, the writer Mayra Montero saw and applauded the variety of interpretations that the invitation of FIL causes with her round table The finger on the sore.
The Cuban-Puerto Rican pointed her own towards the great sore of the social violence that crosses her country - and divides Latin America -product of the disputes on traffic and drug sale.
I believe that good Literature, good poetry, good songs lock up a tacit commitment that of course is not premeditated, indicated, after mentioning that the reality of Literature is the communication and the dimension of the commitment that settles down between author and readers, and that is one "chemical reaction" of this last one.
The night was closed by the Spanish poet Luis Garcia Montero whose intervention also put emphasis "that the finger on the sore of the writer committed to writing."
He considered that in a world that lives in a hurry, also in the intellectual customs and control of the consciousness that it has effects in dogmatisms, forgetting "that behind each affirmation there is a small no and behind each negation there is small yes."
"In order to be owners of our thought and reality we must clarify: and clarify often means to put the finger on the sore and to bother those people who are much more comfortable thinking about the cartoon, in black and white, in ideas established without a shade and also bothering to the powers that prefer a black and white world," he said, inviting to recover the sense of writing.
Romano goes towards his first title
Rubén Roman Omar counts with three defeats in the finals, having during his career ups and downs, but he knew how to reach in three occasions the decisive series.
With the duel of Santos Laguna and Monterrey in the final, in addition two different styles marked by their technicians' face, who find each other with a contrast marked by results.
Rubén Roman Omar counts with three defeats in the finals, having during his career ups and downs, but he knew how to reach on three occasions the decisive series, although until now he hadn't reached the target and this is why this opportunity is very special for him.
The Argentinean has ended up being consoled with the medal of runner-up, and remained one step behind the winners and peculiarly with similar equipment he has played consecutive finals.
Santos arrived to his first final as trainer in the Opening Match of 2002, when he took the reins of Morelia with which he fell to 4-2 before Toluca; later, in the Closing Event of 2003 he also arrived at the decisive duel and he lost also it at 3-1 and indeed before Rayados.
Already with Santos Laguna, in the Bicentennial Match of 2010, again before Los Diablos, Rubén suffers again a reverse, since his team finished equally places 2-2 before the sausage makers after 210 minutes of game, but in the turn of penalties put himself in advantage by 3-1 with two opportunities to seal the title but finally three players failed from the 11 steps and suffered the change 4-3.
Rubén already lost two finals with Diablos Rojos and one with Monterrey, its rival in turn, therefore he doesn't want to endure the same fate, he wants to celebrate a title for the first time, and he affirms that the most important thing for him is the institution.
I want be a champion, I do not want break any statistic, this is for a club, for a passion and consequently the title will come to me, but the previous thing is more important, commented the helmsman when being questioned about the numbers he has against by playing finals.
Very effective he has the previous final, from which, he assures, has learned much, " the only lesson we can learn is that until the referee signals the end we cannot celebrate, we prepare ourselves as well as the players because the previous time, with two penalties we were about to leave and I believe that is an lesson to be learned, we cannot celebrate until the game ends."
Knowing that this series could be defined in penalty kicks, something that doesn't trouble him, because he trusts his players: " One should never looks for going to penalties, but rather to finish in regular time; sometimes you don't have any alternative and it is necessary to be ready; in the previous match we were prepared, unfortunately destiny played into our hands; sometimes by nerves or anxiety for having the title in out hands, but we didn't reach this goal, and this left us something for this final that we hope to win."
Roman should stop being a technical runner-up and tasting for the first time the glory that the titles give.
EU changes the rules for obtaining the visa
Applicants will have to go to the centres of Attendance for Visa Applicants before their interview in the Consular Section; the cost will be smaller and so will waiting times.
From the 10th of January of 2011 the procedure of issuing a visa in the Embassy of the United States and consulates will be altered.
With the new procedure, the majority of applicants will have to go to the attendance centres for Visa Applicants (ASC, by its English abbreviations) prior to their interview in the Consular Section.
The ASC staff will take the biometric information of the applicant, which will be reviewed by the Consular Section before the interview.
The new procedure will have certain advantages for the applicants, among which:
The total cost of issuing the visa will be smaller; it will no longer be necessary to make a payment in order to get the appointment, another payment to process the visa request and another one so that the service of correspondence gives the document.
The applicant will make only one payment which will cover the three services.
The present tariff will remain unchanged: the equivalent of 140 dollars for a tourist visa, 150 dollars for cases of visas with request (including visas for temporary workers) and 390 dollars for visas of retailers and investors.
People who wish to renew their visa won't have to go to an interview with the Consular Official, but they will only have to go to the nearest ASC where they will present their documents and will have fingerprints taken.
Because the biometric information will be taken in the ASC, the applicants who require a second date for being interviewed in the Consular Section will attend one less time than previously.
Also,those requesting a visa in the Consulates of Ciudad Juárez, Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo will no longer pay the extra tariff on service of 26 dollars.
For additional information on the new procedure for asking the visa, visit the following page http://mexico.usembassy.gov/boletines/sp101201_Visas-FAQs.htm
NASA will announce the discovery extraterrestrial life
The American space agency called the press tomorrow to present a discovery that will cause impact in the search of living beings in the space.
The National Administration for Space and Aeronautics (NASA) of the United States will present tomorrow, Thursday, an astrobiological discovery, that could prove the theory that there is extraterrestrial life.
The discovery will be presented in a press conference tomorrow Thursday at 13:00 PM at NASA headquarters in Washington by experts in astrobiology; a science described as the one that studies the origin, evolution, distribution and future of the life in the Universe.
When calling the press, NASA assured that it will present "a discovery that will cause impact in the search of extraterrestrial life," which provoked speculation by experts in other countries.
The discovery could prove the theory that there are creatures that look like us living in hostile spaces that are thought of as uninhabitable, and would put on the table the possibility that they become intelligent beings like humans if they improve their living conditions.
Apparently it is centred around a microbe that was found at the bottom of the Monkey Lake in the National Park Yosemite, California, where it lives in an environment that was considered too poisonous for any form of life, since the lake is rich in arsenic.
Somehow, the creature uses arsenic as a means of survival and out of this capacity increases the possibility that similar life could exist in other planets that do not have our benevolent environment.
According to astrobiologists, if these organisms use arsenic in their metabolism, it will be demonstrated that "indeed there is another form of life, a second form of life, different from the one we know."
The space agency will present the full extent of the discoveries in the press conference of tomorrow Thursday.
Pamela Conrad, who studies the possibility of life in Mars; and the biologist Steven Benner, one of the scientists who study Titan (the greater Saturn moon), under the perspective that its chemistry is similar to the one of the Earth will both attend the conference.
Gesta PRD, PT, Convergencia and Patron opponent "block"
With reforms to the Organic law of Congress, a "two-party system" emerges, they say.
The 60 Legislature wasn't settled when a competing block arose in congress, headed by the deputies of the PRD, PT, Convergencia and Jesus Manuel Patron Montalvo, who declared himself as independent, and the four questioned one thing: the arrival of the "two-party system" to the Camera.
Before beginning the session establishing the 60 Legislature, Felipe Manzanarez Rodriguez, from Convergencia; Ezequiel Reynoso Esparza, from the PT; Javier Corvera Quevedo, from the PRD; and Patron Montalvo, were against the reform of the Statutory law, given that it excluded them.
With this reform, they reiterated, will begin ' the two-party system," because now there will be two representatives and an equal number of parties, that will control the Congress.
These four deputies, along with Gloria Margarita Santos Aguilar, coordinator of the PRD, were the only ones to vote against the Directive Table, headed by the PAN supporter Salvador Lopez Brito and Luis Antonio Cardenas Fonseca, in his character of vice-president.
Corvera Quevedo, detailed that these reforms institutionally constitute the political marginality from the PRI and PAN.
He detailed that in the near future they will speak with the representatives of PAN and PRI to modify the scheme, starting from a political will, and if they do not have it, then they will be dominated once again by both parties and in this way the competing coalition was brought to a close.
How far they have got (the competing coalition), is what I see, because we are excluded, from any decision, they don't even have the political deference of considering the opinion of the rest.
Felipe Manzanarez Rodriguez, from Convergencia, mentioned that with the PRD, PT and Patron, there are coincidences and for that reason they are forming a plural group.
It is not possible to allow, he continued, that the Congress after having been monopolistic, now is a "two-party system."
"It is not the spirit of the reform the law that has an eternal two-party system in the Congress."
In order to begin, this group is initiating with 5 legislators, and is talking with other companions so that they could be more, added the convergent.
Ezequiel Reynoso Esparza, from the PT, explained that at the moment the Congress became a "plunder" between two, with reference to PAN and PRI."
Before it was only one party, now it is being divided between two."
Patron Montalvo, asked for the personality of the deputy to be respected and to give him his place at the negotiation tables."
Not for leaders' agreements, should be left outside 5 and probably we are going be 9 deputies, right now the five that we see, separated into different fractions, we have decided order to look for a slot in the negotiation table, that is the subject of the reforms reform that they have decided, we are outside and we do not agree to that reform."
200 $ thousand more for the provider
The City council of Mazatlán pays another check to the questioned proprietor of the company of electrical equipment.
One more check of more than 200 thousand pesos in favour of Lorena Guadalupe Camacho Palazuelos was issued by the City council.
With this, the amount that has been paid in this second semester to the proprietor of the electrical equipment company, ascends to 1 million 200 thousand pesos.
In agreement with the Municipality transparency document, this last check number 9258447 was issued on 16th of November, with the amount of 200 thousand 144,56 pesos, under the concept of " liquidation of accounts to be paid."
The Treasurer Luis Miguel Lopez Moreno had previously said that they were being paid more money by the Municipality in favour of this supplier, that was observed by the Superior Audit of the State for selling to a higher price.
What wasn't reported is the total that still has to be paid and, therefore, how many checks have to be issued to Camacho Palazuelos.
Nothing has been bought, they simply pay the supplier the owned amounts, as the rest of providers, said in an interview.
The last checks "appeared once again" in the last quarterly of the year: 24 of September, two issued on 15th of October, 19th of October, 29th of October and this last one, on 16th of November.
Although the supplier hasn't been published yet in the Official Newspaper of the State, as the Law asks when a company is questioned by ASE, in order to avoid that other governments use its services, the Treasurer assured that they didn't use its services anymore.
