Paul Rincon | Large Hadron Collider | November 20

BBC - Engineers have sent proton particles all the way round the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine for the first time in more than a year.

But they still do not have a stable circulating beam; this step is expected to happen after 0600 GMT on Saturday.

The LHC is housed in a 27km-long circular tunnel some 100m beneath the French-Swiss border.

Vanessa mock | Nov 17

The Independent - Flame-haired Latvian Vaira Vike-Freiberga, known as the "Iron Lady of the North", is leading a pack of late contenders who have dashed into the closing round of the race to become the EU's first president.

With so much still to play for, diplomats have warned of a long night on Thursday, when EU leaders meet to decide names over dinner. Some suspect the talks will spill over into Friday; others that a decision may be postponed even beyond that, but the Swedish presidency is determined not to let that happen.

Over the past days, another Baltic colleague, Estonia's President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has added his name to the growing list of presidential hopefuls, which is now thought to include around a dozen potential candidates. Although Tony Blair's chances still look extremely slim, there has been renewed momentum behind a faltering bid by Luxembourg's premier Jean-Claude Juncker and mentions of Spain's ex-leader Jose Maria Aznar. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who was president of Latvia until 2007 and led the former Soviet state into the EU and Nato, is the only female candidate applying for the newly created job. Known for her charisma and outspoken views, she was an enormously popular leader at home, with thousands of grateful Latvians turning out to lay flowers when she retired.

But she is now nearly 72 and despite a vigorous campaign on Facebook and in a string of European capitals looks unlikely to unseat the current favourite, Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy.

However, her candidacy chimes with growing demands to appoint a woman as either President or EU High Representative, the number two post created by the Lisbon
Treaty.

Jeremy Laurance | Lyon, France | November 16

The Independent - As the old joke has it, men can be turned on with a simple flick of a switch while women require attention to a battery of dials and buttons. Today the debate over how to stimulate female sexual desire is set to be reopened with the discovery of a drug described as “Viagra for women”.

Doctors testing a new anti-depressant found it was useless as a mood brightener - but was unexpectedly effective at boosting the female libido.

Rachel Donadio | Rome | November 16

NYT - The 200 women who answered a Rome modeling agency’s advertisement for tall, attractive party guests thought they would be attending an elegant soirée on Sunday. They were — only the host turned out to be the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and instead of hors d’oeuvres he offered them copies of the Koran and urged them to convert to Islam, the Italian news media reported Monday.

The women, all between the ages of 18 and 35, assembled in a Rome hotel before being screened by both metal detectors and the fashion police, who turned away anyone in a miniskirt or provocative clothing, according to Paola Lo Mele, a journalist for the ANSA news agency, who answered the modeling agency’s request and went undercover to the event. The women were each paid $75 to attend.

Nov 16

Reuters - Greek police have arrested a heavily armed fugitive, Alket Rijai, who embarrassed authorities by twice escaping from prison in a helicopter.

Rijai, a 41-year-old Albanian, was sleeping when policemen stormed his hideout in a village north-east of Athens, a police official said.

"He had no time to use his machine gun, pistols or hand grenades," a police official said.

Another three suspected accomplices were arrested in the same house.

Rijai, who was serving prison terms on multiple counts of murder and robbery, had last escaped the Athens high-security Korydallos prison in February with Greek accomplice Vassilis Paleokostas, who is still at large.

Nov 15

AFP - After a year of soul-searching over the financial crisis that floored Iceland's economy, Icelanders are apparently yearning for the return of old-fashioned qualities like honesty.

Honesty came top on Saturday when 1,500 Icelanders gathered in Reykjavik were asked to discuss what kind of society they wanted.

A grassroots organisation calling itself The Anthill convened a so-called National Assembly of 1,200 people from the age of 18, chosen randomly, along with 300 representatives of organisations and institutions.

They were asked to name the values Icelandic society should be based upon, as well as their vision for the country's future and possible ways of rebuilding the country's economy and society.
..
Halla Tomasdottir, one of the National Assembly organisers, told AFP one of the reasons for the meeting was to try to halt the negativity that has prevailed in Iceland since the start of the crisis.

"We are seeking positive solutions to the situation we find ourselves in. This is a unique opportunity to ask ourselves what kind of a nation we want to be and what kind of a nation we want to hand down to our children," she said.

Katerina Zachovalova | Beroun, Czech Republic | Nov 15

DPA - It was a revolution whose dissident leaders vowed that truth and love would triumph over lies and hatred. Yet Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Revolution' would not have happened the way it did were it not for what was essentially a lie.