Before, after the 25th of July, when the Noroeste published a revision of the checks that the City council issues for its suppliers, in which it was revealed that, from March 2008 until 9th of July of 2010, the triennium of the Mayor Jorge Abel Lopez Sanchez, the Municipality paid to Camacho Palazuelos more than 10 million pesos, through 42 checks.
It also concluded transactions with Jumapam, where received checks for more than 3 million pesos.
It is urgent that the tourist sites are taken care of
The tourist industrialists feel sorry for the accident of the foreign tourist caused by bad conditions of the Glorieta Sanchez Taboada in Mazatlán.
After the fall of a foreign tourist in the down-fall of Glorieta Sanchez Taboada, the tourist sector of Mazatlán asked the authorities to pay attention to the zones and sites that are in a bad state and that offer a bad image of the port.
Salvador Barraza Rubio, president of the Association of Retailers of the Zone Dorada, remembered that in different occasions they have denounced that the image of the destiny should be taken care of and to change the bad perceptions that the tourists might find with new activities or routes.
He said that the bad conditions of the streets and the side-walks have affected because the tourists come to take a walk and see the disorder and they avoid the complementary businesses.
The politicians do not know what it means to close for one day and do not have any idea about the amount of money that is lost, or otherwise they wouldn't do the jobs this way in such a long period of time and without previous planning.
The hotelkeeper Jose Ramon Manguart Sanchez said that the fall of the tourist exposed the lack of prevention and maintenance from the part of the City council.
"The municipality will have to assume its responsibility and to avoid this happening again, by giving preventive maintenance and not doing only the correction," he said.
We look forward to enjoying a clean city, because not only must the area be given the maintenance, but as inhabitants who deserve a clean site to live on; the City council must change its strategy in order to maintain good living and visiting conditions.
There are other sites that are also neglected and incomplete, he said, as for example El Escudo and the Venadito de Mazatlán.
"Nowadays, for the tourist to come does depend only by the promotion, we must have a good product, a city that has clean beaches and avenues, permanent maintenance of the attraction areas," he said.
"There wasn't enough attention paid and this underlines something that is well-known by all, that maintenance is a must."
Raul Llera Martinez, secretary assistant of Tourist Promotion, expressed that the rescue of tourist sites of Mazatlán is urgent, because they are not enjoyed of a correct manner and they project a bad image.
He spoke of a series of places that has to align altogether with the municipality and to be a priority having the city always, clean, ordinate and attractive because it is a touristic city.
Luckily Mazatlán offers many historical and cultural sites and places that will have to be put in order first of all, cleaned and made attractive in order to be able to add them in the inventory when promoting the city.
IP requests results from the Congress
Eduardo Dávalos, president of the CEC, proposed that the deputies assume the great responsibility of being an example for a better Sinaloa by the diverse challenges that faces.
A Legislature of decent works and free from agreements between parties and the Executive state is being demanded by the enterprise sector of Mazatlán, because there is a convulsed Sinaloa that faces great problems.
Yesterday the 60 legislature was voted in, integrated by seven political forces, 19 deputies of the PRI, 13 of the PAN, three of the Party Nueva Alianza, two of the PRD, one of the PT, one of the Convergencia and one more of the PVEM, meaning a total of 40 popular representatives.
Among the list of expectations of the new members of the Congress of the S-state it is mentioned that they come to fulfil a clean management of commitment to the society and the different sectors that require a responsible legislative work.
Eduardo Dávalos Zamora, president of the Enterprise Coordinating Council, proposed that the just released 40 deputies of the Congress of the State assumed the great responsibility of being an example for a better Sinaloa by the diverse challenges that faces.
We hope that the deputies will really exert their right, free from agreements between the parties because it is a custom to make agreements in order to guard by their own interests and they become a character in a carnival of the governors and leaders of the parliamentary fractions.
For that reason he spoke about certifying the commitment in order to establish the necessary bridges that could help the Governor to go ahead.
We hope that they come to do a worthy work and mainly committed to the society and the sectors because the habitants of Sinaloa were those who gave them the vote of confidence during the last elections.
Jose Ramon Manguart Sanchez, president of the Association of Hotels Tres Islas, considered that one of the greatest challenges for the 40 popular representatives is the one of pushing and adding forces in search of the economic growth of the state, because nowadays the economic situation is very complicated.
The most important thing is to push economic growth, that generates incentives for investment and infrastructure and that somehow will form a new generation of jobs.
As for the tourist activity, he demanded that the new legislators give the weight revised within the state budget in order to fortify the Secretary of Tourism.
As I have understood this is the second department of the state with fewer budgets and is incongruous an important and economic activity generating currencies and investment and that directly competes with the agro industry.
Apart from requiring labelling resources the detonating tourist projects that help giving security to the state and update the Alcohol Law that has not been able to solve in the previous legislatures.
A magician is looked for
Dolls, cars and bicycles, among others toys, are the yearning of the children of the family Coronado from Valenzuela.
For his parents, the next Day of Kings will be difficult to please his illusions, since their home is made out of no more than 12 people and a goat.
Nevertheless, Adelaida, Isabel, Jesus, Jose Alfredo, Maria Guadalupe, Isaias, Jose Juan and Miguel do not lose the hope that Melcher, Gaspar and Balthazar will give them the toys and clothes they so much wish.
The family lives in a humble house of the Colony Salvador Allende and lives in poor conditions because the father does not have a job.
Sometimes it is very hard for us because my husband does not have a job, but we sell mandarin and daddy... in the afternoon I leave with the kids to sell in the street," said Cayetana Valenzuela Andrade, mother of the children.
Adelaida, 4 years old, wants a doll or a bicycle, while her sister Isabel, 3 years old, would like a Barbie doll.
On the other hand, Jose Alfredo, 10 years old, has wished for a very long time to have a "monster" car and for his brother Jesus, 8 months old, Cayetana suggests clothes suitable for a one year baby.
He told me (Jose Alfredo), I would like this monster," but I said "we will see son" because it was very expensive," remembered Cayetana with sadness.
For the elder children that were at school clothes and shoes would be perfect.
Maria Guadalupe, 11 years old, is size 12; Isaias, 10 years old, is size 10, whereas Miguel, 8 years old, uses size eight.
Jose Juan, 14 years old, needs tennis, reason why a pair of size five and a half or six would helpful to him.
If you want to make this dream come true for the children of the Coronado family from Valenzuela you can participate in the campaign as there is a need for a Magician, by donating a toy or cash at the reception of the Noroeste.
14 presumed drug traffickers arrested
Ten searches were carried out in Estrie on Wednesday in the context of dismantling a network of cannabis production and sale.
Fourteen persons were arrested and will face various charges
The searches took place at Sherbrooke, Oxford and Stoke, mostly in the places which served for the production of drugs
"Approximately 750 cannabis plants, 4 kilogrammes of hashish, money and equipment which served for production were seized" stated KLouis-Philippe Ruel, spokesman of the Quebec Sûrété.
In all, eleven men and three women were arrested, including two presumed heads of this network, two Sherbrooke men.
The arrested persons had to appear at Sherbooke Court during the hours following their arrest
They might face accusation of cannabis production, its possession with the object of trafficking plotting, and theft among other things
These searches took place following a lengthy inquiry lasting almost a year.
"It was information received from the public which enabled us to make these arrests" stated M. Ruel.
Some 70 police officers from the reginal enquiry unit of the Estrie of the Quebec Sûreté, of the police department o Sherbrooke and Nephrémagog police headqurters took part in this police operation.
Clandestine migration can be pursued without probems
According to the government, the conservatives' draft law should solve the problem of boatloads of illegal migrants, but will in all probability be defeated, since the three opposition parties announced on Wednesday that they could not support it.
"I strongly rely on the Charter."
"I support ther party, which created the granite beneath your feet" declared the liberal chief Michael Ignatieff, surrounded by deputies after the weekly caucus meeting.
The liberals claim that the draft law in its present form which would anable any person from a ship identified as carrying clandestine immigrants, would violate the Canadian charter of rights and liberties.
The chief of the Quebec Block, Gilles Duceppe has also said that he could not support the draft law, because its aim is wrong.
"We are opposed and it appears that all the opposition parties are opposed and we will now see what the government does" declared M. Ducepe
The critic of NPD concerning immigration, Olivia Chow, has rejected the out of hand the criticisms statign that her party was not firm enough about illegal immigrants.
"the neo-democrats approve the taking of steps against persons handling illegal immigrants and this is what we are doing by means of another draft law, the C-35" stated Mme Chow.
"We do not support the Conservatives' draft law because it attacks refugees and imprisons their children for at least a year," explained Mme Chow.
The Minister of Immigration. Jason Kenney, accused the opposition parties of playing politics and of ignoring the will of Canadians.
"Canadians are telling deputies loud and clear that they will not tolerate this kind of illegal immigration, these criminal operations which target Canada and which treat the country like a doormat."
"They expect Canada to adopt firm measures" was the reaction of Minister Kenney.
The government has not announced a vote of confidence on the draft law, which could bring about elections in the event of its rejection.
A Conservative has however told the QMI Agency that the government would ask for a vote so that every opposed deputy shall explain his reasons to his electors.
The new unity does not create unanimity
Despite the announcement by Jean Charest of the possible creation of a permanent unit for combating corruption and collusion, numerous observers continue to demand the creation of a commission of public inquiry into the subject.
The Minister of Public Security, Robrt Dutil, asserts that this idea is not new: Quebec consulted the New York Department of Investigation on the subject last January.
The metropolis has had a permanent anti-corruption unit since 1870.
Nevertheless, the Tuesday announcement surprised more than one person.
It must be said that at a mmeeting of the Quebec permanent police council last 29 October this step was never discussed, notwithstanding the presence of Robert Dutil.
It did not need any more than that the public security critic Stephane Bergeron should call this announcement a "rabbit produced out of the hat" and as "a solution thrown together on the corner of a table"
Minister Dutil replied to those fearing that political power would have too much influence on the possible future unit.
"You will see the result when it is announced, he contented himself with affirming."
"One is aware of that problem."
As far as the president of the CSQ, Réjean Parent is concerned, nothing can replace the launch of a public inquiry.
"The more obstinately M.Charest refuses to create this commission of inquiry, the more people will think like you and I that there is something to be hidden," he explains.
"The only way to get a commission of inquiry is for Jean Charest to resign" explains Yves Boisvert, Professor of Ethics and Government at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration Publique
In order to get out of this impasse he therefore suggests that Quebec should give a special mandate to the General Verifier for the latter to inquire into collusion and corruption.
"One must be able to broaden the mandate of the General Verifier," he decides.
He also feels that Quebec could confer on the Verifier the same powers as those of a commissioner, allowing the former to compel people to testify.
The creation of a permanent group of people is not the only project on the Charest government programme.
Quebec would also ask Ottawa to modify the criminal code, to make it more suitable for this type of crime.
This request would come from the prosecutor of the Marteau operation, who informed the Minister of Justice Jean-Marc Fournier that precedent is not explicit on this type of inquiry.
The Federal Minister of Public Security, Vic Toews confirmed that his colleague at Justice, Rob Nicholson is currently inclined to introduce certain amendments.
At the time of the Spring 2001 operation, which targeted groups of motor cyclists, even though the criminal code had not been adapted, 181 persons were arrested..
Ottawa subsequently ruled to adopt the law on gangsterism
Rivers under close surveillance
Several water courses continue to be under close surveillance due to the heavy rains falling in several regions of the province since Tuesday
A land slide occurred on Wednesday afternoon at Shawinigan in Mauritia.
Two houses were evacuated as a precaution.
In the evening another land slide occurred at Saint-Lin-Laurentides in Lenaudière.
A road collapsed.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday evening heavy rain (from 40 to 70 millimetres) fell in several regions.
Between 20 and 40 millimetres of additional rain were expected between now and Thursday evening depending on region.
Sectors north of the river and in Outaouais alley were worst affected.
They received a total of up to 100 millimetres of rain.
Since these falls will be added to the thawing of snow already lying in certain sectors, the overflowing of several rivers is feared.
Flood alerts were issued on Wednesday evening by Quebec Civil Security for the rivers Ouareau and Achigan in Lenaudière.
The rivers Nord in Saint Jerôme, in the Laurentides and Chène in Lotbinière were the object of flood warnings and remained under surveillance.
In the Lanaudière region, heavy rains caused the overflowing of certain lakes at Sainte-Julienne, Sainte-Marcelline-de-Kildare, as well as at Rawdon.
At Sainte-Calixte, a provisional bridge was swept away by heavy rains.
Ten dwellings had to be evacuated as a precaution.
In the Outaouais, the overflowing of certain lakes entailed the closure of several roads, in particular in the municipality of Mansfield-et-Pontefract.
Annik Bouchard, a security consultant, stated that Civil Security continued to be in a state of alert and was monitoring the situation closely.
On Wednesday, Quebec Flood Forecast Centre issued flood warnings in respect of several rivers, in particular Maskinongé, Assomption, Ouareau, L'Achigan, Batiscan and Loup.
Dupont partly blamed
The Quebec radio animator Stéphane Dupont suffered a partial reverse before the Canadian Radio and Television Standards Council (CCNR) on the subject of social assistance and Haitians, as well as on that of his coarse language whilst on air.
Tne CNNR feels that M. Dupont and his team of CHOI 98,1 FM had the right to express their views, but that certain topics contained "inexact information on social assistance, unduly negative statements concerning Haitians and coarse language not suitable for daytime broadcasts."
The Council also concluded that a discussion about suicide including the broadcasting of the names of two persons who had committed suicide, did not infringe broadcasting codes.
The CCNR had received several complaints on the subject of comments made during bradcasts between 2008 and 2010.
The first decision was given following a complaint by the Quebec Common Front of persons receiving social assistance.
The group complained that the sums quoted in the broadcasts were not accurate.
The animators must present solid, not deceptive information.
Concerning suicide, the animator Stephane Dupont felt that suicide was the action of a coward.
The majority of members of the Committee concluded that the message conveyed was that suicide should not be seen as a solution of life's problems.
"The majority of the Committee feels that the episodes in question of "Dupont midday" approached a delicate subject in a balanced and appropriate manner."
Accordingly, no blame attached to him.
The last dispute concerned the declarations which followed the Haiti earthquake.
Stéphane Dupont and Jean-René Dufort then had a face-to-face media discussion, which gave rise to a lot of reactions.
The CHOI animator declared that he had not made any contribution to help the Haitians, because one could not be certain that the people in need really would receive the money.
The Committee believes that the comments were not improper, but that their cumulative effect concerning Haitians was unduly negative.
"I have already served my three-day suspension there."
"My record has now been clean for eighteen months," declared the animator.
In all its decisions the Committee condemns the broadcasting of coarse language.
The broadcaster CHOI-FN collaborated "beyond the call of duty" in all cases.
The consequences are minimal for the station which must, inter al, announce these decisions once during the hours of maximum audience within three days.
The king of kung-fu in Montreal
The Montreal resident of Algerian origin, Nacereddine Zemmal, has an extremely individual programme.
The athlete, who excels at "sanda" ("full contact" kung-fu), at kickboxing and at Thai boxing, is entering the tatami and the rings of the world in search of fresh challanges.
"I started practising martial arts such as kung-fu and kickboxing 12 years ago in Algeria," explained Zemmal who has lived in the capital since 2008 in order to train with professionals.
"In my case I look for fights everywhere, since for those who do not like the floor fights present in mixed martial arts, competitions in North America are rare."
Recently, the man working as security agent for the UPS company, had bad news for his rivals, having gained two gold medals in the amateur world championship of the World Karate and Kickboxing Association (WKA) held from 23 to 30 October in Edinburgh in Scotland.
"I won in the classes of full contact kickboxing and Thai boxing," he explained.
"I am currently preparing to go to China for the San Shou World Cup."
"Competitors who finished among the first four zt the preceding world championship in each class, were invited."
"In Toronto in 2009 I won the bronze medal."
"In Vietnam in 2005, I finished eigth."
"I finished fifth in the 2007 tournament in China and third in Toronto in 2009," he added.
"What is interesting is that I did better at each competition."
"At this rate I will be first this year, or next!"
The "san shou" or "sanda" is an original Chinese contest, where punches and kicks, as well as throwing to the ground is authorised.
The fights take place on a platform and more rarely in a ring.
The most famous pugilist from this form of combat is the American of Vietnamese origin, Cung Le, well known in the world of martial arts.
If Nacer Zemmal is asked to recall only one event of his career, it will surely be his participation in the "King of Sanda" tournament in the kung-fu Super Bowl.
"This competition is the most often mentioned and the most prestigious in China," explained the agreeable, strapping young man.
"It is the equivalent of the Lumpinee Stadium, (the largest stadium in Thailand)."
"It was a super experience."
Zemmal won his first fight, a semi-final in his class (80 kg), before losing in the finals.
"The man who beat me was a real professional" he analysed.
"There are four fighters in each class (80 kg, 85 kg, 90 kg and 95 kg) "
"The winners of the semi-finals fight one another in the finals of their class."
"The winners in each class fight one another for the title of a sigle champion, the king of kung-fu."
450 milion' worth of contracts without calls for tender
Hydro-Quebec awarded 450 million dollars' worth of contracts to engineering companies for the Eastmain-1-A-Sarcelle-Rupert hydroelectric project.
At the core of this avalanche of over 100 contracts is a consortium formed by the companies BPR. Dessau, SN Group and Axor, which secured the most important one, that of managing the project for the sum of 295 million dollars without a call for tender.
The consortium called Energie gérance was formed in 2004, leaving it to Hydro-Quebec at its option to pass its responsibility for managing this important hydroelectric project worth 5000 million dollars to the private sector.
At the beginning of 2005 the Energie gérance consortium secured this lucrative contract without a prior public call for tender.
As far as the Quebec Party is concerned, recourse to company consortia poses a serious problem, that of elimination of competition and of an increase of price.
"This is the new way of colluding and defeating competition."
"This means that rather than behaving secretively, people now behave openly," declared the Quebec Party deputy Silvain Simard at a Press conference.
Earlier during the morning M. Simard raised the question in the National Assembly, because he found it difficult to see how the public interest could be served in that way.
Replying in the afternoon, the Minister of Natural Resources Nathalie Normandeau, denied vigorously any collusion in connection with this contract.
"I am starting my journey," she stormed, maintaining that the Quebec Party had been "dishonest" and "lacking rigour."
She said that "it would be the least thing" for the Quebec Party to excuse itself.
The formula of the consortia is current practice throughout the world.
What is usually involved is an alliance limited over time, which allows two or more companies to combine their respective expertises in order to respond to a call for tender for a complex project.
The Eastmain project comprises a high level of complexity, taking into account the extent of the works.
The site is in progress and must extend until 2012.
The contract was awarded without involving competition; there were negotiations.
Likewise, the formula of consortia is no longer an exception in Quebec, even in respect of relatively simple projects.
As was disclosed last week by Le Devoir, the formula of consortia in the engineering consultancy sector is the subject of a government inquiry.
A brief inspection of the register of Quebec companies shows the existece of over 200 consortia, some of which appear to be permanent.
So, for example, the Desseau company works in partnership with the majority of its principal competitors, including CIMA+, Génivar, SNC-Lavalin and others such as Roche and Tecsult.
Every combination and there are tens of them, comes back to one and the same company, namely Desseau.
As far as the Energie gérance consortium is concerned, Minister Normandeau stressed that "the territory of the Baie James complies with the specific labour dynamics and that Hydro-Quebec has complied with them specifically since the nineteen seventies."
The head of the Eastmain project, Réal Laporte of the Société d'énergie de la Baie James (SEBJ) gave an explanation, which raised eyebrows about the fact that the project management contract had been awarded by mutual agreement.
"If you launch a call for tender and if there are few tenderers, your prices will be too high."
"You have two options; either you accept the people who are in that market and you say that we will negotiate a satisfactory alliance and a good price." or you take the people who are in that market and you say that we will negotiate a satisfactiory alliance and a good price." we will negotiate a satisfactory alliance and a good price."
"But the idea is that it is not the price which is impportant, but people's skills" stated M. Laporte.
This contract awarded to the Energie gérance consortium, forms part of a long list of contracts of over 50 000 $ secured by the Quebec Psrty.