After a bloody crackdown on a non-violent student march in Prague on November 17, 1989, a woman falsely claimed that the riot police had beaten to death her friend, a 19-year-old mathematics student named Martin Smid.

Reports of the alleged death spread like wildfire, rousing ordinary people from their lethargy and igniting the peaceful coup that brought back democracy to Czechs and Slovaks.

Twenty years later, the motivations of the women's false claim - and the role of journalists in spreading it - remains clouded in mystery.

November 14

BBC -
Venetians have been taking part in a mock funeral procession to highlight the city's dwindling population. Organisers of Saturday's event say the population has dipped below 60,000, with many native Venetians choosing to live in more affordable areas. City officials have refuted the claims that Venice is simply a "ghost town", filled only with tourists.

The Venetian architect and historian, Francisco da Mosta, told the BBC that the government needed to step in to make the city habitable for its residents. He said Venice is not being run "with intelligence or dignity". The city's population has dropped by two-thirds since the 1950s and much of the blame has been put on tourism. It has driven up food and property prices, forcing many people to move to the mainland.

Residents carried an empty coffin in a procession of boats to the mayor's office.

Giles Tremlett | Madrid | Nov 13

The Guardian - Officials launch campaign to teach young people about 'sexual self-exploration and discovery of self-pleasure'

It is a subject that would make most governments blush, but officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major programme to encourage what could be described as a more hands-on approach to sexuality.

The region's socialist government has launched a €14,000 (£12,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about "sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure" – or to put it less delicately: masturbation.

"Pleasure is in your own hands" is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.

Hey, maybe Carrie Prejean can give them hand..

After a European court rules against crucifixes in Italian schoolrooms, Italians from across the political spectrum decry an assault on the country's Roman Catholic identity.

Christian Science Monitor, By Nick Squires, November 3

Rome - Italians reacted with outrage on Tuesday after a European court ruled that displaying crucifixes in the country's schools violated the principle of secular education.

Italy's education minister condemned the judgment by the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the Christian cross was a symbol of the country's Roman Catholic religion and cultural identity.

Edward Rothstein | Paris | November 3

NYT - Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist who transformed Western understanding of what was once called “primitive man” and who towered over the French intellectual scene in the 1960s and ’70s, has died at 100.

His son Laurent said Mr. Lévi-Strauss died of cardiac arrest Friday at his home in Paris. His death was announced Tuesday, the same day he was buried in the village of Lignerolles, in the Côte-d’Or region southeast of Paris, where he had a country home.

Graham Keeley & Richard Owen | Madrid / Rome | October 31

The Times - When Victoria Romero, 6, dressed up as a witch for a Hallowe’en party this week she could hardly have imagined that she was provoking the wrath of God by attending a celebration akin to a Black Mass — at least in the eyes of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church in Spain.

Wearing skeleton suits, dressing up as vampires, witches or goblins or slapping on fake blood is not far removed from communing with the Devil, according to the country’s bishops.

However, the bishops, with Vatican backing, have reserved their venom for the millions of parents who allowed their children to celebrate this “pagan” festival.

Reed Stevenson | The hague | Oct 27

Reuters - Radovan Karadzic led a campaign to make Bosnian Muslims "disappear from the face of the earth" and carve out a mono-ethnic state for Bosnian Serbs, war crimes prosecutors told a U.N. tribunal on Tuesday.

In opening statements, prosecutors painted a picture of the former Bosnian Serb leader as a supreme commander single-mindedly pursing a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Their statements were delivered to empty chairs on the defendant's side of the court as Karadzic boycotted the trial for a second day.

"The Supreme Commander explained in October 1991 what was coming for Sarajevo: 'Sarajevo will be a black cauldron where Muslims will die. They will disappear, that people will disappear from the face of the earth'," Prosecutor Alan Tieger cited Karadzic as saying.

He was referring to the 43-month siege of Sarajevo that began in 1992 and killed an estimated 10,000.

The break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s saw Serbs, Croats and Muslims fighting for land. More than 100,000 people were killed.

"The supreme commander had directed his forces in a campaign to carve out a mono-ethnic state within his multi-ethnic country," Tieger said, calling him a "hands-on leader who maintained direct contact".

Duncan Kennedy | Rome | Oct 26

BBC - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is to go back on trial in November, accused of tax fraud.

It follows a recent decision by Italy's highest court to lift his immunity from prosecution while serving in office.