The contracts were awarded by Hydro-Quebec or SEBJ for the Eastmain-1-A-Sarcelle-Rupert project.
Following verification, Le Devoir counted 109 engineering consultancy contracts awearded between 2002 and 2010 to companies or to their subsidiaries, especially soil laboratories.
SNC-Lavalin grabbed 22 contracts, Génivar 16, Tecsult 14 and Dessau 10, not counting its participation in Eergie gérance.
All the contracts were negotiated.
They total 449 783 344 $, including the contract awarded to Energie gérance worth 295 131 564 $.
Sylvain Simard let it be known that the four companies comprsing the consortium (BPR, Dessau, Group SN and Axor) are "well known to Quebec Liberal Party."
Minister Normandeau let slip that the Quebec Party is also linked to these companies who "finance" it, before stating that it was rather its directors, who were involved.
Barometer of the responsible consumption - the "green" label does not inspire confidence.
Greener, but frankly sceptical.
The Quebec consumer has little confidence in durable development players, but also in equitable brands and in certificates claimed to be ecological, to guide his choice.
Worse, if he immerses himself in the universe of the media where messages in favour of more responsibe consumption pullulate, he deplores the lack of reliable information, a piece of neglect which he even describes as a brake on his commitment, indicates the Barometer of responsible consumption whose first reading took place today.
Even if they brought about an increase of consumption of so-called socially responsible products in 2010, Quebec inhabitants appear to have little faith in those who are trying to sell it to them.
Two-thirds among them say in effect that they do not believe in the environmental commitment of companies, or their green publicity disclosing the tool of measurement drawn up by the responsible consumption observatory of Sherbrooke University.
Another finding: Half of consumers entertain doubts concerning the reliability of official certifications appearing on so-called equitable products, but also concerning the credibility of products and brands marked as eco-responsible, indicates the Barometer.
In the same vein, the talk of politicians on this topic is taken seriously by only 14.6% of Quebec inhabitants.
Nevertheless, information concerning responsible consumption appears to be fundamental for the stimulation of this kind of current consumption by two-thirds of Quebec inhabitants.
In fact, the vacuum and the doubtful nature of the information would cool the ardour of 46% of consumers.
It is the second most important brake after the higher price of these products identified by the Barometer.
Moreover, two-thirds of Quebec inhabitants say that they mistrust the alleged performamce of "green" products or services which are being placed in their hands.
On another note, in 2010 almost half the consumers had to change thir habits and most importantly to change the brand of one or more of their products, to reflect their conviction.
Up to 61% of them thus favoured buying from their local shops and preferred foodstuffs grown in their region, indicate the Barometer.
Greener and more responsible - the responsible consumption index has reached 64 out of a maximum of 100 for this year - the Quebec homo consumus likes to appear as the king of recycling trying to reduce its environmental imprint by worrying about the protection of animals.
But its social and ecological conscience nevertheless appears to be restricted to the outside of its vehicle, indicates the Barometer: in 2010, scarcely 28% of Quebec inhabitants stated that they used public transport or recommended its use in order to defend their green interests.
Walking and cycling were also supported by 19.1% of participants in this huge bahavioural inquiry.
A State loan for the purchase of the eXcentris.
The Quebec government which was asked to become financial involved in the purchase of the eXcentris cinema complex by the Angus and Parallel company, agrees to collaborate, but only in the form of a loan.
The Angus and Parallel development company which hoped for a grant of seven million dollars from the Ministry of Culture to purchase from Daniel Langlois the cinema complex eXcentris on boulevard Saint-Laurent, restoring to it its full cinemaphile vocation, will not secure what they are asking for.
The government agrees to become involved, but on its own conditions.
Rather than the expected donation, the Quebe government is offering a loan which will be less than initially expected and which could be a viable solution on advantageous conditions, at least according to State sources.
A first plan of action and a request for 12.8 million were already rejected by Quebec last spring, but the requests have since been revised downwards.
A proposal amd an action plan were sent to Minister St-Pierre by the chairman of the Société deDéveloppement des Entreprises Culturelles (SODEC) François Nacerola, who is piloting the eXcenrtic file.
He sent him a final report ten days ago.
But the counterproposal of the cabinet arrived at SODEC on Tuesday.
Parallèle and Angus have until 31 December to reply to it.
It nevertheless appears that the assumption of a donation must really be abandoned.
Let us recall that the Associaitons of Quebec Owners of Cinemas and Cineparks opposed direct State investment to assist the purchase of eXcentris, arguing that the Ministry of Culture does not have to finance real estate projects, which it did not do for other cinemas.
But several local players, on the other hand, claimed substantial economic help.
Daniel Langlois, the previosu owner, supported the author's cinema on the complex premises after having himself financed its construction, which was able to justify a waiver by the Treasury.
There is a crying lack of halls for showing independent films in Montreal and eXcentris knew how to gain the loyalty of its customers.
The Angus Company and the Parallel, headed by Christian Yaccarini, are piloting a private financing campaign, hoping to collect 700 000 $ to make the acquisiton possible.
Since spring 2009, one of the three screens, the Parallel, continues to broadcast eXcetris films.
The aim of future purchasers is that of reopening the three halls on 27 February, showing the very beautiful film by Xavier Beauvois entitled "Men and Gods."
But Cristian Yaccarini has not called back Le Devoir and it is not known what he and his Group think about the proposals for a reduction, which have been made to them.
The veil lifted on a complex Canada....
The new American diplomatic cables divulged by Wikileaks have lifted the veil on what the United States consider to be an inferiority complex of Canadians towards Americans, but they also betray a superiority complex of the later towards Canada.
Thus, American diplomats are astonished that every Canadian elector does not have Canado-American relations at heart when voting and believe that the visit by President Obama helped the Conservative government to have its 2009 budget adopted!
The four new communications between the American embassy in Ottawa and Washington published yesterday, give more spicy details to get one's teeth into.
A cable dated 22 Setember 2008, in the very middle of the federal election campaign, tells to what extent the United States form part of the stakes being debated by political leaders.
To the great astonishment of the American ambassador in Ottawa, David Wilkins.
Mr. Wilkins offers some explanations of this situation.
"An almost inherent Canadian inferiority complex is perhaps inducing Canadian political leaders to speak about everyday internal stakes, rather than blame this election on the United States (as during the free exchange campaign of 1988).
The United States therefore are, he concludes, "the proverbial elephant of this election: omnipresent, but potentially too threatening to be talked about."
The ambassador understands this "deafening silence" all the less, since the two countries have an intense political and economic relationship.
"Logically," he feels, "the ability of a candidate, of a party and even more of a party leader to mamage this essential relationship must be a key factor, which the voters have in mind when voting."
The other expression of this important sentiment is found in the cable sent on 22 January 2009 by Terry Breese, chargé d'affaires in Ottawa, preparing President Barack Obama for his first visit to Ottawa.
"Your journey will help ensure the government's survival of the vote of confidence at the start of February on the federal budget, which will post Canada's first deficit for over ten years due to a relaunch plan of 30 to 40 thousand million dollars," writes Mr. Breese.
Nowhere can be found any mention that the government had to adjourn parliament before Christmas to avoid being defeated by the coalition and that the opposition parties made its survival conditional on the quality of the proposed relaunch plan.
Another communication dated Janaury 2008 and signed by ambassador Wilkins, warns Washington about the increasingly negative image of the United States conveyed by drama series broadcasts by CBC.
The ambassador is worried by broadcasts such as Border, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Intelligece and H2O, which contain unsubtle references to Maher Arar, to the "No Fly List" or again to kidnappings for rigorous interrogation by the CIA.
Another cable tells that during their first bilateral meeting, Hillary Clinton asked her French opposite number Bernard Kouchner, whether Europe was ready to receive certain Guantanamo prisoners.
M. Kouchner replied "yes," but on a case-by-case basis.
At the end of the meeting, he wrote,"he handed a paper to the Secretary of State on the subject of Omar Khadr, a Moslem aged 15 of Canadian origin."
"The Secretary agreed to review the case."
It should be noted in conclusion that tempers became heated about the WikiLeaks website.
Tom Flanagan, an former adviser very close to Stephen Harper, declared on CBC waves that the person responsible for this massive leak should be "asassinated."
He echoed Mike Huckabee in the United States.
A worldwide plan for renewing lighting.
Yesterday at Cancun UNO put forward a plan of renovation of domestic, commercial and industrial lighting in 100 countries with a view to securing a reduction of greenhouse gases (GES) corresponding to almost one-third of the additional reduction needed to stabilise the planet's climate by 2020.
This ambitious plan is one of a number of concrete projects, which UNO hopes to have adopted at Cancun to offset the absence of mandatory reduction undertakings by industrialised countries.
According to the plan tabled yesterday, if incandescent bulbs, which still hold 50 to 70% of the market, were replaced by fluocompact bulbs, or better still, by electroluminescent diode bulbs (DEL or LED in English), the bulk of the 1.8 thousand million tonnes of GES emitted on the planet to provide illumination for human beings, would be avoided.
Illumination is responsible for 8% of worldwide emissions.
This is the equivalent of 70% of the emissions by the world's motor vehicles.
Last year at Copenhagen the high emissions countries such as the United States, China, Europe and others including Canada, adopted voluntary plans of reduction to bring down global emissions of GES from 53 Gt to 49 Gt.
But it will be necessary to subtract from this figure a further 5 Gt to stabilise the increase of climate warming by 2020 at 2°C in order to avoid loss of control.
In incandescent bulbs 95% of energy is dissipated in the form of heat and only the remaining 5% produce light.
With fluocompact bulbs, the dissipation of energy is reduced by 75% and with the new DEL bulbs, the energy requirement is additionally reduced by double that amount.
Fluocompact bulbs last on an average between 6000 and 10 000 hours.
The new DEL bulbs such as those launched by Philips this week, Philips having morepover participated in a UNO study, have a life expectancy of 25 000 hours and consume 80% less energy than incandescent bulbs, giving an idea of the saving, which would be possible in a plan of replacement applicable to 100 countries.
These entirely novel bulbs can also work with rheostats, emitting very little heat.
And they contain no mercury.
Several specialists have voiced revervations concerning fluocompact bulbs, because they contain mercury and because it is necessary to dispose of them as dangerous waste, which is not always possible in developing countries, unless the manufacturers issue instructions.
But, states the report, the principal source of mercury emission on the planet is not the fluocompast bulb, but rather carbon thermal emission centres, which emit a lot of mercury to produce the electricity wasted in incandescent bulbs.
In the United States alone, these centres emit 25 000 tonnes of mercury a year.
The report details the gains, which every country would achieve through this international programme.
For example, Indonesia would save a thousand million dollars a year on purchases of electricity and eight million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 3.5 thermal centres, whose construction would cost 2.5 thousand million dollars.
Ivory Coast is nervously expecting the announcement of the election results.
The UNO Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has called for the publication "without delay" of the results of the Ivory Coast presidential election, on the expiry of the set period.
"The Secretary-General stresses the need for the independent electoral commission to complete its work and to announce the provisional results without further delay" stressed a spokesman for the head of UNO."
"He asks all Ivory Coast parties and institutions to show responsibility and to abstain from any initiatives pending the annoucement of the provisional results."
Despite pressures exerted by certain foreign governments, the electoral commission has allowed th target date of Wednesday midnight to pass, without publishing the results three days after the Sunday voting.
About forty minutes before the expiry of the set period the president of the independent electoral commission "continued to work" on the announbcement of the results.
Throughout the world, calls became more frequent on Wednesday for the electoral commission finally to declare the name of the winner of the second round, Laurent Gbagbo or his opponenent Alassane Ouattara.
But the Gbagbo camp is counting ont he cancellation by the Constitutional Council of "fraudulent" votes in the north, received by the ex-rebels of the New Forces (FN) since the failed coup d'état in September 2002.
Pascal Affi N'Buessan, campaign director of the Ivory Coast president, stated that the manœeuvres of intimidation of electors by the FN in the north of the country had dissuaded the partisans of the leaving president from voting.
Any election could be annulled, if complaints by Ghagbo are accepted by the Constitutional Council.
Gbagbo's enemies allege that the highest Court of the coutry is not impartial, since it is presided by Paul Yao N'Dré, a close political ally of Gbagbo.
Alassane Ouattara, the man from the north, who denies any links with the ex-rebels, has described as "unacceptable" the delay in making the announcement of the results and has asked Gbagbo to respect them, but has not gone so far as to claim victory.
His allies state that Gbagbo is blocking the publication of the results, because he knows that he lost and that complaining to the Constitutional Council after having prevented the electoral commission from publishing the results, would be illegal.
The second round of voting in the presidential election on Sunday was thought to have crowned the process of reunification and of reconciliation of a country split in two for years.
On Wednesday UNO warned the Ivory Coast political class that it might be held respoonsible for any violence.
Laurent Gbagbo finished at the top in the first round on 11 October, with 38% of votes against 32% for Alassane Ouattara, who received the public support of the former presdient Henri Konan Bedié (25% in the firts round).
The rate of unemployment in France has remained stable in the 3rd quarter.
The rate of unemployment in France according to the International Labour Office has remained stable at 9.3% in metropolitan France (9.7% taking into account overseas Départements) trnspires from data corrected for provisional seasonal variations (CVS) published on THursday by the Insee.
The number of unemployed is 2.631 million in metropolitan France.
The data for the second quarter were confirmed at 9.3% of native working population and 9.7 of the DOM.
Over one year, unemployment has risen by 0.1 points.
Seen more broadly, 3.4 million persons in metropolitan France are not working during the third quarter but wish to work, whether they are, or are not available for work within two weeks and whether or not they are looking for work.
Te position of the young in the labour market has worsened with a fresh rise in the unemployment rate to 24.2% in metropolitan France (+,9.2 points over three months +0.5 points over the year) and 25% including the DOM.
In the third quarter, 637 000 young people between 15 and 24 were unemployed (BIT).
Older people experienced a slight rise of unemployment to 6.4% in metropolitan France (+0.2 points over three months and over a year), equal to 482 000 persons of 50 or over and 6.6% for the DOM.
Only the 25-39 benefited from stable unemployment in the third quarter being 8.,3% in metropolitan France (-0.1 points over three months and +0.1 pointsover a year) and 8.8% in the whole of France.
Since 2006, the Insee no longer publishes the monnhly unemployment rate, following arguments about its method of calculation.
On the other hand, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the Euroean Union, continues to do so and on Tuesday announced a rate of 9.8% for France (DOM included) in October after 9.9% in September.
Alexandre Guerini is under arrest
Alexandre Guerini, 53, director of waste processing companies and brother of the president of General Council of Bouches-du-Rhone, was arrested and sent to Luynes prison near Aix-en-Provence in the context of an investigation of public contracts presumed fraudulent.
According to his attorney, Alexandre Guerini is accused of the abusive use of company property, the theft public funds, of receiving stolen goods, of active corruption and of the sale of influence.
"Alexande Guereini is combative and is willing to answer any questions which the magistrate may ask, but not fantasies."
"It is easy to accuse him of a number of reprehensible actions, but quite another to prove them" declared his attorney, Florence Rault, to APF, before her client's hearing.
M. Guerini, brother of the strong man of the socialist party in the département, Jean-Noel Guerini, passed to his judge prior to his hearing through his attorney an explanatory memorandum.
One of his intimates, Philippe Rapezzi was also detained on Wed esday eveneing.
According to his attorney, Me Lucien Simon, his client never did anything other than perform his duties.
Concerning the award of contracts or the destination of the related funds, he had no knowledge of them, said Me Simon.
In this matter, Daniel Pinna, formerly director-general of servies of the Aubagne conurbation was detained for questioning on Wednesday concerning the theft of public funds and complicity and released on police bail, coupled with a prohibition on meeting any persons involved in the case.
"My client has given explanations of the allegations against him."
2"The examining magistrate took this into account and did not deprive him of his freedom," said his attorney, Me Yann Arnoux.
Four other persons were detained for questioning and released during the night of Tuesday to Wednmesday, two of them on bail, said the assistant public prosecutor, Michel Raffin.
Michel Karabadjakian, assistant director-general of the cleansingof Marseille Province Metropole (MPM) is being prosecuted for "sale of influence and passive corruption."
Two functionaries of the Aubagne conurbation. Michèle Duval and Christophe Bringuier, were arrested and quationed one concerning the "theft of public property by a person responsible for public service" and the other concerning "complicity in the theft of public funds."
Lastly, the companion of Alexandre Guerini, Jeanne Peretti was questioned concerning "receiving stolen company roperty."
Among persons confronted with M. Guerini is Stephane Brunengo-Girard, recetly arrested in a parallel affair concerning fraudulent public contracts involving Corsica.
Investigators suspect his companies of having served for large-scale money laundering.
The investigation is being conducted in the context of several Court investigations of X in April 2009 following anonymous letters concerning presumed fraud relating to public contracts, in particular for waste disposal.
According to a source close to the inquiry,the investigations concentrate in particular on the conditions of the award and functioning of a discharge of La Ciotat, which collects Aubagne waste as well as the waste from certain towns of the urban community of Marseille (MPM).
Affair of Clothilde Reiss: The Elysée has exaggerated the involvement of Syria
During over ten months, from July 2009 to May 2010, the fate of Clotilde Reiss, the young French reseerch worker arrested in Iran for "espionage," msde France hold its breath, alerted diplomacy and underlined the deterioration of relatiions between Paris and Teheran.
All under the careful scrutiny of United States diplomats.
American documents obtained by WikiLeaks and consulted by Le Monde, reveal some of the background of this crisis.
They describe how the Elysée explained its strategy to the Americans, going so far as to give them advice on the treatment of their own "hostage" in Iran crises (a small group of trippers).
They show how the French authorities have tried to convince Washington that the release of the young Frenchwoman was not balanced by the release of Majid Kakavand, an Iranian under arrest in France and sought by American justice for trafficking in materials for the benefit of the Iranian nuclear programme.
Lastly, they place in a glaring light the way in which the French presidency tried to manipulate the media to give credence of the idea that the Syrian president, Bachar Al-Assad played a central part in the release of Clotilde Reiss.
In reality, he had not done anything.
A diplomatic cable sent on 12 August 2009 to Paris is entitled "Iran: French comments on how to manage cases of hostages."
The Elysée adviser on strategic matters, François Richier, accompanied by the director of Quai d'Orsay for North Africa and the Middle East, Patrice Paoli, had a discussion with the American diplomat, Kathleen Alegrone.
They explained to her the French method.
They advised the Americans to arrange to repatriate their own nationals detained in Iran.
"Make a lot of noise," they said, "hammer ceaselessly the words "fundamental rights of man," "innocence" and "immediate release" in the media."
"You must not embarrass the Iranian regime, which is sensitive to its image."
"Do it all the more when the Iranians ask you not to."
Because after attempts to discuss the matter through discreet channels have failed, silence will not solve anything, the Iranians being past-masters of delaying tactics."
M. Richier adds that arresting foreigners is a familiar Iranian tactic, taking hostages for political blackmail.
He announced that therelease of Clotilde Reiss from prison (which will take place on 16 August, the day on which she took refuge in the French embassy) would involve paying the Iranians a large sum of money (230 000 Eur as a caution).
And he advised that the Elysée expected other hostage crises, a phenomenon which would get worse.
He said that the Iranians might arrest in the near future another of some 1800 French citizens who live in Iran.
28.8.09
Clotilde Reiss has been out of prison for twelve days, but is unable to leave Iran.
A piece of information was broadcast: the Iranian Majid Kakavand, whose extradition for illegal traffic in sensitive electronic material to Iran the United States are demanding, was freed in Paris by a Court.
According to numerous observers, the American embassy is considering this worrying coincidence.
For Washington which tracks Iranian illegal nuclear material acquisition networks, the release of Majid Khakavgand is bad news.
Has France accepted a deal?
The release of the Iranian against that of the Frenchwoman?
During the conversation with Kathleen Allegrone on 4 September, François Richier gave an assurance that this was not the case.
He said that he Elysée was not only completely surprised by the Judge's ruling, but also tried to oppose it.
He said that there were lively exchanges betwen the French presidency and and the Garde des Sceaux at the time, Michèle Alliot-Marie. but the French government could not change the Court ruling.
M. Richier also wants to demonstrate that Majid Kakavand continues under close surveilance by the French secret service.
The Elysée adviser dials a number, hangs up and then informs the American diplomat that the Iranian is currently in a Paris building managed by the Iranian embassy.