He is to stand trial on 16 November - much earlier than expected - on charges linked to the purchase of TV and film rights by his family company, Mediaset.

Mr Berlusconi denies the charges. He also faces another trial, yet to be set, for bribing a British tax lawyer.

Berlin | October 23

BBC - A group of rich Germans has launched a petition calling for the government to make wealthy people pay higher taxes.

The group say they have more money than they need, and the extra revenue could fund economic and social programmes to aid Germany's economic recovery.

With the possible exception of Georgia-US-Russia, no US relationship in the former Soviet region is more fraught today than the US-Russia-Ukraine triangle. At a time when Washington and Moscow have variously committed to a relationship reset, a new operating system, and a rerun of the Clinton-Yeltsin strategic partnership, it is disappointing how little substance has followed rhetoric. Meanwhile, Central and Eastern Europe are still reeling from the US Administration’s abrupt and ill-timed reversal on missile defense deployment, and Team Obama is eager for opportunities to demonstrate its commitment to the new Europe, which received no shortage of love from the Bush Administration.

Rachel Donadio & Laurie Goodstein | Vatican City | OCtober 20

NYT - In an extraordinary bid to lure traditionalist Anglicans en masse, the Vatican on Tuesday announced that it would make it easier for Anglicans who are uncomfortable with their church’s acceptance of women priests and openly gay bishops to join the Roman Catholic Church.

A new canonical entity will allow groups of Anglicans “to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony,” Cardinal William Levada, the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said at a news conference here.

A Censored Headline and why it Matters:

German High Court Outlaws Electronic Voting

Justices of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Image

(DailyCensored.Com) The justices above are clearly the most rational group of high level functionaries in the industrialized world. They did what no other court would do in Europe or the United States. They effectively outlawed electronic voting. On March 3, 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared that the electronic voting machines used in the 2005 Bundestag elections for the German national parliament were outside of the bounds of the German Constitution.

They reasoned that electronic voting is not verifiable because citizen votes are counted in secret. It obscured a technology inaccessible to all but a very few initiates. Most importantly, the German high court noted, electronic voting machines don't allow citizens to "reliably examine, when the vote is cast, whether the vote has been recorded in an unadulterated manner" Mar. 3, 2009.

The written opinion effectively bars electronic voting in future elections based on the complexity of voting machines and the inability of voters to watch their vote being counted. This raises the bar of acceptability well above the meaningless solutions offered by "paper trails" for touch screen voting or the so-called "paper ballots" for computerized optical scan voting machines, the most popular form of voting in the United States.

Germany's 2009 Bundestag elections were conducted with hand counted paper ballots.

Have you heard that one of the world's leading economic powers, the fourth largest economy in the world, banned electronic voting; said it was undemocratic? Given the multitude of problems encountered in the U.S. and the number of questionable election results, wouldn't it make sense that when Germany banned electronic voting and replaced it with paper ballots, there would be at least a days worth of national coverage in the United States?

Nothing like that occurred. The Associated Press (Times of India) story on the verdict danced around the periphery of the world media market with coverage in Turkey, India, Australia, and Ireland. But there were no major media takers for the AP story in the United States.

There was every reason to carry the story. In a 2006 Zogby poll, 92% of the 1028 registered voters surveyed said they agreed with this statement:

Citizens have the right to view and obtain information about how election officials count votes - 92% agree. New Zogby Poll On Electronic Voting Attitudes Aug. 21, 2006

John Litchfield | Oct 20

The Independent - The Emir of Qatar wants to reopen the hotel where the 'master-spy' was arrested. John Lichfield reports on its colourful history

In February 1917, a French judge and a dozen police officers barged into Suite 113 in a luxurious hotel on the Champs Elysées. The beautiful female occupant appeared – naked, according to one account – and handed around chocolates in a captured German helmet.

Ten months later, the woman, aged 41, was shot as a German spy by a military firing squad in the forest of Vincennes, east of Paris. She was a dancer, not a soldier and probably never much of a spy. She came from a country, the Netherlands, which was not even involved in the Great War.

Her name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle-McLeod, an adventuress, exotic dancer and courtesan, better known by her stage name, Mata Hari (a name under which she invented the striptease in 1905).

Three years after her death, the hotel in which she was arrested – the Elysée Palace – went bankrupt. It was acquired by a French bank and passed on from bank to bank until, eight years ago, it became the French headquarters of HSBC. The 1897 façade, strangely elaborate for a bank, still dominates the upper left-hand pavement of the Champs Elysée, if you look uphill towards the Arc de Triomphe.