During Clotilde Reiss' detention in Iran, the Elysée did not control its efforts by means of communiques and media "leaks" to create the impression that the Syrian pesident Bachar Al-Assad was playing the important and influential part of an intermediary.
The Americans observe this activity without irony and find that manipulation bears fruit because several Press articles repeat the official French version.
A telegram dated 25 August 2009 mentions the media "blitz" by French officials.
On what is based so much "gratitude" epressed to M. Assad, asks the Paris embassy.
Notwithstanding their declarations full of praise, French officials privately admit that they only have the vaguest notion of what the Syrians really did.
The document then deals with the reasons why the Elysée put out this fiction.
It states that the intensive effort of communication tries to validate Sarkozy's policy of moving closer to Syria.
A policy launched in 2008, which was seen by many critics in France and abroad as being premature and without merit.
By exaggerating the part played by Syria, Paris is trying to show Syria how much praise it could gain by playing a constructive part in the region.
The objective is also that of sowing seeds of discord betwen Syria and Iran.
The American embassy knows this from a reliable source.
On 11 August, François Richier confided him that the French did not of course know whether the Syrians had done anything.. "bien sûr, nous ne savons pas si les Syriens ont fait quoi que ce soit."
But that they still thanked them.
This might at least confuse the Iranians.
Clotilde Reiss returns to France on 16 May 2010
NIcolas Sarkozy receives her at the Elysée.
In a communique, he thanks the presidents fo Brazil, Senegal and Syria for their "active role in favour of the release of our compatriot."
No on-line games for young Koreans after midnight.
According to government authorities, the South Korean governemt will pass a law called "Cinderella," which will prohibit adolescents from playing on-line games after midnight by means of bocking their access.
According to representaitves of the Ministries of Culture and Family, a draft law will be submitted to parliament in December to ask on-line game companies to block access of juvenies under 16 to their games after midnight.
A lot of children play these games all night and then experience difficulties in studying at school and in living a normal life in daytime.
"We think that this law is needed to ensure their health and their right to sleep," declared to AFP Jo Rin, the Minister in charge of piloting the draft law.
On-line games will now be accessible at 6 a.m.
The Minister stated that the companies would have one year to prepare themselves for the application of the law.
He added that the government would also ask the companies to limit the daily time of access to these games by young people whose parents have asked for this to be done.
He would also make available to people requesting it, free-of-charge software making it possible to limit time spent on Internet.
South Korea is one of the most "connected" countries and the newspapers regularly report various facts linked to an intensive use of the Internet.
The country is also the undisputed champion of worldwide online game competitions.
In November, South Korea won four gold medals at World Cyber Games in a contest of 58 other nations.
World championships 2018-2022: Fifa appoints organising countries.
Torment due to suspected corruption. On Thursday, the executive committee of Fifa will appoint countries to organise World Cup matches in 2018 and 2022, an eminently politcal choice, where influence and lobbying battles are liable to take precedence of technical criteria.
One thing is certain; the 2018 edition of the Fifa competition will take place in Europe, the traditional bastion of the game (4 candidates, Great Britain, Russia, Spain-Portugal and Belgium-The Netherlands; Angleterre, Russie, Espagne-Portugal, Pays-Bas-Belgique).
That of 2022 will be a lot more exotic, Fifa hoping to conquer new territories (Quatar, Australia) after a first contest on the African continent in 2010 or to pursue its introduction into the USA, or the Far East (Japan, South Korea).
The list of personalities of the delegations (David Cameron, Price William, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Jose Socrates, Bill Clinton, the Emir of Qatar, the heads of the Belgian and Dutch governments, Zidane, Beckham, Cruyff) give an idea of the economic and political stakes of a world competition.
Behind-the-scenes bargaining may therefore last up to the last minute.
For the rest, it is difficult to establish a hierarchy among the candidates.
According to a Fifa assessment report, the British, Spanish-Portuguese (2018) and American (2022) cases advance better arguments than their competitors.
But these considerations will not weigh very heavily with the 22 members of the executive committee, when it comes to voting.
The Sunday Times whiose disclosures resulted in the suspension of two members of the executive committee (Reynald Temerii and Amos Adamu), might thus have ruined the chances of its country, the cradle of football, which only hosted the World Cup once, in 1966.
On Monday the BBC broadcast a documentary concerning three influential members of the executive committee, Ricardo Teizeira, Nicolas Leoz and Issa Hayatou.
Upsetting Fifa and embarrasing the British representatives, who engaged in intensive lobbying in recent weeks, mainly through David Beckham.
The head of the British government hopes to repeat the coup of his predessesor Tony Blair, who in 2005 secured the choice of London as the venue of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Will this intensive activity suffice to reguild the shield of England in the eyes of the executive committee?
Nothing is less certain, because the Spain-Portugal duo does not lack for advantages, with its stadia already completed, its expertise (World Cup 82 in Spain, 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Euro 2004 in Portugal) and its football culture.
But the sombre economic and financial prospects of the two countries could pour cold water on their ambitions.
Possible reprisals against the British and doubts about the solvency of Spain and Portugal can only improve the standing of Russia, which has become a powerful outsider, despite its lacks (stadia, hotels, transport).
But the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided not to travel to Zurich and denounced "unfair competition in the preparation of voting" in a veiled reference to accusations in the British Press against members of the executive committee.
"They are being spattered with mud and attempts are being made to compromise them," alleged Mr. Putin.
Concerning 2022, the United States with expereince of 1994, appear the obvious favourites.
The leading world ecomomic power, the seat of the principal sponsors of Fifa, the country appears to have a big lead over Japan and South Korea who have separately built a very fine project.
But these new candidatures appear premature for two countries, which jointly organised the 2002 trial.
Another threat: The award of the 2026 World Competition to China, ardently desired by Fifa, which will in fact extinguish Asian chances for 2022.
Concerning Qatar which has made great play of proposing futuristic stadia and Australia, Fifa would pursue its expansion into new regions, but these two countries offer more risk than certainty.
Like Japan and South Korea, Australia could also suffer from the weakness of TV rights of European countries, the nerve centre of the war for Fifa.
Second mandate: the evidence
De Gaulle really hesitated.
Mitterand made others believe that he hesitated.
Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac had not the slightest hesitation.
And Nicolas Sakozy still fewer than they.
An Elysée mandate tells a different story.
Accordingly, the current head of State will be a candidate in 2012.
But the evidence conflicts with the mystique of the presidential function.
It is now necessary to pretend that the doubt had always existed.
In one sense as in the other.
In 2006, even without believing it, friends of Jacques Chirac pretended that a third mandate was not excluded.
On 15 November with a grave air, Nicolas Sarkozy gave an assurance that he would make his decision "sometime in the autumn of 2011"
The fact that on Tuesday night at the Elysée before UMP deputies he called up the prospect of "two mandates" sowed some feverish reflections.
Was this the official annoucement of his candidature?
Far from it.
The president only recalled that the 2008 revised constiution limited the number of five-year terms to only two.
He stated facts, but he did not make an announcement.
This is not for the first time that he humorously mentions the presidential election at such meetings.
He said in July 2009 that at best they only had another seven and a half years of him.
Rebelote in May 2010: Do not believe that I only thought about it afterwards
His intentions of the day before yesterday did not make him any more or any less a candidate than those of the day before that.
If they occasion comments, the reason is twofold.
On the one hand, the acceleration of the progress of the candidature of the socialist party.
But it is not the entry into the lists of Segolene Royal, which pushes Nicolas Sarkozy to unmask himself.
The reason is, on the contrary, that his 2012 candidature is clearly what many members of the socialist party are calling for, an earlier plan of battle than one originally planned.
The bad polls, on the other hand.
For the first time, voters on the right preferred the candidature of François Fillon to that of Nicolas Sarkozy (45% against 44%, according to EVA-L'Express).
The entourage of the Prime Minister immediately said that it had a candidate and that there was no debate about this within UMP.
Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that if he, the candidate, believed that defeat was a possibility, he would not be a candidate.
Alain Juppé said in the face of evidence and by way of correction that the candidate would always believe that he could win.
Euro: BCE compelled to buy State securities
The last annual meeting of the board of governors of the European Central Bank (BCE) had to be the occasion of specifying the methods of emerging from the crisis, or at least of announcing the end of a good number of unconventional monetary policy operations, which have to be completed by the year end.
The European sovereign debt crisis obliges the issuing institute in Frankfurt to bahave less peremptorily, on pain of aggravating the situation, which is now more than tense enough already on European markets of obligation.
The political cost would be all the higher.
Yesterday at a Press conference, the French Minister of Finance, Christine Lagarde greeted the active role played by the BCE to resolve the debt crisis of European States.
She did not wish to say whether she thought that the Central Bank had to do more, for example, by increasing its programme of buying sovereign bonds.
She said that she would communicate her thoughts to her European partners.
In Brussels on the day before during his hearing before the economic and monetary affairs commission of the European parliament, the chairman of the BCE, Jean-Claude Trichet did not prove more diffuse about his intentions, contenting himself with saying that the programme of buying State securities in the secondary market would continue and that they would see what will be decided at the meeting on Thursday.
The only certainty: The BCE would keep its principal rate of interest unchanged at 1%, historically the lowest since May 2009.
Factually, the obligatory Treasury purchases by the BCE doubled during last week to almost 1.35 thousand million Euros.
And, according to indiscretions of market operators, it made fresh purchases of Irish and Portuguese bonds yesterday.
In total, Eurosystem central banks bought 67 thousand millions' worth of Euros since May 2010.
There is no doubt among market operators about the expectations of a pursuit of purchases (see page 29).
Economists no longer expect any marked change of cap.
Whilst loan operations at over three months have already disappeared from the BCE Bank arsenal, the latter continues to grant unlimited cash loans on generous terms and for periods from one weke to three months.
Economists now expect that the facility will be extended by some months.
Michael Schubert, an economist at Commerzbank cannot imagine that it will modify it programe to any great extent.
He says that this would cause new short-term tensions.
Norbest Bräms, an economist at Sal says that a gradual exit to be announced during the firts quarter of 2011 appears more likely.
Oppenheim.
Norbet Bräms adds that on the level of its interventions in the public debt market, the BCE would have to make purchases of these bonds adequately large to revive the lacklustre market.