Much of the décor and structure of the hotel remains, including a gilded and chandeliered restaurant, now used as an office canteen and bank clients' dining room. The two rooms which formed Suite 113 in 1917 still exist, converted to offices.

After almost 90 years as a bank, the Elysée Palace is about to become a hotel once again. The Emir of Qatar, who likes to go shopping for Parisian landmarks as others might shop for handbags, is reported to have offered €400m (£365m) for the building. HSBC, which has been planning to move to more hi-tech headquarters, is said to be seriously considering the offer. Within the next five years, the Elysée Palace may be reborn as a 200-bedroom, five-star hotel, probably under a different name.

Edward Cody | Poitiers, France | October 15

WaPo - Under a bright autumn sun, the narrow lanes of ancient Poitiers teemed with families enjoying a lighthearted celebration of street theater. Suddenly, a knot of black-clad youths emerged from the crowd. They donned plastic masks, pulled up their hoods and started destroying everything in sight.

In what police described as an organized attack, the band shattered store windows, damaged the facades of several banks and spray-painted anarchist slogans on government buildings. Aiming even at the historical heritage of this comfortable provincial town 200 miles southwest of Paris, they fractured a plaque commemorating Joan of Arc's interrogation here in 1429 and -- in Latin -- scrawled "Everything belongs to everybody" on a stone baptistery that is one of the oldest monuments in Christendom.

Helena Smith | Athens | Oct 17

The Guardian -

The secrets of a lost city that may have inspired one of the world's most enduring myths – the fable of Atlantis – have been brought to light from beneath the waters off southern Greece.

Explored by an Anglo-Greek team of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer's heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say.

"There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. "It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique."

The site, which straddles 30,000 square meters of ocean floor off the southern Peloponnese, is believed to have been consumed by the sea around 1000 BC. Although discovered by a British oceanographer some 40 years ago, it was only this year that marine archaeologists, aided by digital technology, were able to properly survey the ruins.

Paul Rincon | Geneva | October 16

BBC - The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment has once again become one of the coldest places in the Universe.

All eight sectors of the LHC have now been cooled to their operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space.

Melissa Rohlin | Helsinki | October 15

LAT - Life, liberty and the right to broadband access?

If Thomas Jefferson and our enlightened forefathers were here today, perhaps our unalienable rights would mimic Finland's, which will now include the right to broadband access. According to Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communication, 1-megabit Web access will become a legal right for all citizens in July.

France is one of the few countries that has made it a human right but Finland said it's the first country to make it a legal right.

Gareth Jones | Warsaw | Oct 16

Reuters - A senior U.S. official told Poland on Friday it could be one of the sites for interceptors envisaged under President Barack Obama's revised plans for missile defence in Europe.

Poland and the Czech Republic are still smarting from Obama's decision to shelve a Bush-era plan to install elements of a missile shield on their territory to protect against possible long-range missile attacks by Iran.

Under the new project, Washington will first deploy sea-based interceptors and then in a second phase deploy land-based systems involving SM-3 interceptors targeting short and medium-range missiles.

"Poland could host one of two land-based SM-3 sites, with of course the agreement of the Polish government," U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow told reporters.

** Ukraine in talks to host part of US missile shield: report
** Ukrainian Envoy, Pentagon Deny U.S.-Kyiv Talks On Missile Defense

Ian Traynor | Oct 15

The Guardian - For a man standing alone between Europe and its future, Vaclav Klaus is playing hard to get. Last week a trip to Albania, this week Russia; the Czech president has performed a vanishing act just when he has the rest of Europe dancing to his tune.

He relishes being at the centre of a showdown. But it appears he is currently more interested in selling copies of his tract on global warming denial.

Last week, as a panicky campaign was launched in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, and Prague to try to force Europe's biggest renegade into line, Klaus was dining by the Adriatic.

For five days he refused to return phone calls from Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister and current EU president saddled with the Klaus emergency. Jan Fischer, the Czech Republic's caretaker prime minister, has an even less enviable task, as mediator between Klaus and the rest of Europe's leaders. But Klaus won't give him the time of day. Fischer admitted he had managed to get him briefly on the phone, but not to arrange a meeting.

Klaus was in Albania to promote Blue Planet in Green Shackles, his book arguing that the only thing man-made about climate change is that it is a myth. Today he decamped to Moscow, promoting a Russian edition of the book.