Taking into account the large exposure of European banks to sovereign debt markets of the Euro zone, the issuing institute has no option other than to maintain a presence in the market.
An important bonds manager said yesterday that the Bank must at all costs offsat the shortage of investors in the market and prevent a boom of payments by the most vulnerable States.
Because if interest rates take off, States will be all the more anxious to reduce their indebtedness, or to stabilise it.
This is the price of safeguarding the Euro.
In Italy, the Berlusconi government is turning its back.
After the start of a disquieting week for Italy, the situation yesterday was somewhat easier with the reflux of 10-year obligatory rates.
Return to precarious calm.
On leaving a meeting with the Minister of the Economy, the regional presidents said that Giulio Tremonti described the situation as "insoluble" and that he was waiting for an unforeseeable weekend, which he subsequently denied.
In any event on Tuesday the difference between German long-term rates reached a record of 210 base points and the price of contracts to cover the risk of bankruptcy (CDS) took off to reach 263 points, producing a certain amount of panic in Rome.
At a session of the council of ministers, Silvio Berlusconi pointed out that in Spain the differential from German rates was over 400 base points.
But his right arm, Gianni Letta, declared himself very worried by market turbulence and by a possible contagion from Ireland.
The good news is that Italy, the third largest economy of the Eurozone, is not like Greece and Ireland.
According to Irwin Stezer, an econoist at the Hudson Institute,the bad news is that it is like Portugal.
Clearly, its problem is an absence of growth and inadequate tax revenues, placing the State in in danger of no longer being able to cover its financial requirements.
The most recent forecasts from Brussels acted like a cold shower on the government.
Italian growth is now expected to be 1.1% in 2011 and 1.4% in 2012, whist the budget now under scrutiny by the Senate records 1.3 and 2.0% respectively.
Under these conditions, the European Commission calculates that the public deficit will be 4.3% of the GDP next year (versus 3.9% forecast by the government) and 3.5% in 2012 (instead of the forecast of 2.7%).
This is the reason for the rumour of a new collective budget of 7 thousand million Euros, which might be drawn up after the holidays.
The economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said that if necessary, new austerity measures will have to be taken.
For the moment, Italy receives support from international institutions.
Arrigo Sadun, the Italian administrator of the International Monetary Fund in charge of Italy at the IMF assures that the foundations of Italian economy are sound.
Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist of OCDE, states that there is no problem in the immediate future, in the short or in the long term, because despite its large debt (119.2% of GIP in 2011, NDLR). stabilisation efforts demanded from Italy are smaller than those demanded from other countries.
There remains the question of political instability.
On 14 December, Silvio Berlusconi will face a motion of censure in the Chamber of Deputies, following which an early general election could take place at the end of March.
A period not suited to the taking of decisions in the event of a serious crisis would then begin.
Europeans are thinking about means of strengthening anti-crisis devices.
Christine Lagarde hammered the following home yesterday at a Press conference in Paris: She said that she believed Europeans showed on Sunday both day and night that they are committed to defend their currency and their monetary zone.
Although that it was only relative, the detente recorded here yesterday of interest rates on European State bonds brought water to the mills of governments and of the BCE.
But one cannot yet speak about a start of normalisation.
The Standard & Poor agency announced that it might devalue the Portuguese debt, the target of most of today's speculation.
The economists of Exane BNP Paribas feel that as in May, there is a real lack of clarity and political transparency encumbering banking systems in particular.
All the more because political time moves much more slowly than market time.
Aware of this gap and of the dangers which it conceals, European countries are intensifying their discussions aimed at strengthening their existing anti-crisis devices.
Informal consultations between Ministers of Finance of countries most directly concerned and more widely their G20 opposite numbers, are well advanced.
And also in the expectation of meetings of the Eurogroup and the Ecofin at the start of next week.
The BCE is meeting today.
On the agenda is the fate of unconventional measures of support for countries of the Eurozone in the market collimator (see above).
Concerning the European financial stability fund (FESF) its executive director Klaus Regling began a tour of Asia starting from Singapore, to inform Far East investors about the progress of the crisis i Europe.
Whilst the object of these visits is not to raise funds, it is certainly intended to prepare the ground for doing so.
The first issues of FESF bonds are expected to take place next month.
Yesterday, an official American representative told Reuter that the United States would support a possible increase of funds for direct supplementary involvement of the IMF. 
Front line coutries such as Spain and Portugal are preparing to adopt structural reforms, particularly concerning organisation of the labour market.
Reforms which are additional to measures of austerity with a more rapid effect.
Lisbon and Madrid wish to embark on a path different from that taken by Greece and Ireland.
Both are anxious to avoid in any circumstances asking for international help, before introducing its own budgetary correctives and deciding on structural reforms essential for restoring long-term confidence.
Lastly, backers of European funds are discussing available options to speed up the process of normalisation of sovereign debt markets.
In Paris on 24 November, Axel Weber first put forward the idea that if the 750 thousand million Euros released by Europe and the IMF were not adequate, the Unnion would not hesitate to resort to the portfolio.
Economists at Barclay Capital, a top Eureopean sovereign debt market player, feel that an increase of about 100 thousand million Euros,preferably in the form of a direct cash injection, would suffice.
The vehicle exists: The vehicle exists in the form of the European financial stabilisation mechanism, currently containing 60 thousand million Euros.
A piece of advice likely to be examined carefully in European capitals.
Most importantly, if market conditions prevail.
Snow and ice: 24 départements have received an orange warning.
Episodes of snow are still causing traffic problems, especially in the secondary network in Brittany and may disrupt certain economic activities.
Twenty-four départements are on orange alert due to a risk of snow and ice.
Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Deux-Sèvres ad Vienne have joined the 20 départements already on orange alert, 18 since Wednesday afternoon and two, Dordogne and Gironde, later during the night.
According to Meteo France, continuous flurries of snow are affecting the north of the Gironde and both Charentes and it is snowing lightly over the Ile de France.
Deposits of snow from 2 to 5 cm, 7 to 10 cm in places, are expected in the départements in question and 1 to 3 cm, indeed up to 5 cm in the Paris region.
The départements in question are Charente, Charente-Maritime, Cotes d'Armor, Finistere, Gironde, Dordogne, Poitou and those of the regions of Basse-Normandie, Ile-de-France and Limousin.
According to Meteo France, snow episodes are sufficiently marked to create traffic problems and to disrupt certain economic activities.
In Cotes d'Armor, access to vehicles of over 7/5 tonnes to several major roads is barred, including the Guingamp-Lannion and the Saint-Brieuc-Loudeac roads.
Traffic on the Brittany secondary network is very difficult and the gendarmerie recommends that vehicles should only be used where absolutely necessary. Traffic of certain TER vehices has been suspended for the day.
In Picardy, all school transport on Thursday has been prohibited.
No special measures are contemplated for Wednesday evening to restrict the traffic of heavy loads.
The prefecture asks all drivers to exercise the greatest possible care on roads and to adapt their driving accordingly.
The directorate-general of civil aviation (DGAC) has asked all air transport companies to cancel on Thursday 25% of their flights to Roissy airport and 10% to Orly airport, due to expected snowfall.
The DGAC recommends air passengers to contact their carrier.
In Great Britain, Gatwick airport in south London and Edinburgh airport in Scotland will be closed until Thursday morning.
Metro Grand Paris: First financial proposals;
Since the time when the debate about the modernisation of transport in the Ile-de-France reached its highest point, thousands of millions of Euros have been haemorrhaging.
In the discussion of means.
Mention is made in particular of the 23 thousand million Euros for the Grand Paris metro which the Grand Paris company is to build.
To start this SGP, the State announced a contribution of 4 thousans million Euros.
In the theoretical scheme, it is this sum which will then enable the SGP to borrow in the market a part of the financing of its double loop.
Today. the first calculations have begun.
The 2010 law concerning rectification financing examined by the parliamentary finance commission this morning, contains the devices needed for finding the initial sum.
There are two of them: the creation of a special equipment tax and an increase of the tax on offices in the Ile-de-France.
The first, says article 15 of the draft law is "for the establishment of the Grand Paris company."
Elle est chiffrée: It says: The yield of this tax is 117 million Euros annually.
The second is a recasting of a tax on officesm which exists already "in order to modernise, to increase its yield and to allocate this increase to the Grand Paris company."
How much will this will bring in?
Mystery.
This does not figure in the text.
It falls far short of the 4 thousand million.
The expose states that tax resources are additional to the 4 thousand million Euros of capital to be invested by the State and passed to the Grand Paris company as the project progresses.
SGP does not find this system shocking.
It is explained that from the moment the two sources of cash were created (the two taxes, ndlr) it would be possible to cover the cost of three years of study and then resort to the 4 thousand million Euros.
"This would be included in the budget and drawn on as the project develops"
The SGP estimates that the 4 thousand million Euros would be included in 2013 in the 2014 budget.
This device, in which the promised 4 thousand million Euros are already included, may give rise to a somewhat excited parliamentary debate.
First public session on 7 December.
Vengeful hackers and spies are waiting.
The WikiLeaks affair has a double significance.
On the one hand, it is a scandal, which only looked scandalous in the light of the hypocrisy which prevails in relations between States, citizens and the Press.
On the other hand, it announces profound changes on international level and points to a future dominated by regression.
But let us take things in the right order.
The first aspect of WikiLeaks is a confirmation of the fact that every secret service case (of any country) consists solely of Press cuttings.
The "extraordinary" American revelations about the sexual habits of Berlusconi only report what it was possible to read for months in any daily (except in those belonging to Berlusconi) and the sinister caricature profile of Khadafi has long been a cabaret artists'sketch material.
The rule according to which secret files may only contain already known news is essential for secret services dynamic and not only in the present century.
If you visit a library devoted to American publications, you will see that every work repeats (concerning the Grail, the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, the Templars, or the Rosicrucians) exactly that which was already set out in earlier works.
And this is so not only because the author of occult texts does not like to do previously unpublished research (and does not know where to look for news about what does not exist), but because those who devote themsslves to occultism, do not believe what they already know and which confirms what they had already learned.
This is Dan Brown's success mechanism.
The same applies to secret files.
The informant is lazy and lazy (or limited) is also the head of secret service (otherwise he could be, for all I know, an editor at Liberation), who does not consider to be true what he recognises.
Top secret information about Berlusconi, which the Amereican embassy in Rome sent to the State Department, was the same as that which Newsweek had published the week before.
So why did the revelations about these files make so much noise?
On the one hand, they say that every cultivated person already knows that embassies have, at least since the end of the Second World War and since heads of State could telephone one another or fly to meet for dinner, lost their diplomatic function and except for some little representation exercises, have become centres of espionage.
Every spectator of investigation films knows this very well and it is hypocritical to pretend that he does not.
Nevertheless, repeating it in public breaches the duty to be hypocritical and only places American diplomacy in a bad light.
Secondly, the idea of a hacker being able to acquire the deepest secrets of the most powerful country in the world represents a significant blow to the prestige of the State Department.
The scandal affects both the victims and the "executioners" equally.
But let us look at the profoud nature of what has happened.
Formerly, in the days of Orwell, one could see all power as Big Brother, who controlled every action of his subjects.
The Orwellian prophecy proved completely true, since being able to be completely controlled thanks to the telephone, the hotel visited, the motorway taken and so on, the citizen became a total victim of the eye of power.
But when one demonstrates what happens now, that even the secrets of power cannat escape the control of a hacker, the control report ceases to be unidirectional and is able to circulate.
Power controls every citizen, but every citizen, or at least the hacker as the citizen's avenger, can learn all the secrets of power.
How can a power last, if it can no longer keep its secrets?
It is true, as George Simmel has already said that a real secret is an empty secret and can never be discovered; it is also true that knowing everything about the character of Berlusconi or of Merkel is a secret devoid of secrecy, because it is in the public domain, but to disclose, as WikiLeaks has done, that the secrets of Hillary Cliton were empty secrets, means taking away all her power.
WikiLeaks did not injure Sarkozy or Merkel, but did considerably injure Clinton and Obama.
What will be the consequences of this injury inflicted on a very powerful entity?
Clearly, in future, States will no longer be able to place on line secret information, which would be like posting it on a street corner.
But it is also clear that with current technologies it is useless to hope to be able to discuss confidential reports on the telephone.
Nothing is easier than to discover if and when a head of State has flown away and to contact one of his/her colleagues.
How can private and confidential reports be discussed in the future?
I know very well that for the moment my forecast is science fiction and fanciful, but I have to imagine government agents who travel discreetly by routes which cannot be checked and that they have learned messages by heart, or have concealed written information in the heel of a shoe.
The information will be on a single copy kept in a locked dtrawer; basically, the attempted Watergate espionage was less succesul than WikiLeaks. au fond, la tentative d'espionnage du Watergate a eu moins de succès que WikiLeaks.
I had occasion to write that technology goes forward like a crab, namely, backwards.
A century after the invention of wireless telegraphy revolutionised communications, Internet re-established wire telegraphy (telephone).
Video cassettes (analogue) had enabled cinema research workers to explore a film step-by-step going backward and forward and discovering all the secrets of montage, whilst digital CD's only allow jumping from chapter to chapter, namsly by macroportions.
With high-speed trains one can travel from Rome to Milan in three hours, whilst going by air a total of three-and-a-half hours are needed.
Is it therefore not extraordinary that politics and communication techniques revert to horse-drawn carriages.
A last observation.
In other days the Press tried to understand what was happening in secret in embassies.
Now it is embassies which ask the Press for confidnetial information.
Climate: How France tampers with its promises of finance.
A year after the Copenhagen agreement it is time to look at the observance of the promises of fast finance (so-called fast start finance) by developed countries.
And large-scale tampering cam to light.
According to the Copenhagen agreemsnt, developed countries underook to furnish 30 thousand million dollars between 2010 and 2012.
The European Union promised 7.2 thousand million Euros over three years and France 1.25 thousand million Euros (420 million a year).
When COP16 opened, the European Union tried to persuade its partners of the authenticity of its commitment to rapid start finance, submitting a report detailing the actions of its member-States, Press cnferences, major side events, the distribution of brochures... rapport détaillant l'action de ses Etats membres, conférence de presse, grand side event, distribution de brochures...
The operation transparency is appreciable and appreciated at its just value: developing countries and the civil society are doing the same and at the same level of precision. les pays en développement et la société civile aimeraient que tous les pays développés fassent de même avec un même niveau de précision.
The European Union announces having allocated in 2010 2.2 thousand million Euros, a good token of observance of its promise of 7.2 thousand million Euros in 2012.
But looking at details, things are more complicated.
This money must, according to the Copenhagen agreenment, be "new and additional" to ensure that a supplementary effort is made without detriment to public development assistance.
Unfortunately, there is no agreement about what "new and additional" means.
Now that the European Commission has proposed a harmonisation, certain member-States including France have blocked the procedure.
Today, everyone chooses what suits him/it best.
The European Commission, for example, took for its reference the year 2009; international finance is maintained and it is adding 150 milions over 3 years as fast start finance. les financements internationaux sont maintenus, et elle y ajoute 150 millions sur trois ans au titre des financements fast start.
Other countries chose similar references in terms of year, or of level of public development assistance.
On the contrary, France regards the financing of all 2010 new projects as "new and additional projects."
In other words, there is no reference to the costs of the preceding years, or globally, of public development assistance.
Concretely, the total support given by France to developing countries can remain stable (or even decrease), France maintains that it is observing its commitment in respest of "new and additional" finance.
Another crucial element, the separation of gifts and loans.
There, again, there is no rule and everyone chooses his own method of calculation.
Some, like France, consider that a Euro lent is equal to a Euro donated.
Clearly, this is difficult to justify; the effort is not coparable. l'effort n'est pas comparable.
If the custom of loans can be justified for certain investments which are profitable (often projects linked to emissions which rely on more efficient technologies) it is fallacious to call a Euro which one will recoup as a donated Euro..In addiiton, only the cost of a loan to the lender country should be taken into accunt as its commitment (equal to the rate of interest).
But France need only reason that it "observes" it commitment of 420 million Euros making 91.5% of loans (399.8 million Euros) and 8.5% of donations (36.1 million Euros) - see European Union document for your own verifcation. elle "respecte" son engagement de 420 millions d'euros en faisant 91,5% de prêts (389,8 millions d'euros) et 8,5% de dons (36,1 millions d'euros) - voir le document de l'UE pour vérifier par vous-même.
It is the only country of the Union to use loans on such a massive scale.
Germany is lending 46%, whilst Denmark, The Netherlands and Slovakia (among others) observe their ciommitment with 100% as donations.
In other words, when the great majority of the European Union gives 1 Euro to meet its commitment, France only gives 10 centimes and regards its effort as comparable.
A nice sleight of hand!
Summing up, France operates, in its fast start finance, double blackmail: on the one hand, on the evolution of the action over time and the other hand, on the reality of the financial effort. d'une part sur l'évolution de l'action dans le temps et d'autre part sur la réalité de l'effort financier.
By only spending 36.1 million Euros it thinks that it is generating a belief to be spending 420 million "new and additional" Euros as it promised.
The manipulation of the Ministry of Finance (because it appears that it is Bercy that implemented the arbitrage) could have a doubly negative impact, both within the European Union (why should the other member-States continue to give, if lending is sufficient?) and in the negotiations, since the developing countries are not completely duped....
The early finance chapter is only a small, relatively short-term matter in relation to all the discussions about the climate.
But it could be pone more grain of sand in the huge machine, the UNFCCC.
Let us hope that this is not the case.
In any event, it is essential to draw lessons from this first year of early finance.
First of all, France could announce a change in its method of accountancy for 2011 and 2012 in a spirit of honouring its commitments and of equity with other European Union countries.
But above all, France could promote the discussions about long-term financing stakes (another crucial chapter currently being discussed); it is not possible to avoid the question of "additionality" or of the method of accountancy of loans. on n'échappera pas à la question de "l'additionalité" ou du mode de comptabilisation des prêts.
France could change its position to become as progresisve on these stakes as it it on others.
The hope therefore rests on the new Minister of the Environment, Mme Kosciusko-Morizet who will arrive in Casun next week.
A surprise announcement on France's fast start and on the view of "additionality" and the use of loans would increase the level of international confidence needed for progress in these discussions.
Alert on pesticides consumed by children.
According to a study published o Wednesday by the Future Generations association (formelry Movement for the Rights and Respect of Future Generations), a child of 10 consumes in one day 81 different chemical substances.
The association which predicts that its results do not possess, in view of the small number of samples analysed, any significant statistical value, but illustrate the problem being dealt with, has bought in spermarkets of the Oise and of Paris between July and September, the basket of foodstuffs generally consumed in four meals by a child of ten.
These meals inclduing official recommendations, five pieces of fresh fruit and vegetables, three dairy products and 1.5 litres of water as well as delicacies, were examined by clinical research laboratories dealing with chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals and other pollutants.
The balance sheet is staggering: 81 chemical substances including 42 classified as potentially or probably carcinogenic and five classified as definitely carcinogenic, as well as 37 substances able to induce endocrine disorders, according to studies by several institutions such as the International Cancer Research Centre. 
According to the Associaiton, even if, in almost all cases, the legal limits of each chemical substance are not exceeded, our inquiry shows that the reality of exposure of consumers to potentially carcinogenic contaminant is worrying.
For breakfast, butter and tea with milk alone contain over ten possible and three proven carcinogenic residues and almost twenty residues potentially able to disturb the hormone system.
An apple from Brazil contains traces of six chemical substances incluing a fungicide, prohibited in France.
The same applies to beans from Kenya included in a luncheon, in which the study found traces of a powerful insecticide prohibited in the European Union.
In addiiton, minced steak, canned tuna and even a baguette and chewing gum contained pesticides and other chemicals.
Tapwater contained nitrates and chloroform.
For dinner, salmon steak was the "richest," with 34 chemical residues and even the plastic plate used for warming the meal in a microwave, was not exempt.
According to the study, the final risk for the consumer in this "contaminant cocktail" is probably underestimated.
For its part, the European Ecology Alliance - the Greens proposed, in view of the urgency of the situation, the introduction of a moratorium on the use of pesticides, in order to stop the growth of civilisation's diseases.
In July, a study by the European Food Safety Agency pointed to the presence of residues of 365 different pesticides identified in fruit and vegetables consumed in Europe including 76 in cereals.